TAW Tales: How to Train Your Shifters (#1)

~ Chapter 37 ~

If you're Acrophobic, then don't get on a dragon.

I know that seems kinda obvious to everyone who has a brain, but I'm pretty sure I'd lost mine when I decided to jump on the back of said dragon.

My eyes streamed and my ponytail felt like it was coming undone. My stomach dropped and suddenly I couldn't feel my fingers at all, although my watering eyes told me they were still clasped, white as paper, to the saddle.

I was pretty sure I looked like a cartoon with about ten thousand G-Forces added to it, and I don't mean the super-spy guinea pigs.

The boats, only tiny pinpricks before, were gradually growing before my eyes, like a plant opening it's buds. I could make out tinnie tiny dots flying about the growing ships, and the small bursts of flame that erupted from them.

My friends.

As we got closer, I started feeling a little better as I got used to the ride. Maybe this was what Wavebreaker was trying to do - get me used to flying by giving me the most terrifying, deathly dive ever.

Well, thanks buddy, I thought, not feeling all that grateful.

Soon, we were only about one hundred metres above the mast of the first ship, which was billowing out smoke that smelt like brimstone, gunpowder, and smoked fish. Wavebreaker made a hungry rumbling sound in his throat, but I tapped his head.

"Hey, we're not eating now," I reminded him. "We're trying to - NET!"

He dove downwards as one of the triangular nets shot above us, just missing my head.

"Where did you go?" Astrid demanded, flying up beside me.

"Just went on a magic carpet ride up into the clouds, then almost fell into the ocean," I said quickly. "Any more questions?"

We parted as another net soared past. Astrid and Stormfly dove downwards, barral-rolling towards another ship that was on fire but not sunk.

Stormfly opened her mouth and a column of bright flames burst out, scorching a line along the ships's hull. A few Vikings who hadn't already been smart enough to abandon the ship did so now, diving off the deck and into the water like fleas off a dog.

"Willow!"

I turned my head to see Winter on Cloudsky, flapping up after an attack on one of the other ships. She was waving and looking like she was having the time of her life.

Behind her, Zero and Night were actually working together to destroy another ship, taking turns to swoop across the deck. I saw Chameleon's mouth open and a jet of bright green acid sprayed along the mast. I could hear the sizzling from where I was, and within minutes the mast collapsed on top of another ship.

Then Night blew it up with Greytooth's molten lava.

"This is so cool!" Winter shouted to me above the sound of the explosion.

"I know, right?" I called back, grinning. "Who would've thought we'd be doing this someday?"

"I did!" she cried with delight.

I laughed. "Of course you-"

Then she screamed as something slammed into Cloudsky's flank. The Nadder let out a squark of alarm and plummeted towards the sea, spinning out of control.

"WINTER!" I shreiked as she was flung out of the saddle.

I readied Wavebreaker to go after her, but something blue and white flashed past me and I heard Astrid yell, "Hold on!"

Stormfly tucked in her wings and shot downwards like a javelin. At the last moment, a mere few minutes before Winter would've hit the foaming surface of the sea, Stormfly reached out with her talons.

She seized Winter's shoulders and flared her wings, pulling up so that Winter's feet only just swept the waves below.

I let out a breath I hadn't realised I was holding. Just in time to get the wind knocked out of me as something barreled into Wavebreaker's side.

He gave a startled grunt and twisted to snap at whatever it was, his large sea-green wings only faltering for a few seconds.

I gasped for breath and glanced over his shoulder.

A Whispering Death, just like Luna's Darkspine, was hovering in front of us, it's small wings flapping constantly and it's long, whip-like tail churning the air behind it like a drill. On top of it perched a Viking that was easily as big as Stoick, with a hook for a left hand and a large, dark beard, matted and stained with goodness' knows what.

"Startle ya, did I lassie?" he asked me, revealing black teeth in what I suppose was meant to be a grin.

I scowled at him and nudged Wavebreaker. At once, his mouth snapped open and a ball of crackling purple bio-energy burst out. It blasted into the Whispering Death's face, right on the nose.

It screwed up it's light-sensitive eyes with an agonized shreik and dove downwards, ignoring the desperate commands from the Viking on top.

I didn't get a chance to see what happened to him, because Night and Zero shot past, closly followed by three more Whispering Deaths, each with a Viking as mean-looking as the first riding on top of them.

"Come on!" I called to Wavebreaker. "We need to-"

SLAM!

Wavebreaker jolted violently to the right and I, to my horror, was flung out of the saddle. Then there was sharp jerk at my waist and I found myself hanging at his side, staring down at the churning sea below me.

There was about ten seconds where I just dangled there, my brain too amazed and numb by the fact that I was not falling to my doom in the ocean that it couldn't function properly.

Then reality hit me.

What the Hades was I doing hanging over the side of my dragon?!

That single thought acted like a trigger for the rest of my body to follow, and I scrambled up desperately, clawing at the thick leather of the saddle. My waist was starting to hurt from the sharp halt, but I ignored it, too terrified by the drop beneath me to really care.

Wavebreaker's wings beat on either side of me, catching me in the cheek a few times and making it sting, but again I pushed on.

He was hovering in the air, facing not one, but two Viking-mounted Whispering Deaths. I glanced to either side of me as I got back in the saddle.

A small team of them had herded my friends into a circle in the air around me, with Winter still dangling from Stormfly's claws. Cloudsky had flown back up to join us, and was hovering just below her cousin, looking a little battered but otherwise alright from her fall.

Chameleon hissed as one of the Whispering Deaths drew too close, and Night had to reach down and stroke Greytooth's nose to sooth him, muttering, "It's okay, it's okay..."

Then the two dragons in front of me parted to reveal an even larger Whispering Death, it's teeth easily three times the size of the Megalodon's, and it's scales gleaming midnight-black. It's eyes were ruby red and sitting on top of it was one of the nastiest Vikings I had ever seen.

"Well, well, well," said Alvin the Trecherous. "What do we have 'ere?"

Somewhere behind me, I heard Night mutter, "Gosh dang it."