Battle Scars | Book 1 (DISCONTINUED)

Ch. 15: Know Your Enemy

A week and a half had passed since Flash's wing finally healed. Ever since then, the war had really begun now, and Alryne was starting to press their attack. Each fight got worse and worse, more riders being lost every time.

During one of the first of these battles, Alice had another encounter with the rogue dragon rider when they tried to take her out. Flash was so fast and was paralyzing the Alrynian soldiers so quickly, that Brendan had to send out his own rider to try and deal with him.

The battlefield was raging, smoke rising into the air as arrows and balls of  fire, electricity, ice, acid and other various blasts were fired at the ships. But the Alrynians fought back,  flinging their own arrows and nets at the passing by dragons and making them crash into the water below.

A burst of red mist erupted from one of the ships, and right after Flash dove past and spun right back up above the giant fleet, looking around for more targets. Alice sat atop his back, barely controlling her dragon's movements except when she had to tug lightly on his saddle to tell him to turn. Other than that, Flash was flying freely, dive-bombing every ship that he saw.

As they observed the battle to try and find a place to strike, the two didn't notice the flapping of wings behind them, Alice just assumed it was one of Berk's dragon. Out of nowhere, an orange blast of amber nearly struck Flash, but he was able to move right on time and the amber missed him by an inch. He screeched and whirled around, and was greeted by a familiar dragon that they had never wanted to see again.

Hovering a few feet above them was the brown Deathsong that had attacked them a week and a half earlier, and standing on its back was the mysterious masked rider who'd been controlling Bloodtusk. In the few seconds they had before they got another blast of amber shot at them, Alice noticed something she hadn't noticed before- a big, inky black collar was around the lower part of the dragon's neck with small glass containers holding strange purple liquid sticking out of the sides. The brown butterfly-like dragon barely had any emotion in its eyes as it prepared to fire again.

"GAH!" Alice was caught off guard when Flash leaned to the side, causing a bit of the amber to get stuck on her leg. Great, now I can't get off Flash! she thought frustratedly as Flash glided away swiftly and landed on a tall sea stack. He roared furiously at the Deathsong when it landed on the other side of the rock, meanwhile Alice was desperately trying to pull her leg out of the amber. She looked up and saw the masked rider hop off their dragon's back and land on the ground with ease, grabbing the large metal axe hanging off their back. Alice reached for her sword, but immediately remembered that she still hadn't picked it up from Gobber's shop. She cursed under her breath as she tugged up on Flash's saddle, making him rear up and open his mouth, firing a cloud of glowing red mist.

The rider jumped back just in time, and Alice could hear them growl in frustration under their mask as they raised their arm, looking up at their Deathsong. The giant dragon shot more amber at its opponents, this time striking Flash's wing and shoulder as he tried to back away. He screeched in agony, clearly upset to have the power of flight be taken away from him yet again. More amber was shot at them, and Flash was forced to the very edge of the cliff where his back legs slid off the rock and he clung on using his front claws, barely keeping his upper body on the ground. He kept screaming for help as Alice desperately tried to pull her leg out of the amber, ignoring the fact that the Deathsong was creeping up slowly.

Flash stopped screaming for a moment, his eyes landing on something in the distance. He then tossed his head back, roaring as loud as he possibly could and making Alice, the masked rider, and the Deathsong flinch back in surprise. He shot a ball of mist into the sky, the ball exploding into a giant red cloud that quickly faded away in the wind.