And when finally Logan came out of the cave, the night wind used to cut through his scales that were only healed like ice.
The sky, above, was heavy with great storm-clouds, hung so low that it was likely to fall. Once the moon was shining behind the darkness, and then withdrew, leaving a handful of obstinate stars to support the darkness.
It was only another seeing to a dragon.
His eyes were flashing crimson flashes. All the heat sources were radiating in the darkness,--animals blazed like scattered sparks, and the wind swept aroma of trees and prey in wafts.
This was hunting time.
And here in this forest he was the top.
Still lingering on the mouth of the cave behind him were bloodstains and shed scales, and this was a harsh reminder: this was not a recovered body. Worse still, they might give him away. Should a human reconnoitering party follow him this far he would not be fit to struggle.
Logan screwed his dragon face up.
That cave... certainly had to be changed as soon as he was properly healed.
Sweaty, stuffy, and a pain in the neck. He even detested its smell.
He waved his tail, flung off the irritation and sprang into the ink-black woods.
Next, nearly at once a faint heat signature burst out in his senses.
One elk, that stood not on its legs.
This meal wasn't for Aurelia. It was for him.
The Temporary Body Restoration Card would fade in half an hour and he would hit the wall in a state of savage weakness. Unless he ate at this time, he might be killed in the crash.
Food was the priority.
His draconic aroma oozed out unconsciously, like a lump of pressure in the middle of the woods. He could feel it, Logan, his control over this new body was becoming instinctive.
Dragonfear was not something that they understood to lesser creatures. It was a feeling in their bones.
Indeed, the legs of the elk trembled under the load of that savage fear. It sank down on its knees trembling.
Logan didn't hesitate.
He dove.
Whacking about behind himself, he dropped on all fours, with a thud, and skidded to a halt before the elk. He opened his mouth and caught it by the throat.
A surge of hot blood came into his mouth.
The beginning of the flavor was metallic and nauseating. But when the heat reached his stomach something changed. He knew with a shudder that he had begun to adjusted himself to the food of a dragon.
The blood was even sweet to the taste.
He caught the elk down, and concentrated upon the warmth of his dying life.
Then--rustling behind him.
A low, drawn-out howl.
Brush snapped. Three silver-grays direwolves tore off the bushes, with yellow fire in his heat vision. They walked around the elk and Logan, hunger and fear battling out their eyes.
Logan had not released the throat of the elk.
A low and guttural growl shook his chest.
"Rrrr--rrrraugh--"
The feeling of possessiveness went through him, impetuous and savage.
A single ridiculous moment saw him think: Am I on guard of my food? Similar to the old mutt of Grandpa when I was a child?
Worse--he was fully aware of what he was about, and could not help.
His dragonfear was upon the wolves as a falling sky.
The Silvermoon Direwolves were dying of hunger evidently. Saliva was streaming down their fangs, their noses were twitching, staring at the odour of fresh blood.
Any other predator would have by this time leaped, in desperation, to battle.
But Logan was not any other predator. It was not menace he emanated, but command, hewn out of the bones of the world.
The wolves froze.
Starving. Desperate. But paralyzed.
The atmosphere between them was stiff as a wire.
Ding! Sub-function of the system unlocked--Host is now able to get basic information about nearby lifeforms.
Silvermoon Direwolves: Level 25 (Tier 3 Monster, Range: 21-30)
The data window flashed in before the eyes of Logan and in that moment, he realized why the wolves had dared to come as he was feeding.
They are three of them, collaborating. Not weak, either.
But here they were facing a black dragon.
The weakest type of black dragon was, even then, an object far superior to most magical creatures, and even the second weakest type.
Logan had thrown the carcass of the elk aside. It was mounting up in his throat,--his acid breath had passed the critical mass in his gland.
Another second on, a few spurts of dark green mist whistled out of his jaws.
It smelled of rust, and where it came in contact with the earth it burnt the grass and shriveled it, with a white smoke, in fine strands.
The odor was as acid as moving backward in the air.
The fact is that, Logan did not even like this type of breath weapon.
He imagines in his mind a correct dragon is supposed to breathe fire.
But he must admit--acid worked like murder.
The three Direwolves of Silvermoon were taken by surprise. They had not been able to avoid it all even with their fast reflexes. The vapour of the acid sprayed over their skins.
Fur melted and melted off in scores. Their yells were bloodthirsty, and shabby, and the nails raking black furrows into the soil as they raged in their agony.
Logan was aware this was his time.
The breath of black dragon was slow to replenish. The wolves were now lacerated, and it was the time to move near.
Leapt out, and tore the ground with his claws.
His tail was wide open to take balance, and his long neck was curling back like a spring. As he took every step, strength rose up inside of his body.
His first breath took him to the first wolf.
His front paws crashed down, gripping into the shoulder of the monster like steel cords.
The direwolf snarled back at him, yet Logan threw his head about--in a motion so quicker than a shadow.
Crunch.
One could hear the closing of dragon fangs around the flesh with a final low sound.
His hooked teeth cut his throat in a deep hole. Blood sprayed in a hot arc.
It was his first actual tussle with this body, and he had been too much in it--he had almost hacked the wolf off at the neck.
The blow was brutal, accurate and disgustingly liquid.
Like the method had been drilled into the muscle of the dragon long before he had it in his toxin.
The instant one of the wolves fell down the other two ran away.
They were keen in their survival instincts--they were no keener than a black winged dragon.
Logan gave chase. A couple of lunges, and howls of pain and desperation resounded in the woods.
Then silence.
There was just the trampled and torn underbrush.
Logan was panting, with eyes in the dark faint red.
He hauled the carcass of an elk and one of the wolf bodies under a great tree--somewhere, he said to himself, he was safe.
Then he ate.
Not to nourish, but to compensate the weakness with which he had been harassed before.
Hot meat came down his stomach, and a trace of strength came back to his members.
But time was slipping fast.
The breath weapon would go dead at any moment, and the smash was at hand.
He dumped the other two bodies of wolves, and retreated into the woods.
Following the promptings of the system--and a confused, inherited recollection of edible berries--he located here and there a bunch of fruit which it was safe to eat.
Then he leaped in a stream, and swam in the cold water to get off the blood. Then he pushed his way through a corner of wet grass and mud, and smeared himself with the smell of the soil and plants.
The instinct of a black dragon: hide the smell of its nest, so that its enemies can trace it more difficult.
He had bolted close to the entire distance of getting there back, his mind busy considering ways of feeding the berries to Aurelia.
but on arriving at the cave he stood still.
The girl--she had been lying steady when he walked away--now lay cuddling in a corner near the stone wall and her breath was so slight that it was almost noiseless.
There was one hand that was flattened on the cold floor of the rock. She was still wrapped in the bearskin, which could not contain the last fibres of warmth coming out of her.
She resembled a candle that was almost dying.
...