Chapter 22 #4
We run across the sand, his hand still in mine, until we reach the lapping waves where the Speerspitzes are positioned.
Atlas swings one away from the sea and points it upwards towards Krasimir, but he’s disappeared.
I drop to the ground, fumbling in the sand for one of the shells I’ve seen piled high.
It’s cold and menacing in my hand, full of the same poison that killed Chumana.
I want to throw it into the sea, but I load it into the Speerspitze as Marquis does the same beside me.
Atlas and Sophie move the barrels of their Speerspitzes across the sky, searching for Krasimir, but in his absence Sophie fires hers and only narrowly misses a Bolgorith flying towards us.
‘Shit,’ she squeaks.
The Bolgorith picks up speed, bringing its talons up to stretch them outwards.
‘Marquis!’ Sophie screams.
Marquis swears as he reloads and Sophie fires again. The shell hits the Bolgorith in the chest. It plummets and hits the sand, then lies there breathing slowly.
‘It won’t die until the poison—’
My voice is drowned by a furious shriek as a Ddraig Goch swoops low over the Bolgorith and snaps its neck.
‘Where’s Hollingsworth?’ Atlas mutters.
I glance back at the empty cave entrance, then shake my head.
‘Have you stopped for a picnic, Featherswallow?’ Serena screams. She loads another shell into Freddie’s Speerspitze and whips around to glare at me.
‘Sorry,’ I say.
I reach for one of the cold spheres as Guardians fire their rifles into the sky on either side of me, aiming for the Bolgoriths’ eyes.
I fling it into the waiting Speerspitze.
A wyvern streaks past, leaving a trail of smoke and blood.
The Bulgarian battalion reconverges, flank to flank, a wall of scales moving across the sky.
Wyverns and dragons attempt to attack, but the Bolgoriths simply rip them from the air.
I reel at the sight of them advancing towards us.
The rebels have been reduced to about ten dragons, the rest injured, dead or fleeing.
‘There’s no way we’ll be able to fight this many Bolgoriths with nothing but the Speerspitzes!’ I scream, but nobody hears me.
The Bolgoriths are making an awful grunting sound, like a chant.
‘Where the hell is Krasimir?’ Marquis shouts.
‘He’s inside,’ Serena says calmly.
I swing around to look at her as she points at the sand beneath the battalion. It’s pooling with blood, a steady stream raining down from above.
‘They’re shielding him.’
‘Like a Trojan horse,’ Atlas murmurs.
A Bolgorith drops from the formation, straight into the sea.
‘What the . . . ?’
The space it leaves is filled as the Bulgarians move close together, but before they do I see a flash of colour. Another Bolgorith drops. It spirals out of control as it lands, crushing two Speerspitzes, a dead weight.
Cormac lets out a furious bellow. The Bolgoriths pull closer together, filling the gaps.
‘Atlas!’ I grasp him by the jacket and pull him towards me, but he swings the Speerspitze around again, looking for a gap in the shield.
‘Fire!’ Ruth shrieks.
Six girls are manning two Speerspitzes. Jasper and Roy canter through the smoke, their horses dragging nets full of bullets through the sand. A few feet away, Jasper’s friend Henry lies dead beneath a mauled Western Drake.
I see Goranov dragging himself across the sand, his back to us, a thick river of blood trailing behind him.
I don’t think he could fly me to Bulgaria even if I asked him to.
The Bolgoriths breathe fire across the sky, a continuous blaze that lights up the night.
I see a Guardian carrying one of Ruth’s girls back towards the caves, blood trailing behind them.
Cormac is shouting orders at several rebel men as they attempt to dislodge one of the Speerspitzes from beneath the body of a Bolgorith.
‘Atlas,’ I beg.
He looks at me and I shake my head, my eyes filling with tears.
‘It’s too late,’ I shout. ‘We need to run.’
Atlas looks up at the fire, then back at me, then nods. ‘Marquis,’ he shouts, wrapping his arms around me. ‘Fall back.’
My cousin’s eyes are stricken with despair. Another Bolgorith drops from the sky.
Then two more.
Then another.
The shield is falling apart.
I stare up, searching for their rebel attackers, but most of our dragons are lying on the beach.
Krasimir drops lower, exposed as his protection momentarily disperses, then descends with him. I let go of Atlas.
Among the black and red scales are slivers of blue.
Hebridean Wyverns.
Ten Bolgoriths crash into the sea. I hear a tormented scream. At the far end of the beach, Goranov is writhing in the sand. He contorts as if burned by invisible flames. And at the same time, Krasimir lets out an excruciating roar.
‘What’s happening to them?’ Sophie shouts.
Goranov shudders twice, then lies still. The sky fills with wyverns. I scan it for Daria, feeling a surge of panic as I remember what Sophie told me about her sibling bond. But she’s nowhere to be seen.
‘They’re echolocating,’ I whisper as half the Bulgarian battalion collapses into the sea. ‘The wyverns are emitting a kill call.’
Above us, the surviving wyverns soar between the fiery clouds.
They dart and glide in a breath-taking dance, their bodies moving together like a pair of synchronised wings, rising and falling in harmony as two separate groups come together to drive the remaining Bolgoriths towards the waves.
They drop dead, one by one, into the water.
‘Incoming!’ someone screams.
Krasimir is plummeting, spinning out of control. He skitters, jerking like a fish caught on a line.
‘Rebels, disperse!’ Marquis roars from his Speerspitze.
Krasimir lands on the sand making a bone-chilling yapping sound.
What does a kill call sound like? What must it be like for Krasimir to hear death approach in his own mind, to have his own brain turn against him and implode? He lurches towards the Speerspitzes, screaming like a skua.
We stumble back into the sea as his black body towers over us.
Roy drags one of Ruth’s girls out of the way as Krasimir’s neck, almost drained of blood, swings out of control.
My boots fill with water as the waves lap around my knees.
Sophie reaches for my hand and Atlas shouts something I can’t hear.
Krasimir keels over with a sickening thud.
‘What’s he doing?’ Marquis shouts.
Atlas is running across the beach towards Krasimir, surrounded by clouds of disturbed sand.
I blink it out of my eyes, my vision blurring, then stumble out of the water after him.
His shirt, rolled up to his biceps, is soaked with seawater and splattered with dragon blood.
I stare in horror as Krasimir twitches, then sways to his feet again.
He isn’t dead.
The wyvern Koinamens didn’t kill him.
I cast a desperate look at the sky for Cindra or Aodahn, but the wyverns are far across the sea, chasing the other Bolgoriths. Only a few remain above, divebombing Krasimir ferociously.
There aren’t enough of them to emit a final kill call, and the remaining rebels have evacuated the beach.
My stomach lurches.
I run after Atlas as Marquis and Sophie scream at me, my waterlogged clothes slowing my movements.
Krasimir limps towards him. Atlas drops to the ground, searching, his eyes still on the Bulgarian regal.
Krasimir’s blood pours on to the sand, turning it black.
I reach Atlas and grab the back of his shirt.
‘Viv?’ he says, his eyes wild. ‘Get back!’
There’s a shell in his hand.
I grab the end of the Speerspitze and swing it round, my arms straining against the weight. Krasimir stares down the barrel with a snarl. I look him in the eyes as Atlas loads the shell.
‘Who,’ Krasimir breathes, ‘are you?’
I feel Atlas climb up behind me and his hands come down over mine.
‘She’s the Swallow,’ he spits.
I shake my head as we guide the barrel together.
‘I’m just Viv,’ I say.
I fire.