Nick looked at Lana and said, “I think he talks too damn much. He likes hearing the sound of his own voice, but I’m tired of listening to him.”
Lana nodded and said, “I agree.”
Both of them hunched down and walked toward Dizag as though they were going to launch themselves at them.
Dizag wasn’t going to give up without a fight.
He used his tail to try to take Lana’s legs out from under her. She was the most hurt and the easiest to take out.
Lana saw the move coming, just as Nick had earlier, and leapt.
Dizag used his claw and swiped at Lana, narrowly missing her throat. Dizag laughed heartily, as though he were playing a fun game.
Nick jumped and managed to bury his fangs deep into Dizag’s belly. Dizag roared and blew fire in Nick’s direction.
Lana took the opportunity to jump on Dizag’s back, causing him to stumble to the cage where Sara and Clarence were being held.
Instantly, they reached out and each grabbed one of the dragon’s arms tightly. Dizag pulled his arms back, causing Sara and Clarence to be slammed against the iron bars holding them prisoner.
“Hurry! I can’t hang on much longer,” Sara cried out.
Nick jumped onto Dizag’s back and using all five of his claws, he tore out the dragon’s throat. Blood spurted everywhere, drenching Sara and Clarence.
Nick jumped back and Dizag fell to the floor.
Lana limped over to him. As Dizag took his final breath, she said, “You lose. Enjoy your time in hell.” Then, without a backward glance she walked away.
Lana and Nick headed outside. The battle was still raging, although there were only two dragons down.
Xutin called out, “Give up. You can’t win. We have more coming.”
Sure enough, they could hear the sound of many wings flapping against the sky heading toward them.
“Dizag is dead,” Nick told him. “Give up now, and you will live.”
“You are a liar,” Xutin said and lunged toward Nick. Instantly, several wolves were on him, ripping off scales and finding their mark to the vulnerable flesh underneath. Xutin managed to get out one more blast of fire before he, too, fell over, dead.
The fire managed to catch one of the bear shifters. Her fur was burned almost completely away, and there were burn spots on her body, but otherwise she looked unharmed. That left only Kerog, and he was badly injured.
He quickly shifted into human form and held up his hands to surrender. He looked at the darkening cloud of dragons that were coming in, obviously hoping that they would be there in time to rescue him.
Lana slapped one of the bracelets on him, preventing him from changing back into the dragon form again.
Then, the group of fighters scattered, hiding behind rocks and any other places they could find. There was no way that they could outrun the dragons. Their best bet would be a surprise attack.
There were six dragons in the thunder that approached. They landed and looked around.
“There has obviously been a battle here,” one of them said.
“We have a body over here,” another said, pointing toward Xutin. “He just died. His blood is still fresh.”
They looked around and saw the bodies of the other shifters that had been killed in the battle.
“Their bodies are still warm. They can’t have gotten far,” one of them said. He was a huge dragon, at least as big as Dizag, if not bigger. He had gray scales that had once likely been silver. It was obvious that he was the leader of this ragtag “army.”
The gray scale said, “You men, fan out and search the forest. Catch them and destroy them. I’m going to find Dizag. I received his last mayday a few minutes ago. He’s likely still in the cave.”
Lana’s heart stopped. Her parents, along with several other prisoners, were still in there. They would be easy prey once the gray scale saw that his leader had been vanquished.
Sounds of battles erupted. Each of the shifters had hidden in at least groups of four, so hopefully they would be able to take down the dragons. All they had to do was get them down and slap a bracelet on them. Lana hoped they would be taken alive, because one of them had to tell her where the other prisoners were located.
She and Nick watched the largest dragon go into the cave in search of Dizag. She, Nick, and a couple of others followed behind him. Before he could get deep into the cave where the cages were, Nick called out, “Freeze. Surrender and you can walk out of here alive.”
The gray scale laughed loudly as though Nick had told him a funny story.
“Surrender. To you? And if I don’t, you are going to take me down by yourself?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I might be able to. You don’t look so tough to me,” Nick said, hoping to draw the dragon closer to the group, hidden in the shadows. “I think I could take you.”
“I tell you what, you stay right there. I’m going to check in with the chief and then I’ll come back. We can arm wrestle, and then I’ll roast you alive,” the gray dragon chuckled.
“You don’t have to worry about Dizag. He’s dead. He was actually quite easy to take out, wasn’t he, Lana?” Nick said.
Lana stepped out of the shadows. “Yeah. It only took a few seconds before he was crying like a baby, whimpering for his mama that he had murdered.”
“Lana,” the dragon hissed. “We’ve been looking for you.”
“Well, as I said, we’ve already had our meeting with Dizag. It didn’t turn out so well for him. You saw Xutin outside. They were no match for us,” Lana said. “Were they, Nick?”
Taking the bait, the gray dragon stepped closer to Lana and Nick. “You two don’t look like you are in great shape.”
“Oh,
