and magic ready, Hilda and William raced towards the dragons. Bolts of power bounced away from them, intended to immobilise the dragons and hold them suspended for transport. They had done that so often in the past weeks, it had become routine. The problem was now, however, that the dragons were not keeping their part of the routine. The magic did not seem to affect them. They completed their turn and looked for their victims again.
As they had gotten so close to the dragons, the couple was already behind the animals. Hilda grabbed control of William's broom and landed them on the back of one of the dragons.
"Sorry, not a soft landing, but this is safe for now," she growled, angry that their trick hadn't worked.
They had to hold on to the large knobby bumps of their carrier, as the two dragons were gaining speed again.
"Good thing these are stupid ones," Hilda muttered, "they'll be looking for us for a while longer."
"What went wrong?", William asked. He didn't understand.
"Beats me. Someone did something to these dragons. Set them up with some kind of magic so ours is not working on them. Or maybe any other magic. Oh crap!"
The dragons were making another turn. Hilda and William had to hold on extra tightly to the bumps, otherwise they'd fall off. William had magically stuck their brooms to his back, they could not spare the hands to hold onto those as well.
"Time to think of something," William said.
2. Nobbleback
"Great plan," Hilda said, "but what? How do you stop things like these if magic has no effect?"
The dragons were still cruising around, but it would not take much longer before they understood that their searching was in vain.
"We can outrun them," William thought out loud, "but that does not take care of the problem. And if you can't beat them, join them. Hilda, how good is your knowledge of dragons?"
"What? What for?" She looked at her wizard and hoped he had a serious plan. Most of them sounded less than that.
"Can you magic up something that looks like a dragon? Flying and big and mean and all the accessories?"
"Dragons have no accessories, William. But I think I can create a dragon like that. And you should be able too, my sweet man."
The dragon on which they sat started to tilt precariously to the left. It was obviously starting a new route to look for them.
"Okay. Now, if we can make these dragons, could they be big enough to scare these two?", William asked.
"Hardly. These dragons are too stupid to be scared. They are basic instinct creatures. Oh... wait... I think I know something..." Hilda grinned. "I am going to create a dragon, and I need you to create a copy of it. Change its colours a bit, but that's all. It has to be an exact copy. We're going to give the boys a few girlfriends. As soon as they are flying level again, that is."
William smiled. It was great how Hilda caught on and made a viable plan from his idea. "Just hope these two are not gay."
"Oh, shush you."
Their dragon levelled its flight path. Hilda drew her wand and mumbled a handful of Latin spells. Nothing happened. "Crappedy crap. I hate Latin... I want a female Nobbleback dragon. Almost as big as this one. And in heat. And straight ahead." It took the wand a few seconds to interpret the magical wish to magical existence.
Several hundred yards ahead, a new megatonne dragon appeared. It was just as ugly as the one the magical couple was riding, just not so sadly coloured.
William, wand in hand, said: "I want one like that, but more red." Nothing happened. "I didn't screw up any Latin, so what's wrong?"
Hilda shook her head. "Female Nobblebacks don't come in red. Nor in purple. You can pick yellow, green or blue. And mine's blue so you pick yellow."
William repeated his request to the wand. A second dragon appeared, next to the blue one that Hilda had created and was controlling.
"We have to bring them closer, so the boys can get a good whiff," said Hilda, "and give me my broom back. As soon as these boys see the girls, they'll lose interest in us and head after them, so by then we have to be off this back."
William handed over her broom, thought about the good whiff, and followed Hilda's lead on bringing their creations closer.
"Can you please make your dragon fly a bit more naturally, William?", Hilda asked. "You make it look like a horse with sore feet."
William grumbled something, looked at the neighbouring Nobbleback and ported that to his dragonness.
"Now you make it fly like a boy. William, please, a bit more graceful?"
"Damn, witch, what do I know of graceful dragon girls? I never thought I'd see a live one in my previous life and now I've been chasing them, I'm sitting on one and making one up. Bear with me!"
Hilda grinned. "Sorry. Just couldn't help myself. You're doing well. Get ready to fly off this boy, William, the boys are extending their nostrils, and that means- now!"
William sensed the push through the bond before he heard her words, and was on his broom and over the dragon already. Hilda joined him.
"Now we have to get the girls to fly somewhere where our boys do no harm," she said to William. "Maybe Archibald will like a few more."
"Holy Bejeebus. All the way over there again. Well, alright. We have to lose them somewhere." William sighed. It was indeed their best shot.
"Make sure you stay behind the boys, William," Hilda warned him. "They might get crazy ideas and behind them is the best spot then. Now, let's set course to Archibald and his Dragon's Den. And we should try to keep the boys flying as fast as they can, they'll be nice and tired when they arrive. So let's speed up our ladies."
William was relieved that Hilda was there to take control of the situation. After all the adventures in this really strange land, there were still things popping up from all sides that blew him out of his wizardly shoes.
They made the lady-dragon imitations go faster and faster, and the male Nobblebacks kept up with ease. The insanely large wings did not even move very fast, so it was obvious that these dragons were able to achieve incredible airspeeds.
"Hilda, I think we should fly lower," William said. "The turbulence makes it impossible to keep the broom steady."
"I'm sure that what you say is true, but I'm going lower because their wings almost blow me away," Hilda replied and dropped down fifty yards.
"Indeed," William grinned as he followed her. "That's the same thing."
The trip carried on for several hours, but finally the rocks of Archibald's lair came into view.
"William. You need to do both girls now. I have to go ahead and warn Archibald." Hilda stated it and without more information she shoved the control of her blue dragon into William's magical hands.
"Holy Bejeebus," he muttered, seeing how Hilda shot away on her broom. "Right. Easy does it, girls."
"Archibald!" Hilda magically enhanced the volume of her voice so the giant would hear her from a proper distance. "We're bringing two Nobblebacks and we need you to store them for us. They're wild and under a magical spell!"
"Grimhilda, how nice to see you again," the giant smiled. "Nobblebacks? How nice, I don't have those yet." He clapped his hands, causing a few three-ton rocks in the mountains behind him to shift position. "I'm sure I can put them up somewhere for you, lady witch."
"Great. William is bringing them in with two fake lady-dragons. If you can point out where the Nobblebacks have to go, that would be helpful. And the more when you can do that quickly."
"Oh, certainly, Grimhilda. I'll go and stand near the opening in the rock where the Nobbles have to fly through to be tucked in." He took four big steps and was near a tremendous hole in the rocks. "In here."
"Are you kidding me? That's too small for these beasts, Archibald!" Hilda saw impending doom
"It will fit, witch, I know that." Archibald did not like it when his expertise was doubted.
"Right. I'll believe you. I'm going back to help William. Thanks, Archibald!" Hilda turned her broom and dashed off again,
Archibald waving at her.
"Nobblebacks. How sweet," the giant said to himself. He looked at the hole. "That's big enough. Sure. Must be. I certain."
Hilda reached William again. "How are you holding up?"
"It's hard work, I can tell you. Oh, thank you." The last bit was because Hilda took 'her' dragonness back. William could relax somewhat now.
"Archibald has a space for them. He said. You should put in your lady first, to see if it works. If it doesn't, I'll direct mine away. Let's try and split the boys up so we have couples we can manage, okay?"
William nodded. He let his lady dragon sail off to the left a bit. One of the boy Nobblebacks changed his course, in pursuit of the one he wanted. The other Nobbleback howled and hooted as he saw the ladies split up and sailed after his brother in flight.
"Crap," said Hilda, "they're both after the same one!"
"Does this mean we have a problem now?", William asked as he noticed how the two real dragons started a fight in flight.
The first Nobbleback that had gone after the yellow girl was not pleased how his partner was also going after his choice. In an impressive maneuver, he turned sideways and tried to grab a wing of his now adversary. It was a common technique among the larger dragons, to disable competition in the air. One wing, after all, made for miserable flying. The adversary however knew the trick as well and dropped low, so the grabbing claw only found air.
As all the aerial acrobatics went on, the two massive dragons lost their speed as most of their limited attention span now was moved to the male