He stood steady before the tiger. ‘Is that all you have?’ Billy shouted. ‘That’s pathetic! Any average human could have dodged that blast. Why don’t you try to get me… if you can?’ He dropped Charlotte’s hand and raced along the wall of the cavern, hoping the tiger would focus all its attention on him. He felt reckless and exhilarated, but also strangely confident. He believed in his friends and that together they could defeat the tiger. He believed in himself.
‘Oh, you are even more dim-witted than your long-legged friend!’ said the tiger. ‘But you do seem faster, I’ll give you that.’ Victor turned to Billy and let out another torrent of electricity. Billy leaped high into the air, just dodging the tiger’s attack. He kicked from the wall and shot off in another direction. The tiger let out a disgruntled roar and aimed more lightning at Billy.
Billy found he could sense the streams of lightning coming at him before the tiger shot them out, and he dodged the attacks with ease, flipping off the walls and bending in every direction. As Billy darted round the cavern, he looked back towards his friends. He could only keep this up for so long. The boldness and confidence he’d had before started to waver, and a tendril of fear crept in. He stumbled, and one of the tiger’s lightning bolts came dangerously close to his face. He yelped and dived in the other direction.
‘We have to do something before he gets fried alive!’ he heard Dylan shout to Charlotte and Ling-Fei.
‘Its heart!’ Ling-Fei suddenly blurted, hope in her voice. ‘I don’t know how I can tell, but we have to get to its heart.’ Her voice sounded very far away to Billy, who didn’t dare take his eyes off the tiger even for a second. He wasn’t sure he had heard Ling-Fei right. Getting to the tiger’s heart sounded like an impossible task.
All Billy knew was he was getting tired, and the tiger wasn’t. If anything, it was starting to feel like the tiger was toying with him the way a cat would play with a mouse.
‘Hurry,’ Billy croaked out, as he dodged another lightning strike just in time.
And then his friends crept closer. Billy used his last burst of strength to run up the wall to keep distracting the tiger.
As he glanced below, he saw Charlotte dash straight towards the tiger, who was still focused on Billy, and punch her hand through its back, ripping out its beating purple heart.
Billy dropped down from the wall as the tiger collapsed with a roar.
‘What? How can this be? Defeated by tiny humans,’ the tiger choked out, turning its gaze towards each of the children. ‘You may have won this battle, but you will never stop the Great One!’
The heart in Charlotte’s hand disappeared and the tiger gave out a final cry as it shimmered into nothingness.
The Other Side Of The Mountain
‘We did it!’ yelled Ling-Fei. ‘Billy, you were amazing! And, Charlotte, that was… wild!’
‘What a punch,’ said Dylan, who looked shell-shocked.
Charlotte grinned. ‘I told you I would pummel anything that tried to get us with my fists.’
‘We survived! We broke the curse!’ said Billy. He felt invincible. If they could defeat a magic tiger and break an evil curse on their own, they would be unstoppable with their dragons. The glow from the purple veins on the walls was fading quickly, and soon it was so dark Billy couldn’t see his own hands. He pulled his friends closer as the ground began to shake.
‘I think the mountain is opening into the Dragon Realm!’ said Charlotte.
Billy looked up to see one side of the cavern slowly cracking open until it looked like a giant doorway, filling the entire cavern with sunlight. It was so bright, Billy shielded his eyes, unable to see past the light-filled entrance. He turned back round, blinking, and saw the dragons emerge from the wall of fog.
‘Spark!’ he cried.
‘You did it!’ thundered Tank. ‘You broke the curse!’
‘I knew you would,’ said Spark.
‘You have done very well, for such small humans,’ said Xing. She nuzzled Ling-Fei with her snout.
‘We’re going home!’ cried Buttons. He turned towards the sunlit entrance and rolled around on the cavern floor. ‘Sunshine! Air! I’d almost forgotten how wonderful it is.’
‘Stop acting like a common lizard,’ snapped Xing. ‘Get off the ground. I’m eager to see our home, and you can roll around on the ground as much as you like then.’
‘Fine, fine,’ said Buttons. But he was smiling widely as he stood and lifted his face to the sun like a giant sunflower.
‘Before we re-enter our realm, we should be ready to fly,’ said Tank. ‘Quickly, now.’
‘The bond will help us to fly as one and keep you secure on our backs,’ said Spark as she kneeled low enough for Billy to climb on.
Billy climbed up on Spark’s back, his hands still trembling with the adrenaline of the battle with the tiger, and in anticipation of riding a dragon.
‘Hold on,’ Spark said, straightening up to her full height. He was riding a dragon. It was like all his childhood dreams had come true. They hadn’t even taken flight yet and it was already amazing. Billy’s face split into a wide, irrepressible grin. He hoped he would remember this exact moment for ever.
Billy looked over at each of his friends astride their dragons. Dylan gave him a salute from the back of Buttons. Charlotte looked like an avenging warrior queen on Tank’s back. Ling-Fei sat proudly on Xing, like she’d been riding dragons all her life.
They were no longer the children who had arrived at summer camp.
They were champions, ready for anything.
‘Onwards,’ roared Tank.
The dragons strode forward, the children on their backs, and they emerged from the cavern and into the Dragon Realm.
Billy gazed out at the new world in front of him. In a dusty red sky three full moons sat above an oval sun. Even
