Nightfall

V

Midnight froze, remembering the words that had been whispered with fear and worry. Stories of humans who knew that dragons existed. Rumors of their weapons, able to pierce a dragon's hard scales. Whispers of their powers.

Dragon hunters.

Eagle broke their terrified silence. "We need to go! Everyone else might be in trouble!" It took a moment, but Midnight nodded in agreement and took off, flying as quickly as he could towards the area the dragon's had settled.

As he went, smoke blocked his view, and the bright light of the noon sun dimmed slightly, taking hope from his grasp. The ominous thought of not getting there in time, the thought of a dragon dying, was too much to bear.

Midnight flew faster.

He was aware of everyone else flying after him, but a column of flame split the air in front of him, forcing Midnight to stop, and the others flew straight past him. For a moment, he was confused, and then he saw why.

On the shores, a hundred or so humans were fighting ten or eleven of the settlement, trying to bring them down. Five or six others blasted fire at the hunters from the air, making sure their comrades in the group on the ground didn't get injured too badly.

Midnight examined the ships that were situated several yards of shore, a group of humans holding strange, handheld metal objects. He flew a bit closer, and one of them noticed, and aimed the object at him.

Before he could try to avoid it, the thing fired, a loud bang! coming from it. A strange, lightning fast object hit his left foreleg. It caused a small amount of pain on impact, but it bounced off, plunging into the ocean below.

Did they think they could hurt us with that? Midnight wondered, and shook it off. Whatever those things were, they were useless, and he was free to attack the ships.

The ship itself was long and narrow, made of metal. Midnight spotted something on it: something that looked like a glimmer of white-blue scales.

Scales?

Midnight tilted downward to get a better look, and what he saw horrified him.

Sleet, their missing scout, was chained down to the ship. His maw was covered by a metal piece, attached to chains that tied around and around him, all locked to a metal ring. The young dragon spotted Midnight, and his struggling stopped.

The black dragon didn't hesitate. He dove down, landing in front of Sleet, and knocked away any humans around them with a sweep of his tail. He pulled on a chain, earning a muffled, raw-sounding yelp from Sleet.

"Sorry," he apologized, and tilted his head towards the chain. Fire could probably melt it, but he couldn't hurt Sleet. The only other option would be to twist his head and neck to a side, leaving his throat completely vulnerable. It was a risk he would have to take.

Midnight twisted his head to the side, locked his jaws around the chain, and began to melt it with a short, hot stream of fire. Come on... come on... he mentally pleaded, feeling molten metal melting into his jaws. He pulled back a bit when it almost fell into his mouth, and it finally melted entirely, becoming a mass of molten metal oozing onto the floor.

He pulled off the rest of the chains, having to spend almost a minute yanking on the muzzle to get it off. Sleet opened and closed his mouth, wincing slightly, but smiled gratefully at Midnight.

"Thanks," he sighed. "I haven't been able to open my mouth for days!"

Sleet spread his wings, and tried to take off, but his wing muscles were weak from no use for who knows how long. He collapsed on the ship awkwardly, his wings spread out uselessly on either side of him. The pale blue dragon tried again, this time landing precariously close to the water.