Chapter Eighty-Two. Falls of Choice.
Eighty-Two
Falls of Choice.
The golden light thrown by the torch is sucked away into the mist, and the spiders waste no time.
Their black bodies and those red-tipped legs scurry up at me.
I clutch the ruby to my chest as they crawl over each other, zeroing in, silk already releasing into the wind where it’s swirled away.
That won’t last. As soon as the next gust comes from the opposite direction, the webbing will be blown into me and I’ll be caught.
I look down toward the street, so far, far away that I can’t see it for the clouds. I think of the cocoons, and know that their prey is still alive in some, kept paralyzed but aware that sometime soon, they will be sucked dry—
A spider crawls up onto my feet and rears onto its back legs, revealing its bulbous, hairy belly. As I see the silk glands and know what getting trapped will mean for me, I make the decision just as the sticky web spins out to capture me.
I jump off the statue.
The free fall is a terror I’m resigned to. I’d rather go out on my terms, staring the bastards in the face, falling to the marble below for an instant death, than be kept as a meal for fates only know how long.
Tears spring to my eyes and my hair streaks up past me as the wind resistance on my back and legs offers a cushioning, but no real help. To have come so close, to have the ruby … but did I really think this was going to work? Did I honestly think I could pull this off?
And now Merc will die, too.
I had to try, though. Sometimes, all we can do is—
Whooosh.
All at once, and without warning, the rush of air hitting my body is stopped with a bump.
My first thought is that I have made impact before I expected and death is painless. But that’s when the rhythmic rocking registers … and I see the tips of the wings.
Scrambling around, I find myself in the curve of a dragon’s back, right behind the horned and horrible head.
There’s a divot at the nape, and just as the ruby was centered on the goddess’s palm, so I’m cradled as the beast flies over the ruins.
Through breaks in the mist, I see down below, the streets with the broken statues and the tumbled columns, the strings of webs, a stray spider here or there.
I twist around and look over my shoulder. The goddess’s head is obscured by the mist, but her body is visible.
Her draping clothes are made of spiders, teeming in confusion.
It’s as I turn back that my eyes catch the wing rising up.
Green and purple … with a tear through the base, an injury that has healed.
A numbing shock goes through me that has nothing to do with the fact that I’m freezing cold and lengths upon lengths above the ground.
Could this be the dragon I saved? The one whose eyes I stared into, whose throat I cut, whose life I returned to his body?
I think about the distance I traveled away from my village—so far for me, but I know for them it’s but a coasting upon the airways: They’re known to nest on the snowcapped mountains to the west of my village, yet travel extensively to mate or find food.
The coloring is right. The healed wound is right.
And he must … remember me.
Splitting my legs, I sit astride just above the shoulders as if on a horse as we soar out past the front entry with the decaying statuary and over the marshes. The dragon makes a big circle above the shoreline of the sea and then dips down close to the ground.
We’re so close, I see the individual leaves on the water lilies rushing by.
And then we’re over the meadow, heading back to the ruins. At the last moment, the dragon curls to the right and shoots down the long side of the ancient city, still close to the ground, running parallel to the slope Merc and I first descended.
I start to worry how I’m going to get off him and whether he knows I’m even on his back or if he’s about to throw me loose into a rock, existential payback for what I did to that skystalker—
At first, all I notice is the movement against the ancient marble wall, like with the ogres and their visual tricks.
Then come the dark shadows, streaming around the far corner of the ruined city. Spiders in a horde, chasing after—
Lavante.
It’s Lavante who’s running at breakneck speed, his golden coat a match for all those pale stones, his snow-white mane flying like a flag behind his neck, his tail streaking out in his wake—and the dragon is on a collision course with him.
The two are going head-to-head, the dragon so low now, I could jump free if we weren’t going this fast. Lavante bobs to the side at the last moment, the dragon not altering his line as we pass my stallion—
Fire.
So much of it, my efforts at marshaling the stuff are put to shame: Great balls of flame curl forth, exploding out of the dragon’s mouth.
Aimed at the spiders.
There’s such shrieking as the immolation occurs that it’s as if Anathos itself is being torn apart, and there’s naught the attackers can do to defend or protect themselves.
In fact, the fire spreads from one to another, carried on the gossamer bands of silk that have been released, a chain reaction.
And then there is a swoop upward, the dragon riding the air as if it were solid ground it was running over. Around we go, and I squeeze with my legs to hold on, ducking lower behind the great horned head, holding on to the ruby as if it’s the very beating heart within my chest.
The dragon sails ahead of Lavante as the stallion makes the turn in front of the entry to the ruins, and the horse is neither stupid about the danger nor lost in his surroundings in spite of the oppressive, milky misting.
He gallops straight for the slope he and I descended.
And thus the dragon carries me into a graceful landing, bringing the bracing journey to an end in the long grass with a running set of feet … until he stops.
I leap off and back away, being careful not to meet his eyes. And as the cold-blooded master of the skies turns to me, I hope I haven’t just fallen into another mess.
He doesn’t eat me.
And in the moments that follow, I wish I could communicate. He seems to know, though. For he waits as Lavante thunders to me.
I whistle, high and loud, even though the horse is already coming my way, and as he throws out stiffened legs and skids to a halt in front of me, I jump into the saddle while the mud is still kicked up in the air. One arm traps the ruby to my chest, the other grabs the reins, but not to steer.
My stallion is not the type of horse that has to be directed.
He takes off again, faster than ever. Leaving the dragon—my dragon—behind.
We’re nearly to the slope when I look back through the sea fog.
The green and purple beast is still on the ground and facing away from our escape, scrummed down to protect our racing departure.
No spiders come, however. He’s not killed the colony of them, but he took so many out, and his presence is more than enough to keep us safe as we bolt back for the slope, and for the Kingdom of the South’s gate …
beyond which there are many, many dangers, just of a different sort.
At least none of them have eight legs and spin a web. And right now? That’s the best endorsement for any royal court there could be.
As we hit the incline, the mist swallows us even more, and I take one last look behind.
I expect the dragon to have taken to the sky once more.
He still has not. He remains our guardian, his wings outstretched, puffs of flames coming out his snout as if anybody needs a reminder of what he’s able to do.
Then, like so much else, we’re swallowed whole into the land cloud, and the moisture on my face is salty as my tears.
Destiny has always struck me as cold and hard. But here, in the strange landscape and foggy weather of this foreign land, my act of kindness and mercy, that I made with no thought or expectation of ever being repaid …
… was returned to me at the very moment, and in the very circumstances, when I most needed a miracle.