Chapter 12 #2
‘I’ll start with some basic translations,’ I reply.
‘Eventually there’ll be enough to get Cannair recognised officially, but in the meantime Cindra will ask the wyverns to ally with the rebels, and we’ll win this war.
’ I feel a thrill of excitement. ‘English is the language that sets the narrative of the world. The more obscure languages rarely get to add their perspective. Translating Cannair would be giving the wyverns the opportunity to write back. Some translators never get a chance like this in their whole careers.’
‘But it won’t help us discover how the wyverns are supposed to help us win this war,’ Atlas says bluntly.
I stop walking as Serena raises an eyebrow.
‘I asked Aodahn outright, Atlas. He didn’t know what I was talking about.’
‘What if they’re lying?’ Atlas says, his cheeks turning pink. ‘What if they know how to help us, but they don’t want to?’
‘Translating Cannair might make them want to,’ I argue.
He doesn’t reply and I feel another pang of hurt. What has gotten into him?
‘I think this is the flying cave,’ Marquis says.
When we enter the gloomy cavern, the one Aodahn calls Wuthering Heights, we’re standing on a narrow ledge.
I press my back against the wall so as not to risk toppling over the edge just as we’re on the verge of progress.
The vast space stretches out in front of us, a bottomless drop below and a ceiling so high that I think we must be directly beneath a hill.
Ledges and perches jut out into the air and long vines snake across the walls, growing in the dark.
The only moonlight comes from the small gaps in the rock, giving the cave a ghostly feel.
It’s cold without a fire burning. I hear water rushing below us and the sound merges with the flapping of wings.
‘How can wyvernlings possibly learn to fly in the dark?’ Gideon says.
‘Wyverns have excellent eyesight, especially at night,’ Aodahn replies. I hadn’t noticed him standing at the far end of the ledge, watching Cindra and another wyvern lead a group of wyvernlings across a great slab of rock that juts out into the vast drop below us.
‘That’s more than can be said for the Bolgoriths,’ Marquis says, winking at me.
He’s right. It’s an advantage the wyverns have over our enemies. But it’s the only one I can think of.
‘Why are you attending a flying lesson, anyway?’ I whisper to Marquis.
He points to the silvery blue wyvern standing with Cindra, so old he’s missing half his scales.
‘I’m supposed to be shadowing Dòmhnall,’ he replies. ‘A healer is always required during lessons in case of accidents.’
Across the cave, Cindra, Dòmhnall and three wyvernlings perch on the ledge.
As they beat out their wings and turn to her for instruction, their white-blue feathers glow in the dark.
Cindra throws back her head and I see the authoritative flick of her tail.
I know she is talking to the wyvernlings in echolocation and yet I’m surprised.
Surely the tricky act of flying requires more detailed instructions, an intimate understanding of each other’s more complex echolocation calls which is only possible through a close bond?
As far as I know, none of these wyvernlings are part of Cindra’s family.
So how is it that they know when to lift up their left wing, to spread out the tips of their feathers for better balance as I see them do now, when these instructions are all given in silence by a teacher who surely doesn’t share much of a bond with any of them?
‘Do you often have accidents?’ I hear Marquis ask Aodahn as the flying begins.
‘No,’ Aodahn replies. ‘But they have become more frequent as of late. Our wyvernlings don’t have the strength they used to. Abelio believes it is because food is scarcer, with the influx of Bulgarian dragons, but . . .’
He trails off, tapping his talons together nervously.
‘I know a dragon who spent years locked inside a library,’ I say quietly. ‘She didn’t see much sunlight and you could tell from the colour of her scales—’
‘A library?’ Aodahn squeaks. ‘I would very much like—’
He’s interrupted by a loud screech. I see Marquis drop to his knees, leaning over the rim of the ledge to peer down at something.
I follow his gaze. One of the wyvernlings is stuck, its wing caught in the gap between two rocks it has attempted to fly through.
Cindra soars down to examine it, beating her wings fiercely but unable to hold the hover for long.
She circles, then dives again, like a frantic bird trying to reach a fallen chick.
‘We must help them,’ Aodahn says.
He takes to the air, swiftly followed by Dòmhnall. We watch as they join Cindra and the other two wyvernlings land again, black smoke trailing from their jaws.
‘If dragons can heal each other with the Koinamens,’ I say quietly, ‘then what do the wyverns need healers for?’
‘They have a herb for just about everything in the apothecary cave,’ Marquis says. ‘The Koinamens heals wounds, but I don’t think it can do anything for illness.’
I watch as the adult wyverns attempt to dislodge the shrieking wyvernling, and Atlas appears at my side. He’s holding the loquisonus machine.
‘What’s that for?’ I say coldly, still sulking after his behaviour in the Amber Court.
‘I think you should listen to it,’ he says, his eyes pleading. ‘See if you can understand something.’
His suggestion from the other day rings in my ears as I glance nervously at the wyverns. Listen to the wyverns’ Koinamens to know what they say to each other.
‘All right,’ I say quietly. ‘Just to hear what it sounds like.’
I place the loquisonus on the ground, then put the headphones on my ears and turn the dials as Serena and Gideon watch. I find the frequency almost immediately. The same melodious notes I heard back when we were searching for the wyvern tunnels fill my ears.
‘It’s like a . . . like whispering,’ I say.
Atlas holds his hand out for the headphones. When he puts them on his eyes grow wide.
‘Like a whispered music,’ he says. ‘Is that normal?’
‘All the dragon echolocation I’ve heard sounds a bit like birdsong, or at least the social calls do. But nothing like this.’
He passes the headphones to Gideon, who listens and then hands them back to me.
I stare from Aodahn, Cindra and Dòmhnall to the other two wyvernlings as their ultrasonic communication sounds loudly, reverberating in different rhythms, like several murmured voices, yet all of them playing together like an orchestra.
‘I think they need help,’ Marquis says.
The wyvernling’s squeaking is growing more frantic and at the same time, the echolocation in my ears is more erratic. It dangles by its wing from the rocky crevice and Cindra lets out a frustrated roar as she attempts to pull it free with her mouth.
‘She’ll never manage,’ Marquis says as he peers towards them. ‘The wyvernling is stuck tight.’
I’m about to reply when he shrugs off his jacket.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To teach a dragon to fly.’
Marquis jumps from our ledge to the one below, dropping lower and lower until he reaches the perch above where the wyvernling is stuck.
The wyverns continue to soar above it as Marquis seizes the root of the wyvernling’s wing in one firm hand and uses the fingers of the other to pull at the stones that have lodged around it.
Suddenly, the wyvern is free. It drops from Marquis’s grip and I cry out as it plummets into the dark.
‘He killed it,’ Gideon cries in panic. ‘He’s gone and—’
The wyvernling surges up from beneath us, a flash of midnight blue, and flies to join its peers as Marquis lets out a triumphant whoop.
All six wyverns meet in the centre of the cave, flying through the shafts of silvery moonlight, then diving down beneath a waterfall before twisting in the air on themselves.
‘See how they move?’ I murmur to Atlas, unable to tear my eyes away as their bodies rise and fall in a victorious dance. ‘They’re completely in sync.’
‘Like birds,’ Gideon says.
‘Like swallows,’ I reply. ‘But how can they be this in tune with each other if they’re not related, not bonded?’
‘Put it away,’ Serena says sharply as the wyverns begin their flight up towards us. ‘They’re coming back.’
Atlas hides the machine behind his back as the wyverns land on our ledge.
Marquis takes longer to climb back up and as we wait, Cindra doesn’t take her eyes off him.
The wyvernlings crowd the edge, their long tails intertwined, and they part as Marquis’s hand grabs the bottom of the ledge and Gideon pulls him up.
He flexes his fingers, cut and bleeding from his climb, and kneels to catch his breath.
‘You have done us a great service, Marquis, healer of wyverns,’ Cindra says in Cannair.
She glances at Aodahn with impatient eyes and he quickly translates.
‘You will have the honour of attending our egg-choosing ceremony,’ Cindra continues.
Marquis bows his head. ‘Thank you,’ he manages to reply in Cannair.
A low warbling comes from Cindra’s chest and I realise it’s a sign of pleasure.
I roll my eyes as Marquis pushes his hair off his sweaty forehead and joins Dòmhnall in inspecting the wyvernling’s wing.
Of course he has earned Cindra’s acceptance with a few daredevil moves.
If I didn’t admire his audacity I might be jealous.
‘What’s the egg-choosing ceremony?’ Gideon asks Aodahn as we return through the tunnels, leaving Marquis to the healing of the wyvernling.
‘The most sacred of our practices,’ Aodahn replies.
‘I’ve seen the eggs,’ I say. ‘In that giant nest?’
‘The nursery,’ he says with a nod.
‘Why do you keep them all together like that, instead of in individual nests with their parents?’
‘Hebridean Wyverns share everything, including our wyvernlings,’ Aodahn replies.
I think of the wyverns in the nursery, turning the eggs and breathing flames across their shells.