If you missed any of the other parts, go to these links, but otherwise, read on and enjoy! :D
Part One
Part 2a
Part 2b
Part Three
Part Four
Chapter Six:
The Search Ends
Thomas sighed
again. He had been doing that a lot lately. Thistle looked back at his friend
encouragingly, but his gaze was met with a look of bleak despair.
“We haven’t found
the person yet, and we’ve searched almost all of your islands!” Thomas voiced
his concern.
Thistle shrugged,
but then stopped immediately, because he realized that the rolling motion might
unseat his friend whose position was already precarious. “Have some hope,
Thomas. Keep in mind that my islands are smaller than the other dragons’.
Besides, the other dragons are probably having a lot more luck than we are.”
Thomas glanced at
the sun, which was rapidly sinking. “I sure hope so…at this rate we may get all
the islands searched today, but we won’t be able to carry out any sort of
rescue until tomorrow.”
“On the contrary.”
Thistle disagreed, shaking his head. “We may yet be able to rescue our unknown
friends tonight.”
“B-but, won’t it be
too dark?” Thomas stuttered in his amazement.
Thistle smiled.
“How many times to I have to remind you that I’m a dragon, and that Prickle,
Brier, Nettle, and Bramble are dragons?”
“You can see in the
dark!” Thomas exclaimed, suddenly apprehending his friend’s meaning.
“Exactly,” Thistle
nodded, “which makes it just as easy for us to rescue our unknown friend in the
dark as it would be for us too in the day. And besides, that also means that if
our friend is in danger from someone or something, we’ll be able to sneak them
away without being easily detected.”
“You’re brilliant!”
Thomas cried, hugging Thistle’s neck tightly in his excitement.
“Easy, Thomas,
easy.” Thistle replied in a strangled voice.
“Oh, sorry.” Thomas
eased his grip immediately.
Thistle moved his neck
gingerly from side to side, as if checking for broken bones. “I am rather
attached to my neck, you know.” And so Thistle avoided the embarrassing subject
of praise.
Unfortunately,
Thistle and Thomas had no luck with their own islands, and returned to Thistle’s
cave in low spirits.
This wasn’t helped
much when both Brier and Bramble arrived one after another with negative
reports.
“Nothing.” Bramble
said sadly, and then relapsed into silence, mourning.
“Well, there go ten
more islands.” Thomas said, crossing them off and smiling in what he hoped to
be an encouragement to Bramble. But he wasn’t looking at Thomas at the moment,
so his smile was wasted.
“No luck from any
of my islandsss.” Brier added as she alighted next to Bramble. “How did you
do?”
“Not very well…”
Thistle admitted. “But we now know that thirty-seven islands don’t have our unknown friend on them.”
“Well…” Brier
sighed. “I sssupossse that’sss helpful.”
Meanwhile, Nettle
arrived. “I’m afraid…” she began.
“No luck?” Thistle
finished for her, reading her expression.
Nettle nodded. “I’m
so very sorry, my dear friends, but I have failed you.”
“Nonsense!” Thistle
cried, hating to see his friend so near tears.
“None of usss found
anything.” Brier agreed, much to the surprise of the other dragons. “And you
have been a help, there’sss eleven more islandsss that the ressst of usss don’t
have to sssearch tomorrow!”
Thomas nodded, and
held up the map he had created, showing the islands that the dragons had
searched. “All we need to do now is wait for Prickle.”
Prickle came at
last. Hurtling through space as if his life depended on it, Prickle made a
beautiful crash landing that made all his friends jump in surprise.
He skidded to a
stop about three feet in front of Thomas, and when the dust settled, he looked
up at the dragons and Thomas in excitement.
“IthinkIfoundtheminoneofmyislandswhileIwassearching!”
Prickle exclaimed.
“What?” All of the
dragons (except Thistle) asked at once. Thistle translated.
“Why, that’s
wonderful!” Thomas exclaimed. “Let’s go at once!”
Thistle smiled, but
shook his head. “Wait a moment at least, my friend.” He cautioned. “You may be
rested and ready, but you forget that we dragons have been flying practically
all day. We need a few hours to rest. Besides, I don’t know about the rest of
you, but I’m hungry.”
The rest of the
dragons murmured their ascent. Grudgingly, Thomas nodded as well. He hated to
waste precious minutes, but he knew that what Thistle said was right: the
dragons needed rest and nourishment.
*****************
The cell door
opened with a bang that caused both Brittney and Patrick to jerk awake from
where they had been sleeping fitfully at the bottom of the stairs. Thorac
entered and walked down to them, closely followed by Thorn.
“We have delivered
the message.” He announced.
Brittney shuddered.
“How are you two
doing?” Thorac changed the subject suddenly.
“Fine.” Brittney
replied flatly, though her stomach felt as though it had just been squeezed
until there was nothing left to nourish her hungry body. In all seriousness,
her stomach wasn’t far from being wrong in its feelings.
“Not…” Thorac
paused and flicked an imaginary speck of dust from his jacket and met
Brittney’s gaze wickedly. “…hungry, I suppose?”
At the mere mention
of hunger, Brittney winced, feeling her stomach growl…loudly.
Thorac laughed. “I
thought so. You wouldn’t want to apologize for your behavior, would you?”
Brittney’s eyes
blazed, and she forgot her hunger when anger rushed to the surface. “I’d never,
EVER apologize to you Thorac.” She spat, making him wince to her surprise.
He regained his
composure easily, and his smooth smile replaced the wince so quickly, Brittney
feared that she had merely imagined it. “Well, then, I shall let you simmer for
a few more hours.” He turned and walked back to the cell door.
But before leaving,
he looked down at Patrick, who squirmed uncomfortably and tried his best to
hide behind his sister’s skirts. “If you care nothing for your own comfort…”
Thorac gave one last jab, “…at least you could consider the comfort of your
brother. I’m sure he doesn’t like hunger pains any more than you do.”
And with that he
slammed the door behind him, leaving the siblings in the dark.
Brittney slipped to
the floor weakly. Her last strength had been used with her one last effort to
remain defiant.
Time was running
short.
*****************
After they finished
eating a few mountain goats, the dragons rested. Thomas did his best to be
quiet and calm, but found it very difficult. He could manage the quiet part,
but had to get up every once in a while to pace outside Thistle’s cave.
Besides, the heat from the resting dragons made the valley so uncomfortably hot
that he wouldn’t have been able to sleep with them anyways.
Finally, when
Thomas had begun to give up hope of Thistle even remembering that there was a
search to finish, Thistle walked out of the cave. He looked like he was
refreshed.
When Thomas met his
gaze hopefully, Thistle smiled. “Yes, I’m ready.” He answered Thomas’s unspoken
question. “And, yes, I’ll awaken the other dragons in a moment. They’ll have to
cool off, but we should be ready in an hour.”
Thomas nodded
eagerly. He was ready!
One by one, the
dragons came out of Thistle’s cave and cooled themselves off in their different
ways, though they cooled off quicker in the evening air.
Finally, all the
dragons were ready to go.
Thomas turned to
his friend. “You promised.” He reminded.
Thistle smiled.
“How could I forget?”
Gently, almost
reverently, Thistle pulled a sword towards Thomas. It was in wonderful
condition.
“This was a sword
given to me by my father.” He said. “Use it well Thomas.”
His eyes shining,
Thomas nodded and strapped the belt on which held the sword. Then he turned to
the smallest dragon with a grin. “Lead on, Prickle!”
Excitedly, Prickle
led the way into the darkness.
He went on and on
over islands and sea without slowing down once. Apparently the little dragon
knew the way to the island well. Although the other dragons grumbled about how
fast he led them, Thomas knew they were all relieved to finally have a
destination, not what might have been a random coincidence.
An island came into
view at last and Thomas knew before he even saw the black outline the grim
towers of the fortress made against the midnight sky that the unknown friend
that they had searched for was here.
He tapped Thistle
on the neck. “We need to stop somewhere on the island where we can’t be seen
from the fortress.”
Thistle nodded, but
said nothing. He gave a signal to the other dragons, which in turn fell into
line behind him. Prickle, now finished with his job of leading them to the
island, and also took his place in line, though it forced him to slow down to
about half his usual speed. Even then he occasionally bumped into Brier, the
dragon in front of him.
Finally, after a
few minutes of stealthily circling the island in the dark, Thomas spotted a landing
that would provide the needed shelter from any prying eyes in the fortress.
Silently, the
dragons landed and Thomas slipped off Thistle’s back. He stared at the outline
of the fortress until his eyes ached from the strain, but they still weren’t
adjusted enough to see details. This kept him from being able to find a weak
spot in the castle’s walls that they would be able to sneak through, which was
what he had been searching for.
“Can you see any
way that we could get in?” Thomas asked Thistle, knowing that the dragon would
have better luck since he could see in the dark.
“No. Well…” Thistle
hesitated, as if to change his mind, but then shook his head helplessly. “No,
never mind.”
“What were you
about to suggest?” Thomas eagerly asked.
Thistle shrugged.
“Well, there is a window, up in the top of a tower near us, but none of us
dragons would fit through, it’s too small…even for you, Thomas.”
Bramble studied the
window carefully. “Prickle would fit, wouldn’t he?”
The dragons looked
at their friend in new respect. Prickle began, in his great excitement, to
dance around them in a circle, but stopped when he received several fierce
frowns from other dragons.
Thomas clapped his
hands together, his eyes shining. “You are brilliant, Bramble.”
Bramble hung his
head in embarrassment, but seemed pleased.
“So, Prickle, it’s
up to you.” Thomas turned to the little dragon. “Will you go?”
“WillIwillIwillI?”
Prickle chanted, in hushed excitement. “OfcourseIwill, canIgonow?”
Once Thistle had
translated, Thomas nodded. “Go ahead…” He paused as Prickle began dancing in a
circle, waiting for him to stop and pay attention. When he did, Thomas met
Prickle’s eyes seriously. “Be careful Prickle.”
The little dragon
seemed to suddenly realize what he was really getting himself into, and nodded
at Thomas solemnly. “Iwillbeveryveryverycareful.” He promised, and then rose
into the air.
The dragons and
Thomas watched him fly towards the fortress, so small that one wouldn’t have
been able to tell that he was even a dragon. With satisfaction, Thomas realized
that whoever or whatever was in the fortress, if they happened to look out a
window and see Prickle, would have assumed he was only a large bat, out
catching insects for dinner.
Prickle found the
window and disappeared. Thomas and his dragon friends sat down to wait.
Your doing great! When is the next part coming out?
ReplyDeleteEarly next week. Like Monday. :) I'm so glad you like it!
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