King of The Dragons (Wings of Fire X Monster Hunter)

Part 2: Chapter 11, 12, & 13

Part 2: Sand, Ice, and Smoke

(3rd Pov Glory)

Burn's stronghold had once been the original SandWing palace. That was where all the trouble started. Glory flattened herself against the sand and stared at it, remembering the history Webs had taught them.

Eighteen years ago, Queen Oasis had ruled the SandWings from here. Her three daughters, Burn, Blister, and Blaze, had been minor dragons, footnotes in the scrolls at the time. Oasis was old, fierce, and canny, with a vast and impressive treasury. No one expected her to be challenged for many years yet.

And certainly no one would have every expected a puny treasure-hunting scavenger to kill her, but that was exactly what had happened.
Now the treasure was gone, and the three sisters had drawn all the other tribes into their struggle for power. Eighteen years of bloodshed. Glory flicked her tail, concentrating keeping her scales the color of the sand.

Burn had driven out the other two and kept the palace to herself - or, depending on which scrolls you read, Blister and Blaze had escaped before she could kill either of them. They'd gone in search of allies, knowing that neither one could beat Burn on her own.

This wasn't how the palace had looked during the reign of Queen Oasis. Burn had added thick walls . . . and, of course, the dragon heads on top of them.

Glory wondered if Burn was down there in her stronghold right now. Or was she in the Sky Kingdom, trying to hold her alliance after what Glory had done to Queen Scarlet.
The real questions were: Did she know about this passageway? And did she have anything to do with the missing RainWings?

"Glory," Clay hissed from the dark hole in the dune. "What's going on?"
Glory slid back down the hill to face him. "We're in the Kingdom of Sand," she said. "I have no idea how or why."
"What's that over there?" Clay asked, pointing north.

Glory turned and saw a wing of dragons flying high up in the sky. Their scales sparkled in the sunlight so that even from here she could guess that they were IceWings, white and pale blue as diamonds. From their angle of flight, they seemed to be returning from the Sky Kingdom to their own home on the frozen peninsula to the north.

"IceWings," a voice suddenly said. Clay let out a yelp and Glory jumped back, flaring her ruff and smashing out any green that crept up her scales, trying to stay camouflaged.

Slowly, right in front of her, a head rose out of the sand. The rocky grains fell off of black scales like water on a cliff.
It was Stormcaller.
"The Ice Kingdom isn't too far from here," he said.

Glory blinked at him, staring at the head sticking out of the sand.
"What?" he said, as if he wasn't a head sticking out of the desert.
"Wha-what are you doing here?" Glory questioned.
"I was hoping you would follow me. So I waited."
It didn't make sense. He ran into a dark hole that somehow led to the Kingdom of Sand, and waited overnight for them to follow him.

"Did you see anything come through the tunnel?" Clay asked.
"No," Stormcaller said. "But, something did. I just didn't see it."
"All right," Glory said. "Let's go tell the others."

"But that's impossible," Starflight said for the millionth time. "The Kingdom of Sand is literally half a world away, on the other side of the mountains, for moons' sake. You couldn't have walked there down a tunnel in the rainforest.

"It is possible," Stormcaller said.
"Go look for you're self," Glory snapped at the same time. "It's for real. Someone built a secret passage between here and SandWing territory." She dipped her tail in the stream, glad to be back in the coolness of the rainforest. Her scales felt as if she'd run through fire. She didn't know how Stormcaller lasted out there as long as he did.
Silver sat on one of Glory's talons, dipped her paw in the water, and patted it against Glory's leg.