Dawn's Light

Chapter 15

The larger male dragon landed on Verbena's side and prevented her from getting up, no matter how much she squirmed and struggled. Not only was the strange dragon much stronger than Verbena, but he was also twice her size and easily kept her pinned against the frozen snow.

While the dragon held Verbena down, a figure leaped off of his back and neared the pinned dragonet. "Don't worry young dragonet, we're here to help you," the attacker spoke in a soothing masculine voice as he reached across his body and retrieved a small metal blade from his belt.

Celia frantically sat up and saw the humanoid approach her friend with a weapon. Fueled by panic and urgency, the female rider scrambled around in the snow and rose to her feet. "Hey, get away from her!" Celia yelled as she stumbled through the deep snow towards Verbena's attacker.

When he Celia saw the blade in the figure's hand, she panicked and reacted by pure instinct. Instead of thinking more rationally, she felt as she had to counter it. She pulled out and unsheathed the one metal blade she had on her person. Although the thin knife was more for cutting food than as a real weapon, Celia still attempted to use it to force back whoever was approaching her friend to back away.

After the attacking humanoid cut one of Verbena's straps, he noticed Celia's approach and turned to counter her with his short dagger as she brandished her knife. The cold metal blades collided with a clang and Celia put all of her weight into the attack with determination to win and protect her friend.

The two stood, blade to blade, for a few moments in what seemed to be an even match between them. Suddenly, Celia's thin knife snapped under the pressure from the attacker's better-suited dagger and the attacker shoved her away. Despite all of Celia's strength and effort, the attacker still pushed the female rider away and back onto her rear in the deep white snow.

Celia could feel Verbena's panic and fear but felt useless and unable to stop it. Even though verbena was fair stronger than Celia, the dragon could not escape as she roared furiously, 'GET OFF OF ME!' She attempted to bite and claw her assailant but quickly had her head pinned under the dragon's paw before her jaws could make contact. 'YOU MEANIE! RELEASE ME!' Sadly, no matter how much she squirmed, the dragon never got off of her side.

Celia's mind raced as she looked up to the man looming over her with a blade. Her mind thought of all the things she could have done better. 'If I only had grabbed the sleeping magic things instead of thinking I had to match his blade with one of my own,' she mused to herself, 'I need to get smarter about facing danger, especially in using everything available to me.'

The humanoid pointed a short dagger to Celia, then spoke to the dragon without taking his eyes off of Celia, "Irin, keep this monster down while I finish removing those ropes from the young female. We will keep it alive, for now." He menacingly eyed Celia through the goggles covering his eyes. "I have some questions to ask later." The attacker's masculine voice sounded angry as he kept his blade dangerously close to Celia's face.

The dragon released a snort as it nodded, then jumped off of the still-struggling Verbena and landed with Celia's human form between his massive paws. Instead of pinning the girl with its massive paws, he simply trapped the human girl between his massive ice-covered paws. The ice-covered dragon looked down to her with a menacing grimace in a threat to keep her down with intimidation.

After a moment of being frozen in slight fear, Celia decided to follow her own mental advice and attempted to reach into her bag to retrieve the grey box that contained the sleep smoke pellets. She tried to move as slow as possible to avoid suspision. However, before she could blindly find them, the dragon looming above the human growled in warning and intimidated Celia enough that she froze and retreated her arm away from her bag.