Chapter 20 #3
The moon-mark on Syla’s hand warmed, the way it did when she drew upon her magic, but it didn’t seem to know what to do. She didn’t know how to use her magic to help with flying.
As Wreylith dove again, Syla glimpsed the other two dragons approaching. For the moment, the battle was evenly matched, but that pair would arrive soon, and what then?
Tibby hollered as she again scrambled to stay on. The huge gray dragon flew right over their heads, maw opening and roiling fire visible in the back of its throat.
Syla swore even more than her aunt. There was no way to take cover.
Before the flames would have struck, Wreylith rolled away.
Gravity threatened to dump Syla into the ocean far, far below, and she started falling, but the roll was so fast that Wreylith’s back returned to an upright position before her riders tumbled away.
Only Syla’s heart seemed to pitch into the ocean below.
By the moon god, she had to find a way to use her magic to stay on. Wreylith had dodged the fiery blast, returning to flying upright several yards ahead of the other dragon, but it veered to follow right after her. When Syla glanced back, she glimpsed blood flowing from a gouge in Wreylith’s tail.
That she could at least use her magic to help with. Maybe it wasn’t the time, but she willed her power into the dragon.
A tendril of her magic flowed from her hand, through scales, and toward the wound in the tail.
As the healing power knitted the gouge together, Syla realized she could anchor herself via that tendril.
Her palm flattened to Wreylith’s scales, and the next time the dragon moved quickly, her neck snapping like a whip to allow her to bite into the gray dragon’s flank, Syla’s hand didn’t budge.
The rest of her body tried to pitch off, but through that link, she remained anchored.
“Hold on to me,” she yelled to her aunt.
Tibby’s face was flushed red, terror making the whites of her eyes visible around the irises.
“Or find a way to use your power to hang on,” Syla added.
If she could figure out a way, Tibby might be able to as well. Could she engineer something in a dragon? Wreylith might object to that more than healing.
Movement to the side caught Syla’s eye. The lead female rider was falling, rage more than fear contorting her face as she tumbled toward the sea.
Sword in hand, Vorik crouched not atop his dragon but on the one she’d ridden.
The blue. And that dragon wasn’t happy about it.
It twisted in the air and snapped at Vorik, trying to bite him in half.
Vorik leaped off an instant before those jaws would have crushed him. He also plummeted toward the ocean, and Syla gasped. It was so far below that hitting the surface of the water could kill him as surely as hitting the ground.
But Agrevlari flew in from the side, Fel balanced precariously on his back, and angled to catch the falling Vorik.
Another dragon was chasing Agrevlari—the gray carrying the female archer.
She yelled at Vorik as he settled astride Agrevlari in front of Fel.
Like the other woman, fury raged in her eyes, and she waved, as if commanding others to get him.
Syla realized that was exactly what she was doing.
The other two dragons had caught up, making the odds four to two.
The fact that one dragon had lost a rider meant nothing.
The blue dragon flapped its wings, its eyes almost as furious as those of the humans as it smashed into Agrevlari’s side.
The other dragons focused on helping their ally more than going after Wreylith, and blasts of fire hid the battle from Syla’s view.
She couldn’t tell if the flames seared through the space between her and Agrevlari, or if they struck his riders straight on. Vorik might have magic to let him survive that, but Fel didn’t.
We near the sky barrier, Wreylith said, diving toward the ocean below.
“We have to help the others,” Syla blurted, twisting to try to see the other battle, but with the new angle, a red dragon tail blocked her view.
“It’s too far to shore!” Tibby called.
Though she didn’t want to abandon the others, Syla made herself look forward.
Tibby was right. It had to be more than a mile to the shoreline.
The cliff-line. Worse, an obstacle course of rock formations jutted out of the sea between them and the uninviting shoreline, and white water churned dangerously around those rocks.
“Can you get closer?” Tibby pointed toward a beach in the distance.
“The water doesn’t look as rough there,” Syla added, hoping Agrevlari could escape the others and drop Fel off too.
But when she looked back, the green dragon was struggling to evade their enemies.
Three dragons bit and clawed at him, and was that an arrow through Vorik’s shoulder?
As strong as he and Agrevlari were, they couldn’t fight off so many.
What Vorik had done or said to draw all their enemies from Wreylith, Syla didn’t know, but he was buying time for the red dragon to fly close to the shield. Had that been his intention? That Syla escape, even if he didn’t?
Wreylith glanced back with one eye, enough to convey a baleful expression. Pesky humans, you will get off where I drop you. I do not know why I did not give you to the human-tainted dragons. You are insufferable.
“I healed your foot. And your tail!” Granted, Syla hadn’t finished mending the tail wound and was using that tendril of magic as much to hold on as to knit the gash shut, but it had at least stopped bleeding. “And I’ll happily heal any more wounds you receive.”
I am only receiving wounds because I’m helping you.
“Didn’t you get in trouble with the basilisk on your own?”
Maybe it wasn’t wise to point that out because Wreylith gave her another baleful look.
Tibby poked Syla in the back. To tell her to shut up, Syla thought at first, but her aunt was pointing upward and behind them.
Syla looked in time to see Vorik, his face drenched with his own blood, falling, and Fel tumbled off the dragon right behind him. Agrevlari was too harried by the others to fly down and catch his riders.
“You have to help them!” Syla yelled, willing Wreylith to turn around.
She and Tibby could wait if need be—storm god’s madness, she didn’t know if she and her aunt could even survive that swim. Through her tendril of magic, Syla tried to influence the dragon, desperate not to let Vorik and Fel die because they’d been helping her.
But Wreylith snarled, probably sensing the attempt at manipulation. She twisted and bucked in the air, the powerful whipping of her body breaking Syla’s bond and hurling her and her aunt toward the frothing white water and rocks below.