The Writer's Escape

13. The Attack

Serena dreamed that she had been trapped in the Dragon's Heart trilogy instead, and she reached out to the protagonists, who danced in shadow and smiled mysteriously, just like the covers of the books. She asked them for help, but they didn't hear, just turned and walked away into shadow.

She woke to an elbow in the face. Blindly, she waved away the offending elbow, and found herself in a tangle of limbs— she and Patrick and Berry were lying in a heap on the floor. She lifted herself up, bleary.

The next time the door opened, a dragon-shifter walked through. Serena's breath caught as she stared at him. He had been outfitted in a polished suit of iridescent green, and curved claw-like daggers. Horns jutted from his mop of blond curls, yellow reptilian eyes piercing through her. 

He nodded to her. "Come with me," he said in a voice like the rasp of a snake slithering through dry leaves and stone.

Serena looked back. Berry, thankfully, was fast asleep, or else she would surely start biting and clawing at the dragon-shifter and get all of them killed. But Patrick was awake, and he met her gaze with wide, uncertain eyes, and a quiet nod that gave her strength. 

She turned to the dragon-shifter and followed him out of the door. He gripped her elbow with sharp claws, and she tried not to wince as they dug into her skin, or shudder when his dry, scaly skin brushed against hers.

"Where are we going?" she said, uncertain whether he would answer. It was worth a try.

But he did answer, in that same unsettling, slithery voice. "We are leaving for Redhaven."

She lowered her voice to a whisper. "You don't have to do what the sorceresses say, you know," she said. "I'm the one who wrote you, created you and the world you live in. If you do what I say instead, I can help you get just as much glory as the sorceresses promised. More, actually."

His skin rumbled against hers as he gave a rasping laugh. "We are duty-bound to the ones who summoned us here."

"I summoned you here," she insisted.

"No," he said. "You are merely the vessel by which we arrived."

*     *     *     *     *

The hovercraft purred over endless expanses of sand. Hard, sleek rope bound her hands together, an unnecessary formality. Sitting beside the twin sorceresses was enough to squash any thoughts of escape. Looking out dully at the waves of sand, tinted green by her goggles, Serena tried not to feel guilty. 

Redhaven was ahead, and they were only a few minutes away now. The sorceresses' fortress was built not far from Redhaven, so it was a short trip.

Serena twisted her sleeve in between her hands, unable to stop fidgeting. All too soon, the metal gates of the city came into view, along with the invisible beast-repellent gates that burned her nostrils with their strange chemical smell. 

The rest of the sorceresses would arrive in a few hours, Daria had said— and, she promised, they would bring Berry and Patrick, safe and unharmed. Serena had no way of keeping them to this promise, so she had no choice but to take them for their words.

The hovercraft powered down. At the sorceresses' urging, Serena climbed out of the hovercraft along with them. They walked towards the secret entrance hidden in the dunes that Serena had told them of, marked only by a short stretch of broken wire fencing. 

Wanting to get the attack over with as quickly as possible, Serena didn't protest when the twins gestured for her to take the entrance. They unbound her hands, and she pushed aside sand, dug until she felt the trapdoor, then dropped through.