The silver dragon shot towards them now, knocking Ling-Fei and Dylan over in a heap on the floor. Charlotte yanked Billy out of the way, and they raced in the other direction.
From deeper in the cavern came a low rumble. Smoke filled the air. A pair of red eyes lit up in the darkness. The floor trembled as a new dragon approached from the shadows. By far the biggest dragon yet, it looked as if it had been through hundreds of battles. Its body was a tapestry of scars and red and gold scales.
And it was coming right towards them.
Superior To Humans
The giant red dragon roared so loudly that Billy thought the entire mountain might come down on their heads. It hunched on its front paws and unleashed a stream of fire that hit the wall ahead of Billy and Charlotte. They turned, running from the flames and back towards Dylan and Ling-Fei. The red dragon slowly pivoted its head so the flames chased them, licking at their heels.
Billy and Charlotte reached the centre of the cavern and lunged for their friends. The four quickly threw their arms round each other, solid proof that they were there, alive, and that this was actually happening. Then they turned to face out, each one like the sentry at a different point on a compass. For a moment, Billy hoped his theory was right – that now the four of them were together, the dragons would disappear as the tiger had. Instead, the dragons moved closer.
The red dragon blew a stream of fire round them, circling them – trapping them. Billy and his friends instinctively moved closer together, tightening their stance. The heat of the flames was fiercer than anything Billy had ever felt. And there was no way out.
‘What now?’ Dylan whispered, adjusting his glasses very slowly.
Billy stared at the blue dragon. Its eyes locked onto his. Billy felt an unexpected calm descend on him. It was like he was in a dream, or outside his body, watching what was happening. He knew that they couldn’t defeat the dragons.
But he also knew, with a sudden sharp clarity, that if the dragons had wanted to kill them he and his friends would be dead already.
This felt more like…
A test of some kind.
‘I think,’ Billy murmured hesitantly, ‘I think we should try to communicate with them. Dragons are meant to be smart, right?’
‘Dragons aren’t meant to exist,’ said Dylan. ‘And I’m pretty sure, from my limited knowledge of them, that they are man-eating monsters.’
‘I agree with Billy,’ whispered Ling-Fei. ‘The silver one has my necklace! That can’t be a coincidence.’ She nodded to where the silver one watched them, Ling-Fei’s jade necklace swaying from its front claws.
‘We should find out what they want,’ said Charlotte.
‘What if what they want is to eat us?’ said Dylan.
‘If they want to eat us, they’re going to eat us no matter what,’ said Billy. ‘If we try to communicate with them, we might have a shot at surviving.’
As the friends muttered amongst themselves, the dragons pressed closer. Billy thought he saw something like curiosity alight in their eyes. The blue dragon blew a stream of cold air at the flames surrounding them, turning the fire to a wall of ice.
They were still trapped, but no longer at risk of being barbecued.
As Billy wondered how they should try to talk to the dragons, Dylan suddenly cried, ‘DON’T EAT US!’
The green dragon began to slap its short arms together, claws clanking, and bared its teeth in what looked like a terrifying grin. Did it… Could it… ?
‘Can you understand us?’ Billy shouted. ‘Do you want something from us?’
The dragons looked at one another. And then Billy knew for sure that they could understand what he and his friends were saying.
The silver dragon flew over the wall of ice, slithering down next to them. The friends pressed even closer together.
‘You are not what we were expecting,’ it said in a smooth and hypnotic voice.
‘You… you can speak?’ Billy stammered. However he had imagined communicating with the dragons, he had not expected this.
The silver dragon smirked. That was the only word for its expression. ‘Of course we speak, human fool. We are superior to humans in every way imaginable – don’t you think we would also master your simple tongue?’
Ling-Fei burst out in Mandarin, speaking so quickly Billy couldn’t understand her.
The silver dragon responded in kind.
‘What did you ask it?’ Billy whispered.
‘Don’t bother whispering,’ the silver dragon said. ‘We have incredibly advanced hearing. If we focus enough, we can even hear your heartbeats.’
Billy wondered how loud his own heartbeat was.
‘Your friend asked me about her necklace,’ the silver dragon went on. ‘Why I have it. She seems not to know just how valuable it is.’
‘My grandmother gave it to me,’ Ling-Fei said in a fierce voice. ‘It means more to me than it does to you.’
The silver dragon whipped its long tail against the ice wall, shattering it. Billy ducked and shielded his face from shards of flying ice, as did Charlotte and Dylan. But Ling-Fei stood unflinchingly amidst the ice shards and fearlessly faced the silver dragon.
‘The necklace is not what interests me,’ the silver dragon hissed. ‘I only care about this.’ With one sharp claw, it plucked the jade stone from the necklace setting. ‘Here,’ it said, tossing the necklace round Ling-Fei’s neck like a lasso.
Ling-Fei’s hands shot up and she clutched the now-empty necklace. ‘Give that back,’ she demanded.
‘Least of our worries, Ling-Fei,’ Dylan said in a low voice.
‘Give me my jade stone back and let us go,’ Ling-Fei said, louder this time.
‘You should have been more careful with the necklace,’ the silver dragon taunted. Then it sighed. ‘Though I’m glad you dropped it, so you had reason to return.’
‘You wanted us to come back?’ asked Billy. Something began to dawn on him. ‘You need us for something,’ he said slowly. ‘That’s why you’ve trapped us here. That’s why you captured
