Wings of Thunder

Chapter 20

Hurricane scanned the area from the safety of the field, he saw a shack, like the one him, Mist, and Cloud used to share. Cloud. Hurricane thought of his friend and shook it off. There might be another StormWing in there. He slithered to the small shack and peered through the window, where there was a StormWing with her family, serving out rations. Squinting, Hurricane could tell that they didn't get enough. Each of the dragonets, and there were four of them, got about a tenth of the piece of bread. Their mother didn't eat any, simply put the leftover pieces up. Saving them, Hurricane thought. His heart ached at the sight of the dragonets. They were a family just trying to survive, Hurricane knew that the sad part was even if they do survive countless others weren't that lucky. He dropped back down to hide himself from any dragons that may see him. That's when he felt a piercing gaze land on him, instinctively, Hurricane turned and ran close to the ground, the grass underneath his talons was long and unkept. Thinking he had gotten away, Hurricane slowed down to a halt, only to keep moving shortly after because of the sight of a better looking hut, like something a dragon could realistically live in. Hurricane crept up to the front of the structure, and he noticed that there weren't any sounds coming from inside. Those StormWings are probably going to be working during the night, probably one time out of many. Hurricane thought bitterly, he felt rage engulf him and he found himself breaking down the door.

"Well, I'll be gone before they figure out who did it, I hope." Hurricane muttered to himself.

Without wasting any time, he shuffled in only to be dumbfounded. There were scrolls and pottery all over the place with messy looking clusters of blankets in the mess. Hurricane picked up a scroll, but he didn't read it. It had taken him years to learn how to read and his writing skills were still sloppy, all for there to be this many scrolls so half-hazardly thrown around this place. Even worse, there was food littered everywhere as well, some of it still fresh and bleeding. That family, those StormWings, out there breaking their starving, out there breaking their spines just to serve this one dragon. Hurricane threw the scroll across the room and let out an angry sigh. Then, a dark, terrifying idea crept into his mind. Hurricane let the wicked Tarantula-like smile show on his face. Let this place burn, burn without stopping.Burn. It. Down. Before he could act on it, he heard sizzling and smelt smoke at his claws. He leaped to the other side of the room, but it was all too late, a fire had started.

"Ooh three moons, what have I done?" Hurricane muttered in shock.

Almost leaping out, Hurricane noticed something when he stepped forwards. He lifted his claw only to see metal keys. Snatching them,, Hurricane bowed his head to place the keys around one of the horns on his head. How could they just leave them like that? It's not a mere item, it's a dragon's freedom. Now though, he had no time to be mad about that, he leaped to the front porch area of the house and sprinted out of the area to the nearest apple orchard, knowing well that it would only be a miracle if he wasn't caught. He heard all kinds of things like shouting and kept running. The apple orchard was thicker than Hurricane had expected, it was almost like a forest, just planted by enslaved dragons. My friends, I have to go find them. He looked back at the chaos and realized that he couldn't even see the area where the fire had started. Creeping up from the safety of the orchard, Hurricane noticed another cluster of huts. There. With what just happened, Hurricane felt brave enough to approach it. Coming within only a couple of tail-lengths of the area was probably one of the biggest mistakes Hurricane could've ever had made. He saw at least ten StormWings. Immediately, he ran over behind a house only to hear the most bone chilling words he's ever heard.

"Lost your's huh, how do you lose a couple of spineless StormWings?!?" A mocking voice spat.

"Not my fault, I should've killed the purple one when I had the chance." A gruff voice answered, Hurricane noticed it right away.