This is Chapter 2 of “Dragon Boy and the Quest of the Sheath” by Judah

Chapter two

The War Will Begin

Chapter two

Snake woke up in cold sweat. What was that about? He wondered. The last thing he had seen in his dream was the night sky coming closer and closer till he was practically touching it. Had he just seen the future. Snake looked at the stone nervously wondering if it had anything to do with the dream. He looked outside. The giant lamp on the ceiling of the city was shining a bright light in the city. With a sigh he got up and went to the village square. He looked around at the people sitting down and reading. It was hard to imagine all these people charging him. Snake sat down on a bench. He pulled out a book. The book was called Magic. Snake was almost done when a line caught his eye. And if magic has chosen you, you are its hero and must prove it no matter what it takes for you have the blood of the dragons and that is your destiny. 

Snake stared at the page in disbelief. He had never read such an interesting book before. He showed it to his friends and told them about his dream. Sam immediately jumped to his feet.
“You say it had cracks in it,” he said. 

“Yes,” Snake said. “You can’t be thinking-” 

“It’s our best guess. I need you to make sure that Aiden doesn’t know about this. The contest for Town Devil starts in about a week. Get ready for a big surprise.” 

Snake knew what Sam was thinking. 

“We have to stop this somehow,” he said. 

Sam nodded. “Get ready for the fight of your lives,” he said and took out his sword. Snake drew his. The two swords clashed together creating a giant clanging sound. Snake lunged at Sam who leaped to the side. Snake crashed to the ground. Sam threw his sword and it wooshed past Snake. Snake was on his feet in an instant and threw it at Sam. It bounced off his chest with a clang.

“What the,” said Snake.

“Skin armor,” said Sam. 

Snake nodded and used the distraction to sneak up behind him and with a good swing cut off Sam’s hand. Instead of blood out came stuffing. Immediately knowing Sam’s plan Snake turned around but he was too late. Snake felt a sharp pain in his leg. When he looked down he saw a dagger sticking out of his leg. Just then Snake heard a whooshing sound. He looked up to see the stone whooshing down towards Sam. It hit him and slid down to his chest and stayed there. 

“Yahhhhhhhh,” Screamed Sam. “Cold. Really cold.” He tried to pull it off but it stuck to his chest. Sam collapsed. “”Get it off me,” he screamed. “Get it off me.” 

Snake watched for about five minutes then grabbed the stone and pulled it off. Immediately the stone slid out of his grasp and fell onto his leg. There it stuck. Warmth filled Snake’s body as the stone radiated heat from him. After about ten minutes the stone fell from his leg. In its place was a small thin scar from where the wound had healed. Snake gasped. 

“That was so cool,” he said. 

“Agreed,” said Sam clutching his chest as if the stone was still there. “I’m going home where I can lie down by a nice warm fire and get warm again.” 

Snake walked away confused towards home. The next day Snake tried to spar with Sam but the second Snake got a little knick on his arm, the stone reappeared and repeated its course and Sam ran away. After about two days Sam gave up on trying to spar. Now Snake had to find a new thing to help him battle. He tried to increase his robberies and try to rob the houses with weapons but the people inside had no experience whatsoever with fighting. Then a squad of soldiers came to town chasing some criminals. Snake’s city Grimtown had already found the criminals and welcomed them into their colony but Snake thought that soldiers would be perfect. 

That night he walked up to the upperlands and went to the encampment. He snuck into a soldier’s tent making sure the tent’s owner had a microphone. Then he grabbed a gun and began walking out and accidentally knocked over a can of beans. The soldier leaped to his feet and grabbed the microphone. 

“Thieves,” he shouted. Thieves in camp. I repeat thieves in-” that was all he got before Snake knocked him unconscious. Soldiers were pouring out of tents and were charging towards Snake. Snake pulled out his sword and said, 

“If you know what good for you you will put down your weapons and give them to me.” 

A soldier started to laugh but Snake grabbed his sword and hit the man on the forehead. He crumpled to the ground. Just as unconscious as the man in the tent. 

“Anyone else,” Snake challenged. 

The soldiers dropped their weapons and pushed them towards Snake. Then they immediately put their hands up. Snake put down some bags and began to fill them up with everything valuable he could find in the camp. After that he piled everything he could find in a corner and went down to the village. There he went to the stables. A horse whinnied silently “Shhhh,”  whispered Snake. He put a lead on each of the horses and led them back to the soldiers. He tied the bags to the horses and mounted the last one. Slowly their little parade moved through the town to the citadel and through the doors. Snake opened the trap-statue and carefully lowered the horses down. Then he moved them through the streets towards his house. Then he tied the horses to a fence and hopped off his horse and went inside and collapsed on his bed. He almost instantly had the same dream but this time he avoided the dragon and leapt into the fighting. 

He had been in the middle of knocking a sword out of a man’s hand when he saw something that made him pause. Max was near the dragon knocking away any person that came near it. Bill was in the middle of knocking dozens of people unconscious. Peter was a blur kicking away any soldier that came close. Joe was keeping the soldiers away from Sam who was dueling Aiden. They all were keeping the people away but not for long. He had to get away. He took off towards his dragon. When he reached it Max turned to face him. He said something and Snake said something back. Then he leaped onto his dragon and flew away. An arrow streaked towards the dragon who caught  it in its talons and raced on. He saw his friends far away. Sam paused his duel and stared at Snake climbing higher and higher towards the ceiling. He said something and Snake answered back. Then the dragon tore through the grass and into the sky above. 

Snake sat up in bed. He looked nervously at the stone. It was definitely connected. But how? Snake ran out of the house and to the square to calm himself. There he took out yet another book. This he knew definitely was just a normal book. It was about astronauts and Snake had read the book five times and it was just about finding the moon. Then Snake came to the last part. And as I lay in my bed dying from old age, I look back to my adventure on the moon and smile for there are dragons on the moon. Snake was utterly astounded. The man was smiling about discovering the moon, not the fact that there were dragons on it. In fact there had never even been a mention of dragons on the moon. Something was wrong and Snake was going to find out. Snake tried to read a book about cowboys but instead of the cowboy trying to cope after his wife died, he was sad about his favorite horse getting carried off by a dragon. Snake tried yet another book about World War II which was about men fighting dragons and the dragons’ last stand. Annoyed and confused Snake decided to test one final book. It was a little journal of his. He looked at it and it seemed good until he found something that chilled his bones. I opened the chest and inside was the most beautiful dragon egg I ever saw.  Snake felt as if the world was ending. But apparently it was just beginning. Snake had to use his dragon to find some stuff to defeat Aiden and he had to do it because he had the blood of the dragons inside him and that was his destiny. First Snake decided I’ll need to name the dragon. 

He then began making a list for if it was a boy and if it was a girl. 

               Boy                                                                              Girl    

It came down to Kakita and Drake. Now Snake just needed to see if it was a boy or a girl. He went to the library to research everything it had on dragon legends. Apparently boy eggs were a black midnight and girl eggs were a colorful buzz. So it was a girl. 

Snake Put the egg in a glass case with gold around the edges and carved Kakita into the case. Then he shot down the stairs and out the door into the warm lamplight. He ran to the square where he found his friends fencing. “Guys come on,” Snake said. “I need to show you something.” 

The group walked through the town towards Snake’s house. When they got there, Snake took them to his room. There he showed them Kakita’s egg. Joe looked like he was about to faint.  Peter looked like he thought It was a prop. Max had a look of confusion on his face. Bill just stared at the egg in amazement. Sam, however, sent Snake a look that clearly said, I told you so. Ignoring his friends’ reactions, Snake picked up a book to see what changed in it but all of it was back to normal. Snake was confused but he didn’t care. 

“Let’s test this egg’s power,” he said. 

He grabbed some diamonds and a ruby from a bag. Then he threw the diamond into a handle shaped mold. He left a circle in the middle where he put the ruby. Then he let it cool down. When it was done he had a brand new handle. He did the same thing with the blade along with a little chip from Kakita’s egg that had fallen off. 

Snake looked proudly at the new sword. “Now let’s spar,” he said. 

“You’re on,” said Sam. 

The boys retrieved their swords and walked to the village square. They held their swords ready for battle. In a flash Snake charged Sam. Sam raised his sword to intercept the blow but the second Snake’s sword hit Sam’s, Sam’s sword froze solid. It grew heavier in his grasp until it fell to the ground and shattered. With a shocked expression Sam stared at Snake. 

“What? Where? Why? How?” 

Snake was just as confused. How had that happened? Snake decided to ignore what was happening one last time before he took action. He walked home to learn more about dragons from his dragon book collection from the library. When he got to his room he searched his pile of library  books. 

“Dragons,” muttered Snake. “I know I have a book on dragons.” Finally, he found what he was looking for. He opened the book and began to read. Apparently Kakita was a Frost dragon which meant that its power came from snow and ice. Unfortunately Frost dragons were small for their age and the largest frost dragon was about as tall as two giraffes. Frost dragons breathed a shimmering blue light that formed into what it needed. If there wasn’t time for fighting, just delaying the dragon would bury their enemies in a mound of snow. When the dragon needed to fight it would freeze its enemies in ice. Once a month at the full moon the Frost dragon would even turn other things into ice. 

Still, the Frost dragon was small so it was rarely noticed. It was rumored that if a Frost dragon was sighted it was a sign of bad luck. Luckily, that wasn’t true but whenever one was sighted, it was rumored that it was because someone had or was about to die. 

Now Snake was really sure he should throw the egg and everything it had touched away.