No one had slept. As the sun rose over the ocean, Vespir found everyone seated perfectly straight in their saddles without the aid of sleeping ropes. They had left the mainland sometime past midnight and flown toward the Imperial Peninsula, with moonlight sparkling on the waves far below. At least it hadn’t been cloudy.
Vespir and Karina kept a careful distance behind Dog, riding the larger dragon’s air current. Ajax turned in his saddle, cupped his hands, and yelled, “Hey! How long till we get to Dragonspire?”
The golden capital, the greatest wonder of the civilized world. Or so Vespir had heard it described.
“No idea!” she shouted back. He yelled something that the wind ate. “What?”
“I said, How do you piss while riding?”
Vespir blinked. “If it hits me, I’ll kill you!”
“I’ll hold it! Thanks!”
Beside her, Emilia and Chara rose up on a gust of wind. The ripple effect made Karina waver back and forth, but the dragon soon steadied herself.
“We should reach the peninsula in a couple of hours,” the Aurun girl called. She’d kept to the back of the racing formation, occasionally dropping away far below, almost to touch the waves. Odd, but then again, she rode an Aspis. Emilia certainly had a good breed for this race.
Aspises: good with water and could sustain themselves for longer flights. Weakness: the length of their bodies, and the natural serpentine movements of their tails, could make hairpin aerial turns difficult.
Vespir had been checking on everyone’s dragon throughout the night, guessing how they’d try to pull ahead during the final descent into Dragonspire. So far, they all congregated together on the long flight. In fact, their dragons instinctively cooperated, adopting a constantly shifting V flight pattern rather like geese in migration. There was no sense in racing right now. Putting on an aggressive burst of speed would only result in tiring out their dragons. At best, they wouldn’t be able to pull ahead when the finish line was in sight. At worst, the poor creatures would spiral into the sea out of exhaustion or suffer a flameout.
Vespir went over her plan again.
Lucian managed Tyche with one hand on the reins. Drakes were more nimble than any other breed, and their triangular snouts and dart-shaped torsos let them cut through the air with ease. Weakness: also the most delicate dragon. They tired quickly.
Ajax had both his hands over his head, Dog’s reins flapping free in the wind. The dragon gawped with glee as they swayed side to side, Ajax’s pressed knees the only guidance.
“Will you hold on to the reins?” Lucian twisted around in his seat, and shot the other boy a look of withering contempt. “You’re going to disrupt the formation.”
“You’re all a bunch of toothless old women. Look at this!” Ajax crowed, gesturing to the expanse of ocean, the rising sun streaking the sky gold and pink. He stood in his stirrups, pumped his fists. “We are gods!”
Vespir caught Emilia’s eye. The Aurun girl shook her head, then clasped her hands over her throat. The signal was clear: kill me. Vespir laughed. Emilia hastily looked away, but Vespir caught a pleased grin.
“Stop. Wrecking. The formation!” Lucian shouted, swearing as Dog tried getting alongside Tyche in midair. The finicky Drake swooped away, chittering and lashing her tail. When a dragon lashed its tail in a flying group, the message was clear: don’t touch me.
“Hey. Stop, you moron!” Ajax finally took the reins and brought up Dog’s head. He rapped his knuckles on the dragon’s skull. “Be a good boy.”
“Gawp,” Dog replied mournfully.
Wyverns: the hardiest breed of all, capable of the longest distances and the heaviest battles. Weaknesses…
Well. Dog was…
Weaknesses: Dog.
A shadow swept over Vespir and Emilia, and a growl reverberated through the air. Instinctively, Vespir ducked her head as Aufidius passed. Hyperia had been bringing up the rear for a while, to rest her dragon. Wise. Now she was shifting into the lead, presumably to get away from the shouting and Dog’s weaving and bobbing.
Hydra: the supreme dragon breed. The keenest natural intelligence. The longest claws. The hottest flame. The Great Dragon Himself had been Hydra.
Weaknesses?
Aufidius was a god among beasts.
Weaknesses: none.
Well. Except maybe temper. As Dog ballooned his wings and soared upward to join Aufidius, Vespir craned her neck to watch the poor, dumb dragon nuzzle at the Hydra’s snout. Snout nuzzling was an invitation to play, and now not even Ajax’s yanking on the reins could get the Wyvern to stop.
Vespir heaved a sigh. Ajax was one of many, many brothers. Dog had probably come from a crowded aerie, with all sorts of siblings to play with.
It wouldn’t occur to the dragon that anyone wouldn’t want to be his friend.
Aufidius lashed out and snapped in Dog’s face. The Wyvern escaped having his nose ripped off by dropping swiftly, nearly collapsing onto Emilia and Chara. After a near-midair collision, the dragons wobbled back into formation. Aufidius pulled ahead, letting out a roar so massive Vespir’s vision trembled with its power.
“Keep your dragon under control.” Hyperia did not need to turn around for her voice to carry.
The other four kept away from her and the Hydra’s lashing tail.
Aufidius was the most furious creature Vespir had ever seen. She began to shiver.
“Listen.” She called to the others when they were half a league behind Hyperia. “That dragon hasn’t been properly trained. I’ll bet they kept him muzzled for close to a year.”
“What do you mean?” Emilia asked. Her red hair whipped about behind her like a stream of fire.
“When they’re still hatchlings, dragons need to be weaned off biting. Sometimes, handlers put muzzles on them to make the point. You have to do it before they get too big, or you can’t control them.” Amazing, that these dragon riders did not know how their own creatures had been trained and reared. “But you have to switch between using the muzzle and connecting with the dragon. You feed them by hand, play with them, and make them trust you. Then they don’t want to bite. But it seems the Volscia handlers just kept Aufidius muzzled. They made him angry so that he couldn’t connect with anyone.”
“So they didn’t know what they were doing?” Lucian sounded baffled.
“No.” Vespir watched Aufidius’s retreating form, feeling sick to her stomach. “They knew exactly. They wanted to keep him wild, so that only Hyperia could control him. The more feral a dragon is, the stronger it becomes. They tortured him from the time he hatched.”
Monsters. Aufidius was a beauty, and they’d ruined him.
After that, they flew in silence for an hour or two, and Vespir closed her eyes to “lock in” with Karina once more. That flash of the Red, and then it was as if her breathing itself had synced with her dragon’s.
When they reached the peninsula, everyone would spread apart on instinct. They’d be coming to the capital soon, and the dragons would want to be ready. Vespir had written off Chara and Dog. They didn’t have the proper handling to make full use of their strengths. Tyche would pull ahead to begin with, then tire. What Vespir wanted was to fly underneath Tyche and Aufidius, to wait for their final descent. Because to brake the speed and redirect themselves, they’d have to pull up and bank, flap their wings, and then…
Then they’d provide a gust of wind that would propel Karina forward. The smallest, lightest, and sleekest dragon, if Karina could keep hurtling ahead of the others, she could win. They’d lose all control in the descent—they’d be no better than an arrow released from the shaft, so they’d need careful aim. But it was their only chance to beat the larger dragons.
All Vespir had to do now was remain calm and wait.
As the sun rose higher into the sky, the thin green line of the peninsula came into view. Everyone’s shoulders hunched forward on instinct, and every dragon’s tail began to lash in anticipation.
Except Dog, who had been cowed by Aufidius’s harsh reaction and desperately yearned to make a friend.
“Stop. Stop!” Ajax yelped as his dragon shook its head free of his rider’s lead and urged toward the Hydra’s tail. Vespir inhaled deeply and tugged on Karina’s own bridle. Ugh, she hated that those priests had forced a saddle and halter onto her baby, one with green silk tassels at the snout and green embroidery upon the leather.
But the harness was the least of her problems right now. She, Lucian, and Emilia all cried out in horror as Dog flapped harder, trying to overtake Aufidius. Whimpering, the dragon tried to bounce his snout against the Hydra’s.
Friend? Friend? The poor creature’s need couldn’t have been more obvious.
“You fool. Get away!” Hyperia shouted as Aufidius lashed out once more. This time, smoke curled from his nostrils. Vespir’s heart beat faster.
No. No, no, not here. If that dragon breathes fire…
They were too ill matched for dracomachia.
Dog would be killed in the battle.
“Ajax!” Vespir stood in the stirrups and tried to get alongside the boy. He fiendishly yanked at his reins, but Dog would not be turned. “Guide him down!”
“I can’t!” The Tiber boy’s voice tightened with fear. “He won’t listen!”
“I’ll try to pull away,” Hyperia snarled, doing her best to guide her own dragon’s head to the right. She was no fool; she knew the dangers of dracomachia this high up. “By the blue above, keep that idiot creature off my tail!”
Vespir looked over her shoulder to find that Emilia had pulled well away. She was a full fifty yards or so behind now.
Smart girl. She’d already won a challenge. Better to place last here than get in a fight.
Dog gave a long, yowling cry as Aufidius swooped farther away.
Lucian and Tyche flew up beside Vespir. The Sabel boy cursed as Dog and Ajax sped for Aufidius.
“Damn it,” Lucian muttered. “What do we do now?”
Vespir’s throat was dry.
“Nothing,” she whispered. “It’s too late.”