Island of Fog (Book 1) (17 page)

Darcy hopped back to him, grimacing. “That really hurt. I scraped my toe. Look, it’s bleeding.”

“Here, sit down a minute,” Hal said.

Darcy sat, grumbling about ‘stupid magic clothes,’ and shrugged off her backpack. She unzipped it and started rummaging around for her real shoes.

Hal gazed at her scraped foot. It was bleeding near her big toe. He stared at the red smudge and watched as a tiny trickle leaked out. He had a sudden, inexplicable urge to sniff at it. The thought both repulsed and intrigued him; the idea of sniffing at blood was weird and twisted, and yet another part of him felt it was a perfectly natural, normal thing to do . . .

Before he could stop himself, he got down on hands and knees and leaned in closer, eager to take in the scent of fresh, warm blood.

And Darcy screamed and leapt backward as his huge green snout came at her. For a moment Hal was taken aback, shocked at her reaction, but then realization hit him.
He’d done it!
He’d turned into a dragon once more! And all it had taken was the sight of blood.

As appalled as he was at the idea of sniffing Darcy’s foot, his heart soared with delight. Finally! “Look, Darcy! At last!”

But Darcy screamed again. Too late Hal remembered that his words came out as throaty roars. Now Darcy was climbing to her feet and, not looking where she was going, stumbling backward towards the jagged rocky ground. If she tripped and fell, she might crack her head open.

Hal took one leap and swung a huge green paw around behind her. She instinctively lurched backward and fell against it. Trapped, her eyes widened further as Hal’s snout came within six inches of her face. To avoid scaring her—
how exactly does a dragon look harmless?
—he immediately backed off and lay down flat on the rocky ground, trying to be still and submissive.

Watching her out of the corner of his eye, he was pleased to see that she was managing to get control of herself. Her breath was coming in short gasps, and her face was white, but she wasn’t trying to run.

“I . . . I know you’re Hal,” she said after a while. “I’m just being silly. You gave me such a scare. I knew you were a dragon, but . . . but I didn’t know you were
really
a dragon—a real one, I mean, so big and dangerous and—look at those claws, and those teeth . . .”

She lapsed into a stream of mumbling that Hal couldn’t make out. She seemed to be commenting on everything—his green scaly skin, his huge feet with curved claws, his gigantic leathery wings—but he was only catching bits and pieces of her commentary. He was more interested in her smell. He’d never noticed before, but she smelled nice, a scent of roses. He assumed this was some of that girly bath soap or shampoo that all the moms made.

“Okay,” she said, sounding like the Darcy he knew. “I’m ready to move on now. Can I . . . can I climb up on your back?”

Hal grunted a dragon’s version of “Yes” and waited while she collected both backpacks and scrambled up on his back. He caught another scent then—a faint trace of blood. He sniffed the air and searched the ground, and saw faint red smears where Darcy had walked.

“Your bag straps broke when you changed,” she said, dangling his damaged backpack in front of his left eye.

Hal groaned, reminded of his watch. He finally spotted it lying pulverized on the rock, its strap broken. He’d had that watch for as long as he could remember, and now it was ruined. His underpants also lay in full view, ripped open.

“Oh, look!” Darcy said. “Your clothes!”

For a second, Hal thought she was referring to his underpants and felt a flush of embarrassment. But no, she was talking about his ‘smart’ clothes, which seemed to have transformed into a handy set of reins, somehow looped around his neck with a little slack in them. He doubted they were
supposed
to be reins, but they certainly were useful. He felt Darcy grab hold of the reins and tug on them. Then she tightened her legs around his neck. She was ready.

At any other time, Hal would have marveled at the idea of Darcy, or
any
girl for that matter, holding on so tightly to him. But as a dragon he hardly felt a thing, just a gentle presence and a slight pressure where her legs pressed into his scaly skin.

He carefully stood and began the march to Black Woods. One day he’d learn how to fly. How had Abigail and Lauren been able to master this stuff so easily? He’d figure it out soon enough, but right now he was content to stomp. The rocky ground might as well have been soft grass for all the difference it made to his tough hide, and he marched without delay until he reached the grassy fields again. Gradually, he picked up the trail left by Dewey and Robbie, hoof prints and large foot-shaped craters pressed into the soft soil where the grass was thin. There was also a strange whiff of animal, which could be either of his two friends.

Black Woods came into view, looming out of the fog like an impenetrable wall. As they neared, the fog dissipated a little and the blackness of the woods deepened.

“There they are!” somebody said.

Abigail’s ‘gang’ came out of the fog from the direction of the cliff. “Hey,” Abigail called. “I see you finally got it together. We thought you’d never make it!”

The group stopped a short distance away, and Hal suddenly felt self-conscious as his friends stared open-mouthed at him for what seemed ages. They were all in their human form, and with their simple green-gray clothing and bare feet, they looked to Hal like a band of shy forest-dwelling elves.

One by one they came closer, Abigail and Robbie first, then Dewey, Lauren and Emily. Abigail patted him on his shoulder, or at least what he thought of as his shoulder. “What kept you?”

“It took him a while to change,” Darcy said from her perch behind his neck. “I had to cut my feet open first.” She handed Hal’s backpack down, and then her own, and Robbie went to stack them on top of the others in the long grass.

“Ooh, Darcy,” Emily said, coming forward. “Oh, your poor feet! You’re bleeding.”

“I know, my toe really hurts. A warning to you all—these plastic shoe things protect the bottoms of your feet, but not the tops! I think I’m going to stay up here, Hal, if that’s all right?”

Hal gave a grunt and a nod. He wanted to say, “Okay, let’s get this done,” but knew he’d end up roaring like the monster he was, so he simply gave another grunt and began marching into the woods. He stopped once to see if the others were following, and then plunged ahead.

He flattened the bushes easily. His thick scales seemed impervious to even the scratchiest of brambles. He remembered this section of the woods from his last trip, and soon came to the exact spot where he and Abigail had met the manticore. There were the remains of his old clothes, ripped to shreds, and his shoes trampled into the dirt. From here on he was unsure of the way, but he plunged ahead, hoping to get it right, and aware that his friends were following his lead.

A pungent stink came to his nostrils. He seemed to have developed a strong sense of smell since becoming a dragon, and this was one smell he could do without. He recognized it as the foul stench of the manticore’s mouth. Hal imagined all those rodents Thomas must have scavenged for in the last few days, and all that meat getting caught between three rows of needle-sharp teeth. He shuddered inwardly. But the stink was useful; it told him the manticore was near, a little off to his left.

Hal couldn’t think of a way to warn his friends verbally without returning to his human form—something he didn’t want to mess around with right now. He needed to remain a dragon. An idea came to him, though. He reached up and, with his teeth, gently grabbed an overhanging branch. He snapped it loose with one quick twist of his neck, then repositioned the branch in his mouth and used it to write in the dirt. He wrote one simple, very untidy word:

manticore

Darcy, peering down from her perch, called back to the others. “Hal says the manticore is near.”

Immediately there was a flurry of activity behind Hal, and he turned to watch. His friends had been trooping along behind him in single file, some of them carrying blankets. At Darcy’s warning, Dewey immediately transformed into a centaur and turned around, stamping the ground, while Lauren, Emily and Abigail huddled closer to each other. Robbie tensed up and put on a deep frown of concentration. Like Hal, he seemed unable to master the ability of transforming exactly when he wanted to, but clearly he wanted to be an ogre at this moment.

A noise ahead of Hal alerted him to a presence. He snapped his head back around to the front and narrowed his eyes, trying to spot Thomas. His nose told him the manticore was close. He wasn’t afraid of him at all, but was deeply concerned for his friends, particularly the girls, who were the most vulnerable. Emily had nothing to transform into as far as she knew, and neither did Darcy. Abigail could at least buzz away faster than she could run, but that assumed she wasn’t stuck with poisoned quills. Even Lauren, who could fly like a bird in the open fields, was in danger here in the dense woods.

It was up to Hal and Robbie, and perhaps Dewey, to protect them from the manticore if it dared to attack. Surely it wouldn’t, though. Surely Thomas had the sense to steer clear when he was clearly outnumbered.

The stench of manticore grew closer.

With a howl, the red-faced manticore erupted from a clump of bushes and pounced. Hal thought he was ready for it, but he badly misjudged how the creature would attack. He had half expected it to leap straight at one of his vulnerable friends and dig its claws and teeth in, bringing down its prey under rugged muscular bulk. Hal was ready for that—his rear end was pointed toward his friends, and the heavy club on the end of his tail was already sweeping the air and taking out a small tree or two. Had the manticore tried such an attack, it would have been knocked senseless in mid-flight.

Hal had also entertained the idea of a remote attack, with hundreds of quills flying through the air at them. He couldn’t have blocked all the quills, but he might have used his leathery wings as a shield and caught most of them.

But the manticore took him by surprise. It leapt out of the bushes and went for his belly.
His belly!
In the blink of an eye the manticore was under him, burrowing like a rabbit and squeezing into a gap that wasn’t quite big enough. Hal first tried to step aside, but the creature moved with him. So Hal jumped high, hoping to come down heavily on the thing and trap it under his clumsy, clawed feet, or squash it under his body. But as he came down he felt a stabbing jab in his soft underbelly.

As Hal reeled from burning pain, the manticore shot out from under him and made another bold move, leaping at Dewey’s throat. The centaur reared at once and lashed out with flailing hoofs. There was a knock loud enough to echo through the woods, and the manticore jerked sideways. It landed badly, stumbled, and spun around. It shook its head and a few drops of blood flicked from its jaws.

All this happened in an instant while his friends screamed and yelled. As Dewey’s hoof connected with the manticore’s face, Hal turned and leapt into the fray, prepared to bury his snout in the creature’s bushy mane and find a throat to lock his teeth into. What he would have done then was anybody’s guess, but as it turned out, Hal’s body didn’t behave the way it was supposed to. Instead of reaching the manticore in one single bound, he fell short and landed with a splat in the mud, his wobbly legs giving way under him.

The pain in his belly was searing hot, and he felt a wave of nausea and dizziness as his vision blurred. The screams and yells continued, and the manticore joined in with fluty, shrill laughter. Hal tried in vain to get to his feet.

Dimly he saw a huge shape appear out of nowhere, a great shaggy mass of brown hair and muscle. He blinked to clear his vision and watched with relief as Robbie, in his ogre body, punched the manticore in the face and sent it staggering backward into the bushes.

The manticore was on its feet in a flash, and up came its scorpion tail, arcing over its head. With a savage flick, poison quills shot out and flew at Robbie, who threw up his arms and ducked his head. Hal’s vision blurred once more as the pain in his belly spread fast. Anger and frustration suddenly bubbled up and he roared at the manticore. A great flash of hot yellow flame spouted from his throat.

The manticore screamed and tried to dart out of the way, but Hal—in one continuous fiery roar—turned his head back and forth as if he were blowing out candles on a birthday cake. The red-furred creature had no choice but to back off into the woods, with bushes catching fire all around. Overhanging trees blackened as the manticore gave a parting snarl and ran off.

But not for long. As Hal’s lungs emptied, he took a gasping breath and the flame cut off. The moment he did so, the manticore stopped running and turned back. Its eerie bright blue eyes shone through the dark, foggy woods. Then the creature whipped off to the side, ducking and diving through the undergrowth like a dog hunting a rabbit.

Trying hard to focus, Hal shook his head and, as if he were emerging from a dream, became vividly aware of the ruckus going on around him. Both Emily and Lauren were knelt in the dirt, holding each other tight and screeching. Abigail was hovering fifteen feet up, not quite out of range of the manticore’s quills or vicious stinger, but high enough to be the least likely target. Dewey was dancing in circles, nostrils flared and eyes wide, kicking up clods of dirt with his hoofs.

Robbie, stuck all over with what seemed like hundreds of quills, was staggering around. He tilted sideways and dropped to his knees.

For one horrifying moment, Hal wondered where Darcy was. She was missing! But then he remembered that she was riding on his back.
Or was she?
He twisted his neck, trying to see. But either she was clinging tightly to the back of his head and twisting
with
him, or she wasn’t there anymore. “Darcy?” he called. His voice came out as a hoarse growl.

He wiggled his toes. They had some feeling in them, but not much. His belly stung all over. Grimacing, he writhed and managed to get his feet under him, then hauled himself off the ground. But the moment he lifted his head, his balance left him and he collapsed again.

Some help he was! As a dragon he’d felt certain he was more than a match for a manticore. He outweighed the creature, had bigger claws and teeth, and had a powerful club-like tail that could knock down a small tree. Yet the manticore had outwitted him with the ease of a skilled hunter.

Which was, of course,
exactly
what Thomas was.

Hal groaned, partly with pain but also with the realization that his friends had very nearly been killed. If Dewey hadn’t got lucky and kicked the manticore in the face . . . and if Robbie hadn’t finally managed to transform and lash out at the creature . . . and if Hal hadn’t used his fire-breath at the last moment . . . well, who knows what might have happened.

And Thomas was still out there, flitting from one bush to another, taking stock and awaiting his chance to attack again.

Hal felt unable to walk anywhere feeling the way he did and wondered if he’d be better off turning back into his human self so he could ride on Dewey’s back. They couldn’t just hang around here, that was for sure. As far as he was concerned, the mission to block the fog-hole was abandoned. They had to get away from that evil manticore before it struck again.

He twisted his neck.
Was
Darcy still on his back? He couldn’t see her, and suddenly felt certain she had fallen and been crushed under his weight.

Panicked, he swung around and scanned the ground, half expecting to find her squished into the dirt. But she was not there. He peered into the dark woods all around, looking for some sign of movement, or a frightened face looking back at him from under a bush. He sniffed, trying to catch the scent of her rose-scented bath soap. “Darcy! Darcy, are you—”

He blinked in surprise as he heard his own voice coming from his lips. He realized he was human again, dressed in the same green-gray clothes as before. And as he gaped in wonder at the ease and speed of his transformation, the wave of nausea and giddiness faded. He yanked up his green shirt, expecting the searing pain on his belly to be a blackened, blistering burn, but the pain was fading too, and there was nothing out of the ordinary to look at.

“Darcy!” he yelled, glancing around. Where was she?

A scuffling in the woods alerted him and he swung around, looking for the manticore. He could no longer smell the creature’s rank breath, and that scared him. Now he had to rely on his eyes and ears instead of his nose, and somehow he felt more vulnerable than he ever had, especially without his claws and fire-breath for protection.
How could he ever get used to being a mere human again?

“Thomas is still out there somewhere,” he warned the others. “Did anyone see where Darcy went?”

Emily and Lauren climbed shakily to their feet, wide-eyed and white-faced. Dewey stilled his restless hoofs and looked angrily into the woods, while Robbie sat and plucked poison quills out of his hide. His fingers were too fat though, and in the end Lauren offered to help.

Abigail buzzed down to the ground. “I didn’t see what happened to Darcy,” she said. “She was there one moment, gone the next. You don’t think . . . ?”

“That Thomas got her?” Hal shook his head. “I don’t think he’d be sticking around if he had. He would have made off with his kill.”

“Don’t say that,” Abigail said, a hand to her mouth. She peered into the woods. “What are we going to do now? I honestly thought we’d be able to take care of ourselves. I thought Thomas wouldn’t dare attack us with you around.”

The manticore gave a fluty laugh from somewhere in the foggy darkness.

Hal touched his stomach once more. “You know, the exact moment I changed back, the pain left. I’m fine now.” He stared at Abigail, an astounding notion forming in his head. “This means we can’t really be harmed. If transforming somehow heals us . . . well, we have nothing to worry about.”

“Except dying,” Abigail said shortly. “I doubt we can transform if we’re dead first.”

Lauren plucked another quill from Robbie’s massive shoulder. She winced as it came out, but Robbie hardly seemed to notice. But he looked groggy, and his head kept lolling from side to side.

Hal quickly explained to him—quietly, in case the manticore was listening—that transforming back into his human shape might allow the quills to simply drop out. “That’s what happened with me,” he said, remembering. “They just fell out and I was fine afterwards. Hurry though. Darcy’s missing.”

It was at the exact moment Robbie managed to transform back into his small, thin frame that the manticore attacked again. Hal was transfixed by the sight of Robbie’s poison quills falling into the dirt, but he jumped with fright when he heard the sudden rush of an animal though the woods. The cracking of twigs and heavy panting sent a chill through his body.

He needed to be a dragon again.
Now!

But then he frowned, listening as the sounds of the manticore stopped abruptly with a thin, reedy wail of anguish. More scuffling, some urgent grunts, and then a sinister hissing that sent another chill through Hal’s body.

“What’s happening?” he whispered to Abigail.

She gripped his arm in fingers so strong they left red marks in his flesh. “I have no idea,” she whispered back.

Emily, Lauren, Dewey and Robbie stood silent, watching and listening, as Hal took a deep breath and stepped into the thick undergrowth, circling some bushes so he could see what was going on. Abigail, still gripping his arm, tugged at him for a moment, but then relented and followed. Together they fought their way through a tangle of ferns and vines, and stopped in surprise.

Thomas was there, belly to the ground, spread-eagled in the dirt like a rug of deep red fur. His odd human face was a mask of shock. Straddling him was a creature nearly twice his length and even more frightening—a jet black serpentine thing with sinewy legs and a long neck. Its head was elongated and pointed, with a dragon-like crest rising over its brow and running the length of its neck and body. Two rows of even white fangs grinned maniacally, and a black tongue slipped out and quivered before slipping back in with a wet slopping sound.

The creature had its claws buried in the manticore’s hide, but its tail was doing most of the work. It was the longest, thinnest tail Hal had ever seen, like a ten-foot shiny black snake had taken a bite of the creature’s backside and was unable to let go. The tail was wrapped three times around the manticore’s midriff, squeezing so hard that Thomas was gasping for breath. Thomas’s own tail, that dangerous scorpion appendage, flailed weakly.

“Darcy?” Hal said, his voice coming out as a rasp.

As Hal and Abigail stared in disbelief, the black serpent opened its mouth wide and water gushed forth all over the manticore’s face. Thomas moaned, screwing up his eyes and grimacing as the water dribbled into his mouth.

“No,” Abigail said into Hal’s ear. “That’s not Darcy. That’s Fenton.”

The serpent took a long, deep breath and hissed noisily. As it did so, the water that matted the manticore’s fur thickened into a glue-like substance. The manticore struggled but the serpent had him pinned down. More water gushed, and then came another hiss. In moments the manticore’s eyes were glued shut and it was having difficulty breathing through its nose.

The serpent seemed satisfied with its work and uncoiled itself, releasing the manticore. The red-furred creature leapt to its feet and shook itself furiously. It rubbed its face in the dirt, grunting and whining, but its eyes remained glued shut.

Finally it gave a howl, turned, and stumbled away, crashing through bushes and bumping into trees as it went.

As silence descended on the woods, the black serpent swung around to study Hal and Abigail. Red eyes glowing, it remained as motionless as a statue. Then it tilted its head to one side and crouched, and somehow Hal knew that his old school friend—the class bully, Fenton—was in there somewhere.

“Fenton?” he said. “Nod if you can understand me.”

The serpent creature gave the smallest of nods.

Relief washed over Hal. “How did you
do
that? The water you spat out—it turned to glue when you breathed on it. That’s—”

“Wait,” Abigail interrupted. “Look, it’s great to see you, Fenton, but let’s talk about this later. Right now we have a problem: Where’s Darcy?”