Beast Quest #1: Ferno the Fire Dragon
Read Beast Quest #1: Ferno the Fire Dragon Online
Authors: Adam Blade
B
EAST
Q
UEST
B
OOK
O
NE
F
ERNO
T
HE
F
IRE
D
RAGON
ADAM BLADE
ILLUSTRATED BY
EZRA TUCKER
For Jamie Morgan
With thanks to Stephen Cole
ROLOGUE
C
ALDOR THE
B
RAVE STOOD AT THE FOOT OF
the misty mountain. The knight’s bronze armor gleamed in the pale morning sunlight. He gripped a heavy sword.
Turning to his squire, Robin, he used his weapon to point up the mountainside. “I’ll climb above the mist,” Caldor told the boy. “The dragon is close by. I can feel it. I just need to get above the mist so that I can
see
it. For the sake of our kingdom, it must be stopped!”
“Good luck, sir,” Robin said in a shaky voice, as the knight turned to climb up the smooth, dark
slope of the mountain. Caldor struggled to keep his footing on the overlapping plates of rock. They were as slippery as glass, but the knight was determined, and slowly but surely made his way up the mountain. He was soon lost from sight, swallowed by the eerie mist. Robin had never seen a mountainside like this before. With his master gone, he noticed how quiet it was. He shivered, although the air was warm.
Suddenly, the mountain started to shake.
Robin could feel the vibrations traveling through his feet and up his legs. He stumbled to one side and a huge shudder threw him to the ground, knocking his head so badly that his teeth clattered. There was a metallic taste in his mouth and he put a hand to his lips. Blood! What was happening? “Caldor!” Robin yelled, scrambling to his feet as the rocks shifted beneath him. “Come back!” But there was no way he could be heard above the grinding screeches that filled the air. The whole
mountain shuddered and Robin froze. Was it about to come crashing down?
Robin looked up and gasped in disbelief. Two huge rocks high above him started to
move.
They stretched out slowly, their razor-sharp edges catching the sunlight. Robin flinched as they swiped through the air like giant ax heads.
Rolling out of the way, he glimpsed Caldor high above him, clinging to the dark slope of the mountain. The spiked head of a huge beast reared up behind the knight. Its face was the same color as the slippery stones of the mountain. Its eyes glinted with dark fire.
“Come down, Caldor!” Robin yelled desperately. It all made sudden, horrible sense. The dragon wasn’t near the mountain — it
was
the mountain! And Caldor was barely holding on to the monster’s neck! “Caldor!” Robin yelled again. But a terrifying roar drowned out Robin’s words. He stumbled to his feet, his mouth open in shock.
Glancing down, Robin realized that his own situation was nearly as dangerous as Caldor’s. He was standing on the dragon’s tail! He wanted to run, but he was frozen with fear. And as he looked up at Caldor, he knew he could not abandon his knight. Robin could only stare in disbelief as the dragon’s wings unfolded overhead, stretching out to beat the air in a deadly rhythm.
“It’s taking off!” he shouted. “Caldor, quick —”
“Get back, Robin!” called Caldor, still desperately clutching the creature’s neck. “Go to the city. Warn King Hugo that I have failed in my quest. Run!”
Robin had no chance to run. The dragon flicked its tail and sent him flying through the air. He hit the ground, shaking and gasping for breath, as the terrifying beast rose up into the air and disappeared into the mist, taking Caldor with him.
For a moment, Caldor’s screams filled Robin’s
ears. Then, to his horrified eyes, an empty piece of armor clattered to the ground beside him, scorched and smoking.
The echoes of Caldor’s screams hung in the air. Then they, too, were gone.
HAPTER
O
NE
T
OM STARED HARD AT HIS ENEMY.
“S
URRENDER,
villain!” he cried, waving his sword above his head. “Surrender, or taste my blade!”
The sword was only a poker, and his enemy was a sack of hay hanging from a tree in the heart of the wood. But then, Tom was not a knight. He was training to be a blacksmith. The closest he came to thrilling quests was when he ran errands for his uncle Henry, who worked the village forge.
Today, Tom was taking a sack of newly mended tools to Farmer Gretlin. Along the way, he had stopped in the forest to practice his sword-fighting moves on the dummy he had made a few weeks ago. He trained whenever he could. If he ever had the chance to have a real sword fight, he’d be ready!
Tom gave the target a firm blow with the poker. “One day I’ll be the finest swordsman in all of the kingdom of Avantia,” he announced. “Even better than my father, Taladon the Swift!”
Tom had heard many people in the village praise Taladon’s swordsmanship. But he had never seen it for himself. Tom’s mother had died of a fever when he was just a baby. That same day, his father had left on a mysterious quest and never returned. As Head of Errinel village and Tom’s closest relative, Uncle Henry had announced that he and his wife, Maria, would raise him as their own son.
Tom was grateful to his uncle and trained hard as a blacksmith’s apprentice. But he often dreamed of leaving Errinel, just as his father had. He wanted to taste adventure for real — dreams just weren’t enough anymore. But most of all, he wanted to find his father and ask him why he had left.
Tom shoved the poker back into the sack of tools. “One day I’ll know the truth,” he swore.
Summer was giving way to autumn, and Tom shivered as he walked beneath the shadows cast by the trees’ heavy branches. It was hard-going along the overgrown forest path. Branches tore at Tom’s clothes and scratched his face. Stumbling over tree roots, Tom struggled on. As he neared the edge of the woods, he smelled something strange.
Smoke!
he thought as the sharp smell caught at the back of his throat.
He stopped and looked around. Through the trees to his left he could hear a faint crackling as a wave of warm air hit him.
Fire!
Tom began to push his way through the trees. Heart pounding, he forced his way through a thicket and burst into the field. The golden wheat had been burned to black stubble. A thin veil of smoke hung in the air, small flames still licked at
the edges of the field. Tom stared in horror. What had happened?
A shadow fell over him. Tom looked up and blinked. For a second he thought he saw a dark, fleeting shape disappear behind a hill in the distance. Had his eyes been playing tricks on him?
“Who’s there?”
Through the smoke, Tom saw a man stamping across the field. Forgetting the shadow, he hurried forward to meet him.
“Did you come through the woods?” Gretlin demanded. “Did you see anyone who could have done this?”
Tom shook his head. “No one! I didn’t see a soul in the woods.”
“There’s evil at work here,” said Gretlin, his eyes flashing angrily. “Only ten minutes ago, this wheat was as tall as your shoulders. I was working in the barn when I heard a strange noise, like a fierce wind. I rushed outside to find …
this.”
Gretlin
stared at the blackened field. “Mark my words — no ordinary fire did this. Just like no ordinary fire took John Blake’s horses.”
A shiver of fear went through Tom. John Blake lived at the edge of Errinel, and two weeks ago he had lost three of his horses during the night. Their bones were found the next day, in a smoking pit at the foot of the valley — roasted and picked clean. “The old ones are talking in the village,” said Gretlin, shaking his head. “They say dark forces are gathering… .”
Tom looked around at the burned field and felt a wave of anger. Someone needed to stop this. If only he was older!
I’d do it,
he thought.
I’d stop things like this happening in our kingdom.
“Go back to the forge, Tom,” Gretlin said. “Tell your uncle what’s happened here! I’m worried that Errinel is cursed — and maybe all of us along with it!”