Page 58 of Of Blood and Fire
I swore and hoped, with everything I had, they hadn’t left it too late.Next time, remind me to give them less leeway on orders.
Yara queen. Must learn to fight and direct.She paused.Where they fly?
I hesitated again.Are either of them injured?
Minor hurts only.
Given the drakkon tendency to understate the seriousness of wounds, that wasn’t really reassuring.
Is good. They promise.
Fine, ask them to rise high and fast and come after us. We’ll need them to keep watch while we land and repair everyone.
Is dangerous, Kaia said.
Yes, it was, but we had no choice. We’d lose Taitia, at the very least, if we tried for the aerie right now. She simply couldn’t keep the speed up, and continuously running interference to protect her would likely end with other drakkons injured or dead.
Kaia passed the orders to everyone, and we flew on, following the Sheer’s precipice. The storm continued to rage around us, washing acid away from scale, membrane, and flesh, leaving raw, open wounds behind. I had no sense that we were being followed, but tension still pulsed through me. The riders wouldn’t give up easily. All we could do was hope the storm’s ferocity kept them grounded long enough for us to get back into the air and then home.
And we had to do it all before night fell and allowed the rest of their birds to rise.
We reached the scree slopes and levelled out, flying past the foothills and into Mareritten proper. I grabbed my long viewer and scanned the area, looking not only for a Mareritten presence but also for somewhere safe to land. Eventually, I guided Kaia toward a range of hills that folded into the sea. They were tall enough for the drakkons to hunker behind, and as long as we kept a watch atop the hillside until Yara and Cansu joined us, we should have enough time to mount and rise if the riders or indeed the Mareritt came this way.
The drakkons swooped around and flew in behind the hills, folding their wings and thrusting out their feet to land. Taitia couldn’t control her speed properly and all but crashed, forcingJassy to leap from her back lest she be squashed by the tumbling drakkon.
Both came up onto their feet okay, even if Taitia did look a little put out by the inelegance of the whole maneuver.
Once Kaia was on the ground, I tugged the packs containing the medical supplies free, undid the clips holding me on, and slid down her leg. “Hannity, grab a long viewer and get up the top. I’ll treat Rua’s wings once I take care of Kaia.”
Hannity tossed me her medical pack, then unclipped the long viewer and dismounted. “You’d best be treating yourself, too, Commander. You’ve got some nasty bits of metal poking out of your body.”
And now that she’d mentioned it, I could definitely feel each and every one of them. But none were in spots that were hampering movement, and it was more important Kaia be repaired than me.
Not to me, she said.
A comment guaranteed to melt the hardest heart, and no one could ever accuse me ofthatwhen it came to drakkons. I plucked out the ones I could reach, then scratched her eye ridge and ducked under her neck to scan for wounds. Her left wing had three tears, her right, one, and her tail was raw where acid had swept across it.
Like your head, she rumbled.
I frowned and felt my scalp. There was indeed a raw, hairless patch a good two fingers wide that stretched from just above my right ear around to the back of my head. If not for the flask of water and the fierce rain, the acid might well have burned through my skull and into my brain; it was a stark reminder of not only how dangerous the stuff was, but just how close I’d come to death.
I shivered, then dumped the packs on the ground and pulled out the antiseptic numbing salve. After dabbing some on the rawhairless streak along my scalp, I treated her tail, then moved on to her wings, coating the remaining raw spots with the salve before swapping it over for the silk webbing, stringing it across the gaps between her phalanges and reattaching the loose membrane as best I could with sealer. The end result wasn’t pretty, but, given a good half hour or so to harden properly, it should enable her to fly without restriction. As I came back out from under her wing, both Yara and Cansu arrived.
Want them land?Kaia asked.Or watch from above?
I glanced up, shading my eyes against the continuing drizzle so I could check them both for their “minor” wounds. Cansu had what looked to be a shallow chunk of skin and scale taken out of her rear thigh, and Kele was no longer wearing her coat, suggesting that she, like me, had been hit by acid, but that was it, thank Túxn.
Tell them to move out to sea but keep the shoreline in sight. If the riders do come after us, they’ll spot them first and head their way. That’ll give the rest of us time to rise and attack.
Like this plan.
The attacking part of it, no doubt.
Attacking fun.
Not when the odds are against us.
Killed many today. Odds better.
