“Kay? Are you all right?”
“Of course I am,” came the boy’s voice. “I just had a little… mishap with my spellbook. It’s hard to read the words when it’s so dark.”
“I’m here, too,” came Dax’s woeful voice. “Not that anyone cares about an old man like me.”
The three blind companions heard a roar and a scream above. The troll’s bellow was quickly joined by the others of its band.
“What about them?” Sarah asked. “Do you think they’ll be able to find us?”
Another roar came from somewhere in the cavern, echoing off unseen mountain walls and drowning out any answer to Sarah’s question. This roar was larger and louder than anything Sarah had heard before, either from the trolls or even from Aries himself. She clapped her hands to her ears to drown out the noise of the bellow. Then she closed her eyes and squealed in surprise as a sudden burst of fire lit up the cavern. The fireball was almost as large as a house. Its heat tanned Sarah’s skin. The smell of smoke and sulfur filled the cavern. Despite her watering eyes and sore arms, Sarah was thankful that the trolls’ roars had fallen silent. “Keeley?” she asked. “Was that you?”
Sarah heard a fluttering near her left ear. In another moment, she felt a familiar figure perch on her shoulder.
“Keeley did well, didn’t she?”
“You sure did,” Sarah said after another few seconds of listening convinced her that the trolls were gone. “I didn’t know you could hold that much fire in your little body.”
“What are you talking about?” The dragon’s voice sounded confused. “Keeley was talking about the way she distracted the troll. She thought Kay made the fireball with his spell.”
“No, that wasn’t me,” came Kay’s voice. “All my spell did was… well, let’s say it didn’t do quite what I expected.”
“Then where did the fire come from?” Sarah asked.
She didn’t have to wait long for an answer. The ground shifted, and the companions nearly fell over from the movement. They were traveling downward, being carried by the ground itself like it was an elevator. But there wasn’t any sound of shifting rock or any sort of pulleys or machinery.
Deeper in the mountain, the rocks seemed to have a light of their own. Plants and crystals and insects made glows and flashes, too, giving some small light for the travelers to see by. Sarah looked at Kay and had to stifle a laugh when she saw that his spell had grown a thick, bushy beard on him that almost touched his toes.
“I told you, the spell didn’t do what I expected,” Kay said. “But I don’t think that’s what we should be thinking about right now.”
The bottom of the mountain was a huge cavern that opened next to an underground lake. In the distance, Sarah could see some fires burning, although she didn’t know what type of creatures might make camp this deep underground. She only gave the campfires a passing glance, though. Something else had caught her attention.
The rock that the companions were on wasn’t really a rock at all. It was a hand. Long clawed fingers stretched out past the group, each one as big as a full-grown person. The hand itself was black and covered in lizard-like scales. Each scale seemed more like a boulder to Sarah. She held her breath and looked cautiously upward, tracing the long shadowy form of the massive lizard that literally held them in the palm of its hand.
Far above her head, maybe even a hundred feet away, Sarah saw a pair of glowing red eyes looking down at the companions. The creature’s breaths sounded like growls. A trail of smoke still drifted from its nostrils. It had its mouth half open, and Sarah could see the light of another fire building in the monster’s throat. This was what Sarah expected when she looked at a dragon. She had started to think that all dragons in Greystone Valley were as small as Keeley—or no bigger than the horse-sized creatures Aries led on leashes, at the very least. But this one was as tall as a building, with a mouth that could devour a grown person whole. Sarah swallowed and held her breath as she waited to see what the dragon would do.
Each of the companions watched as the dragon regarded them. It looked at them curiously, as though it had forgotten what humans looked like. The glowing eyes grew closer, casting their light on the tiny creatures the dragon had caught. Sarah, Kay, and Dax each stayed perfectly silent, afraid to even move lest they accidentally anger the curious dragon.
Keeley, being a dragon herself, didn’t seem to have any fears of the creature. “Uncle Azal!” The tiny white dragon darted off Sarah’s shoulder and flew straight at the larger creature.
To the massive black dragon, Keeley looked like nothing more than a gnat. Nonetheless, it squinted at her and looked her over carefully. Then, much to Sarah’s surprise—or, at least, it would have been to her surprise if she hadn’t started expecting weird things to happen—the black dragon smiled. “Keeley?” The dragon’s voice was so booming that Sarah worried he’d start an earthquake. “Well, I’ll be! You’ve grown so much since I last saw you!” Azal turned his glowing eyes back to the companions. “And who are your friends here?”
Keeley darted around the companions, cheerfully calling out each of their names. She had to shout to make sure her faint voice could be heard over her uncle’s breathing.
“So, you three have been keeping little Keeley company, have you? Well, you’ve earned a dragon’s hospitality, then.”
“Thank you very much, Mr. Azal,” Sarah called, “but we don’t really—”
“Come along, now. I’ll introduce you to the others.” Without waiting for a response, Azal rose up on his back legs and began walking toward the fires in the distance.
Sarah and her friends had no choice but to sit and let the dragon’s claws carry them away. None of the humans were about to risk upsetting the dragon, and Keeley was already winging her way along next to the dragon’s ear, chattering away like a buzzing bee.
“Looks like we’re the guests of honor,” Kay whispered to Sarah. “I just hope the others he mentioned are more like Keeley than like Azal.”
Seventeen
The light farther down in the caverns seemed to be miles away, but the dragon carried the companions there in only a few steps. Each footfall sounded like the beginnings of an earthquake. Sarah found herself squeezing her eyes shut, worried that the dragon was going to cause a cave-in and bring the whole mountain down on her head. But when Azal put her and her friends down, he did so gently, carefully placing the humans on the ground as though they were porcelain dolls.
“Um… thank you,” Sarah said, curtsying the way her mother had taught her. She didn’t think her mother expected her to use those manners in a situation like this, though. “But I hope you don’t mind if I ask where we are? You see, we need to get traveling again, and…”
It didn’t take long for Sarah to realize that Azal wasn’t listening to her. In fact, she expected he probably couldn’t even hear her small voice, considering how high up his ears were. In another moment, he began calling out in a sound that Sarah first mistook as a roar. It wasn’t quite a roar, though. It was something more intelligent than that, with a purpose that she almost—but not quite—understood. It was a language, ancient and wonderful: the secret language of the dragons.
“What’s he saying?” she asked Keeley, who had finally stopped chatting with her uncle and had landed on Sarah’s shoulder again.
The tiny white dragon only shook her head and made a shushing sound. “Don’t worry,” she said, “it’s good news.”
A growl and then a roar answered Azal’s call. It was soon followed by another one, and another one. In less than a minute, the deep mountain cave had filled with the animal-like but nonetheless melodic calls of the dragons. The ground began shaking with the footfalls of at least a dozen of the great beasts. One by one, they appeared in front of the group, studying the companions curiously, as though none of them had ever seen a real live human before.
The dragons didn’t look quite like Sarah had expected. They weren’t all lizards like Keeley and Azal. Like the fey,
each one had its own unique features. One of the dragons seemed to be made of stone, with large patches of green moss covering its rocky hide. Another one had feathers, like a giant bird. Others crawled on their bellies like great winged snakes, or trotted along on two large hind legs like ostriches. Most of the dragons were enormous, though few were anywhere near as big as Azal. The smallest ones were about the size of grown horses. Poor Keeley was still little more than a gnat compared to even the tiniest of her cousins.
“What is it, Azal?” asked one of the larger dragons, a green-skinned creature with long, crocodile-like jaws. “Why have you woken me from my slumber?”
“It’s not all about you, Cousin Grimjaw,” Azal replied. “In fact, you could have stayed sleeping for all I care. I called everyone here because we have some new visitors. They were having difficulties with the trolls at the top of the world, and so they have found themselves down here with us.” Finishing his speech, Azal waved his claw toward the ground, showcasing the dazed companions.
Keeley flew off Sarah’s shoulder to circle her uncle’s head. If the rest of the dragons noticed one so small, they didn’t show it.
“Well, things are looking up indeed,” Grimjaw grumbled, clacking his sharp teeth. “You’ve brought us a tasty set of humans. But so few… are we going to have to play rocks to decide who gets the first bite?”
Azal let out a growl that echoed through the mountain caves. “Quiet, you. They aren’t here to eat. They’ve returned one of our own to us. Keeley, come forward, please.”
With a cry of glee, Keeley darted forward, flying through the mass of gathered dragons. Some of them had to squint to see her. A murmur rippled through the gathered crowd, and many different dragons spoke in their varied voices. “Is that really Keeley?” “I thought for sure she had been caught by a hunter somewhere.” “She has grown quite a bit, hasn’t she?”
“Bah,” Grimjaw said, silencing the other dragons. “I can barely tell the details on someone so small. More likely, they’ve just splashed some white paint on a parakeet and are trying to fool us. Why have you really brought them here, Azal? We know all humans work for Baelan. They’re a danger to us, unless we decide to turn them into a tasty meal.”
“That’s not true!” Kay shouted, standing as tall as he could. “We’re running from Baelan!”
Grimjaw snorted. A small burst of green fire came out of his nostrils as he did. “A likely story. We also know humans have a history of lying to us… as do the fey. How do we know this isn’t some sort of trick?”
A black snake-like dragon slithered through the shadows and then crawled its way up toward Sarah. It flickered its forked tongue at her, almost touching her hair with it. Surprised, Sarah jumped back and nearly fell.
“They smell like fey,” said the serpentine dragon, crawling back toward the others. “I’m with Grimjaw. I don’t trust them.”
All at once, the companions shouted their protests over this latest judgment. Even Keeley tried to speak the truth, although she sounded like nothing more than a mouse in the enormous cavern. They were all quickly drowned out by the dragons who had decided to take Grimjaw’s side.
“Humans are the reason we have to live under the mountains.”
“Baelan’s men slayed my brother and stole his hoard.”
“Why trust them at all when we can grind their bones into our meat pies?”
“Silence!” Azal’s shout rattled the mountain. Even Grimjaw bowed respectfully at the great dragon’s outburst.
When things had quieted down, Azal continued. “I did not bring these people here so they could be threatened. I know the smell of a lie, and I know I don’t smell it on them. They’ve spoken the truth, when they’ve been allowed to speak. And I know my dear niece, tiny though she may be. These are Keeley’s friends, and they are my guests. If anyone wants to make a meal out of them, they’ll have to answer to me. Is that understood?”
No dragon dared speak against the largest of them all. A few who disagreed with him snuck backward into the shadows, disappearing deeper into the mountain. But no one argued with his decision—not even Grimjaw.
Azal craned his neck down toward his guests. “Please excuse my brethren,” he whispered, trying not to startle them any further. His whisper reminded Sarah of a car running without a muffler, though. “We’ve been in these caves so long that some of us have forgotten our manners. Please, look around and don’t be afraid.”
The cavern was enormous. Sarah had to wonder if the mountain was hollow. She certainly couldn’t see the roof of the cave in the darkness, and it was wide enough to include at least a dozen different dragons of all sizes and varieties. Even with Kay, Dax, and Keeley at her side, Sarah had never felt so small in her entire life.
“You’ll get a different view of dragons here than what you might be expecting, I assure you,” Azal said, keeping his head about five or six feet away from the companions. “Most humans think we fly around eating damsels and terrorizing the countryside or some stupid thing like that. To tell the truth, we usually don’t go beyond our caves at all anymore. If those trolls hadn’t made such a racket, we would have let you wander on by without even seeing us.”
“I don’t know how we could have missed seeing you for very long,” Dax said. “Even if my old eyes are going, I’m sure you’re large enough to notice.”
“Well, when you’re as deep underground as we are right now, it’s very easy to hide, even if you’re large like me. But that’s not important right now. What matters is that you are in Dragonhome now, and I plan to make sure you are shown every bit of hospitality while you are here. Erm… how long are you going to be here, anyway?”
“Um… I don’t know, exactly,” Sarah said. “See, we’re sort of lost right now. We were trying to find our way to Castle Greystone, and—”
Another murmur from the gathering of dragons cut Sarah off. Even Azal looked concerned. He reared up on his hind legs and waved his claws, trying to quiet his kindred down. “If it’s Castle Greystone you seek, I’m afraid we dragons can’t help you.”
Sarah blinked, wondering what could worry dragons so much—besides people, that is. “Why not?”
“We choose not to speak of it,” Azal answered. “If you wish to stay here for a while, I can make sure you are comfortable. But none of us will be able to take you to the castle. Not even Keeley.”
At this, Keeley squealed in dismay.
Sarah waved a hand to quiet the tiny dragon. “It’s OK,” she whispered in a voice quiet enough that she hoped the large ears of the bigger dragons wouldn’t be able to hear. “We won’t let our band be split up, no matter what.”
If Azal heard the whisper, he paid it no heed. “Anyway, I’ll have one of our smaller wyrms take you somewhere comfortable. We don’t have much that’s fit for humans to eat, but I’m sure we can find something. Never let it be said that a dragon is inhospitable!”
“Not so fast, Azal. I would like to speak to our visitors alone.”
The chamber fell quiet again, and even the great black dragon took a step back and bowed his massive head to the voice which came from the back of the cavern. The newcomer’s voice was female, and every bit as loud and commanding as Azal’s. Sarah thought she recognized it from somewhere but couldn’t quite put her finger on where.
The dragons parted as the newcomer strode through the cave on all four legs. She was a dragon, too, but she stood out from all the others. Her skin was neither scaly nor rough, but instead shone like a coat of silver. She towered over Sarah and the humans easily enough, but she wasn’t nearly as big as Azal or some of the other dragons. Sarah thought she could maybe fit in the garage at home. Her legs and wings looked powerful, but they held a different kind of strength than the other dragons. Instead of tight muscles and a tough, scarred hide, this silver dragon looked more like a cat. Her strength was combined with grace, and she seemed in control of not only her own actions, but also everyone else’s.
Azal remained silent, as did ever
yone else in the cavern—including Sarah and her friends.
The silver dragon came to a stop a few paces away from Sarah. She craned her long neck toward the companions, examining each one closely with large purple eyes. “Yes,” she muttered to herself. “There can be no doubt.”
“No doubt about what?” asked Sarah.
The dragon didn’t answer. Instead, she rose up on her hind quarters and gestured deeper into the tunnels with one claw. “Azal, please extend our hospitality to these humans. I would like to talk to each one in private before the night is done… starting with this one.” As she finished, she gestured toward Sarah.
Kay pushed his way past Sarah and raised a threatening hand toward the dragon—not that he could have done any good, even with his spells. “She’s our companion, and we won’t let her be separated from us,” he said. “We’ve been through too much together for me to let her get turned into some dragon’s bedtime snack.”
Adlin watched Kay calmly, despite the outburst. Her serpentine lips curled into what looked like a smile. “Calm down, human. None of you will be a snack for anyone—not even Grimjaw here. You will see that dragons treat their guests with the utmost respect. But I will need to speak to your companion here.”
Kay didn’t move from his stance.
“I’ll be fine, I think,” Sarah whispered. “If they wanted to eat us, I’m sure they would have by now.”
“It’s best to do what they want,” Dax said. “Otherwise, they’ll squash you and leave you as nothing but a stain on the ground. That’s probably what’s going to happen to me. I probably won’t even get to leave a decent-looking corpse.”
Finally, Kay stepped back. Adlin nodded approvingly. “Azal, please take our guests to whatever quarters you can find. Sarah, please come with me.”
The dragons in the chamber dispersed, going their own separate ways deeper into the mountain. Azal let Kay and Dax climb back into his hand and began carrying the humans away. Adlin turned and began walking toward a tunnel that seemed to glow with a fire of its own. She swished her tail behind her, beckoning Sarah to follow.
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