Other Books by J. Scott Savage
Mysteries of Cove series
Fires of Invention
Gears of Revolution
Farworld series
Water Keep
Land Keep
Air Keep
Fire Keep
Case File #13 series
Zombie Kid
Making the Team
Evil Twins
Curse of the Mummy’s Uncle
To Chris, Lisa, Heidi, Richard, Sarah, and the rest of
the staff at Shadow Mountain who believed
© 2017 J. Scott Savage
Illustration of submarine by Brandon Dorman
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Shadow Mountain®, at [email protected]. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of Shadow Mountain.
Visit us at ShadowMountain.com
All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
(CIP data on file)
ISBN 978-1-62972-339-6
Printed in the United States of America
Edwards Brothers Malloy, Ann Arbor, MI
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Activities
Discussion Questions
Angus was a stubborn, rust-brained know-it-all.
Kneeling on the floor of the long-abandoned building where they were spending the night, Trenton brushed away the drawings he’d made a few minutes earlier. “Let’s try this again.” Using a twig as a pencil, he sketched a square in the dirt. “This is where we are now.” Several inches to the right, he added a sloping curve. “And this is the hill over there.”
With shadows hiding Angus’s eyes, Trenton couldn’t tell if the muscular boy even glanced at the battle plans before muttering, “If you say so.”
Unlike the others, Angus refused to wear a helmet when he flew the dragon he shared with Simoni, and his forehead had been sunburned so many times the skin had taken on a permanently gritty, reddish appearance, broken only by the large white circles left from his goggles.
Angus sat with his back propped against a vine-covered wall, picking his teeth with a pine needle. In front of him, a small cooking fire crackled and popped. Smoke drifted up through the rotting rafters and rusted beams of the building’s three floors above them.
Although the concrete floor of the warehouse was still intact, more than a hundred years of neglect had buried it beneath a deep layer of soft soil covered with bushes, ferns, and other leafy plants. The only thing keeping it from being filled with trees like the rest of the forest was the fact that the upper floors blocked the sunlight during the day.
Ignoring Angus’s obvious disinterest, Trenton drew a narrow valley beyond the hill, added a pile of leaves to represent what could have been houses in the past, and on the opposite side of the hill and valley, placed some pebbles to mark the rocky shore of the Pacific Ocean.
Trenton sucked in a deep breath of damp air, which had grown noticeably cooler since the sun went down. If tonight was anything like the last few nights, a thick fog would roll in from the ocean, masking everything more than a few dozen yards away in its glistening silver cloak and lingering until several hours after sunrise the next morning.
Trenton added a pair of circles on the other side of the hill. “Assuming the dragons go back to where we saw them this afternoon, they should be here and here. If Kallista and I circle around to the valley with Plucky and Clyde before the fog clears, we can set up an ambush.” He drew a pair of triangles representing their dragons and an arrow going from the square to the hill. “You and Simoni fly over the hill, drive the dragons into the valley, and bam! They’re trapped.”
Angus curled one side of his mouth down and shook his head. “Nope.”
Trenton flung the twig into the fire. “What’s wrong with my strategy?”
“Don’t know if your strategy’s any good or not.” Angus scratched above his right eyebrow, examined his fingernails, and flicked away a bit of dead skin. “We just don’t need it. All those arrows and circles are a waste of time.”
“A waste of time?” Trenton pictured Angus clenched firmly between the teeth of an acid-breathing red dragon. It was an image that helped keep him from exploding when the blowhard was being particularly obnoxious—which felt like all the time lately. “What’s your plan?”
“Don’t need a plan.” Angus leaned forward to toss his pine needle into the flames where it flared then shriveled into blackened ash. He clasped his hands above his head and stretched his arms. Trenton noticed Angus’s eyes flick toward Simoni, who’d been watching from her own shadowy corner. No doubt he was checking to see if she was impressed by his bulging biceps.
Not that Trenton cared or anything. He and Simoni had dated in the past. Okay, maybe dated was the wrong word. But they had been good friends. What she saw in Angus, he couldn’t imagine.
Trenton turned to Simoni. “You think it’s a good idea, right?”
Simoni wrapped a length of her long red hair around one finger and shrugged. Her green eyes glanced from the plans on the ground to Trenton. “Well . . .”
Angus smirked, and Trenton imagined how the yellow acid breath of the dragon would melt the cocky expression off his face. He didn’t really want anything bad happen to Angus—at least not that bad—but even a pinecone falling on his head would do the trick.
“Clyde?” Trenton called. “Come look at this.”
Clyde glanced up from the cook pot he’d recently removed from the fire. His pale, round face was normally split by a wide grin as he cracked jokes, but now he rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth and gestured with the metal spoon he was holding. “Love to, but I have to finish seasoning this soup before it gets cold.”
Trenton didn’t know why he’d bothered asking. Clyde had played the peacemaker of the group since they’d left their mountain home, Discovery, two months earlier. Not that Clyde wasn’t a good fighter. He and Plucky had killed dragons. He just preferred cook
ing, drawing, and making people laugh to arguing.
Trenton glanced toward the three steam-powered dragons that loomed above them like great metal guardians. Clanks and clangs came from deep inside Ladon, the dragon Trenton and Kallista had built together. He couldn’t ask Kallista and Plucky to back him up. They were working on a secret project.
He’d tried joining them once, hoping to get a peek at what they were working on, but as soon as he’d stuck his head through the access hatch on the dragon’s back, they’d snapped their plans shut and told him to mind his own business.
“Let me guess,” he said, turning to face Angus. “You want to go over the hill with no organization, shoot as many fireballs as fast as we can, and hope for the best?”
Angus held out his hands, palms up, and bared his teeth in a hungry grin. “See, you do understand me after all. Fly fast, shoot hard, and count the bodies later.”
Trenton jumped to his feet and blew out an exasperated breath.
On the other side of a nearby hill were a pair of dragons. The first was a medium-sized blue, the kind of dragon that filled its belly with water and shot out clouds of scalding steam. The second—larger, its scales streaked black and red—had no breath weapon of any kind.
That didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous, though. In fact, just the opposite.
Three weeks earlier, Trenton and his friends had been flying through a canyon searching for dragons. As always, Kallista was in the front seat of Ladon with Trenton behind her. Simoni and Angus were flying ahead of them, dodging in and out of the craggy openings in the cliff.
Clyde and Plucky were to his left. They had recently switched controls, with Clyde in the front seat steering and aiming their dragon’s head. Plucky—who had a knack for sensing danger—was in the back, handling altitude and the dragon’s fire attack.
Ladon was soaring close to the ground when a black dragon burst out from under a low rock shelf. Surprised by the creature’s sudden appearance, Kallista turned sharply to the right as Trenton yanked back on the flight stick to take them higher.
Trenton glanced over his shoulder and noticed streaks of crimson against the black scales, as though someone had randomly brushed the dragon with red paint.
“What kind of dragon is that?” Kallista yelled.
“Not sure,” he called. “Circle around.”
They’d discovered several new kinds of dragons on their flight south, and Trenton had learned it was best to keep a safe distance until they could figure out what kind of weapons the dragon had.
Clyde, however, immediately began firing, and Simoni turned to give pursuit.
Banking away from the attack, the black-and-red dragon flew straight at Plucky and Clyde, who seemed unable to decide if they should break away after Kallista and Trenton or stay and fight with Simoni and Angus. By the time Clyde turned to flee, the dragon was on top of them.
“Get down there!” Kallista screamed.
Trenton was already moving the flight stick. They plunged back into the canyon, blasting flames before them.
Caught between the crossing lines of fire, the dragon snapped its glistening fangs at Plucky, then turned tail. Angus scored a direct hit on the back of its neck, and the monster dropped like a stone before crashing to the rocks below.
“Another kill!” Angus bellowed, waving his arms above his head.
It should have counted as a shared kill, but Trenton knew Angus wouldn’t see it that way. Flying low over the canyon floor to make sure the dragon was dead, Trenton didn’t realize anything was wrong until he heard Clyde’s cry for help.
Trenton snapped his head around.
Their dragon, Rounder, bobbed up and down in the air as if caught in a storm, then dropped nearly a hundred feet, one wing brushing against the side of the cliff before Clyde could steer them away.
As Trenton watched, Rounder dove toward the jagged rocks below.
They were going down too fast.
“Pull up,” Angus yelled.
“I can’t!” Clyde turned in his seat to look back. “Something’s wrong with Plucky.”
The small figure seated behind Clyde was slumped to one side, her helmet-covered head bobbing loosely like a broken spring. The rear driver was the one who controlled the dragon’s altitude. Without Plucky’s help, Clyde had no way to stop Rounder’s dive.
“We have to help them!” Kallista said, banking sharply toward Clyde.
Clyde leaned over the back of his seat, but he couldn’t reach the flight stick.
Trenton watched helplessly as Rounder flew closer and closer to the ground. Coming up toward them, he could see the look of panic on Clyde’s face. There was nothing Trenton and Kallista could do, unless . . .
“Take me under them,” he yelled.
Kallista stepped on the pedal that steered them right; the sun was blotted out by the shadow of the mechanical dragon above them. Hoping it wasn’t a huge mistake, Trenton pulled back on the stick. Sparks shot out, and metal screeched as Ladon’s head butted against Rounder’s belly. Metal talons passed so close to their left Kallista had to dodge to avoid being gouged.
“Again!” she yelled.
Trenton smashed the dragons together again, and Rounder’s angle of descent lessened.
It was working!
“Get under the wing,” Simoni called from their right. She and Angus had positioned the left wing of their dragon, Devastation, under Rounder’s right wing.
Kallista steered left, and Devastation and Ladon took up positions beneath Rounder’s wings, bumping the dragon gently to keep its flight steady, until the mechanical dragon reached the ground.
It wasn’t a pretty landing, but Clyde managed to come to a stop without smashing into the ground or hitting a tree. They had all been terrified that Plucky was dead. The cut on her shoulder wasn’t deep, but she had flopped lifelessly as they carried her down from the dragon.
Fortunately, after a few hours, she was able to move again, and by that night, she was able to speak. That was how they’d discovered the black-and-red dragon’s fangs carried a potent poison that caused nausea and paralysis with even a mild touch.
Now, standing in the abandoned warehouse near the warmth of the fire, Trenton glared at Angus.
With the knowledge of what they’d be fighting the following day and a good idea of the geography they’d be flying above, it was the perfect time to lay out a blueprint for the coming battle. Only instead of planning, Angus wanted to pick his teeth and flex his muscles. Not for the first time, Trenton wondered if the real reason Angus had come on this trip was to impress Simoni.
He pointed a finger at Angus. “Your shoot-first attitude is going to get you killed one of these days.”
“You want to know who my attitude is killing?” Angus pushed himself to his feet with a grunt. “Take a good look up there,” he said, jerking his chin to point past Ladon to Devastation, the dragon he and Simoni flew. “What do you see?”
Trenton didn’t need to look to know what Angus was pointing at. Every time one of them killed a dragon, Clyde painted a dragon skull on the neck of that team’s mount. Plucky and Clyde tended to be more cautious, working as scouts and driving the creatures into the open for the other teams to attack, but they still had three and a half trophies on Rounder’s neck; shared kills earned half a skull.
Trenton and Kallista had eight full skulls, not including the dragon they’d killed in Cove.
Angus and Simoni had twelve and a half confirmed kills. Trenton thought they should have shared credit for at least two of their kills, but even taking those into account, they’d clearly taken down more of the scaled monsters than any other team. The two of them worked well together.
Simoni had picked up on the mechanical dragon’s controls surprisingly quickly. She flew with a quiet precision, always finding the right angle of attack, shifting to counter a drago
n’s moves before the creature had even made them.
But a big part of their success was pure reckless aggression on Angus’s part. He seemed to take every battle personally. Not content simply to win, he had to demolish whatever he was fighting against. On the few occasions when another team got the kill instead of him, he brooded about it for days. Sooner or later, though, that recklessness was going to get someone hurt.
Trenton kicked dirt into the fire. “You know it’s not just you in the air.”
Angus’s grin slowly dissolved. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you aren’t the only one flying. Risk your own life if you want. But there are six people up there counting on each other. Just the other day, you cut in front of Kallista and me and your fireball nearly hit Plucky and Clyde.”
Angus stepped toward him. Trenton had grown nearly three inches over the last few months, and he now stood eye-to-eye with the boy who had bullied him every year they’d gone to school together. But Angus’s shoulders were still broader than Trenton’s, and he outweighed him by at least thirty pounds. “The reason we cut in front of you was because you and your girlfriend were too gutless to go for the kill yourselves. If anyone is a danger up there, it’s you.”
Trenton balled his hands into fists. Kallista wasn’t his girlfriend, and to suggest that they were cowards . . . He tried picturing Angus getting ripped to pieces by a dragon, but it didn’t help. “Don’t you dare call—”
“Who’s hungry?” Clyde asked, squeezing between them with a bowl of steaming soup. “You’re going to love this. It’s possibly my greatest creation yet. I call it Dragon Fire Delight. It’s spicy but also, you know, delightful.” He shoved the bowl into Angus’s hands while pulling Trenton away by the elbow. “See if you can taste the secret ingredient. I’ll give you a hint. It’s crushed pumpkin seeds.”
Angus lifted the bowl to his mouth and took a noisy slurp. “At least somebody around here is useful.”
Trenton stomped deeper into the building, putting as much distance as he could between himself and the others.
As he left the fire behind, the darkness closed in around him, and he found it more and more difficult to keep from tripping over the roots and bushes. While the building made a good place to rest and recover, it let in precious little light from the sky overhead. After he narrowly missed running face-first into an exposed metal beam, he stopped to catch his breath.
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