Darkness of Dragons

  And then one of the NightWings screamed at a higher register than everyone else and a wall of heat swamped over Qibli. He staggered back, covering his eyes, as the screaming black dragon turned into a mass of flames from wings to tail.

  “Who’s next?” Peril shouted, storming through the fire with her wings spread wide and her tail lashing. “Who else hurt Clay?”

  The remaining NightWings fell back, hissing, to one side of the ledge. IceWings were diving down from every direction now, some of them holding long icicle spears, but they wheeled about in the air at the sight of the burning dragon.

  “I’m all right, Peril,” Clay said, trying to stand before he collapsed forward over a deep bite wound in one of his forelegs.

  Peril darted to his side and glared around at the watching dragons. “You all stop fighting and talk this out like Sunny says, or I will SET EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU ON FIRE, STARTING WITH YOUR EYEBALLS.” She threw Clay’s wing over her back and lifted him; Sunny ran forward to support his other side as the three of them hobbled toward the school. Starflight leaned toward them as they passed, and Sunny said something to him that made him nod and sit down again.

  Qibli looked up at the warring tribes, all of them briefly unified in their fear of Peril. Would it work? Could she terrify them into bargaining for peace?

  But then, rolling in from the west, he saw a cloud that was not a cloud — it was a roaring tide of black scales and flashing claws. It was the NightWing army, with Darkstalker at their head, and they were not here for peace.

  The IceWings saw them, too, and rose up from the mountain peaks like a snowstorm whirling backward, up into the sky. On the ledge, Snowfall growled something at Winter and shouted, “Fly! Fly!” at Hailstorm as she leaped into the air. She soared up into the midst of her army as the NightWings and the IceWings crashed into each other in a chorus of roars and screams and furious wingbeats.

  Hailstorm paused for a moment over the body of his father. Narwhal lay in a pool of blue IceWing blood, which spread and dripped into crevices and across the rocks, mingling with dark red NightWing blood in ghastly violet puddles. Winter joined his brother, and in silence they rested their front talons on their father’s head and closed his staring blue eyes.

  “Would you fight alongside us?” Hailstorm said to Winter. “Even after … what we did to you?”

  “You’re my tribe,” Winter said to him. “You’re my family.”

  “But, Winter —” Moon tried, reaching for him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to her, and then the two IceWings were aloft, racing toward the battle.

  Qibli looked around, feeling as though he’d been run over by a herd of dragon-sized camels. One NightWing corpse lay next to Narwhal’s; the other dead NightWing was a charred heap of ashes. Overhead, the IceWings outnumbered the NightWings five to one — but he could see some NightWings fighting with the strength of ten IceWings, smashing dragons into cliffsides with their tails and ripping others apart with brute force. He saw IceWings forming lines to create a wall of deadly frostbreath — and he saw some NightWings fly right through it, their scales invulnerable to harm, laughing as they sank their claws into the ice dragons.

  “What do we do?” Kinkajou asked, landing just outside the puddles of blood. Her scales had turned dark green — on the RainWing spectrum for fear, Qibli thought from his observations — but shot through with deep purple (determination? he hadn’t seen enough of that color on them to be sure). “How do we stop them?”

  Turtle limped up beside her, his wings dragging tiredly behind him.

  “I don’t know,” Moon said helplessly. She stared up at the fighting, dying dragons. “They wouldn’t listen to me when it was only a few of them — I’ll never get through to the whole army.”

  “What about just Darkstalker?” Qibli suggested. “You’re the only dragon he ever will listen to. Could you talk to him?”

  Her eyes shifted to the epicenter of the battle, where the enormous figure of Darkstalker was lashing out ferociously. Spears bounced off his side; frostbreath slid away with no effect; claws and teeth and the sharpest of spiked tails left no mark. He couldn’t use his magic against them, with every IceWing in the tribe wearing Qibli’s earrings, but he could still kill them face-to-face easily. He was untouchable, invincible, and every IceWing he caught in his talons dropped away from him, dead.

  “I can try,” said Moon. She braced herself to fly.

  “No, don’t, please don’t,” Qibli said, catching her and wrapping a wing around her. “If you go up there, you’ll be just another NightWing, and I’m afraid you won’t make it to Darkstalker before an IceWing kills you.”

  Maybe even Winter, if he’s fighting too hard to see what he’s doing — and that would kill him, and me, along with you.

  “Don’t I have to try?” Moon asked. “My head — the vision.” She squeezed her eyes shut and folded into herself. “We have to get the students out — and Sunny, and Clay, and everyone else — before Jade Mountain falls.”

  Qibli glanced over his shoulder and saw Starflight still sitting determinedly at the cave entrance, trembling but there. Beside him was Fatespeaker, looking equally determined, as though they would both fight anyone before they let them near their students, even dragons from their own tribe.

  “It’s not going to fall. I’ll come up with another plan,” he said. His eyes searched the mountain for ideas. The peaks were glimmering oddly in the sunset and he realized they were covered with frost and ice, collateral damage from the IceWings swooping around them. As he stared at them, a NightWing was flung into the cliff wall of one of the peaks with such force that a crack shivered out in the rock from where she struck.

  If I had magic, what would I do? If I had Darkstalker’s scroll or Anemone’s power, I could stop this, I know I could. What would be the right spell? A few possibilities flashed through his head, and he whirled toward Turtle.

  “Uh-oh,” said Turtle, seeing Qibli’s face. “I mean, um, yes, whatever it is. Ready. To do it. That’s me.”

  “Where’s Anemone?” Qibli asked.

  “Here,” she said, emerging from the cave with her tail dragging. “I’m sorry I ran away. That was a lot of fighting at once.” She hunched her wings with embarrassment.

  “It’s all right,” Turtle said kindly. “Mother would want you to be safe, and jumping into an IceWing-NightWing war is the opposite of safe.”

  “No one will be safe until Darkstalker is dead,” she answered, tipping her head up with a dangerous gleam in her eye.

  “Your spells won’t work on him,” Qibli said to both of them, “but maybe we can do something else with your magic.”

  Turtle twitched nervously. “Like what?” he asked. “I mean, I’m in. But what do we do?”

  “Something to stop the fighting,” Moon said.

  “But won’t Darkstalker notice if Turtle does magic?” Kinkajou asked, reaching out to brush wings with him. “And what about Turtle’s soul? A spell big enough to stop a war — that can’t be good for him.”

  “That’s up to you, Turtle,” Qibli said. “The earring will keep you safe from Darkstalker’s spells, but he’s dangerous in other ways, too. And we all care about keeping your soul safe, so if you’re worried about it at all, you don’t have to do any of this.”

  “I want to do something,” Turtle said firmly, setting his jaw. “Just tell me what.”

  “Well — what if we put an invisible wall between the IceWings and the NightWings?” Qibli suggested. “Something that won’t let any attacks through.”

  “There’s nowhere to put one at this point,” Moon said, pointing to the melee in the sky. “They’re all over the place.”

  Anemone flicked her tail. “Anything we do, Darkstalker will find a way around it.”

  “How about a message?” Qibli climbed onto one of the rocks, trying to scrape the blood off his talons. “A telepathic message to all the NightWings that seems to come from Darkstalker, telling them to retreat? They’
d believe he could do that, wouldn’t they?”

  “Let’s try it,” said Turtle. “I’ll do it.”

  “No, I’ll do the message,” Anemone said. “I can sound way more like Darkstalker than you can. You just stand next to me so he thinks it’s coming from you when he feels the magic happening.”

  “Right, you’re right,” he said, nodding. He fidgeted in an awkward circle, searching the ground, and finally picked up a scrap of moss that had been clawed off one of the closest rocks during the fight. “Here, you can use this,” he suggested.

  Anemone wrinkled her nose at it. “A pile of dirt?” she said. “Doesn’t anyone have any jewelry or something I could enchant instead?”

  “It only needs to last long enough to work once,” Qibli said. “Nothing fancy.”

  “Fine.” Anemone clasped it between her talons, shuddering theatrically at how damp it was, and closed her eyes. Turtle sat down beside her with an anxious expression.

  Moon climbed up beside Qibli and twined her tail around his. He could feel her heartbeat through her scales as they leaned into each other, watching the battle overhead.

  “Please let this work,” Moon prayed softly. “Please stop fighting.”

  Qibli saw Fearless, one of the dragonets from school, darting through the battle, slamming dragons aside with her tail. He remembered she was the first dragon to be gifted with superstrength by Darkstalker, and he saw with dismay that she was using it to cut a swathe through the IceWings. She threw a pale blue dragon into Jade Mountain with a crack that echoed off the peaks and sent a small avalanche tumbling down into a crevasse.

  Then Fearless turned and lunged at a silver dragon who looked as young as she was, a skillful fighter with blue scales freckling her snout — but Winter shot across her path before Fearless reached her, spraying frostbreath on Fearless’s wing. The NightWing let out an agonized roar and crash-landed on the nearest stretch of mountain, where she dragged herself into the shelter of a small cave.

  Elsewhere in the sky, Hailstorm was struggling with two NightWings who were dive-bombing him, flames blazing from their mouths. Qibli glanced uneasily back at Anemone. She looked as though she was concentrating as hard as she could.

  Moon grabbed one of his talons, inhaling sharply, and he looked up again. Winter had flown up beside Hailstorm and they were trying to drive off the NightWings together, fighting back to back.

  Suddenly the NightWings darted away, shaking their heads slightly with confused expressions. They looked at one another, then over at Darkstalker — whose head snapped up. Darkstalker threw four IceWings aside and slammed his tail into the cliffside of another mountain. A rain of boulders fell around him and he deftly caught the largest one.

  Without even a pause, he whirled in the same motion and flung the enormous rock with all his strength — straight at Turtle and Anemone.

  “No!” Qibli shouted, leaping to his feet.

  He was too slow. He felt the wind of its passage as it shot past him like a plummeting comet and he heard the impact as it smashed into the SeaWings.

  Moon screamed.

  One of the NightWings was whispering in Darkstalker’s ear now. Darkstalker lifted his snout and yelled, “It’s a trick, NightWings! Hold the line! Don’t be fooled!”

  The NightWings surged forward again with vicious new energy. But Qibli barely noticed; he crouched beside the boulder with Moon, trying frantically to dig under it or push it aside or anything useful.

  Did I just get them both killed? he thought in a rising panic.

  Finally he and Moon got their talons underneath the rock and heaved up together. It clunked aside with an ear-rattling scrape, and Qibli saw Turtle lying underneath, his wings spread to cover Anemone.

  “Turtle?” he cried. “Are you dead?”

  “No,” Turtle said in a raspy full-of-rock-dust voice. “I’m all right. Anemone?”

  “I’m fine!” she called from under him. “Except that I have a great galumphing brother on top of me! Get off already, kelp-breath.”

  “But how?” Moon asked. “That rock was heavy enough to kill you. I really thought —” She took a breath, fighting back tears.

  “I kind of accidentally made my scales invulnerable a couple of days ago,” Turtle said, stretching out his wings and standing up. “When somebody else tried to drop a rock on me.” He winced; apparently something could still hurt.

  “Well, you’re welcome,” Anemone said to him. “Anyway, so much for that plan,” she said to Qibli. “If we do any other spells, they better work, because he’ll notice us and kill us super quick and probably more effectively this time.”

  Qibli’s head was pounding. What else could they do? Was there anything that wouldn’t put Anemone and Turtle in danger? They needed new magic, magic that could compete with Darkstalker’s.

  The setting sun flashed into his eyes, reflecting off the copper around his wrists.

  The weather bracelets.

  The only magic he had.

  It had been a disaster last time, at the SandWing palace — but what other choice was there? If he could call a big enough storm, surely that would stop the battle. A well-placed lightning bolt might even knock out Darkstalker, if they were lucky.

  He took a deep breath and raised his talons toward the sky.

  A savage gust of wind whipped down from the north, scattering dragons right and left.

  “What are you doing?” Moon whispered.

  “Calling a storm,” Qibli answered. “A big one.” The air felt as if it was crackling around his claws. He felt stronger this time, more sure. He could sense heavy clouds in the distance, to the north. He just had to reach for them and pull them over Jade Mountain. They would come looming down, a third army crashing the war.

  Then the rain would fall and the lightning would flash and thunder would roll over the battle and the dragons would all …

  The dragons would …

  His gaze fixed on the sky, he felt more than saw Moon crumpling beside him, her talons clutching her head as she cried out with pain. A flash of white and orange in his peripheral vision was Kinkajou darting forward to catch her friend, shouting “Moon! Moon, are you all right?”

  Thunder.

  Jade Mountain will fall beneath thunder and ice.

  No oh no oh no …

  It’s ME.

  He jerked his talons back in toward his chest, dread surging through him.

  I’m the one who brings the thunder. If I do this, I make Jade Mountain fall.

  The sky was already darkening, early evening stars blotted out by the incoming clouds. Qibli stumbled backward off the rock. Go back! he thought desperately at the storm. Go away! I don’t want you! I didn’t mean it!

  He clawed at the bracelets, stabbing the tiny clasp over and over again until one snapped open and clanked to the ground, and then the other.

  “Tell the storm to go away,” he cried, shoving the bracelets at Anemone. “Make it leave! Quick!”

  “Why?” she asked. “I think a storm is a good idea.” She caught the bracelets, blinking at the panic on his face.

  “No!” he shouted over the rising wind. “The storm is the thunder in the prophecy! That’s what brings down the mountain!” He pointed to the trembling peaks overhead, the ice, the cracks, the avalanches ready to fall on the turn of a dagger. “Can you stop it?”

  The SeaWing princess nodded, finally understanding. She slid the bracelets onto her own wrists and curled her claws in, murmuring to herself.

  Qibli ran over to Starflight and Fatespeaker. “We have to get the students out!” he called. “I’m worried about the mountain!”

  “Isn’t it safer inside than trying to fly through a war?” Fatespeaker shouted. Her claws dug into the ground as the wind tried to batter her off the ledge.

  “Not right now,” Qibli said, shielding them with his wings so they could hear each other. “Is there another way out, on the other side of the mountain?”

  “Through Stonemover’s cave,” St
arflight suggested.

  “Flame is still in there,” Fatespeaker reminded him. “Trapped. Angry.”

  “And possibly doomed unless we get him out,” Qibli said. He tipped an earring out of his pouch and pressed it into Starflight’s talons. “Offer him this. Tell him it’ll free him from Darkstalker’s spells, including the stone cuffs. That means his face will go back to the way it was. But if Darkstalker cast any secret spells on his mind, he’ll be freed from those as well. That’s a trade I would gladly take.”

  He hesitated. “I don’t know how to free Stonemover from the wall, though,” he said. “I think he has to choose that for himself, if he wants to escape.”

  Starflight spread one wing instinctively toward Fatespeaker and she lifted hers to rest underneath it so she could lead him into the school.

  “You’ll get to safety, too?” Starflight said to Qibli. “You and the others?”

  “Especially the SeaWing princess,” Fatespeaker said with a slight eye roll. “We’ll be in all sorts of trouble if a single one of her scales is harmed.”

  “Don’t worry about us,” Qibli said.

  Starflight let out a small laugh. “You make that quite impossible,” he said.

  “Oh, and take this, just in case,” Qibli said, giving Starflight the map from the strange NightWing in the palace library. “This is where Tsunami is — she’s a prisoner in the rainforest. She’s safe, but she needs rescuing. And tell her no revenge! Her captor sent us to let her out.”

  “Rescuing Tsunami? That’ll be fun,” Fatespeaker said.

  Qibli watched the two of them run into the mountain. Fear shivered along his spine and out to the tips of his wings. He hoped everyone would get to safety. He hoped the school would survive. After everything that had already happened here, if it all ended in an avalanche and devastation, what hope would there ever be for a school like this again? Would any of the tribes be willing to send their dragonets to a second grand experiment? Wouldn’t they blame Sunny and Clay and the others, no matter who survived … or didn’t?