Though his response shook her to the core.
“No. I got this from a dragon. The one I will do everything in my power to eradicate from the face of the earth.”
~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~
What was it about this elf assassin that made Wolfe spill his secrets, one after the other, like an overturned apple cart?
He was supposed to be getting information out of the man, not the other way around.
At the same time, there was something freeing about talking to a stranger from a foreign land.
Ray’s time in his life would be ephemeral. It was almost like talking to a ghost. Wolfe was only talking about himself; he had no secrets of the kingdom to reveal. What he divulged thus far couldn’t be used against him. He’d exposed no weaknesses.
And if this foreign trio intended to compete in the tournament, it might be in his favor to start building his “reputation” now.
A killer at ten years of age with a dragon’s mark on his face sounded formidable to most. These were just two reasons he was the most fearsome monster hunter in these isles, sought after for the most impossible tasks.
“Dragon, you say?” Ray uttered somewhat weakly.
Did they not have these creatures where he came from?
“Yes. Giant, ugly serpents that look like an amalgamation of various animals—claws of eagles, scales of snakes, tusks of wild boars, wings of bats. And many other things.”
“U-ugly?”
Out of everything he said, that was the one word Ray focused on?
“Have you seen such a beast before?” Wolfe asked.
Perhaps Ray was having trouble imagining it.
“Well…one would think these beings are like any other,” he hedged. “Take humans, for example. There are many different kinds, from many different places. One group does not look like another, and each person within the group does not look like the next. Surely dragons are the same. Perhaps you have only encountered the ugly ones.”
Wolfe was flummoxed.
“Surelythe description I gave you cannot result in anything but monstrously ugly,” he argued.
“It’s as if someone took parts from other,natural,animals, amplified their size many times with magic, haphazardly welded them together, to arrive at this freakish thing.”
Ray sniffed.
“A dragon is not a ‘thing.’ It is a living being just like any other creature.”
“It’s evil, like the demons of hell,” Wolfe retorted.
“It’s not,” Ray insisted. “At least, no more so than any other creature, especially mankind. Who came up with the concept of evil, I ask you? Men, that’s who. Animals aren’t evil. They are simply what they are. It is men who are evil.”
“But also good,” he allowed rather begrudgingly. “There is both. Just as there must be both for dragons.”
Wolfe leaned back a bit, peering down at the top of Ray’s silvery head from as much distance as he could, as if that would give him better perspective.
“You know about dragons,” he stated rather than asked.
Ray didn’t immediately answer.
Finally, he said warily, “Some.”
Wolfe wanted to pursue the topic further, but he knew that Ray was already putting up walls. He didn’t want this dialogue to end, so he decided to switch to safer avenues.