The next few days passed by somewhat uneventfully. Autumn, Mournful, and Micah slept in one room of the town’s inn, while Cody, Omen, Avalsmokes, Destiny, and Ashheart slept in another. Unfortunately, Inferno was forced to sleep outside wherever he could, often trying several different spots throughout the night because of the noise, activity, or being too far from his rider.

During the day, Cody forced himself and his dragon to stay in the town, though it seemed to do no good. People were intimidated by the large black ‘brute’ and few came close to either of them. The only ones who did come near were Xia and no more than five others, all adults and still slightly wary. More than half the time Cody felt a pouting snarl forcing itself to the surface, the resulting scowl making him appear even more threatening. He knew it, but what would be the point to fix his attitude? Inferno was only slightly less irritable.

As for what the others did, Cody had no clue. A glimmer of gold there, a flash of white here, but he didn’t care enough to look anymore. He spent a lot of time thinking with Inferno, which helped him to uncover the problem slightly. They were eager to find out more about their newly discovered power of teleportation. It seemed oddly different from the other dragons’ abilities, but there was no way to have the question answered until they got back to The Hidden Mountain Pass. With luck, the others would be willing to leave soon.

On the fourth day, Cody was sitting outside the inn with Inferno’s head lying limp beside his knee, both of them as bored and irritable as ever as the sun began to rise above the treetops. That was when Omen gestured through a window for him to come inside again. With a sigh, Cody stood and walked through the door, ignoring Inferno’s many complaints. He followed the wolf rider through a hallway until they walked into a more secluded room, the only things occupying the space being a small table and four chairs. Cody brightened slightly when he saw only Ashheart and Mournful there. Somehow he felt that he could trust those three beings the most in the world, besides Inferno.

“What is this about?” Cody asked as he slid into one of the chairs, berating himself silently when he realized how rude it sounded.

Omen settled into a chair, looking almost as irritable as Cody. “I get it; these past few days have been…less than pleasant. The five of us all want to get out of here as soon as we possibly can, but Autumn, Aval, and their dragons are having the times of their lives and I doubt we can leave now.”

“Cody…” Inferno suddenly growled quietly from outside, but Cody ignored him.

“So what do you suggest?” Cody snapped, his patience wearing out by the second.

Mournful sighed, “Omen said there was this cave that the two of you searched a long time ago and he wants to visit it again.”

“What are we waiting for!?” Cody asked, suddenly excited as he recalled the dark tunnels.

Omen’s eyes lit up with enthusiasm before he answered, “I need to get some more kindling for the torches and find the ones that we have left. I need you all to wait outside while I get it.”

“Cody…”

“No problem!” Cody announced as he stood and began walking to the door.

The others joined him in a race for the exit. Cody was finally feeling something besides boredom and loathing for the first time in a while and all of his happier emotions burst forth abruptly with the news.

This time, Cody heard the urgency in his dragon’s voice, “Cody!”

The smile was wiped right off of Cody’s face at the note of worry in Inferno’s tone. He burst from the door and drew his sword instantly as he peered around the houses and neighboring buildings for whatever it was Inferno was scared of. When the plea came once more, he looked up into Inferno’s frosty blue eyes and saw a tiny flake of white drift onto his muzzle.

“Ashes raining from the sky!” Inferno cried, shaking the snowflake from his nose as he leapt away. “We have to find its source!”

Cody looked at his dragon for several long moments before a laugh burst from his lips. He crumpled to the ground in an explosion of laughter and tears crept into his eyes. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t stop laughing. Finally, when his sides felt like they were on fire and he struggled to get enough air, he looked up to meet the dragon’s serious and terrified gaze.

“There is no fire, in fact I don’t know how you would guess they were ashes, of all things.” Cody stuck his tongue out to catch a snowflake on it, where it quickly melted away. “They’re snowflakes.”

“Snowflakes?”

“Yes, snowflakes. I can’t believe you don’t know what snowflakes are,” Cody said as a chuckle escaped him, but realizing that it hurt too much he forced the rest back.

Inferno snorted, his pride hurt, before he retorted, “Ever since I was born, all we really ever talked about was warfare and fire, at least as far as I’ve heard. After studying fires and seeing their ashes fall like this, what was I supposed to think? And you never mentioned snow before, I’m certain of it.”

“What’s going on?” Mournful startled Cody out of his conversation with Inferno, her voice laced with concern. Omen and Ashheart evidently left already.

Cody smiled before answering, “Inferno has never heard of or seen snowflakes, even after living in the mountains. He thought they were ashes!”

“Be nice to Inferno! In his defense, all of the mountains in the rider territory in Mrana Akano Furista have no snow. The only time he would have seen it was when the two of you ventured out and found me, and then you weren’t focused at all on the mountaintops.” As the gryphon spoke, Inferno lowered his head and she ran a practiced hand around his brow and traced the way down to his chin, which was when he let out a quiet grumble of pleasure.

Cody rolled his eyes, unwilling to admit she had a point. “At least it’s the first snow! Inferno won’t camouflage well, but I’m sure he’ll love the snow once it comes more.”

“Most dragons love cold,” Mournful agreed, displaying only a fraction of her vast dragon knowledge.

Cody abandoned the last subject and asked, “How do you know so much about dragons?”

Mournful shrugged, “I used to be best friends with a dragon when there were,” she paused to count on her fingers, “Nine dragons and riders in all. I think when Argos and Heyrone came together there were only two others; they were the last of a dying race. I knew all nine of the dragons well enough, so I believe that as far as the diversity of dragons goes, I know far more than Bluescales could hope to learn.”

“Wow,” Cody breathed, and even Inferno looked interested. “How diverse did they come?”

Mournful chuckled, “More so than you could imagine. Every color you could possibly imagine, in every shape you can imagine: Wyrms, Wyverns, and Drakes. No two dragons were even remotely the same in more way than one.”

“Wyrms, Wyverns, and Drakes?” Cody asked, confused.

“Those are the different names for dragons,” Mournful explained, her eyes alight with pride in her knowledge. “Inferno, Argos, Micah, and Destiny are all Drakes: meaning they have at least four legs and a pair of wings, and they can breathe fire. Wyverns are a bit different. They have two legs and a pair of wings, some of which can use their wings as forepaws and crawl around on claws on their wings. Instead of breathing fire, they shoot quills and spikes, and they usually have nasty barbed tails.

“Last are the Wyrms, the rarest of the three. They are more snakes than dragons, but the occasional few have legs and wings. I never saw one, but it is believed that Wyrms can’t breathe fire, instead they have venom, toxic breath, or can possibly pour poison from their skin that only their riders and themselves are immune to. They seem to be more legend than reality, but I have no doubt they exist, even if stories are exaggerated some.”

Before Cody could say anything else, Ashheart sped up to them with Omen and a large sack of metal pieces clanking on his back. When he reached them, the wolf was very out of breath and his long pink tongue slipped from his mouth. His head lowered to the ground and he panted for several moments while his rider slid from his back and untied the load.

“Me or Inferno could have teleported you, if it’s that much trouble,” Cody said, sympathetic towards the usually energetic Wargal.

Omen shook his head as he hefted the bag over to Cody and answered, “No, word of what Inferno supposedly said has already reached the far corners of town, and seeing the five of us disappearing in a puff of smoke would only frighten them more. But it would be helpful if you helped me carry this bag to the edge of town, and then teleport us.”

Inferno grunted in response and gripped the mouth of the bag in his teeth. As he lifted his head, there was the faint sound of cloth tearing, but the bag held as the dragon slowly carried it away. His long tail dragged across the dirt, forcing dust into the air with every step until they made it to the tree line and it began to pass over grass and shrubs instead.

When everyone stopped and looked at him, Cody closed his eyes and imagined all of them, including himself, standing right inside the entrance of the cave. He put emphasis on the idea, pouring his thoughts into it for a few moments. After a short time, everything around them became slightly darker, and the birdsong seemed to change and fade to a slightly quieter point. He opened his eyes, and let out a deep breath, awed by what he was capable of.

“Well, we’re here!” Omen announced loudly, more for the sake of hearing his voice echo than anything else.

“That we are,” Mournful said with a chuckle. Without warning, she put her hands on the floor and feathery white and black hair sprouted all over her body. Her fingers shortened into razor-like talons, a golden beak sprouted from her changing face, and two large white wings grew from her back. The gryphon was suddenly almost as tall as Cody, and definitely much stronger.

In the few short seconds that it took, Omen had already lit the first lantern and was heading for the second. Cody decided to follow along silently, eager to relive the first trip he had taken into the cave when Inferno was younger. Surprisingly, he felt much more attached to the cave, as if he had lived there his entire life. It mentally echoed with the presence of something that had resided there for centuries. Cody had not noticed the presence until then, but he was certain that it had always been there in the tunnel. He looked at the sides of the walls, and once again noticed the deep gouges in certain spots. They were strangely familiar.

“I think dragons must have made this tunnel,” Cody said in realization.

Mournful chuckled, “You didn’t realize that until now? You can still hear the voices of the lost ones.”

“Lost ones?”

“Those that have died before their time, likely dragon eggs or hatchlings. It saddens me to hear them, but it is also comforting for me to know that no matter what happens, these ghosts of the past will continue guide us along so that we don’t make the same mistakes,” Mournful said with an awed tone of voice.

Cody listened intently to the voices in an attempt to understand what she did, but all he got was bitter sadness that crept over his heart at the sound, though it wasn’t a sound. The voices were in his head alone, giving out weak pleas for help.

“We must have been too busy to notice them before,” Cody commented to Inferno alone.

In the darkness where the dragon led, he just barely saw the two icy orbs that were Inferno’s eyes drop once, showing that he agreed. He could feel his dragon’s sorrow almost as well as his own as it washed over their link. He brought his sleeve up just in time to wipe away the beginnings of a tear before anyone else could notice.

“What was that sound?” Inferno suddenly growled as Omen lit another torch.

Cody strained to listen. At first he heard nothing, but after about a minute, he could just barely notice a sort of scraping sound, similar to the sound that Inferno’s tail made as each individual scale slid across the rocky ground. The only noticeable difference was that it also gave a thudding crack to go with it. It sounds as if someone is trying to break open a bone with rocks, he thought to himself.

Hearing him, Inferno growled, “You got the bones part right.”

Just as Cody was about to inquire further, he noticed a long white line on the stone about ten feet in front of Inferno. The line twitched before slowly sliding over the ground towards Inferno. Part of it rose off the ground a few feet and it let out a hiss, chilling Cody to his own bones. It was a snake skeletar, and despite being dead, thick, gooey venom dripped from its fangs. Inferno snarled and smacked it aside with one paw. The snake shattered into a thousand fragments of bone against the wall and all signs of “life” vanished from its body.

When Inferno took another step forward, a deer and a badger crawled from the darkness and threatened him in their own ways. Inferno raised a paw to strike, but Cody felt fear creep through the dragon as he froze. The cave erupted with the snarls and growls of a hundred animals, most of which Cody had never even heard before.

“Run!” Inferno roared to his companions.

A black shape crashed into Cody, and he felt something lock into his shirt. The huffing breaths that came from the creature assured Cody that it was Inferno. But still, he struggled against the teeth that held him as Mournful, Ashheart, and Omen disappeared in a sea of pearl-white bones as firelight danced around them. A dozen or so of the monsters broke off and took after the dragon and rider, quickly gaining ground.

Inferno burst from the tunnel, breaking the entrance open wider in a shower of dirt. Just at that moment, Cody’s shirt ripped and Inferno stopped at the same time. The result sent Cody flying a few yards away in the thin layer of freshly-fallen snow. The moment he stood he had no choice but to run, since most of the creatures surrounded Inferno and the rest bolted for Cody. The rider patted his back as he reached for his axe, but he knew the creatures were coming too fast.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Cody raced away from the skeletars, ignoring the whip-like branches when he passed them. Adrenaline coursed through every vein in his body, forcing his legs to move faster than they ever had before. After perhaps a half-mile, he saw four shapes fly overhead and would have sighed with relief if he didn’t need every last breath he had to keep himself moving. Above the barren branches he could see four dragons, black, blue, gold, and white, as they soared overhead.

“How did-”

“Ashheart sent a cry for help to the others that were in the town, and somehow Argos heard it as well,” Inferno answered.

Cody gasped with surprise at how familiar the scene was around him. “This is-”

“Just like your dreams, I know.”

Around the time that Cody had found Inferno’s egg, he had several dreams of running through a similar forest, but sometimes it was a little different. Before Inferno hatched he had dreamed that he was being pursued by dragons. Afterwards, he had a dream that he had chased a shadowy figure off the edge of a cliff. Another one he remembered was when he was the one who fell off the cliff.

He looked up. “I’m not gonna fall-”

Too late.

Cody suddenly looked down at empty air as his legs continued to flail in front of him. He remained calm, knowing that Inferno would be there to catch him. Sure enough, after a dozen or so seconds, Inferno burst from the tree line and sped downwards, his wings folded tight to his body as he accelerated faster even than his rider. In one smooth motion he flipped onto his back and caught Cody in his scaly claws, then flipped over again and opened his wings to their full extent so that the caught the air and the two were forced upwards.

Cody slipped himself out of Inferno’s grasp and skillfully climbed up his leg, and in one kick he swung himself into the saddle, using the wind to propel him upward. He fastened his feet into the odd stirrups and leaned to the side the exact moment that Inferno did so that they spun around to face the cliff. Inferno slowed himself to a stop and his back half was lowered so that he was almost exactly vertical to the ground.

Leaning up, Cody just managed to stay comfortably in the saddle. He peered over Inferno’s shoulder and immediately saw a massive, gaping hole in the cliff-face where Micah’s snow-white tail disappeared in the shadows and Destiny was just landing at the edge. Argos was far too large to do more than stick his head inside, so he sat directly above it on the cliff’s ledge as he looked out at Cody and Inferno expectantly.

            The rider looked back down to the cave and watched in horror as a bear skeletar attack the golden dragon, whose length only slightly exceeded the bear’s. She gave out the mightiest roar she could, but while she was a dragon, her hatchling voice was little more than a startled cry. A massive pearl-white paw crashed down on her neck. Its claws glanced off her natural armor, but a small trickle of blood oozed from under one of the golden plates.

            “Inferno, charge!” Cody cried as he drew his sword and readjusted his helmet.

            The dragon took no time in answering with a vicious roar that echoed off the cliff wall and sent the few remaining birds flying with their own shrieks. With a thunderous pump of his wings, inferno propelled forward at a miraculous speed. Within a score of seconds he plummeted into the heart of the cave and knocked the bear over with one sweep of his wings. The skeletar growled in response and stood again, only to be smashed by a large black paw. Many of the bones snapped in two or more pieces before the faint glow of the beast’s heart died out and the skeletar was no more.

            Inferno swung his head around and sniffed at Destiny’s wounded neck. After deciding that her wounds were not fatal, he turned his head back around and gave out another roar, a roar of challenge. And in no time, he had other opponents answer his call. All kinds of creatures prowled out from the depths of the tunnel at the dragon.

Cody quickly decided that his sword would be of little use, so he sheathed it and took out the axe that he had never before used in battle. Abandoning his fears, he slid from Inferno’s back and used the momentum of the fall to bring the axe down on a cougar. He heard a satisfying series of snaps as the axe broke most of the bones on the creature’s back and obliterated the faintly-glowing heart. As the life of the cougar was gone, the remaining bones clattered to the floor.

            Destiny leaped elegantly over his head and landed roughly on a wolf skeletar, tackling the slightly smaller creature to the ground until the two began to roll around the floor, neither one holding the advantage. Before Cody could respond, Micah jumped out from the darkness with a smug grin in his draconic features and killed the skeletar. The bones collapsed on Destiny. The dragon lay still for a moment as she glared at the result of the fight that Cody guessed she had wanted to face by herself. But a moment later she shook off the bones and leaped into the darkness.

            A thunderous, deafening roar shook the cave from the outside, stopping everyone in their tracks. Argos was calling for them to leave, and while it confused Cody, he shook off his thoughts and climbed back into Inferno’s saddle. His dragon quickly leaped out of the cave and climbed his way through the air and landed beside the elder dragon. First out of the cave was Destiny, but hot on her tail Micah flew, both Autumn and Avalsmokes sitting on his back. Cody felt a breath escape his lungs as a sigh of relief when he saw Ashheart gripped in the white dragon’s claws. Mournful and Omen dropped from the wolf as the dragon landed, and they rolled out of the way just in time to evade his ferocious claws. The snowy dragon’s scornful, piercing gaze lingered on the three for a moment before he turned around and looked at Argos.

            Cody cowered under the blue dragon’s glare; disapproving and disappointed. It landed on every single one of them for an equal amount of time, and each one quickly shrunk under his uncomfortable stare. Lastly he watched Mournful, twice as long as the others, but to Cody’s relief he must have decided that she was perhaps one of Cody’s traveling companions from before, and his gaze roamed over the group as a whole. The scenery soon faded away before Cody’s eyes. Somehow he simply understood that they were being brought back to Mrana Akano Furista. And, sure enough, the massive den belonging to Argos and Heyrone soon replaced the forest at their backs. Heyrone walked out of the depths of the tunnel, and seeing the same stern gaze from the dwarf made Cody bow his head in shame.

            “That was a stupid thing to do,” the elder rider said simply.

            Cody felt small and insignificant as he tried to redeem himself, “I’m sorry, Bluescales. Staying in town would accomplish nothing, so when Omen brought up the cave, I just thought that it would be better for everyone if we took a break.”

            Heyrone sighed and shook his head. “You have a point, and I understand why you did it, but if you were getting bored and were accomplishing nothing, you should have come back to tell Argos or myself. You can’t go poking your nose into parts of Semiones that you don’t understand.”

            “But Bluescales, why did the skeletars attack? Where are they from?” Inferno asked, his long head bowed to the larger dragon.

            Argos growled and projected his thoughts for them all to hear, “We don’t know for sure, but it’s likely that either those skeletars were sent from Merikh before his defeat, or Dongoithu and Faltanar are trying to recover their master’s strength in the cave. Neither is likely, but any other answer is far beyond our understanding.”

            “What’s done is done, I suppose,” Heyrone grumbled. “What did you learn from your trip?”

            Everyone looked at each other in complete confusion for a few moments before Cody replied, “I’m afraid we didn’t really learn anything from our own homes.”

            Heyrone stared at him for several long, uncomfortable moments before saying, “I suppose I should expect that of you. You are all young and probably didn’t understand what to look for.”

            It sounded as though Heyrone was going to continue, but he stopped and looked at Micah with intense interest as the dragon shifted. As if on command, Aval and Autumn slid from his back, and the white dragon stood and looked at Inferno. Cody, Mournful, Omen, and Ashheart backed away from the two, though Cody couldn’t quite understand what compelled him to do so. Only Destiny remained between the two, glaring at Micah curiously.

            Micah kept his gaze focused on the black dragon and put his nose to the cave floor. Using the horn on his nose, the white dragon scraped at the rocky floor before tossing a pile of dust at Inferno. Out of his nostrils, he sprayed a small cloud of smoke that enveloped the black dragon. The shine on Inferno’s scales from the sunlight was covered by the grimy coat that now covered him.

            Next to Cody, Argos and Heyrone visibly stiffened, and Destiny had a similar reaction, though the remaining two dragons were stock-still. As hard as Cody tried, he couldn’t talk to inferno at all. He could feel the dragon’s consciousness, but it was filled with the most basic thoughts, above them all was the instinct to fight for survival.

            The next movement came slowly. After inferno seemed to debate it for a moment, he lowered his head, and returned the puff of smoke. The dark cloud floated around Micah for a moment before the tiny particles clung to his scales and turned him considerably darker. Yellow eyes hardened against blue, and blue eyes glared at yellow. A momentary battle between fire and ice occurred as their gazes continued to lock each other in place.

            Heyrone let out a breath, muttering in awe, “The Duel of Barbarians.”