How to Slay a Dragon - Bill Allen [84]
“But it does.”
“What? Look at you,” Greg said. “You can’t even stand. You just got dragged for miles under the belly of a speeding dragon. How lucky is that?”
“Very,” Lucky answered angrily. “I’ll have you know it was getting awfully hot in that tunnel, and my half of the fireproofing spell had worn off. The only thing keeping me alive was the air spilling from the passage. If Ruuan hadn’t come along and dragged me out of there, I’d have been baked to a crisp.”
Greg started to argue but just couldn’t bring himself to do it. The fireproofing spell had been wearing off quickly. He only managed to survive himself because he escaped into the Passageway of Shifted Dimensions.
“Wait, if you’re so lucky, what were you doing in the tunnel to begin with? What kept you from making it inside the passageway with me, where it was cool?”
“I don’t know.” Lucky moaned. He managed to push himself to a seated position and rested there a moment, breathing heavily. “Because then things wouldn’t have worked out, I suppose. Maybe you wouldn’t have made it to the amulet with me tagging along. You did get the amulet, didn’t you?”
Greg felt the lump beneath his tunic and nodded. He thought about the two spireling guards and how lucky he’d been to defeat them in the dark. Would things have worked out as well if Lucky had been in that cramped passage with him? And if he hadn’t gone back out to the main tunnel to check on Lucky, he never would have had the chance to sleigh the dragon. Maybe it was destiny.
No. Greg refused to go along with the madness. “What about Priscilla?”
“No problem, Greg. Ruuan won’t be eating her now that he’s dead. We just need to go up and get her.”
“How are we supposed to do that? The fireproofing spell wore off, remember?”
“I don’t know,” said Lucky, reaching out a hand for Greg to help him up, “but there must be a way. The prophecy won’t be complete until you rescue the princess.”
Greg pulled Lucky to his feet and helped him balance the way he might help a rope stand on one end. “Wait, there is!” Greg held out the spirelings’ amulet. “Hazel said the spirelings used this to protect them from the heat of the spire.”
“I CAN THINK OF ANOTHER WAY,” came a booming voice from behind Greg.
As both boys spun to face the sound, the wall behind them surged upward, and a section of it arced around to stare Greg directly in the eye. Greg tried to gulp but couldn’t bring himself to it. Ruuan was less dead than he first appeared, but certainly more enraged than anyone within the length of, say, a football field would have wanted.
Captive Hart
Greg found the second trip up the tunnel much quicker than the first, what with the dragon assisting by carrying him in its jaws. Earlier he’d thought there couldn’t be any worse stench than the smell of dragon spit, but now he knew that a single vial of the stuff could hardly compare to an entire dragon’s mouthful.
The darkness lasted but a minute. Then Ruuan’s mouth flew open, and Greg was blinded by the white-hot rock lining the dragon’s lair. He caught only a brief glimpse of the enormous cavern full of jewels and precious artifacts before being roughly deposited into an opening in the glowing rock wall.
He tumbled to a stop. Cool, refreshing air rushed over his body. Several beams of moonlight drifted in from a row of portals in the stone a dozen feet above his head, but none could push back the dark. Perhaps they were responsible for the chill—Greg had an idea the air outside an infinitely tall spire might get quite frigid—but more likely this was some sort of magic storage locker, an enchanted refrigerator where Ruuan kept his prey so it wouldn’t spoil, or burst into flames.
“Ugh, awful,” he sputtered, trying to get the taste of dragon spit out of his mouth.
Lucky rustled nearby, groaning. “Try riding on the outside. Believe me, this was better.”
“Greg! Lucky!”
All sorts of thoughts rushed through Greg’s mind before he recognized the voice, none of them pleasant.
“Prissy?” said Lucky.
“Sasha!