Stepping lightly but cautiously, Spyro’s eyes were constantly shifting as he and the others navigated the tunnel, unsure of where it would lead them. They passed more of the glowing mushrooms, acting as improvised torches for them as the tunnel seemed to flow in a continuous ‘S’ pattern, snaking each way unevenly as they walked on. In not too long the drone of the waterfall that had followed them in had faded and an eerie silence settled on the cave, the only sound being that of the dragon’s claws tapping on the rock floor and the ominous, ambient him inside the caves. The going was not all smooth; the four dragons found themselves stepping and climbing over rocks that had collapsed from the ceiling, always making sure to stay close as a group. The tunnel began to elevate, slowly steepening the longer they went on. Round to the left, the tunnel leveled off as it Spyro beheld the entrance to a cavern. The cave widened as the four dragons entered into the large cavern, the ceiling as tall or taller than the waterfall they had left behind with finger like stone spires pointing down at them. Along with the glowing mushrooms were clusters of wild spirit gems growing from the ground, walls, and ceiling of the cavern, casting shades of green and red light over the interior.

Walking among them, the four dragons passed the numerous rocks and debris scattered about the ground, a formation of w which formed something of a pedestal like mound in the rough centre of the cavern. Unlike the improvised door they had discovered, this appeared to have formed naturally. Spyro hopped onto one of the smaller boulders before he scampered onto the top of the ‘pedestal’, while his friends remained standing on the ground. Ahead he saw another tunnel leading out of the cavern, a curtain of darkness beyond it. He balanced on his hind legs, his front legs tucked into his chest as he turned his body to the left, right, then down to all fours as he looked behind. Turning back, he tilted his head curiously as he heard a faint, course rumble somewhere ahead.

“Hello?” he called, his voice echoing several times over as it travelled down both ends of the cavern. There was a quick huff to his left as Cynder hopped up beside him on the boulder.

“That’s great. Now whatever monsters there might be know exactly where to find us,” she remarked sardonically.

“Monsters?!” exclaimed Flame in alarm.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure there are no monsters in here,” Spyro said reassuringly,

“Well… pretty sure.”

“I feel so much safer,” said Ember bitingly.

“Come on, I think I can hear water up ahead,” Spyro proclaimed as he jumped down from the boulder, followed Cynder and Ember and Flame quickly rushed up behind them, staring anxiously at the opening of the next tunnel. The heavy blackness remained steadfast as they approached, their being no glowing mushrooms of crystals to alleviate the darkness. Though he never said so, the darkness began to unsettle Spyro’s mind, concerned those monsters he was ‘pretty sure’ were not there, might be. A sound behind him made him gasp alongside his friends as Spyro’s head snapped behind, a rustle among the debris made his heart jump.

“What was that?” Flame asked nervously, stepping over into the middle of the group. Another rustle shook their hearts, their eyes settling on a trickle of dirt as one of the spires cracked and crumbled onto the floor, the sound filling the cavern. Spyro breathed a sigh of relief at the innocent explanation.

“Come on, let’s not let our minds play tricks on us. Let’s go,” he said readily, looking ahead and stepping into the unknown of the next tunnel.

Though the others followed, they each at least once looked behind them as they left the cavern, just to be safe. They heard more crumbling behind them as the cavern grew distant, but now thought nothing of it.

As the sound of their footsteps grew fainter, the source of the rustling in the cave slowly emerged from behind a boulder the darkest corner of the cavern. The crumbling of the ceiling had by sheer luck concealed its presence after it had accidentally kicked some nearby stones as it crouched behind the boulder. The figure rose and placed its white furred hands over top of the rock, the shadows hiding all else but its silhouette as the hooded figure eyed the passage taken by the four dragons. It leaned forward, revealing the muzzle of a Cheetah, but one not familiar to the four who lived, but whom had knowledge of them. Crouching low, the unknown Cheetah moved silently across the rocky floor, hands out by its side as it stealthily entered the tunnel to follow them.

Though their eyes adjusted, the darkness made Spyro and his friends step more cautiously, the purple dragon fanning his wings out to the side to feel the edges of the tunnel as they wandered on. As they moved on, he heard the roar of water growing louder as a faint shimmer of light cast against the left side of the tunnel far ahead.

“There, we’re almost out,” he proclaimed cheerfully.

“Thank the ancestors!” exclaimed Flame with relief. The group moved towards the light, the tunnel slightly turning to the right as they approached the curve, the sound of a flowing river channeling down to them. Peeking around, they saw an almost blinding light staring back at them as the tunnel straightened out another fifty feet or so before finally ending. The ground became noticeably sandy as Spyro squinted to see ahead as the light returned to his eyes. Blinking, he saw something just outside the mouth of the tunnel, sticking out from the ground like a post with something glowing atop of it.

“What’s that?” Cynder asked as the object became discernible to them. Walking four abreast, the young dragons stepped into the reaching sunlight as the neared the exit to the cave. The mystery object looked to be a staff planted in the ground, the top of which sat a glowing, blue crystal ball between the fork like shape of its head. Spyro eyed the staff with concern as they cautiously approached. Behind the staff was a glistening river rushing by unhindered, beyond it was a towering white rockwall that stretched as far as they could yet see. The four survivors finally stepped out from the cave, the purple dragon stopping just short of the staff, his main point of concern. Though out of the cave, they remained shaded under a massive overhanging rock formation that seemed to stretch left and right as far as they could see. A cursory glance revealed they were at the bottom of a large canyon, the parallel rockwalls rising as tall as he dragon temple with both sides of the river flanked by a wide strip of sand running alongside. The sun glistened off the water like a silver plate and the air was cool. Were it not for the signs of a unknown stranger nearby, Spyro and his friends might have gladly claimed this spot as their secret hideaway.

The others kept a few steps back from the purple dragon as he looked down at the sand the staff was planted in, noticing the distinct footprints imbedded in the moist ground around it. The four toes and feline shaped paw made it obvious what kind of creature had left them; a Cheetah. But the peculiar staff was one he did not recognize from any in the village. Carefully, he leaned forward and sniffed it, his left paw rising tepidly, tempted to touch it.

“Spyro, don’t!” Cynder cried sharply as she stepped forward, stopping him in his tracks as he hastily withdrew his paw, “It could be dangerous,” she said uneasily.

Her forward movement seemed to inspire the others as Flame and Ember both stepped up alongside him, eyeing the glistening ball anxiously.

“It could belong to a sorcerer or something,” warned Ember, “It might have some kind of magical ward around it.”

“But why would they leave it here, then?” asked Flame, gazing around the canyon apprehensively, “We really shouldn’t be here.”

“I’m not sure,” Spyro confessed frankly, “But it definitely belongs to a Cheetah, that I know. But I get the feeling that its not anyone that we know.”

Suddenly from behind, “Oh, but everyone knows who you are, don’t they?” asked a new, rasping voice.

Gasping, Spyro spun around and immediately took a fighting stance as he and his friends turned to the source of the raspy voice. They all shared a collective stare of stupor as they beheld the form of a Cheetah who had alarmingly appeared behind them without notice. The blueish grey fur and dark green tunic was familiar in itself but not the individual to whom they belonged. The yellow eyes stared at them with a hunger like zeal and the cackling voice was enough to put ice in their veins.

“Who are you?” Spyro demanded, gritting his teeth menacingly. Whatever he imagined it might achieve, the response was not what he anticipated. The Cheetah clapped his paw over his stomach as he broke into an ear searing episode of mad, cackling laughter, even as his rasping voice choked and coughed with seeming indifference to the threat Spyro knew he posed to the Cheetah. Indeed, what the four of them together posed to the menacing feline.

“Spyro…” began Cynder nervously, suddenly losing her words as the four of them edged closer to each other. Spyro impulsively took a leap forward, fanning his wings out protectively in front of his companions as the Cheetah laughed even more coarsely. Behind his brave face, Spyro felt very, very alone all of sudden and feared he had just put his friends in very, very real danger.

“I’m warning you! Don’t come any closer!” Spyro warned with a heavy scowl. The mystery Cheetah continued his nauseating laughter until his choking voice could not force it any longer, the four dragons grimacing in disgust at the phlegm and saliva that he spat in their direction. The Cheetah bent over with his paws on his knees as he struggled to catch his breath, his demeanour suddenly becoming less threatening and more pitiful. Spyro maintained his readiness nonetheless, his eyes bouncing like a fly all over the stranger for any hint of a weapon or aggressive act. To Spyro’s right, Cynder stepped out slightly from behind, her eyes narrowing as she contemplated their apparent stalker.

“What are you doing here?” she asked boldly, surprising her compatriots. The Cheetah lifted his head sharply and glared at her,

“I could ask you the same thing,” he sneered, breathing in deeply as he straightened his back.

“Look, we’re not looking for any trouble,” chipped in Flame, finding a morsel of courage from behind Spyro.

“Oh, no one ever is…” remarked the stranger with mild delirium as he lifted his head and looked overtop and beyond them. Spyro looked behind and saw he was staring at the peculiar staff planted in the sand. Looking forward, he saw the Cheetah tilt his eyes down to him.

“I’ll be taking what’s mine, if you’ll move out of the way,” he said impatiently.

“How do we know it’s yours?” asked Ember curtly.

“Not too bright, either,” the stranger said as if speaking to someone they couldn’t see, a thought which further gave them cause for alarm. Without heed for them or the danger they posed to him, the Cheetah broke into a stride towards the staff.

“Hey! Don’t­­…” Spyro began, but a harsh shove from the Cheetah’s paw knocked him aside and nearly on top of Cynder as he pushed his way through them, Flame and Ember splitting apart as he barged between them.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” Ember snapped vehemently as the stranger paid no heed to her as he pulled the staff out of the sand, staring intently into the glowing crystal ball as he lightly rubbed a speck of dust from it with his thumb. Flustered, confused and even embarrassed at how easily he had lost his footing, Spyro sprung to his feet as he stormed towards the Cheetah, anger simmering in every scale of his face as he eyed the back of the stranger.

“What was that for?” he snarled, “Don’t you realize what I could have done to you?”

“Or what I might still do to you?” added Cynder menacingly as she strode up beside him, Flame and Ember lining up beside her. The Cheetah let out another raspy chuckle, his paws gripping around the staff as his head turned leisurely to the left, letting one gold eye regard them snidely.

“What you might have done to me, dragon whelps?” he asked scornfully, turning his body to face them, holding the staff diagonally across his chest. Spyro glared defiantly at him, his stance firm and his claws digging into the sand, but as before the Cheetah was wholly unmoved by the attempts by him or his friends to appear threatening, becoming cynically amused it appeared instead.

“What might you have done if I had been an Ape or a wild beast? What might have happened if I had attacked you while you were all oblivious to my presence, staring at my staff like a bird staring gormlessly at its own reflection in a mirror?” he rasped coldly, jabbing his finger at them as the four dragons felt a glaring shame come over them like a rush of hot steam.

Spyro indeed felt his heart pause as the questions burned into his mind like those he had asked himself whenever he tried to spur himself on while training, always narrowing down to the sober thought of,

‘What if you make a mistake in the real world?’

“Who are you anyway? Creep!” Cynder lashed out, her impassioned voice gratefully distracting the purple dragon away from the guilt he was feeling.

“Yeah!” Flame concurred, albeit tepidly. The Cheetah rolled his eyes as he waved his hand dismissively,

“I’ve gone by many names. The one that seems to stay with me as long as I care to remember is The Hermit,” he replied disdainfully.

“How fitting,” Cynder replied harshly as Spyro suddenly nudged her to discourage her being too antagonistic as he eyed ‘The Hermit’ suspiciously.

“Hermit? So you’re not from the village, then?” he asked.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but no, not for a long time,” the Hermit retorted sorely, turning away to his left and beginning to walk down the canyon, leaving the group standing befuddled. They all looked between each other as the stranger seemingly made his exit, and wondering if they should press him further. Spyro swiftly answered for them,

“Hey! Wait a minute!” he called as he took off after the Hermit, his companions pausing confusedly for a moment before deciding to follow. The Hermit did not turn his head though he heard the call, strolling leisurely down the shore as the river flowed down beside him. The purple dragon ran to the left side of the Cheetah, trying to catch his eye as the Hermit looked stiffly ahead. Scowling, Spyro decided to figuratively prod the stranger, finding his hostility oddly interesting and deducing that the Cheetah held a vainly high opinion of himself.

“You know, you didn’t actually ask why we were here,” he pointed out smugly to the Hermit.

“That’s because I don’t care,” was the sharp retort, his eyes staying rigidly straight forward.

“Not even how we found you? What if we weren’t just four dragon whelps?” Spyro asked scornfully, “What if we were Apes, or your old friends from the village?”

The Hermit halted and spun to him, stamping the bottom of the staff crossly into the sand.

“Are you really that in need of validation? Does the so called legendary purple dragon need the gratitude of everyone he meets?” he snapped mockingly.

Cynder, Flame and Ember took the chance to back up their friend as the pair stared each other down. Flame, unusually, spoke out first,

“If you’re so smart, why’d you leave those fishbones laying around? I found them with my nose,” he boasted, touching the side of his muzzle with his paw.

“And why’d you leave your cave open for us, huh?” asked Ember snootily, “Anyone could have climbed through instead of us!”

“Yeah, real smooth for someone who wants to stay hidden,” Cynder finished boastfully. The Hermit growled at them as their arguments seeped into his skin, his proud façade being cast off with the wind as he avoided their gaze.

“So I took some fish from the river, so what? The water here is lifeless and I was hungry. One cannot live on air alone,” the Hermit said dismissively. Hiding his satisfaction at the Hermit’s embarrassment, Spyro addressed the Hermit diplomatically, trying to be more amicable in spite of the Cheetah’s untoward unfriendliness,

“Look, it was curiosity more than anything that led us here. We didn’t actually come here to get on your nerves. I mean, how could we?” he asked with an apologetic smile, “We didn’t know you were here.”

“Did your doting Guardians give you full marks for diplomacy too?” the Cheetah sneered repulsively, “Spare me your hollow attempts to befriend me.”

The smile quickly turned to anger as Spyro pressed his teeth hard against themselves, the feelings of fear and anxiousness towards the Hermit boiling down to offense and contempt.

“How dare you insult them! You should be grateful I’m even trying. You came at me, first. You should be trying to make amends with me!” he cried indignantly.

“I learned a long time ago that it was pointless to try and please anyone,” the Hermit replied with a crooked smile as he turned and started to walk on.

“What’s your problem, creep?” Cynder called after him, her emerald eyes glowing with wrath,

“Don’t walk away like a coward!”

“Cynder….” Spyro said warningly, he and the others all shocked at the brashness of her choice of words.

The Hermit stopped dead in his tracks, evidently in as much surprise as them, but with added anger. His head snaked around first before he turned his body slowly, furiously, to face them, his face darkened by a frightening scowl. Though Cynder showed no signs of fear, Spyro edged over closer to her, anxious about what the Hermit might do.

“Coward?” he repeated vehemently, his golden eyes glaring like daggers towards the black dragoness. He started marching back toward her, Flame and Ember looked at each nervously as they watched Spyro, wondering how he and the Hermit would react.

The Hermit stomped his way over to them, slamming his right knee down onto the sand as he knelt down in front of Cynder, ignoring Spyro watching him cautiously to her right. With his left arm across his knee, he held the staff up in his right hand as he gazed sourly into the black dragoness’s face.

“You call me a coward, you spoiled upstart? You think you know what fear is? You think you know what it is to see the darkness of the world?” he hissed, pointing up at his eyes, “My eyes have seen horrors you could never imagine, not in your worst nightmares! You have been cuddled and cradled your whole life, never having to face danger or adversity!”

“Leave her alone!” Spyro snapped.

“And you?” the Hermit said as he locked his eyes on him, “You are the purple dragon of legend? The future saviour of the world? Ha!” he laughed again in his sickly, raspy voice, “If so, we may as well line up for Gaul’s executioners now and save him the trouble!”

“Shut up!” growled Ember, “You don’t know anything about Spyro or any of us! He’s braver than other dragon in the world!”

“Oh?” chuckled the Hermit as he rose to his feet, “Did your Guardians tell you that, as well? What bravery has your ‘hero’ shown you? What courage have any of you shown? When have you ever done battle with the Apes? Even the lowliest of their number would slaughter you like lambs.”

“We’re not lambs!” protested Flame crossly, “You’re not being very nice!”

“I have heard the stories about Malefor,” the Hermit continued harshly, “About how powerful he was at a young age, how he even matched the Guardians of his time with his powers. Do you even hold a candle to them, oh great hero? Are you any better than them or any of your classmates?”

“That’s enough!” Cynder barked, her voice noticeable brittle, “You have no right to talk to us like that! For all we know you are nothing but a common criminal! What have you done that is so great and deserving of respect?”

“I survived,” the Hermit replied darkly, “Survived when others have not and recognized truths others refuse to acknowledge. Its why I’ve been called… shall we say, unsociable?”

“Well, I’m not surprised,” Spyro replied dryly, “If I were Chief Prowlus, I’d kick you out of the tribe too!”

“Oh, if only you had such power, great hero,” the Hermit chuckled mirthlessly, “You could at least say you had accomplished something, then.”

“What is your problem with me?” Spyro asked sternly, masking his hurt, “You act like I’m your enemy. I’ve tried to be reasonable, but you just throw back insults at me and my friends!”

“Because I can tell just by looking at you that you stroll about so sure and so confident of yourselves and your abilities and yet have never been asked to prove yourselves,” the Hermit answered coldly, “And yet doesn’t everyone else believe the same? Don’t they kiss the ground you walk on, purple dragon? Don’t they slap your name on every trinket they can sell and boast of every time they were in your presence?”

Spyro felt his heart plummet like it was beneath an avalanche of rocks, so strong did the words of the vile Hermit strike at home. For a moment he was unable to retort, earning a devious smile from the Cheetah.

“I don’t care what you think!” Spyro replied hotly, “None of us do! We’re going to go back to the village and tell the other Cheetah’s we found you. We’ll tell them where you are and they’ll tell us who you really are!”

The Hermit laughed shortly, “I won’t be here. If they really care to find me, they’d better be ready to search every crevice and valley in Avalar. I know this wilderness better than any of them.”

“Come on, Spyro,” Cynder said as she stepped up and glared at the Cheetah, “Let’s not waste any more breath on him.”

“Yeah, he’s putting me in the mood for a hot roast,” Flame added curtly, puffing a cloud of smoke from his nostrils.

“Or maybe a nice freezing cold bath to awaken his senses,” sneered Ember as a white cloud of freezing air exhaled from her mouth.

“Its not worth it,” Spyro said snidely as he and Cynder turned to them, putting his back to the Hermit, “Lets get out of here.”

Flame and Ember eyed the stranger contemptuously as they too turned around and began walking back down the sand with Spyro and Cynder following them, none of them looking back to the Hermit as he stood where they had left him. His insufferable laugh began following them as he choked and coughed with self-proclaimed victory as the four dragons marched away stiffly.

“You’d better hope this peace lasts another twelves years!” the Hermit cackled insidiously, “Or you’re going to have a lot of disappointed fans when you can’t be the hero they think you are…”

Spyro breathed in sharply as he felt his blood boiling, barely resisting the urge to talk back or turn his head back to the Hermit. He wanted to scream, feeling tempted to hurl himself into river and scream into the water like he had in the fountain in Warfang. While he had thought he might need to deal with the vitriol of Glacious, he did not expect to get the same from a complete stranger, much less in Avalar, a place that he had nothing but fondness for. Dragon city could have its fair share of unfriendly characters, but aside from Prowless Avalar had been nothing but a source of peace and enjoyment. Now he had the face and rasping voice of the unfriendly Hermit stuck in his mind, spoiling whatever good thoughts he had about the place. His eyes shifted to Ember as she looked back at him.

“You okay, Spyro?” she asked worriedly.

“Fine. Lets just get back to Meadow, he’s probably looking for us,” he replied shortly.

“With how he was sleeping? No chance. It’d take an earthquake to wake him up,” Cynder added dryly.

“Man, what a creep! And what an attitude!” Flame remarked crossly.

Spyro said nothing as the group wandered back down the sand to the cave they had exited out of earlier. His expression was stern as he walked at the back of the group, the voice of the Hermit still grating in his ears and his mind. As they walked back through the winding tunnel, his companions made more remarks about the unfriendly Cheetah and bounced ideas back and forth about who he once was and what he may have done to be expelled from the tribe. Anytime he was asked for his thoughts, the purple dragon simply replied with a dull, “I don’t know,” before going back to his thoughts. He tried to discount the opinions of the seemingly insane feline as not worth contemplating, but in some dark corner of his mind, much like the dark corners of the cavern they now walked back through, they did reflect some cynical, self-flagellating sense that he’d felt the last few days. The vile insults directed at him by Glacious were not to be unexpected, but for the same to come from a complete stranger was new to him. This fact seemed to confirm what the Hermit had said and indeed what he had thought himself; he had the gratitude and praise of most of those he came across and had done nothing to be worthy of it. But although he had complained about it, Spyro did not wish instead to be the subject of insults and mockery as an alternative.

‘I just want to be treated normally,’ he thought gloomily.

The sound of the waterfall soon returned as they neared the hidden entrance, Flame glancing down at the fishbones left on the floor that he ultimately revealed it to them.

“What do you think the Guardians and the Cheetahs will say when we tell them what we found? Or how I sniffed it out?” he asked with a proud grin.

“That you think too much about food all the time, probably,” Ember chuckled lightly. The fire dragon gave her a sly smirk as he ducked down and began crawling back through the small gap in the rocks. Spyro still looked head on like he was daydreaming as Ember crawled out after Flame, Cynder turning her head and raising a curious eyebrow to him.

“Spyro?” she asked frankly, “That choking lunatic didn’t get to you, did he?”

“Never mind him, lets just get out of this place,” he answered coarsely before he strode past her and dropped to his belly, beginning to crawl out through the hole as the spray of the waterfall irritated his eyes. He followed Ember’s tail as she leaned close against the rockwall as the water poured down into the river. Spyro walked forward a few more steps before he looked over bis shoulder and saw Cynder crawling out as well, the glance she gave him told him that she was not satisfied by his answer. Sighing at the realization that he would have to resolve it later, he jumped out from the side of the waterfall to where Flame and Ember were standing, the three of them then waiting for Cynder to join them. Presently, the black dragoness leapt out onto the grass nearby them, shaking off the watery particles she had collected on her wings.

“Well, I guess we should go tell Meadow,” Spyro announced promptly as he quickly trotted off down the riverbank, his companions caught a little off guard by his swiftness, but began following along none the less. The four young dragons trotted quickly beside the river as they approached where it split off to the left and right, following it around to the right into the open grass near where they would find Meadow.

“Meadow? Hey, Meadow!” they called together as the group began to round the trees that obscured the view of the waterfall from the other side, entering back into the valley proper. Spyro’s eyes looked ahead and locked on the crown of the large tree they had left the herbalist napping beneath, scanning down its length as they approached, expecting to see the Cheetah still sleeping contently, estimating they had been gone about half an hour, the time Meadow had asked to be awoken. When his eyes reached the base of the tree, Meadow was not there.

“Meadow?” he called out, though not in alarm. There was no response as Spyro and the others glanced around for any sign of the herbalist as they neared the base of the tree. Looking up and down the river from where they stood yielded no sight of him, thinking perhaps that he had ventured into the forest to search for more herbs.

“I don’t see him,” observed Cynder plainly as the group began searching around the large tree, all calling out Meadow’s name to no answer as Flame wandered around the other side of the tree, sniffing the air.

“I hope he didn’t wander off and get lost trying to find us,” added Ember as she glanced at her surroundings. Spyro looked towards the forest, frowning as he considered if they should venture into them in hopes of finding their caretaker or simply wait for his return. He stood looking into the trees, noticing a cluster of blue wildflowers just inside the treeline that he had seen Meadow collecting earlier that day. They were too obvious to miss if he had indeed gone into the forest to forage. Spyro’s scowl became worrisome as the most convenient and innocent explanation suddenly didn’t seem most likely.

“Guys!” called Flame in a voice that made him gasp, “Come here, quick!”

Swiftly, the three dragons looked towards the red dragon and ran over to him where he stood, looking down at something in a cluster of tall grass on the other side of the tree. Spyro, Cynder and Ember rushed up to him, peering down as he was at something partly concealed in the grass.

“What is it, Flame?” Spyro asked hurriedly as he shuffled up next to him, looking down into the grass. As the others joined them, the purple dragon eyed the tattered remains of Meadow’s basket, seemingly crushed as if it had been trampled by a large set of feet.

“It’s Meadow’s basket,” answered Flame tensely as the group looked at the remains. The herbs and flowers it had contained were scattered and flattened among the grass, which itself and the soil were torn up as if raked by claws. Spyro’s eyes widened as he began to examine the immediate surroundings, noticing matching tears in the soil around them.

“Look at these,” he said markedly, nodding towards the disturbed earth, “They’re all around here.”

Looking around the grass surrounding them, the four dragons began to fan out and investigate the immediate area. Leading from the tree towards where the basket had been, there were several tracks ripped into the ground like something had clambered across the ground with great speed and violence. But the scars in the ground became more numerous around near the basket, like claws slashing across the ground at something. Spyro quickly noticed that the gouges in the dirt were shaped like a triple clawed hand, with the inner most gouges being longer and bigger than the two smaller claw marks beside it. It was obvious first and foremost that they were not the marks left by a dragon or a cheetah.

“What happened here?” asked Ember anxiously, “Do you think Meadow is okay?”

“I don’t know,” Spyro replied apprehensively, “Just keep looking.”

He looked back over his shoulder towards the tattered remains of the basket, the horrifying thought that their caretaker may be in a not too dissimilar state darkened his heart with fear.

“Over here!” called Cynder as she stood over something about fifty feet or so to the left of the basket. Spyro quickly rushed over with Flame and Ember, seeing more slashes across the ground and in the grass, indicating more evidence of trouble. The reflective glare in his eyes didn’t slow down Spyro’s recognition of the object; it was Meadow’s dagger, the one he had used to cut up the fish they had eaten earlier. The grass beneath it and the edge of the blade was darkened by a smear of dark purple, almost black, blood. Spyro eyed the blade grimly as he reached with his right paw carefully towards it, gripping the hilt and lifting it up closer. He exchanged a bleak glance with Cynder as he held up the blade.

“That’s not Meadow’s blood,” observed Flame diligently, “Cheetah’s blood is red, isn’t it?”

“That’s right,” confirmed Ember with mild hope in her voice.

“He must have used this to defend himself,” declared Spyro softly as he twisted his paw sideways as he examined the weapon closely.

“From what?” Cynder asked. Spyro didn’t answer as his eyes ran along the length of the blade. Towards the tip of the blade the bloodstain thickened, peering closer he saw a thin strip of leather like membrane dangling from the edge of the knife. His eyes widened as he recognized the membrane as being like that of a dragon, but not quite so.

“I thought he didn’t believe in violence,” Flame remarked curiously.

“How much would you believe that if a Dreadwing was bearing down on you?” replied Cynder critically, having surmised Spyro’s conclusions with her own observations . Ember’s eyes shrank as the word reached her ears.

“A Dreadwing?” she gasped frightfully. Spyro nodded seriously as he gripped the hilt of the blade more tightly.

“They must have come here, caught him while he was napping. He tried to run, but they chased him. He grabbed the knife to defend himself, slashed its wing…. now he’s gone,” said the purple dragon dismally.

“But why would they come here?” quired Cynder, “The Apes haven’t attacked us for twelve years.”

“I guess that changed today,” remarked Spyro curtly, placing the blade back on the ground, “Come on, we’ve got to get back to the village and tell what happened!” he said hurriedly.

“But what if there’s more of them?” demanded Flame uneasily, “There could be an army invading the valley!”

“Then we’ve got to get back and help,” he answered frankly, taking the hilt of Meadow’s knife back in his mouth, saying through his teeth, “Follow me!”


End of Chapter 9 Part 2 of 2.

Next Chapter: Missing Meadow