9. Ava #2
A creature twice the size of a dragon loomed over a blazing bonfire as a small dark figure darted about its legs, making slashing motions.
“Rootwyrm,” Brynja breathed, and then she barreled past Ava, headed straight for the snake-like monster.
Ava tried to keep up, but her weary limbs slowed her down. She had no weapons either. How was she even supposed to help?
A weak cry for help yanked her to a stop. The voice had come from the right, away from the monster attacking Jerrid and Echo. She hesitated, torn between the danger she could see and the unknown in the shadows.
The thin voice wailed again, and she pivoted toward it. Someone else was out here.
Near the edge of the clearing, she nearly tripped over a small bundle on the ground. A round, freckled face peered up at her. The child was half buried in the ground, clinging tightly to an exposed root.
“It’s got me! It’s got me!” he yelled.
Ava caught him under the arms and yanked.
When he didn’t budge, still trapped in the earth, Ava turned to call for help.
Behind her, Brynja and Jerrid bellowed back and forth to one another as the giant rootwyrm crashed around the clearing.
Its feet hit the ground with thundering thwump thwumps, and its tail thrashed back and forth in fits of rage.
No good. She needed to handle this on her own. Gritting her teeth, she yanked again, and they tumbled backward, him landing on top of her.
A creature clawed its way out of the hole in the ground. Thick, bark-like skin covered an angular face with bulging white eyes like a dead fish. Moss snagged in the jagged scales, its breath rotten and foul.
They scrambled backward, but the beast slithered after them, its legs propelling it while its long snake-like tail coiled behind.
Her fingers closed around something hard sticking out of the soil. She yanked it loose and swung it at the young wyrm.
It ducked and spun, smacking her across the hip with its powerful tail. She toppled sideways and landed face-first in the long grass. She picked herself up just in time to hear the boy yell.
The wyrm wrapped its tail around the boy’s ankle and yanked him off his feet. Ava pelted after him as the wyrm ran toward the trees, dragging the poor, helpless child behind it.
“Stop it!” she shrieked. “It’s dragging the boy!”
Another weak roar from Echo added to the chaos. Ava quickened her pace as Echo shoved up on her haunches and spat flame at the young wyrm. It pivoted and curled into itself as it tried to avoid the blast of heat.
Now. She needed to free the boy now or risk losing him forever.
Ava snatched a jagged stone off the ground, dove onto the child, and slashed at the tail with her rock with all her might.
The boy yelled when the wyrm dragged him out of Ava’s reach. She scrambled after him on all fours and caught his wrist. Echo roared again, and Ava pitched forward, throwing herself across the boy’s body to shield him as another wave of fire blasted toward them.
The heat roared over her body, and the wyrm began to scream in pain. She lifted her head as the young wyrm vanished into the trees.
Ava scrambled to her feet and wrapped an arm around the boy, but he tried to shake her off and run toward the fighting. She caught him around the waist and lifted him off the ground. He kicked wildly with both legs until she lost her grip and dropped him.
The boy landed in a crouch and stared up at her, mute with fright, but something wild and determined burned in his gaze. “We gotta help them kill the monster!”
“Are you crazy? You almost died. You need to run and hide—”
The boy wiggled out of her grasping fingers and ran back.
Ava screamed after him, but he moved much too quickly for her. Jerrid spun and waved his hand, shouting something she couldn’t understand, but she guessed the gist of it was: get out of here! But the boy ignored him and pelted straight for the adult wyrm.
He skidded to a halt as the wyrm thrashed backward, its tail slicing above the ground as it recoiled from Echo’s flame blasts. Ava caught him by the arm and clung as tightly as she could. She tried to drag him backward, but he kicked and screamed like a wild thing.
She half wondered if she let him loose, he actually might stand a chance of scaring off the wyrm since he was so ferocious.
Echo released a particularly violent blast of flame. The wyrm shrieked and recoiled, its tail slashing straight toward Ava and the boy. Panic flooded her body as she dragged him down and tried to shield him.
The tail slammed into the ground a mere foot from where they huddled. When it rose back up, it flung dirt and grass at them as the wyrm thrashed onward.
It half rolled, half crawled toward the forest, with Brynja and Jerrid hot on its heels, waving torches.
The boy sat up, open-mouthed. “It tried to flatten us!”
Ava clutched one hand to her chest, the other still clinging to the boy’s arm. This time, however, he didn’t try to run away but sat pressed against her as the others chased the wyrm back into the darkness of the Shadewood.
“Look at it go!” he yelped. “They’ve got it on the run now! Don’t let it get away. Slash it to pieces! Slash! Slash!”
Ava winced at the images this riotous, encouraging speech created in her mind. She just wanted them to chase it away, far away, to make it realize it had bitten off more than it could chew. So that it wouldn’t come back.
Something thundered against the ground behind them. Ava twisted and saw Echo’s long neck stretching across the ground, a moan of pain grinding between her jagged teeth. She let go of the boy, picked herself up, and ran to the dragon.
The boy leaped to his feet and began to shout at the top of his lungs, “Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!”
Ava ignored him and went to Echo’s rescue. The poor beast was breathing labored breaths, her sides rising and falling with dramatic movements.
What was wrong with her? Had she overextended herself and exacerbated her injuries?
Ava pressed a hand to her neck cautiously.
“Easy, girl,” she whispered. “I’m here to help.”
The dragon looked at her through a wild, frightened eye. The poor creature was crazy with pain and probably fear from nearly being slaughtered by a giant wyrm.
She doubted they had such things in the mountains of Haldor. She was sure they had other threats just as dangerous. Things like shade wolves and harpies and who knew what else that lurked in the darkness of the mountain passes.
But rootwyrms? She didn’t even know they had those in Gelaira—it was a thing born of myth. Where had the creature come from?
She ran her hands along the dragon’s neck to her heaving sides, looking her over carefully for fresh wounds. What if the wyrm had bitten her or slashed her with one of its sharp claws?
But her hands ran over rough scales and stitched wounds…no new gashes or puncture marks. She paused to examine a particularly long gash in the dragon’s thigh.
The stitching wound in an erratic, jagged arc. Hardly pretty to look at, but at least the stitches were tight.
Brynja had at least a little skill to speak of.
She whispered soothingly to the dragon as the boy trotted up behind her.
“Is the dragon okay?”
“I don’t know.” Ava glanced over her shoulder, trying to keep her expression calm and reassuring. “I need you to find the bag of supplies that Brynja brought with us. Can you make yourself a torch and search the meadow? We came out of the forest over there.”
When she pointed toward a gap in the trees where the trail led to the ruins, the boy nodded eagerly. He snatched up a burning firebrand and bolted across the meadow, his bare feet disappearing into the long grass.
Echo moaned piteously.
“I know, old girl, I know. I’m so sorry.” She rubbed the dragon’s neck again, daring to come closer to her head so that she could look into the dragon’s wide, terrified eyes. “It’s okay, girl. You’re going to be—”
A guttural roar rent the night air, frightening nesting birds from the treetops. Ava spun and stared into the woods.
Unless she was mistaken…
That sounded like a dragon’s roar.