Chapter 10

Reunited

Ember soon found Spyro sleeping on the couch again. She rolled her eyes at him and sat down on the other couch in thought. She thought of what her friend Lateef, was doing without her at school. She hoped he wasn't worried about her for she never told him that she was leaving.

Soon, Ember found herself dozing off from boredom.

Meanwhile

Lateef and Magnus made their way into the woods where Ember and Spyro was attacked. The walk seemed quiet and boring. There was no wildlife, no chirping of birds, nothing. Lateef didn't notice it at first, until he looked up into the tree limbs above.

"Uh, Magnus."

"What is it?" Magnus asked.

Lateef only pointed upwards making Magnus look. When he did, he saw webs clung in the treelimbs. That wasn't all, it looked as if the webs was holding together a lot of sticks and limbs together which formed into a sphere. At the side of this scructure was a hole big enough for Magnus to fit into.

"Is that?" Magnus began in a low voice but never finished..

"We should get out of here," Lateef suggested. "I've got a bad feeling about this place."

Magnus nodded in agreement. Lateef and Magnus quickly traveled, trying to be as quiet as they could along the way. Lateef had a good idea of what was in this forest and why is was so dead of wildlife. Truth was, Lateef was frightened but was good at hiding it.

A few minutes later, Lateef heard a noise behind him. It sounded like footsteps, many footsteps. This made Lateef and Magnus travel even faster, almost into a run. Neither of them wanted to look back.

Another few minutes passed. It seemed, for the time being, the sound of footsteps in the woods behind them stopped. But it was for a brief moment. The footsteps began again, this time it seemed like there was more.

The two dragons dared not to look back. They read each others minds and made a break for it. Lateef heard a hiss behind him. When he looked back, he nearly yelped. Four spiders, nearly the size of Lateef, were behind them.

The spiders waited for their prey to get a good ways away before they began their hunt, almost as if they enjoyed this type of sport.

Lateef took another peek. The spiders were spread out, one on his left side, one on his right side, and the other two in the middle.

"Magnus," Lateef panted in a strange, calm sounding manner.

"What!" Magnus seemed panicky and frightened. Now wasn't the time for your casual talk but Magnus went with it.

"I'm sorry. We shouldn't have come this far out into the woods."

"Yeah, whatever Lateef! Focus on running!"

Lateef looked over at Magnus with only an uncanny grin. Magnus was too busy running to take notice of it. Running from death itself.

The leaves crackled under the two dragons as they gracefully ran in unison beside each other. The spiders behind them sounded as if they were closer than before, but neither dragon dared to look at how close that actually was.

Then Lateef saw an opening in the woods ahead. He took a glance at Magnus and knew he was looking at the same thing.

With a new burst of energy, the two dragons sprinted toward the end. Lateef heard the noise of hissing behind him slowly fade as ran, thinking he was about to escape. Only twenty yards remained. Magnus noticed something odd up ahead. The trees were rattling. He was about to inform Lateef, but was cut off as something big fell from the same trees that were rattling. Lateef and Magnus slid to a stop and looked at the object, only it wasn't an object.

A spider, over twice as big as the ones that were chasing them, stood in front of them. It's eight red eyes staring straight at the frightened dragons.

"Lateef, that thing is looking at us!" Magnus warned as he took a few steps back in the process. Lateef held his ground, claws dug into the ground.

"Yeah," Lateef stage-whispered. "Let's get some."

The spider growled and hissed, its fangs seemed to vibrate in the process.

Magnus turned his head, seeing that the other three spiders caught up to them. Magnus frowned, seeing nowhere to go. He looked up in frustration, considering about flying out. But there was just too many tree branches blocking their way, as if something wanted to keep them there.

"Lateef, we can't fight all of them," Magnus calmly said, looking back down at the light blue scaled dragon.

But a spider behind him didn't give them any more time to talk. A spider jumped toward Magnus, legs spread out like a net. Magnus looked behind himself and tried to dive out of harms way, but the spider was just too quick for him. The spider fell on top of Magnus, making him collapse to the ground. The spider hissed in Magnus's face, ready for a meal. Magnus managed to squirm his paw from the maze of the spider's legs to freedom and raked the spider's eyes with his claws. The spider squealed in pain as it stumbled backwards, freeing Magnus. He quickly rose to his feet and looked over at Lateef to see he was in his own battle against another little spider. Magnus looked back at the spider he injured, and pounced with a roar.

Magnus managed to evade with a dive to the side this time, making the spider completely miss his target. The spider, was in fact, so far off from Magnus that Magnus didn't even have to try to evade. He guessed the spider's injury to the eyes must have been affecting it.

Lateef on the other hand had his paws full. The spider he was battling shot a silky web at him. Lateef managed to burn the webs with his flame breath before the web got to him. Immediately after the flame dispersed, the spider was in the air after Lateef. Lateef blew another short flame in front of him for protection and was rewarded with the squealing of a spider. The spider was on fire for a short moment before collapsing to the ground, decorated with its own black, burned skin.

"Lateef!"

Lateef snapped his view to Magnus to see him trapped in a thick web on the ground. He struggled to no use as his attacker approached, the spider that was bigger than the other three.

The spider trampled over to Magnus with a squealing roar as Magnus attempted to cut himself loose with his claws. But he wasn't fast enough.

The spider was looked over Magnus and spat out a clear liquid from its mouth. The liquid fell on top of Magnus like a massive raindrop. It felt like it was sticky, but it also burned something fierce.

Magnus yelled in pain as the liquid burned him. He was nearly covered in it. He managed to look over to see Lateef, growling and snarling at the spider, then everything went dark.

The spider looked over beside itself to see the light blue scaled dragon facing him. The spider growled itself and lunged one of its front legs at Lateef. Lateef just barely evaded the sudden attack and countered with a flame from his mouth. The flames covered the spiders face, burning it. The spider squealed but was still alive, but Lateef didn't stop. The flames continued. Each passing second, the spider became weaker and weaker, until finally, nearly ten seconds later, the spider collapsed.

Lateef stopped his flames and deeply inhaled while watching the spider squirm on the ground. Then finally, it stopped moving completely.

When Lateef caught his breath, he ran over to Magnus, still trapped in the web.

"Magnus! I'm here buddy!"

Lateef saw that Magnus wasn't moving as he cut him loose of the sticky web. He considered burning it, but he could have burned Magnus in the process.

Lateef looked upon Magnus first inspected the liquid on Magnus.

"Crap Magnus, now isn't the time to get yourself poisoned!"

Lateef looked through the forest up ahead to see the opening. He looked back down at the unconscious Magnus, and left. What Lateef failed to notice, was that there were four spiders, and he and Magnus only managed to kill two.

Meanwhile

Spyro yawned, too lazy to get up. He found himself staring at the fireplace in front of him, not knowing what he could do in the village. He thought about taking a walk, but he didn't want to leave the napping Ember all by herself, in a place she didn't really know that well.

A few minutes later, he decided to force himself up and he quietly made his way to the kitchen. He looked on the shelf to his right as he entered, and found half of a loaf of bread sitting on it. Spyro smiled, nabbed it, turned around and made his way back to his couch where he sat down in happiness.

He took a bite of the bread. It was a tiny bit stale, but he didn't mind at the moment. Each bite he took, the more the crumbs fell onto the the couch. Spyro either didn't notice, or didn't seem to care.

Making short work of the bread, Spyro made his way to the window beside the front door and peered through it. Cheetahs walked the dirt road in front of him, leaving behind a small dust cloud behind them. This told Spyro that the village hadn't had much rain recently.

Spyro lazily turned around and walked back over to the couch. He looked at Ember, sound asleep, and found himself staring in thought. He remembered when he and Ember were in school together. It was uneasy at first, but he soon found himself enjoying it. He remembered how he and Ember used to play together, laugh together, and talked with each other.

Spyro's thoughts were obliterated though, as the front door swung open. Spyro looked and spotted Hunter.

"There sure are a lot of visits to the village today," Hunter remarked.

Spyro noticed the conversation awoke Ember. She stirred as Spyro replied, "What do you mean by that? Don't tell me there is someone else here?"

Hunter nodded emotionlessly, "I think you and Ember would want to see for yourselves, this one is a dragon."

"Dragon?" Ember interrupted. The word, dragon, woke her up fast. "What does he look like?"

Hunter answered a second later, "Your size, light blue scales, and was looking exhausted."

"That's Lateef!" Ember indicated, quickly getting up to her feet. She seemed surprised that he was here.

"You know him no doubt then. Then both of you should come with me. He was at the front gates asking for help." Hunter turned around and led to two dragons outside, leaving his door open.

"Wonder what Lateef is doing here," Ember asked herself in a low tone.

"Who is Lateef?" Spyro asked, but it seemed as if Ember didn't hear the question for she never replied.

The group began their silence as they headed toward the front gate, which didn't take them but a few seconds short of a minute. A group of cheetahs were grouped at the front gate, looking at the visitor as if they never had one before. This actually annoyed Ember a little bit. Hunter led the two dragons through the small crowd of cheetahs, until Ember saw Lateef, a few feet away from her with another cheetah beside him. Lateef was sitting down on the grass and had to double-take when he saw Ember.

"Ember? I found you!" Lateef happily exclaimed. But his smile was quickly replaced by a frown. "Quick! You have to help me save Magnus!"

"Magnus?" Ember repeated, making her way closer to him. Spyro stayed behind to watch the scene with the other cheetahs. "What happened to Magnus?"

"We were attacked by these," Lateef made the motion in front of him. "Giant spiders."

"Don't tell me you went through the woods over there?" Ember pointed.

Lateef poorly nodded, "Unfortunately."

Ember shook her head then looked behind her, "Spyro, can you help us?"

"Spyro?" Lateef quietly said to himself.

Spyro showed himself to Lateef to see Lateef looking at him in an odd way. Spyro shook the thoughts away and said, "Can you lead us to your friend?"

"Yeah yeah," Lateef frantically responded. Lateef began his quick run toward the woods beside the river. "Come on!"

Ember and Spyro quickly followed.