Chapter 40

            As he slept, Cody dreamed about when he was no more than ten years old. The memory had all but vanished from his mind, but in his dream it was clearer than ever. He, Autumn, and Avalsmokes raced around, playing a game that Cody had invented himself.

            “The mighty eagle is going to scoop you mice right off the ground and eat you for breakfast!” Cody joked as he chased after Aval, flapping his arms as if he were flying like a bird.

            Aval yelped as Cody slammed into him, much too fast for the other young boy. They both crashed hard into the ground and wrestled for a few moments, ignoring the fresh pain they both felt and the tears their clothes now bore as they tumbled around and crushed each other. Out of nowhere, Cody felt someone bowl him over, sending him sprawling into the grass a few feet away.

            He looked up just in time to see Autumn jump on top of him, her brown eyes glistening with excitement as she pinned him down with her knee against his chest. She pretended to grab a knife out of a little leather pouch at her belt and held it above Cody, prepared to strike.

            “And now, I will save the mouse village from the eagle menace!” She howled in victory, adding a very different part to the game.

            “Gotcha!”

            Cody looked up and saw Omen, only a little older than 20, holding Autumn with two arms around her stomach as she giggled uncontrollably. The blacksmith’s hands had been calloused and toughened from blacksmithing years before, even at his young age. But even though he already worked long hours in his shop, he always found time to play with his much younger friends. He spun around in circles, still holding Autumn tightly in his grasp while she continued to wail with laughter.

            As Omen began to slow down, Cody and Avalsmokes looked at each other and nodded in unspoken agreement. The crept forward, and at the last second they sprang at Omen, knocking him and Autumn right to the ground. The four good friends rolled around in the grass, laughing equally hard. They all wrestled around, and even Autumn seemed immensely tough while they rolled about.

            Just then, Cody heard people calling from a distance. He looked up and saw his mother and father racing down a nearby hill toward them, with Aval and Autumn’s mother in tow. They slowed down when they were a bit closer, and looked at their children with joking disappointment and resignation.

            “We were looking all over for you!” Cody’s mother said. “Although, I suppose we should have known that you would be with Omen.”

            Cody noticed that the other mother nodded and whispered something t herself, as if trying to calm herself down. It was obvious that the she had been genuinely terrified about losing her children, but she did her best not to show it.

            “Come on, let’s go home,” Cody’s father said in a stern voice, meaning there was no room for argument.

            Cody immediately frowned and stood; his head drooping as he gazed down at the grass. He began to follow his parents back over the hill, until he heard Avalsmokes calling to him.

            “Don’t forget to come back tomorrow!”

            “I won’t!” Cody called back, suddenly excited again. “I’ll always come back to you guys!”

            The rider then woke, and the horrible reality came back to him as he felt Inferno’s sharp scales beneath his cheek and felt the steady beat of his wings. Cody sat up straight and removed one of his gloves to feel his cheek. It was damp with tears, and new drops flowed quickly afterward to follow the track that was left behind. He sniffled and shook himself, trying to force himself back to normal.

            “Are you okay?” Inferno asked gently, taking advantage of the rider’s lowered defenses.

            Cody suddenly felt the tears stream from his eyes in great rivers and he threw himself at Inferno’s neck to give him a tight hug as he said, “Oh Inferno, they’re all gone! Avalsmokes, Omen, Autumn, and all those wonderful years we had together! Why did it all have to go away?”

            Inferno made a soothing, deep-throated humming sound as he replied comfortingly, “Because it was meant to be. Those good memories are just that: good memories. You can either dwell on them, clinging to what once was, or you can be brave and persevere! We can make many good memories together, but only if you let go of what happened and move on. Your friends are probably still fine and well, but we will never know unless you force your way through it.”

            “Are you sure they are all right?” Cody asked uncertainly, trying to dry his tears.

            Inferno answered honestly, “I have no idea, but whether they are or not, we have survived without them this long, haven’t we? We can only go up from here!”

            To prove his point, the dragon flapped his wings furiously, propelling himself upwards and then spiraling around for fun, despite the many complaints that came from the others. Perhaps Inferno was right. The memory that kept playing in Cody’s mind was a fond one, but whether his friends were even still alive or not, he could still make fond memories with his dearest friend: the dragon beneath him.

            “Thank you Inferno,” Cody said relaxingly as he embraced the dragon’s neck once more. Sitting up, he narrowed his eyes at the sky ahead of them and said aloud, with a powerful voice filled with determination, “Let’s go save my friends, one step at a time!”

            As he finished, Inferno let out a loud roar of agreement and forced himself forward faster, strength spreading throughout him and his rider as they moved on, together.

~

            Two days had passed, and they had only taken five hours a night to hunt and sleep. If anyone was tired or hungry, they would have to sleep or eat in the air a majority of the time. Otherwise they would get hungry and very tired quickly. Pippi was taking her turn to sleep as the morning sun beat down on them from far above. They had already taken to the skies two hours before.

            Cody sat stiffly, knowing that with each wing-beat they were getting closer to his old home. The question still weighed heavily on his mind about what he would say to his neighbors, friends, and family about his companions. Between the disappearance of three and the arrival of three others, it seemed like too much to cover.

            In front of him sat two maps. There was the one that the others had gotten in Morgran, and the one he had stolen from his father. The day he had taken it seemed so long ago that the sight of the map made him want to cringe every second, but he contained his emotions. Horrible as it may have been to look at; having two viewpoints of the same terrain was very useful. He would find himself staring intently at the slightest differences on the map: a pen stroke wrong here, a misshapen mountain there.

            “Cody?”

            The rider barely paid attention to his dragon as he tried to focus on some of the cities he saw.

            “Cody!”

            With a sigh he responded in a calm voice, “What do you want?”

            “I want you to look ahead!” The dragon said in annoyance.

            Cody did as he was told and gazed ahead. He could see nothing but forest in every direction. He decided to scrunch up his eyes and looked as hard as he could, straight ahead, until he could see a little clearing in the trees.

            “Are you tired? Do you want to land?” Cody asked Inferno.

            Wit a growl the dragon beat his wings furiously, going incredibly fast, considering the load he was carrying. “Look again.”

            Cody rolled his eyes and looked harder at the clearing. Now that they were closer, he could just barely see a little tree poking out of the middle of the clearing. It was large, however. More like a meadow than a simple clearing. Abruptly Cody gasped, realizing why Inferno had pointed it out.

            “That’s the meadow by my house! It’s where you learned to fly!” Cody thought enthusiastically, suddenly more excited to be revisiting his old town even though the memories stung.

            Inferno added calmly, “It’s also where Aval and Autumn first discovered me.”

            Cody felt regretful all over again as he looked at one of his gloves and saw one of the two scales that Autumn had removed from Inferno’s foreleg when she had shot him. He couldn’t help thinking that everything would have turned out better, if he had only managed to hide Inferno better from them.

            “We’re almost there,” Cody announced with dread lying heavily on his heart.

            While Lars woke Pippi and told her the news and Mora began talking nonstop with excitement and relief, Cody continued to dread the upcoming moments. He had been so worried about explaining his companions that he hadn’t even thought about himself. He had expensive armor that everyone would wonder how he paid for, not to mention the new clothing he had bought and borrowed. He didn’t even want to know how much his hair and eyes changed to match Inferno. How would he explain himself, if anyone even recognized him?

            “If you haven’t thought of anything by now, you probably never will. If you know or at least knew these people as well as you think, they will accept anything from you. To everything you can’t explain, give vague answers. They should be able to accept it. As for your hair and eyes, people might think you’ve just changed a little with the seasons or that it had something to do with your traveling,” Inferno explained.

            Realizing that the plan just might work, Cody was excited again. He was excited to see familiar faces, even if he didn’t have one of his own. Regardless of what he said, he would still find friends among the village. The only thing he wasn’t looking forward to was seeing his parents again.

            Cody then told Inferno, “I don’t want to see my parents. I couldn’t lie to them for very long and they would probably never let me leave again. I would like to get to them last, if I ever even see them during this visit.”

            “I understand,” Inferno said smoothly. “We will stop to rest in the meadow before I fly around the forest to the town. I will hide myself little more than a half-mile away from it.”

            Cody silently agreed and told the others of the plan. After some debate, everyone reluctantly agreed that it would be best to bring Pippi along, but she would have to disguise her hair and ears so that anyone would have a little more of a difficult time recognizing her as an elf. Luckily, Mora had brought a warm hat in preparation for the upcoming winter. No one would question someone wearing a hat when it’s cold out in the forest.

            Within a few minutes they landed in the meadow. The three companions had their backs up against trees at the very edge of the meadow, while Cody and Inferno just walked around. They had landed at the opposite side of the meadow than the tree. The dragon and rider walked towards the opposite side, gazing around all the while and remembering their earliest memories together. When they finally arrived at the tree, Cody was shocked.

            Inferno touched the lowest branch with his nose, proving that he had grown a lot since the last time they had been there. Before, he had struggled his way up to the first branch. They went around to the other side of the tree, and saw little scratch marks in the bark where Inferno had clawed his way up the tree as a hatchling. As if it weren’t enough to see the height difference, Inferno lifted a claw up to the little scratch marks, and discovered that just one of his toes could completely cover a set of scratches.

            “I can’t believe you were so small,” Cody said in awe.

            Inferno lifted his head in pride, letting the sun glint off of his scales and make him shine to add to his pleasure. Cody smiled for the first time in days as he led the way back over to the others. When they arrived, Cody rested his back against a tree and closed his eyes.

            “Inferno, you stay awake and keep an eye out for…anything. We leave for the town at noon,” Cody said, just before he allowed himself to fall asleep.

~

            “It’s time,” Inferno thought to his rider gently while he nudged his shoulder gently with his nose.

            Cody slowly opened his eyes and yawned. He stretched each arm and each leg before he carefully stood up and looked around the meadow. Inferno was just beginning to nudge their companions awake, and the sun was at its very peak, high in the sky.

            The others stood and brushed themselves off. Larson pulled a golden-orange leaf off his coat and let it go before watching it blow away in the cold autumn breeze. The others stretched their own arms and legs before looking at Cody expectantly. The rider responded simply by climbing into his spot behind Inferno’s head. The others immediately followed by settling themselves into the saddle.

            “Leave the talking to me, unless someone asks about one of you specifically. Do not reveal absolutely anything about you that might arouse suspicion,” Cody said. “Larson, don’t mention anything about your mercenary past. If anything, you say that you’ve tagged along to help us along the road. Mora, you and Pippi can be seen as best friends since childhood, growing up in a town called Starling. If anyone asks, that’s where we met. Got it?”

            “We’ll do our best,” Lars said as he clung to one of Inferno’s neck spikes.

            Cody nodded and Inferno immediately leaped into the air, flapping his wings to make them go as fast as possible. He flew low over the trees so that no human from the town or trail would be able to see him clearly enough to be curious. It wasn’t ten minutes before he dove into a tiny clearing in the woods. He folded his wings in uncomfortably, since there wasn’t even room for him to turn around comfortably.

            Everyone slid from their spots before tumbling into the trees. Cody carefully lowered himself to the ground, pressing his back against a tree to give himself a little more control. When he touched the ground, he looked sympathetically at Inferno.

            “Don’t worry about me, I’m more worried about you,” Inferno said comfortingly as he fought his way down to a lying position. Cody winced as a tree toppled over.

            “I’m sure!”

            Inferno let out a snort, releasing dark, billowy smoke as he did so before saying, “Ok, maybe not, but it’s the best I have. The sooner you get into the town and find out who Flamidar is, the sooner I can be free of this tree-filled nightmare.”

            The glint in his eyes told Cody that he was only joking.

            “Alright, which way is the road? Coming into town through the forest is bound to raise some questions,” Cody asked.

            “Follow the direction my tail is pointing for about five minutes and you will break out of the trees at the road,” Inferno replied, pulling his tail around his massive paws until it was pointing ahead of him.

            Cody chuckled before saying, “Alright, good luck.”

            “Same to you.”

            Without a word, Cody began walking in the direction the dragon had indicated and the others followed silently. Just as Inferno had said, they came to the road only minutes later. Cody looked both ways to make sure there wasn’t anyone to see them break out onto the road, before he led the way to it.

            “What are we doing here?” Pippi asked curiously.

            “We can’t really come right out of the woods into the town. Everyone will be very confused,” Cody explained.

            Pippi bowed her head to show that she accepted his answer. Before they set off, she made sure that her multicolored hair and oddly shaped ears were concealed. Cody walked forward confidently, half-excited to return home, even if it was only for a short time. But soon they rounded a corner, and Cody felt his heart sink when he saw the town. How could he face everything he once knew and act the exact same as he used to be, when he knew so much now?

            With a deep breath and a glance at the buildings before him, he decided it was time to find out.