Mark of the Ranger

XLVIII. Travelling to the Magic Farm Island

Four days of intense training and glares from my colleagues later, we mounted up on Tombstone and met Isabel at the Wizarding Guild. She was waiting impatiently for us, tapping her foot as she saw Tombstone dive heroically from the sky. "About time you reached me," she grumbled once we dismounted the Outlandish Falcon. "I've been waiting since before the sun came up." I was going to ask her why in the name of the Five Lands she would ever do that, but she was my superior. I was not to question her, and I had to remember that important detail.

Isabel reached out with her mind(Well, that's what she said. To us, it looked like she was standing there with her eyes closed) and found Ebony. Her riding dragon came in what seemed to be a flash. Isabel mounted her dragon and commanded us to follow her the best we could. Ebony lifted off without hesitation, and before long, we were much behind. Why did we even dismount Tombstone? I asked myself as we re-mounted him and took off after her. I felt as if it would be an impossible feat to reach that dragon, but I was wrong.

Tombstone was unbelievably fast. He sped across the land like a dart. Before long, we were catching up on Ebony. The dragon looked behind her, and her triangular eyes widened at the sight of an Outlandish Falcon seeming to gain on her. She tried to speed up, but it was to no avail. Soon, Tombstone was side-by-side with the riding dragon. "Great job, Tombstone," I told the giant bird, stroking his wing. "You're better than any dragon." Tombstone cawed proudly, not even looking tired. I hadn't realized he could be this fast at this capacity. I looked at Isabel, who had been making herself small against Ebony's crest until she saw Tombstone.

"THAT IS UNBELIEVABLE!" She shouted to me. I gave her a smug look, and I could tell Tombstone was doing the same thing. Isabel scowled, but that made me feel even more smug. I looked back at the path ahead of us, which was nearing the beach. How fast were we going? We had nearly gotten halfway there. I tried to ask Ebony how fast she could go, but even the dragon's ears couldn't hear my drowned-out voice, which was covered by the wind.

Finally, the land disappeared. We were hanging over the sea, gliding and zipping over it. The waves crashed and swathed beneath us. I looked back at my teammates, who were done glaring at me. They were more amazed at our mounts' speed. "I had no idea Tombstone could fly this fast," Ko commented, easier to hear because there was no wind behind Tombstone's head. I shrugged, then laid on my back. That was a bad idea, considering Tombstone was flying over three hundred miles per hour, as I had learned later. I realized my mistake instantly as I nearly flew off the bird.

I was able to grab on to a tail feather. Tombstone was surprised, so he looked back under him and saw my body hanging like a thread. His large, pearly eyes widened as he slowed down and my friends clamored to grab me and stop me from falling into the water. From this height, all the bones in my body would break.

This did tell me one thing, however: Even if I made stupid decisions and got my friends into these insane situations, they were still willing to save me and keep me from falling off of a giant bird. As Elena and David worked together to pull me back on Tombstone's back, Jeff commented, "For your safety, we ask that you keep hold onto the bird during flights." I smiled at his over-sophisticated joke and grabbed a few of the foot-long feathers of Tombstone's back with both hands. "Let's keep on going," I recommended, and Tombstone sped up, catching back up with Ebony in no time.

I saw the magic farm in the distance, and it was quickly approaching. Well, rather, we were approaching it very quickly. Ebony and Tombstone swooped down for a quick landing, and skidded lightly on their feet when they hit the rock. We dismounted Tombstone, and Isabel dismounted Ebony. I looked around at the sorry island. I wondered what had happened to have caused so much damage.

For one, the island was warped and ruined to beyond recognition. If there was any other island with masses of black rock on its shores, we probably would have gone for one that actually had a dome. The rock dome that had been the center of our planning and eating of bowled something was now completely destroyed. It was nothing but a cluster of broken rock shards. I looked to my left and saw the Aeromancer's tomb, from when Jeff had defeated him. I looked back at the structure that was once a magic farm. Most of the walls and enclosures were smashed into pieces, and rocks littered the beach.

"I wonder what happened to the arboretum," Ko muttered.

"Or the slime ranch," David thought aloud.

"Or even the geovore pen," I added. We had freed the geovores before we had left the island. Could that have been what had caused all this destruction? Jeff read my mind and commented, "The geovores sure did a lot of damage while we were gone. But what about Toxiclaw?"

"His wings had to have been healed by the time we reached the Highlands port. Even then, his breath weapon would have killed off all the geovores," Isabel responded. We looked around for a clue as to where we needed to go, or even an entrance. Isabel found one of the latter, and we followed her down stairs. "I hope we can just grab the important thing--the core--and get out of here," Karen hoped. I hoped the same thing, but we all knew it couldn't be that easy.