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Chapter 13

     The sky, which had been blue and cloudless all day, darkened suddenly. Looking for the cause we saw not clouds but a massive creature wheeling above, blocking out the sun. As the creature circled lower I could see sunlight reflecting off of blue scales. A dragon; I knew that shape. It was one of the ones who are kept by the dragon keeper no doubt. I remembered sadly my previous experience with dragons. Diranth tensed nervously at the sight.
     The dragon landed on the road far ahead of us. Though we were quite some distance away from the beast, its large wings created such a blast of wind that we couldn’t fly against it. We had to wait a moment for it to die down before we could continue. The beast landed gracefully (or I believed it did as I couldn’t see for all the sand it sent flying) and settled across the road effectively blocking our path.
     We approached slowly and cautiously as a small, nimble creature dismounted and made it’s way towards us at a dead run. It made surprising speed considering its short legs. As it neared I recognized him as the Dragon Keeper, he did not look happy.
     Diranth came in front of me protectively, but I shoved past him to reach the dragon keeper before he did. All my nicely laid out lies were about to be ruined. Diranth followed behind, muttering to himself about my stupidity.
     “You there mage, where’s my Dragon?” yelled out the dragon keeper as he came to stop a few steps away from me. “Well? Where is she? What happened? I knew you weren’t to be trusted!” He glared at me with those large eyes of his.
     “I –” I began. Just then Diranth came up behind me and was listening intently, if not somewhat confused. I gave an inward sigh then told him the truth. “We were shot at as we flew over a town. Sarith was killed. We ourselves were sentenced to death and would have died had my brother here not saved us.”
     “Us? I see only one of you. Where is the young lad you were traveling with? Hum? Where is he?”
     “H - he left.” I answered.
     [“So my Sarith, my beautiful Sarith is dead. Destroyed by the hand of man.”]
    Tears came to my eye. I had liked Sarith, and whished I had had the chance to fulfill my promised to her.
     “Oh dear! Oh don’t cry young one! Come now mage, it wasn’t your fault. No not your fault.” He made a bad attempt at calming me down by patting me on the arm. Diranth looked at me in anger.
     “You never told me this sister,” was all he said. I looked down and said, “I know I didn’t.”
     “So you didn’t come from that town. Where were you headed?”
     “That is no concern of yours.”
     The Dragon keeper looked at us both, confused. “If you two are brother and sister, then how does he not know where you came from?”
     “That story is a long one, sir.” Diranth replied. “Sister, you knew I was looking for you, were you fleeing from me?” I didn’t answer; I just gave him a blank, expressionless look. He looked as if he was about to say something harsh in his anger but instead he said, “Well that is of no importance now. All that matters is where we are going now.”
     “And where would that be?” asked the Dragon Keeper. Diranth answered, “To the vale of____. Our mother is there.”
     The Dragon keeper paled then shook his head. “No, no, no that won’t do at all. You can’t go to that vale.”
     “She can, and she will. Now I suggest that you depart so that we may carry on our journey.”
     The Keeper’s eyes narrowed as he looked up at Diranth. He took a step towards me.
     “Young one, do not go with this brother of yours, only evil will come of it. Come away with me, I’ll take you where you planned to go in the first place.”
     With a cautious glance at my brother, I started to go to the Keeper.
     “You will not go with him Andrea!” Diranth cried out. He lit to the air and tried to grab me. At that, the dragon keeper said some powerful words and Dir dropped from the air with such force as I had never seen. He lay on the ground moaning and the Keeper motioned for me to hurry. We made it to the dragon just as Diranth was getting up. At a command the dragon leapt into the air, its strong wings creating a strong blast of air. Diranth should have been slowed by this wind but instead he was drawing strength from it. Air mage, I thought to myself with regret.
     We rose rapidly higher and so did Diranth, he stopped after a bit and began a spell. Whatever it was he was doing, it felt massive. Clouds formed in the sky, dark, heavy clouds that instantly covered the sun, leaving us in total darkness. The winds picked up and violently threatened to throw us from the sky. But our Dragon was powerful and had flown in worse. He rose still, fighting expertly against the winds. The air began to smell foul as the magic in it was bent to Diranth’s evil spell, and the clouds unleashed their fury.
     The Keeper put up a shield around us to protect us from the rains which I knew from experience could become very painful. I could still feel Diranth despite all the evil magic surging through the air with rage.
     “Oh! Where’d he go now?” asked the Keeper peering over the edge and mumbling.
     “Just there, below us and to the left.” I answered pointing. The Keeper nodded. “See what you can do about him will you?”
     “Me? I can’t beat him. He’s too strong. Can’t you do something?”
     “Come on young mage, you’re quite powerful yourself. Do something now before he gets us with that lighting.” [**** Remove amour ****]
     “What lightning?” I asked as a bolt crashed above our heads.
     I looked down where I could feel Diranth, just above the tree line. Thinking to myself a moment, I cast a spell which caused the tops of the trees near him to grow higher. I managed to make the tops of the trees encircle his ankles tightly before he knew that I was doing it. Then I made them give a sharp tug and try to pull him down, out of the air. Diranth was so caught up in his spell that he didn’t notice until this point. The trees took his attention off of his storm, which cleared up enough for sunlight to sneak through. It didn’t last long as Diranth dealt with the trees by cutting them then setting fire to them. In that short time we were able to increase speed and get farther away, but when he focused on the storm once more the winds were stronger and the lighting closer. The forest below us burst into flame, burning with fire that the rain wasn’t putting out.
     I looked with fury at the burning trees. It seemed to me that they were crying out in agony. A flock of ravens flew out of the inferno and I used their fear and anger and set them upon Diranth. Hundreds of these birds flew around him peaking and scratching. Suddenly they all recoiled back a ways away from him. Diranth must have cast a protective shield around himself, still I coaxed the birds to remain and block his view.
     The great Dragon flew us higher into the clouds, cutting off my view of Diranth. The Dragon Keeper and I hung on for dear life, each turn the Dragon was forced to make nearly throwing us off. I could sense the shield that the Keeper was holding about us was failing. We wouldn’t be able the stay in the storm any longer. Luckily, we seemed to be nearing the edge of the storm. The clouds up ahead were getting brighter, real sunlight threatening to break through.
     Suddenly a bolt of lighting struck closer then the others. It was so close that I could feel its heat as it burned my flesh, even through the shield. Our Dragon banked upwards so sharply that I lost my grip and fell. Luckily I caught onto its huge tail on my way down. I tried my hardest to hang on, but I was no longer protected by the Dragon Keeper’s shield. The rain pounded down on me. It brought no comfort to my burnt skin. The pain from the rain caused me to lose my grip. Then I fell.