Chapter 18
Ever
“THEY’RE COMING!” VERO ANNOUNCES, HIS voice crackling through my helmet, thanks to the ancient coms system wired into our gear.
“Finally,” Enslee growls, and the others laugh. “Any longer and we’d have to lap back.”
I pull in a deep breath and will the wasps in my stomach to turn back into moths. It’s going to be just fine; we’ve trained for this. We’re only ten miles out from the entry point to the gauntlet. Once we’re there, we’re good.
Olinta shifts her weight behind me, and I expertly counterbalance the movement to keep my flier steady.
“You good?” I ask the wyvern strapped in behind me.
Her back is pressed against mine as she faces the sands behind us, eager to take on the dragons just as soon as they’re within range.
“I’m great,” she sends back, the two words coated in static. “I swear, this launcher is heavier than the last time we ran this drill.”
I smile and feel a minuscule amount of tension drain from my shoulders. “It’s loaded now, remember?”
Olinta laughs and adjusts her position again. “That’ll do it,” she agrees merrily.
Amusement warms through me, and I relax even more and focus back on the path I’m cutting across the sea of sand below.
Looking down from this height, the vast stretch of yardangs we’re aiming for resemble great upturned ships.
They look landlocked and abandoned in a ghostly shipyard that’s long been forgotten by anyone but the Syphons.
In truth, they were shaped by Mother Nature before I ever existed, and yet I feel like I know their lines and ridges better than I know the back of my own hand.
“Contact in thirty seconds,” Vero shouts over the com, and I can practically taste the adrenaline surging through the warning.
I risk a glance behind me and instantly regret it.
The sight of six fucking dragons bearing down on us like an inescapable tidal wave is a sight I could’ve done without.
I fight the urge to open my throttle even more and pull farther ahead.
I know part of our plan requires that they catch up to us before we hit the ridgeline.
I also know that the dragons want to capture us, not kill us, but tell that to my survival instincts, because they’re adamantly screaming, We’re all going to die!
“Aim for the green and blue ones first,” I order, as I note the position of the two dragons with affinities that could prove to be the most problematic for us.
Guilt nips at me when I think about Chastain.
Targeting him makes me feel like I’m picking on a happy little puppy, but I solve the bout of conscience by picturing Tove’s face instead.
“We know what to do.” Amadi’s clipped reply comes crackling through the speakers of my helmet, and I’m tempted to ram my sandcycle into hers and call it a day.
She’s lucky I need to find my Flight, or I’d gladly put the snotty Syphon in her place and not give two shits about being caught while doing it.
“Here we go!” Gable bays, and the answering roar of a dragon, who’s way too close for comfort, nukes the last of my nerves still trying to hold on for dear life.
I look over at the other Syphons decked out in their riding gear, attention honed and bodies tense as we hold the line together. I let the wind whipping past me rip my worries away, and find comfort in the control of the sandcycle beneath me.
Here we fucking go!
Olinta moves behind me, calling dibs on a black dragon as she lines up a shot and takes it. I don’t hear the special cartridges we’re using connect with any of the dragons behind us, but Olinta’s whoop of excitement lets me know she hit her mark.
Growls sound off behind me, and I hear Craith and Sofann firing at the dragons too.
Outraged snarls and indignant bellows drown out the steady roar of my sandcycle’s engine. Olinta gets off another two shots, and I do my best to keep things steady so she can aim true.
“Bombs away!” Enslee screams over the pandemonium, and Olinta tenses a split second before I drop us into a dive.
My ears pop painfully, and my stomach climbs my esophagus like it’s keen to spend some quality time with my throat.
The data streaming across my visor changes from a happy orange to a flashing red as I go screaming, full tilt, toward the ground.
I pull up at the last possible second, teeth clenched, heart joining the party in my throat, while every ounce of muscle I possess is used to haul my ass out of this death-defying plummet.
I whoop my victory, riding a wave of pure exhilaration when I finally level out and take off again.
With a beaming smile, I sneak a peek at the dragon I know was chasing me, hoping they crash into the sand instead of pulling out of the dive like I just did, but no luck.
Ogdan banks to follow me almost lazily, like my efforts were nothing more than melodrama.
Fucking dragons.
I’m tempted to flip Ogdan the bird, but I’m pretty sure that would give me away, and that’s the last thing I need.
I form another line with the other Syphons, and Sofann, Craith, and Olinta start dropping racket bombs into the sand below as we go streaking by. The bombs start detonating with a slight delay, and it sounds like the desert’s popping popcorn in preparation for the upcoming show.
The dragons look entirely too smug when they easily dodge the sandy explosions and start to close in.
I’m sure they’re wondering what the fuck we’re doing.
Our weapons aren’t dragon grade, so to them, they’re probably pointless.
I’m sure we look like a bunch of amateurs shooting foul-smelling liquid at a group of terrifying dragons and trying to throw sand in their faces with our puny explosives.
It says a lot about the arrogance of Aeson and his Wing that they’ve flown into unfamiliar territory and spent no time educating themselves about the other creatures that call it home.
Right on cue, the ground rumbles to life beneath our fliers. The sand vibrates with an ominous warning the dragons either ignore or are oblivious to. I force myself to keep my flier steady despite my instincts telling me to get the fuck out of there.
“Come on?.?.?. come on!” Mayur incites, his eyes frantically searching the ground as Aeson draws even closer. Sofann looks like he can’t decide between jumping or climbing Mayur’s back to get away from the claws Aeson is stretching toward them.
“Come on,” I murmur, adding my own plea to Mayur’s.
I have no choice but to watch, dread dropping into the pit of my gut, as Aeson makes a grab for the duo and their sandcycle.
Mayur dodges it, just in the nick of time, and Aeson misses.
But the commander adjusts his position and goes for a second swipe.
Onyx sand suddenly erupts in Aesons’s face.
He reels back, completely caught off guard, and it takes him and his Wing a second to realize another player has entered the game.
Sand scarafids streak out of their burrows, ready to defend their homes from the percussive explosions that have woken them from their slumber.
The car-sized beetles begin darting around in search of the enemy knocking at their gates, only to get a whiff of the scarafid sex pheromones we just splashed all over the dragons.
Within seconds, the scarafids become a writhing, horny black cloud that all too quickly overtakes the dragons.
Olinta crows with glee and then expeditiously chucks the launcher still containing cartridges of pheromones when some of the big, scary beetles make a beeline for us. Aeson and his Wing roar and screech as more scarafids spring from the sand and target them in search of mates.
Cackles and hoots fill my helmet, and the Syphons instantly capitalize on the distraction and start putting much-needed miles between us and the encumbered dragons. We know the beetles won’t keep them tied up for long, and every second counts.
“Everyone good?” Craith checks in from the back of Enslee’s cycle.
Everyone answers that they are, but the victory we were just feeling is quick to die as we approach the next part of our escape plan.
Data flicks across my visor almost faster than I can track when the terrain below begins to change from desert sands to rocky outcroppings that stretch into the dark expanse of The Scorch like desperate fingers in search of some kind of salvation.
I allow myself one long, centering inhale, careful not to push the limits of my respirator and the tank of oxygen strapped to my back, and then I exhale everything slowly and prepare for what’s next.
My hands ache from how tightly I’m clutching my throttle in order to keep it open and my engine fed.
My back is already protesting the tight tuck of my body against the sandcycle to help reduce drag and maximize my control.
And I can’t even tell if my heart is still in my chest or if I dropped it somewhere back in the sand and it’s scarafid food now.
Olinta begins to unbuckle the straps keeping her tethered to my flier, which means the dragons are already out of the battle with the beetles and they’re about to be on us again.
“Let’s bloody move,” I shout into my com when I glance behind me and see Aeson, Ogdan, and Karis closer than they should be.
“Should I go now?” Olinta asks, and the worry splintering through the question spikes my own concern.
I don’t think Aeson would hurt the wyverns, but what if I’m wrong? “Not yet,” I call back, risking one more glance behind me as we draw closer to the yardangs and the mouth of the gauntlet.
Aeson opens his massive maw, and a stream of bright orange flames comes billowing out.
There’s too much distance between us for the blaze to be anything more than a warning shot, but indignation spikes through me all the same.
Suddenly, Aeson’s attention snaps to me.
I jerk my head forward so fast that my vertebrae crack from the force and a surge of shocked panic overrides my concentration.
He didn’t see me , I tell myself. There’s no way he knows it’s me, even if he did. I’m fully covered in riding gear and wearing a helmet he can’t see into , I try again, when the first assurances don’t get the job done.
“Evasive maneuvers!” Gable screams through the com, and instantly I bank right and angle up, missing Vero’s flier by inches as he darts left and down.
A frustrated rumble fills the air behind me, and with a sharp stab of alarm, I realize that Aeson is almost on top of us. I have no fucking clue how he just teleported from where he was to where he is now, but the direness of the situation doesn’t leave room for questions, only action.
The six of us operating the fliers weave around one another in a terrifyingly dangerous knot of movement designed to keep affinities from locking on to us—and dragon hands from plucking a solitary rider from their steed.
We dart and dash in a practiced throng of mayhem that requires only one wrong move to send the others crashing to the sands.
In a pattern each of the Syphons knows by heart, I pitch to the left and up, zipping through Enslee and Vero, then down through the center in a practiced waltz of sandcycles.
“I hate this part,” Sofann whines, and I really wish Olinta hadn’t unbuckled behind me, because I feel her holding on for dear life while we all scramble to make it to the ridgeline.
Out of nowhere, Iker comes crashing down from the heavens, Herm and Sondar right on his tail.
“What the fuck!” Gable growls when he has to break formation in order to avoid being clipped by one of Iker’s silver wings.
The wyvern is supposed to be leading the two Wing members on his ass away from the rest of us, not joining in on the action. Iker dive-bombs Aeson like a crow pestering an eagle for the fish clutched in its talons, and the two go head-to-head.
Enslee curses the old bastard for his hypocritical break in protocol, but he can’t hear shit sans a com.
The gauntlet finally comes into view, and we abandon our evasive maneuvers and fly full tilt into the hollowed-out canyon we’ve been aiming for since we abandoned our wards for the first and last time and tore out into the desert.
The canyon walls are just wide enough for a dragon’s wingspan, but it will greatly limit their maneuverability. Overhead, rocky arches stripe the full length of the canyon, which means once you’re inside the gauntlet, it’s difficult to get out, and picking off sandcycles from above isn’t an option.
I fall back a little, letting Enslee, Amadi, and Vero take the lead while Mayur, Gable, and I bring up the rear. The shadows of the canyon blanket us, and my visor auto-adjusts to the change in light until I can once again see everything clearly.
A wyvern’s scream and the outraged roars of several dragons follow us into the canyon, but when I look back, the owners of those vocalizations are nowhere to be seen.
We keep a steady pace, expertly navigating the keyholes of the canyon and avoiding the snares and fly lines we’ve fit throughout the terrain.
I haven’t flown this route in almost five months, so I pull up a map of the booby traps and fix it to the right side of my visor, just in case.
“Wyverns, go,” Craith orders quietly, and I wince as the command crackles over our coms.
We try not to use them in here because the signals can sometimes fuck with the older detonators buried in this valley.
Thankfully, nothing explodes, and I reach back and tap Olinta twice, before giving her a hand signal that tells her she’s got this.
She squeezes my hand affectionately once and then jumps off the back of my flier.
The sandcycle totters a little, but I get her right in no time and watch as Olinta, Sofann, and Craith streak ahead of us on their fly-packs as they race to take up their positions throughout the canyon.
And now we wait.