Whiteswirl flew up to where the vines overlapped the top of the cave, and started threading them through other vines that were already growing there. It was hard to move all the vines, but with Redclaws helping, they got it done without wasting too much time. Then they pushed aside some of the vines so that they could go back inside the cave, pulling them back after going through.
A few minutes later, Whiteswirl heard footsteps. It sounded as if there were three dragons walking towards them, but one's footsteps sounded so light that it might be a hatchling. Then the footsteps faded as the dragons walked away.
Whiteswirl walked up to the vines and peeked through one of the cracks to see if they were really gone, and if there were any other dragons coming. He remembered that Redclaws had said there were six dragons, so he looked around, trying to find the other three. He looked up to see if they were flying, and saw the three dragons flying high above. One was a Storm dragon, one was a Tiger dragon, and the last one was a Wind dragon. They could not see him looking at them through the vines from that distance, and flew on with the dragons that had been walking.
Whiteswirl waited for a few more minutes to make sure that they really were gone. Then he turned to Redclaws. “How did you know that there were dragons coming?” he asked. “When you told me, they were still far enough away that they would not see us moving the vines over the entrance of the cave.”
Redclaws shrugged nonchalantly. “Sometimes I just can't sleep in the day,” she said. “Then I fly around for a while. I saw those dragons approaching from quite a distance away, but they did not notice me.”
“Oh,” Whiteswirl said. It was strange that Redclaws would want to fly around during the day. It was way too bright outside; he did not know why any dragon would want to be awake in the day instead of at night.
The Vampires soon fell back to sleep for the rest of the day. The following night was uneventful. Whiteswirl did not leave the cave that day, but just went straight into his cavern, where he spent the whole night.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: BATTLE PREPARATIONS
Waveripple met up with the others the next day to keep searching for the Vampire. They found a few caves, but none of them had Vampire scent in or around them.
“What would we do if we actually found the Vampire?” Waveripple asked Indigowings and Emeraldeyes as they were flying, looking for more caves. “I mean, of course we would attack it, but we've never actually been in a battle. It would be easy for the Vampire to beat us.”
“We could have some practice battles,” Indigowings suggested.
“Yeah, we should,” Emeraldeyes said. “Especially if Stormcloud, Streampebble, or Nightsky are in the practice battles. They actually do know how to fight, especially Nightsky, since she's a Tiger dragon.”
“Okay, I'll go suggest it to Stormcloud," Indigowings said. He flew up to tell him. Waveripple and Emeraldeyes waited on the ground, looking around for more possible cave areas.
A few minutes later, Indigowings came back down. “He thought it was a good idea,” Indigowings said, “but he said that he could not be in the practice fights, because in a real fight, he would just use the weather against his opponent. He could just make a lightning bolt hit someone. But he's not very good at battles when he can not use the weather.”
“Did you ask any of the others if they would help?” Waveripple asked.
“Yes, I did,” Indigowings replied. “Streampebble and Nightsky both said they would do practice battles with us. Nightsky said she would only do it for a little while, however, and then go back to searching for the Vampire.”
“Well, a little is better than nothing,” Emeraldeyes said. “When are we going to start the practice battles?”
“They said they would be willing to do it after another hour of searching,” Indigowings replied.
“But what if we find the Vampire in that amount of time, and we still have no battle experience, even practice?” Waveripple asked.
“That's not very likely,” Indigowings replied. “Remember, Stormcloud and the others were looking for the Vampire for several months last year and could not find anything. We probably won't find it in the next hour. And besides, even if we did find the Vampire's cave, it would be sleeping, since it's still day. So Stormcloud could stay by the entrance of the cave to warn us if it came out, while the rest of us would be a bit farther away, practicing for the battle.”
“Yeah right,” Waveripple said. “We aren't going to leave to do battle practice if we find the Vampire sleeping. We would attack it right away.”
“Let's just keep looking for the Vampire now,” Emeraldeyes said. "The others are already getting ahead of us.”
Looking up, Waveripple saw that the other three dragons were indeed already a few hundred yards ahead of them. He hurried after them, along with Indigowings and Emeraldeyes.
By the end of the hour, they still had not found the Vampire. They had only seen one cave, and it was uninhabited.
Then Nightsky and Streampebble flew down and landed. Waveripple, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes followed them down.
“Do you want to do battle practice now?” Streampebble asked.
“Yes,” Waveripple said immediately.
“Yeah,” Indigowings and Emeraldeyes said.
“Okay. I can only do battle practice with one of you at a time,” Streampebble said. “So one of you can be practicing with Nightsky, and the last one will have to wait, since Stormcloud isn't going to be in the practices.”
“I can wait the first time,” Emeraldeyes said. “Then I can see how you battle before actually doing it myself.”
Nightsky nodded to her approvingly. “It is helpful to know beforehand how your opponent will fight, but of course in most battles you won't be able to do that,” she said.
“Who will be practicing with who first?” Indigowings asked.
“I can practice with you first, while Streampebble practices with Waveripple,” Nightsky answered. Turning to Streampebble, she asked, “Unless, of course, you want to practice with Indigowings first?”
Streampebble shook her head. “It doesn't matter who I practice with first,” she said.
“Okay, then I'll go a few hundred yards away to practice with Indigowings, so that we all have enough space,” Nightsky said. She and Indigowings flew up above the trees so that they could look for a clearing to practice in.
When they were gone, Streampebble said, “We'll start practicing now, Waveripple.”
“Okay,” Waveripple said.
Emeraldeyes flew up in the air and went towards Nightsky and Indigowings to watch them first.
“Pretend I'm the Vampire dragon,” Streampebble said, “and attack me. But don't really bite or scratch, of course. The practice battle will end when one of us does something, such as pretending to bite the other's throat, that would kill a dragon in a real battle.”
Waveripple nodded. Then he crouched down and started stalking towards Streampebble, deciding how to attack. He sprang at her directly, and she stepped to the side, easily dodging.
Waveripple turned to face Streampebble, already in a crouch. He jumped at her again, but this time she did not dodge. He crashed into her, and they both fell to the ground.
Streampebble pretended to bite Waveripple's neck, winning the practice battle.
“You shouldn't attack a dragon head-on,” Stream-pebble advised. “That's what most dragons will be expecting, so you should do something else–something that will be unexpected.”
“Okay,” Waveripple said. “Let's do another practice battle.”
Waveripple heard Emeraldeyes's wings as she hovered nearby. She had come back after they had finished their practice battle, and now flew down to the ground. “It's my turn to practice with her,” she said to Waveripple.
“Oh, sorry, I forgot that you were waiting,” Waveripple said. “I'll go see if Indigowings is done with his practice battle.”
“He is,” Emeraldeyes said. “You could go over to Nightsky and practice with
her now.”
Waveripple nodded and flew in the direction that Indigowings and Nightsky had flown off in. He heard voices coming from up ahead, and flapped his wings faster. He came to a large, open clearing, which was at least twice as big as the one he had been practicing in. Nightsky was giving Indigowings advice about fighting other dragons when he arrived.
“Emeraldeyes is practicing with Streampebble now, so can I practice with you, Nightsky?” Waveripple asked.
“Yes,” Nightsky agreed. “Indigowings and I had already finished our first practice battle.”
“I'll be watching the battle,” Indigowings said. He moved back to the edge of the clearing and sat down to watch.
“We can start now,” Nightsky said.
Waveripple nodded and crouched down slightly. He stalked over to Nightsky and started circling around to her side. She turned so that she was still facing him. Waveripple came close enough to jump at her. He feinted to her left, so that she turned to block him; then he quickly turned to her right instead.
Before she could turn to face him, Waveripple sprang at her side, knocking her down. Nightsky was larger and stronger than him, and easily pushed him off.
Waveripple started circling around her again, but she kept turning, too, and much more carefully this time, so that he could not trick her. He decided to just jump at her directly. He sprang, expecting her to dodge to the right or left, or maybe backwards, but she did not. Instead, Nightsky jumped into the air and flapped her wings, now flying above him.
Nightsky laughed at Waveripple's surprised expression. “You don't expect the Vampire to stay on the ground where you can attack it more easily, do you?" she asked.
Waveripple did not answer, not wanting to get distracted from the battle. He flew up into the air as well.
Nightsky agilely flew over Waveripple so that she was behind him, and dove down. He turned in the air just in time for her to launch herself at him and knock him to the ground.
Waveripple struggled underneath Nightsky, but he could not push her away. She tried to mock-bite at his neck, but he quickly turned his head away, making her nearly crash her face into the ground. When she was that close, Waveripple pretended to bite her neck. He was surprised that she was not able to dodge in time. He had lost to Streampebble, so he had not expected to be able to beat a Tiger dragon, when they were all warrior dragons.
Nightsky stepped away from Waveripple, looking even more surprised than he was. “Well done,” she congratulated him.
“Thanks,” Waveripple said.
Indigowings walked up to them. Waveripple had forgotten that he was watching. He also looked very surprised.
“Whoa, you actually beat her. She's a lot bigger than you, and she was able to beat me, so I did not think you would win against her.”
“Well, it was probably just luck,” Waveripple said. “I did lose against Streampebble, after all.”
Emeraldeyes flew up then. “I just finished my practice battle against Streampebble, and I beat her,” she said smugly. “Now I'm going to practice against Nightsky.”
“I'm going to go practice with Streampebble,” Indigowings said. He flew off in the direction of the small clearing that Waveripple had been practicing with Streampebble in.
Waveripple pondered briefly over who to watch, and then decided to watch Emeraldeyes. She was the one who had been watching the other battles first, so she should be able to fight better than he and Indigowings had.
Emeraldeyes flew into the air, staying at the same height as Nightsky's head. She darted towards her quickly, but Nightsky was able to dodge. Then flew around Nightsky, outmaneuvering the larger dragon. She flew at Nightsky from behind, but Nightsky ducked, anticipating the height at which Emeraldeyes would be flying.
The momentum from Emeraldeyes's air charge caused her to keep going forward, right in front of Nightsky's face. Nightsky grabbed Emeraldeyes with her front feet and pushed her to the ground. Then she mock-bit at Emeraldeyes's throat, ending the practice battle. Because of Emeraldeyes's speed and the facts that she had been watching the other battles first and that she had beaten Streampebble, Waveripple had half-expected Emeraldeyes to win. But because Nightsky was so much bigger than her, he had not been so certain.
Waveripple turned and flew quickly towards the other clearing, hoping to watch the end of Indigowings's battle with Streampebble. He arrived at the clearing just in time to see Streampebble fly at Indigowings and pretend to bite his neck. They had both been battling in the sky. Indigowings landed back on the ground, and Streampebble also flew down, but hovered a few feet from the ground instead of landing.
“Did Emeraldeyes beat Nightsky?” Indigowings asked hopefully. Waveripple wondered if he was hoping that she had won or that she had not. The latter was more likely.
“No, but I think she might have if Nightsky was not so much bigger than her,” Waveripple replied.
“That's all we are going to practice today,” Streampebble said. “We'll keep looking for the Vampire until it gets dark. More than likely, we won't find it, and we can continue doing battle practice tomorrow.”
Emeraldeyes and Nightsky had arrived by then, and heard what Streampebble said. Nightsky and Stream-pebble flew back up to join Stormcloud; and Waveripple, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes flew up to a lower altitude to look for the Vampire's cave.
They found two more caves before it became dark. One of them was uninhabited, and a Lizard lived in the other. They did not actually see the Lizard, but its scent was fresh around the cave.
When it got dark enough that the Vampire might be coming out of its cave soon, the six dragons went back to their homes. Only Indigowings stayed out of his, because he was always awake for the first half of the night anyway.
Waveripple hoped that they would find the Vampire tomorrow. Each day that they did not find it, one more dragon died. But he also hoped that the Vampire would just leave, or be killed by someone else, because he was scared of it, and did not want to have to kill it himself.
~~~
Now that Whiteswirl knew that they were being hunted again, he had to be more careful about which dragons he attacked. And he also had to keep the vines by the cave entrance in their place. It was hard to move through them, to get into or out of the cave, without knocking all the vines down.
Whiteswirl thought that they should just fight the dragons that were looking for them. There were only six of them, and he and Redclaws could each fight at least three dragons at a time. And one of them was very small, as he could tell from its light footsteps.
“Why don't we just fight the dragons, instead of hiding from them?” Whiteswirl asked, annoyed, after coming back through the vines and nearly knocking them all down. He had just come back from hunting.
“We will,” Redclaws replied, smiling slyly. “But not in the day. They have more of an advantage then. They will eventually get desperate enough to look for us at night. When they do, we will be able to kill them easily. Or they might just give up again, and we won't have to worry about them anymore.”
Whiteswirl nodded, satisfied with Redclaws's plan. He wanted to fight those dragons, and was glad that the reason they had not already was not because Redclaws thought they would lose.
For the first time since he had found his cavern, Whiteswirl voluntarily chose not spend the rest of the night there. He was too busy planning out battle strategies in his head, and the peaceful, beautiful cavern was not the place for that. Throughout the night, he thought out different battle moves that the other dragons might make, and how he could counter them. He also considered how he could use the terrain in different areas–how he could knock down a loose stalactite if they fought in the cave, or hide behind the trees to ambush the dragons if they fought in the forest. By the end of the night, Whiteswirl had gone through hundreds of different scenarios, and decided what he would do in them.
Redclaws seemed pleased that he was not in his cavern like he usually was, and was in the entrance cavern instead, though
she did not know why Whiteswirl had chosen to be there. Maybe she thought that he had gotten bored of his cavern, and had finally decided that it was not a good place for a Vampire to be after all
The night was soon over, and Whiteswirl and Redclaws fell asleep, Whiteswirl dreaming of the coming battle between them and the six other dragons.
CHAPTER NINETEEN: AMBUSH
Waveripple went back to keep looking for the Vampire the next day. They did more battle practice, and found a few new caves, but with no trace of a Vampire dragon. This went on for a few weeks, with all of them except for Stormcloud doing battle practice first, and then searching for caves for the rest of the day. They also started looking for other possible dragon homes that were not caves, but still did not find the Vampire.
After a few more days, Stormcloud and Nightsky started considering looking for the Vampire at night. That would be more risky, because the Vampire would actually be awake, and they would not be able to surprise it. But they thought that if they were able to look for the Vampire for a longer period of time, they might be able to find it. At first, they decided against searching in the night. But as more weeks went by, and summer was almost over, the six dragons started to reconsider. The days were slowly becoming short again, and the nights longer. That gave them less time to search each day before it became dark. In the last week of summer, the six dragons finally decided that they would look for the Vampire at night.
On this first night of searching, Waveripple, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes jumped at any little noise. Waveripple thought that every shadow might be the Vampire's, and that it could be hiding behind any tree. Any soft noise might be their only warning before they were attacked.
But after a few more nights went by, they still had not found the Vampire. Now Waveripple wished that every noise really was the Vampire, and that it would attack them, so that this would finally end. But still they could not find the Vampire.