Running Bear Whitehorse's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

For three nights, Running Bear Whitehorse knelt in the grove and heard nothing. The spirits had spoken to him since he was a boy. They named the sick, showed him which roots to grind, warned him before storms. Now the trees stood black at the roots. Sap ran gray from split bark. When he pressed his ear to the oldest trunk, only silence answered. The corruption was spreading, and the voices that once told him how to heal the land had gone quiet. He carried his bone staff to the grove at dawn. The carved leaves along its length had always warmed in his hand near living power. Today the bone stayed cold. He drove the tip into the poisoned soil and asked, out loud, what the grove needed. Nothing. He asked again, louder. His voice cracked. He had healed a hundred people with the spirits guiding his hands. Without them, he did not know where to begin. Then he heard scratching. Not a spirit. Something small and alive. A red dragon no bigger than a rabbit crouched among the roots. Its wings were folded tight. Bright eyes fixed on him. It clawed at the black soil, dug a shallow hole, then looked up at Running Bear and made a sharp chirp. It dug again in the same spot. Waiting. He had never seen such a creature. But it was not sick. It was the only living thing in the grove that seemed sure of anything. He knelt beside it and pushed his hands into the hole it had started. His fingers struck something hard and round. He dug faster. He pulled out a clay pot, sealed with wax, buried deep beneath the dying roots. The dragon chirped again and beat its small wings. Running Bear broke the wax seal. Inside lay dried seeds, a coil of woven cord, and a strip of bark covered in painted marks. He knew the marks. His grandmother had painted them on the three tall tepees where their people once held healing rites. These were the old planting signs. Someone had buried instructions here long before the spirits fell silent. A cure left in the ground for the day the voices stopped. He understood then. The spirits had not abandoned him. They had prepared for this. The answer was not a voice in his ear. It was work left in the dirt, waiting for hands that would dig. The dragon climbed onto his shoulder and gripped his collar. Running Bear held the bark strip to the light and read the first sign. It showed the seeds planted at the grove's poisoned heart, under a full moon, watered from a clean spring. He did not know where such a spring still ran. The gray sap had spread to every stream he knew. But he had a task now, and a strange small guide, and a reason to stand. He wrapped the pot in his coat and left the grove to find clean water.