Page 173 of The Dragon Queen Complete Series Collection
Chapter 172
By all the gods, I’d spent days in the saddle before, both on dragon and horse alike, and yet I’d never been as sore as I was now. I shifted my hips back and forth, trying to get comfortable, but every part of my posterior ached.
“You need to stop doing that.” Draven’s voice was a low purr in my ear, almost the same pitch as the winds that rushed past. “It’s very distracting.”
“Distract me,” I grumbled. “Anything to take my mind off this ache. I’ll be red raw when we land tonight.”
“If my queen insists.”
But right as his hand slid up my ribs, Glimmer landed on Darkspire’s neck. She had spent much of the journey gliding along. Mostly caught up in Darkspire’s wake, but she held her own until her wings got tired, then she came back and sat with us. That’s what I thought was happening now, until her eyes met mine.
One of the traitor dragons is below.
“Draven—”
“I know.” All the heat rushed out of him as he snatched a spyglass from his bags and then used it to look down below. Darkspire let out a low roar, and he patted the dragon’s neck absently with his free hand. “I know, lad. I see him too.”
“One of the Duke’s dragons is here?” My eyes tried vainly to pierce the haze of clouds below, but I couldn’t see it. “This close to the border?”
“Not for long.” Draven barely ground that out before looking over at the rest of the wing and making a sharp gesture that could not be misunderstood. We would give chase, bring this defector to justice, and each one of the dragons let their wings dip down on the right before sweeping around, ready to fly down this enemy. “I can get one of the riders to come and fly you to safety as we deal with this.”
“Are you serious?” I leaned forward, gripping the saddle horn tightly, as if it would be me who descended down on this enemy rider, claws outstretched. “Don’t you even try.”
“Your wish is my command, my queen.”
I regretted my decision the moment Darkspire made his descent, because I realised now how easy all of them had been on me when I rode with them. It felt like the world was rushing up to meet me, eager to smash my skull open on the ground. Wind threatened to yank me from the saddle, and if my thighs ached before, they were agony now. I was fighting to keep my seat, when Draven’s arm wrapped around my waist.
“You’ll never fall, not while I still draw breath.”
As if in response to his word, Darkspire’s plummet levelled off as his roar rang out, declaring to everyone around his intent. The defector dragon seemed to take the hint, scrambling to take flight and get beyond our reach. It would never have succeeded. We had momentum, speed on our side, so why would it bother doing something so stupid?
Because this was a trap.
And we’d taken the bait without thought.
“Ballista!”
Brom’s shout diverted our attention away from the dragon and I could almost hear the grinding sound the gears made as the massive war engines were wound around to focus on us. They looked like a huge crossbow, and each one of the javelins loaded into the mechanism were aimed at us.
“Shots fired!”
The traitor dragon wasn’t our focus, not when our own were under attack.
Obsidian, to the left! Glimmer’s imperious little voice rang out through my head and I bet Brom’s dragon felt the same. Cloud Raker, up! I watched Ged’s dragon back wing frantically, trying to get some distance between him and a javelin that went whistling over my head. Burn that javelin! Cloudy twisted like a snake, erupting a massive gout of flame into the air and turning the wooden projectile to ashes. Wraith…!
I sucked in a breath, the air stuttering in my chest as I heard Soren’s dragon scream. My love was now flattened against his dragon’s back, making sure he did nothing to impede his dragon’s progress as Wraith tried desperately to veer away from the javelin’s path. He misjudged it. I could tell as soon it got close. Soren was trying to wrest his dragon to the left, but ended up right into the javelin’s path.
SOREN!
If anyone doubted the rumours about us, they wouldn’t now. My mind shoved past its usual limits, broadcasting to the world what I felt. Him, safe, out of the path of this damn ballista and then rallying before descending on the assailants with righteous fury. Wraith would fry them where they stood, Obsidian too, and while the battlements crackled with lightning, Cloudy would blast them all to hell with fire. Their screams would be silenced by Darkspire looming out of the chaos, laying waste to everything organic with his acid breath.
And that’s just what happened.
I could feel Soren, the tension in his body, the way he wrenched Wraith sideways, his muscles screaming with the effort. I could feel Wraith, his heat beating like a drum, as he did the same. Him, me, Soren, we were one in our desire to ensure we all survived this.
Not just us.
They dare to try and shoot my mates from the sky? Glimmer glowed brighter and brighter, rivalling the glow of the sun, her whole body quivering like a dog on the hunt. They dare to try to take them from me? I heard the growl build in her chest, in ‘Spire’s. Strike them down, burn it all to the ground, make them rue the day they thought to stand against us!
My dragon’s thoughts were like a lash we could not defy. The dragons all moved as one, hurtling towards the earth, falling like stones, veering left or right to avoid projectiles, but never pausing. I could hear the sound of their wings fluttering, the wind roaring, my own heart rattling in my chest, right before we pulled up abruptly. Wide eyes, open mouths, I saw that briefly, right before we rained down hell.
Lightning crackled across the battlements, dancing along the stones, limning the outline of the ballistas right before the wood began to crack. Obsidian and Wraith were pulling up and away as Cloudy swept forward. I’d seen a firestorm before, the dreadful combination of fire and lightning creating a chaotic swirl that threatened to destroy everything in its path, just as it did now. Men screamed, threw themselves off the battlements, but this did little to help them.
“Those bastards…” All of Glimmer’s rage was contained in Draven’s voice. He gripped me, gripped the saddle as we rose above the battlements. “You thought to launch an attack on my wing? Show them the error of their ways, lad.”
It was such a benign pet name for such a powerful creature. Glimmer stood just behind Darkspire’s head, watching her mate, right before he released his terrible breath on the castle.
Men screamed, ballistas collapsed, broken down in seconds. Even the stone walls themselves seemed to sizzle under his onslaught. Darkspire was winging backwards, the other dragons doing the same, to escape getting caught in the back draft.
And that’s when the last ballista struck.
Safe, on the other side of the battlements, we hadn’t hit it yet. Obviously, the operator saw the carnage and thought this was their last chance to strike back. I stiffened, hearing the clunking sounds, unable to watch Darkspire wreak havoc, not when we were now in the ballista’s sights.
Noooo….!
The thought elongated, distorted, begging a cruel world for some mercy, but we received none. I watched the javelin shoot forward as if in slow motion. Darkspire screamed in rebellion, whirling around in response. Not away from the javelin. In his maddened state, it was as if he saw the projectile as another dragon, threatening his territory.
Up, lad, up! Draven begged him furiously, clawing at the saddle, but it made little difference. The dragon sucked in a breath, ready to melt the javelin from the sky, right as Obsidian cut across its path.
“No!”
My king and I shouted that out at the same time, because while Obsidian sent a gout of lightning crackling down the javelin’s shaft, it didn’t stop it. Instead, I heard a dull thud, then Obsidian’s scream as the dragon veered off at a drunken angle.
“Get us down there!” I barked, as if I was the general, not Rex. “And burn every single one of those ballistas to the ground. Burn them all!”
I knew what it was to be a dragon then. I quivered with the same fury, same arrogance as I rose up from the saddle. It felt like my eyes locked with the ballista operator, daring him to load another javelin, even as his comrades did just that. They would not stop, not until they were made to, and I had to ensure that happened.
“Get back!” Draven shouted, his hand slapping down on the saddlebag.
They weren’t doing anything right. Darkspire was dragging us upwards, not away, towards Obsidian, the other dragon’s screams echoing in my ears. All the dragons moved as one, pulling back from the chaos, their swift movements too much for the ballista. It’s gears went clunk, clunk, clunk as it fought to find its target again.
It wouldn’t succeed.
We took to the clouds, the castle looking like a toy from this height, and that’s when Draven pulled what he was looking for from his saddlebags. A familiar looking vial encased in ice emerged, held between his hands. I think Draven experienced a moment of clarity then. It was a pause that allowed him to reconsider his plan of action, but whatever he might’ve been thinking was shattered when we heard Obsidian’s scream.
“Draven…”
I didn’t know what to say, what to do, just that tears filled my eyes. Is Obsidian all right? I asked Glimmer. Is Brom? Did they fall? Did they…?
The thought was cut off as Draven’s jaw muscle flexed and then he tossed his burden. Down, down, down the vial went, the ice melting off as it went. It felt like I went with it, right before the whole world erupted.
This was completely different to destroying the hulk in the bay. It was an old, listing abandoned ship, but this was Nevermere. A scream built in my throat, but it was snatched away by the blast that followed.
I’d seen this kind of destruction before, in the visions I had received. What was missing from that was the stink, the screams, the cries. I didn’t get to dwell on that. Draven turned Darkspire abruptly, seeking Brom and Obsidian like a hound on the trail.
We landed in a wood somewhere off from the bomb site, the wind gliding over top of the trees until we came to a clearing.
And there they were.
Laid out on the ground like dolls carelessly tossed aside by a child, Obsidian and Brom had collapsed down onto the earth and didn’t move an inch.