How to Slay a Dragon - Bill Allen [82]
Well, now he’d done as she asked. What next? If he could believe Hazel, his only hope of reaching Ruuan’s lair was through this passage. Still he hesitated. He couldn’t stop thinking about how quickly the fireproofing spell had been wearing off earlier. What if Lucky never made it past the wagon?
Sleigh!
And what about Princess Priscilla? Could she possibly still be alive in Ruuan’s lair? Only if Ruuan were protecting her from the heat for some reason. Greg hated to think what would happen if that protection ran out, how Priscilla would feel the painful burn of the air against her skin and in her lungs.
He stood frozen, uncertain which way to go. Then he heard it, a high-pitched whine from far above that grew louder and dropped in pitch the way a bomb does just before impact. The analogy spurred Greg’s mind into action. He sprinted from the sound, back toward Lucky, hopping over both fallen spirelings in a single stride.
Greg ran with all his might, but with each step the noise grew louder, until his ears felt as if they might bleed. Still the sound bore down from above, pressing in on him from all sides. He cringed, expecting to be flattened by more spirelings, or worse, but to his surprise, the sound passed overhead and descended as fast as it had come. Within seconds it was gone. Greg exhaled deeply, disbelieving, feeling lucky to be alive.
Lucky!
Greg raced toward the main tunnel, panting and gasping until he caught sight of the sleigh still wedged in the end of the passageway ahead.
“Lucky!” he screamed. “Lucky?”
To his horror, he heard only silence. He dropped to his knees and peered beneath the sleigh. The dragon scale Lucky wedged under the runner rested on the tunnel floor just feet away, but a few yards farther, rocking back and forth silently, lay a second scale, and Greg knew now what had caused that deafening noise.
Ruuan had just left through the tunnel.
Fighting back his panic, Greg slipped Nathan’s staff through the narrow gap between the top of the sleigh and the doorframe. With a clatter it dropped into the bed. Still holding the torch in his other hand, Greg wedged a shoulder against the sleigh and heaved.
It wouldn’t budge. Greg slipped the torch through the gap, too, leaving him in total darkness but with both hands free. He wedged his shoulder again until he felt the sleigh move slightly. Before he could think to congratulate himself he heard a voice in the distance. At least one of the spirelings had awakened.
Greg pushed even harder, the tendons in his neck bulging, and the sleigh moved again. Not an inch or two, not even a foot. No, it jumped from the passageway as if shot from a cannon and started down the tunnel. It was all Greg could do to get a hand on the rope to keep from losing it altogether.
Even with dragon spit spread across the soles of his feet, Greg couldn’t rein in the sleigh. For a few feet he was dragged behind it like a water-skier on a towrope. Then one runner ran aground on a dragon scale, and the sleigh stopped. Greg stopped too, but not until he smacked into the wood. The sleigh pivoted on the stuck runner until it was facing downhill and then kicked loose again. Still maintaining his death grip on the rope, Greg was swung hard into the wall, where he bounced off only to land in the bed of the sleigh.
He scrambled upright and peered down the tunnel, but without his torch, all he could make out was blackness. The wind in his face forced him to close his eyes, but he didn’t need to see to know how fast he was going. The sleigh sped so swiftly down the spiraling tunnel that Greg could feel it climb the walls. Centrifugal force pinned him to the bed and kept him from groping the darkness for the eternal torch that should have been within easy reach.
Down and down he went at mind-numbing speed, but even his numb mind could predict the only two possible outcomes to this ride. Either he would crash before the bottom, find himself dragged behind the sleigh for the final mile, his skin peeled off after