The Dragon Isles:
Chapter 2
PROLOGUE
Itupiakut peered through the fog as the boat, of strong Tuskar build, sailed across the waters and towards its destination. While the storms which had made this land unreachable for months had dissipated, fog was still a natural occurrence, especially in the wee hours of a late spring morning such as this. As the glowing of the lanterns finally appeared through the haze, he turned to the others travelling with him, a smile on his face quickly spreading to the others, as they all came to realize that the rumours they had heard were true: there was family here, and they still maintained their dock, and more importantly, their village.
Morkut Village became alive with activity as Tuskar from across the Iles and beyond reunited with a tribe who had been caught off from their kin since the Storm-Eater had decided to cut them off from the rest of the world. The next few days were spent feasting and telling tales, not just of Morqut villagers hunkering down and surviving the months-long storm, but also that of the outlanders’ arrival and aid in the fight against Raszageth and the Primalists.
Of course, Itupiakut longed to get back in his boat and see if he could find the most fertile waters off the coast of the Forbidden Reach. He was a fisherman, after all, and had even trained countless others in that trade. He prided himself not only on his technique, but also on his boat, which he had built himself with the help of his late father.
Itupiakut sailed away from the dock and made his way around the bend, following the shore for a bit, occasionally coming to a stop and casting his line to see if he would catch something. All day he did this, enjoying his time on the water and while he was no scout or cartographer, studying the shoreline as best he could so as to remember his path. And while he didn’t glimpse anything particularly of note all day, a large and particularly pale boulder did catch his gaze, unlike any other rock formation he had seen in both size and color.
Curious, he made his way to the shore and hopped out of the boat to get a closer look. While he did not expect trouble, he did reach for his dagger, which he mostly used to skin fish, as he approached the large boulder.
But it was no boulder at all, it seemed. As the realisation of what he had found dawned on him, Itupiakut became as pale as the proto-dragon corpse that was washed up on this lonely shore. Suddenly nauseated at the overpowering stench which forced him to stop his approach, the fisherman found himself hurling into a nearby shrub and losing the delicious lunch he had enjoyed a few hours before.
More composed, slightly embarrassed and mostly relieved that no one had witnessed the spectacle, Itupiakut covered his nose with a handkerchief and took another glance at the corpse. It looked as if it had been dead for a few weeks, perhaps a month. The lack of decomposition suggested the creature had not been of interest to any wildlife, either here on land or in the waters that brought it here, to his utter confusion. The beats did have huge gashes in its body, but they did not look to have been caused by tooth or claw.
With his shadow growing longer by the minute, he decided to head back to his boat and back to his village in time for tonight’s communal soup. But before he had turned around to leave the gruesome sight, he noticed something else, this time in the sand near the proto-drake: tracks. Mortal person tracks. A real mess of them just near the corpse, as if the individual had crawled for several feet upon reaching the shore, possibly latched onto the beast, before standing up to reveal small footprints walking away from the sand and into the nearby woods.
He realised he might end up regretting it, but he decided to follow the tracks just beyond the shore and to the edge of the woods. Whoever it was who had been here did not seem to be on stable footing, as their tracks zigzagged quite a bit. He was no tracker, so once the tracks moved beyond the sand and onto the grass, he could no longer see any sign of the direction they might have gone. But before he abandoned his search, he did spy a piece of torn fabric caught on a branch: purple silk, seemingly charred almost beyond recognition.
He did know of one group who wore lots of purple. He had seen many of them arrive in Valdrakken via portal from a faraway land called Dalaran. He decided he would send this piece of fabric on the next trading ship, to be delivered to those who hailed from an order called the Kirin Tor.
