Prince Danny's Arc

Chapter 9 of 11

Boots thundered down the stair. Danny rose as the dragon uncoiled, scales scraping gold. A wedge of green elves poured into the undercroft, blades locked shoulder to shoulder, a wall of sharp grins and sharper steel. More crowded behind them, sealing the arched door. There was no gap. No way past. Danny pressed his back to the dragon's flank. The ring on his hand pulsed warm. "The door," he said. "Burn it down. All of it." The dragon's chest swelled. Heat rolled off its scales in a wave that bent the air. Fire roared from its jaws in a long bright river. It struck the wedge of elves and the stone arch behind them at once. The front rank lit like dry grass, mouths open in silent screams, their twisted shapes curling into black husks among the flames. The arch cracked. Gold along the frame ran like water. The doors blew apart. Stone split in jagged lines up the walls, scorched black around the gaping hole where the gate had been. Smoking rubble buried the rear ranks. The few elves still standing turned and ran. Danny climbed onto the dragon's shoulder. Coins slid under its claws as it pushed through the broken arch and up the cracked stair. Behind them, a chalice melted into a puddle on the floor, the crest on its side warped beyond reading. They burst into open air above the treasure rooms, smoke pouring out behind them. The dragon spread its wings. Danny held tight to a horned ridge. The castle alarm howled from every tower now, but he was no longer trapped under stone. He was above it, with a friend that breathed fire, and somewhere beyond the smoke his family was still waiting.