Autumn in Berni (trial excerpt)

The Encian Wyrm is one of the most fierce when cornered or threatened. Due to their natural choice of ground-nesting, they will more often than not attack on sight. A male wyrm, less fierce than a female, may abandon the nest and find territory in the North, somewhere the eggs cannot survive, but the migrated mother will stay. If a nest is in the area, the mother wyrm will assume one is a predator to her eggs, and if one is too close will attack using her extraordinary skill of sparking a fire. Her eggs are immune to such damage. If coming face-to-face with an Encian Wyrm, do not break eye contact and pray it is male.

~The Advanced Account of Dragon Species

Down the darkening, dusty path, the wood-house buildings became cloaked in gray dusk and fog. Port Berni was always like this, the sun setting over the West Sea like a fire-spewing dragon illuminating the water before diving in. Yet, it was hardly a simple. Meg knew.

She arrived at the general store—a large-log cabin with thatch roof and an arching door only the best carpenter could supply—and pushed the age-engraved door. Carl was sitting head down (as he always was) behind his quaint oak desk, glasses glinting with intrigue as he turned book pages on the War of Karkin. His store had always looked odd, with trinkets and clothing and farmer’s tools arranged in sections by use.

“Carl, have you mirrored the store?” Meg asked. The little man leaped a foot in surprise.

“Margaret! So nice of you to visit. As a matter of fact I ’ave, so kind to notice… so kind…”

She leaned over the cool desk.

“So, any news on the eggs?”

“Oh! Yes, yes! So much news, my dear. Where will I begin…” He pushed up his wide glasses and shut the loose book, rifling dysfunctionally through notes and maps layering the desk.

“Ah, ’ere we are…” He leaned forward, “I went out just yesterday and this morning, before the store opened of course, and I found that little ground-nest ’ad grown. The mother was off ’unting—I could only assume so anyway—and so I could observe the eggs more closely. They’ve taken a greenish ’ue to match the surrounding environment, ’owever spots appeared on their shells. The most developed ’ad spots of orange and brown colours, ’arder to touch and nearing ’atch time I suspect. The lesser developed still ’ad those spots, only they were more yellow than brown.”

“I’m going to have to document this. If they’re changing colour, the Guidebook is wrong again,” Meg grinned, feeling like she would fly. She raced from the store, with a wave of thanks and goodbye, down the thin street and into the darkening forest beside North Mountain. She didn’t slow down through the graying foliage, rushing between the deciduous trees as easily as the street, and eventually slowed as she came to a small ravine. Behind a fallen log, white fungus blooming along the linden’s base roots, she crouched and drew out her notebook.

Over the sloped edge, amongst the ferns dripping with day-end’s dew, sat the little ground-nest of a brave Encian Wyrm mother. The nest wasn’t so little anymore (last time she had visited, it was approximately an arm length in diameter), now about two to three stride-lengths across, the thistle and rock boundary extended to room more eggs. These were a little larger than two fists, about ten in number, which was quite a lot of mouths for an Encian Wyrm. Typically, they only produced five to eight. Mostly pale gray, they had, as Carl said, taken on a green hue, with autumnal coloured spots varying in size depending on volume of the egg. She didn’t dare touch one, for fear of angering the mother, but she wanted to. They looked so delicate, as most dragon eggs do, but like others these were tough. So strong, occasionally mothers would assist their young in escaping once the first hole was poked through.

This contradicted what the Guidebook for Dragon Naturalists said of the creatures, but it had been outdated the moment it was published. Copies were scarce, as they had to be done by hand, however there were still more of them than Bibles in Berni because the writer was a war hero. Having fought in the Vestuvia-Encia War for ten of the twenty years and slaying enough foes for a medal honour, he had decided dragons would be his next area to conquer. He set out to do just that, taking his knowledge of dragons gathered from his travelling military years and putting it to ink, resulting in the Guidebook for Dragon Naturalists. The book gave a great beginners view of dragon species and basic temperaments of most kinds, but it lacked any real research into how behaviourisms and methods of territory functioned. The public took it as all they needed to know of dragons, and no one questioned it for two decades.

Then the Encian government got curious.

There had always been a ban on using creatures for combat, for animal abuse reasons passed as law centuries ago. They were, however, interested in learning more so they could train soldiers to take care on the battlefield, as previous poaching and the accidental crushing of eggs had left some species nearly extinct. They called upon Mr. Klark, the headmaster of government-controlled Home Base, and he had positioned Meg with a side mission to watch over the Encian Wyrm population that commonly nested in the area. He had other students assessing different species, not just her, and had essentially made a small team dedicated to the subject. Over the past five or so years the team had verified or scrapped items from the Guidebook as they learned the true natures of certain species. They were creating their own account, called The Advanced Account of Dragon Species, full of their findings and much more worthy of publication than the Guidebook.

Meg answered to her senior, Joseph, nearly finished his education at the Base, and gave him all she found on the wyrms in her area. Already, they had learned more than the elusive Guidebook, and further in-school publications were submitted by teachers interested in natural biology. The only time the Base used the Guidebook was for basics, at the early levels of learning, and for species no one knew much about nor had any experience tracking and observing.

Not long after being appointed to the group, she called on Carl as a sort of scout while she was away and couldn’t watch over the land, and when she came back he had asked to be permanently included. Of course, he couldn’t be officially part of the process since he wasn’t a student at the Base, but she got around that by calling him a “local informant,” thus silencing the Headmaster’s protests.

As she scribbled notes in her book, the mother returned. Green-gray scales mirroring tree bark, glinting brown in the light filtering through the trees, she hissed and crawled over the nest, eying Meg with a wary amber glare.

Dang, this wasn’t good. Sure, she was just taking notes on the eggs, but the mother couldn’t understand that! Meg was too close, upon a ridge overlooking the nest within ten feet, and as the Encian Wyrm craned her neck in disgust, her head, nearly the size of a horse’s, met eye level with Meg. Not good.

The wyrm hissed, golden sparks flitting between her tongue and teeth, and Meg backed away slowly. Another spark, and the log Meg had previously been hiding behind set on fire, illuminating the forest with a menacing glow. Now two horse-lengths away, she sped up and, once the distance had doubled, turned and ran. Yes, her teachers told her not to break eye contact; the only way to escape was to flee however. Not only that, but a fire could possibly burn the forest and the town if not stopped.