As with all good moods, it didn’t last.

I had my schoolhouse and eager students (or, to be more precise, eager parents of future students), yes, but no schoolteacher and hence no school fees.

Also, in my opinion, Stripey was over-zealous about reminding me at every taskforce meeting of the ever-increasing amount we owed the duck demons. I got the point already: After a while, compound interest added up. I didn’t need a weekly personal-finance lesson.

And Bobo wasn’t helping either. “It’s the beginning of the Dragon Moon already. It’s almossst time for the Meeting of the Dragon Hossst. Where are Den and Floridiana? Why aren’t they back yet?” she kept fretting. “Den’ll be late. He can’t be late!”

He’ll be back in time, I assured her. I’m sure they’ll be back any day now. Maybe even later today!

But her anxiety was infectious. As the days rushed towards summer, I found myself glancing at Persimmon Tree Lane over and over, hoping to catch a glimpse of a dragon and a mage approaching Honeysuckle Croft. In fact, sometimes I hoped so hard that I saw figures in the shadows and the dust that weren’t there at all.

Hallucinations. Now I was hallucinating. What was Bobo doing to me? And where in the world were Den and Floridiana?!

Meanwhile, in the Jade Mountain Wilds:

Plink. Plink. Plink.

A handful of acorns glanced off Den’s scales. He barely felt them. He flung his arms wide, opened his jaws as far as they would go, and bellowed, “WINDS! TO ME!”

At once, crisp mountain breezes gushed out of every nook and cranny along the Fog River. They whirled and roared around him, demanding to know who his enemies were so they could destroy them.

“GO!”

Swinging his hands forward, Den shoved. The winds slammed into a pair of rock macaque demons, knocking them out of their aspen. Down they tumbled, right onto the pottery crocks hidden beneath the dwarf bamboo.

The crocks shattered, releasing photinia blossom smoke. The winds swirled it across the mountainside. All the rock macaque demons in range began to clutch at their throats and claw at their nostrils. One by one, they dropped out of the trees, landing on and breaking more crocks that released even more smoke. Choking, gasping gurgles filled the forest.

The yellowish smoke enveloped Den himself. He felt it slide along his scales, groping for openings to seep through to pollute his body, but the vermillion seal stamp on his snout glowed and burned it away.

He pumped a fist in the air. “Yeah! All right!”

“It worked!” yelled Floridiana.

With a stamp on her nose to protect her from the smoke too, she ran around the protective perimeter she had laid down with her stamps, checking that none of them had gotten scuffed out or damaged in the fight. It wouldn’t do to have that wild boar demon eat all the rock macaques. She and Den had plans for them.

“All good!” she called triumphantly, and Den threw back his head.

“CHAAAAARGE!”

Ah, that felt good!

Side by side, he and Floridiana bounded up the mountainside, rushing for the ledge where a large rock macaque demon was jumping up and down in fury.

“Sir!” wheezed Tamiops. “Squad Two…down….”

“Idiot! I saw that! What happened?” roared Captain Rock.

The striped squirrel demon hunched over, fighting for breath. Bluish-green blood oozed out of scrapes along his side. Papilio and Macula, his swallowtail butterfly demon runners, fluttered around him and fanned him with their wings.

“They…it….” Tamiops finally managed to gasp out a full sentence: “It was a trap, sir! The invaders – the mage – hid crocks of the Lady of the Photinia Tree’s smoke. Under the dwarf bamboo. And then, the dragonet – he – he called the wind! He used the wind to knock our soldiers out of the trees! They fell onto the crocks and broke them and released the smoke.”

“Idiots!” raged Captain Rock, jumping up and down on the ledge so hard that the stone creaked. (Tamiops discreetly bounded into a shrub that was anchored on the mountainside above the ledge.) “Imbeciles! Letting themselves get caught in a trap like that!” The captain stabbed his tail at his aide and shouted, “Send in the reserves!”

The aide, a slender young rock macaque, quaked. “Sir, uh, we already did….”

“Imbecile! Send the reserve reserves!”

“Ah, we, uh, already sent them too….”

“Idiots! Incompetents! Imbeciles! All of you! Why do I even bother?!” Another furious jump.

CRAAAACK. The ledge split in half where he landed.

The captain leaped backwards in time, but the aide wasn’t so lucky. Shrieking, she tumbled down alongside the chunk of stone, crashing and bouncing down the sheer mountainside all the way into the gorge. A cloud of dust rose where they landed. When it settled, the riverbank had gained a new dose of gravel and a new unconscious demon.

A giant trout fin shot out of the water, yanked the aide into the river, and vanished.

After a moment, Captain Rock muttered, “Useless idiot. Never liked her anyway.”

Tamiops bowed his head – until a gust of wind struck him. His tail quivered. His nose twitched. A smell! Cool water and hot seal paste and sour human sweat!

“Sir!” he squeaked. “They’re coming!”

“NOO!” bellowed a voice that rattled the shrub and sent leaves hurtling at Tamiops. “We’re HERE!”

A five-foot dragon landed next to Captain Rock.

Ah, this was so satisfying! Den waved his arm and sent a blast of wind at the rock macaque who commanded the demon forces. Caught off guard, the demon staggered back a step.

Den shot more wind at him, trying to force him off the ledge, but the demon regained his balance and lunged. With his ugly pink face contorted in a shriek, he wrapped his thick, hairy arms around Den.

The dragon simply eeled up, kicked off the demon’s belly, and shot up along the cliff-face. With his new strength, he could sense the faint moisture from the Fog River, and he let it buoy him up.

“Ha!” he gloated. “Take THAT, you mangy, moronic, miserable, MAGGOTY macaque!”

He shot a glance at Floridiana to check if she’d heard all those adjectives that started with “m.”

Sheltered behind a boulder, the mage was groaning.

As he reached the top of his trajectory, the water in the air failed him, and he started his descent, Den twisted midair to get a better look. Was she hurt? She’d hardened every inch of her skin, but had an acorn punched through anyway?

Nah, she looked perfectly all right. She was groaning from stress, most like.

Producing a fist-sized crock of photinia blossom smoke, Floridiana rubbed off a stamp, pulled back her arm, and hurled it at the ledge. It shattered at the demon commander’s feet, enveloping him in smoke. A squirrel demon tumbled out of a shrub, unconscious, but the rock macaque roared and jumped off the ledge, charging for Floridiana’s boulder.

The mage had an entire rice sack full of those crocks. She fished out a second one, rubbed off its stamp, and flung it at the demon.

It sailed over his shoulder, spraying a clump of dwarf bamboo with smoke and pottery shards. Choking mice scampered out, only to collapse motionless.

Thud.

Oops! Den had been so busy watching Floridiana that he hadn’t paid any attention to where he was going to land. He struck a jagged, rocky patch and glanced off.

“Ow!”

Bounce.

“Ow! Ow ow ow!”

As he skidded towards the drop into the gorge, he yelped and clawed at the ground, gouging lines into the rocks.

All of a sudden, he jerked to a stop, nearly dislocating his shoulder. “Hey, thanks – ” he began.

Then he looked up.

At the set of dripping steel teeth that had closed on his right forearm. And, further up, the massive snout that blew out freezing air.

The boar demon tossed his head. The world twisted. Den felt himself trace a short arc through the air, too fast for him to shout or shut his eyes, and then he was flat on his back with a hoof crushing his chest.

A voice reverberated through his bones and the earth under him: “Whyyyy aaaare yoooou steeeealing myyyy fooooooood?”

“Aaaaaaargh!”

Floridiana heard Den’s yelp somewhere down the mountain, but she couldn’t check on him. The rock macaque demon was hurtling at her with murder in his eyes.

“Kyaaaaaw! Kyaaaaw-kyaaaaw!” he screamed.

Steel claws leaped out of his fingertips, and he swiped the boulder out of the way with a single blow. His claws left parallel lines across the stone.

Floridiana fumbled for another smoke crock.

The demon lunged.

She sucked in a breath, smudged the stamp that kept the pottery from breaking, and smashed it right into his snarling maw. The crock shattered against his steel fangs, filling his mouth and the air between them with smoke. Holding her breath, she scooted backwards and scrambled to her feet.

“KYAAAAW-KYAAAAW!”

The rock macaque demon screamed again, nearly blowing out her eardrums. Blinded by the smoke, he tripped over a root and pitched forward, but he angled his body so he fell right at her.

Floridiana tried to jump out of the way, but it was too late.

A massive weight slammed into her. Her back hit the rocks. She felt her ribs snap and she opened her mouth to scream, but then the weight was crushing her lungs and she didn’t even have air to squeak.

Everything went black.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry! We’re not stealing your food! We’re not stealing your food!”

In his panic, Den lost control of his powers. With a pop, he shrank to his usual size. Which left a gap between his chest and the boar’s hoof. He rolled sideways, scrambled to his feet, and launched himself at an aspen. He didn’t get high enough to reach a branch, but he dug his claws into the bark and started to clamber up.

Teeth closed around his tail.

“Owwww! Owwww! Let go, let go!”

Sinking his claws into the bark, he hung on with all his strength whiled the boar tried to yank him off the tree.

“Stoooop steeeealing myyyy fooooooood!”

“We’re not! I swear we’re not!”

“Then whyyyy did yoooou make a baaaarier?”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! We didn’t mean it! We just wanted to stop them attacking us!”

“Noooo, they were uncoooonscious. They were not going to attaaaack yoooou.”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! We weren’t thinking! We didn’t mean it! Lemme go and I’ll tell her to break the ring! I promise! Cross my heart!”

“I doooo not neeeed your heeeeart. I just neeeed my fooooooood!”

“I get it! I get it! I really do!” Trying to buy time, he lied, “But I can’t break the ring! Only she can! Cuz she made it! Lemme go and I’ll tell her to break it!”

The boar stopping trying to bite Den’s tail off, although he didn’t release it. Instead, he turned his head to the side. Den had to scoot around the tree trunk so his tail wouldn’t get wrenched off. He followed the boar’s gaze – to see Floridiana’s arm flailing weakly under a mound of grey fur. Even as he watched, the arm fell limp. The rock macaque demon stood, picked up the unconscious mage, and tossed her over his shoulder.

No! On no, oh no, oh no.

The boar’s eyes froze – literally. Crystals of ice raced across his eyeballs and turned them opaque blue-white. “I do noooot think sheeee will be dooooing anything anytime soooon.”

“We have to save her! Help me save her! If we save her, she can undo the magic and you can have your food! It’s the only way! Please!”

The boar stared at Den for what felt like forever but was probably only a few heartbeats. Then he opened his jaws. “All riiiight. I will heeeelp you.” The ice in his eyes crackled. “But if yoooou have liiiied to me, I will eeeeat yoooou.”