Island of Dragons (34 page)

Everyone was quiet. From outside, they heard a low growl.

Sky grabbed her sword and stood up. “What was that?”

“It sounded like Simber,” said Alex. He reached automatically for spell components, but his pockets hung loose and empty. He shifted Fifer to his other arm and picked up his sword, then went cautiously to the window.

“Should I take the girls to the lounge?” said Crow nervously.

Alex peered outside. “It looks like storm clouds are rolling in. I don't see anything else.” He turned and walked back to the stairs. “But I suppose we should say good-bye now,” he said reluctantly. He propped his sword against the banister and planted a kiss on Fifer's cheek, and then leaned over Thisbe and kissed her, too. “It was very good to see you,” he said softly to the girls, and brushed Thisbe's hair out of her face. “Thanks, Crow.”

Crow smiled, and then he hugged Sky and took Fifer from Alex. “Stay strong,” Crow said. “We need you.”

Alex and Sky nodded solemnly. As Lani returned from the kitchen with a tray overflowing with food, Crow turned to let the girls pick up their toast so they could go back to safety.

From outside, Florence shouted. “Look out!” she yelled. “Incoming!”

Everyone turned to look outside, where the sky had turned dark as night again. Before anyone could run for cover, a silent sea of black poured in through all the windows, filling the mansion.

Crow gasped and his face filled with horror. Everyone ducked and began yelling. The black mass separated into individual creatures that began flying all around Artimé and throughout the mansion, filling nearly every corner and space.

Lani's tray of food went flying. Sky, Alex, and Samheed grabbed their swords and began swinging them wildly through the air, trying to hit whatever it was that was flying at them. Crow dropped to the ground with the girls, trying to protect them, and then he began to scream in panic.

“It's the birds!” screeched Crow, his eyes filled with pure terror. “It's Queen Eagala's birds! They're here for us!”

T
here were thousands of black ravens, and they were eerily silent, opening their mouths to screech but no sound ever coming out. Each wore a tiny gold collar of thorns.

Crow shook and cried hysterically, unable to do anything in his fear except crouch on the floor, covering his face. Thisbe escaped from his numb grasp and ran screaming to Alex, who hastily scooped her up and slipped her inside his robe, while Fifer stared at the birds, mesmerized, oblivious to the shouts and screams around her. She didn't make a sound. The ravens didn't touch her.

Sky battled the attacking birds with her sword, and Lani dove for the pile of shields, doling them out so the others could protect themselves from the pecking.

“Outside!” Samheed shouted. “Everyone, come on! They'll be less concentrated out there!” He picked up Crow and carried him out the front door. Alex, with Thisbe, grabbed Fifer and followed, hoping Samheed was right.

It was dark as pitch outside, though the sun had been rising thirty minutes before. The air was thick with ravens circling Artimé and diving down to peck at anything they saw moving. Florence was fighting off a hundred or more, and Simber was flying erratically above, trying to get them off him. Only Fifer continued to watch them, unaffected.

Soon the birds permeated the residential hallways, pecking at the doors until curious Artiméans opened them to see what was happening. They were pelted by seas of ravens swarming in. The birds filled the tubes and pecked at the buttons, which sent them to all sorts of places the pirates hadn't discovered yet. They flooded the lounge and the theater and library, sending the nonfighters running for the tubes to escape the confines of the mansion.

Over the course of the next hour, every last Artiméan who was able to move found his way outside to the lawn, trying to get some reprieve from the attacking birds. Most found that there was little they could do to stop it, so they crouched on the ground like Crow had done, making themselves as small as possible. But then the ravens began to try to lift the orange-eyed Warbler children into the air.

“Help!” the children cried, wresting themselves free. “They're taking us away!”

Aaron dashed out of the mansion, his wounds and pain so vastly improved from a night of sleep that he was almost like new. Desperately he searched the crowd. Finally he found Alex and his sisters amid the chaos. “This way!” he said. He guided them toward the rock, taking Crow from Samheed along the way. When there was a moment of peace, the rock opened his mouth, and Alex and Aaron quickly shoved Crow and the girls inside before any birds got in. Then they set out to gather up the smallest of the Warbler children and put them inside the rock's mouth too before they got carried off to the ships.

Sky and her mother, Copper, refused to go into the rock, preferring instead to fight, though they were being harshly attacked. Thatcher and Scarlet stayed outside of the rock as well. They beat off the ravens quite desperately at times to keep the birds from lifting and carrying them off.

On Artimé's ship, Sean and Ms. Octavia and the rest of their team took on the fewest ravens, for they'd hidden their orange-eyed Warbler fighters in the lower cabins overnight for safekeeping. But from their vantage point they could only watch helplessly and try to use freeze spells on as many of them as they could. It was such a small number of spells compared to the thousands of birds that it barely made a dent in the population. But they, too, had run out of deadly spells, leaving them with little in the way of ammunition.

Now that every Artiméan was fully occupied outside the mansion except for the helpless injured and nurses in the hospital ward, the ships emptied out into their tenders once more, and this time both pirates and Warbleran people filled them. They began rowing to shore without anybody in Artimé noticing. When they reached land, they streamed out of their boats and began to make a human wall all the way around the bird-fighting Artiméans.

Soon every tender had reached the shore and unloaded, and Warblerans and pirates stood armed in a giant circle around the panicked people of Artimé, watching the birds do their work for them.

A single raven managed to get inside the rock's mouth. It went straight for Crow's face and began pecking. Fifer reached out, grabbed the bird, and screamed at it.

The scream rose above all other sounds in Artimé and reverberated through the land. Everyone, even the birds, froze and listened.

“That's one of the twins,” whispered Alex, eyes wide.

Within seconds, the scream ended and all of the thousands of ravens turned to smoke.

T
he blackness billowed and lifted into the sky, forming streams of smoke like giant black snakes slithering back to the ships, weaving through their sails and entering through their portholes and pouring down their staircases.

“Who—what—?” cried Alex. “Was that Fifer?”

“It sounded like her,” said Sky, breathless and incredulous.

The pirates and Warblerans watched wide-eyed, then looked at each other, concerned. And that's when the Artiméans realized what had transpired during the raven attack. They looked around the lawn as the morning light returned, and realized with dread that they were entirely surrounded by rows and rows of pirates, and now Warblerans, too. There were twice the number of enemies than they'd seen the day before. Unfortunately, most of the Artiméans had fled the mansion without their weapons.

Captain Baldhead, looking pristine and unblemished, and only slightly fazed by the unplanned disappearance of their secret weapon, stepped forward to address the ragged, rapidly shrinking crowd of Artiméans. “We've got you surrounded,” he said in an ominous voice. “Hand over the Warblerans, or we will end every last one of you.” He drew his sword, and everyone around the circle, including the Warblerans, drew swords as well.

The Warblerans of Artimé looked surprised to see their people holding weapons, and doing so quite expertly.

That's why they waited so many months to attack,
thought Alex.
They were training the Warblerans to fight.
Alex tried not to show his panic. He didn't know what to do.

The Artiméans, looking small on the torn-up lawn, gazed with false bravado into the eyes of their enemies, knowing it was only a matter of time before they'd meet their tragic ends. Even Florence and Simber knew they were vastly outnumbered—a wrong move now could cost the rest of the Artiméans' lives.

The orange-eyed among them who weren't hidden inside the rock—Copper, Sky, Lani, Samheed, and Scarlet and Thatcher—stood together, surrounded and protected by their friends. Copper glanced at Sky, knowing Artimé would never give them up. She and Sky had talked privately about this day, and what they would do if and when it came. Sky looked at Alex with love and sorrow and apologies in her eyes, and Alex looked back at her, alarmed, worried that she was going to give herself up for the sake of Artimé.

“Don't,” Alex mouthed. He shook his head, eyes pleading. “Please don't.”

Sky's chin quivered, and after a moment she turned her face away.

Copper looked at the pirates, her gaze moving slowly over the ranks. She recognized some of them, having slaved for them before her rescue from the Island of Fire. They stared back at her with contempt. She held her head higher. And then her gaze landed on another familiar face.

Her eyes flickered.

His eyes narrowed. And then he tilted his head the slightest bit, revealing the thorn necklace below his pirate-shirt collar. He looked away, and in doing so reminded Copper not to let her gaze rest too long on him.

Alongside the fear grew a tiny sprout of hope, for the man she recognized was her old friend and fellow slave, Daxel.

C
opper's fingers brushed the back of Sky's hand, and when Sky glanced her way, Copper shook her head.

Sky breathed a quiet sigh of relief. She didn't know what had changed her mother's mind, but clearly something had happened. And then she, too, noticed Daxel, the pirate slave who had helped them escape with Copper from the Island of Fire. Soon she realized there were a number of pirates she hadn't seen yesterday, all wearing white, high-collared shirts that bulged suspiciously at the neck, and all with the telltale orange eyes. More slaves like her mother.

Captain Baldhead lifted his sword. “Pirates, prepare to destroy the rock and remove the hidden children!”

A small band of pirates stepped over to the rock, while others filled in their spots in the circle to keep it strong. The pirates raised their swords and began hacking at the rock's mouth. The rock's yellow eyes flinched.

“Stop!” shouted Aaron, horrified. He ran forward, lifted his sword, and sliced it across the back of the nearest pirate who was attacking the rock. The pirate screamed, dropped his sword, and fell to the ground. Aaron took a second swing at the next pirate.