25 #2
Vulture led the charge into the water and wriggled quick and silent underneath the surface. The other teams swam awkwardly by comparison. Asta panted to enrich her blood with oxygen, sealing her vents just as Carmine dove in.
The rush of the water around her helmet filled Asta’s ears.
She flattened herself against Carmine’s back to reduce drag as he waved his lithe body through the water with rapid, rippling movements.
It was the longest trench that they had ever encountered, turning like a snaking river.
Her lungs were burning, but they had already passed Basma and one other team.
Asta was gasping for oxygen by the time they emerged from the water, and she unsealed the vents to let in a flow of air.
They regained their spot a few body lengths behind Nat and Vulture and entered the chute just ahead of Felix and Essie. At last, Asta had them both where she wanted them.
By the time they came out of the chute, Carmine was impatient to pass, biting at Vulture’s tail and making her mad.
He pulled ahead, hitting the first fence out of the chute a few strides ahead of her.
There was a fire hedge coming at them fast, and Asta felt Carmine’s skin go cold beneath her legs.
‘No,’ she shouted to him. He needed to save his energy. They would risk the fire.
Far behind them, from one of the teams still in the chute, the sound of a dragon’s roar rang out.
The creature sounded terrified. Carmine was already springing for the fire hedge, and Asta could not look back.
She pressed herself against her dragon’s still-cool skin.
Unmitigated by Carmine’s blast, the flames of the fire hedge screamed with heat around her.
The damp suit transferred the heat straight to her skin, and Asta cried out.
But they were through in an instant. The steam that boiled from her clothes whipped away in the wind.
The mountain stood before them, with glittery zombie goats grazing and stumbling on its slopes. Their pastures were studded with grotesque, rotting carcasses. Those, too, sparkled with magic.
Vulture was in her element on the mountain. She tore up the side of it almost as fast as if she were on the wing. She was like a panther leaping from rock to rock, her feet exchanging little more than a whisper with the surface before springing on and up.
There was a beacon at the top, another halfway down the other side.
The airwork flags were not yet raised, but a downhill jump, wings tucked, could save them time.
After their failure at the plateau, however, Asta kept Carmine on the ground, clambering down the mountainside.
Felix and Essie leapt past them, followed by Basma and Stryke.
It was only at this point that Asta realized that the other teams were nowhere in sight. She craned her neck, but the mountain blocked her view. Something had happened.
The trigger in her armband answered the flash of the beacon as they passed it, and Carmine hurtled toward the edge of a dry trench lying perpendicular to their path.
The trench itself was sunk below track level.
They would pass through it on their exit from the terrain.
Carmine jumped the trench and sprinted around the side of the canyon towers to approach the last run of ground obstacles.
Ahead of them, Felix and Essie had overtaken Nat and Vulture, and Basma and Stryke were gaining fast. Vulture was fading.
That wasn’t good. Nat could fall behind, but not too far, or the timing wouldn’t work out, and Asta couldn’t stray too far from Felix. Basma had now passed Nat and was already two lengths ahead. Asta pushed Carmine until they were at Vulture’s heels.
‘Go on, buddy,’ Asta cried. ‘Tell her to move her ass.’ Carmine reached out and bit at Vulture’s haunches.
The bronze-headed dragon whipped her head back, furious.
She saw it was Carmine and kicked at him, her eyes blazing.
He began to gain, and Vulture found a reservoir of speed to keep ahead of him.
Now in the lead, Felix and Essie cleared the next two fences, the false ladder, and the fire hedge as if it was a frolic in the park.
It would be all Asta could do to keep up if he held this pace.
Asta’s suit had dried somewhat since the last fire hedge, but still she did not let Carmine beat back the blaze for her.
She crouched and braced herself. Asta urged Carmine past Nat and Vulture so that they jumped the hedge neck and neck with Basma.
Stryke’s blast of flame offered little protection, and Asta could smell singed fabric and dragon feathers as they went through.
Felix and Essie tore down the ramp into the dry trench. As Asta followed, a movement above her head caught her eye. It was the first of the other teams, who were just now coming off the mountain and clearing the dry trench in great leaps.
A few seconds later, Asta and Carmine were out of the trench and heading for the pits.
‘Get him food!’ Asta yelled to Torque. ‘We’re going hard out there.’
Torque was ready with a beef and corn slurry.
‘What happened?’ Asta shouted as the crew changed Carmine’s gear for the final lap. ‘Behind us.’
‘The illusions,’ Torque bellowed back. ‘Went berserk in the chute. Spooked the dragons.’
Hummer, Asta thought. It had to be.
Basma emerged first from the pits, followed by Felix and Nat.
Vulture was tossing her head in that way that Asta knew meant she had been dosed with the irritant.
They shouldn’t have done it, Asta thought.
Vulture would be unpredictable now, harder to control.
She could injure herself and forfeit the race.
But Asta couldn’t worry about that now. Her sights were set on Felix.
Asta steered Carmine on to the track the second her crew stepped back. The blue flags were up. It was time to fly.
Asta had not imagined that she would feel any joy at all today, knowing what she had to do, but the moment Carmine extended his wings and she heard the last scraping footsteps on the track, her spirits lifted with him. They were in the air.
They banked to follow the curve of the track below. All around them, the crowds were a living mass of exuberance. Faces turned upward to the dragons. She loved this, Asta thought. It hadn’t been entirely true, what she told Allie about not loving racing anymore. This part, she loved.
The first buoy was located just off the backstretch. Asta turned Carmine to cut in over the terrain. The river trench below them flashed back their piecemeal reflection on the water’s surface. Flanked by magic illusions, the water sparkled.
Asta passed Nat, struggling to keep Vulture’s erratic flight under control.
Just hold it together to the finish, she thought to Nat. That’s all you need to do.
Felix and Essie were directly ahead, heading for the beacon on the canyon towers.
This is it, Asta thought. No going back now.
‘Drop,’ Asta shouted to Carmine.
He dropped.
‘Go,’ she screamed.
He went.
They passed under Essie’s belly.
‘Don’t trust me,’ Asta whispered, desperately wishing that Felix could hear her thoughts. ‘Don’t trust me. Don’t trust me.’
Asta could feel their eyes on her. Hummer.
Nat. Gem. Pikki. Dr. Isley. Tess Curie. They would all see it.
Asta wanted them to see it. Each would think they knew what she was doing.
Cowering to a threat. Showing herself for the backstabber she had always been.
Failing to live up to her potential. None of them knew that what she did now, she did out of love. This was the only way to protect Felix.
Carmine pushed forward through the air with ferocious speed, but Essie was going at full tilt. His whole body flexed as his wings beat a wild beat, but even so, he could only creep out from under her shadow inch by inch.
‘Don’t trust me,’ Asta begged. She looked up. She could just see Felix’s mirrored visor looking over Essie’s shoulder. If he thought that she was testing him, as he had tested her – if he let Essie drop as he had that day at Pillar – it would all be over. She shook her head, her heart pleading.
Then she turned her attention back to Carmine. They were almost to the towers. ‘Up!’
They pulled up sharply, right into the path of Felix and Essie.
Carmine’s tail caught under Essie’s foreleg, and the dragons tangled in the air for a moment, their wings flailing. Asta had only meant to slow him, to draw the penalty and redirect Hummer’s wrath away from him.
Nat and Vulture swerved past in a blur.
Asta whipped her head around, looking for Felix. There he was. Essie had found her wings and was rising through the air again. Asta sobbed with relief, one aching and terrible cry. If he had fallen, she could not have gone on. None of this meant anything if Felix was not safe.
Free of his sister, Carmine began to climb again.
The orange-striped penalty flag was up, and Asta knew it was for her even before the light on her armband glowed an orangey yellow. She landed on the canyon tower and held Carmine back as Essie landed, too, then pushed off the tower with her powerful back legs.
Felix had understood her warning, Asta reassured herself as she watched him fly on.
But would he understand why she had gambled with his life?
He had traded his own happiness so that he could give his family their win, and she had just taken it from him.
Would he ever understand that she had done it for him?
Those questions were for later. She needed only one thing from him now.
Asta unfastened the tethers and was off Carmine’s back. The cord, which she had fastened at the start, hung between them, glowing bright. Whatever he thought of her now, Felix was keeping the charge strong. She only hoped that he would not change his mind when she was halfway to the ground.