Dragonsbane

The Magnus Ventus Rex

He gasped as he was grabbed roughly by his stomach, nearly squishing the air out of him. With a stomach churning whoosh, he found himself looking down at the town, which was getting smaller by the second. The trees looked like little green sticks and the field was now the size of his hand. “NOO!” he screamed, remembering his sword. Lifting it up, he brought down all of his force onto the scaly fingers holding him up. His stroke was met with a CLANG and a spurt of burning hot blood. Whatever was holding him faltered. Almost driven to madness, Ralem drew back for another stroke, cutting deep into the softer leather of the thing’s underclaw.

A flash of grey.

Ralem’s heart fell with his sword as it tumbled out of the air and quickly became lost in the leafy forest. Then it dawned on him that if he had actually managed to break the thing’s grip he would have been the one crashing to his death.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, he thought miserably as he gripped the bloody finger of the creature. Then an idea popped into his head, Is it that dreadful bird come back to eat me? But he remembered that the bird couldn’t fly. Not to mention that this thing’s claws were bright green.

Ralem twisted around to take a good look at his captor. The huge claws holding him were attached to muscular arms, which led to a huge powerful scaly green chest. He tilted his head up and up until his neck hurt, trying to see its head. The thing was enormous. It had a long, sinewy neck and monstrous bat-like wings that sprung proudly from either side of his body. When it noticed he was looking at it, it lowered its huge head to look him in the eye. It was a ginormous triangular head, larger than Ralem’s whole body. The top of its nose to the beginning of its horns had a row of small spikes. More was trailing under its huge beautiful green eye to the next pair of horns. Its mouth opened to reveal huge teeth, each one longer than Ralem’s arm. Ralem cringed. The dragon must have notice because it closed its mouth quickly.

I won’t hurt you, said the same voice in his head. Ralem yelled. It was the DRAGON who was speaking in his head! “Go away! Stop talking in my head! Just LEAVE ME ALONE.”

The dragon looked sad, “Is this better?” it said its voice deep but smooth. “And I can’t leave you alone. Let me explain when we land.”

Ralem fell silent. Everything about the situation was over his head. So many questions were racing through his mind like a hive of restless bees. His mind wandered and for the first time he noticed that the dragon wasn’t beating its giant wings. They were leveled out on either side like massive sails. The dragon was traveling faster than he could have imagined, even though it was not twitching a wing. The only thing moving was the tail, which ended in huge sails that moved from side to side like a rudder so that the dragon could change directions. When his gaze returned to the ground he discovered it was speeding below him in a blur of landscape. And he did not feel so much as a whisper of wind. Everything about the situation was strange and terrifying. They had already flown over the forest. We are heading to my hometown! He prayed that the dragon would keep flying until they had past it.

But the dragon landed in the worst place possible, or so Ralem thought. The beautiful creature tilted its wings and touched down so softly that Ralem didn’t feel a jolt. It set him down in a large oak and just sat there on its haunches, staring strangely at him.

He looked around. This was the same oak both him and his brother came to hide when they wanted to play uninterrupted when they were children. This did not seem to be like a coincidence. Ralem tried to gather some confidence, “You said you’d give me answers,” he was surprised how strong his voice sounded.

The dragon sighed and a puff of smoke escaped from its mouth, “My name is Jaydon. You, Ralem, are my Rider.”

How does he know my name? Ralem thought. “What is a Rider?”