Read Online The Forging of the Dragon (Wizard and Dragon Book 1) by Robert Don Hughes - Free Book Online Page A

twenty-foot-tall bear metamorphosed into a man — a caped patrician gazing arrogantly into a little valley. Then, just as suddenly, he was gone, and the humid air rushed to fill the void with a sharp snap.
     

 
    Chapter Four
    PROPHECY’S BURDEN
     
    SEAGRYN woke with a start. He sat trembling for a moment, remembering where he was. Dark still slept on a pile of cushions nearby. “Dark?” he whispered. The boy groaned, but never moved.
    The heat within this tent felt stifling. Late morning ... it had to be late morning! “Get up!” Seagryn whispered, sliding off his own pallet of cushions to crawl to the tent flap. He peered out.
    The stream rolled through the ruined encampment, sloshing gently against the rocks that lined its banks. Insects buzzed over the few patches of grass that hadn’t been tramped down by Marwandian boots. Seagryn listened — had they returned? Did warriors wait on either side of this tent to spear them as they stepped out? He crawled to Dark’s side and shook the lad. “Wake up,” he muttered. “Wake up !” he spat in the boy’s ear, and Dark’s eyes shot open.
    The boy blinked a couple of times, then smacked his lips together and grumbled, “Give me one good reason why I should.”
    “There are enemies about!”
    “Of course there are,” the boy agreed, shifting his body away from Seagryn and snuggling into a cushion. “But not any right outside this tent.”
    “How do you know that?”
    Dark yawned, and shrugged his shoulders in a clear signal that he intended to go back to sleep.
    Seagryn stood. “If, as it seems, you know everything in advance, then you know I’m about to do this!” He grabbed Dark by the collar and belt and jerked the lad into the air. The boy struggled ineffectually as Seagryn turned him upright and set him on his feet.
    “Oh, I knew you were going to do it,” Dark growled, “but that doesn’t mean I needed to help you.”
    “You actually knew I would jerk you out of the bed?”
    “Of course. Just as I know that our friends have not returned to camp and that later on you’re going to toss me into that river out there.”
    Seagryn leaned his head back disdainfully, then folded his arms on his chest. “I see. But that’s where you’re wrong.”
    Dark scowled, then rubbed the sleep from his eyes as he said, “And now you’re going to prove to me that I don’t control your future by vowing not to throw me into the river.” Dark walked to the tent flap and casually tossed it aside, then ducked out and went straight to the stream. He knelt there and washed his face. Seagryn followed him, casting furtive glances to either side but seeing no one else around.
    “Are you now going to throw yourself in and say I was responsible?” Seagryn challenged.
    Dark stood up, drying his face with his sleeve. “No.”
    “Well?”
    “Well what?” Dark asked, his brown eyes finally open and fixed upon Seagryn.
    “How can you account for the fact that I won’t throw you in?”
    Dark gazed at him a moment, his eyes looking much older than the rest of his youthful frame. “How much of this do you actually want to know?”
    “How much of what?”
    “What’s going to happen today.”
    Dark’s blasé tone infuriated Seagryn, so he pretended not to understand. “What do you mean?”
    “Just that.” Dark shrugged. “How trivial do you want me to be? How much detail?”
    Seagryn stared at the boy a moment, then shook his head in disgust and walked away, looking at the row of squashed tents and trying to judge which one might contain the food supplies.
    “For example, right now you’re going to find us something to eat —”
    “Well, of course I’m going to find food!” Seagryn snarled, whirling around to look at Dark again. “It’s almost noon! I’m hungry! Aren’t you?”
    “— and you’ll find some dried meat in the third tent down.” Seagryn put his hands on his hips and glared at the young prophet. “But now you’ll try every way you can