I thrashed and spat out water as I did everything I could to keep hold of the snake. I held it under water, hoping that it would drown, but the water made my pants billow and gave the snake a chance to escape. I saw its head emerge and it looked up at me, appearing hazy under the water, it darted up and broke through the surface. I screamed and jerked my head back, trying to put as much distance between it and me as possible. Thankfully, I still had something of a grip on its body and I was able to hold it down, but I feared that it was only a matter of time before it broke free and wounded me.
I raised my arms, water dripping from them, and used all my strength to heave the snake up and batter it against the river bank. The snake twisted and seemed to scream as I brought its head crashing down against the hard ground. It spat up dirt and I heard the cracking of bone. I screamed until my throat was raw, bringing it down again and again like a hammer, not wanting to stop until I was sure it was dead.
In the end, my muscles gave out and I flung the snake away. Its body writhed and convulsed, but its head was still and its eyes were blank. I placed my hands against the river bank and breathed deeply, knowing that I had come close to death, yet I had survived. I had been foolish to forget the warnings of the island, and had been lucky that the snake had announced itself with its hiss. Had it not, I would likely have been poisoned, and would most likely have died.
With a much grimmer demeanor I pulled myself out of the river and got dressed, keeping a careful eye out for snakes. I didn’t see anymore, and I gladly returned to Thomas and William. My face was red with effort and I had a surly expression. I stomped through the jungle and this grim mood was readily apparent to the brothers.
“Nice bath,” William asked, smirking.
“The sooner we get up to the mountains,
the better,” I said glaring at him.
15
I didn’t mention my little battle with the snake, preferring instead to let the mystery linger. Although I had pleasured them both the previous night I returned to my role as project leader and snapped them to attention. I was glad that neither of them put up a fight, for if either of them had tried to convince me otherwise, perhaps by putting their arms around me and pulling me into a fierce embrace, I may well have crumbled, for I didn’t have any conviction in my ability to resist their charms.
They had filled a couple of packs with water, food, and some equipment, but the crate itself would remain here. I didn’t think we’d need to take the whole thing up as there were only three of us now, and as we were encountering more wildlife and knew of a couple of sources of water, I was more confident that we could live off the land in case of an emergency. I did wish that we had managed to salvage some of the archaeological equipment from the plane though, as it would be more difficult to catalogue anything without. If we did find something important, I’d have to find some way to come back here, because for now anything we saw was going to be for our eyes only.
Once I’d inspected the packs they had put together I placed my hands on my hips and nodded to them. “We’ll try and get as much covered today as we can. We’ll start with the nearest mountain and see if there’s a place to land, if not, we’ll move onto the next one. Now, if our theories are wrong and there’s nothing on the mountains, we’ll have to continue to scour the island again, but hopefully we’ll at least find a lair. If we don’t find anything by nightfall we’ll return to the beach and rest, and begin again tomorrow.”
Thomas and William nodded. I gazed up at the mountains. “Let’s go,” I said.
I stood there as the men shifted into dragons, their handsome, sexy bodies of flesh and blood turning into majestic visions of a fantasy world, gleaming scales and fierce jaws. The more I witnessed them in this form the more I was getting used to it, although I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to treat it as something normal. The two dragons stood there, looking tall and mighty. Their wings lay flat against their bodies and I could tell they were itching to take flight. Since I had already flown with Thomas and I felt more comfortable riding on his back, so I slipped the packs onto William’s talons and then climbed onto Thomas, riding him in a different manner to the way I had done the previous night.
Thomas dipped his body and stretched out his wing, allowing me to use it as a boarding ramp. His body was warm and the scales were soft, which I found surprising. I clambered onto his back, straddling my legs over his spine. I would have loved a saddle for security, because although I trusted Thomas implicitly to give me a smooth flight, I was concerned with the lack of anything to secure me to him. I’d already almost fallen to my death twice in just about as many days, and I didn’t want to make it a third time. However, there were bony ridges that protruded from his spine so I wrapped my arms around these as best I could and held on for dear life.
I pointed to the mountain we were going to explore and William was the first to rise. I watched as he spread his wings and effortlessly lifted off the ground into the air, soaring up higher and higher. I didn’t remember the first time I had flown with Thomas, and the second time I had been panicking about a lot of things, so this was the first time that I truly got to experience it.
Thomas dipped his head and stretched out his wings, he bent his legs and then in one smooth movement he seemed to catch the air underneath him and rise. I had been expecting a sensation similar to flying in a plane, with a lot of rumbling and clumsy rattling as the plane broke through the layers of air, battling with turbulence, but it wasn’t anything like that. It was smooth and natural, and quite wondrous.
As we ascended through the air, the wind blew the hair away from my face. I looked down at the jungle as the island rushed away below us, and I gripped onto Thomas a little more tightly, the inherent fear rattling around my mind. My throat ran dry for an instant, but as Thomas leveled out and flapped his wings I became more comfortable and relaxed a little, he was a big dragon, and it was unlikely that I was going to fall off.
Thomas made no sudden movements and the flight was smooth. He seemed to glide and soar rather than swoop in. William was ahead, looking like a blot against the sky, and I was in awe of these two men, these two dragons.
We flew up to the first mountain and circled around the great pillar of stone, inspecting the weathered rocks. We flew past impossibly close and Thomas banked his body so that I could reach out and brush the surface with my fingers. However, there didn’t seem to be any entrance to a lair of any kind, although I was given a stark reminder of how impossible it would have been to climb this mountain. There were barely any footholds the entire way up, it was almost a sheer drop, and it struck me that I was in a place where likely no human had ever been before. Part of the thrill of archaeology was coming upon a place that had been lost for centuries, and knowing that you were the first one in a long time to step into the forgotten world, but this was entirely different. As far as I was aware, I was the first pure-blooded human to be around these mountains.
We flew past the first one and since there were multiple targets to scout, Thomas and William decided to split up and explore different ones. We banked to the left and flew around another column, descending down, and then rising up again as we circled the mountain, as though we had been caught in its orbit. Still we hadn’t seen any sign of an entrance and I worried that we weren’t going to find anything; that Dragon Island was just a myth and we had been led on a wild goose hunt. It seemed that all the lives that had been lost in pursuit of the mystery of Dragon Island had been lost in vain, and a sick feeling permeated my stomach.
Thomas flew away from this mountain and surged towards another, gaining speed, and I imagined that he was growing as frustrated and impatient as I was. When we first set out on this expedition, I thought they were just bored thrill-seekers who wanted some excitement. I couldn’t imagine that anyone would be as passionate about this hunt for the truth as I was, but I had mainly come here to seek my parents, while they were here to seek the truth for an entire race. I was humbled and awed by the secret history that had been woven into the tapestry of the human world, and I wanted to help them learn more about their past. I imagined my parents had been filled with a similar desire, which was likely why they had helped Thomas and William’s father in the first place.
It struck me as intriguing how the decisions made years ago had effects that rippled through our lives. The decisions of our parents had brought us together on this quest, and we were the ones tasked now with finishing what our parents had started, and finish it we would, one way or another, even if we had to return to the world in failure.
The next mountain again did not bear any fruit, and I was growing disenchanted. There were only a few left and I hated that our assumptions seemed to be wrong, but then in the distance we heard William roar. Thomas snapped his head around and headed straight for his brother, who was batting his wings to hover, and when it was clear we had seen him, William ducked behind the mountain. We followed him and saw no sign of him when he turned. We thought he had disappeared and I wondered if he had grown tired and was playing some game of hide and seek with us, but then we heard him roar again and we looked up. There was a crevice and a hole in the mountain through which William poked his head. Thomas climbed the air and guided us in, landing on the stone.
We had made it to the dragon’s lair.
16
The air was especially cold up here near the top of the mountain. I took a moment to look down at the jungle. While riding on Thomas’ back I hadn’t been exactly aware of how far we had risen, but one look outside told me all I needed to know. My head grew groggy with the feeling of vertigo and I stumbled back. The island was a mess of green, the jungle sprawling out like a blanket. From this height, it was impossible to make out details. The sea stretched around beyond the island, deep blue and beautiful, and for a good while the sky was just as clear, but then my eyes saw the dark rim of the storm, the natural barrier that made it difficult for anyone to come in, and I wondered if I we would ever find out if that barrier was some kind of natural force or if it had been placed there on purpose. It seemed too convenient to be natural.
I planted my feet on solid ground and looked into the dark cave. I shivered and rubbed my arms. The cave was wide and there was plenty of room for Thomas and William to move around as dragons, so it lent credence to my speculation. The cave had a ramp lining the edge which spiraled down. The mountain seemed to have been hollowed out. It was like a great big cone, and the darkness threatened to swallow us up. It went deep, deep down, likely into the heart of the island, but it was pitch black.
I looked at the dragons and they turned to each other. Thomas rose and flew into the middle of nothing and flew down, his black form melting into the darkness. Tension rose as William and I waited for his return. I jumped back as he came swooping up and held his position, his head angled straight down. He opened his mighty jaws and his body glowed from within as fiery breath pulsed out in a bright plume. It was incandescent and I had to raise my hands to shield my face from the heat and the brightness. I closed my eyes and waited for the light to fade, before I opened them again to see why Thomas had breathed fire.
Suddenly the darkness had been vanquished. I could see that there were torches placed at regular intervals down the mountain, and one burst of breath had lit them all. They illuminated a way down, but where it led to, we couldn’t tell. There was only one way to find out.
From what I could see, the slopes