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Chapter 13 - Sapphire river

"Kiitos..." Ranger said quietly. Spyro and Cynder agreed they would not fly fast until they reach river because even if they tried fly faster they would not gain any extra distance from orcs and therefore it would be only waste of energy. They flew calmly with speed which forced orcs to run below them.

"HEY GUYS! WAIT UP!" Sparx shouted from distance. Spyro turned his head slightly to direction where shout came and he sighed in relief as he saw yellow lightorb coming closer.

"You seem to have big fanclub down there." Sparx said and pointed down when he caught up with dragons.

"Yeah. Things didn't go quite as we planned." Spyro replied.

"You don't say... If I recall rescue should have been hus hus and out style. What happened?" Sparx asked.

"Well, after you left we managed to sneak into tent where ranger where kept but while searching the keys to ranger's chains Edgard awoke and I blasted lock instead and we fled in a rush..." Spyro began to explain.

"Oi, why didn't you blast it out in a first place?" Sparx cut in.

"Edgard would have been awoken from sound it could have caused. Anyway we had fought our way out and during our runaway ranger got exhausted and where unable to continue any further so now we're carrying him." Spyro ended.

"And what you where doing meanwhile?" Cynder asked keeping her eyes over horizon.

"Nothing much. Pissing off random orcs and running away from murderous one, the usual.

"How you found us?" Spyro asked

"How I would have not found you? You left whole camp in disarray and half camp running somewhere... you don't need detective's skills to figure out who they where after." Sparx said and flew closer their new companion to see him face to face. Sparx stared on ranger and startled when ranger rose his head and looked back.

"Woa! A little creepy aren't you?" Sparx said but ranger just glanced on him, moving his eyes as he studied Sparx carefully with his eyes.

"Ok... forget what I just said. THAT is creepy." Sparx stated and flew back next to Spyro.

"Not very talkative is he?" Sparx asked.

"I'd say he didn't understand a word you said to him."

"Is that so?" Sparx said while rubbing his chin and flew back to ranger.

"Hey creepy one, you know you look kinda weak and stuff. I mean you ran for like 10 minutes and you got exhausted? Even I can run longer with my hands than that." Sparx continued insulting ranger who didn't have a clue what small dragonfly said to him.

"Anteeksi, mutten ymmärrä mitä sanot." Ranger replied and figured out from Sparx' tone he was using that he was being insulted from something. Ranger rose one of his eyebrows.

"Sparx. You should stop that." Cynder said.

"Oh why doomgirl?" Sparx said and continued throwing insults on ranger.

"What if and when he learns our language and what if he remembers what you said just now? I bet he won't be too happy about that." Cynder continued and grinned, imaging how ranger would do his little payback.

"What you mean? You say we stick around with this hideous assassin?" Sparx asked in disbelieve

"At least until he is safe." Spyro answered

"Oi, now you say that." Sparx finished.

Spyro and Cynder flew trough night sky over endless plains and orcs followed them beneath them tireless. Minutes turned to hours and river where nowhere to be seen. Twin moon's light came dimmer as sky brightened up slowly and first sings of rising sun could be seen up south first colouring horizon red then yellow before edge of the sun rose high enough to be seen.

"Are we there yet?" Sparx said bored from up Spyro's horn where he has took rest from flight. Spyro sighed and didn't reply. Sparx has asked very same question for at least 30 times.

"If we don't come to river soon we need to come up with something good. I cant fly like this forever and my pawns is coming numb." Spyro said slightly panting.

"It can't be far away. It just can't, I'm sure of it." Cynder answered becoming worried. 'We should have reached that river hours ago. What if I remember wrong? What we should do?' Cynder thought. It has been almost 4 weeks since Cynder saw landscape from high above when they fled Convexity and Cynder had hardly have time to look sights more carefully. Spyro saw Cynder troubled expression on her.

"Don't worry. If there is a river I am sure we reach it soon enough, Together." Spyro tried to sheer her up. Cynder turned her head towards Spyro and gave faint smile.

"Thanks." She said

"Anytime." Spyro finished. After three hours, when sun has climbed higher at sky and trees began to grow on plains but only here and there they grew as groups, making miniature forests and ground began to turn more hilly and made dragons work harder as they needed climb higher and fly lower to rest their wings after climbs according elevations differences. Orcs still followed them with no sight of becoming tired from their chase. When dragons began to lose their hopes of their escape Spyro noticed something blue wimple between hills and he smiled from relief as he realised what that was, River.

"Look! Up there! I can see river slightly left from us!" Spyro Said as hope shot back into him. Cynder looked where Spyro where staring at and She sighed from relief as well.

"Finally... Let's go there!" Cynder answered and they both turned directly towards river. As they flew closer the river they got exited despite exhaust from the view. River seemed to came far from snowtipped mountains and went far wimpling between hills onto opposite direction. Calm water in the wide river reflected sky's blue light making it look like huge long sapphire.

"I know you are tired from hours of flying but when we get close enough we need fly like we have never before if we're going to get away from them." Cynder said serious and panting after she stopped admiring the view.

"You're right. I just hope we manage to get enough distance from them. Luckily here is some hills so it's harder to them keep tracking on us." Spyro answered.

As the river came closer they intuitively began fly faster. When shore where about few hundred meters away they prepared mentally to fly as fast as possible.

"Ready?" Spyro asked.

"Ready!" Cynder Answered

"Not!" Sparx shouted and grasped Spyro once again from his horn

"Now I am ready." Sparx finished.

"NOW!" Spyro shouted and they dived to gain extra speed and pulled up few meters above ground and began flap their wings strongly. Orcs paced up their speed as well when they saw dragons descend fast but failed to catch up dragons as they flew too fast and whole group halted to shore and groaned loudly after the fleeing dragons. Spyro and Cynder flew above crystal clear river and fishes could be easily seen in it as they lived their undisrupt live. Gulfs and other birds living around river fled as they saw dragons flying above river. When they got to other side of the wide river Sparx looked behind.

"See you later losers!" Sparx shouted

"Let's keep flying low and turn north after that hill and circle around after hill behind it and go south instead. That way they might think we are heading north instead." Cynder said panting and Spyro just nodded. First orcs began to swim across the river with their heavy equipment which made swimming really slow while others still argued should they follow them or not. Minutes passed as they followed their plan and they began to get really exhausted and sweat. They has just circled around second hill and where now heading back to south. Spyro shook his head and sweatdrips fell off.

"I can't keep up with this much longer... We need to land very soon." Spyro said heavily breathing.

"I know but we need to fly long as possible" Cynder answered really exhausted as well. Spyro's pawns has become almost totally numb from carrying ranger but he thought grip would hold until they have landed safely. But after few minutes Spyro began to lose his grip on ranger's arm and Spyro didn't feel that trough numbness of his pawns.

Ranger glanced worried on Spyro when he felt he was losing grip on him.

"Hei! Otteesi kirpoaa!" Ranger Said loudly to Spyro. Both Spyro and Cynder looked down on ranger.

"What?" Spyro asked and at the same moment he lost his grip on ranger.

"NO!" Spyro shouted eyes wide. Cynder fought against sudden extraweight she was now carrying as hard she could. She tighten her grip on ranger's right arm, emping her claws even deeper into his arm but ranger's weight made her claws slide, cutting his arm slowly. Ranger yelled from pain and his cape's sleeve turned red from blood.

"AAAHH!! ALAS ALAS ALAS!" Ranger shouted from pain. Cynder tried to land fast as she could while Spyro tried to offer his pawn to ranger but ranger missed his pawn several times with his hand. After Cynder felt ranger weight disappear, telling her he has his feets on ground, she let to of him and landed next to ranger and dropped herself on her side breathing heavily and sweating all over. Spyro landed next to her. Ranger where holding his hand face twisted from pain.

"Are you okay?" Spyro asked from Cynder still panting.

"I... *pant* I am fine... *pant*" Cynder said while trying to catch her breath. Spyro heard some cloth being tore up and he turned around to see ranger and Spyro gasped as he saw ranger's revealed badly bleeding wounds on his right arm. Ranger wrapped piece of cloth around his arm few inches before wounds and tighten cloth by using his left arm and his mouth in order to stop or at least limit bloodflow into his arm. As he has tied cloth tightly bleeding reduced significantly but where still bleeding a bit. He took knife and cleaned it to his cape before he brought it against his wounds and began to clean all the dirt which has made their way into wound and he shivered from pain every time he emped his knife into each claw-wound carefully.

"Please make him stop that. That makes me feel sick." Sparx said holding his hand before his mouth and turned away. After ranger was done with that he dropped bloodstained knife on ground and tore up another piece of cloth out from his cape and wrapped it on the wounds thigh. Spyro walked onfront of ranger, looked his wounded hand and then on ranger's face.

"I am sorry I dropped you like that." Spyro said troupled but ranger looked at him direcly into his eyes and smiled faintly.

"Ei tässä mitenkää pahasti käynyt. Yritit parhaasi ja kiitollinen minun pitäisi olla. Kiitos." Ranger said with clear voice and nodded and then he stood up and walked over Cynder and bended down. Cynder looked up at him puzzling what he was up to and looked him a bit disgust as he took her pawn gently into his hand.

"Kiitos sinullekkin vaikka matkan loppuvaihe olikin hieman kivulias. Pelastitte henkeni." Ranger said warmly. Cynder pulled her pawn back and ranger tilted his head a bit and sneered briefly before he stood up. He turned around to see Sparx.

"En tiedä mikä sinun osuutesi tässä pelastusoperaatiossa oli mutta kiitos sinullekkin." Ranger said

"Spyro, you know what he just said?" Sparx asked from Spyro

"Not a clue. But I think he is thanking us." Spyro answered. Ranger then turned towards two dragons.

"Toivon että olisimme tavanneet paremmissa merkeissä, mutta örkit eivät ole teidän perässä vaan minun joten katson parhaaksi että jätän teidät. Kiitos ja hyvästi." Ranger said slowly, turned around and began to walk away.

"No wait! We don't know your name!" Spyro shouted after ranger. Ranger stopped and looked over his shoulder.

"Her name is Cynder, his name is Sparx and my name is Spyro". Spyro said pointing each one with his pawn and repeated it twice to make sure ranger would understand what he was saying and finally he pointed ranger.

"What is your name?" Spyro asked. Ranger turned his head forward for a moment and then looked over his shoulder again.

"Markus." Ranger said and began to walk away.