“Now there’s two of them,” he talked to Sunset, hoping for inspiration. Resigned to his fate, he said, “I’m coming to join you real soon.”
But the mother dragon spun away from him and screamed even louder, if possible. She changed direction and headed to intercept the other dragon. The skin of the second dragon reflected a tinge of green, while the original was pure black. They approached each other at impossibly fast speeds, both with talons extended, teeth bared.
They crashed together in midair, each grabbing the other with sharp talons and ripping the skin and flesh. They fell apart and lined up to attack again.
Seth pulled his eyes from their fight and returned to his situation. He stood on a ledge that offered no escape, and only one direction to go. He ran away from the fight, down the ridge until it came to an abrupt end directly above the dragon’s nest.
The nest contained an egg, larger than a melon. Excrement coated the cliff below the nest, and he saw no way down, but one glance over his shoulder told him the black dragon, the mother of the egg, was winning the fight and would soon return to him.
There might be a place to hide under the nest until he could climb the rest of the way down. He started to climb using the few handholds on the smooth rock face, and he slipped.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Seth felt the rock crumble in his hand, but he had nowhere else to grab. He twisted, desperate for something to reach for, a crack, plant, rock, or anything else. He fell backward, off balance. A last desperate twist and another missed handhold flashed past, and he fell out away from the side of the cliff into the cold air.
Nothing saved him from falling. His feet left the ridge of the cliff last, as his head and shoulders passed the level of his knees. He tumbled, his feet going over his head before they rotated under him again. Seth had a mental picture of himself tumbling all the way to the ground and dying while dizzy.
But his feet struck and slowed him. The speed of the fall drove him to his knees and forward to his face. Lifting his head, Seth looked around at the tangle of sticks and branches. He lay in the bottom of the nest with a dragon egg.
He spun around, ignoring the bleeding from his hands and face, finding an ooze covering him from the egg he’d struck with his feet. The egg rolled and leaned on him as it leaked fluid from the split on one side of the shell, while a small head emerged from the top, looking almost as bewildered as Seth.
Then the two tiny red eyes on the head spotted him. The chick tore and ripped the shell open and emerged wet. Seth started crawling away from it, intending to climb over the edge of the nest to get away. Being chased by a second dragon didn’t bode well. But the tiny dragon moved faster. It leaped free of the shell and raced to Seth, running into him and knocking him down. It jumped onto his chest, stretched its neck out, and placed its snout and needle-sharp teeth in front of Seth’s mouth.
It sniffed.
The animal stood no larger than a chicken. Blood ran down one side of its breast. Seth’s fall had injured the dragon, opening a rip in its skin from the neck to the foreleg. The animal leaned closer, sniffed his breath again, and rubbed against Seth, smearing its blood over him.
Seth pushed it aside and started to crawl to the edge of the nest again, terror driving him forward. The little dragon reached it first again. It threw its head back and screeched, a sound softer than a cat’s meow. A single look in his direction and it charged his face again, pulling to a stop near Seth’s shoulder and neck.
It sniffed him again, from head to foot, and rushed to Seth’s blood staining the floor of the nest. It licked the blood, tasting and sniffing.
It ran back, snuggled up next to Seth, making softer growls and calls.
A dark shadow drifted between Seth and the sun. He looked up. The mother black dragon was flying closer, obviously intent on landing in her nest. She flew in too fast, almost falling, and she hit the nest so hard it shook. A few of the woven tree branches sprang free. Several pieces of the nest fell, and if Seth had been on his feet, the jar would have thrown him down.
One foreleg of the mother dragon sat at an odd angle. Two separate, but parallel slashes leaked blood near the broken foreleg. Blood spurted out of another gash, the result of claws raking it during the fight. One talon on a hind leg bled and appeared missing. It had probably been the one that defeated the green dragon.
She was obviously badly hurt. Her eyes glazed over, and she took no notice of Seth or the dragon chick at first. Her head hung so low that her chin rested on the nest. Suddenly, her eyes focused, and she found the chick and Seth. Her head drew back, and she snorted, her eyes locked on Seth.
Her lips curled and exposed the rows of teeth sharp teeth. But the dragon chick leaped in front of Seth, spread its small wings and shook them in a weak rattle, and it hissed at her.
It defended Seth and had issued a challenge to the other. The mother dragon drew back in confusion. Then, she slowly lowered her snout to Seth and sniffed him, much as the chick had. The contents of the egg still covered him, and as she sniffed, she must have recognized the familiar scent. Instead of attacking, she closed glazed eyes and went to sleep.
The tiny dragon hopped around the nest, exploring everything, and probably hunted for food. It watched his every move. It darted to his side and sniffed his breath repeatedly as if searching for something.
Seth managed to crawl to the edge of the nest and peer over. The nest was built higher than the tallest treetops. The rock face of the cliff below was not only sheer, but there were no handholds as far as he could see.
He found a piece of fish the size of his fist that the mother dragon had missed during her meal earlier. Seth raised it to his mouth, anticipating something to finally eat. However, it disappeared from his hand. The baby dragon had snatched away and ate it in an instant. The creature wailed for more food. Me too.
Seth spent most of the afternoon cursing Sunset, talking to him as if he lay in the nest next to him, and making promises to three Gods he couldn’t keep. He avoided the dragon chick as much as possible. The little dragon followed him everywhere, and if Seth paused, the chick curled up next to him and went to sleep.
Seth avoided the mother dragon. When she woke, he expected to die. But after examining everything in the nest, under it, and along the wall of the cliff, he came to the conclusion there was no escape. The small dragon meowed and stretched its neck out, mouth open.
By now the mother would have delivered food. Instead, she lay panting for breath as her blood seeped from her wounds, far more slowly than when she landed. Even if she healed enough to gather food, Seth couldn’t remain, and he couldn’t escape. The nest would be cold, exposed to the elements, and snow would fall within days. The mother would normally warm the chicks with her body, but Seth couldn’t stand the cold, especially while she went on hunting trips, not even if she went for food.
He needed water and heat. His piece of flint sat in the cave, but he couldn’t make a fire in the nest anyhow, so it didn’t matter. He cried and cursed Sunset. If not for the old man he wouldn’t be in the nest. When the sun lowered, and it grew dark, he snuck to the mother dragon’s side where her hind leg joined her body and found a measure of warmth. He placed his back to her stomach and the small dragon leaped to cuddle his stomach. They lay together, three of a kind.