“We take the one on the right,” Derrick said, holding his torch ahead of him.

Hailey was frustrate cheat she trusted his judgement. He was too cocky and full of himself, rude and obnoxious, but when it came right down to it, she would rather have someone who knew their way around a cave lead the party. She followed right behind him, and Aaron pushed his way out of the group of men to stand beside her.

“Try not to make him angry,” Aaron whispered in her ear.

His voice tickled. “Tell him not to try to make me angry,” she whispered back. “I don’t like him.”

Aaron shrugged and his leather armor creaked. “He’s the captain for a reason. He’s a good leader and I trust him.”

Hailey did not say that she trusted him too. Derrick might overhear that and she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

It wasn’t long before the path branched again. Again, Derrick chose the right one.

The coolness of the cave that felt so good when she stepped into it was now too cold. She had to admit she knew nothing about caves. The torch light was not enough to go by. Her eyes craved even the night sky, which had dozens of stars. The complete blackness, lit only by the flickering glow of torches was making her dizzy. Part of her mind was already screaming to get out.

“It’s too narrow,” she said. “The dragon couldn’t have come this way.”

Derrick turned to her. “And there’s no way of telling if there’s another passageway. That meets up wit this one. We continue. Caves can be confusing and easy to get lost in. For some people it can be difficult tell that they are actually even exist.”

One of the men sniggered behind her and his voice echoed off the walls of the cave, making it sound like they were all laughing at her.

She gritted her teeth and didn’t say anything to him. Aaron had asked her to be nice and she would try. Several steps forward, the cave began to narrow again and then they would have had to crawl on their bellies to get any further. Hailey hoped that Derrick didn’t climb in there. She would’ve had to follow. He held his torch in the hole. “We can’t go any further this way. We’ll have to turn back and take the second branch. Hailey suppressed a smirk.

Derrick shoved his way past the soldiers to be at the front of the line and so did Hailey and Aaron. She didn’t want to be in the back when they found the dragon. She didn’t necessarily want the archers behind her either for the same reason. Still, as she was the one who would best be able to hold her own against the dragon, she should be in the front.

The other pathway was larger, but then, the other one had been before it began to narrow. She imagined them climbing through a narrow passageway. Why had she worn a dress? She really needed to get a different set of clothes for chasing down dragons, and the royal mage’s robes wouldn’t work for this either.

The men were silent now, only the creak of armor and the shuffle of steps echoed off of the walls of the cave. Hailey tried not to let her imagination run wild, but she couldn’t help but feel that they were being watched. This was the dragon’s home that they were entering, and dragons were something that none of them knew very much about except for how destructive they could be in a battle.

To her relief, rather than narrowing, this pathway broadened, opening up into a large room. There was a constant dripping noise coming from above. Her heart quickened in her chest as she realized how vulnerable they were here in the open. Maybe she shouldn’t have been relieved to be in such a large space.

They continued, the drip, drip, drip getting closer. Then she felt it on her arm. She raised it to look at what had splashed on her. That’s when she realized that she wasn’t looking at water, this was blood.

Hailey gasped and Derrick turned. “What?”

“It’s blood! She showed him her arm.

“Probably just the dragon’s dinner. There is more than likely a dead sheep up there with its belly ripped open.”

“But where is it coming from?”

Derrick held his torch up. There was a ledge, but they couldn’t’ see what was up there. Then one of the men in the back screamed. They all turned towards the sound.

“What was that?” Derrick sounded angry.

“Bernie is gone! He was here one moment and gone the next.” Hailey couldn’t see the man who was shouting behind them, but she could hear the panic in his voice. She felt the same. If the dragon had taken him, they were in trouble. She wanted to turn around, to return to the mouth of the cave where she knew she would at least see the dragon coming.

“You ok?” Aaron whispered to her.

Hailey tried to calm herself. There was something about this darkness and the fact that they had no idea where the dragon had gone that was getting the better of her. “I’m fine,” she said. But she didn’t feel fine.

“Hailey!” Derrick shouted. “You come in the back with Aaron.” If the dragon tries that again, I want to be ready.”

They continued and Hailey and Aaron fell into step behind the other men. She didn’t want to seem cowardly. Now that the dragon knew they were here, surely it would follow them to the mouth of the cave. It seemed foolish to her to continue, but what did she know? She had never even been in a cave before today. Surely Derrick knew what he was doing.

The large room became smaller again. This constant shifting in sizes and… there was that dripping sound again. It was ahead of them again. How had a creature that size managed to get ahead of the group without them hearing it? Hailey opened her mouth to call out to derrick, to tell him to turn around. Then there was a scream.

“Keep moving!” Derrick screamed, picking up the pace and moving farther into the cave. The dragon picked off a man right in front of her. She thought that maybe the dragon had been aiming for her and missed, or maybe the dragon was going to whittle down their number until it was just her and the dragon. A scaly claw just reached down and grabbed him in a blur. The man didn’t even scream. Hailey felt her heart sink as she realized it had been the farmer she had passed in the hallway earlier that day.

“Did you see that?” She asked Aaron, panting.

He nodded, looking at her with wide and terrified eyes. It could have just as easily been either one of them. Hailey had half a mind to try to climb up to the ledge the dragon was resting on. It had to be above them. She couldn’t just let the men be picked off one at a time.

She heard a thump behind her and saw the farmer’s body fall from the ledge. She could see the dragon now that they there far enough away from the ledge. It was huge and she had to admit, beautiful, but it had killed Barinon and she was here to make it pay. She locked eyes with it. The green eyes glowed slightly in the darkness. She backed up, seeing where the dragon would go.

With a casual grace, the dragon descended the ledge. It was injured and still limping but still somehow graceful. She prepared her mage sword and stood ready to fight.

The men at the front of the line had continued. “Stop!” Aaron yelled at them. “The dragon his here,” he said.

The men turned and the dragon did its best to corner them in the long corridor. It snapped at Hailey and she slashed at it with her sword. They circled each other, their gazes locked on each other. The dragon ignored the men that were lining the wall and preparing to launch arrows at it.

Flaming arrows flew and the dragon moved. One of them caught on its side. The burning pitch stuck but the dragon scraped its side against the wall of the cave. It came at them then. Derrick stepped forward with the dragon sword, swinging and slicing into the dragon’s side. The dragon screamed, its voice reverberating off the inside of the cave then it swiped at Derrick, slashing him across the chest. “Go,” Derrick yelled. “We have to get out of this cave!”