In all the land, now only Mikhail knew the secret of the ashrooms. Years ago, he and his older brother had stumbled across the little plant quite by accident while were lost and hungry in the thick forest. The red-speckled, smoky mushrooms had been more than delicious; they had cleared away their feelings, dulled their fears and focused their minds. Now with Vitaliy gone, Mikhail relied more and more upon the ashrooms to numb his emotions whenever he felt discouragement or despair.
This little habit didn't make Mikhail a wicked person. On the contrary, the remarkable ashroom spared him much pain over the next ten winters, from his mother's illness and death to his first failure in the famed tests of knighthood. “I just want to protect others like my father and Vitaliy did...to be faithful and true in all that I do!” he had complained bitterly to the Village Elder. “And this selfless determination is why you will surely pass the tests next year,” his adoptive father had replied. And Mikhail had.
Another three winters passed from that special morning when Mikhail first polished his own armor and took up his father's sword. His fame spread beyond the northern woods and across the broad steppes as he tirelessly strode far and wide, selflessly serving others, providing gentle comfort, courageously protecting the weak...and doing all the good deeds that good men do.
But slaying dragons was Mikhail's specialty. The noble knight studied and trained from sunrise to long after sunset, month after month, honing his skills and braving danger until he became one of the best dragon hunters this faraway land had ever known. And whenever despair or doubt or pain threatened his single-minded focus, he quickly retrieved the small wooden box he always kept filled with carefully dried and preserved ashrooms.
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