Chapter 8
CHAPTER
EIGHT
We attack , Kaia said, before they sense us and rise.
For once, I was in total agreement. A hit and run attack wouldn’t take them all out, but we couldn’t afford to get caught in an aerial battle; not when we were outnumbered at least ten to one.
Ask the other three to fly up beside us. A single line would give us more fire coverage, and it remained different enough to our usual formation to counter any measures they might have put in place. And warn Yara about what we’ve found.
There was a long pause. Yara see soldiers, not birds.
Meaning they were building up both their forces here. It wasn’t just a ruse to draw us into a trap. Have them do a burn run and then peel away toward the Throat.
Not Esan?
I don’t want to fly over the Mareritt going home . I don’t trust that all this isn’t part of a grander trap.
There had to be a reason there’d been no watchers on the Mareritten approach to the Sheer.
Had to be a reason why the Mareritt weren’t attacking Esan with their usual intent.
Granted, they might be awaiting the arrival of whatever was being hauled down from the Ghost Forest under the cover of that fog, but if that were the case, why attack at all and give us a heads-up?
It only made sense if it was part of a larger plan—a minor attack to draw Esan’s attention and a reveal to draw out the drakkons and their riders.
Then, once far away from any possible backup from the air mages or Damon, they could either kill us with sheer force of numbers, or drive us toward the waiting Mareritt and do it within sight of Esan herself.
The surest way to demoralize an enemy was to utterly destroy their fiercest warriors.
Of course, instinct was insisting that we needed to retreat while we still could, while we were all still alive, and yet, trap or not, we could not forsake this chance to inflict major damage on them. One pass could decimate their numbers enough to give us a fighting chance.
The shadowy shapes of our younger drakkons flew up beside us, and as one, we swooped down hard and fast, the air practically screaming around us.
The nearest birds glanced up, then rose onto their claws, their wings outstretched and pumping as they squawked in warning.
Those squawks died on the wind as four streams of deadly fire hit them.
Feathers melted, flesh crisped, and the ground soon ran with rivers of gold.
We flew hard down the lines of tethered birds and metal tents, leaving a trail of destruction underneath us.
Men scrambled out from those tents lining the untouched edges of the rows, and though all were armed, none of them raised their weapons.
None of them fired.
My gut twisted. This was a trap, and it was about to be sprung.
Kaia, drop , I all but screamed.
She instantly obeyed, and a stream of acidic shit shot past us, barely missing her tail. She bellowed in fury and command, and, as one, the drakkons swept up and over until they were facing the direction from which we’d come.
Directly ahead of us was a line of at least a dozen gilded riders.
The storm that cloaked the peaks had not only allowed us to get close without being seen, but had also hidden them from our sight and allowed them to rise in daytime. Even though we were still some distance from them, it was clear that only a couple of birds were wearing the control devices.
Blanket burn now , I immediately ordered. Then we leave. Warn Yara and Cansu; they’re likely to be facing a similar threat.
There was a brief pause as she passed the message on, then all four drakkons unleashed.
It was a thick wall of fury that coated the sky ahead with deadly heat, but the riders and their birds didn’t back away.
They burned, they melted, and they screamed, but they kept on flying until they had no wings left and dropped from the sky.
Their riders were similarly determined, unleashing their acidic weapons even as they fell, forcing us to duck and weave through exploding streams of brown.
Then something silver shot past us, barely missing Kaia’s wing.
A spear. A hooked spear, the same sort—only larger—that had taken out Ebrus.
I twisted around and my heart froze. There were at least a good dozen birds behind us, sweeping in from the left and the right. They hadn’t come from the ground; they’d been waiting for us, as the ones in front of us had been waiting. The birds on the ground had been the bait we’d willingly taken.
Maybe this was why we couldn’t find the barges. Maybe all the fucking birds that had been roosting on them had been restationed here.
Kaia, tell the drakkons to fly through the bastards ahead and drop over the Sheer into the storm; order their riders to twist round and burn those fucking spikes in the air.
She rumbled an acknowledgement but had barely finished speaking to the other drakkons when she jagged sideways, almost unseating me.
A stream of brown skimmed under her wing; another barely missed the top of my head.
I looked over her neck spines and spotted the bird coming straight at us, the rider raising a wickedly spiked spear…
I swore and flung a ball of fire, melting the weapon and then the man.
Kaia bellowed a warning and snapped her head to the right, flaming the rider coming in fast. As a wave of heat washed over me, something splattered across the left side of my head, leaving a burning trail from just above my ear to the base of my neck.
Acid—fuck. I hastily ripped off the hood, grabbed the water flask, and poured it over my entire scalp, doing my best to wash away anything that had gotten through the hood.
A sharp screech had me quickly glancing up.
Another rider, diving fast. I flung a thick stream of fire up at them, but I was too late, far too late, to stop it.
It crashed into us, a burning blob of flesh, metal feathers, and man that hit with explosive force; the impact dropped Kaia from the sky even as deadly shards of gold thudded into skin and scale.
She bellowed again, a command filled with fury and pain, and drakkons swept in from the left and the right, driving through the birds behind us, scattering them.
Hold , Kaia barked sharply, then rolled sideways and snapped her wing closed.
The still-burning remnants of the rider fell away.
.. straight past another rising rapidly.
I unleashed more fire, this time cutting it across the bird’s eyes.
Aarvi swept in from underneath us and snapped at the rider’s body, tearing through metal and flesh.
She spat out his top half, then smashed her tail across the distressed bird, breaking its neck.
As it fell away, more attacked us.
Us . Not the other drakkons.
They knew Kaia was the lead, I realized suddenly. Perhaps they believed that by taking her out, the other drakkons would become as directionless as their birds did when a control bird was taken out.
I swore again. Kaia, we need ? —
Fly fast , she finished for me. Others protect.
Which was dangerous and unfair, but I couldn’t lose Kaia. Not just for my own sake, but for Gria’s.
Kaia dove abruptly, barely avoiding the claws of an incoming bird.
I drew my sword and sliced open the end half of its body.
As blood and innards rained across Kaia’s back, I twisted around and flung a blanket of fire at the rider—too late to stop the stream of acid shit now headed our way.
I yelled a warning at Kaia, and she flung herself sideways, almost unseating me again; the stream caught the tip of her right wing.
She bellowed in fury but kept on flying, her wings pumping so hard they were a blur.
The other drakkons swooped and soared around us, ducking and weaving past metal spikes and acidic streams. Then Taitia screeched, and I twisted around; the end of a bolt had buried itself into her flesh between her shoulder and right wing.
Jassy severed the rope connecting it and melted what could be seen of the bolt, but Taitia’s speed was dropping; something was impacting her wing movement, be it the depth of the wound or the metal remaining lodged within it.
Kaia, order Rua and Aarvi to fly interference, and tell Taitia to tuck underneath us.
It meant Kaia would have to slow down, but that was better than losing the young drakkon.
We were close, so close, to the edge of the Sheer now.
More riders came at us. We ducked, weaved, and flamed; fire, acid, and metal filled the air, and none of us escaped unscathed.
But four drakkons and four kin made it to the edge alive and flew vertically down the Sheer’s mountain face.
The storm closed in around us, heavy rain pummeled skin and scale that burned with acid, and lightning illuminated the thick gray shroud, showing no shapes following us into the murk.
I didn’t relax. The riders would not be deterred.
They would come after us; if not through these clouds then later, when we flew out over the sea or followed the shadows of the Black Glass Mountains home.
Which meant we couldn’t do either. Not until we were back in fighting condition.
What do then ? Kaia asked.
I hesitated. Once we come out of the storm, head out into Mareritten again. It’s the one direction they won’t expect us to go.
Not safe there long.
No, but Taitia can’t fly far in her condition. We need to land and repair.
Yara and Cansu?
Where are they now?
Flame run over soldiers.
What? Tell them to get out of there, before the rest of the birds rise.
Have.
And?
Leaving now.
I swore and hoped, with everything I had, they hadn’t left it too late. Next time, remind me to give them less leeway on orders.
Yara queen. Must learn to fight and direct. She paused. Where they fly?
I hesitated again. Are either of them injured?
Minor hurts only.
Given the drakkon tendency to understate the seriousness of wounds, that wasn’t really reassuring.