How to Slay a Dragon - Bill Allen [14]
loosen the straps on his pack. “Once it does, we can just follow their path out.”
“But won’t the path close behind them as they come?” Greg asked. “We’d have to be at the edge of the forest to make it out in time.”
“True. It helps if they’re slow and you’re really fast—and even then it usually takes quite a few people entering the forest from the same spot before you can expect to reach the edge.”
“Lucky, this is never going to work.”
“Of course not. No one is ever crazy enough to enter this forest.”
“We did,” Greg pointed out.
“Yes, but we were fulfilling a prophecy, and I’m extremely lucky, remember?”
Greg felt his heartbeat in his temple. “What if we didn’t have this amazing talent of yours to protect us? You said a path might clear because someone entered the forest. Why else would one open up?”
Lucky dug through his pack until he retrieved a huge sandwich that rivaled the watermelon in both width and length. He handed it to Greg, then pulled out a second for himself.
“Usually the paths open toward danger,” Lucky said between chews. “You know, like when there’s a monster nearby.”
Greg froze in mid-bite.
“Don’t worry. That’s if you’re not lucky, remember? Now, eat up. We need to be ready to run when the trail reappears.”
Greg glanced around the encroaching forest. “Wait . . . what kind of monster?”
“No one knows,” Lucky said. “Anyone who’s ever seen one didn’t live to talk about it.”
Greg found he couldn’t speak.
Lucky’s teeth flashed. “Relax, Greg. I was just trying to get you to loosen up. If you must know, there are twelve known varieties of monsters in this particular forest.”
Greg strained to scan the bushes. The bushes scanned back. “Twelve?”
“Right. Oh, and about two thousand unknown varieties.”
Greg’s head snapped Lucky’s way.
“Kidding, Greg,” Lucky said, hands held high. “Just kidding.”
The glare Greg offered might have blinded Lucky had the boy not turned the other way at the last second. Greg bit into his sandwich and chewed angrily. As hungry as he was, he found it difficult to enjoy. Twelve varieties of monsters still seemed plenty.
Lucky, on the other hand, smiled happily while he ate. He provided fresh strawberries for dessert, atop of shaved ice from his pack, still hard despite the heat of midday.
After the two boys finished, Lucky stowed away Greg’s sword and the leftovers and had Greg stand and stretch his legs so he’d be ready to run when the moment was right. Five minutes later, when Greg heard a tremendous rustling and the forest suddenly pulled back to reveal a wide path stretching far into the distance, Greg stayed put. The moment seemed anything but right. He thought the path looked about as inviting as a handshake from Manny Malice.
“This is it, Greg!” Lucky scooped up his pack and tore off down the trail. “Run!”
Still Greg waited, hoping to catch a glimpse ahead before he ran blindly into the jaws of an awaiting monster. But he didn’t wait long. Talent or not, being at Lucky’s side while facing a monster was still better than facing that same monster alone. A second later Greg found himself sprinting toward the danger just as intently as he wanted to sprint away from it.
“Wait up!”
Despite his vast experience at running for his life, Greg found it hard to catch Lucky. Not only could the other boy run fast, but he maintained his pace long after Greg began to tire (though if the truth were told, Greg had really begun to tire about five hours earlier and wouldn’t have been surprised to turn around and find a tortoise drafting in his wake).
Lucky noticed Greg lagging. “Come on, we’ve got a lot of distance to cover.”
“C-can’t. N-need to rest.”
“No time for that now,” Lucky said between full, even breaths.
The two boys ran until Greg was so exhausted he expected to keel over and die at any moment, probably before he hit the ground, given where he was. This thought alone spurred him onward. Fortunately Lucky looked to be tiring too. Greg thought he spotted a single bead of sweat forming on the boy’s forehead.
“This is odd,