Zoran Chronicles Volume 1 A Dragon in Our Town by Vic Broquard

out there, he wanted a double watch.
                 While the others slept, he and Zdenka sat around the small cooing fire,
periodically stoking it. They killed the time by chatting a bit about their lives, though he
found it difficult to relate many things that he wished he could share with her,
concentrating on some of the funnier episodes that he and his two buddies had gotten
into before he had fled. At last, they roused Jarka and Bernard and turned in
themselves. Zoran fell asleep at once.
                 Around one in the morning, his inner sense sounded an alarm in his head, almost
as if someone were screaming him awake. He sat up; it was screaming! Jarka had
thrown more logs on the fire and cast a Light spell, illuminating the whole small glen.
Bernard dashed around the campsite looking for the banshee, while holding his ears.
                 The others got up rapidly as well. Then, Zoran saw her; the banshee was sliding
down the slope to their camp. Ghost-like, wearing a gauze of a nightgown, hands more
like claws, and fangs, long pearly white fangs, she seemed to float towards them,
shrieking her piercing, paralyzing call. With great effort, Zoran forced his nearly
immobile muscles to draw his swords. Zdenka’s arrow flew true to its mark, piercing the
banshee right between her eyes. To everyone’s utter amazement, the arrow went on
through the banshee as if she were indeed a ghost!
                 Jarka, seeing that everyone was moving in slow motion as a result of the
banshee’s call, acted. She cast a Scream spell on herself, then a Magnify spell. Now she
began singing and yelling, “La di da di do di da!” Her greatly amplified voice drowned
out that of the banshee. Zoran felt his strength returning and rushed the banshee, slicing
her twice with his short sword pair. Both blades cut through thin air. She in turn tried to
grab him with her talon claws. His intuitive combat training kicked in, and he dove to
the ground on her right, hit, and rolled out of her reach.
                 At that moment, Bernard and Karel both shot Lightning Bolts at the creature; it
staggered and shrieked in great pain. Recognizing this was working, Renata, Emil, and
Zdenka shot their Lightning Bolts nearly simultaneously. The banshee’s ethereal form
shook violently in many directions and slumped to the ground, lifeless. A moment later,
a giant puff of smoke rose from where its body had lain. Ashes were all that remained of
the banshee.
                 Jarka cancelled her spells. “Well done all of you! Wow. So that was a banshee.
Great going gang.”
                 “Fabulous idea, Jarka, you more or less canceled her paralyzation cry,” Zoran
praised them. His inner sense was now totally quiet. “I think she was what I was sensing
when we stopped here, so we are probably safe, but let’s continue the guard duty.”
However, none could relax, for they were way too keyed up over the battle.
                 As they chatted, Zoran realized his mistake. “Sorry gang, I reacted with my
swords, which I always used to do, instead of using magic. You all were great, saving my
butt.”
                 “Well I did too,” Zdenka added. “Until now I never met something my arrows
couldn’t handle. I ought to have remembered and shot my spells.”
                 “Hey, don’t knock yourselves,” Bernard interrupted, though becoming a bit bored
once more as the excitement died down. “You reacted the way that you were trained. It
takes time to undo training patterns in dogs. I suppose it is the same with us.”
                 An hour after first light and breakfast handled, the group began rolling on down
the mountain road once more. In the distance, the dark green color of the Dark Forest
loomed. They would reach it by noon. Here, Zoran expected to confront the bandits, who
would use the cover of the dense woods to