“Let ’em through,” chorused two more.
Their leader glanced toward the fortress again, and then finally, warily, stepped back out of their way.
Starflight heaved Flame up, flopping the dragonet’s red wing over one of his own shoulders, and then he and Fatespeaker dragged him down the long corridor to the back cave, where a dark hole in the wall radiated the wrongness that Starflight remembered from the tunnels in the rainforest.
The NightWing guards stared at them as they went past. Starflight kept expecting one of them to yell, “It’s a trick! They’re lying!” He forced himself to concentrate on their story. Flame needs the cure for SandWing venom. We have to take him through to save him. It had the advantage of being true, which helped.
As they reached the hole, one of the guards stepped forward suddenly, and Starflight just barely managed to stop himself from flinching away. It turned out she was reaching to help them lift Flame into the hole. Starflight nodded to her, and then hopped up to join the SkyWing.
We did it.
But we’re not safe yet.
In the tunnel, there was just enough space to fly. Fatespeaker went first, then Flame at a wobbly flap that felt excruciatingly slow to Starflight, and they began the winding trek back toward the rainforest.
The air grew warmer and wetter and the sounds of insects and monkeys chittering began to reverberate off the walls. Fatespeaker twisted to glance back at Starflight with a grin. But he couldn’t force his mouth into a smile, not yet — not until he felt the jungle earth crumbling between his claws.
Green sunlight shone up ahead of them. Fatespeaker twitched in a happy way and sped up without seeming to realize it. She shot out into the rainforest several lengths before Flame.
Starflight heard her scream … and then the scream abruptly cut off.
He shoved Flame forcefully out of the hole and burst out into a glorious warm day. Magenta-pink flowers dripped from the trees and a number of silvery sloths poked their heads through the leaves to examine the newcomers. A bird with long blue tail feathers strutted by, eyeing him beadily.
“Stop right there!” a voice yelled. “Don’t move and put your talons on your head and surrender and claws where I can see them!”
Starflight wasn’t sure which conflicting order to follow. He twisted rapidly in a circle and spotted Fatespeaker lying next to the stream with an orange-gold RainWing sitting cheerfully on top of her, wrapping vines around her snout.
Another RainWing materialized slowly in front of him, her scales changing color so she no longer blended into the background. “You’re my prisoner!” she cried. “Run for your life!”
“Mango, you can’t just yell things at random,” said a familiar voice. Tsunami dropped down from one of the branches, frowning. “Try to think about what comes out of your — Starflight!” She interrupted herself with a cry of joy.
At the same time, another dragon cannoned out of the foliage and crashed right into Starflight. Starflight found himself circled by strong brown wings as Clay nearly flung him into the treetops with delight.
“You escaped!” Tsunami yelped, elbowing Clay aside so she could wrap Starflight in her own blue wings. “That’s unbelievable! How — how — how — how —”
“I’ll tell you everything, but I have to see Glory right away,” Starflight said. He glanced around, hoping Sunny was also concealed in the bushes, but she didn’t appear. He turned to Flame, who had collapsed, unconscious. “And this SkyWing needs the cactus we got from the desert — he’s been slashed with a SandWing tail.”
“Oh, poor guy,” Clay said, crouching beside Flame’s inert form. The MudWing gently lifted Flame’s snout and peered at the wound. He waved to the trees and six more RainWings popped into sight. In minutes, they had produced a kind of hammock net, which they tucked around Flame so they could carry him off toward the village. “To the healers, as fast as you can,” Clay told them.
“Glory told us everything you said in her dream, which, by the way, is crazy, visiting a dragon’s dreams,” Tsunami said to Starflight, winding her tail around his. “Well, except she didn’t tell me about the stealth RainWing bodyguards she put on me. That was pretty hilarious. Everyone should suddenly have the air turn into seven bright purple dragons yelling hysterically whenever she gets attacked.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t have minded something like that,” Starflight said. The sunlight felt as if it was melting through his scales, chasing away all the darkness that had started to gather around his soul. “You scared the moonshine out of those NightWings. It was amazing.”
Tsunami beamed.
“Who’s that?” Clay asked, nodding at Fatespeaker.