“Okay,” Waveripple said, nodding.
They soon came upon a small school of dark brown fish. Waveripple started chasing two little fish that were close together. If one of them started swimming away from the other, it was not too hard to chase it back. Chasing the fish to Splashsail was harder; they kept trying to zigzag somewhere else.
Flowerwater came over to help, chasing a medium-sized brown fish of her own. It was hard to keep the three fish together, but they eventually got them over to Splashsail.
Splashsail managed to catch one of the smaller fish and chase the other two back to Flowerwater and Waveripple, who both lunged for the medium-sized fish at the same time. They grabbed it and Flowerwater bit down, killing it.
The three of them brought the fish back to land, congratulating each other on their catches as well as they could around the fish they had in their mouths.
Each of them ate one of the fish they had caught, saving the other two for later. Waveripple ate the silver-white fish, his first catch. It seemed like the best-tasting fish he had ever eaten.
~~~
The night after they had found their new cave, Whiteswirl decided to go out hunting for the first time. Redclaws had always hunted for him before, but he wanted to do it now.
“I'm going to go hunt,” he said casually to Redclaws, walking toward the cave's entrance.
“Fine,” she said. “Don't hunt any dragon that would be too dangerous for you if it wakes up; I don't want to have to move again. And don't attack a dragon unless it is alone.”
“Of course I won't,” Whiteswirl snapped, annoyed that Redclaws actually thought he might be dumb enough to take on more than he could handle.
Whiteswirl flew out of the cave and scented the air, trying to locate a dragon. Vampire dragons were usually alone since they hatched, so hunting had to be instinctive, or they would not survive. They were the only dragons who did not need to be taught how to hunt.
Whiteswirl could smell a Lizard dragon and a Storm dragon close by. The Lizard was closer, and they could not fly, so he could kill it easily if it did wake up. The Storm dragon would be more dangerous; it could control the weather. And besides, the Storm was farther away.
Whiteswirl flew stealthily towards the Lizard. It was sleeping curled up underneath a tree. Like all Lizard dragons, this Lizard was greenish-brown and had no wings. It had long, thin legs that could quickly carry it to safety if it were awake, but it was asleep now. Whiteswirl did not detect any other dragon nearby, so he flew closer.
When he was a few yards above the Lizard, Whiteswirl dropped down on top of it. He bit down on its throat, killing it before it could wake up and scream. Blood splattered from the wound.
Completely overcome by his instincts, Whiteswirl lapped up the blood and then sucked the rest of the blood from the Lizard's body. Afterwards, he buried the dead Lizard so that no one would find it. It would seem as if it had just disappeared.
Then, full of blood, Whiteswirl flew back to the cave.
CHAPTER FIVE: STRANGER
In the evening, the three Amphibians left the lake and went into the forest to find Indigowings. Waveripple led his parents to Indigowings's cave excitedly.
Waveripple paused at the entrance. “Indigowings?” he called. “Are you there?” His words echoed once, but there was no answer.
“Maybe he's out in the forest with his parents,” Splashsail said.
“He isn't with his parents. He's orphaned,” Waveripple told them.
Splashsail and Flowerwater looked surprised. “Then he might be hunting,” Flowerwater said. “We can wait for him here for a while.”
“Yeah, he's probably hunting,” Waveripple agreed.
There had been no sign of any other dragon the whole way to the cave, so Splashsail and Flowerwater had relaxed a little. They sat down to wait for Indigowings to return.
While he was waiting, Waveripple walked around by the cave's entrance. He paused when he noticed a strange scent. It was obviously the scent of a dragon, but it was not the scent of any species of dragon he had ever met. It was true that he had met very few dragons, but something was off about the smell. It was repulsive, similar to the smell of a decaying animal. Waveripple shrugged it off. The scent was not fresh; whoever had left it had been gone for at least twelve hours. And for all he knew, it could have been Stormcloud, the Storm dragon Indigowings had talked about.
A few minutes later, Indigowings walked out of the forest, coming back to his cave. “Waveripple!” he exclaimed, surprised.
“Hi, Indigowings!” Waveripple said. “I came back to visit you, but you weren't in the cave, so I was just waiting for you here.”
Indigowings distractedly looked behind Waveripple at Splashsail and Flowerwater. “Are they your parents?” he asked.
“Yes, they are,” Waveripple replied. “This is my father, Splashsail, and my mother, Flowerwater.” He gestured to them as he spoke.
“Hello, Indigowings,” Splashsail said.
“Hi, Indigowings,” Flowerwater said at nearly the same time.
“Hi,” Indigowings said, a bit shyly.
“So, were you out hunting just before?” Waveripple asked him.
“Yes, at first,” he replied. “Then I saw Emeraldeyes, the Dwarf I mentioned before, and we talked for a while. I forgot that you said you were coming back today.” He paused for a minute, thinking. Then he asked, “Do you want to meet her?”
“Yeah,” Waveripple replied. “That would be cool.” He had never seen a Dwarf, and wondered how big she would be. He hoped he would be bigger than her, even though Indigowings had said she was older than him.
“Okay, good,” Indigowings said. “Wait here–I'll go get her.” He walked off into the forest.
“You were right about there being no dangerous dragons here, Waveripple,” Flowerwater said when Indigowings was gone. “This part of the forest doesn't have enough dragons for us to see even one, and of course Indigowings isn't dangerous.”
“Yes, it does seem pretty safe,” Splashsail agreed. “You can keep coming back to visit Indigowings if you want to.”
“Okay, good,” Waveripple said, smiling.
Just then, Indigowings came back through the trees.
A small, light brown dragon flew in after him, landing lightly on the ground. She was about three-fourths the size of Waveripple, and looked delicate in her smallness. She had piercing, emerald-colored eyes.
“This is Emeraldeyes,” Indigowings introduced them. “Emeraldeyes, this is Waveripple and his parents, Splashsail and Flowerwater.”
“Hello,” Emeraldeyes greeted them. “Nice to meet you.” She sounded older than Indigowings, even though she was so much smaller than him. She also did not seem the least bit shy of the three Amphibians who were much bigger than her.
The Amphibians all said hello back at the same time.
“I haven't seen you in the forest before,” Emeraldeyes said. “Do you live by the lake?”
“Yes, we do,” Flowerwater replied.
“What is it like at the lake?” Emeraldeyes asked curiously.
Indigowings sighed. “Emeraldeyes has started to prefer talking to adult dragons instead of other hatchlings,” he whispered to Waveripple. “I'm hardly ever able to talk to her anymore. It's kind of lonely.”
That reminded Waveripple of the strange scent that he had found outside Indigowings's cave. “Did Stormcloud or any of your other friends come here in the past two days?” he asked.
Indigowings looked confused. “No. Why?” he asked.
“I just noticed a strange scent by your cave,” Waveripple replied.
“Oh, you mean that,” Indigowings said. “I noticed it when I woke up and left the cave. It's not any of the dragons I know. It was probably someone just passing through.”
Then the two hatchlings started talking about other things, and soon forgot about the stranger in the woods.
~~~
Whiteswirl flew around the same night that he had hunted
the Lizard dragon, exploring the forest. There were a few caves and many coniferous and deciduous trees. He kept flying, and saw an open meadow in the middle of the forest. The meadow surrounded a lake.
When Whiteswirl saw the lake, he felt a stranger sensation than anything he had ever felt before. It was a very faint sensation, almost too faint to be noticeable. It felt vaguely familiar, and yet distant and bizarre at the same time.
He looked around, trying to find out what had caused the feeling, but it disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived. It had been too faint for Whiteswirl to pay much attention to in the first place, so he quickly dismissed and forgot about it.
CHAPTER SIX: DISCOVERY
In the evening of the next day, Waveripple went to visit Indigowings again, this time by himself. When he arrived at Indigowings's cave, he found Indigowings waiting for him right outside it.
“Hi Indigowings!” Waveripple said.
“Hi Waveripple,” Indigowings said, seeming preoccupied.
“What's up?” Waveripple asked, wondering what Indigowings was thinking about.
“Not much,” Indigowings replied. He paused, as if he were deciding whether or not to say something. Then he asked, “Remember that dragon scent that was right outside my cave?”
“Yeah,” Waveripple said. “What about it?” He did not ask it dismissively, but rather, curiously.
“Well, there was a Lizard living nearby. I didn't really know him much, but I talked to him sometimes. I hadn't seen him for a long time, so I went over to where he lives, and he wasn't there. He might have just left to live somewhere else, but there was a lot of blood on the ground by the place that he usually sleeps. And the same scent that we found by my cave was there again, all over that area. I think something bad might have happened to him.”
“Maybe he just left,” Waveripple said, reasoning it out in his head as he spoke, “and the blood is from an animal that the other dragon was hunting.”
“I would probably have thought the same thing,” Indigowings said, “but I asked some of the other dragons when they had last seen him. Emeraldeyes's father, Stonescales, said that he had been talking to him just yesterday. And the other dragon's scent is very recent, like if whoever it was was there just last night.”
“It might have just been a coincidence,” Waveripple said uncertainly.
“Maybe,” Indigowings said, “but it's not likely. The Lizard was acting normal, and didn't mention anything to Stonescales about leaving. Also, that other dragon's scent was strange; it smelled almost as if it were dead, even though you could follow the trail a little to be able to tell that it was moving. And if that had been a dead dragon, the trail wouldn't have just disappeared like it does when a dragon flies off.”
“So, do you think that this other dragon killed the Lizard?” Waveripple asked slowly.
“I think it might have,” Indigowings replied. “If it were touching a dead dragon, some of its scent would rub off on it.”
Waveripple shook his head. “Do you really think that would give it the...dead smell? I don't smell like a dead fish when I hunt them.”
“Dragons might be different,” Indigowings replied. “Or maybe,” he said slowly, “it killed so many dragons that their scents affect it noticeably.”
“That doesn't make sense. Why would any dragon kill so much?” Waveripple realized that he knew the answer as soon as he asked the question. Of course his parents had told him what had happened to his two siblings while they were still in their eggs. Of course they had told him everything they knew about Vampire dragons, so that he would recognize signs of them if he ever came across them, and would be able to stay away. The only kind of dragon which would kill continuously was a Vampire.
Indigowings must have seen the shock and recognition on his face, because he asked, “Waveripple, what is it? Did you think of some reason that a dragon would?”
“Yes,” Waveripple replied. “Before I hatched, the two other eggs which would have been my siblings were stolen by a Vampire dragon. Vampires are the only dragons who kill so much. They would have the dead smell even if they never killed anyone, because they themselves are dead. Undead.”
“That makes sense,” Indigowings said. “I didn't think of that. It really must be a Vampire.”
Emeraldeyes suddenly flew down towards them. “We just found the same thing again,” she said to Indigowings. “That strange dragon scent, and blood, plus the fresh scent of a Forest dragon. A dragon that obviously lived nearby, because his scent is all over a certain part of the forest, his territory. But now he is nowhere to be found.”
She just noticed Waveripple then, and saw the shocked looks on Waveripple's and Indigowings's faces. “What is it?” she asked.
“Waveripple thinks that the dragon with the strange scent is a Vampire,” Indigowings explained, and then told Emeraldeyes what Waveripple had said.
“That does sound logical,” Emeraldeyes said. “It all fits together.” After a minute, she said, “Except for one thing. The dragon scent that I found this time is slightly different from the last time. It still has the dead smell, and it is the smell of a dragon, but it smells like a different dragon. Only there couldn't be two Vampires. Vampires are very rare as it is; it would be almost impossible to find two.”
“I don't think it would be too strange,” Waveripple said. “A Vampire took my two siblings as eggs. So it couldn't be that rare, if a Vampire took two eggs. It's not like she would take them just to bite them, and then leave. There would be no point. She probably wanted to use them for something. So other Vampires might have reasons for making more of them too.”
The hatchlings were quiet for a while. Then Emeraldeyes asked the other two, “Do you want to see the spot where the Vampire attacked the other dragon?”
“Not really,” Indigowings replied. “I saw enough blood for today when I looked for the Lizard.”
“I don't know,” Waveripple said to Emeraldeyes. “I would want to see how different or similar the two scents are, but what if the Vampire comes back when we are there?”
“In the middle of the day?” Emeraldeyes snorted. “Not likely. But if you want to see it you should come now before it gets dark.”
“Okay,” Waveripple said. “I'll just look at it for a little while–just to compare the scents. Then I have to go back to the lake.”
“It's this way,” Emeraldeyes said. She flew up a few feet into the air and then paused, hovering. “Can you fly yet?” she asked Waveripple.
“I don't think so,” Waveripple replied. “I never tried it. Until recently, I was always in the water, where I do not even have wings. Can you fly, Indigowings?”
Indigowings shook his head. “No, I'm still too young,” he said.
“Well, I'm about the same age as Indigowings, so I don't think I would be able to, Emeraldeyes.”
“Then we can walk to the spot of the Forest's death,” Emeraldeyes said, landing on the ground again.
The two dragons walked through the forest until they came to a cave. “This is probably where the Forest lived,” Emeraldeyes said. “His scent is strongest in the cave.”
Outside the cave, there was some blood on the grass. Waveripple could smell a normal dragon–the Forest dragon–plus another smell, similar to the one he had found by Indigowings's cave. The scent was almost identical, but there was a slight difference. It was different enough that the scent really could be from a different dragon.
Waveripple followed the scent trail until it disappeared where the Vampire had flown away. At the end of the trail was a small patch of exposed dirt, about one foot in diameter. Surrounding it were grass and pine needles, but no other patches of dirt. It did not look like the gopher holes that Waveripple sometimes found in the meadow; the ground was flat instead of pushed up.
“Emeraldeyes, come and look at this!” Waveripple said urgently.
Emeraldeyes ran over and saw the exposed dirt. “That's just a patch of dirt,” she said, sounding annoyed but also re
lieved. “I see them all the time. They could be made from many different things, including a gopher hole that gets flattened by something walking on it.”
“Yeah, but the Vampire's scent is all over it,” Waveripple said excitedly. “Maybe it buried something here.”
Waveripple started digging up the patch of dirt. He was used to having webbed feet, so it felt strange to be able to dig with his claws. He did not see anything, even though he dug quite a few feet down.
“See?” Emeraldeyes said. “It's nothing.”
“Yeah, I guess you're right,” Waveripple said disappointedly. He started pushing the dirt back into the hole he had made, more slowly than when he was digging it up.
Waveripple saw something black and dusty in the brown soil, and paused to examine it more closely. When he pushed some of the brown dirt aside, he saw more of the black stuff. “What's this?” he asked Emeraldeyes.
She came closer to look at it. “Ashes,” she replied. “From a fire. Didn't you ever see ashes before?”
“No,” Waveripple said. “I live by a lake, remember? It's not like a fire can start there with all the water.” He paused for a minute, wondering why there would be buried ashes there. “Why would someone want to bury ashes?” he asked, more to himself than to Emeraldeyes.
Emeraldeyes started digging up the grass that was right next to where Waveripple had been digging.
“What are you doing?” Waveripple asked, staring at her curiously.
“Wait a minute,” she replied, and kept digging. She stopped after digging a couple of feet down. Then she said, “Help me look through this pile of soil for ashes.”
Waveripple dug through the pile, wondering why Emeraldeyes was looking for more ashes. He could not find any, and Emeraldeyes did not either.
“I was looking for ashes in the ground nearby to see if you were right about someone actually burying ashes,” she explained. “Because, of course they could have gotten into the ground if there was a forest fire, so they were on the ground, and then leaves decomposed on top of them, burying the ashes. But we didn't find any other ashes. Someone did bury those ashes that you found. I wonder why.” She started sounding as if were was talking to herself rather than to Waveripple. Then she looked over at him. “Are there a lot of ashes in that soil?” she asked.