She was a beautiful sight, an astonishing and enchanting creature. Sorrel obeyed at once, but Ben stayed where he was, his mouth wide open, staring at the sea serpent. “Get down!” the dragon whispered to Ben and Sorrel. What brings a fiery dragon, a small human, and a shaggy brownie girl out to sea, so far from solid ground? Not just an appetite for a supper of slippery shiny fish, I suppose?” Her tongue flickered like a hungry wild beast in the air above Firedrake’s head. “Such strange visitors to the realm of salt and water where my twin sister and I reign supreme. “Well, well, look at this!” hissed the serpent in a soft, singsong voice. The serpent’s long, long neck rose from the water until its head was hovering directly above Firedrake, who stood on the scaly hump of the creature’s back as if he’d taken root there. Slanted eyes flashed at them mockingly beneath heavy lids, and a forked tongue flickered between the two sharp, needlelike fangs that emerged from the creature’s narrow jaws. It had large fins like decorative feathers growing on it. Suddenly, with a loud snort, a mighty head shot out of the sea in front of them. Ben and Sorrel exchanged horrified glances. But whatever he did, his body wouldn’t rise a finger’s breadth into the air. “I must try anyway!” cried the dragon, spreading his wings. There was nothing but a black gaping hole in the sky where the moon should have been. Clutching his spines, they scrambled onto his back and strapped themselves in place with trembling fingers. Firedrake stretched out his neck, and as the island rose higher and higher from the waves the two of them hauled themselves up by his horns. They scuttled over the damp and scaly mound. “Run!” shouted Sorrel, pushing Ben toward the dragon. “I mean there’s something wrong about this island - and it smells of fish.”įiredrake got to his feet and looked more closely at the ground. “The rat’s map is useless.” She looked around her, snuffling. “That just proves what I keep telling you,” said Sorrel. Narrowing his eyes, he peered into the darkness, where one steep little hill after another rose from the sea.
“There weren’t any islands marked on the map.” “I can’t make it out.” Ben slung the backpacks over his shoulders and climbed down Firedrake’s tail. “We almost took a very nasty dip in the sea!” “This journey’s going to shorten my life by a hundred years - no, more like five hundred or a thousand! Ugh!” Giving herself a shake, she looked down the steep slope of the hilly island to the black waves breaking on its shore. “Lawyer’s wig and hedgehog fungus!” Weak at the knees, Sorrel slid off Firedrake’s back. But Firedrake let himself sink to the ground with a sigh, folded his wings, and licked the salt water off his paws. Ben realized he was trembling all over, and Sorrel wasn’t doing much better. His riders were almost wrenched from their straps. The dragon fell rather than landed on the island. To Ben and Sorrel, it looked almost as if the island chain were rising toward them from the foaming sea. Try to land on one of them.”Īt that very moment the earth’s dark shadow engulfed the moon.įiredrake plummeted from the sky like a bird winged by a shot, but the first of the strange islands was already below him.
The pounding of the waves tore the words from his lips, but the dragon had keen ears. “Firedrake!” shouted Ben as loud as he could. Strange islands they were, rising humpbacked from the water like half-submerged hills. And then, in the last red glow of light cast on the waves by the fading moon, he suddenly saw a chain of small islands rising from the sea in the distance. Ben could already taste the salty sea spray on his lips. What are we going to do now?”įiredrake dropped lower and lower. “We’ve seen eclipses before,” babbled Sorrel, “but we were always above solid land at the time. “I’m as weak as a duckling, Sorrel!”īen looked up at the sky, where the moon now hung like a rusty coin among the stars. “I can’t help it!” the dragon called back to her wearily. “You’re flying too low, Firedrake!” called Sorrel.
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