Page 19 of Upon Buried Embers
I think Rohan and Drogonah are going to hit the wall with the speed they’re going at. The lava is spitting up from below them but just as they make impact, my fingers tightening on the saddle, Drogonah tucks his powerful wings to his body, and they crash into it. The whole mountain seems to shake with the impact.
“Fuck, get moving!” Kaldar shouts, and he kicks his legs, making the horse move faster as more lava races toward us.
I squeak, holding on to its mane.
We head up the slope, feeling the heat of the lava racing toward us as more rocks fall from the top. One of the horses is struggling with a cart, and Kaldar pauses, climbing off and passing me the reins.
“Wait, I don’t know how—”
“Just hold on, Serah will take you the rest of the way.” Kaldar pushes the back of the cart, and Adora shouts up ahead, watching him.
“Hurry!” she shouts.
“Trying,” he grunts.
“Try harder,” is Olaf’s panicked reply.
I hold on to the horse as she goes up the hill, the lava creeping closer and the mountain shakes again, light spilling in from the exit.
A roar pierces the air somewhere, and I turn back again, seeing a red dragon’s head poking in from where Drogonah crashed through.
Oh Gods.
“Ours,” Kaldar says, pushing the cart and coming up beside me, noticing my fear. “Rohan is close by, don’t worry, he won’t let us get eaten. The dragons respect him more than most.”
What does that mean?
We finally crest the top of the slope, my fingers cramping with how tightly I was holding on. We all seem to take a breath, looking back at the lava moving like an angry wave, but it rises no more as it spills out of the hole Rohan made.
“What was that about?” Adora asks, dismounting and coming to stand next to Kaldar, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
“I don’t know,” he breathes. “Something rattled the mountains.”
I look back with furrowed brows, my heart hammering. If it wasn’t a dragon, shaking the mountain, what else can?
A grumble comes from ahead, and we all turn as Drogonah descends, his talons landing in the snow-covered ground with ease. Rohan slides down, landing on his feet before Drogonah turns his head and Rohan pats his nose.
I stare in awe at his sheer size, now seeing him fully in the daylight. He’s black, but the tips of his scales look like they have a sheen of another color I’m not sure of. A dark blue maybe? Purple?
His horns glint even more, and that piercing purple eye locks on mine before looking away again.
The other dragons move toward him, I think in greeting, and Hedoric looks like a baby compared to him, only coming up to his shoulder. Another blue and red one, who are taller than Hedoric, are next, and they nudge up against him but Drogonah turns away.
Rohan checks over the dragons, giving them all some kind of attention before coming over to us.
“Anyone hurt?” A murmur of ’no’s sounds out around us, and Rohan’s shoulders relax a little.
“What happened?” Kaldar asks him.
“Something to the east.”
“The wolves?” That was from Adora.
“Yeah. When we flew up, it looked like their land was splitting. I think it caused a ripple effect to the mountains, and wolves were running with trolls.”
Wolves? Trolls?
“Hopefully that doesn’t happen again,” Olaf says, leaning his head on Adora’s shoulder.
