How to Slay a Dragon - Bill Allen [61]
“How much farther?” he gasped.
“Not far,” said Lucky, who easily strode up from behind. “Less than a mile now.”
Greg picked up the pace again, ignoring the protest of his weary muscles. Behind him Priscilla dropped farther back. Lucky slowed and waited for her to catch up.
“Go,” Priscilla cried out as she approached him. “Why are you stopping? We don’t have ti—”
Greg risked a glance over his shoulder. Lucky had seized Priscilla around the waist. While the others watched in shock, he quickly stuffed her into his pack, where her screams cut off in an instant. “Go. We’re wasting precious seconds.”
The group slowed slightly as they mounted a gradual rise. Darkness pressed in around them, but the sky over the hill glowed brightly from the flames of hundreds of torches. Greg could hear faint music and laughter and knew they were close. He reached the top and gasped.
Of course he’d been gasping the whole way, but now he had even more reason.
Ahead in a shallow valley, it looked as though every man, woman and child in the kingdom celebrated, clapping and dancing about. Atop a pedestal at the center of it all stood Princess Penelope, dressed in one of her frilly gowns, arms crossed, impatiently tapping her foot, as if tired of waiting for the dragon to swing by and pick her up.
“Run!” Greg screamed at the top of his lungs. “The dragon’s coming!”
Amazingly, the entire celebration ground to a halt. Everyone including Penelope stopped to stare.
Only, Greg realized it wasn’t his voice that stopped them but an even more startling noise from behind. It was a terrible, bone-chilling cry that rent the air like a giant cleaver, and Greg didn’t want to see what could possibly make such a sound.
But he did see. Far off in the distance a blurry spot of blackness punctuated the dark gray sky. Quickly it grew until Greg’s worst fears were confirmed. The prophecy was falling into place exactly as foretold. The dragon Ruuan was coming!
Greg couldn’t imagine a more frightening sight, and certainly wouldn’t if he could. Ruuan’s wings flapped with an unnatural slowness that hinted at the dragon’s enormous weight, and just as Greg decided the beast must be the largest creature he’d ever seen, he realized it was still a good ways off and surely much larger still.
The dragon soared with incredible swiftness. It let out another piercing scream, this one all the more terrifying for its closeness, and released a blast of fire, incinerating the field below in an instant.
To his amazement, Greg found he could run twice as fast as before.
But where was he running to? Ahead, people screamed and scattered in all directions—all except Princess Penelope, who stayed put on her pedestal, albeit a little more nervously than before.
“Run!” Greg shouted again, but she couldn’t possibly hear. “Run!”
The dragon swept between Greg and the others, blocking out the entire sky. The glow Greg had seen before, when topping the rise, cut off in an instant as Ruuan dipped a wing to turn. The dragon’s tail sliced past Greg’s head as Ruuan released a jet of fire, and behind the celebration the entire woods exploded into flames. Ruuan was away in an instant, clearing the trees . . . and turning back. Suddenly, he headed their way again, growing faster as he neared.
Greg wanted nothing more than to stop and scream for the others to save themselves, but he knew he had to reach Penelope.
The dragon let out a roar that caused the very ground to tremble.
Greg stumbled but somehow kept to his feet. He sped for the clearing and was just yards away when something caught his foot. As if an invisible hand had reached out and grasped his ankle, he felt his leg nearly pulled from its socket. He landed hard on his belly in the dirt. Rake screeched and tore off into the darkness. Behind Greg, the others fell too.
Lucky’s pack spilled over the road, spewing broken melons and live chickens everywhere,