Page 78 of Of Steel and Scale

I laughed. “Are you always this bossy?”

Am queen.

I laughed again, emptied the pack containing the girths and whatnot, then pulled out the climbing harness from the smaller one Mom had given me. Kaia watched in fascination as I sorted through everything and then joined all the girths together. After warning her what I was about to do, I asked her to hunker down, tossed one end of my girth rope through the valley between the last two spines at the base of her neck, then caught the two ends and joined them using another D-ring, creating a complete ring.

I stepped back and glanced up at her. “Is that okay? Not too tight?”

She moved her neck around.Is good.

“Now I need to work on the bit that’ll keep me on.”I hesitated. “I need to get up to your neck. Could you...”

Before I could finish, she stretched out her front leg, providing a scaly ramp for me to climb up. I grabbed everything I needed, then scrambled past her claws, up her legs, and across her shoulder, gripping the decidedly wicked-looking spur jutting out from the wing’s thumb to steady myself as I moved over to her neck. Even though she was hunkered down, it was a scarily long way back to the ground.

Her neck spines close to her wings were smaller—in comparison to those further up her neck and behind her wings, anyway—which meant my neck and shoulders would be visible above them. Probably a good thing if I had to use Mom’s short bow. They were also surprisingly rough, even though they looked smooth from a distance. I wondered if it was weather or just a natural occurrence.

Weathercame her reply.Soft when young. Hardens as age.

Huh. I rose and, holding fast to the last spine, slid past it until I reached the gap. I tied one end of the rope to the girth, looped it around the final spine, then tied on the other end. After slicing away the excess rope, I slipped back and tested out the rig. The base of her spine was shaped rather like a courser’s withers, but longer, which meant I was pressed against it more than her neck. Which in many ways made gripping easier, simply because my legs weren’t as wide apart as they would have been had I been on the main part of her neck. I strapped the stirrups onto the rope, lashing them together so they didn’t go sliding too far apart, then added a couple of D-rings to tie the climber’s harness and the backpacks on to. With that all done, I clambered down her leg again.

“How’s that all feel?”

Barely feel. Ready now?

I nodded. “Just got to climb into the harness and get the packs up there.”

Hurry. Wind calls.

The climbing harness was one of the older styles—V-shaped front and back, with wide, comfortable shoulder straps that narrowed down to the waist belt they were attached to. The leg loops hung from this, and at the front was a thick double D-ring designed to lock the rope into place if there was a fall. There were also a couple of extra loops on the side of the belt to attach other gear.

I climbed into it, adjusted the legs a little, then grabbed the packs and climbed back up to Kaia’s neck. Once seated, I attached myself to one D-ring and two of the packs to the others. The third—the one containing supplies for me and the additional webbing and bone straps—I squashed between my body and her spine before clipping it onto my harness. One of the few problems of bareback riding was an unexpected stop sending you crashing forward and, well, let’s just say that hitting the withers with any sort of force was a painful experience for a man or a woman. That was just as likely to be true with a drakkon’s spine.

I took a deep breath and released it slowly. It did nothing to ease the sudden spike in my heart rate. I was looking forward to this... had been dreaming of a moment like this all my life, even if I’d never thought it would happen. But now it was and, well, the reality was damn scary.

I not let fall,came Kaia’s thought.We go?

Let’s.

Excitement pulsed through her thoughts. Excitement, and a deep desire to rend and tear. She wanted revenge.Neededrevenge. It was the only reason she was doing any of this.

She moved with surprising grace and speed toward the exit tunnel, her body rolling from side to side. I gripped her spine and flowed with the movement, even though it was very different to that of a courser. The skies were dark, the clouds heavy and barely lit by the rising light of dawn, and the air that whipped around us was sharp with the scent of an oncoming storm, making me glad I’d decided to wear my thick waterproof leathers as well as a couple of layers of silk undergarments.

We reached the landing ledge. Kaia paused and raised her head, her nostrils flaring as she drew in the wind.Where we go?

I imagined the map in my mind, plotting out a course that would have us heading south, following the mountain range rather than cutting more directly across the ocean from Esan. It was far longer, but likely to be safer if we were at all wrong about the riders’ ability to fly during the day.

Easy, she said.

I hoped she was right.

Hoped my theory that coming in from an unexpected direction would counter the possibility of whatever sentinels the gilded ones had out spotting us.

Kaia rose on her haunches. I gripped the rope, holding on tight with my thighs as she spread her wings wide and bellowed. It was long and loud, and echoed across the still peaks—the battle cry of a drakkon going to war. Then, without warning, she launched off the ledge.

Not up. Down.

Straight down the mountainside.

I clenched my teeth against the scream that tore up my throat as I was thrown back sharply by the sheer force of the wind, and tightened my grip on the front spine, using the pits on its weathered surface to wedge my fingers into and hold on. My heart felt like it was lodged in my throat, the wind tore at my cheeks and my plait, and the foothills loomed way too fast for comfort. The desire to close my eyes and pray was almost all consuming, but the need not to miss any little moment of this once-in-a-lifetime event was stronger still.

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