My heart sank at the sight of Keplon's wing tip slipping beneath the waves, with no sign of his rider. But I was soon startled by the sound of canons firing up at us once again, though they fell far short of hitting us given our height above them. Just before Doron flipped on his back to dive towards the armada below, I caught a brief glimpse of Jules looking down at where Mellon had just gone down, taking one of the ships with him. I could see the sadness and regret welling up in her eyes, despite the vast distance between the two of us. I didn't let the grief of loss affect me however. I had been through far worse before, in the not so far gone past. But before I had time to think, I felt my weight shift as Doron started to roll over and dive back towards the ships below.
"Fire!"
Doron blasted yet another swift burst of flame down on the ships below, but this time, they were much more prepared for our flaming attacks. Almost as suddenly as we attacked, men on the decks of the ships starting shooting their weapons back up at us, though the smaller projectiles just bounced off Doron's scales. I noticed one ship turning to fire on us with its canons. Doron seemed to take notice of this too, but before he could react, several dozen other ships fired at us, some of the projectiles hit Doron on his under side, causing him to cry out in pain repeatedly.
"Get away! Fly away!" I shouted to the others as they flew around burning ships around me.
Ragon turned and made a dash for the cliffs, with canon fire flying after him, while Veracon fly straight up to get out of range of the deadly projectiles. Doron desperately flapped to escape towards the cliffs in an attempt to escape the pain, with Legon taking shelter under her Doron's wing in an effort to shelter himself from the hail of objects raining down on us. I looked back as we made our narrow escape. I kept my head held low in order to avoid being hit by the projectiles that would occasionally hit Doron's back or wings. I looked up to see several of the other dragons flying over us, trying to reach the cliffs edge. But as they passed over head, Trao was hit hard in the wing with one of the projectiles from one of the near by ships. He was far to small to take the hit lightly, and the once proud dragon fell helplessly towards the earth with its broken wing dangling loosely from its body, before it smacked the white capped waves. I watched on in horror as the dragon struggled to keep his head from being swallowed by the sea, but not long after, he too vanished beneath the waves.
"Come on! We've got to get over the cliffs!" I shouted as tears started to stream down my face.
After what felt like an endless void of fear and terror, the cliff face was upon us. Doron pitched up and wasted no time slipping over the edge of the cliff, putting himself out of reach of the ships deadly weapons. He was quickly joined by Veracon and Ragon. The three dragons watched on as the much smaller versions of themselves appeared over the edge of the cliff one by one as pieces of it continued to drop into the sea with the impact of the canon fire. Just as Temano and Kepenie came into view over the edge of the cliff, Kepenie suddenly screeched in pain as a projectile slammed itself into the dragons side. Kepenie was much smaller than Doron, and was no match for the seemingly unrivalled weapons that had so swiftly pushed us back. Kepenie shrieked in pain and dropped onto the ground just past the cliffs edge with a thud and flipped over, crushing Victor under his weight as he came to rest at Magar's claw tips.
"Victor! Victor!" Jules shouted as she ran for the downed dragon.
I walked around the groaning dragon to see Victor lying dead in a pool of blood streaming out onto the think cover of grass covering the otherwise rocky dirt ground with Jules and Lucy knelt down beside him with tears streaming down their faces.
"There's nothing we can do. He's dead. Leave him be." I said as I placed my Hand on Lucy's shoulder.
The rest of the group joined us as Jules stood up and started towards the dying kepenie, before she was stopped by Bailey. The two of them made eye contact for a brief moment before Jules collapsed into Bailey's arms, sobbing with no control over her emotions. As she wept, I wandered over to kepenie as Magar prodded him with her snout. His rips had been crushed by the impact, and he was spilling blood out from his mouth with every exhale of his massive lungs. I stood over him silently, until he stopped struggling and fell still. Doron looked off in the distance at the ships sailing away, with nothing but pure anger, and a desire for vengeance in his eyes.
"How... How could this happen...." I muttered under my breath.