Conquest : A Wings of Fire Fanfiction

10. Mutineers

Stuck in this dilemma, Sandstorm decided to reach her mother first and somehow get her out.

It was time for activating ninja mode.

By shifting aside a rock with as minimal noise as possible, she managed to squeeze out of the pile of boulders without marching straight into view of the dragons lurking by the fire. That caused a small yelp from Ivory, but the others quickly shushed her.

She then slunk around the cave, hugging the walls and darting occasionally from cover to cover when needed. It was really quite easy, owing to the deep shadow of the walls and the darkness which Sandstorm had been so scared of in the tunnels.

Halfway around the cavern, she stopped. Now was the tricky part.

Moon might've been sleeping a good distance away from her captors, but she still lay quite a few tail-lengths away from the walls, apparently not disgusted enough with the dragons that she felt the need to freeze to death in an underground cave in the Sky Kingdom.

Sandstorm crawled forward, trying hard not to be seen by Hibiscus, whose malicious eyes never averted from Moon's still form, and dodged behind a pile of old crates. When she moved, they creaked open slightly and she caught sight of a top layer of bars of gold, thick as a full-grown dragon's talon.

Sorely tempted for a moment, hit by the greedy possessiveness of gold all SandWings were born with, she paused, her talons drifting towards the half-open crate. But suddenly one of the sleeping dragons let out a great, rasping snore, and Sandstorm snatched back her talons, shocked into common sense.

Berating herself, she crept away from the boxes full of gold, forcing herself to keep walking, away from the precious bounty the chests carried... she was compelled to dive for cover again as suddenly two of the dragons by the fire - Changbai and the SeaWing - rose to their talons and started in the sleepers' direction.

Petrified with fear, she watched as they carefully picked their way amongst the motionless bodies of their companions and Moon; they were a terrifying twenty talonsteps away from her. Changbai drifted closer to the crates, closer than the SeaWing...

Holding her breath, she sat frozen as he stretched and curled up, yawning.

Only when he shut his eyes and his flank reverted to that smooth rise-and-fall movement of one in deep sleep, did Sandstorm dare to move.

The SeaWing was sitting hunched beside another sleeping dragon, wrestling a blanket off his still form and throwing it over herself. She seemed reasonably occupied, and besides, she was near the fire - Sandstorm found it safe to move.

She inched forward and her gaze fell upon the pile of rocks at the far end of the cavern, from where she had only recently begun her ninja mission.

She saw a glint of an eye, bright green in the darkness; a flashing white scale; the tip of a mahogany horn sticking out from the top of the rocks - that was all she could see of the others. It was quite a lot, really, and if Hibiscus ever glanced randomly at the stones, she would definitely catch them.

Sandstorm began to scoot forward, not attempting to lift her talons again, lest they made a screeching sound against the cold stone floor (well, she did like to keep her talons sharp, but how could anyone blame her seeing as Moon hadn't sharpened her own, she'd been caught and half-murdered by a group of weird psychos?).

Suddenly, the slender SeaWing sat up, her dark green eyes scanning the cavern suspiciously.

And Hibiscus spoke. 'Saw something, did you, Cascade?' she asked coldly, her unmistakable rasping voice clearly reaching the ears of every one of the dragons, alert or asleep. Changbai, who was now barely a tail-length away from Sandstorm, stirred in his sleep restlessly.