Chapter Eight

The Clan

Right after the signal, the sound of chaos rumbles from the village. The dragons have leapt out of their hiding places and are terrorizing the town. The sky turns orange and yellow as they set the houses on fire.

I watch the madness from the edges with my new deputy, Skurge. Outcasts scream and run around. Only when I see a few of them running away from the village and towards us is when I take action.

Pouncing in front of two, I quickly kill them with a few flicks of my claws. Signaling Skurge to take care of the rest, I go after three that made it into the forest. Running in front of them, I threateningly raise a paw and growl, "Where do you think you're going?"

The look at me with wide eyes and I fling one into a tree. The other two scream in terror and I laugh. Growling and chuffing, I tease, poke, and nip them before finishing them off.

Then, I take off towards the village. One of the houses on the edge of community is on fire and I dodge the flames. Looking down, I see Crag clawing at an Outcast, who is fighting back. Diving behind the foe, I quickly snap his neck and say, "Go help Skurge. Some of the Outcasts are escaping into the forest."

He nods and flies away. Prowling through the ashes and flames, I look around for my friends, occasionally helping dragons fighting Outcasts. Glancing up at the smoke-filled sky, I see Sawyer fly by, spitting fire. He glances down and, seeing me, lands in front of me.

"Hey, Phoenix." For some reason, I flinch when he says my birthname. Sawyer notices and tilts his head in confusion. "Don't call me that." I growl, "That's not my name anymore. It's Frostbite."

He cocks his head and asks, "Why?"

Ignoring his question, I announce, "Alvin is dead." All the dragons close to me hear and let out a triumphant roar. It is soon heard and joined by everyone else. As it does, I feel my veins run cold again. Which is why I named myself Frostbite. After the chill in my blood as I killed Alvin.

"Anyways," Sawyer says once the noise dies down a bit, "The entire east side of the village is on fire and all the villagers are dead there. From above, I've seen a few dead dragons and also some of the Outcasts here and there, but most of them are fleeing into the forest. Many of the dragons are now on the edges of the village, making sure that none escape alive."

"Good," I say, "Now lets-"

The sound of beating wings stops me and I look up. Through the smoke-filled sky comes Zylah, covered in ashes. Landing in front of me, she exclaims, "What is going on here?"

I tilt my head and purr, "What do you think?"

The Wild Dragon looks around at the dragons fighting the humans and says, "Oh, I see you're taking your reign now." Nodding, I look at her expectantly and she shifts a little, "So, you're going to become a wild clan now?"

I nod again and Sawyer asks, "Are you Zylah?"

She looks surprised that he knows her name and nods, "Are you one of her friends?"

"Yeah," he says, "Pho-er- Frostbite told us about you. We could really use your experience, you know? Why don't you come with us?"

I clear my throat and he ducks down a little, "I mean, if that's okay with you." Zylah looks at me and I nod, "I trust you enough. And you'd be useful." She grins and thanks me.

Suddenly, one of the houses near us collapses and we all jump. "Come on." I say, taking off into the dark sky. They follow me and as I fly around, edging towards the forest but making sure that no villagers are still alive. Narrowing my eyes, I see some rubble shift and feel something whiz past me. Checking back to see if the thing hurt Zylah or Sawyer, I shoot a plasma blast at the enemy. He dodges and the smoke clears enough to see that he's the Outcast battle commander.

He throws another strange, sharp thing and this time I have to dodge. Before I can shoot him, though, someone else joins the fight. It's Misty; she pounces on the Outcast, biting and clawing.

Once he stops moving, I call for her to join us. Then, I fly towards the edge of the forest.

It surprises me, the amount of dragons there are, fighting fleeing Outcasts. By the looks of it, though, we're winning.

Diving down, I knock down five of the escapees with my wings. The dragons that they were fighting give me a grateful glance before continuing their attack. Signaling for Sawyer, Zylah, and Misty to follow me, I bite, claw, and blast my way through the battlefield.

A familiar shriek stops me dead in my tracks. Looking around, I see Dracen, who was supposed to stay out of the fight, being attacked by two distraught Outcasts. One of the swords penetrates his soft scales and I growl with fury.

Bunching up my muscles, I leap over the bodies and flames, claws outstretched. Landing on top of one, I blast the other with plasma and dig my claws into my victim's throat. Still seething with rage, I turn to Dracen, my eyes slits, "Get back! You could get hurt!"

My first and still best friend nods feverishly and backs into the forest, making his scales blend in with the shadows. Turning around, I plunge back into the battle.

The fighting doesn't last long after that. A few minutes later, I watch Whiplash slay the last Outcast. There's a moment of silence, and then everybody turns to me.

I grin, "Good job, everyone. Now, once again, may the dragons joining me go there and the others, there." I jerk my head in opposite directions and the dragons shuffle around. Two dragons that I know aren't going to come walk up to me. One is a Typhoomerang and the other is a Thunder Drum.

I look at them and the Typhoomerang stutters, "Um- er- Phoenix?" His friend shoves him, "No, remember? Sawyer said its Frostbite now."

"Oh, Frostbite, I mean." I nod for the nervous dragon to continue, "Well, if you would let us, we'd like to join you. The battle showed us that you guys are more powerful that we had thought, and we- er- want to be like that too."

I gaze at them and say, "Alright. But don't expect to have high rankings immediately. What are your names?"

They look thoroughly relieved and quickly introduce themselves. The Typhoomerang is Falcon and the Thunder Drum, who is very pretty, if I might add, is Aquamarine. When they back away, I continue talking, "Now, let's discuss the ranks. Once you hear them," I say to the opposing group, "you are free to change your mind and join us."

"Of course, I am the leader. Skurge is my deputy and Zylah," she looks up hopefully, "will be my delta."

Murmurs follow this and someone calls out, "What is a delta?"

"It's the third-in-command." Zylah says, "Someone that the leader trusts to do things. It and the deputy usually give advice to the leader."

I nod and she beams, "Exactly. Then, below the leaderships, will be Dracen, the healer. He and nursery queens will be the same place in rankings. The nursery queens will lay and take care of their children until they are old enough to be trained. After that, they can either return to their original position or choose to stay in the nursery and take care of all the hatchlings, along with their mothers.

"There will hunters and fighters. Every dragon will learn how to hunt and fight, and help in both, but only hunters or fighters will be able to lead a hunting party or a patrol. Then, at the lowest ranking will be omegas, or gnaw dragons. These will contain dragons with a lame limb or some sort of disability, or dragons that have done something bad, therefore demoted and, from there, can slowly rise in ranking again."

I pause, waiting for questions. Ash lifts her tail and I nod. "What do the omegas do?" she asks.

"They…" I think about it for a moment, then continue, "gnaw out maps of the territory on bones and make battle armor. Unfortunately, they eat after everyone else. I have heard the Berk dragons have metal armor, which is very stupid if you ask me because metal can grow very hot and stays hot for a while, and, well, we're dragons. Our armor will be made out of bone. Though it may break more easily than metal, at least we won't have our scales seared off."

More murmurs follow this, but now they sound more positive. One of Dracen's cousins, Amber, steps forward and says, "I would like to join, please."

I purr, "Thank you. Anyone else?"

There's a bit of shuffling, and then we gain a Timberjack, who's a mother of two, named Fernheart, and an adult male Terrible Terror with a paw that splays out when he walks. "I know that I'll be in the lowest ranking." He says as he walks to join our group, "but hey, somebody's got to map out our land."

I dip my head, "Thank you, Sparrow, for your sacrifice."

Sparrow looks at me and says, "You're very modest. The markings of being a good leader."

I look back at the dragons that will not be joining us. "Well, then," I say, "You guys had best be off." They nod and slowly depart. Once they are all gone, I gaze to my new clan with pride.

"Thank you, everyone." I say. Fernheart raises her tail, "How will we carry the young ones? They're a bit young to be flying so far."

I nod, agreeing, and say, "We can trade off in carrying them. And every hatchling will have to be eight months old before they start learning how to fight."

The mother Timberjack nods, feeling better knowing her children will have time to grow up before training, unlike before when young dragons would learn at four months. Then, I lead my clan towards the mountain, where the baby dragons were hiding to stay out of the fight.

Unfortunately, the parents of four Changewing hatchlings had died in the battle, but Fernheart was more than happy to take them in. When all six youngsters have someone to ride on, we move into a clearing in the forest.

"While Dracen collects any herbs that he needs," I speak above everyone, "everybody who's not an omega, nursery queen, or one in the leadership sort yourselves in the rankings. The hunters will be called Claws and the fighters will be Fangs. Wait for me here while I go and get something."

Leaving Skurge and Zylah in charge, I fly towards the old fighting arena. Not the one where the dragons trained. The one where the Outcasts did. The one that holds a very special memory of mine.

Diving down into the abandoned arena, I stalk towards the thing that I was looking for. A skeleton. The skeleton of my first kill. The meat has rotted off of the Monstrous Nightmare's bones and sunken into the ground, leaving a bare carcass.

I promptly walk up to it. Glaring down at it's long, needle sharp teeth, I use my paw to knock the four incisors. Then, I carefully fit my right claws into the hollow space within.

Grinning, I turn to the rest of the corpse. Picking off the sharp bones of the tall, spinal scales, I fit them over the rest of my claws. Now, they're all extra long, extra sharp, and extra deadly.

Flexing them, I prowl back to my clan. The claws scrape and click on the stone floor, but become silent on the earth.

As I near the forest, I notice that the flames in the town are starting to die down because there's not much left to burn. At least we don't have to put it out, then.

In the clearing, I find everybody separated into groups. Skurge tells me that he made the Claws go in one group and the Fangs in another. I praise him, to which he beams, and then walk towards Dracen. He's talking to his cousin, Amber, who has decided to become a Fang.

"Excuse me," I interrupt and Amber politely backs away, "Dracen, have you collected what you need?"

He nods and jerks his head towards a full-looking Outcast satchel that he stole. "Yup," he says as we walk towards it, "and I have to say that I'm actually pretty excited for this."

I purr, happy for my best friend, "Good. Now let's get going."

Turning to my clan, I let out a yowl, "Come, everyone. Let's go find ourselves a place to call our own." They bark and rumble in agreement and we set off. With Skurge and Zylah on either side of me, I lead the dragons off of the island.

"Where to first?" Skurge asks and I turn to Zylah, "Are there any islands near here where we can stay before setting off again?"

She thinks about it for a moment, then says, "There is one… but I heard there are a few big dragons there, like Boneknappers."

Instead of being afraid, I grin, "Perfect. Let's go get some new recruits."

Like the way Phoe-er- Frostbite's gonna rule her clan?