Chapter 15-3

Once he picked himself up off of the ground and looked around, he saw that the tree was much bigger on the inside than the outside. The interior reminded him of some kind of shrine, but one that had been grown rather than built. He could see outside through several archways which seemed to be somehow naturally formed by the tree. Almonihah started when he saw that there were fell-wolves prowling around outside, but it quickly became clear that they didn't realize the arches were there.

Now that he had a bit of time to calm down, the half-dragon thought he knew more or less what this was. He'd heard stories about sacred places of Naishia hidden in the wilderness—valleys that could only be entered once, groves hidden behind waterfalls, and so on. No one knew if they were the work of long-dead Druids, or if Naishia herself had created them as refuges for her followers in their times of need. Certainly this one was serving him as such right now.

The fell-wolves didn't seem to be giving up easily, though. They were sniffing all around the perimeter of the tree, trying to figure out why his trail ended right at its edge. From what he knew of fell-wolves, it might be all day before they gave up and hunted for easier prey. He was kind of surprised to feel a little bit of pity for them. Their ancestors had once been like other wolves, like the ones he had run with, but now they were... twisted. Almonihah wondered what had happened to them. Something to do with Jivenesh, no doubt.

Now, though, what he had to worry about was whether or not he was going to sit here all day waiting for them to go. If he had a bow, he'd be able to convince them to leave fairly quickly from his unassailable position, but his bow was back with the Griffon Tribe. And it wasn't like there was going to be a bow just lying around here or anything.

Almonihah blinked. Or maybe there would be. Not only a bow, but a quiver, were leaning against one of the arches.

He went over to look at them. The quiver looked rather plain, but when he looked inside, it appeared to contain far more arrows than a quiver of its size should be able to. The bow, on the other hand, was a work of art. Its limbs were intricately carved with images of animals and forests. The one image that was repeated the most frequently was a unicorn rampant, just like the one that hung from his neck—one of the many symbols for Naishia.

Almonihah murmured a quiet thanks to Her as he picked up the bow and nocked an arrow. He slowly pulled back, testing the bow. It had just the right amount of resistance, not so much it was hard to aim, but not so little that he couldn't apply his full strength to it.

He carefully aimed at one of the fell-wolves. He paused for a moment, unsure of whether or not the arrow would go through or if he'd find the inside of the arches as solid as they seemed to the beasts outside, but then shrugged mentally and decided to loose his arrow anyway.

It flew from the bow with even greater speed than his strength and the pull of the bow could account for. When it struck the fell-wolf, there was a searing flash of light, and the creature collapsed, the fur around the arrow's fletching singed from whatever magic the bow had imparted to the arrow.

The fell-wolves jumped back from where their fellow had fallen, looking around warily for the source of the threat. Almonihah grunted in satisfaction as he watched them. They still couldn't see him. He drew another arrow.

****

It's the origin of Almonihah's bow! Huzzah!

Sorry I missed a couple weeks. I'll do better now!