Loosing Her Number »ᴄɵᴍᴘᴌᴇтᴇ«

TEN

TEN

Oily black smoke blinded us. Roars of battle sounded, little creature's walked over us, bit us, injured us. I tried to bite them, to claw them off mia vabyr'ban and myself, but more and more came.

Shifter's, inside! Zaos commanded, allowing everyone to hear.

"We can't see!" a shifter shouted back.

Walk in one direction! Copper, Brass, use your sleeping breaths! Other's, hold your breaths!

The sounds of people dragging in air and scrunching snow was all that I could hear.

Do not forget, they cannot see us, as we cannot see each other, Zaos reminded us. Move around so that the dragons above will not hear what we are doing.

Exhales sounded, and we moved. Zaos kept a wing over my back to keep us together.

I wondered if this was how my family felt when they were killed. Helpless. Surrounded by darkness. Panicked. I wondered whether they just gave up. Understood that they were about to die. My last and only memory of them flashed in my head.

...I could see my mum and brother, my mother straightening her hair, which was naturally curly, and my brother, brushing his hair since it would do the same as my mum's if he didn't. I couldn't see my dad, but he was in there too... One of them pointed the nozzle of the gun at my mums chest, over her heart. She'd pushed my brother back, who now looked at the gun with a look of shock... My mum. Brother... dad, were dead.

Red. It stained everything.

My last thought... was: I failed them.

I roared out in anguish. Roared out for all the other times I hadn't been able to.

I remembered what the spider had said before I'd asked my dragon when we hadn't been one to kill him.

"The black dragon. He started it because he was bored, but then it became competition. Who had the strongest shifter..."

My family, and my memories of my family had all gone because the black dragon had been bored. I roared out this time in rage and despair.

Taking flight, out of the oily smoke, I headed for the black dragon who'd been flying above where I'd been. Roaring at him, I smashed into him. He snarled me, slime spitting as he did. He was much bigger than me, bigger than Zaos, but the black dragon was more skeletal, his body appeared to be partially deteriorated, my paws sunk into where I gripped him.

He used one of his two great horns that curved forward and down from the side of his heads, to attack me. He dislodged me from his side, he flapped his leathery black wings to pull himself back up from where I'd made us fall. I grabbed the end of his glossy black scaled tail with my teeth, exhaling on it with a chilling frost.

He snarled and tried to whipped his tail. But I had a good hold. He curled his body towards me as I used my claws to climb him. It was a viscous battle of teeth and claws that neither of us wanted to submit to.

I felt warmth behind me.Mia Valishara, Onver said. It is me behind you.

Help me, Sargtlin.

Of course.

I felt Onver fly over me, and attack the black dragon head on. I exhaled a paralysing breath on the black dragon, hoping, but doubting it would work.

Feeling insects crawling over me, I covered myself in a paralysing cloud, making the insects drop like flies.

I spoke to the dragons on our side, showing them my plan as I did. Brass, bronze and mia vabyr'ban come. Everyone else, return to the castle.