“You will not land! We are not giving up!”
Thula screeched and bent her head, pulling us downward. With my right hand, I hauled back on the reins, while my left hand fought with my stupid boot. Why hadn’t I listened to Arlen? He hadn’t been tricking me, he’d been trying to teach me how to ride when no one else had bothered.
“Dima, I’m sorry. It’s over. That girl…”
“What girl?” I roared over the wind, left hand furiously working to undo the tight laces of my boot.
“Traka’s groom.”
“Who the hell is Traka?” I yelled as the laces finally came free, but even as the words left my mouth, I remembered Kaelina’s dragon handler giving her that strange slow nod. In the back of my mind, I’d been assuming Raff’s inexperience had caused this, but… “Never mind! Did someone mess with my saddle?! Why didn’t you tell me?!”
“She helped Raff. She must have… not helped.”
Leaning over as far as I dared, I grasped the lip of my boot and pushed. My foot shot out, driving my knee into my left eye. Stars danced around my head as the eye immediately swelled shut. Thula turned sharply to the right, sailing over a foaming river full of jagged rocks toward a meadow on the other side.
“Thula, no! I have an idea!” I screamed as my boot splashed down into the rapids. “Fly up! Fly up!”
“Dima…”
Dropping the reins, I reached over the saddle horn and plunged my hands under the thick cushion, digging until I grasped the two leather straps sewn onto her back.
“Fly up!” I bellowed, lifting my body off the saddle, all my weight momentarily suspended on my right stirrup.
With a fiery huff, Thula obeyed, thrusting vertically into the sky with one mighty stroke of her wings. The emergency straps bit into my hands as I pushed all of my weight into the right stirrup.
The saddle slid backward, dragging the fluttering broken front straps with it until only my toe touched the stirrup. I curled my head into my chest, gasping in pain as a warm liquid filled my palms, slicking them. In the jostling space between my curved body and the bouncing saddle, I saw the meadow falling farther and farther behind us as Thula shot straight as an arrow into the clouds.
Chapter Eleven
The saddle strap behind Thula’s wings held fast, causing the loose front portion of the saddle to bounce wildly against the dragon’s back. Worse, the motion pushed the thick cushion upwards, swallowing my hands. Between that and the blood, I couldn’t do this for long. Another dizzying downward glance showed me the spikes of Thula’s tail, waiting to impale me on the way to the ground.
Her tail!
“Thula!” I shouted, nearly choking as wind rushed down my throat. “Use your tail! Cut the strap!”
Her tail whistled through the air as it curled up between her legs. Her body rocked with the effort of sawing. The muscles in my arms and back burned as though another dragon had snuck up behind us and let loose its torch. Thula’s course began to zig-zag and what little I had eaten this morning began working its way up to my throat.
The strap snapped like the crack of a steed whip, and the stirrup fell away from my toes. Grunting, I pushed both feet against the seat and kicked downward like a jackrat fighting a canin for its life.
As the saddle and the cushion dropped, the air lifted my body away from Thula’s, flapping me like a tunic on a clothesline. Streams of blood ran down my wrists, and my right fingers started to slip.
Thula bowed her long neck, and her rigid spine rose up to meet me, knocking all the air from my chest. Her great wings slowed, and we hovered there in the sky, surrounded by wispy white clouds. Her rib cage heaved under my sprawled arms and legs, one breath for every three of my own.
“That was fun.”
Lifting my sweaty cheek from her bare skin, I found one of her big yellow eyes peering back at me. I didn’t know enough about dragon facial expressions yet to say for certain if my dragon had a very different idea of fun than I did, or if she was just very, very sarcastic.
Panting, I pulled myself up into a sitting position, and even though it made my head spin with the imagined sensation of falling to my doom, I peeled my bloody, shredded hands off the emergency straps and wiped them on my breeches, leaving gruesome red streaks.
Swiping the wet hair out of my eyes, I grinned. Maybe what just happened wasn’t fun exactly, but… it was pretty damn amazing.
“Can we catch up?”
She snorted sparks. “Hold on tight.”
***
“Where did you go?” Arlen demanded, dropping down on Elanich from a higher altitude as soon as we approached. “And where the hell is your saddle?”
Thula didn’t slow, forcing Arlen to crack his reins and make Elanich fly faster. But it was obvious the larger, heavier dragon was not made for sprinting and they lagged at least two tail lengths behind us.
“Did you land?” Arlen yelled over the wind whipping past my ears. “You might as well turn back if you landed!”
“I didn’t land!” I yelled back over my shoulder. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a race to win!”
“It’s already started! You’ll never catch up!”
I twisted to glare at him. “That’s funny. I thought your job was to make sure all of the first-years reached the canyon?”
“I did.” Arlen kicked his heels into Elanich’s sides, so the white dragon lurched forward, flying wingtip to wingtip with us. Arlen shrugged. “All the real ones.”
It was a good thing I didn’t have the reins or I would have crashed Thula right into his smug face. “So were you in on it?” I snarled.
“In on what?” He asked, a note of caution in his voice.
“Don’t tell me Kaelina’s dragon handle came up with the idea herself?”
The canyon loomed just ahead of us, two dark rocky walls rising over the tree line on either side of the choppy river. A thick gray fog billowed out from between the cliffs, a space that seemed barely wide enough to fit two dragons flying side by side, let alone twelve—soon to be thirteen.
“What are you saying?” Arlen shouted. “Speak plainly!”
Without looking at him, I said, “Thula says Kaelina’s handler offered to help my brother saddle Thula, but she didn’t—”
“Thula says?” He asked slowly. “What do you mean Thula says?”
Rolling my eyes, I whipped my head around to tell him off for his blatant attempt to distract me from reaching the canyon, but the words died in my mouth when I saw the look of utter confusion on his face.
“You know,” I said, making a talking mouth out of one hand and lifting it to my head. “She told me. The girl offered to help but obviously did something to the front strap instead. It came loose.”
“It’s called a girth,” he said automatically, and then roughly shook his head. “Dima, are you telling me your dragon talks to you?”
I cut my eyes at Elanich and scoffed. “Are you telling me yours doesn’t?”
Arlen’s whole face scrunched up under his helmet—wonder made his perfect features look much more human. And suddenly I realized I’d made a colossal mistake. Thula must have known it too because without me even asking, she called on some hidden reserve of speed and shot ahead of the Noble and his apparently mute dragon.
“Just kidding!” I called over my shoulder. “See you later!”
Hunching over and gripping the handles tighter, I hissed, “Did you forget to tell me something, Thula?”
“Maybe.”
And then the canyon swallowed us whole. My lungs seized up, and my eyes clenched shut. Smoke. Not fog. Smoke. Thick roiling clouds of smoke swirled between the rocky cliffs. From the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a burning shrub clinging to a ledge.
“Go lower!” I ordered, knowing from my days in the soup stall that smoke always rises.
Thula swooped until we were flying just above the river, close enough for mist to cool my burning face. Tilting my face up, there was no blue sky above us, only smoke
, and patches of flames licking out from the walls.
Well, that’s one way to win.
Thula lurched upward, cracking my teeth together. Looking back, I saw a pale green perched on an outcropping of rock, soaking its tail in the water. The girl on its back had removed her helmet and coughed violently into the crook of her elbow. And then the river turned sharply, and they disappeared behind the canyon wall.
Blinking the stinging tears out of my eyes, I shouted, “There’s no way we’re getting any medallions in that mess. But if we get back to the castle first, we can still win.”
Thula banked sharply to the left, narrowly avoiding an enormous black dragon clinging to the wall, its yellow eyes frantically searching the water—presumably for the rider that no longer sat in its saddle.
Above us, the smoke grew thicker and the fires closer together. Someone had breezed through here lighting everything up as they went. Were they collecting medallions, or did they have the same idea as me—run for home and joust it out with whoever brought in the most medallions?
A tremendous roar of pain shook the canyon, and a third dragon dropped like a rock, throwing a wave of water over us as we soared on past. I twisted and saw Yarben’s green dragon bobbing on the rapids, flailing for purchase on one of the jagged rocks. Every human instinct within me told me to go back and search for the missing boy, but that wasn’t how things worked here. All that mattered was winning, for me more than anyone since they could all borrow a hundred lousy gemlinks from their Noble parents whenever they wanted.
Hot pain plunged into my shoulder, splattering blood on the side of my face. I fell onto Thula’s shoulder blades, and her rigid scales cut deeply into my forehead. Throwing my torso upright, I shook the blood out of my eyes and saw the crossbow bolt jutting from under my shoulder bone. I knew better than to rip it out. Memories flashed across my spinning mind—the blood spurting out of my father’s chest when Lord Lanthe withdrew his sword.
Another bolt whizzed by my head.
“Fly up! Fly up!” I gasped as my shoulder throbbed with blistering pain.
Thula rose swiftly, tilting left and then right to avoid more of the fiery shrubs. Smoke poured into my lungs, and my vision blurred.
“Just get us home,” I croaked.
Thula shrieked, and something warm, wet, and thick splashed over my arms. Forcing my eyes open, a fluttering sound caught my attention. Looking right, I gasped. The river was visible through a jagged hole in Thula’s wing. She wobbled in the air as several streams of blood spurted across each other.
A cheer rose up just ahead. Squinting through the smoke, I saw a purple and white banner waving in the wind.
“The finish line!”
Thula shrieked again, but I recognized it for a sound of determination not defeat. She surged up through the smoke and past the purple banner. One of her loose reins fell back and slapped me across the face, but as she turned for home, it slipped out of reach again.
A massive brown dragon perched atop the right side of the cliff. The boy on its back wore only the light armor Arlen had been wearing last night, and he held his helmet in his lap. His face went slack with shock when he realized which pair had just sailed past him.
“Go, Thula, go!” I cried, squeezing her with my knees and shaking the emergency handles. Guilt prickled my conscience. She was severely injured and who knew how many riders were already ahead of us. I should let her slow down.
But Pali needed medicine, and Kaelina Lanthe needed to know her plan hadn’t worked. They were not getting rid of me that easily.
“Please, Thula…” I begged.
Thula’s rib cage expanded as she drew in a deep breath. And then the world around me blurred, smoke and trees and rocks becoming one muddy color whizzing past me as Thula surged ahead with unbelievable speed.
We raced past one dragon and then another. The wind tore at my hair like it might pull it from my head. My eyes blurred with more tears, and I hunkered down with my head between my hands. The metallic tang of my own blood filled my nose. My awareness faded in and out, but somehow I held on.
“Impressive ride, peasant,” the voice drifted into my head as if in a dream. “Too bad no one else will never know about it.”
Lifting my throbbing head, I saw Kaelina Lanthe’s face floating in several different place. Blinking, she came into focus, perched like a dangerous insect in the stirrups of her saddle, flaying her poor dragon’s hindquarters with her whip. The creature gasped with every wing stroke and buckets of white foamed poured from its mouth.
Kaelina brought the whip down hard enough to spray blood as she yanked the reins across the dragon’s neck, driving her under us. Thula hissed and snapped at the dragon’s pink wing. The poor beast bellowed in fear and rolled its cloudy eyes.
But as the pair swooped beneath us, Thula careened into a roll. The world tilted around me, and I clung to the handles with all my might as the ground became the sky. Somewhere Kaelina laughed. Thula began to wheeze. She also began to fall.
Opening my eyes, I found the reins twisted around Thula’s neck, biting into the freshly healed skin. Her teeth slashed at the air under Kaelina’s dragon’s belly, but the vicious girl threw down my reins she had smoothly snatched from the air. With another cruel laugh and slap of her whip, they soared out of sight.
Thula immediately righted herself, and I could have sworn I heard her laugh inside my head. I tried to lift myself to see what was happening now, but my muscles no longer obeyed me. I lay with my cheek pressed to Thula’s back, listening to her mighty heart thump, watching spurts of black blood leave the hole in her wing with each one.
A shadow blotted out the sun and then fell away.
Kaelina. Her face contorted with rage, framed by her dragon’s two stubby horns. A smile parted my lips, and salty blood dribbled onto my tongue. She must have slowed down after she thought she’d as good as killed us. Her whip flashed again and again, and my heart broke for the dragon as it shrieked and faltered in the sky, tossing inky foam through the air. It was bleeding inside.
Thula dipped lower and lower. A low hum filled my ears. I saw myself tumbling off the back of a young cindragon, flopping into the ash and bursting into tears. Raff’s laughter. Pali’s tiny worried face. My father’s hands setting me upright again.
“Great ride, Dima doll.”
The hum exploded into a great roar. Gasping, I opened my eyes. Hands pressed me back to the hard ground. The ground. My fingertips curled, scraping cobblestones — the courtyard. Hector’s grizzled face loomed over me, white as Arlen’s dragon.
And then there was Arlen, his mouth as hard as ever, but his eyes full of something… else. Fingers threaded through mine, and for a moment I thought they belonged to him, but then my head rolled to the side, and I saw Raff. Tears streaked his face, but when our eyes met, he threw back his head and whooped.
“What happened?” I whispered, twisting my fingers up with his.
“What happened?” He laughed. “Dima, you won.”
Chapter Twelve
Later, I would only remember flashes of the first few days in the infirmary. Amelie stuffing spoonfuls of floral-sweet healing drought down my throat. Hector sitting in the chair beside my bed, scratching his chin. Arlen standing by the window, not looking at me at all. My father leaning in the doorway, smiling. Pali playing with a straw doll on the floor. Mother spooning a rare rookster noodle broth into my mouth.
And then finally, my eyes popped open and stayed that way. A low stone ceiling arched over me, and dusky light drifted through the circular window. A figure emerged from the shadows at the corner of my room. Arlen?
No. Not even close. The man peering down at me had a head shaped like a big toe, its uneven form accentuated by his slick, salt-and-pepper hair. His weak chin wobble as a thin smile crossed his pale pink lips.
“The peasant lives.”
Fear and rage fought for control of my brain. My body scooted up and against the headboard of the bed, while my knee d
rew up of its own accord, ready to kick.
Lord Lanthe chuckled. He tossed the tails of the dark cloak he wore over his tunic and settled onto the edge of my body. My skin crawled as though my sheets were teeming with roaches.
“What do you want?” I growled.
His smile widened, making unsettling lines between his lips and his chin like he wasn’t even a person, but some traveling jester’s marionette.
“You know who I am then.”
“I do.” A murderer. Just like your daughter.
“Good.” He patted my hand, and I couldn’t wait to find a knife and cut it off, so I never had to remember that touch again. “Then you know how much money I have.”
“What?” I whispered, my voice still paper thin from smoke inhalation.
“You know how much money I have.” He smiled. “So name your price.”
My brow furrowed. I must have been wrong about being awake.
“What?”
“Such a big vocabulary!” He sighed and spoke slower. “Name. Your. Price.”
“For what?” I shook my head, trying to get out of his dream.
“For the dragon, of course!” He chuckled. “You must know she was never meant for you.”
My fists balled up in the sheets. “She called me.”
He waved his hand in front of his face. “A mistake. She was… confused. But now you’ve had your fun. It’s time she found a more appropriate rider before the Dragon Games.”
“But I won.” My temples throbbed. Where was Amelie with that healing drought?
He made an exaggerated frown with his little eyes scrunched up. “Actually, you tied. With my daughter. You arrived first, but she did have the most medals.”
“Then we joust,” I growled eagerly.
Lanthe laughed and patted my hand again. I jerked it back this time.
“While I admire such tenacity, especially in a peasant, I think a more agreeable solution for everybody is to name your price. Come on now. Anything you want. Let my daughter have the dragon she deserves, and I’ll make your wildest dreams come true.”
Dragon Games Page 9
