With a stab of jealousy, Starflight saw Sunny lean toward Clay and whisper in his ear. Sometimes it seemed to him as though Sunny and Clay were always together, like the MudWing was the one she could trust more than any other dragon. He wished he could be that for her instead. But he wasn’t anything like Clay, and the truth was, if he had to choose someone to trust with his life, he’d pick Clay over himself as well.
“I don’t know how to prepare them to fight NightWing fire,” Tsunami said, a little hopelessly. “Most of these dragons have never even seen fire. They’ll probably think it’s shiny and pretty and try to touch it.”
Glory coiled her tail and stared at the sky through the trees. Starflight guessed from her expression that she was thinking about how RainWings were going to die — there was no way to avoid it. Becoming queen of an entire tribe all of a sudden was hard enough. But leading dragons into battle, especially woefully underprepared dragons, was something none of the dragonets knew anything about or ever wanted to do.
We wanted to stop the war — not start a whole new one.
Do the RainWings have any chance against the armor-clad, fiercely desperate, violently unhappy NightWings? Are we all going to die today?
We’re only dragonets. We shouldn’t be leading anyone to their deaths.
But this is happening no matter what we do. We have no choice now.
“I tried to draw a map of what I could remember of the island,” Glory said to Starflight. “I want you to fill in as many details as you can. I guess we should have several dragons go straight to the prison caves and try to free the trapped RainWings.”
“Queen Splendor is inside the fortress,” Starflight said. “In the same dungeon as Deathbringer.”
“Oh,” Glory said, and several colors shifted across her scales at once. “So another wing should go in there — maybe Tsunami can lead that group —”
“SLEEPING DARTS!” Clay suddenly yelled, making everyone jump.
Glory stared at him. “What?”
“Those sleeping darts the RainWings used to knock us out, when we first got to the rainforest,” Clay said. He nudged Sunny forward. “Sunny says the healers have hundreds of them. The RainWings use them all the time — they play this game where they try to sneak up on each other before getting shot.”
“That’s true!” Mangrove said, lashing his tail. “And we take turns patrolling so we can shoot strange dragons who come into the forest, like you five, which is even more fun.”
“Every RainWing already has a blowgun,” Sunny said. “Arm them all with as many sleeping darts as they can carry, and use those instead of fighting.”
“That’s it!” Glory flared her wings, turning dark purple with lightning bolts of excited gold all along her scales. “That’s exactly how RainWings should fight!”
“It was Sunny’s idea,” Clay said, nodding down at the SandWing.
“Maybe we can do this without casualties,” Glory said animatedly. “Clay and Sunny, you’re in charge of arming all the RainWings. Get all the sleeping darts you can find. Mangrove, Grandeur, it’s time to tell the village. Everyone who’s willing to fight, meet by the stream here in one hour. We’re doing this before nightfall.” She turned to Starflight as the others flew off. “Let’s review the map. Tell me everything you know.”
Tsunami unrolled a giant leaf with a sketchy map of the NightWing island marked out on it in some kind of dark fruit ink.
War is coming. There’s no time to be scared, Starflight told himself as he leaned over the map. You can’t be the most cowardly dragon on Pyrrhia right now. Remember, you’ve read all the history scrolls you could find about famous battles. Now use that knowledge.
It’s time to prove that you really do belong in this prophecy.
Two hours later, Queen Glory’s army was on the move.
The sun was just starting to sink below the trees. It wasn’t dark here yet, but it would be soon.
Starflight dug his claws into the mud by the stream, trying to beat down his terror. The clearing bustled with activity, but it was unsettling activity, because most of the gathered dragons were essentially invisible, carefully camouflaged against the background. Starflight kept being bumped and jostled by what appeared to be empty air.
Tsunami was trying to make all the RainWings face her and shut up so she could give them a rousing battle speech. The fact that this was proving difficult did not bode well for the overall attack, Starflight thought anxiously.
“Starflight,” Glory said, materializing beside him. Her scales shimmered from dark green to a sort of worried-looking pale blue and back. “Are you all right?”
“I guess,” Starflight said. He shifted from one foot to another. “You know. Nervous.”