It was the fourth day of searching and Ignatius still had found nothing. Not even a single sign of a Pyrisian Taurus herd. He tried waiting by sources of water since everything needed water to survive but that yielded no results. He was starting to wonder if the Drukh's presence was the cause.

    Watching the rising golden-orange sun, he chewed on a piece of Flamebark as he waited for the Drukh to rouse itself. He found over these past three days that the Drukh liked to act like a child, pouting and throwing fits whenever it didn't get its way. He knew he should have picked a Pegasus or Hippogriff. But he couldn't change now. The two of them were stuck together for the next few weeks whether either of them liked it or not.

    Once the Drukh had finished its morning stretching, he mounted and urged the Drukh into the air. The Drukh merely snorted though still complied with his command. He didn't want to be harsh to the Drukh, but if it was unwilling to cooperate with him, what else was he supposed to do? Talk to it nicely and hope it understood what he was saying.

    He sighed and ran a hand through his short hair, shaven close to his skull; a common hairstyle for those in warrior training.

    His eyes stayed trained on the ground below and stayed there for several hours as the Drukh roamed the empty skies.

    When noon hit, he rummaged through his bag for something to sate the hunger clawing at his stomach. He found a piece of dried Cervidus, an antler cloven hoofed creature known for their spiraling horns that rivaled Tauruses in length and grandre. Cervidus were also infamous for their long fangs that they used when competing for females. However, they have been theorized to use their fangs against predators. There was still no evidence of this despite the endless research by the Teriahians.

    The jerky was chewy with little flavor. It didn't taste as good as Taurus jerky yet it was still meat. A form of sustenance whether it tasted good or not.

    Ignatius was about to go for another piece when he heard thunder. He looked up to the sky and found a clear sky, save for the continuous cloud cover over the Impenetrable Mountains. However, those clouds didn't look like storm clouds. They looked like the usual. Humongous walls of blinding white, like an extra layer of snow casing the peaks of the Impenetrable Mountains. So that begged the question of where the thunder was coming from.

    Ignatius twisted in the saddle, looking in every possible direction, finding no source of the approaching booming.

    As the thunder grew closer to him, the Drukh became more skittish. It's head swiveling to and fro as its nostrils flared rapidly.

    He placed a gentle hand on the Drukh's neck. "It's okay," he whispered to it, hoping it would settle the creature's nerves. To no avail did it work. The Drukh grew more and more restless the closer they got to the border of the Chaparral.

    Ignatius's gaze snatched on the strip of black that stained the land nearly thirty miles away. The sight and eeriness made him shudder as he beheld the dead forest. Shadow Forest. True to its name, the forest was bathed in an everlasting darkness thanks to the mass of black clouds that hung low over the forest. Forever bathed in a perpetual shadow. Nothing grew there, lived there, or ever went into the dead forest. The forest had been like that for over a hundred years. It was said that the forest was put to torch by the Hunters after chasing some Dragkablod into the woods. At the time, the woods were so thick and teeming with all sorts of monstrous beasts, that the Hunters had no choice but to lure out the monsters and Dragkablod via the fire. Many monsters and creatures fled from the burning forest, yet the Dragkablod never exited the forest. After the forest burned down into ashes and the charred skeletal remains of the oldest trees were left standing, the Dragkablod were still never found. From then on, the forest remained as black as the day it burned, including the river that flowed through. To this day, Pyrisa's only natural river, was still stained black with ash. The soil remained of soot and bones ever after a century had passed. The forest never regrew and the land was deemed a dead zone. A land of death and unfortune.

    Ignatius kept looking at the forest. From this height he could see the river, a flowing black line that nearly matched the ground around it.

    There were many stories about the forest being haunted by the deceased spirits of the creatures and monsters trapped in the blaze. Some neighboring villages said that the cries of the Dragkablod could still be heard as they burned alive.

    Ignatius jumped as a draconic roar reached his ears. The stories were true it seemed, if he could hear that from where he was at.

    Shadow Forest was giving him the creeps. The Drukh too by the way it was acting. Grasping the reins, he pulled gently, directing them away from the forest. The Drukh refused. He pulled again, harder this time. The Drukh didn't budge.

    "What is wrong with you?" He asked, continuing to pull on the reins.

Why would it want to stay around here when the presence of the approaching forest clearly upset it? He pondered to himself.

    The Drukh refused his command and kept heading for Shadow Forest.

    "No, we are not going there." Ignatius gritted out as he pulled the reins with all his might, wrenching the Drukh's head back. The Drukh snorted and pulled its head back down, nearly pulling Ignatius from his seat; if not for the stirrups he would have come out of his saddle.

    Trying once more and ending the same way, he was about to give up when his eyes fell upon the whip.

    He swallowed, hating the ball of guilt forming in his throat as his trembling hand reached for the long, coiled whip. He hated to do this, but the Drukh was refusing his command and he needed the Drukh to listen, not disobey.

    He sighed as his hand closed around the leather handle of the whip.

    "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." He whispered to the Drukh. He could have sworn the Drukh's golden eyes looked at him for a second before returning to ahead.

    Lifting the whip, he snapped it through the air, to the right of the Drukh's head. The Drukh hissed and veered to the left.

    He felt terrible for doing this but the Drukh needed to listen. So he kept using the whip to correct the Drukh's flight away from Shadow Forest.

    Not even a minute later, thunder shook the air all around them followed by an earthshaking roar.

    That was no spirit, he realized as his eyes became trained on the darkness hovering over Shadow Forest. This was a real Dragon. A Dragon that sounded pissed off as Neth.

    The Drukh swung beneath him toward the sound and went straight back to Shadow Forest.

    "No!" He yelled. "We are not going back there!" He pulled the reins in warning before lifting the whip and snapping it at the Drukh. The Drukh completely ignored the whip. He'd hate to hit the Drukh but if that's what it took to get it to stop chasing after the Dragon, well, then it had to be done. Raising the whip once more he started to swing it down when the whip slipped straight through his hand. The wind ripped at his face and body. The Drukh was diving down, straight down to Shadow Forest.

    With no whip to stop the unruly beast, all he could do was hang on for dear life and hope—

    Ignatius cried out in fear as a large red Dragon shot out from the Shadow Forest. The red beast was going so fast and was so large that the turbulence knocked the Drukh out of its dive and into freefall.

    He clung to the saddle as the Drukh tried to wrest itself from the tearing winds. Its feathered wings failing to catch enough wind.

    Oh, Fya, this was going to be how he died. Ignacio was so going to kill him again if he found out this was how he died. He thought to himself.

    He didn't know how long they fell. It seemed like hours while just a handful of minutes at the same time. But by some miracle the Drukh managed to right itself and rose back up into the air only to be hit by more turbulence that was a lesser and manageable degree.

    Ignatius watched as three Wyrukhs streaked past, each with a rider. He had a gut feeling of who they were but he wasn't entirely certain.

    Ignatius hissed softly as a sharp stabbing pain appeared in the back of his skull, like an alarm going off.

    "Hey!" a voice yelled.

    Ignatius whipped to see a Pyrisian man with blonde hair, a golden eye—the other was covered by an eyepatch—and sported a thin beard, crouching right behind. How he got behind him without him noticing was beyond him. The man had dark brown skin, accenting his hair and eye. His visible skin was a patchwork of scars all over his arms with a few that peaked above the collar of his shirt. Ignatius wagered, this man had even more scars than him, confirming his hunch.

    "You need to get out of here." The man commanded. "Head back north by Glacier Lake. There should be some Tauruses there if that's what you're looking for. You're in the Tribulations, right? Oh, I remember my Tribulations, almost feels like yesterday. Ah, the smell of fresh blood and screaming people. Good times. Well, good luck," the man reminisced before clapping him on the shoulder, the contact left a stinging sensation behind, "and maybe I'll see you after the Tribulations, eh."

    Ignatus just stared as the man jumped off the Drukh and rearose on his own Wyrukh and gave chase to the small forms of the dragon and his cohorts.

    Shaking himself from his stupor of meeting a real life Hunter, he turned over the advice the Hunter just gave him. Wasn't that prohibited? He didn't want to use the information. But then again, he was trying to get done before the seal wore off again.

    There was too much going on at the same time. He just wanted it to end so he could think. But it couldn't, he couldn't. He had to get this done or else he had bigger problems than the seal, much bigger problems.

    Turning his attention to Glacier Lake, he urged the Drukh for the lake. The Drukh ignored his command and headed lower to the ground, flying low over the endless grass sea of the Chaparral.

    "What are you—," he stopped as the Drukh roared and a large creature rose up from the grass and lumbered off out of their path.

    A Taurus. He had never laid eyes on a Taurus before. A true Pyrisian Taurus. They were so much more magnificent than the stories let on. This one was a deep scarlet hue with horns as long as three feet. Another set of horns curled off the straight ones, right by the Taurus's head. That indicated the Taurus was female and thus unable to kill.

Ignatius sank lower in his seat. Disappointment stinging hard and deep. He knew Tauruses traveled in herds and so far all the ones he saw were female with more still rising up from the grass. This was a Taurus herd and where there was a herd there was a bull and other young males. As long as the males were over a year old, they were slayable.

Ignatius scanned the grasses, looking among the straight long horns for the second set that pointed forward without curls. He kept seeing females and calves. Where was the bull and the other young males? There had to be at least one main bull else none of these calves would be herd.

He urged the Drukh onward, looking at the rising bovines for a male. So far, there were none.

How large was this herd, he wondered as the Tauruses never seemed to stop emerging from the Human tall grass. He needed to find a Taurus quickly. After wasting an hour on the trip to Shadow Forest, he needed to find a Taurus before nightfall and the Taurus herd moved on.

The Drukh let out another roar, more high pitched than the Dragon's deep bellow he noticed. More Tauruses arose from the grass like slumbering giants.

He wondered how he was going to kill one of these behemoths. It wasn't like killing the baby monsters and creatures Ignacio had them doing. These were the large scale versions and much more dangerous. Killing one would take strategy and pati—or that could work.

The Drukh flapped its wings, carrying the still bellowing Taurus male away from the herd. Smart, a Taurus without its herd became considerably weaker but still deadly

He would never understand this creature. It intelligence would never cease to amaze and vex him.

The Drukh flew until a clearing formed up ahead. The hybrid creature set down in the clearing, its talons still holding the Taurus. He was confused by the Drukh's actions. Why would it do this for him even after he raised the whip against it.

The Drukh rumbled beneath him and he realized the creature was staring right at him with its pale gold eyes as if saying "Get the fuck off and kill this thing, dumbass, why do you think I'm holding it."

Ignatius dismounted, sword in one hand and shield in the other. Without warning, the Drukh released the Taurus.

Ignatius jumped to the side at the Taurus made right for him and for the woods only to be stopped by the Drukh. Snarling, the Drukh stood in its path, teeth bared.

Why would the Drukh stop the Taurus? Nothing was making sense. Did the Drukh want him to kill it? Was the Drukh...helping him?

He couldn't ponder anymore on the thought as the Taurus came back towards him and tried once more to escape. The Drukh stopped it once more, keeping it corralled in the clearing with him.

Ignatius tightening his grip on his sword as he approached the deep red Taurus. Its dark brown eyes were going wild as its nostrils flared. It was trapped. A trapped animal was at its most dangerous. Ignatius approached slowly, ready to move at the moment's notice. All it took was one wrong move and he would find himself skewed on one of those many forward facing prongs. And his shield wouldn't be able to stop it. He wished he had his armor, even though it would do little. It was still better than the clothes on his back.

With nowhere else to go, the Taurus stared right at him. Its massive hooves pawed at the ground, throwing up clouds of dust.

A soft thud to his left had him looking at where the Drukh now sat, watching contently. It was probably hoping he died so it could be free. But then why didn't leave already? It was basically free. Unless it wanted the spoils from their fight. His head was starting to hurt. He didn't want to think about this anymore. He needed to focus on the fight.

Okay, what were the weaknesses of Tauruses? From what he could recall, they had good vision all around except in front. They usually had to turn their heads to look at something directly. He could use that to his advantage. But those horns were another story. The bull's horns were easily eight feet across from tip to tip, so he had to give the entire animal over a  four foot wide berth if he wanted to avoid being impaled or sliced open. If the Taurus was this hard, he didn't want to imagine how hard the other four were going to be, especially the last one since he wouldn't have the Drukh.

Taking in a deep breath, he cleared those worries from his head and returned to the fight. The ground rumbled below him as the Taurus charged, he jumped to the side but still had to duck those horns. He rose back to his full height as the Taurus circled back around, snorting fire from its nostrils.

Shit, he forgot about that part.

More fire snorted from the Taurus's nose as its hooves became glowing orbs of flames.

He was so fucked.

The Taurus came right back around, faster this time, its eyes looking like living flames. He repeated his dodge, this time slicing out. He missed but not on the third charge.

The Taurus screamed as his sword dug into the flesh of its upper back thigh. That would help slow it down.

The bull let out a low, long bellow and Ignatius froze as the beast became engulfed in angry red flames. Now he could see why the early Pyrisians gave up trying to domesticate Tauruses. It was like looking anger and rage incarnate in the face.

He squeezed his sword tighter.

"Come on you, fucker, is that the best you can do." He taunted.

The bull roared and came running straight at him. Ignatius was ready this time.

Reflecting back on that one time he saw the Tribulations with Ignacio, he recalled one participant defeating a rampaging Taurus bull engulfed in flames. He had spent weeks practicing that move, determined to be able to perform it the exact way the participant did. It has been awhile since he had done that, but it was still muscle memory. He was ready.

The bull charged right for him, head bowed low so its main forward horns and the rest of the prongs could skewer him, or so it thought.

At the last second, Ignatius ducked under those horns, spun on his heel, and sliced through bone and muscle. An agonized cry and bone rattling thump followed.

Standing up Ignatius looked to where the bull lay in a pool of growing blood. His stomach flipped at the sight. He shut out the thought forming and walked over to where the Taurus lay, trying to rise and failing to do so without its severed leg. A few feet away was the severed lower front leg of the bull, still bleeding and twitching.

Raising his sword, he sunk the blade deep into the Taurus's heart. The bull gave one cry as its death throes took over.

Ignatius had to turn away at the anguished sounds the beast made.

The bull finally went quiet after a few minutes had passed.

Ignatius collected his blade and set to sawing off the horn to find the Drukh still watching him.

"You can eat it after I'm done with it." He found himself saying to the beast. The Drukh just set its head on its paws and watched patiently as he worked in the ascending evening.

He spent Fya knows how many hours sawing and skinning the Taurus. But he was finally done. He could trade these in Lahava, especially for some more stitches and salve for the lovely wound he got along his ribs. He hadn't even known he was bleeding until the Drukh started licking at the blood. So he patched that up and was now rolling out his bedroll.

Exhaustion weighed on him the moment he allowed himself to lay down.

He watched as the Drukh tore into the Taurus with vigor.

He hoped it wouldn't eat the legs he set aside for trading. That was the good thing about Pyrisian Taurus meat, it stayed fresh for at least a day, maybe two; it could be refreshed by fire as long as no more than three days had passed. Something to do with the meat still lingering with Fire Magic, keeping out any food illnesses.

That was good as long as nothing else ate it. At least he would still have the horns and hide if that were to happen.

Ignatius continued to watch the Drukh gorge itself until sleep weighed on his eyelids and sleep found him.