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was closing in on him.
    He saw that his bow was lying back where he
had dropped it. His knife wasn’t at his hip either. Beyond the
flames, he saw the shredded remains of the stag’s carcass. The
dragon had torn half the meat away in only a few seconds. The
trolls would have the rest of it, he figured. After they had
him.
    A fist-sized rock slammed into his chest,
knocking all of the wind from his lungs. Other stones followed, and
the primitive troll beasts soon went into a frenzied ritual of
howling and savage fighting over feeding position. Luckily for
Jenka, a well-thrown chunk of stone bashed into the side of his
head and spared him from having to see himself being torn to
pieces. All he could think of as he slipped into unconsciousness
was that he would finally get to see his father, and he hoped his
mother would never have to gaze upon what the trolls left of his
body.
    After that was nothing but blackness.

Chapter Two

    In the swimming world of liquid darkness
where Jenka found himself, he felt like a tiny fish caught up in a
powerful current. He had no memory of how he had gotten to wherever
he was, or how long he had been there. There was a fleeting terror
still lingering in the back of his mind, but he had no inkling of
what the source of his fear might be. All he knew was he was
tumbling helplessly through a vast, serene emptiness.
    After some time, he opened his eyes and was
shocked back into reality by the blood-dripping, horn-headed visage
looming down over him. Slick, iron-hard scales sparkled like
emeralds as they reflected in the fire’s dancing light.
    Like some curious, amber-eyed child, the
young, green-scaled dragon leaned over Jenka’s prone body, locked
gazes with him, and then spoke.
    “Thank you,” it hissed in an unnaturally
soft and slithery voice. “The trellkin almost had usss. They almost
had usss, but we have besssted them.”
    Jenka’s temples pounded and the world spun
crazily with his effort to accept what was happening. His eyes
closed for a moment, but he didn’t let the dark current pull him
back under just yet. “How are you speaking to me?” He asked the
dragon. He didn’t remember much of what happened, but here he was,
somehow speaking to a wyrm that had ribbons of torn and bloody
troll flesh dangling from its pink, finger-long teeth. It was
incredible.
    “I just am.” The dragon responded, more into
Jenka’s mind than audibly. “I’m not supposssed to go near your
sort. My mamra says that, though you are small and tasssty, you are
a dangerous lot. She says that you like to kill our kind. But I
wasss drawn to you. You saved me from the trellkin, ssso I saved
you in turn. That makes us friendssss, doesss it not?”
    “Friends then,” Jenka agreed, thinking with
perfect clarity that such a friendship could never be. King
Blanchard hated dragons. Everyone in the kingdom hated them. The
wyrms had been completely eradicated from the islands. Now, out
here in the mainland frontier, when a herd was pilfered or a lair
was found, the King’s Rangers always went hunting and tried to find
and destroy the creature responsible. Jenka figured that it would
be that way until the entire frontier, the Orich Mountains, and
even the Outlands were cleansed of the deadly creatures.
    “My people are wary of your kind as well,”
Jenka said matter-of-factly. His head and side hurt terribly and it
was anguishing to speak. “Make your lair deep in the mountains
where men cannot go, and don’t ever get caught by the King’s
Rangers, because they will try their best to kill you.”
    The dragon nodded his understanding with
closely-knitted brow plates, and then snorted out two curling
tendrils of acrid smoke from its nostrils. “Nor should you ever
wander too far into the peaks. I have a feeling that we will sssee
each other again. Thisss happening was no coincidence. I will be
pleased when that time comes, but other dragons, the wild onesss,
will feast on your flesh, ssso be