Dragon Airways

by Brian Rathbone

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  Shadows moved through Windhold, but few were there to see. Far larger than the hollowed mountain of Ri, this hold had been carved out by dragons, and by the looks of it, big ones. Here the Zjhon had an amazing facility for storing, testing, constructing, and deploying aircraft. Steady winds consistently blew in the same direction, which made perhaps everything but landing ideal. Berigor had no trouble clinging to the mountainside. Allowing them to climb across his tail to gain entrance to the hold, he never made a sound. The repairs to his face must have given the beast newfound strength, even as they made him look like a living work of art.

  Two guards moved through the assembled aircraft, the lanterns they carried making them easy to spot. While he mourned the loss of Dosser, Al'Drakon Keldon Tallowborn was fortunate to have Tarin at his side. He was part of this mission for numerous reasons, his understanding of aircraft engineering chief among them. At each jet, he loosened four connections. For prop planes, of which few remained, it took only a moment for Tarin to score two rubber lines, leaving them intact but dramatically weakened.

  The process took time, and Keldon wanted nothing more than to be done with it and get rid of the cargo he carried. One wrong move, and they would both be history. Getting to the antiair guns was the riskiest but perhaps the most important part of their mission.

  Only a single aircraft remained, bathed in moonlight, closer to the entrance than others, and Keldon considered leaving that one alone. Tarin moved before he could give the order. Keeping to the shadows, Keldon could only watch in silence as the guards converged on where Tarin worked. Holding his breath, Keldon prepared to attack. Tarin was no fool, though. By the time lantern light reached where he'd been working, he'd faded back into the shadows.

  To get to the guns, the two Drakon would have no choice but to leave the relative safety of the shadows. This part required patience, which had not always been Keldon's strong suit. Again, the guards converged not far away. Had they been paying attention to the aircraft, they might have seen two men who were really too big to be playing hide-and-seek.

  Tarin shifted and his leather boot creaked. Suddenly both guards were alert, and still Keldon had to wait. He did not want them to raise the alarm. Better to let them get as close as possible then deal with them quickly and silently. Before the guards got near enough, a bright orange flash out to sea lit up everything, followed by a reassuring boom. It was at least in some ways reassuring. He'd recognized the clay fire bombs immediately upon finding them in the caves. Such marvels were well described in the histories, even if lost to modern times. Berigor dropping one in the sea proved the weapons were still viable no matter their age. It also provided a distraction. Both guards ran to the edge of the wind channel and looked out at a sparkling orange plume with a roiling cap that jutted up from the sea. Nothing else was visible, and they argued over what it might be.

  Knowing how devastating the weapons were, Tarin handled the ceramic spheres he carried with exaggerated care. While it might have saved their lives, it also took longer. Tarin was still exposed when both guards turned, without warning, in response to angry shouts at the other end of the wind channel. The explosion had everyone on edge. If only Berigor had waited just a little longer.

  Standing stock still, Tarin let the guards walk past then dropped down to hide beside Keldon. One man looked back a moment later and hesitated, but the shouting grew louder, so he turned away. Tarin and Keldon crawled to the entrance, climbed outside, and clung to the mountainside, hoping their ride would get there soon. One mountain down, one to go.