Inferno Legacy: Valor of the Dragon (Book One)

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

          Cody walked through the door into his house, and was quickly confronted by his father, who was seething with anger.

            “Where is my map!?”

            Cody thought about pretending that he didn’t know what map he was talking about, but decided to play it safe and say, “I thought I saw it on the floor, when mom must have swept it up or something.”

            Cody hated putting the anger on his mom, but as long as she was innocent, she would be alright. As his father stormed away angrily, Cody was able to make his way to his room without attracting attention to himself, and stashed himself in his bed under his sheets. He started when he saw the dragon crawl out from under his bed.

            “What are you doing under my bed, or in my room for that matter?” Cody asked.

            The dragon turned its head to the side slightly to stare at him with a single, ice-blue eye and replied, “Do you honestly think I would miss this? It’s better to learn with you, not from you, and I miss your company; you haven’t come to see me in a long while.”

            The dragon leapt up onto the bed, right over Cody, and settle down beside him. He gasped as he realized how much bigger it was. The dragon was now almost four and a half feet long from nose to tail-tip, when he was only two feet long before.

            “How did you grow so much in just a couple of days!?”

            The dragon looked at him again and said, “Dragons can grow to be extraordinarily large, so they need to grow quickly. At least, that’s what my mother said to me.”

            “Interesting,” Cody said as he pulled ‘Valor of the Dragon’ out of his shirt. “Should I read the book?”

            “Of course, look at the contents first though; look for things that might be more important at this moment.”

            Cody opened the giant book, and read the contents. His finger pointed to one that he found particularly interesting. He talked to the dragon about it.

            “Dragon Names, it says, on page 214. Perhaps we can figure out exactly what yours would be, because I’m sick of just referring to you as ‘Dragon’ when we talk. Or did your mother speak to you about that as well?” Cody said.

            “My mother mentioned nothing of names; I was hoping you would know more. By all means, I am sick of being simply ‘Dragon’ as well.”

            Cody opened the book and flipped through the pages until he reached the correct page. As he read, he relayed all of the information to the hatchling, with great surprise:

A dragon isn’t simply given a name; it is earned by their battle skill, cunning, strength, or any other strong points, at least with wild dragons. Dragons with riders, however, are given a name that its rider predicts will be an important role in their future, or perhaps their past. Cloud, a white dragon that was valued for her mother’s love of the sky, and she ended up being able to manipulate clouds with the strong beat of her wings, and practically change the weather at will..

Shadow, was a dragon that was hatched in the dead of night, without pupils, and ended up turning evil, and his rider was a necromancer. Many riders have claimed that the names just stuck to their dragons, and nearly all of them failed to recall exactly where the names came from, but the dragons always lived up to the names, and became well-known by them.