Chapter four- The Attack

Everyone was motionless.

Granite lay still in a puddle of blood. Dark grey against red.

The queen laughed.

"No!" Howled Marble, charging.

She rammed the queen right in the side, knocking her over. Magma was not expecting that.

Then the queen screamed.

Then the Bloodwings flew in all directions.

Then madness erupted.

Two of the Timewings who were there as backup fled, the others stayed-more likely from shock than to defend. Marble stood before the infuriated queen, anger radiating from her gory scales, as she slowly got up. Her eyes burned with hatred. So did Marble's.

The queen charged Marble, but she wasn't fast enough. Marble jumped aside, grabbing the queens horns and throwing her on to her back. She howled, and tried to get back up. But it was too late, Marble had her pinned. Their eyes locked for a moment.

"KILL HER!" Ordered the queen.

Suddenly, all the Bloodwings in hearing range (which were pretty much all of them, thanks to the queens talented screaming abilities) were charging straight for Marble.

She leapt off the queen without a second thought, and dove off the cliff. She flew as fast her her wings would let her, literally flying for her life.

Not a thought crossed her mind as she dove through narrow passageways, wove around mountains. Nothing but the instinct to escape.

She heard splat sounds, meaning another dragon had hit a rock, or some wall. She focused all her energy into flying away as fast as she could. Her wings ached from disuse, but she did not stop. Stopping meant death.

She took the chance of looking behind her. Only three Bloodwings were still following.

Three? I might be able to hold them off, at least for a little while, she hoped.

Marble scouted out a good place to land. She saw a mountain with a flat top, and changed directions.

She landed with a thud, followed by three more thuds behind her.

She spun teeth barred, claws out, growling.

Leave, she said with her mind.

"We leave when you're dead" growled the first dragon.

He charged, and so did the other two. Marble dodged and rolled under one of their bellies, raking her claws through the soft under scales of the first dragon. He howled in pain and collapsed, writhing. The other two seemed unfazed by the other dragons suffering.

Heartless, were the stories all true?

They circled around Marble, then charged from both sides. She decided to go for the larger one first. At the last second, she jumped as high as she could, using her wings to propel her onto the larger dragons back. She narrowly missed being impaled by one of the spikes.

The Bloodwing kicked and bucked like a bull, trying to shake her off.

She ripped a horn of, by accident trying to stay on. Then he got really mad, and she clamped her jaws around his neck, and bit down hard. There was a crack as his jewel hard scales broke one of her teeth, and sending a shock of red-hot rain up her jaw. She refused to let go. Biting down now with all her might, she worried her teeth might fall out as he continued to buck and shake. Then he cola

She'd beneath her, and she rolled off of him, jaw aching. Idiot, no brain either, she groaned. I would have flipped onto my back.

She spat out blood, and prepared herself to fight against the third and smallest dragon.

But he was not charging her. Or showing any signs of aggression.

Why isn't he trying to kill me? Wondered Marble, unsure of what to do. He just stood there. His glowing eyes looked almost...curious.

"You aren't trying to kill me" she stated.

"No, it seems as though I'm not. I assume you'd be Captain Obvious?" replied the other dragon. His voice was kinder than the other dragons'. He was a lot smaller too, compared to the other members of his tribe, he looked almost her age, but she wasn't sure, because he was still so much bigger than her.

She laughed, shaking her head. "How come?" She wondered.

"I'm not much of a fighter. I know you probably hate me, and think that I'm just a cold hearted murderer,"

"Actually, I don't think that at all, you haven't tried to kill me, yet"she said.

Actually, I do.

"But that's not all of us. The queen, she's horrible. She tries to make everyone hate everything. She wants us to be murderers. But truly, none of us, well not all of us, are. She's just awful, we just do as we're told, because if we don't, she'll kill us".

"Oh, that does sound awful. But won't she kill you if she finds out you are disobeying orders?" Asked Marble, almost guilty. Liar.

"Yesssss" groaned the Bloodwing with the stomach wound.

"Then why would you disobey orders?" She asked again. She was nearly curious about this strange dragon.

"I was planning on leaving anyways, now seems like the perfect time". He said.

"Interesting, where were you planning on going?" She asked.

"I've heard a lot about Pyyrhia, I was thinking of going there".

"I see" she replied. If you ask to come with me...

"That was were I was going, before you attacked me".

"Oh, really? And sorry, I really didn't want too come. But you were going to Pyrrhia too? How come? Don't you like it here?" He asked.

And are you Mister Questions?

"Yes, I do. But I needed to leave" she said curtly.

She briefly explained how her parents were dead, and that Granite had asked her to go on a rescue mission.

"Oh, so the two informants who were killed- they were your parents. I'm sorry" he said.

"Oh, no it's ok" she replied, not in the mood for sympathy.

"But do you know anything about how the treasure was stolen?" She asked.

"Actually, I was a witness. I saw it. So did my friend. He, he isn't normal. He is a crazy killer dragon. We went to tell the queen what had happened, and we saw that it was a Stonewing.

Everyone knew that the queen hated Timewings. Nobody knew why. So, trying to impress her, he said that it was a Timewing that did it. The white fur even helped to make the queen suspect. Then I tried to tell her it was the Stonewings, but she ignored me".

"Ah, so probably dozens of my tribe were murdered for no reason, then" said Marble quietly.

"Yes, I guess you're right" he said.

Wonderful-that was sarcasm, by the way.

"But you said you were going to Pyrrhia, and I said I was going to Pyrrhia. Maybe we can go together" he suggested.

Did he really just go there? Ah, well. I'll just kill him if he gives any trouble.

"Traitor!" Gasped the dying dragon. He was now surrounded by a pool of blood.

The other Bloodwing winced at that word.

But Marble didn't like watching dragons suffer.

Does it hurt? She spoke through her mind.

The dragon nodded. Good, she thought only to herself.

Alright, I'm sorry, she said again. Not really.

She clamped her talons around his neck, and he closed his eyes.

Crack

Then he was still.

Lucky I was in a good mood, this time.

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