I Am Dragonblood: The Grim Beast (Book Four)

Chapter Sixteen - Hidden, Enter, Plan

It looked so pathetic and small there, wriggling and squirming in the ocean, that he couldn't believe he'd ever been afraid of it. The dull white Screaming Death struggled to keep its head above the waterline, having no wings hindering its attempts greatly. 
    ‘I am your master!’ Drago spluttered, saltwater spilling through the gaps between his teeth. ‘Obey me!’
    Grimmel simply swept a wave over him with his tail as he turned, treading the deep water and towing his ship by the chains that were by now rusting. He'd gone back to the Dragon Master's armada after his defeat, which was anchored a couple of miles out from Berk, and had found his ship and tied Drago to it. None of the guards had stopped him, in fact two of them had even helped him search for his dragons, teaching him the language of Cymru as they examined each and every ship. 
    ‘Grimmel!’ Drago yelled, half choking on seawater. 
    The Bewilderbeast ignored him, hauling the boat with the Deathgrippers in the hold along behind him. He was setting out for a place he'd only heard rumours of, a place where dragons where supposedly safe. If he could find this hidden world then, if he could get in there, he'd have a whole Wearle of dragons under his control. A whole flock to be Alpha of, with no Drago ruling over him. 
    Without even a glance back he swam, wings slicing through the water and waves crashing against the hull of the ship above. It would take a long time, he knew. But he was determined to reach his destination. 
    It took days, the hours dragging out as if they would never end. All he wanted to do was rest and recuperate, alone in the cabin of his vessel. But he couldn't, not yet anyway. He had a dragon sanctuary to find and a boat's sail to fix before he could even think of doing something like that. 
    It was lucky that in dragon form he had a heightened sense of hearing, otherwise he would have missed the roaring of falling water in the distance. He anchored his ship and gave the Deathgrippers an extra dose of venom to keep them in place before he swam to the edge of a giant chasm in the otherwise flat expanse of ocean, scrambling onto the rocky outcrops and looking down into the dark sinkhole. He couldn't get down there, not without being bashed to pieces on the sharp stones. And who knows what was in the dark pit below. 
    He sank down through the water and followed the rock down to the seabed, his eyes wide to discern the details in the dimness. There were deep crevices in the wall of stone, wide enough for a Terrible Terror to slip into but nowhere near large enough for a Bewilderbeast, even in hybrid form he would not be able to get in them. He swam on around the rocks, using touch just as much his sight, searching for a tunnel or a cave or a shaft of some kind. 
    It must have been an hour or more later when he eventually found a tunnel wide enough for him to fit into. He Shifted to hybrid form, breathing in the cold water as if it were air, and swam to the crack in the stone. Small fish darted out of his way, startled to the fact that there was a person down in their world. One slapped him in the face as if to warn him away, but he just growled at it and waded through the seaweed clinging to the seabed floor. 
    The tunnel was almost pitch black, the dim light from the the ocean outside not enough even for his sharp eyesight. He felt his way through and found the tunnel widened, becoming large enough for a Boneknapper to pass through without scraping its horns. Light filtered in from the end of the shaft, a strange multicoloured glow he'd never seen before. 
    He kicked out from the dark tunnel and swam to the surface of a pool of water, the rippling liquid around him illuminated by a turquoise light. He choked as air entered his waterlogged lungs, forgetting that the transition from world of water to world of air could be bad. 
    Coughing subsided, he Shifted to dragon form for a better look around.  From his higher vantage point he could see pillars of glowing rock and cavern walls of the same substance, fungi the size of yaks growing and glowing at the bases of them. Water gushed from cracks in the walls, sparkling like it was made up of thousands of bluish crystals, and cascaded down into pools much like the one he was in. 
    He hauled himself up onto the edge of the pool, tracing the outline of the massive white crystal hanging in the centre of the cave. He'd never seen anything like it, and probably never would again. He followed the crystal down to its point with his eyes, the light that radiated from it brightest at the end. Beneath it there was a circle of dragons, most of them scarred from past battles. 
    But what caught his interest the most were the eggs. So many colours were piled right under the crystal, rows upon rows of them waiting to hatch. Right in the middle of this conglomeration stood out pure white and pure black eggs, obvious among the barrage of usual colours. 
    A plan began to take shape in his mind and he smiled, scales cracking around his lips.