15. The longest flight
15
THE LONGEST FLIGHT
Anahrod shuddered. The dragon was serious. Tiendremos was widely known to be Neveranimas’s favorite, the one she sent out to do the nastiest jobs, from wiping out villages in the Deep to hunting down heretics.
The dragon didn’t stop talking. What followed was a continuous stream of abuse directed at Tiendremos’s rider.
It was humiliating, and the dragon wasn’t even talking to her.
This left Anahrod with only one option. She hadn’t known these people for long—just a little over five days—but that didn’t mean she was willing to watch them all die.
It wasn’t a difficult equation. If she was going to die either way, she might as well not drag innocent people with her. Whereas if by some miracle Ris had been right and Tiendremos didn’t intend to kill her, forcing him into a situation where he might do so by accident was hardly to her benefit.
She couldn’t see the point of refusing in the long run. Hiding would only delay matters, not solve them.
Anahrod climbed back up the hatch stairs.
Grexam gave her such a relieved look that she knew the rider must have passed along Tiendremos’s threats. Also, that the captain had continued to act ignorant.
Grexam plastered himself against the side wall so she could pass him. Anahrod walked out into the sunlight.
“Stop!” she yelled out. “Enough. I’m here. There’s no need to involve these people. I’ll come willingly.”
In bright light, the dragonrider was an arrogant-looking man in clothing so dark a blue it would’ve looked black under other circumstances. He had deep brown eyes and straight black hair of the sort that had never once blown back into its owner’s face. It wasn’t doing so now, even though the wind blew the right way.
Anahrod looked into the man’s eyes and saw a dance of fear and hate, a complicated twirl of emotions wrapped around a core of satisfaction and relief.
Absolutely nothing in that stare suggested mercy.
“Well, good,” the dragonrider said. “Nice to see someone has some sense around here.”
[Is that her? Have you found her?]
“Just leave the crew alone. I didn’t even give them my real name.”
[Bring her. We’ll return to my lair.]
Anahrod froze.
Of course they were going to fly. She stepped backward when the rider reached for her.
He sighed. “I thought we’d established that you’re smarter than this?”
“I am,” she said. “But my cooperation is contingent on two conditions, nonnegotiable. The first is that Tiendremos will repair this cutter and compensate the crew for loss.”
The dragonrider laughed harshly. “Oh, you have a lot of nerve.”
“The Sky Hunting Act of 1423,” Anahrod spat. “Article 6, paragraph 5: Should any dragon cause willful damage of a vessel whose primary application is the harvesting and collecting of sky amber, the city of Yagra’hai agrees to pay for the full restoration of said vessel to insure a smooth and uninterrupted supply of sky amber to all involved trading parties.” She might have messed up the quotation at least a little, but she’d have been surprised if the dragonrider had memorized the trade agreement.
He made an impatient gesture. “We were pursuing a fugitive—”
“The agreement doesn’t care why you did it, only that the dragon is willfully responsible. Tiendremos qualifies.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I guarantee the captain here is familiar with the law. Do you want him limping back to Crystalspire to file suit? Making a huge stink about Tiendremos attacking his cutter unprovoked and pulling crew off his vessel?”
She saw his eyes narrow, saw the predatory gaze the rider gave the cutter. Knew that he was contemplating whether it would be worth it to wreck the cutter and kill everyone except Anahrod.
“Must I remind you that every sky amber cutter,” she whispered, “comes stock with an inscribed plate the guild can use to track the location of a crashed vessel? In theory, it’s so they can recover any harvested sky amber, but it also lets them find out exactly how the cutter was destroyed.”
She was bluffing. She had no idea if the guilds could do such a thing, but it sounded plausible. Hopefully plausible enough to make the dragonrider think twice about eliminating witnesses.
It seemed to. He chewed on that piece of information for a moment, tongue working at the back of his teeth, before he said to Captain Bederigha, “We wouldn’t want to jeopardize any treaty, would we? Bring your flyer to Yagra’hai and Tiendremos will ensure it’s repaired.”
Captain Bederigha’s expression suggested he’d just witnessed his mortal enemy take a shit in his soup, but he nodded. “I’ll do just that.”
“And the second condition?” the dragonrider asked her.
“You’re going to need to knock me out for the flight back.” She turned to Bederigha. “Captain, do you have anything that can keep me under? Something for medical emergencies?”
“That ain’t the way to get over your fears,” he cautioned. “You can’t make a habit of it.”
“I know,” she said. “But needs must. Please.”
Bederigha signaled Grexam. “Go get the bottle of Alls-Night.”
The man ceased his previous pastime of glaring holes into the dragonrider’s backside and retreated down the hatchway.
“Why, exactly, do I need to keep you unconscious?” the dragonrider asked Anahrod.
Had she ever learned his name? She didn’t think so.
Anahrod lifted her chin. “I’m scared of heights.”
The dragonrider blinked at her. He had a slight smile on his face, the same one he’d worn from the start, but it looked especially brittle just then.
“Is that a joke?” he finally asked.
“I wish it were.” It wasn’t funny at all. Just how unfunny would become clear the moment they tried to lower her onto that dragon’s back, and she began lashing out violently.
He swept an arm out, indicating the cutter, the question very clear. If she was afraid of heights, what in all of heaven was she doing here?
“She didn’t realize until we were underway,” the captain explained.
“That must have been quite the scene.” He smiled brightly at Anahrod. “I’m Jaemeh, by the way.”
“Pleasure.”
“I rather doubt it.”
[What’s going on? What’s the delay? Please tell me that even a fool such as yourself hasn’t found a way to mess this up?]
Anahrod closed her eyes. Oh, Tiendremos was charming. Who wouldn’t be swept off their feet by such sweet talk?
The dragonrider turned around, presumably responding to his dragon’s demands. Anahrod suspected the rider was having to engage in some serious diplomacy to keep the dragon from doing something rash.
“Please tell him I’ve agreed to come quietly,” Anahrod suggested. “We’re just taking precautions to make sure I don’t hurt myself when I panic.”
“When you panic?” The fake smile slipped.
“When,” she affirmed. Anahrod glanced back toward the hatch and wished Grexam would hurry.
“You aren’t what I expected,” Jaemeh said.
Anahrod didn’t dignify that with the obvious response.
“I thought you’d be more… you know.”
“Assume I don’t know.”
He gestured at her body. “Sexy hair and lots of skin. A wicked smile on your face while you convince people to sell you their souls.”
“You’re thinking of Ris.”
He swallowed a laugh, giving a wary glance toward his dragon hovering off to the side. When he returned his attention to Anahrod, his gaze was dissecting, evaluating, appraising. It carried with it expectations for how useful she might be, what they might gain by keeping her alive.
“How did you survive?” He picked up a length of her hair and studied it before letting it fall from his fingers.
“Survive?” She ground her teeth.
“A fall from fifty thousand feet. How did you survive?”
She heard a short, quick inhale from Bederigha, and knew he’d put the pieces together. Not who she was, no, his expression didn’t have the right level of disgust for that, but certainly what had happened.
Anahrod stared Jaemeh in the eyes. “I have no idea what you mean.”
A flicker of confusion crossed Jaemeh’s face. That confusion vanished just as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by panic. Jaemeh tried to grab her arm. She blocked him.
“I said I’d go back with you,” Anahrod told him. “I didn’t say you could touch me.”
He lowered his voice. “You stupid bitch, I’m trying to save your life.” His eyes darted to the side, to the captain still watching them, to his dragon.
He leaned forward. “Tell me you’re Anahrod Amnead.” He raised a hand and whispered fiercely, “I don’t care one way or the other, but if you’re not Anahrod Amnead, he’ll swallow you whole. So, who are you?”
She scowled. “Anahrod Amnead. Or did you pick this cutter at random?”
Weirdly, that calmed him, although they continued to stare at each other in an unfriendly fashion until Grexam returned with a small dark violet bottle and a small glass.
Grexam poured a shot, which turned louche and silvery, then handed it to Anahrod.
“One drink’s all you need,” he said. “It’ll work up quick, too, so this dragonrider here best be expecting to shoulder you back to his dragon.”
“I think I can manage,” Jaemeh demurred.
She hated this so very much. She didn’t know or like this man. She knew nothing about Jaemeh except the color and name of the dragon he rode. Yet she was about to trust herself to his care for who knew how long.
She paused before drinking. “Just to make it clear. If you take advantage of me while I’m unconscious, I will kill you.”
Jaemeh’s expression shifted from consternation to anger. “How dare you imply I’d do something like that.”
“Dragonriders dare a lot of things.” With that, she tossed back the shot.
The liquor tasted like cloudberries.
For a good ten seconds, nothing happened. She was tempted to ask if anyone needed more than one shot, when—utterly without fanfare—night fell early.
Sadly, she didn’t remain unconscious for the entire trip. In hindsight, a cutter flying for over a week had traveled a distance that even a dragon couldn’t match in a few hours.
She opened her eyes to stars. A whole sky full of stars, bright as flames or weak as ghost flies, but beautiful. It was Zavad’s Hour, when the moon reached its darkest, letting the evening stars shimmer in a glittering procession.
Jaemeh had strapped Anahrod down to a leather-and-metal harness on Tiendremos’s back. The dragon’s muscles moved under her, flexing and relaxing with the pull and release of his wings. The space between his wings was wide enough for her to lie down sideways with room to spare—if she wasn’t already tied down.
The harness itself bore no resemblance to a saddle. Dragons—full-grown dragons, anyway—were too huge. Instead, a harness gave humans a place to tie themselves, and a windbreak to duck behind. The nicer harnesses shielded the rider from inclement weather.
Tiendremos’s harness wasn’t fancy. It was barely better than “none at all”—an option some dragons preferred, even if it left their riders permanently grounded.
This harness was a wide lip of metal, around four feet tall. Enough to act as a windbreak, with just enough leather to hold it all together.
Mostly. The harness moved a great deal on a creature that already moved a great deal. It didn’t feel stable.
Tiendremos made a wide, sweeping turn, banking on a wing. The entire harness lurched, and the leather straps holding her in place creaked. It was night and she couldn’t see the ground, but suddenly she imagined it all too vividly.
She didn’t want to think about where they were going. If it was Seven Crests or Yagra’hai. Either seemed like a different variation of a death sentence.
She closed her eyes and curled up on herself as much as the bindings would allow, shuddering. Eventually, exhaustion took over.
If she woke up again during the trip, she didn’t remember it.