by Angie Sage
Joss felt almost sorry for Tamra as the growing realization of Bellacrux’s betrayal spread over her sharp, watchful features. “Bellacrux,” Tamra gasped. “W-what’s going on?”
In answer, Bellacrux drew in a long, deep firebreath, and Tamra’s eyes opened wide with fear. In a moment she was out of the wicket, slamming it behind her. With her legs suddenly weak as water, Tamra sank slowly to the floor. Bellacrux, their faithful Grand, who had loved them like her own, given them rides when they were little, and taught them dragonsong, had turned.
Trembling with shock, Tamra listened to the sounds of the launching door creaking as one by one the dragons took off. When all was quiet, she nervously opened the wicket and walked across the empty chamber. She stood at the massive opening, staring up into the night sky, and watched as the dark shapes of the three dragons flew steadily away, with Bellacrux leading them past the main exit route toward a pass named the Knife for its narrowness and the razor-sharp rocks that stuck out from its sides. Bellacrux had chosen well, Tamra thought. No Raptor would willingly give chase through the Knife at night.
A wave of pure anger came over Tamra. How dare Bellacrux betray the family? How dare that so-called brother throw all they had done for him in their faces? And how dare that Allinson kid still be alive? The sight of the three dragons disappearing into the Knife galvanized Tamra into action. Bellacrux and those kids would not get away with this. She would hunt them down and avenge their betrayal.
In a moment Tamra was out of the chamber and racing toward the Lennix stairs. She knew where to find a Raptor who was desperate enough to fly the Knife at night—and she was going to get him.
The trio of dragons emerged safely from the Knife and set off above the empty plains. Herlenna’s torn wing was troubling her, forcing them to fly much more slowly than they would have liked. With the exhilaration of the escape behind them, Joss and Allie began to worry about the slow pace. Neither could believe that they had managed to get away from Fortress Lennix. It was almost too good to be true, Joss thought as both he and Allie stared back into the night, searching the dark mountains behind them for signs of pursuit. Surely Tamra must have alerted the Roost?
It was the first time Allie had ever flown on a dragon. The initial few minutes were pure excitement mixed with a little thrill of terror, and then she began to get the strangest feeling: that Bellacrux’s great green wings had become part of her and that she herself was flying. A feeling of awe crept over Allie: In flight, she and Bellacrux were one.
Joss felt almost wild with relief. He had managed to do everything right to make their escape possible, and now, for the first time, he and Lysander were really together. If they could just make it to the Green hideout, there would be no more hiding, no more fear, no more worry. It would be a dream come true. Once again he glanced back to check for pursuers, and to his relief there were still none. The moon was full and the star-dusted sky was clear apart from a few small clouds. There was not a Raptor in sight. Which was strange, Joss thought. Surely Tamra was not going to ignore their escape?
They were flying over the stone circle now, and both Joss and Allie looked down at the ancient stones standing proud in the moonlight, guiding them on their way. Allie watched the Zolls’ farmhouse, dark and still in the night, pass beneath her, and she smiled to think how shocked Madam Zoll would be if she looked out the window now and saw her flying Bellacrux, the fabled Lennix Grand.
Leaving the farmhouse behind, they flew steadily onward, following Herlenna and her precious hatchling. Now they were heading out over bare hills toward the forests where deep in a hidden valley, the last of the Greens kept a precarious foothold. A sudden flare of light on his wrist told Joss that he had not entirely escaped Lennix life. He looked down at his Lennix watch and saw 00:00 flash up: midnight. Joss pulled the time tyrant off his wrist and sent it tumbling toward the ground, flashing as if in panic at its fall. It landed in a lone tree, where it spent the rest of its life providing endless fascination for a nest of baby owls.
As the clock outside Intensive Care flipped over to 00:00, Sirin was sitting on a hard chair, watching the swinging doors that led into the unit. A fierce red light was glowing above the door and people wearing what looked like blue pajamas kept hurrying in. Sirin sat and stared at the notices on the opposite wall, but her mind took in not a single word. Next to her sat Mandy. Mandy wore a strained expression and kept glancing anxiously at Sirin, who pointedly ignored her. Sirin didn’t want to hold Mandy’s hand or have a “nice toffee” or be told not to worry. Sirin just wanted some space in which to remember how it was when she, Mum, and Sammi were happy in their tiny flat up in the clouds, but it felt like a lifetime ago. In fact, it seemed to Sirin that she had always lived with Mandy, Mr. Mandy, their two noisy little boys, and their nasty, nippy hamster.
While the comings and goings from Intensive Care flowed by her, Sirin took refuge in her mother’s dragon stories. She thought about how her mother had said you could still find places that remembered the dragons if you knew where to look. There were golden dragon heads hidden in ancient wells, there were dancing dragons of azure blue carved deep into sea caves, and, if you stood on the top of rolling chalk hills at sunset, you could look down and see the shadows cast by the huge ancient dragon shapes that their human friends had dug deep into the turf.
Sirin hugged those images to herself and tried to push from her mind the dreadful moment that evening when the phone had rung and Mandy had begun talking into it in whispers and Sirin’s heart had suddenly felt like it was filled with lead. By the time Mandy had come off the phone, Sirin had had her jacket and boots on and was ready to go. Mandy had said nothing at all, just fetched her coat and told her husband they were off to the hospital. And for that, Sirin was grateful.
It was four blocks to the hospital, and the roads had been so packed with traffic that they’d run along the streets, and all the while, Sirin had stared resolutely up at the full moon, riding high above the rooftops, and allowed its peacefulness to take a little bit of the fear away, just for a while.
And now, outside the swinging doors, Mandy was at last silent. She had stopped saying everything would be all right, which Sirin appreciated, because she had a terrible feeling that from now on nothing would ever be all right again. Ever.
An open dragon door, freezing wind, and one empty cage greeted Tamra as she strode into the dungeon. Scowling, she stopped and took stock: The captured Green was gone. That figured. She knew she hadn’t recognized the Green in Bellacrux’s chamber. The astounding treachery of their Grand fired Tamra’s rage to even greater heights. For a moment she considered going to her mother with the whole story, but Tamra was in no mood to share anything with D’Mara. Let her find out for herself, she thought. And by the time she does, I’ll make sure that her precious Bellacrux and her double-crossing toad of a so-called son will be a pile of smoking cinders out on the plains in the middle of nowhere.
Tamra threw open Ramon’s cage and the Blue, all fight quelled by his time in the dungeon, cowered in fear. “Come with me, Ramon,” Tamra told him. “Do what I ask, I’ll set you free.” Encouraged by the absence of a dragon prod, Ramon bowed his head and slunk out.
Tamra led Ramon out onto the dragon door, and as the howl of the wind hit them, she slipped into the unfamiliar rider’s dip. Exhilarated by his unexpected freedom, Ramon rose rapidly up past the sheer wall of the Roost, and under Tamra’s instructions, he headed for the mountains.
From her lookout window in the Lennix quarters, D’Mara was shocked to see a familiar blue Raptor flying rapidly away. D’Mara snatched up her night-sight spyglass and trained it on Ramon; she was horrified to see her eldest daughter ensconced in the rider’s dip. D’Mara banged on the window with her fist. “Tamra! Tamra! Come back here this minute!” she yelled. There was, of course, no response. Aghast, D’Mara watched as the Blue flew into the dreaded Knife pass, and she was left staring into an empty sky. D’Mara fumed with rage. Tamra was up to something, and
she, D’Mara Lennix, was not going to let her get away with it. Enough was enough.
Ramon flew fast and confident through the Knife. The wind funneled along its narrow gap, screaming like a banshee and buffeting him dangerously close to the rocks, but Ramon did not care. He was flying for his future. Apart from a small cut to a wing tip, Ramon emerged unscathed. Tamra was impressed. She liked his go-for-it attitude, and if she had not had other plans cooking, she would have been tempted to try to Lock. She was done sharing with Mirra. Ramon, in turn, appreciated Tamra’s reckless bravery. Deciding to learn from it, he pushed aside his old, timid self and promised himself to take his chances where he found them. One day, he resolved, he would be known as Ramon the Brave.
Ten minutes later, D’Mara and Krane were heading off into the night in pursuit of Tamra. Avoiding the Knife, they took the long way around and flew up over the mountaintops, and as they coasted down D’Mara put her night-sight spyglass to her eye. In the light of the full moon, she saw a distant shimmer of blue. D’Mara smiled; she was on her daughter’s trail. But unfortunately for D’Mara, Krane did not possess the stamina he’d once had; he was no match for Ramon, and soon she was no longer able to see her daughter through her spyglass. The trail was cold.
Tamra was amazed at Ramon’s speed. All Blues were fast, but Ramon was breathtaking. The night winds rushed by and they flew rapidly onward through a starlit sky, and it was not long until Tamra glimpsed what she had been looking for—a distant flash of silver in the moonlight. Bone ash could not stick to smooth silver scales for long, especially in the rush of wingbeats, and in the light of the full moon, to Tamra’s delight, Lysander shone like a beacon.
Ramon’s natural cautiousness made him the ideal tracker. He kept just enough distance from their quarry to blend into the night sky. Whenever Joss and Allie looked back—and they often did—they saw nothing but stars and a few scudding clouds, and they heard nothing but the whistle of the wind in their ears. Once Allie thought she caught a flash of blue in the moonlight, but it quickly disappeared. And so the trio flew slowly, steadily onward, now above a wide expanse of destroyed forest, burned to a few charred trunks standing out like blackened teeth in a damaged mouth. Raptors loved nothing more than to set forest fires, and it was the once-vibrant ancient forest nearest to Fortress Lennix that had suffered the most.
Tamra had now seen all she needed: The traitor Grand and the stolen Silver were following the escaped prisoner Green. The reason for that was obvious—the Green was showing the way. And Tamra knew exactly where that would be: to the Greens’ not-so-secret hideout in the middle of the forest. There was no need to follow any farther. Tamra’s fury had abated in the cold night air, and she now realized that she and Ramon stood little chance against the might of Bellacrux and that her plan of sending all three dragons crashing to the ground in flames was somewhat unrealistic. What she needed was reinforcements—and fast. She was going to make sure that not one of those traitorous dragons ever got within fire-breathing distance of the Greens’ scrappy lump of cave-riddled rock in the middle of the forest. Tamra told Ramon to make a course for the Island of the Blues. At the speed Ramon flew, they would easily overtake Raid Flight Blue, who were flying to conserve energy. Tamra intended to divert the flight to the Greens’ hideout and annihilate it—along with the traitor Bellacrux. Then they’d set fire to the rest of the forest and finish what they’d started. She grinned. It promised to be a good night.
Spurred on by Tamra’s energy and excitement, Ramon flew faster than ever, and it was not long before D’Mara was shocked to see her daughter hurtling back toward her. “Tamra!” she yelled, her voice traveling through the stillness and silence of the night. “Tamra!”
D’Mara’s shout cut into Tamra’s dreams of fire and destruction and sent them vanishing into the moonlight. She stared into the night sky, wondering why she was imagining her mother’s voice—and then she saw Krane: shimmering blue in the moonlight, heading straight for her. “Tamra! Wait right there!” Her mother’s shout reached her, loud, clear, and unmistakably real.
Tamra was spooked—how could her mother possibly have known where to find her? But as she flew Ramon over to Krane, Tamra realized that she was, for once, pleased to see her mother. D’Mara, however, did not seem pleased to see her daughter. “Tamra Lennix,” she said angrily. “What do you think you are doing out here alone on that … that nasty little streak of dragon dirt. How dare you?”
Tamra wheeled Ramon around so he was safely out of the way of Krane’s nose spike. She would not put it past her mother to order Krane to stab Ramon right there. “The dragon dirt has a name, Mother,” she said coolly. “He is called Ramon. And Ramon has saved you from losing the Silver.”
D’Mara laughed. “Ha! Don’t talk rubbish, Tamra. He’s the idiot who lost us the Silver in the first place. We have it back now, and no thanks to him at all.”
Tamra flew Ramon in neat, fast circles around her mother, delighting in the knowledge that Krane was not agile enough to follow. “You don’t know anything!” she yelled at D’Mara. “You think you do but you don’t. You don’t know that your darling adopted son has flown the Silver away, do you? You don’t know that your so-called faithful Lennix Grand, your precious Bellacrux, has gone with them, do you? And they’ve taken the Green prisoner with them. Bet you don’t know any of that!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” D’Mara yelled, furious.
Keeping clear of Krane’s snout, Tamra wheeled Ramon in close. She looked her mother in the eye and said, “It’s true, Ma. Every last word of it is true. I swear it.”
D’Mara stared at her daughter with a dawning sense of horror. “Bellacrux?” she said faintly.
“Yeah, Bellacrux, Ma!” Tamra yelled. “Now we know why all the young Raptors were turning against us!”
D’Mara knew her daughter was telling the truth. “Our Bellacrux has stolen the Silver? Our own Bellacrux?” She felt as though someone had stuck a knife into her heart. It was a terrible betrayal.
Krane felt equally devastated. Oh, Dee, he sent, I should have realized. I am so sorry.
Too late now for regrets, D’Mara sent.
But not too late for revenge, Krane replied.
“Tamra!” D’Mara yelled. “Where have they gone?”
“To the Greens’ hideout,” Tamra yelled back. “Ramon’s so fast, Ma! He’s amazing! I’m going to divert Raid Flight Blue. We’ll get the traitors, Ma! We’ll get them!”
D’Mara laughed. Sometimes Tamra reminded her so much of how she had been as a girl. “Well done, Tamra,” she said. “And if Ramon gets you to the flight in time, there’s a pardon for him and his old place back in First Flight.”
“He’ll do it, Ma! I’ll see you at the Greens’!” Tamra yelled as she wheeled Ramon away, delighting in how beautifully he moved, and how natural it felt to be with him. Ramon, Tamra realized, made her feel happy.
D’Mara watched them go, flying faster than seemed possible. She sighed. Tamra’s delight in Ramon’s speed made her remember how she and Krane too had once flown faster than the wind. But sadly, no more. D’Mara turned Krane around and slowly they set off toward the Greens’ hideout. Weak though Krane was, neither was prepared to miss the moment they got the Silver back and destroyed their traitorous Grand.
Edward had been dozing on Decimus and woke with a start at the sound of his daughter’s voice. He stared at Tamra and Ramon in bemusement. What was she doing riding the prisoner Blue?
“Hey, Pa!” Tamra yelled above the oosh-whoosh-oosh of the synchronized wingbeats of the flight.
Edward was not pleased. “Tamra, you have no authority to release a prisoner,” he shouted.
“But, Pa—”
“I will talk to you later. You may join the flight. Go to the back.”
“Pa, I’m not joining the flight!” Tamra yelled. “The flight’s joining me.”
Tamra reminded Edward far too much of D’Mara: He never seemed able to keep the advantage in any confrontation
. “Whatever do you mean?” he yelled angrily.
Tamra flew Ramon close beside Decimus, and as he settled into the leisurely pace of Raid Flight Blue, Tamra took great pleasure in telling her father exactly what she meant—and why. Edward’s expression became increasingly thunderous, and well before Tamra had finished, Edward Lennix knew he must grant his daughter her wish—with one reservation. They would not bring the whole flight. It was to be family only. There were two reasons, he told Tamra. Firstly, he was unsure if the older Raptors on Raid Flight Blue would willingly take part in the destruction of Bellacrux. Secondly, if any un-Locked Raptor were to be involved in the capture of the Silver, they might try to claim it for their own as “spoils of war.” The family must take their Silver back, and they alone must do it. He hoped, Edward said, that Tamra agreed with him?
Tamra was astonished at the respectful tone her father had suddenly adopted toward her. “Absolutely, Pa,” she said. “Family only.”
“The flight is yours, Tamra,” Edward told her. “You shall lead it and name it.”
“Flight Vengeance,” Tamra said. “Because that is what it’s going to get. Vengeance.”
The newly formed Flight Vengeance peeled away from Raid Flight Blue and flew rapidly back toward land, the red pinpoint eyes of their firestix glinting in the night. They made their way over the inland marshes, heading fast toward to the Greens’ hideout.
Lysander, Bellacrux, and Herlenna were making good progress toward the hideout. The burned remains of forest were behind them and beneath them now was a living canopy of green. In the distance, glinting in the moonlight, they could see a jagged escarpment of rock rising up from the trees.
“Joss, Bellacrux says we’re nearly there!” Allie called over to her brother, pointing to the rock ahead.
