Wings of Fire: The Forgotten World

Chapter 44

Someone's PoV
By thedragonshifter

     A dragon was hiding in the shadows. Light from a single full moon reflected upon the soft, pale red scales of his face, causing them to dazzle with a shimmering silver glow. His long tail swayed gracefully as his talons carried him silently through the dark trees. Every once in a while, his dark green eyes would gaze nervously towards the sky, searching for any trace of a dragon. But as he moved, the only disturbances were that of a tiny squirrel leaping through the branches of a large tree.

     Leaf mulch from the forest floor squished under his talons and caught in his knife-sharp claws, but the dragon didn't have time to shake it out. He couldn't let them find him. He was the last, and they knew it. They would want him only as their weapon. They would want him so that they could use him to take over the other tribes. And, the dragon wouldn't let that happen.

     He continued at a steady pace, his mind only focused on finding a place to hide. To find a place where they wouldn't find him. He past tree hollows and large holes that dug deep into the soil, but they wouldn't be good enough. He leapt over a tiny stream that was filled with ice cold water, and he guessed that it came straight from the snow covered mountains that he had come from. Though at the center of those snowy mountains sat a burning hot volcano in which the fire breathing Smokewings inhabited. Though all around it thrived the ice breathing Smokewings.

     The dragon wasn't running from the tribe of Smokewings however, but really a dragon by the name of Shatteredmoon. He knew that Shatteredmoon was hunting him down, and he had to find a place as far away from the Smoke kingdom as possible.

     The Darkest Flame, he knew, was not exactly located in the kingdom of Smoke, but somewhere very near there, possibly even out in the Ice Claw Sea, Tarliin's most deadly body of water. It was completed with raging, freezing cold waters and giant spikes of ice that stuck out of the ground, just waiting for a dragon to impale themselves on them.

     The dragon shook his head to clear his thoughts and squinted his eyes to see around the strong bone helmet that was attached to the upper part of his head. It served as incredibly strong armor and also made it very easy to intimidate an enemy.

     The dragon broke into a faster pace when he thought that he heard the sound of wing beats above him, and when he spotted a sloping tunnel in the forest floor, he didn't hesitate to dart into it. He ran at full speed through the darkness, cringing as he saw the red glow on the dirt walls of the tunnel. When your species is hatched with glowing swirls of light on their body, it's not exactly easy to hide.

     Though, he didn't stop running, following the curvature of the tight tunnel as it twisted and turned. He ran for as long as a dragon could possibly run until his legs screamed for him to stop and he was forced to rest, happily allowing his eyes to close.

     When he awoke, the dragon didn't waste any time before he ran a full speed once more. And only until the light of day loomed in front of him did he slow down, his legs weak and shaking from all the running he had accomplished. Sweat ran down his face from the long spikes on his head down to the fins on his cheeks because of the humid and hot tunnel. The only thing that seemed logical to him at the moment was to run into the cool breeze outside, to escape from the darkness and burst into the light. And that he did. He couldn't take anymore of the darkness, for he had spent almost his entire life in a prison belonging to the Darkest Flame. The prison was not actually located in the Darkest Flame's base, but somewhere in the middle of the forest underground, and he knew that his captors were only waiting for him to become old enough before they used him as their death weapon.

     The dragon stepped out of the dark tunnel and into the filtered green light outside. The tunnel had brought him to what looked like a swampy jungle that bordered a vast grassland that was separated by little rivers. I should stay in the jungle so that I don't get spotted out in the open. He concluded as he dashed into the luscious trees.

     His claws caught on loose stones and fallen logs tripped him up as he ran. The dragon wasn't used to the jungle. Once in a while, the roar of a big cat reached his ears and made him jump, but he kept going until he found a large boulder that he could rest in the shade of.

     He settled down on the soft ground, his vision blurry with fatigue, his heart racing with fear and energy. He allowed his head to droop onto the soil, relishing the coolness of it. Even though most of the dragons in his tribe, including him, could breathe the hottest fire of all the dragons in Tarliin, he still enjoyed cooling off once in a while.

     Snap! His head darted up at the sound of a branch plummeting towards the jungle floor as the sound of something like wings filled the air. But as the dragon looked around him, he couldn't spot anything abnormal flying through the air, and so he concluded that it was just the strong wind that was blowing through the trees. I should be safe here. He thought. This may be the last place they suspect me to be in.

     Suddenly, he felt a searing pain unleash upon his back before three dragons, two Smokewings and a Viperwing, landed all around him, surrounding him with spears pointed at him. His severely burned back made him feel like he had just jumped into the sun as he faced the three hostile dragons.

     "We were sent to capture that stupid animus and his friends, but I think we found an even better prize, Deathsong, Flash." Said one of the Smokewings with a smirk.

     Even though his vision swam with every color of the rainbow, we wouldn't let Shatteredmoon's subjects capture him again. He could feel claws and spears slash at his scales in an attempt to make him submit, and there was a point where his legs failed him and he could only crouch on the ground. I won't give up. He thought determinedly.

     He closed his eyes shut and focused on the three dragons around him and thought of the most terrifying moment of his life. He filled himself with that fear until his eyes watered with the terror of that memory: when he was just a tiny dragonet and was being chased and captured by the Darkest Flame. He could still remember feeling their breaths on his tail as he ran, dodging dragons as they emerged from the trees and the sky, all focused on capturing him...

     The dragon opened his eyes just slightly, and through his vision blinded by pain, tears, and fatigue, he could just see the three dragons around him run out of sight, their screams of terror echoing across the trees.

     He wanted to move to find a place to hide, but his body felt as if it were on fire, and it refused to move even an inch. And when he realized that he did not have the strength within him to go on, he collapsed in a pale red heap on the soggy jungle floor, the darkness enfolding around him like a huge shadow.