Heatwave

Part 14

After telling all the boys my initial plan, I had instructed them to leave one at a time and find a hiding place as I had done. Surly there were plenty because I had used more than a few myself within the oddly shaped base. After everyone but Darpik and I had gone off to hide somewhere, I crawled carefully out to the place where the dragons were being held and began opening cages as quietly as I could.

The first few went swimmingly; Rahn, Kip, and the ice-dragon spat patiently in their unlocked cages waiting until the right moment to escape. But the other dragons, war-dragons and rowdy leaf-dragons mostly, leapt from their cages the second they were open and began to dart about base.

It was all over anyway, I'd freed all the boys and now most of the dragons; I was going to get found out sooner or later. Men in black and silver sprang from their routes and out from their camps to chase after the little dragons as they lead them playfully around the clearing, buying me time.

Eventually, things got more and more out of hand. The men in black and silver started using their nets and other tools to actually re-capture the creatures. More and more men in black and silver came back out into the open space as they realized the commotion.

But as more and more dragons were freed and more and more men in black in silver ran out to keep the peace, more and more of the boys who were hiding came to the rescue. It was a mad-house, boys and dragons against the men in black and silver who sometimes got a hold of someone and sometimes got beaten down.

There was plenty of running, but also a fair share of biting, scratching, clawing, flapping, shooting and fire-breathing. I opened cage after cage and more and more dragons of every race joined the fight. A man in black and silver, the same one I followed who kidnapped Darpik the night that started it all, noticed me unlocking the last of the cages and came after me with such anger I had never seen before. He intended to harm me, to make me pay for destroying his orderly dragon-rights activist internment camp.

But there was Rahn again, just as he had in the beginning, he stepped between the man and me, warding him away with waves of bright red and orange flame.

And there it was, the last cage was open and all the dragons were free. Either hiding or fighting back depending on their size and courage, but they were all free. And all the boys were fighting back too, side by side with dragons as I'm sure they do at Darpik's dragon academy.

The man in black and silver knew, from the night that started it all until now he thought he couldn't lose, but here we are standing amidst the chaos that follow when man challenges the beast. He didn't run after me anymore, and Rahn needn't threaten him with fist nor fire. That man in black and silver knew he had lost; he simply stood there and let me run away. He failed with dignity, and in the manor of the dragons, I forgave him.

"That's it Darpik," I called to him from Rahn's back when I picked him out of the combat, "that's the last one. Let's go home."

Darpik smiled mischievously and began to relay the message to the others around him. One by one, boy to dragon to dragon to boy, the word spread and as they heard each boy climbed atop a large enough beast.

The smaller races took off first, their little wings flapping furiously to get above the fray. Then Rahn rose, lifting gracefully from the stone floor of the clearing and hovering just out of reach of the floundering men in black and silver.

"Let's go home." I shouted to each of the escaping boys, seated triumphantly between the shoulder blades of Mother Nature's greatest creation.

They roared, both dragon and boy as we elevated threateningly into the brightening sky. A colossal cloud of beating wings and victorious columns of fire which rose higher and higher over the peaks of the Fellspire and darted off as a collective clan of man and beast.

Kip smiled in the manor of the dragons as she lifted herself from the ground and took off with the rest of her kin. "She'll fly when she wants something." I said to myself quoting Darpik, smiling from ear to ear. I looked over at Darpik who rode a sparkling green earth-dragon, his loose fitting, destroyed pajamas snapping brilliantly in the wind. His smile was wider than mine, if that could be managed, and he was watching Kip flap victoriously with such a look of pride on his face I can only hope I'll see again.

I was born to fly. But I was finally alive when I flew within that awesome mixture; every race of dragon flew in unison and all those that could carry a boy did. None of the things I went through to get here could prepare me for the feeling of being leader of the pack, flying effortlessly into the rising sun toward a more glorious future than I ever could have imagined.