Might and Magic

By Sammie Spitz

Chapter 7: Hidden Dragon

"Alright, all ashore who's going ashore! Watch your step!" Tristan shouted, as his passengers disembarked. Juno had Vela on his back again. This form of transportation was starting to get on her nerves. She was basiclly dependent upon Juno, something that she would prefer to avoid.

"Juno, just let me get around on my own for a little bit!" She pleaded.

"Vela, remember?" He replied. Vela then realized he was refering to her tail. Vela flicked it in frustration, then layed down against Juno and tried to get used to the ride.

The area they landed on was a rocky shore. The edge of the sandly beach was surrounded by a rocky cliff, which had a path cutting through, likely to aid travelers so they didn't have to try climbing over the cliff.

"Looks like theirs only one way to go from here." Babylon told them. One by one, they made their way up the path. At first, the path was reletivly safe, with walls on either side. However, this changed soon. As they were walking, they suddenly came to a part of the path where there was only a wall on one side. Rainer stopped everyone. He then carefully peered over the side of the path and discovered a good drop, over ten miles, for anyone unlucky enough to fall off the path. Luckily, the path also widened quite a bit.

Babylon just snorted a bit and said, "Watch your footing."

As they walked along the path, Vela happened to notice Rickeena, walking beside her. She gentley tapped her on the shoulder with her tail and got her attention. She asked, "So, did you get any other clues?"

"Yes, but it's a small one." She replied, "The only clue I could get came to me last night while I was sleeping. It was a stone dragon."

Vela gulped a little bit. She remembered the fact that, just to their side, was a fatal fall. She commented, "I think this is the last place we want to meet one of those."

"Don't worry. I don't beleive it's really possible for a dragon to fly with stone wings or a stone body."

"Yeah, you'd imagine it would get a little heavy." Vela was trying to reassure herself. Lately, she'd seen a lot of things she thought never existed. Centaurs, talking dogs, winged dogs, mermaids, unicorns, sirens, shadow animals. Those were just a few animals she saw here, even turned into one, that she thought only lived in fairy tales and old bedtime stories her folks told her when she was a kid. Now, she was basiclly living in one of those stories.

Lupus trotted besdie Juno so he could be closer to Vela. Still nervous about the idea of running into a 'stone dragon', she patted him on the head. As they made their way down the path, the other wall also was gone, leaving them an unprotected, windy but wide path. Juno was fighting the wind off while trying to keep a tight grip of Vela's arm. Rainer looked ahead and noticed the walls reappearing on the path ahead.

Rainer turned around and screamed as loud as he could, to be heard above the wind, "IF WE CAN GET TO THOSE WALLS, WE'RE HOME FREE!"

Rainer made a mad dash for the walls. It was a long, hard run, with the wind making it even worse, but he got across. Babylon made a sprint, carrying Rickeena since he thought she would be too light weight to stand up to the gail force winds. He needed to fold his wings to his sides as he rushed to the other side.

"Hang on, Sis!" Juno shouted. He backed up a few steps, then sprinted as fast as he could across the path. Despite the wind, he covered good ground with his horse legs. Between her brother's race horse speed and the gale force wind, Vela was fighting to hang on. Lupus rushed behind them. Like Babylon, he needed to fold his wings up to keep from getting blown off. Just as Juno got to the walls, the wind suddenly shifted. Now blowing into the small canyon made by the reappearing walls, Lupus shot his wings up in surprise. As a result, they caught the wind and blew him into the group, knocking over Juno and spilling Vela onto the ground.

"What the?" Vela muttered. Juno's hooves clopped against the stone path as he staggered to his feet. Vela sat herself up as Lupus came to her and licked her face.

"That's some weather, eh boy?" She said, scratching him behind the ear." Juno picked her up and slipped her onto his back.

"Now, do you really think you would have stood a chance if I wasn't there?" Juno asked.

Vela groaned, realising he was bringing up her comment about wanting a little more indepenence and said, "Forget about that, alright?"

"Alright, let's get back on track." Rainer told them, "Alright, what were we looking for again, Rickeena? Um, Rickeena?" Rickeena was nowhere to be found.

"Uh-oh." Rainer stuttered, "This isn't good." Everyone assumed the worst. That she'd been captured or had wandered to far and was now lost in a bad situation. Suddenly, they heard a scream. Rainer perked his ears and managed to pin point where it came from. He ran in the direction of the scream, the others close behind.

They found Rickeena, standing in a clear area about ten feet away from where she'd first disappeared. She was standing stiff in fear, pointing her fighting staff at something. As they approached, they noticed her calm down and replace the fighting staff into the strap on her back and look at what she was about the fight.

"Rickeena!" Babylon shouted. She looked at him, then suhered them to come over to where she was standing. They did as she told them and Babylon asked, "Alright, what did you want to show us?"

She took her staff out again and pointed it up at a structure to the right. It was a cave. The opening resembled the head of a giant stone dragon with it's mouth gaping open. In it's eyes were two firey red stones.

She smirked to them and said, "The stone dragon."

As they were about to go in, they suddenly heard strange noises coming from the cave. Juno took out the spear he'd saved from the Forest of Mirage as Vela took out the sword from earlier.

"Well, sounds like someone in there might be expecting company."

To Be Continued...