Chapter 9: The Scream
Seamus pulled a medium sized hemp bag from his backpack and scooped the golden Dragon droppings from the nest.
Mr. Elf kept a look out for the Dragon. “Hurry up and grab as many as you can,” he whispered. “Just fill the bag, boy. That Dragon gold is worth so much, that even a handful would make you rich beyond most people’s dreams.”
“It still seems odd. We came for gold and here I am scooping up poop,” Seamus whispered back.
“Just get on with it,” Mr. Elf replied. “That Dragon is going to be seriously angry, when she gets back and finds her egg and some of her gold missing.”
“The bag’s full! Let’s go get Paddy back,” Seamus said, through a nervous grin. “Will you be able to find Mody in this mist?”
“No problem,” Mr. Elf said, moving confidently away from the Dragon’s nest. “Follow me.”
Dragon fire raced towards Mr. Elf and Seamus, evaporating the mist, as the magical fire rolled towards them. Seamus reacted quickly, grabbing Mr. Elf and dragging him backwards into the hole in the middle of the Dragon’s nest.
The Dragon fire stopped short of the hole. The Dragon roared its frustration.
“Phew! That was close,” said a worried Mr. Elf. “Let’s try the other direction.” Grabbing Seamus by the coat, he dragged the young Leprechaun out of the hole and away from the nest. For this to work, he needed Seamus to be right there with him. “I could really use a diversion about now,” the agitated Aelf shouted, into the mist, as he and Seamus ran away from the furious Dragon.
The Dragon scuttled forward, certain she was about to have a nice mid-morning snack.
Mody’s high-pitched voice sang out, “Yoo hoo. Hi there. You big, dumb, slow Dragon. I’m over here.”
The Dragon’s head swung around to the direction the voice had come from and sent Dragon fire flaming in that direction.
Mr. Elf and Seamus used the moment of distraction to run off into the mist.
The Dragon cast about, sniffing the mist for some trace of the things that had ruined her morning. She lumbered forward again, heading back to her nest. Just what had those annoying things been doing? She reached the hole at the center of her nest and noticed that the egg she’d been guarding was gone. She raised her massive head to the sky and screamed.
The sound was like nothing Mr. Elf and Seamus had ever heard before, and it froze them in their tracks. Both stopped where they were, throwing their hands over their ears to drown out the sound.
The scream contained all the heartfelt pain and loss the Dragon felt, and she poured her anguish and Dragon magic into it.
Mr. Elf tried to move forward, but found he couldn’t move a muscle. Slightly behind him, he heard Seamus give a little gasp of fear.
“Mr. Elf, I can’t move. I’m stuck.”
“I’m stuck, too, Seamus,” Mr. Elf replied, straining to get free.
“By The She that scream was awful,” Seamus panted, also straining to move his legs. “Did you know Dragons could do that?”
Mr. Elf continued to struggle. “There’s an old legend about Dragons that says something about a Dragon’s grief being able to freeze time. I guess there is some truth to it.”
The Dragon, meanwhile, had been using the time freeze period to search for the thieves who had raided her nest. She first came across the two Fugglies, Seamus had jabbed with Grace.
The Fugglies, were of course, just as frozen as Mr. Elf and Seamus. They too had heard the Dragon’s scream. Even as the effects of having been jabbed with Grace, and having been whacked on the back of the head, were wearing off, the scream of the Dragon had frozen them anew.
The great Gold Dragon lowered her head to look over the frozen Fugglies. Her cat-like eyes blinked lazily; after all, she had all the time in the world now. She scanned around the two frozen Fugglies. No egg! She examined the Fugglies closely, and noticed that they both had wounds in their legs, and dried blood on the back of their heads. Her eyes narrowed, a look of annoyance spreading over her cold evil face. Her morning had been ruined, and several some ones were going to have to pay.
The Dragon leaned forward and took one of the Fugglies in her mouth. At the first bite, the Fuggly exploded in her mouth with a load pop, spraying Fuggly guts all through the Dragon’s mouth. She loved it when they did that. There wasn’t another food group that was quite as much fun to eat. After three chews, to crunch up the arms and legs, she threw back her mighty head and swallowed the Fuggly.
She recognized these Fugglies. They were the ones responsible for bringing her food. Not only had they failed to bring her food, they had allowed thieves to raid her nest. The Dragon scooped the second Fuggly into her great mouth. This one popped in a very satisfactory way too, and tasted just as good as the first. She took her time to chew her food properly and enjoy the taste of the very fresh meal.
Refreshed and ready to track and punish the thieves, she turned and tasted the mist with her tongue. Ahh yes! There they are. The mist coming from her left had the slightly tangy taste of fresh food.
What the great Dragon tasted was the ‘fear of the frozen’, a side effect of the scream.
The Dragon stalked off through the mist towards her prey.
⚔
Seamus was really scared, and was tired from struggling against the ‘scream freeze’. The thought of being char grilled by Dragon fire and then eaten, kept him struggling and fighting to get free.
Mr. Elf, on the other hand, was still and calm. “Seamus,” Mr. Elf said, quietly. “You must relax. Don’t struggle or fight against it.”
“How can you say that?” panted a nearly exhausted Seamus. “Any minute now that Dragon is going to get here, and Paddy will never know what happened to us.”
Mr. Elf took one clumsy step towards Seamus, and then another. “Seamus, forget about being frozen. Think about getting Paddy back. Be still and think about nothing else but getting Paddy back, and how that makes you feel.”
“But how did you move?” asked a stunned Seamus.
“I’ll explain later, just think about Paddy and being together with him again.” Mr. Elf’s voice had taken on a soft dreamy tone. He took another step forward to stand next to Seamus. “Relax and let yourself feel the joy, the happiness.”
Seamus closed his eyes and pictured his reunion with Paddy. He felt the joy of being close to his brother again. He pictured Hag Head being so pleased with getting the egg, that she magically transported them all back to Paddy’s and Seamus’s hut in Damanta Mallaithe. His heart swelled with happiness. He pictured Paddy and him hiding the Dragon’s gold in their secret hiding place, with their other gold. He experienced a surge of satisfaction that can only be achieved in dreams.
“Now take a step forward.” Mr. Elf’s voice softly intruded into the elated emotion Seamus was experiencing, and without thinking he took a step forward, and then another.
“That’s right, just keep your legs moving,” Mr. Elf whispered. “Another couple of steps, and you can open your eyes.”
Seamus took two more steps, then opened his eyes. He turned to stare at Mr. Elf with a newfound respect. “How did you do that?”
“No time for explanations now,” Mr. Elf said, looking worriedly into the mist. “That Dragon should have got to us by now. I wonder what held her up?”
⚔
The great Gold Dragon stopped, confused, and tasted the mist again. The taste was gone! Impossible! How could this be? The Dragon cast her head about, tasting the mist in all directions. Nothing! Not even a hint of fear. Rage blossomed in her bones, and she inhaled deeply to scream again. But wait. She suddenly remembered the scream would not work twice on the same victims, an annoying limitation to an otherwise very strong piece of Dragon magic.
While puzzled at how the thieves could have escaped the effects of her scream, she realized they must have indeed escaped. Had anything else happened to them, she would have felt something. She exhaled gently, letting forth a small and controlled burst of Dr
agon flame.
The mist evaporated where the Dragon fire went and the Dragon noticed footprints on the ground heading away from her location. Two sets of prints, both quite small. The Dragon grinned. In Boggy Marsh, there were very few places one could go, and not leave footprints in the soft, damp ground. The thieves may have escaped the scream freeze, but the Dragon knew quite well there was no way out of Boggy Marsh. The thieves were trapped here, just as much as she was.
The Dragon breathed another burst of controlled fire. She scanned the ground carefully. There! The footprints were deeper and showed signs of struggle. This was where the thieves had been frozen. The mist gently closed in again, covering the scene. Another controlled burst of her fire and she could see the tracks moving away into the mist. The smile on the Dragon’s face was both cunning and hungry. It was only a matter of time before she tracked down the thieves, recovered her egg and taught them a very painful lesson.
⚔
Seamus and Mr. Elf moved through the mist carefully, with Mr. Elf leading the way. Mr. Elf deliberately changed directions several times to ensure the following Dragon didn’t catch up with them by predicting where they would go. He had seen the glow from the Dragon’s fire through the mist, and knew they were still in danger of being caught, by the not so stupid Dragon.
“Come on, tell me, how did you get us unfrozen?” Seamus whispered, as they dodged under the branch of an old and droopy tree.
“Not now,” Mr. Elf hissed, agitatedly. “That Dragon is tracking us by following our footsteps in the mud. Stay quiet. We need to get further away, before I make us disappear.”
“Where are we going anyway? I thought we should have met up with Mody by now,” Seamus whispered, ignoring Mr. Elf’s request for quiet. “And how are you going to make us disappear? And if you can make us disappear, why didn’t you do it earlier?”
Mr. Elf stopped suddenly and turned to Seamus. “All right, this will have to be far enough,” he exclaimed, loudly. “Here, put this in your mouth and bite down on it.” Mr. Elf handed Seamus a white handkerchief rolled up into a ball shape.
Seamus stared at Mr. Elf, as if he had gone mad. “Shouldn’t you keep your voice down!” he asked, frantically. “There is a large angry Dragon after us, you know.” Then he looked at the rolled-up handkerchief and asked, “Is that magic? Is that what’s going to make us disappear?”
Mr. Elf smiled and said loudly, “It will certainly help. Now put it in your mouth and bite down hard. Then try to be as quiet as possible.”
Seamus looked doubtful, but did as Mr. Elf asked, and put the handkerchief in his mouth and bit down hard. Mr. Elf had been pretty smart about getting unfrozen from the Dragon scream effect, so Seamus reasoned he must have a good idea about this too.
Mr. Elf squinted in the direction of where the glow from the Dragon fire could be seen flaring up. It was getting uncomfortably close now, and he knew he was going to have to do something incredibly risky, something that could cost him his life. He called out loudly, “All right, let’s head for the boundary.”
Seamus was quite shocked at this and started to say something. As he had a handkerchief in his mouth, though, it came out as a muffled questioning noise.
Mr. Elf leaned in very close to Seamus and whispered, “For this to work, it is very important that you make no noise at all, until I tell you otherwise.” Mr. Elf shook out his wings and wrapped his arms around Seamus. “Now wrap you arms around my waist and hold on for all you’re worth.”
Seamus did as he was instructed, wrapping his arms tightly around Mr. Elf. With a quiet whisper of beating wings, Mr. Elf and Seamus rose into the mist.
⚔
The Dragon knew she was getting close now. The thieves were being tricky and kept changing direction, but the Dragon was big and moved quicker than the thieves. Up ahead, in the mist, she heard a voice speaking loudly, then a shout, “All right, let’s head for the boundary.”
The thieves were heading for the boundary. Well she would certainly catch them long before they got there. The Dragon blew another burst of fire and followed the footsteps further through the mist. Then she stopped, examining the ground disbelievingly. The footsteps ended. They just ended.
She scanned all around, carefully blowing Dragon fire, first in this direction, then in that. But no matter how hard she searched, she couldn’t find any trace of the thieves.
Finally, in disgust, she spread her great wings and launched herself into the air and flew towards the boundary.