Chapter 21
Chapter twenty-one
Valenna
Hera reared back, her eyes wild, the muscles under her scales rippling.
She shook her head, trying to loosen the muzzle, then tore at it with her claws.
Evander tried to calm her, pulling rhythmically on the lead line attached to the muzzle and calling to her, but Hera lurched it from his hands and cracked her tail like a whip.
It smashed the fence. Onlookers ran screaming.
Valenna ducked, the tail sailing over her head with a whoosh.
In the commotion, she lost sight of Evander, and when she spotted him again, he had retreated to the edge of the paddock, where he stood braced like a runner at a starting line.
Hera whirled, her tail slicing. It struck the barn doors, tearing them from their hinges, then slapped her legs and curled around her feet.
Evander sprinted toward her and jumped, catching a ridge of bone on her shoulder.
He dangled, then pulled himself onto her back.
Mad with terror, Hera didn’t notice him any more than she might have noticed a troublesome fly. She writhed, roaring, her necks twisting as she scraped her muzzled head along the ground, then smashed it into the barn wall, then swept it over a line of fence, cracking the rails like kindling.
Valenna expected Evander to be thrown with every one of Hera’s violent thrashes, but he expertly kept his balance. Her old suspicions rose again. How was he so adept at this? One didn’t learn to ride a hydra from two years’ training in Largotia.
Evander dropped the leather strap over Hera’s shoulders, fastened the ends around her middle neck, and swung down along her belly. He landed on his feet, rolled to soften the impact, and waited, bobbing slightly, timing his run.
Hera raised her tail and slapped it against the ground, lifting her stomach and exposing it to the spear.
Valenna shook herself. No, not the spear. Evander was planning to dash under Hera and tighten the tether behind her legs, restricting the motion of her heads. He would have three seconds, perhaps less, to pass beneath her before she crushed him.
In all her years of fighting and training dragons, Valenna had never seen anyone do anything so mad.
“Watch your timing!” she shouted. “Wait until she stands!”
He nodded. He knew what to do, of course. Still, reminding him made Valenna feel better.
Haldir appeared beside her, gripping a long rod made of dragon ivory.
It fizzed, spitting sparks from a glowing mushroom head jammed into the end.
Behind him, Ignatius, Elspeth, and Rosemary waited, similarly armed.
Valenna guessed that he meant to force Hera against the barn, corner her, and muzzle her remaining heads. An insane plan.
“No spark sticks!” Valenna cried.
Hera lifted her tail, and Evander ran toward her, but as he did, Haldir jumped over the fence and plunged toward the hydra, his spark stick buzzing. The others followed.
The onlookers cheered as Haldir led the charge across the paddock.
Hera saw Haldir and swung her tail toward him, but Evander was trapped in its path. Evander slid to his stomach, but Hera’s tail spike hooked on his leather harness and flung him through the air. He crashed against the barn wall, thudded into the dirt, and lay still.
“No!” Valenna shouted. She started over the fence, but Samara caught her arm and pulled her back as Hera reared onto her hind legs, her claws swiping.
The hydra snatched Rosemary and tossed the girl into the air.
She landed in a heap on the grassy slope.
The others fled to the fence and piled over it as an underkeeper helped Rosemary to her feet.
“Go!” Valenna screamed at Samara. “Get him!”
Ashen-faced, Samara recoiled from the fence and the blur of scales and sinew.
Giles, standing at the winch, gripped her shoulder. “Wait! The hydra will crush you!”
“It’ll crush him first!” Valenna cried, looking around at the trainees. They glanced away, tight-lipped, and she realized not one of them was willing to risk their lives for Evander Trevelyan.
“You’re cowards,” Valenna spat.
Valenna grabbed the chain, but Samara lifted her chin, snatched it from her hand, and vaulted into the paddock. Hera roared, startled by the sudden movement, and twisted toward her, jaws snapping. Samara did not slow.
Valenna regretted calling her a coward— the girl had iron nerves.
Samara reached Evander and slid to her knees beside him.
He lay motionless—dead or unconscious, Valenna couldn’t tell.
She watched in agony as Samara attempted to latch the chain to Evander’s harness, but she was frightened and her hands were clumsy.
Hera’s tail swept over them, and Samara had to drop to the ground to avoid having her neck broken.
Swearing, Valenna jumped the fence and ran toward Hera, waving her arms and shouting. The hydra turned toward her, crouched like a cat about to pounce on a mouse, and crept toward her, shoulders jutting. Valenna waited until the hydra’s front legs flexed, and then she dropped to the ground.
For an instant, Hera seemed disoriented. Valenna had disappeared from her line of sight. Prey didn’t do that. Prey ran, or screamed, or struggled. Behind her, Samara hooked the chain to Evander’s harness.
The ground thrummed as Hera’s huge feet thudded on either side of Valenna’s head. The hydra’s nostrils flared, steam seeping between her middle head’s yellow, serrated teeth. Boiling water bubbled in her gullet—Valenna could hear it echoing in the creature’s throat.
No, Valenna thought. This isn’t right. I wasn’t the one who was supposed to die today.
“Down, Hera!” Valenna gasped. “DOWN!”
All three heads lowered, ready to flay the flesh from her bones, then tear her to shreds.
Valenna covered her head with her arms as a green blur interposed between her and the hydra.
Evander slid in front of her, a knife gripped in his hand. He reached out, grabbed Hera’s center head, and pulled her snout into his chest. Swiftly, he slipped the knife blade under the muzzle and cut the straps. Then he tore it from her mouth and threw it aside.
Hera shook her head. He dug his fingers into her jaw, holding her jutting brow against his body. She huffed, and he hummed, “All better now. No one is hurting you.”
Hera butted him, steam billowing from her mouth. He sat back, pulling the right head with him. The other two heads wound into a slithering S, wary, ready to strike.
“Run, Val,” he murmured.
But Valenna was terrified that if she moved, Hera would startle, snap, blast them with the water boiling in her stomach.
Evander let out a long breath through his nose as his hands tightened on Hera’s snout.
A watery ripple, like heat radiating off a metal roof, drifted from his fingers, and Valenna smelled enchantment, sharp and stinging as frosty air.
She gasped with the jarring realization that the magic was coming from Evander.
Evander couldn’t have magic. He was a woodcutter’s son from the plains.
The air thrummed. Lost in her bewilderment, Valenna clutched Evander’s shoulders as Hera closed her mouth, her eyelids drooping.
Evander lay back, resting his head on Valenna’s knees, and Hera bent her center head over him, her snarling mouth dripping steaming saliva onto his shirt.
Her left and right heads waited to see what the big head would do.
The hydra let out a loud huff that blew Evander’s sweaty hair away from his forehead.
He reached up, as calm as if he were in bed, and laid his hands under the hydra’s craggy jaw. She purred.
A flicker of hope rose in Valenna’s chest. They were going to survive.
Until a shadow passed above them, and a guttural cry tremored in the air.
Raska’s timing couldn’t have been worse.
Hera’s eyes flew open, and her nostrils flared. Her left head snapped at the air, as if challenging the bird. Her right head clamped its teeth around Evander’s torso.
Choking on a scream, Valenna grabbed his harness, trying to yank him out of Hera’s mouth, but Hera ripped him from her grasp and charged across the paddock, through the fence, and down the hill toward the trees.