Wings of Fire • Dragon of Warriors [3]

Chapter Seventeen

Parry, parry, parry, thrust, then swipe.

     Quickclaws planned out his steps in his head as he fought the faceless opponent, struggling to defend himself. He was tired from the long tussle they were locked in with seemingly no end in sight.

     Duck and trip, immobilize.

     He was able to pin him down for a second, but the dragon was much larger than him and it didn't take much for Quickclaws to be thrown off. He hit the wall, letting out an 'oof' of pain as he crumpled to the floor.

     The dragon stalked across the cave, seemingly relishing in Quickclaws' misfortune. He heard words for the first time, though it was like hearing speech through water: garbled, unintelligible, and quiet.

     Almost before he had slid to the ground, Quickclaws was back on his feet, though his steps were messy and he practically slipped anyways. Moving out of range, Quickclaws' mind buzzed to determine the next course of action. Millions of possibilities flashed through his mind, discarded as bad outcomes one by one. All the while, Quickclaws was holding back his attacker.

     Block, block. Counter-strike.

      The dragon caught him off-guard. He dodged the counter-strike and grabbed Quickclaws' arm, this time pinning him to the ground. Quickclaws struggled to stand up. All of his senses were focused on the back of his neck before-

- ❈ -

Quickclaws shot up and flailed his arms, falling over in his confusion at the sudden change of scenery. All of the colours (just kidding, everything was still gray because he was in a cave-) hurt his eyes and the smells and sounds of a bustling tribe invaded his nose and ears harshly.

     Landing on his face, Quickclaws groaned and rolled over.

     He had his own nest now. Quickclaws usually shared one with Speedscar, but since they had moved from the bay to the mountains, both of them understood that his sleep-fighting would cause issues. They slept separately as a result. Quickclaws wasn't used to it, but he adapted quickly.

     The nest was a little misshapen now that he had writhed around in it. Quickclaws couldn't remember the dream he had but he assumed it was one of those sleep-fighting ones he could never quite place. Taking a moment to fix the nest, bunched the materials back into a random pile.

     After the nest was taken care of, he decided to go find something to eat. Quickclaws' stretch of the cave was dominated by soldiers. So, as he made his way towards the outside, he didn't have to worry about stepping over talons or tails.

     The cave system the SwiftScales had taken over consisted of no more than a straight line (more or less). It started at the tunnel to the outside created by the avalanche: the cave behind it was where they kept their food and where most of the elderly and dragonets liked to hang out. After that, there was a narrow shaft leading deeper, which brought them to a wide cave leading down the mountain. Dragons had begun setting up nests along this path, organized in groups from least to most risk of an attack. Soldiers first, hunters and workers second, then civilians, elderly, and the sick last. As far as Quickclaws knew from Lightningtail, she and her family slept near the front. Only one other cave was claimed in a mountain close by, where Silversound had set up shop with the rest of his blacksmiths (so their noise wouldn't keep any dragon up at night). As far as Quickclaws knew, there were teams of excavators tasked with finding and creating a new infirmary for all the injured SwiftScales lower down their current cave.

     He was nearing the tunnel leading to the main cave when Quickclaws caught sight of Eagletalon. The dragonet looked like something was on his mind as he was making his towards the shaft connecting the two levels.