Dragon Charmers: #1 Mountains of Fire

by Linda McNabb

CHAPTER SEVEN - DRAGON EGGS

  ‘We can’t get down there,’ Logan said, trying to keep the nervous wobble out of his voice.

  ‘Alyxa can hold the rope,’ the prince said, pulling a long, thin rope and a handful of what looked like netting from inside his cloak. ‘I never go anywhere without my hunting gear.’

  He threw one end of the rope to Alyxa and let the other end fall into the nest. It only just reached the bottom, which Logan estimated was at least four times his own height.

  ‘After you,’ Myles said pointedly and Logan felt his mouth go dry. It wasn’t that he was afraid of heights, or even of snakes; it was the thought of being caught in the nest by the mother dragon.

  Logan fought down his fear as he grabbed hold of the rope and walked down the wall into the nest. The heat increased as he got further down and was almost overwhelming when he reached the bottom. He wished he’d taken the cloak off at the top, and he unbuttoned it to ease the light-headed feeling that almost overcame him.

  ‘Chase the snake over to the other side,’ Myles was ordering as he slid quickly to the floor of the nest. ‘Then kill it, but we’ll have to be quick as dragons usually return to their nest at the end of the day.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Logan muttered, keeping an eye on both the sky and the snake. From the lip of the nest, the snake hadn’t seemed large but now it seemed like a dragon without wings. Its body was as thick as Logan’s waist and it was easily three dragon lengths from nose to tail.

  The snake seemed to ignore Logan as it slithered ever closer, then it paused. raised its head and looked directly at him. Dull green eyes stared at him as the orange and black body slithered backwards and forwards, marking time while the snake assessed this new arrival. Logan took a nervous step backwards and the snake flicked its tongue out, just once, and turned away from him. It obviously didn’t see him as a threat and it changed its course to go around him.

  ‘I told you to chase it away!’ the prince bellowed. Logan dared a quick glance and saw the prince heaving the heavy eggs into the fine mesh net. Each egg was about twice the size of a large pumpkin but much heavier by the way the prince was holding it. ‘Alyxa, go fetch the blue. We’ll never be able to lift these out of here.’

  Logan saw the rope slipping out of sight and his heart began to hammer harder. How long would it take Alyxa to run back for their blue? The snake started to slither faster and Logan assumed it had seen the prince manhandling the eggs. If he didn’t do something it would reach the prince in a matter of seconds. In desperation he drew the silver sword and waved it at the snake, yelling and jumping up and down.

  It had the desired effect. The snake stopped slithering towards the eggs and turned to face Logan. Its eyes were no longer dull or disinterested. Its eyes gleamed intently as it looked at the sword and then at Logan. It knew a threat when it saw one, and it was going to deal with that threat. With an odd twist of its body, the snake turned and headed straight for Logan at alarming speed. Logan turned and ran. He wasn’t worried that the prince would see him as cowardly — he just wanted to get away. The snake followed, keeping pace, away from the eggs.

  ‘That’s it. Keep it over there for a few minutes,’ the prince yelled.

  A few minutes? Logan skirted around the edge of the nest, gathering up rocks with his free hand and waving the sword menacingly with the other. He doubted he could get close enough to use the sword, but it was keeping the snake’s attention.

  ‘Hurry up!’ Logan called out, hurling a rock at the serpent’s head. The rock struck true and the snake recoiled slightly before resuming its chase, a little faster this time. Wingbeats overhead dropped Logan’s heart into his feet. He didn’t dare look up; it was either the mother returning, in which case there was no chance of escape, or it was Alyxa with their blue. A rope dropping from above, right above the egg net, told him that it was Alyxa but he was too busy running for his life to feel relieved.

  ‘Take the eggs first,’ he heard Myles saying.

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding!’ Logan shouted, heading for the rope that Myles had just tied onto the net. ‘Unless you want to be snake food, I suggest we go with the eggs.’

  Logan didn’t wait for the prince to argue; he stepped on top of the eggs and grabbed the rope.

  ‘Take us up,’ Myles yelled as he joined Logan, and they shot out of the nest with a speed that even the snake couldn’t match. Logan was sure he felt the flick of a tongue across his arm, but a second later they were high above the nest, swinging on the top of a net full of eggs.

  Alyxa lowered the eggs gently down next to the bubbling lake, and Logan stepped off, sheathed his sword and collapsed onto the ground.

  ‘What were you doing, apprentice? You should have killed it. Snake skin is in high demand in the city,’ the prince snarled.

  ‘I couldn’t get near enough,’ Logan muttered. His legs felt like rubber and his breath seemed hard to catch.

  ‘That’s because you were running away!’ the prince snarled. ‘What sort of wizard are you? Surely you could have killed it with some spell or other.’

  ‘Spells should be used only for good, not harm,’ Alyxa said, drawing the prince’s attention away from Logan. ‘And if you want these eggs to hatch, I suggest you wrap them quickly.’

  The prince shook his head in silent disgust at Logan, but said nothing as he turned to the large net of white eggs. He drew a silver cloth from inside his cloak and dropped it to the ground while he untied the rope which held the net closed.

  ‘What’s that for?’ Logan asked as Alyxa sat down in the snow next to him.

  ‘It holds in the warmth for a day or two. The dragonets inside won’t survive without it.’ Alyxa looked a little unsettled as she answered, and she watched the prince wrap each egg in a thin layer of silver material. ‘They’re probably the biggest blue eggs I’ve ever seen. Father will be very pleased to have them.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we be doing this further away from the nest?’ Logan asked, still scanning the sky for any sign of the mother dragon. The sun was inching its way to the horizon and it wouldn’t be long before he was going to be expected to kill a dragon. After his efforts with the snake, he had serious doubts about his ability to do it.

  ‘I’ll just re-charm the blue first.’ Alyxa nodded towards where the blue dragon was looking agitated and stamping around in a circle, seeming unsure of where it was or what it was doing. She pulled the necklace from around her neck and strode calmly over to the dragon.

  Logan had heard her charming dragons before, but this time it seemed incredible. The dragon wasn’t the only one to stop and stare in wonder as Alyxa’s pure, clear voice echoed across the mountains. Even the arrogant prince stopped in his egg-wrapping and listened. As the last note faded out of Logan’s hearing range, he felt like he could feel the notes through the air, even though he couldn’t hear them.

  ‘That was harder than usual. It will need charming again before long. There’s definitely something up in these mountains that is affecting the charm,’ Alyxa said with a hint of concern, tucking the gem under her cloak again and turning to help lift the egg net with its silver bundles inside. ‘Logan, help lift this onto the dragon’s back.’

  ‘So where do we sit?’ Logan asked as they tied the egg net into place directly between the dragon’s wings. It was so large it left very little room for three passengers.

  ‘There’s no time to take the eggs to the farm and come back,’ the prince mused as he looked up at the sun. ‘You’ll just have to squash behind the eggs.’

  ‘The sun is heading for the middle pass,’ Alyxa said, interrupting them and pointing to where the sun was definitely sinking lower. ‘We should get over there and search while it’s still light.’

  They scrambled up onto the dragon’s back, cramped together by the eggs, but the blue seemed reluctant to take off when the prince yanked on the reins.

  ‘I think it’s too heavy with the eggs on,’ Alyxa said, looking concerned at the weight the dragon was being fo
rced to carry.

  ‘I’m not leaving them behind,’ the prince insisted. He yanked harder on the straps and the dragon lifted slowly into the air. ‘See it just needs a firm hand.’

  They headed quickly to the beginning of the snow-covered pass. The prince seemed to be having trouble directing the blue and then brought them in to land.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Alyxa asked, jumping off and checking to see if the dragon had been injured by carrying such a heavy load.

  ‘You didn’t charm it well enough,’ the prince replied sharply. ‘It’s not holding.’

  ‘That charm should have held for several years, not just a few minutes,’ Alyxa said, shaking her head and holding the reins so she could look the blue in the eyes. Obviously she was very worried by what she saw. ‘I’ll have to charm it again.’

  The others slid off the blue’s back and Alyxa withdrew her crystal for the second time in the space of ten minutes. She looked concerned and not at all confident as she began to spin it in a large circle.

  ‘We’ll start searching the pass on foot,’ the prince said, grabbing hold of Logan’s shirt as he walked off. ‘We don’t have the time to waste. It’ll be dark soon. We’ll be back in a while’

  Logan glanced at the setting sun. He hadn’t thought about the fact he was likely to be out after the sun had set. A ripple of uncertainty coursed through him as he let the prince drag him off down the narrow pass. He had no idea what darkness was like and didn’t really want to find out right at this moment. He consoled himself with the thought that there was still a slim chance they might find the White Dragon and be back home before sunset.

  Darkness was suddenly a less important issue than the White Dragon — once they found it, he would have to kill it. Logan clutched at the stone jar in his pocket, feeling the coldness of it biting into his skin. It was a small jar, so the dragon had to be tiny — didn’t it?

  The sound of Alyxa’s pure sweet voice echoed through the pass with a haunting quality, and it seemed like there were a dozen dragon charmers singing at once.

  ‘What does a dragon’s lair look like?’ Logan asked as they clambered over rocks and rounded a corner so that Alyxa was out of sight.

  ‘Dragon’s don’t have lairs,’ Prince Myles retorted. ‘They have nests, like the one back by the lake. And this White Dragon’s nest is probably very small. We’ll have to be careful or we might miss it.’

  ‘Zared said the White Dragon had a lair,’ Logan said, feeling increasingly uncomfortable as he recalled how the old wizard had spoken about their prey. Zared had talked as if the White Dragon was an old friend.

  ‘That old man is insane,’ the prince snorted.

  ‘Yet you believe where he said we’d find the White Dragon,’ Logan pointed out, climbing over another huge boulder which looked to have tumbled from the top of the pass.

  ‘Just keep an eye out for a small nest,’ Myles ordered, glaring.

  ‘Alyxa is taking a long time to charm the blue,’ Logan muttered to himself as he continued to clamber over boulders, keeping a sharp eye out for anything that could be a nest — or a lair. He told himself that it might just be echoes he was hearing, then it suddenly stopped. ‘I guess she’s charmed it this time.’

  The walls of the pass rose sharply on both sides as they made slow progress towards the huge glowing globe of the sun that was directly ahead of them.

  ‘We must have missed it,’ Myles said in disgust, slowing down as the end of the pass came into sight. The pass dropped away to nothing and wide open valleys lay ahead of them. ‘Or it’s the wrong pass.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Logan turned and stared at the side of the pass. Snow lay in deep drifts across most of the pass, everywhere except for a small peak which was covered in green grasses and pretty flowers and almost glowed with warmth. A bubbling pool of water lay at the foot of the peak, and next to the water was a yawning black hole, dug into the side of the pass. ‘That looks like a lair to me.’

  The prince turned to look and, after a brief flicker of annoyance, he nodded in agreement. He pulled Logan back so that the entrance to the cave was only just visible. ‘This changes things a little bit. I had expected it to be small.’

  ‘Me too,’ Logan said, sweat beading on the back of his neck. His slingshot would be of no use after all. ‘I guess we’ll have to find another spell.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ the prince answered absently, as he stared at the black hole. ‘We’ll just have to ambush it instead of attacking it.’

  ‘You still want to go in and get the heart of something whose front door is the size of a house?’ Logan asked, sure that the prince was joking.

  ‘Not me — you’ve got the silver sword, remember?’ the prince said coldly. ‘And it’s your fault my brother was taken in the first place.’

  Logan’s cloak no longer seemed to block out the cold as he stood, frozen and terrified, leaning against a large boulder. He hadn’t been able to kill a snake, so how was he supposed to take on a dragon?

  ‘You’ve found it then?’ Alyxa’s voice drew him out of the shock, and he nodded dumbly as he pointed it out for her.

  ‘Not exactly what we were hoping for. This really hasn’t been a good trip,’ Alyxa said in a resigned voice.

  ‘I am not giving up,’ the prince insisted. ‘I’ll even hold it down while the apprentice kills it if I have to.’

  ‘That’s not our biggest problem,’ Alyxa said sadly as she turned to the prince with a look that said he wasn’t going to like what she had to say. ‘The blue wouldn’t take the charm. It flew off.’

  ‘What!’ the prince shouted and his face turned red as he glared at Alyxa. ‘How are we supposed to get back? I thought you were the best charmer in the city.’

  ‘I am,’ Alyxa replied in a calm voice. ‘There’s something in the mountains that’s stopping the charming taking hold. It might come back to us if we’re lucky.’

  ‘And if we’re not?’ the prince bellowed. ‘It’s a long walk back, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘I don’t think you should be shouting,’ Logan said quietly, and pointed to the blackness of the lair’s entrance. He’d seen something move within it — a flicker of movement that was gone as quickly as it came. ‘I think the chances of ambushing it now are very small. It knows we’re here.’

  The prince fell silent immediately and glared at the others as if it were their fault that he had yelled. ‘We’ll have to change our plan again then.’

  ‘What did you have in mind?’ Alyxa asked, obviously considering the size of the entrance herself and seeing that their options were limited.

  ‘We rush in and attack it,’ the prince said, nodding his head and looking satisfied that his plan would work. ‘If we take it by surprise, we should fell it before it has a chance to attack.’

  The others did not reply, but stared at the prince, unconvinced by his plan. Logan withdrew his silver sword and measured the length of it against his arm. It barely reached from his fingertip to his elbow and that included the hilt and handle. He turned it so the sinking sun glinted off it, and then raised one eyebrow at the prince. ‘And you want me to slay it with this?’

  ‘The underbelly is their weakest spot,’ the prince pushed on, apparently unwilling to have his plan argued with. ‘Aim for that and we’ll be fine.’

  Logan and Alyxa exchanged a look that said they doubted it, but neither argued. What choice did they have?

  ‘Let’s get this over with then,’ Logan said, looking at the sun and seeing that half of it was now below the pass. In a matter of minutes they would be plunged into darkness and their quest would be even harder.