Dragon Flight (11 page)

Marta and I could only stand and gape. Arjas, the Grand Vizier of Citatie, had helped a dragon take control of his king’s mind. We had talked of him as though he were a potential ally, but he was just as much an enemy as Krashath himself.

“You smell of
him
,” Krashath said suddenly.

A light kindled in his black eyes, and he crept across the floor towards us. I took a step back, and his tail
whipped around behind me, keeping me from running.

“You smell of my hated brother.”

I went cold all over. The thin silk tunic I wore had once been a shift, but I had cut it off at the knees and hemmed it to the Citatian style just the day before. The last time I had worn it, I had been at the cave with Shardas and Velika, and there had not been time to launder it since then. Krashath’s nose was over a pace long: he could smell things that a dog could only hope to sniff out.

“Shardas is your brother?” The words popped out before I could stop them.

“You know my brother well?” The tip of Krashath’s nose was only a handspan from my chest as he sniffed at my tunic. One large black eye studied me, his head atilt. “You know him very well.” It was no longer a question.

“He is coming to kill you,” Marta said, defiant. “He knows you’re here, and he’s coming for you.”

“Is he?” Krashath’s tongue flicked out and his eyes half closed. “Is he now? How delightful.”

“You won’t think that,” I chimed in, since there was no point in hiding it now, “when he’s blasting you and Arjas into ash.” Despite my words there was a cold, sour twist in my stomach.

“We shall see who becomes ash, human,” Krashath said. “I am more than ready to face my brother.” He reared back a little, and his tongue flicked out again. “In fact, why don’t you call to him? Tell him to hurry to
my city.” He reached out and grasped Marta with one foreclaw and me with the other. “Tell him to hurry before you fall.”

And with that, Krashath hurtled out of the long windows of the throne room. Shards of glass scratched my face and caught in my hair as we broke out into the air above the courtyard. Krashath hovered there only a moment, while below us there were screams and the sound of horses panicking. Then he shot upwards, up among the towers of the palace. Without warning he opened his claws and dropped us on the conical copper roof of one of the highest towers, then flew away, laughing.

“Creel! Are you all right?”

I thought this was very sweet of Marta to ask, considering that she, too, was clinging to the spike that rose from the pinnacle of the roof. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and she was scrabbling at the smooth copper surface with her slippered feet.

My position was little better. I had my hands just above Marta’s, and my legs sprawled wide, stretching them around the conical roof as much as I could. It was not unlike riding a very large dragon. A very large dragon that was flying straight up with little concern for its passenger’s safety. Still, if I didn’t find a more secure position soon, my arms would be pulled out of their sockets by the weight of my body.

Blood pounding in my ears, I dared to look down the slope of the roof. I concentrated very hard on looking only at the edge of the roof, and not beyond it at the open space through which I could fall endlessly before splattering on to a lower roof or even the courtyard all the way below …

Dragging my attention back to the roof, I saw that the edge jutted out, creating a ledge some two handspans wide. It wasn’t much, but if we lay against the roof and stood on the ledge, we could stay up here much longer than if we had to hold ourselves up with the spike.

“Marta, there’s a little lip on the edge of the roof. We’re going to have to slide down and stand there. If we try to hold on here, we’ll get hand cramps and fall.”

“I’m not sliding down this roof, Creel.” Her words were perfectly rational, but there was a hysterical edge to her voice. “We’ll keep sliding, right off that little lip …” She trailed off into a moan as she looked past the ledge.

I realised that she was right. The copper roof was very slippery, and twice as high as we were tall. By the time we hit the ledge we would have gathered enough speed that we would be lucky if we didn’t go flying right off the meagre foothold and into open air.

“Think, Creel, think,” I muttered.

“Ooh, I looked again,” Marta said. “I think I might be sick.”

“Don’t! You’ll make the roof even more slippery,” I told her. “It’s bad enough that we’re wearing silk.” I glanced down, but only to look at my own clothes.

A germ of an idea began to form. “Marta, can you take off your sash with one hand?”

“Are you mad? I can’t let go of the spire! If you want to die,
you
let go of the spire!” She gasped for breath for
a moment. “My hands are so sweaty right now, it’s all I can do to hold on.”

Which was another thing I’d been trying to ignore. My own hands were so wet that I was afraid to even think about them.

“If I start to slide,” I asked, “will you at least use one hand to slow me down?”

“What?! Creel, what are you doing?”

Slowly, with my heart in my mouth, I loosened my right hand from the spire. My fingers were painfully cramped. As I opened them, I thought my left hand would let go as well, out of sympathy. I whimpered under my breath, both from pain and from the fear that what I was doing was very, very foolish.

“Creel, don’t do it,” Marta said.

“It’ll work, I know it will,” I said with feigned confidence.

My fingers all the way open, the entire weight of my body now hung from my left hand, which was shaking with the effort of hanging on. I tried not to hurry, but to move deliberately and smoothly as I untucked the end of my sash and loosened it.

When I at last pulled it off, the fine silk flapped in the wind and my numb fingers nearly lost their grip on it. Snatching it close to my breast, I stretched up with my right arm and tried to push one end around the spire.

“Creel, you’re scaring me,” Marta whimpered.

“Lift up one of your fingers, and hold this in place
for me,” I told her. I didn’t dare move a finger on my left hand, and I needed to reach around the other side of the spire with my right to pull the sash around it.

“No!”

“Marta, just do it!”

Still making little distressed noises, Marta shifted two of her fingers the barest fraction so that she could pinch the sash between them. This was enough for me to reach around the other side of the spire, catch the end of the sash, and pull it around.

When the ends hung even, level with my chest, I gripped them both firmly with my right hand. Then I took a deep breath and slowly let go with my left. As I started to slide down the roof, I grabbed the sash frantically with my left hand and held on for my life as I shot down the steep side of the turret roof. I screamed, and Marta joined in, until my weight nearly separated my arms from my shoulder sockets. I was clinging to the end of the sash with sweaty hands, my arms stretched high above my head, and still I couldn’t feel the ledge beneath my feet. I tried to look, but without my sash my tunic had bunched up and all I could see was the white silk.

“Marta? Can you see how close I am to the ledge?”

“You’re not dead?” was the muffled reply.

“Not yet. Can you look for me?”

“I’ll try.” Then, a moment later: “Oh! Stretch down your toes, you’re only an inch away!” She sounded
surprised and also pleased. I doubted she could hold on to the spire much longer herself.

I stretched down my toes and finally felt the ledge beneath them, firm and wonderful. Letting go with one hand and then the other, I rested my full weight on the ledge of the roof. The relief as I lowered my tortured arms brought tears to my eyes. Pressing my cheek to the smooth copper roof, I leaned against it and savoured the feeling of having my arms at my sides and my feet on a firm surface.

“I’m coming,” Marta announced.

Looking up, I saw her take hold of the sash with her right hand. She slid down a little, made a strangled noise, then grabbed for the sash with her left and screamed as she slithered down the roof, the silk sliding through her grip with a speed that made me break out in a cold sweat all over again.

With a thump she landed on the ledge beside me, pulling the sash free of the spire with one hand. I took it from her and shoved it into the waistband of my trousers in case it came in handy again.

“Now what?” Marta’s blue eyes were wide and she was very pale.

“I don’t know. I suppose we wait for someone to see us and help,” I said. “We could try climbing down off the ledge and into one of the windows.” She paled even further and I added, “I’m not sure I have the nerve to try that either.”

The sun was now high in the sky and the heat that rose off the copper roof was unbearable. They must have servants mounted on dragons polishing the roofs every month, to prevent the copper from tarnishing, I thought.

We were stuck.

A gust of wind plucked at my clothing, and I pressed harder against the roof. Then it came again, this time carrying the scent of sulphur with it. I opened my eyes.

A bright red dragon hovered in the air to the side of our turret. Her golden eyes were wide with astonishment. I raised my head, noticing that her horns had been sawn off. It was the female Tobin had uncollared.

“It’s you!” I said to her.

“Human maids, what are you doing here?” Her voice had a lilting accent. “This is not safe!”

“Krashath dropped us here,” I said.

“Krashath!” Her eyes narrowed. “Where are the human males you were with, and the dragons who are your friends?”

“They don’t know where we are; they’re hiding in a cave to the north of the city. Can you tell them?”

“The wind is rising, you cannot stay on that little ledge much longer,” she said. “Jump off and I will catch you.”

“No!” Marta sounded near hysteria again. She had her eyes shut and wouldn’t look at the dragon. “We don’t know you! What if you’re allied with Krashath?”

“Marta,” I explained patiently. “This is the female
that Tobin freed. She’s been fighting the collared dragons.” I turned back to her, uncertain now that I had said that. “Haven’t you?”

“By the First Fires, of course I have! I’ve been ripping the collars off any dragon I could reach!”

She flapped her wings to maintain her position, and I squinted against the hot air that blasted into my face. She was right: it was getting too hot and we were far too tired. By the time she flew out and found our cave, spoke to Niva and the others, and they came for us, we would have fallen to our deaths.

I made a decision. “Will you fly below us, so that we can jump on to your back, mistress?”

“Creel, are you sure?” Marta’s voice was fainter now, and I knew that she had to be as tired as I was.

“It’s our only chance,” I told her quietly.

“I’ll have to fly out a bit and come back in fast so that I can tuck my wings as I pass beneath you. It’s the only way I can get close enough. I’ll call out when I’m in position.”

“All right.”

“I’m not jumping backwards,” Marta said. “Let’s turn around.”

Feeling the edge carefully with our feet, we managed to turn ourselves so that our backs were against the roof. Because of its steep angle and the jutting ledge, we couldn’t see anything below the ledge.

“If this doesn’t work, at least we’ll die quickly, of
the fall, rather than slowly from starvation,” I said to Marta with a weak grin.

“You’re horrible.” She clasped my hand. “But I’m still your friend.”

We heard the flap of dragon wings, and clutched each other’s hand tighter.

“Now,” came the female dragon’s shout.

“Now!” Marta and I shouted together, and jumped off the roof.

The long ridge of plates that stood up along the dragon’s spine got me right in the gut, knocking the wind out of me. I was just grateful that they weren’t sharp enough to do any permanent damage, as Shardas’s and Niva’s were. Marta landed on her side, and then started to slither off over the dragon’s scaly shoulder before she grabbed one of the spines and stopped herself.

“Are you all right?” The dragon called the question back over her shoulder as she soared away from the palace.

All I could do was groan, so Marta answered for us. When my breath came back, I scrambled around until I was sitting between two of the plates. Marta rode just in front of me, looking calm and natural as though she had ridden dragonback dozens of times. She sounded almost chipper as she directed our rescuer towards the hill that concealed our friends.

When we landed outside the grove of olive trees, I clambered off the red female’s back with relief. I was tired of clinging to things and having my feet dangle terrifyingly far above the ground.

One of Luka’s men came out of the grove, a crossbow loaded and held at the ready. When he saw us standing beside the strange dragon, he lowered the crossbow and called over his shoulder that it was all clear.

Luka burst out of the trees and ran to us. He grabbed me by the shoulders and kissed me right on the lips. Then he wrapped both arms around me and squeezed until I felt as if I’d had my wind knocked out again. Glancing over his shoulder, I saw Marta getting much the same treatment from Tobin.

For just a moment I let myself go boneless and lean against Luka’s chest. Then I stepped back and straightened my braids with great decorum. My heart was beating almost as fast as it had when I slid down the roof.

“This was the stupidest, stupidest thing any of us has ever done,” Luka was ranting. “We never should have let you go back into the palace. Junn and Fallon were in the Grand Market, and heard that the king’s Feravelan tailors had been arrested. Amacarin and Niva are circling the palace right now with Fallon and Junn, looking for a way to rescue you. Tobin refused to let me go: I was beside myself, thinking you’d already been executed.”

“You didn’t see us hanging from the roof?” I was almost disappointed. Looking back, with my stomach churning, it had been quite a feat to first slide down the roof to the ledge, and then jump off on to the back of a strange dragon. Sadly, it rather made the sensation of being kissed by Luka pale in comparison.