Wings of Fire Book Three: The Hidden Kingdom (16 page)

“Watch him carefully,” Glory instructed Clay. “Don’t let him talk.”

“MMMMMFF,” Deathbringer complained through the vines she’d tied around his snout. She didn’t want him spilling the beans to Clay before she could get away into the forest. Also, she’d gotten sick of listening to him yammer all night long trying to derail her plan. This way she’d been able to watch the sunrise in relative peace and quiet, shortly after which Clay had shown up.

“No worries,” Clay said. “I’ll just sit here and be my usual intimidating self.” He threw back his shoulders and tried to scowl.

“Absolutely terrifying,” Glory assured him.

Deathbringer managed to look skeptical despite the vines obscuring most of his face.

“I’ll send someone else soon to take the next watch,” she said, backing away.

But first I’m going to catch a monster.

It wasn’t
that
stupid a plan, no matter what Deathbringer said. A lone RainWing was exactly the kind of target the monster would go after. And she couldn’t risk enlisting another RainWing as bait — they were all too dopey to be any use, even Mangrove.

Besides, as far as she could tell, she was the only RainWing willing to use her venom on other living things. It wasn’t her
favorite
thing to do, but it was still a weapon — a powerful one that few dragons knew about — and she was sure she could use it to escape any situation if she had to.

She headed back to the tunnel first. She was still certain that it was connected to the missing RainWings, although she couldn’t figure out how.

It started with the question: Who had put the tunnel in place? And then: What was their plan — to steal a RainWing here and there? Why?

Glory nosed around the forest near the tunnel opening until she found a clearing where she could sit and think for a moment.

Burn seemed like an obvious suspect, since her stronghold was not far from the tunnel. But Glory had seen the look on Burn’s face as Glory’s venom sizzled on Queen Scarlet’s scales. It was pure shocked terror. The SandWing queen had clearly never seen anything like Glory’s venom before. If she were the one abducting RainWings for the past year, surely she’d have heard about their training sessions and she’d know all about it.

Glory stopped at a small bush and sprayed it with her venom. Black goop spattered over the leaves, and almost immediately the whole bush wilted, shriveled up, and died. Glory tilted her head at it, feeling weirdly guilty.

Maybe she could practice her aim while she waited for the monster to attack her. She chose another bush with long dragon-tail leaves and tried to hit just one of them.

Half the bush went
fzzzzzrrrt
and melted into the grass.

“Hmmm,” Glory said aloud. “Not awesome.”

She tried again. And again. The clearing was starting to look a bit worse for wear.

Glory stopped and smacked herself with her tail.

Try using your brain for half a moment, Glory.

If
she
made a mess like this with her venom practice, then surely the other training dragonets would have, too. So even though Bromeliad wouldn’t show her where Kinkajou had disappeared, there was a chance Glory could find it on her own.

She started at the waterfall and circled out from there, walking so she could study the bushes as she went past them. Fat spiny frogs stared at her, making
worgle-WORG
noises in their throats. A pair of red and gold birds with large beaks followed her for a while, gossiping loudly in what sounded like garbled dragon language.

But she found nothing — no signs of venom anywhere. Maybe the training sessions had been in a whole different part of the forest; maybe the secret tunnel really had nothing to do with the abductions.

Glory stubbornly kept searching. What other reason could there be for the tunnel? Who would need to get quickly between the desert and the rainforest? No one . . . no one came to the rainforest at all, and the RainWings certainly never left.

But the war is closer than they think
, she thought.
It’s right on their doorstep, ready to fall through into their peaceful world.
She glared up at the treetops as an image of Queen Magnificent flashed through her head.
And what is that useless queen going to do about it?

Blaze is no better than Magnificent. If we pick her, we leave the SandWings as weak and vulnerable as the RainWings.

She looked up at the trees again. Was it getting darker? The sun had been up for only a couple of hours.

A fat raindrop splattered against her snout. The leaves above her whooshed like dragon wings as the wind rushed through them, and more rain came pattering down in scatters and sprays. Glory drew her wings close to her.

Rain probably washed away any trace of venom training days ago
, she realized. But she kept going, sodden undergrowth squelching below her talons.

She found herself in a small circle where the trees above bent together to form a kind of umbrella canopy, keeping the ground below relatively dry. She stopped there, stretching and shaking her wings.
This is stupid
, she told herself.
I’m not going to find anything, and I’m not going to get caught by anything in this weather either. What kind of creature would be out hunting in the rain?
She might as well head back to the village and dry off.

But as she turned to fly away, she spotted a dark patch on the bush of pink flowers beside her. Glory paused, then edged closer and peered at it.

Several of the leaves were withered and dead, looking sickly, black, and twisted. A glossy pattern of dark droplets had hardened on the ground under the bush.

Someone
was training here
, Glory thought.
Maybe Kinkajou. Maybe one of the other missing dragons.
She poked the piles of leaves that covered the ground and found half a talon print in the dirt — a small one, even smaller than Sunny’s. She leaned down to sniff at it.

And that was when something bashed her on the back of her head.

Glory started awake to the feeling of movement and something uncomfortable pressing against her wings. She kept still for a moment with her eyes closed, trying to figure out what was happening.

It felt like she was being dragged along the ground. Her left side was unpleasantly damp and slimy, as if she were wrapped in something that instantly soaked up the mud and clung to her scales. Rain still splattered around her, the sound muffled now by whatever she was in . . . a giant sack of some kind, she guessed.

Her wings were bound to her sides, and thick cloth was wrapped around her claws. More disturbingly, some kind of vine or rope was tied around her snout, binding her mouth shut.

Which meant using her venom was out of the question.

It also meant that whatever had caught her wasn’t just a mindless mystery beast. It was smart enough to tie her up. It probably knew about her venom — or it might just be wary of her teeth.

Her tail thwacked against something solid and she winced. She cracked open her eyes and saw only darkness. No, wait — not total darkness. Faint green light filtered through the thick canvas around her. The sack pressed close to her snout; it smelled like dead animals and rotten eggs and fire, overwhelming the damp leafy scent of the rainforest outside.

Glory tried to listen for clues, but all she could hear was wet slithering, which might be just the sack sliding over the forest floor. Then a shiver ran down her spine like sharp claws scrabbling to escape. She recognized the weird prickle under her scales — it was the feeling she got from the hole that led to the Kingdom of Sand.

I was right
, she thought.
They’re taking me to the tunnel.

Somehow, without her venom, she didn’t feel quite as triumphant about being right as she’d hoped.

She heard splashing and a moment later water soaked through the sack as she was dragged through the stream. A couple of grunts followed, and Glory felt herself lifted up into the air, then dropped onto cold stone.

Something shoved at her tail, and she started to slide, down and down as if it were slick ice below her.

Wait
, she thought with a sickening lurch.
The tunnel to the desert doesn’t go down. Where am I?
She smacked into a wall and slid around a corner, picking up speed again.
This isn’t the hole to the Kingdom of Sand. But it
feels
like that hole. So is this the same kind of passageway, ripped into the world where it shouldn’t be? And where does this one end?

She tumbled suddenly into open space and slammed into a pile of thin furs, which did not do much to blunt the impact of the rocks underneath them.

Glory lay there for a moment, trying not to groan. Every bone in her body ached; every scale felt as though it had been scraped raw. She was pretty sure she’d bitten her tongue when she landed. She could taste blood in her mouth.

The smell of death and smoke was stronger now, and it was no longer raining, but there was hardly any light coming through the sack. This was definitely not the desert; it was chilly instead of blazingly warm, although the sound of a fire crackled somewhere nearby. Glory could hear a distant rumble like faraway thunderclouds, except that it felt like it was coming from below the rocks instead of up in the sky.

Heavy feet thudded down beside her, and something snuffled loudly around the sack. Its breathing sounded the same as whatever had eaten the dead sloth in the night. Glory clenched her talons. Was it planning to eat her? Because it was in for quite a surprise if it —

“Another one?” said a disapproving voice.

The snuffling hitched for a second, as if startled, and then a hoarse voice beside Glory’s head said, “Yeah. Easy catch. She was all alone in the forest. Stupid like all RainWings.”

Dragons
, Glory thought. Relief warred with fury.
They’re just dragons. Nothing mysterious and creepy. Apart from the
basic mysterious creepiness of kidnapping other dragons, that is.

Well, I can handle a couple of creepy dragons. Just as soon as they take this sack off me.
She flexed her claws, wondering if she could rip through the cloth around them.

“Didn’t you get the message?” said the first dragon.

“Yeah,” said the one with the garbled breathing. “But I like the prey in the rainforest. And I was hungry. And then this dragon was just asking to get caught. Besides, I thought his message was stupid.”

“It’s not stupid if it keeps us safe.” The first dragon sighed. “Throw her in with the others. But from now on, do as you’re told.”

“Yeah, yeah,” grumbled the second dragon. “All right, I got it. No more hunting or grabbing dragons in the rainforest until Deathbringer says it’s all clear.”

Glory had never been so glad that her scales were hidden. There was no way she could stop the colors flooding through them; she couldn’t even guess what they were turning to right now.

Deathbringer
did
know who was taking the missing RainWings. He was connected to them. And somehow he had told them to stop . . . until “it’s all clear”; what did that mean? Until he’d finished kill ing the dragonets? Or until Glory and her friends stopped snooping around the tunnel?

And
how
did he get a message to these dragons? Glory had left him in the Ice Kingdom and then caught him coming out of the desert tunnel into the rainforest. He’d said he followed the dragonets to the hole in the sand, but maybe he’d known about it before. Maybe he’d gotten there first, gone through to this place, warned these dragons, and then gone back to the desert tunnel after the dragonets were back in the rainforest . . . but . . .

Glory remembered that Deathbringer had conveniently appeared just in time to stop them from catching the creature in the dark.

He did that on purpose.

He was warning off the other dragon
— this one with the weird breathing.

Deathbringer knew we would catch him. Maybe he
wanted
us to catch him.

Her tail curled.
And my friends are alone with Deathbringer. I have to get back to them. I have to get back
right now.

She flung open her wings and lashed her tail, clawing at the sack frantically.

“Whoa!” yelled the hoarse voice. “A little help here!”

Glory’s heart sank at the sound of footsteps and wingbeats. There were a lot more than two dragons out there. She kicked out blindly, fighting as hard as she could, but talons grabbed her from all sides, pinning her to the ground.

“You’ll never get her there like this,” gasped one of the dragons. “You’ll have to knock her out again.”

“My plea sure,” said the hoarse voice.

And once again, something slammed into Glory’s head, and then all was darkness.

“Hey!”

Something nosed Glory in the ribs, and she woke up with a small yelp of pain.

“Are you awake?” Tiny claws lifted Glory’s eyelids, and something blurry came way too close to her snout to peer at her.

“Mmmmf!” Glory said through the gag around her mouth. She tried to push the something away, but her talons felt heavy and she missed.

“Ha ha, don’t even try,” said the little voice. “I’ve spent my whole life waking up dragons who’d rather be sleeping instead of training me. I’m excellent at dodging when they get all mad about it.” The tiny claws poked at her ruff. “How come I don’t know you?”

“Mmmmf,” Glory said again. Her head hurt. She rested it back on the ground and blinked until the world came into focus.

A small diamond-shaped snout hovered only a few inches from hers. Gigantic dark eyes peered out of gold and orange scales. The little dragonet couldn’t have been more than three years old. She poked Glory’s ruff again.

“Don’t worry, I know you can’t talk. I’m the only one without a gag. They decided my venom wasn’t strong enough or I couldn’t shoot it far enough to be dangerous, or something, I guess, which is a little unfair because if somebody would just
train
me
properly
, I think I’d be super-great at it and then these horrible dragons would be super-sorry for putting
me
in a cage.” A ripple of scarlet fury moved through her wings.

Glory reluctantly sat up so she could look around. The pain in her head flared viciously, and she had to close her eyes until it receded into a dull throb.

When she opened them again, she realized that the blurriness around her wasn’t just her eyes. The air was hazy with smoke. Pulsing heat wafted over her scales, although she couldn’t see any sign of a fire. She glanced up and saw jagged stone walls pressing close overhead. It seemed like the heat was coming from the rocks themselves.

Back in a cave
, she thought.
Awesome.

The sack was gone, but the bindings around her wings and claws were still in place. Her mouth was still bound as well, but it felt different from before — whatever clamped her snout shut now was much heavier than the earlier vines. She crossed her eyes trying to get a look at it.

“It’s a metal band,” the little dragonet explained, tilting her head sympathetically. “Like this one around my neck. It’s to keep you from using your venom, but it’s also so we can’t camouflage ourselves and disappear; they’ll always be able to see the metal band.” She pointed to a thick brassy clamp around her own neck. “Smart but annoying, right?” She paused. “Kind of like me! Ha ha! My name’s Kinkajou, by the way, in case you were wondering.”

So there’s one of the missing RainWings
, Glory thought.
Where are the others?
The small cave held only herself and the dragonet. A half-moon of light glowed at the cave opening, not far away. Glory took a tentative step toward it, then another when nothing happened. Nothing fell from the roof; nothing attacked her; no alarms went off. What sort of prison was this?

Kinkajou followed her, still chattering. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “I’m super-good at that, especially nowadays when I’m the only one who can talk and so I have to imagine the other side of every conversation I have. Maybe telepathy is contagious or something. But anyway, you’re thinking you can walk out of this cave, and trust me, you can’t, but you’ll have to go see for yourself because everybody does, I guess, instead of listening to me.”

Glory reached the entrance and stopped.

Kinkajou was right. There was no walking out this way.

A wide, sluggish river of molten lava flowed past just outside the cave. It glowed gold and orange-bright, the only splash of color in a barren black landscape. With her wings bound, Glory would never make it across.

She leaned out to see where the lava river started. A hulking dark mountain filled the sky, half-hidden by the smoke pouring out the top. Smaller rivulets of lava dappled the slope and a red glow came from a few holes in the rocks. It was hard to tell whether it was night or day; the light was so strange, and the sky was swathed in dark clouds. Glory guessed that she’d been knocked out for a few hours, at least. The rotten-eggs smell was thick in the air.

“Sinister, right?” Kinkajou said in her ear, and Glory jumped. “Who would actually want to live here? I don’t get it.”

Who
does
live here?
Glory wondered.
The Talons of Peace? Is this where they hide?

And then she realized that parts of the landscape were moving, and they weren’t rocks after all . . . they were dragons. Black dragons, with silver scales glittering under their wings. She could see at least a hundred of them scattered across the mountain and several more flying above it.

She inhaled sharply and regretted it as sulfur filled her nose.

I know where we are.

This is the secret home of the NightWings.