Mary hurled herself forward, scrabbling on her hands and knees, as did Roger, to get out of the line of the enraged Trydra’s fire. They both did so, in the nick of time.
However, Trinimicusss saw the flicker of their sudden movement from the corner of his third eye, as they lunged for cover on the other side of Mavis’s wing.
But what was worse, as Mary flung herself alongside Roger, rolling under Mavis’s wing, her precious cargo, the dragon’s last Egg, came tumbling out of her coat and went rolling away from her for several yards. And the precious Egg finally came to rest almost exactly half the distance between Mavis the Dragon Queen and Trinimicusss the Trydra.
“Oh, no! Oh, no!” she screamed out, totally aghast. “Oh, Mavis, I’m so sorry!”
Mary’s eyes welled up with tears at the anguish she now felt from the accidental but awful exposure of the dragon’s Egg to this hideous and hateful Trydra creature.
But as yet, Trinimicusss hadn’t seen the Egg. He was still consumed with battling Mavis.
Mavis had seen it though and quickly maneuvered herself to turn Trinimicusss’s view away from her precious Egg and now taunted him with her choicest insults.
“So, you coward of a three-chicken-headed fish-freak; You think yourself a match for me, do you?” she cried out to him scornfully. “Well, let’s see how brave you can be, shall we? Come here and stand and fight me, you foul and filthy excuse for a slithering slime-ball-slug. Try standing against me instead of small, helpless Humdrum children for a change, eh!”
Trinimicusss was furious. His nine, stony eyes burnt with rage as he turned towards her. Mavis and Trinimicusss now glared at each other in a momentary stand-off; each deciding on what their next best move should be.
Meanwhile, Mary was in a state of near total despair, shame, and regret.
“I must get it back, I just have to get it back,” she cried to herself and then started to get onto her knees, getting ready to spring forward and retrieve the lost Egg.
But Roger gripped hold of her tightly around the waist and pulled her back.
“Don’t be an ass, Mary!” he hissed at her. “That thing’s bound to spot you. That monster will pick you off like a bunny rabbit in a lion’s den!”
Mary just crumpled into his arms, realizing that Roger was right. Her tears streamed down her cheeks; she felt utterly lost and defeated. How could she have let the Dragon’s Egg slip away from her like that? And after she’d just sworn an oath to protect and save it too!
Seeing Mary like this affected Roger very much. He felt he had to help somehow.
“L-l-look Mary, we’re not done for yet, you know. We’ll get the Egg back, O.K? I know, we’ll use a diversion; you know, we’ll use the same tactic that the Trydra used against us.”
“What do you mean?” Mary sniffed at him.
“Well, I mean, I’ll run out and distract him, off to one side, and as soon as he’s onto me, then you can dive out and scoop up the egg; then we meet back here, behind Mavis’s wing, O.K.? You’ll get Mavis’s Egg back, Mary, I know you will.”
“Oh, Roger, you really are an Ass, you know!” Mary said, smiling at him admiringly.
“Wha-wha-what do you mean?” Roger asked, feeling a bit perplexed, deflated and hurt.
But before Mary could offer any explanation as to the, to her, obvious idiocy of his plan, that would more than likely just get him killed, events quickly moved on.
Trinimicusss had, despite Mavis’s bullbaiting, spotted the Egg. His beady eye gazed firmly on it and he now slithered his way slyly towards it, but still facing toward Mavis as he did so. He wasn’t at all sure how hurt and damaged the Dragon Queen really was.
“Well, sssee here!” he said, eyeing the Egg. “The Massster will be ssso very pleasssed!”
Then Mavis urgently, mind-cast to them both, “Lie flat, get down as low as you can get!”
The children flung themselves flat on the ground as Mavis at the same time reared upward, high over the Trydra; her fire-lungs pumping, ready to burst forth with a final and ferocious fountain of red battle-flame.
Trinimicusss, seeing what the Dragon Queen intended, furiously snapped his gaze and his course of action away from the Egg and instead met Mavis head on in battle.
The irate Trydra spat out a sizzling-hot torrent of acid-venom, right towards Mavis’s head; It hit her squarely on the left temple, just as she likewise managed her own bolt of red flame that enveloped Trinimicusss in a ferocious, red-hot fireball. Dragon and Trydra screamed out in pain together. Roger could see the three-headed snake was in very bad trouble indeed; two of its heads had burst into flames immediately, and it was now desperately attempting to tear off its burning heads as quickly as it could, so it could regenerate two new ones.
However, Mavis was also in great difficulty. She fell back heavily onto her hind legs and began clawing at the side of her head; urgently trying to remove the thick, acidic slime eating its way into her. She had one eye closed and badly swollen, and several sizzling wounds from where other globs of Trinimicusss’s evil, acid-sludge had hit her as well.
Roger knew Mavis had little to no attack-flame left with which to defend herself, the Egg, or them either. It all looked completely hopeless.
The last Egg of the True Dragon’s, lay exposed and helpless, awaiting the outcome of this titanic battle to the death, as did the two terrified human children, hiding and watching under the injured Dragon’s wing.
Everything now depended on who was the worst off; the Dragon or the Trydra?
CHAPTER 15:
THE RETURN OF THE MEGADRILES
Mary though, had thoughts for only one thing. The Dragon’s Egg.
“This is my only chance,” she thought.
She scrambled to her feet and then sprinted the short distance across to where the Egg lay. She threw herself onto it, covering it with her body and clasping it to herself as tightly as she could. She looked up and realized Trinimicusss had, as she’d expected, spotted her; But she could see that he was also caught between the two urgent and conflicting needs of either getting the Dragon’s Egg or of saving his own rotten life. He of course chose the latter.
Mary dived into the cover of the dragon’s wing and breathlessly lay there clutching the Egg to her chest and was overjoyed at feeling its cool, leathery texture under her hands again.
“Oh, well done!” cried Roger, beaming at her.
But Trinimicusss now did something that none of them had expected.
Instead of hurling himself in another all-out attack on Mavis, he rolled himself into a loop, with his three heads tucked tightly inside of the hoops and then rolled himself right around Mavis with surprising speed. He had deftly gotten himself behind Mavis again, and was back in the position he’d originally come from. But his clever maneuvering didn’t stop there.
Roger and Mary still clutching the Egg, lay exposed on the wrong side of Mavis’s wing once more. But then they soon saw what the vicious monster’s tactic was really all about.
He now commanded the remaining, worm-minion army to the attack again!
The Fire-worms had been lying quietly dormant in the background, while the three Trydra monsters had attacked. Many of them had been heedlessly squashed and burned in the battle; but there were still hundreds left for Trinimicusss to control and hurl into the fray.
Roger watched in horror as they now surged towards him and Mary…. and the Egg!
Trinimicusss though was intent on slaying the wounded Queen Dragon, while his Minions captured, or more likely, killed the children and captured the treasured Egg.