KOTW

Chapter 11

Cleo flew as fast as she could. Malston would soon discover she was missing. He’d come after her. She wanted to put as much distance between them as possible. She’d only left a little clue as to where she was going: a map drawn in the dirt.

Her plan was to lure Malston to Runheimr and then lose him in the midst of danger. On the map, Cleo had drawn a rough illustration of Asgard and then Runheimr. She drew a line going from Asgard and then stopped it at the forest.

But instead of belying her actual plan to go to get to Wyvern Central, she made it seem as if she would head back to the Lightning Wyvern trench.

An impeccable plan.

“Just keep flying, Cleo,” Cleo said to herself. Her stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten since the food Malston had given her, which was almost three days ago. She promised herself that once she was safe, she would eat a big, juicy Daedon or something.

“Maybe once I meet back up with Ares, we can just stop trying to get to Jotunheim!” Cleo exclaimed. “We’ll settle down together and….” She trailed off because in the distance, she spotted a few things.

One, two medium sized raptor looking animals, except with feathers. Two, a giant carnivore. The Wyverns called them walking blood baths.

She knew their real names were carcharodontosaurus. And on the carcha's head was a tiny little bat. With a sinister grin on his face. Cleo gasped. She landed and started hyperventilating, tears streaming from her face.

The carcha walked closer slowly, the Deinonychus following.

“No,” Cleo said, a sob escaping from her lungs. “But how?”

Malston cackled. “You thought you could outsmart me?”

Cleo could only cry in response.

“Kudos to you for figuring out our plot,” Malston continued. “We were gonna lead you to the old Lightning Wyvern trench where this Carcha would be waiting. But this is MUCH easier.”

The black deinonychus smiled, bouncing on his feet. The other, blue with a white stripe, looked uncertain.

“You can’t outsmart me Cleo!” Malston said. “I’m Lord Hiro’s main strategist! I’m intelligent, manipulative, and patient. All the right adjectives for someone like me.”

Cleo stood. She couldn’t fly away. She knew that if she did, the carcha’s jaws would snap faster than she ditched Malston. She decided to die a brave death. “Go ahead and kill me!”

Malston grinned. “I hoped you would say that.” And with a tap on the carcha’s head, he sat back.

The carcharodontosaurus opened his jaws and leaned towards Cleo. Cleo shut her eyes and braced for doom.