Zephyr watched with a mix of relief and awe as Amanda conjured a fiery dragon from her perch half out of the sunroof. It rose up behind them and blocked the view of their car. It breathed its own wall of fire and postured in a way that would have intimidated even the largest dragon.

  From glimpses he caught between flames, Zephyr could see the grey dragon stop and cock its head. Then it tried to go around. But Amanda made her dragon move to block it. Even as they got further and further away from it, she managed to maintain its shape.

  How long could she keep it up for? What happened once they rounded the bend and she could no longer see it? Would the rock-like dragon know the game then? Zephyr held his breath.

  But just before they reached the corner he saw the dragon take a step back.

  For a moment he thought it was going to retreat, but then it opened its mouth and roared a great roar. It reared up and then dropped down and out came the flames.

  Amanda’s dragon did likewise, an almost mirror image of what he had just seen occurred again. This time the grey dragon turned and fled.

  “That was insane,” Arianna gasped.

  Zephyr glanced back. From the look on Amanda’s face he could tell she didn’t want the praise.

  “Did the fire hurt the dragon?” Lily asked.

  Amanda shook her head. “They have very tough scales. The most it will do is sting them a little.”

  Zephyr didn’t know enough about dragons to know how much heat they could handle and he knew even less about the fire Amanda had conjured. He did know that dragon scales could take quite a bit of heat though, especially if it was just for a short time. It was sustained attacks by other dragons that did the real damage, that and the claws.

  “Now, let’s just hope we don’t run into any more...” The words died on Kass’s tongue as she drove them out of the mouth of a tunnel and onto a bend that gave a view all the way down the valley ahead.

  Kass slammed on the brakes and then drove them backward until they were sitting just inside the mouth of the tunnel.

  Up ahead, chasing Cat’s car in and out of gullies and bends in the road, were not one, not two, but four dragons. They were smaller than the grey one had been and one was a striking black-red mix.

  “Shit,” Kass said.

  “What do we do now?” Zephyr asked with a swallow.

  “Keep going. See if you can catch them,” Amanda commanded. “They might need our help.”

  But just as Kass was about to pull fully out of the tunnel, the grey dragon dropped down from above and landed in front of the tunnel mouth, its large claws leaving deep gorge makes in the road either side of their front bumper.

  “GO!” Amanda ordered.

  Kass hit the gas.

  They sped off, right between its legs and off down the road into the figurative jaws of more danger and maybe even literal jaws.

  Zephyr didn’t look back. He didn’t want to know.

  Snow coated the patches of the slopes to their right and even in the midst of all this madness, Kass still found it beautiful. The snow was something she always missed. But when she next looked at the hillside again, it was all on fire and the snow had turned to water.

  Kass winced. The grey one was on their tail again.

  She could hear Amanda fiddling with the sunroof hatch again, but if it hadn’t stopped the dragon fully last time, what hope did they have of it working again?

  Kass thought about using her telekinesis, but the moving dragon made for a difficult target, especially when she was focused on driving. To her right, the land fell away into open air and a steeply angled bank that reached right down to a river hundreds of metres below.

  Every now and again, when both were on an outer bend, they would catch glimpses of Cat or one of the dragons. So far, Cat seemed to have avoided becoming anyone’s meal.

  Kass was having enough trouble keeping ahead of their one dragon, and if it hadn’t been for Amanda, she was sure they would have been dragon food already.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  “Careful,” Zephyr blurted out as Kass came close to the edge on one corner.

  There was ice on some of the road. Even though she and Cat had only been through here recently, a lot more snow had already fallen. Winter was getting closer and closer. The sun that had been so bright earlier had been replaced by an overcast grey and in the distance Kass could see storm clouds. Kass didn’t need to be a psychic to know the future was not looking promising.

  They caught up to the yellow and blue dragons. Young ones by the look of it. Both were blocking the road, trying to dig their way into yet another tunnel. One of them could have fit in through the tunnel without a problem, however, neither one of them wanted to let the other go first and both had tried at the same time. Now they were stuck.

  That would have been fine with Kass, except this put her between three dragons with nowhere to go and seconds to react.

  She slammed on the brakes, sending the car into a fishtail. She struggled to correct her mistake. Either way it looked like they were going to crash right into the rear end of two flailing dragons.

  As a last ditch effort she took her hands off the wheel and pushed with her telekinesis, attempting to move herself backward, forgetting for a moment that it was the car she should be focusing her magic on.

  She realised, and then quickly corrected her mistake, as the brakes locked up completely and they went into a slide.

  Knowing there was nothing she could do, Kass shut her eyes.

  There was a small jolt, nothing like what she’d expected. When she opened her eyes again, the front bumper was pressed gently against the foot of the yellow dragon.

  At the last minute, in its struggle to get into the tunnel, it had lifted its butt and tail, giving them a few more metres of room to slide. The problem was, that tail was now directly above them and it likely wouldn’t remain there for long.

  Kass quickly shifted them into reverse.

  Looking back she was pleased to see no grey dragon.

  They shot out in reverse from underneath the yellow dragon and then Kass saw it. It was crouched again, blended into the mountain just like before, a little further back up the road. Its eyes were shut this time, but she recognised its shape. She got the sense it was waiting. She slammed on the brakes.

  In front of them the yellow dragon, having realised that something was behind it, was now backing up out of the tunnel. The blue one was doing the same.

  If she could just time it right...

  Her foot hovered over the accelerator, and then just as two sets of eyes turned to look her way, she shot between them and into the tunnel. Behind them came an almighty crash as both dragons once again tried to enter the tunnel at the same time.

  This time the tunnel went on for awhile. Then they were out in the mountainside again, with over half the dragons behind them.

  They reached the straight where Cat had raced a dragon last time. Had she done the same again?

  Movement caught Kass’s eye. There in the distance, off to the side sitting in the snow was a lustrous green dragon, larger than the yellow and blues ones, smaller than the grey.

  Kass remembered what Cat had said last time about not wanting to race a young skinny dragon across an open plain. This one wasn’t quite as young as that one had been but it wasn’t much bigger.

  It was too late now though. There was no where else to hide. She just had to hope, Amanda could distract it enough to get them across.

  “You got this one?” Kass asked her.

  “Yup,” came the reply.

  “How did Cat get past it?” Zephyr wondered aloud. “How on earth did she even manage so many?” He peered ahead. “It’s gotta be the storm. The lightning drives them crazy.”

  Just as he said it, the sky ahead flashed brightly. They weren’t in it yet but it looked like they would be soon if the rapidly sounding crack of thunder was anything to go by.

  “It was sunny just before,” Kass mumbled, but she knew how fast the weather could change in the mountains.

  The rear-view mirror was filled with a wall of fire. In the low light from the overcast sky, the glow made shadows dance across the cold ground, and the edges of the frost flickered and sparkled like little electric bugs.

  They reached the other side of the plain unhindered and left yet another dragon behind them, At least Kass hoped. Just before they’d left the plain she’d seen something worrying.

  Up on the rocky hillside, nestled in a narrow where the light didn’t quite reach, she could have sworn she’d seen a familiar grey shape moving.

  Cat had managed to lose all but one of the dragons. Now, only the red and black dragon remained on her tail. It was the oldest of the lot of them, not counting the first grey one, and it was smarter than the others. It was also reasonably strong. It was the remarkable kind of beast that men hunting trophies still lost their lives to claim.

  It swooped above them now, keeping high, but tracking them closely, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.

  Cat had hoped they’d lose it in the storm. There was as much of a chance that it might also use the rain to approach the vehicle which would undoubtedly be slowed by reduced visibility.

  But neither happened. And despite the rain, the turns were tight enough that visibility was hardly affected. Only the slick of the road slowed them down now. Cat was getting tired of this kind of cornering. She preferred a bit more friction beneath her tyres.

  Then, almost as suddenly as it had come, the storm was gone. It was like bursting through a wall. They reached another open plain and emerged out into perfect sunshine and blue skies. The mountains behind them had captured the storm and kept it to themselves.

  And still the dragon followed. Even on the plains it did not come any closer.

  Then suddenly it too was gone.

  That worried Cat much more than the disappearance of the storm.

  For several turns she kept one eye on the sky but there was no sign of it. What had caused it to disappear?

  Suddenly she felt the car sliding.

  “Shit!” she cursed out loud as she scrambled to fix her mistake. It was too late though, everyone had heard her. She gave a sigh of frustration as she found solid ground again. That had been black ice on the road. Despite the clearer skies, they were even deeper in the mountains now, and the snow was deeper too. The storm had just come through here and the wet of the road and the warmth of the sun had made for a dangerous combination.

  She wondered if she should pull over and wait for Kass, but the red dragon still worried her and so she kept moving forward, albeit at a reduced pace in the hopes that Kass would catch them up.