They all gave a jump when they heard the explosion several miles away. Spray and ice rose into the night as fluffy and delicate as a waving feather.
Bayang started to rise when she remembered she was anchoring the unfolded straw wing. “Roland’s surfaced,” she said excitedly.
Koko scanned the horizon anxiously. “But where’s Leech?”
Bayang had been uneasy the moment he had flown off, and her apprehensions had only increased with every second he was gone. It would be just like the overconfident little fool to take on Roland and Badik by himself instead of retreating.
She thought of Leech, alone and outmatched, facing their enemies without her, and she felt a terrible fear twisting her insides. Why? It wasn’t her fault. She’d tried to warn him, but the little idiot would break his promise to her. And yet her anxiety had made her as taut as a bowstring.
The sooner they got to him the better. “It’s time to call Naue.”
Scirye scanned the heavens as she scratched her head. “Did he tell us how?”
Too late, Bayang realized it too. “No, he didn’t. He rushed off in such a hurry that I forgot to ask.”
Koko shook his clenched paw at the sky. “You big, worthless airbag! Why didn’t you tell us something important like that?”
“We could try calling his name.” Tilting her head back, Bayang began shouting to Naue. The others joined in.
When nothing happened after several minutes, Koko stamped a hind paw. “Aw, we can’t wait for that blowhard. We got to get to Leech on our own.”
The top of the glacier seemed so very far away to Bayang. “We need some height to launch the wing ourselves.” She tried to unfurl her injured wing, and the agony lanced through her.
Concerned, Scirye said, “You can’t fly with that bad wing of yours.” She tried to get a grip on the icy surface and could not. “But you and Koko might be able to climb up there with your claws. And maybe I could hold on to your back.”
Time was the problem. They never seemed to have enough. “Climbing would take too long.” Even as they discussed what to do, Leech might be dying. Wincing, Bayang forced her bad wing to open. “I think I can stand the pain long enough to carry you and the wing up there.”
Kles coughed. “You’ll pardon me for saying this, but I beg to differ. At the moment, you look dreadful, and you haven’t even tried to use your wings yet.”
“I can’t sit around while Leech could be in trouble.” Bayang crouched, hooking her claws into the straw surface. “Hop on.”
Fear for his friend had overcome his usual fear of danger, so Koko was the first to scramble up on the dragon’s back. Scirye followed while Kles rose into the air, circling a little to the side.
Bayang brought her wings down and tried not to gasp at the stabbing pain. With every beat after that, the ache spread from her wing through her shoulder. The top of the glacier seemed an impossibly long way off, but she told herself not to think like that. Instead, she concentrated on the next wing stroke, the next breath.
A worried Kles fluttered near her head. “Go back while you can.”
The foot of the glacier looked just as far away as the top, and Bayang was not sure she could break her descent once she started. “I think it’s already too late for that,” the dragon puffed.
“Of course you can reach it,” Scirye urged, and then scolded her griffin. “Don’t distract her, Kles.”
Yes, this is my penance for all the harm I’ve done Leech, Bayang told herself. Faces flashed through her memory of his other lives, young faces, frightened faces. And they merged into Leech’s face as he was now in this life. Scared not of her but of Roland and Badik. Alone. A novice at flying and fighting with a ring he barely knew how to use. Battling with more courage than sense or skill. They would make short work of him unless she could stop them.
She had to go on. It didn’t matter that they were of two different species. And so what if he insulted her? Or if he eventually despised her one day. She had to protect him. It would not make up for everything in the past, but it would be a start. She would save his silly little hide no matter what the cost.
Clenching her teeth, Bayang drove herself upward yard by yard until her eyes were level with the glacier’s top. By now, her back and chest were hurting as well.
Another yard. She had already asked too much of her tortured wing. She couldn’t keep from giving a little groan.
Through the red cloud of agony that filled her mind, she heard Scirye say, “Leech needs us.”
She thought of Badik looming over a helpless Leech, and she forced herself up another yard, her body on fire.
Suddenly there was no shining crystal wall in front of her, only open air. She had reached the top. Through the haze, she dropped the straw wing onto the snow-covered ice. As much as she wanted to collapse, she had to move farther on or she might crush the wing. Somehow she managed ten more yards before she skidded along the glacier, piling up the snow in front of her and exposing a wide strip of ice behind her.