Page 4 of The Fires of Longest Night
Ria swears, gripping at the saddle horn and tightening her thighs against Isiridion’s slippery scales. She hunches low and glances back over her shoulder just as an arrow whistles over her head.Fuck. Archers.
Isiridion pulls out of the dive, great wings heaving as it heads towards the encampment.We can’t lead them to the clan.Ria peers over her shoulder.There’s only one. We can take one. We just need to get them on the ground so I can use my axe, and their arrows aren’t so dangerous.
If you have ideas about how to do that, I’m all ears,Isiridion says grimly.
Ria stares towards the ground through bleary eyes, struggling to come up with a plan. What could they use to drive the dragon and its rider to the ground?
The answer, when it strikes her, strikes Isiridion too, and determination floods through them both. There’s nothing like this feeling, where she and the dragon are responding as one.
The waterfall that tumbles out of the high lake: it will be concealed by the fog, if their luck holds, and if the pursuing dragon behind them is flying a little too fast in Isiridion’s wake, it will be driven down by the tumble of water towards the lake. It’s probably too much to hope that it will be pinned by the falling water, but it will be thrown out of its flight, surely.
Surely,Isiridion says, steel in its tone.
Not too fast,Ria warns.You need to be able to pull up.
Stop trying to teach me to suck eggs, child.
Ria crouches low and falls silent. This is Isiridion’s task now. The fog thickens over the surface of the water, and Ria grips at her spiraling fears, lest they overwhelm her. Yes, the enemy could be right behind her; yes, she wouldn’t be able to tell until too late. But it’s fog, and—
She peers over her shoulder and catches a glimpse of a pink tinge through the fog. Isiridion speeds up, still shooting as straight as an arrow towards the waterfall.
You’re sure you can do this, right?Ria tries not to imagine them both smashing hard into the rockface beyond the waterfall, knowing the dragon will see the picture in her mind, too.
Isiridion doesn’t deign to reply in words, but an air of disgust is clear.
Ria clutches the saddle horn tight. A moment later, Isiridion’s giant wings tilt and Ria is hanging on for her life as they shoot upwards, the roar of the waterfall echoing in her ears. There’s a loud trumpeting of surprise, and a shout, and an enormous splash behind them.
They land quickly on the shore and Ria narrows her eyes to try to make out what’s going on out on the water.
When the red dragon appears in the water, splashing towards them, Ria bares her teeth. The human is still on its back, but as the fog thins, she can make out that their bow is gone, the quiver on their back empty. Excellent.
Better ready that blade still,Isiridion warns.Whether it’s for the rider or the dragon.
Ria pulls her axe from her back and spins it in one hand, then in the other. Its familiar weight settles the anxiety roiling in her gut, and she bends into fighting stance, unable to keep a feral grin from breaking across her face.
“Have a wee accident, did you?” she bellows as the dragon hauls itself, exhausted, into the muddy shallows. “That’ll teach you to chase other dragons in less than stellar visibility.” She uses the Common tongue—rusty from disuse—but she’s pretty happy with her fighting words.
There’s a series of words that she has to assume are curses in whatever language this enemy speaks. And then the human draws a sword, slides down the dragon’s shoulder and lands with a muddy splash in the shallows. He flicks his long black hair back out of his slender brown eyes, revealing a scar that pulls at his forehead, brow and cheek.
“You will pay for that,” he says in Common between gritted teeth. He wears red lacquered armor, the kind the Rescalesewear, but it’s battered and patched. He’s no Rescalese soldier, but it looks like he’s taken a number of them in his time.
“Uh huh,” Ria says carelessly. “Guess we’ll see, hm?”
She steps towards him, willing to take the advantage of keeping him in the sucking mud of the bank. Behind her, Isiridion rises tall, moving in to her left to keep the red dragon from shifting to attack.
He raises his blade, and she bends her knees, watching him for a long moment, measuring. When he doesn’t react, she shrugs and steps in, swinging once, twice, then again. Each time, her axe clashes against his sword, just as she expects. But when she feints left and swings right, he doesn’t respond, just catching her blade. He spotted the feint. Hmm.
She dances closer, the head of her axe spinning in her grip to let the chunky flat edge sail towards his head. He bats it away like a fly with his sword. Her eyes narrow.
And then he makes a strange flicker of a movement with his sword, and somehow, he’s gotten beyond her guard to cut into her shoulder, right where her leather pauldron ends. She bites back the cry and swears beneath her breath instead.
Don’t underestimate him,Isiridion tells her. The dragons are pacing slowly along the bank, watching each other and growling deep.Remember, you can’t rely on me to bring you back anymore. The revivification doesn’t work now.
We don’t know that.
We don’t know it does. And I’m not prepared to risk your stupid mortal life on the maybe.
Ria grits her teeth and swings into a series of swift maneuvers that ends with her kicking hard into his sword arm. She misses the muscle that would see him drop his blade, but he lurches sideways just as her axe whistles back towards his head.
