We stared at the red valley stretching out below us. It seemed even bigger than it had the day before, and its rusty red hue looked even more ominous under the fully risen sun if that was even possible.

There were six other sand lizards besides ours making them eight in total. Soldiers were mounted on their backs, including General Kips. The rest of the soldiers rode on horses of varying colors. We were all set in a protective formation around the six carriages.

All the soldiers' faces were tense with fear and determination, the faces I imagined soldiers wore when going off to battle, and for all, I knew we were.

When I had asked Tinly why none of the soldiers had ridden in the carriages and why we weren't, he had replied, "Dragon Ridge effects magic right? Well, there's magic weaved into the walls of the carriage both to make their insides bigger and to provided protection from the outside world. Men who ride inside them while crossing Dragon Ridge have strange things done to their minds, they never come out the same person, but for some reason, other creatures don't seem to be affected. The only thing is we can't open the carriage doors at any point in the journey, or the space magic will be broken."

"I see," I had said thoughtfully, looking at the carriages

"Are you ready?" Tinly said, snapping me out of my thoughts. I nodded, "Hold on tightly so you don't fall off, we are going to leave any second."

"Okay," I said, and tighten my grip around Tinly's waist. I could feel his hard muscles beneath my fingertips.

He turned his head so he could see me "You should hang on tightly to Givin too, Jasper."

There was no reply, and I turned my head. I caught a glimpse of the two men sitting on the sand lizard. Jasper had his hands wrapped around Givin's waist, a mirror image of Tinly and I, except ten times awkwarder. Both men's faces were tight and both looked extremely uncomfortable.

"Could Jasper ride with one of the soldiers?" I asked feeling a deep sense of sympathy for Jasper even as I looked on.

There was a long pause on Tinly's end, "I'm afraid-," he said and fumbled for the rest of his words, "-that dwarfs aren't exactly on the best of terms with the royal army or citizens of the capital at the moment. They have been attacking travelers coming in and out of the city recently, and their axes had been found in the heads of guards who were stationed at the gate."

"What does that have to do with Jasper?" I asked

"He's a dwarf."

"But he isn't one of those dwarfs!" I argued

Tinly gave me an apologetic look, before turning his head back around, "They don't see it that way. He shares their blood, so he is, therefore, part of the enemy. Thinking about it now, it was probably a very unwise decision for me to allow him to come in the first place."

People from the capital sure had a strange way of thinking. The village nearest us had a problem with a band of traveling rogue dwarfs that had been expelled from their tribe once. During that time the villagers hadn't treated Jasper differently from how they usually treated him. In fact, they had enlisted his help in finally driving them away.

"But Givin doesn't like dwarfs either," I pointed out.

"Givin won't have a possible way of killing him once we are in the valley, the soldiers would. Magic doesn't work remember?"

"Should you continue reminding your enemy of your weakness?" I said absently.

"You're my enemy, I thought you were our guests?"

I started at the realization of what I had just said, "No that's not what I meant," I said quickly, but it was already too late.

"Oh I see, I'm sorry that you see it that way. I hope it wasn't my brother who made you believe we were enemies," Tinly said.

"Ah..." I briefly considered telling Tinly about the incident in the tent to explain my comment away, but quickly dismissed it. The whole situation was sort of a stalemate. Givin had been partially right with what he had said, nobody would believe us over him. Tinly might, but I was sure the other soldiers wouldn't if they did indeed see Jasper as being part of the enemy.

"When are we going to start moving soon, we've been standing here for like an hour?" I asked changing the subject.

"Our beast tamer is just making sure that the magic animals are settled in before we start our journey across the valley. Like I said before, once we are in Dragon Ridge we can't open the doors to the carriages until we are the other side."

"Beast tamer? You have one?" I asked.

"Yes, but she mainly sticks with the animals, so that may be the reason you haven't met her yet. She also isn't fond of things that can talk back. That and you kind of came charging out of the cottage with a spear in your hand before we could get to the dragon's back at your cottage. She's usually the one that helps load the animals."

I cringed at the memory. That hadn't exactly been one of my brightest moments, but it had accomplished my goal of protecting my family, but it had also ended with me being accused of being an elf, and dragged to the royal castle.

The back to one of the carriage opened and out stepped a petite girl with fire red hair, which was a fizzy mess with straw sticking out of it. She had on a pair of brown leather pants and top, and a pair of black work boots. Her face and arms were smeared with mud, and another sand lizard trailed slowly behind her

She shut the door to the carriage and looked in Tinly and I's direction before stalking towards him. She had a sour expression plastered to her gently freckled face.

"Good morning Luna," Tinly greeted.

The petite redhead glared daggers at him, "Good morning!? Good morning!!? It is not a good morning!?" she snapped. "The crescent-winged dragons we picked up in the last town keep fighting in their stales, I have a unicorns with a broken horn, the weredogs keep spooking the remaining horse, the-"

"Oh but are you ready to go?" he asked, cutting her off main complaint, which I was thankful for. If he had let her go I bet she could go on complaining for a couple more hours, judging by how agitated she appeared to be.

Why did they have so many magical creatures with them anyways, and why were they going around and collecting more.

The girl narrowed her eyes, which were brown with gold specks floating in them, at him, "Is this some kind of joke that you are asking me that? You would still cross whether I said yes or no. Her eyes suddenly focused on me, "Who are you?" she demanded.

"Me?" I asked pointing to myself.

She rolled her eyes "Who else would I be taking to here? You're a bit slow, aren't you?"

I snorted, "Calm down I was just making sure you were talking to me, and not the lizard, because I heard that taking to animals is kind of your thing."

She looked at Tinly in disbelief, "Who does she think she is talking to me like that!? I'm the king's head beast tamer! Where did you get this common backwash from?" she barked out, and for a minute I pictured her as one of those annoying yippy lap dogs nobles had.

I clenched my teeth together at the insult "What did you just call me you red head troll!?" I made a motion to get off the dragon, but Tinly grabbed my elbow firmly and yanked me back down.

"Luna, get yourself on a sand lizard now, before I decide to report your rude behavior when we arrive back at the castle! You've had many warnings in the past, so your punishment will be very servere this time." Tinly said angrily which surprised me a little, even though I had known him for less than a day. He struck me as the type that never got angry l unless you murdered their family or did something else almost as equally horrible. Still it was almost laughable hearing him try and threaten someone. Really, he was going to tell on her?

Luna seemed to be having the same thoughts as me because she laughed and swung herself expertly onto the back of the sand lizard. She looked over her shoulder at him and smirked, before facing forward again

It was me this time that had to hold Tinly on the sand lizard.

"We can get moving now tin tin, if that's what your heart desires even if I would rather take the long way around to spare the animals the discomfort of crossing this cursed place. Even if the king needs them immediately so... never mind," she look back him, a look of panic etched on her face.

"This is why I like talking to animals, you can never say anything wrong to them," I thought I heard her whisper under her breath, before she turned away from us.

Tinly was silent for a long moment "Alright men move out!" Tinly yelled, his voice sounding overly tense and I bet it had something to do with what Luna hadn't finished saying, unless tin tin was his trigger word.

From behind us Givin echoed the command word for word, but for some reason his command sounded harsher, more final then Tinly's had.

Our small and odd carven began to slowly inch forward at the sound of the command. We reached the edge of the valley within minutes, and for a moment it appeared as if we were going to just step out into thin air, and tumble downwards, but at the last moment a steadily slopping rock slab appeared in front of us.It was the same red color as the valley, and its shape and overall smooth texture looked like it was man made. It was set at a somewhat steep incline, and appeared to lead all the way to the bottom of Dragon Ridge

The slab was wide enough for four of the six carriages to ride down side by side with room to spare in-between them, and more than enough room for the carriages to go down single-file and have horses and sand lizards flanking them on either side, which is exactly what we did. .

I peered past Tinly's shoulder at Luna ridding in front of us, her red hair bobbing up and down with the motion of the sand lizards. I then turned my sights behind me to see if I could catch Jasper's eye or a glimpse of his face, but Givin was blocking the way.

He was staring at me intently with his emerald green eyes, which made me itch under the skin. I engaged in a brief staring contest with him, before facing the back of Tinly again.

I couldn't wait until I put some distance between us. I was thinking that when Jasper and I made our escape that we should head towards Sea Seaserpent Marsh. My mother grew up there, and I knew that was the first place she would go for help, and hopefully she would be waiting for us there.

The sound of a rock falling sent me away from the thoughts of my escape plan, to what was going on around me. The rock sounded like it had fallen very close to us.

Our small precision gridded to a sudden stand still, and that's when I saw what was lying in our path in front of us. What I had mistaken for a falling rock was not a rock at all, it was the body. The body looked like it had died months ago, though I hadn't had much experience with dead bodies. I had only seen them at funerals, and that one time I had found Mr. Humbleberry's body after I had gone to help her tend her garden.

She had been dead for maybe four days, and this body looked like it was in a far more advance state of decay then she had been. Even worse, it was wearing the same armor as the other soldiers, and that's when all hell broke loose.