by Linda McNabb
‘She’s home, just like her mother wanted,’ Dyahn assured her uncle.
‘And it’s time for us to go home as well,’ Falh replied. ‘We should go while the dragons are still searching for me. I counted on them not looking so close to their lair.’
The opening of the dragon’s lair wasn’t as dark as Rhonan expected. With the growing darkness of the sky, the glow worms inside the cave gave off a dull blue light that seemed to draw him towards it.
Just as they stepped out from their hiding place Rhonan felt a rush of air above them. He pulled Dyahn to his side and stayed motionless, hoping they hadn’t been seen. An angry screech told him otherwise. The ground shook with a thud as an immense blue dragon landed right in front of them.
There was no way out of this confrontation. They were only a second away from being scorched by the flames of the huge dragon. Rhonan pushed Dyahn behind him to try to protect her and she hugged in close to him.
The eyes of the blue dragon narrowed, as if trying to work out if these small creatures were worth bothering with, then flames licked its nostrils. As the flames built to a small jet they stopped suddenly. The blue dragon looked up in the sky just as a flash of gold and glowing gems flew over.
Leave my friends alone, a voice called down.
‘Tryx?’ Rhonan muttered to nobody in particular. She had come through the gateway to save them.
Run! Tryx shouted down to them before tipping her wing and wheeling off. The blue dragon immediately leapt into the air, screeching a command to all his kin.
‘Run!’ Falh repeated Tryx’s advice, giving Rhonan a push. They ran, stumbling across the rough, icy ground. Rhonan twisted back and saw a dozen dragons chasing Tryx across the mountains. ‘Head for the lair.’
‘Shouldn’t we should go to the pass?’ Dyahn asked as she struggled to keep up.
‘We need the elf stone,’ Kheron reminded her.
They were only a few paces from the entrance of the lair when they suddenly realised it wasn’t empty. Several dragons were flying towards the entrance and had obviously seen the humans.
‘Change of plan,’ Falh said, herding them around the side of the entrance. ‘Hurry.’
They didn’t need to be told twice. Even though it was now almost pitch black they didn’t slow their pace. Every time one of them tripped Falh helped them up and they hurried on again. After a minute the dragons had taken to the air and were flying overhead, flaming towards them.
‘There’s a cave just up ahead,’ Falh said, grabbing Dyahn and running as fast as he could. Rhonan almost missed the entrance to the cave and Falh grabbed both him and Kheron – dragging them inside. Outside the dragons screeched and howled. Bushes burned and the heat spread quickly into the cave.
‘We’re trapped,’ Dyahn said with a wobble of fear in her voice.
‘No, this leads into the lair like the one on the other side,’ Falh said, drawing a moonstone from his pocket and leading the way further into the cave. ‘We’re going to get that elf stone.’
They reached the lair in just a few minutes and they looked down to see there were still a dozen dragons inside. Rhonan was about to ask what they were going to do when a noise behind them froze him with fear.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ELF STONE
A furious scraping noise was coming from behind them. Something large was in the tunnel and it was headed their way. There was nowhere to hide and jumping into the lair didn’t seem like a good plan either.
‘Can’t we send some illusions out there to get rid of them?’ Rhonan asked Falh desperately as he pushed Dyahn behind him to protect her.
‘I don’t think they’d fall for an illusion for long,’ Falh said tensely.
Time seemed to slow down as they all stood in the green light from the moonstone and waited. A familiar golden shape burst around the corner and slid to a halt only a few inches from where they stood.
‘Tryx!’ Dyahn exclaimed, and even though Rhonan was still recovering from the shock of seeing the dragonet, he hissed at her to keep quiet.
‘I don’t think you need to worry about letting the dragons know where we are,’ Kheron said with a flat voice. ‘I’d say they already know.’
Rhonan realised that the scraping noise from the cave hadn’t stopped, and angry screeches echoed around them. Bright flames were streaking into the cave but luckily it was deep enough to protect them.
‘Oh, you’re all scratched and bleeding.’ Dyahn seemed far more interested in the dragonet than their impending danger. She was dabbing at cuts on the dragonet with the corner of her shirt. Many of them were deep and bleeding and one wing was almost shredded. A cut on Tryx’s leg was making her limp and she whimpered in pain.
‘Maybe we should try an illusion and hope they chase it?’ Falh said thoughtfully. ‘If it looked like Tryx it might work.’
‘Look, they’re all leaving the lair!’ Rhonan saw most of the dragons heading for the main entrance to the cave.
‘I’d say they’re going to see what’s going on outside,’ Falh guessed and then his eyebrows rose. ‘Perhaps they don’t realise that this cave links to their lair?’
‘How does that help us?’ Rhonan asked, keen for an answer to their problems.
‘We can get the elf stone and carry it out through the front of the lair. They’re all around the side of the mountain so we’ll get away without being seen,’ Kheron said with a smile. ‘It might just work.’
‘You mean you want us to go down into the dragon’s lair, steal a huge rock then jump that river and walk calmly out the front to meet up with dozens of dragons that are ten times bigger than us?’ Dyahn had obviously been listening, despite her continued attention to the dragonet, and now she stared at Kheron as if he were insane and her voice had an edge of hysteria to it.
‘And your suggestion would be?’ Kheron asked dryly and then sighed and looked sorry for being so sarcastic.
‘We don’t have many options,’ Rhonan pointed out.
‘I agree with Rhonan. The longer we stand here talking about it the less of a chance we have of it working,’ Falh said as they watched the last of the dragons leaving the lair. ‘The elf stone we can take is over there.’
Rhonan looked down into the lair and saw that only one grey-tinged dragon was left. It hadn’t moved even the tiniest bit and he wondered if it were dead. Even the ones who had been protecting their piles of gems had gone. The chunk of elf stone that Falh pointed out was right next to the old dragon.’
‘I guess I don’t want to stay here,’ Dyahn agreed reluctantly. ‘How do we get down?’
There was a drop of about two metres to a ledge and Rhonan could see the sides of the cave from there down were rough and allowed for many footholds. Falh lowered the two children as far as he could and they fell the rest of the way to the ledge. Then he jumped down to join them and Tryx followed, almost falling rather than flying down. Her wings were almost useless and she squawked with pain as she landed on her injured legs.
Rhonan cringed and looked quickly to see if the old dragon in the far corner had heard the noise but the grey dragon didn’t stir.
‘Don’t worry, it’s an old one. They go grey as they get older and he’s about the greyest I’ve ever seen. He probably wouldn’t be able to stand up if he wanted to,’ Falh assured them as he turned his attention to finding a way down the rough-edged, black stone rock face.
They walked quickly along the ledge, keeping an eye on the entrance all the time, and climbed down close to the old dragon. The scratching and screeching could still be heard from the tunnel but they ignored it as best they could.
‘How are we going to carry it?’ Dyahn whispered as they stopped next to the rock. Now that they were next to it they could all see it was far too large to pick up. ‘Could we roll it?’
Rhonan didn’t think the dragons would sit back and watch them roll the large rock out of the lair as it was bound to make a lot of noise but as he had no better suggestion he said nothing.
>
They were all still staring at the rock, trying to figure out how to move it, when Tryx jumped up on top of it, wrapped her injured legs around it, and flapped her shredded wings as hard as she could. Amazingly the stone lifted a hand span off the ground and the dragonet slowly flew towards the entrance.
‘Follow her,’ Falh said as he pulled them towards the huge opening that led into the dark night.
They jumped across the small river and almost reached the entrance when the old grey dragon woke up and saw them. He may have been old but he could screech loud enough to hurt Rhonan’s ears. They all froze and looked at each other, silently asking what they should do. They all knew that the lair would be full of huge, angry dragons in a matter of seconds.
‘Quick, jump in the river,’ Falh yelled as there was little point in being quiet now. He pointed to where the river disappeared into a low tunnel on the other side of the lair. ‘We’ll hide in the tunnel. Dragons don’t like water so they won’t follow us.’
Rhonan and Dyahn didn’t have to be told twice and they leapt into the shallow river. Dyahn tried to look back to see where the dragonet was but Rhonan pulled her forward.
‘She’ll have to look after herself. We can’t help her,’ he told his sister as the icy cold water seeped quickly through his clothes.
Their years of swimming in the lake behind the Inn came in handy as they swam for their lives. The sounds of screeching dragons flocking back into the lair hurried them even faster as the swift flow of the river pushed them along. They swam into the safety of the low-roofed cave with only a few seconds to spare and didn’t stop there. They kept swimming, just in case one of the dragons decided to brave the water and follow them. By the howling and screeching behind them they had only just escaped in time.
‘Where does it go?’ Dyahn asked after a few minutes of swimming. There were no sounds of pursuit and they relaxed a little. ‘I hope Tryx is okay.’
‘She escaped them once. She’ll do it again,’ Falh said comfortingly. ‘But as for the river I have no idea. At least the roof is high enough to let us breathe.’
Falh was holding a moonstone up above his head and it lit a good part of the tunnel, both in front of them and behind. They stopped swimming and just floated along with the flow of the freezing cold river to save their energy. They could hear faint splashes from behind them but they didn’t seem to be getting any closer and Falh suggested it might just be the water lapping against the sides of the tunnel. Rhonan was just beginning to wonder if the tunnel would ever take them outside the mountain when he suddenly felt a breeze on his face and realised there was no roof above them anymore. The tunnel had indeed brought them out of the lair and the dark moon-less night was such a relief that he almost shouted with joy.
They dragged themselves out onto the grassy bank and Falh held up the moonstone to see if they could see where they were. The mountain was behind them and it loomed in the darkness like an immense sleeping dragon.
‘I wonder which side of the mountain we came out,’ Kheron mused aloud.
Rhonan stood up and moved over to join Falh and Kheron. He looked at the mountain and then turned his back to it and pointed into the darkness. ‘Shaldoh is three days that way.’
‘Of course, I forgot you could do that. How do you do it?’ Falh asked with both a grin and then a frown.
‘I don’t know. Can’t all elves?’ Rhonan replied with surprise.
‘No,’ Falh replied thoughtfully as he sat down on the long grass.
‘I can’t,’ Kheron added, looking a little jealous of Rhonan’s ability.
‘I’m beginning to wonder if hunters have their own magic that they just don’t know about,’ Falh suggested, getting a scowl from his son.
‘I suppose being able to follow an elf trail is a sort of magic,’ Rhonan suggested. ‘I wonder what Uncle Terac would say if he knew?’
‘I don’t know, but it does raise a few interesting points,’ Falh said, but before he could continue, Rhonan’s attention was drawn to the river. He could hear a splashing that was definitely not just the water on the sides of the tunnel.
‘It’s Tryx!’ Dyahn exclaimed as a glistening scaly head appeared out of the tunnel. ‘I thought dragons didn’t like water.’
‘They don’t,’ Falh replied with a short laugh. ‘But they probably prefer it to being attacked by three dozen dragons.’
The dragonet wasn’t making any attempt to swim and seemed to be just floating along with the current and using her wings to guide her. The splashing noise was her tail slapping the water in her obvious agitation at being in the water. As soon as she was completely clear of the tunnel she seemed to slow down briefly and then launched herself into the air with a loud squawk of disgust. She landed on the grass and proceeded to shake the water off like a dog, completely soaking the others again.
‘Can we have a fire?’ Kheron asked.
Rhonan had been about to ask the same thing. His wet clothes clung uncomfortably to his skin and he shivered. ‘We’re well off the path we took coming here so even if anyone had followed us they’d be a long way away.’
‘I think we need one and I doubt there’s anyone around for a day’s walk in any direction.’ Falh agreed.
Dyahn and Kheron went to check out Tryx’s injuries while Falh and Rhonan gathered some wood. Falh had a fire going before long and even the dragonet crowded near the fire.
‘I think Tryx will be okay,’ Dyahn said, pushing the huge baby dragon aside to get some space by the fire. ‘But some of her injuries are quite deep.’
The food was all wet but it was better than no food at all and they were all soon fast asleep a few paces from the well-banked fire.
It was the warmth of the sun that woke Rhonan and he shaded his eyes as he sat up. He was the last to wake up and saw the others down by the river. As he wandered down to join them he could hear them laughing and he wondered what could be funny at a time like this. They had failed to get a new elf stone and Tryx still wasn’t where she belonged.
‘Look, Rhonan. Tryx has caught us some breakfast,’ Dyahn squealed with delight as she pointed to a small pile of fish lying on the grass.
Even Rhonan had to smile at the thought of a good breakfast and he watched as Tryx briefly thrust her snout into the water and came out with another fish in her mouth. Even though the dragonet’s wings were still badly damaged, the trip down the river had cleaned all the cuts and removed all the loose skin.
‘I think that’s enough now,’ Falh said, patting the dragonet’s golden scaled back. ‘I don’t think we can eat much more than that.’
Like fish. Tryx didn’t seem to agree for she moved further upstream and sat watching the water patiently. Rhonan followed her and sat on the bank to watch. He looked into the water as well, trying to spot the fish but something shiny in the water caught his eye instead. The sun was high enough to reflect off whatever lay at the bottom of the river and Rhonan knew instantly what it was.
‘Falh, Dyahn, Kheron! Come look!’ Rhonan shouted excitedly.
Tryx turned from her fishing to see what the shouting was about and saw what Rhonan was pointing at. As if suddenly remembering something, the dragon launched herself weakly into the air and dove into the river. By the time Falh and Dyahn had hurried over to the river again the dragonet was struggling to lift a huge black stone from the water.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
DOWN THE RIVER
‘She brought the elf stone with her!’ Falh said in amazement.
‘She knew we needed it,’ Dyahn said proudly and patted the dragonet on her side when she settled onto the grass with the black stone. The dragonet had grown so much now that she was over twice the size she had been only a few days ago and she towered over all of them. Her short stay in Dragon Valley seemed to have sped up her growing a lot.
‘More likely she wanted it for herself,’ Kheron suggested dryly and Dyahn looked a little defensive for a second, then grinned in agreement.
‘So how do we g
et it back to Shaldoh and then convince her to give it up?’ Rhonan asked.
Falh was pacing thoughtfully but he was grinning at the sight of the huge black stone. It was as tall as Dyahn and a dozen hands wide.
‘It’s almost as big as she is, so I don’t think she could carry it all the way,’ Dyahn pointed out with a frown. ‘Even if she keeps growing as quickly as she has been it would be a week or more before she could carry it that far.’
‘We don’t have a week,’ Falh muttered and wandered off to think.
Too heavy, Tryx agreed as she gazed into the highly reflective surface of the black elf stone once more and then dove back into the river for more fish. A few minutes later she had a pile next to the elf stone and she started to eat them, whole and uncooked. Dyahn turned away with a scowl of disgust and tossed a twig into the water, watching it drift slowly down the slow moving river as Falh had joined them.
‘I wonder if we could build a raft to float it down the river? I’ve built a few rafts to use on the lake out the back of the Inn,’ Rhonan said with a grin as he watched the twig as well. ‘Does the river run near Shaldoh?’
‘Yes, the river does run almost right past the village,’ Falh replied with a thoughtful, hopeful expression. ‘‘I haven’t been this far up river before but I know this area. The entire area around the mountains was called Shaldoh once.’
‘It would have to be a very big raft,’ Dyahn pointed out. ‘There are plenty of trees but we don’t have an axe.’
‘One thing a dragon is good at doing, is knocking down trees,’ Kheron pointed out. ‘Her mother knocked down a lot back in the forest at Tulon.’
They all grinned at the solution and Dyahn was sent off in search of vines to tie the raft together. Tryx was too small to knock down any large trees but she easily brought down a few saplings and a few hours later they had a crude looking raft on the grass next to the river. The dragonet thought this new game of knocking trees down and dragging them to the river was so much fun that she continued doing it even after they had enough. Even though she understood that they didn’t need any more she kept bringing them.
