Gerantus and the "Treasure"

 

(From the series "Gerantus and Pall")

Pall sunned himself on the high ramparts of the abandoned fortress he shared with Gerantus.

On this day, Gerantus had braved the spiral of rotting stairs to take in the spectacular view of the lush valley below.

"How's the sun?" Gerantus asked, a little breathless from the climb. The prospect of falling through a wooden slat didn't help his galloping heart.

Pall opened one eye, his forked tongue tasting the Spring air filled with pollen and new foliage. "Delightful."

He stretched one wing and shook off a loose scale the size of a saucer. Gerantus caught it. "Good one," he said to the red dragon as his artist's eye examined the scale. "I can carve this one into a wolf, I think."

"Ah, speaking of 'treasure' that reminds me," Pall said, ribbing his human friend who, he had to admit, had a unique talent to turn his shed scales into art. "The owls say they have seen strangers leaving some kind of carving near the stream."

The old fortress was built around a spring. The fresh water ran through a quiet forest stream before it fell into a noisy cataract to merge into the larger White River down in the valley.

That afternoon, Gerantus walked the narrow deer trail along the stream in search of this "treasure." It didn't take long. He could see two clay pots shaped like ghoulish faces with crazy teeth and distorted features.

They were on the opposite bank. He spotted a new trail through the dewy undergrowth heading north. This must be where the stranger or strangers had come to the stream.

He used his walking stick to vault across the stream. But he landed too close and knocked over one of the pots.

Bones spilled out. Small bones, but no skull. Were they Yunni, the small folk of the forest? A child?

He put the bones back just as a crow called from a branch above him. Another one called in the direction of the new trail. A third called, just at the edge of hearing. They were passing a message.

Gerantus waited. It didn't take long for a Yunni arrow to land between his feet.

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