Chapter Three: Capture
The night seemed to pass impossibly slowly for Carnelian. With Umber and Turtle in the river, and Kinkajou invisible, the guardians were bound to be angry when they inevitably came in to the sleeping cave to find three of the dragonets gone. None of the four remaining dragonets dared to sleep. Moon hurried round the sleeping cave and the study cave collecting scrolls and putting them in the largest pouch they had.
It gradually grew darker and darker, until Carnelian could barely see Moon, but the NightWing seemed to have no trouble navigating the cave to find her scrolls. She vaguely remembered a scroll saying that NightWings could see in the dark nearly as well as SeaWings. Which did make sense actually. They must be called Night for some reason apart from their scales.
Apart from Moon crossing the cave, they sat in silence. Carnelian couldn't keep her thoughts away from Turtle and Umber, exploring the underground river in desperate hopes of a way out, or Kinkajou, hiding somewhere in the caves.
After a while, Moon started to struggle fitting any more scrolls in her pouch.
"You could use more pouches and we'll share them out," Qibli pointed out.
"But-" Moon protested.
"It'll be easier," Winter yawned. "Just do it, yeah?"
After an interminable time, Qibli heard talonsteps approaching their cave and signalled to Moon, who hurriedly lay down in her sleeping spot, just before Kestrel poked her head into the cave. Carnelian lay as still as she could, her eyes open a slit to see the other three dragonets doing the same.
Kestrel looked around the cave, paused, and then strode over to Carnelian.
"Where are the other three?" she demanded. Carnelian looked up.
"Why do you want to know?" the younger SkyWing countered, sitting up and meeting Kestrel's yellow eyes fiercely.
"Can't it wait until morning?" said Qibli, stretching and pretending to yawn. "I'm tired. It's been a stressful day."
"No. Where are they?" Kestrel repeated.
"I don't know," Carnelian said. Well, it was true. Turtle and Umber could be anywhere by now, and she had no idea where in the caves Kinkajou was hiding.
Kestrel looked around the cave once more, glared at them, and departed. Presumably she was searching for the missing dragonets in the rest of the cave system.
"Why, Carnelian?" said Qibli, holding his head in his talons.
"Why what?" Carnelian asked, annoyed. She'd had to stand up to Kestrel - the older SkyWing had been asking her to tell her where the other dragonets were so that she could kill them, for goodness sake! What else could she have done? Why was Qibli attacking her for it?
"She'll know that we were suspicious now. She'll be watching us and make it even harder to escape than it already is. She might have guessed from the missing dragons, but you just gave it away completely."
"How?" Carnelian snapped.
"You always get along with her!" Moon pointed out. "You argue with the other guardians, but not Kestrel. Never with Kestrel. Why would you stop unless you knew that she was going to kill your friends?"
"Well, I think Carnelian was right to stand up to her," said Winter. "It's not okay to just start killing us because some poncy NightWing tells them to. We shouldn't just let them do that to us, and we shouldn't let them think that they can either."
"Thank you Winter," Carnelian said. "I'm glad someone understands."
"I understand why you wanted to do it," Qibli protested, "But you shouldn't have actually done it. It was too dangerous."
They lapsed back into silence. Moon returned to her scroll-gathering activities, and this time Qibli got up to help her.
As the night dragged on, Carnelian began to feel very sleepy. A couple of times she nearly dozed off, but always jolted awake again. They could hear the guardians searching the caves for the missing dragonets. Carnelian felt a little worried that they were going to find Kinkajou, but she knew there was nothing she could do about it. She would just have to trust that Kinkajou had found a good hiding place.
At one point, they heard the boulder being rolled back, and one of the guardians left. Carnelian thought it was probably Kestrel, but she wasn't sure.
Eventually, after the other guardians had given up the search and gone to sleep, Qibli got up and stretched. "It's probably time we started making this fire," he said. Carnelian nodded, and the four of them trooped into the study cave. Despite Moon having filled seven pouches of scrolls, there were still scores of them left. Qibli had been right: the little slice of sky they could see was beginning to pale, and it would be light in less than an hour.
"Have you got all the scrolls you need?" Carnelian asked Moon in a quiet voice.
"All the most important ones," the NightWing said.
"If she had all the ones she needed, there wouldn't be any left for the fire," Qibli joked.
"You do already know everything in them already," Carnelian said.
"I might forget," Moon said.
"You never forget anything." Moon kept the scrolls anyway.
They gathered a small pile of scrolls in the centre of the room, directly underneath the skyhole. Carnelian breathed a small orange flame onto them, and they caught light easily. The smoke spiralled up and floated gently out of the skyhole. The fire seemed to crackle horribly loudly, and Carnelian was half-afraid that the guardians would hear it and put it out before it was light enough for Turtle and Umber to see the smoke.
They sat quietly around the fire for a while more, tossing more scrolls on whenever it seemed to be in danger of burning out.
"I'll go and wait for them by the boulder," Moon whispered. She took four of the pouches and left the cave.
"We should probably put our pouches on," said Winter reluctantly. The three of them each took one of the remaining pouches and slung them round their necks.
A surprisingly short time later, Moon came racing back. "They're here!" she exclaimed. "Come on!"
Carnelian and Qibli hurried after her, Winter hanging back to put out the fire with his frostbreath.
They reached the entrance cave to find Turtle and Umber, both looking happy but alert. They were already wearing Moon's pouches, and they looked dry – they'd probably come out of the river a while ago and flown around until they saw the smoke.
Kinkajou materialised out of thin air a second later. Moon handed the last scroll-pouch to her.
"Scrolls and some food," she said, seeing her mystified looks.
"Do we really need scrolls?" Umber asked doubtfully. Apparently Moon hadn't told him what was in the pouch he was wearing.
"I only brought the ones that are important, the ones that tell us what's safe to eat and so on," Moon said. Umber shrugged.
"I told her she already knew it all," Carnelian said, "But she's still insisting on bringing them."
"But I don't know it all!" protested Moon. "Besides, what if I forgot something?"
"Then Turtle or Qibli will remember. We're a team," Carnelian said firmly.
"We don't have the time to sort out the scrolls from the food," Turtle said. "We need to leave now, or Kestrel might come back."
"Oh," said a sinister voice behind them. "Do you?"
Carnelian and her friends wheeled round. A SkyWing with orange scales and glittering, malicious yellow eyes was standing casually in the entrance they had just left open. She was not as big as Kestrel or Dune, but larger than all the other guardians. Behind her, Carnelian could see dozens of red and orange dragons in the tunnel.
"How thrilling," she continued, as she strode into the cave, "I've been looking for Kestrel for years. To think she was hiding almost right below my palace."
"Who are you?" Winter said angrily.
"You don't know?" the SkyWing hissed. "How upsetting, you've making me feel very hurt, IceWing. I clearly need to get out more. Well, that or you aren't a very good spy." Carnelian noticed that she was wearing a lot of treasure, including several necklaces, golden chain-mail and rubies embedded in the scales above her eyes. Carnelian had a horrible feeling she knew where this was going. Treasure meant wealth, which meant importance…
"I am Queen Scarlet of the SkyWings!" announced the dragon. "But you may call me Your Majesty." This was bad. They'd learnt about Scarlet. She was a vicious queen, and one of the dragons who'd most like to get her talons on the dragonets of destiny, preferably around their necks. She'd had her throne for almost thirty years, despite fourteen very foolhardy, very dead challengers.
"Now who are you?" she whispered, almost to herself. "One SeaWing, one MudWing, one NightWing, one IceWing, one SandWing, one SkyWing… and that thing over there must be a RainWing. How absolutely thrilling.
"Tell me, NightWing. What am I thinking?"
Moon had frozen, but she managed to say, "You think we're the dragonets of destiny," in a very quiet voice.
"Correct!" shouted Queen Scarlet. "And you're not even ten years old yet, are you, NightWing? How thrilling, they don't usually let their dragonets out into the world. And a RainWing, too. I don't believe I've ever seen one of those before."
As she examined Kinkajou's wing, bending it at a slightly odd angle, the guardians burst in. They must have heard Scarlet's voice.
"Get your claws off her!" shrieked Asha, as Dune pounced towards Scarlet. The SkyWing dodged easily, and signalled for her troops to come in.
"Get in the river!" Turtle screamed. "Webs, Asha, Sienna, get in the river, you can get out that way!" Carnelian could see him longing to dive in himself, but clearly restraining himself because he'd never manage it. Scarlet wanted the dragonets more than their guardians.
"Silence!" snarled Queen Scarlet. But it was too late. Webs, Asha and Sienna had already dived into the river, where the SkyWings couldn't follow them. The SkyWings subdued the other guardians as Scarlet approached Turtle. "You just lost me three prisoners, SeaWing." Carnelian looked at them nervously. What's she going to do to him? "I don't like it when dragons cheat me out of what should be mine." But they're dragons, not objects! You can't own them! But unusually for her, she didn't quite dare to say it out loud.
"Search the caves!" Scarlet barked suddenly to some of the soldiers who weren't holding down the guardians. They hurried off, but it wasn't long before they were back with Jacana, Plover and Caribou.
"So," Scarlet said. "Hybrids. Half MudWing, half… IceWing? Why would you be here? Of course, the dragonets of the peace mongers. Well… if that's all, we may as well take them back to the palace. Except for this one," she pointed to Dune. "What use is a dragon who can't fly? I'm surprised you haven't ended your life already, SandWing. But I can take care of that for you."
"No!" Qibli cried suddenly, but it was too late. Scarlet twisted Dune's head in an unnatural direction and there was a sickening snap.
"Now," Scarlet continued as if nothing had happened. "Guards, chain these dragons, apart from the SandWing of course, we're taking them to the palace. Except you three, you stay here and wait for Kestrel."
Carnelian curled her lip. They were prisoners again.