by GARY DARBY
The flying behemoth tries to turn away, but it’s too slow. From one side, an orange streak slices across the cave, punching through one webbed wing before it splits the second.
Now the gigantic monstrosity has slits in both sides and the harder it flaps to stay aloft, the wider the gashes become as if someone is ripping a piece of cloth.
The little sprites again flash through the air, like shooting stars, tearing and ripping more holes in the monster’s webbed hide.
It thrashes in the air, trying to evade the tiny, darting dragons, but it’s too ponderous, too slow, whereas the sprites are speeding almost faster than the eye can follow as they slash through the thing’s wings again and again.
The fiend tries one last time to lift itself in the air, but it’s a futile effort, its wings are too torn and shredded. It begins to spiral down to the ground.
Just before it hits, there’s an ear-splitting shriek of anger, rage, and dismay from Vay. Then, with a thunderous din that echoes throughout the cave, the bat monster crashes to the cavern floor.
The beast lies there, its head torn at an angle, a red, forked tongue dangling to one side.
Then, by the sprite’s glowing light I watch wide-eyed as the thing starts to ooze and slough off in small, black drops.
My jaw drops and I suck in a breath as the creature’s body dissolves into hundreds of tiny bats, which wing away as speedily as they can, seeking shelter in the cave’s dim upper recesses.
The last of the little bats flash to the cavern’s top, back into the blackness. Moments later, the four little dragons hover just in front of me as I let out a long breath, my eyes wide in amazement.
“I don’t know how you did that, but thanks. Thanks very much. I owe you my life, and I won’t forget what you did for Scamper and me.”
Then, as if he heard his name, Scamper comes bounding from behind a set of jagged boulders and paws at my legs.
He’s almost mauling me and from his wide eyes and frantic efforts, it’s clear that he's excited and anxious about something.
Gwaaay!
“Yes,” I agree wholeheartedly, “let’s get away from here before Vay pulls off another nasty.”
He darts away, and I try to move as fast as I can, but I guess I’m not moving fast enough because Scamper comes shooting back at me, paws at my leg again, and then sprints off again.
“Never seen him act like that before,” I mumble with furrowed brow. “I guess Vay’s got him really spooked.”
Grunting, I say, “What am I saying, she’s got me really spooked.”
I hobble at my best speed with the sprite dragons providing enough light that I can hurriedly make my way through the boulder-littered cavern.
We haven’t gone far when I hear unfamiliar noises farther along in the passageway. I halt to listen, but Scamper won’t let me stop and insists that we keep moving.
Hurrying, I’ve only taken a few steps when I realize what I’m hearing; the fury of battle.
Just ahead comes the sound of bowstrings twanging followed by the soft hiss of arrows slicing through the air.
Voices shout, along with the howls and sharp yelps of wolves.
The passageway narrows to where it’s just over my head and little more than my body width wide, but I’m in a stiff upward climb.
The noises are louder and closer, but the incline is getting steeper and steeper. I have to hunch over and pull at protruding rocks to pull myself up.
Peering ahead, I can see pale light that marks a rocky notch that leads outside. I turn to the sprites. “I think you need to turn yourselves off now.”
I’m not sure how, but they seem to understand me and go dark but hover just off the ground. Scamper bounds ahead and waits for me at the opening’s edge.
I crawl the last little way and poke my head out the craggy slit. The giant bat was terrifying, but what I see now causes me to groan and grip the edge so tight that my fingernails scrape over the rock.
The monstrous Varg wolves have found my companions.
Cara and the others are fighting for their lives against the Vargs’ snapping jaws.
The wolves are in a blood-crazed frenzy as they dart and dash along a line of tall rocks that are clumped together as if someone rolled or carried them there to form a barrier.
The wolves claw and scratch, snapping at each other even as they try to reach the cornered company.
Phigby and the others are backed near a cliff’s facing, using the large, craggy boulders as a bulwark against the charging wolves.
The sapphire dragons pace anxiously behind them with Master Boren doing his best to control them, but their growls are rising in pitch as more and more of the giant wolves join in the attack.
In the moon’s wan light, I can see Cara and Helmar, almost shoulder to shoulder, arrows flying from their bows.
Amil’s ax flashes as he lifts and swings at a snarling fiendish wolf head. There’s a yelp, and a Varg goes down with Amil’s blade buried deep in its skull.
Phigby has a long sword and stands in a slit between two of the taller boulders, slashing and stabbing at the frenzied wolves.
Alonya’s huge bow is extracting a deadly toll every time she lets an arrow go, but there’s too many fiendish wolves. The pack seems even larger than it was before.
I have no doubt that this is Vay’s work and it’s only a matter of time before the Vargs find a way to get over the rock wall and corner my companions against the cliff.
“Why don’t they unleash the dragons?” I mutter to myself. “Use their dragon fire on those beasts.”
“Because,” a voice whispers from the dark below the ledge, “like me, they’ve heard the wings of Wilder dragons close by.”
Mouth open, I lean over the edge and peer downward. A shadow moves slightly, and I whisper, “Golden Wind?”
“Yes, Hooper, it’s me,” she acknowledges.
“Wilders,” I murmur, “do you think they saw us?”
“It doesn’t appear so. None has turned this way, but they’re close enough that they’ll certainly see dragon fire.”
“Or one of Phigby’s light tricks.”
“That too,” she answers.
“We’ve got to do something. There’s too many Vargs, they can’t hold them off much longer.”
“What would you have me do, Hooper Menvoran?”
“Don’t call me that!”
The golden is silent at my outburst. “Sorry,” I mumble, “that’s what she called me; for some reason, it makes me feel unclean.”
“She? You mean Vay? She was here?”
“In the cave,” I answer with a shudder. “But thanks to the sprites and Scamper, we managed to escape.”
“I am sorry, Hooper, are you all right?”
I take a breath. “Yes,” I mutter and point at the battle. “But not if we don’t help. Do you have any ideas?”
“None that you haven’t mentioned.”
I glance down, the rock facing is steep, and to get to the golden won’t be an easy climb.
“If I can get down to you,” I whisper, “can you get us inside the barricade with the rest of the company?”
The golden hesitates as if she’s sizing up the situation before questioning, “I think so, but are you sure that’s what you want to do?”
“Yes. I don’t have anything to fight with, but I can’t just sit here and do nothing. Better to die with my companions than to watch the Vargs kill them one by one.”
“But Hooper, you do have something to fight with.”
I feel a faint pulse from the gemstone and take it out. Instead of the cold stone of before, now it has a soft luminance and warmth. “I thought it was dead, but you’re right, I do have something to fight with!”
Slipping over the ledge, I dig my fingers into the granite rock as I search for both hand and footholds. It seems like it takes me forever to climb down.
There’s reach a point where the cliff slants inward and all I can do is to dangle helplessly with jus
t my fingers clutching my last handhold.
I can feel myself losing my grip when I hear the scraping of dragon scales against stone and then, “Hooper, I’m just below you, let go.”
“I can’t see you,” I gurgle. “How much of a drop is it?”
“Not far. Trust me.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” I warble, “you’re not the one that’s hanging by your fingertips.”
I take a deep breath, let it out, and—drop.
There’s not much difference between landing on your back on hard rocks or dragon scales; neither give way, and both knock the wind out of you.
“Hooper?” the golden asks. “Are you all right?”
It takes me a moment to catch my breath and answer. “Nothing feels broken, so, yes,” I wheeze.
All but crawling, I slip along her back until I can slide myself into her neck saddle.
Glancing up, I give a tiny whistle. A moment later, a dark body comes sailing over the ledge and lands with a soft thump on the golden’s scaled backside.
Scamper comes pattering up to settle himself in his usual position. “Show-off,” I mutter.
Looking up, I don’t see the sprite dragons anywhere. They must have left and gone to wherever sprite dragons go.
I’m a little sad to see them go; they saved my life, and Scamper’s too, and all I could do was to offer my thanks.
The saddlebags are empty. “Where are the sprogs?”
“With Scamper’s help, they’re safely hidden. We’ll retrieve them after we’ve rescued our friends.”
I nod and ask in a low voice, “We’re ready up here, what do we do next?”
“I suggest that you hold on very tight, and get down low. And leave the rest to me.”
“Are we going to sky?”
“No. I have a better idea that will help our friends.”
I push myself deep into her neck saddle and scrunch down as best as I can behind her carapace. “Hold on tight,” I order Scamper and then call out, “Ready—I think.”
Golden Wind seems to settle back on her hind legs, and I can feel her neck muscles tighten underneath me.
For an instant, I think we are going to sky after all, but what she does next not only surprises me, it catches the Vargs totally off-guard.
Once, in early spring, I saw some village men playing a game on the Common, the square grassy area that lies between the Dragon Master’s home and the town proper.
They called the game, “lawn bowling.”
One man would hurl a smooth, rounded wooden ball over the short grass at nine stubby pins carved from birchen tree wood and set upright three to a row.
The game’s object was to knock down as many pins as you could with your throw. It seemed that the harder you threw, the more violent the contact between the ball and the carved wooden pins and the more of them that went flying over the lawn in every direction.
Imagine the golden as the ball and the Vargs as the pins.
Lowering her horned, hard head, she rushes around the trees that have hidden us and headlong into the unsuspecting giant wolves.
She charges down the line of Vargs sending wolf bodies flying every which way as she head-butts them, or her churning talons would stomp one of them into the ground.
Only a few in her direct path manage to dart away in time and not to receive the bowling ball treatment.
Reaching the end of the stone bulwark, Golden Wind makes a wide circle and then launches herself over the rocks, where we land with a loud thud just beyond.
Scamper, of course, thought it was great fun and kept up a constant chittering the whole time. A few times, I could have sworn that he was directing the golden as to which Varg to smash with her head and send spinning in a four-legged cartwheel.
Me, I just tried to hang on and not get hit by a flying Varg as it sailed over her from her head butt.
I can’t help myself. “That was great!”
My grin is every bit as wide as hers as she answers, “Thank you. I rather thought it was too. Unfortunately, our surprise will only work one time. The Vargs will be on to us if we try it again.”
From atop Golden Wind, I survey the battle. Cara and Helmar are carefully aiming their bows before unleashing an arrow. I can see that both have but a few arrows left in their quivers.
Once they’re gone, the two will only have short swords with which to defend themselves, and their swords against Varg fangs is akin to a mosquito jabbing Lady Alonya.
Amil’s ax is savaging the Vargs, but the big man is bleeding from several deep gashes in his heavily muscled arms where a Varg must have gotten to him before he was able to slay the beast.
His breathing is labored and his roundhouse blows are slowing with each Varg charge at him.
Alonya’s bow still sings, and each arrow that she lets fly at the wolves is met with a shrill yelp that turns into a Varg death rattle but she too runs low on arrow shafts.
Phigby is still standing firm between the two tall boulders and his constant slashing and stabbing at wolf heads is keeping some of the howling beasts at bay.
But it’s not enough.
“We’re losing,” I say to Golden Wind. “We’re too few, and the Vargs are too many. If the Vargs break through the barricade, we’ll have no choice but to unleash dragon fire.”
My face and voice harden as I realize what that means. “The Wilders will see. They’ll find us.”
The golden’s words seem to whisper gently in my mind . . . Hooper Menvoran, Gem Guardian.
The softness of the words is unlike the harshness and vileness that I felt when Vay spoke them. They don’t cause my skin to prickle in disgust or my spirit to feel dirty, tainted in some fashion.
Clutching at the dragon gem in my pocket, I can’t help but feel anxious. The magical emerald hasn’t worked before; was I sure that it would work now?
I lift my eyes up. The moons’ ashen light catches the treetops as if there’s a silvery haze settling over the forest.
For an instant, a narrow shaft of moonlight breaks through the thick leafy foliage and shines on the thick-branched trees directly across from me.
Slipping the jewel out, the crystal is warm, alive in my hand. It has power—power that I’m meant to use.
I lift my eyes to the battle scene again. There’s a pile of Varg bodies in front of the boulders, but Cara and Helmar have run out of arrows as has Alonya.
Like Phigby, Cara and Helmar have found small spaces between the rocks and with their swords slash and stab as furiously as they can at the slobbering blood-crazed brutes.
I know they’ll hold their ground for a while, but eventually, they’ll tire, and there will come a point when their strength will desert them, and the Vargs will break through.
Alonya stands atop one of the shorter squarelike rocks, and her sword is a whir of motion as she swings and stabs at wolf bodies that are as large as her own.
Before I can yell out a warning, several Vargs come flying from the darkness and hit her squarely sending her sprawling on the ground.
One wolf has her sword arm locked in its vicious fangs while two others have their jaws clamped on a leg.
Amil and Helmar jump to her defense and wade into the fray. Amil’s great ax rises and falls, and a wolf slumps over, its head almost severed from its body.
Helmar’s savage thrust runs deep into a Varg’s meaty throat and the beast drops in its tracks.
Before Alonya can stand, several more Vargs spring over the squat, flat rock and she goes down again with two more wolves at her while Amil and Helmar battle their own enraged nemesis.
The wolves’ snarls rise to a feverish crescendo, they know that the end is near, and death blood is in the air.
A sudden loud roaring causes me to snap my head around. More Vargs have broken through and are attacking the sapphires.
Cara and Master Boren are slashing and thrusting at several Vargs which are trying to get at the three sapphires while the dragons themselves are using fang
and talons to fight back.
Two Vargs come rushing at us, but one swipe from Golden Wind’s tail and they’re impaled on her tail spikes, breathing their last.
The golden snaps her tail to one side as if it were a whip and the dead Vargs go flying off to smash into a group of frenzied Vargs who are rushing toward the sapphires.
They go down in a heap of tangled legs and bodies which gives Rover and Glory a chance to rear up and bring their front talons down as if they were squashing roaches under their feet.
In this case, very big roaches.
It’s obvious to me that the Dragon Master is about to unleash the sapphires’ dragon fire in a final bid to save the company before they fall to the Vargs.
A desperate decision, but he has no choice—more and more Vargs are closing in, their cruel eyes centered on their wounded prey.
I stare at the trees directly across from me. These aren’t dragon hearts, they’re more like oaken trees only much larger than the ones around Draconstead.
My eyes narrow as I peer at the trees. “If she can do it, I can do it.”
“What did you say, Hooper?” the golden asks.
“I said, that if that witch of a Vay can do it, so can I. You go help the sapphires and Master Boren, I’m going for the trees.”
She eyes the trees. “How? There are Vargs between you and the forest.”
I point at a set of boulders, that look almost like stepping-stones and lead to the top of the tallest rock.
“Up there. I’m going to jump. I should be able to land in the closest tree.”
She eyes the distance dubiously. “That’s a long leap for you. Are you sure?”
I perch a little unsteadily on her head. “No. Now lift me up as high as you can before I lose my nerve and then get over there and help the sapphires.”
She stretches her neck out and balancing precariously on her skull plate, I squat and then lunge outward.
I manage to sprawl haphazardly on the closest tall rock, scrabbling for a better handhold.
As the golden spins away and charges at the howling wolf pack, I yell as loud as I can over the Vargs’ snarls, “Master Boren, wait! Don’t use the dragon fire just yet!”
He jerks his head up at my shout, but I don’t wait for his answer. I whirl around and scramble from one boxlike boulder to the next.
