‘I’ll listen for the pass of wings—we want them to see it coming. Hold on tightly Bren, I’ll have to run as fast as when we launch, perhaps faster.’
I nodded and took a tight grip on the neck strap with one hand, and the safety clip with the other.‘I’m ready.’
I could feel Akhane’s smile.
A moment later, she lifted her chin so it pointed at the sky, then she made the lowhungh, hungh, hunghthe dragons made when they were producing heat. It was unavoidable, and we knew it would catch the defender’s attention, but that was the point.
There was a shout and a dragon scream, then just as the mists above churned like they were being shifted by the mighty wind of a dragon’s wings, Akhane opened her mouth and spewed a plume of smoke and vapor that rose higher than the tower. It erupted with such volume and force I was stunned and forgot how hard I needed to grip the straps. When Akhane took off—not flying and climbing, butrunningwhile the mists above uswere filled with smoke and vapor, blinding anyone to the ground, I almost toppled backwards.
I almost lost my seat, but as she tore around the base of the tower to its other side and launched herself straight up it’s side—no flapping, shejumped,thengripped with her talons and climbed it like a lizard, clawing into even the slightest crack between the stones for leverage. When she reached the spiral staircase that circled the exterior, I unclipped and jumped off.
It had only taken seconds, but just as we’d hoped, the attention of the defenders had been drawn to her plume on the other side of the tower.
I was running up the stairs before she’d thrown herself back off the tower and swooped back out over the forest.
One of the defenders shouted and I prayed with her bulk to draw their eyes, they wouldn’t notice she was riderless and look down to find me. If they did, I was defeated.
I almost cheered when thewhoomphoftwodragons peeled around the tower and after her. Which meant only one of them circled now. Would they have stayed on the opposite side as we hoped?
Akhane had only gotten me halfway up the tower, so there was a significant run to reach the top of the forty-foot tower. I hugged the stone wall and kept my head down, linked with Akhane who crowed in my head, darting and weaving low over the trees to keep visibility as low as possible, but allowing the defenders to stay close to range so they’d keeping coming for her.
I was panting heavily by the time I reached the final round, and Akhane grew thin in my mind, but I screamed at her mentally to come back, that I was almost there.
Then I pushed even faster up the last flight of the stairs.
Seconds later, she screamed nearby.
I vaulted over the turrets and onto the tower-top, swallowing a cry when I saw the flag tied to a large, rusty ring at the center of the tower that was intended as an anchor for canons.
‘I’m there, Akhane! I’m about to get it. Quick!’
‘On my way. Go east, towards the sea. The same side I flamed.’
‘Got it.’
It was ten running steps to the ring at the center of the tower. Two quick tugs to loosen the slip-knot, then I was running again, stuffing the flag into my waistband.
‘Got it, Akhane! Are you here?’
Her scream was the only answer I needed. She flew a route that our defenders would believe would take her past the southern window. They’d expect her to flame and bank right if they were behind her.
Five steps from the turret I realized what I was about to do and a cold chill skated down my spine. But there was no time.
‘I’ve got you, Bren! Jump!’
I leaped to the top of the wide turret, then took two running steps and leaped again, clearing the stairway—then screaming as gravity took it’s grip and I plummeted like a stone.
But I’d barely dropped beyond the staircase when a thick, leathery body shot up from underneath me, wings retracted for speed.
There was a terrifying jumble of sights and sounds as my body thumped against hers, then slid. I went from pinwheeling and desperately trying to stay upright in my fall, to fingers claw and scraping, my momentum dragging me down the length of her rising body. But then she snapped her wings open and flattened her body, pushing into me as she banked away. I caught one of her spines and held on, and when my legs drifted to her other side, she banked again.
‘Clip in, Bren!’
‘I’m too far down your body. Keep flying. I’ll move when they stop chasing.’
What followed was a full minute of the most thrilling and terrifying flight I’d ever experienced. I was convinced I was about to tumble into the sky again, and my body clenched up, remembering that awful fall from the Dragonmaw Cliffs. But I gritted my teeth and held on.
And then suddenly we evened out.
