28 #2
Asta signaled to Carmine, and he jumped from the arch of the bridge, his wings spread wide. Michael followed. Karol, riding a crested blue dragon, was not far behind. Carmine did his best, but he was at a disadvantage with two riders.
Asta felt Nat pull herself up behind her so that she was once again standing on the saddle.
‘Wish me luck,’ Nat called to Asta.
And she jumped. Asta whipped around to see her grab at Michael’s dragon’s neck, miss, and slip down, catching herself on a foreleg instead.
The dragon reeled and tumbled at the sudden and awkward change in its burden but fought its way out of the spiral.
Asta watched as it swooped back and forth above the water, unsteady and confused.
Between Asta and the bridge, Felix and Essie were hurtling through the air, aiming for the roadway on the other side. Asta steered after them, turning her eyes frantically back to the dragon floundering just over the river’s surface.
Nat had made her way up the dragon’s leg. But the beast was climbing again. Higher and higher. Nat had gotten hold of the dragon’s harness. In a flash, she was on her cousin, wrestling for control of the dragon. The dragon wheeled. In a second, it would be over the bridge.
Asta gasped as a flailing body fell from the dragon’s back, somersaulting through the air. Whoever it was – Nat or Michael – missed the bridge by only a few feet and hit the water with a sickening smack.
But Asta had other things to worry about. Karol was gaining on her, his dragon fresh and fast. Asta tried to dodge him, but he clung to her like a burr. At her signal, Carmine dove for the water’s surface, and Karol followed.
The water was murky from an overnight rain, and Asta could see almost nothing through her visor but the vague, wobbly shape of the sun above, tinted brownish green.
Carmine writhed through the river water, sinewy and lightning fast. The sight of a broken plastic cup, bright red, glowed at Asta from the riverbed.
It was closer than she expected. They were near the shore. Asta signaled Carmine to surface.
They rose from the river to find that Essie and Felix had made their landing not far away and were already in motion. Asta urged Carmine after them, knowing Karol would not be far behind.
Michael’s dragon was circling back in their direction, and Asta looked up, fearing the worst. But smiling down on her from above was Nat, a look of triumph on her face. She landed at a full sprint just in front of Asta, and they raced up the riverbank, heading for the city.
They were running three abreast by the time they got to the overpass.
Below them ran the train tracks where Nat and Asta had raced their first night in Hallium.
With Karol and the Bruce cousins were hot on their heels, Nat veered straight off the side of the overpass and into the open air, turning to follow the train tracks upriver and soaring over the tunnel.
Felix and Essie flew for their post on the far side of the tracks.
In Nat’s original harebrained plan, Asta would have been with Nat, heading for the other side of the tunnel, but the unexpected acquisition of Michael’s dragon meant that Asta was left to her own devices.
She leapt, as Nat had, off the side of the overpass, but instead of turning left, she banked hard to the right, flying back over the roadway and coming up behind the pack of Bruces. She circled above their heads.
Asta could hear Hummer, who was bringing up the rear of the posse, screaming out orders. His bucket hat swiveled back and forth frantically.
‘Catch her!’ He pointed a knobby finger after Nat. The four Bruces at the head of the pack took off over the edge of the overpass in pursuit. ‘You, you, that way. You three, go around and cut her off on the other side.’ They obeyed, and the air was full of dragons.
Without warning, Hummer whirled around and looked straight up at Asta. The expression in his eyes cored her with horror. ‘I’ve got Seraphin,’ he said, and he spurred Vulture off the side of the overpass.
Asta was after him within the space of a breath.
Felix and Essie must have had a bad landing on the embankment, because Essie was halfway down the hillside, and Felix was out of the saddle, shaking himself and stumbling to his feet.
Hummer landed Vulture just below Felix on the weedy, overgrown bank. He had cut Felix off from Essie. Felix ran for his life. Hummer turned Vulture uphill, the river at his back, and drove her after Felix.
Asta made a panicked landing in the unkempt grasses and briars of the bank, pivoted Carmine, and scrambled after Vulture and Hummer.
But Vulture was too fast. She was on Felix in a moment, knocking him to the ground with her foreleg. Hummer dismounted with surprising agility and stomped over to Felix, landing two brutal punches in his gut the moment he reached him. Felix doubled in pain.
Asta charged forward, but Vulture turned, neck frills at full alert, and bit at Carmine – not one of those peevish nips that was normally their fare, but a real bite, her dagger teeth bared and deadly.
Carmine yelped and leapt back from her snapping jaws.
Blood poured from the side of his neck. Essie rushed forward, but Vulture snapped at her, too, snorting warning jets of smoke.
Essie circled around Hummer and Felix miserably.
Hummer dragged Felix to his feet and up the embankment toward the tunnel.
Asta looked up just in time to see that Nat, who had landed with Michael’s dragon on the far side of the tunnel, had doubled back and was now fleeing into its dark mouth, followed by three riders.
Four more riders were waiting on the other side of the tunnel.
Hummer bellowed in triumph. Felix, half debilitated from Hummer’s violent blows, was still caught in his grasp.
‘Don’t let her out of that tunnel!’ Hummer shouted to the riders who were now scattered above and below the tracks. His voice was ragged with rage. ‘Go help them!’ The two riders nearest the mouth of the tunnel obeyed.
There would be no escape.
At that moment, echoing through the river valley, came the blare of a train’s horn. Hummer looked. Far down the tracks, a train was speeding toward the tunnel, the sun flashing off its windows, sparks flying from the wheels.
‘Keep her in there! Don’t let her escape!’ he yelled to the remaining riders.
A horrified screech drew Hummer’s attention from the tunnel.
‘Are you blind? The train’s coming! They’ll all be killed!’ Tru emerged from the brush, as if conjured by witchcraft.
‘Where the hell did you come from?’ Hummer roared. She had not been part of the pursuit.
Tru stalked forward, her lips pursed with fury, and slapped her brother’s face.
‘Get those dragons out of there, you bastard!’
The train was getting closer. Its horn blared again, and Asta thought she could even feel the ground shaking. A panicked dragon, one of the Bruces hanging on to its back for dear life, ran from the far end of the tunnel, galloping away from the advancing train. A second rider followed close behind.
Hummer let go of Felix and took several steps forward, his face red. He pulled a gun from his waistband and pointed it at the fleeing riders.
‘If she gets away, I’ll kill you myself! Get back.’
The train blasted its warning again. The sound of its shrieking wheels filled the air.
‘The dragons!’ Tru hollered, clawing at her brother. ‘My babies!’
The retreating Bruces pulled up short, looked frantically between Hummer’s gun and the tunnel.
‘I will kill you!’ Hummer screamed again.
They dashed back, their faces drawn in abject fear. But even as they disappeared into its darkness, the train entered the mouth of the tunnel.
The sounds were horrible – the screech of the wheels, the ear-splitting blast of the train’s horn, Tru’s screaming, the horrible roaring of dragons – and then, from both ends of the tunnel at once, clouds of sparks and fire poured out.
The Bruce cousins still outside of the tunnel shouted in horror.
The explosion carried back the length of the train, car by car, and each one erupted into spiraling, glittering showers of light.
The illusion had been broken.
Asta shinned down Carmine’s back and took a few cautious steps forward. On the other side of Hummer, Felix stumbled to his feet, a self-satisfied grin on his face.
‘What the fuck?’ Hummer muttered, scratching his head under his hat. The gun hung loose in his other hand, half extended but no longer pointed at anything or anyone in particular.
Vulture locked her anxious gaze on the tunnel where Nat had disappeared.
Tru, who had staggered forward a few paces before the explosion, halted her advance. She took one look at Hummer’s stunned face and, dashing forward, snatched the gun from his hand. She leveled it on her brother.
A dragon and rider trotted from the near side of the tunnel. It was Nat, bloodied and disheveled but alive. The other riders followed her half-heartedly, not sure, it seemed, if they were chasing her or following her. They looked rather dazed from the light and the sound of the explosion.
‘Now you know,’ Nat called out to her cousins before they could decide what to do, her voice tight and chesty.
‘Now you have the proof. You tried telling yourselves that he does what he does for you. You are his family, after all. You are the Bruces. The baddest, smartest, bravest racers who ever lived. But now you know: you mean fuck all to Hummer Bruce. How many of us would be dead right now if that train had been as real as he thought it was? And he wouldn’t have shed a tear.
’ Nat walked her dragon forward to where Hummer and Tru stood, flanked by Felix and Asta.
‘Didn’t I tell you, Tru? He didn’t hesitate. ’