Read Online How to Slay a Dragon by Bill Allen - Free Book Online Page B

scurry out of his reach. “Really? What’s she like?”
    “Well, as I understand it, if she likes you she can be . . . non-threatening.”
    Greg frowned. “That’s a good quality in a witch. Do we really need to go see her?”
    Lucky kicked at a rock of his own with more success. Greg listened to it groan as it sailed into the bushes. “Where else are we going to get dragon spit?” Lucky asked.
    “I don’t suppose dragons ever take the subway here?”
    “What’s a subway?”
    “Never mind. I was joking.”
    Lucky offered his usual smile. “That’s the spirit, Greg. It’s about time you lightened up.”
    Greg bit back a response. The boys hiked until dark, when Lucky pulled two bedrolls from his pack and laid them out at Greg’s feet.
    “What about the princess?” Greg asked. “Don’t we need to reach her as fast as we can?”
    Lucky laughed. “If we try hiking these woods at night, we won’t reach her at all.”
    “How much farther is it?” Greg asked.
    “Not far,” replied Lucky. “Just the other side of the Molten Moor.”
    “Why don’t I want to ask what that is?”
    “Relax, Greg, the moor’s great—just like any other, except instead of pools of soppy mud everywhere, it’s got pools of molten lava.”
    “You expect us to hike through molten lava?”
    “It’s not all lava. There are plenty of trails winding between the pools.”
    “Oh,” said Greg, feeling only slightly better.
    “You just have to keep an eye out, on account of the lava keeps shifting around and swallowing up the paths.”
    Greg groaned. “Doesn’t anything around here stay in one place?”
    Lucky thought a moment. “The witch. They say you can always count on her brewing up her evil potions at the center of the Shrieking Scrub.”
    Greg considered crying, but thought Lucky would just scold him for tarnishing his heroic image. Instead he pulled his bedding over his head and tried not to think about lava and witches and most of all
     
    dragons the size of football fields, with scales so thick not even the sharpest arrow could penetrate them.
    The next morning, Greg came upon a dead squirrel in the center of the trail. It was not the first carcass he’d run across in the last hour. He took this as a bad omen.
    “Lucky, does the forest seem—I don’t know—less alive here than before?”
    “No, this area’s looked like this for as long as I can remember.”
    “Why is it so quiet? Where are all the birds? And what happened to the rustling in the bushes?”
    “I don’t understand you, Greg. Yesterday you hated hearing rustling in the bushes.”
    Greg pulled his gaze off an enormous rat carcass ahead. “Yeah, but somehow this is worse. Look at the trees, how they’re all . . . twisted. And where are the leaves?”
    “Relax, it just means we’re getting close to the Molten Moor. Most living things have a hard time adjusting to areas of heavy magic.”
     “We’re living things,” Greg pointed out. For the time being , he left unvoiced.
    Lucky didn’t seem to hear. “We’re making really good time,” he said, “or maybe the moor’s just moved closer since I was here last. That would make more sense.”
    Greg frowned. He didn’t think that made sense at all. Soon the pungent aroma of burning rock filled the air, and he noticed a thinning in the trees ahead. They had reached the Molten Moor, and Greg was as anxious to cross as he would have been to scamper through an active volcano back home. The whole area glowed bright orange, except for a network of black cracks that riddled the surface of the bubbling lava, identifying the narrow trails Lucky expected them to follow.
    As Greg watched, one of the closest pools sputtered and spewed hot lava up and over the path. Er . . . ex-path.
    With a hiss the soil burned away and the surrounding lava rushed into the trough, revealing two new trails hidden just below the surface of the steaming pools.
    “You’ve got to be kidding,” Greg said.
    Lucky