Spearwood Academy Volume Two (The Spearwood Academy Book 2) by A.S. Oren Page B

of a dive the mountain will have in order to descend, but I have
no doubt it will be mind blowingly steep.’  They
all dig their feet further under my scales. I flap my wings and begin to rise
into the cool night air. I rotate in a circle, trying to find which direction
the closest edge is. I soon see it to the North.
    I start flying, all the while my
body tense, both out of fear of having one of them fall while I descend down
the side, and also half expecting something to hit me and take me down. I
wouldn’t put it past Roseman to launch in net in the sky after me.
     
    The edge comes up faster than I
thought it would and I stop and hover over it, I can’t even see the ground
through the thick clouds that circle the top of the mountain. ‘ Please hold
on like your lives depend on it. I have to fly fast in order to make sure you
don’t suffocate without the barrier providing sufficient oxygen for you.’
    “Don’t worry about us, we will be
fine,” says Paden. Something about his reassuring voice comforts me, it must be
from her trying to push back through and take control again. I can feel her
poking.
    I take a deep breath in and let out
a stream of smoke from my nostrils.  I move my body into position and
start the steep descent to the ground.

The
Guardians of the Mountain
    A t first it starts out slow, like we haven’t moved at
all, I pull my wings in closer to the sides of my body, the momentum picks up
and we rush down the side of the mountain like a free falling avalanche. The
clouds soon behind us, the ground doesn’t seem as far away as it had. Within a
couple hundred feet of the ground I put my wings back out. They act like a
parachute billowing upward and lifting me back up into the air another hundred
feet, before allowing me to descend again. I flap them gently as I make my
landing. A cloud of dirt rises into the air as I land on the edge of one of the
farmers’ fields.
    ‘ Are
you guys okay?’
    They
climb down off my back. “We’re still in one piece, if that’s what you’re
asking. What a rush,” says Mirren.
    We
don’t have time to make conversation, as a siren’s cry fills the silent of the
night around us. It comes from the base of the mountain, several tall rods
stand at where the field touches the rock. They make a deafening sound.
    The
earth begins to shake and I have to dig my talons into the dirt in order to keep
myself upright. The guys fall into my side. The rods that make the noise begin
to take new shapes and pull themselves out of the ground. They take the form of
massive monsters that remind me of the pictures I saw of the Greek
titans as a child. Each one seems to be the personified version of one of
the five elements, neither looking male or female. Long, slender, and alien
esque.
    They
all take a single step toward us. The ground shakes again, and chasms appear
where their feet land. “Everyone, get ready!” Dante begins to shift into his
dragon form. I have never seen another person do a full transformation like
mine. Unlike mine, his skin stays in place and his bones crack and shift, but
he makes no sounds to indicate that it hurts him. His scales, a bright silver,
a mirror, and his talons like cuts of polished onyx. Paden and Maverick follow
his lead. Paden also turns into a metal dragon, but his scales look like they
were formed out of still cooling molten silver; his talons taking on the look
of jagged sheets of metal.
    Maverick,
in his dark brown dragon form, has chocolate colored diamonds for his talons.
All of their eyes remain the startling colors they have as humans.
    Horace,
Bullock, and Amr transform their arms. Triton and Mirren grow their wings and
change their arms. I move to face the terrifying beings. Whatever these things
throw at us, we are ready to take it on.
    The
being made of molten lava takes the first strike, by raising its arms above its
head and forming a ball of fire. The ball hurls at us and we all dive in
opposite directions in order to stay