Avian (The Dragonrider Chronicles) (5 page)

Suddenly, I got a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Something wasn’t right. It hit me full-force, and sent a swirl of panic through my body like a cold shiver. Mavrik felt it, too, and he faltered in his landing. It was rough, and I had to cling to the saddle to keep from being thrown over his head.

A dark shadow passed over us. I heard a sound; a deep thundering roar that made my heartbeat stop for a few seconds. I knew that roar, even though I’d only heard it once before. It was the kind of sound you never forget.

The earth flinched as Icarus landed right in front of us. He bared his jagged teeth, his broad wings spread wide, and his red eyes burning like fiery coals. He flared his spines, puffing out angrily and making himself even bigger than the humongous beast he already was.

The king drake was every bit as terrifying as he had been the first time I saw him. He was like a monster that had crawled right out of someone’s nightmares. His scales were as black as volcanic glass, and he was at least twice Mavrik’s size. I had watched him devour his own rider, the Lord General, in a fit of fury only a few months ago. But I had no idea why he was here now. Apparently we had some unfinished business.

Mavrik snarled back at him, slicking his ears back against his skull and letting the spines on his back and tail raise up like hackles. He flared his wings and hissed, snapping his jaws threateningly at the king drake. In my mind, I saw the flickering image of myself getting out of the saddle. Mavrik wanted me to escape.

I squeezed the saddle handles. “No way,” I growled through my teeth. “If it’s a fight he wants, then he’ll have to take on both of us. I’m not leaving you.”

Mavrik let out a thundering roar, but Icarus wasn’t afraid. Why should he be? He was bigger and definitely stronger. The king drake bellowed back, and started to lunge for us with his jaws open wide.

I yelled out in anger, and Mavrik spat a column of burning venom right in Icarus’s face.

It made the king drake hesitate, and gave us just enough time to get back in the air. I knew we’d have the advantage there. Icarus might have been stronger, but we were faster. No one was faster in the air than Mavrik.

Icarus started chasing us. His wing beats sounded like claps of thunder, and I could feel his eyes on us. I was too scared to look back and see how close he was. Mavrik poured on the speed, zipping through the air and giving us enough space to whip around and make a calculated attack dive.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. We had a brief window, a speck of leverage, and one shot to use it. But my training in aerial combat like this was… well, I hadn’t gotten
real
training yet. I was going on instinct and prayers. Neither were enough.

Icarus was ready for us. As a king drake, I had no idea how many battles he had already fought in, or how many riders he had crushed like twigs. As soon as we got close, he swirled out of our path, and reached around to clamp his jaws onto one of Mavrik’s legs as we zipped past.

Mavrik shrieked. I could feel his panic and pain like it was my own. It made me cry out with him. Icarus bore down with his teeth, and flung us toward the ground like we were a scrap of meat.

Mavrik tried to recover. He tried to flare, to brace for an emergency landing, but there wasn’t enough time. We had only seconds before we hit, and he used that time to make sure I wasn’t crushed under his weight. He landed on his side, skidding across the sand. It hurt, and at that moment, I wasn’t sure which was his pain or mine.

When we came to a halt, Mavrik tried to get up. His leg was bleeding. The punctures were painful, but it didn’t look like any bones were broken. We were lucky, so far. He struggled, growling and whimpering. Quickly, I started unbuckling myself from the saddle.

Another loud boom made the ground shake again as Icarus landed not far away. Burning venom dripped off his jaws as he started prowling toward us slowly, watching us with those horrible glowing eyes. He was taking his time, deciding how best to tear us both to shreds.

I scrambled off Mavrik’s back as soon as I got the last buckle undone. I grabbed the hunting knife from my saddle, and started running headlong for the king drake. Mavrik howled in protest, floundering and limping as he got back to his feet.

“Stay back!” I yelled, brandishing my knife. “If you want to kill him, you’ll have to get through me, first!”

Icarus seemed to consider that. I probably looked like a good appetizer to him. He canted his head to the side, his nostrils flaring as he breathed in my scent. Behind me, I heard Mavrik snarling and roaring desperately. He was not in any shape to fight a king drake.

Icarus stood over me like a towering black demon. He roared so loud it made my teeth rattle. I could smell the venom on his breath. I saw my death in his bottomless red eyes. This was it, I guessed. He wasn’t going to let Mavrik and I get away with challenging him. You didn’t just challenge a king and walk away unharmed.

Suddenly, I heard a scream. But it wasn’t a dragon scream. It definitely wasn’t me, either. It came from down the beach, and sounded a lot like a girl. All three of us stopped, turned, and looked in surprise.

Beckah Derrick was running as fast as she could over the sand, stumbling and tripping all over her white nightgown. Her dark hair was tied into two long braided pigtails that whipped behind her as she sprinted toward us. She waved her arms, screaming at Icarus at the top of her lungs. The huge black dragon regarded her with a snarl, and I prepared myself to fight to the death to save her and my dragon—a fight that probably would have lasted about two seconds.

But all of a sudden, Icarus started backing away from me. He lowered his head and hissed, still growling and glaring at me like he wanted to finish me off in one bite. Beckah was yelling at him like she was scolding a naughty puppy. She walked right up to the huge black dragon and swatted him on the snout. It made him flinch, hiss, and turn his head away like he was ashamed. He wouldn’t look her in the eyes.

Speechless didn’t even begin to describe how I felt.

Shocked. Stunned. Completely blown away—those were a little more accurate. I exchanged a wide-eyed look with Mavrik. He looked like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, either.

“I told you that is a no-no!” She said with her hands on her hips. “You can’t just eat people. It’s not nice. Those are my friends! Stop being such a bully!”

Icarus hunkered down in the sand, making himself as small as a monstrous black king drake could. He curled his long spiny tail around his legs and snorted at her in frustration. But when she started rubbing his neck and snout… he actually started to purr. His red eyes closed, and he pushed his nose against her affectionately.

At that point, I was pretty sure my heart had stopped beating entirely.

Beckah turned to look back at me with a big grin on her face. My mouth was hanging open, and not just because she was petting Icarus like he was an overgrown housecat. She had grown, too. The last time I’d seen her had been almost six months ago. She had looked like a little kid then, and I had thought of her like she was the little sister I needed to protect. But apparently everyone else in the world was growing up except me.

Beckah walked toward me with the wind in her hair. Her fluffy bangs puffed over her face, and the light of the setting sun made her green eyes the same color as the ocean. She was as tall as I was now, and so beautiful it made the back of my throat feel like someone had punched me in the neck.

When she put her arms around my waist to hug me like she always did, I hesitated. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to touch her anymore. I almost forgot who she was. That is, until she squeezed me so hard it made me choke.

“I knew you’d come,” she said.

I smiled in spite of myself, and hugged her back. She smelled really good, like a mixture of the ocean and flowers. “Of course I’d come.” I studied Icarus from over her shoulder, who was still glaring at me like he wanted to eat me. “I guess this is what you were talking about?”

She leaned back to look at me with a big, happy smile that put dimples in her freckled cheeks. “You don’t know the half of it, Jae.”

Beckah had started building a little campfire with pieces of driftwood further down the beach. It was about a mile away, and we walked there together with our shoes off, letting the waves lap at our bare feet. I carried my boots and socks in one hand, and she held onto my other one tightly. Whenever I looked down, I couldn’t tell which fingers were hers and which ones were mine. It gave me a strange feeling.

When we got to her campfire, I helped her drag up more pieces of driftwood to burn, and spread out a quilt she’d brought from her house on the sand. I used the flint stone in my saddlebag to start the wood burning while our dragons settled in, curled around us like a living wall of scales and wings.

Mavrik was licking his wounds, and he didn’t look happy at all that Icarus was so close to us. Every now and then he’d snarl at him a little, like he was warning him not to try anything. Icarus ignored him. I was just glad they weren’t trying to kill each other anymore.

“He’s been following me ever since the prison camp,” Beckah said as she sat down on the quilt. “I don’t know what to do about him, Jae. He won’t leave. I’ve told him to go at least a hundred times. You have no idea how hard it is to hide a dragon.”

I laughed as I sat down next to her. I tried not to blush when she scooted over closer to me and leaned her head against my shoulder. “Does your dad know about him?”

She shot me an exasperated look. “Absolutely not. Can you imagine what he’d do? You know girls aren’t allowed to ride dragons.”

“You already have,” I reminded her.

Beckah sighed. “That was different. It was an emergency. Momma and Daddy were so furious about all that. If they knew about this, it would be much worse. But I can’t keep him a secret for much longer. Some of the people in the city are already talking about a big black dragon that’s been swiping cattle. Sooner or later, they’re going to find out.”

She looked up at me, and the light from the fire made her green eyes sparkle. It made me nervous. “Can’t you talk to him?” she asked. “You know, like you did before? Please, Jae, just tell him to go away. I can’t keep him, and I certainly can’t ride him.” She was telling me one thing, but I could see something completely different in her expression. She didn’t really want him to go—she was afraid of what would happen when her parents found out.

“I’ll try,” I promised.

She put her head back against my shoulder. “There’s so much I want to tell you, Jae. I don’t know where to start.”

“You mean more than being followed around by a king drake?” I asked.

It made her giggle a little. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Yeah, me too.” Talking about everything that had happened since I’d gotten back to Mithangol was hard. None of it was easy to admit. I mean, being abandoned by your entire family isn’t exactly something to be proud of. But she didn’t make me feel embarrassed when I started explaining it to her. I told her about everything except for what had happened with Katty. For some reason, I didn’t want Beckah to know about that. It really was embarrassing to think about, let alone tell her about it.

“Well, at least your brother left you a letter,” she said with a sour look on her face. “I just can’t believe what they did. How could they leave like that? It’s horrible.”

I shrugged. “It’s over and done, now. If I hung onto every bad thing anyone’s ever done to me, I’d be dragging around a lot of extra weight.”

She was quiet for a few minutes. Then scooted away a little, far enough to turn around so that she was facing me. She grabbed my hands and started looking at them in the light of the fire, tracing her fingers over my palms. “So all this is from the woodworking?” She asked, rubbing her thumb over one of the thick calluses on my hand. “I noticed it before.”

I tried not to think about how soft her hands were. “Yeah. Maybe I’ll make you a chair or something.”

She grinned at me. “I’d
love
that!”

I blushed so hard I couldn’t even look at her. “How is your dad doing with retirement? How’s his arm?”

I should have known better than to bring that up. She let my hands go and her expression fell. She sat back some and stared at the fire with a far-away look in her eyes. “That’s the other reason I asked you to come here. Something is wrong with him, Jae. Something he isn’t telling anyone about. He’s so nervous ever since that whole mess at the prison camp. It’s almost like he’s afraid someone is watching us. He’s always been a little paranoid, I guess. But never like this. It’s scaring me.”

“What do you mean?” Hearing that made me worried.

“We used to live in Southwatch, you know. He moved us out of our nice house in the city as soon as we got back. Momma was furious, and they argued about it for weeks. He wasn’t going to take no for an answer,” she said. “Now we’re living in a much smaller house out here in the middle of nowhere. We weren’t allowed to tell anyone where we were going. He’s going to be so mad when he finds out I told you, but I didn’t have a choice.”

I took her hand again and squeezed it a little. “I won’t tell anyone, Beckah.”

She smiled at me weakly. “I know. I trust you more than anyone.”

The silence got awkward as we sat there, staring at each other in the light of the fire. I got this weird feeling like I should do something, but I wasn’t sure what. She was looking at me like she was waiting for something to happen. It put nervous knots in my stomach and I didn’t understand why.

“We’ll figure it out,” I promised her. It seemed like whenever I was around her, I started making promises like that.

She looked a little disappointed, and sighed as she looked away back toward the fire. “I hope so. Maybe you can talk to him about it. He trusts you, too, you know.”

I wasn’t sure what to think about that. I knew how much I respected and admired her father, Sile Derrick. It was hard to believe that he thought of me as anything more than a scrawny kid he’d had to protect from being pummeled by the other students while he was my sponsor and instructor. Sure, I’d saved his life a few times, but I didn’t consider that to be anything other than my duty as his student. I didn’t expect any praise or respect because of that. If anything, I still felt like I owed him for all the time’s he’d stuck his neck out for me.