Training Our Dragons

“Training Our Dragons”

A Short Story

Written By

PureSciFiPlus
Aka PureSciFi

     A flame of fire shot out of nowhere. It hit a pile of hay and caught it on fire. Several seconds later someone screamed, “FIRE,” from somewhere within that barn.

     Carrie ran out of the barn and suddenly stopped. A dozen men ran toward her with a bucket of splashing water in each hand. They ran past her into that barn. About a minute later they came back out without any water in their buckets. Carrie started running just after the first group of men passed her. She was almost to a small lake when the first group came out of that barn.

     The first group ran past Carrie on their way back to that lake. Another group of twelve men ran past her on their way to the barn. Carrie joined the other children and woman at the lake and started helping them fill the buckets. A third group headed for the barn just as Carrie got to the lake.

     After joining the others at the lake, Carrie looked back at the barn. Carrie looked shocked as the second group came out seconds before the third group went in. Then she looked up at the roof where smoke was coming out of it.

     “Lizzie, what have you done?” Carrie mumbled softly to herself.

# # #

     Carrie stared at a little smoke among a lot of ash and wood pieces that was the only thing left of that barn. Suddenly, Carrie started running toward the barn. She only got a few yards when a group of men blocked her advancement. Carrie ran into them and started falling backward.

     The men stepped aside to let a well-dressed man walk between them. The man glanced at both sides of Carrie, then at her. “What happened here?”

     “This is the fourth barn in two weeks that has caught fire thanks to you,” said the man a few seconds later. “Only this time the barn burnt down almost completely.”

     Carrie continued staring down at the ground for several minutes. Then she slowly looked up at the man. “I’m sorry, father. I don’t know what happened. One second I was playing, and the next the fire started.”

     The man sighed. “I want to believe you. But I don’t. You used that same excuse the first three times.”

     “This has something to do with your new pet, doesn’t it?” The man pointed his thumb toward the barn behind him. “Is that why you were running toward that barn when we showed up.”

# # #

     “I hope she isn’t still in there.” Carrie was kicking the ash around the side of the barn where the flame came from.

     Two of the men pulled Carrie away from the ash. They took her to the man just beyond the barn that was no longer smoking. Those two men joined the others kicking that ash. Only they were doing it all over that barn. The man knelt in front of Carrie.

     “What do you think that you are doing?” The man asked.

     “I’m looking for Lizzie.” Carrie started to turn toward the ash when one of the men came walking toward them with Lizzie in his outstretched hands. The man started turning when Carrie did. “Is that your new pet?”

     “Yes, it is,” said Carrie. “It’s a lizard. And I named her Lizzie.”

     “Where did you get it?” The man asked.

     Carrie ran up and took Lizzie from the one who found her, and she hugged it tightly. “I got it a few months ago from a man who was selling them. Why did you ask me that?”

     “Because that’s not a lizard. It’s a baby Dragon. And you need to get rid of it before it’s too late.”

# # #

     It was almost dusk when Carrie got Lizzie into the woods on one side of their kingdom. Carrie walked through the woods with Lizzie walking beside her. “I know what my father wanted me to do with you, Lizzie. He wanted me to kill you, but I can’t do that.”

     When Carrie got to a large clearing toward the center of those woods she stopped. “I’m only twelve. How could he think that I would do that to you?”

     “There’s no reason to kill you. So, what if you are a Dragon.”

     Carrie glanced down at Lizzie. Lizzie looked up at Carrie. “You’re not a threat to our kingdom. All you need is a little training.”

     “This looks like a good place to train you,” said Carrie after she slowly scanned that clearing. “There’s plenty of open space for your training. And you don’t have to worry about the fire within you.” Carrie glanced at the woods that surrounded clearing. “There is also a lot of places for you to hide when I’m not training you.”

     “We will start your training tomorrow,” said Carrie a few seconds later. “I need to get home before it gets dark.”

# # #

     Carrie returned home just after dark. Her father was waiting for her with his arms crossed. He looked mad. “Where have you been?”

     “I was getting rid of Lizzie,” said Carrie. “You did order me to do that, didn’t you?”

     “Good, I was concerned that you wouldn’t do it.” The man and Carrie started walking down a long hallway toward some winding stairs at the end of it. “We had better get some sleep. We’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.”

     It was just after dawn and the man stood on a balcony overlooking the kingdom below. The man was looking at about a thousand people below. He spoke loud to be heard from the crowd he could barely hear talking to each other. “Yesterday I learned that a man sold a bunch of lizards to some of you. They aren’t lizards. They’re Dragons. If you got one you must get rid of them right away.”

     Just then a fireball struck the kingdom outer wall. The man looked up and saw several hundred individuals running toward them. “We are about to be attacked again. Sometimes I hate being a King.”

# # # # #

     Running down a long tunnel Carrie glanced over her right shoulder. Carrie suddenly stopped when she bumped into the King walking quickly in front of her. He stopped too. She never took her eyes off the other children running toward her. Carrie put up her hand to stop them. The King stepped beside Carrie. “We are almost out of this tunnel. Once you are, you must hide in the woods until this invasion is over with.”

     The King started running toward a bright light about a hundred feet away. Carrie ran beside him. He stopped just before that exit. She ran past him out of that tunnel. A few seconds later she returned. “Why did you do that?”

     “I’m going back to fight for my Kingdom,” replied the King. The children started running between them. Carrie and the King were hugging the walls facing each other.

     “I am going back too,” said Carrie. Carrie gestured for the children to continue their running.

     “No, you’re not. These children need you to lead them to safety. You’re the only one who can do that.”

# # #

     Stopping in front of a large hill Carrie turned toward the other children and gestured them to stop too. Carrie turned back toward that hill and shouted. “Listen to my voice. I am Carrie.”

     The hill in front of Carrie shook before it split sideways to reveal an opening. Carrie led the other children into that opening. After the last child entered that opening it became the hill again.

     A few minutes later Carrie stood in a large cavern surrounded by the other children. “We will be safe in here until we can return to our kingdom. Only I don’t want to wait that long. There are a lot more Invaders this time. This could take months. Maybe even years before we can get our kingdom back.”

     Carrie glanced at each of the other children individually. “Did any of you get a lizard a few months ago?”

     Twenty-six children acknowledge they did. “How many of you were told to get rid of them?”

     Only twenty-two children responded to that question. Carrie smiled. “Those of you that had to get rid of your lizard, what did you do with them.”

     All twenty-six children said it differently. But they all said the same thing: They took their lizards into the woods and left them there. Carrie smiled. “Good. We need to find all of them. I think we might need them to get our kingdom back.”

# # #

     Carrie glance around the clearing at the twenty-six other lizards there. She also looked at the children standing next to them. But it was hard to see them because those lizards now looked like a baby dragon the size of a house. Only them walking among their dragons and talking to them did Carrie count off each one of them.

     With Lizzie by her side, Carrie started walking in down the row of the other twenty-six other children and dragons. Each dragon that Carrie passed the child next to it faced her and nodded. Carrie nodded back. It only took about fifteen minutes before Carrie reached her last dragon.

     Once she finished her walk, Carrie turned and walked to the center of that clearing. Carrie turned toward the other children and their dragons. She paced that line of dragons as she spoke. “It has been almost four months since the Invaders took over our kingdom.”

     “We are almost ready to take our kingdom back,” said Carrie a few seconds later. “Our dragons only need a couple of more weeks before we can do it.”

# # #

     A couple of kids, both about thirteen, ran out of the castle tunnel and into the nearby woods. They only got about a hundred feet before they come to a sudden stop in front of Carrie. “Sam and Rebecca, what did you find out?”

     Rebecca looked at Sam before she responded to that question. “It the same thing as it is every day that we sneak back into our kingdom to find food and what’s going on.”

     “Our King is in the dungeon cells,” said Sam. “The only way to get to them is through the castle.”

     Carrie smiled. “I will take care of our new King myself.”

     “What about the Invaders? Where are they at?” Carrie asked a few seconds later.

     “Most are walking the streets of our kingdom,” said Rebecca. “The others are on the walls.”

     Carrie smiled. “What about our families and the other adults? Do they know what to do when we attack the invaders?”

     “They do,” said Sam. “At least most of them do. The rest will be told by those who do by the time we start our attack.”

# # #

     Riding on the neck of Lizzie, Carrie led the other dragons and their riders toward their kingdom. Carrie looked back at the other children. She was alone on her dragon. Thirteen others were alone on their dragons too. The others were young children. So, they had an older child riding with them.

     When they got to their kingdom the Dragon Flyers to break up. About half the Dragon Flyers headed for the walls. Firing fire out of their dragons at the invaders. The other half headed for their kingdom streets. Carrie remained behind until the second started their attack. Once a path was cleared she started her attack on the castle.

     As the second attack began, the adults in the kingdom took shelter in whatever building they were near. The Invaders started panicking when the attack began too. Most of them tried to fight back, but some ran. They tried to take shelter with the adults. But they wouldn’t let them.

     The attack only took a few minutes. And Carrie was running toward the cells in the dungeon. She smiled when she reached the cell where the King was in. “I told you I would get our kingdom back father.”

Word Count = 1,987