Zookie sniffed and wrinkled his nose. “Ugh. I don’t know.”
Somewhere off in the distance, deep in the woods, something rustled in the undergrowth. The sounds grew louder with every second that passed.
“What’s that?” Lena asked.
As the noise came closer, it seemed to grow and spread out until it came from multiple directions.
“I don’t like the sound of it,” LT growled.
“Why do we attract so much trouble?” Zookie sighed.
The sound grew until it woke Tim and Woody. The five of them squeezed into a tight circle, straining their eyes to see into the dark.
Fear rose in Zookie. He fought every instinct to just run in a blind panic. The thought crossed his mind several times. He was fast. He could outrun whatever was out there, but that would mean leaving behind the others. LT was probably pretty fast, but what about the others? Tim lumbered when he walked. Lena’s legs were tiny and Woody’s were even smaller.
Then, the noise stopped. The forest fell into silence again.
“What was that?” Zookie asked as the quiet stretched through several minutes.
“I think we should run,” LT said, his nose twitching like crazy.
All at once, the forest exploded in on them. Dozens of dark, slinking shapes rushed at them.
Chapter 11
A dark shape launched itself at Zookie. The dragon shot out a paw and snatched it out of the air. The thing hissed at him.
It was ugly to be sure. It was skinny and had tough gray skin that blended in perfectly with the night. It had large, yellow eyes that allowed it to see in the dark. Its nose was long, thin, and crooked—its mouth a foul-smelling slash across its hateful face.
It wore twisted armor that looked pieced together from scrap metal and carried a short, rusting sword. The creature held the weapon up, ready to strike the young dragon. Zookie slapped the thing’s hand with his wing. It cried out in pain and dropped the weapon.
Zookie tossed him aside and swung his tail at another of the things trying to get the drop on him from behind. It was an unconscious reaction—muscle memory from his lessons with his uncle and war trainer, SteelClaw. The impact sent the hideous creature twirling into the dark.
“Trolls!” the wood elf squeaked, its first word in the Common tongue.
A troll launched itself out of a nearby tree at Tim. The cyclops snatched him out of the air and started using it as a club. He swung the creature around by its ankles, bowling over a number of its fellows with one sweep.
Another rushed Woody, who held the spear in front of him. When it was close enough to the wood elf, it swung a curved and notched sword. The elf ducked under the blade and buried the butt of his spear into the troll’s unprotected shin. It squealed and grabbed its leg. It lost its balance and fell to the ground with a thump.
“There’s too many!” LT yelled from his position between Zookie and Tim. “We need to run.”
Zookie nodded an agreement. The trolls were everywhere and still more poured out from the trees. He grabbed Lena—who had been throwing rocks that did nothing but bounce off the trolls’ armor—by the back of her dress with his jaws. He wrapped his tail around the wood elf, snatching him off the ground with a squeak, and ran.
LT darted after him. Tim took up the rear, fending off the trolls with a small tree he had uprooted.
Running through the dark forest was difficult. Roots reached up from the ground to snatch at their ankles. Low limbs took swipes at them. Even with the benefit of nightsight, both Zookie and LT stumbled more than once.
“Do you know where you’re going?” LT yelled up at Zookie.
“No, I’m just trying to get out of here.” The dragon’s reply was muffled by Lena’s shirt.
So, they ran. Every time they looked back, they saw many dark shapes moving through the woods behind them. It made Zookie’s doubleheart beat hard and spurred on his panic.
“I think there’s a clearing up there,” LT puffed.
And there was, except it wasn’t a clearing in the woods in a traditional sense. It turned out to be a cliff. The dense trees opened up to the cloudy night sky as they skidded to a stop right at the edge. Zookie loosened a rock from the edge. It fell to a river that raged and frothed a hundred yards below.
“What now?” Lena was out of breath, though she hadn’t been the one running. Apparently flopping around in Zookie’s mouth had been a chore for her, too.
“Un,” Tim said. He grabbed her and the wood elf from Zookie, holding them in his massive hands. He jumped.
“Wait!” Zookie yelled, but it was too late.
The cyclops curled into a ball, cannonball style, and protected the two small creatures. They hit the water with a massive splash.
The forest behind them roared with a noise like an avalanche. The dragon and tiger looked at each other.
“Well, I guess it’s settled,” Zookie breathed.
“What?”
“Only one way to go.” Zookie took a few steps back.
“You’re not—”
LT’s words devolved into a scream when Zookie ran, jumped over him, grabbing the tiger with all four paws and tumbled over the edge.
Chapter 12
“Hey!” LT screeched. “I thought you couldn’t fly.”
It was true. He always thought it weird that Zookie didn’t just take off and fly home. Instead, he tramped through the woods with the weird collection of creatures. A tiger, a youngling human, a cyclops, and now a wood elf. No beast in his right mind would put himself through that if he could fly.
LT just thought it’d be rude to mention it.
“This is gliding,” Zookie said irritably. “Do you know anything about flying?”
Of course, LT didn’t. What would a tiger know about flying?
Apparently, the trolls didn’t know anything about it either. A few of them launched themselves off the cliff with reckless abandon. None of them quite reached them. They all disappeared in the rumbling river below.
“Yeah, I know everything about flying,” LT said. “Can’t you see my wings?”
“What?” Zookie yelled over the rush of wind, almost dropping the tiger.
“It’s called sarcasm,” LT growled. “If you drop me, I’ll bite your tail.”
“You know, you threaten to bite me a lot.” Zookie shifted to get a better grip.
“Well, I’m going to if you…Whoa!” LT exclaimed as he took his first look down and saw just how far above the water they floated. He squeezed his eyes shut.
“Do you see the others?” Zookie asked.
“No,” LT called. He wasn’t about to tell the dragon he wasn’t looking.
LT’s stomach rolled. Even with his eyes shut, he could feel them losing altitude way too fast.
“We’re going to hit the water soon,” Zookie said.
“What? Already?” LT peeked out from slits in his eyelids. He shut them again. “We’re going too fast!”
The tiger felt the world spin upside down. He opened his eyes to see the canyon walls rise to either side of them and the night sky beyond. He panicked just as they hit the water, Zookie’s scaled back taking the brunt of the impact. LT kicked and rolled off the dragon into the water.
LT sunk a little bit before he managed to kick himself back to the surface. He sputtered and spit out water. “Next time you want to try to kill me, leave me out of it,” he called out, not sure where the dragon had gone.
He didn’t wait around to find out. The river was rushing too fast for his liking. He paddled toward the closest rocky cliff face, hoping to find an outcropping to climb onto. After a couple failed attempts, he managed to dig his claws into a crack in a rock and pull himself onto it. He flopped on the smooth surface and panted.
Zookie exploded from the water right next to him, nearly startling him right off his perch. The dragon held on to the same rock. “Next time you’re going to panic, leave me out of it.”
LT growled. “I didn’t—”
&
nbsp; Whatever he was going to say was interrupted by a large splash as a troll belly-flopped in the water right next to them. A moment later, it floated to the surface further down the river, knocked out cold.
LT looked up, expecting to see more of them falling out of the sky. There wasn’t, but his nightsight let him see dark shapes climbing down the side of the cliff. “They’re following.”
“I noticed,” Zookie said. He looked around before turning back to the tiger. “We need to go underwater.”
“We need to what?”
“How long can you hold your breath?”
“We need to what?” LT asked again.
“It’s the way only to lose them.”
LT did not want to go back into the water and he definitely did not want to go under the rushing water. Zookie was right, though. The nimble trolls were scrambling down toward them with alarming speed. He nodded.
In a flash, Zookie grabbed the scruff of LT’s neck. He barely had time to suck in a deep breath before he was pulled into the river. The power of the rushing water nearly took that breath away.
The river was dark and murky like a thick stew. He couldn’t even see his own whiskers right in front of his face. LT paddled with his large paws, trying to keep from bouncing off underwater boulders. Zookie kept a hold of him, helping to steer them by swishing his long tail back and forth.
Something else grabbed LT, though. It clamped around one of his back paws and yanked him deeper into the river. He kicked and pawed at the water, bumping into Zookie as they were both dragged down into the blackness.
Chapter 13
LT struggled against the grip on his hind leg, but it held on tight. He and Zookie were dragged down further and further until all the water was completely black and he couldn’t see a thing. Panic rose and he thought he might run out of breath.
He didn’t want to drown. There were so many creatures in the world that hadn’t been able to view the lightning stripe that made him the ferocious tiger he had grown up to be. Well, growing up to be. He was still young.
There was a mighty yank and the two were pulled to the side. Just when LT thought he’d pass out from holding his breath too long, he was flung up and out of the water. He flopped on a rock and coughed up some water. Zookie landed hard right next to him.
The tiger lay unmoving for long moments while he gasped for air. It smelled wrong—old. And it tasted like dirt.
He was alive, though. That was all that mattered. He opened his eyes and when focused, he saw a large cave looping over them, highlighted by an eerie orange light.
“Where are we?” Zookie croaked beside him.
How was he supposed to know? He felt like a half-drowned cat and he didn’t like it at all. The tiger rolled his eyes without moving his waterlogged head. Lena and the elf sat in a soggy puddle a little further into the cave. Tim’s large head poked out of the water with a big gap-toothed grin.
“Well,” Zookie muttered, “that wasn’t the best rescue, but I guess it worked.”
Lena sat up straighter, her breathing came hard and fast. “That was…” She breathed a few more times. “Awesome! Let’s do it again.”
Zookie and LT looked at each other and said “No!” at the same time.
Woody nodded his agreement as Tim pulled his massive form out of the water. The light illuminating the cave bounced around.
LT squeezed his eyes shut and fought off rolling nausea in his belly. “Don’t do that.”
The wood elf said something.
When LT opened them again, the light was still. It came from a tiny ball at the tip of Woody’s pointed hat. He wanted to ask where it came from but didn’t trust his stomach enough to talk without throwing up.
“We need to get out of here.” Zookie climbed to his paws.
“We can go back out the way we came in,” Lena suggested with way too much excitement.
“No,” Zookie and LT said again.
“There’s a crack up there.” Zookie craned his neck toward the cave’s ceiling.
LT could just barely make out a bit of light from outside with his nightsight. “Not even the human is skinny enough to fit through there.”
Zookie growled in frustration but nodded in agreement. He turned to look around for another way out.
What was the use? LT knew they were stuck in the underwater cave. They’d starve down there unless they went back in the water. He eyed the pool wearily.
“Wait, what’s this?” Zookie asked. “Woody, bring the light over here.”
Curious enough to ignore his upset stomach, LT pulled himself upright and climbed over rocks to where the dragon stood by a cave wall.
“Closer.” Zookie grabbed Woody’s head and pulled his hat (with his head in it) closer. “There.”
“Where?” Lena asked.
“What?” LT said at the same time.
Zookie slid his free paw over the wall. “This symbol.”
LT squinted and just barely made out something scratched in the rock. “What is it?”
“Dragon Cave Mountain.”
“Dragon Cave Mountain?” Lena squealed. “We’re in Dragon Cave Mountain?”
“No.” Zookie shook his head. “But, there are several secret tunnels that lead into the mountain. I think this is one of them.”
“You think?” LT said skeptically.
“This mark looks familiar, but I don’t recognize it.”
“That makes lots of sense,” LT muttered.
Zookie looked harder at it. The marking was a series of scratches. Three short perpendicular marks, one twisting twirl above them, and a circle around all of it. “It looks like it should be a mark of the dragons, but I don’t know what it says. It seems…I don’t know. Old.”
“So, there’s a tunnel that goes to Dragon Cave Mountain?” Lena hopped up and ran around the cave, clearly bored with all the talk of markings and old stuff. She peered into the dark spots looking for a tunnel.
“I don’t think it’ll be so easy to find,” Zookie said. “If there is a secret entrance into the mountain, my people would have gone to great lengths to hide it.”
“Found it!” Lena declared. Her voice echoed around the cave as she pointed at the far wall.
“Oh,” the dragon said. “I really don’t think it’ll be that easy.”
“Nothing ever is with this lot,” LT agreed.
Still, the group converged on the spot. Sure enough, there was a tunnel mostly hidden behind a massive stalactite. The opening into the cave was large—big enough for Tim to walk through without bending down. Even with the aid of Woody’s hat light, it was dark and they could only see a few feet into it.
That worried LT. Usually, his cat nightsight was pretty strong. Stronger than most tigers, he’d be the first to tell you, but it was like the tunnel gobbled up all the light.
“Let’s go!” Lena stepped fearlessly toward the tunnel.
“Wait.” Zookie held out a wing to stop her. “I don’t like this. It’s too easy,” he declared again.
“Don’t be such a worry wart,” she said.
“Being cautious isn’t being a—”
Woody said something from a perch on top of a particularly thin looking rock he had climbed to get a better look over the bigger creatures.
“Be careful on those rocks,” Lena chided.
The wood elf’s voice rose as he took exception to being mothered. He planted his little fists on his hips, lost his balance, and wobbled on one foot. His chatter turned to a shriek as he fell over backward. He tumbled down the side of the rock and landed on the cave floor with a thud. He hopped up and brushed himself off.
LT sighed as Lena gave the small creature an “I told you so” look.
“All I’m saying is we need to be careful,” Zookie said, ignoring what just took place.
“Non-sa-sense!” Lena declared. “What are you, afraid of the dark?”
“No, I just—”
The little girl pushed past Zookie and the tiger and marched rig
ht into the dark tunnel. The two shared a look.
“That girl is nuts,” LT muttered.
Zookie opened his maw to say something, but a screech from inside the tunnel interrupted him. He whipped his head towards the opening as Lena’s yell faded away at an alarming rate. The dragon reacted instantly, charging in after Lena. Tim and Woody followed quickly behind him.
LT hesitated. It was awful dark in there. The human girl was probably just playing a joke on them, anyway. The other three could handle it. He’d wait right here.
He sat down and blinked. He blinked again. Without Woody’s light, the cave was pitch-black again, challenging even his awesome nightsight. The darkness pushed in on LT. Close to panicking, he ran into the tunnel.
It never occurred to him that running through a completely dark tunnel wasn’t a good idea. He could run into a rock wall and never see it coming. Luckily, he didn’t. Unluckily, he had the exact opposite problem. He made it only several long bounds with his powerful legs before the floor gave way beneath him and he fell into black.
Chapter 14
Night had long since settled on the forest. The moon climbed high in the sky and began its trip down the other side. Clouds obscured it, but it was there. All was lazy and quiet. Even the night bugs felt tired and barely let out a chirp.
Still, Chitty stayed awake, tucked away in the cave that served as his home. He had long outgrown a hole in a tree. The large squirrel sat by his mound of nuts his tree elves had collected. His tail twitched uncontrollably with glee as he counted his nuts for the second time that night.
“All is set?”
The sudden voice made Chitty jump, upending a pile of nuts.
“You have done as I asked?”
A panicked chirp escaped from Chitty when he realized where the voice came from. A dark form stood at the mouth of his cave. It was like a black form against a black canvas. Chitty couldn’t make out the exact outline of creature that had invaded his home, even with his formidable nightsight.
Chitty didn’t need to see him to know who it was, though. It was the dark human. The one who came to Chitty making demands the night before. The one that made his insides feel like they were suddenly replaced with wiggling worms. The one he knew was made of pure evil.
Dragon Cave Mountain Page 5
