Wings of Fire • Dragon of Storms [1]

Chapter Eleven

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Lightningtail dragged her talons along the cave floor. The dank smell of the walls pierced her skull and she felt trapped under millions of tons of rock. She and Thunderclap were walking through the Hunting Center on their way to meet with a Hunting Thunder for a mission.

     Lightningtail let her wings droop at her sides. She put no heart in anything anymore.

     Thunderclap steered her left, leading her to a small cave. Here a few dragons sat, waiting for Falconeye to return.

     Lightningtail flopped down. Her brother sat down more carefully, gracefully.

     Lightningtail just didn't want to do anything anymore. Mother had to push her out of their nest this morning.

     Eagletalon was the reason why.

     His betrayal a moon cycle ago had stung Lightningtail to her core. She felt like she could trust nobody other than Thunderclap.

     Even her parents were under the scope. Why should she care about them? After all, when Lightningtail had told Mother about how she thought Blackcloud treated Eagletalon, Swansong did nothing. Neither had Father.

     They were being very secretive recently. Lightningtail felt like a stranger to them.

     Lightningtail sighed and rested her head on her talons.

     Quickclaws was being great in all of this, but she still couldn't trust him. To Lightningtail it was finally obvious he liked her but she wasn't ready to put herself in another position where a dragon could put her down like that.

     And Eagletalon? Lightningtail hadn't heard of him since the Salmon Run. She'd see him, sitting on a cliff with a young dragoness clinging to him as if she was a barnacle and he was an old whale. But Lightningtail would never go near them – she'd had enough of that pompous worm.

     Thunderclap pressed himself against her side. "Are you feeling okay?" He asked quietly.

     Lightningtail sighed and he didn't ask anything else. Thunderclaps 'twintuition' as he put seemed to be telling him enough to stay away. Lightningtail just hoped he knew she still trusted him.

     From behind, Lightningtail heard a great clamour. Five soldiers clad in aluminum waddled into the room. They stiffly sat down, each plate of metal clanking horridly.

     Mother had ordered extra armour be added to soldiers going on hunts in the direction of Pyrrhia. The pieces were made of lightweight aluminum and there were only enough for twenty or so SwiftScales.

     All five soldiers a barbed hook-shot. A hook-shot was a newly developed weapon. It was a long iron chain with a barbed hook at the end. The operating dragon would swing it around and around, powering up a swing. Whenever they saw fit they could throw the hook at least one dragonlength. The sharp end could smash a dragon's head to a pulp. Lightningtail hoped she would never see that in action.

     Two of the soldiers were smaller, and under their plates of metal, Lightningtail could see that one was dark and medium gray and the other was light with silver talons.

     Brisktail and Quickclaws, Lightningtail thought.

     Thunderclap waved them over and the two apprentices gladly shuffled to the siblings. Both carried their own hook-shots, albeit smaller.