Chapter 18: Chapter 18

Nya didn’t have to stand there, hidden in the trees, gazing at the sky for long. Only a few moments after the guards made it from the castle with their prisoner in tow, fastening him to a large rock that looked more like an altar than the place in The Point back home, the night grew quiet. All of the animals stilled. The bugs stopped their chirping, night birds flew away or hid in their nests, and any predators out crawling through the high grass on the mountainside quickly dove for their burrows. Seconds later, the sound of large wings disturbing the air drew Nya’s eyes skyward.

He appeared over the moon first, as he always seemed to do, pausing there, silhouetted by the silver light, his red and black scales glimmering. Looking up at him, it was hard to think of him as anything other than a magnificent winged creature, a legendary, mythological being of mass proportion. Nya’s mouth dropped open as she gazed up at him, her awe temporarily disturbing her mission.

All of the guards had scattered, not just finding cover in the trees and rocks nearby but literally making a mad dash for the wall surrounding the castle and village, as if the dragon could be kept out by a wall of any height. Most of them had already reached the halfway point before the dragon began to make his descent from his perch in the center of the moon. He shot down out of the sky toward the clearing directly in front of Nya, between herself and the prisoner, who was grunting and groaning as he did his best to try and free himself from the heavy chains that the soldiers had used to secure him to the rock, but he wasn’t screaming and crying like the little girl from Frindom, Alsys, had been. Once the dragon touched down in front of him, Nya waged all bets were off.

The dragon landed, light on his feet, with his back to Nya, which worked in her favor. Her mind wanted to show her what was about to happen, but she fought the urge to use whatever this newfound ability was to see the future because she didn’t want to know. Instead, as the mammoth monster stood in front of her, a hundred yards or so away, his breathing so loud, it sounded like the drumbeats had started again, she slowly began to make her way out of the trees and toward him.

Carrying her shield on her back where she could easily reach it and with one hand on the hilt of her sword, she moved as silently as the dragon had been when he landed, dodging rocks and small shrubs as the dragon moved toward the prisoner. Now, the man was screeching, shouting curses at the beast, practically pulling his own hands off against the cuff of the chains as he did anything he could to break free.

The dragon didn’t seem quite as massive now that he was on the ground, though he was still several times bigger than Nya. As she approached him from behind, she got a good view of the barbs on his tail. He wasn’t swinging it, since he had no idea she was behind him. His scales glistened in the moonlight as his wings, each at least ten feet across, stayed wide so that he could take off at any moment.

She had an idea of what he would do. Assuming he did the same thing in every land that he did in her own kingdom, he would simply walk over toward the prisoner, yank the chains free from the rock, break them close to the cuff so that the prisoner was free, and then wrap him up in his large front paws. Then, the dragon would take back to the air, carrying the poor bastard away so that he could devour him out of the line of sight of anyone watching.

But then… since no one was watching, as far as the dragon knew, Nya thought perhaps he’d eat the screaming prisoner now. While she had little sympathy for the man that she believed to be a criminal, as compared to her own friend Gavin and the other children she’d seen snatched away in Frindom, she didn’t particularly want to watch the dragon eat him either. Nor did she wish to be eaten. Deciding she needed to act fast if she was going to destroy the dragon, Nya increased her speed and aimed for the dragon’s back.

Using his tale as a stepping stone path, Nya ran up the dragon from behind. She had the element of surprise, and it took him a moment to realize someone was assaulting him. By then, she was between his wings, her sword drawn, ready to jab straight down into his neck.

He wasn’t stupid, though, and as his instincts kicked in and he began to move, an attempt to send her flying off, she assumed, she had to drop down and wrap her legs around his neck, or else she’d drop her sword.

Her bottom hit hard against his metal-like scales as she straddled him, her legs on either side of his massive head. The dragon screeched, throwing his head back, and then, he did what dragons always do when they are defending themselves. Fire shot out of his mouth, up into the air, a bright flame of red and orange, wrapped in a plume of smoke that lit the night sky to a brilliant white directly in front of her eyes, and Nya not only had to squint against the glare, she was forced to put her sword back in its sheath so that she could pull her shield around to guard against the sparks shooting down on her. She needed one hand to hold onto the neck of the wriggling beast, who was doing his best to knock her free.

He spun around, as fire continued to rain down on her, as if looking for more assailants seeing none, he shrieked again, turning his head nearly in a circle so that one giant red-rimmed, dark eye was looking at her. Nya peered at him from beneath the shield, considering letting go of his neck so that she could stab him in the eye, when another cloud of smoke and fire came her way. Choking and sputtering, she held on with her hand and legs as the dragon did everything he could to shake free.

It wasn’t working--for either of them. A standoff had ensued; Nya refused to let go, and the bastard dragon would not stand still and let her draw her sword so that she could kill him. If only there had been someone else brave enough to come with her to distract him for a moment so she could plunge her sword into his neck. The prisoner was still trying to free himself, and the dragon was completely oblivious to him now that there was another human to contend with.

Something had to give. As the dragon continued to spin and rock, Nya decided she had to let go with her arm so that she could pull her sword again. Fumbling for the sheath as the rocking dragon through her balance off, she strained to keep her knees tight so she didn’t slide around and could get a grip.

He was having none of it. As soon as he realized she’d released her hand from his neck, the dragon did the one thing that would prevent Nya from pulling her sword and running him through. With one more peel of dragon fury, he spread his wings wide and leapt into the air, taking off and flying straight up into the sky, betting that Nya wasn’t suicidal enough to kill her chariot and fall all the way back to the earth.

She would have done it if she could. But the force of the dragon pulling straight up prevented her from pulling her sword at all. Nya had to let go of the shield as well and hold on. The dragon wasn’t breathing fire now, so the shield wasn’t necessary, and for a moment, she allowed herself to look out over the head of the beast and take in the scene around her.

The mountain below her was illuminated by the full dragon moon, glinting off of the white of rocks and the foam of the waves on the lake. The trees and meadows blended together to create a breathtaking scene, and for a moment, Nya forgot the horrors of this world she lived in and concentrated on the beauty.

It wouldn’t last. As quickly as he had taken off, the dragon swooped down, causing her to increase her grip again, as he aimed for a range of tall, jagged, dark mountains so far in the distance from where Nya lived she’d never seen them before. She held on, doing her best to keep from flying off the back of the monster, praying that, wherever they were going, there wouldn’t be a pack of dragons waiting for her. She might be able to defeat one, but she wouldn’t be able to manage any more than that.

The dragon touched down on a small clearing at the top of the dark mountain in the center of the range with such force that Nya could not possibly hold on. She went flying off of him, crashing into hard rock a good twenty yards behind where the dragon’s claws clanked against the rock.

The force of the landing took her breath away, and her backside ached, but she had no time to sit and think about any injuries. Leaping up, Nya pulled her sword and slid her shield around, ready to defend herself and then attack the beast, but by the time she regained her footing and stood, she realized a thick fog surrounded the mountaintop, and the dragon had disappeared from her sight.

“Where are you?” she shouted. “Where did you go, you unimaginable bastard?”

She heard noises from the fog right in front of her, a popping, tearing, twisting sound she couldn’t identify. Nya’s eyes widened. Her heart pounded in her chest, and her breathing labored. She needed to locate him quickly before he got away. What if he flew off, leaving her there? She had no idea where she was, but she knew it was high atop jagged mountains that would take her hours, if not days, to descend.

“Where did you go?”

Then, in front of her, she heard what sounded like footsteps. Nya peered over the top of her shield, sword pulled back at the ready.

The fog in front of her parted, moonlight illuminating a silhouette standing fifty paces in front of her. It wasn’t a dragon, though. It was a man… dressed all in black and red… and he was pissed.