AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Get on my back!” cried Firedrake. “Quick!”
At that moment the island quivered.
“Run!” shouted Sorrel, pushing Ben toward the dragon. They scuttled over the damp and scaly mound. Firedrake stretched out his neck, and as the island rose higher and higher from the waves the two of them hauled themselves up by his horns. Clutching his spines, they scrambled onto his back and strapped themselves in place with trembling fingers.
“But the moon!” cried Ben desperately. “The moon is dark. How are you going to fly, Firedrake?”
He was right. There was nothing but a black gaping hole in the sky where the moon should have been.
“I must try anyway!” cried the dragon, spreading his wings. But whatever he did, his body wouldn’t rise a finger’s breadth into the air. Ben and Sorrel exchanged horrified glances.
Suddenly, with a loud snort, a mighty head shot out of the sea in front of them. It had large fins like decorative feathers growing on it. Slanted eyes flashed at them mockingly beneath heavy lids, and a forked tongue flickered between the two sharp, needlelike fangs that emerged from the creature’s narrow jaws.
“A sea serpent!” cried Ben. “We’ve landed on a sea serpent!”
The serpent’s long, long neck rose from the water until its head was hovering directly above Firedrake, who stood on the scaly hump of the creature’s back as if he’d taken root there.
“Well, well, look at this!” hissed the serpent in a soft, singsong voice. “Such strange visitors to the realm of salt and water where my twin sister and I reign supreme. What brings a fiery dragon, a small human, and a shaggy brownie girl out to sea, so far from solid ground? Not just an appetite for a supper of slippery shiny fish, I suppose?” Her tongue flickered like a hungry wild beast in the air above Firedrake’s head.
“Get down!” the dragon whispered to Ben and Sorrel. “Get right down behind my spines.”
Sorrel obeyed at once, but Ben stayed where he was, his mouth wide open, staring at the sea serpent. She was a beautiful sight, an astonishing and enchanting creature. In the absence of the moon, the only light came from the stars, yet every one of her millions of scales shimmered with all the colors of the rainbow. Observing Ben’s amazement, the serpent looked down at him with an ironic smile. He was not much bigger than the flickering tip of her tongue.
“Ben, get your head down!” whispered Sorrel. “Unless you want it bitten off!”
But Ben wasn’t listening to her. He felt all Firedrake’s muscles tensing as if he were preparing to fight.
“We’re not after anything of yours, serpent,” called the dragon, and his voice sounded as it had when he rescued Ben from the men in the old factory building. “We’re searching for a place that lies beyond the sea.”
A quiver ran through the sea serpent’s body. To Ben’s great relief, he realized that she was laughing.
“Are you indeed?” hissed the serpent. “Well, if I know your fiery kind you’ll need moonlight before you can rise into the air. So until the moon shows its face again, you’ll have to stay with me. But don’t worry. I’m here purely out of curiosity, sheer insatiable curiosity. I wanted to find out why my scales have been itching ever since sunset, in a way they haven’t itched for more than a hundred years. I expect you know the rule: One fabulous creature attracts another, correct?”
“Yes, and a thorough nuisance it is,” replied Firedrake, but Ben felt the dragon’s muscles beginning to relax again.
“A nuisance?” The sea serpent’s slender body rocked to and fro. “That rule is what saved you and your two friends from drowning when the moon went dark.” She lowered her pointed muzzle until her face was level with Firedrake’s. “So where have you come from and where are you going? I haven’t seen anyone like you since the day your silver relations were disturbed as they bathed in the sea and vanished from my realm.”
Firedrake straightened up. “You know that story?” he asked.
The serpent smiled, stretching her huge body in the waves. “Of course. In fact, I was there at the time.”
“You were there?” Firedrake took a step back. A growl emerged from his chest. “Then you were the sea monster who chased them away!”
Terrified, Sorrel flung her arms around Ben. “Oh, no, no!” she moaned. “Careful, it’s going to eat us up!”
But the serpent merely looked down at Firedrake with an amused smile. “Me? Nonsense!” she hissed. “I only chase ships. The monster was a dragon. A dragon like you, only much, much bigger, with armor made of golden scales.”
Firedrake looked at the creature incredulously.
The serpent nodded. “His eyes were red like the dying moon, full of murderous greed.” The memory wiped the smile off her face. “That night,” she said as the sea rocked her great body, “that night your relations came down from the mountains to the sea, as they always did when the moon was round and full in the sky. My sister and I swam close to the coast, so close that we could see the faces of the people sitting outside their huts waiting for the dragons. We submerged our bodies in the water so as not to alarm them, for human beings fear what they don’t know, especially when it’s bigger than they are. Moreover,” said the creature, smiling, “we serpents are not popular among them.”
Feeling embarrassed, Ben bowed his head.
“The dragons,” continued the serpent, “plunged into the foaming waves, looking as if they were made of moonlight.” She looked at Firedrake. “The people on the shore smiled. Creatures of your kind calm the anger that human beings always carry with them. Dragons banish their sorrow. That’s why they believe you bring good luck. But that night, yes, that night,” hissed the serpent softly, “another dragon came to chase the good luck away. The water boiled around his great muzzle as he surfaced in the sea. Dead fish floated on the waves. The silver dragons spread their wet wings in fear, but then, all of a sudden, the light of the moon was hidden by flocks of black birds. No cloud, however dark and heavy, can rob the moon of its power, but the birds did. Their dark feathers quenched the moonlight, and hard as the dragons tried to beat their wings, they couldn’t fly. They all would have been lost had my sister and I not been there to attack the monster.”
The sea serpent fell silent for a moment.
“You killed him?” asked Firedrake.
