Here Be Dragons: The Protector

Chapter seventeen: Respite

He was itching to climb onto his partner's back and fly. After so long apart, he wanted to feel close to her again – to feel the strength of the ground below him, while the wind whistled freely through his hair. He yearned to be close to his partner, and never let her go again. But, in that time apart, she had been flying almost non-stop, and her fatigue showed. She needed rest before they could set out again. He stayed with her until she curled up and slept, then approached the fire the others had made. The group before him was stark contrast to his joy over being reunited with Kaolin; Jenna's skin nearly blended with the grey wastes stretching off behind her, and despite being wrapped in her bedroll and sat directly next to the fire, she was shivering violently. Vayle was trying hard to concentrate. Eyes closed, little balls kept popping up at random places on her body – swirling air above her head, tiny flames from her fingers, light at her elbows. However, she was repeatedly glancing over her shoulder distractedly, her control puttering out. Jonah was the only one that even noticed awake. He stood and dusted himself of the grey powder sticking to his clothing. Lukas could see the concern through the grin fixed to his face.

"And so the mountain awakens!" He joked, trying to force lightness into his tone.
Lukas, however, cut straight to the point."What's wrong, Jonah?"
Jonah faltered slightly, then dropped the façade with a sigh. "I don't think we can stay here long..." He threw an anxious glance in Vayle's direction, "Vayle is worried – and I'm sure you've noticed as much as I have that means there are Turned nearby." Then he ran a hand through his hair, obviously conflicted. "But the dragons need rest, and I think moving Jenna is making her worse... What should we do?"
Lukas' mind rushed back to the cave. Staying still had cost the lives of four dragons and three Riders, along with wounding Jenna. But Jonah had a point. Neither dragon had the energy to fly. They needed to recuperate. "Turned or no Turned, the dragons are the deciding factor, here. Blaze hasn't had a full sleep or meal in days, and I imagine the same is true for Kaolin." Jonah still looked unsure, so he changed tactic slightly. He clasped his brother's shoulder, let a reassuring smile creep onto his face, and said, "Besides, Vayle can control her powers now, and we've seen what she can do. With the right defences, the Turned won't even get close."
Jonah nodded up at him. He was worried, but he was convinced they were taking the right course, "Okay. What defences do we do, then?"

The first things they made were beds for the dragons; just like with their Riders, a dragon surrounded by their element absorbed energy much faster. Lukas mentally reached underground, searching for dirt. After a fair amount of searching, he found a large enough pool fairly near the surface. He cleared the grey powder above it and extracted the dirt. Filling the ditch first with the powder he'd shifted, and then placing the dirt on top, he finished Kaolin's dirt bed. As there were no trees to be seen for miles, Jonah had instead gone to his saddlebags and withdrawn swathes of cloth and some oil. He wet the cloth with the oil, then spread it in a wide square. The dragons were used to the process, so lumbered over to their respective beds and settled in to sleep. Once Blaze was settled, Jonah threw a tiny fireball at the closest corner of cloth, and it went up in a jet of flames. Lukas fashioned high walls around them – leaving the top open in case they needed to evacuate quickly – then turned back to Jonah and announced, "Okay, I'll go find them a meal, each. You stay here and watch over Vayle and Jenna."
"Any sign of danger, you come straight back." Jonah ordered.
"Any sign." Lukas confirmed. He forged himself a new sword, and then picked a random direction to set off in. After all, in the seemingly lifeless grey ocean surrounding him, one direction was just as good as any other.

The only animals he knew lived in the wastes were berds – small burrowing creatures that could survive on little or no food for weeks at a time. The father and young tended to wait in the burrows while the mother went to collect food from the vegetation on the edge of the waste. However, he knew that grats could be found wandering around, as the carnivorous animals sometimes followed the foraging mothers back to their burrows. The male berds tried to scare them off when that happened, but sometimes the grat overpowered him, which tended not to end too well for the berds. Since they didn't actually live in the wastes, he was doubtful he'd come across a grat – although if he did, the green fur that did so well to camouflage it in the forests would make it clearly visible here. Instead, he focused on finding berd burrows, as he could use the same trick as he'd employed to find Mrs. Hart's footprints. Brushing his mind back and forth over the ground, it took an hour or so to find anything of interest. Alas, his thrill of excitement was short-lived, as he looked into the burrow to find it empty. Either the berds were foraging, or a grat had gotten here before him. He returned to his search with a sigh.

Vaylerie heard someone approaching. Someone big and heavy. The sound was coming from the other side of the makeshift hut stone behind her. She looked at Jonah, who held his finger to his lips and surrounded each hand with swirling flames. She was trembling slightly, but she managed to bring an element ball into each of her palms. It seemed to be approaching around the corner closest to her, so she retreated behind Jonah. A few paces from the corner, it seemed to stop. She held her breath and readied herself to throw.

"Please tell me she isn't about to throw one of those balls of destruction at me." Came Lukas' voice.
Vaylerie let out the breath she was holding in a ragged sigh.
Jonah put out his flames and looked over at her, then told the man in brown, "Two, actually. And I'd say they're roughly three times the size of the one that knocked that dragon from the sky." When Lukas came around the corner and saw his brother hadn't been exaggerating, the horror on his face made them both laugh. Shaking her head, slightly Vaylerie collected her element balls back inside her. Even though she knew she hadn't really been in danger, she still felt jittery.
Lukas looked around before frowning and asking, "Where's Jenna?"
Jonah motioned his head towards the hut. "The fire died soon after you left – she was still cold, so she went inside to sit next to Blaze's bed. Speaking of which, did you find them some food?"

In answer, Lukas reached over his shoulder to grab the knapsack he had fashioned while hunting. Peeling away the outer grey material, which dissolved into dust on the wind, he revealed two long stone rods. On each of those rods were hung ten creatures; the first contained all the same animal – it was long and thin, with grey skin and six short legs that ended in sharp claws – whereas the second rod contained nine of those, and a different creature hung in the centre – it was much larger, with mottled green fur covering its entire body. The furry green animal had no claws to speak of, but its teeth looked wickedly sharp, which Vaylerie had to think something had recently found out, judging by the dark red smudge across its jaw. "You caught a grat? In the wastes?" Jonah remarked, clearly impressed.
"Unfortunately just too late to stop it from finishing off this one's male." Lukas grumbled, gesturing to the grey creature next to it. "Even so, I'd say this is enough to keep them happy for a day or so... Can Kaolin have the grat?" Jonah shrugged that he didn't mind, and Lukas went inside to give the dragons their food.

When he came out again, Jonah was looking at him expectantly. "So, you mentioned defences earlier... What are you thinking?" He had actually thought about this a fair amount while he was hunting, so promptly launched into his description. His ideas were based around three main facts: firstly, that they had to protect Vaylerie, Jenna and the dragons; second, that Vayle was by far the most powerful weapon, and third, that if they were attacked, there would probably be a mixture of eye colours doing the attacking. "So, my idea is that we make the hut into a sort of fort. We place a tower in the middle for Vayle – easily defensible, and she gets a clear view of everything, so she can throw her death balls wherever she needs to. We thicken the walls, and add a fire barrier using the rest of Jonah's oiled cloth, so that it needs a red eye and a brown eye to break through that way, while also giving Jonah something to work with. Plus, I say we add some traps... maybe pitfalls with spikes."
As he rattled off his carefully thought out torture plan, Vaylerie stared at him in amazement. "Why do I feel like bait in this situation?" She asked, aghast. "And no-one falls for pitfall traps..."
"They do if they fill the entire space they're trying to get through." Lukas countered.
On the other hand, Jonah had already crossed to his saddlebags to check how much cloth he had left. Poking his head inside, he pulled out a small stack and called back, "It's not much, but if I spread it thin, it should do the trick." Lukas set about making his traps, preparing for the night ahead. 'This time we have warning. This time we'll be ready.'