by John Ringo
To take her mind off of it, she decided to brave the dragon's wrath.
"Joanna!" she yelled. "Can you hear me?"
"Yes," the dragon rumbled in reply, without turning her head. "But if you think I'm going to look you in the eye you need to stop reading fantasies. Flying is hard enough without having to look backwards!"
"That's fine," Rachel shouted back. "Can I ask you a personal question?"
"You can ask," the dragon said.
"Are you always this touchy or is there something in particular that has you pissed off?"
Rachel felt the seat under her shaking and clutched at the grab-straps, but after a moment she realized that it was just the dragon laughing.
"A little of both," Joanna admitted. "I've been called a bitch before, plenty of times. But this mission has me ticked in a major way."
"Why?" Rachel yelled. "Southern skies, warm seas, tropical sun . . ."
"Long damned flight," Joanna admitted. "We don't get to go on a pleasure cruise. The ship's supposedly set up to let us land from, but my guess is we're going to have to fly most of the way. That's like doing a five, six, ten day marathon. We can do it, but it's still a pain in the ass."
"Oh."
"And that's not all," Joanna said, warming to the subject. "What the hell are we going to eat? The ship we're meeting can't possibly carry enough fresh meat for us for the whole trip. So that means, what? Salt beef? Fish? Raw fish? I hate sushi!"
"Sorry!"
"Not your fault," Joanna said. "I hate this Fallen world. I want to be able to Change. Any time I want. I want to eat chocolate."
Rachel just nodded at that; she felt the same way.
For that matter, if she was in the pre-Fall days, even riding like this, she could have her gas bypassed rather than be impolite. Oh, well, at least geneticists had long ago fixed the smell problem.
"Damn thing," Joanna muttered.
"What?" Rachel shouted back. Due to the rush of the wind, Rachel had to shout but any statement from the dragon was fairly clear.
"Oh, nothing," the dragon replied. "Your boyfriend's mount is riding my slipstream. It's just an extra weight to pull."
Rachel looked from side to side and noticed that the other dragons had spread out in a v, with the exception of Herzer.
"He's not controlling his mount!" she pointed out.
"I know, it's just Chauncey being lazy. Doesn't mean I have to like it."
"Why are the other ones in a v?" Rachel yelled. "They look like they're going to run into each other."
"Slipstream again," Joanna answered. "There's a low-pressure area that passes out to either side. Ever see geese fly over?"
"Plenty of times."
"Same thing. That doesn't drag directly on me, though, like Chauncey is. Damn idiot wyvern."
They continued in a slow spiral upward, riding the thermal and the power of the slowly flapping wings for what seemed half the morning. But by the rise of the sun it couldn't have been more than a half an hour. Finally, Rachel felt a drop, more a feeling of lightness.
"Top of the thermal," Joanna said, banking to the east. "I got at least three thousand meters out of it, which is pretty good for a morning in October."
Rachel had been avidly looking at the view in the distance but at those words she looked down. And then screwed her eyes tight shut and grabbed at the straps.
"Don't look down," Joanna chuckled.
"Too late," Rachel replied.
"Oh, what the hell is that idiot doing?" Joanna growled.
* * *
Herzer had realized during the climb-out that Chauncey was riding the bigger dragon's slipstream. But he for sure wasn't going to try to mess with a spiraling climb. However, when the dragons lined out and glided into the sun, he decided that it was worth seeing if he could shift down the line. The worst that was going to happen was that he would release Chauncey and the wyvern would go back to his accustomed place.
There remained one problem. He was directly behind Joanna, no more than twenty meters. Her tail actually whipped back and forth past Chauncey's nose, close enough to nearly hit it. The tail end of the extended V formation of the wyverns was actually behind his present position. Which meant that he would have to slow down, then catch back up. He knew neither command.
Going on a hunch, he slowly pulled back on the climbing reins until the slack was out, then pulled back on those and the diving reins, very slightly. His clamp held the reins snugly but he was always careful not to flex too hard lest he cut the reins like snapping a twig.
Herzer wasn't even sure what Chauncey did, but they began to drift backwards from the larger dragon, while staying more or less at the same height. He was actually dropping slightly below her, but staying on an even keel, not in a "dive" or whatever.
Herzer let back out on the reins and then pulled, ever so slightly, on the left rein. Obediently, Chauncey entered a slight bank to the left, but they also began to lose height. Herzer loosened up on the rein, pulled a bit to the right, and shortly found himself just outside the left-most of the riders on more or less the same heading. Unfortunately, he was about sixty meters below the wyvern and nearly a hundred behind.
Oh, well.
The rider just happened to be Vickie and he could hear her shouting at him, but he wasn't sure what she could do about his experimentation.
The problem was simple. He had to get up to their level and get Chauncey to speed up so that he could enter the proper formation. They were now, steadily, pulling ahead of him and either gaining altitude or he was losing it in comparison. But Chauncey seemed content to obey orders and follow the present course. Despite the fact that it was the wrong one.
He pulled, gently, on both up reins. All that did was cause him to lose more ground, but they did gain some height, briefly. Then Chauncey pulled against the reins and reentered the glide. Herzer suddenly remembered a term "stall speed" and wondered, briefly, just how close he had come to making the dragon "crash." If such a thing was possible.
He suddenly had a very clear vision of a tree limb in his face. Shortly after the Fall he had been one of the people chosen, because he had some limited riding experience, to "help out" with a round-up of feral animals. While he had been trying to keep a boar from killing a female friend, Diablo had jumped over the spitted boar and Herzer's forehead had impacted a tree limb at nearly a full gallop.
The recovery had been slow and painful. But if he screwed up this ride, he was looking at a several-thousand-meter fall. That was not even vaguely survivable.
But he really needed to catch up to the formation.
"Up, Chauncey," he yelled. "Go! Forward! Hut! Hut!" There didn't seem to be any way to beat at him. He'd never really seen the riders make any motions except small rein movements.
But. His boot was actually over skin, not on the saddle. He doubted that was unintentional.
"Hi, Chauncey," he yelled, digging his boot into the side of the dragon as hard as he could.
The startled wyvern began flapping its wings, rapidly gaining speed. So rapidly that the formation was coming up much too quickly. And he was still slightly below it.
"Up!" he called, pulling back on the reins. At the last moment he checked his instinctive reaction to yank back and instead applied a gentle pressure, as if he was trying to get Diablo to go to a moderately slower gallop.
The control worked, Chauncey adjusted his angle of flight and went upward, losing some forward speed at the same time, but when they returned to level flight, by simply letting out on the reins, they were above and past the formation. Also slightly farther out to the left and he had no idea how that had happened.
"What the hell are you doing?" Joanna bellowed. "I told you to just go along for the ride!"
"He was in your slipstream!" Herzer yelled back. "I didn't think you should have to tow him!"
"If it had been a problem I would have told you!" Joanna raged back. "Now what are you going to do, hotshot?"
He had to go backwards,
down and to the right. The "slot" he was trying to get to was about ten or twenty meters to his right and about the same back. About sixty meters down. He seemed to be in a slightly less efficient glide than the other dragons, probably because he wasn't coasting in the same vortexes.
Well, he'd tried the up reins, and the up and down. And turned left and right.
"I guess I'll try the down reins," he muttered and pushed back, lightly, on the right down rein.
* * *
Rachel had been watching Herzer's fumbling entry into flight with some amusement but she gasped in horror as the dragon turned over on its right wing and plummeted towards the ground.
"Oh, my God!" she shouted.
Joanna turned her head slightly to the side and tisked. "That's what we call a stoop."
"Is he going to be okay?"
"Well, the reason we call it a stoop is that it's fisking stoopid."
* * *
Herzer grabbed at the straps as the dragon seemed to turn, briefly, upside down. He had a very clear view of the underside of Vickie's dragon as he passed and he realized he was screaming, but there didn't seem to be anything else to do at the moment.
However, he was only briefly inverted, if he ever actually had been, and he quickly gained control of the beast, taking the climb straps and pulling back on them slightly less gently than he had been.
The dragon pulled out of its dive in a strong swoop upward and to the left, pushing upward with strong strokes of its wings and Herzer let out a bellow of joy at the incredible feeling of having that power at his control.
"Yes!" he shouted, as the dragon pulled up to the level of the formation. More confident now he let it rise to slightly above the formation then angled it into the slot at a downward glide. At the last Chauncey seemed to sense the vortex and entered the slot of his own accord.
"Oh, my God!" Herzer shouted over to Vickie, a smile plastered on his face.
"You're fisking crazy!" Vickie shouted back. "You could have killed yourself."
"That's what's so great!" Herzer yelled back, still grinning. "Normally it's human beings trying to kill me. This time it was just physics!"
"Give him a break, Vickie," the next rider over shouted. "The first time she stooped she pissed herself."
"Thank you so very much, Jerry!" Vickie shouted back. "You'd better check your straps well for that!"
"It was great!" Herzer yelled. "Let's do it again!"
"Not a chance," Jerry yelled. "The reason we're flying like this is it's a long flight today. You've already pushed him harder than was a good idea. Just let it be. Time for aerobatics on the trip."
"He's not a dragon-rider!" Vickie yelled back.
"Dragon. Rider. Dragon-rider!" Jerry pointed then laughed.
"How long are we flying today?" Herzer yelled.
"Long time, four or five hours," Vickie replied. "That's pretty close to the limit of a dragon's endurance."
"Oh," Herzer muttered. "I didn't know," he added in a yell.
"It should be fine," Vickie yelled. "It's not that they wear out, they just need to feed by then. And full dragons don't fly very well. We usually fly a couple of hours, then feed them, then fly again. This way we'll fly four or five hours, then they'll have to gorge. And once they gorge they won't be any good for hours."
"What if they don't get fed?" Herzer yelled.
"You don't want to be around a hungry dragon," Jerry replied. "You really don't."
* * *
The dragons hissed like giant tea kettles, swinging their heads angrily from side to side. But the chains they were attached to kept them far enough apart that even their tails couldn't strike at the ones to either side.
On the other hand, to get the large platters to them would require getting close enough to get bitten.
The destination of the group had been Newfell Naval Base, a growing facility near the mouth of the Gem River. It was at the very tip of a massive bay that marked the joining of the Gem and Poma rivers, the latter of which was fed by, among others, the Shenan that ran by Raven's Mill.
The base had been formed in response to the apparent intended invasion from Ropasa and it was a scene of remarkable industry.
There were twelve large piers, each of which was in use by a veritable fleet of small vessels. Most of the vessels seemed to be barges and lighters that were carrying material from the interior, but a few were larger sailing vessels that had probably reached the base by sailing up or down the coast. Herzer recalled that to the north were the growing cities of Balmoran and Manan, either of which might have sent the ships.
The material being unloaded from the ships made its way to a set of warehouses lining the waterways. From the warehouses some of it spread to support the rest of the base. There were foundries that provided the iron-work for the ships, saw mills that roughed the trees that were rapidly being turned into hulls and masts, rope manufactories that took the rough hemp from the interior and made it into strong manila lines, and sail-factories where heavy cosilk bolts were sewn into the vast sails needed for the growing ships.
But all of it paled to the efforts of the shipyards themselves.
The wyverns had been parked at the edge of the shipyards along the Gem River. On every side ship hulls lying on ways were in the process of being built, surrounded by scaffolding. From every direction came the sound of sawing and hammering, and besides the smell of tidal marshes there was an overpowering smell of curing wood and sawdust.
And all of it was contributing to the unease of the wyverns.
The platters were large, over a meter in diameter, with raised edges and metal handles. The smell from the steaming mess they contained mixed with the stench of the tidal marshes to create an aroma that Herzer found truly nauseating.
But what he really wanted at this moment, rather than a mask to cut the stench, was his armor. Those wyverns had big teeth.
"What's in this?" he asked, lifting one side of the platter as Jerry took the other. Herzer probably could have lifted one himself but it for most riders it was a two-person job.
"Offal, soybeans, vegetable oil and ketchup," Jerry said. "Now they know the smell of this stuff and they don't like it. So they're going to be inclined to get a bite of fresh meat. We stop just outside of lunge range and slide it to them. On three."
"Ketchup?" Herzer asked.
"They like ketchup. One, two . . ."
From behind them there was a roar and Joanna landed to the side in a blast of wind.
"Cut it out!" she bellowed, leaning over to peck the nearest wyvern on the back. The wyvern ducked its head to the ground and got as close as it could to scraping its belly, letting out a faint mewing sound.
"Now feed 'em," Joanna bellowed, pecking at another of the wyverns that had leaned towards the platters. "I need you guys alive."
Jerry and Herzer crabbed forward and dropped the platter under the wyvern's nose and then picked up another and dropped it in front of Chauncey. By that time the other three had been fed as well.
Like it or not the wyverns immediately buried their nose in the mess, sucking at it since it had little in the way of texture.
"Well, that's done," Jerry sighed. "Now we check them over."
The dragon's pebbly skin was fairly strong but it could be badly gouged by a misplaced strap. Jerry, with Vickie occasionally giving acerbic advice, showed Herzer how to check for gouges or scrapes. They then spent some time working on Chauncey, trimming his toenails. Jerry had a large set of bolt cutters for the job but Herzer gently lifted one of the talons and inserted the tip into his clamp.
"They're strong," Jerry said.
"Not a problem," Herzer said. "Probably." Herzer flexed his forearm and the tip of the nail flew off with a "snick" sound.
"Cool," Jerry said. "Very useful."
"Also opens bottles and makes julienne fries," Herzer said with a grimace. "I'd rather have a hand."
"How's it work?"
"If I grasp like I'm grabbing with forefinger and thu
mb it clamps," Herzer said. "If I grasp with middle and ring finger it engages the cutters. If I pull with the pinkie it engages a gear on the cutters and the clamps. Gives me about six times the grip or cutting strength."
"Did you use the clamp?"
"Nope, didn't need it," Herzer said, running his hand up Chauncey's leg as he cut the other nails. "That's done this one."
"Chauncey's one of our newer wyverns," Jerry explained as Herzer worked on the other talons. "He's just out of the rookery but since he's biddable and didn't have a designated rider and we were told we needed one spare we brought him along despite the fact that he's not full grown."
"Big enough," Herzer said. "How fast do they grow?"
"Ten years to get this big," Jerry said. "He'll add another sixty, maybe eighty kilos before he stops in another ten."
"Ten years?" Herzer said. "Then . . . he was born before the Fall?"
"Yeah," Jerry said with a smile. "Nobody's been able to do time travel yet. There was a wyvern racing league; we came from that."
"I'd thought that Sheida had had them bred," Herzer said then paused. "Why did you join up?"
"Well, we had to keep them fed somehow," Jerry replied with a shrug, giving Chauncey a last wipe with a rag. "And between Sheida and New Destiny there wasn't much choice, was there?"
"No, I don't think so," Herzer answered honestly. "I . . . I was involved with some folks that were allied with New Destiny at first. I didn't know they were until after I'd left. They weren't very good people even before that, though."
"Well, I joined up with Sheida almost immediately," Jerry said. "I had a rookery near her home in the Teron mountains. After the Fall I flew over and she saw the benefit immediately. So I and a couple of others flew around to the rookeries and recruited."
