Dragon Land: Two Dragon Brothers # 1: The Beginning

by Elizabeth Westphal

  A few minutes later, Indigowings and Emeraldeyes flew down. They must have seen all the smoke. Emeraldeyes gasped when she saw the fire. Indigowings looked shocked, but did not say anything. They both just started helping to dig up the soil, throwing it at the fire. But the three dragons were not fast enough. The fire kept spreading through the forest, getting larger all the time.

  Soon the fire was so big that the three dragons realized that they would not be able to put it out by themselves.

  “We have to go get help,” Indigowings said.

  “Yeah,” Emeraldeyes said, “but there aren't any dragons living nearby. No one is close enough to help!” She sounded frantic.

  By then, the fire had surrounded the area that the three dragons were standing in. Waveripple, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes all flew out of the fire circle and came back to land at a safer distance.

  Waveripple looked up at the darkening sky, hoping it would start raining soon. He saw lightning up in the clouds, but there was no rain yet.

  Waveripple, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes backed off from the fire, which was still spreading.

  Just seconds later, a light rain started falling from the clouds. Suddenly, the rain started falling heavily, pouring down in sheets. It would soon put out the fire, unless it stopped raining before the fire was completely extinguished.

  The three dragons watched to make sure that the fire would be completely put out. It rained heavily for about half an hour, and soon extinguished the flames. Then, just as suddenly as it had started, the rain stopped.

  Waveripple walked over to where the fire had been, with Indigowings and Emeraldeyes following. They checked to make sure that the fire was completely gone. It was, but it had left a lot of destruction in that area of the forest. The pine needles on the forest floor were all gone, and a thin layer of black ashes were in their place. A few dead trees had been burned up by the fire. Other trees were not completely burned, but their trunks had started to blacken. They looked dead now, but Waveripple was not certain.

  The fire had covered a wide area, but it had not destroyed too much, for a fire of its size. If the rain had not started, it would have spread a lot farther and destroyed much more than it had.

  “You actually caused this fire?” Indigowings asked, still sounding completely shocked.

  Emeraldeyes was also staring at Waveripple, looking very surprised.

  “Well, uh, yes,” Waveripple said. “I was trying to get a squirrel, but I missed, and the pine needles caught on fire instead...”

  Indigowings and Emeraldeyes continued staring at him, shocked that he could have started a fire this huge.

  Then they heard wings flapping, and all three dragons looked up. They saw Stormcloud, the Storm dragon that was Indigowings's friend, hovering in the air below the clouds. Then he turned and flew away. He must have made it rain, Waveripple realized. He remembered that Storm dragons could control the weather. The rain had started very suddenly and conveniently, and was heavy enough to put out the fire. The only explanation was that Stormcloud had seen the smoke and made it rain. Waveripple had known that Stormcloud could control the weather, but he had not thought that he could control it to that extent. He was more amazed at that than he and his friends had been at the fact that he had started the forest fire.

  “Stormcloud must have put out the fire,” Indigowings said, coming to the same conclusion that Waveripple had.

  “Wow,” Emeraldeyes said. “Imagine if he hadn't been nearby. Lizards could have been killed by that fire. Or, even if they weren't killed, a lot of territory could have been destroyed, and the dragons living here would have had to move.”

  Waveripple was ashamed of starting the fire, and even more so when he heard what Emeraldeyes said. He was deeply grateful to Stormcloud. It would have been horrible if any dragon had died because of the fire he started.

  “I don't think we should have any more fire-breathing contests,” Waveripple said.

  “Agreed,” Indigowings said.

  “Definitely,” Emeraldeyes said.

  After getting over the initial shock of the forest fire, they noticed that it was getting dark. Emeraldeyes went back to her oak tree, and Indigowings went to his cave. Waveripple went back to the lake. He decided not to tell his parents about the forest fire. He did not want them to be worried about him when he went into the forest.

  “I saw a lot of smoke coming out of the forest,” Splashsail said. “Was there a forest fire?” Just great. They had noticed the fire anyway.

  “We were worried about you when we saw the fire,” Flowerwater said. “We thought that you might have been nearby.”

  “There was a small forest fire," Waveripple said. "But no one got hurt. It was put out when it started raining.” He purposely left out that he had started the fire, and that he had been very close to it.

  “That's good,” Flowerwater said, relieved.

  ~~~

  Because the Vampire dragons had to hunt in a different area each time, Whiteswirl decided to hunt again in the area where some dragons had started to notice them before. That had been almost a year ago, so it should be safe to hunt there again.

  When he was flying over the forest, Whiteswirl saw that a large part of it had been burned. The fire was gone now, but a lot of trees had been burned or had fallen down, and there were a lot of ashes. He wondered what had started the fire. It was early summer, and it was not very dry, so it had not been a natural fire. More than likely, one of the dragons living nearby had accidentally started it.

  Whiteswirl flew past the burned trees. No dragon would be there now. About a mile later, he found a dragon to hunt. It was a sleeping Forest dragon. He flew down as quietly as he could and landed a few yards away from it, so that it would not hear his landing and wake up. Then he slowly crept towards it, being careful not to step on any branches or pine cones.

  When he was close enough, Whiteswirl sprang on the Forest. Just then, it turned in its sleep, so Whiteswirl missed, landing with a heavy thud where the dragon used to be. The Forest stood up, looking surprised. It was facing the opposite direction of Whiteswirl, looking around for what had caused the noise.

  Whiteswirl pounced on top of the Forest, knocking it to the ground. It let out a shriek of surprise. The Forest thrashed around, trying to shake Whiteswirl off.

  Whiteswirl held on tightly, trying to bite its neck. The Forest rolled over so that it was on top of him instead. Vampire dragons were much stronger than Forests, so he was able to kick it off him easily. Then he pounced on it again.

  The Forest breathed fire at Whiteswirl, aiming for his face, just as the Wind had when Whiteswirl had hunted with Redclaws. Whiteswirl dodged and bit the Forest's neck, killing it. He drank its blood, and then burned its body so that it would be easier to bury. He was careful to keep the fire under control; he did not want to start a forest fire. If that happened, all the dragons would leave or be killed, and there would be no one left to hunt.

  Whiteswirl buried the ashes of the Forest and returned to the cave, going straight into his cavern. He had wasted enough time away from it when the Forest had woken up. He spent the rest of the night peacefully in his cavern, and then went back to Redclaws's cavern, where it would be darker, to sleep in during the day.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: SEARCHES

  Waveripple went to visit Indigowings and Emeraldeyes again the next day. They were both already at Indigowings's cave when he arrived.

  “Hi Indigowings and Emeraldeyes,” Waveripple said.

  “Hi Waveripple,” they both replied.

  “Stormcloud just told me some bad news,” Indigowings said.

  Waveripple's heart quickened as he thought of what it must be. The fire he had made might not have really been completely out, and had regrown, and maybe even hurt someone.

  Indigowings saw Waveripple's worried expression and continued quickly, “Remember last year, when there was a Vampire attacking other dragons, and Stormcloud and a few others tried to find it so that the
y could kill it or drive it away?”

  Waveripple did not answer, but Indigowings was not acting like if he was expecting him to. “Well, one of the dragons that was helping Stormcloud, the Forest dragon, was killed by a Vampire last night. Stormcloud found some blood where he used to be, and some buried ashes nearby.”

  Waveripple looked at him, surprised. So it had nothing to do with the fire he had started after all.

  “Stormcloud is asking some other dragons to start helping him look for the Vampire again.” Indigowings continued. “This time they're not planning to stop looking until they find it. Before, they thought that the Vampire must have left, but it looks like it did not really.”

  “We should help them find the Vampire,” Waveripple said. “The Vampire might be able to kill a few dragons at a time, but if there are a lot of us against it, it won't stand a chance.”

  Indigowings looked surprised, as if he had not thought of joining Stormcloud to search for the Vampire. “Yeah, I'll also help them search,” he said.

  “Me too,” Emeraldeyes said.

  “I'll tell Stormcloud next time I see him,” Indigowings said.

  “Who else will be searching?” Emeraldeyes asked.

  “A Wind dragon who I don't know and a Tiger dragon called Nightsky,” Indigowings replied. “So when we're helping too, there will be six of us in all. We'll be able to beat the Vampire easily.”

  “We could start looking for it now," Waveripple said. "After all, it's the middle of the day, so it will be sleeping. The Vampire won't be flying around, looking for someone to attack.”

  “Yeah, we could start looking for the Vampire now,” Emeraldeyes said. “But not really looking for the actual Vampire. We could just look for caves that it might be living in.”

  “Yeah,” Indigowings agreed. “We can look for it now, but I don't want to actually attack it if we find it. After all, none of us have ever been in a real battle, and Vampires kill all the time.”

  “We have to decide where to search for it first,” Emeraldeyes said. “We already know of all the caves nearby, and would have noticed if the Vampire lived in one of them. We would have smelled its scent outside the entrance.”

  “Not to mention that we would have been eaten if we had stuck our heads inside its cave,” Waveripple said. “We have to look for different caves, farther away.”

  The three dragons left Indigowings's cave as they were talking. “Which direction do you think we should go in?” Indigowings asked.

  “Not in that direction,” Waveripple said, gesturing towards his lake, “because we would have to travel for quite a while before coming to a place we haven't explored already. And the same for that direction.” This time he gestured to Emeraldeyes's oak tree, which was toward the south.

  “Okay, then let's just go in this direction first," Indigowings said, pointing east. Waveripple's lake was west, so the only choices were east or north. “We can go north later if there aren't any caves in this direction.”

  Waveripple, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes flew just over the tree line, so that they could see things in the distance but still be near the ground. They traveled over the forest for a few miles but did not find anything. There were no cliffs or other areas that might have a cliff in the direction they were going in. They kept going for another two miles, and then slowed down.

  “I think we should go back, and look north this time,” Indigowings said. “We haven't found even one cave around here, not even empty caves.”

  “We should keep going,” Emeraldeyes said. “What if the cave is just a few miles ahead?”

  “We didn't find any caves yet,” Indigowings argued. “It is not very likely that there will be any in the next few miles. But we did not explore north very much at all. There could be many caves there, for all we know.”

  “Let's just go a short distance more, and then we can turn back if we still don't find anything,” Emeraldeyes said.

  “Fine,” Indigowings said. “But this seems like a waste of time. We aren't going to find anything.”

  After fifteen more minutes of flying, the three dragons still had not found any caves or other possible places where a dragon could live.

  “Now do you think we should go back, Emeraldeyes?” Indigowings asked.

  “Yeah, we can go back now,” Emeraldeyes agreed.

  “I told you we weren't going to find anything,” Indigowings said.

  Emeraldeyes looked as if she were about to make an angry reply, but Waveripple spoke first. “It's good that we kept going for a while anyway, because now we know that there aren't any caves for quite a while in this direction. It's more certain now that the Vampire's cave is to the north.”

  When they got back to Indigowings's cave, the starting point, the three dragons started flying north. They had already used up most of the evening searching east, so they would not be able to go very far before nightfall. They could keep searching after it got dark, but then they would be at risk of being attacked by the Vampire.

  They had traveled roughly two miles without finding anything when it got dark.

  “I'll come back to keep searching tomorrow,” Emeraldeyes said. “There's quite a bit of distance between here and my home.”

  “I also have to go back to the lake now,” Waveripple said. “We can keep looking tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” Indigowings agreed, a bit grudgingly. He was used to being awake in the night, or at least the first half of it, so he probably thought they should keep searching longer. Waveripple briefly worried that he would keep looking without them. But he knew that Indigowings would not search alone; it would be too reckless and futile. He would not be able to beat a Vampire dragon alone if he found it, and Indigowings knew that they would have one less dragon to fight the Vampire if he was killed. Indigowings would not search alone.

  When Waveripple got back to the lake, he did not tell his parents that he and his friends were looking for a Vampire. But he did tell them that a Vampire had killed another dragon, so that they would be careful. He doubted it would help much anyway, since Vampires attacked in the night, but they should still know about it. Last year, he had told them about the Vampire that was killing other dragons in the forest, so they were not too surprised that there had been another death.

  The next morning, Waveripple met Indigowings and Emeraldeyes at Indigowings's cave, so that they could set out to search for the Vampire. Three other dragons were there too. He recognized Stormcloud, and saw two others. One was a Tiger that must be Nightsky, and there was also a light gray dragon, the Wind dragon.

  Indigowings had been there for a while, so he had already met and spoke to the other dragons. He introduced Waveripple to them and told Waveripple that the Wind dragon's name was Streampebble.

  They were all going to be looking for the Vampire together. Streampebble and Stormcloud would be high up in the air, looking for cliffs or other places where a cave might be. If one of them saw something, he or she would fly down to tell the others. Waveripple, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes would be near the ground, where they could find hidden caves more easily. Nightsky would be flying back and forth between them, so that she could see both the cliffs in the distance, and try to find any caves near the ground that Waveripple and his friends missed.

  The six dragons set out north. It was mostly just like it had been the previous day, except that Nightsky would occasionally fly down to check something. They went for about five miles before they saw a cliff in the distance. Waveripple did not see it, but Nighsky flew down to tell them that there was one up ahead, and which direction it was in.

  It took about half an hour for them to reach the cliff. They could see that there were no caves at its base. But there was a much longer cliff next to that cliff, which curled away so that they would have to turn right to keep walking along it. They saw a cave leading into that cliff.

  Waveripple, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes landed and walked quickly over to the cave. It was clearly abandoned; no dragon scent was a
round its entrance or inside. They kept walking along the cliff to look for more caves.

  After a while, they came to the part where the cliff curved to the right. The cliff gradually sloped down and ended, but there was one last cliff nearby. It was not as long as the last one had been. Waveripple saw three familiar-looking caves leading into the cliff. They were the caves that he, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes had explored when they were hatchlings. There was no dragon scent around them, but he had not expected there to be any.

  The cliff was small and square-shaped. They started walking around it to see if there were any caves on the other side. When they turned the first corner around the cliff, Waveripple saw a stream flowing out of the cliff's base. He did not know for sure, but he thought that it was the same stream that he had traveled up until he could not go any farther, when it led to a cliff. As he thought about it, he became certain that it was the same stream. So there was probably nothing in this cliff. They had already explored the caves on the other side, after all.

  They turned the next corner of the cliff, but did not see anything. There was just the normal rock wall of a cliff, with vines growing up all over its sides. The last side of the cliff was just a slope leading up to its top. They walked past the cliff, but did not find any other caves, or even cliffs, for the rest of the day. When the sun was setting, all the dragons went back to their own homes. They would have to wait until the next day to continue.

  ~~~

  Redclaws woke Whiteswirl up in the middle of the day. “What?” he asked, looking around quickly, expecting danger.

  “The same dragons who were looking for us last year are coming close again,” Redclaws explained quickly. “There are six of them this time. We have to disguise the entrance of the cave before they arrive.”

  Whiteswirl stepped out into the daylight, following Redclaws. Everything was too bright outside, hurting his eyes. The night was so much better.

  “Move some vines across the entrance,” Redclaws said.

  Whiteswirl looked at the vines growing up the cliff. Some of them were tall enough to be dragged over the entrance and stretched to the top completely. He started digging them up and replanting them by the entrance to the cave. They were clinging to the side of the cliff, making it difficult to move them. When he finally managed to move a few vines, they would not stay upright in their new spots, but kept falling down instead.