Noah ended up getting out of the river a few kilometers away from the town. He passed out soon after he watched his father's death which prevented him from getting out of the river closer to the town. The burning town was still visible from the horizon, and the plume of smoke that it produced covered a considerable portion of the sky. Noah got a few steps away from the river before falling unconscious and collapsing into some bushes.
Only a few townspeople had escaped from Nightmare's wrath. Those who did manage to escape fled to nearby towns, villages, and cities. They spread the story of the disaster that had befallen Northspear, but the reason why Nightmare had come to their town was different in each story. Some got close, but none had the exact reason why he burned their town to the ground. Only one person had the knowledge on exactly why Nightmare had come that day.
* * *
Noah woke up abruptly and in a cold sweat on the evening of that day. He just witnessed his father's last moments in his dreams, and he took a few deep breaths to calm himself down. He stood up, stretched, and began picking out pieces of the bushes that had attached to him. He looked over to the remnants of the town, and most of the fire had died out but there were still some fires still going. Noah sighed when seeing this, thinking, 'Those fires will be raging for a long while. There's no one to put them out. No one can stay there and survive what happened, especially when Nightmare is dedicated to the eradication of the town.' He shivered when thinking about that.
Noah usually would run over to the burning town to see if there was anyone trapped that he could help, but this time he was just watching the town burn with no emotion on his face. He just felt dead as if something had removed his emotions. However, that deadness he felt soon faded and was replaced by a burning, indescribable rage and hatred. He hated that Nightmare had taken his town away from him, took away his future, took away his friends, and took away his parents. But, he hated himself most of all, he hated the fact that he couldn't do anything to save his parents, he hated that his father had to save him. 'I had an opportunity to prevent all of this.' That thought suddenly appeared in his head. 'I had an opportunity to prevent this, but I didn't take it. I chickened out, I ran away, I'm a coward.' He clenched his fists and closed his eyes as he thought this before slapping himself upside his head. 'I'm going to set things right, I'm not going to let them die in vain, I'm going to kill Nightmare, and I'm going to get my revenge.' He reached over his shoulder and grabbed his spear, and pulled it off his back. He inspected it for damage while thanking the sash that tightly held the spear, preventing it from falling off while he was being dragged through the river. There were some scratches on the spear and a small dent on the blade of the spear, but no major damage that would make it unusable. He put his spear back onto his back, and he took a few steps towards the Spearhead before suddenly stopping.
Noah suddenly remembered the argument he had with William which led to William running off to Spearhead without any plan. He realized that he was about to go down the same path that William did, and he remembered what happened to William. Noah took a deep breath and sat down, beginning to plan out how he was going to get his revenge. 'I suppose I'm somewhat lucky as I now know that Nightmare is a Tyrant dragon.' He thought, grabbing his soaked bag and looking through it for his book on dragon anatomy. He found and pulled out the book, water was dripping off the book, its pages were soggy and some were sticking together. Noah did manage to get to the small section on tyrant dragons, and he began to read the legends on them. Noah sighed as what he was reading was things he already knew, and he closed the book. The legends only told that Tyrant dragons could breathe fire, and create minions, though it didn't say how they could do it, but Noah now knew how they could create minions. 'I need to be prepared in case there are more abilities that Nightmare has.' He thought while putting away the book. 'The distance from here to Spearhead along with the time it would take to find his lair, would require me to at least get some food, especially if I wanna kill Nightmare.' He began thinking about where he was going to get food. 'There is a town nearby where I could buy food, but do I have enough money for that? I could go hunting, but wouldn't the smoke alert Nightmare to my position? With the town being burned to the ground, some bandits are bound to appear to try and loot what's left, so I could steal food from them. Yeah, I'll do that. They're going to show up in an attempt to steal from the deceased, or steal from the refugees anyways, so what's wrong with stealing from them?' Noah decided with a malicious smile, and nodding his head. 'Now onto how I'm going to kill Nightmare. Owen said something about a legendary spear that could pierce dragon scales that resides in Spearhead, so that will be my weapon of choice if it exists. I'm going to have to spend the time on Spearhead to look and try to find it, so there is quite a lot of danger with it, but that doesn't matter. If it doesn't exist, I'm going to have to use this spear and have to get it in Nightmare's eye in order to pierce his brain. But back on the topic of finding the legendary spear, I assume that with Nightmare's greed and intelligence, that if it does exist, he's probably found it and hoarding it in his lair. So let's start by finding where Nightmare's lair is.' Noah nodded as he finished figuring out his plan, and he got up from sitting. He looked around and began to walk away to a place where he could hide and wait for some bandits to appear.
* * *
Noah had to wait until sundown in order for some bandits to appear. His stomach had already started growling as if he hadn't eaten in days. He had hid in a cluster of bushes nearby to the southwest of what was left of the town. He watched as a group of three bandits approached the ruins, and Noah's heart skipped a beat as he thought about the food he would soon get. 'When did I ever get this hungry?' Noah thought as he watched the bandits begin to search the ruins. 'I think I only ever got this hungry in the month of hell when I had to go three days without food.' The month of hell was something all apprentice trainees go through, and it was a month of hellish training. 'But it hasn't been nearly as long as that, so why am I so hungry?' His thoughts continued. 'I guess I expended quite a lot of energy between evacuating the town and surviving that trip down the river.' As Noah was going through his memories, there were a few tears that had begun rolling down his face. He carefully wiped the tears off his face and focused on what the bandits were. The bandits were rummaging through the rubble, and it appeared that they had found something they liked. He watched as the bandits looked at each other and spoke a few words that Noah couldn't hear. The bandits began to walk out of the ruins and back towards the woods. Noah waited until the bandits were a fair distance away from him in order to come out of the bushes and start following the two bandits.
It took a few minutes for the bandits and Noah to arrive at the bandit camp. The camp was surprisingly close to the edge of the forest, but it was still quite far away from any known paths. Noah was hiding in a bush waiting for night in order to break into the camp. It was sundown and he had already observed the camp to find where the bandits kept the food. He had also observed how many people the bandits had stationed to guard the camp. The bushes he was hiding in was the closest place he could safely hide while still being close to the place where they kept food. Noah watched as the bandit's guards lazily kept watch and occasionally walked around, and as Noah was watching this, he kept his breath steady and calm while preparing himself for what he was about to do.