Moonlight Lands: Fallen echoes

Chapter 3

Ekrill took out his llong sword and straped it firmly to his back, he glaced around his house until his eyes landed on the bag of aples. He took it and placed it in the traveling bag that was attached to Dusk. "Catch up with the horse Dusk" commanded Ekrill once he was sitting on the Hippogriff.

A couple of minutes later, Dusk landed next to the mare Ryker was riding.  The hippogrif caused a lot of rustling in the branches, but the only thing that detected them where the Singing Pygmy Dragons, about as large as a squirel, they're green with colorfull wings and tails.

Ryker looked up as he noticed the dragons had begun to follow them and constantly singing a song that contained only two notes. "My mother once told me that northern beings used the singing dragons to signal each other, as they trained the dragon to mock the sounds they made, i wonder if its true, as they only began singing that song when you landed" Said Ryker to Ekrill, who nodded. "Yes, i heard the stories too, I think it was the rangers that used them, but they're just stories, don't worry"  Ryker noded, but continued to watch and listen to the dragons.  Ekrill noticed one with purple wings that came from behind, as the dragon lands, it starts singing a three note song, wich all the other dragons around start singing.

Ryker looked behind fromwhere the dragon came from, indicating he saw it too.  Ekrill looked behind too, and saw a faint red aura. "Nightmares! They found us! Make your horse run!" Said Ekrill, as dusk picked up the pace, the canopy here was too dense to take to the sky.  However, he knew Nightmare and Unicorns where suprisingly fast, and could easily outrun a cheetah.  When glancing behind him, on his left side, Ekrill thought he saw a large silvery tail, but Dusk ran too fast to be sure. The sandy mare ran at the same speed as Dusk, but he could see she was getting tired, in fact, Dusk was begining to slow down too, and in no time the ten Nightmares and their riders circled them.

"You are subjected to the penality of death once we arive at the Acerbus kingdom..." Started the Leader of the knights, who was talking to Ekrill.  Ekrill just rolled his eyes.  "Remove his sword and strap the wings of the Griffin" Continued the knight. Ekrill felt like snaping a reply to say it was a Hippogriff, but held himself. "Now walk along the trail! Or else we cut your head off right now"

"Hey Ekrill" whispered Ryker. "Huh?" Asked Ekrill. "The nano dragons, they sing a song with five notes now" Ekrill listened to the Dragons, Ryker was right, they where singing diferently now. "Do you think they will find us?" Asked a knight to another one. "Don't be silly, it's mid day, they'ill just burn" Answered the other. Sudenly, the dragons all sung a long, hit-pitch note. The Nightmares, startled, reared up and a couple of knight fell off. One of them goes to take out a sword, but is imeadiatly shot in the head by an arrow that cam the the top of a nearby tree. "Rangers!" Yelled another knight, blocking an arrow that would have hit his head. Another knight fell down as an arrow peirced his neck, an area witout armor.  Ekrill turned towards where that arrow was shot, and saw, in the shadow, what looked like a human wearing black cloathes and a black hood, hiding it's face. It took out another arrow and shot another knight in the back of the neck with stuning acuracy. Over all, juging by the areas the arrows came from, there was about five Rangers.  They kept shooting until the only knight that remained was the leader, who was better armored than the others.

One of the Nightmares, startled, charged at the Ranger that Ekrill saw earlier.  The Ranger quickly cimbed a tree with suprising agility, as it climbed, it used a long silvery tail to hold on to branches, in case it fell down.  Ryker, looked at it, suprised. "I thought Draklies where extinct!"  The Drakly that was up on the tree sudenly jumped off and landed precicely on the back of the last kinght. That Drakly looked a bit diferent from the other one they saw, instead of a plain, pale tail, it had dark grey stipes and looked rather younger.It held on to the back of the knight with its bird-like feet and constantly dodged the sword that the knight slashed at it. The Drakly had a black long bow with strange white drawings carved into it, had a black quiver (which was empty) and held a silver dagger in its hand, trying to find an un-armored spot. When it did find it, near its neck, it stabbed the blade in it, causing the Knight to die in a matter of seconds.

Another Drakly came out of the bushes, it looked significantly older, but how to tell? All their faces where hidden under hoods. It looked at Ryker and Ekrill, then said. "You two come with me, bring your rides with you, Natrium, make sure no other Acerbus folk are around!"