Inferno Legacy: Valor of the Dragon (Book One)

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

            Blackscales was surprised when he dreamt that night, even though it wasn’t a message sent by Argos’s rider. He dreamed that he was riding Inferno as they flew high above the ground. He looked below and saw that the forest was replaced by wide open grassland; not a single bush, shrub, or tree for as far as the eye could see, even at that height.

            Then, a sudden howl erupted from behind them and Blackscales looked to see about a hundred Wargals and Wargs racing after them, each with a human or even an elf seated on them. There were an occasional few with a blurry figure on them and Blackscales assumed that they were the last unknown ally, and his imagination just didn’t know exactly how to put them together since he didn’t know who they were.

            It was clear to him that whatever race they were, they were his battalion of wolf riders and he was amazed by his power. A strange undiscovered part of him figured that his own physical power decided only half of how powerful he was, and how many loyal warriors he had beside him was the other. He felt pretty powerful, anyway.

            Blackscales and Inferno soared above them, high up in the clouds where the water soaked them but they still didn’t care. The rider suddenly felt his right arm feeling around the left side of his waist for something, and he pulled it up to his vision just too late; he woke up suddenly without a clue what it was that he had grabbed. He might have thought it was a sword, but it was too light and what little he saw of it told him that it was black.

            Before he could investigate it further, he was fully awake and saw Tornado Dust looming over him, with inferno stretching his head just above them both. There were three other wolves in the cavern waking the others, and Blackscales desperately wanted to know why.

            “Midnight Stalker no longer thinks it’s wise if you stay here, so we are supposed to escort you to the edge of our territory,” Another wolf announced as he entered the cavern.

            “Why isn’t it safe?” Aval asked as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

            The wolf, apparently having a dark personality replied in a somber voice, “He refused to say.”

            The new wolf was a big male, almost as large as Midnight Stalker. His fur was a dark grey, and Blackscales almost thought it was completely black. The wolf looked carefully over at a light grey female carefully before leaving the cave and sitting outside. The female had been nosing around Omen’s horse before she also turned to leave.

            Without a word, all of the travelers got ready for their long journey and abruptly left the cavern with the remaining wolves. They met with the other two after leaving the entire cave and emerging into the darkness. Judging from the moon’s position in the sky, Blackscales assumed that it was about three in the morning.

            Blackscales climbed onto Inferno’s back as they walked, since they felt much safer together. The other humans eventually mounted their horses, but the dragon rider was wary of the light grey she-wolf, who was walking very close to Omen and Inheritance. She suddenly seemed to look more certain of herself and picked up her pace to catch up with the dark grey wolf at the head of the group, though it was only then that Blackscales had noticed that she was nervous before. He shrugged and looked straight ahead at their goal.

            “How far until we reach the edge of your territory?” Blackscales asked as he tried to clear his thoughts about the she-wolf’s strange actions.

            The grouchy Wargal didn’t turn around as he replied, “Seven leagues by your measurements.”

            Blackscales was surprised since the wolf was only talking about the distance straight from the middle of the territory to the very edge, but from what he knew about ‘Weakling’ wolves, the average size of an entire territory was much less than seven leagues. He would have asked the Wargal why their territory was so much larger than other wolves’, but he knew better and figured that his guess was good enough. Unfortunately, the foolish Avalsmokes didn’t feel the same way.