by GARY DARBY
I ignore them and take the few steps to stand next to Golden Wind’s head. I gaze up at Scamper, who’s back in his customary place, up on his hindquarters, his eyes and nose pointed toward the fight. It’s clear that he's eager to be off, to be with the others.
“Not this time, Scamp,” I murmur to him. “We’re going the opposite way.”
Aarrrhhh? He questions with a little frown on his face. “That’s the way I feel, too but there’s nothing I can do about it. You heard Master Boren and Phigby.”
“C’mon,” I mutter to the golden. “They want me to walk you away from here. When we’re far enough, we’re to sky to the mountains, find a safe place to hide and wait.”
She doesn’t look at me but answers flatly, “I know.”
“Well, if you know,” I snap, “then let’s go.” I turn and start pacing down the plaza.
The golden doesn’t move.
I walk back to face her. “Hey, you heard what I said, let’s go.”
She settles on her hindquarters and then lies down on her belly. My eyes grow wide, and I sputter, “I don’t believe it. I—don’t—believe—it. You’re pulling a Master Boren on me.”
She lowers her head until it's resting on her forelegs. “You are pulling a Master Boren on me! On me!”
I stride forward until I’m fully facing her. “This wasn’t my idea,” I all but yell. “It was Master Boren’s. He said that even if they lost the battle but kept you safe, then we’ll have won.”
Golden Wind brings her muzzle close. She stares into my eyes, blinks once, and then murmurs, “But what will you lose, Hooper?”
“Me?” I stammer. “I—I—” I stand staring at her before my shoulders slump and I slowly turn to sit on her leg as I grasp the meaning of her question.
Running a hand through my rumpled hair, I mutter, “You can’t lose what you never had, Golden Wind. You know, dignity, self-worth; respect.”
I take in a breath. “Those traits aren’t exactly how anyone’s ever described me.”
She swings her head around and brings her muzzle close. “Then perhaps it’s time that that’s how you described yourself, Hooper.”
The golden pauses before again gazing at the faraway gray and black smoke that spreads across the horizon like a billowing curtain, hiding the Wilder savagery.
“Hooper, ever since we left Draconstead, you’ve been learning how to run toward the fight when called upon. Now is not the time to learn how to run away from such a battle as this.”
I stare across the empty plaza. Golden Wind is right. It’s been a hard-learned lesson for sure, but if I turn tail now, then all I’ve learned will be for naught.
She nudges me gently with her muzzle. “Just because you climb one mountain does not mean that there aren’t other mountains yet to climb.”
“What about you?” I ask. “We can’t risk the chance that the Wilders might capture you.”
“Hooper, I promise you, the Wilders will not take me captive. My time is not yet.”
She smiles at me and brings her face so that we’re eye to eye. “You and I have more mountains to climb, together.”
A grim determination settles on my face. I jerk upright and settle my scabbard firmly around my waist. “Then let’s go climb this mountain.”
I slap my blade hard. “After all, I finally have a sword that I can wield whether it be on flat ground or on a mountaintop. A blade sitting in a scabbard doesn’t lop off any Wilder heads.”
“Good,” she approves and stands. “For the time grows short. Even now, the Sung Dar draw close and neither our friends, nor the Golians know of their approach.”
“The Sung Dar?” I choke. “When did this happen?”
“While the eyes of the Golians were turned on the Wilders,” she answers.
My eyes grow wide but only for an instant before I clamber up to her neck saddle and settle in behind Scamper. “Where to?” I call out.
“To warn Master Boren and Queen Alonya of the new threat,” she replies.
Golden Wind spreads her wings, shakes them once, gathers herself, and then bolts skyward. As we sky high above the city, I glance down and see that streaming through the streets and away from the battle are Golian males who are shepherding children or those Golians who are too aged or infirm to be of worth in the fight.
At the same time, there are numerous Golians, some dressed in armor, some not, who lumber with sword or bow toward the battlefront, in answer to Alonya’s call to war.
Golden Wind swiftly heads toward the ocean and it’s not long before we’re nearing the bay. “Look out to sea, Hooper,” Golden Wind calls.
I rise up for a better look and suck in a breath.
A vast armada of Sung Dar vessels is sailing into the inlet; so many that they’re practically packed from shore to shore. Their square sails are set to the wind, and it won’t take long before their hulls near the seashore.
In the morning’s early light, I can see movement on the ship’s decks, and I lean over as what I see seems familiar. “No . . .” I mutter as my eyes sight gray, bulbous bodies carrying long, cruel lances crowding the vessels. Lances that I’ve seen before.
“No . . .” I mumble again, “it can’t be. Those are drogs!”
The Sung Dar is carrying an army of bloodthirsty drogs to Golian. I don’t know how long it will take for the drogs to enter Dronopolis, but what I do know is that once they do, all they’ll find are defenseless children, the very old, and those who know not the tools or nature of war.
It will be a slaughter.
“We’ve got to hurry,” I shout, “or we’re going to be too late.”
In answer, the golden dips her wings, and we soar to the left, flashing away from the ocean and toward the battle lines. The wind whips across my face but I pay it no heed and I lean forward as if I can somehow help the golden wing that much faster.
We flash past the city’s outbuildings, parallel to the raging fire and skirmish line, searching for the sapphires.
Abruptly, from a side street, I spot a group of Amazos. They sprint out into the open, pull back their bows, hold for an instant, and then let fly a half dozen shafts at two Wilder dragons that appear out of the black smoke and haze.
One Wilder dives under the arrows but the other is caught in the hail of bolts. With a screech and a flailing of wings, dragon and rider fall from the sky.
“Uh,” I mutter, “aren’t we getting a little close to the fight? There’s just us, you know.”
“We have to, Hooper,” she patiently answers. “Where else would you find those we seek?”
I start to nod, when, farther ahead, I sight three blue specks clustered against a building with enormous marble colonnades that ring the edifice’s exterior. “There!” I call, and Golden Wind immediately answers, “I see them.”
We zip across several broad streets and then Golden Wind spreads her wings wide, catches the wind, and for a moment, I feel as if we’re dropping straight down. Just before I think we’re going to strike the ground, the golden flaps her wings rapidly and in a blast of dust we settle onto a broad boulevard.
“Stay here,” I order Scamper, “and mind the sprogs. I have the feeling we’ll be leaving soon.”
I clamber down, rush around the golden only to come up short as I find I have an angry committee waiting for me.
“What do you think you’re doing—” a furious Master Boren begins but I throw up both hands to stop his angry outburst before it even begins.
“Master Boren, I would save your tongue-lashing for another time. You might want to listen to what I have to say.”
Just then, a Golian comes striding up. She has smudges of ash streaking her face, her ripped and tattered cape hangs by mere threads to her neck clasp, and there is blood running down one arm, but she carries herself as one used to being in command of warriors.
“What is this?” she demands. “Boren, I thought you told me that the golden was being taken to safety.”
“I thought a
s well,” Boren snaps. “General Katus, this is Hooper, whom I entrusted to ensure that Golden Wind found refuge.”
Before either can speak again, I point toward the ocean. “A Sung Dar fleet, they’re in the bay, getting ready to land an army of drogs.”
“What?” Katus demands, her eyes flashing both concern and skepticism. “How do you know this?”
“Because I saw them,” I answer. “Their ships are so many and so crowded together that you could walk from ship to ship and cross the entire inlet. What’s more, the drogs will soon be on the march right into Dronopolis.”
I go on in a rush of words. “Once they get their entire force ashore, they’re going to cut your city in two. You’ll be caught between the Wilders and the drogs—a vise with no way out. What’s more, Princess Desma and her ballistae will run head-on into them for I doubt if she knows of them either.”
I draw in a breath. “She, her warriors, your children and your old ones will be cut into pieces.”
31
Katus’s face clouds up in an angry, even indignant expression at my bold words. She opens her mouth, perhaps to give me a severe tongue-lashing. After all, she is a general, whereas I must look to her like, well, just a Hooper.
Instead, she draws in a breath, peers at me intently before uttering to Master Boren, “He speaks as if he were the general here, and not I.”
Master Boren and the others just stare at me too, their mouths slightly agape. “Indeed,” Phigby answers with his eyes showing that he too is taken aback by my forthright tone.
“Well,” he goes on to say, turning to Katus and Boren, “Hooper has delivered the bad news, what are we to do about it?”
“We take the dragons,” I instantly answer, “and hold the Sung Dar off. They won’t be expecting an attack from skying dragons. Not only that, the bay is like a long funnel. It narrows as it reaches land, and the Sung Dar have packed themselves in so tight, they will only be able to fire at us from the leading ships.
“If we can hold them off long enough, our attack will give Princess Desma the chance to escape the trap and bring the ballistas to bear on the Wilders.”
I turn to General Katus. “You crush them here; we’ll defeat them on the sea.”
Katus looks at me in open admiration. “He not only speaks like a general, he thinks like one as well.”
She turns to Boren. “Dragon Master, what do you make of this young one’s plan?”
Boren eyes me before he turns and begins, “Our three dragons—”
“Four dragons, Master Boren,” I firmly declare. “Three will not be enough, and neither the golden nor I will run from this fight. This company has fought together and for each other. We’ve earned the right to be a part of this troop, whether there is danger or not.”
Boren’s eyes turn to stone, and his body becomes rigid, no doubt in reaction to my supposed impertinence. Before he can speak, Cara puts a hand on his arm. “Father,” she murmurs, “Hooper’s right. We have fought together and for each other.”
“Aye, Master Boren,” Amil rumbles. “I would have him by our side.”
“As would I,” Helmar declares.
“And I,” Phigby grumps. “If this be our last fight, then let us end it as we started, together.”
Master Boren glances at the others before he pats his daughter’s hand. He peers at me for several moments before his eyes and voice soften, and he turns to Katus with a laugh. “As you can see, my lady, my troops are not as disciplined as yours.”
He turns back to me. “Still, there’s no one I’d rather fight with, or if needed, die with.”
He steps closer to lay a hand on my shoulder. “Hooper, I only ask one thing of you; that you do your very best to keep the golden out of the Wilders’ clutches. If we somehow work a miracle and hold off both Wilders and Sung Dar, to lose the golden to them would turn victory into defeat.”
“Master Boren,” I somberly intone, “you have my solemn promise that they will not have her.”
I glance over at the golden who’s gazing at me with approving eyes. “She and I still have more mountains to climb together.”
“To your dragons, then,” Boren orders before turning to Katus. “You will inform the queen?”
“I will send a runner immediately,” Katus answers.
“Then, by your leave, my lady.”
She nods and holds out a hand to Boren in the warrior’s grasp. “And good luck to us all.”
I clamber aboard Golden Wind and without my urging, she lifts her wings, and we’re aloft. We speed straight back down the city, at first fast and low, before Boren has us sky higher until we can see the Sung Dar fleet in the distance.
Master Boren then slows us down and brings our dragons abreast of each other. Pointing towards the Sung Dar, he calls out, “Speed is our advantage. And this is not a fight we can win with bows alone—we must turn dragon fire on them.”
Phigby calls to Helmar, “Do you have the strength to guide your dragon on your own?”
Helmar nods grimly. “I will have the strength.”
“Then,” Phigby orders, “Boren, put Amil and me on the beach. Amil will be my protector while I prepare some of my own surprises for those scum.”
Boren nods in acknowledgement, drops us lower again so as to not be seen by the Sung Dar and soon we are winging toward the bay. We flash over rooftops, gardens, and wide boulevards until we cross into the fields and orchards that mark the city’s outskirts.
Master Boren has us skim just above the ground, and it won’t be long until we reach the inlet. I reach over and push the sprogs’ heads down into their bags and cinch the leather sacks tight as I don’t want to have to worry about the sprogs falling out in the middle of the fight.
I reach under Scamper’s belly and lift him up from his self-appointed spot. I place him under the golden’s skull carapace. “You might want to hold on tight, this may be unlike anything we’ve gone through yet.”
He seems to understand because he scrunches down low and scrabbles his paws against the golden’s plating as if finding a place to grip.
I glance over at Cara, and she returns my gaze. For a moment, she gives me a smile and my heart leaps at the sight. Then, she squeezes down even lower as if she would make herself one with Wind Song and her sapphire surges ahead.
The Sung Dar ships come into view, their fleet stretching across the bay, a seemingly endless number of vessels full of drogs. Master Boren lifts an arm, and Cara splits off to the left. He lifts it again in my direction. “All right, Golden Wind, here we go. Right!”
We flash to the right, parallel to the shoreline. We speed along for several heartbeats and then I shout, “Left!”
We veer to the left so sharply that Golden Wind’s wingtip almost scrapes the sand. “Up!” I command. She zooms upward higher and higher until she hovers for just an instant and then I order, “Dive!”
We speed downward, straight at a line of Sung Dar ships. On the decks, I can see the drogs scurrying about in sudden panic. We’ve caught them completely unprepared.
“Ready, Golden Wind?”
“Ready, Hooper,” she calls back.
“Dragon fire!” I shout.
Golden Wind scrunches up her neck and belly muscles and then, like the roar of a mighty tempest, fiery flames spew from her mouth.
In a long burning stream of lava-hot fire, she rakes a line of ships. Vessels explode where her blistering blaze torches the deck timbers. Hot shards of burning wood shoot upward to land on other craft, setting sails and masts afire.
Crazed, panicked drogs, some ablaze themselves, try to leap into the water to save themselves. However, the Sung Dar sailing masters have packed the ships so close together that there is little open water for the hapless drogs to find and plunge into.
Only those at the very front can jump for their lives into the waiting sea.
Nevertheless, even there, death awaits them.
Golden Wind’s fire is so hot that it turns the ocean into a f
rothing, scalding steam that boils and foams as if some gigantic sea serpent writhes and churns just below the surface.
For an instant, I turn my eyes away from the horrific sight, and I feel sorry for the drogs. Then I remember what they did to Pengillstorr, and Hakon, and Arnie and all the rest, and what they would do to the city’s weak ones and my pity vanishes.
I lean over and call out, “That’s for Pengillstorr, Protector and Friend.”
The golden swerves sharply to the left and up, her fire having gone out. “And for others,” she softly reminds me.
I glance up the beach where Helmar and Master Boren have set Phigby and Amil down. Then, the sky lights up as Wind Song flashes down from above, her fire like a maelstrom of white-hot brimstone that consumes ship after ship, leaving behind burning, scorched hulks.
Golden Wind turns away from the battle, letting Wind Glory and Rover enter the fray. “How’s your fire doing?” I ask.
“Give it a moment,” she calls back. “It’s like catching your breath after a hard run.”
I glance over my shoulder. Cara has Wind Song dashing away from the ships. No doubt to catch her fire breath, too.
Rover and Glory are sweeping the ships with a river of flame, but now from the craft further back come flying projectiles. Long, thick shafts, with pointed, burnished tips flash through the air, straight at the two sapphires.
“Uh oh,” I respond with a grimace. “It looks like our surprise is over. The Sung Dar are fighting back, they’re shooting arrowlike missiles at Rover and Glory.”
Golden Wind heels over, and we linger for just a moment. “Then,” she answers in a grim voice, “we’ll just have to teach them not to shoot at our friends.”
She climbs higher before saying, “You might want to hold on tight, Hooper.”
The golden tucks her wings, and we dive down, faster and faster until the wind is roaring in my ears. I’m holding onto two of her horns with all my strength, but I’m afraid it might not be enough.
Scamper is huddled under her carapace, his little paws gripping a scale so hard, it’s as if he were melded onto the plate. The saddlebags with the sprogs inside are thumping wildly against the golden’s side, and I’m afraid that they will rip away, sending the sprogs spinning off to their deaths.