Flaming Eclipse

Chapter 4 - Stoney situation

The valley between the Kals' son- and daughter mountains opened up in front of us. This would be one of the most dangerous parts of our journey. 

"Be as silent as possible, 'ight? We cannot be heard or even seen", Rustle reminded us. I nodded briefly and Rattle lashed his tail in agreement. "Let's go then", his order was hardly more than a breath.

We walked along the root of the Kals' daughter mountain. Rock and depris fell from the incline. The only noise that could be heard was our steps and occasionaly one of us lashing our tails. The place mostly smelled of only rotting flesh or just fresh stone. It seemed as if nothing else was alive. Not even the trees.

We passed a huge, pointy rock that was cracked. Rustle stretched his tail in front of us to make us stop. He pointed behind the rock, where was a huge entrance. I pinned my wings along my flanks. The entrance was where the stone dragons lived. The entrance would lead to a tunnel that continued up to the very top of the mountain, where the most high ranked stone dragons would live. We had to be extremely quiet here, because the risk of us getting caught was much higher. 

Rustle made his way to the other side of the entrance first by placing his claws so gently on the ground, even the gravel didn't move. I went next, using the same strategy. I even held my tail up in the air to make sure it wouldn't touch the airy ground material. Then went Rattle. His tactic was different. Instead of just making his way to the other side by carefully walking he leaped and flew to the other side and thumped on the ground. I stared at him while Rustle was glacning around rapidly.

"You fool! You absolute thorn-damned moron!" I whispered to him. I wanted to scream in his ears but obviously I couldn't do that.

"Sorry! I didn't know I'd land so clumsily", instead of using a low voice or even a whisper he almost yelled. Or maybe I was just so used to the silence already.

I almost hissed at him when his expression turned from apologetic to a realization.

Suddenly Rustle lunged toward us, and Rattle looked bewildered. I glanced at the direction where he had came from and a few pairs of glowing, white eyes were staring at us from the shadows. More and more blinked to visibility. There must have been at least ten paisr of eyes staring at us.

"Run?" I breathed out.

"Ru-!" before Rustle could answer the glowing white eyes lunged from the darkness towards us. I dodged skillfully one of them but there were more. 

I departed from my siblings, which was a mistake. Before I knew it, ten heavy, muscular and strong stone dragons were surrounding me. I flattened my wings beside my flanks and strated to spin in a circle to lash my claws across every one of their muzzles. I slapped one's snout with my claws and kicked another with my back foot. I moved rapidly to and fro to dodge any lunges and held my tail as low as possible.

I heard a yowls that sounded like it had come from Rustle. I raised my claw up on the air to lash it at one of the stone dragons' snouts which was standing on my way. As they ducked their head backwards I leaped over them instead of actually hitting them. 

"Rustle!" I yowled when I saw him battling alone against like what could have easily been at least 20 dragons. I pounced from the ground onto one of the stone dragons' backs and from there I leaped over their head next to Rustle. My claws must have left a pretty nasty mark on their spine.

"Thanks!" he huffed when I landed next to him. We stood wing-to-wing and spun around rapidly, slashing at every gray snout we saw. But no matter how many of them retreated, there always seemed to be more. And they all looked exactly the same!

"Leave us alone! We've done nothing wrong!" I screeched but they didn't seem to even hear me. 

"You know what to do", Rustle nodded at me. I knew exactly what he meant. I drew my lips back as if I were to snarl so the stone dragons wouldn't try to dodge anywhere but instead of letting out a snarky sound, I hissed and squirted out a web of my saliva. The spit hit someone's face before they could retread and they scrambled back, rubbing their face. 

"That's what you get!" I howled. The stone dargons seemed to become even more angry and one of them spun around and threw their tail at me. Luckily, I am much more nimble and dodged it with ease. Another one tried to lash their claw at me and I ducked, but to my surprise, another one was waiting and whipped their claws across my jaw. I burst back from the hit and stumbled on the ground.

I shook my head and got up. I was facing a huge rock and when I looked upper I saw that at least five stone dragons were standing on top of it, growling. From the sides emerged another four dragons and behind me were even more. I was completely surrounded.

"A little slippery, are we?" one of the stone dragons murmured.

"Don't say that! It sounds bad!" another with a high-pitched voice scolded.

When they were standing next to each other, without me trying to scratch every one of their snouts, I started to realize that they didn't all look the same. Some of them had a little paler or darker scales, others were bulkier as others were slightly thinner. Some of them had paler spots scattered around their body and at least one had a missing eye.

"I didn't know you spoke english", I commented.

"Of course we speak english! Just because we don't like you doesn't mean we are thorn dragons!" so these brutes didn't live under stones, huh? Get it? 'Cause they're stone dragon? Okay, I'll stop.

"I thought that any dragon who attacked those whom done nothing wrong would speak some ancient, animalistic language!" I snarled.

Before the stone dragon could answer, they fell down on their belly. Rustle and Rattle were standing on their back. 

"Come on!" Rattle yowled. I stretched my neck to my side and slapped another stone dragon's muzzle before leaping up from the circle and joining my brothers. I glanced back one more time before we took off from the back of the helpless dragon.

"That was a close call!" Rattle huffed. Neither of them seemed to have any visible injuries, aside from a few damaged scales.

"Yeah! Now let's hurry before-" Rustle's sentence was cut by a huge, bright line striking his tail. One of the stone dragons had unleashed their lightning and hit Rustle!

"RUSTLE!" I screeched and plunged down to make sure he wouldn't fall and hit the ground. Rustle had lost consciousness. I grabbed his shoulders but at the same time another lightning struck. It must have hit me, because the next thing I knew, I was being dragged by the stone dragons into their cavern entrance.