A Problem

A Chapter by Richard S

The first chapter. Says it all really.

The girl hurled herself to the top of the mountain ridge, her muscles straining for one last push to drive herself onwards towards the top. As she paused, she stood erect; slightly swaying in the wind, the way a lily does in the cooling breezes of the dying day... Heck! What was I thinking? I was getting all poetical on you. I'm sorry; I don't know what came over me just then. I was probably lost in the memory of it all... Anyway back to the story.

I was standing up straight not because I was some sort of super honed plain runner, able to run 60 miles in one day without breaking a sweat, but because I had to. I was absolutely knackered, but I had to keep an eye out for the thing I was hunting. Or possibly wasn't. I mean, it's all very well and good when you are the clan's Second, but having to journey out in the middle of winter to sort out a possibly imaginary problem just didn't cut it for me. I would have rather been curled up by the fire, listening to all the old stories the loveable old Elders had to tell, but that's beside the point. I was up here, standing on a narrow mountain ledge, with the wind whistling through my well worn robes (poetry alert) to see if I could deal with the problem of a dragon. Well, minor wyrm to be exact.

Yes, a minor wyrm. You know, medium sized scaly reptile with an appetite for anything remotely to do with civilisation? No? You need to get out more. So the full story was that the clan's goat herders had spotted a medium large scaly beast making off in broad daylight with no less than three goats in its mouth. They were scared witless, and thus reported it to the clan leader, my First, who, after no less than 5 seconds deep and soul-searching thought delegated the job to me as a "role-building" task. Yeah, as if I needed any more of that - I had been training to take over the leadership of the clan for 16 years - from birth no less. Long story short, a three hour climb later and I'm on the aforementioned mountain ridge, freezing my... posterior off, and not a darned minor wyrm to show for it. I always knew those goat farmers were a little nuts.

Yet then I heard something. A rustling in the bushes not 100 metres down the path that traversed the narrow ridge. I slung my bow off my back, drew an arrow from my quiver and notched it against the taut string. I crept up the track, pulling the bow back as I went. This was going to be an easy close-range, arrow-shot-straight-through-the-eye-and-into-the-brain kill. I'd done it many times before. My feet knew what to do, taking me silently along the track until I was mere inches from the bush. Then just before I released the arrow -

"Stop! Please! I'll do whatever you want!"