Stronghold City Draft

Chapter 3

Outside the safe borders of Solis, Anarchy trekked across the sand, a great number of followers, many missing eyes, ears, teeth, or patches of fur ambled behind him. It wasn't as if Anarchy could count any higher than 12, but currently, he had a total of 34 chupacabras following him. He could see the admiration in their yellow and orange eyes (or eye). They would follow him to the ends of the earth and back. They would even die for him if he commanded them to. Anarchy had slain a queen and came back a king. Anarchy sniffed the air, and walked over to a large hole in the side of the nearest sand dune. At some point or other, this room has been the burrow of some large animal, but it had been so long that even the faintest trace of the former inhabitant, not even a scale or a feather or a strand of hair or a scent to remember it by. Anarchy had taken to using the burrow as a place to shelter, seeing as whatever animal had made it was easily four times the size of a chupacabra, so there was plenty of room. Anarchy felt like this would be a great place for his followers to stay. The old burrow was so roomy that all 34 chupacabras, each the size of a large dog, fit comfortably inside. In the dim light of the burrow, the chupacabras' eyes eerily glowed. "So, Lord Anarchy, what do we do next?" asked a smaller chupacabra with pale fur and black spikes lining its back. "What we do next is we strategize. We make plans. Even though the dragon queen is dead, there are still cities full of dragons everywhere," Anarchy replied. "Is killing all the dragons a plan?" asked a mangy brown chupacabra pockmarked in scars. "Killing all the dragons is the goal. We need to figure out how to kill them all. Dragons are very strong so trying to kill a dragon the way you would kill a venomous snake is not the way to do it. You have to be very tricky." A small chupacabra raised its forepaw in the air. "We could poison their water. All we have to do is drag a dead, rotting animal into their water supply, and they would all get sick and die." Anarchy scratched his chin. "That's not a bad idea, but there isn't a single water supply all the dragons use. Also, I don't think a single animal could make all the dragons get sick," said Anarchy. "We could steal some fire from some saurians and set their city on fire. It would be simple and easy," offered another chupacabra in the crowd. "That would never work. Dragons have fire inside of them. They can shoot fire from their mouth and smoke from their nose," said Anarchy. "If the dragons have fire inside of them, that means that they surely are immune to fire on the outside." A few of the chupacabras nervously shifted and whispered to each other. Many of them never knew that dragons had fire inside of them. This task was harder than it seemed. Suddenly, Anarchy had an ingenious idea. His ears shot up. "What if we manage to trap the dragons in their own city? If we kill dragons that go outside, then the dragons will be too scared to leave. That city is the only large city in all of Solaria, so if we control the city, we control all the dragons." Most of the chupacabras agreed this was a good idea. A few were skeptical. "But the dragons are much more powerful than us. They could destroy us all in seconds," said a voice in the crowd. "Yes, but there is more of us than there is of them. The city is big but it's mostly because the dragons themselves are big. We can outnumber them." The crowd murmured. There were a lot of nods of agreement. "We're going to train hard. First, I'm going to teach you how to climb the wall. The wall around the city is very tall and very dangerous, and it has big spikes near the bottom to keep us away, but I've climbed it twice. If we all can get into the city, then the dragons will fear us more because we got past their great defense."

That night, a light in the windows of a three-story building near the wall glowed, burning bright through the night. In the top floor, a saurian named Ezekiel was preparing for bed. Ezekiel was famous for his skills with making stuff from animal hide, specifically that of chupacabras. He could make luxurious rugs, fur coats, and hats, all out of the mangy, scarred hides he had to work with. The taxidermied heads in the throne room of the late queen had been a gift from him in thanks for giving him his wonderful shop in which he lived. Several decades ago, Ezekiel had been a chupacabra hunter, but he had gotten too old for it. Ezekiel was almost 500 years old, which is rather old for a saurian seeing as they live to be about 600. The large green reptile hung up his brown coat and his top hat, and turned to look at the stars outside, gleaming in the skies far above the wall. Suddenly, he saw the dark shape of an animal dash over the top of the wall on all fours and then pause, twitching its pointy ears, its fur blowing in the wind. Its yellow eyes glowed in the darkness. Ezekiel rubbed his yellow eyes with his hands. As sure as could be, there was a chupacabra standing on top of the wall, only 15 or so yards from his window. The chupacabra turned to its left and another trotted over to its side. The wall had been designed to be unclimbable. There were spikes at the bottom to deter the chupacabras, not to mention the wall was about 30 feet tall. Yet somehow, there were chupacabras at the top of the wall. Ezekiel bet that if they could get up there, they could surely climb down, which meant they could get into the city. This was bad.