Wings of Fire: Missed | The Turning Tides #1

Chapter 12

"Ice lickers!" Mist suddenly dove down like a storm of hail at the encampment of yellow dragons.

Gelid spotted the camp first, though mainly spotting the sandwings glow by the fire torches they placed down. Rainwings and nightwings intermingled with them, forming an army of black, gold and speckled rainbow colours. And there were so many of them.

She never quite fathomed how many soldiers there were in every kingdom, and it was slightly overwhelming that there were so many. This was only half of each army too. She wondered how much forest they'd need to clear to have enough space for all the soldiers. The icewings haven't arrived yet, even as it seemed this army could conquer all of Pyrrhia.

With soldiers, there came their commanders and generals too. Already, she heard loud voices order the soldiers around.

Gelid followed Mist down to a section of the camp being cleared with fire, teeth and talons. Mist called out to two of the dragons and one immediately looked back.

"Hi-ya, Mist," Amber said with a smile. She nudged Torrid next to her with her wing. "Look who made it," she said to Torrid.

"You're safe. This is good news," Torrid said. He ran a claw over his neck, clearing wood splinters and leaves from his scales.

Gelid landed on the ground next to Mist, immediately appreciating the mushier ground that her sand-beached talons ached from.

"What are you two doing here?" Mist beseeched loudly.

"Well, incoming fascinating story," Amber spurred. "I'm going to start at the beginning. We, and by we, I mean Torrid and I, were exploring the lower caves because I totally heard somewhere that there was a creepy dragon ghost down there somewhere."

"Not a ghost. A very depressed and old animus dragon," Gelid clarified. She met the dark paralysed dragon once when Lava introduced him. "He's very nice."

Amber nodded eagerly. "Right! He's an animus!" She poked Torrid. "That's explains so much!"

"That's cool," Torrid commented. "I've never met an animus before."

Mist exhaled heavily. "Please continue."

"Right. Right," Amber said. "So we were exploring and we totally got lost because the underground caves are HUGE and very confusing. Torrid had to basically drag my tail to the entrance because I thought he was going the wrong way. Thank goodness I didn't sting him because I'd TOTALLY do that."

"You would?" Torrid asked. He glanced at her tail that curled safely behind Amber's hind feet.

"Probably," Amber grinned.

Mist grumbled.

"Anyway, we were really late. Like it was basically dark and rainy and I was yelling at Torrid when he basically slapped me because there was a seawing dragon right next to us with the weirdest face."

"He had a weird face, like this." Torrid contorted his face into an over exaggerated look of surprise and worry.

Gelid couldn't help but giggle. His face was ridiculous.

"Torrid knocked that seawing off the side of the mountain and then we saw everyone LEAVE. Like AWAY and I was so confused. Then there were these other seawings that started yelling at us. Torrid and I just flew the moons out of there because MOONS NO I am not getting slapped by a seawing tail. I heard those things really hurt," Amber said.

"Then you went to Queen Thorn's Stronghold," Gelid finalised, remembering Glory's words from earlier.

Amber nodded. "I wanted to fly away to literally ANYWHERE ELSE but Torrid was like 'Shouldn't we tell someone?' And I was like 'That's a good idea' So we went to tell Hyena because he's pretty smart and I was sure he'd know what to do. Then he told Thorn about it and the whole place went crazy! Now we're here!"