“Wow,” Frem said, smiling, tears in his eyes.

  Windston was teary-eyed too when Bombo rose and faced the sun, a drenched mess of blood. Never had he seen something so brutally beautiful, so poetically special.

  Bombo roared, heaved, and roared again – in and out, in and out. With each breath, he shrank until he was ordinary height, just under eight feet tall. There in the middle of the brook, he slumped, doubled over, and wept. He wept bitterly there in the pool, and then he lay back in it and washed himself in the flow of fresh water.

  “All these years,” he moaned. His shoulders bounced as he wept more. “All these years… he is gone. Finally, this giant man is gone. This giant man, Boulder.”

  “You did it,” Windston said. He ran to Bombo and put his hand on his arm, as high as he could reach, just over the elbow. “You won.”

  Bombo, whose face was smeared slick with blood and tears, looked at Windston, lips quivering, nodding. “Thank you, my friend,” he said. “Thank you for being here to see this, the return of the black lion king.”

  The joyous moment was interrupted. Frem had risen from the ground, which was not unusual, only his winglets, which did not exist when not in use, were nowhere to be seen. He let out a scream that further confirmed he was in trouble.

  “What's happening?” he shouted, now more than ten feet in the air, arms and legs kicking and flailing. “What's happening to me?”

  It looked as though he was being pulled up by the straps of his bag as it was the highest thing in the sky, and he seemed to dangle from it by the armpits.

  As soon as Windston could react, there was no longer a need; Frem fell with a plop without his bag, which still hovered over the water, now lit in a vibrant array of lights that matched the colors of the rainbow. A great wind blew wildly from it in all directions. The bag burst, and the dragon keys hovered in a glowing ring that spun slowly clockwise. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet they glowed, brightly, their colors reflecting in the water and painting the world.

  Suddenly, they shot off, all in separate directions, trailing light that matched their individual color.

  “What is this?” Bombo asked. “Have you been keeping something magic from me?”

  Frem shrugged and laughed. “It's happening,” he said, looking at Windston. “The dragons... they're planting themselves!”

  Windston smiled, and then he laughed, completely ignoring the bloody giant just feet away, who still gurgled in death, though quietly.

  “Come on!” Frem said, “while there's still trails!”

  “Okay!” Windston said.

  Frem flew one way while Windston leaped another. They followed the trails one by one to their ends, where the ground glowed brightly the color of each. One, two, three, four, five, six and seven; when they had found each spot and marked it, they rendezvoused to the water and celebrated. They danced around Boulder with Bombo, who, in curiosity, asked all about the stones and got answers from Frem and Windston both.

  “Dragons?” he said. “No way! I love this!”

  “Yeah!” Frem said. “And I'm their master!”

  “We're all their masters!” Windston said.

  Frem rolled his eyes and smiled. “Yeah, I guess.”

  They were holding hands in a circle, jumping and dancing, when the first dragon found them.

  It was a yellow dragon, about as big as a horse, but thicker; it had short limbs and wings, and was all plump and cute, like a baby. Its eyes were big and beautiful and adorned with long lashes. It mewed like a cat and snuggled up to them before leaping into the air and circling them overhead.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Another arrived. The orange one. This one liked Bombo in particular.

  More and more came. They were all there. They were all plump and cute, like babies, only huge.

  Finally, the blue dragon arrived. It was taller than the others, and with a longer neck and bigger wings. It looked at Frem with very serious eyes and knelt. “My king,” he said. “My emperor. Dragoon heir, Frem... I beseech you to ride!”

  Frem's eyes widened, and he leapt up onto the dragon's back without hesitation for the ride of his life.

  “Yippee!” he shouted. “Woo! Oh yeah! Oh yeah! Dragons, baby! Baby dragons, baby!”

  “Whoa,” Windston said.

  “Whoa,” Bombo said too.

  Before they knew it, they were on dragon-back as well, Windston on the yellow, and Bombo on the orange.

  They flew over the woods and out of them, into a grassy field where deer and bunnies ran about in a frenzy, dodging blasts of all kinds from all seven dragons; the red and orange blasted with fire; the yellow shot lightning; the green spit poison; the indigo had freezing breath; the violet had laser vision.

  Soon, they were cooking and eating creatures to their heart's content.

  Night fell, and they camped in the middle of the field.

  By mid-morning, they were met by a man named Goens. He was robed in white and held a book to his chest. He told them about what they had just accomplished but warned them that there was still yet more to do.

  “This way!” he said. “There's no time yet to waste!”

  The boys and Bombo and all their dragons followed him up a hill and over it, where they saw, sprawled before them, a city of white bricks and glowing purplish stones. In the center was a great building; that was the sage tower, Goens told them. “This is where we must do our research. Come. Come now. There is little time to waste. For the star,” he said, pointing upward, “it is on the fall. It is on the star fall. Oh, we do must hurry. We do must!”

  The city was full of men and women and children of either purplish or greenish color, and they were all cheering and celebrating the arrival of the Al Doers, the heroes of a fabled myth called the Champions of Far Away who Fight the Star with Dragons. “We've been waiting,” Goens said. “It's been so long that we've waited, we thought you might never come.”

  They raced up the city's main street and to the town circle, within which was the tower.

  What a marvelous tower it was, like a spike of white and purple that stabbed the sky.

  Inside, they were met with beautiful women in sheer gowns of silk and whose undergarments were none too large.

  They fanned the heroes with wide leaves, gave them tubes to suck on, and beckoned them into a very warm bath at the center of a library. The dragons settled around the bath, smiling, contented, not at all worried or concerned, about anything.

  The boys and Bombo relaxed too. They especially loved when the ladies climbed in and shook very loud bells right in front of their faces. One woman, who was particularly pretty - orange-haired, pale green and with flaming red eyes - smiled at Windston, closed her eyes and leaned in to kiss him.

  It was at that exact moment that Windston realized he couldn't breathe at all.

  In fact, he hadn't breathed at all for a while; for as long as he'd been in that bath, he hadn't.

  He opened his mouth to speak but remembered the tube. Gripping at it, he realized he couldn't remove it. He was gagging – no, choking – to death.

  Bombo and Frem were choking too, and all went dark as the edges of the tub rose and confined them in a canopy.

  The water started bubbling. And then it started burning.

  Windston opened his eyes, his actual eyes, and saw that the three of them were completely encased in a pink bulb of boiling water, and it stunk.

  The flower! The flower in the brook!

  With all his might, he pulled on the tube in his mouth and wrenched it out. Blood spattered when he did, and he all but choked on it as he kicked and squirmed and thrashed and gagged.

  Frem and Bombo did the same, and then Frem rained hell with his hands.

  The flower did not burst, did not burn, did not dent or even scratch.

  “My sword!” Windston croaked through his very hoarse throat. “Give it to me!”

  Frem looked down by his leg and saw the cloth. He threw it to Windston and Windston tore the cloth away from his sword and swung.

  Snip, snip, snip!

  He cut a large triangle out of the side of the flower and fell out of it, into the water.

  Frem and Bombo crawled out too. They all just lay there gasping, hacking and spitting blood while the flower screamed and flailed, its bells ringing wildly, its leaves and petals fluttering.

  “Run!” Bombo yelled. “Run from this accursed flower!” he cried.

  But they couldn't. They could hardly move. Instead, they pulled themselves to shore, where they lay there in the grass, and panted.

  They panted for several minutes before it became apparent that something about the air there would keep them panting forever.

  With what little strength they had, they pulled themselves north along the shore, away from the flower, as far away as they could be, and then further.

  Finally, after what felt like hours, the air became thinner, and they were able to breathe.

  There, in what was a very thick wood of pines, they slept.

  Night fell. Owls hooted. The air cooled and soft breezes blew.

  Peacefully, they slept, knowing little of what they had just done, which was to pass through the threshold of the Witchee Woods of North Gorals.