

Dragon Land

Two Dragon Brothers # 1

The Beginning

Elizabeth Westphal

Published by Elizabeth Westphal at Smashwords

Copyright © 2011 Elizabeth Westphal

All rights reserved.

Cover Image Copyright © 2011 Elizabeth Westphal

All rights reserved.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter One: Play

Chapter Two: A Friend and a Foe

Chapter Three: A New Home

Chapter Four: First Hunt

Chapter Five: Stranger

Chapter Six: Discovery

Chapter Seven: Exploring

Chapter Eight: Caves

Chapter Nine: Collapse

Chapter Ten: Unexplored Places

Chapter Eleven: Fights

Chapter Twelve: Autumn

Chapter Thirteen: Winter

Chapter Fourteen: Spring

Chapter Fifteen: Hatchdays

Chapter Sixteen: Forest Fire

Chapter Seventeen: Searches

Chapter Eighteen: Battle Preparations

Chapter Nineteen: Ambush

Chapter Twenty: Bittersweet Victory

Epilogue

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to the people at the Amazon Warrior forums, because they told me about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writer's Month); the creators of NaNoWriMo, because without them this book would not have been written; and the creators of CreateSpace, without whom this book would not have been published.

Most of all, I am grateful to my family for being supportive and enthusiastic about this book. Special thanks to my dad for helping me find a way to format the book, and to my younger brother Danny and older brother Joe for helping me proofread it.

PROLOGUE

Splashsail and Flowerwater, two Amphibian dragons, swam slowly back and forth across a pond, hunting small aquatic animals.

Flowerwater lunged for a fish but missed, coming up with a mouthful of water instead. She was too busy thinking of her eggs to care. They were only a few days from hatching. She glanced back towards the shore, where her three pale brown eggs lay camouflaged among the tall grass.

Turning back to Splashsail, Flowerwater asked, "Do you have any name ideas for our hatchlings?"

"I thought of a few for boys, and one for a girl," Splashsail replied, looking up from the fish he had been watching. "Have you thought of any?"

Flowerwater shook her head. "I thought of many names, but none of them seem to fit. What are your ideas?"

"Well, for boys I thought of Rainfall, Whirlpool, and Wavefoam; and for a girl I thought of Streamflow."

"I like Rainfall, Whirlpool, and Streamflow, but Wavefoam doesn't sound quite right. I like the Wave part, but foam should be changed to something else."

"What do you want to change it to, dear?" Splashsail asked, not at all belligerently.

"I don't know. Maybe..." Flowerwater went through a list of possibilities in her head. "Ripple?" she finished.

"Waveripple. It has a nice sound to it."

"All right, then we have three boy names and one girl name. We need to think of two more girl names. There is a chance that they'll all be girls."

Splashsail dove down suddenly, resurfacing a few seconds later with a large silver fish clamped between his jaws. He tossed it onto the shore opposite to the side their eggs were on before saying, "We could name one of them Clouddrop."

"And the last one Creektrickle."

"We also need to decide which of these names are the most important. If there is only one–"

"Shh! Did you hear that?" Flowerwater whipped around, scanning the tall grass intently.

"Hear what?" Splashsail asked, looking around.

"It must have been nothing," Flowerwater answered after a few minutes. The wind was blowing towards the shore, preventing her from smelling anything, if there was anything, by her eggs. She must have been imagining things because of the uneasiness this caused her. "Let's continue hunting."

Flowerwater and Splashsail held still, waiting for the fish to return to the area they were floating in.

A sharp rustling sound suddenly broke through the silence, causing both Amphibian dragons to jolt and spin around.

A large dark gray Vampire dragon burst out of the grass and began flying away. Her yellow eyes glared maliciously at the Amphibians. But Flowerwater was paying no attention to her eyes, for the Vampire was carrying two of their three eggs, one in her mouth and the other held between her front claws.

"No!" Flowerwater cried, rushing after the Vampire. As soon as she stepped out of the pond, Flowerwater began shaking herself vigorously, trying to get all the water off her. She rolled around in the grass to dry her back more quickly. Wings sprouted out of her back, and she jumped up, flapping them and running after the Vampire.

Splashsail had also dried himself by now. His wings had also grown, his webbed feet had joined together to form normal dragon feet, and his slimy skin had hardened into regular dragon scales. He ran close behind Flowerwater, flapping his wings.

Flowerwater leaped high into the air, flapping her wings harder and flying after the Vampire. Soon Splashsail was in the air beside her.

Splashsail flapped his wings quickly, trying to catch up to Flowerwater, but she had always been a faster flier. Flowerwater rapidly closed the distance between herself and the Vampire, who was flying slowly, probably to avoid accidentally smashing the eggs.

The Vampire turned suddenly and flew straight at Flowerwater. Before she had time to get out of the way, the Vampire stabbed Flowerwater with her horns.

Flowerwater fell towards the ground, just barely managing to pull up and not crash. She was bleeding, but she ignored the pain. She had to get her eggs back. Flowerwater roared and flew back up to the Vampire, who was retreating once more.

Splashsail had caught up by then and was flying higher than the Vampire was. He dove down, landing on her back and scratching her as he did so. The sharp row of spines on her back cut into him, but he refused to let go.

The Vampire twisted and rolled in the air, sending Splashsail flying off her. He spread his wings to slow his fall, landing with a thud on the ground. He immediately got back up and flew up to join Flowerwater, who was making another attack on the Vampire.

Flowerwater bit into the front right leg of the Vampire, ready to catch her egg if it was dropped. But the Vampire held on and lowered her wing down to crash it into Flowerwater, knocking her away.

Splashsail launched himself at the Vampire again, biting and scratching her left wing.

The Vampire dove down to the ground, causing Splashsail to lose his grip on her. Splashsail and Flowerwater dove down after her. When she was just a few feet from crashing into the trees they were now flying over, the Vampire pulled up, with Splashsail and Flowerwater following.

The Vampire turned and kicked Flowerwater with her hind legs, her claws cutting deeply into her. Then she slammed her wing into Flowerwater's head, knocking her to the ground.

Splashsail dove down after Flowerwater and landed beside her. "Flowerwater, are you okay?" he asked worriedly.

Flowerwater got up slowly, dazed and hurt from the fall. "Yes," she said quickly. "Don't worry about me; we have to get our eggs back!"

But by then the Vampire was just a tiny speck in the sky, flying farther away every second.

"It's too late," Splashsail said sadly, looking at the retreating Vampire. "We won't be able to get our eggs back. We have to go back and protect our last egg."

"I suppose you're right," Flowerwater said, sighing sadly. "We'll have to move far away, where that Vampire will never be able to harm our last baby." Her voice broke when she thought about the fate of her stolen eggs.

Vampires drank the blood of other dragons and animals, so this Vampire had not stolen the eggs to eat them. She was going to try to make them into Vampires themselves. That was the only reason a Vampire would steal an egg. They could, of course, turn hatchlings or adult dragons into Vampires, but those dragons would remember their lives as they were before they became Vampires. They rarely adjusted to their new lives, and usually tried to kill whichever Vampire had bitten them. The Vampires had to bite only eggs.

Sometimes, because of the fragility of eggs, the Vampires would not be successful in changing them into Vampires. They might accidentally bite too deeply into the egg, and kill the baby dragon inside.

Flowerwater imagined her defenseless baby dragons being killed before they could hatch, before they could even really live, and the thought depressed and angered her. But they could have a worse fate instead. The Vampire could succeed, and they would live as bloodthirsty monsters who would continuously murder other dragons. Flowerwater shuddered at the thought, and then hurried back to the pond, where her last egg waited.

No one would ever harm her baby, Flowerwater vowed. Nothing would ever happen to it.

~~~

Redclaws, the Vampire dragon, flew to one of the deepest, darkest parts of the forest with the eggs she had stolen. She set the egg that she carried in her claws down as she landed, narrowly avoiding squashing it under her feet.

Redclaws had an underground cave nearby where she would hide the eggs if she were able to turn them into Vampires. The cave entrance was well-hidden by the thick vegetation that grew there, making it nearly impossible to find. Besides, few dragons would go into that part of the forest anyway, because the trees were too close together. Redclaws had found it when she had literally stumbled into it, while she was trying to escape from a clan of dragons called the RaceWings....

Redclaws pushed the memory out of her mind, concentrating on the eggs instead.

Redclaws bit down on the egg that she was carrying in her mouth. She bit it a little too hard, and the egg cracked open. Redclaws quickly buried the egg before its stench would attract attention. Then she returned to the other egg. She bit into this one much more carefully, and it did not crack. Soon it would become dark and cold as the dragon inside became a Vampire. Redclaws moved the egg into the cave and waited for it to hatch.

CHAPTER ONE: PLAY

Waveripple dove into the lake he lived by and began to swim out towards its center. As soon as the Amphibian hatchling became wet, his wings withdrew into his body, and his hard scales softened and became slippery. His toes spread out and became webbed. His nostrils closed, and for an instant he could not breathe. Then the gills on the sides of his face opened, allowing him to breathe under water.

The ability to transform from a water dragon to a land dragon and back was the best thing about being an Amphibian dragon, Waveripple thought. No other dragon species could transform into anything other than what they already were.

Waveripple swam up to break the surface of the lake. His gills closed and his nostrils opened again, allowing him to breathe air.

Waveripple held very still so that he would not scare any fish that came near him. His scales matched the colors of the water and aquatic plants, camouflaging him. Soon frogs and small fish started swimming around him, unaware of his presence.

The spotted frogs and colorful fish fascinated Waveripple, and he watched them every day. They were also great fun to chase.

A large silver fish suddenly swam in front of Waveripple. He lunged for it, and the fish darted away. Waveripple dove under the water to chase after it, but the fish had a headstart. Waveripple swam faster to try to catch up to it, but the fish darted around erratically instead of going in a straight line. It turned right when Waveripple thought it was going to turn left and got away, hiding behind some plants. Waveripple swam up to the top of the lake, grinning. He had never caught any of the fish that he chased, but the fun part was chasing them, not catching them.

Waveripple looked out across the lake. He could see his parents, Splashsail and Flowerwater, hunting for real in the average-depth water, not the deepest water like Waveripple was swimming in.

Waveripple looked around. There was an open, grassy field surrounding the lake. In the distance was a ring of trees, which surrounded the meadow. His parents had told Waveripple that the ring of trees deepened into a forest; their lake was actually in the middle of a huge forest.

Waveripple's parents had traveled through the forest to reach the lake, but Waveripple could not remember that. He had been in an egg, and had only hatched soon after their arrival. He had never gone far from the lake, and had not been in the forest. He had been eager to explore it, but his parents had told him that it was too dangerous. They had said that many dangerous dragons lived there who would attack anyone who entered their territory. But they had not told him that he could not play in the meadow. The only reason he rarely went into the meadow was because there was so much more to do in the water.

Waveripple swam back to the land, keeping his head above the water so that he could see the shore. The rest of him was water dragon, but his head was not wet, so he was breathing with his nose rather than his gills.

Waveripple stepped out of the lake and started walking around in the field. The drier soil in the meadow felt strange to Waveripple, who was used to the mud by the lake. As he stared down at the ground, a flash of movement caught his attention.

Looking at the area of grass where he had seen the movement, Waveripple saw a meadow vole. He had seen very few rodents before, so he just stared at it, captivated. It was smaller than the fish he had been chasing, and Waveripple wondered if it would also be fun to chase. He decided to watch it for a little while to make sure it was not dangerous.

The vole scuffled around, eating grass seeds. It seemed harmless, so Waveripple took a step towards it. The vole instantly ran and disappeared into the grass.

Then Waveripple could no longer see or hear it, but he could smell it. The vole's scent was like an arrow pointing towards the spot where it had vanished. Waveripple followed the scent trail curiously. He could not follow an animal's scent back at the lake, because the water covered all scent.

As he neared the vole's hiding spot, Waveripple heard it scurrying away. He looked around and saw the vole running to a new hiding spot in the middle of a clump of wildflowers. By then, Waveripple was dry enough that he had already changed into land dragon form. His feet were no longer webbed, so it would be easier to chase the vole.

Waveripple ran after it, and the vole was not able to escape as easily as the fish had. Waveripple was used to chasing things by swimming, so he was not very fast at running; but the vole's short legs, tubular body, and small size made it even slower.

When Waveripple noticed that he was gaining on the vole, he pushed himself faster. He was almost close enough to grab it when he stopped suddenly.

Waveripple had been so intent on the chase that he had not noticed which direction he had been running in. But he had noticed when the sunlight he had been running in changed to shadow, and the texture of the ground changed beneath his feet.

Waveripple looked at the ground first, and saw that he was standing in pine needles. Then he looked up to see that trees were casting their shadows over him. Waveripple had run into the forest.

~~~

Whiteswirl stepped out of his home, an underground cave. Redclaws, the Vampire who had bitten his egg before he had hatched from it, was still sleeping, but Whiteswirl was restless, so he was going to fly around for a while.

Whiteswirl jumped as high as he could into the air and flapped his wings powerfully. It was hard to get into the air and start flying without jumping, either from the ground or off something.

Whiteswirl stayed low over the line of trees because although the sun was setting, it was not night yet. Any dragon who was awake during the day would try to kill him if they saw him.

The night was safer, because fewer dragons were awake, so Whiteswirl usually only flew around in the dark, but he was bored now.

Whiteswirl spotted a large, dark blue bird flying ahead of him. He chased after the bird and easily caught it in his mouth. The bird was too small to have enough blood to drink, so Whiteswirl did not kill it, but he accidentally damaged the bird's wing when he grabbed it. Even if it had been big enough to be a meal, Whiteswirl was not thirsty.

Whiteswirl dropped the bird. It spread its wings to slow its fall, and grabbed onto a tree branch. The bird's wing would heal if nothing ate it first.

Suddenly, a blue jay made an alarm call, and another one joined in. Whiteswirl realized that the bird he had caught was a fledgling blue jay that had just left its nest, and its parents were the ones shrieking now.

Whiteswirl knew that some dragons would soon try to see what had made the blue jays start shrieking, so he turned around to head back to the cave. But when he turned, he saw a black dragon flying towards him. It had an orange stripe going around its neck, and a few more orange stripes around its body. It was a Tiger dragon.

CHAPTER TWO: A FRIEND AND A FOE

The sun was beginning to set, darkening the forest. Waveripple quickly scanned the forest for danger, and froze when he saw a pair of yellow eyes staring at him from behind a group of trees. He backed away and was about to run when the other dragon spoke.

"Wait!" the dragon with yellow eyes called in a hatchling's voice. A dark blue hatchling stepped out from behind the trees. He was larger than Waveripple, but not as big as Splashsail.

"Don't go," the dragon said. He saw Waveripple's frightened expression and said, "I won't hurt you." He seemed surprised at the idea.

Waveripple did not run, but he remained tense, ready to bolt if the other dragon attacked. He was confused by the dragon's words. "But I heard that forest dragons didn't want anyone in their territory and would attack anyone who entered it. Why did you say not to leave?" he asked.

The other dragon suddenly looked even more surprised than Waveripple felt. "There are hardly any dragons living around here," he replied. "So there's enough territory for everyone. No need to fight over it. And I wouldn't want you to leave so soon anyway. I've only met one other hatchling, and she's a Dwarf dragon."

Waveripple relaxed a bit. This dragon seemed friendly enough, but what he said could not be completely true. Waveripple's parents would not have told him that the forest was dangerous if all the dragons living in it were friendly.

"What kind of dragon are you?" he asked. "I'm an Amphibian," he added in case the other hatchling did not know.

"I'm a Dusk," the hatchling replied, "and my name is Indigowings. What's your name?"

"Waveripple," he replied.

"Do you want to explore the forest with me?" Indigowings asked excitedly. "There are no hostile dragons around here," he promised.

"Are you sure about that?" Waveripple asked, still a bit uncertain.

"Absolutely," Indigowings assured him. "Maybe, way on the other side of the lake, there are one or two aggressive dragons, but I haven't met any around here."

"I live by the lake," Waveripple said. "If the hostile dragons are on the other side, that would explain what I've heard about forest dragons...okay, we can explore the forest," he agreed.

If the forest really was safe, it would be fun to explore. Waveripple decided that he had been wrong when he thought that there was more to do in the water than on land. There was a lot to do in both areas. After spending just a few minutes on land, he had found a new animal to chase and met another hatchling.

"Great!" Indigowings said. "Let's go."

The two hatchlings walked off into the forest.

~~~

Tiger dragons were warriors, among the most highly skilled in battle of all dragons. Whiteswirl knew that even a Vampire hatchling like himself would have no chance against an adult Tiger dragon, so he flew away as quickly as he could.

Whiteswirl knew that the Tiger was too large to fly below the tree level, so he flew under it. But he could not fly as fast down there, because it was a lot harder to avoid crashing into the trees.

The Tiger gained on him and was just a few yards behind Whiteswirl when he flew back above the tree line.

Whiteswirl knew of only one place that would be safe from the Tiger–the cave. He turned and flew in a wide circle to get back to it. The cave was not far, so he soon reached it.

Whiteswirl flew below the tree level and landed on the ground near the cave. He quickly dove into its entrance. It would take a few seconds for the Tiger to figure out where he was. There were a few tunnels in the cave that were too narrow for an adult dragon to fit into, and Whiteswirl ran into one of them.

Redclaws was awakened by the noise. "What's wrong?" she asked him. A loud roar and a heavy thud as the Tiger landed answered her.

Redclaws stalked towards the cave's entrance. She snarled, and although the sound was low and not loud like the Tiger's roar had been, she sounded much more dangerous.

Redclaws jumped out of the cave towards the Tiger, and Whiteswirl crept forward to watch, ready to help her if it became necessary.

The Tiger was biting and scratching at Redclaws, but she was a better fighter. Her claws and horns were sharper and her tail had a stinger at the end. She also had a row of spines along her back, so the Tiger would not even be able to attack her from behind without getting injured. She did not bite the Tiger because she did not want to accidentally turn him into a Vampire; but even without using her mouth as a weapon she was winning.

The battle lasted for a few minutes before the Tiger turned and flew away, roaring. Redclaws walked back into the cave angrily.

"You shouldn't have led him here!" she snapped to Whiteswirl. "Now he'll bring other dragons, too many to fight off, and they will kill us if they find us here."

"He was chasing after me too fast; I couldn't loose him even by ducking under the tree level," Whiteswirl replied.

"You shouldn't have been out at daylight in the first place," Redclaws retorted. "Now come; we're leaving this forest."

Whiteswirl did not say anything else, knowing that it would just make her angrier. He followed her out of the cave, and they flew off quickly, before the Tiger could return with help.

CHAPTER THREE: A NEW HOME

Waveripple and Indigowings walked through the forest, neither one of them noticing that it was rapidly becoming darker.

They soon reached a large cave in a small clearing. "This is where I live," Indigowings told Waveripple.

"You live in a cave? Cool. But also a bit creepy," Waveripple said, peering into the deep, dark cave.

Indigowings shrugged. "It's not scary," he said. "There are only two entrances to the cave, and there aren't a lot of tunnels to get lost in."

Noting that the cave was empty, Waveripple asked, "Where are your parents? Are they out hunting?"

Indigowings's expression turned sad and wistful. "No," he answered. "They died."

"Oh. I'm sorry," Waveripple said. "How did they die?" He asked it hesitantly, because he did not know if Indigowings would be too sad to talk about it.

After a moment, Indigowings replied. "I didn't always live here. My parents and I used to live in a forest that had too many dragons in it. The dragons there fought over territory a lot. A group of dragons invaded our territory once, and my father was accidentally killed in the battle.

"My mother and I left that forest to try to find somewhere more peaceful, with fewer dragons. We found an area like that, but there was not enough food there, so we kept going. My mother was only being able to catch prey once every few days, and I was too young to help her hunt. She gave me everything she caught, saying that she ate while hunting. She became thinner every day, however, so I think that she was not telling the truth.

"We eventually arrived here, where the prey was more plentiful. But by then my mother was too weak to hunt. She died soon after we arrived. I had tried to hunt ever since we found our new home, but I didn't know how to and I couldn't catch anything.

"I probably would have died soon after my mother did if it weren't for Stormcloud. He's the Storm dragon who found me and caught prey for me. When I was a bit older, he taught me how to hunt."

"That's terrible–how your parents died, I mean," Waveripple said. "It's good that Stormcloud helped you. I can't imagine being without my parents."

"I barely even remember my parents," Indigowings said, sounding as if he were trying to dismiss it. "They died so soon after I hatched."

Neither dragon said anything for a while. It was so quiet that they both jumped when they heard a shout.

"Waveripple!" Flowerwater called from the distance.

"Oh, I didn't realize it had gotten so late!" Waveripple exclaimed, surprised at the darkness. "That's my mother, Flowerwater. Both of my parents are probably looking for me now. I have to go. Bye!" Waveripple spoke quickly, and then started running back to the place his mother's voice had come from.

"Bye!" Indigowings called after him. Then he added, "Come back tomorrow!"

"I will!" Waveripple answered, glancing back at Indigowings. He was harder to see in the darkness than the plants around him. Waveripple would have thought he would be easier to see because he was blue. Dismissing the thought, Waveripple hurried back to his mother.

Flowerwater was standing at the edge of the forest, about to go in farther when she saw Waveripple. She looked behind her and called, "Splashsail, I found him!" Waveripple could hear Splashsail's footfalls as he ran towards them.

Then Flowerwater turned back to Waveripple. "You're not supposed to be in the forest! You could have been attacked!"

Splashsail reached them then. "We've been looking everywhere for you, Waveripple," he said sternly, before Waveripple could respond to Flowerwater. "Why did you go into the forest?"

"I was just chasing a rodent around in the meadow," Waveripple explained quickly, "and it ran into the forest. I would have just left then, but I saw a dragon–"

Flowerwater gasped. "What happened?" she asked. "Did you get hurt?" She looked Waveripple over quickly, checking for injuries.

"No, he didn't attack," Waveripple replied. "He was a hatchling like me. He said that there were no hostile dragons in this area of the forest, and I explored some of it with him. He even showed me the cave he lives in. And the whole time we didn't see any other dragons."

"There is a Forest dragon, just on the other side of the lake, who attacked us when we were passing through his territory," Splashsail said seriously. "If you had wandered into that part of the forest, you could have been hurt."

Splashsail had told him this before. Forest dragons were large green dragons who could cause small earthquakes just by roaring.

"I won't go there, then," Waveripple promised. "But I can go back to visit Indigowings, the other hatchling, right? I told him I would."

"Well...okay, you can go back," Splashsail said.

"But we're going with you the first time you go back, to make sure it's safe," Flowerwater added.

"Great! Thanks," Waveripple said. He had not expected them to allow him to return so easily, and he did want them to meet Indigowings. And if they came with him, they would find out that the forest was not dangerous, and would stop worrying.

"The sun has almost completely set," Flowerwater said. "Let's go back to the lake."

The three dragons walked back to the lake and lay down beside it to go to sleep. Waveripple was excited–tomorrow he would be able to go back to the forest and visit his new friend Indigowings!

~~~

Redclaws and Whiteswirl had traveled at night and found a safe place to sleep during the day. When they had gone far enough away from their old home, they started looking for a new cave to live in.

Whiteswirl spotted a cave while flying over the forest. It was in a small clearing, so it was easy to spot. "I found a cave," Whiteswirl told Redclaws. "I'm going to go check it out." He landed quietly outside the cave and looked inside.

To most dragons, the cave would be too dark to see far into, but Vampire dragons had excellent night vision. Whiteswirl could clearly see that the cave was large, and had two tunnels leading deeper into it. But it was not empty. A Dusk hatchling slept peacefully in its center. Whiteswirl knew that he could easily kill the hatchling and take the cave, but other dragons would notice. The hatchling's parents could be back at any time.

Whiteswirl flew back up above the trees. "The cave is occupied," he said disappointedly to Redclaws, who just nodded.

They flew on until they found another cave, over ten miles away. It was at the bottom of a small cliff, and it was empty. There was not even the scent of another dragon. The cave had a small entrance, but it was more spacious inside. There were four tunnels, one of which was short and led to a small cavern. The other three went deeper, and the Vampires could not see what was at their ends.

"This will be our new cave," Redclaws decided.

CHAPTER FOUR: FIRST HUNT

The next morning, Waveripple did not play in the lake like he usually did. He was too busy thinking about visiting Indigowings.

Waveripple quickly ate the fish his parents had caught for him. When he finished, he asked, "Can we go visit Indigowings now?"

"Sure," Splashsail said. He paused and then asked, "What kind of dragon is he?"

"He's a Dusk dragon," Waveripple replied.

"Then we can't visit him now. He'll be sleeping," Splashsail said. "Dusks are only awake from the second half of the day until midnight."

"Oh," Waveripple said, trying to hide his disappointment.

"We can visit him in the evening," Flowerwater reassured him.

"In the meantime, do you want to learn how to hunt fish, Waveripple?" Splashsail asked.

Waveripple brightened at that. "Definitely," he said. "That would be fun." He had wanted to know how to catch fish for a long time. It was fun to just chase the fish, but it would be cool to actually be able to catch one.

As the dragons waded out into the lake, Flowerwater asked Waveripple, "Where do you think we should look for the fish?"

"Not in the shallow water," he replied, "because the fish there would be too small."

"Right," Flowerwater said. "The biggest fish are in the deepest part of the lake, but there aren't many plants there. So the best place to get fish is in between the deep and shallow water, where there are the most plants. Big and small fish go there to eat."

Waveripple nodded.

The Amphibians swam out halfway to the middle of the lake.

"You have to hold completely still; otherwise you will scare the fish," Splashsail told Waveripple. "Then, when they come close enough, quickly grab one in your mouth."

"And don't try to catch anything that would be too heavy for you to carry," Flowerwater put in. "A large fish could easily struggle out of your grip."

"Okay, I'll try a small fish for my first catch," Waveripple said.

As they waited, fish started swimming around them. A small, pale red fish swam in front of Waveripple. He tried to grab it quickly in his mouth, but just came up with a mouthful of water instead, which he spat out.

"It escaped," he said, slightly irritated.

"Next time," Splashsail said, "try aiming for the fish's head. The fish will be moving forward, so by the time you grab it, it will have moved enough that you will grab it by its neck or body."

Waveripple listened closely and nodded. "I'll try that," he said.

After a few minutes, the fish started swimming around them again. A small silver-white fish swam close enough to Waveripple for him to grab it. He aimed for its head and lunged at it. The fish was moving slowly, so he was able to grab it by the neck. It was slippery, but Waveripple had already known it would be, so he bit into it, getting a good grip on the fish and killing it at the same time.

"I caught it!" Waveripple mumbled around the fish.

"Good job," Flowerwater said that the same time that Splashsail said, "Great catch!"

"Thanks," Waveripple said, almost dropping the fish. Swimming quickly back to land, he put the fish down far enough away from the water's edge that it would not be washed back into the lake.

Splashsail and Flowerwater had followed him to the shore. They stood in ankle-deep water rather than stepping onto land.

"Are we going to hunt more?" Waveripple asked, walking into the water to join his parents.

"Yes," Flowerwater replied, smiling. "But this time we'll all be helping each other catch fish. We'll chase the fish towards each other to catch more."

"Good. That will be more exciting than just holding still and waiting for the fish to come close," Waveripple said.

Splashsail chuckled. "Yeah, it is," he said.

As they went out into the lake again, Splashsail explained group-hunting to Waveripple. "When we hunt in a group," he said, "one, or, in this case, two dragons chase the fish towards the other dragon. The fish are usually so worried about escaping the dragon behind them that they don't notice the dragon in front of them until it's too late. Your mother and I will chase the fish towards you first so that you can see how it's done. Then you can have a turn chasing them."

When they reached water that was deep enough, Flowerwater said, "Wait here, Waveripple. We'll chase some fish to you. Catch the one that looks like it will be easiest to catch."

"Okay," Waveripple said. He held still and watched his parents as they moved gracefully away from him across the lake.

Splashsail and Flowerwater turned almost simultaneously and dashed back through the water to Waveripple. They darted irrationally around, coming closer to each other and then moving away again. Sometimes one of them dove under the water and then resurfaced a few yards from where he or she had dived.

When his parents came closer to him, Waveripple could see what they were doing. They were chasing three fish to him, and the fish were trying to scatter in different directions. Waveripple's parents moved away from each other, diving down and coming back up, to go after the fleeing fish, and then came closer again as they chased the fish back to the group.

Waveripple studied the fish, deciding which one he would grab when they came close enough. The three fish were all medium-sized. A silver fish was in front, darting a bit faster than the two behind it. One of the other fish was light gray, and the last one was a deep brown. The brown fish was swimming fractionally slower than the other fish.

Waveripple just barely had time to notice that when the silver fish swam directly in front of him. He ducked his head down to grab it, but the fish darted out of reach. The other two fish both turned around to swim away, but their escape was blocked off by Splashsail and Flowerwater.

Waveripple dove down, catching the brown fish. When he raised his head above the water with the fish in his mouth, he saw that Flowerwater had caught the gray fish.

"Good job, Waveripple," Splashsail praised.

"Thanks," Waveripple tried to say without dropping the fish, but it fell into the water. He scooped it back up before it could sink very far.

After the dragons had set their fish down on land, Splashsail said, "Now you can have a turn chasing the fish, Waveripple. You and your mother will chase the fish to me this time. Then we'll stop hunting if we have caught enough fish."

Waveripple was excited as they swam into the lake again. Chasing the fish would be much more fun than waiting for them to be chased to him.

Splashsail floated motionlessly, waiting for the fish to be herded to him, while Flowerwater and Waveripple looked for fish.

"Don't chase more fish than you can handle," Flowerwater instructed. "And if two fish start swimming away in opposite directions, only go after one of them. If you try to get them both back, they will probably both escape."

"Okay," Waveripple said, nodding.

They soon came upon a small school of dark brown fish. Waveripple started chasing two little fish that were close together. If one of them started swimming away from the other, it was not too hard to chase it back. Chasing the fish to Splashsail was harder; they kept trying to zigzag somewhere else.

Flowerwater came over to help, chasing a medium-sized brown fish of her own. It was hard to keep the three fish together, but they eventually got them over to Splashsail.

Splashsail managed to catch one of the smaller fish and chase the other two back to Flowerwater and Waveripple, who both lunged for the medium-sized fish at the same time. They grabbed it and Flowerwater bit down, killing it.

The three of them brought the fish back to land, congratulating each other on their catches as well as they could around the fish they had in their mouths.

Each of them ate one of the fish they had caught, saving the other two for later. Waveripple ate the silver-white fish, his first catch. It seemed like the best-tasting fish he had ever eaten.

~~~

The night after they had found their new cave, Whiteswirl decided to go out hunting for the first time. Redclaws had always hunted for him before, but he wanted to do it now.

"I'm going to go hunt," he said casually to Redclaws, walking toward the cave's entrance.

"Fine," she said. "Don't hunt any dragon that would be too dangerous for you if it wakes up; I don't want to have to move again. And don't attack a dragon unless it is alone."

"Of course I won't," Whiteswirl snapped, annoyed that Redclaws actually thought he might be dumb enough to take on more than he could handle.

Whiteswirl flew out of the cave and scented the air, trying to locate a dragon. Vampire dragons were usually alone since they hatched, so hunting had to be instinctive, or they would not survive. They were the only dragons who did not need to be taught how to hunt.

Whiteswirl could smell a Lizard dragon and a Storm dragon close by. The Lizard was closer, and they could not fly, so he could kill it easily if it did wake up. The Storm dragon would be more dangerous; it could control the weather. And besides, the Storm was farther away.

Whiteswirl flew stealthily towards the Lizard. It was sleeping curled up underneath a tree. Like all Lizard dragons, this Lizard was greenish-brown and had no wings. It had long, thin legs that could quickly carry it to safety if it were awake, but it was asleep now. Whiteswirl did not detect any other dragon nearby, so he flew closer.

When he was a few yards above the Lizard, Whiteswirl dropped down on top of it. He bit down on its throat, killing it before it could wake up and scream. Blood splattered from the wound.

Completely overcome by his instincts, Whiteswirl lapped up the blood and then sucked the rest of the blood from the Lizard's body. Afterwards, he buried the dead Lizard so that no one would find it. It would seem as if it had just disappeared.

Then, full of blood, Whiteswirl flew back to the cave.

CHAPTER FIVE: STRANGER

In the evening, the three Amphibians left the lake and went into the forest to find Indigowings. Waveripple led his parents to Indigowings's cave excitedly.

Waveripple paused at the entrance. "Indigowings?" he called. "Are you there?" His words echoed once, but there was no answer.

"Maybe he's out in the forest with his parents," Splashsail said.

"He isn't with his parents. He's orphaned," Waveripple told them.

Splashsail and Flowerwater looked surprised. "Then he might be hunting," Flowerwater said. "We can wait for him here for a while."

"Yeah, he's probably hunting," Waveripple agreed.

There had been no sign of any other dragon the whole way to the cave, so Splashsail and Flowerwater had relaxed a little. They sat down to wait for Indigowings to return.

While he was waiting, Waveripple walked around by the cave's entrance. He paused when he noticed a strange scent. It was obviously the scent of a dragon, but it was not the scent of any species of dragon he had ever met. It was true that he had met very few dragons, but something was off about the smell. It was repulsive, similar to the smell of a decaying animal. Waveripple shrugged it off. The scent was not fresh; whoever had left it had been gone for at least twelve hours. And for all he knew, it could have been Stormcloud, the Storm dragon Indigowings had talked about.

A few minutes later, Indigowings walked out of the forest, coming back to his cave. "Waveripple!" he exclaimed, surprised.

"Hi, Indigowings!" Waveripple said. "I came back to visit you, but you weren't in the cave, so I was just waiting for you here."

Indigowings distractedly looked behind Waveripple at Splashsail and Flowerwater. "Are they your parents?" he asked.

"Yes, they are," Waveripple replied. "This is my father, Splashsail, and my mother, Flowerwater." He gestured to them as he spoke.

"Hello, Indigowings," Splashsail said.

"Hi, Indigowings," Flowerwater said at nearly the same time.

"Hi," Indigowings said, a bit shyly.

"So, were you out hunting just before?" Waveripple asked him.

"Yes, at first," he replied. "Then I saw Emeraldeyes, the Dwarf I mentioned before, and we talked for a while. I forgot that you said you were coming back today." He paused for a minute, thinking. Then he asked, "Do you want to meet her?"

"Yeah," Waveripple replied. "That would be cool." He had never seen a Dwarf, and wondered how big she would be. He hoped he would be bigger than her, even though Indigowings had said she was older than him.

"Okay, good," Indigowings said. "Wait here–I'll go get her." He walked off into the forest.

"You were right about there being no dangerous dragons here, Waveripple," Flowerwater said when Indigowings was gone. "This part of the forest doesn't have enough dragons for us to see even one, and of course Indigowings isn't dangerous."

"Yes, it does seem pretty safe," Splashsail agreed. "You can keep coming back to visit Indigowings if you want to."

"Okay, good," Waveripple said, smiling.

Just then, Indigowings came back through the trees.

A small, light brown dragon flew in after him, landing lightly on the ground. She was about three-fourths the size of Waveripple, and looked delicate in her smallness. She had piercing, emerald-colored eyes.

"This is Emeraldeyes," Indigowings introduced them. "Emeraldeyes, this is Waveripple and his parents, Splashsail and Flowerwater."

"Hello," Emeraldeyes greeted them. "Nice to meet you." She sounded older than Indigowings, even though she was so much smaller than him. She also did not seem the least bit shy of the three Amphibians who were much bigger than her.

The Amphibians all said hello back at the same time.

"I haven't seen you in the forest before," Emeraldeyes said. "Do you live by the lake?"

"Yes, we do," Flowerwater replied.

"What is it like at the lake?" Emeraldeyes asked curiously.

Indigowings sighed. "Emeraldeyes has started to prefer talking to adult dragons instead of other hatchlings," he whispered to Waveripple. "I'm hardly ever able to talk to her anymore. It's kind of lonely."

That reminded Waveripple of the strange scent that he had found outside Indigowings's cave. "Did Stormcloud or any of your other friends come here in the past two days?" he asked.

Indigowings looked confused. "No. Why?" he asked.

"I just noticed a strange scent by your cave," Waveripple replied.

"Oh, you mean that," Indigowings said. "I noticed it when I woke up and left the cave. It's not any of the dragons I know. It was probably someone just passing through."

Then the two hatchlings started talking about other things, and soon forgot about the stranger in the woods.

~~~

Whiteswirl flew around the same night that he had hunted the Lizard dragon, exploring the forest. There were a few caves and many coniferous and deciduous trees. He kept flying, and saw an open meadow in the middle of the forest. The meadow surrounded a lake.

When Whiteswirl saw the lake, he felt a stranger sensation than anything he had ever felt before. It was a very faint sensation, almost too faint to be noticeable. It felt vaguely familiar, and yet distant and bizarre at the same time.

He looked around, trying to find out what had caused the feeling, but it disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived. It had been too faint for Whiteswirl to pay much attention to in the first place, so he quickly dismissed and forgot about it.

CHAPTER SIX: DISCOVERY

In the evening of the next day, Waveripple went to visit Indigowings again, this time by himself. When he arrived at Indigowings's cave, he found Indigowings waiting for him right outside it.

"Hi Indigowings!" Waveripple said.

"Hi Waveripple," Indigowings said, seeming preoccupied.

"What's up?" Waveripple asked, wondering what Indigowings was thinking about.

"Not much," Indigowings replied. He paused, as if he were deciding whether or not to say something. Then he asked, "Remember that dragon scent that was right outside my cave?"

"Yeah," Waveripple said. "What about it?" He did not ask it dismissively, but rather, curiously.

"Well, there was a Lizard living nearby. I didn't really know him much, but I talked to him sometimes. I hadn't seen him for a long time, so I went over to where he lives, and he wasn't there. He might have just left to live somewhere else, but there was a lot of blood on the ground by the place that he usually sleeps. And the same scent that we found by my cave was there again, all over that area. I think something bad might have happened to him."

"Maybe he just left," Waveripple said, reasoning it out in his head as he spoke, "and the blood is from an animal that the other dragon was hunting."

"I would probably have thought the same thing," Indigowings said, "but I asked some of the other dragons when they had last seen him. Emeraldeyes's father, Stonescales, said that he had been talking to him just yesterday. And the other dragon's scent is very recent, like if whoever it was was there just last night."

"It might have just been a coincidence," Waveripple said uncertainly.

"Maybe," Indigowings said, "but it's not likely. The Lizard was acting normal, and didn't mention anything to Stonescales about leaving. Also, that other dragon's scent was strange; it smelled almost as if it were dead, even though you could follow the trail a little to be able to tell that it was moving. And if that had been a dead dragon, the trail wouldn't have just disappeared like it does when a dragon flies off."

"So, do you think that this other dragon killed the Lizard?" Waveripple asked slowly.

"I think it might have," Indigowings replied. "If it were touching a dead dragon, some of its scent would rub off on it."

Waveripple shook his head. "Do you really think that would give it the...dead smell? I don't smell like a dead fish when I hunt them."

"Dragons might be different," Indigowings replied. "Or maybe," he said slowly, "it killed so many dragons that their scents affect it noticeably."

"That doesn't make sense. Why would any dragon kill so much?" Waveripple realized that he knew the answer as soon as he asked the question. Of course his parents had told him what had happened to his two siblings while they were still in their eggs. Of course they had told him everything they knew about Vampire dragons, so that he would recognize signs of them if he ever came across them, and would be able to stay away. The only kind of dragon which would kill continuously was a Vampire.

Indigowings must have seen the shock and recognition on his face, because he asked, "Waveripple, what is it? Did you think of some reason that a dragon would?"

"Yes," Waveripple replied. "Before I hatched, the two other eggs which would have been my siblings were stolen by a Vampire dragon. Vampires are the only dragons who kill so much. They would have the dead smell even if they never killed anyone, because they themselves are dead. Undead."

"That makes sense," Indigowings said. "I didn't think of that. It really must be a Vampire."

Emeraldeyes suddenly flew down towards them. "We just found the same thing again," she said to Indigowings. "That strange dragon scent, and blood, plus the fresh scent of a Forest dragon. A dragon that obviously lived nearby, because his scent is all over a certain part of the forest, his territory. But now he is nowhere to be found."

She just noticed Waveripple then, and saw the shocked looks on Waveripple's and Indigowings's faces. "What is it?" she asked.

"Waveripple thinks that the dragon with the strange scent is a Vampire," Indigowings explained, and then told Emeraldeyes what Waveripple had said.

"That does sound logical," Emeraldeyes said. "It all fits together." After a minute, she said, "Except for one thing. The dragon scent that I found this time is slightly different from the last time. It still has the dead smell, and it is the smell of a dragon, but it smells like a different dragon. Only there couldn't be two Vampires. Vampires are very rare as it is; it would be almost impossible to find two."

"I don't think it would be too strange," Waveripple said. "A Vampire took my two siblings as eggs. So it couldn't be that rare, if a Vampire took two eggs. It's not like she would take them just to bite them, and then leave. There would be no point. She probably wanted to use them for something. So other Vampires might have reasons for making more of them too."

The hatchlings were quiet for a while. Then Emeraldeyes asked the other two, "Do you want to see the spot where the Vampire attacked the other dragon?"

"Not really," Indigowings replied. "I saw enough blood for today when I looked for the Lizard."

"I don't know," Waveripple said to Emeraldeyes. "I would want to see how different or similar the two scents are, but what if the Vampire comes back when we are there?"

"In the middle of the day?" Emeraldeyes snorted. "Not likely. But if you want to see it you should come now before it gets dark."

"Okay," Waveripple said. "I'll just look at it for a little while–just to compare the scents. Then I have to go back to the lake."

"It's this way," Emeraldeyes said. She flew up a few feet into the air and then paused, hovering. "Can you fly yet?" she asked Waveripple.

"I don't think so," Waveripple replied. "I never tried it. Until recently, I was always in the water, where I do not even have wings. Can you fly, Indigowings?"

Indigowings shook his head. "No, I'm still too young," he said.

"Well, I'm about the same age as Indigowings, so I don't think I would be able to, Emeraldeyes."

"Then we can walk to the spot of the Forest's death," Emeraldeyes said, landing on the ground again.

The two dragons walked through the forest until they came to a cave. "This is probably where the Forest lived," Emeraldeyes said. "His scent is strongest in the cave."

Outside the cave, there was some blood on the grass. Waveripple could smell a normal dragon–the Forest dragon–plus another smell, similar to the one he had found by Indigowings's cave. The scent was almost identical, but there was a slight difference. It was different enough that the scent really could be from a different dragon.

Waveripple followed the scent trail until it disappeared where the Vampire had flown away. At the end of the trail was a small patch of exposed dirt, about one foot in diameter. Surrounding it were grass and pine needles, but no other patches of dirt. It did not look like the gopher holes that Waveripple sometimes found in the meadow; the ground was flat instead of pushed up.

"Emeraldeyes, come and look at this!" Waveripple said urgently.

Emeraldeyes ran over and saw the exposed dirt. "That's just a patch of dirt," she said, sounding annoyed but also relieved. "I see them all the time. They could be made from many different things, including a gopher hole that gets flattened by something walking on it."

"Yeah, but the Vampire's scent is all over it," Waveripple said excitedly. "Maybe it buried something here."

Waveripple started digging up the patch of dirt. He was used to having webbed feet, so it felt strange to be able to dig with his claws. He did not see anything, even though he dug quite a few feet down.

"See?" Emeraldeyes said. "It's nothing."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Waveripple said disappointedly. He started pushing the dirt back into the hole he had made, more slowly than when he was digging it up.

Waveripple saw something black and dusty in the brown soil, and paused to examine it more closely. When he pushed some of the brown dirt aside, he saw more of the black stuff. "What's this?" he asked Emeraldeyes.

She came closer to look at it. "Ashes," she replied. "From a fire. Didn't you ever see ashes before?"

"No," Waveripple said. "I live by a lake, remember? It's not like a fire can start there with all the water." He paused for a minute, wondering why there would be buried ashes there. "Why would someone want to bury ashes?" he asked, more to himself than to Emeraldeyes.

Emeraldeyes started digging up the grass that was right next to where Waveripple had been digging.

"What are you doing?" Waveripple asked, staring at her curiously.

"Wait a minute," she replied, and kept digging. She stopped after digging a couple of feet down. Then she said, "Help me look through this pile of soil for ashes."

Waveripple dug through the pile, wondering why Emeraldeyes was looking for more ashes. He could not find any, and Emeraldeyes did not either.

"I was looking for ashes in the ground nearby to see if you were right about someone actually burying ashes," she explained. "Because, of course they could have gotten into the ground if there was a forest fire, so they were on the ground, and then leaves decomposed on top of them, burying the ashes. But we didn't find any other ashes. Someone did bury those ashes that you found. I wonder why." She started sounding as if were was talking to herself rather than to Waveripple. Then she looked over at him. "Are there a lot of ashes in that soil?" she asked.

"I don't know," Waveripple said.

Emeraldeyes came over to the pile of soil that Waveripple had dug up, and started shifting through it. Waveripple saw that she was trying to separate the ashes from the regular soil, and started helping her.

When they had separated the ashes from the soil as well as they could, they had a small dark heap of ashes and soil.

"What do you think was burned?" Waveripple asked, staring at the pile of ashes.

"When something is burned, the pile of ashes is much smaller than whatever it was before it was burned," Emeraldeyes said speculatively, sounding as if she were talking to herself again.

Waveripple tried to piece together all the information so that it made sense. A dragon had been killed nearby. There were ashes in the soil, ashes that someone had obviously buried there. And the Vampire's scent was all over the area of the ground where the ashes were buried.

"Do you think that this pile of ashes could be from the Forest dragon that was killed?" Waveripple asked, shocked at the idea.

"They could be," Emeraldeyes said slowly. "The Vampire wouldn't want anyone to find the Forest's body, so it could burn the dragon, and then bury the ashes so that no one would find them. It makes sense. After all, if no one found the body, it would be as if the Forest just left this area. There's still some blood on the grass, but other dragons could think that it was just from something the Forest had caught to eat. No one would suspect a Vampire."

Waveripple and Emeraldeyes stood there staring at the pile of ashes for several minutes. The sun was already starting to sink down in the sky.

"I have to go back to the lake now," Waveripple said. "I'll come back to the forest tomorrow." Then he added, "But I'm not coming back to this place."

He started pushing all the soil he had dug up back into the hole, while Emeraldeyes filled up the hole she had dug. Waveripple finished first and went over to help Emeraldeyes.

"Bye," he said to her when they had finished filling up the holes.

"Goodbye, Waveripple," she answered.

Waveripple walked quickly out of the forest, heading back to the lake.

~~~

The next night, Whiteswirl decided to continue exploring the forest. He flew over the trees, locating the caves he had found before, and finding a few new ones. Occasionally, he would fly over a small, hidden clearing in the middle of the forest. These clearings were mostly just grassy areas, and some of them had small trees growing in them, as the forest spread into those clearings.

Then Whiteswirl flew over the lake again, and the same bizarre feeling he had felt before suddenly returned. This time he realized that the lake had somehow caused it. He landed softly on the ground and walked closer to the lake, trying to make sense of the strange feeling.

Whiteswirl suddenly knew what the feeling was–it was longing, almost like homesickness. He wondered how the lake could possibly be producing that feeling in him. He had seen hardly any lakes before, and he had never lived next to any, or even walked around one. So it made no sense that he would feel like he was missing the lake, when he had never been there in the first place.

Whiteswirl continued staring at the lake until he thought of a reason that it could be producing that feeling in him. He could have been some species of water dragon, before he had been turned into a Vampire.

Whiteswirl had never asked Redclaws what kind of dragon he had been before; he had never really thought about it. He wondered now which kind of water dragon he had been. Had he been an Ocean dragon? That was not likely. Oceans lived thousands of miles away in the seas and oceans. Redclaws would not have been able to get one of those eggs. Maybe he was a Lake dragon. They lived in lakes and ponds, so he could have been one. Another possibility was that he had been an Amphibian dragon. Both of those eggs would have been easy enough for Redclaws to get, so he could not figure out which one he had been.

As he stared out across the lake, Whiteswirl saw that there were three Amphibian dragons sleeping beside it. One of them was a hatchling and the other two were adults. He had not seen them before because they were camouflaged near the plants by the lake, just like his black coloring camouflaged him in the night. Looking at the Amphibians sleeping peacefully by the lake, Whiteswirl wondered again if he would have been an Amphibian.

He tried to imagine his life as one–around the water most of the time, being a weak, normal dragon. They could transform into a water or land dragon, but this small advantage would not make up for their lack of speed and strength.

Whiteswirl was glad that he was not an Amphibian, and that he was a Vampire instead. Vampires were stronger and faster than other dragons, and did not have to worry about anyone attacking them. No normal dragon would attack a Vampire by itself. They would get a whole group together to attack, but by that time the Vampire could be gone. While it was true that some Tigers overestimated their fighting skills and attacked Vampires by themselves, they rarely won those battles.

Another advantage of being a Vampire was that they did not need to hunt every night, despite what normal dragons thought about them. Drinking blood once a month was enough to sustain a Vampire, while normal dragons had to eat every day.

Whiteswirl flew back to the cave and found it empty. Since he would not be thirsty again for a few weeks, he decided to wait there until Redclaws returned.

A few hours later, Whiteswirl heard Redclaws landing quietly outside their cave. She walked inside, looking annoyed.

"Some dragons have found our catches," she said. "Now we'll have to take the bodies farther away from where we killed them before we bury them."

Whiteswirl groaned inwardly. Almost all adult dragons, including Vampires, could breathe fire, but very few hatchlings could. Redclaws could just burn the bodies of the dragons she hunted; then she would have a small pile of ashes to bury. But he had to dig a much deeper hole to bury the whole dragon! That was hard enough as it was without also having to drag the body far away to bury it. But it would definitely be worth it. The convenience of burying the dragons' bodies where he killed them was not worth being chased away from their home again and having to find a new one.

"I'll bury them farther away," he told Redclaws.

"We'll also have to start hunting farther away from the lake, at least for a little while," Redclaws said. "Some of the dragons in the woods around the lake are the ones who found our catches."

Whiteswirl nodded.

He decided to stay in the cave for the rest of the night and go out to keep exploring–this time farther away–the next night.

CHAPTER SEVEN: EXPLORING

Waveripple went into the forest the next day to visit Indigowings and Emeraldeyes. Since he did not know where Emeraldeyes lived, he went to Indigowings's cave, which was empty.

Instead of waiting outside the cave, Waveripple decided to walk through the forest to explore it more. He might find Indigowings wandering around, too.

Waveripple went straight past Indigowings's cave, deeper into the forest. At first he was just walking through pine trees and the occasional clearing in between.

Then he came to a much larger opening in the forest. It was at least as big as the meadow surrounding the lake, if not larger. The clearing mostly had grass in it, with a few trees and flowers dotted here and there.

Near the far edge of the meadow, Waveripple saw a small herd of three deer. He had seen deer a few times before, when they came to drink water at the lake, not knowing that dragons were nearby. But they were still interesting to watch.

Two does were grazing, while the buck looked alertly in Waveripple's direction. Waveripple held still for a few minutes, and the buck went back to grazing with the does. Then Waveripple slowly turned and went back into the forest so that he would not disturb the deer.

After Waveripple had walked through a few more small clearings, he heard the noise of a large animal running away from something. It was coming from a few hundred feet in front of him. Waveripple walked past a few more pine trees and came to another open clearing. A large buck ran through the clearing and disappeared into the pine trees. Suddenly, a pack of white wolves ran into the clearing, and then back out the other side, following the deer. Waveripple had seen a few wolves in the distance before, but none this close. He started running after the wolves and deer so that he could watch them.

The wolves and deer ran much too quickly for Waveripple to keep up, and soon he could not see them anymore. He kept running in the direction that they had been going anyway. He knew that he would be able to see them again if they were able to catch the deer. If they did not catch it, they would probably go off to look for another one, and Waveripple would not be able to locate them again.

Waveripple kept going in the direction the wolves had gone, but he could not find them again. He soon turned around and started going back to Indigowings's cave.

Waveripple walked for a long time, but he did not get back to the meadow that he had seen the wolves chasing the deer in. He had planned to go there because from there he knew how to get to the first large meadow he had found, and then back to the cave. But he could not find the first clearing.

Waveripple began to panic as he realized that he might be lost. If he had not been following the exact path he had originally taken, he could have walked right past the clearing long ago.

He calmed down when he remembered that he could just follow his own scent trail backwards to the cave. After all, he had not crossed through any streams, so following his scent trail would be easy enough.

Waveripple first sniffed the ground to see if he was already going in the right direction. He could not find his scent anywhere except behind him, so he turned around and went back the way he had come. After a while he came back to the point where he had decided to turn back, and soon after that he came to the meadow that he had seen the wolves in.

Waveripple kept following his scent trail until he was back at Indigowings's cave, thinking about how much time he had wasted when he could have just followed his scent from the beginning.

Indigowings had already returned to the cave and was standing at its entrance. "Hi Waveripple!" he said. "Were you exploring the forest?" he asked, noticing that Waveripple had come back from a deeper part of the forest instead of from the direction of the lake.

"Hi Indigowings. Yeah, I was exploring. I saw a few deer and some wolves. I was following the wolves for a while, so that's why I didn't come back here sooner," Waveripple replied. "Did any other dragons get killed?"

"Not that I know of," Indigowings said. "Emeraldeyes didn't notice any other missing dragons either."

"That's good," Waveripple said. "Where does Emeraldeyes live?" he asked after a little while. "Does she live in a cave like you?"

"No, she doesn't live in a cave," Indigowings replied. "Do you want to visit her?"

"Yeah," Waveripple replied. "If she doesn't live in a cave, where does she live?"

"I'll show you," was Indigowings's only answer. "Her home is this way." He started walking through the forest, and Waveripple followed him.

They walked past a lot of pine trees and through a few small clearings. Then they came to an area in the forest that had more broadleaf trees than evergreens. There were oak trees, maple trees, birch trees, and many others.

"We're almost there," Indigowings told Waveripple.

They kept walking until they came to a huge oak tree which had branches spreading more than a hundred feet from the tip of a branch on one side of the tree to the tip of a branch on the other side. Indigowings stopped beside the tree.

Waveripple looked around for anything that seemed like it could be a home for a Dwarf dragon. He just saw trees and open ground, with no place that looked sheltered, other than the trees which provided protection from precipitation.

"Why did we stop?" he asked Indigowings. "Is Emeraldeyes's home nearby?"

"Yes," Indigowings replied, grinning. "She lives up in that oak tree."

Waveripple looked up into the tree branches more closely. Most of the branches were spread out, but he saw an area where they were all close together, overlapping each other. As he stared at those branches, he realized that only a few of them were growing out of the tree. The rest appeared to have been dragged over those branches to make a floor.

"Does she live in those branches that have been dragged on top of the other tree branches?" Waveripple asked, pointing to them.

"Yeah, she does," Indigowings said. "It's a cool place to live. Better than my cave. Emeraldeyes!" Indigowings shouted. "Are you up there?" There was no reply.

"Looks like she's not there," Waveripple said.

"She's probably hunting with her parents," Indigowings said. "Since she's not here right now, do you want to keep exploring the forest while we wait for her to come back?"

"Yeah, sure," Waveripple said. "How much of the forest have you already explored?"

"I explored the whole area around my cave, and most of the forest by Emeraldeyes's tree. But I've never been on the other side of your lake, or explored the forest more than a few hundred yards around where I live."

"Then let's explore a part of the forest that you haven't already," Waveripple suggested.

"Okay," Indigowings agreed. "We can go up to the last part that I explored by Emeraldeyes's tree, and then go past that to explore more."

Waveripple and Indigowings walked through the forest, with Indigowings leading them to the edge of the area that he had been in.

When they reached a certain point, Indigowings told Waveripple, "I didn't explore anything past here."

"Okay," Waveripple said. "Then everything past here will be completely new." He liked that they had reached a place that Indigowings had not explored; now everything would be new and exciting for both of them.

After a few minutes, the hatchlings came to a small pond. Waveripple ran to the pond and jumped inside, splashing Indigowings, who had stayed on dry land. "Hey!" he complained.

"You should come in the water," Waveripple said. With a sly grin, he said, "Then you can splash me back," and splashed Indigowings again, this time on purpose.

"You asked for it," Indigowings said playfully. Then he jumped into the pond, making a huge wave as he landed, soaking Waveripple.

Waveripple laughed and splashed him back. Then he dove underneath the water to avoid Indigowings's next splash. When he was underwater, he noticed that there were no fish in this pond, but there were turtles and frogs. He came back up right behind Indigowings and splashed him again.

Indigowings turned and jumped at the same time, sending a huge splash at Waveripple. The two hatchlings continued with their splash fight until they were tired of it, more than half an hour later. Then Indigowings started to walk out of the pond.

"Wait!" Waveripple said. "Let's chase the turtles and frogs around. I bet you can't catch any." He said the last part to try to make Indigowings come back to try.

"Turtles and frogs? I didn't even notice they were here," Indigowings said. Walking back into the pond, he said, "Actually, I think I can catch more than you can. I'm faster."

"I don't think so," Waveripple said, wondering where Indigowings had gotten that idea.

"We'll see," Indigowings said. "First let's see who can catch the most frogs, and then the most turtles."

"Okay," Waveripple agreed. "Whoever gets to ten frogs first is the winner."

"Alright," Indigowings said. "Get ready, set, go!"

Both hatchlings dove under the water to look for frogs. Waveripple swam quickly to the end of the pond opposite the spot that Indigowings was in. Indigowings was splashing around too much and moving too quickly, scaring all the frogs away.

Waveripple did not move as much, not even needing to surface for air. When he was under the water, he held still, and the frogs that were fleeing from Indigowings swam over to him. He swiftly grabbed a Leopard frog and bit down on it, killing it. He threw it on land and then went back into the water.

Looking around for another frog, Waveripple saw a brown frog swimming away from him, and began chasing after it. He caught it in his mouth and threw it on top of the first frog he had caught. Waveripple soon caught three more Leopard frogs, but by then they were becoming harder to find. A lot of them had hopped out of the water to hide in the grass. It was also harder to see them because he and Indigowings had stirred up the soil on the bottom of the pond, muddying the water.

But Waveripple was used to finding animals in murky water, so soon managed to find another frog. He swam after it and tried to grab it in his mouth but missed.

Waveripple surfaced for a moment to see how well Indigowings was doing. He saw him splashing around on the other side of the pond, looking more like he was having a splash fight with an invisible opponent than trying to catch something. There was a small pile of frogs on the ground by Indigowings, but they were too far away to be counted.

When Waveripple went back under the water, he saw a large green frog sitting at the bottom of the pond. He dove down quickly and grabbed the frog in his mouth, getting a lot of water as well.

Waveripple came back up to put his latest catch on the pile and then dove back under. He swam around until he found a small green frog, which he quickly caught.

After a few more minutes, Waveripple had caught two more frogs. Just one more and he would win!

Waveripple swam around, scanning the water for movement. He did not see any frogs, so he swam closer to Indigowings. Then he saw a dark brown frog at the bottom of the pond, camouflaged in the mud. He dove down swiftly and caught it.

When he surfaced, Waveripple threw his last frog in the pile he had caught. "Ten!" he shouted exultantly.

Indigowings stopped splashing around. He swam to shallower water and said proudly, "I caught eight. And you said I couldn't catch any."

"Do you want to see who can get to ten turtles first?" Waveripple asked.

"Okay," Indigowings said. "I'll beat you this time."

"Get ready, get set, go!" Waveripple said, diving under the water.

The turtles were harder to find than the frogs, because by now they had burrowed underneath the mud to hide from the dragons. Waveripple sometimes chased turtles back at the lake, but not as often as fish and frogs, so he could not locate them as easily.

Waveripple made out the shape of the top of a turtle's shell in the mud. He swam down and started digging up the turtle, which instantly swam up away from him. He chased after it and grabbed it in his mouth, biting down on it. The turtle's shell was harder than he expected, so his bite barely injured the turtle. He bit down harder and killed it.

After putting his turtle on land, Waveripple dove back down to look for another one. He saw a painted turtle, well-hidden at the bottom of the pond. He quickly caught it and added it to the pile he had started.

About half an hour later, Waveripple had caught six more turtles. He kept looking for more, but he could not see any. After a while, he saw a turtle coming up for air. He swam after it and caught it.

Waveripple missed the next turtle that he saw, which swam over to Indigowings and was caught by him.

Ten minutes later, Waveripple found another painted turtle. He dug it out of the mud and killed it.

When he surfaced to put his turtle on the pile, he saw Indigowings coming up with a turtle at the same time. Waveripple threw his last turtle on the pile and said, "I caught ten!"

"I got ten!" Indigowings shouted at the same time.

Both hatchlings looked at each other, surprised that they had gotten their last turtles at the same time.

Indigowings started walking out of the pond again, and this time Waveripple followed him.

Waveripple gathered up his turtles and frogs into one pile.

"What are you doing?" Indigowings asked curiously.

"Well, we can't kill all those turtles and frogs just for fun. It would be wasteful not to eat them."

"You eat turtles? And frogs?" Indigowings asked, astonished.

"Of course," Waveripple replied. "I mostly just eat fish, but sometimes my parents and I can not catch enough, so we eat frogs, turtles, and aquatic plants then."

Indigowings was still staring at him in surprise. "Don't they taste disgusting?" he asked.

"No," Waveripple replied. "They're not as good as fish, but they don't taste bad."

Waveripple picked up one of the Leopard frogs and ate it. "Some frogs are poisonous," he warned Indigowings. "Most of them are safe for us to eat, but don't eat any frogs that are too brightly-colored." He then cracked open one of the turtle's shells and ate the turtle inside.

Indigowings hesitantly picked up a small frog and started chewing on it. He swallowed it and said, "It doesn't taste too bad."

"You should try a turtle, too," Waveripple said. "They taste better."

Indigowings cracked open one of the turtle's shells and started eating it. "You're right–they do taste better," he agreed.

Waveripple and Indigowings finished eating the frogs and turtles.

Then Indigowings said, "I'll bet you can't catch any rodents. If we were having a contest to see who could catch the most mice, I would win."

"We'll see about that," Waveripple replied. "But it's getting dark now. We can have a rodent-catching contest tomorrow."

"Okay," Indigowings said, a bit disappointed. Brightening up again, he said, "We should get Emeraldeyes to be in the contest, too."

"That's a good idea," Waveripple said. "We can ask her tomorrow."

Waveripple and Indigowings walked back to Indigowings's cave. By the time they arrived, the sun had almost set.

"Goodbye," Waveripple said to Indigowings.

"Bye," he replied. "See you tomorrow."

Waveripple walked back to the lake. He was excited about the contest that he, Indigowings, and hopefully Emeraldeyes would have tomorrow.

~~~

Whiteswirl flew out of his cave the next night. He was going to explore a new part of the forest now that it was night again. He flew in the opposite direction than the one he had gone in to hunt the Lizard last time.

At first Whiteswirl just flew over a lot of trees, which were all grouped together, and a few small clearings. He could not smell any dragons down in the trees he flew over, so he started to relax as he flew.

A few hundred yards later, Whiteswirl could smell a few dragons in the trees beneath him. He descended to find out how many there were, and saw five Wind dragons sleeping on the tree branches. They were light gray and slightly smaller than most dragon species.

Whiteswirl soon found another Lizard dragon sleeping in a large, sheltered hole in the ground. He flew past it, wondering how many dragons lived in this part of the forest.

After going a few more miles, Whiteswirl turned around and flew back towards the cave. When he flew over the Winds again, one of them stirred. He flew faster in case it woke up and saw him.

When Whiteswirl got back to the cave, he saw that Redclaws was already back from whatever she had been doing. She was sitting near the front of the cave, looking out into the forest. Whiteswirl walked up to her and looked in the direction that she was looking in, but he did not see anything. Then he heard light footsteps, footsteps that were not made by a dragon. Most dragons walked noisily except when they were hunting, and then they were usually too quiet to hear.

A howl broke through the silence of the night, and Whiteswirl realized that the footsteps were a wolf's. Another howl joined the first one, and then another, and soon it sounded like the whole forest was filled with the musical howling of the wolves.

Whiteswirl listened to the howling until it stopped, and then walked deeper into the cave. He had already explored three of the four tunnels that led into the cave. The first one on the left had been short, and just led to another small cavern, which he had already seen when they first found the cave. The second tunnel led to another exit from the cave, and the third one was long and was a dead end. Whiteswirl walked into the last tunnel to explore it.

The tunnel was long, constantly twisting and turning back on itself, but it did not have any other tunnels branching off it. It would be impossible to get lost, even if he could not follow his scent back to where he came from. The tunnel went on and on, and Whiteswirl started to wonder when he would reach the end.

At last the tunnel led to an open cavern, where it dead-ended. Many different types of crystals lined the walls inside the cavern. A little stream trickled through it, and stalactites hung down from the ceiling. There were also a few stalagmites, and one column where a stalactite had joined a stalagmite. There was a small hole in the roof, and moonlight shone through it, lighting up the cavern and making the crystals sparkle. It was the most beautiful thing Whiteswirl had ever seen. He walked around the cavern for a while, looking at everything.

After a little while, he decided to go back to Redclaws. She would be wondering what he had been doing all this time. He walked back through the long tunnel until he finally reached the entrance to the cave, where Redclaws waited.

"What took you so long?" Redclaws asked, sounding as if she did not really care.

"The tunnel was very long," Whiteswirl answered. "There is a beautiful cavern at the end, with crystals, stalactites, a little stream, and moonlight shining through a hole in the ceiling. You should see it."

"Maybe next night," Redclaws said. "This night is almost over."

Whiteswirl decided that, whether Redclaws would come or not, he would go back through the last tunnel again the next night. He really liked the cavern at the end.

CHAPTER EIGHT: CAVES

Waveripple walked to Indigowings's cave excitedly the next day. They were going to have their rodent-catching contest soon. He found Indigowings waiting for him by his cave.

"Hi Waveripple," Indigowings said. "Do you want to ask Emeraldeyes if she will also play the rodent-catching game now?"

"Yeah," Waveripple replied. "Hopefully she'll say yes."

They started walking to Emeraldeyes's tree. "I told her about the contest after you left yesterday, and she said she would play it, but maybe not right away," Indigowings said. "This time she knows that we will be coming, so I think she'll be in her home."

A few minutes later, Waveripple and Indigowings arrived at the oak tree that Emeraldeyes lived in. "Emeraldeyes?" Indigowings called.

Emeraldeyes flew down from the branches. "Hello Indigowings and Waveripple," she said.

"Hi," Waveripple said.

"Do you want to do the rodent-catching contest now?" Indigowings asked hopefully.

"Okay," Emeraldeyes agreed. "What are the rules? Do we have to catch a certain amount of rodents, or just catch all that we can find and then see who has the most?"

"Either way would be fine with me," Indigowings said. "Which one do you think we should do, Waveripple?"

"We already had a contest to see who could catch the most animals yesterday, so probably doing it without a number goal would be better this time," Waveripple replied. "But either way would be fun."

"Then let's just keep hunting rodents until we can't find any more, and then see who has the most," Emeraldeyes said. "We can all agree when to stop."

"Okay, we can start now," Indigowings said, running off in the direction of the nearest clearing.

Emeraldeyes flew up in the air to be able to see farther away, and went in a different direction than the one Indigowings had gone in. Waveripple saw her darting down into the grass after something.

Waveripple crept around in the grass, looking for a vole like the one he had been chasing in the meadow, because he knew they would be easy to catch.

Waveripple soon heard a small animal scurrying around. He slowly crept over to where the sound was coming from, but it was just a sparrow, which flew away when it saw him. He went back to trying to find a meadow vole.

A few minutes later, Waveripple heard a small animal making noises again, but this time it sounded different. He crept closer to the animal, and saw a mouse hiding in the grass.

Waveripple charged at the mouse, and it scampered away. He saw it running to another place to hide, like the vole had when he was chasing it. He was faster than the mouse, but the little thing was easy to lose. It must have frozen in its next hiding spot, because Waveripple could not hear or see it. He pushed the grass aside, and saw the mouse running away.

Waveripple chased after the mouse and grabbed it. He did not like the feel of all the fur in his mouth, which was so much different from the smooth, hard scales of a fish. He bit down on the mouse quickly, and put it under a tree so that he could look for another one.

Waveripple soon found a meadow vole, which he was able to catch more easily than the mouse. He set the vole down next to the mouse and started looking for more rodents.

Half an hour later, Waveripple had only been able to catch one more rodent, another meadow vole, but he could tell that the others had caught more, because he kept hearing high-pitched squeaks whenever they caught one.

Waveripple heard movement in the grass nearby and stalked over to see what it was. A large black rat glared maliciously up at him with its beady black eyes. Waveripple hesitated for a few seconds, and the rat darted away.

It can not really be that dangerous if it runs away like all the other rodents, Waveripple thought. Then he charged after it, soon catching up. He grabbed it in his mouth and was about to bite down on it when the rat twisted around and bit Waveripple in the face. Waveripple dropped the rat, shocked, and it scampered away before he could get it again. He decided not to try to catch any more rats that he might see.

Fifteen minutes later, Waveripple had caught one more mouse, but he could not find any other rodent. "Indigowings! Emeraldeyes!" Waveripple called. "I can't find any more. Do you two want to stop now?"

"Yeah, we can," Indigowings said. "I also couldn't find any rodents for a while, but I think I have more than you do."

"Okay, we can stop hunting rodents now," Emeraldeyes agreed. "How many do you each have?"

"I have six rodents–three mice, two voles, and a rat," Indigowings replied.

"I only have four–two mice and two meadow voles," Waveripple said.

Emeraldeyes grinned triumphantly. "I have seven–three voles, three mice, and a gopher."

"You caught a gopher?" Indigowings asked, sounding impressed.

"Yes," Emeraldeyes replied. "It was just a small gopher, who wandered too far away from one of the entrances to its tunnels."

Indigowings and Waveripple walked over to see the gopher that Emeraldeyes had caught. It was a thirteen-lined striped gopher, so it looked a lot more like a chipmunk than a normal gopher. Waveripple had never seen one before.

Emeraldeyes picked up one of the mice she had caught and ate it. Indigowings went back to the pile of rodents he had caught and started eating them. Waveripple went to his own pile.

He had never eaten a rodent before, but they probably did not taste bad, because Indigowings and Emeraldeyes were eating them. He remembered when Indigowings thought that frogs and turtles would taste bad; he would not be acting as if it were so strange to eat them if he thought that rodents also tasted bad.

Waveripple ate one of his mice in one bite. It tasted different from fish, but it did not taste bad. When he finished eating the rodents he had caught, he saw that Emeraldeyes and Indigowings had already finished their rodents even though they had each caught more than he had.

"What do you want to do now?" Indigowings asked the other two hatchlings.

"It doesn't matter," Emeraldeyes said. "But preferably not another hunting contest. I'm not hungry anymore."

"I don't think that even you would be full from eating a couple of mice," Indigowings teased. "I think you're just afraid that you wouldn't win if we had another hunting contest."

Emeraldeyes rolled her eyes. "Yeah right," she said.

"If the contest was about catching deer," Indigowings said, "neither one of you would even be able to catch one."

"That's different," Emeraldeyes said. "Deer are too big to eat, and it would be wasteful to kill them just for a contest."

"I never even tried to catch a deer," Waveripple said. "I've only hunted small animals, so of course it is not likely that I would win."

"I eat deer all the time, Emeraldeyes," Indigowings said. "Even if you couldn't eat a whole deer at one time, you could just eat the rest of it later. And Waveripple, that's a lame excuse. I had not hunted a frog or turtle before having that hunting contest with you."

Emeraldeyes shrugged. "Either way, I'm not hungry right now," she said.

"Do you want to explore the forest some more now?" Waveripple asked them.

"Yeah, we could," Emeraldeyes said. "I've already explored most of it around here, though."

"Yeah, that's a good idea," Indigowings said to Waveripple. "Let's go in the opposite direction than the one we went in yesterday."

"Okay," Waveripple agreed. He walked in that direction, and the other two hatchlings followed him.

They walked past a lot of trees, and through several small clearings. Then they came to the bottom of a small group of cliffs. They could see three caves see at the bottom of the cliffs.

"Look at those caves!" Indigowings said, although they were all already looking at them. "Let's go in and explore them."

"Yeah!" Waveripple said excitedly. "Which cave do you think we should explore first?"

Emeraldeyes walked up to the cave on the right. "This one isn't really a cave," she told them. "It's just a short tunnel leading to a small cavern."

Indigowings and Waveripple walked closer to that cave, and saw that Emeraldeyes was right. Then the three looked into the cave in the middle.

This cave was too deep for them to see its end. It was very dark, but they could see a tunnel branching off to the left.

"Let's go in this one first," Waveripple said. "Then we can explore the last one if there's still time today."

Indigowings and Waveripple entered the cave, followed closely by Emeraldeyes.

"It's easy to get lost in a cave," Emeraldeyes said. "Of course we can just follow our scent trails to get back out, but they fade after a little while. We should just take forward tunnels, or tunnels that lead right if there are no forward tunnels. Then when we are coming back, we will take forward and left tunnels. It will be impossible to get lost that way."

"Yeah, that's a good idea," Waveripple said. "We should do it, just in case."

"You're taking all the fun out of it, Emeraldeyes," Indigowings complained. "What if one of the tunnels that goes left looks more interesting than the one leading right?"

"It won't matter which tunnel looked more interesting when you are lost because of it," Emeraldeyes said, sounding annoyed.

"Fine, we can take just the forward and right tunnels," Indigowings said. "I suppose we can explore the tunnels that lead to the left later."

Waveripple, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes walked deeper into the cave. They soon passed the tunnel that led to the left, going forward like Emeraldeyes had suggested.

The cave was dark, but all dragons had fairly good night vision, so their eyes soon adjusted enough that they could see where they were going. For a few hundred feet, the tunnel kept going in a straight line with no tunnels branching off to the sides.

Then they came to a fork in the cave, with three tunnels to choose from. One of them led straight forward, one was to the right, and the last one went left. They walked down the one that led straight forward, but it turned out to be a dead end, so they went back and chose the tunnel on the right instead.

This tunnel was short and led to a larger cavern. The cavern was empty, except for a few stalactites hanging from the ceiling. Waveripple and Emeraldeyes kept glancing up at them cautiously, afraid that they might break off and fall on them.

After a little while, Indigowings noticed that they were looking up at the stalactites. "Stalactites hardly ever fall down," he told them. "So it's very rare for them to fall on someone."

"Oh," Waveripple said. "They look like they're about to fall."

Waveripple kept glancing up as they crossed the cavern, but Emeraldeyes relaxed more and only looked up occasionally.

At the end of the cavern, the tunnel they had been following continued. But it was smaller now, with room for only one hatchling to go through at a time. Indigowings entered it first. Waveripple followed him, and Emeraldeyes came in last.

It was so dark in the tunnel that Waveripple could not see Indigowings, even though he was right in front of him.

Waveripple was worried that he might accidentally crash into him.

The tunnel went on for a long time, and Waveripple could not see if they were almost at its end, because Indigowings was blocking his view. This tunnel twisted and turned a lot more often than the other tunnels they had walked through, but so far there were no other tunnels branching off it.

This tunnel was the longest one they had gone through. Waveripple would have thought that they were very deep into the cave, but it twisted back on itself so much that there might actually have been only a few feet of rock separating them from the forest.

After a few more yards, the tunnel led to another cavern. This cavern was more than twice the size of the last one, and had two tunnels leading out of it on the other side. There were only a few stalactites hanging from its roof. There were also a few stalagmites in the cavern, and two columns.

Now that they were in a cavern instead of walking through a tunnel, Waveripple stopped and looked around. He saw Emeraldeyes standing next to him, but he could not see Indigowings anywhere.

"Indigowings! Where are you?" Waveripple called.

"I'm right here," Indigowings's voice came from a few feet away, making Waveripple jump. Waveripple could see Indigowings's yellow eyes, glowing in the dark, but he could not see any other part of him.

"Why can I only see your eyes?" Waveripple asked. "I can see Emeraldeyes, but I can't see you."

Indigowings and Emeraldeyes started laughing.

"What?" Waveripple asked.

"Of course we can't see him, Waveripple," Emerladeyes said, trying to stop herself from laughing. "He's a Dusk. Dusks change colors in the dark to match the darkness."

"Oh. Really?" Waveripple asked, feeling slightly embarrassed. No one had ever told him that before. "That's cool. Why don't you ever change color in the light, Indigowings?"

"I don't know," Indigowings said. "It isn't voluntary. And it only works at night, or in dark places like this cave."

Emeraldeyes walked past Indigowings to go closer to one of the walls of the cavern. "Look at this!" she exclaimed.

Indigowings and Waveripple rushed over to see what it was. Gold thinly lined the wall that Emeraldeyes was staring at. Waveripple checked the other walls and saw that they had gold on them, too.

"It's pretty," Emeraldeyes said.

"Yeah, it is," Waveripple agreed. "I wonder if there is any more of it in those tunnels." He pointed to the two up ahead.

"Let's go see," Emeraldeyes said, walking quickly into the tunnel on the right. "There's none in here," she announced. "Maybe there is some in the other tunnel..." She came out of the first tunnel and went into the one on the left instead.

"There's more here!" she said excitedly.

Indigowings entered that tunnel to look, but Waveripple lingered behind.

"I thought we were only going to take straight forward and right tunnels," he reminded them.

Indigowings backed out of the tunnel, followed by Emeraldeyes.

"Right," Emeraldeyes said. "I was just seeing if it had gold; I was not planning to actually take that tunnel." She walked into the right tunnel, and Indigowings went in after her.

Waveripple entered it last. This tunnel was more spacious than the last one they had been in, with enough room for the three hatchlings to walk side by side.

After a few hundred feet, they came to a dead end, with no other tunnels to go into. They were about to turn back when Waveripple stopped. He had heard a familiar sound coming from the dead end. It was the sound of moving water.

"Listen," he told the other two hatchlings. "I can hear water on the other side of the dead end."

Indigowings and Emeraldeyes stepped closer to the wall so that they could hear better.

"I hear it, too," Emeraldeyes said.

"I wonder how thick this wall is," Indigowings said. "Maybe this isn't really a dead end, but just a cave-in. The tunnel might continue on the other side."

"If we could breathe fire," Emeraldeyes said, "we could melt the rock and see what is on the other side." She looked thoughtful, probably wondering if she would be able to breathe fire on it, since she was almost an adult dragon.

Indigowings shook his head. "That's not a good idea," he said. "Some caves have stuff in the walls that explodes if it is burned."

"We can just go back and take the other tunnel," Waveripple said.

"Okay," Emeraldeyes agreed. "We're not likely to get lost by taking just one left tunnel."

The three dragons turned around and walked back out of the tunnel, and then entered the left tunnel.

It was a small tunnel with room for only one hatchling to walk through it at a time. Waveripple went first this time, then Indigowings, and last Emeraldeyes. That tunnel also dead-ended after a few hundred yards.

"Let's go back out of this cave," Indigowings said. "Then we can explore it again, taking left turns this time."

"Okay," Waveripple said. "And after that we can explore the last cave."

The hatchlings eventually finished retracing their path to get out of the cave. By the time they got out, it was already starting to get dark.

Indigowings, now fully visible again, did not seem to notice that it was almost night. He started walking back into the cave to explore the other tunnels, but paused when he noticed that Emeraldeyes and Waveripple were not following him.

"Don't you want to keep exploring the cave?" he asked confusedly.

"It's getting dark already," Emeraldeyes explained. "I don't think we have enough time to keep exploring before it gets too dark."

"And it's a few miles to get back to the lake, so it will be even darker by then," Waveripple added.

Indigowings sighed. "We can keep exploring tomorrow, then. Unless you're not interested anymore."

"Of course I'm still interested," Emeraldeyes said.

"Yeah," Waveripple agreed. "Exploring the cave was fun, but it really is getting too dark now."

The dragons walked back to the tree where Emeraldeyes lived, because it was the closest of their homes.

"See you tomorrow," Indigowings said to Emeraldeyes. "We can meet by the caves to keep exploring them."

Emeraldeyes nodded. After they said goodbye to Emeraldeyes, Indigowings and Waveripple walked back through the forest until they reached Indigowings's cave.

"Bye, Waveripple," Indigowings said.

"Bye, Indigowings," Waveripple replied. Then he walked back towards the lake.

By the time he arrived, it was almost nightfall. He told his parents about the cave that they had been exploring, and that he was going to go back to keep exploring it the next day.

"Be careful in the cave," Flowerwater told him. "Pay attention what directions you take so that you don't get lost."

"We were," Waveripple replied. "Emeraldeyes suggested that we only take forward tunnels and tunnels that led right if there was no forward tunnel. That way it was practically impossible to get lost."

"That's a good idea," Flowerwater said.

"Don't stay in the cave too long," Splashsail said. "It's easy to loose track of time when you can't see how much light there is."

Waveripple nodded. "We weren't exploring the cave for too long. We can just come out every now and then to make sure it's not too dark."

Soon after, the Amphibians settled in by the lake and fell asleep.

Waveripple dreamed that he was walking through a cave that had gold lining the walls, and stalagmites growing up from the floor. He could hear moving water in the background. But then he looked up and saw stalactites hanging loosely from the ceiling. The ground shook, and the stalactites all started falling down, about to crush him....

Waveripple woke up, gasping. It was still night, and he was safely by the edge of the lake, not in an inescapable cave. He soon calmed down and fell asleep again, having a more peaceful dream this time.

~~~

The next night, Whiteswirl decided to go to the cavern he had found before.

Whiteswirl walked over to Redclaws. "Do you want to see the cavern I found at the end of one of these tunnels?" he asked her.

"Yeah, I can see it," Redclaws agreed disinterestedly.

Whiteswirl walked through the long tunnel with Redclaws following him. She did not say anything, but he thought that she did not like the confinement or the length of the tunnel.

After a while, they came to the cavern that Whiteswirl had found the previous night. The moon was a bit fuller this night, lighting the cavern better. It looked just as beautiful as it had the last time, with gold and jewels lining the walls and sparkling in the moonlight. The stalagmites and stalactites were dotted around the cavern, decorating it nicely. But the little stream trickling through the center of the cavern was the most beautiful to Whiteswirl. It flowed through the cave slowly and sinuously, and it was well-lit by the moonlight.

"It is a bit pretty," Redclaws admitted. But she only stayed there for a short time before turning around and heading back down the tunnel.

Whiteswirl knew that Redclaws probably did not like that the only way out was the way they had come in. If anyone found their cave while they were in this cavern, they could trap them inside it.

Whiteswirl walked around the edges of the cavern, wishing there was another tunnel leading out of it. Maybe then Redclaws would have stayed longer, and would come back more often.

Whiteswirl heard the faint echoing of his footsteps as he paced around the cavern. At one point, the echo was weaker than at the other parts.

Whiteswirl paused, and then roared so that he could hear the echo. The rock wall sounded hollow. He pushed on it, but he knew that he would not be able to do any damage to it. And if there was not really anything on the other side, breaking it would ruin part of his beautiful cavern.

Whiteswirl stopped pacing and stared around at the cavern wonderingly. He gazed at the stream for a particularly long time. Then he slowly walked up to it, and placed one of his feet inside.

The water was cool, but felt good anyway. Whiteswirl stepped in completely, shivering a bit from the cold. He liked the way the water felt as it flowed around his feet and legs. He waded in deeper until he was in the middle of the little stream, which came up to his belly.

Whiteswirl bent his legs until the water was up to his neck, and stood like that for a little while, feeling the water flow around him. But it was too cold to stay there long, so he soon stepped out, shaking off the water.

Whiteswirl stayed in his little cavern for a long time. It was a peaceful place, far away from other dragons, who would try to kill him if they could. The cave was so beautiful and serene that it seemed like an automatic peace zone, a place where no one could harm anyone else. He felt like he would not have to worry about anything, whether it was finding dragons to hunt or being attacked, as long as he stayed there.

Only when the sun had started rising above the horizon did Whiteswirl leave the cavern, heading back to Redclaws, so that she would know that nothing had happened to him–not that she cared, he thought–and because the sun would shine through the hole in the ceiling, just as the moon did at night. He would not be able to sleep with a bright light shining into his cavern, which would be made even more unbearable by the reflective objects in the cave.

CHAPTER NINE: COLLAPSE

The next day, Waveripple went hunting for fish with his parents, like he did every day. After they had caught a few fish, he thought about what to do while waiting for the evening. He decided to go back to the pond that he had found with Indigowings before, and chase the frogs and turtles around. Of course he could do that, plus chasing fish, here at the lake, but he was at the lake every day and wanted to play in a new body of water.

After he had told his parents where he was going, Waveripple walked into the forest to find the pond. He did not remember exactly where it was, but he knew that it was near Emeraldeyes's tree.

When he arrived at the oak tree, Waveripple looked around at the forest, trying to remember which direction they had gone in.

"Hi Waveripple!" Emeraldeyes's voice called down to him from the tree.

Waveripple looked up, startled. He had not known that she was up there. "Hi, Emeraldeyes," he answered.

Emeraldeyes flew down from the tree and landed next to him. "What are you doing here?" she asked curiously. "You usually only come in the forest when Indigowings is awake."

"Yeah, but I got bored at the lake," Waveripple replied. "Indigowings and I had found a pond somewhere nearby, so I was going back to it, but I don't remember where it is. Do you know of any ponds nearby?"

Emeraldeyes thought for a minute. "It depends on what you mean by nearby," she answered. "I know of one pond a few miles away. Do you want me to show it to you, so you can see if it's the right one?"

"Yeah," Waveripple said. "Thanks."

"No problem," Emeraldeyes said. "The pond is this way." She flew off through the trees, and Waveripple followed her.

Emeraldeyes flew below the tree level, where Waveripple could still see her. She moved faster when she was flying, but did not crash into any trees. Waverippple had to almost run to keep up with her.

After a while, they reached an opening in the trees. In the clearing was a pond, but not the same one that Waveripple had found before. This one was much larger, and even had a small stream trickling into it.

"Is this the pond you were talking about?" Emeraldeyes asked him.

"No, but this one is much better," Waveripple replied. "Thanks for showing it to me."

"You're welcome," Emeraldeyes said.

Waveripple waded into the pond. The water felt different from the water in the lake. The lake's water was usually moving around, blown by the wind, but this water was moving much more. The stream was constantly providing more water to the pond, moving the water around. Waveripple wondered why the pond had not overflowed by now.

"Well, I'm going back to the oak tree now," Emeraldeyes said. "I'm going to go hunting with my parents soon."

"Okay. Bye!" Waveripple said.

"Bye," Emeraldeyes answered. Then she turned and flew back into the trees.

Waveripple went deeper into the pond, trying to find a spot that was too deep for him to touch the bottom. The middle of the pond was the only area deep enough to cover his head.

He dove under the water to see what kinds of animals lived in the pond. He saw a few frogs and turtles swimming quickly away from him. There were also a few small fish, mostly minnows. The biggest fish here would only be medium-sized compared to the fish back at the lake.

Waveripple chased the fish around for a little while before he had an idea. He could swim upstream to see where the little stream came from. That would be funner than just chasing fish around in the pond, after all.

Waveripple surfaced and swam towards the perimeter of the pond, where he could put his feet down and walk. He waded over to the stream and started heading through it upstream. It was less deep than he had expected, so he did not even need to swim. The water was high enough to cover his back, but not his head, so it would be hard to swim even if he wanted to. The stream led into the forest in a different direction than the one Waveripple had come from. He kept walking up the stream as it wound through the forest, wondering when, or if, he would reach its beginning.

After half an hour of walking upstream through the forest, the stream went into another, smaller clearing. In the middle of the clearing was a small pond, which the stream was flowing out of. Past the pond, the stream continued, heading into the forest again.

Waveripple kept following the stream as it went in and out of the forest, going through clearings along the way, some of which had little ponds in them.

After another hour, the stream led into one final clearing. The clearing did not have very many trees in it because it was at the base of a steep cliff. The stream was coming out of the cliff's base. Waveripple thought the cliff looked familiar, like the one they had found the caves in, but he was not certain. He could not see any caves here, but they might be on one of the other sides of the cliff.

Waveripple walked up the stream all the way to the base of the cliff. There was no air space where the water joined the cave. Waveripple ducked under the water to find out if he could see, through the water, a cave in the cliff. He saw a lot of bubbles from the water flowing towards his face, but he could not see through it into the cliff, so he did not know if the stream came out of a cave.

Waveripple considered going underneath the cliff to find out, but decided not to do it then because it would probably take too long. He wanted to be back at Indigowings's cave by the time he woke up. And for all Waveripple knew, there might not even be a cave on the other side.

Waveripple turned around and headed back downstream. When he finally arrived back at the pond Emeraldeyes had shown him, another hour had gone by. It was already evening, so he went to Indigowings's cave.

Indigowings's cave was empty, so Waveripple walked around in the forest for a while. Then he remembered that they were supposed to meet each other at the caves they were exploring yesterday; that was why Indigowings was not here.

Waveripple walked all the way to the caves they had found before, where he saw Indigowings and Emeraldeyes waiting for him.

"Finally," Indigowings muttered. Then he said louder, "Hi Waveripple!"

"Hi, Indigowings," Waveripple said.

"We were about to go into the cave without you," Indigowings told him.

"I forgot that we were supposed to meet here today. Sorry," Waveripple said.

"Let's just go in now before it gets too late," Emeraldeyes said.

Emeraldeyes hurried into the cave, followed by Indigowings and then Waveripple. They soon came to the first branch of the cave, which was a left tunnel. The three of them walked into it.

The tunnel was medium-length and dead-ended.

"Oh great, a dead end," Indigowings said. "Now there is only one cave left to explore."

The three hatchlings exited the cave they were exploring and walked into the last one. It was just a long, straight tunnel with no other tunnels branching off it, unlike the other cave they had been exploring.

The tunnel led through a few small, empty caverns before it finally reached a larger cavern.

This cavern had stalagmites and stalactites, like most of the other caverns they had been in. Other than its size, the only difference this cavern had from the others was that, at its other end, two tunnels led out of it, instead of just one.

"Which tunnel do you think we should take?" Indigowings asked, after looking down both tunnels.

"It doesn't matter to me," Emeraldeyes replied. "They both look almost exactly the same."

"Then let's take the left tunnel," Waveripple suggested.

"Okay," Indigowings agreed, entering it. Waveripple came next, followed by Emeraldeyes.

This tunnel was much shorter than the one they had been following before. Just a few hundred feet down, they reached a medium-sized cavern. The cavern had three tunnels to pick from at its end. They could see that the right tunnel ended after just a few feet, but the center and left tunnels were too long for them to see if they were dead ends.

They walked into the center tunnel, Waveripple leading this time. At the end of the tunnel was a huge cavern, with several stalactites and stalagmites. It also had gold-lined walls, and a small, familiar-looking stream flowing from one wall to the other, probably passing through more caverns on the other sides of the walls. There were no more tunnels at the end of this cavern to go through.

Indigowings and Emeraldeyes turned to leave, but Waveripple walked up to the stream and jumped into it, sending water flying out at them.

"Hey!" Emeraldeyes complained. "That's cold!"

Waveripple did not think that the water was cold, but he was used to being in water at different temperatures, so maybe it would feel cold to Emeraldeyes.

Indigowings had not been splashed when Waveripple jumped into the stream, because he was farther back. "Let's go explore one of the other tunnels," he said.

"Not yet," Waveripple said. "We are always walking through all the tunnels and caverns, exploring them, but we hardly ever stay in them for a while. And I like the stream in this one."

Indigowings did not leave the cavern, but he stayed near the exit.

"Well, don't be splashing us if you want us to stay here, Waveripple," Emeraldeyes said.

Waveripple shrugged. "There's nothing wrong with getting wet," he said.

Emeraldeyes grinned slyly and said, "Well, then, you shouldn't mind this!" As she spoke she put her right wing into the water and splashed a small wave of water at Waveripple. Most of it hit him in the face.

Waveripple splashed a lot more water back at her than he had the first time, and some of it hit Indigowings, who then came over to join in the splash fight.

After a few minutes, Indigowings left to go back to the entrance of the tunnel they had come from.

"Come on. Let's keep exploring this cave," Indigowings said.

"Okay," Emeraldeyes said, walking over to him.

Waveripple sent one last splash in their direction, and then walked over to join them.

Indigowings led the way back towards the cavern they had come from. "Now we can go in the left tunnel," he said, walking into it.

Emeraldeyes and Waveripple followed him. At the end of the tunnel was a small cavern, with five tunnels branching off it. Two of the tunnels were dead ends, so the hatchlings did not go in them

Waveripple went up to the center tunnel and was about to start walking through it when he heard a rumbling sound. He froze, trying to figure out what it was.

Emeraldeyes looked around for the cause of the sound, too, but Indigowings seemed to recognize it. His glowing eyes glanced around at all the tunnels, looking terrified.

The rumbling intensified until it was not just a noise. The ground started shaking as if it were a living thing that was shivering. Then the shaking got rougher, and a few stalactites fell down from the ceiling. The three hatchlings jumped back to the edges of the cavern to avoid them.

There was a cracking sound, and then rocks started falling down from the walls and ceiling of the cave. They tumbled down and blocked off a few of the exits, including the one the hatchlings had come through.

Just as suddenly as it had started, the ground stopped shaking. A few last rocks fell down; then everything was still and quiet.

"What just happened?" Waveripple asked, staring at the rocks and stalactites that had fallen.

"An earthquake," Indigowings replied, seeming a bit surprised that Waveripple did not know.

Emeraldeyes ran over to the pile of rocks that was blocking the tunnel they had come through. She started trying to move them away, but most of them were too big for her.

"We won't be able to move all the rocks," Indigowings said. "There are too many of them. We have to try going down one of the unblocked tunnels."

Waveripple looked at the tunnels leading out of the cavern. One of them was a dead end. Two tunnels were too deep to tell, and the rest were blocked off by rocks.

"Which one do you think we should pick?" Waveripple asked.

Emeraldeyes came over to examine the tunnels but did not say anything.

"They both seem the same," Indigowings said. "We can go down one, and if it's a dead end we can come back to the other one." He walked down the tunnel closest to him, the one on the right. Waveripple and Emeraldeyes followed him.

The tunnel went on for a long time. Or maybe it just seemed long to Waveripple, because this tunnel could be leading deeper and deeper into the cave, instead of being an exit from it.

After half an hour of walking through the tunnel, the dragons came to a dead end.

"Oh no," Indigowings groaned. Waveripple saw his yellow eyes darting around, looking in all directions, even up, as if he thought a branch in the tunnel would suddenly appear if he looked closely enough. He did not find anything, so he turned around to head back.

Emeraldeyes and Waveripple also turned around and started walking back, now in the front.

Waveripple worried that the other tunnel would also be a dead end. What would they do then? He supposed they could try to move the rocks that were blocking the tunnel they came from. But what if Indigowings was right, and they were not able to move them?

Eventually they arrived back at the cavern, and started walking through the other tunnel.

This one was much shorter, and luckily did not lead to a dead end. Three tunnels branched off it. One of them was right next to the tunnel they had come out of. Another was at the opposite end of the cavern, and the last one was on the right side of the cavern.

The dragons walked through the tunnel at the opposite end of the cavern. They soon came to a turn, where they could go either right or left. Waveripple heard a sound coming from the right tunnel, so he walked down it.

When they had walked a bit farther, Waveripple could make out what the noise was–moving water. It was probably another part of the stream that they had found before.

At the end of the tunnel was a cavern–the most beautiful cavern Waveripple had ever seen in a cave. The stream that they had heard flowed through it, and the walls were lined with crystals and gold. There was a hole in the ceiling, through which they could tell that it was already night. At the other side of the cavern was a huge pile of rocks, which seemed to be blocking another tunnel.

Emeraldeyes flew up to the hole in the ceiling. She was small enough to fit through it, but the other two were not. Waveripple and Indigowings could not have gotten up there anyway, since they could not fly.

Emeraldeyes came back down. "I didn't recognize the area outside," she told them. "I think we went deeper into this cave than we thought."

"Let's go back through the tunnel," Indigowings said. "We can take the left tunnel, which will now be the forward tunnel. If it doesn't lead to an exit, you can go back here and through the hole in the ceiling to get help, Emeraldeyes."

"Okay," Emeraldeyes agreed reluctantly, looking back at the exit. Waveripple wondered if she wanted to leave for help now, or if she just did not want to leave them at all. After all, even if she did bring more dragons, those dragons might not be able to get to them.

The hatchlings went back down the tunnel until they came to a branch leading left, the one they had come from. They kept going forward through the tunnel. Waveripple noticed that this tunnel had gold lining the walls, but he was not paying much attention to it. They soon reached another cavern.

The cavern also had gold lining the walls. Waveripple recognized it–it was the same cavern that they had found the day before, when they were not lost in the cave. The two caves must have been connected by the tunnel that they had not taken the day before. This cavern's exits were not blocked off, so they now knew which direction to go in to get out of the cave.

After a few more hours, the dragons found the tunnel that led to the exit in the cave that they had used to enter it the previous day. They ran out joyfully, glad to have found a way out.

By this time, it was already a few hours into the night, almost midnight. An owl hooted nearby, and an eerie howling broke out from the distance.

~~~

An earthquake woke Whiteswirl up in the late evening. The trembling was weak where he was, and seemed to be coming from deeper in the cave. He saw that Redclaws had also been awakened by the noise and faint trembling.

The earthquake ended soon, but Whiteswirl did not go back to sleep. It was too close to night.

When it finally became dark, Whiteswirl walked into the tunnel that led to his cavern, wanting to make sure that the earthquake had not damaged it.

Whiteswirl suddenly came to the end of the tunnel, which was not where it was supposed to be. There was a huge pile of rocks in front of him, blocking him from his cavern. The whole cavern could be filled up with rocks for all he knew, but he still had to try to move the rocks in front of him.

Most of the rocks were too heavy for him, but Whiteswirl did not give up. When he loosened and removed the smaller rocks, some of the larger ones also tumbled down.

A few hours later, Whiteswirl had a lot of rocks strewn around on the ground near him, but he was still not able to get into his cavern. He refused to give up, continuing to pull and push rocks out of the pile.

Hours later, he had made a gap at the top of the pile. Looking through it, he could see that his cavern was undamaged and unchanged, except for one thing. The earthquake had partially broken one of the cave walls, revealing an extra tunnel leading out of the cavern. It was exactly where Whiteswirl had calculated it to be. Whiteswirl was excited about this new tunnel. He would be able to explore more of the cave, and maybe Redclaws would want to come here, now that there were two exits from the cavern.

Whiteswirl hurriedly moved more of the rocks out of his way. By the time the night was ending, he had moved the top half of the rocks away. They were now all over the ground, but not blocking him from going back. Next night he would be able to move the last few rocks that were blocking him from his cavern.

Whiteswirl decided to go to sleep there, by the collapsed entrance to his cavern, instead of at the first cavern by the cave's exit. Unlike Redclaws, he was not afraid of dragons ambushing him there, especially since he knew that Redclaws would sleep in their original cavern. No dragon could get past her.

CHAPTER TEN: UNEXPLORED PLACES

Waveripple, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes hurried back to their homes. As soon as Emeraldeyes was in sight of her oak tree, the other two said goodbye to her and rushed back to Indigowings's cave.

Indigowings was completely relaxed in the dark, since he was always out at night, but he knew that the other two hatchlings had to sleep, and their parents would be worried about them.

After arriving at Indigowings's cave, Waveripple and Indigowings said goodbye and Waveripple ran back in the direction of the lake. He heard rustling sounds, and an owl's hoot that sounded as if it were asking, "Who?" Waveripple went faster, spooked by the unusual sounds.

When he got back to the lake, Waveripple saw that neither of his parents were there. They must have gone looking for him.

Waveripple scanned the meadow, trying to see if they were nearby. He did not see them, so he started walking back towards the forest to see if they were looking for him there.

"Mom? Dad?" he called repeatedly as he walked, hoping they would hear him.

Waveripple heard faint shouting in the distance, and then the wingflaps of swiftly-flying dragons. He knew that his parents had heard him.

Splashsail and Flowerwater flew down and landed beside him. "Where have you been?" Splashsail asked.

"We were looking all over for you, Waveripple," Flowerwater said. "You were supposed to come back before nightfall, and several hours have passed since then."

"I was with Indigowings and Emeraldeyes, in the caves that we found," Waveripple answered. "There was an earthquake, and the tunnel that we had come from was blocked off. We had to find another way out of the cave, but it took a while."

"You were inside a cave when there was an earthquake, and the exit got blocked off?" Flowerwater asked, looking shocked. "You aren't allowed to go in the caves anymore," she said after about two seconds. "It's too dangerous. You could have been trapped with all the exits blocked off. You could have died."

Splashsail nodded. "Don't go into the caves anymore," he said, agreeing with Flowerwater.

Waveripple also nodded. "I don't even want to go in them anymore," he said. Exploring the cave had been fun and exciting, but it was too closed in. He had not minded it much at first, but when the earthquake had blocked off their exit, he realized that he very much preferred the open spaces of the lake and its surrounding meadow. Even the forest was better than the caves.

"Good," Flowerwater said. She seemed relieved that Waveripple did not want to go back in the caves, knowing now that he would not try to sneak back there anyway.

"It's time to go back to the lake, to go to sleep," Splashsail said, looking at the moon, which was in the middle of the sky. "And remember not to go into any cave, Waveripple."

"I won't," Waveripple said. He followed Splashsail back to the lake. Flowerwater walked behind him, as if she was afraid for him to be out of her sight.

Waveripple fell asleep soon after they got back, and was too exhausted to have any dreams.

The next morning, Waveripple decided to stay at the lake longer than he had the previous day, and to only leave the lake in the late evening. He dove into the lake to hunt for fish, and was able to catch one small silver fish. After eating it, he went over to his parents to ask them if they wanted to hunt with him.

"Can we hunt now?" he asked.

"Of course," Flowerwater replied, smiling. She seemed glad that Waveripple wanted to be hunting in the lake instead of running off exploring the forest as he usually did.

Splashsail, Flowerwater, and Waveripple swam out to the spot they most often hunted in. They managed to catch seven fish, four of which were small. Two of the fish they caught were medium-sized, and the last one was a large gray fish.

By that time it was noon, so the Amphibians started eating. Waveripple ate two of the small fish, and Flowerwater and Splashsail each ate one small fish and one medium fish. No one ate the large fish; they would eat it later in the day.

"I'm going to go visit Indigowings now," Waveripple announced in the early evening.

"Okay," Splashsail said. "Remember to come home before nightfall."

Waveripple nodded.

"And don't go into any cave," Flowerwater said.

"Don't worry; I won't," Waveripple reassured her again.

Waveripple headed into the forest to Indigowings's cave. Indigowings was inside, and Waveripple guessed that he had woken up recently.

"Hi, Indigowings," Waveripple said.

"Hi, Waveripple," Indigowings replied. "Do you want to continue exploring the caves?" He sounded only half-interested in that idea.

"After the earthquake?" Waveripple asked, surprised. "Of course I don't want to go back. And I'm not allowed to, anyway."

"Well, it's not very likely that there would be another earthquake today," Indigowings said. "But we can do something else if you want to."

"Okay," Waveripple said. "Let's go get Emeraldeyes, to see if she has any ideas about what we could do."

"We can see if she's there," Indigowings said, "but she told me yesterday that she would be hunting a lot today, so she might not be in her tree."

"Let's go find out, then," Waveripple said, and started walking towards Emeraldeyes's home. Indigowings followed him.

Emeraldeyes was not at her tree when they arrived.

"She'll probably be back soon," Indigowings said. "What do you want to do in the meantime, or do you just want to wait for her?"

"We already explored a lot of the forest around here," Waveripple replied. "So we should probably just wait for her here, unless you can think of something else to do."

"Let's see..." Indigowings said. "Oh! I know! We could try flying. I haven't tried that for weeks; we might be able to now."

"Yeah," Waveripple agreed excitedly. "I almost forgot all about that!"

"And now would be the perfect chance to practice, since Emeraldeyes is not here."

"We should probably go to a meadow, where there will be more room to spread our wings," Waveripple said, looking around at all the trees surrounding them.

"The nearest meadow is this way," Indigowings said excitedly. "Follow me!" He bounded off through the trees, with Waveripple following close behind.

Indigowings led the way to a large, open meadow in the forest. The grass was tall, coming up to Waveripple's belly, and there were several wildflowers dotted around. Waveripple was too busy thinking about flying to pay much notice to them.

It would be awesome to be able to fly. He would be able to see a lot more from up in the air than he could on the ground, and in flight there was more freedom of direction. He could go forward, like he could on the ground, but he could also go up or down. He could do that in water as well, but it was more limited; in the sky he would be able to go all the way up to the clouds, instead of just a few yards to the surface of the water.

Waveripple began flapping his wings rapidly. He rose a foot into the air and then fell back to the ground.

"You have to be running, or at least walking, while flapping your wings," Indigowings said. "And you should also jump into the air to get higher."

"How do you know?" Waveripple asked. "You can't fly."

"I was watching when Emeraldeyes's parents taught her how to fly," Indigowings replied. "And I was practicing flying already. It really does help."

As if to prove what he had said, Indigowings ran out towards the center of the meadow and jumped into the air, flapping his wings. He rose up halfway to the height of a full-grown tree, and for a second Waveripple thought he would actually be able to fly. Then he crashed back into the ground.

Indigowings had gotten higher than Waveripple did, so Waveripple decided to try what Indigowings said. He ran across the meadow, flapping his wings as he went. Because he was running, he could not flap them as quickly as before, but he was able to flap them harder now that he was flapping them more slowly.

When Waveripple got near the middle of the meadow, he jumped into the air as Indigowings had done, continuing to flap his wings. He slowly rose up into the air. Soon he was almost as high as Indigowings had gotten.

Waveripple flapped his wings harder, trying to get higher. He had hardly ever moved his wings much before, and had not tried to fly even once, so his wings were already becoming tired. Waveripple began to lose altitude. Knowing that he would not be able to get any higher, he just spread out his wings to slow his descent. As he came closer to landing, Waveripple stretched out his legs towards the ground and landed without falling over or making too much noise.

"I'm going to try that again!" Waveripple said excitedly.

"Me too!" Indigowings said. "I was almost able to really fly last time; I might be able to if I try again."

Both dragons ran out towards the center of the meadow again, flapping their wings. Indigowings leaped into the air first, and so did Waveripple a second later.

Waveripple managed to get the same high as he had last time before falling back to the ground.

Indigowings had not landed yet. Waveripple looked up and saw him flying above the trees. He was flapping his wings hard and slowly rising even higher. Then he began to sink back towards the ground. He was still flapping his wings, but more slowly than before. He looked tired from the effort of flying so high.

Indigowings spread out his wings and landed back in the meadow with a thud. "I did it! I was actually flying! That was awesome," Indigowings exclaimed.

"Yeah, that was great!" Waveripple said. "I'm going to try flying again now."

Waveripple ran, jumped into the air, and flapped his wings. He was soon as high as he had gotten the other two times. He flapped his wings even harder, and rose up farther. He was almost as high as the tree-tops!

Hearing light wingflaps, Waveripple turned his head to see that Emeraldeyes was back. Two other Dwarf dragons were flying with her, and all three were descending to land in the meadow.

"Waveripple! I didn't know you could fly yet!" Emeraldeyes exclaimed in surprise.

Distracted by the arrival of the Dwarves, Waveripple fell down a few feet. His wings were too tired to fly any more, so he landed on the ground.

"I couldn't," Waveripple replied. "I only learned how to fly today."

"Well, that's great!" Emeraldeyes said.

"I can fly, too," Indigowings said proudly.

Waveripple stared curiously at the two other Dwarves that had come with Emeraldeyes. They were both adults, one a male and the other a female. Waveripple guessed that they were Emeraldeyes's parents.

The female adult Dwarf said, "Hi Indigowings. It's nice to see you again."

"Hi Leafflight," Indigowings replied.

"This is Waveripple," Emeraldeyes told her parents. Turning back to Waveripple, she said, "These are my parents, Leafflight and Stonescales." She gestured to them as she introduced them.

"Hi," Waveripple said.

"Hello, Waveripple," Stonescales said. He was the same shade of brown as the other two Dwarves, but his scales looked harder than the scales of most dragons.

"Hi Waveripple," Leafflight said, smiling at him.

After a minute, Emeraldeyes said to her parents, "I'm going to go...explore the forest, or something else, with Indigowings and Waveripple now. We'll come back before nightfall."

"Okay," Stonescales said.

"Bye," Waveripple said to Stonescales and Leafflight.

"See you later," Indigowings said.

The three hatchlings walked away, deeper into the forest. When they were too far away for the adult dragons to hear, Indigowings asked, "Are you also not allowed to go back into the caves, Emeraldeyes? Waveripple said he's not."

Emeraldeyes nodded. "I wouldn't want to go back into the caves for a while anyway," she said. "After a while, I would probably want to keep exploring them, but not so soon after the earthquake."

"I don't really want to go back either," Waveripple said.

"It wouldn't bother me to go back into the caves now," Indigowings said. "Probably because I actually live in one. Anyway, what do you want to do now?"

"I don't want to have any more hunting contests right now," Waveripple said before either of them could suggest it. "I already ate some fish back at the lake, so I wouldn't feel like eating what we caught."

"I also ate recently," Emeraldeyes said. "We could just walk around in the forest, and explore it more."

"Yeah," Indigowings said. "But we usually do that, so we already explored a lot of the forest. We would have to walk a lot to get to a place we haven't explored."

"Then what do you think we should do?" Emeraldeyes asked him.

Indigowings considered for a minute. While he was thinking, Emeraldeyes asked, "Do you have any ideas, Waveripple?"

Waveripple shrugged. "It doesn't matter too much for me," he said.

"We could play hide and seek," Indigowings suggested. Seeing the look on Emeraldeyes's face–that was a game mostly for younger hatchlings, after all–he said, "I don't mean to do it just to be playing a hiding game. We would be finding new places in the forest, and they would be useful if we really needed to hide for some reason. After all, a few dragons did go missing not too long ago."

"That does seem like a good idea, when you put it that way," Emeraldeyes said.

Waveripple wondered if Indigowings had just said that to make her play it. A dragon could easily track another over the ground to almost any hiding spot, but in the air, it would be impossible to be tracked. And anyone could go into streams, ponds, or lakes to throw a dragon off their scent trail, even if they could not fly.

"Yeah, it is a good idea," Waveripple agreed, saying that more because he wanted to play hide and seek than because he thought what Indigowings said made sense.

"Okay, then, let's do it," Indigowings said. "Do either of you want to be the one looking for the others first, or not?"

"I don't want to be looking first," Waveripple said.

"I do!" Emeraldeyes said excitedly.

"Let's go hide," Indigowings said to Waveripple.

"Wait a minute," Emeraldeyes said. "First we have to agree on the rules. I think that one should be that we can't be flying around somewhere, because it would be almost impossible for the dragon looking to find anyone."

Indigowings nodded. "We also won't hide in caves, because you two aren't allowed to go into them."

"Since there is a whole forest to hide in, it would be hard to find someone," Waveripple said. "So another rule could be that we have to either stay a certain distance from this spot, or walk on the ground, so that we can follow each other's scents."

Emeraldeyes nodded. "Okay, how about if we stay within ten acres of this point, unless we leave a scent trail on the ground, and then we have to hide within fifty yards of the end of our scent trail."

"Agreed," Indigowings said.

"Yeah," Waveripple said.

"If that's all the rules," Indigowings said, glancing at Emeraldeyes, "then we can go hide now."

"Yeah, I think that can be all," Emeraldeyes said. "If one of us thinks of something else, we can say it later, when the dragon looking for the others changes."

"Stay here and count to one hundred," Indigowings told her.

Emeraldeyes nodded. She closed her eyes and started counting. Waveripple and Indigowings rushed off in opposite directions to find a hiding spot.
Waveripple sniffed the air while running, trying to find water. After a few minutes he could smell pond scents, like willows, which grew near water, and he felt more humidity in the air. He hurried towards the direction of the willows' scent. When he got there, he first saw a cluster of willows blocking his view of the water. Stepping around them, he saw a large pond, which was surrounded on nearly all sides by willow trees. He remembered this pond–it was one of the ones he had found while following the stream. He saw the little stream trickling through the pond.

Waveripple stood as far away from the pond as he could while still being close enough to jump into it. He crouched down and leaped into the water, sending up a huge splash.

Waveripple waded out to the center of the pond, where the water came up to his chest. He bent down until his head was completely submerged under the water. He was perfectly camouflaged, and he wondered how long it would take Emeraldeyes to find him, or if she even would.

Just then, he thought of another rule that they should have made. There should be a time limit to how long the dragon looking for the others could search. Otherwise, Emeraldeyes might never give up, and he could spend the rest of the day hidden in this pond. He hoped that she would either find him before too long, or at least give up if she was not able to find him. He wanted to try out other hiding places, and have a chance to look for the others, not to be stuck in this pond the whole time.

A few minutes later, Waveripple heard muted footsteps from somewhere on land. He held completely still so that he would not be seen. The footsteps stopped, replaced by the sound of wings flapping. Emeraldeyes had probably reached the end of his scent trail and was flying up to see if she could spot him from above. After a few more minutes, the flapping faded into the distance.

Waveripple relaxed. Emeraldeyes had not found him, and probably would not come back to this spot for a while.

After about half an hour, Waveripple heard wingflaps again, this time coming much closer. He could not see Emeraldeyes because she was not flying over the part of the pond he was in, but he could tell that she was flying only a few feet over the water. She would find him soon. He heard footsteps from the land by the pond. Emeraldeyes must have already found Indigowings.

Emeraldeyes's wingflaps grew slightly louder as she flew closer. Waveripple saw her flying towards him from a few feet away. He knew that she had already seen him, or would in just a few seconds, so he leaped out of the water in her direction. As he landed back in the pond, a huge splash went up and soaked Emeraldeyes.

Emeraldeyes folded her wings together and let herself drop into the water, sending up a splash the same size as the one Waveripple had made. A lot of the water landed on him, but he was already completely soaked anyway.

"I found you," Emeraldeyes said, smiling triumphantly, and looking like she was about to start laughing.

Indigowings ran up and jumped into the pond, splashing both of them as he did.

"Where were you hiding, Indigowings?" Waveripple asked.

"Normally, I wouldn't tell you, because then I wouldn't be able to hide there when you search for me," Indigowings replied, "but it wasn't a very good hiding place anyway. I was hiding in the middle of a circle of huge oak trees, but Emeraldeyes was able to find me easily because of my bright coloring. You were much better hidden; I didn't see you until you jumped out at Emeraldeyes."

"Which one of you wants to look for the others now?" Emeraldeyes asked.

"I can," Waveripple said.

"Good," Indigowings said. "I thought of a really good hiding spot, so I don't want to be the one looking right now."

"Okay, close your eyes and count to a hundred, and then come and find us–if you can," Emeraldeyes said to Waveripple.

Waveripple nodded and closed his eyes. "One, two, three, four..." He heard wingflaps as Emeraldeyes flew away and footsteps as Indigowings ran. He kept counting until he finally got to one hundred.

Waveripple walked in the general direction that he had heard Indigowings walking in.

He had forgotten to suggest the time limit rule. Oh well, he could tell them it after Indigowings had a turn searching for them. Otherwise Indigowings might think he had only thought of that rule to make it harder for him.

Waveripple followed the scent trail of Indigowings, which led through the forest for a few hundred yards. Suddenly, the trail vanished. Waveripple walked in a small circle around the end of it. He kept walking in circles, making the perimeter of the circle stretch out more each time, until he was walking in a circle with about fifty yards around the end of the scent trail. He did not see Indigowings anywhere.

Waveripple wondered if Indigowings had forgotten the fifty-yard rule, thought that yards were longer than they really were, or had just decided to be within ten acres of the starting point instead. He widened the circle farther, until there was a hundred-yard radius from any edge of the circle to the point in the center, where Indigowings's scent trail had disappeared. He still did not see Indigowings.

Waveripple walked slowly back to the point where Indigowings's scent trail had disappeared, trying to see if it picked up again somewhere else. He still found no more trace of Indigowings. He did not think that Indigowings could fly so well that he could have flown back to the place they had started the game, but he was not certain.

When he was back at the point where Indigowings's scent trail disappeared, Waveripple sat down, wondering where he could be, if he was even nearby. He remembered that Indigowings said that he had thought of a really good hiding spot, and wondered what it was.

After a few more minutes, Waveripple decided to search for Emeraldeyes first, and then continue looking for Indigowings. He walked around in the forest, trying to find Emeraldeyes's scent trail, or hear any noises that she might be making from her hiding spot.

After about an hour, Waveripple had thoroughly searched through most of the ten-acre area that they were allowed to hide in, and came across Emeraldeyes's scent. It led to a small clearing that was filled with tall grass.

Waveripple knew that Emeraldeyes was probably ducking down in the grass and holding still. It would be very hard to find a dragon as small as she was if she were in the grass.

Waveripple started slowly walking around in the grassy field, not wanting to walk over Emeraldeyes if she really was there. He walked around most of the field without finding her, but then he heard a small movement.

Waveripple quickly turned around to see what it was, and saw something small and brown ducking back under the tall grass. It was smaller than a deer but larger than a rabbit, and did not have fur. He ran to the spot where it had vanished and saw Emeraldeyes.

"Found you!" he said.

"I thought you were already gone," Emeraldeyes said. "If I hadn't moved, I don't think you would have found me."

"Maybe not," Waveripple said, "but you shouldn't have moved at all. Anyway, I still have to find Indigowings."

Waveripple walked back to the spot where Indigowings's scent trail had disappeared, with Emeraldeyes following him. She probably came just so she could also find out where Indigowings was hiding, because of course she would not tell Waveripple where Indigowings was if she did find him.

Waveripple kept looking around for Indigowings, but there was still no sign of him.

"Indigowings, you win!" Waveripple called loudly, hoping he could hear. "I can't find you!"

Waveripple heard laughter coming from above him, and then Indigowings flew down from a tree.

He landed heavily on the ground, nearly crashing.

"I can't believe you didn't notice me!" Indigowings said, still laughing. "I was right up in those trees, holding on to the branches, and you kept walking around without even looking up."

"Oh," Waveripple said, surprised. "I didn't think of looking up."

Emeraldeyes walked closer to them. "It's your turn to look for us, Indigowings," she said.

"Okay," he said. "I'll start counting to one hundred."

Indigowings closed his eyes and started counting. Waveripple and Emeraldeyes dashed away in different directions. Waveripple noticed that Emeraldeyes started flying after a few feet, but then they were too far apart for him to see where she went.

Waveripple decided to try to find a new hiding place, instead of hiding in another pond or lake, but if he could not find a place quickly, he would go back to the pond he had hidden in before. Indigowings would never think that he would use the same hiding spot twice in a row.

After a little while, Waveripple found a fallen oak tree lying on the ground. It had a few large holes in it, and it was mostly hollow. Waveripple jumped onto the tree and crawled into the biggest of the holes. Then he moved as far from the entrance hole as he could.

Waveripple waited for nearly an hour before he heard Indigowings's footsteps. He held as still as he could and hoped Indigowings would not notice him.

Suddenly, Indigowings poked his head into the log. "I found you, Waveripple," he said. "That was a very obvious hiding place. When your scent trail ended, the log was the only hiding spot nearby."

Indigowings moved his head back out of the hole in the log so that Waveripple could get out. After climbing out of the tree, Waveripple asked, "Did you find Emeraldeyes yet?"

"Nope," Indigowings replied. "I'm still looking for her. She's hiding in a very good spot. I spent a lot of time trying to find her."

Waveripple nodded and followed Indigowings to watch him look for Emeraldeyes, and see if he could spot her first.

Indigowings led the way through the forest. Soon Waveripple noticed that he could smell Emeraldeyes's scent. The scent trail led to a group of pine trees, and then disappeared. Indigowings walked around slowly, trying to pick up the trail again.

Waveripple looked up to see if Emeraldeyes was in one of the trees, but he could not see her. He looked in all the other nearby trees, too, but she was not in any of them. He looked down at the ground by the pine trees, and saw more branches there than he thought would naturally be under a tree.

Waveripple glanced at the other nearby pine trees to see if there were as many branches under them. There were not. Then he noticed that one of the excess branches had a leaf attached to it. It was obviously not a pine branch. Waveripple guessed that Emeraldeyes had found a hollow by the base of one of the trees, partially hidden among the roots, and had hidden there, after dragging branches around the area to make it into a better hiding spot.

Waveripple started looking around in other directions in case he was right, because he did not want to give Emeraldeyes's hiding place away. He walked around, pretending to still be looking for her.

Indigowings came back then, and Waveripple thought that he had been staring at the ground by the pine trees too long. But Indigowings just looked up into the branches of the trees, and then kept walking. "Where could she be?" he muttered.

A few minutes later, Indigowings looked at the ground by the pine trees. He must have also noticed that there were a lot of extra branches around their bases, because he started pushing the branches aside.

Emeraldeyes really was hiding behind them. She was in a little hole in the ground, with a small mound of dirt around her. She had probably had to make the hole deeper to be able to fit in it.

"That was a good hiding spot," Indigowings said. "I didn't even notice you at first."

"Yeah, you just kept passing by," Emeraldeyes said, smiling teasingly. "I started wondering if you were ever going to find me."

Indigowings rolled his eyes.

Waveripple looked around, noticing that it was already starting to get dark. He had not noticed that they had been playing hide and seek so long.

"I have to go back to the lake now," Waveripple said. "It's getting dark, and it takes a while to walk back."

"Okay," Indigowings said. "Bye. Come back tomorrow to keep playing hide and seek."

"I will," Waveripple said. "It was fun. Bye Indigowings and Emeraldeyes!"

"Bye," Emeraldeyes said.

Waveripple started walking back to the lake, noting that neither of the other hatchlings was going back to their homes. He arrived just before nightfall, a little bit earlier than he usually did. He had not wanted to be out later and then maybe not come back before night, like he had yesterday because of the cave-in.

Flowerwater and Splashsail were pleased, and a bit surprised, that he had come back earlier than usual. The three of them ate the large fish that they had leftover from their last hunt, and soon after fell asleep by the lake.

~~~

It took a few hours for Whiteswirl to be able to move enough rocks from the pile so that he could get into the cavern. He did not take any more rocks out after that, but just went straight into it.

Whiteswirl's cavern was almost exactly the same as before. The beautiful stream still ran through it, and the gold and crystals were still in the walls. None of the stalactites had fallen. The moon, now full, still shone through the hole in the roof, lighting the cavern and enhancing its beauty.

There was only one difference–the extra tunnel leading out of it that Whiteswirl had seen the previous night. Whiteswirl walked up to it, but froze when he noticed a few strange, but faint, scents. There were three distinct dragon hatchling scents. He recognized all of them–one was a Dusk, like the one he had seen in the other cave he had found, another was an Amphibian, like the three he had seen by the lake, and the last was a Dwarf. He recognized the last scent because Redclaws had once hunted a Dwarf for him. It had had enough blood for him then, but now one would not be big enough to be a whole meal.

Whiteswirl could tell that the dragons had not been in here this night, and he knew that they had not been there for most of the previous night. He would have heard or smelled them when he was removing the rocks. These dragons must have been there in the evening before the last night.

Since the hatchlings were gone, Whiteswirl decided to walk through the tunnel to see where it would lead. He walked through many different tunnels that night, and was able to explore about half of the cave, although it was difficult to judge the size of the cave without going through all the tunnels.

Whiteswirl found a few more exits from the cave. He also found a lot of caverns, but none were as beautiful as his.

When there was about an hour left in the night, Whiteswirl went back to his cavern. He spent the rest of the night there, and then went back to the cavern at the entrance as it got lighter. Redclaws was there, already sleeping since the sun was beginning to rise.

Redclaws woke up when Whiteswirl approached her. An unrecognizable expression flashed across her face, and then was gone. She looked almost... concerned, but also resigned. Then the look disappeared, and she put her head back down, quickly falling asleep again.

Whiteswirl also lay down and soon fell asleep.

CHAPTER ELEVEN: FIGHTS

Waveripple walked into the forest to visit Indigowings and Emeraldeyes the next evening. When he neared Indigowings's cave, he heard two voices coming out of it. He recognized Indigowings's voice as one of them, but he did not know who the other dragon was. It sounded like an adult male dragon, but the voice did not sound familiar.

Waveripple walked up to the cave curiously. The two dragons stopped talking almost immediately. Maybe they had heard him. He went to the cave entrance and saw Indigowings inside, along with a dragon he had never seen before. He was a large gray dragon, bigger than Indigowings. Besides female Vampires, there was only one kind of dragon that was gray–Storm dragons. The Storm had bright green eyes that were almost glowing.

Both dragons looked at Waveripple.

"Hi Waveripple," Indigowings said in his usual friendly tone, but the Storm just stared at him. "This is Stormcloud," Indigowings said. "Stormcloud, this is one of my friends, Waveripple."

"Hello," Stormcloud said in a not entirely friendly voice.

"Hi," Waveripple answered, a bit quietly because of Stormcloud's attitude.

"I have to go now," Stormcloud said to Indigowings. He walked the few feet to get out of the cave and flew off.

"What's going on?" Waveripple asked Indigowings. "Why was Stormcloud acting like that?"

Indigowings shrugged. "Stormcloud usually acts like that around dragons he doesn't know. And he can hardly bear to not be up in the air for any length of time."

"So Stormcloud just came here to visit?" Waveripple asked.

"Yeah, basically," Indigowings replied. "He also said that he found another missing dragon–a Lizard. And that there was Vampire scent around the area. But that was several miles away from here. He tried to track the Vampire, but it must have flown away. He's asking some other adult dragons to help him find it."

"It would be good if they were able to get rid of it," Waveripple agreed. "What other dragons are helping him?"

"So far, just one other dragon–a Forest," Indigowings replied. "But, more than likely, the other dragons that he's asking to help will also agree. He's going to ask a Tiger and a Wind."

"Do you think they would be able to win against the Vampire if they found it?" Waveripple asked. He knew that it would be four dragons against one if they met the Vampire, but he still wondered if they would be able to kill it. Vampires killed hundreds of other dragons during their lives, so they would be excellent fighters.

"Probably," Indigowings said. "Especially since Stormcloud can control the weather."

"Well, I hope they'll be able to kill it," Waveripple said.

A few minutes later, Waveripple heard the flapping wings of an approaching dragon. He did not think it was Stormcloud, because these wingflaps were much softer. He looked out of the cave and saw Emeraldeyes flying towards them.

Emeraldeyes landed just outside the cave. "Hi, Indigowings and Waveripple," she said.

"Hi Emeraldeyes," they answered.

"It was taking longer than usual for you to come to the oak tree, so I decided to come here instead," Emeraldeyes said. Seeing the looks on their faces, Emeraldeyes paused and asked worriedly, "What happened?"

"Another Lizard dragon was killed," Indigowings told her, and then explained everything that was happening.

"That will be really dangerous," Emeraldeyes said. "I hope Stormcloud and the others succeed, and none of them get killed." After a pause, she asked, "Anyway, what do you two want to do today?"

"Let's play hide and seek again," Indigowings suggested. "Only, to make it more interesting, we could try to do it without following each other's scents."

"But then we would have to hide much closer, so that it would not be impossible to find each other," Emeraldeyes said. "Then there would be fewer places to hide in, and it would be just the same interesting as before, not more."

"But it would be more interesting," Waveripple said. "Because this time we're in a different part of the forest than before."

"We could also make it more interesting in another way," Indigowings said. "One of us could pretend to be the Vampire that Stormcloud and the others are trying to find, and the other two could be the ones trying to find him. Then it would be funner, because it wouldn't just be one of us trying to find the others. The one playing for the Vampire could ambush the others, too."

"Yeah, we should do that," Waveripple said excitedly. "It sounds funner than normal hide and seek."

"It does sound interesting," Emeraldeyes said. "But how would we do the battles when we find each other? Actual play-fights could get too rough."

"We could carry pine cones around," Indigowings suggested. "Then we could throw them at each other in the battles, pretending that they were fireballs. The dragons not playing for the Vampire could be dead if they were hit two times, and the one playing for the Vampire could be killed with four hits, to make it fairer."

"Yeah, we should do that," Waveripple said again. This was sounding funner the more they planned it out.

Emeraldeyes shook her head. "You are both bigger than me, and can carry a lot more pine cones at a time. So how about if the Vampire needs to be hit six times before it dies?"

"Okay, we can do that," Indigowings said.

"Yeah, we can do it that way. It seems fun," Waveripple said.

"Okay," Indigowings said. "Then do either of you want to play for the Vampire first?"

"It doesn't matter to me," Emeraldeyes said.

"I can be the Vampire, then," Waveripple said. "Unless you wanted to, Indigowings?"

"No, it doesn't matter to me," Indigowings replied.

"Then I'll go out somewhere in the forest and gather pine cones. After you two have gotten enough for yourselves you can come and try to find me."

"Okay," Emeraldeyes said, and Indigowings nodded.

Waveripple started walking away, and heard the other dragons whispering together, making a plan. He picked up as many pine cones as he could carry in his mouth, and put them down on his back, holding them between his wings to stop them from falling. After gathering as many as he could carry on his back and in his mouth, Waveripple started looking for a hiding and ambushing spot.

Waveripple decided to try to find a tree with low, close-growing branches, so that he could climb it and drop his pine cones down on Indigowings and Emeraldeyes when they came. The pine trees had the lowest branches, so he looked for one with branches low enough for him to walk onto. The branches could have been higher if he was not holding pine cones, but he thought he would drop them if he tried to get onto a branch that was more than a few feet off the ground.

Soon Waveripple found a large rock underneath a pine tree. The tree itself did not have low branches, but if he climbed on the rock, he would be able to climb onto the lowest branch. He put the pine cones that were in his mouth on top of the rock and climbed up. He picked back up his pine cones once he was on top, and walked onto the first tree branch.

Waveripple wobbled and almost fell off the branch. It was not very thick, so he had a hard time balancing on it. He grabbed it with his feet and dug into the branch with his claws so that he would not fall off.

Then he waited for Indigowings and Emeraldeyes to find him. They would be following his scent trail, which would disappear at the bottom of the rock. They would not expect him to be up in the tree, but they might think he had climbed on the rock and then jumped off on the other side so that they would lose his scent. While they were looking around, wondering where he was, he would drop the pine cones on top of them.

About ten minutes later, Waveripple heard footsteps, but of only one dragon. It would not make sense for them to split up, because there was only one of him for them to find, and they would be easier to defeat if they were separated. Waveripple wondered why they were not together, but before he could think of an explanation, the dragon came close enough for him to see who it was.

Indigowings walked out from behind some trees that had been blocking him from Waveripple's view. He had his head lowered to the ground, following Waveripple's scent.

Waveripple held very still so that Indigowings would not hear him and look up. Indigowings reached the bottom of the rock and looked around, trying to see if there was a hiding spot nearby that Waveripple could be in.

When Indigowings took two steps closer to the tree, Waveripple dropped all the pine cones he was holding in his mouth. Most of them landed right on Indigowings's back. Indigowings jumped back in surprise and then looked up at Waveripple. More than two pine cones had hit him, so he dramatically fell down and closed his eyes, pretending to be dead.

Waveripple grinned. He had gotten Indigowings so easily. He wondered where Emeraldeyes was, but only for a few seconds, because then he heard wingflaps coming from above him. He looked up and saw Emeraldeyes diving down at top speed, not even spreading her wings to slow herself.

Emeraldeyes pelted Waveripple with the three pine cones she was holding, all of which hit him. Waveripple jumped out of the tree just as Emeraldeyes spread her wings, stopping herself from crashing into the ground. She picked up a few of the pine cones that Waveripple had thrown at Indigowings, and started throwing them back at him.

Waveripple dodged the first pine cone she threw, and then kicked one of his own through the air, hitting Emeraldeyes on the wing.

Emeraldeyes threw another pine cone at him, and he was not fast enough to dodge it this time. He threw the last pine cone that he was holding at her, but missed.

Emeraldeyes picked up the pine cone and threw it back at him, hitting one of his legs before he could move it out of the way.

Waveripple picked up the pine cone and threw it back at Emeraldeyes. She was not able to dodge it, and pretended to fall down, dead. Then Emeraldeyes and Indigowings both got back up.

"That was fun," Emeraldeyes said. "But I think that next time the dragon playing for the Vampire should only have to be hit five times for him to get killed. It was almost impossible to win when we only had to be hit twice."

"We can change it to five," Waveripple agreed.

"I hardly got to do anything at all," Indigowings complained. "That wasn't a very good strategy, Emeraldeyes."

"Actually, it was," she argued. "If I hadn't been flying above you, Waveripple probably would have gotten us both. And one of us had to be tracking him."

"Whatever," Indigowings said. "Let's play it again. This time I'll be the Vampire."

"Okay," Emeraldeyes said. "Go get your pine cones and find a place to hide. We'll come to find you in a few minutes."

As soon as Indigowings was out of earshot, Emeraldeyes started telling Waveripple what she thought they should do. "I can track Indigowings this time, while you watch from a distance. If I see him, I'll pretend that I don't, so that he will think he can surprise us, but really I'll be getting ready to throw my pine cones at him. If you notice Indigowings before I do, come towards me so that we can start throwing pine cones at him."

"Okay, we can do that," Waveripple agreed. "But I'm going to be just about a hundred feet away from you at the most."

Emeraldeyes nodded. "Let's go find him."

Waveripple and Emeraldeyes gathered up as many pine cones as they could carry. Then Emeraldeyes started following Indigowings's scent trail, while Waveripple followed her from behind and to her right. After a few minutes, Emeraldeyes stopped walking. She looked around, trying to spot Indigowings. Most of the trees around her were average-sized pines, but there were a few large oaks growing close together that he could be hiding behind.

Waveripple crept silently closer to Emeraldeyes, ready to spring out and start throwing pine cones at Indigowings.

Suddenly, Indigowings jumped out from behind one of the oak trees, throwing at least ten pine cones at Emeraldeyes. Because he was throwing so many at a time, his aim was off, and only one pine cone actually hit Emeraldeyes.

Waveripple rushed over to help Emeraldeyes as she started throwing her pine cones at Indigowings. He was not paying attention to how many times she hit him, because he was too busy concentrating on running towards them as fast as he could without dropping any of his pine cones.

Waveripple dropped all the pine cones that were on his back (between his wings) on the ground, and started kicking them at Indigowings. At least two of them hit, but then Indigowings started throwing some back.

Two pine cones hit Waveripple, so he fell down, pretending to die. He opened his eyes to watch Emeraldeyes and Indigowings continue to throw pine cones at each other, hoping that Indigowings had already been hit four times. They threw their pine cones back and forth, but then one pine cone thrown by Indigowings managed to hit Emeraldeyes. She fell down. Indigowings grinned at them. "The two pathetic hatchlings were beaten by the Vampire," he said jokingly.

"You won't win when I'm playing for the Vampire," Emeraldeyes said.

"If that's true," Indigowings replied, "then that means that I'm right, and the Vampire always wins."

"No, it will really mean that YOU don't always win," Emeraldeyes said.

"Let's just start now," Waveripple said. "Go hide somewhere with your pine cones, Emeraldeyes."

Emeraldeyes ran off to get some pine cones, and Indigowings and Waveripple started planning.

"We shouldn't use Emeraldeyes's plan," Indigowings said, "because it is a good plan, but she already knows about it. So we have to think of something else."

"We should just both follow her, then," Waveripple said. He looked around and saw some tree bark on the ground. "And we can use this bark as a shield from her pine cones," he said, walking over and grabbing some.

"Good idea," Indigowings said, and took the largest piece of bark available. It was only big enough for him to shield his head if he held it up, but it was better than nothing. "She won't expect this."

After gathering a bunch of pine cones, the two hatchlings started following Emeraldeyes's scent. It was hard to track a small dragon while carrying a large piece of bark and many pine cones, so it took them about fifteen minutes to find the end of the trail.

Emeraldeyes's scent trail ended in a large, grassy field. She was small enough that she could be hiding anywhere in the grass. Indigowings and Waveripple set their pine cones down and waited for Emeraldeyes to attack. Nothing happened.

After ten minutes of waiting for Emeraldeyes, they started wondering if she was really in this field. Indigowings sniffed around along the ground, seeing if her scent trail picked up again nearby. He did not find anything, apparently, because he just walked back to Waveripple.

"Do you think she's even in here?" Indigowings asked. "She might be in one of the trees, making us think that she is in the meadow so that she can jump down from behind us and start throwing her pine cones."

Waveripple glanced up at the trees but did not see anything. "She's probably in here," he said. "Probably waiting for us to go into the grass to look for her so that she can jump out from any patch of grass and throw pine cones at us."

"That sounds like her," Indigowings agreed. "I think we should go in there, because she's not coming out."

"Okay," Waveripple said. "But we shouldn't spread out, because then she could easily beat us by attacking one of us first, and then hiding back in the grass, waiting for the other to come close enough for her to also ambush."

Indigowings nodded. Both dragons picked up their pine cones. Then they entered the grassy field warily, looking around for any sign of Emeraldeyes. The wind blew strongly against the grass, making it almost impossible to tell if it were moving because of the wind, or because Emeraldeyes was moving in it.

They soon reached the center of the field, but there was no sign of Emeraldeyes. The two hatchlings kept walking until they were almost at the other side of the field, and still nothing happened.

A pine cone suddenly flew out of the tall grass, hitting Waveripple. He jumped backwards and crashed into Indigowings. Both hatchlings nearly fell down. Another pine cone flew out of the grass, but this time it missed.

Waveripple and Indigowings leaped into the area of tall grass that the pine cones were coming out of. They saw Emeraldeyes by a little pile of pine cones, about to throw another.

Waveripple threw two of his pine cones at her, and they both hit. Indigowings dashed over to Emeraldeyes's pine cone pile and scattered all the pine cones away from her. But he had to come very close to her to be able to do that, so she was able to throw a pine cone at him.

Meanwhile, Waveripple kept throwing pine cones at Emeraldeyes. He was able to hit her with two pine cones while she threw another at Indigowings.

Emeraldeyes turned around and threw a pine cone at Waveripple. He did not dodge it, but blocked it with his piece of bark instead. Then he picked up a pine cone and tossed it at her. Emeraldeyes moved, trying to get out of the way of the pine cone, but she accidentally just went even more into its path.

"We won!" Waveripple cried exultantly.

Indigowings got back up. "Yes! Finally the dragon playing for the Vampire did not win," he said.

"Yeah, if I had won that time, we might have had to lower the Vampire's pine cone-hits-before-dead number down to four," Emeraldeyes said.

"Yeah, then we would have had to go back to the number that I picked originally," Indigowings said. He added teasingly, "You wouldn't have been able to stand that."

"Of course I wouldn't have," Emeraldeyes said sarcastically.

"Do you want to play it again before it gets too dark?" Waveripple asked.

"Yes, of course," Indigowings said.

"Okay, we can," Emeraldeyes said. "But this time we should put a twist on the game. The number of times that the Vampire has to be hit can go down to two–"

"What?" Indigowings exclaimed, staring at Emeraldeys as if she had lost her mind.

Waveripple also thought it was weird. First she wanted the Vampire to have to be hit more times than the others, and now she was saying that it should be lowered to two?

"I didn't finish," Emeraldeyes said, a bit crossly. "But this time two of us will be playing for Vampires."

"Oh," Indigowings said. "That might be funner. But it's basically the same thing–two of us against the third one."

"Actually, it's completely different," Emeraldeyes said. "Because the number of times the Vampires have to be hit by pine cones goes down, and this time, two of us are going to be hiding, instead of just one."

"I think we should do that," Waveripple said. "But which two of us are going to be the Vampires?"

"For sure, I have to be one," Emeraldeyes said. "It would be almost impossible for me to win against both of you when we all have to be hit an equal number of times to be defeated."

"I want to be the dragon hunting down the Vampires," Indigowings said.

"Okay, then I'll be the other Vampire," Waveripple said. "Let's go find a hiding place," he said to Emeraldeyes.

Emeraldeyes nodded, and she and Waveripple walked into the forest, gathering pine cones along the way.

"We should find a cave to hide in," Emeraldeyes said. Before Waveripple could object, she added, "We don't have to go very deep, or into any tunnels. We can just stay near the cave's entrance and jump out at Indigowings when he comes."

"Okay," Waveripple agreed, a bit reluctantly. "But we have to stay very close to the entrance, close enough to be able to jump out in time if there starts to be a cave-in."

"But then Indigowings will be able to see us," Emeraldeyes argued.

"Well, that's the only way I'm agreeing to go in a cave," Waveripple said.

Emeraldeyes seemed to have already known there was a cave nearby, because just then, they walked into a little clearing in the forest. Directly in front of them was a huge cave, or at least the entrance was huge.

Emeraldeyes walked into the cave, deeper than Waveripple had said he would go, and set her pine cones down in a neat pile.

"Come on," she said to Waveripple. "There's not going to be a cave-in. There hasn't been one in this cave for a long time, if there has ever been one at all."

Waveripple shook his head. "I'm not going as deep as you are." He walked into the entrance as he spoke, but went no deeper. "And if there hasn't been a cave-in here for a long time, it's more likely that one will happen now."

"You'll ruin the hiding place standing there," Emeraldeyes complained.

"I'm not coming deeper in," Waveripple said, shaking his head again.

Emeraldeyes looked at something behind Waveripple. "You could hide over there instead," she said, pointing with her wing to the thing she was looking at. Waveripple turned around to see what it was.

A large boulder, much bigger than the one he had used to get up in the pine tree, was sitting a few feet to the left of the cave.

"That would be a good hiding spot,:" Emeraldeyes continued. "It would be better if we were hiding in different places. As soon as Indigowings finds one of us, he will automatically think the other one is there, too."

"Okay, I'll hide behind the boulder," Waveripple said. He quickly crossed the distance to the boulder, glad that hiding in the cave was not the only option. Indigowings would be coming at any time now.

Waveripple set down the pine cones that he had gathered, and waited for him to arrive.

A few minutes later, Waveripple heard footsteps. He froze, waiting for Indigowings to come closer. Indigowings walked up to the boulder, following Emeraldeyes's and Waveripple's scents. They were both leading him to the cave, because both of them had gone there before Waveripple left to hide behind the boulder. Indigowings did not know that one of them had gone in a different direction. He thought they were both hiding in the same place. It was the perfect ambush.

Waveripple jumped out from behind the boulder, kicking his pile of pine cones at Indigowings. Indigowings leaped into the air in surprise when they came near him, so only one actually hit.

Indigowings swiftly jumped around the boulder and threw some pine cones at Waveripple. One of them hit him. He was about to throw one of them back, but then Emeraldeyes leaped out of the cave and threw one of her pine cones at Indigowings.

"That was too easy for you," Indigowings said. "You should have had to hit me at least three times, for it to be fair."

"Okay, then let's continue until you're hit a third time," Waveripple said. He immediately threw another pine cone at Indigowings, hitting him on the leg. "See, you'd lose anyway," he said, laughing.

"Very funny," Indigowings said.

"Actually, we really could continue until you get hit a third time, if you want to," Emeraldeyes said.

"Yes, I do want to," Indigowings said, "but not until I say I'm ready."

Waveripple and Emeraldeyes waited, ready to dodge if he suddenly threw a pine cone at one of them.

"Ready!" Indigowings said, tossing a pine cone at Waveripple.

Waveripple jumped to the side, dodging the pine cone. He picked up a different pine cone and was about to throw it when Indigowings threw a pine cone at Emeraldeyes. She was not able to dodge it in time. They had each been hit one time now.

Waveripple threw his pine cone at Indigowings, but Indigowings quickly stepped to the side. He bent down to pick up another pine cone, but Emeraldeyes threw one at him first.

"Looks like we won anyway," Emeraldeyes said.

Waveripple noticed that it was starting to get dark. "I'm going back to the lake now," he said to Indigowings and Emeraldeyes. "Bye." Waveripple started walking back towards the lake.

"Bye!" Indigowings and Emeraldeyes both called after him.

About an hour later, Waveripple arrived at the lake. It was darker this time than it had been when he got back the day before.

He noticed that it was colder at this time of day than it had been when he had first met Indigowings, and also darker. Soon it would be autumn.

~~~

Whiteswirl left the cave to continue exploring earlier in the night than he usually did. He found an adult Dusk dragon a few miles south of the cave. Since it was still early in the night, the Dusk was flying around instead of sleeping. It was probably hunting.

Whiteswirl kept flying, unnoticed by the Dusk. Soon he found another dragon. It was a dark green Forest dragon that was sleeping at the edge of a lake.

Whiteswirl flew to the nearest tree large enough to hold him and perched in the branches. Even with only one foot on each branch, the branches under him swayed. He almost fell off several times. He watched the Forest for a few minutes from his perch.

Forest dragons were healers. They could cure any injury or disease of any living thing. The only thing they could not do was bring the dead back to life. They were vegetarians, and were quick to heal any animal or dragon in need. This severely weakened them, however, causing them to fall into a deep sleep from which they could not be awakened. The length of this sleep varied depending on what they had healed, and how serious the disease or injury had been. It could last up to two days and two nights if they healed a dragon or large animal of a life-threatening disease or injury.

Watching the Forest peacefully sleeping, Whiteswirl wondered if it had healed something, or if it were just sleeping because it was night.

Whiteswirl flew off, listening carefully for signs that the Forest was waking up. He heard nothing. Whiteswirl decided to head back to the cave.

Ordinarily, the night would have been more than half over by then, but autumn was approaching. Each night was a bit longer than the one before. Whiteswirl would love it when it was winter, and the nights were the longest.

Whiteswirl flew back to the cave, planning to go into the cavern he had found, and maybe to keep exploring the tunnels on the other side. Redclaws was in the cave when he arrived.

"Remember the cavern that I showed you? The one that had a little stream running through it?" Whiteswirl asked Redclaws. She nodded and waited for him to continue. "Well, in the recent earthquake, part of one of the walls was destroyed. There are a lot of tunnels on the other side. You should come and see them."

"Why didn't you tell me there were other tunnels before?" Redclaws asked, sounding annoyed and a bit angry. "Any dragon could have entered the cave on another side and come through that cavern to where we are. Of course, we could probably kill any dragon that came through, but not if there are a lot of them."

Whiteswirl shook his head. "The earthquake also caused some rocks to fall down and block the original entrance to the cavern. I moved some of them, but only enough for me to fit through. Very few adult dragons could fit through the hole I made, and we could kill any small dragons that came through."

"Okay, good," Redclaws said. "I will come to see how many new entrances to this cave there now are, but after that, we'll move the rocks back so that no adult dragons can fit through."

Whiteswirl nodded and walked down the tunnel with Redclaws following. When they arrived at the rock pile, both dragons moved rocks away until Redclaws could fit through.

Redclaws then went through the tunnel in the cavern to find all the other exits to the cave. Whiteswirl just stayed in his cavern like he usually did.

The moon was slightly less full than it had been last night, but it still lit up the cavern significantly. Whiteswirl walked into the stream, noticing that it was colder than it had been the last time he had been in it. He stepped back out and just stood in the cavern, looking around at everything, including the moon that was shining through the hole in the ceiling.

About two hours later, Redclaws returned. The night would be over soon. Redclaws and Whiteswirl moved the rocks back into the pile until only Whiteswirl and other hatchlings could fit through. Then Redclaws went back to the cavern that she usually slept in. A little while later, Whiteswirl decided to go join her. They both fell asleep as the sun started to rise.

A few nights after, Whiteswirl began to grow thirsty again. He was planning to hunt after exploring one of the last places he had not explored near their new home. As he was about to leave the cave, Redclaws walked past him to the cave's entrance.

"Come on," Redclaws said, leading the way out. "We're going hunting."

"I was planning to hunt later in the night, but okay," Whiteswirl said, a bit surprised.

Redclaws started flying as soon as she was completely out of the cave. Whiteswirl followed her up into the sky, flapping his wings harder than usual to catch up to her. She flew to an area of the forest that Whiteswirl had already explored.

Whiteswirl began scenting the air carefully, trying to determine if there were any dragons beneath them. Redclaws dropped down closer to the trees a second before Whiteswirl noticed the scent of Wind dragons. He flew down to Redclaws, where the scent of the Winds intensified. There were two of them, both sleeping in the branches of a tree. A few seconds later, Whiteswirl could see them. Both light gray dragons were sleeping near each other in the same oak tree, draped over several different branches at once.

Redclaws dove down to the closest one and landed on top of it, knocking it from the branches. Whiteswirl dove to land on the remaining Wind. It fell off the branches that were supporting it and woke instantly.

The Wind reacted quickly, falling only a few yards before it managed to pull its wings up and start flying. It shot up, lightning-fast, above the tree it had been sleeping in. Growling softly, Whiteswirl pursued it.

Wind dragons were among the fastest of all dragon species, but so were Vampires. And Vampires were also stronger, so they could flap their wings harder and move farther with each wingflap than a Wind could. Whiteswirl began gaining on the Wind.

The Wind turned its head back to look at Whiteswirl, panic filling its eyes. It let out a screech that sounded remarkably like a barn owl's, and flew even faster.

Whiteswirl glanced around quickly, hoping that no one had heard the Wind's screech, but did not slow down as he did so. He flew as fast as he could to try to catch the Wind, and began to gain on it once more.

Soon he was only a few feet behind the Wind. Whiteswirl reached out with one of his legs and scratched the Wind, causing it to drop down a few feet.

Then the Wind did something unexpected–it pulled its wings in close to its body and plummeted down towards the trees at break-neck speed. Whiteswirl was flying so fast that he flew right past it before turning and dropping down after the Wind.

Just as it was about to hit the ground, the Wind pulled out of its dive and flew low among the trees, with Whiteswirl keeping close behind.

Whiteswirl began to get worried that the Wind might escape after all, but he could see that the Wind was tiring. It was flying slightly slower than before, and each flap of its wings seemed to be an effort.

He soon closed the distance between them once more and reached out, scratching the Wind. This time it tumbled and crashed into the forest floor. Whiteswirl dove down on top of it and reached his head down, about to bite into its neck.

The Wind pulled its head back and breathed fire at Whiteswirl's face. Whiteswirl jumped back, roaring loudly. He was able to dodge most of the fire, but some of it had hit his muzzle. The Wind struggled to its feet and turned swiftly, about to leap into the sky.

Whiteswirl pounced on it just as it jumped, knocking it to the ground again. He quickly bit into its neck, before it could breathe fire at him again. Then he thirstily drank its blood, thinking that this hunt had not been worth the effort.

When he was finished, Whiteswirl looked up and saw Redclaws standing quietly nearby, watching him.

"Why didn't you help?" Whiteswirl asked angrily. "How long were you just standing there, watching me?"

"Ever since you landed," Redclaws said nonchalantly. "I was seeing if you needed help. I would have killed the Wind for you if I thought you weren't capable of doing it yourself."

Whiteswirl continued to glare at her as she walked casually up to the body of the Wind. She breathed fire at it and stood back to wait until it was completely burned. Once it was, she said, "Get rid of the ashes. I still have to burn the Wind I killed."

Whiteswirl began to dig a hole to bury the ashes in as Redclaws flew off. He buried them quickly and then flew to the part of the forest he wanted to explore, not stopping to meet up with Redclaws first.

He found a small stream when he was exploring, but little else. He soon went back to the cave, which was empty. Dawn was approaching. As it became lighter, Whiteswirl drifted off to sleep. He was vaguely aware of Redclaws returning before he was too deeply asleep to notice anything else.

CHAPTER TWELVE: AUTUMN

The next morning, it was colder than usual. The wind was blowing hard, and the fish were staying near the bottom of the lake. Waveripple saw that the wind was blowing some of the leaves off the trees.

"Is it starting to be fall?" Waveripple asked Flowerwater.

"Yes, it is," Flowerwater replied. "Soon the leaves will start changing colors–some will be red, others yellow, and a few purple. After a while they will all become brown, and the wind will blow them from the trees. There will be a thick layer of leaves over most of the ground. There won't be very many around the lake, of course, because there aren't many trees nearby."

"That will be interesting," Waveripple said, trying to imagine the leaves changing colors, or the trees having no leaves on them at all. He wondered if he would like fall as much as summer.

Dragons lived forever, unless they were killed, but they took a very short time to grow up. Most dragons were completely grown by the time they were one year old, so, as a hatchling, Waveripple had never seen fall or winter.

Remembering that he had seen the fish at the bottom of the lake, he asked, "Are the fish going to be harder to catch in fall?"

"They will be harder to catch than they were in summer." Splashsail answered this time. "Especially as the water gets colder. In winter the water will get so cold that it will become solid, and all the fish will be trapped in it."

Waveripple could not imagine the water turning solid. It was just too strange.

"How will we be able to swim in the water to go after the fish if the water is solid?" Waveripple asked, perplexed.

"We won't be able to, Waveripple," Flowerwater replied. "We will have to either break the ice, if only the top of the lake is solid, or find a new, warmer lake."

"Are we going to hunt now?" Waveripple asked, changing the subject.

"We can if you want to," Splashsail said. "Or we could wait until later."

"No, I want to hunt now," Waveripple said.

"Okay, let's go," Flowerwater said.

Waveripple and his parents swam out towards the center of the lake. The strong wind was creating waves that made it difficult for the Amphibians to swim while keeping their heads above the water. Waveripple and his parents started chasing the fish to each other, like they always did, but most of the fish were out of sight. They dove down under the water to look for more fish, but most were hiding among the aquatic vegetation.

After an hour of hunting, they had only been able to catch three medium-sized fish. After eating those three, they went back out to hunt more fish for later. They managed to catch two more fish, but by then all the other fish had scattered, hiding among the plants.

In the evening, Waveripple went to visit Indigowings and Emeraldeyes. They played different games, like they had before, but Waveripple had to come back earlier than usual because the days were growing shorter.

Every day for the next few weeks, Waveripple hunted in the morning with his parents, and then went off to visit his friends in the evening. If Emeraldeyes was not there, Indigowings and Waveripple practiced flying. They both soon mastered it and could now fly places instead of walking.

It got just a little bit colder each day, and each day was slightly shorter than the one before it.

A few weeks later, the leaves on the trees had changed colors. Most of them were yellow, some were red, some were orange, some were brown, and a few were purple. When they played hide and seek, Emeraldeyes was sometimes able to sit unnoticed in the trees with brown leaves because her brown coloring blended in.

After a few more weeks, the leaves all changed brown and fell to the ground. The trees looked very strange without them, but they also looked more detailed now that all the branches and twigs could be seen clearly.

One day in autumn, after all the leaves were on the ground, Waveripple went to visit his friends as usual. He had thought of a few new games that they could play now that the ground was covered in leaves.

Emeraldeyes was already at Indigowings's cave when he arrived.

"Hi Emeraldeyes and Indigowings," he greeted them.

"Hi Waveripple," Indigowings said.

"Hi," Emeraldeyes said.

"I thought of a few games that we could play with the leaves on the ground," Waveripple said.

"What are they?" Emeraldeyes asked curiously, and also a bit warily. The other two had gotten her interested in "hatchling games" again, but she still did not want to play anything that she thought was pointless or silly.

"One of them is a twist on hide and seek," Waveripple replied. "Instead of tracking each other's scents to find each other, we could follow each other's footprints in the leaves."

"That sounds fun," Indigowings said.

"Yeah, it would be more interesting than normal hide and seek," Emeraldeyes agreed. "It would be more challenging. What are the other games you thought of?"

"Well, I only thought of one other, actually," Waveripple said. "We could have a contest to see who could find the most different kinds of leaves, or the strangest-shaped one."

"That also sounds fun," Indigowings said, "but I think we should play the hide and seek game first."

"Both of them are good," Emeraldeyes said. "It doesn't matter to me which one we do first."

"Then we can do the hide and seek game first, since it also doesn't matter for me," Waveripple said. "After all, I'm the one who invented both."

"I can look first, while you two hide," Indigowings said. "Unless one of you wants to look first."

"No, you can," Emeraldeyes said. "I've been thinking of a few new hiding spots."

"Yeah, you can look first, Indigowings," Waveripple agreed. "Count to one hundred!" he called, already starting to run away to look for a hiding spot.

Waveripple soon found a pond to hide in. It was the pond that he usually hid in when they were playing hide and seek, because of all the aquatic plants to hide behind. It was almost impossible for the other two to find out exactly where he was when he hid in this pond.

The water was extremely cold, making Waveripple shiver when he entered it. He was used to being in cold water, but this water was a lot colder than usual, much colder than the water in the lake. He found a patch of plants to hide behind and stayed there. Holding still in the water made him even colder than he was when he was moving. Waveripple decided that this would be the last time he would hide here until it warmed up again, in late spring.

Unfortunately for him, Indigowings went to look for Emeraldeyes first. Waveripple knew that because he did not hear Indigowings's footsteps or wingflaps. More than half an hour went by before Indigowings started coming in his direction.

By the time Indigowings did come to look for him, Waveripple was much colder. He was shivering so much that Indigowings might be able to see him because of the ripples he was making in the water. He considered just coming out then, but decided not to. He had not waited in the cold water this long just to come out because it was too cold.

Indigowings jumped into the water right next to Waveripple. "I found you!" he said.

Surfacing from under the water, Waveripple saw Indigowings jumping back out of the pond, shaking the cold water off. Waveripple almost ran out of the pond, and then shook all the water off of him. Indigowings and Emeraldeyes, whom Waveripple had not noticed at first, jumped back from the droplets.

"Where were you hiding?" Waveripple asked Emeraldeyes.

"I dug a hole in the ground," Emeraldeyes replied, "and hid there. Of course I dragged some leaves around and on top of me so that Indigowings would not be able to find me. He almost stepped on me."

"That would be a good hiding place," Waveripple said. "For someone as small as you, at least."

"I'm going to look for you two now," Emeraldeyes said, changing the subject. "One, two, three, four..." She started counting to one hundred. Waveripple and Indigowings ran off to find hiding spots.

Waveripple started looking around for a good hiding spot that was out of the water. He found a pine tree with very low branches, and climbed it to hide there.

There were a lot of other pine trees close by, so Waveripple decided to climb across from this branch to one of the branches of the next tree. That would make it harder for Emeraldeyes to find him.

Then he decided to go into the next tree, and then the next one after that. He kept going, but stayed in a path parallel to the one he had left on the ground, going back the way he had come. He was close enough to the trail to be found easily, but not actually close to the end of the trail.

Waveripple had gotten almost all the way back to the starting point when he heard footsteps. He froze, and watched Emeraldeyes walk up, following his trail through the leaves. He stifled a laugh when she walked past him without even looking up.

Waveripple watched Emeraldeyes until she followed the trail past some trees, where he could not see her anymore. Then he started following her through the trees, moving as quietly as possible.

After a little while, Waveripple heard Emeraldeyes's footsteps again as she came back. She had probably decided to go look for Indigowings first. When she passed by him, Waveripple started going back to the tree he had originally climbed up.

Moving slowly back through the trees took twice as long as it had taken to walk there on the ground. He paused before going back to the first tree he had climbed, and decided to stay in the one next to it instead. Soon afterwards, Emeraldeyes came back, with Indigowings following. Emeraldeyes looked all over along the ground, and then started looking up in the trees. She looked right at Waveripple.

"I found you," she said. "And you weren't there before. I already looked in that tree," she accused.

Waveripple smiled sheepishly. He had hoped that she would not notice that, so that he could pretend to be surprised that she could not find him when he was so close to her. Of course, he really had been very close to her without her noticing, but that was when she was concentrating on following the path he had made through the leaves instead of looking around for him.

"Yeah, I was not here," Waveripple admitted. "But I was very close to you, and in one of these pine trees." He did not tell her that he had been so close to her before she had reached the end of the trail. Of course, what he did was technically not cheating, but might think it was.

Emeraldeyes looked as if she did not entirely believe him, but she did not press the matter.

"Anyway, it's your turn to look for us now," Indigowings said to Waveripple.

"Okay, I'll start counting to one hundred," Waveripple said. He climbed down from the tree and began to count. He had not even gotten to fifteen before Indigowings and Emeraldeyes had run too far away for him to see them because of all the trees blocking his view.

After he finished counting, Waveripple started following the small path that Emeraldeyes had made through the leaves. He had decided to look for her first than Indigowings because she was much smaller and harder to find. If he found Indigowings first, by the time he reached the end of Emeraldeyes's trail she would have hidden herself so well that she would be almost impossible to find. She always picked better hiding spots than Indigowings did.

Waveripple soon reached the end of Emeraldeyes's path through the leaves. He first looked around in the trees, but did not see her. Then he looked at the ground, but saw only pine needles and leaves. He knew that she might be hiding in the leaves again, like she told him she had before, so he started pushing them aside. He did not find her there.

After looking farther out, Waveripple found a large mound of dirt between two trees. At first he thought that it was just a badger hole and walked past it. But then he realized that if it were an abandoned badger mound, Emeraldeyes could have made its entrance hole larger and hidden in there. He looked around for the entrance, but the whole badger mound was covered in pine needles and fallen leaves. He pushed them all aside, eventually finding the entrance hole. It was larger than he thought it would be, so he looked inside to see if Emeraldeyes was there.

A loud, fierce growl came out of the badger hole, making Waveripple leap back. There really is an animal in there, and the hole is not abandoned after all! he thought. He was about to turn and run when he realized that the growl did not sound like a normal animal growl; it sounded like a dragon growl.

Waveripple slowly walked back to the badger hole and peeked inside, ready to jump back if there really was an animal inside. A pair of bright green eyes looked out at him from the hole.

"Emeraldeyes, I found you," Waveripple said.

Emeraldeyes walked out of the badger hole, laughing. "I didn't think you would actually fall for that!" she said. "I thought you would know that it was me in the hole, but you really thought it was a badger!" She was still laughing as she spoke. "And why would a badger scare you anyway? You're a lot bigger than one."

"I didn't think there was a badger in there," Waveripple said. "I thought that some animal was in there, of course, but from the noise, I thought it was something much bigger than a badger."

Emeraldeyes was still laughing quietly. "Did you find Indigowings yet?" she asked, although it was pretty obvious that he had not.

"No; I went to find you first," Waveripple replied. "I'm going to look for him now."

Waveripple walked back to the area that the other hatchlings had run out of, and easily found Indigowings's trail, which looked like something a bear might have made. He followed it until, about half an hour later, he came to the end of the path.

Waveripple quickly scanned the trees, and then the ground. He did not see Indigowings, but there were a few huge oak trees that he might be hiding behind. He walked up to them and looked, but Indigowings was not there. Behind the oak trees, there were even more oak trees, so he started looking around all of them. Then he looked up into their branches to see if Indigowings was there, and saw Indigowings up in the branches of one of the oaks.

"Found you!" Waveripple called up. Indigowings swooped down from the tree and landed a few feet away from Waveripple.

"Now let's play the other game–the contest to see who can get the most different leaves," Emeraldeyes said.

"Okay," Indigowings said, not sounding particularly enthusiastic about that game.

"Ready, set, go!" Waveripple said, grabbing the nearest leaf. Indigowings and Emeraldeyes also started taking leaves.

The leaf that Waveripple had grabbed was an oak leaf. He started looking around for other varieties of leaves, but saw only pine needles. He quickly ran to the closest tree that was not an oak, and took a leaf that was next to it on the ground. It was a maple leaf. He kept looking for other leaves, and soon had a birch leaf, a willow leaf, an elm leaf, and three leaves that he could not identify.

"Wait a minute," Waveripple said to the other two. They both paused from leaf-gathering. "We did not decide how many different kinds of leaves we would have to get to win."

"We could get fifteen," Emeraldeyes suggested.

"You probably have fourteen," Indigowings said.

"No, I don't. I only have seven," Emeraldeyes told him.

"Okay, then we can do it until we get to fifteen," Indigowings agreed.

"Then let's continue," Waveripple said, running to the next tree to look for new leaves.

After twenty more minutes, Waveripple had collected thirteen leaves in all. He saw another new leaf and grabbed it.

"I have fifteen!" Emeraldeyes called triumphantly.

"I had fourteen," Waveripple said.

"I only had thirteen," Indigowings said. He walked over to look at Emeraldeyes's pile of leaves. He was probably making sure that they really were all from different kinds of trees.

"It's starting to get dark again," Waveripple said. "I'll have to go back to the lake."

"It's not too dark," Emeraldeyes said, looking up at the sky.

"Yeah, you should stay a bit longer," Indigowings agreed. "We still have enough time to play one more short game."

"Okay," Waveripple agreed, "but if it starts taking too long, I really will have to go. It's getting dark sooner each day."

"So what game do you want to do now?" Indigowings asked.

"I don't know," Waveripple replied. "You're the one who said we could do a short game. Say what games you think are short."

"Hide and seek is definitely not short," Indigowings said, thinking. "We could have a short hunting contest. Whoever catches one edible animal first is the winner."

"Okay. That would be short enough," Waveripple said.

"Yeah, it's a good game, for one that is short," Emeraldeyes agreed.

"Get ready, set, go!" Indigowings said, and took off into the air. Emeraldeyes also flew up, but she went in a different direction than the one Indigowings had gone in. Waveripple knew that there were not any ponds or lakes close enough for him to go to and catch something in time to win, so he looked around on the ground for rodents. He still only rarely flew up to look for prey; he preferred to hunt on the ground.

Waveripple saw a meadow vole scurrying around and pounced on it, killing it with one bite.

"I got one!" Waveripple called. At the same time that he said that, he heard Indigowings also saying that he had caught something.

Indigowings and Emeraldeyes flew back to Waveripple. Indigowings was carrying a rabbit. He put it down to say, "Whoa. It's weird that we both caught something at the same time."

"Yeah, it is," Waveripple said. After they had eaten the animals they had caught–Indigowings shared the rabbit with Emeraldeyes–he said, "Anyway, I already played another short game, so I'm going back to the lake now. Goodbye." He started walking back to the lake.

"Bye!" Indigowings and Emeraldeyes said.

When Waveripple arrived at the lake, the sun had just set. Now that the days were shorter, this happened regularly, so his parents were not surprised that he came back this late.

"We already ate dinner when you were gone," Flowerwater said. "We caught a few extra fish for you in case you did not eat something when you were with your friends." She motioned to three fish that were stacked up in a small pile.

"Thanks," Waveripple said. "I already ate a meadow vole, but of course that's not a whole meal." He ate two of the fish on the pile and left the third one for tomorrow.

Flowerwater looked surprised, probably unable to imagine eating a rodent instead of a fish.

Since it was already dark, Splashsail, Flowerwater, and Waveripple soon settled down by the lake and fell asleep.

~~~

Whiteswirl began spending most of each night in his cavern. He never got tired of being there. It was a paradise to him, not something he could get tired of. It seemed to be a perfect place, where just being there was not boring. It was peaceful.

As the days went past, and summer turned to autumn, Whiteswirl barely noticed any changes. Of course it was colder, but that did not bother an undead dragon such as himself. Dragons were just as easy to catch and kill as they had been in the summer. The only real change was that the nights were now longer. He could spend more time outside without having to worry about being attacked. Of course, he spent most of the time in his cavern anyway, but he enjoyed being out in the forest when all the other dragons were sleeping and there was no danger of being attacked.

By the time it was winter, Whiteswirl would probably be able to breathe fire. Even if he could not breathe fire by the time winter was over, he would be fully grown in mid-spring. Then he would be able to breathe fire for sure. The faster he could get rid of the bodies of the dragons he hunted, the more time he could spend in his cavern, even on those days when he did need to hunt. He looked forward to being able to breathe fire for other reasons, too. Breathing fire would be helpful if the dragon he was hunting woke up when he attacked. It would also be useful if a group of dragons found his and Redclaws's cave. If he could breathe fire, he and Redclaws would almost certainly be able to get rid of a group of dragons, even up to ten. He could already handle one or two adult dragons, and Redclaws could take on at least three with her fire. When he could breathe fire, it would take a very large number of dragons to beat them.

When the night ended, Whiteswirl went back to Redclaws's cavern to sleep. He really wished that the sun would not shine through the hole in his cavern, so that he could sleep in it at day.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: WINTER

A few weeks later, Waveripple woke up in the middle of the night because he was cold. The wind was blowing harder than he ever remembered it blowing before. Small white things were floating down from the sky and landing on the ground. After looking at them closely, Waveripple realized that they must be snowflakes. His parents had described them to him, though he had never seen one before.

Waveripple shivered and moved underneath a patch of dead grass, hoping it would be warmer there. He fell back asleep after a while.

When Waveripple woke up the next morning, everything looked different. The dead brown grass, and the leaves and pine needles by the forest, could not be seen anymore. The whole ground had changed white with snow, and more was still coming down. All the trees that had once held leaves were dusted with the snow, making their branches appear white. The branches of the pine trees were drooping under the weight of the snow they held.

"Mom, Dad, wake up! Look at this!" Waveripple exclaimed.

Flowerwater and Splashsail woke up and looked around at all the snow. Flowerwater then turned with a worried expression to look at the lake. Wondering why she was worried, Waveripple turned around to also look at the lake. It looked the same as it always did; in fact, it appeared more normal than the rest of the area. The snow melted as soon as it hit the water. It took Waveripple a few minutes to realize that Flowerwater had been checking the lake to see if it had become solid yet–or frozen into ice, as they had told him it was called.

"At least the lake is still unfrozen," Splashsail said. "In fact, it might not ever freeze completely. The pond we used to live at froze all the way to the bottom each year, but large lakes remain unfrozen, or at least not completely frozen."

"It's very cold," Waveripple said.

"It's only going to get colder as time goes by," Flowerwater told him. "But it will warm up again next spring."

Waveripple could not imagine it getting colder than this. This was the coldest weather he had ever experienced.

"What will we do if the lake freezes?" Waveripple asked worriedly. He knew how to hunt rodents, but he was not as good at that as he was at catching fish. And with all this snow on the ground, the rodents would be hard to find. What if they could not find enough food in the winter? Would they have to move someplace else, like Indigowings had?

Before he could think about it much more, Flowerwater answered, "If the lake freezes, but not completely, we can break the ice on top and get the fish underneath. If it becomes completely frozen, we'll just find a larger lake that is not completely frozen. That's what we did when we lived on a pond."

"Oh," Waveripple said, relieved. "Okay."

It was almost impossible to catch any fish that day. They were all hiding near the bottom of the lake, where it was harder to see them and impossible to catch them without diving. When the Amphibians did dive, the chill of the water made them unable to move as quickly or agilely as they could when it was warmer. They only managed to catch one fish by the time the day was halfway over. They ate some of the water plants to complete the meal, but it took more plants to satisfy their hunger than it would have taken if they had had more fish. It was easier to get plants than fish, but they still got chilled diving under the water to grab them.

"Don't go into the forest today, Waveripple," Flowerwater said in the evening. The snow was still coming down heavily.

"Why not?" Waveripple asked, disappointed. He had been looking forward to visiting Indigowings and Emeraldeyes that day. It would be one normal thing after the snowfall had made everything look different, along with making it harder to get food.

"It's still snowing too much," Splashsail said. "You wouldn't be able to see very far ahead of you, and you could get lost when the snow covers your scent."

"And besides," Flowerwater said, "it's just too cold to be wandering around."

By nightfall, the snowing had decreased in intensity, but a few flakes were still falling from the sky. It was hard for Waveripple to fall asleep, because the ground was cold and wet from the snow. It took about and hour for him to finally manage to fall asleep.

The next morning, everything looked different again. The snow had stopped falling, making it easier to see things that were farther away. The ground was blanketed in at least a foot of snow. Some of the pine tree branches were sagging all the way to the ground because of the snow on top of them. The sun was shining, making the snow glitter. It was almost too bright to look at.

Waveripple noticed that the lake was a bit different, too. There was a thin layer of something hard along its edges, which he guessed was ice. The lake had started to freeze, but most of it was still normal water.

It was a bit easier to hunt that day because the storm was over. The fish were swimming around slowly, eating aquatic plants. But they were still only able to catch three fish that day. Most of the food they ate was aquatic plants from the bottom of the lake.

"Can I go visit Indigowings and Emeraldeyes today?" Waveripple asked his parents in the evening.

"Yes, but come back if it starts snowing again," Flowerwater said.

"Okay, I will," Waveripple said, walking quickly into the forest. He made footprints in the snow, leaving a trail that was even easier to follow than the ones he had made through the leaves. If they tried to play hide and seek in the snow, it would be almost too easy for them to find each other. They would have to fly to all their hiding places.

Indigowings was in his cave when Waveripple arrived. "Hi Indigowings," Waveripple said.

"Hi Waveripple," Indigowings replied. "Let's go to Emeraldeyes's tree."

Both hatchlings flew to the oak tree. The trees below them looked strange in their whiteness. Waveripple was used to flying over green trees, as well as the colorful ones of autumn and the bare-branched trees they became afterwards, but snowy-white trees were different. They looked too crystalline in the sunlight to be real trees.

"Is it getting harder to catch fish at the lake?" Indigowings asked as they flew. "Because it is getting a lot harder to catch land animals. I couldn't find even one deer yesterday, because of the snowstorm."

"Yeah, it is harder to catch fish," Waveripple replied. "My parents and I were only able to catch one yesterday. But now that it stopped snowing, we were able to catch three."

"I hope there will still be enough food in the middle of the winter," Indigowings said. Waveripple nodded in agreement.

When they reached Emeraldeyes's oak tree, they saw that its branches were dusted with a thin powdering of snow. It was easy to see the three brown Dwarf dragons in the white branches.

Waveripple and Indigowings landed under the tree and waited for Emeraldeyes to come down. Emeraldeyes soon flew down to land lightly on the ground next to Indigowings and Waveripple. "Hi Indigowings and Waveripple," she said.

"Hi Emeraldeyes," Waveripple said.

"Hi," Indigowings said.

"What do you want to do, with all the snow on the ground?" Emeraldeyes said.

"I don't want to do anything with all the snow on the ground," Indigowings said jokingly. "I don't want to have to move it all."

"Very funny," Emeraldeyes said. "But you know that's not what I meant. With all the footprints we would leave in the snow, we obviously can't play ground hide and seek anymore. And hunting contests would be more difficult, since all the animals are hiding or hibernating."

Waveripple kicked some snow aside, noticing that it clumped together. He started pushing some snow together into another clump. Then he kicked the snow and watched it roll around, getting bigger as it did. He made another snowball and kicked it at Emeraldeyes.

"We could have a snow fight," he suggested.

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea," Indigowings said excitedly. He pushed some snow into a pile and kicked it at Waveripple.

Waveripple had seen that he was gathering it up, so he was ready to dodge it. The snowball rolled past him, rolling gently to a stop.

"Okay, we can do that," Emeraldeyes said, agreeing to the snow fight. She also started pushing snow into a pile.

Waveripple gathered up another clump of snow and kicked it high into the air, hitting Indigowings in the head with it. Indigowings started making his own snowball bigger. Waveripple tensed, ready to dodge it.

A snowball suddenly hit Waveripple in the side. He turned and saw Emeraldeyes grinning and gathering up another snow pile.

Waveripple quickly pushed together another pile of snow. He was deciding whom to kick it at when Indigowings kicked his huge snowball at Emeraldeyes. It was too big for her to dodge completely, and it almost knocked her down. While Indigowings was distracted watching Emeraldeyes, Waveripple kicked his snow clump at him.

Indigowings kicked snow that had not been in a clump at Waveripple. It was the closest thing to splashing snow that could be done. Little pieces of snow rained down, some of them landing on him.

The three dragons continued their snowball fight until they got tired. By then the evening was almost over. It would take a while for Waveripple to arrive back at the lake, so the three dragons said goodbye to each other then.

Waveripple was about halfway back to the lake when a few snowflakes started falling down. He traveled back faster, but by the time he got back, the snowing had escalated into another snowstorm.

It was hard for the Amphibians to sleep that night because they had to keep waking up to shake off snow. They would have been halfway buried in the snow by the time the night was over if they had not.

The next morning, the snowstorm had ended, and the snow was a lot deeper. The lake now had a thin layer of ice covering it completely. Only the Amphibians, out of all dragons, could walk on ice this thin without breaking it. But they did need to break it to catch the fish underneath.

When they had walked over the ice to the spot that they usually hunted in, Splashsail kicked the ice in, making a large hole. The three of them stood around the hole, waiting for a fish to come close enough to grab. By evening they had caught four fish, and had eaten all of them.

Then Waveripple went off to visit Indigowings and Emeraldeyes. They played games with the snow again, including snowball fights. They also found footprints of a wild animal, and decided to follow them to find out what the animal was. It turned out to be a deer.

From then on, the three spent a lot of time looking for and following the tracks of other animals. They learned to recognize the footprints of deer, rabbits, mice, wolves, bobcats, and many other animals.

As the weeks of winter went on, each day the lake froze a bit deeper. Luckily, it never froze completely, but it did freeze deep enough that it was hard for the Amphibians to break the ice. They had to all jump up and down on the ice to break it sometimes, depending on how close to the center of the lake they were. The ice was easiest to crack in the very middle, but around the edges, the water was completely solid.

Each day was also a little bit colder, until a little after the middle of winter, when it started to slowly warm up again. In just a few more weeks it would be spring, and the snow would melt.

~~~

When Whiteswirl woke up one night, there was snow covering the ground in a thin layer. More snow was still coming down heavily, making it hard to see things that were far distant. The snow and the cold did not bother Whiteswirl, just as it had not when it became autumn.

Hunting was a bit harder than usual, because the dragons were not sleeping out in the open anymore now that it was colder. But he could still find them easily enough by following their scents, and their footprints, in the case of the flightless Lizards.

As the weeks went by, the nights got longer, and Whiteswirl was able to spend more time outside. He still spent most of his time in the cavern he had found, however.

By the middle of winter, Whiteswirl had grown so much that he had to move most of the rocks aside to be able to get into his cavern. The passage soon became big enough for an adult dragon to fit through easily.

When he was outside, Whiteswirl stayed out longer than he used to. Every time Whiteswirl went out of the cave, he attempted to breathe fire. At first, nothing happened, but as time went by, he started being able to produce little puffs of smoke. A little while after that, he was able to breathe a small fire, but he could not sustain it long.

More time went by, and soon the winter was almost over. Every day, Whiteswirl could breathe fire that was a bit hotter, and keep breathing it for just a little longer. He knew that by the beginning of spring, he would be able to breathe fire almost as well as Redclaws could. He looked forward to the time that the snow melted.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: SPRING

Before too long, the snow started to melt. The days were slowly getting longer again, so the sun was able to melt the snow a bit more each day. The lake overflowed with all the snow that melted and ran into it; it seemed as if all the snow in the forest was trickling into the lake. Hunting became easy again, especially since the lake had unfrozen.

One day in early spring, Waveripple went to visit Indigowings and Emeraldeyes, like he always did. Indigowings was waiting for him in his cave.

"Today is Emeraldeyes's hatchday," Indigowings told Waveripple. "She's an adult now."

"Really?" Waveripple asked, surprised. He had not noticed that Emeraldeyes had grown as big as her parents, but when he thought about it, he realized that she had. "Of course I knew that she was older than us, but I didn't expect her to already be an adult, so soon."

"Yeah, it's a little strange to me, too," Indigowings said. "Come on. Let's go visit her and wish her a happy hatchday."

"Okay," Waveripple said.

Indigowings started flying to Emeraldeyes's tree, and Waveripple followed. He was still surprised that she was actually an adult now. When they arrived at the oak tree, Emeraldeyes flew down from the branches, like she always did when they came.

"Hi Waveripple and Indigowings," she said.

"Hi Emeraldeyes," Indigowings said. "Happy hatchday!"

"Happy hatchday!" Waveripple said.

"Thanks," Emeraldeyes said. She looked surprised; she probably had not expected them to remember that it was her hatchday. "I'm going to go hunting with my parents now. Do you want to come?"

"Yeah," Indigowings said.

"Sure," Waveripple said.

Emeraldeyes flew back up to the oak tree to tell her parents that her friends were going to be coming with them. Then she flew back down, with her parents following.

After the hatchlings said hello to Stonescales and Leafflight, the five dragons went off to hunt. The three Dwarves flew in the front, while Indigowings and Waveripple flew behind them. Emeraldeyes kept flying back and forth between her parents and Indigowings and Waveripple, so that she could be talking to all of them.

They reached a small clearing, where the Dwarves in front slowed down. Emeraldeyes flew back to the front with her parents, and all three of them began scanning the ground. Waveripple wondered what they were looking for until he saw a rabbit hopping around in the grass. Emeraldeyes swooped down and grabbed it, killing it with one bite. Her parents started trying to catch the other rabbits in the field, but most of them had already been scared away when Emeraldeyes grabbed the first one.

Waveripple landed and walked to the edge of the forest. He held still, looking for something to hunt. Indigowings flew on to join the Dwarves, making a huge shadow over the field.

Waveripple spotted a small rabbit and started chasing after it. It hopped away faster than he could run, so he started looking for something else. Most of the animals had run away by now, but he saw a large gopher just a few feet ahead of him. He slowly crept up to the gopher and crouched down, getting ready to jump on it. He pounced and landed right on top of it, but the gopher just disappeared, as if his feet had gone through it. Waveripple looked around, confused, but then he noticed that he was standing over a hole. The gopher must have ducked into it.

Waveripple saw that each of the Dwarves had managed to catch something, along with Indigowings. Indigowings and Emeraldeyes were holding rabbits, and Emeraldeyes's parents had each caught a squirrel. He was the only one who had not caught anything yet.

Looking around again, Waveripple saw a robin flying down to land in the field. He crept towards it, and the robin hopped a few steps farther away. Waveripple moved closer. When the robin was distracted trying to get a worm, Waveripple pounced on it. The bird struggled and tried to fly away, but Waveripple bit into it quickly, killing it.

Indigowings flew down and landed next to Waveripple. "Nice catch," he said.

"Thanks," Waveripple replied.

Emeraldeyes also flew down after a few minutes. "I think we're going to stop hunting now, unless one of you wants to continue." she said.

"It doesn't matter to me," Waveripple said.

"Or to me," Indigowings said. "I'm going to hunt more later, in the night."

Stonescales and Leafflight landed next to Emeraldeyes, Indigowings, and Waveripple. The five of them ate the animals they had caught. After they had finished, they went back to the Dwarves' tree and spent the rest of the evening talking to each other. Waveripple mostly talked to his friends, but he also talked to Emeraldeyes's parents some.

When it started to get late, Waveripple said goodbye to the others and headed back to the lake. There was still some daylight left when he arrived, so he talked to his parents until it got dark. Then the three Amphibians fell asleep by the pond.

Waveripple, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes spent the next few weeks differently than they had before. Instead of playing games like hide and seek, they mostly just talked to each other. Waveripple and Indigowings would be adult dragons soon, and Emeraldeyes already was, and they had slowly stopped trying to think up new games to play. They still enjoyed exploring the forest, of course, and often had hunting contests.

~~~

The nights became shorter again as winter turned into spring, and Whiteswirl was forced to spend less time outside each night. A few weeks into spring, he had mastered fire-breathing, and was now able to burn the bodies of the dragons he killed. So he did have proportionately more time to spend outside at night. He still liked being in the cavern he had found, however, and spent most of his time there.

Redclaws seemed very surprised that any Vampire would want to spend time in the same small cavern every day, instead of being outside the cave. She tried to get him interested in other things instead, like learning how to fight better, but Whiteswirl usually spent a lot of time in the cavern anyway. It was the best place in the whole world, as far as he was concerned. Why would he want to be somewhere else, unless he needed to be?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: HATCHDAYS

One day in mid-spring, Waveripple went to Indigowings's cave as usual. Along the way, he met Emeraldeyes, who told him that it was Indigowings's hatchday. Waveripple was a bit surprised at this, because his own hatchday was in just two more days.

"Happy hatchday!" Waveripple said to Indigowings when they arrived at his cave.

"Happy hatchday!" Emeraldeyes said at almost the same time.

"Thanks," Indigowings said. "I can't believe I'm actually an adult dragon now."

"Yeah, you don't act like one," Emeraldeyes joked.

"Acting like a hatchling is better than acting like one of the oldest, crankiest dragons ever," Indigowings retorted.

"What do you want to do?" Waveripple asked, interrupting their joke-fight.

"Let's have a hunting contest," Indigowings said. "The first one to catch five edible animals of any kind wins."

"Okay," Emeraldeyes said.

"Yeah," Waveripple said.

"Then get ready, set, and go!" Indigowings said, darting out of the cave. Emeraldeyes flew out after him, with Waveripple following closely behind.

After a few yards, the dragons spread out from each other. Indigowings flew up high to look for deer, but Emeraldeyes stayed low, probably searching for rodents. Waveripple flew to the nearest pond to catch fish and turtles.

The water was not very cold, but any dragon who was not a water-type dragon would have thought it was. Waveripple was able to catch three frogs and a turtle within a few minutes, but then he did not see anything else, so he left the pond.

Waveripple looked around for rodents that might be hiding in the grass. He had just spotted a meadow vole when Indigowings shouted, "I got five!" Instead of catching the vole, Waveripple hurried back to where Indigowings and Emeraldeyes were waiting.

Emeraldeyes only had three rodents. Waveripple wondered if she had missed a few of them on purpose, trying to let Indigowings win since it was his hatchday. Waveripple probably would have done that, too, if he had thought of it. Indigowings had a young deer, three rabbits, and a songbird. The other two dragons congratulated him on his catches. Then they all started eating what they had caught.

After finishing their prey, the three dragons spent the rest of the afternoon talking to each other. When it started getting dark, Waveripple went back to the lake.

Two days later, it was Waveripple's hatchday. He was excited about it; he was finally an adult, just like Emeraldeyes and Indigowings! His parents wished him a happy hatchday. They spent all the time until the evening talking to each other and hunting. Then Waveripple left to go visit Indigowings and Emeraldeyes.

They were both waiting for him at Indigowings's cave when he arrived.

"Happy hatchday!" Indigowings and Emeraldeyes said at the same time.

"Thanks," Waveripple said.

"What do you want to do today?" Emeraldeyes asked him.

"Let's go hunting–like we did on your two hatchdays," Waveripple said.

"Okay," Indigowings said. "Where do you want to hunt?"

"We could hunt in the nearest lake that is not my home," Waveripple replied.

"Okay, let's go to it," Emeraldeyes said.

The three dragons flew over the forest until they came to a lake that Waveripple had found while he was exploring the forest. It was about twice as large as the lake he lived by.

Waveripple walked into the water, with Emeraldeyes and Indigowings following. They spread out to look for fish in different parts of the lake. Waveripple was soon able to catch three medium-sized silver fish, but Indigowings was only able to catch two small fish, and Emeraldeyes only had one medium-sized fish. They kept hunting for a while longer, until they had enough fish for the three of them to eat. Then they came back out of the lake and ate them.

Just as they had on the other two hatchdays, the three dragons just talked to each other for the rest of the evening. Then Waveripple went back to the lake.

Nothing was really very different now that the hatchlings were all adult dragons. They still always visited each other, and talked about normal things. They also had prey-catching contests.

But one day in late spring, Indigowings thought up a new thing that they could do. "Now that we're adult dragons," he said, "we should be able to breathe fire. So let's try it."

"Yeah," Emeraldeyes said.

"Yeah! I never tried that before," Waveripple said excitedly.

They walked to the nearest pond to try to breathe fire there. They had chosen that spot in case their fire started getting out of control. They did not want to start a forest fire, after all.

Indigowings tried it first. He breathed a large cloud of smoke on his first try. When he tried again, he was able to breathe some fire. "Wow," he said, staring at the fire. Then he quickly kicked dirt over it to put it out.

Emeraldeyes tried next. She was able to breathe a small amount of fire on her first try, and a medium amount on her second. Both times, she breathed her fire into the lake, so that it was automatically put out.

Then it was Waveripple's turn. He was excited about breathing fire, but also a little nervous. He was younger than Indigowings and Emeraldeyes, so what if he was not able to? Also, he was a water-type dragon. He did not know if they were able to breathe fire. He had never seen either of his parents doing it. He assumed that he would be able to breathe fire as long as he was in his land form, but he probably would not be able to do it in his water form.

Waveripple tried it. He was able to breathe a small puff of smoke, so he tried again, encouraged. After a few tries, he was able to breathe as much fire as Emeraldeyes could. She probably would have been able to breathe more than he could, if she were not a much smaller dragon.

Then they thought of all different kinds of things to do with their fire-breathing ability. They had hunting contests where breathing fire at their prey was the only allowed way to catch it. It was a challenge not to just burn their food into ashes.

They also had little contests to see who could send their fire the farthest, sustain it the longest, or hit something with the most precision. Indigowings was the best at breathing fire the farthest, Emeraldeyes was the best at making her fire hit exactly what she wanted it to, and Waveripple was the best at sustaining a small flame for the longest time.

When Waveripple arrived back at the lake the first night after they had breathed fire, he told his parents about it, and showed them. They seemed a bit surprised.

"I didn't even know that Amphibians could breathe fire," Flowerwater said. "I never tried it."

"I never really thought of it either," Splashsail said. "Dragons that live in the water usually have no use for fire."

"It's pretty cool for using on land, though," Waveripple said. "Some dragons use it to hunt land animals, or birds."

Splashsail nodded. "I can see how that would be helpful to them," he said.

It was already getting dark, so the Amphibians soon fell asleep.

~~~

Whiteswirl kept going into his cavern every night to spend most of his time there. If he went there first, he wanted to just stay there for the rest of the night, so he always went out to spend some time in the forest first. Now that he was almost a year old, he was very good at fire-breathing, and could easily burn the bodies of the dragons he hunted, on the rare days when he was thirsty enough to hunt. He liked the convenience of being able to bury just the ashes instead of the whole dragon.

Whiteswirl and Redclaws kept having to go farther and farther from their cave to hunt. If they hunted in one area for too long, the dragons would notice that a lot of them were going missing. Then they might all decide to leave, and one of the Vampires' hunting areas would be empty. Or they might all gather together at night, so that they could wake each other up if anything came. That would be just as bad as if they had left, if not worse, because, during the day, those dragons would be searching for them, and would all attack if they found them.

The Vampires had to hunt in different areas of the forest each night, and never hunt two dragons that were within a mile of each other. Because they needed a very wide hunting range, no other Vampire dragons would be allowed to come within a few square miles of them. None had come yet, but if they did, Redclaws and Whiteswirl would chase them out.

Eventually, the day arrived that Whiteswirl calculated would be his hatchday. He did not know exactly when it was, and did not ask Redclaws. He doubted that she even cared enough to remember it. He was proven right when spring started ending. He remembered vaguely that he had hatched in spring, but spring was already ending, and Redclaws had never told him which of the days was his hatchday. He did not really care, so he did not mind that she did not, either. He just wanted to be in his cavern, anyway. He did not want anything to change for any reason, including something as ridiculous as celebrating a hatchday. Luckily, no Vampire dragon really cared about things like that.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: FOREST FIRE

Soon it was summer again. Waveripple, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes kept having their fire-breathing contests and hunting contests. They had fire-breathing contests much more often than hunting contests, because breathing fire was still very new and exciting to them. Plus, they could easily combine hunting contests and fire-breathing contests.

There had not been any more missing dragons for a long time, so Waveripple and the others had almost forgotten about that, and rarely thought of it.

On a cloudy day, they decided to have a hunting contest, in which they had to kill their prey by breathing fire at it. They had done that a few times before, but none of them were very good at it. They usually just had normal hunting contests instead. But this day they decided to do it again, because it was more challenging and interesting than normal hunting contests. They decided that whoever got three prey-animals first without burning them too much to eat would be the winner.

Indigowings and Emeraldeyes flew into the air immediately, and then spread apart. Waveripple flew to a nearby field and started searching for rodents. The grass was green, tall, and healthy. It was not likely to catch on fire if he missed the animal he was trying to breathe fire at.

Waveripple soon found a meadow vole, and breathed fire in its direction. The vole scurried away as quickly as it could, but the fire would have missed anyway. Waveripple had not aimed very well. After a little while, he found a mouse. He crept towards it slowly, and then breathed fire at it when he was close enough. This time, he was able to hit it with his fire, killing it. He kept looking around for other animals, but he did not see any more nearby, so he walked to the edge of the field to continue searching.

Waveripple saw a squirrel at the edge of the meadow. He stalked closer to it, and then breathed fire. The squirrel turned and ran into the forest, and Waveripple chased after it. The squirrel ran up a tree before he could breathe fire at it again. Catching prey this way was definitely harder than just jumping on it and biting it.

After about fifteen minutes, Waveripple was able to catch a meadow vole. By then, all the animals in the meadow were hiding, so he walked into the forest to look for more. Most of the trees around here were pine trees, and their needles were all over the ground, blocking other plants from growing there.

Waveripple soon spotted another squirrel running around in the forest. He crept up on it and breathed fire, hitting the squirrel. Not all of the fire hit the squirrel, however, so the squirrel did not die as soon as the fire hit it. Only some of the fur on its tail was burned. The squirrel ran away up a tree, but Waveripple was not paying attention to it.

Most of the fire had not hit the squirrel, but it did not just disappear when it missed. It had hit the pine needles on the ground, setting them on fire. Waveripple hurried over to the small fire and tried to put it out by kicking dirt over it. He forgot that the pine needles were all over the ground, so he just fueled the fire accidentally.

"Indigowings! Emeraldeyes!" Waveripple called. "Somebody help!" He hoped that a nearby dragon would hear him and come to help him put out the fire. There was no reply, from his friends or anyone else.

Waveripple cleared the pine needles from a patch of ground and started loosening up the dirt. He kicked all the soil that he could over the fire, but it was spreading too quickly. He managed to put out part of it just as it spread in another direction, now twice its original size.

A few minutes later, Indigowings and Emeraldeyes flew down. They must have seen all the smoke. Emeraldeyes gasped when she saw the fire. Indigowings looked shocked, but did not say anything. They both just started helping to dig up the soil, throwing it at the fire. But the three dragons were not fast enough. The fire kept spreading through the forest, getting larger all the time.

Soon the fire was so big that the three dragons realized that they would not be able to put it out by themselves.

"We have to go get help," Indigowings said.

"Yeah," Emeraldeyes said, "but there aren't any dragons living nearby. No one is close enough to help!" She sounded frantic.

By then, the fire had surrounded the area that the three dragons were standing in. Waveripple, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes all flew out of the fire circle and came back to land at a safer distance.

Waveripple looked up at the darkening sky, hoping it would start raining soon. He saw lightning up in the clouds, but there was no rain yet.

Waveripple, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes backed off from the fire, which was still spreading.

Just seconds later, a light rain started falling from the clouds. Suddenly, the rain started falling heavily, pouring down in sheets. It would soon put out the fire, unless it stopped raining before the fire was completely extinguished.

The three dragons watched to make sure that the fire would be completely put out. It rained heavily for about half an hour, and soon extinguished the flames. Then, just as suddenly as it had started, the rain stopped.

Waveripple walked over to where the fire had been, with Indigowings and Emeraldeyes following. They checked to make sure that the fire was completely gone. It was, but it had left a lot of destruction in that area of the forest. The pine needles on the forest floor were all gone, and a thin layer of black ashes were in their place. A few dead trees had been burned up by the fire. Other trees were not completely burned, but their trunks had started to blacken. They looked dead now, but Waveripple was not certain.

The fire had covered a wide area, but it had not destroyed too much, for a fire of its size. If the rain had not started, it would have spread a lot farther and destroyed much more than it had.

"You actually caused this fire?" Indigowings asked, still sounding completely shocked.

Emeraldeyes was also staring at Waveripple, looking very surprised.

"Well, uh, yes," Waveripple said. "I was trying to get a squirrel, but I missed, and the pine needles caught on fire instead..."

Indigowings and Emeraldeyes continued staring at him, shocked that he could have started a fire this huge.

Then they heard wings flapping, and all three dragons looked up. They saw Stormcloud, the Storm dragon that was Indigowings's friend, hovering in the air below the clouds. Then he turned and flew away. He must have made it rain, Waveripple realized. He remembered that Storm dragons could control the weather. The rain had started very suddenly and conveniently, and was heavy enough to put out the fire. The only explanation was that Stormcloud had seen the smoke and made it rain. Waveripple had known that Stormcloud could control the weather, but he had not thought that he could control it to that extent. He was more amazed at that than he and his friends had been at the fact that he had started the forest fire.

"Stormcloud must have put out the fire," Indigowings said, coming to the same conclusion that Waveripple had.

"Wow," Emeraldeyes said. "Imagine if he hadn't been nearby. Lizards could have been killed by that fire. Or, even if they weren't killed, a lot of territory could have been destroyed, and the dragons living here would have had to move."

Waveripple was ashamed of starting the fire, and even more so when he heard what Emeraldeyes said. He was deeply grateful to Stormcloud. It would have been horrible if any dragon had died because of the fire he started.

"I don't think we should have any more fire-breathing contests," Waveripple said.

"Agreed," Indigowings said.

"Definitely," Emeraldeyes said.

After getting over the initial shock of the forest fire, they noticed that it was getting dark. Emeraldeyes went back to her oak tree, and Indigowings went to his cave. Waveripple went back to the lake. He decided not to tell his parents about the forest fire. He did not want them to be worried about him when he went into the forest.

"I saw a lot of smoke coming out of the forest," Splashsail said. "Was there a forest fire?" Just great. They had noticed the fire anyway.

"We were worried about you when we saw the fire," Flowerwater said. "We thought that you might have been nearby."

"There was a small forest fire," Waveripple said. "But no one got hurt. It was put out when it started raining." He purposely left out that he had started the fire, and that he had been very close to it.

"That's good," Flowerwater said, relieved.

~~~

Because the Vampire dragons had to hunt in a different area each time, Whiteswirl decided to hunt again in the area where some dragons had started to notice them before. That had been almost a year ago, so it should be safe to hunt there again.

When he was flying over the forest, Whiteswirl saw that a large part of it had been burned. The fire was gone now, but a lot of trees had been burned or had fallen down, and there were a lot of ashes. He wondered what had started the fire. It was early summer, and it was not very dry, so it had not been a natural fire. More than likely, one of the dragons living nearby had accidentally started it.

Whiteswirl flew past the burned trees. No dragon would be there now. About a mile later, he found a dragon to hunt. It was a sleeping Forest dragon. He flew down as quietly as he could and landed a few yards away from it, so that it would not hear his landing and wake up. Then he slowly crept towards it, being careful not to step on any branches or pine cones.

When he was close enough, Whiteswirl sprang on the Forest. Just then, it turned in its sleep, so Whiteswirl missed, landing with a heavy thud where the dragon used to be. The Forest stood up, looking surprised. It was facing the opposite direction of Whiteswirl, looking around for what had caused the noise.

Whiteswirl pounced on top of the Forest, knocking it to the ground. It let out a shriek of surprise. The Forest thrashed around, trying to shake Whiteswirl off.

Whiteswirl held on tightly, trying to bite its neck. The Forest rolled over so that it was on top of him instead. Vampire dragons were much stronger than Forests, so he was able to kick it off him easily. Then he pounced on it again.

The Forest breathed fire at Whiteswirl, aiming for his face, just as the Wind had when Whiteswirl had hunted with Redclaws. Whiteswirl dodged and bit the Forest's neck, killing it. He drank its blood, and then burned its body so that it would be easier to bury. He was careful to keep the fire under control; he did not want to start a forest fire. If that happened, all the dragons would leave or be killed, and there would be no one left to hunt.

Whiteswirl buried the ashes of the Forest and returned to the cave, going straight into his cavern. He had wasted enough time away from it when the Forest had woken up. He spent the rest of the night peacefully in his cavern, and then went back to Redclaws's cavern, where it would be darker, to sleep in during the day.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: SEARCHES

Waveripple went to visit Indigowings and Emeraldeyes again the next day. They were both already at Indigowings's cave when he arrived.

"Hi Indigowings and Emeraldeyes," Waveripple said.

"Hi Waveripple," they both replied.

"Stormcloud just told me some bad news," Indigowings said.

Waveripple's heart quickened as he thought of what it must be. The fire he had made might not have really been completely out, and had regrown, and maybe even hurt someone.

Indigowings saw Waveripple's worried expression and continued quickly, "Remember last year, when there was a Vampire attacking other dragons, and Stormcloud and a few others tried to find it so that they could kill it or drive it away?"

Waveripple did not answer, but Indigowings was not acting like if he was expecting him to. "Well, one of the dragons that was helping Stormcloud, the Forest dragon, was killed by a Vampire last night. Stormcloud found some blood where he used to be, and some buried ashes nearby."

Waveripple looked at him, surprised. So it had nothing to do with the fire he had started after all.

"Stormcloud is asking some other dragons to start helping him look for the Vampire again." Indigowings continued. "This time they're not planning to stop looking until they find it. Before, they thought that the Vampire must have left, but it looks like it did not really."

"We should help them find the Vampire," Waveripple said. "The Vampire might be able to kill a few dragons at a time, but if there are a lot of us against it, it won't stand a chance."

Indigowings looked surprised, as if he had not thought of joining Stormcloud to search for the Vampire. "Yeah, I'll also help them search," he said.

"Me too," Emeraldeyes said.

"I'll tell Stormcloud next time I see him," Indigowings said.

"Who else will be searching?" Emeraldeyes asked.

"A Wind dragon who I don't know and a Tiger dragon called Nightsky," Indigowings replied. "So when we're helping too, there will be six of us in all. We'll be able to beat the Vampire easily."

"We could start looking for it now," Waveripple said. "After all, it's the middle of the day, so it will be sleeping. The Vampire won't be flying around, looking for someone to attack."

"Yeah, we could start looking for the Vampire now," Emeraldeyes said. "But not really looking for the actual Vampire. We could just look for caves that it might be living in."

"Yeah," Indigowings agreed. "We can look for it now, but I don't want to actually attack it if we find it. After all, none of us have ever been in a real battle, and Vampires kill all the time."

"We have to decide where to search for it first," Emeraldeyes said. "We already know of all the caves nearby, and would have noticed if the Vampire lived in one of them. We would have smelled its scent outside the entrance."

"Not to mention that we would have been eaten if we had stuck our heads inside its cave," Waveripple said. "We have to look for different caves, farther away."

The three dragons left Indigowings's cave as they were talking. "Which direction do you think we should go in?" Indigowings asked.

"Not in that direction," Waveripple said, gesturing towards his lake, "because we would have to travel for quite a while before coming to a place we haven't explored already. And the same for that direction." This time he gestured to Emeraldeyes's oak tree, which was toward the south.

"Okay, then let's just go in this direction first," Indigowings said, pointing east. Waveripple's lake was west, so the only choices were east or north. "We can go north later if there aren't any caves in this direction."

Waveripple, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes flew just over the tree line, so that they could see things in the distance but still be near the ground. They traveled over the forest for a few miles but did not find anything. There were no cliffs or other areas that might have a cliff in the direction they were going in. They kept going for another two miles, and then slowed down.

"I think we should go back, and look north this time," Indigowings said. "We haven't found even one cave around here, not even empty caves."

"We should keep going," Emeraldeyes said. "What if the cave is just a few miles ahead?"

"We didn't find any caves yet," Indigowings argued. "It is not very likely that there will be any in the next few miles. But we did not explore north very much at all. There could be many caves there, for all we know."

"Let's just go a short distance more, and then we can turn back if we still don't find anything," Emeraldeyes said.

"Fine," Indigowings said. "But this seems like a waste of time. We aren't going to find anything."

After fifteen more minutes of flying, the three dragons still had not found any caves or other possible places where a dragon could live.

"Now do you think we should go back, Emeraldeyes?" Indigowings asked.

"Yeah, we can go back now," Emeraldeyes agreed.

"I told you we weren't going to find anything," Indigowings said.

Emeraldeyes looked as if she were about to make an angry reply, but Waveripple spoke first. "It's good that we kept going for a while anyway, because now we know that there aren't any caves for quite a while in this direction. It's more certain now that the Vampire's cave is to the north."

When they got back to Indigowings's cave, the starting point, the three dragons started flying north. They had already used up most of the evening searching east, so they would not be able to go very far before nightfall. They could keep searching after it got dark, but then they would be at risk of being attacked by the Vampire.

They had traveled roughly two miles without finding anything when it got dark.

"I'll come back to keep searching tomorrow," Emeraldeyes said. "There's quite a bit of distance between here and my home."

"I also have to go back to the lake now," Waveripple said. "We can keep looking tomorrow."

"Okay," Indigowings agreed, a bit grudgingly. He was used to being awake in the night, or at least the first half of it, so he probably thought they should keep searching longer. Waveripple briefly worried that he would keep looking without them. But he knew that Indigowings would not search alone; it would be too reckless and futile. He would not be able to beat a Vampire dragon alone if he found it, and Indigowings knew that they would have one less dragon to fight the Vampire if he was killed. Indigowings would not search alone.

When Waveripple got back to the lake, he did not tell his parents that he and his friends were looking for a Vampire. But he did tell them that a Vampire had killed another dragon, so that they would be careful. He doubted it would help much anyway, since Vampires attacked in the night, but they should still know about it. Last year, he had told them about the Vampire that was killing other dragons in the forest, so they were not too surprised that there had been another death.

The next morning, Waveripple met Indigowings and Emeraldeyes at Indigowings's cave, so that they could set out to search for the Vampire. Three other dragons were there too. He recognized Stormcloud, and saw two others. One was a Tiger that must be Nightsky, and there was also a light gray dragon, the Wind dragon.

Indigowings had been there for a while, so he had already met and spoke to the other dragons. He introduced Waveripple to them and told Waveripple that the Wind dragon's name was Streampebble.

They were all going to be looking for the Vampire together. Streampebble and Stormcloud would be high up in the air, looking for cliffs or other places where a cave might be. If one of them saw something, he or she would fly down to tell the others. Waveripple, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes would be near the ground, where they could find hidden caves more easily. Nightsky would be flying back and forth between them, so that she could see both the cliffs in the distance, and try to find any caves near the ground that Waveripple and his friends missed.

The six dragons set out north. It was mostly just like it had been the previous day, except that Nightsky would occasionally fly down to check something. They went for about five miles before they saw a cliff in the distance. Waveripple did not see it, but Nighsky flew down to tell them that there was one up ahead, and which direction it was in.

It took about half an hour for them to reach the cliff. They could see that there were no caves at its base. But there was a much longer cliff next to that cliff, which curled away so that they would have to turn right to keep walking along it. They saw a cave leading into that cliff.

Waveripple, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes landed and walked quickly over to the cave. It was clearly abandoned; no dragon scent was around its entrance or inside. They kept walking along the cliff to look for more caves.

After a while, they came to the part where the cliff curved to the right. The cliff gradually sloped down and ended, but there was one last cliff nearby. It was not as long as the last one had been. Waveripple saw three familiar-looking caves leading into the cliff. They were the caves that he, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes had explored when they were hatchlings. There was no dragon scent around them, but he had not expected there to be any.

The cliff was small and square-shaped. They started walking around it to see if there were any caves on the other side. When they turned the first corner around the cliff, Waveripple saw a stream flowing out of the cliff's base. He did not know for sure, but he thought that it was the same stream that he had traveled up until he could not go any farther, when it led to a cliff. As he thought about it, he became certain that it was the same stream. So there was probably nothing in this cliff. They had already explored the caves on the other side, after all.

They turned the next corner of the cliff, but did not see anything. There was just the normal rock wall of a cliff, with vines growing up all over its sides. The last side of the cliff was just a slope leading up to its top. They walked past the cliff, but did not find any other caves, or even cliffs, for the rest of the day. When the sun was setting, all the dragons went back to their own homes. They would have to wait until the next day to continue.

~~~

Redclaws woke Whiteswirl up in the middle of the day. "What?" he asked, looking around quickly, expecting danger.

"The same dragons who were looking for us last year are coming close again," Redclaws explained quickly. "There are six of them this time. We have to disguise the entrance of the cave before they arrive."

Whiteswirl stepped out into the daylight, following Redclaws. Everything was too bright outside, hurting his eyes. The night was so much better.

"Move some vines across the entrance," Redclaws said.

Whiteswirl looked at the vines growing up the cliff. Some of them were tall enough to be dragged over the entrance and stretched to the top completely. He started digging them up and replanting them by the entrance to the cave. They were clinging to the side of the cliff, making it difficult to move them. When he finally managed to move a few vines, they would not stay upright in their new spots, but kept falling down instead.

Whiteswirl flew up to where the vines overlapped the top of the cave, and started threading them through other vines that were already growing there. It was hard to move all the vines, but with Redclaws helping, they got it done without wasting too much time. Then they pushed aside some of the vines so that they could go back inside the cave, pulling them back after going through.

A few minutes later, Whiteswirl heard footsteps. It sounded as if there were three dragons walking towards them, but one's footsteps sounded so light that it might be a hatchling. Then the footsteps faded as the dragons walked away.

Whiteswirl walked up to the vines and peeked through one of the cracks to see if they were really gone, and if there were any other dragons coming. He remembered that Redclaws had said there were six dragons, so he looked around, trying to find the other three. He looked up to see if they were flying, and saw the three dragons flying high above. One was a Storm dragon, one was a Tiger dragon, and the last one was a Wind dragon. They could not see him looking at them through the vines from that distance, and flew on with the dragons that had been walking.

Whiteswirl waited for a few more minutes to make sure that they really were gone. Then he turned to Redclaws. "How did you know that there were dragons coming?" he asked. "When you told me, they were still far enough away that they would not see us moving the vines over the entrance of the cave."

Redclaws shrugged nonchalantly. "Sometimes I just can't sleep in the day," she said. "Then I fly around for a while. I saw those dragons approaching from quite a distance away, but they did not notice me."

"Oh," Whiteswirl said. It was strange that Redclaws would want to fly around during the day. It was way too bright outside; he did not know why any dragon would want to be awake in the day instead of at night.

The Vampires soon fell back to sleep for the rest of the day. The following night was uneventful. Whiteswirl did not leave the cave that day, but just went straight into his cavern, where he spent the whole night.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: BATTLE PREPARATIONS

Waveripple met up with the others the next day to keep searching for the Vampire. They found a few caves, but none of them had Vampire scent in or around them.

"What would we do if we actually found the Vampire?" Waveripple asked Indigowings and Emeraldeyes as they were flying, looking for more caves. "I mean, of course we would attack it, but we've never actually been in a battle. It would be easy for the Vampire to beat us."

"We could have some practice battles," Indigowings suggested.

"Yeah, we should," Emeraldeyes said. "Especially if Stormcloud, Streampebble, or Nightsky are in the practice battles. They actually do know how to fight, especially Nightsky, since she's a Tiger dragon."

"Okay, I'll go suggest it to Stormcloud," Indigowings said. He flew up to tell him. Waveripple and Emeraldeyes waited on the ground, looking around for more possible cave areas.

A few minutes later, Indigowings came back down. "He thought it was a good idea," Indigowings said, "but he said that he could not be in the practice fights, because in a real fight, he would just use the weather against his opponent. He could just make a lightning bolt hit someone. But he's not very good at battles when he can not use the weather."

"Did you ask any of the others if they would help?" Waveripple asked.

"Yes, I did," Indigowings replied. "Streampebble and Nightsky both said they would do practice battles with us. Nightsky said she would only do it for a little while, however, and then go back to searching for the Vampire."

"Well, a little is better than nothing," Emeraldeyes said. "When are we going to start the practice battles?"

"They said they would be willing to do it after another hour of searching," Indigowings replied.

"But what if we find the Vampire in that amount of time, and we still have no battle experience, even practice?" Waveripple asked.

"That's not very likely," Indigowings replied. "Remember, Stormcloud and the others were looking for the Vampire for several months last year and could not find anything. We probably won't find it in the next hour. And besides, even if we did find the Vampire's cave, it would be sleeping, since it's still day. So Stormcloud could stay by the entrance of the cave to warn us if it came out, while the rest of us would be a bit farther away, practicing for the battle."

"Yeah right," Waveripple said. "We aren't going to leave to do battle practice if we find the Vampire sleeping. We would attack it right away."

"Let's just keep looking for the Vampire now," Emeraldeyes said. "The others are already getting ahead of us."

Looking up, Waveripple saw that the other three dragons were indeed already a few hundred yards ahead of them. He hurried after them, along with Indigowings and Emeraldeyes.

By the end of the hour, they still had not found the Vampire. They had only seen one cave, and it was uninhabited.

Then Nightsky and Streampebble flew down and landed. Waveripple, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes followed them down.

"Do you want to do battle practice now?" Streampebble asked.

"Yes," Waveripple said immediately.

"Yeah," Indigowings and Emeraldeyes said.

"Okay. I can only do battle practice with one of you at a time," Streampebble said. "So one of you can be practicing with Nightsky, and the last one will have to wait, since Stormcloud isn't going to be in the practices."

"I can wait the first time," Emeraldeyes said. "Then I can see how you battle before actually doing it myself."

Nightsky nodded to her approvingly. "It is helpful to know beforehand how your opponent will fight, but of course in most battles you won't be able to do that," she said.

"Who will be practicing with who first?" Indigowings asked.

"I can practice with you first, while Streampebble practices with Waveripple," Nightsky answered. Turning to Streampebble, she asked, "Unless, of course, you want to practice with Indigowings first?"

Streampebble shook her head. "It doesn't matter who I practice with first," she said.

"Okay, then I'll go a few hundred yards away to practice with Indigowings, so that we all have enough space," Nightsky said. She and Indigowings flew up above the trees so that they could look for a clearing to practice in.

When they were gone, Streampebble said, "We'll start practicing now, Waveripple."

"Okay," Waveripple said.

Emeraldeyes flew up in the air and went towards Nightsky and Indigowings to watch them first.

"Pretend I'm the Vampire dragon," Streampebble said, "and attack me. But don't really bite or scratch, of course. The practice battle will end when one of us does something, such as pretending to bite the other's throat, that would kill a dragon in a real battle."

Waveripple nodded. Then he crouched down and started stalking towards Streampebble, deciding how to attack. He sprang at her directly, and she stepped to the side, easily dodging.

Waveripple turned to face Streampebble, already in a crouch. He jumped at her again, but this time she did not dodge. He crashed into her, and they both fell to the ground.

Streampebble pretended to bite Waveripple's neck, winning the practice battle.

"You shouldn't attack a dragon head-on," Stream-pebble advised. "That's what most dragons will be expecting, so you should do something else–something that will be unexpected."

"Okay," Waveripple said. "Let's do another practice battle."

Waveripple heard Emeraldeyes's wings as she hovered nearby. She had come back after they had finished their practice battle, and now flew down to the ground. "It's my turn to practice with her," she said to Waveripple.

"Oh, sorry, I forgot that you were waiting," Waveripple said. "I'll go see if Indigowings is done with his practice battle."

"He is," Emeraldeyes said. "You could go over to Nightsky and practice with her now."

Waveripple nodded and flew in the direction that Indigowings and Nightsky had flown off in. He heard voices coming from up ahead, and flapped his wings faster. He came to a large, open clearing, which was at least twice as big as the one he had been practicing in. Nightsky was giving Indigowings advice about fighting other dragons when he arrived.

"Emeraldeyes is practicing with Streampebble now, so can I practice with you, Nightsky?" Waveripple asked.

"Yes," Nightsky agreed. "Indigowings and I had already finished our first practice battle."

"I'll be watching the battle," Indigowings said. He moved back to the edge of the clearing and sat down to watch.

"We can start now," Nightsky said.

Waveripple nodded and crouched down slightly. He stalked over to Nightsky and started circling around to her side. She turned so that she was still facing him. Waveripple came close enough to jump at her. He feinted to her left, so that she turned to block him; then he quickly turned to her right instead.

Before she could turn to face him, Waveripple sprang at her side, knocking her down. Nightsky was larger and stronger than him, and easily pushed him off.

Waveripple started circling around her again, but she kept turning, too, and much more carefully this time, so that he could not trick her. He decided to just jump at her directly. He sprang, expecting her to dodge to the right or left, or maybe backwards, but she did not. Instead, Nightsky jumped into the air and flapped her wings, now flying above him.

Nightsky laughed at Waveripple's surprised expression. "You don't expect the Vampire to stay on the ground where you can attack it more easily, do you?" she asked.

Waveripple did not answer, not wanting to get distracted from the battle. He flew up into the air as well.

Nightsky agilely flew over Waveripple so that she was behind him, and dove down. He turned in the air just in time for her to launch herself at him and knock him to the ground.

Waveripple struggled underneath Nightsky, but he could not push her away. She tried to mock-bite at his neck, but he quickly turned his head away, making her nearly crash her face into the ground. When she was that close, Waveripple pretended to bite her neck. He was surprised that she was not able to dodge in time. He had lost to Streampebble, so he had not expected to be able to beat a Tiger dragon, when they were all warrior dragons.

Nightsky stepped away from Waveripple, looking even more surprised than he was. "Well done," she congratulated him.

"Thanks," Waveripple said.

Indigowings walked up to them. Waveripple had forgotten that he was watching. He also looked very surprised.

"Whoa, you actually beat her. She's a lot bigger than you, and she was able to beat me, so I did not think you would win against her."

"Well, it was probably just luck," Waveripple said. "I did lose against Streampebble, after all."

Emeraldeyes flew up then. "I just finished my practice battle against Streampebble, and I beat her," she said smugly. "Now I'm going to practice against Nightsky."

"I'm going to go practice with Streampebble," Indigowings said. He flew off in the direction of the small clearing that Waveripple had been practicing with Streampebble in.

Waveripple pondered briefly over who to watch, and then decided to watch Emeraldeyes. She was the one who had been watching the other battles first, so she should be able to fight better than he and Indigowings had.

Emeraldeyes flew into the air, staying at the same height as Nightsky's head. She darted towards her quickly, but Nightsky was able to dodge. Then flew around Nightsky, outmaneuvering the larger dragon. She flew at Nightsky from behind, but Nightsky ducked, anticipating the height at which Emeraldeyes would be flying.

The momentum from Emeraldeyes's air charge caused her to keep going forward, right in front of Nightsky's face. Nightsky grabbed Emeraldeyes with her front feet and pushed her to the ground. Then she mock-bit at Emeraldeyes's throat, ending the practice battle. Because of Emeraldeyes's speed and the facts that she had been watching the other battles first and that she had beaten Streampebble, Waveripple had half-expected Emeraldeyes to win. But because Nightsky was so much bigger than her, he had not been so certain.

Waveripple turned and flew quickly towards the other clearing, hoping to watch the end of Indigowings's battle with Streampebble. He arrived at the clearing just in time to see Streampebble fly at Indigowings and pretend to bite his neck. They had both been battling in the sky. Indigowings landed back on the ground, and Streampebble also flew down, but hovered a few feet from the ground instead of landing.

"Did Emeraldeyes beat Nightsky?" Indigowings asked hopefully. Waveripple wondered if he was hoping that she had won or that she had not. The latter was more likely.

"No, but I think she might have if Nightsky was not so much bigger than her," Waveripple replied.

"That's all we are going to practice today," Streampebble said. "We'll keep looking for the Vampire until it gets dark. More than likely, we won't find it, and we can continue doing battle practice tomorrow."

Emeraldeyes and Nightsky had arrived by then, and heard what Streampebble said. Nightsky and Stream-pebble flew back up to join Stormcloud; and Waveripple, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes flew up to a lower altitude to look for the Vampire's cave.

They found two more caves before it became dark. One of them was uninhabited, and a Lizard lived in the other. They did not actually see the Lizard, but its scent was fresh around the cave.

When it got dark enough that the Vampire might be coming out of its cave soon, the six dragons went back to their homes. Only Indigowings stayed out of his, because he was always awake for the first half of the night anyway.

Waveripple hoped that they would find the Vampire tomorrow. Each day that they did not find it, one more dragon died. But he also hoped that the Vampire would just leave, or be killed by someone else, because he was scared of it, and did not want to have to kill it himself.

~~~

Now that Whiteswirl knew that they were being hunted again, he had to be more careful about which dragons he attacked. And he also had to keep the vines by the cave entrance in their place. It was hard to move through them, to get into or out of the cave, without knocking all the vines down.

Whiteswirl thought that they should just fight the dragons that were looking for them. There were only six of them, and he and Redclaws could each fight at least three dragons at a time. And one of them was very small, as he could tell from its light footsteps.

"Why don't we just fight the dragons, instead of hiding from them?" Whiteswirl asked, annoyed, after coming back through the vines and nearly knocking them all down. He had just come back from hunting.

"We will," Redclaws replied, smiling slyly. "But not in the day. They have more of an advantage then. They will eventually get desperate enough to look for us at night. When they do, we will be able to kill them easily. Or they might just give up again, and we won't have to worry about them anymore."

Whiteswirl nodded, satisfied with Redclaws's plan. He wanted to fight those dragons, and was glad that the reason they had not already was not because Redclaws thought they would lose.

For the first time since he had found his cavern, Whiteswirl voluntarily chose not spend the rest of the night there. He was too busy planning out battle strategies in his head, and the peaceful, beautiful cavern was not the place for that. Throughout the night, he thought out different battle moves that the other dragons might make, and how he could counter them. He also considered how he could use the terrain in different areas–how he could knock down a loose stalactite if they fought in the cave, or hide behind the trees to ambush the dragons if they fought in the forest. By the end of the night, Whiteswirl had gone through hundreds of different scenarios, and decided what he would do in them.

Redclaws seemed pleased that he was not in his cavern like he usually was, and was in the entrance cavern instead, though she did not know why Whiteswirl had chosen to be there. Maybe she thought that he had gotten bored of his cavern, and had finally decided that it was not a good place for a Vampire to be after all

The night was soon over, and Whiteswirl and Redclaws fell asleep, Whiteswirl dreaming of the coming battle between them and the six other dragons.

CHAPTER NINETEEN: AMBUSH

Waveripple went back to keep looking for the Vampire the next day. They did more battle practice, and found a few new caves, but with no trace of a Vampire dragon. This went on for a few weeks, with all of them except for Stormcloud doing battle practice first, and then searching for caves for the rest of the day. They also started looking for other possible dragon homes that were not caves, but still did not find the Vampire.

After a few more days, Stormcloud and Nightsky started considering looking for the Vampire at night. That would be more risky, because the Vampire would actually be awake, and they would not be able to surprise it. But they thought that if they were able to look for the Vampire for a longer period of time, they might be able to find it. At first, they decided against searching in the night. But as more weeks went by, and summer was almost over, the six dragons started to reconsider. The days were slowly becoming short again, and the nights longer. That gave them less time to search each day before it became dark. In the last week of summer, the six dragons finally decided that they would look for the Vampire at night.

On this first night of searching, Waveripple, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes jumped at any little noise. Waveripple thought that every shadow might be the Vampire's, and that it could be hiding behind any tree. Any soft noise might be their only warning before they were attacked.

But after a few more nights went by, they still had not found the Vampire. Now Waveripple wished that every noise really was the Vampire, and that it would attack them, so that this would finally end. But still they could not find the Vampire.

The six dragons decided to look again in the caves they had already found, to see if they had missed the Vampire's cave before. There were a lot of caves that they had already found to search again, but since they already knew where they were, they were able to check them all again within two weeks.

By then all the dragons, especially Waveripple, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes, had started to lose hope of ever finding the Vampire. They had searched all this time, for all these months, without a trace of the Vampire. There had not even been any more disappearances. If it were just Waveripple and his first two friends who were looking for the Vampire, they probably would have given up. But Stormcloud, Nightsky, and Streampebble insisted that they keep looking. The Forest dragon, Oakleaf, had been their friend, and they wanted to avenge him.

The dragons continued to search for the Vampire, at day and at night. It got later in the year, and the nights became longer than the days. They occasionally rechecked the caves and cliffs that they had already found, and one night they noticed something different.

One of the cliffs, which had had vines growing all over it, now had about only half of its vines left. The six dragons flew down and landed to get a closer look at the cave.

There was a cave that they had not noticed before, which the vines had blocked them from seeing. When they came closer, Waveripple noticed that there was dragon scent around it. After taking a few more steps, he could tell what kind of dragon scent it was–Vampire dragon scent. The five other dragons had also noticed, and were approaching the cave slowly and cautiously.

Stormcloud was in the front, and reached the cave first. "It's empty," he said. The other dragons relaxed some, except for Nightsky.

"We have to make sure that they're not just deeper in the cave," Nightsky said. She walked into the cave and started looking around.

Waveripple approached the cave and looked inside. There were a few tunnels, one of which was a dead end for sure. He did not see any dragon other than his friends.

"We'll wait for it here," Nightsky said. "When it comes back to its cave, we'll attack it."

Streampebble nodded. She stood near the entrance to the cave, preparing to jump out at the Vampire when it approached.

Stormcloud, Nightsky, Streampebble, Indigowings, Emeraldeyes, and Waveripple waited tensely for about an hour. They all stayed near the entrance, but none of them were standing where they could be seen if a dragon looked into the cave. They stood just around the corner of the entrance.

They heard wings flapping and froze. Suddenly, a dragon flew down from the sky and landed outside the cave. It was a dark gray dragon, and Waveripple was sure that it was the Vampire. He knew that female Vampires were gray, and males were black. She had yellow eyes and two dangerous-looking horns on her head. Her claws were the sharpest things that Waveripple had ever seen.

The sky suddenly filled with stormy clouds, and it started to rain lightly. Waveripple guessed that Stormcloud was going to try to make lightning hit the Vampire.

The Vampire entered the cave too quickly for Stormcloud to do anything. If he made lightning strike too close to the cave, they might all get hit by it. The Vampire noticed the six dragons, although they had been out of immediate view. Waveripple realized that she must have smelled them. So much for their ambush. The Vampire seemed completely undisturbed by the fact that she was up against six other dragons. She sprang at Nightsky, who was one of the dragons closest to the cave entrance.

Nightsky dodged by jumping backwards into one of the tunnels. Then the Vampire turned to Indigowings, who was now closest to her. She sprang at him and grabbed him with her claws. She was about to bite his neck and kill him when Stormcloud slammed into her, knocking her away.

The Vampire turned towards Stormcloud and pounced at him faster than he could dodge. She landed on top of him, pinning him to the ground. Before anyone could do anything, the Vampire bit down on Stormcloud's neck.

"No!" Indigowings shouted. Roaring, he pounced on top of the Vampire, and all the other dragons attacked as well.

The Vampire breathed fire at all five dragons, making them jump back from her. She kept breathing fire in their direction, so they ran down one of the tunnels. The tunnel they chose, luckily, was not a dead end, but it was very long. At the end was a cavern Waveripple, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes had been in before. It was the same cavern they had found after the earthquake, the one with a small hole in the ceiling. Waveripple just barely had time to notice this when another dragon jumped out at them from the only exit tunnel.

This new dragon was black, but otherwise looked exactly the same as the female Vampire that was chasing them. They were trapped now, with this Vampire on one side and the other coming into the tunnel after them.

The new Vampire roared ferociously and crouched down. He looked around at the different dragons as if deciding which to attack first. Waveripple noticed that he was looking at Emeraldeyes, a second before he jumped at her. Emeraldeyes was small enough that she could fly up into the air away from him. She had enough room to in this cavern, while the others did not. The Vampire landed on the ground where she used to be and looked up.

The first Vampire was fighting Nightsky and Streampebble at the same time. They looked like they did not need help, so Waveripple lunged at the second Vampire. He stepped to the side and pushed Waveripple forward, into the stream that ran through the cavern. Then he roared angrily again.

Waveripple stood up in the water, which was shallow enough that it did not even reach his chest, and crouched down to spring at the Vampire. But the Vampire jumped at him first, dunking him under the water and making him crash into the rocks on the side of the stream.

Feeling dizzy, Waveripple tried to get up, but the Vampire had him pinned to the bottom of the water. Waveripple's wings retracted into his body, and his gills opened to allow him to breathe. In his water form, Waveripple continued to struggle against the Vampire, but he could not move. Then the Vampire's weight on top of him was gone, and Waveripple surfaced, looking around.

He saw that Indigowings had attacked the Vampire and made him get off. Emeraldeyes was darting around, occasionally getting close enough to the Vampire to bite him. That did not do very much damage to the Vampire, but at least it was distracting him.

Waveripple got out of the water and tackled the Vampire, knocking him to the ground. The Vampire clawed Waveripple with his razor-sharp claws and shoved Waveripple off of him. Indigowings then jumped on top of the Vampire.

Waveripple looked around to decide who needed help the most. Nightsky was still fighting the first Vampire, but Streampebble was lying on the ground, bleeding. She was either unconscious or dead. Nightsky was doing pretty well against the Vampire so far, so Waveripple decided to keep helping Indigowings and Emeraldeyes.

He stalked towards the Vampire, who was now backing away down the tunnel that he had blocked them from escaping through. Indigowings and Emeraldeyes were also moving forward towards him. Then the Vampire turned and ran down the tunnel.

Waveripple, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes turned around to help Nightsky. The three of them pounced at the female Vampire, but she was a much better fighter than the other Vampire had been. She knocked Emeraldeyes out of the air with a wing. Emeraldeyes lay on the ground, looking dazed but not very hurt.

Just then, the other Vampire came back into the cavern. Indigowings turned back to him and pounced, and Waveripple came to help. The Vampire started backing down the exit tunnel again. Waveripple and Indigowings chased after him to make sure that he was really retreating this time. A few minutes later, Emeraldeyes came down the tunnel also. The Vampire kept scratching at them but then backing off before they could attack back.

Waveripple started running more quickly after the Vampire. Indigowings and Emeraldeyes also picked up their speed. The Vampire turned around and ran, with Waveripple, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes chasing after him.

The Vampire suddenly stopped running through the tunnels and turned around. They were in another cavern now, with an exit to the whole cave on the other side of them, being blocked once more by this Vampire.

Indigowings jumped at the Vampire, but this cavern was large enough that he could fly up out of the way. Indigowings, Emeraldeyes and Waveripple, who was now completely in his land form, flew up after him.

The Vampire, having flown up first, was higher than them. He grabbed on to a stalactite in the ceiling, which came loose. The Vampire then let go of it, and it fell down towards Indigowings. Indigowings flew to the side, and the stalactite crashed harmlessly to the ground.

Waveripple did not know how the Vampire and Indigowings could see each other well enough to fight. Both were such a deep black that only their yellow eyes could be seen in the darkness.

The Vampire then sent another stalactite crashing down. This one was over Waveripple's head, so he flew to the side. It smashed into the ground.

Waveripple, Indigowings and Emeraldeyes had flown up to the Vampire by now, and he was too busy fighting them to break off more stalactites.

After a few minutes, the female Vampire and Nightsky also came into the cavern. Nightsky looked weakened, and seemed to be injured more than the Vampire.

Waveripple flew down to help Nightsky, jumping at the Vampire dragon. The Vampire kicked him away with one of her front feet, scratching him at the same time.

Waveripple heard three light thuds from behind him. He turned to see that Indigowings, Emeraldeyes, and the Vampire had landed on the ground. There was not enough space for them to be able to fight well in the air. Then Waveripple heard a crash behind him, and turned around again. The Vampire had tried to jump at him when he had turned away, but Nightsky had blocked her, so the Vampire crashed into Nightsky instead.

Waveripple jumped at the Vampire again, landing on top of her. Nightsky started clawing the Vampire. The Vampire scratched both of them, and tried to stab them with her scorpion-like tail. Waveripple pinned her tail down so that she could not stab them with it.

Then the Vampire breathed fire at Nightsky's face, making her jump back. The Vampire turned towards Waveripple, still breathing fire, so he also moved back quickly. He heard at least two sets of wings flapping behind him, but he did not turn to see who it was.

Indigowings suddenly jumped in front of Waveripple and started breathing fire at the Vampire. Both of their flames clashed in the middle, but the Vampire's fire was stronger, and started pushing Indigowings's flames back.

Waveripple also started breathing fire at the Vampire, and Nightsky and Emeraldeyes joined in. Waveripple wondered briefly why Indigowings and Emeraldeyes had stopped fighting the other Vampire. He hoped that they had killed him or chased him away.

With four dragons breathing fire at her, the Vampire backed away. She was still breathing fire back, but no dragon could do that forever. She had started breathing fire before any of them had, so she would get too tired to continue before any of them did. Or at least, that was what Waveripple hoped.

The fire of the four dragons against the Vampire's fire pushed it backwards towards her, almost as fast as she was backing away from it.

Suddenly, Indigowings stopped breathing fire. Waveripple worried for a second that he had gotten too tired to continue, but then he flew straight at the Vampire. While she was busy trying to keep the other dragons' flames away from her, Indigowings attacked. He jumped on top of her, roaring loudly, and sent her crashing to the ground. Then he bit down hard on her neck. The Vampire stopped moving, and the fire that she was breathing disappeared.

The three dragons still breathing fire at her stopped.

"She's dead," Indigowings said. He seemed shocked; after all, he had never killed a dragon before. But he also sounded satisfied. He had gotten to avenge the death of his friend, Stormcloud.

Waveripple looked around for the body of the other Vampire, but did not find it.

"Where's the other Vampire?" Waveripple asked urgently.

"He flew away," Emeraldeyes said. "He was injured, and we chased him some to make sure that he was not planning to sneak back."

"We beat the Vampires," Waveripple said, surprised and triumphant at the same time. "Now no more dragons will be killed by them."

"One of the Vampires just flew away," Nightsky reminded him.

Trying to keep his optimism, Waveripple said, "But one of them is dead, and the other is gone."

"But Stormcloud was killed," Indigowings said, sounding grief-stricken.

Waveripple suddenly remembered Streampebble. "Is Streampebble all right?" he asked.

"I think so," Nightsky replied. "She was knocked out, but she did not have any serious injuries."

"We should go back with her," Emeraldeyes said, walking back through the tunnel. The other three followed her to the cavern where the battle had taken place.

There was blood splattered over a lot of the cavern. When he had first seen it, Waveripple remembered thinking that the cavern was beautiful. Now it was horrifying, with all the blood.

Streampebble was lying on the ground with her eyes open. She seemed to be okay, except for a few cuts that did not look deep. She got up slowly, appearing dizzy.

"Did we win?" Streampebble asked. "Are the Vampires dead?"

"One of them is," Indigowings replied. "The one who killed Stormcloud. But the other Vampire escaped."

"Are you all right?" Emeraldeyes asked Stream-pebble.

"Yes, I think so," Streampebble replied, standing up. "I have a terrible headache, but I don't think I have any serious injuries."

"Good," Emeraldeyes said, looking relieved.

"Now we have to go bury Stormcloud," Indigowings said quietly, his voice sounding like it was about to break.

The other dragons followed him down the tunnel to where they had first come in. Stormcloud's body was lying on the ground, with a lot of blood on and around him. Indigowings walked up to him slowly and tried to lift him up to carry him out of the cave.

Nightsky and Streampebble went over to help, and the three of them carried Stormcloud out of the cave. Waveripple and Emeraldeyes would have helped, but the other three were being able to carry him by themselves. More dragons trying to help would have made it take longer.

The five dragons walked through the forest until they came to a cave that Waveripple had not seen before.

"This is where Stormcloud lived," Indigowings said. "So I think we should bury him here, right outside the cave."

Waveripple nodded. No one said anything; they just started digging a hole to bury him in.

When the hole was deep enough, they laid Stormcloud's body down inside it. Indigowings did not say anything at Stormcloud's funeral; he seemed at a loss for words. None of the other dragons said anything either.

They finished burying Stormcloud. Just then, it started to rain. The storm clouds that Stormcloud had made to try to help in the battle were giving off their water. It rained lightly for a few minutes; then the sky cleared, like it had been before Stormcloud had made the clouds.

The dragons agreed to look for the other Vampire again the next evening, since it was already night now. They all went back to their homes, thinking of Stormcloud. Waveripple had not really known him much, but he knew that he was a great, noble dragon. He had given his life for someone else.

~~~

As time had gone by, Whiteswirl had gotten impatient for the battle. He and Redclaws removed the vines from the cave entrance one night, and planned out their ambush. Redclaws would chase the six dragons deeper into the cave when they arrived, and Whiteswirl would be waiting to block off their path.

It took a few nights for the dragons to come back to the cliff. At first, Whiteswirl did not even know that they had come. He and Redclaws were out hunting when the other dragons went into the cave, probably planning a pathetic ambush of their own. Redclaws had noticed them when she flew past the cave, and told Whiteswirl to go into the cave from one of the other entrances, and to get ready to block the dragons.

Whiteswirl stayed just outside his cavern, waiting for the dragons to be chased in. He did not plan to let the battle take place in his cavern; he would walk through it to block the dragons at the end of the tunnel instead.

After a few minutes, five dragons came running down the tunnel. They came faster than Whiteswirl had expected them to, so he was not able to stop them from entering his cavern. Redclaws must have already killed the Storm dragon. The remaining dragons were a Tiger dragon, a Dwarf dragon, a Wind dragon, a Dusk dragon, and an Amphibian dragon.

Whiteswirl ran into the cavern to stop them from getting any farther. He roared at them, angry that the battle would have to take place inside his beautiful cavern, where he had thought that there could only be peace. He crouched down and looked at the approaching dragons, deciding which one to attack.

The Dwarf dragon would be the easiest to kill, so Whiteswirl jumped at her. The Dwarf seemed to disappear; he did not know where she went. He looked up and saw that she had flown above him.

The Amphibian dragon pounced at Whiteswirl. He just stepped to the side and pushed the Amphibian away from him, accidentally pushing him into the stream. Whiteswirl roared angrily again. It was bad enough that they would fight in his cavern without fighting in the stream, too.

Then the Amphibian crouched down, and was about to jump at him again, but Whiteswirl pounced first. He tried to push him across the water and out of it, but he just managed to slam him into the side of the stream instead.

The Amphibian dragon tried to get up, but he was too weak to push Whiteswirl off him. Another dragon bit into his wing and yanked on it. Snarling, Whiteswirl turned to face his attacker, which turned out to be the Dusk. Up close, he recognized the Dusk as the hatchling he had found in a cave when he and Redclaws were looking for a new cave. He was an adult now, but Whiteswirl knew that he was the same dragon.

The Dwarf darted down at Whiteswirl and bit his head. For a dragon her size, she was surprisingly strong; it felt as if a much larger dragon had bitten him. The little Dwarf kept darting down and trying to bite him, while Whiteswirl attempted to bat her out of the air.

The Amphibian suddenly jumped at Whiteswirl. Whiteswirl scratched him with his claws, and then kicked him away. The Dusk jumped on Whiteswirl then, so he also scratched him, aiming for his belly.

Once he had gotten the Dusk away from him, Whiteswirl started backing down the tunnel. He did not want the battle to continue for another minute in his cavern, so he tried to lead these three dragons down the tunnel. It was working so far; the Dusk, Dwarf, and Amphibian were all following him.

Whiteswirl turned and ran down the tunnel, trying to make them chase after him. After he had run a few dozen feet, Whiteswirl noticed that there were no footsteps behind him. He looked back and saw that he was not being followed. Hissing in annoyance, he turned and ran back into his cavern.

When he arrived, the three dragons who had been fighting him were fighting Redclaws. The Dwarf was lying on the ground, but did not look seriously injured. The Wind was also on the ground, knocked out.

Redclaws was not losing against the three dragons still fighting her, but the Dusk apparently thought she was. He stopped helping the others to pounce at Whiteswirl again. The Amphibian also came to help the Dusk.

Whiteswirl backed towards the tunnel again. The Dusk and Amphibian started following.

This time, he would make sure that they followed him. He kept reaching out his front feet to claw or kick them, and then moving out of their reach. The Dwarf got up and followed the others down the tunnel.

The three dragons started running towards Whiteswirl, so he turned and ran back down the tunnel. When he got to another cavern, this one near a tunnel that led to another cave exit, Whiteswirl stopped running. This was where he wanted to fight.

The Dusk lunged at Whiteswirl, so he flew up to dodge him. His three pursuers flew up after him.

Whiteswirl grabbed a stalactite and held onto it, using his weight to drag it down. Then he let go, and it fell towards the Dusk, who dodged it easily. He decided to try to make a stalactite land on the Amphibian instead, so he flew to one that was right above his head. He knocked it down, but this one was harder to move than the last one, so the Amphibian had time to move out of the way.

By then, the three dragons had flown up to Whiteswirl, and they began an air battle. Then Redclaws and the Tiger came down the tunnel and were also battling in this cavern.

The Amphibian flew down to help the Tiger. Whiteswirl landed on the ground, where there was more space to move, and the Dusk and Dwarf also landed.

The cavern suddenly lit up as Redclaws started breathing fire. Then the Dusk bit Whiteswirl's wing again, refusing to let go. Screeching, Whiteswirl tried to kick the Dusk away, but he stayed out of range, not letting go of his wing. He stabbed the Dusk with his tail, forcing him to let go.

The Dusk and Dwarf were advancing on Whiteswirl, so he kicked at the Dusk. The Dusk bit his foot hard, breaking some of his bones. Whiteswirl kicked the Dusk's chest with his other foot. Then he turned and flew out of the cave. He could not go very fast, because his wing was torn, and he heard the Dusk and Dwarf chasing after him. He flew as fast as he could, and they stopped chasing him, going back to the cave to fight Redclaws.

Whiteswirl kept flying for a little while, and then circled back. He landed in a large oak tree where he could hear what was going on in the cave.

He heard fire-breathing for quite a while, and then a loud roar. He was injured too much to go back to help Redclaws, but he did not think that she needed help. After the roar, which was definitely not made by Redclaws, everything quieted down.

Whiteswirl landed softly on the ground and slowly walked towards the cave. He heard the voices of his enemies, which he could not understand. He knew what they were saying, of course, but had they actually won against Redclaws? Had she flown away, planning to come back to fight them again later, when they were not expecting it? Or was she injured, needing his help?

The voices stopped, and Whiteswirl heard footsteps. Four dragons were walking back down the tunnel, toward his cavern. He walked into the cave, intending to stop them, but then he froze. He saw Redclaws lying on the ground. She was completely motionless, not even breathing.

Whiteswirl stared at the dead body of Redclaws for a long time, too shocked to move. How had those four dragons actually beaten Redclaws? Especially since one of them was a Dwarf, it would have been almost impossible. Redclaws could take on more dragons than that and still win. So how could she be lying there, unmoving and dead?

Shaking off the shock of Redclaws's death, Whiteswirl went down the tunnel to his cavern. He had to make sure that their attackers were gone before doing anything else. He just walked past his empty cavern as if in a trance, not noticing anything. He kept going back to the main cavern that he and Redclaws had lived in. All the dragons were gone, but he knew that Redclaws had killed one of them. He could smell death near the entrance; he was right when he guessed that Redclaws had killed the Storm.

There was a lot of blood in this cavern, but Whiteswirl hardly noticed it. He did not really care.

After making sure that the dragons were not in the forest nearby, Whiteswirl went back into his own cavern. He looked around the once beautiful cavern, which was now ruined. There was blood everywhere, and some of the crystals had been knocked out of the walls. The cavern was not such a perfect place anymore.

Then Whiteswirl slowly walked back to the third cavern that they had been fighting in, where Redclaws's body was lying on the ground. Sniffing her body, he discerned that the smell of the Dusk dragon was strongest, especially on the wound in her neck. It was the Dusk that had killed her, then.

Whiteswirl took Redclaws's body outside and buried her by the cave entrance, as soon as he had reached soil that he could actually dig in. As he buried her, it started raining, but it soon stopped.

Whiteswirl was still too shocked to take in everything that had happened. But it was getting light again, so he went back into the cave to fall asleep. He chose to go into a cavern that there had not been any fighting in. It was easier to sleep there.

CHAPTER TWENTY: BITTERSWEET VICTORY

The next morning, Waveripple decided to tell his parents all about the Vampire dragons–how they had been looking for them for so long, and about the battle that had happened when they found them. Splashsail and especially Flowerwater were shocked that he had fought Vampires, but glad that he had not been seriously hurt.

"We moved here so that you would be safe from Vampires," Flowerwater said, "but you just go looking for them anyway!"

"I had to help; they would have kept killing other dragons if we had not found them," Waveripple said.

"It's good that you helped," Splashsail said. "But please don't go into any more battles."

"Yes, don't fight any more dragons," Flowerwater said. "I couldn't stand it if we lost you."

"Okay, I won't," Waveripple said. "But one of the Vampires did get away. What if he comes back and tries to kill us? I would have to join up with my friends again to fight him."

"That would be understandable," Splashsail said, "but if that does happen, tell us, so that we can help you."

Flowerwater hesitated, and then nodded in agreement with what Splashsail had said.

"I will," Waveripple promised.

In the evening, he went into the forest to visit his friends again. Nightsky, Streampebble, and Emeraldeyes were all in Indigowings's cave with him when Waveripple arrived.

Indigowings was still depressed because of Stormcloud's death. Stormcloud had been Indigowings's first friend since moving to this forest, and the dragon that he had known the longest, ever since he was a very young hatchling. Stormcloud had been like Indigowings's father. Waveripple could not imagine what it would be like if one of his parents died, but both of Indigowings's had, plus Stormcloud.

The five dragons had won against the Vampires, so they were all happy. But their happiness was tainted heavily by the death of Stormcloud. Their victory did not seem complete without him.

A few months passed by, and they did not see the other Vampire again. There had been no missing dragons during those months, either. Maybe, if they were lucky, the Vampire had died of his injuries. But more than likely, he had just left, and dragons were still being killed by him somewhere else.

For now, as long as they did not see the Vampire again, the five dragons rejoiced over their victory. They had killed one of the Vampires, the one who had killed Stormcloud, avenging his death. No more dragons would ever be harmed by her.

EPILOGUE

Whiteswirl never found out if Redclaws had cared about him. Vampire dragons did not speak of their emotions, never saying if they loved or even liked each other, so it was hard to tell. But Whiteswirl had admired Redclaws, and without her, he would just be a normal, weak water-type dragon. She had changed the course of his whole life when she had bitten his egg, and it had not been a bad change, as far as he was concerned.

If all that the attacking dragons had done was killing Redclaws, Whiteswirl still would have tracked them down and taken revenge on them. He would find each of them, one by one, and kill the dragon they cared about most. Then he would kill them.

But they had ruined his whole way of life when they had attacked. His beautiful cavern was ruined, with blood everywhere. He was not safe living in his own home anymore, because they already knew about it, and would have come back to kill him if he had stayed there, probably while he was sleeping during the day. Whiteswirl had had to find a new cave to live in. This one was much smaller, and there were no beautiful caverns in it; he had explored the whole thing. Nothing even came close to his former cavern.

Because of those six dragons, Whiteswirl had to find a new home, his cavern was ruined, and, most importantly, Redclaws was dead. Everything was so different without her. He did not even feel safe anymore. When she had been alive, he had been certain that the two of them could take on a large group of dragons and win. But they had lost. By himself, he could only fight a few dragons. And in the time that it took to recover from the battle, he was even more vulnerable.

As time went by, a plan of revenge came into Whiteswirl's head. He would go after the Wind dragon first, and kill all her friends, of the ones who had not been in the battle. If she had any eggs, he would change them into Vampires, so that her babies would become something that she abhorred. He would kill any and all hatchlings that she had, making sure that there was no one left that she cared about. Then he would kill her, after letting her suffer the loss of her friends for a while. Afterwards, he would do the exact same thing to all the other dragons. He would go after the Tiger, then the Dwarf, then the Amphibian, and last the Dusk. Or he might do it in a different order, but he would still save the Dusk for last.

In any case, Whiteswirl would have his revenge.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elizabeth Westphal lives in Minnesota. This is her first book, which she wrote when she was 14 as a NaNoWriMo project. For updates on upcoming books, visit her website: http://elizabethwestphal.blogspot.com
