Dragon Child

Camp Life

Rhzvanzin was the only person in the entire camp who did not seem to be tired when the group of strange dragons stopped for the day. Everyone else seemed to be painting and sweating from the day’s march. Yet a few dragons where still setting up objects to play with and Rhzvanzin was eager for some fun.

Rhzvanzin wandered over to some dragons that where hitting things with shiny talons. The talons, though long, seemed to be very dull and would hardly break the skin. Rhzvanzin wondered what they where doing for a while before he finally asked.

“Why you do that?” Rhzvanzin asked one of the strange dragons.

“We do it to practice our sword use when not in combat,” the man said.

“Sw-ord?” Rhzvanzin asked confused by the new word.

“Yes this thing,” the man said waving the shiny talon a bit, “haven’t you ever seen one?”

Rhzvanzin shook his head and the man looked surprised.

“You haven’t?" the man asked, "Then you don’t know how to use one?”

Again, Rhzvanzin shook his head.

“Well I’ll teach you the basics of it,” the man said handing the sword to Rhzvanzin, “You try to hit the object with this part of the blade. You think you can do that.”

“What target?” Rhzvanzin asked.

“That one right over there,” the man said pointing to a tree with a piece of leather wrapped around its trunk, “Hit it as hard as you can so I can…!?!”

The man fell silent as it seemed that Rhzvanzin had vanished, looking around he saw Rhzvanzin holding the sword with both hands and swing at the tree. The dull blade bit deep into the tree before it broke just above the hilt sending tiny pieces of steel flying through the air. Rhzvanzin looked at the broken blade confused and then at the tree that had nearly been cleaved in two by the sword before turning to look at the man.

“It suppose to do that?” Rhzvanzin asked cocking his head and seeing the man had gone white faced.

“No,” the man gulped, “It’s not suppose to do that. You’re just too strong for the thing!”

“Ok,” Rhzvanzin shrugged before walking off.

The man looked at the broken sword and mutilated tree before he shook his head in awe. The kid had the strength of a monster, maybe more, and yet how he could still look so human the man couldn't imagine.

“What the hell is he?” the man whispered to himself.

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Rhzvanzin wondered over toward the next group of playing dragons he saw. These where spinning strange objects and using them to toss stones at bundles of hay, the rocks would hit the hay usually right near the center yet sometimes they deviated from their course. Rhzvanzin did not understand why they did not just throw the rocks with that short distance.

“Why you do that?” Rhzvanzin asked causing on the dragons to miss his target completely.

“What?” the dragon asked.

“Why you do that?” Rhzvanzin repeated.

“Because using a sling is the best way to get a rock down range whether to kill a man or food. I don’t believe you could throw a rock that far or that fast.”

“Can.” Rhzvanzin said grabbing a fist sized rock off the ground and hurled it towards the center bundle of hay as hard as he could.

The rock slammed into the hay and kept on going bouncing off trees and killing a rabbit from behind. Rhzvanzin smiled as the rabbit gave off its dying screech and looked at the bundle of hay that had been blown apart by the rock he had thrown. Rhzvanzin walked forward, grabbed the dead rabbit, and gave it to the dragon he had been talking to.

“Told you I can!” Rhzvanzin smiled, “You keep prey.”

The man looked at the dead rabbit for a moment and looked at his fellow slingers before asking, “Did anyone else notice this rabbit?”

The other slingers shook their heads and stared after Rhzvanzin’s retreating figure as he went off looking for some sort of entertainment. Not only was this man amazingly strong but he could see things that their trained eyes had missed. Not only that he had hit multiple targets with a single over sized stone.

“It must have just been luck,” one of the slingers said, “No way anything even close to human could have pulled off that shot.”

The other slingers quickly agreed. They would all much rather travel a monstrously strong and lucky man than a man who was just monstrous wandering around the camp.

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Rhzvanzin continued through the camp not knowing the attention that he was drawing to himself. He saw several men all gathered together talking about something and wondered over.

Rhzvanzin asked the man who was talking, “What you doing?”

The man looked at Rhzvanzin with annoyance and said, “I’m gathering men to hunt to help feed the camp tonight. Now why don’t you go-”

Rhzvanzin interrupted with an eager “I help?”

“You know how to use a bow?” the hunter asked cocking an eyebrow.

“No.” Rhzvanzin said wondering what a bow was.

“Then how are you going to help us in a hunt?” the hunter asked.

Rhzvanzin gaze a wide smile and said, “My way.”

“Fine,” the hunter said with a hint of fear at the smile and the sharp teeth it had revealed, “but don’t get in our way.”

“Same to you,” Rhzvanzin said turning to wander into the forest.

The hunters followed Rhzvanzin to warn him it was dangerous to go into the forest alone, but he had already vanished into the trees. The hunters shrugged and continued into the forest to hunt, this guy was supposedly a wild child and should be fine in the woods on his own. The hunters drew there bows and readied an arrow as the looked for some signs that animals worth hunting where around. They soon came across a large group of dear tracks and stopped to examine them.

“I’d say about a two dozen of them moving west,” the lead hunter said, “they passed by here no more than an hour ago so they should be close if they stopped at the stream we passed.”

The hunters nodded and started to follow the tracks until they where sure they where getting close. Once they where close they moved down wind of the dear before continuing their advance. The leader was certain that just beyond these trees they would find the deer pack. What they found was unexpected.

In the middle of the clearing lay six very dead deer. They had all died the same way, they had all had there throats ripped out by something with claws. The dear had been piled on top of the other and the one on top had a leg missing. Next to the pile of dear lay Rhzvanzin licking the blood off his long nails with a content look on his face. He had a small pile of dear bones laid out next to him and he seemed quiet content with himself.

He smiled at the hunters and said, “You take kills back to camp.”

With that, Rhzvanzin rolled onto all fours and vanished into the forest with a short leap. The hunters turned to look at the slaughtered dear and wondered just what sort of a man they where traveling with. The man could vanish into the forest with ease and was fast enough to kill six strong bucks before they could escape.

The men gathered up the corpses as fast as they could seeing that a storm was blowing in and they didn't want to get caught in it.

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Sara groaned as she listened to the rumors she was already hearing fly around the camp involving their newest arrivals. She had known that Rhzvanzin would cause trouble in the camp, but she had not expected it so quickly.

She had already heard much talk about the fact that Rhzvanzin might not even be human but an animal turned into a human. She could hardly blame them for this belief though, Rhzvanzin might know how to walk and talk like a regular person but he still preferred to walk and talk like he did the day Sara had met him. Not only that but he seemed animalian in almost everything he did from nodding to talking. Even when he spoke English, it still sounded as if he was hissing a bit.

Josh walked into the tent Sara had pitched and said, “New rumor about you know who.”

“What is it this time?” Sara sighed exasperated.

“It seems that some folk in the camp are now saying that he’s a demon and that you’re a sorceress who controls him,” Josh said, "What do you want me to do?"

“It was only a matter of time before things got that far,” Sara sighed, “Do what you can to convince people that it’s not true.”

“I’ll do my best mam.” Josh said turning to leave.

Josh left the tent and Sara sighed. She got up and left the tent in search of Rhzvanzin, she was going to have to have a talk with him. Sara noticed that a storm had blown in and that it was raining heavily and that wind was blowing hard enough to make Sara have to bend into it. The men who had not brought a tent where struggling to keep guttering fires alive enough to keep them warm. Sara spotted Rhzvanzin curled up in the hollow of a tree; he hardly seemed to notice the storm blowing around him.

Sara made her way to the tree and tried to shout for Rhzvanzin to wake up, but while he might hear her, but it was not enough to wake him up. Sara nudged him softly with the toe of her boot and, as all ways, Rhzvanzin rolled onto his back and made a few quiet hissing noises. She had come to guess that he was often woken up in a similar fashion by what ever raised him.

Rhzvanzin’s eyes opened and he quickly rolled onto all fours and looked at Sara from the trunk’s hollow.

“Rhzvanzin,” Sara shouted trying to be heard over the storm, “We need to talk about something.”

Rhzvanzin shifted to a sitting position and motioned his head for Sara to join him in the hollow. Sara managed to squeeze into the hollow, found it was oddly still and quiet in the hollow. She realized that this was probably the reason Rhzvanzin had chosen this place to sleep.

“Yes?” Rhzvanzin asked cocking his head.

“Rhzvanzin,” Sara said looking him in the eye, “you need to stop using so much strength in everything.”

“Why?” Rhzvanzin asked cocking his head.

“Because it’s alienating you from everyone else in the camp," Sara said hoping Rhzvanzin understood, "a few men already think you might be a demon.”

Rhzvanzin seemed confused by what Sara was saying at first, but the second she mentioned demons his eyes narrowed and his features hardened. Sara began to see some of the destructive potential that lay in his scarred body reflected in his eyes. For the first time since Rhzvanzin had woken up in her prison, she was afraid of him.

“I am no demon.” Rhzvanzin said slowly in more of a growl than actual words.

“That’s why you need to scale back the amount of strength you use in mundane task," Sara said patting Rhzvanzin on the back, "People aren’t use to seeing someone as strong or fast as you ad it scares them.”

Rhzvanzin smiled a bit when Sara mentioned him being strong and fast and it looked like he was about to respond when he suddenly looked out of the hollow. His eyes widened noticeably and he shot out of the hollow and into the storm without a word.

Sara climbed out of the hollow and shouted, “Rhzvanzin what are you-?!”

Sara froze as the scene before her was illuminated by a lightning bolt that tore across the sky. Sara saw that one of the largest of the forest trees near the camp was heading straight for the group. Sara knew he would not be able to save everyone so she tried to aid him and alerting the group, but the storm blew her words back to her almost as they escaped her lips.

Sara heard a loud grunt and the tree slam into something and gasped horrified. She knew that Rhzvanzin must have been crushed under the tree as he tried to save the men. Sara could feel tears building in her eyes.

She jerked in surprise as another lightning bolt tore across the sky. She saw that the tree had not crushed Rhzvanzin and the grope of men, Rhzvanzin had caught the ancient old tree and was holding it up as the men in the camp stared at him in horror. Even in the brief instant she had seen, Sara knew that even Rhzvanzin’s mammoth strength could hold up the tree for length.

Sara ran over to the stunned men and snapped them out of their trance by shouting into their ears. The men ran for safety and Sara followed suit. She shouted to Rhzvanzin that it was safe to drop the tree, she heard no response.

Another lightning bolt revealed that he was not dropping the tree but carrying it away. Sara was shocked, the tree he carried had enough wood on it to build a large shop and a shed with it and still have enough wood left over to make dozens of shields, and Rhzvanzin was just carrying it away. When he was a fair way out side of the camp, he finally dropped the giant tree and dropped onto all fours. Staying on all four he walked calmly back to his hollow in the tree where he curled up and fell instantly asleep.

While they had been watching Rhzvanzin, the storm had all but blown over and was clearing into a starry sky.

Sara snapped out of her trance and asked the men Rhzvanzin had just saved, “Still think he’s a demon?”

The men shook their heads and one said, “He’s got the strength of one, but a demon would never save a life.”

Satisfied Sara went back to her tent and promptly collapsed onto her bedroll and fell asleep. Her life had gotten so much harder since she had stumbled across Rhzvanzin, and it looked like it was just the tip of the iceberg.