Once when Valkyries and wizards still roamed the land and knights and sorcerers still battled vampires and the elemental forces were still kept at bay, there was a boy named Welcam. Since people back then l was the only person who even could hold a bow in his village since all the men were off fighting the wizard that was waging war against them. I guess I should explain what wizards and Valkyries are: they are sorcerers who owe no allegiance to no one and Valkyries are woman knights (knights then could be girls and boys were called by their suit color). No one but the 2nd in command of the knights who owe no allegiance to any one but in battle they followed the gold knight (first in command) and the silver knight followed the gold knight and the bronze knight follows the silver and the gold knight (third in command) but other than that they owed no allegiance to any one.

CHAPTER 1

Will (that’s what everyone called him) and his friend Basil were out hunting (I know I said everyone in his village couldn’t hold a bow). She (Basil is a girl) lives in a cave. After her parents died, she moved out.

She and Will were 17 and they could use a bow the best in the entire mountain range their village was in. He met her when he was out walking and he got close to her cave and got caught in one of her snares that she caught rabbits in. They were both pretty good at the bow, but he was good at tracking animals and she was good at using snares and traps.

This time out hunting in the woods, they were tracking a huge buck and when split equally, it would keep his family and her fed for months each. It was proving very difficult to track. It seemed to know that every snare that Basil had placed and was being very hard to track, so instead of stepping in snow, it would jump from patch of dirt to patch of dirt. When it stopped to drink water, it jumped over the stream first. Then, swallowed a lot and then proceeded to jump in the stream and the stream whisked it down to the bottom, making it faster than if it were running. They had seen it jump in the water and knew where the water ended since they were out there regularly, and used a shortcut to get there. They got to the bottom, it came down with a big splash, and they both loosed arrows at it. Sadly, the splash had made their arrows go off course and the deer escaped.

In its place was a giant eagle. It was as long as your arm span without it’s wings out. They both knew immediately what it was because there were tons of legends about mystical creatures. This was a giant eagle, and they were supposed to be the greatest hunters and very friendly to people. It was eating the last of the buck. She (the hunter was always a girl and the boy was always the protector), seeing Basil and my crushed expressions, motioned for them to get on her back. They climbed on her back and she took off. The pure force of her taking off almost knocked Will off. As it is, it would have knocked Basil off if she had not grabbed the end of the tail at the last second. The tail gently flipped her back up. After that, it was a pretty cool flight. You could see everything, and there was no danger of giant birds coming, since this was the biggest bird in the world. In a few minutes (about three miles away– that’s how fast it went), Will and Basil were in its nest. It flew them through its nest, which was made of stone, so it was sectioned off, and had a nesting area made of sticks, branches, and leaves, a hatching area where all the hatchlings were, a place where they kept all the eggs, and food storage and a dining hall. They are very sophisticated creatures.

But it was the food supply that was most important for Will and Basil. She took them down, grabbed enough meat to last them a year, and still had room to spare in her claws, and started flying back toward the village. As everyone knows, in the myths, giant eagles are a bit prideful, so it flew over Will’s village to enjoy the looks it was given when it was seen. It dropped Basil off in her cave, and me at my house, with equal shares of the meat (just because they are giant eagles doesn’t mean they can’t do math). After Will explained how he got the meat to his mom because all the men, as I already said, are fighting a wizard who is terrorizing the town, which is why they couldn’t go out to trade with other towns for food.