Inferno Legacy: Valor of the Dragon (Book One)

Chapter 7

            “Long time no see,” Omen joked, even though it was true.

            “Well, we had better hurry up and get going, before Inferno dies of anticipation!”

            With that, Omen grabbed another bag that he had draped over Inheritance, filled it with ten torches from the other bags, and attached it to Skeletar’s saddle. Then he took his turn to ride, and hopped up onto Chase’s back. Cody grabbed the two ropes that Omen had been carrying, and they started walking towards the forest without another word to each other.

            “Are you two coming or not!?” Came Inferno’s voice impatiently, again.

            “We are going as fast as we can, we will talk to you in 45 minutes when we arrive!” Cody said allowed so Omen could hear it as well.

            They began to run, since they were also very eager to see Inferno and the cave, and arrived at the edge of the forest after what felt like a significantly short amount of time. That was when Omen jumped off of Chase and Cody climbed on for his turn. He scanned the forest for the path that led to the cave. Cody rushed along as fast as he could manage as long as he stayed near Omen, and they arrived shortly after, though Inferno was nowhere in sight.

            “Where are you?” Cody asked allowed so that omen could hear again.

            “Tie the horses up so they can’t run away, for they will surely be frightened by me.”

            Cody didn’t want to argue with that, since horses would likely spook even if Inferno wasn’t any larger than he was last time, so he slid off of Chase and tied him to a tree, and he and Omen did the same with the others. Once they were sure that the horses were tied up tight, they told Inferno and waited impatiently to arrive.

            Then with a tremendous roar (compared to what they thought it would sound like) the dragon leapt from the trees and the shadows behind them and pounced right over them, with his wings spread wide for show, but effectively blocking all sight from them. He landed ten feet in front of them with a big thump as his paws smashed the ground. He was huge compared to the last time they saw him.

            Cody smiled, pleasing the dragon further as he studied him. Inferno’s neck alone was about five feet long, as was his tail and his body was at least 16 feet long and four feet thick. He was about eight feet high at the shoulder, and his spine spikes were each a foot long. The space that was between his last neck spike and first back spike was almost three feet long, easily large enough for Cody to start riding him, and Inferno was clearly strong enough for that.

            Omen seemed to be reading his mind (though he wasn’t) and said, “You can ride him later when we explore the cave a bit, but I’m sure riding a dragon is very different from riding a horse, even if walking. We don’t have the time for learning now though; we have to get into the cave and finish up before nightfall or we just might get stuck in there forever.”

            He said it lightly, but he was still incredibly excited about it. Inferno looked at Cody and flapped his wings a bit in anticipation, creating quite a bit of cooling. They all went into the cave, following Inferno because his heightened eyesight, which was even better now apparently. They stopped as soon as they entered and Omen laughed.

            “We forgot the torches!” He raced back and grabbed a bag, still laughing when he got back. “We’ll get the others later when we’re done with these.”

            Cody agreed and got to work at refilling the old torches with the kindling. It wasn’t long before they got to the huge scratch marks on the wall, which still dwarfed Inferno in comparison. Then soon after that they reached the nest filled with bits of dragon eggshells, and then passed the last torch as Omen filled and lit it with the single hand-held torch that they had lit before. Then they began setting up the new torches.