The Hidden Kingdom Page 2

  She most certainly did not love this weather. In the caves under the mountain, the dragonets had never, ever been rained on. This downpour felt unnatural and unstoppable and horribly, unpleasantly wet.

  I don’t care if a “real” RainWing is supposed to like this, she thought as droplets rolled off her snout, seeped through her scales, and soaked her wings until they dragged heavily behind her. If they do, there’s something wrong with them. No sensible dragon should enjoy weather that makes it so hard to fly.

  Three moons, please let them be sensible dragons. Let them be nothing like the stories.

  Everyone said RainWings were useless and lazy. But the tribe lived off by themselves in the rainforest where no one ever saw them, so everyone might be wrong. Glory was really hoping they were wrong.

  She shook her whole body and glared at the fog-shrouded sky. What she wanted was more sun. She’d missed the sun her whole life and hadn’t known it until it hit her scales the day they left the caves. More long sunny days would be fine by her.

  Instead there was this. Rain. Mud. More rain. More mud.

  Plus one moaning, groaning, dripping slowpoke of a wounded SeaWing.

  “Can we stop?” Webs gasped. “I need to rest.” He floundered through the mud to a slightly drier spot under a tree.

  Glory narrowed her eyes at him as the blue-green dragon flopped to the ground. The other dragonets stopped, too, exchanging glances. They were walking today instead of flying because Webs said it was easier on his injury. And yet he still asked to stop nearly every ten steps. Glory was starting to suspect he didn’t really want them to get to the rainforest.

  But why? she wondered. Is he hiding something? Does it have to do with my parents?

  As the guardian who had stolen her from the RainWing tribe in the first place, Webs should have been a helpful fount of knowledge about where she came from. Instead, he got all mumbly and forgetful whenever they asked about the rainforest dragons.

  Clay paced over to Webs and peered down at his wound. They’d wrapped it with seaweed soaked in ocean water for as long as they could, but now they were too far inland to get any more. The poisoned scratch near Webs’s tail had become an ugly gash surrounded by blackened scales, and the black seemed to spread a bit more each day. None of them had any idea what to do to combat SandWing poison.

  Not to mention we have no idea why Blister wanted Webs dead so badly. I mean, I think he’s awful, but she doesn’t even know him. Glory glanced at Starflight, the black NightWing who was the smartest dragonet she knew — and probably still would be even if she knew more than four dragons. She wondered if he had any theories about Blister and Webs.

  Clay swept his tail through the mud, looking worried. “I hope the RainWings can help him,” he said. “This isn’t exactly like their venom. But maybe they’ll have more ideas than we do.”

  Glory shook out her wings and looked away. She didn’t care. The other dragonets felt some kind of misguided loyalty to their old guardian, as if it was their responsibility to save him.

  She was the only one who seemed to remember how he’d been willing to stand by and let someone kill her.

  Stealing her egg had been his idea, too. The prophecy called for a SkyWing, but when the Talons lost their SkyWing egg before it hatched, Webs had decided to replace it with a RainWing. It was his fault Glory had been forced to grow up under the mountain, far from her home and family, learning about a prophecy that didn’t even have a place for her in it.

  It was easy for the others. There was no question about their destiny. But Glory . . . if she was meant to help save the world, then why hadn’t the prophecy called for a RainWing? And if she wasn’t necessary for this big grand destiny, then what was the point of her life at all?

  Maybe it was all one big mistake, but when she thought like that, she ended up having violent dreams about ripping Webs apart. So, better not to think about it. Destiny would have to sort itself out.

  Right now she was going home.

  The branch above Glory suddenly dipped and dumped a lake’s worth of water onto her head. She leaped back with a hiss and glared up into the tree.

  “Shhh,” Tsunami said from above. She dropped down to the ground and peered around at the gloomy swamp. “There’s a pair of MudWings headed this way, but they’ll never see us in this weather.”

  Rolls of thick gray fog hung over the mud, wreathing the stunted trees like smoke around a dragon’s horns. It was hard to tell what time of day it was. The sky was gray in every direction and the rain drizzled down unrelentingly. Glory agreed with Tsunami; a dragon could barely see her own wing tips in this, let alone another dragon.

  “We should still hide,” Starflight said anxiously. “We’re only a day’s flight from Queen Moorhen’s palace right now. If we get caught —”

  “More prison,” Clay said with a sigh.

  Every queen they’d met so far seemed determined to keep the dragonets trapped under her claws. They’d escaped Queen Scarlet’s prison in the Sky Kingdom only because of Glory’s venom — a secret weapon even she hadn’t known about until she’d needed it.

  She touched her forked tongue to her fangs and glanced at the sky. They still had no idea if Queen Scarlet had survived Glory’s attack. Given their luck, Glory was pretty sure Scarlet was alive and planning some horrible revenge.

  After that escape they’d gone looking for safety with Tsunami’s mother, Queen Coral of the SeaWings. Of course Coral had decided to lock them up as well. Glory hadn’t been surprised. Not even family could be trusted when it came to the prophecy. Everyone had their own plans for how this war should end.

  So if Queen Moorhen of the MudWings found them in her territory, she probably wasn’t going to give them tea and send them on their way.

  The MudWing queen held court beside a large lake on the southern edge of the Mud Kingdom. Glory remembered the map of Pyrrhia and a shiver of realization ran down her spine. If Starflight was right and they were only a day’s flight from there, then they must be only a day’s flight from the rainforest as well. From the rainforest . . . and Glory’s tribe.

  And then I’ll belong somewhere. The RainWings won’t care that I’m not in some prophecy.

  “Glory,” Tsunami scolded. “Bright yellow scales are the one thing they might see. Go back to camouflage.”

  Glory glanced down and saw the starbursts of gold that had appeared all across her scales. Those meant happiness or excitement, as far as she knew, since she’d seen them pretty rarely in her life. It drove her crazy when her scales changed color without her telling them to. They did that way too often. She had to squash every big emotion before it splashed all over her.

  She concentrated on the steady drip-drip of the swamp around them, staring down at the thick brown mud oozing through her claws. She imagined the fog winding around her wings, slipping into the cracks in her scales, and spreading like gray clouds rolling across the sky.

  “Aaaand she’s gone,” Tsunami said.

  “She’s still there,” Sunny piped up. She edged closer to Glory and bumped into one of her wings. “See? Right there.” She stretched out a talon, but Glory moved out of reach. Sunny felt around in the air for a moment and then gave up.

  The little SandWing had been unusually quiet for the last few days. Glory guessed Sunny hated the rain, too — the desert dragons were designed for searing heat, blazing sun, and endless clear-sky days. Even an odd-looking SandWing like Sunny still had the instincts of her tribe.

  Really, Clay was the only one happy about the weather. Only a MudWing could appreciate the squishing and squashing under their claws as they traveled through the swamp.

  Starflight swiveled his head suddenly. “I think I smell someone coming,” he whispered. He shuddered from horns to claws.

  “Don’t panic,” Tsunami whispered back. “Clay, you hide me and Sunny. Starflight, find a shadow
and do your invisible petrified-NightWing thing. Glory, you can shield Webs.”

  “No, thanks,” Glory said immediately. She wasn’t going anywhere near Webs, certainly not to save his life. “I’ll take Sunny.” She didn’t like touching other dragons, but Sunny was better than Webs.

  “But —” Tsunami started, stamping her foot.

  Glory ignored her. She lifted one wing and tugged the little gold dragon in close to her side. When she lowered her wing again, Sunny was hidden by Glory’s gray-brown camouflage.

  “Yikes,” Clay said. “That was so weird. Like Sunny just got eaten by the fog.” His stomach grumbled woefully at the word eaten, and the MudWing shuffled his big feet in embarrassment.

  Starflight peered at the spot where Sunny had just been, twisting his claws in the mud.

  “She’s fine,” Glory said. “Go follow orders like a good dragonet, or Tsunami might fling you to the eels.”

  Tsunami frowned in her direction, but Starflight slunk away and found a dark tree hollow where his black scales melted into the shadows.

  Now Glory could hear it, too: the tramp-squelch-tramp-squelch of enormous claws marching through the swamp toward them. The heat from Sunny’s scales was uncomfortably warm against her side.

  Webs hadn’t moved while they talked. He lay curled against the tree roots, snout resting on his tail, looking miserable.

  Clay shepherded Tsunami up next to Webs and spread his mud-colored wings to hide them both. It wasn’t a perfect solution — a blue tail stuck out on one side, the edge of blue-green wings on the other. But in this fog, they looked mostly like a blobby mound of mud, which should be good enough.

  Tramp. Squelch. Tramp. Squelch.

  “I don’t like this patrol,” a deep voice grumbled. Glory nearly jumped. It sounded like it was coming from two trees away. “Too close to that creepy rainforest, if you ask me.”

  “It’s not really haunted,” said a second voice. “You know the only things that live there are birds and lazy RainWings.”

  Years of learning self-control kept Glory from flinching. She’d heard “lazy RainWings” thrown around often enough by the guardians, under the mountain. But it felt like an extra stab in the eye to hear it from a total stranger.

  “If that were true,” said the first voice, “then Her Majesty would let us hunt in there. But she knows it’s not safe. And you’ve heard the noises at night. Are you telling me it’s the RainWings screaming like that?”

  Screaming? Under Glory’s wing, Sunny turned her head a little, as if she were trying to hear better.

  “Not to mention the dead bodies,” the first voice muttered.

  “That’s not some kind of rainforest monster,” said the second guard, but there was a tilt in her tone that sounded unsure. “That’s the war. Some kind of guerilla attacks to scare us.”

  “All the way down here? Why would the SeaWings or the IceWings come all this way to kill one or two MudWings here and there? There are bigger battles going on every where else.”

  “Let’s go a bit faster,” said the second voice uneasily. “They should really let us patrol in threes or fours instead of in pairs.”

  “Tell me about it.” Tramp-squelch-tramp-squelch. “So what do you think about the SkyWing situation? Are you for Ruby, or do you think . . .”

  Glory strained her ears, but their voices faded into the mist as the two MudWing soldiers sploshed away. She badly wanted to know what “the SkyWing situation” was. Maybe her friends wouldn’t notice if she slipped away for a moment.

  “Be right back,” she whispered to Sunny, lifting her wing and stepping away.

  Sunny caught her tail, wide-eyed. “Don’t go!” she whispered. “It’s not safe! You heard what they said.”

  “About rainforest monsters?” Glory rolled her eyes. “Can’t say I’m terribly worried about that. I won’t go far.” She shook Sunny off and slipped after the soldiers, carefully stepping only on the dry patches so her claws wouldn’t splash in the mud.

  It was weirdly quiet in the swamp, especially with the fog muffling most sounds. She tried to follow the distant rumble of voices and what she thought might be the sound of marching MudWing talons. But after a few moments, even those became impossible to hear.

  She stopped, listening. The trees dripped. Rain drizzled moodily through the branches. Small gurgles burbled out of the mud here and there, as if the swamp were hiccupping.

  And then a scream tore through the air.

  Glory’s ruff flared in fear and pale green stripes zigzagged through her scales. She fought back her terror, focusing her colors back to gray and brown.

  “Glory!” Sunny yelled, behind her somewhere.

  Shut up, Glory thought furiously. Don’t draw attention. Don’t let anything know we’re here.

  The other dragonets must have had the same thought and stopped her, because Sunny didn’t call out again.

  Unless it was one of them who screamed. But it couldn’t have been. The scream had come from somewhere up ahead.

  Glory checked her scales again to make sure she was well hidden and then sped up, hurrying through the trees toward the scream.

  The fog was so dense, she nearly missed the two dark lumps that looked like fallen logs. But her claws came down on something that was decidedly a dragon tail, and she leaped back.

  Two brown dragons were sprawled in the mud, surrounded by pools of blood that were already being washed away by the rain. Their throats had been ripped out so viciously that their heads were nearly severed from their bodies.

  Glory stared into the rolling gray fog, but nothing moved out there except the rain.

  The MudWing soldiers were dead, and there was no sign of what had killed them.

  “Remind me why we’re walking toward the place with the monster and the screaming and the something that kills dragons?” Clay asked.

  “We could go somewhere else,” Starflight said. “Maybe to the IceWings?”

  “IceWings! Yes!” Clay said. “That sounds like a great plan. Let’s do that. No mysterious dragon-killing things in the Ice Kingdom. Right? What are those animals they have up there? Penguins? I bet I could beat a penguin or two in battle. Couldn’t I? How big are they? Maybe just one penguin.”

  “So we can freeze to death instead,” Glory said. A rumor and a couple of dead soldiers were not going to scare her away from her home when she was finally this close. “Fantastic plan, Starflight. Not to mention the Ice Kingdom is half a continent away while the rainforest is right here.”

  “Besides, Webs will never make it all the way to the Ice Kingdom,” Sunny chimed in. She glanced nervously up at the trees, which seemed to be getting taller and taller as they walked.

  It was also warmer the farther they went, and up in the vines overhead Glory could see flashes of color. The bright summer yellows and purples and blues might have been birds or flowers, but they were definitely not typical of the brown, brown, brown Mud Kingdom. Glory wasn’t sure, but she guessed the dragonets were in the rainforest for real now.

  The gnarled claw shapes of the marsh trees were half a day behind them and so were the MudWing bodies. Tsunami had wanted to stop and search the area for clues, but she’d been outvoted by the other dragonets when Starflight pointed out that now they’d really be in trouble if they were caught right next to a double murder . . . not to mention whatever had killed the soldiers couldn’t have gone far. That was enough to get everyone, even Webs, to fly through the night, and they’d circled down to walk again only once the sun was up and they were looking for food.

  “See?” Glory said to Clay and Starflight. “Even Sunny is acting braver than you scaredy-scavengers.”

  “Even Sunny?” the SandWing flared. “What’s that supposed to mean? I’m brave! I’m brave all the time!” She lashed her tail and ducked away when Clay reached to pat her on the head.

&nbs
p; Warm bursts of sunlight nudged through the leafy canopy, making all their scales glow. Glory let her scales turn whatever color they wanted. A shimmery beetle green spread all over her, touched here and there with curls of amber. She liked the feeling of matching the trees and sunbeams.

  We’ll be there soon, she thought with a shiver of anticipation. But I mustn’t get my hopes up. Maybe it won’t be what I imagined. It just has to be better than life under the mountain, trapped in a cave by guardians who hate me. I’m not setting the bar too high here, I think.

  Something crackled off to their left, but when Glory whipped around, all she saw was a shaggy gray sloth, hanging from a tree and blinking sleepily at her.

  “Have I mentioned this place makes me nervous?” Clay asked.

  “Only about a thousand times,” Glory said.

  “I wish we knew what the MudWings were talking about,” Sunny said. “How can they live right next to the rainforest and not know why it’s dangerous?”

  “How can the RainWings live in the rainforest if it’s all that dangerous?” Glory countered.

  Webs sniffed faintly, the first sound he’d made in a while. He muttered, “Because they’re RainWings. They probably haven’t even noticed.”

  Glory glared at him. “Maybe you’d like a matching venomous wound on your other side,” she snarled.

  Tsunami whirled and grabbed Webs’s snout. The bigger SeaWing snorted with surprise and tried to jerk back, but she held him firmly so she could glare into his face.

  “All right, enough. What do you know about this?” she demanded. “You’re the only one who’s been to the rainforest. Does it have some kind of monster?” She shook his snout, none too gently. “Stop drooping like a wet fern and tell us what you know.”

  “Nuffing,” Webs mumbled through Tsunami’s grip.

  “Stamp on his tail,” Glory suggested. “Or poke that scratch. That’ll get him talking.”

  “Don’t be horrible,” Sunny said. She nudged their guardian’s shoulder with her snout. “Webs, please warn us if you know something. It’s not safe for you either.”