by Logan Jacobs
“Oh, my gods,” Mira breathed.
“We need to get out of here,” I ordered as I yanked Nadir to her feet and hauled the woman along after me. At this point, I didn’t quite trust her not to just go after the treasure herself, now that the dragon was distracted by the rest of us, but I knew this would be a surefire way for the woman to get herself killed.
So, we dashed across the barren land, but it was hard to run with the massive winds that blasted into us every time the dragon beat its wings.
The three of us finally caught up with Sela, Jemma, and George, who ran in the direction of the ravine, but now that we were in the open, there was no cover for us to duck behind, and no way for us to outrun the dragon.
The thing flew overhead and then landed about fifty yards in front of us. The bulk of the creature came down so heavily, a small earthquake caused the ground to shake, and hairline cracks appeared in the dry, sandy dirt.
Then the dragon lifted its massive head and let out a roar the likes of which I’d never heard before. Monsters in movies didn’t do it justice, even with their technologically formed voices meant to terrify people well into the night.
This roar was earth shattering, as if it rattled the very atoms that made up the land we stood on.
Jemma was the first in line, closest to the dragon, and she stumbled backward with a horrified shriek when it landed in front of her. Then the beast lowered its head, finished with the roar, and looked right at her with its massive purple eyes.
For a second, it almost seemed like the creature wanted to communicate something, with the way it looked at her. It didn’t even seem angry, exactly, but more so like it wanted her to know something serious. The expression on its face, though bestial, reminded me of an old man trying to talk to a young child and instill all sorts of knowledge in her.
“Jemma, what’s going on?” Sela demanded, as if the auburn-haired woman could possibly know.
Jemma, though, was so entranced by those majestic eyes that she couldn’t even say a word.
“George,” I murmured, just loud enough for the water dragon to hear me. I had no idea what kind of hearing this creature had, and I sure as hell didn’t want to disturb it while it had decided not to spew fire at us. “Any idea what’s going on? Can we talk to this dragon?”
I am not sure, dear one, he replied, and I could tell he was just as entranced with the creature as Jemma was. This behavior is… strange.
“You can say that again,” Mira growled as she reached for her sword. “Let’s quit standing here and do something. Do we run or fight, Draco Rex?”
“There’s no way in hell we can fight that thing right now and have a hope of survival,” I muttered out of the corner of my mouth. “We need to get out of here.”
“The treasure will grow into another one of these creatures?” Nadir asked suddenly, and when I glanced at her, the look on her face was a cross between astonishment and a deep desire.
I was just about to point out to her that, in order to have a baby dragon, we’d first need to get the egg from the adult dragon, but then the beast’s purple eyes flickered from Jemma to Sela.
Suddenly, those giant violet orbs grew dark and angry again. Then the red-orange light in the center of its chest began to grow with the power of a thousand suns, and I knew what we were about to be faced with.
“Scatter!” I shouted as I whirled around and jerked Nadir with me. “Head back to the ravine!”
I didn’t need to tell anyone twice.
My fists pumped and my breaths came in heavy pants, more from adrenaline than anything else, as we all started to make a beeline toward the ravine. Except, the ravine seemed hours away, even at the fastest pace, and there was no way in hell we’d get there before the dragon had a chance to incinerate all of us.
The creature never even gave us a chance, though.
As we started to race away from it, those enormous wings pumped the massive beast up into the air as easily as if it were no bigger than a small pigeon. I craned my neck to look above us as the monster rose, and if I wasn’t terrified we might all be charcoal in the next few moments, I would have been absolutely awed at what I saw.
The beast was framed with its back to the sun, which created a halo-like outline around its massive, golden frame. Both wings were outstretched, and its tail hung straight down as it lifted its head straight up in the air to gather its fire breath. The glow in the center of its chest intensified, which gave it a look similar to that of a pool of hot lava.
“The beast is preparing to breathe fire!” Nadir shouted out. Even though she was the only one of us who had really encountered this dragon before, that much would have been obvious to anyone.
I had absolutely no idea what to do, and neither did any of the women. All we could do was backtrack and try to get ourselves out of the way of the line of fire.
The dragon finally lowered its massive head, eyed us with an intense, intelligent expression, and then let loose a stream of fire just in front of Jemma and Sela.
The two women screeched and dove backward before the flames could touch them, but the beast hadn’t actually aimed straight at the two women.
Instead, it had aimed right in front of them, and the inferno lit the tall, dry grass on fire. The weeds were the absolute perfect accelerant. The moment the first lick of bright, hot flame touched them, the blaze erupted to the size of a massive bonfire without a single moment’s hesitation.
“Shit!” I gasped.
The move, though deadly, had given away one very important detail to us: this dragon was obviously just as smart as George, even if it couldn’t talk to us through the dragon bond. Of course, that intelligence was dangerous for myself and the women right then, since it would have been far more helpful if the beast was a stupid ditz we could somehow outmaneuver.
“Are you okay?” I demanded as I rushed up to Sela and Jemma, who scrambled to their feet as a burning wave of heated air rolled over us.
“I am fine.” Sela’s teeth were gritted as she glared up at the dragon. “And I want that beast dead.”
“We need to get out of here,” I told them all as the blaze started to burn toward us.
The dragon seemed to have stopped, though, and it hung in the air high above us, as if it wanted to wait and see if we’d die first.
“To the beach,” Nadir instructed, and she coughed violently as black smoke billowed into the air around us. “The beast cannot burn us in the water.”
I thought back to the burned-out orc ship, and the flames that had persisted long after the dragon flew off, but…
“It’s the best plan we got.” I nodded.
So, we quickly turned around and began to back away from the blaze toward the beach. The moment we did, though, hot flames roared from the dragon’s mouth and attempted to cut off our escape route.
“We must run,” Mira urged.
And we did.
The six of us took off at breakneck speed in a mad dash to outrun both the dragon fire and the beast who created it. We dodged hotspots of flames as they rained down on us from above, and we headed from the weed covered ground to the warm, but dry, sand.
A stream of fire spewed down from above me and landed just to my right, so hot and close it singed my tunic. I dropped to the ground and rolled as the flame burned the cloth and started to sear my skin, and I managed to put it out before it did any major damage, but I could feel the fresh burn where my skin screamed in pain.
“Ben!” Jemma screeched, and terror raged in her chartreuse green eyes. “Are you alright?”
“Fine!” I yelled back, just as a similarly sized flame came right toward her head.
George leapt up from his place beside her and tackled Jemma to the ground right before she could be burned.
Even though the two of them had just narrowly avoided massive injury, they scrambled back up to their feet and sprinted forward.
Above us, the dragon roared in anger.
“We’re not trying to hurt yo
u!” I yelled up to her in a mad moment of hope she could possibly understand me.
But I was only met with yet another roar and hot fire.
Finally, we made it to the beach, and we leapt from the weed covered ground to the soft, warm, dry sand. Some of it melted into glass under our feet as the dragon tried to burn up our escape route, but we were no longer in danger of being charred alive by a massive, forest fire level blaze.
“Into the water!” I instructed everyone.
The waves lapped calmly on the shore, completely unbothered by the high intensity scene that played out before them. We splashed into the water and then dashed into the waves, just in time to avoid a massive, redwood tree sized fire stream.
I sucked in a breath and then dove all the way under the water to avoid the blaze.
Steam rose from the ocean as spots of water evaporated under the force of the heat, only to be quickly overtaken by the ever-moving ocean. Small, brightly colored fish swam around us, but they quickly spun away from the danger zone as the ocean started to evaporate and disappear around them.
We must swim out farther, dear one, George insisted.
I nodded, since I couldn’t speak, and followed the water dragon further out into the ocean. I could see the women swimming out of the corners of my eyes, and we kicked all the way to where the seafloor dropped off and the smooth sand below us disappeared, only to be replaced by the dark depths of the ocean, with their ability to hide all sorts of terrifying monsters.
Great. Monsters both above us and below us. There wasn’t a safe place.
Sela, Mira, George, and I sank further into the water, blessed with our enormous lung capacity, but Nadir and Jemma weren’t built the same way as us. The two of them were meant for the land, not the ocean, and I could see in their eyes that their lungs screamed for oxygen.
I looked up, and through the blue waves of the ocean water, I could see the dragon hovered just overhead and watched us with those deep purple eyes.
To my surprise, though, it didn’t look like it had conjured up any more fire to send our way. In fact, all it did was stare at us.
Slowly, I started to back away and swim down the beach in the opposite direction of the dragon. George and the women followed, and we didn’t get more than another ten feet before the dragon cocked her head, almost in a nod, and then flew right back to her nest.
As soon as the beast had turned her back on us, Jemma and Nadir sprang to the surface and gasped for air. The women filled their lungs over and over again as the rest of our party surfaced, and I watched them closely for a few seconds to make sure they were perfectly fine before I turned back to watch the dragon.
“She has nested again,” Mira murmured in amazement.
The warrior was right. We could just barely see the golden shine of the dragon’s beautiful scales over the edge of her strangely made nest, and she seemed as calm as ever.
“We must have left her territory.” I shook my head in disbelief. “That was all she wanted, so now all is fine.”
Yes, Draco Rex, but all is not fine with the land, George reminded us.
We looked back toward our way home, where the fire still raged across the grass.
“Shit,” I murmured. “That could get bad. If it manages to hop the ravine, we might have a real forest fire on our hands.”
Do not worry, I will take care of this, George informed me.
Before I could say another word, the dragon dipped below the surface of the water and zipped toward the beach. Then he erupted from the ocean, dashed across the sand, and let loose a slew of cold seawater on the fire like a magical firehose. The spray doused the fire out within moments, and all that was left was the charred earth to mark the spot where the flames had raged only moments before.
“Let’s get back to the beach,” I told Jemma and Nadir, who had mostly regained control over their breathing.
“Good idea.” Sela nodded. “I do not wish for another encounter with that beast. I believe it is best we head out.”
“What about our treasure?” Nadir demanded as she swiped strands of hair out of her gray eyes. “There must be some way to get it back from the fire breathing terror nested on our island.”
“No, Nadir,” I told her. “She just wants to protect her baby, and a beast like that is not something I’m inclined to mess with more than once. That was a close enough call already.”
Nadir pursed her lips in a sad pout and then swam over to the beach, and I watched her luscious curves as she climbed out of the water, shook her puffy, sopping tail, and proceeded to turn and stare down the dragon’s nest as if she believed she could will the creature to give up her egg to us all of a sudden.
“That woman is rather persistent,” Mira chuckled.
“I kind of like it, though.” I grinned.
“I can tell,” Sela laughed as she also climbed out from the ocean. The gray-blue haired warrior tossed her head back and let her locks fall down to shake out the water, and the breeze lifted the strands up just slightly and revealed the perfect curve of her ass as she stood there and dried off.
We may have just escaped an attack from a fire breathing dragon, but these women still looked absolutely fucking amazing.
The fire is all out, dear ones, George announced as he returned to the beach.
“Thanks.” I grinned at him as I waded up onto the shore. “Maybe you water dragons were created to put out their fires.”
I nodded jokingly toward the massive, fire breathing dragon, but the second the words were out of my mouth, it struck me that it was highly probable I was right. George, with his water abilities, seemed to match and balance out the other dragon, even if they were two completely different sizes.
“I am ready to go home, now,” Nadir announced, and the woman fluffed out her gray speckled tail and lifted her chin.
“Better home than toward that dragon again,” Sela grumbled. “Your stupidity almost got us killed.”
For the first time since I’d met her, I saw Nadir’s confident expression suddenly falter, and she looked guilty as she glanced around at the group.
“I am sorry,” she whispered. “It was stupid of me, you are correct, Sela. Ben, thank you for saving us before we all died by my hand.”
To my absolute surprise, a shiny tear wavered at the edge of Nadir’s right eye, so I rushed over to her side and wrapped her slender, angular frame up in my own arms.
“It’s okay,” I comforted her. “We’re all alive, right? No harm, no foul.”
“I do not understand what you mean.” She pulled back with a frown.
“It’s an expression where I come from,” I explained. “It just means everything’s okay, since no one was hurt. Right?”
I glanced around at Mira, Jemma, Sela, and George. My water dragon nodded his head vigorously, while Mira did the same. Sela shrugged, and Jemma came up to place her hand on Nadir’s shoulder.
“Do not worry,” the sweet, auburn-haired woman murmured. “Everyone will make many mistakes in life. Besides, you did not know what kind of damage that beast could manage to inflict.”
“And the good news is she charred some fields for us,” I added. “So, if we ever wanted to build a garden over here, the ground would probably be really fertile. We’d just have to see if we could find a nearby source of freshwater, maybe an underground spring.”
Nadir let out a laugh that was half sob, but I could tell we’d managed to somewhat cheer her up.
“Why do you suppose it stopped coming after us, though?” Sela asked as she tilted her head curiously.
I believe she just wanted to protect her egg, George said, and his big blue eyes stared up at me with his usual intelligent sincerity.
“I think you’re right,” I replied before I turned to the women. “George said she was probably just guarding her egg. We must have reached a point where she didn’t think we were much of a threat anymore. I bet anything if we get close to her again, she’ll go on a King Kong sized rampage.”
&nb
sp; “I will not be risking that,” Sela chuckled. “I have had enough dragon fire for one day. Although, admittedly, I am fascinated by the creature. Have you seen them here before, Nadir?”
“We have not.” The woman shook her head. “I do not believe they have been on this island before. I am certain we would have heard stories of a beast like that.”
“You would think,” I agreed, and I mulled over the question that was on all of our minds.
Where had the dragon come from?
A massive, flying creature was hard to miss. After all, Nerissa and her people had stories about the gryphons, even before we’d actually met them in person, and those beasts didn’t seem to live on their island. A dragon was nearly ten times the size of a gryphon, and yet no one had even heard stories of them. Three different people, from three different islands, without a word of this dragon or any other.
If nothing else, it made me curious to know where the hell she came from. I found it hard to believe she’d just popped up out of thin air one day.
No, dear one, I sincerely doubt that is what happened, George chuckled in my mind. But I do believe it may have been possible for her egg to have laid unhatched for a long time. Maybe that is why there are no stories of these beasts.
“Even so, though, there’s got to be a second one,” I mused. “The egg didn’t fertilize itself. Right?”
Though, it occurred to me as I said this that the egg might just have fertilized itself.
Still, there were too many mysteries left unsolved, and I could feel in my bones there were answers out there somewhere. We just had no idea what they were.
“We should head back,” Mira said. “I, for one, have had enough dragon talk for the day. The beast seems to be ready to leave us alone, as long as we give her the same courtesy.”
“But should we?” Sela growled to everyone’s surprise.