“I don’t know,” I replied truthfully. “Did you watch? Did you see them leave?”
Alpha snarled. “All I saw was Morganna slicing her hand and then being kidnapped by your boyfriend.”
Morganna put a firm hand on him. “He hardly kidnapped me. We were just up there the whole time.”
“Did you see the dragons?” I asked Morganna.
“I didn’t see anything. Nor did I feel any heat. Something went wrong. Did I not cut myself enough?” One look at her hand was enough to tell me she’d cut deeply. Blood still dripped onto the floor.
“Just a minute,” growled Alpha. “You’ve done enough damage to yourself. You’ll not be spilling any more blood. It’s a trick to weaken you.”
There was a movement, so quick it was almost invisible to the naked eye, but Morganna had managed to spear a rabbit on the end of her sword. A rabbit that none of the rest of us had even seen.
“I can assure you, I’m not weakened,” she said, passing the rabbit to the startled looking Alpha. “Lunch?”
“You’ll need to see to that hand,” I said. She was bleeding quite a bit.
“What happened?” asked Ash, reappearing fully clothed. “Why didn’t it work?”
“So, it really didn’t work? I was hoping we were all too far back to feel anything.”
“No dragon souls came from that sword,” he replied, eyeing the rabbit that Alpha was now pulling from the end of it.
“It seems your journey was wasted,” said Morganna, taking the sword back from Alpha.
“They are lying!” one of the other Wolvren said. I’d not noticed, but some of the Wolvren that had previously been in their human form had now turned into wolves. We were now outnumbered by our lupine friends.
They were not growling yet, but I could see it wouldn’t take much. There was so much anger here. Much like the Slayers, hundreds of years of mistrust couldn’t be extinguished in one day. If Morganna couldn’t free the dragons, then she was right. Our journey was a waste of time. Or it would be unless we could figure out what the problem was.
Spear stepped up and joined in the conversation. “We are not lying. I’ve seen it myself.”
“Yes, well we have no reason to believe anything you say,” countered Alpha. He looked around at the rest of his men. “I don’t think we will need the rabbit after all. Lunch will be a feast.” He bared his fangs at us and all at once, the rest of the Wolvren began to close the circle around us. One by one, they turned into the wolves they were, each hungrier than the last.
Ash took hold of my arm and pulled me close, but what use was that? He was no match for all the wolves. If he turned back into a dragon, he could pull me up and away, but we would be no closer to freeing the dragons. If we didn’t do it now, there would be no second chance. And something told me Morganna wouldn’t be lending any more magic Ash’s way in order for him to shift again.
“Get ready,” he hissed into my ear and I knew he was thinking the same thing. He was going to try to change into a dragon. I had to stop him.
I ran past him and lurched at Morganna. It was a risky move, but it was the only thing I had. I knew I wouldn’t be quick enough to grab the sword from her hands. Her reaction earlier with the rabbit had proved how lightning fast she was, but if I could slice my palm down the blade before she moved it, then just maybe my blood would work where hers had failed. It had before, and I could see no reason why it wouldn’t work again. Of course, if I was wrong, I’d ruined our only chance at escape.
I held my hand up as I charged and when I got close enough, I brought it down on the sharp blade.
Chapter Seventeen
“Nooooo!” Ash shouted behind me as chaos erupted. Ash knew exactly what I was about to do and as predicted, he ran forward to stop me. Out of my peripheral vision, I could see the wolves doing the same, although their motive was entirely different. They were out for attack. They’d misunderstood my move as an act of aggression. Morganna stood completely still though, the only one of us that did.
Everything happened as if in slow motion. Morganna held out her sword for me and I slashed my arm across it. As blood welled up from the long cut in my arm, a number of different things happened. The wolves pounced, more than likely to save Morganna, and Ash turned into a dragon. As darkness closed in around me in the resulting melee, it felt as though my mind was playing tricks on me, because Ash seemed to transform much quicker than usual and without the usual sickening sound of crunching bones.
However, it happened, somewhere amongst the shrieks and screams, I found myself under Ash’s protective wing. It was quiet under there, although I could hear the muffled noises of both the Wolvren and the dragons as they fought.
I wanted to speak to Ash, to ask him what was going on, but all I could see was the underside of his wing. I could hear his voice calling to me, and yet, like all the other sounds, it was muffled.
Everything was hazy and at first. I thought it was the force of my head hitting the ground—I’d managed to give myself quite a headache—but I soon realized it was more than that. I could smell something burning. Acrid smoke was pouring from somewhere, and the only place I could think that it would originate from was the sword. I looked around, urgently searching for it, but it was nowhere to be seen on the little patch of grass beneath me. I scrambled around on the ground, trying to feel for it in case I’d missed it through the smoke.
I began to cough as the smoke filled my lungs. I couldn’t see any fire, but I wasn’t worried about burning to death as much as dying from smoke inhalation. I pushed on the underside of Ash’s wing, trying to shove it off me so I could get some fresh air. I was nowhere near strong enough to move him, but he must have felt my hands against him because a second later, a gush of air hit me in the face. I took a deep breath, momentarily glad for the coolness, before realizing something wasn’t right.
Everything was upside down. At least, that’s how my brain interpreted it until I realized it wasn’t everything else that was upside down, but me.
Below me (or above me as it felt), the forest grew smaller and smaller. The clearing in which we had been sitting was now in flames, although I was too far above it to feel the heat. Black smoke billowed out, idly drifting off to the west with the wind. We (and I say we because the only reason I could be dangling upside down in the air was if Ash picked me up hurriedly—I was yet to look up and check that this was the case) were traveling in the opposite direction. Just as the clearing itself disappeared from view, I saw the dragons and the Wolvren running away from the flames into the vast undergrowth of the forest. In the distance, I could see the indistinct outline of something I guessed was the souls of dragons, all heading back at blistering speed to their bodies in Dronias.
The people in the village were going to get the shock of their lives when a hundred or more dragons suddenly awakened from their slumber. I could just imagine the look on my father’s face. I would have grinned, but a mixture of being upside down with the blood rushing to my head and the blast from earlier was making my head feel woozy.
I closed my eyes, waiting for Ash to put me down, but then I heard a voice. A woman’s voice. That couldn’t be right, could it? How would a woman be up this high? Unless it was me speaking? I was so out of it that I didn’t know anymore. I tried to open my eyes again to make sense of everything, but it was too much effort. Instead, I let myself descend into inky blackness.
“Julianna...Jules...”
“Mmm?” I felt the world around me begin to come back together as the blackness receded
“Julie?” That was new. I knew Ash’s voice, but he’d never once called me that before. For some reason, it irked me. My eyes shot open. “Julie?” He looked frantic and yet I could see the relief in his eyes as he looked down at me. “You weren’t responding to Jules or Julianna. I thought I’d try something different.” He hugged me close to him.
“Just don’t call me Julie again!”
I felt him laugh, his body shaking silently.
“Are you okay, Julianna?” It was the woman’s voice again, and this time I recognized it. Ash moved back to reveal Morganna and her sword. There was no one else around us, although I could see some basic housing.
I sat up straight “Where are we?”
“When Ash whisked us both up from the fire, I showed him where he could drop us. This is the Wolvren village. Don’t worry. We are alone. There is quite a distance between here and the others. I hope they all managed to escape the fire.”
“I saw them running into the forest. I think they all got away.”
Morganna sighed. “That’s good. I will need to go to them shortly. If anyone has burns, I will need to take care of them, just like I did you.” She nodded down to my bandaged arm.
“How long have I been unconscious?”
“About fifteen minutes. I used the time to clean and bandage your arm. You’ve got quite a deep cut there. I made a potion of berries to soothe the pain. You are going to feel it soon, so I suggest you drink it down quickly. It will help.” She passed me a goblet filled with a pink liquid that looked like a raspberry smoothie.
I drank it down quickly. It soothed my throat as it went down, taking the taste of the smoke away.
“I had to lend Ash some clothes,” Morganna carried on. “It seems he was in such a hurry to protect you, he transformed without taking his off first.”
Ash was wearing something that looked like it might have belonged to Alpha. His cheeks were bright red. I felt a hint of jealousy that Morganna had seen him naked but quickly shrugged it off. Morganna had just saved the lives of hundreds of dragons and probably mine and Ash’s, too, by bringing us here.
“I saw the dragons,” I said.
“Yeah, we did, too.” Ash put his arm around me. Even at this distance, I could smell the fire.
“Just how far away is the clearing?” I wondered. I didn’t want to be caught in yet another fire if it spread. Maybe the fire had just changed direction and was blowing the smoke toward us rather than away from us now.
“I promise it’s far enough away for us to be safe, but if you are worried, there is a small hill not far from here where we will be able to see above the clouds. Do you think you are up to the walk?”
Ash helped me to my feet. I felt unsteady and yet I stood tall, not wanting to show more weakness than I already had. The berry potion had helped clear my head as well as dull the pain, although I could see tinges of red beginning to seep through the bandage on my arm. As usual, I’d plunged in too quickly and done more damage than I should have.
I was unsteady on my feet as I took a few steps, but with Ash holding on to me, I soon took it in my stride. “We did it!” I smiled. “We freed them all.”
“We did what we could,” Ash replied. “Spear had some of the others on the lookout for the dragon souls returning. It’s going to be chaos there with a few hundred confused, weak dragons. I only hope that there are enough of our people to help them.”
I hadn’t thought of that. Remembering how weak Mary had been when she woke up, I knew the others in Frokontas would have their work cut out for them, helping so many dragons. Hopefully, the sight of so many dragons waking up would be enough to scare away my brother or whoever else they had put in charge of the dragon keep. If not, there would be another bloody battle. It didn’t bear thinking about. Instead, I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other to get up the steep hill.
“The weather has been wet in recent weeks. I hope that’s enough to slow the spread of the flames.” Morganna was worried about her forest being destroyed. I only hoped she was right. I’d hate to save the dragons only to destroy the habitat of the Wolvren. “We should be safe here at least,” she continued. “We crossed a wide river to get here. I doubt the flames will be able to find a way over.”
I knew that flames could always find a way in the right conditions and I was pretty sure she knew the same, and yet I didn’t contradict her. She was hoping for the best outcome as we all were.
“How many dragons are left to go?” she asked, not taking her eyes from the fire.
“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. “Your sword held by far the most. Many of the swords owned by villagers have only one dragon, the first one their owners slain once they came of age, but some, like yours, hold many. My father’s, for example. He’s slain more dragons than I can remember.”
It was only when I said it out loud that my jubilance at freeing so many dragons left me. It had seemed like such a big deal ten minutes ago, but now that Ash had mentioned the dragons waking up back home, and thinking about the dragons yet to free, I realized that we still had a very long journey ahead of us. The trail wound up the hill, and soon we emerged at the peak, the whole forest spread out before us like a huge, green blanket. I tried to put my mind to the future and focus on what was left for us to do. It was difficult when all I could see were plumes of black smoke filling the sky and the orange flicker of flames consuming everything in their path.
Morganna stood stock still and stared at the fire. “I need to get back there and see if the Wolvren are alright. My senses tell me they are all alive, but they may need help.”
“Do you need me to fly you there?” asked Ash. I know I shouldn’t have been thinking that way, but a big part of me didn’t want him to leave, not even for a few minutes.
“No. I have enough magic to get me there. I’ll speak to Alpha. He probably thinks you kidnapped me.”
“He didn’t look very happy when I whisked you up away from the fire,” agreed Ash.
“He’ll be fine once I talk to him and calm him down. In the meantime, you two are welcome to go back to our home. I’ll see you there in an hour or so.”
“What about Spear and the rest?” I asked. The other dragons were caught in the same situation as the Wolvren.
“Don’t worry, I’ll round them up, too. See you soon.”
She took something from her pocket and closed her eyes. In a second, she had disappeared.
Ash put his arms around me protectively as we watched the flames lick the sky. In spite of the destruction we had caused, our quest was now in full flight, and I finally felt that we were getting somewhere. It remained to be seen if it was where we needed to be.
Chapter Eighteen
“How long do you think it will take for them to get back?” It was a completely selfish question. It had been a long time since I’d had Ash to myself and I was enjoying it, just standing there with him cuddling me. I was also exhausted, and the thought of dealing with everyone was something I’d happily put off until a later time.
“Don’t worry.” His arms closed tighter around me. “I trust that Morganna won’t let the Wolvren hurt us.”
He’d misunderstood my intention for asking. I wasn’t scared. Nothing scared me when I had Ash by my side. “I’m not scared.”
“You’re shivering. Are you cold?”
I hadn’t noticed before now, but I did feel cold. I could feel the tremors racking my body. “Yes, I think so.” I was feeling dizzy, too. I slumped against him.
“Come on, we need to get you back to the Wolvren village.” He held onto me and began to turn me around.
“I’m fine!” I protested, but I clearly wasn’t. The shivering was uncontrollable and getting worse.
“You’re in shock. I shouldn’t have brought you here. You need to lie down.” And with that, he picked me up in his arms and carried me back through the forest to the Wolvren village.
Finding a campfire pit, he set me down, then found some old twigs to burn, two of which he tried rubbing together to get the fire going.
“It’s much easier to make a fire when I’m a dragon,” he quipped after a few minutes of trying without so much as a spark.
“Please, don’t!” I loved him in both his forms, but he was softer in his human form, and he could talk to me. “Stay with me.”
He put the sticks down and moved closer, taking my head into his lap. “Morganna did a good job
with those bandages. You aren’t bleeding through much. Would you like a drink of water?”
“I’m fine. I’m sure I’ll be okay in a few minutes. I just went a bit dizzy, that’s all. Just hold me and keep me warm.” It didn’t matter how bad the situation. If I was in Ash’s arms, I felt safe. He stroked my hair and I allowed myself to doze.
Sometime later, the noise of the others returning woke me up. I’d not lied to Ash earlier about not being scared, but now the prospect of all the Wolvren coming home to us after they thought we kidnapped Morganna sent chills through me. I sat up quickly, and behind me, I felt Ash go stiff as if he was ready to change into his dragon form at any second and fly us both away.
It was unnecessary though. Morganna appeared through the trees, hand in hand with Alpha. They were chatting together and there was no look of malice in Alpha’s expression. Behind them were the Wolvren, and among them, the dragons. No one was hurt as I had feared. If anything, they almost appeared cheerful.
Upon seeing me, Morganna ran over. “Are you alright? You look awfully pale.”
“I’m fine. I went a bit dizzy that’s all.”
“You need the fire on. Alpha, can you start one, please? I’ll make some broth.”
Alpha started the fire using a bit of flint pulled from his pocket. The Wolvren gathered around, as did the dragons. Spear clapped me on the back.
“I never had the chance to say it before, but you did a marvelous job back there. I know we’ve had our differences in the past and I’ll admit to not trusting you when I first met you, but I’d doubt there are many dragons that would have done what you did to save their own kind, let alone the lives of their sworn enemy.”
“The dragons are not my sworn enemy!” I cried forcefully, but I could see he was teasing me.
“Honestly though. You have proved yourself time and time again. It was a lucky day for us when you decided to come to Frokontas.”
“I didn’t actually decide to do anything. Ash flew me there, remember?”
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