“What will you do now?” Rinbok asked, addressing Pryllan.
“We search for the second Zweigelan,” Pryllan answered. “He is the key to finding the third and they are the key to finding the wizard.”
“Speaking of wizards,” Steve said as he held up a hand, “we really need to let Kri’Entu and Shardwyn know there’s another wizard somewhere in Lentari.”
Rinbok forcefully smacked his tail onto the ground, causing everyone to jump with surprise. Gold coins went flying in all directions.
“You will refrain from telling the humans.”
“What for? We need their help?”
“I don’t need their help.”
“And if they can help locate this wizard?” Steve countered.
“Irrelevant. The humans must not know.”
Sarah’s eyes opened wide as she suddenly understood the nature of Rinbok’s objections. “You’re ashamed, aren’t you?”
The Dragon Lord growled with frustration, but didn’t refute it.
“Tell you what. We will tell Kri’Entu and Shardwyn, but it’ll go no further. This was something that you said many years ago. We’ll let bygones be bygones.”
Rinbok Intherer lowered his enormous head back down and leaned forward, bringing himself nose-to-nose with Sarah.
“Agreed. I’m trusting everyone here, especially you two,” and he looked straight at Steve and Sarah, “to keep what you have heard here private. This is a wyverian problem and it will remain as such. Is that understood?”
“Aye, my Lord,” Pryllan agreed as she bowed her head.
“It is,” Syrreth and Ferreth said simultaneously. They both bowed their heads a moment later.
“Young Pravara,” Rinbok suddenly called as he turned to face Pryllan. “I must have your consent, too.”
A nervous exclamation of surprise sounded from Pryllan’s back as Pravara jerked to attention.
“Do you agree, young one?”
“I do.”
Pravara’s reply had been so faint that Pryllan had barely heard it. Had the Dragon Lord heard the dragonlet’s response?
“Excellent. I would encourage the five of you to get going. There is much to be done and little time to do it.”
“I don’t suppose there’s an easy way out of here, is there?” Steve asked after he picked up Pryllan’s unspoken thought.
“Can you not depart the same way you arrived?” Rinbok asked after casting another disparaging look at the mess his treasure horde had become.
Pryllan nodded. She bent her long neck around to verify Pravara was still clinging to her back. She quickly rose to her feet.
“We will manage, my Lord.”
Rinbok comically cocked his head to the left, as though he had heard a faint noise and didn’t know the nature of it. “You came through the caverns, did you not?”
Pryllan nodded. “Aye. We entered the caverns through the Four Mounds.”
“The Four Mounds? No one has used that entrance for hundreds of years. The aerial path has become much too narrow so no one bothers to use it. Use the caverns instead.”
“Are you saying there’s another way out?” Sarah asked.
Rinbok Intherer nodded. “Aye. Follow the River of Fire as it flows east. It’ll lead to a small subterranean lake. You’ll find a tributary flowing north. That will lead you out.”
Steve turned to look at Pryllan. “Why would Kahvel tell you to use that path through the trees?”
“He never directly told me how to find this place,” Pryllan corrected. “I picked up his thoughts about it.”
“Was this after your dragonlet hatched?” Rinbok asked.
Pryllan nodded. “Aye, almost directly after.”
“I had discussed maintenance options with him regarding that path and what could be done to restore it to practical usefulness.”
“We made it through,” Sarah reminded him, “so it can’t be that far gone.”
“Noted. Now go. I will muster what unaffected dragons are left to check on those that have become stricken.”
“Don’t forget about Sciathan,” Steve added, drawing Rinbok’s attention. “He was forgotten about for weeks and had practically starved to death. Pryllan hunted for him, so he should be fine for the foreseeable future but he’s going to run out of food sooner or later. I don’t want to see him suffer.”
Rinbok nodded. “Again, it’s noted. I thank you for your concern. Return with news when there is news to impart.”
Steve pointed at Sarah. “That’ll be her. She can zip back here at a moment’s notice if she needs to. I take it she has your permission to teleport in without notice?”
“She does. If I’m not here then someone will be.”
Sarah nodded gratefully. “Then I’ll keep you posted.”
Rinbok followed them all the way Topside. Almost as soon as they emerged, blinking, in the bright sunlight, Rinbok was gone, having disappeared into the forest. Pryllan opened her right claw and lowered it to the ground so that Steve and Sarah could climb in.
“How long will it take you to get to R’Tal?” Steve asked, once they were airborne.
Pryllan turned her head to note the position of the sun. She saw that there was only an hour of sunlight left, at best.
“It would be dark before we reached there. Pravara is tired. We all are. I will return to the nest so that we may be refreshed. We will leave tomorrow at first light. Syrreth, Ferreth, our cave is large enough for everyone. You are welcome to stay with us.”
EXCUSE ME? WHAT WAS THAT?
Kahvel! I, er, invited Syrreth and Ferreth to share our cave. For tonight only. Is that acceptable?
IT MOST CERTAINLY IS NOT. YOU WANT TO SHARE OUR CAVE WITH A ZWEIGELAN? I THINK NOT.
Anger flared. Pryllan began growling.
If this were any other wyverian you would not hesitate to render assistance. Syrreth and Ferreth are no different. Prove to Pravara that you openly accept all wyverians.
Silence.
Kahvel? Do I have your permission?
Silence.
Well?
AS YOU WISH.
Pryllan took a deep breath and turned to her right to see what the Zweigelan’s reaction would be. Not surprisingly, the two heads were whispering amongst themselves. Syrreth was apparently open to the invitation but Ferreth was hesitant, as he didn’t trust Kahvel.
“We will accept your most gracious offer,” Syrreth informed her. He glared at his twin as if daring him to disagree. Ferreth relented and gave a nod of appreciation.
“In that case, we’ll meet you at your nest at sunrise tomorrow,” Steve told her. Sarah took his hand and they both vanished.
Early the following morning the two dragons were airborne once more and were headed in a direct route straight to the human castle in R’Tal. When Kahvel had learned that he would be responsible for watching Pravara during her absence, he tried to demur, claiming he could be called away again at a moment’s notice. One look from Pryllan quelled his objections. Sooner or later, Pryllan angrily thought to herself, she would have to confront her mate and inquire about his absences. Did it have something to do with what Pravara had told her earlier? Was that the reason why Kahvel had been irritable as of late? While sometimes moody, her mate had never been on edge for this long.
“This would be a whole lot easier if I could just transport all of us straight there,” Sarah said in a low voice.
Pryllan’s keen aural abilities easily heard the whispered conversation between the two humans.
Steve smiled and nodded. “The two of them are just too big. You’d drain all your jhorun and then would use up all of our mimets to replenish it.”
“You have plenty of the power crystals. I wouldn’t have any problem using up a few. Besides, your jhorun is strong. You can just charge a few more up, am I right? I’m just tired of sitting.”
“Now you know how the rest of us feel,” her husband told her, with a grin.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
<
br /> “You can get to wherever you want to go in the blink of an eye. The rest of us have to use the normal method of transportation, whether walking, riding, flying, etc.”
“How is that my problem?”
Steve sighed and rested his back against one of Pryllan’s curved talons. Sarah smiled at her husband then instantly scowled as his eyelids started to droop.
“If you fall asleep on me I’ll personally push you out of Pryllan’s hand.”
Steve sat up straight and eyed his wife.
“You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
Steve glanced down at the passing forest far below them. Detecting movement in his peripheral vision, Steve looked over on his left. A small gray dot had appeared out of the nearest cloud and was rapidly approaching.
“Hey, look! Another dragon!”
Caught daydreaming, Pryllan quickly glanced to her right and when she didn’t see anything, checked the area to her left. There, coming up on her left flank, was a gray dragon. She only knew of a handful of dragons with the unusual hue and the one approaching her was one of them. Anghorus, a wyverian long known for his languid lifestyle of sleeping, eating, and sleeping some more, had decided to leave his cave. It was something Pryllan knew he didn’t like to do as Anghorus detested physical activity. What was he doing here? Something didn’t feel right.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a gray dragon before,” Steve observed.
“That’s Anghorus,” Pryllan told the group. “He is a friend. He only ventures out of his cave to hunt. He was also one of the earliest numbers to fall victim to this curse.”
“Are you sure?” Sarah squinted her eyes as she watched the gray dragon draw closer. “Looks like he’s flying just fine to me.”
“I am aware. However, do you see how his right front claw is white? Only Anghorus has that mark, and he hasn’t been able to fly for over several weeks.”
“So how’s he flying now?” Steve wondered aloud. “If he found a way to rid himself of the curse don’t you think we ought to ask him about it?”
Pryllan activated her wyverian senses, automatically sharing them with Steve. She zeroed in on Anghorus’ madly flapping form and hissed with alarm. Anghorus’ normally silver eyes were jet black. Steve felt Pryllan’s jolt of alarm and tensed.
Pryllan glanced worriedly at the two humans clutched tightly in her claws. “Steve, Sarah, be ready to teleport to a safe place if you need to.”
“You need to get up on her back,” Sarah said to Steve. “She doesn’t have any fire. You do. You can be of more help up there than down here.”
“And leave you by yourself down here?” Steve shook his head. “Nuh-uh. Don’t think so.”
Steve vanished from Sarah’s side and reappeared moments later at the base of Pryllan’s long neck.
Steve scowled. “I hate it when she does that.”
“Syrreth! Ferreth!”
The Zweigelan’s twin heads looked over at Pryllan.
“There’s a dragon approaching. I don’t trust this. Be on your guard.”
Both heads turned to look behind them. Sure enough, the gray dragon was getting closer. It was only a couple hundred feet away now. It opened its jaws and…
A blast of fire streaked out of Anghorus’ mouth and flew straight at them. Pryllan tucked her wings tight against her body and dropped like a rock. The jet of fire wasn’t even close to hitting her. However, it had come dangerously close to hitting Syrreth and Ferreth, who had narrowly managed to dive out of the way at the last moment.
“Did it look as though he was trying to hit Syrreth and Ferreth?” Steve asked, suspicion evident in his voice.
Pryllan nodded. “It did.”
“Why would he want to… look out! Here comes another shot!”
The second blast Anghorus let loose streaked towards the Zweigelan just as it pulled itself out of its nosedive to avoid the first blast.
“Watch out!” Sarah called from beneath Pryllan’s body.
Ferreth twisted his neck around and spied the fireball streaking straight towards them. Syrreth jerked the left wing up while Ferreth snapped the right wing down, causing the Zweigelan to do a barrel roll in midair. Anghorus’ blast whizzed by them, missing Syrreth’s head by a mere six inches.
“What’s he even doing with fire, anyway?” Steve angrily exclaimed. “I thought that was the first thing to go?”
“Will you worry about that later, please?” Sarah snapped. She was hugging one of Pryllan’s talons in an effort to not be tossed around the insides of their makeshift cage like a ping pong ball. She was tempted to teleport out of there but in doing so she’d be cut off from the rest of the group. Besides, she wasn’t sure if she could teleport back on to a moving target like Pryllan’s open claw would be.
“Anghorus is targeting Syrreth and Ferreth,” Pryllan reported. “We need to render aid immediately! However, I do not have any flames!”
Steve ignited his right hand. “I do. Let’s see if we can get his attention. Yo! Anghorus! Over here!!”
Steve generated a large chaser and flung it at the pursuing gray dragon. His chaser sped towards Anghorus and slammed into his left leg. Chagrined, Steve watched as it bounced harmlessly off the dragon’s leg. He rapped his knuckles on Pryllan’s scales.
“That didn’t slow him down in the slightest. I forgot dragons are fireproof.”
“I didn’t,” Pryllan angrily declared. “I wanted to get his attention. We are fireproof, aye, but we still notice when we are attacked. I was watching. Anghorus didn’t even flinch.”
Steve cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted down towards Pryllan’s belly.
“Sarah! Get up here! We need you!’
Sarah appeared moments later. She hooked her arm through her husband’s as Pryllan veered sharply east to keep Anghorus and their Zweigelan in sight.
“What is it?”
Another blast of fire narrowly missed Syrreth and Ferreth.
“I’m of no help here,” Steve complained. “My fire is ineffective against a dragon!”
“Oh, that’s right. I didn’t think about that. What do you want me to do?”
Anghorus was near enough now where anyone who didn’t have wyverian-enhanced senses could see the attacking dragon’s pitch black eyes.
“What’s happened to him? Why are his eyes like that? That’s not a normal wyverian trait, is it?”
“It’s not,” Pryllan confirmed. “He has been bewitched.”
“Bewitched?” Sarah thought for a moment. “We are on our way to report the existence of a renegade wizard and now we are attacked by a bewitched dragon. Does anyone else see the correlation here?”
“You think the two events are related?” Pryllan asked.
“You don’t?”
Anghorus fired off two more shots at the fleeing Zweigelan. Only by spinning through the air, a move Syrreth and Ferreth had recently learned by watching Pryllan dive out of the way earlier, had they been able to avoid being hit.
“We are unsure how much longer we can keep this up!” Syrreth called out in a panicked voice.
“Whenever you are ready to render assistance, we would be grateful!” Ferreth added.
“Hang in there, guys!” Steve shouted at them. “We’re working on it!”
“By talking amongst yourselves?” Ferreth hissed back with exasperation.
Trusting the Zweigelan to stay ahead of Anghorus for a few moments longer, Sarah turned back to her husband.
“What do you need me to do?”
Steve hooked a thumb over his shoulder and pointed at Anghorus.
“If he’s in a trance of some sort then we need to wake him up. The only way I can think of is to splash him with water.”
“Where are we supposed to find water up here?” Sarah demanded.
“We are near the great sea,” Pryllan informed them. “There is plenty of water to be found there.”
“Can you teleport him over to the water and drop him in it?
/> Sarah helplessly held up her hands. “No. Not only is he a huge dragon, but a huge moving dragon. I’d barely be able to do it if he were holding still.”
“What about bringing the water to him? Can you teleport some water and drop it on his head?”
“If he were holding still, sure. However, he’s not. It’d be too hard to hit a target moving that fast.”
Syrreth and Ferreth dodged a few more jets of fire.
Steve suddenly smiled.
“I have an idea. Syrreth! Ferreth! Fly straight up! Gain some altitude!”
Not bothering to argue, the Zweigelan tipped its wings up and flew towards the sun. Higher and higher it rose, with Anghorus following closely behind it. Not far away was Pryllan, who was keeping an eye on both of them.
“What are you going to do?” Sarah wanted to know.
“Just wait. Watch this. Be ready.”
“To do what?”
“To lift a bunch of water up. Not far, but enough.”
Understanding, Sarah nodded. “Gotcha. I can do that.”
“Now, guys! Dive straight down towards the sea!”
Having just flown out over the extensive Sea of Koralis, Syrreth and Ferreth tucked their wings tight against their sides and dropped straight towards the water. Their attacker was only seconds behind them.
The gently roiling surface of the sea was approaching at an alarming rate. Faster and faster the Zweigelan hurtled towards the water. Just before it looked as though they were going to plunge into the cold blue sea, the Zweigelan snapped its wings open and sailed out over the gently roiling waves.
Intent on pursuing its victim, the gray dragon also extended its wings, but just as soon as it had corrected its course and was once again in pursuit of the Zweigelan, a huge mass of water detached itself from the surface and was propelled directly up. There was no way for Anghorus to avoid the hundreds of gallons of water now directly in its path.
Pryllan watched as Anghorus flew straight into the water Sarah had lifted. Her friend spun out of control and crashed into the sea where he floundered about for a few moments. Then they all heard a roar of outrage.
“What the ruddy hell am I doing in the water?”
Pryllan circled slowly above him so that he could see she was there.
Something Wyverian This Way Comes Page 15
