59. Land Hot
SOUNDTRACK: The Bottom by Daughtry
~ GRACE ~
At first, I hoped he’d just chosen to wheel left like I had, and he’d changed his line to make certain we were well spaced from the other two, but he never turned off. He continued to keep his dragon wing-tip with Koa.
Frustrated, I gestured with one hand, shooing him away. “Scatter!” I shouted.
“I am!”
“No! It means we all go in different directions!”
“We did! We’re away from them!”
“Yes, but not in pairs. All of us—”
“Flameborne, descend! Land hot!”
Kennik cursed.
Descend was a basic command—drop toward the ground. But land hot changed the game.
It was a directive given for only two reasons: Either a dragon or their rider was wounded and needed to be on the ground in the shortest possible time without killing themselves, or we were under fire from weapons on the ground, and needed to get out of sight.
Either way, we weren’t to wait. We weren’t to shift line to the launch hollow which we knew was only a minute’s flight away. We were to look for the nearest possible space large enough to land a dragon, and drop into it without delay.
Which would have been fine. There was a narrow, sloping clearing, similar to the spot where I’d been Acknowledged, just inside the coastline. A rough V-shape where the forest didn’t grow, that was long enough for Koa to land. And it was on my direct line.
The problem was, Kennik hadn’t scattered. He and I were flying the same line.
And apparently, of all the instructions today, he remembered what land hot, meant. Because just as quickly as I urged Koa to the ground, he did the same with Conn.
But there wasn’t wide enough space between the trees here for two dragons, flapping aggressively to slow themselves for landing. If we both tried to land at the same time, our dragons would collide.
“Go right!” I screamed at him. “You were supposed to scatter! Go find a different line!”
“Fuck off! I know what the instruction is.”
‘Firebird, Conn chitters.’
I looked at Kennik’s blue dragon. His eyes rolled and he screamed, but he continued to flap with urgency.
The dragons wouldn’t intervene until or unless it was life-threatening.
This was about to get bad.
‘Koa, he took the wrong line. We weren’t supposed to be landing together.’
‘There is different clearing—’
‘But if we move our line, we won’t have followed instruction. We’ll fail!’ I glared at Kennik. “Find your own line! This was mine!”
“You find a different line!” He leaned forward and Conn screamed. Koa responded, both dragons picking up pace.
No, no, no!
I looked over my shoulder, but the officer was too far back now, I couldn’t see his expression.
I scanned the quickly looming ground, but there were no other clear areas in close proximity, that I could fudge looking like it had been my line all along.
‘Koa, fly. Fly as fast as you can. Dive! We’ll get ahead of them and land first. He’ll have to give you the line if you’re ahead of him. Fly. Fly!’
She didn’t even call, just dropped her head and tucked her wings. For a moment, I thought she’d do it. Conn began to fall behind. But then Kennik shouted, and suddenly Conn was right at her wing-tip again, and closer now because her wings were tucked.
‘I will keep you, Grace!’
‘No, Koa, we have to—’
‘I will keep you!’
She screamed so loudly, it rang in my skull. I instinctively clapped both hands over my ears, at the exact moment she flattened her ears and bared her fangs, tossing her head toward Conn—who screamed, and tilted off the line.
It should have been a moment of triumph—Conn had to pull up because we’d gotten ahead, but Koa dropped faster at the same time she snaked her neck at him, and the sudden shift took me off guard.
I’d let go of the neck straps to clap my hands over my ears, and moving at such speed with her wings tucked, the ground sucked closer at an alarming rate.
“Koa!” I shrieked, grabbing for the straps too late.
Koa screamed, and back-flapped, her hind end swinging below her with such force as she attempted to slow her passage, I slammed into her raised neck, my head ringing like an inflated ball bouncing off the wall.
I scrambled for purchase, but for a second, in the wake of that blow, I lost the strength in my grip. I was disoriented. Koa screamed again, and the world flipped. I saw blue sky, then green earth, then red scales.
I found myself dangling by the safety strap, swinging like a pendulum, as my dragon was forced to commit to the landing, or risk plowing into the earth.
No. No, no, no!
It all happened too quickly for thought. All I knew was that I couldn’t fall. This was the flying assessment! It was all about being safe and strong enough to fly alone. I’d led Koa into this, now I had to keep us out.
As Koa continued to back-flap, her hind end dangling from her shoulders, her body curled as she fought to slow her momentum, other dragons screamed in response. The world swung, but I was upright, hanging by my belt, and I had one pass at this.
One chance.
Because she’d slowed so dramatically, I swung forward of her withers on the safety strap, my legs flying ahead of me so I stared at my toes—but then I hit the end of the strap’s reach, gravity struck, and I was sucked backward.
With a strangled scream, I looked over my shoulder.
I swung back toward her wings, toward the neck straps, and the looped mounting strap.
When I reached that end of the swing, her withers were ahead of me. If I could get hold of one of those straps, I could pull myself to her.
‘Koa, don’t stop. Keep your line.’
She sent a rush of affirmation and love as I swung forward again, my toes reaching their peak a little lower this time, then began that awful backward swing once more.
Keeping my eyes on the big loop of the mounting strap, letting my head swivel so my eyes remained locked on my salvation, and waited for that split second of hang-time at the end of the pendulum swing.
As my body turned, I flattened my palm, aimed my arm through the loop of the strap, then hugged myself, desperately praying my grip would hold.
Koa, still descending, back-flapped frantically, screaming her protests to Conn, was still moving quickly.
When the loop of the mounting strap caught on my elbow, my shoulder was jerked backward against my bodyweight, with a painful wrench.
I screamed, but gripped both hands to my chest, which jerked my body around. The shortened swing slammed me into Koa’s side, and I was disoriented again.
But as the rush of the wind slowed, and her flaps grew louder, I blinked.
Eye level with her neck, I clung to the mounting strap, just a couple of feet from her withers.
Shoulder aching, and arm strangely weak, I planted my boots against her shoulder.
The momentum threw my upper body sideways, pivoting on my feet, but at least it was to the correct side of the neck straps.
Desperate, I grabbed for them, and caught hold right at the base of her neck, above her withers.
And then I fought.
One weak arm. Screaming in my head. Koa moving below me… it all seemed impossible, but there was no time to think.
I clung, yelling in frustration at my weak body for not being able to pull me up when I was so close.
Then, her back feet hit the ground, and the first jolt knocked my elbow from her withers.
The second, when her forefeet slammed into the earth was my undoing.
I lost my grip entirely, dropped to the limit of the safety strap, grunting when it caught me like a steel bar across my middle, as Koa fought to slow our momentum before she hit the wall of rapidly approaching trees.
The final seconds were hellish. I bumped and swung, unable to control my trajectory because I had nothing to grip, so I was at the mercy of momentum.
I remembered Voski’s early instructions, and as I found myself bouncing against Koa’s shoulder, I hunched, curling arms over my head and drawing my knees up, until I made as tight a ball as I could, letting my back take the brunt of the impact, rather than joints, or worse, my head.
When the bouncing finally stopped, the world went strangely quiet.
There was a fierce, rhythmic, rushing sound that turned out to be my breath, tearing in and out of my throat. When I finally lifted my head and let my legs drop, I dangled from the safety strap at Koa’s side.
Overhead, two dragons screamed. I flinched, then realized they weren’t landing and watched, utterly demoralized, as one of the officers who’d been nearby, sent Kennik off on a different line—he must have circled around to land in this clearing as well.
Then the officer landed his dragon behind us with a great deal less drama.
And when they came to a halt just feet away, he slid down the mounting strap and was at Koa’s foreleg in moments.
“Ask your dragon if I can approach.”
“She says yes,” I reassured him miserably. I didn’t recognize him. He looked younger than Donavyn, but older than Ronen.
“Are you injured?” he called up.
“Not badly. I wrenched my shoulder. But I can climb. I just…” I looked helplessly at the straps. I could no longer reach the looped mounting strap—which meant I couldn’t release it to let him use it to get up.
But then I remembered my knife. “I can cut through my strap and release—”
“No!” The word was sharp and bitten off. “Do not move.”
My heart sank. I could do nothing but hang there until he’d turned his dragon around, put her shoulder to shoulder with Koa, then used his own strap to climb his dragon, then jump across like a spider, to catch himself on my straps.
The strength and athleticism of these men was astounding.
Would I ever be able to manage such a thing? I prayed so.
The officer never clipped in. Using only brute strength and grip to hold himself up on Koa, he reached over, pulling me to his side, and hoisted me up until I virtually sat in his lap.
“Get your bearings,” he said kindly. “That was quite a landing.”
“I could have flown it if…” I swallowed the words. A Furyknight never blames others for their own mistakes. I cleared my throat. “That is, I know if I could have another try, I could pass.”
He huffed. “Flameborne, you won’t be flying anymore today,” he said with a low chuckle.
“I mean it! I can still fly! And if I could just get on the right line, I could—”
“No.” he said simply, then ducked his chin. “Unclip yourself. Don’t worry, I have you.”
There was the scream of another dragon in the sky, but I focused on Koa, and getting myself unclipped, then clung to the man as he lowered us both down.
When we finally dropped those last inches and I got boots on the ground, I slumped.
At least this isn’t a fail forever, I reminded myself. I can take the flying assessment again. They said that at the beginning. I just have to wait. That’s all.
More waiting. More not being able to fly alone. More time that Koa has to struggle because she hasn’t practiced in the link with the others.
I sighed.
The officer turned me to face him and leaned down, his brow furrowed. “You have a bruise and scrape on your temple too. Did you hit your head during that landing?”
I frowned. It was all a blur.
Before I could remember, there was another scream, and then the whomph-whomph-whomph of dragon wings.
We both turned as a third dragon made the final descent, skidding, clawing talons into the soft earth to drag himself to a halt in the short area left now that two large dragons already huddled at its end.
To my shock, it was Kham.
A moment later, Voski appeared, sprinting. “How bad is it? Holy fuck, Grace—are you hurt?!”
He rushed to my side, forehead pinched to lines, and reaching for me, pulling me to his chest and holding me, so tightly I could barely breathe.
My disappointment. That squeeze. The worry in his voice. The shocked look on the officer’s face. The sudden wash of relief when Voski touched me… it was all too much.
To my utter horror, I buried my face in his chest and burst into tears.