Dragon's Breath

  It was midafternoon before she no longer sensed the magic. When she opened her eyes she was surprised to see that they had reached the middle of a large mountain. The snow was deeper here, the air colder. Although her body remained warm and comfortable, she could see that her friends’ eyes were watering and their cheeks were red. Ice was forming on the outside of their scarves. Millie was thinking about offering her scarf to Zoë when Francis stopped suddenly and exclaimed, “Will you look at that!”

  Millie stepped out of the footprints her companions had made and peered through the still falling snow. At first she thought the figures were men. They were tall but rounded in odd ways. She had to go closer to see them clearly. They weren’t real men at all, but snowmen formed from large balls of snow. Each one was holding a sign. DANGER! said one sign. GO BACK! said another. COME NO CLOSER! DO NOT ENTER! LEAVE NOW OR FOREVER BE A FROZEN BALL OF ICE! The signs were large and written in bright colors meant to stand out in a world of white.

  “What do you suppose this is all about?” asked Francis.

  “I guess somebody doesn’t want us to go up the mountain,” Zoë said.

  “The signs aren’t just for us,” said Millie. “Somebody doesn’t want anyone to go up the mountain. You can stay here or go back now, but I’m not going to let a few signs stop me.”

  “Me neither,” said Zoë.

  “Of course not,” said Francis.

  “I think I should scout ahead,” said Zoë. “You can keep walking and I’ll meet you up there.”

  “Do you really think that’s a good …” Millie began, but Zoë had already turned into a bat and fluttered up the mountain.

  “May I make a suggestion?” said Leo. “Simon and I should go first. Our feet are bigger and we can make bigger footprints for you to walk in.”

  “I think that’s a very nice offer, Leo,” said Millie.

  With snow more than knee-deep, having Simon-Leo in the lead to break a trail for them made all the difference. They climbed the mountain more quickly now, despite their growing fatigue. Millie’s dragon sense told her where the ice castle was located. What she didn’t know was whether or not the Blue Witch was in it. While she and her friends slogged through the ever-deepening snow, she listened for magic again. It was there, right where she could feel the castle was located, but it seemed to be centered on a thing rather than a person. How odd, she thought.

  Simon-Leo was plowing through a snowdrift when Zoë returned. The little bat came fluttering weakly toward them, her wings so stiff from the cold that they could no longer bend. “Help!” she cried, and tried to land at their feet but ended up in the snowdrift instead.

  Francis plunged his hand into the snow, scooping it out until he reached the little bat. “Zoë, say something!” he said, sounding desperate, but all she could do was moan.

  “Give her to me!” Millie said as Francis tried to warm Zoë with his breath. “I can get her warm faster than you can.”

  “Here,” he said, handing the bat to Millie. A thin layer of ice had formed on Zoë’s body and wings. A thicker layer glistened on her ears and chin. Zoë’s mouth was moving, but no sounds were coming out as Millie took her friend from Francis.

  Cradling the little bat in her hands, Millie thought about getting warmer. The temperature of her hands rose until they glowed. As the ice on Zoë melted, the water trickled between Millie’s fingers, refreezing even before it reached the snow.

  Francis hovered by Millie’s side, peering down at Zoë. “How is she?” he asked.

  “Give me a minute,” said Millie. Zoë was shivering so hard that Millie’s hands shook, but even that ceased as the bat grew warmer.

  “I’m all right now!” Zoë finally called, pushing aside Millie’s thumb to look up at her friends.

  “What did you see?” Millie asked as she set Zoë on the ground.

  “More snow,” Zoë said, once she had returned to her human form. Pulling her scarf higher around her neck, she looked up at the mountain and said, “That’s the last time I become a bat until we get to where it’s warmer. I didn’t think I was going to make it back this time.”

  Francis threw his arms around her in a hug, saying, “Then don’t even think about doing it again. And don’t you dare ask her to!” he added, turning to Millie.

  “But I… It was her …” Millie said, astonished. “It really was her idea,” she told Simon-Leo as Francis adjusted Zoë’s hat.

  “I know,” said Simon.

  They continued on with Simon-Leo in the lead and Francis walking behind Zoë so he could help her over the rougher patches. Millie came last, smiling to herself each time her cousin showed his concern for her friend. She had never realized how much they liked each other.

  After a time they reached a part of the mountain where rock jutting higher than their heads sheltered them from wind and snow.

  “Look at that,” said Francis.

  Millie turned to follow Francis’s gaze and gasped. A trio of snowmen stood frozen in the shelter of the towering rock just ahead. Unlike the first snowmen they’d seen, these weren’t made from balls of snow, and looked amazingly real, as if they’d been sculpted in midstep.

  Simon sighed. “I’ll see about this.”

  The troll had just started to lumber toward the snowmen when Millie cried out, “No! Don’t go any farther! They aren’t snowmen, they’re real. Look at the face of the last man!”

  Just like Millie and her friends, the men were lined up in a row following in the footsteps of the person in the lead. Although his companions were facing forward, the figure at the end of the line was looking back. The expression on his face showed fatigue and worry the way a real, ordinary man’s might. While her companions discussed what they should do next, Millie closed her eyes and listened for magic. It was there, a rough hum that made her feel edgy.

  “Stay close together,” she said, interrupting whatever Francis had been saying. “It’ll be easier if we go through this all at once, so we’re going to have to walk side by side.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Francis.

  Millie nodded in the direction of the pass. “There’s magic at work there. I can feel it. I can keep it from hurting us if we hurry, but we have to stay together and we have to be fast.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Francis. “What do you mean you can sense magic? I didn’t know anyone could do that.”

  “Well, I can,” Millie snapped. “And if you’ll listen to me I might even be able to do something about it.”

  “I think we should do what she says,” said Zoë.

  Grateful that at least one of her friends trusted her enough to listen, Millie said, “We’re going to walk past those men without stopping. I don’t think we have to go far to get past the magic, but stay together until I tell you we’re safe.”

  Millie shut out everything except the magic. It lay thick on the ground in front of them, waiting to make each step harder until they could no longer move at all. She pushed against it with her mind, picturing it as a big unwieldy mattress that she was trying to prop up on its end, leaving enough space for them to walk by. It took all her concentration to keep the magic away, because it sagged in places and leaned toward them in others. She walked on, trusting in her personal magic to keep her on the right path, and had to fight to block out everything else when her friends started shouting. It wasn’t until she knew they were past the magic that she let down her guard and looked around.

  A snow leopard was crouched on a rocky outcropping about head-high just a dozen yards away. Seeing its eyes fixed on them, its back hunched, and its tail twitching, Millie knew that it was getting ready to pounce.

  Francis had his sword unsheathed and ready when the big cat leaped, but Leo was there first, grabbing the leopard around its middle and squeezing. While the leopard shrieked and spat, clawing at the troll’s leather-hard skin, Simon tried to stay out of the way, ducking when a paw came too close. “What should I do with it?” Leo asked, clutching the w
rithing cat to his chest.

  “Let me run it through!” said Francis as he closed in with his sword.

  “No,” said Millie. “Toss it!” And she pointed back the way they had come.

  Leo glanced at her, nodded, and tossed the leopard toward the snowmen. The cat landed in a great puff of white as snow exploded from under it. Shaking its head, the cat turned back toward the troll. With its victim in sight, the cat took one slinking step, its belly brushing the snow. Its next step was slower, and the third never quite happened; the animal’s front paw extended but was never set down. Even from where she stood, Millie could hear the sound of crackling as ice formed and the leopard froze, turning completely white from nose to tail.

  “Are you all right?” Millie asked Leo.

  “Uh-huh,” he replied.

  Simon scowled at him and said, “Well, I’m not. I don’t care what you want to do, but I don’t like to fight. I’d appreciate it if next time you’d consult with me before snatching up some ravaging animal who wants to shred us into table scraps.”

  “Sorry,” said Leo. “It couldn’t have hurt us, not really.”

  “That isn’t the point,” Simon said.

  They continued on, catching glimpses of the top of the pass as they climbed. The wind picked up, whirling the snow around them as they fought to put one foot in front of the other. Hunching into the wind meant that they could stagger a few feet, but it would take them hours to go the short distance to the top of the pass that way, provided they weren’t blown off the side of the mountain first.

  “Maybe we can find a cave?” Simon said, turning to Zoë.

  “Don’t look at me,” she replied. “Unless I’m a bat, I can’t find a cave any better than you can and I’d freeze solid and be blown to the next kingdom if I turned into a bat now. What about you, Francis? Do you have any spells that could help us?”

  “I’ve been trying to think of one. I suppose I could build a shelter out of ice, but there isn’t much else I can—”

  A roar shook the ground as a massive white-furred body slammed into Francis, knocking him into a snowdrift. Zoë screamed as another figure emerged from the blinding snow to pick up Simon-Leo and toss him aside as if the troll weighed nothing at all.

  Millie glimpsed the face of one of the creatures when it suddenly loomed in front of her, standing taller than the tallest knight in her father’s army. Its small, red-rimmed eyes were nearly lost in the shaggy white fur that covered its face. When it opened its mouth to roar, its yellow fangs were almost as sharp as a dragon’s. Her ears still ringing, Millie ducked and rolled out of the way, trying to evade the beast’s grasp, but then it had her and in the next instant she was flying through the air only to hit the rock and ice with a horrible thud. She thought she might be dead until she realized that she wouldn’t hurt so much if she were. Struggling to sit, she didn’t see the beast before it picked her up and threw her again. A moment later she heard Zoë scream and Simon’s bellow cut short.

  Suddenly, Millie was mad. It wasn’t a gradual thing that took time to build, but a real, uncontrollable fury that snapped her from human to dragon in a heartbeat. Her wings opened with a crack like thunder and when she roared the mountain shook so hard that sheets of packed snow slipped free, causing an avalanche.

  Using her dragon sense, Millie looked for her friends. She found Zoë, curled up in a ball of snow, bouncing down the side of the mountain. Millie scooped her up with her talons and held her close to her body, raising the temperature so that her friend could get warm. She saw Francis sliding feetfirst as he struggled to get hold of something to stop his fall. Millie caught him just as he catapulted off the side of the mountain into empty air, snatching him in midfall and holding him the way she was holding Zoë. Simon-Leo was harder to find, having been caught in the avalanche and buried under the rushing snow. Millie’s scaled body was glowing with heat as she cradled Zoë and Francis closer to her and dove into the snow to pluck the troll from its depths with one of her hind feet. He thrashed and squawked as she flew into the air again, screaming as she rose higher.

  “Be quiet,” she said, curling her neck around to look at him. When the heads continued to bellow she shook her foot and added, “Stop that right now or I’ll drop you.”

  Each head closed its mouth with a snap. The next time she looked back, Simon had his eyes squeezed shut, but Leo was looking with awe at the mountainside below.

  With her friends safe, Millie flew toward the pass, circling when she saw the place where they’d been ambushed. The wind and snow had died away, yet no matter how hard she looked she couldn’t find any sign of the creatures that had attacked them. She would have continued to look, but Francis groaned, bringing Millie’s thoughts back to her friends. It was time to take care of them now. She’d take care of the white-furred monsters later.

  Fourteen

  Millie wasn’t sure what to do. She had rescued her friends from certain death, but she had no idea what shape Zoë and Francis were in. For all she knew, they could die. When she tried to land, the ice beneath her began to melt and she had to flounder out of the pooling water, afraid that her charges might drown if she stayed on the ice for long.

  Simon-Leo seemed fine, but neither Zoë nor Francis had said anything, which really had her worried. She supposed she could take them to the flatlands, but they were so far away. Even the foothills were too far.

  It was nearly dusk when Millie saw the other dragon. She had flown over the pass in search of the ice castle, where she hoped to ask the Blue Witch for help, but before she could reach it, Francis had groaned again and Millie knew she had to set them down right away. She was looking for a flat rock big enough to land on when something flew so close that the wind of its passing knocked her off her stride.

  Startled, Millie looked up from her study of the mountainside and saw a dragon unlike any she’d seen before. His scales were white tinged with blue, his wings were well shaped, and his body was long and sleek. When he turned and flew back to join her, she saw that his deep blue eyes looked kind and had the spark of intelligence common to the larger dragons.

  “Are you lost?” he asked as he matched his speed to hers. He was about the same size as Millie, and his voice had yet to deepen into that of an adult male.

  “I guess you could say that,” she replied. “My friends are hurt. I need to land so I can help them.”

  “Follow me,” he said. Tilting his wings, he turned and swooped across the face of the mountain to a ledge swept clear of ice and snow. “This is my home,” he told Millie as he landed. “Or, at least, it is now.” Glancing at her friends, he pointed at Simon-Leo. “I can understand being friends with humans, but that one’s a troll, isn’t it?”

  “Unfortunately,” Millie said as she dropped Simon-Leo on the ledge. The other dragon backed out of the way as Millie landed and very carefully laid Zoë and Francis beside the troll. She nudged Francis with her talon and was relieved when he turned his head.

  “I think somebody hit me with a sack of bricks,” he said. Opening his eyes, he looked up and saw his cousin. “Oh, it was you.”

  “I didn’t hit you with anything,” Millie said, feeling indignant. “I caught you when you were falling to your death.”

  “Did you have to be so rough? I think you cracked one of my ribs.”

  Millie frowned at him. “You could say thank you,” she said, and turned to Zoë.

  “How is she?” Francis asked, and groaned as he tried to sit up.

  “I don’t know,” said Millie, and nudged Zoë with a talon. When her friend didn’t respond, Millie looked up at the other dragon with her brow ridges creased in worry. “I think she’s unconscious.”

  “I have something you could try,” said the white dragon, and headed to the back of the ledge.

  Francis looked worried. He rolled over and got to his feet, even though it was obvious that he was stiff and sore. Kneeling by Zoë’s side, he turned to Millie and said, “Will she be all right?”

>   “She will be if I can help it,” said Millie.

  Francis was watching over Zoë when Millie turned to see what the other dragon was doing. The ledge went farther back than she had thought, and opened into a cave. From what she could see, it was big enough to hold a dozen dragons and had another opening at the rear. Sacks and trunks were stacked against the cave walls and it was one of these trunks that the white dragon opened. He was returning to her when something in the cave moved and Millie realized that Simon-Leo was rooting through the sacks.

  The white dragon must have seen the troll at the same time, because he glanced at him and said, “I wouldn’t go to the back of the cave if I were you.”

  “Why not?’ Simon asked. “Is that where you keep your treasure?”

  The dragon snorted. “I wish I had a treasure. There’s nothing there except poison gas.”

  “Poison gas?” Millie asked when he returned to the ledge.

  “I sleep in that room. I’ve been so mad lately that I exhale poison gas in my sleep. Even a troll wouldn’t last long if he breathed enough of it. Here, give your friend one drop of this. Two, if one isn’t enough.”

  Francis hovered by her side as Millie took a small bottle of tonic from the white dragon’s talons, pulled out the glass stopper, and let one drop fall between Zoë’s parted lips. When nothing happened, she gave her friend another drop, then sat back to watch. Millie felt helpless with Zoë lying there with skin even paler than normal and her chest barely moving as she breathed. She wanted to do something … anything, but there was nothing, unless … Millie turned to the white dragon. “Can I give her some more?”

  The dragon shook his head. “Another drop would kill her. Either this will work soon or—”

  “Ooh, my head,” moaned Zoë.

  Francis sighed with relief. “Thank goodness,” he said. “You had us worried.”

  “What happened?” asked Zoë. “The last thing I remember, those monsters were chasing us. One tossed you into the air, Millie. I thought I’d never see you again.” Her voice was gaining strength as she spoke and the barest hint of color had come back into her cheeks. Suddenly, she looked like herself again.