𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗱𝗼𝘄𝗛𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿 - 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑇𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑙

Chapter 4

     What?! I can breathe fire?! Turns out I'm even more a dragon than I thought!

     She'd never heard of a Drolgon who could breathe fire besides Galaxy, but maybe no one had ever tried. She practiced breathing fire, big and small plumes, and aiming it. at last, when she heard the wolves in the cave waking up, she figured she knew how well enough to break her way out.

     She carefully blew a plume of fire onto the metal repeatedly. At last, it was bendy enough for Eclipse to carefully bite it and pry it off. It was very hot, and she'd accidentally burned a tiny spot on her lip by touching it.

     The burned patch was starting to blister, but she had to get the other piece of metal off. As soon as she'd done that, she heard pawsteps coming down the tunnel toward her.

     Eclipse quickly buried herself under the bones, making sure to hide her wings and the pieces of metal. Then a wolf padded to the edge of the tunnel, and sat down. She was a female, with a scar on the top of her muzzle and dark gray fur with black and white patches. She had beautiful violet eyes with silver and light purple flecks. Her paws were dainty, and her tail and ears big. She was slender and elegant, and Eclipse noticed the one very strange thing about her: the tips of her ears, paws, and tail were wreathed in wisps of shadow.

     She looked down at Eclipse, clearly torn about something, shuffling her paws on the stone. Eclipse stared silently up at her, trying to figure her out.

     Wisps of shadow, just like the shadow-wolf... could be his sister? No, she's too young... she's probably his daughter. She's shuffling her paws like she doesn't know what to do... maybe she's torn between decisions... probably. She looks innocent, and even kind... nothing like the shadow-wolf... could she help me? Could I convince her to get me out of here? And her underbelly... she's expecting pups!

     "Hello," Eclipse began. "I'm Eclipse. I believe you can help me."

     The she-wolf stared at Eclipse, and then dropped her gaze, her tail flicking thoughtfully.

     "I'm Raven..." she said quietly at last. "I believe you can help me."

     Eclipse pulled herself out of the bones, and flapped up to Raven.

     "I see you were already working your way out of this dank hole," Raven commented.

     Eclipse laughed, shooting her an amused look.

     "I'm planning to leave here, too, today," Raven told her quietly. "I know when my mate, Spark, will be in a raid on the caves. So I agreed to run away with him in the midst of the raid. You get to come too- I have questions that I assume only you can answer."

     Eclipse nodded. "When is the raid?"

     "I heard the raiding party coming when I went out to check, just before I came to get you," Raven reported. "They should be here any time now. And the pack has surely seen them by now- they'll be preparing for battle just outside the cave entrance."

     Eclipse realized she was right- she could hear wolves barking and running around in the cave now. Bones clattered to the ground as wolves rushed to get their armour on. After a while, the cave grew quiet, and there was roaring and growling from just outside.

     "Now!" Raven whispered suddenly, darting forward into the cave and toward the cave entrance. But it was not unnoticed.

     Every wolf was outside fighting, except...

     "Father!" Raven yelped fearfully.

     The shadow-wolf was sitting on his bed of moss and leaves, scowling at Raven.