CHAPTER NINE
Starting tenth wasn’t ideal at the best of times, but in Eauveil?
I could have been the best rider in the pack and the odds would still have been stacked against me.
The Volitant Chroma commentators only ever had two things to say here: it was iconic for the history, and it was near impossible to overtake.
Half a century of dragons speeding around the harbour, taking the narrow streets two at a time when there was only space for one.
I rolled my shoulders. This wasn’t going to be about rider versus rider.
We were starting from the lowest launch point thanks to my unlucky draw ahead of the race.
Each of us had been assigned a floor of the tower, with a short balcony our only runway.
Gottyk barely had any room for a running start before having to take off into the air, only thirty feet above the ground.
Directly above us on the fourth storey was Omar Wilver on his purple Ballenir dragon. He would be my first obstacle.
Then it would be the city itself.
It stretched out in front of us in ornate, centuries-old stonework.
Buildings storeys upon storeys high that our dragons couldn’t go above without being penalized.
The streets were narrow at the best of times, but the circuit specifically wound under and over bridges, around single-space corners and tight hairpins that led to the harbour before doubling back on itself.
All in a city whose history was as old as the continent itself.
It was, frankly, wild to host a dragon race through it all.
‘Thirty seconds to launch,’ Hector’s voice cut through my thoughts, only slightly less jarring now it was my second race.
My stomach flipped over as I tapped the side of my helmet.
‘Ready.’ It wasn’t my voice that I heard come out, it was Thorne’s. I thought it would ease the nerves to hear Josie’s augment working, but it was just as unsettling as hearing my own voice.
It didn’t affect the comms – Josie had at least been patient when I’d asked. It was changing my voice before it even reached the comms sensors inside my helmet. No interfering with official Volitant communications, since that was against the rules. We wouldn’t want to break any of those.
Regardless of the details, it worked.
‘Ten seconds to launch.’
I only grunted in response. I had watched hours of Thorne’s race casts in my dorm room since the last race and it wouldn’t be for nothing.
Josie had figured out the pitch of his voice for the augment so I just had to pay attention to the way he spoke to the team.
Unsurprisingly, he wasn’t pleasant and he wasn’t verbose.
Gottyk shifted slightly underneath me. I leaned forward in anticipation, hanging on to the saddle pommel with the reins wrapped around my hands.
The flare sizzled up into the sky, red and bold against the grey clouds that cast a gloom over the city. It popped.
Gottyk took off running.
I moved with him, staying as loose as I could to not hinder his pace. The floor vanished from under us. His wings pulsed either side of my legs, pushing the air down and raising us up slowly but surely.
Flashes of colour appeared above us, diving into my view from their superior launch points. Green, blue, white and orange. Before I’d even gained any height at least one Victrolia and Prevere had managed to take turn one.
More importantly, Omar Wilver on his Ballenir purple, was airborne and in the space I needed.
We tailed him into turn one, climbing in height as we banked around the shallow right-hander.
We’d managed to get some height on Omar, but he had experience.
He was taking up more space than needed, spreading out on the most efficient path around the circuit.
He knew I was behind him and had no intention of letting me pass.
The longer the race went on the harder it would be to pass him, so I pushed harder.
Gottyk’s wing tip flew by the open windows of the residential building at the exit of the chicane, but before we could get anywhere near the open-mouthed spectators the invisible barrier crackled to life.
White lines burst from the contact point like living, shattered glass, following the contact.
I angled Gottyk away and the barrier cleared.
My cheeks flushed. Forgetting the barrier was something a rookie would do.
The barrier couldn’t be opaque, otherwise the wealthy onlookers who lived in the circuitside apartments wouldn’t be able to watch the race.
It did mean I had to pay more attention though.
A wing tip grazing the barrier was one thing, but clipping a wing or flying right into it would be a thousand times worse.
We cleared the two long straights that bordered the expensive boats lined up in the harbour just as the sun broke through the clouds, enough to make the ocean sparkle.
It wasn’t enough to distract me though. I chanced a view to my right and saw a flash of orange through the gaps in the buildings.
Bach was on the other side of the circuit, having nearly cleared his first lap.
Thirty seconds later, I made it back around. We wove between the vast stone buildings, still on Omar’s tail.
The split routes were coming up just as more comms came through.
‘The remaining arsenals are on the short and long routes, one left on short and three on long. Recommendation: short to make up time on Wilver.’
It seemed like a waste of time to go out of my way to tap my helmet only to grunt in reply, but remaining in character was an important priority if I was going to make stupid mistakes like forgetting about circuit barriers.
Omar glanced over his shoulder at me, I was close enough to be setting off his proximity sensors.
Why he did that instead of relying on his team to tell him who was behind, I wasn’t sure.
If I had been flying as myself, I’d have offered a wave – nice and casual to throw him off. I wasn’t myself though, I was Thorne.
So I tapped my heel on Gottyk and had him speed up as much as he could, his head and neck flying parallel with the tail of Omar’s dragon.
They banked a hard left and took the long branch of the circuit. Maybe there was a benefit to riding under Thorne’s name – other than the Bolls, the other riders didn’t want to be near me.
We flew ahead into the short route. A pedestrian bridge was ahead, a covered walkway made of glass – any other day of the year it was just an especially fancy way of cutting across town. Today it was one of the most expensive ways to watch the race.
‘Arsenal is under the bridge, attached to the underside.’
A benefit of flying in last is that the other teams had found the hidden caches already. I only had to pull off making contact with it.
I directed Gottyk downwards, enough that the bridge wouldn’t cleave my head off. If the location hadn’t been revealed to me over the comms, the fans would have made it clear regardless. They stood either side of a spot on the bridge, watching me approach and ready to see me soar underneath.
My hand raised, I braced against the saddle so I could go higher if I needed to.
We whipped underneath and my hand slammed against the one remaining hilt. Then it slipped.
My back arched, my fingers brushing against the metal for one long moment.
With only a thumb and two fingers on the hilt I clamped down as hard as possible. I didn’t need to pull, I was well on my way out from under the bridge as Gottyk kept us moving forward at high speed. It thankfully, miraculously, pulled free.
‘Arcans ahead.’
‘Oh for fuck’s sake!’ That wasn’t meant for the team. That was just for me.
I fumbled with the hilt, getting it connected to my glove and twisting the dial to the great sword. The oversized orange blade shot out, leaving a vibrant ghost in its wake. What it lacked in manoeuvrability it made up for in style, at least.
Bronze flashes of arcans scattered across the track in front of us, right where the three branches converged. Omar would still be partway down his longer route, so it was up to me to break through.
I batted the first one away using the sword blade like a shield, not even seeing it clearly before the collision.
The next ones were already on us. Instead of the oversized rodent style of the Kiestral race, these Mirendi arcans were all bugs.
Their hard armoured shells cracked open and thin sheet-metal wings fluttered out, letting them buzz around me and Gottyk while leaving behind arcanite mist trails just like my sword.
Like the beetles they mimicked – only a hundred times bigger – they swarmed. Gottyk flew onwards, but they followed. Three landed on me, forcing me to let go of the reins to yank them from my armour.
The arcans landed on Gottyk too. In a panic I swept them off with the sword, cleaving through the thin wings. I didn’t want them anywhere near my dragon.
I grabbed the reins again, pulling up, but only one side went taut, making Gottyk lean left instead of right as we approached turn one again.
‘No! Up, Gottyk!’
I pulled again and saw the problem – I’d cut through the reins on the right-hand side.
‘Shit!’
It was the sword. It was too big and cumbersome to aim with accuracy. The only credit I would ever give Thorne was that he’d made wielding this monstrosity look easy.
More arcans cut towards us. I swung the sword overhead, hoping windmilling the damn thing would deter them from getting too close.
Too many got past. The suit’s haptic feedback sent the feeling of their needle legs through to my skin.
I suppressed the urge to writhe and yelled in frustration instead.
No amount of swinging the sword was working. Fine. I’d use Gottyk’s weapon instead.
‘Burn, Gottyk!’
He didn’t need me to clarify where, he could feel them too. The light started at the base of his neck, sparking at each vertebrae. The flame roared out and Gottyk rolled his head. Fire spiralled around us. In half a second we were engulfed in flames.