Free How to Slay a Dragon by Bill Allen Page B

notice it bubbles just before it erupts.”
    Greg’s jaw fell slack. “You mean we haven’t just been lucky until now?”
    Nathan chuckled. “No one could be that lucky.”
    “Say, what happened to your shadowcat?” Nathan asked Greg. After playing the most terrifying game of hopscotch Greg could imagine, he and the boys had finally reached the far bank of the Molten Moor.
    Greg noticed the animal no longer resting on his shoulders. More accurately, he didn’t notice it. He whipped around and scanned the surface of the lava, but then something stirred under his arm and either he or the creature let out a small squeal.
    “He’s here,” Greg gasped, “under my tunic. Do you want him?”
    “No,” said Nathan, “you keep him. He seems to have taken a fancy to you.”
    “Really, I don’t mind.” The shadowcat crawled up to Greg’s shoulder and rubbed its soft cheek against his ear. Greg fought hard to ignore the sensation.
    “Would you look at that?” said Lucky. He was staring at the forest ahead.
    Until now Greg had been too concerned with surviving the moor to notice what lay beyond a few feet, but now he looked at the woods ahead and felt no more at ease than before. A sea of molten rock boiled just feet away, yet the land here felt colder and less alive than the dying woods on the other side of the moor. Scattered tree trunks, charred and twisted, reached soullessly toward a gray, cloudless sky. Not a sound could be heard. Not a branch stirred, not even of its own accord.
    Farther to the south the sky darkened. Please be a storm , Greg thought, but he knew not a drop of rain was held there. The blackness emanated from something far worse. It was somehow related to the witch, and Greg knew he was already closer to it than he ever wanted to be. Then again, so was his living room sofa back home.
    “Nathan,” he croaked, “you wouldn’t know where we might get our hands on some dragon spit, would you?”
    “You don’t want to get your hands anywhere near dragon spit,” Nathan told him. “It would eat right through your skin like acid.”
    “That settles it,” said Greg. “We have to turn back.”
    “What are you talking about?” said Lucky.
    “Maybe we don’t need a fireproofing spell or dragon spit,” said Greg. “How about we just wait outside the dragon’s lair for Ruuan to come out?”
    “That’s ridiculous. Even if you did slay the dragon outside his lair, we’d have to go inside to rescue the princess.”
    “You sure? Don’t you think she’d come out on her own eventually? I know I would. How about you, Nathan?”
    Nathan looked quite uncomfortable at being asked his opinion. “I think you should do whatever you think best, Greghart . . . but if I were you I wouldn’t expect Ruuan to come out to find me. Oh, and you wouldn’t catch me traipsing into a dragon’s lair without a few things I imagine only the witch can provide.”
    Greg stared at the man’s face, questioning whether it was really as friendly as he first thought. “What were you doing out in the Molten Moor, anyway?”
    “I was rescuing that little shadowcat, remember?”
    “I meant what were you doing in the moor to begin with?”
    “Oh,” said Nathan. “Traveling. It’s what I do.” Again he looked to the sky. “Perhaps we can discuss it later. Night will be here sooner than you think, and it is a long walk to Witch Hazel’s.”
    Greg had to admit it did seem to be getting darker. He followed Lucky and Nathan southward to a decrepit footbridge that spanned a narrow stream of very black water. What few trees he could see ahead were more twisted and mangled than anything he’d passed so far, a significant accomplishment in Greg’s opinion, but most of the terrain was covered with scraggly thorn bushes, charred black by some ageless fire. Not a leaf could be found among them, yet somehow they managed to rustle as if home to a thousand monkeydogs.
    “The Shrieking Scrub,” Nathan announced. “Well,