In the second edition of How to Unmake a Dragon, I deleted this scene. But I put it here instead, so you can enjoy it as an extra.
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Heavy, rock-hard feet clattered in the tunnel behind them. Henry’s dragonish hearing picked out the individual clumping steps; five ogres, headed their way fast. Henry dashed forward, head low, his long body twisting like a snake as his powerful legs dug into rock and stone. He desperately prayed he was headed for an exit. The tunnel ceiling dropped lower. The air swirling around him grew closer still, dank and dark. So long as he could keep alive, they would find a way out.
The tunnel dipped sharply. Henry’s claws splayed, digging into the rock and shale under him. It slowed him down, but he couldn’t stop. He slid down the slope. Tug slipped forward, piling in a limp heap against Henry’s neck. The ceiling dropped closer still. Visions of caving tunnels and sudden holes into mile-deep fissures filled Henry, and the dark pressed in. Heat coiled in his belly and he obeyed the dragon instinct.
Fire lit his world. Yellow sparkled in his eyes and heat and dragon scented smoke rolled over him. He glimpsed gray rock, dotted everywhere with sparkling geodes. Everywhere except right in front of his feet. A great black hole gaped like an open mouth. Henry’s flame died and he shot into black nothingness. Wings spread with a flap and a yelp of pain and desperation. Henry spit fire again, letting the pain in his wing goad him into a fury of strength. He roared against it, flapping through a great cavern, tail lashing the black air, and yellow flames spurting as he shot through empty nothingness. A vast cavern, too immense to measure. It dwarfed the dragon, not even his hottest flames lit up wall, ceiling, or floor. Air whistled through the hole in his wing, and he felt himself losing altitude, helplessly sinking. He flapped desperately, roaring out dragon insults in a determination to live.
Something moved below him.
A coil of damp, eel-like flesh rippled into his sight just below him, banded sickly yellow and pale green. It was immense. Henry could have pranced over it like a road, without even having to balance. A noise, vast and bestial rumbled in the depth below him. The flames died, snuffed out in a wave of cold terror. The noise came again, an inquisitive rumble as the thing wondered what had invaded its black home.
Henry pounded his wings, his mind racing, eyes searching through the darkness. He called up the fire again and blew, beating with furious strength, his wings rotating and pounding. A rock wall loomed in his vision, just ahead of him. It was dotted with the black holes of cave entrances. Henry didn’t try to guess which was the best, he didn’t have an option. His neck snaked out, aiming for the only one already in his tumbling trajectory.
White teeth glittered in his firelight. They were rising from below him, each one as tall as Tug. Henry couldn’t even see the jaws, the thing was too big for the light from his little fire. He forced his wings down, his fire spluttering out as everything concentrated on speed. Air swished and swirled as the vast thing moved toward him. Henry’s wings beat furiously, his fear too high to notice the pain, wind whistling as it cut through his torn hole. His tail scraped across something bony and razor sharp. Henry’s feet touched rock. He gave one more furious beat of wings, his legs pumping as the rocks took hold, curling his tail up around his back legs. An earth shaking “snap” rang through the giant cavern, rushing through the tunnel and shaking Henry’s insides with just the massive noise.
He ran, stumbling as his legs tried to catch the speed he had been flying, his wings spread helplessly behind him, this tunnel too small to fold them properly. Panicked breaths filled the tunnel. It took a full half minute before he realized it was his own gasping.
Henry slowed his mad run to a quick trot, forcing himself to breathe evenly. No more running like a coward! He assessed the situation as he trotted on, carefully pressed against the right wall to keep his injured wing from scraping against the rocks. Tug was still breathing; well, more like snorting, pressed up against the serpentine neck. They were alive. He even had all of his tail, which was a mercy after that narrow escape.
Henry gave a thankful prayer for it, and kept trotting up the tunnel. They had to get out of these tunnels!
