Excerpt from Dragon Orb: Longfang

Kira had always been proud of her woodcraft skills, but in Racafi she had never had to deal with cold like this. Her hands felt worse than useless. They were clumsy lumps of flesh on the ends of her arms. Her fingers felt weak and stiff, and she had lost all dexterity. Muscles throughout her body ached with the fatigue of deep cold. Tears of frustration began to well in her eyes. She blinked rapidly to prevent them escaping.

‘Damn, damn, damn!’ she cursed as she threw her flint and steel down in frustration.

It was almost dark. The snow was still falling heavily and the temperature was dropping fast. For all her skills and knowledge of survival learned in the Racafian savannah, she could not get a fire to light. She knew that to stop trying now was to invite the cold embrace of death. Tired though she was, and angry at her inadequacies, Kira could not give up. Quitting was not in her nature.

‘Why can’t you breathe fire like Firestorm?’ she muttered at Fang, glaring at her dragon with accusing eyes. ‘I bet Nolita isn’t cold. Even if she hasn’t got wood to burn, he can always heat the rock for her.’

Her dragon did not respond with words, but she felt his love and concern flood through their special bond. The sensation triggered instant feelings of guilt.

Fang had hatched from his egg in the twilight time after the sun had set, but before true night had fallen. As a result he had grown into a dusk dragon and developed the unique camouflage abilities of those rare dragons born between sundown and darkness. He could no more become a day dragon than he could change the colour of the sky.

‘Sorry, Fang,’ she added through gritted teeth. ‘That was uncalled for. I didn’t mean it. I just …’

She could not finish the sentence. Her brain felt as frozen as her limbs. With a groan she bent down and recovered her fire-starting materials and resumed her efforts, striking showers of sparks again and again across the tinder and kindling. Every time she sprayed the stars of light across the tiny pile of sticks, dark shadows leapt, teasing the corners of her vision. Tall trees loomed over her, crowding together like giants poised to stomp and crush. With increasing frequency she found herself looking around for signs of danger, but there was nothing to see. The black pillars of the tree trunks stood solid and motionless.

‘What’s the matter, Kira?’ she asked herself aloud through chattering teeth. ‘You’ve been alone in the woods lots of times. Besides, you’re not alone. You’ve got a dragon to protect you from …’

What? What was it that she felt she needed protection from? If the night dragons came close, Fang could conceal them both with ease. No normal predator with any sense would come near them, so what was it that had her so on edge? The atmosphere felt heavy with black menace. All was silent. But there were no burning eyes watching her out of the darkness. She could not see or hear anything moving.

‘I’m getting paranoid,’ she muttered.

'No you’re not,’ Fang said. ‘I sense it too, but I don’t know what it is that I’m feeling. I thought I felt something before we landed. There is something bad about this place. I think we should go.’

‘I’m too cold, Fang,’ she told him stubbornly. ‘I need to warm up before we go anywhere. I don’t think I’ll be able to stay on your back unless I get some blood circulating through my hands and feet.’

‘Well whatever you’re going to do, make it quick.’

Suddenly it all became clear to Kira. The nervousness she was feeling was not her own. It was Fang’s. Her dragon was transmitting his discomfort into her mind through the bond. The thought that this huge, powerful creature might be afraid of a spooky old forest made her snigger. She could not help herself. It built inside her, bubbling up with irresistible momentum and before she knew it, she was giggling like a little girl.

Fang turned his head and fixed her with a hard stare.

‘There is nothing funny about this place, Kira,’ he said firmly.

‘Yes there is,’ she countered. ‘What’s funny is you! I never realised dragons could be afraid of the dark.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Then what are you afraid of?’ she challenged. ‘I can feel your fear, Fang. I thought it was me getting the jitters. Now I know it’s you. It’s like Nolita and Firestorm, only in reverse.’

The sound was barely more than a whisper, but with mind-boggling swiftness, Fang struck. His jaws snapped open, revealing his vicious rows of inward-curving teeth. The prominent longer fang for which he was named flashed towards her so fast that she barely had time to register what was happening. Her reaction was to suck in a sharp breath with which to scream, but before she had a chance to utter a sound, Fang’s head whipped straight past her and he bit down into the snow.

As he lifted his head again, Kira saw something pale and long, wriggling and writhing in his jaws.

‘What the hell’s that?’ she gasped as she began to make out details.

The creature was long and segmented like a worm, but it was as thick as her arm. She could see no eyes, but even in the deepening darkness beneath the trees Kira could make out the mouth full of jagged, icicle-like teeth. Whatever it was, the creature was hideous.

‘Ice worm!’ Fang said, his voice in her mind now alive with fear. ‘Get on my back. Now! You must get out of the snow. Come on!’

Initially, Kira could not move. Fang’s panic rooted her to the spot. The crunch as the dragon’s teeth sheered through the ice worm’s plated exterior was horrible. He flicked his head, casting the remains of the worm as far as he could. Where the creature’s body landed, the snow instantly exploded in a frenzy of thrashing, writhing serpentine bodies. The speed with which they moved was electrifying. All the hair at the back of Kira’s neck stood on end.

Fang pounced. There was no other description for his movement. It was catlike. One moment he was in one place, the next he was leaping forwards. As he landed, the snow to either side of his front feet erupted as pinned ice worms fought to free themselves from under his weight. That they had not been instantly crushed did not go unnoticed by Kira. These creatures were incredibly tough.

‘It’s a swarm! Get out of the snow, Kira! Get out of the snow! They’re deadly!’ Fang cried in her mind, his voice carrying a desperate edge. ‘I can’t stop them. There’s too many.’

This time his words got through. Kira’s brain, slowed as it was by the cold, processed Fang’s fear, the speed of the creatures, the danger of the situation and finally forced her cold-soaked body into action. She stumbled the few short paces through the snow and tried to scramble up Fang’s foreleg to the relative safety of his back, still clutching her flint and steel.

As Kira lifted her trailing leg out of the snow pain tore through her right calf and she screamed in agony. An ice worm had bitten deep into the flesh and was now dangling behind her as she tried in vain to drag herself higher from the white surface. She could feel its teeth sinking deeper and deeper into her muscle, slicing through her flesh and sending a wave of icy coldness up and down her leg.

Fang’s head twisted on his long neck and with a touch of finesse she would not have believed possible of her dragon, he twitched the tail of the great worm out so he could catch its body between his teeth. There was another sickening crunch as he sheered the worm in two, but to Kira’s horror, the head end of the creature did not let go of her leg. It thrashed around, tearing her flesh even more, its teeth clamping tighter and tighter.

Screaming with every scrap of energy her lungs could find, she reached down with her right hand and began hitting it with the flint. The surface of the worm was slippery like ice and hard as steel. Her efforts proved worse than useless. Rather than let go, the worm tried all the harder to bite right through to the bone.

‘Heat!’ Fang told her, his voice frantic. ‘Use the flint and steel. Ice worms cannot stand fire.’

Kira twisted so that she could sit on Fang’s shoulder. Below her the snow was heaving in waves as a multitude of worms attacked from all sides. Despite dozens latching onto the dragon’s body, he remained motionless for fear of tipping Kira from her precarious perch. Reaching down with both hands this time, she scraped the steel against the flint and sent a shower of bright golden sparks across the worm’s body.

The dying creature’s response was instant. It could not let go fast enough. It released its grip and fell away from her, sliding down Fang’s foreleg only to be consumed in seconds by the thrashing mass of ice worms below.

‘Well done. Now get into the saddle, Kira,’ Fang urged. ‘I need to move. My scales are tough, but this looks like a big swarm. Even a dragon cannot hope to survive long against a sustained attack by ice worms.’

She turned, wincing as lines of pain shot up her injured leg. It only took her a few seconds, but it quickly became apparent that even this short time might prove fatal. Hundreds of worms had gained purchase on Fang’s body. Having gained a hold with their teeth, the worms had then burrowed back, tail first into the frozen ground and were now holding Fang in place like a web of living ropes. She could feel his muscles bunching and straining as he tried to lift his belly from the ground, but he could no longer move.

The pain in her leg was forgotten. Her fear was absolute. Worse – she could feel it shared and amplified by her dragon. The snowy carpet under the trees was alive with rippling movement as more and more worms swam through the snow towards them. They were trapped and she could see no way out. Without a miracle, she and Fang were going to die a horrible death.