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Sorrel put down the mushroom she was nibbling and looked over her shoulder. “Nothing to worry about,” she said.
“But it could be a raven!” Ben whispered hoarsely. “The rat warned us against ravens, didn’t he? And isn’t there something sitting on it?”
“Yes, there is.” Sorrel returned to her mushroom. “That’s why there’s no need to worry. It’s an elf. Elves love flying in the moonlight. We only have to feel suspicious about ravens without riders, and even they can’t keep up with a dragon in flight for very long unless they have magic powers.”
“An elf?” Ben looked around again, but the bird and its rider had disappeared as if the night had swallowed them up.
“They’ve gone,” murmured Ben.
“You bet they’ve gone. Probably on their way to one of those silly elf dances.” Sorrel threw the bitter remains of her mushroom into the darkness below and wiped her mouth. “Mmm! That horn of plenty was delicious!”
During the next few hours Ben frequently looked back over his shoulder, but he never saw the figure riding the bird again. Firedrake was flying south faster than the wind. Ben kept asking Sorrel what her keen brownie eyes could see on the earth below, for he himself could make out nothing in the darkness but the rivers and lakes that reflected the moonlight in their waters. Working as a team, the two of them steered the dragon past cities and other dangerous places, just as the rat had advised.
When day dawned they found a place to rest in an olive grove near the Greek coast. They slept all day, surrounded by chirping cicadas, and set off again at moonrise. Firedrake turned southeast toward the Syrian coast. It was a mild night, with a hot southerly wind blowing over the sea. Before dawn, however, the weather changed.
The wind that had been blowing toward them all this time grew stronger and stronger. Firedrake tried to avoid it. He rose higher and then dropped lower, but the wind was everywhere. The dragon was finding it more and more difficult to keep going. Clouds towered like mountains ahead of them. Thunder rolled, and lightning flashes lit up the dark sky.
“We’re swerving off course, Firedrake!” cried Ben. “The wind is driving you south!”
“I can’t make any headway against it!” the dragon called back. He braced himself against the invisible enemy with all his might, but the wind carried him away, howling in his ears and forcing him down toward the foaming waves.
Ben and Sorrel clung desperately to the spines on Firedrake’s crest. Luckily Sorrel had tied herself firmly in place, too, for without the straps holding them they would have slipped off Firedrake’s back and fallen into the depths below. Rain lashed down from the towering clouds. Soon the dragon’s spines were so slippery that his riders found it difficult to hold on, and Sorrel had to cling to Ben’s back. The sea was raging down below. A few islands lay among the waves, but there was no other land in sight.
“I think we’re being blown toward the coast of Egypt!” Ben yelled.
Sorrel clung to him even tighter. “Coast?” she shouted back. “A coast sounds good, never mind what coast. Just as long as we don’t get blown into the briny down there.”
The sun was rising, but only as a pallid light behind dark clouds. Firedrake was having difficulties. The storm forced him down toward the waves again and again, until Ben and Sorrel could feel the surf spraying into their faces.
“Does that brilliant map of yours say anything about the weather in these parts?” Sorrel shouted to Ben.
Ben’s hair was dripping wet, and his ears hurt from the noise of the storm. He could tell that Firedrake’s wings were growing heavier and heavier. “The coast,” he called, “the coast where the storm’s driving us” — he wiped water out of his eyes — “it’s full of yellow patches. Covered with them!”
They saw a ship tossing like a cork on the foaming water below. Then a strip of coastline suddenly emerged from the mist.
“There!” cried Ben. “Land ahoy, Firedrake! Can you get that far?”
With the last of his strength the dragon steeled himself against the wind and slowly, very slowly, approached the safety of the shore.
Beneath them the sea was lashing low cliffs where palm trees were bowed by the wind.
“We’re going to make it!” shouted Sorrel, digging her little claws through Ben’s pullover. “We’re going to make it!”
Ben saw the sun rising higher among ragged clouds. The sky was slowly brightening. The storm slackened, as if lying down to sleep as the day dawned.
With a couple of final wing-beats the dragon left the sea behind, descended even lower, and landed, exhausted, on fine, soft sand. Ben and Sorrel undid their sodden straps and slid off Firedrake’s back. The dragon had laid his head on the sand and closed his eyes.
“Firedrake!” cried Sorrel. “Get up, Firedrake! We have to find a place to hide. Soon it’s going to be as bright here as if we were inside a fairy hill.”
Beside her, Ben was looking around anxiously. Only a stone’s throw away, palm trees lined the banks of a dried-up riverbed, their fronds rustling in the wind. Behind the palms rose sand dunes, and in the morning light the travelers saw fallen columns, ruined walls — and a large camp full of tents.
No doubt about it, there were people in those tents.
“Quick, Firedrake!” Sorrel urged the dragon as he wearily rose. “Make for the palms over there!”
They ran over the sand, crossed the dry riverbed, and climbed the rocky slope of the bank where the palms grew. The trees stood close enough together to hide Firedrake from prying eyes for the time being, but the place wouldn’t do as a hideout for the whole day.
“Maybe we can find somewhere in the hills,” said Ben. “A cave or a dark corner among the ruins.”
