Princess between Worlds (17 page)

“Is it my turn yet?” asked Millie.

“Not yet,” said Azuria. “I think it's time I try something a little stronger.” The witch had just raised her hand when Rotan crawled to the top of the hill on his knees and aimed his wand at the sky. Snow began to fall so thick and fast that it was soon impossible to see.

“Oh, no you don't!” said Azuria. With her finger pointed at the ground, she stomped her foot three times. A crack
opened in the ice, running straight to where they had last seen the wizard. Even while the crack was spreading, Azuria waved her finger again. A wind sprang up, blowing the falling snow at the hillside in a miniature blizzard. When the snow cleared, the wizard was no longer there.

Annie couldn't tell if Azuria had blown the wizard off the hill or if he had fallen into the crack in the ice. She was waiting for him to reappear when a heart-stopping roar shook the ground. A sea of white flowed over and around the hill like a churning spring flood. The snowmen were back, in force this time, and they were charging straight at the group of friends.

“I thought you said they wouldn't come back until they were sure we were gone,” shouted Liam.

“He must have placed a compulsion on them,” Azuria cried as she created walls of ice to block the snowmen. Each time a wall appeared in front of them, they beat at it until they had broken through, even after their hands were cut and bloody. “It's a powerful compulsion, too. They won't stop until it wears off or they die.”

“I don't want to hurt them if someone is making them do this!” said Annie. “Isn't there anything we can do?”

“Get on Millie's back,” Audun told her. “You, too, Liam. Azuria, you're riding with me. It's time we take this fight to my stomping ground. He's involving innocents here, but there are no innocents where we're going.”

“And where is that?” asked Liam as he helped Annie onto the dragon's back.

“The ice-dragon stronghold,” said Audun. “Millie, we're going to have to pace ourselves so that he won't be able to catch up, but we won't lose him. We want him to follow us all the way there so we can end this once and for all!”

CHAPTER 14

Riding on the back of a dragon had to be the most exhilarating thing Annie had ever done. She was perched on Millie's back with her arms wrapped around Liam, grinning as her hair whipped behind her and the wind brought tears to her eyes.

“I never thought dragons were real, and now we're riding one!” she shouted into Liam's ear.

“Look at those mountains!” he shouted back. “Can you believe we're flying above them?”

“I can't believe any of this! We must be dreaming!”

They were straddling the base of Millie's neck, well in front of her powerful wings. When Annie closed her eyes, she could almost imagine she was riding a horse bareback; Millie's neck was about the same diameter as a horse's barrel and the movement of her muscles created a rocking sort of motion. Annie liked it best when Millie stilled her wings to glide, letting the air currents carry her. Without the
whump! whump!
of her beating wings, the only sound was that of the air rushing past. Their flight was so smooth that it almost felt as if they weren't moving at all.

As excited as she was, Annie almost forgot that they had a reason to ride on a dragon's back. Every once in a while she remembered and turned around to look behind them. Rotan was there, sitting astride a crooked branch that still bore a few withered, ice-coated leaves. He flew hunched over with both hands gripping the branch, so intent on following the dragons that he didn't seem to notice the wind that made his long robes flap behind him. Annie thought he looked like a predatory bird, ready to strike. Just looking at him was enough to make her shiver.

Annie was glad that she and Liam were riding on Millie's back and not Audun's. Millie was keeping her internal fire stoked so that her body generated enough heat to keep her passengers warm. Annie felt toasty from her head to her toes despite the cold weather. As an ice dragon, Audun couldn't generate heat, and actually felt cold to the touch. Riding on him would only have made Annie colder, whereas Azuria had magic to make warmer clothes for herself.

Although the air was bitterly cold when they started out, it became even colder as they headed over the mountains and Annie could finally see the ocean. Unlike the clear blue water surrounding the islands they had visited in warmer climates, the water here was a murky blue gray that hid whatever was in its depths. When Annie looked straight ahead, she could see a cloud bank
that stretched from one side of the horizon to the other. The clouds were thick and dark, piling on top of each other so high that she wondered if any dragon could fly over them.

Annie glanced down and gasped. A group of large fish were racing through the water below them. One came to the surface and blew water out of a hole on top of its head. Another rose up, then fell back into the water with a tremendous splash.

“Those are whales,” Millie called, turning her head toward Annie and Liam. “They look big from here, but they're enormous when you get close. The smaller one is a baby.”

“Amazing!” Annie exclaimed.

She was still watching the whales when something screamed. When she looked up, she saw a flock of large birds tearing toward them out of the sky. Half the birds peeled off to attack Audun, while the rest came after Millie. Some of the birds flew at the dragoness, pecking at her head and face. The others descended on Annie and Liam.

“Get down, Annie!” Liam shouted as he waved the sword Azuria had given to him.

Annie crouched behind him, but when she felt a bird's talons on her back, she turned and flung up her arm. The bird was about to tear at her when she struck it, and suddenly it seemed more anxious to get away than attack
her. She turned to look; the bird that had appeared to be some kind of large hawk was now a seagull. It flew away, squawking in distress.

“They're not hawks, they're seagulls!” Annie shouted. “Rotan changed them!”

“If he wants hawks, he can have them!” cried Azuria, waving her finger in the air.

A strong wind sprang up to blow the birds back to the wizard. He flailed his arms at them so violently that he nearly fell off his branch. Annie watched him until she had to hold on more tightly to Liam; Millie was descending toward the water.

The two dragons were flying side by side under the clouds now. A cold wind lashed them with sleet, which froze on Audun but dripped off the warmer Millie. When water ran into Annie's eyes, she let go of Liam long enough to wipe her face with the back of her hand. Dropping her hand, she happened to glance down and gasped as a black-and-white fish as long as Millie shot out of the water straight at them, its teeth-lined jaws gaping open.

“Watch out!” Annie screamed.

Millie's head whipped down. “Hang on!” she shouted, veering to the side. With a few powerful beats of her wings, they were angled higher again, entering the thick gray clouds.

They flew through the clouds for a time, unable to see anything around them. Even so, Millie and Audun stayed close together, apparently able to know exactly where the other dragon was in the murky darkness.

“How can you fly through this without getting lost?” Annie called to Millie after they'd been in the clouds for a while.

“Dragons have an excellent sense of direction,” Millie called back. “We can find any place even with our eyes closed as long as we've been there before.”

“Are we almost there?” asked Annie.

Millie chuckled, which made her shake so hard that Annie could feel the vibration under her. “We're still a few hours away,” the dragoness finally said.

When the clouds around them finally parted, revealing a dismal sky and the leaden-looking ocean below, Annie felt as if a weight had been lifted off her. She glanced at Audun, who was flying so close to Millie that the two dragons' wing tips almost touched. Azuria had used her magic to wrap herself in a layer of blankets and was tied onto the dragon with straps. She was asleep, her head lolling with each beat of Audun's wings, her mittened hands lying limply at her sides. Every once in a while she jerked awake, consulted her far-seeing ball, and said something to Audun. Within minutes, her eyes were closed again. Apparently
she didn't find dragon flight as exciting as Annie and Liam did.

Annie glanced back, wondering if they had lost Rotan. When she didn't see him, she called to Millie, “I think we've lost the wizard.”

“He's still there,” said Millie. “He's just farther behind. Azuria is keeping track of him with her far-seeing ball.”

Millie was right. The next time Annie looked back, Rotan was in sight, clutching the branch, looking more bedraggled than ever.

It wasn't long before Annie started seeing huge blocks of ice floating in the water. “What are those?” she asked Liam. When he didn't know, she asked Millie.

“Those are called icebergs. This part of the ocean is full of them. Now that we've seen them, we know that we're a little over an hour away from the stronghold.”

“That's good,” said Annie, “because—” She gasped as a wall of water rose out of the ocean to tower over their heads.

“Rotan!” exclaimed Liam.

“Oh, no he doesn't!” Millie cried as the wall began to descend on them.

Annie could feel the dragoness take in a deep breath and was amazed when she exhaled a long tongue of flame that grew bigger with each passing second. The water wall shrank as the flame turned it into steam, which Azuria blew back at Rotan. Annie looked behind
her when the wizard yelped and nearly fell off his branch again.

They flew in and out of clouds after that. Millie's heat was enough to warm Annie and Liam and to dry their clothes once they were out in the open. The next time the dragons began to descend, they headed toward the largest iceberg Annie had seen yet. It was higher than the tallest icebergs they had passed and wider than most, with sides as sheer as if a giant had used a knife to cut them from an even bigger block of ice. When the clouds opened up above them, letting the sun shine through, the whole thing reflected light like a polished mirror.

The reflected light was so bright that Annie didn't notice the three approaching dragons at first. It didn't help that they were as white as the iceberg and blended in so well with it. Audun and Millie saw them right away, however, and flew to meet them.

“We need your help, Wave Diver. An evil wizard is following us!” Audun shouted to the leader of the dragons. “Tell Frostybreath!”

“We can do the same thing to this wizard that we did to Olebald!” Wave Diver shouted back.

“That's what I was thinking!” Audun replied.

While Wave Diver landed on the ice and disappeared into an almost invisible opening, the other two dragon guards moved off so that they blended in with the ice again, making it almost impossible for Rotan to see
them. Millie landed at the entrance right behind Wave Diver and slipped into a tunnel that could easily fit two dragons side by side. Annie crinkled her nose. The air smelled sour, almost as if bushels of fruit had gone bad. It took her a moment to recognize it as the concentrated smell of many ice dragons living together.

“Go wait at the end of the hall,” Wave Diver told Millie. “Audun knows what to do. He'll lure the wizard in, then my dragons will follow and block the entrance so the wizard can't escape that way.”

Liam was already helping Annie down from Millie's back when he turned to Wave Diver and asked, “Is there anything I can do to help?”

The dragon, who was nearly twice as long as Millie, just laughed. “Not a thing, little human, except stay out of the way. We can handle this. Now hurry. I can hear a human shouting. The wizard must be close.”

Annie and Liam ran down the hall with Millie right behind. Although everything was made of ice, the floor had been embedded with sand so that it wasn't slippery. The hall was fiercely cold, however, and Annie already regretted that she and Liam had been so quick to get off Millie's back. Annie's teeth were chattering when they reached the end of the hall.

“You two wait inside,” said Millie, and nudged them toward an open door. They slipped inside, but instead of hiding, they peered around the doorway.

Another dragon joined Millie. He wasn't much bigger than she was and had an officious air about him. “Wave Diver sent for Frostybreath. What is going on? I should be kept informed at all times so I can inform the king.”

“Hello, Iceworthy,” said Millie. “It's an evil wizard named Rotan. He's followed us here and we want Frostybreath to freeze him. The wizard should be entering the hall at any moment.”

“Oh!” said the dragon, and he scurried off around the corner.

“You should go back inside,” Millie told Annie and Liam, shuffling closer as if to block the doorway.

Annie glanced down. Millie was so warm that the floor under her feet was partially melted. When she moved, the floor refroze instantly, almost as if by magic.