“Not yet,” Ravi answered.
“Well, can you call him?” Dash asked, trying to keep up with Rocket, who’d nearly broken into a run. “I think we may have found a dragon!”
—
Gabriel rushed to silence Ravi’s voice, which had suddenly boomed out of Gabriel’s MTB while King Urelio spoke.
“Um, I’m talking to him now,” Gabriel said, without really hearing what Ravi had asked. His voice sounding strained. “He isn’t exactly happy to see us again or to volunteer a tree to burn. And, um, he’s kind of glaring at me right now. I guess some of the ogres have been a real pain or whatever.”
“Dude, I need the coordinates,” Ravi said. “Dash might be face to snout with a dragon right now!”
“I’m doing my best…,” Gabriel said.
—
Rocket led Dash farther up the mountain to an area where land had mostly flattened out. About twenty feet ahead of them, Dash saw part of the rocks move and shift, right next to a huge hole in the ground. He looked closer, thinking the rocks would be part of a dragon, but they were real rocks. The shaking was coming from the dragon below the rocks. The one who may or may not know they were there.
“Good dog,” he whispered, slipping Rocket a treat with a shaking hand as Anna told him to.
Instead, Dash found a rock to hide behind at a relatively safe distance (was there really a safe distance from a fire-breathing dragon besides being on another planet?) and crouched down to wait for Ravi.
And he waited.
And then he waited some more.
Dash kept scanning the skies for Ravi and checking his MTB for signs of communication. So far, nothing. He didn’t want to make too much noise in case the dragon awoke, but he wasn’t sure how long he could wait here either.
He typed off a quick message to Ravi: Any word yet?
But Ravi didn’t answer.
Come on, Gabriel! Dash thought.
Now his feet were tingling from being crouched down for so long! He decided to call Gabriel.
“Gabe!” Dash whisper-shouted into his MTB, his heart pounding. “I think I’m about to see a dragon. I’d really like to know which way to send it.”
“Okay, okay, I got this,” Gabriel said.
He listened to Gabriel argue with the king. He should have known the king wouldn’t give up one of his trees too easily when the time came.
Gabriel was talking fast. “If you let us burn part of a tree—not even the whole thing—well, okay, the whole thing since we need the roots, but maybe there’s one you’re tired of looking at? If you do…we’ll give you the chair you’ve seen our friend flying in.”
“Done!” the king agreed without hesitation.
“Sweet!” Gabriel replied. He’d have to remember to tell Ravi to bring an extra chair down from the Cloud Leopard. To Dash, he said, “Easy peasy, dude. I’ll get the coords to Ravi.”
Dash smiled. “Quick thinking.”
“All in a day’s work, my friend,” Gabriel replied.
After a few moments, the Clipper appeared above the rocks and began its descent. No doubt Ravi spotted the creature rising from the hole too. At first, all Dash could see was a row of black horns curving down a scaly spine. That was plenty.
“Meet me on the flat rock formation forty degrees to your left,” Ravi instructed, not a minute too soon.
He immediately saw where Ravi meant, but when he tried to go, Rocket wouldn’t budge. The dog still wanted to find its target!
“You did it, boy,” Dash assured him, petting his back. “But we really don’t need to get any closer.” It took a few more yanks, but Rocket finally ran alongside Dash toward the ship.
The silence was broken by a sound unlike any Dash had ever heard. It was somewhere between a roar, a scream, a hiss, and static. It was the unmistakable sound of a very angry dragon.
Dash turned around slowly, trying not to attract too much attention. He remembered Chris said the dragons didn’t get along with other dragons, and he didn’t want to be caught in the middle of a civil war.
A lone dragon had crawled out of the pit. Dash scanned the landscape and didn’t see any others stirring, for now. About the size of the transport ship, the beast stood on short, thick legs, its pitch-black eyes fixed right on him. With a shake of its back, two long, scaly wings stretched open. Sharp spikes stood out along the edges. The dragon reared its head at Dash, gnashing two rows of jagged teeth. With nostrils flaring, it breathed a stream of fire right at him. Dash ducked, sheltering Rocket’s quivering body with his own. He quickly realized that the flames only extended a few inches away from the dragon’s long snout. Either that was all the dragon could do, or it was just getting started. He really didn’t want to find out.
Ravi opened the door of the Clipper. “Hurry!”
Dash didn’t need to be told twice. He pulled a shaking Rocket into his arms and ran to the ship. Every step sent waves of pain up his legs, but he refused to give in to it. The second he closed the door behind them, Ravi took off. The dragon hunched down, then launched itself into the air after them.
“Do you know where to go?” Dash asked, breathless. He quickly strapped in.
Ravi nodded, double-checking the coordinates as he lifted away from the mountain. “Here goes nothing,” he said, trying his best to outfly a beast that was built to rule the skies. At least they didn’t have to worry whether the dragon would actually follow them. That proved to be a resounding yes, yes it would.
Ravi wove through the mountain peaks, ducking and dodging the dragon’s fiery breath, before turning down the mountain. He hoped that when Ike Phillips was building the Clipper he’d thought to make the ship out of fireproof material. Somehow he doubted it. He glanced over at Dash, who was clutching the arms of his seat as the ship rolled nearly upside down. Rocket whimpered and shivered. Dash pulled the dog close. Ravi wondered who was comforting whom.
He zigzagged his way toward the ground, trying to slow the dragon down by not going in a straight line. Still, he only narrowly avoided the bolts of fire aimed at the back of the Clipper. “Listen,” he said, glancing at the rear camera as he spoke, “I didn’t want to worry you even more by telling you this before, but I don’t think Colin’s going to give up. There’s eight of us and only one of him, but he’s super strong. We need to figure out a way to stop him.”
Dash yelped as the dragon suddenly sped up and swooped right in front of the ship. One of its huge wings slammed into the front window. A thin crack formed on the surface. The dragon lifted its wing again, and Ravi had to dive far down and bank hard to the left to avoid another attack. He sped up to get in front of it again. He wanted to lead the dragon, not chase it.
“I’ll figure out what to do about Colin,” Dash promised as Ravi veered out over the ocean before swinging back toward the forest. The dragon stayed hard on their tail.
Dash forced himself to take deep breaths and think. Solving difficult problems was part of what had earned him a spot on the crew and most of what had made him captain. He just needed to focus and consider the situation from all sides, which was basically the last thing he could do in their present situation.
The ship’s computer buzzed with an alert. They were in range of the chosen tree. “Look!” Ravi said, pointing out the side window. The elves had drawn a circle around a tree, in what looked like white chalk but probably wasn’t. The tree was one of the last ones on the eastern end of the forest, before the forest opened up to the fields of grass and wildflowers.
In front of the tree stood a line of people and elves of various sizes. They could spot at least twenty elves with spears and buckets, Piper and Gabriel (also with buckets), two small, squat figures that Dash knew from the images on the tree must be ogres. There were also giants, one in a dress. A giant-sized pink-and-green dress. Dash blinked and looked again. A strange group of allies if ever there was one. He looked out the back window. The dragon was gone. “Uh, where’d it go?” he asked.
Before Ravi could a
nswer, the ship shuddered and dropped low enough that it was skimming the tops of trees.
“If I had to guess, I’d say it’s on top of us,” Ravi said as he rolled the ship into a sharp turn. “I’ll try to shake him.”
Unable to grip the metal with its talons for long, the dragon pushed off, allowing the ship to lift above the trees once more. It started to ascend away from the ship, but not without aiming a massive stream of fire at the ship’s nose.
“Now what is it doing?” Dash asked, gripping Rocket’s fur tighter.
“He can’t get tired yet,” Ravi said, deciding their dragon was a boy. “It’s almost his big moment.” As the dragon looped around to aim another stream of fire at the ship, Ravi made a spiraling turn. “The dragon thinks we’re the target,” he said.
“That’s it! Ravi, you’re a genius!” Dash cried.
“Uh, yeah, I know,” Ravi replied. “How am I a genius again?”
“Does the Clipper have a delivery hatch, like for airdropping supplies?”
Ravi nodded. “Sure. It’s called ‘Open a window and let the ZRKs fly something down to the surface.’ ”
Dash laughed. “Well, that works too.”
“What do you have in mind?” Ravi asked.
“What if we sent down the vial that we used with Rocket? Chris said dragons hate other dragons, so if we put the scent on the tree, maybe our dragon will think another one is near the tree and will fire at it.”
“Let’s do it,” Ravi said. He gave a whistle, and a ZRK pulled away from the ceiling and flew down. Dash dug the vial out of his pocket and placed it in the ZRK’s gripper hand. “Be really careful with this,” he instructed. “Don’t pull out the stopper until you get to the tree. You don’t want the dragon to think you’re the other dragon.”
The ZRK gave a short buzz, then waited by the rear hatch. “I’m gonna make this quick,” Ravi said. He looped back, aiming toward the tree where the group of elves, humans, giants, and ogres were gathered. Holding his breath, he pressed a button on the control panel. The door slid open just enough to let the ZRK fly out before closing again. Even so, in the second or two it was open, the cabin filled with searing heat from the dragon’s breath.
The dragon’s head whipped around as he spotted the flying ZRK. With a roar that rattled the Clipper, he took off after it.
“Should I follow?” Ravi asked.
Dash shook his head. “You need to get Anna and go back to the Cloud Leopard,” Dash said. “I’ll have plenty of help here. If Colin realized you left, tell him you were just out testing the new engine. Don’t let him know you’ve communicated with us. I want him to think we still believe we spoke with the real Chris yesterday.”
Ravi was curious what Dash was planning, but there wasn’t time to ask. He trusted that whatever it was, it would be brilliant. He set the vehicle down in the field about thirty yards away from the line of assorted creatures, all of them now watching the dragon circling over their heads as it followed the tiny, buzzing round object.
Dash half ran, half dragged himself out the back door. Thirty seconds later, Anna ran in and sat down. “Dash said to wait until you’re sure the dragon isn’t watching before you go. We don’t want him to start following the ship again.”
Ravi nodded, placing his hand on the panel, ready to go when the time was right. Their chance came quickly, since the ZRK had just reached the white-ringed tree and dropped its cargo in the branches. The dragon paused, midflight. A loud, wet, snuffling sound filled the air. Then its wings began to beat furiously, and it headed straight toward the tree. The ZRK appeared back on the ship almost instantly, and Ravi took off at top speed.
Dash watched in relief when the dragon didn’t even turn around to follow the ship with its eyes. Clearly, once it found new prey, the old one was forgotten. He was surprised that some of the ogres were included in this group of helpers until he saw the spear pointed at them by Tumar and another young elf he hadn’t seen before. Everyone ducked as the dragon flew directly overhead, shrieking as it went.
“Where’s Siena?” Dash called out to Gabriel. “And Lythe? Are they okay?”
“They’re guarding the horn, making sure the king doesn’t ring it even when we don’t need the ogres anymore!”
Dash glanced away from the tree, which the dragon had begun circling. “Why?”
“Siena thinks that it’s cruel and that we don’t have the right to do it.”
Dash opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again. He couldn’t really argue with that. “We can’t go back on our promise. The king is living up to his end of the deal; we have to do the same.”
“I know,” Gabriel said. “But maybe there’s a way to get rid of them without, you know, sending them to dreamland forever.”
To Dash’s surprise, he realized he might actually know a way. But right now he was starting to feel panicked. The dragon’s flame hit a clump of leaves on top of the tree, lighting them on fire. The elves let out a group yelp like they’d been burned themselves.
Once the first branch ignited, everything seemed to happen in the opposite of slow motion. Dash had hoped that all the moss growing everywhere would have helped keep the fire contained on only the one tree, but that proved not to be the case. The flames sped down the length of the tree, lighting branches on nearby trees as it went. Everyone sprang into action, tossing water from their buckets and kicking dirt on burning leaves. The dragon was still spitting fire, though, making the flames harder to contain. Dash’s heart started racing as he pictured all the elves’ homes burnt and crumbling. What had they done?
The elves howled in pain as flames continued to spread. Water buckets now empty, the elves directed everyone to fill them with dirt. Dash could barely lift his arms because they ached like he’d just done two hundred push-ups. He coughed, filled his bucket, flung it on burning leaves, coughed, and filled and flung, over and over. His lungs and his arms felt like they were on fire.
Fortunately, he could see Gabriel and Piper working at top speed alongside the elves. They were making quick work of putting out the nearby branches. The fire eventually started to thin out, or nearly out, from all the trees except the one with the circle around it. Everyone had gathered around that one. The top part of the tree was gray now, gnarled and dead. The bottom, still brown and green with bark and moss, was slowly turning purple as the flame reached it. Dash figured the strange color must be from the combination of the heat and chemical makeup of the dragon’s fire plus the special wood of the tree. He’d never seen anything like it.
More elves were pouring from the village now, many with ogres marching in front of them, grumbling and stomping. The elves circled the tree, holding hands and swaying. As the flame got closer to the ground, more and more of the tree turned gray and ashen. The parts of the roots that had pushed up through the ground were turning the deep purple of an eggplant.
“Tumar!” Dash shouted to the elf he now considered a friend. “How can I get a message to the king?”
“He’s right over there,” Tumar said, pointing to the base of the tree. Dash hadn’t noticed the king helping alongside everyone else. His beard was now darkened with ash, and beads of sweat slid down his forehead. Dash ran over to the king and pulled on his sleeve. He had to shout to be heard over all the noise. “King Urelio! I know how to get rid of the ogres so they won’t bother you again.”
“So do I!” shouted the king. “Sound the horn and make them slumber forever! Take the horn and be gone. That was the agreement, as you well know.”
“I know,” Dash said. “But it wasn’t right for Chris to make that horn, or to promise what he did. I see that now.”
The king paused to stare for a second. “You dare to doubt Chrysanthemum?”
Dash would never get used to that name. If the situation wasn’t so dire, he probably wouldn’t have been able to keep from laughing. But since it was dire, he took a breath and said, “Yes. He was alone and desperate to continue his journey, and he wanted to help yo
ur ancestors at the same time. We’re desperate too, and we also want to help you. But we’re not alone. We have options he didn’t.”
The king looked past him to survey the damage. An elf with white hair began to softly weep. Dash felt awful for being the cause of their pain. Tumar came to stand beside him. “Hey,” he whispered. “Don’t feel too bad. This tree hadn’t been lived in for over four decades. It has root and butt rot.”
Dash turned away from the tree to stare at him. He must have heard him wrong. “It has what?”
“Root,” he repeated, pointing to one of the roots. “Butt.” He pointed to the bottom of the trunk where it met the ground. “Rot.”
He’d have been more amused by the funny name if what it implied wasn’t so serious. “You’re saying the tree is diseased?”
Tumar nodded. “I am.”
Panic flooded through him. If the dragon cinder came from a diseased tree, would it even work? They couldn’t get another dragon here, and the king would never agree to sacrifice another tree. He looked around helplessly, then pointed to the root of one of the trees that sustained burns. “Can we use that one? Maybe we could dig out the root?”
Tumar shook his head. “The root of a living tree will die if exposed to air. If it is dragon cinder you need, you can only get it from a dead tree.”
“Do you think it will still work?” he asked.
“I do not know,” Tumar admitted.
Dash turned and made his way out of the smoky, suffocating woods. He half sat, half fell to the ground, holding on to the long blades of grass as though they would anchor him to the world. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths. Coughs racked his body, but the air felt cool and fresh now. It would be okay, he told himself. If they got to the ship and the dragon cinder of that tree didn’t work, the crew would be able to do it all over again. Somehow they would do it. They just wouldn’t do it with him.