Pantala

Chapter 1

Ten Years Later...

       Sahara frowned down the battlefield. She and her wing of soldiers were perched atop a tall cliff that overlooked a village on the outskirts of the Mud Kingdom. There were hardly any dragon bodies, but here and there a brown wing was bent awkwardly or an unmoving MudWing.  She shuddered as she saw a scavenger's long claw-thing with a green dragon eye skewered at the end of it.
       "The scavengers are getting bolder," Glass muttered. He was a SandWing SeaWing hybrid, with sandy scales, turquoise glow scales and white webs on his underbelly. Dark brown gills lined his neck. "How much longer does this have to go on?"
       Sahara wanted to reassure him and her battalion, but she honestly wasn't sure if this war would ever end. "It's been going on for eleven years and counting," she sighed.
Poison looked to the sun drenched sky. "Do any of you remember when it was peaceful? When we could go out without being terrified a scavenger would find us and kill us?"
Tiny Dust leapt to her feet. "I don't. Obviously." With the lack of soldiers, dragons of all ages were being sent to battle. Dust was The youngest at four, and Sahara the oldest at thirteen. Most of them had dim memories of peace, but not like the older dragons. Sahara and Glass has been two when the Scorching started.
       Fang, who was usually a talkative dragon, was silent as he looked at all the destruction down below. "We came too late," he finally said. No one made sarcastic comments about how he finally noticed. In the first battle of the Scorching, he had watched bit this brother and mother be killed right in front of him. He had nightmares, and he often had panic attacks during battles or after.
       The group was silent, all having their own thoughts about what must have happened. I wonder what would have happened if we had gotten here on time, Sahara thought. Maybe no dragons would have died. My dragons are strong. We could have changed the course of this battle so much.
       "We should check for survivors," Glass shook his wings and took off, soaring toward the muddy banks of the kingdom. Sahara followed, with Dust, Poison, and Fang not far behind her.
       Close up, there was much more damage than it had appeared. One of the dead MudWings had long gashes through her wings. At least, they thought she was dead. Sahara lifted one of her wings to get a better look when her head suddenly shot up.
       "The poison IceWings," she gasped. "They were here."