Chinese Touch

Chapter 20-Dragons

"What dragons do you have?" I asked, walking to the stables with Yuan. The stables were also underground, and they had an entry and exit that came out under a similar hut to the one we had entered through.

"We have some parade and colour dragons. You might not think it, but they can be very useful. Seem the parade dragons and the colour dragons spit out either confetti or liquid colour. So, we could temporarily blind the guards, then attack them while they can't see us. We also have single element types, at least twenty of each element last time I checked. Some healing dragons like Chang, and some death dragons too. Some double and triple elements, about ten, fifteen doubles and nine triples. There's about thirty changers, only five imperials though. We have several four-elements, I'm not sure how many. Exactly ten gold dragons. No dark dragons. And Pearl."

"So around one-hundred-and-fifty to two-hundred, then?"

"Yes. Plus any horses we can use for cavalry, or any other useful creatures we can summon. Plus, the Changers that help us will have their own summoned creatures." She paused for a moment. "Have you summoned any other animals?"

"Just a bird and a horse that ran away." It was my turn to pause. "What have you summoned?"

"I... I'll show you. On one condition."

"Yes?"

"You swear you won't tell anyone about my dragon until we fight. The only one you can tell is Ai."

"Okay."

"No, not just okay. You have to swear!"

"I swear. I swear I won't tell anyone."

"Okay. The first thing I want to show you is this." She pointed to a stone egg.

"What's this?"

"It's a light dragon egg. It's been turned to stone, and only an extremely strong summoner can bring it back."

"Why don't you get the person who summoned Pearl to wake it?"

"Because my dragon found Pearl. He loves her greatly, and she loves him. He saved her life. She was about to die; she was bleeding so much. He brought her back and one of the healing dragons managed to save her life. He looked over her every day while keeping out of sight." We walked right up to the back of the stables, passing all the kinds of dragons Yuan had told me about, plus any other animals that had been summoned. She then walked up the the earth wall and went straight through it. I cried out, then followed her through. We were in a little corridor leading to a room I couldn't see the contents of.

"How did we walk through the wall?"

"One of the colour dragons put that there for me. You know the man who hurt your dragons? He's a really kind man, actually. He is the only other one who knows about Li."

"Li? Doesn't that mean-"

"Dark, yes. Yes it does."

We walked into the room and Yuan whispered "Don't forget your promise."

Then a dragon walked from the shadows at the edge of the room. It's body was black with red veins, details and scale-tips. I looked wide-eyed at Yuan as the dragon walked up the her and nuzzled her gently.

Yuan had summoned a dark dragon.