“I remember he was promoted beyond his years and his ability.”
Again, an observation, not a question. Then the question.
“Don’t you agree?”
“He and I are of similar ages, but he was always ahead of me in rank.”
“Because Tiernan favoured him,” Zemich sneered. “He always promoted sycophants.”
It was undeniable that Tiernan had favoured Llwydadain, but not because of sycophantic behaviour. If that was what it took, Zemich would have been right there with Tiernan. And so the evening went on. The bile that boiled in Zemich’s gut spewed forth. I realised that he was bitter at not rising farther in the ranks, that he thought Tiernan was an idiot under it all. I got the impression that if Zemich got the chance, he’d happily slit Tiernan’s throat and take the job himself. Which was ridiculous; Zemich barely had the skills for his current role. Anything more would be beyond him.
The night went on far too long. I was relieved to get to the barracks and be able to lie down. It was too late and too dark to travel even the one hour south to Unkea.
The sickness started as I lay down. And I knew what it was. That brandy had tasted bad not because I hadn’t tasted brandy in a long while, but because there had been something in it. Clearly the sip I had had had had an effect. I got back up and moved over to the toilet block, feeling rather sorry for the plant I’d tipped the drink into to make it look like I was sipping the brandy. Not drinking it would have been taken as an insult.
Thankfully, I was able to turn my healing powers inward. Everything I had eaten or drank that evening poured into the toilet. I didn’t flush immediately, as I studied what had come up. I recognised from the bright red of certain parts of the vomit, that the poison was managed by combination. The brandy hadn’t actually contained a full poison, just something that had combined with the food I had eaten tobecomepoisonous.
Interesting.
Perhaps Llwydadain was right.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The morning did not dawn bright. Or warm. Or even dry. A glance to the east suggested that the day wasn’t going to improve any. Salvadora was in an odd mood too. The whole journey back, she’d been on and on about reuniting with Lord Aurexian, but now she wasn’t bothered. Given what had happened to me, I wondered what she’d been fed. The Stable Master was affronted that I even asked, but he had a look at her too and admitted she wasn’t the way he’d known her previously.
“She’s probably just tired. You’ve been travelling what? Fourteen days.”
Fifteen thanks to last night’s delay.
She was more than tired, this was pharmaceutical. “Do you have anything that counteracts dragonbalm?”
He scowled at me. “She didn’t get fed any of that here.”
With a deep breath I push down the rising red. “I know my dragon, this isn’t like her.”
“I don’t care,” the stable master snapped. “No one in this stable will have given her dragonbalm. I keep that stuff under lock and key, and no one got into it.”
Helpful. Still, it was only an hour to fly to Unkea. To Ang. Oh I couldn’t wait to see his face again. To hug him. Kiss him. Do … what grown consenting men did. It was best to get underway as soon as possible. Dora could sleep off whatever this was under Fenwick’s watchful eye. Another glance at the grey skies, which oddly felt like a welcome home, and I got her to mooch out to the landing platform.
Her mind felt sluggish as I reached out. Her reactions were slow, but at least she spread her wings and we were airborne. There would be no playing on this journey. I justwanted to get home, to be with Ang. It took perhaps fifteen minutes for me to relax into the ride. Dora was still lethargic, but there was no need for anything else. We were used to inclement weather. There was nothing here we could not cope with. So with the long lazy beat of wings we flew on.
The fireball came out of nowhere.
Dora screamed and dipped, her left wing singed, the sparks showered me but came to nothing, the hiss as the mis-aimed strike hit the sea was raw. I felt Dora screaming out to Lord Aurexian, but as I scanned the skies above and behind, three red dragons appeared in wing formation.
Copper flooded my throat and pounded through my body. Urging Dora to speed would have been wasted effort. She couldn’t go faster, her wing was in pain. I looked to my left, the feathers were scorched, and the exposed skin below was blistering. Reaching out, I splayed my fingers over the supracoracoideus muscle. There, I activated my magic and reached out. My healing wasn’t designed for treating anything major or even anything dragon, but all the lessons with Ang and Fenwick had strengthened my magic. I had to act because we were in the middle of the ocean. If Dora couldn’t fly, we were both going to drown. I concentrated on taking the heat out of the skin, on making it whole.
A glance up. Dora and I had flown together long enough, I didn’t have to scream the word “Incoming!” as another fireball sped towards us, I just saw it and calculated when she should furl her wing in. One wing in turned us further out to sea. Dora was still screaming for Aurexian. I couldn’t hear a response, but unless Dora channelled that to me, I wouldn’t. Our flight path unsteady and losing altitude, I had to twist in my seat to watch what our hunters were doing. Each time telling Dora what we needed, instinct over mathematics. But Ang wasn’t the only onewho knew aerial ballistics and the three behind us were using that to force Dora into the path of their rapid fire.
Dragon scales even on an ice breather like Dora could easily withstand heat, but her feathers couldn’t, and they were aiming for those.
Desperate to be more than a sitting duck, I gave Dora a plan. She flipped, and I only just held on as she looped under herself then accelerated up in a death-defying, near-vertical climb right through the bunching of the attack wing. As she reached parity with the lead dragon, the two of them chest to chest, it roared, mouth open for another flame, but Dora streamed her ice right down its throat, then we were above them.
I smelt scorched flesh and heard desperate flapping, scrabbling. Then came the man’s scream. Dora had left an ice dam in that rodding dragon’s throat that not only stopped the fire escaping, forcing it back into the dragon’s own innards, but stopped the thing from breathing. The dragon fought but failed. It fell from the sky and into the ocean.
The roars of the other two dragons split the sky like a jagged knife wound. I didn’t know how much longer I could hold on in this position. As Dora finally levelled out, we were higher, but not as high as I would have liked. Being a blue, she could cope with higher altitudes than the reds. She was built for colder climes.
The other two were coming after us, hard and fast. It was impossible to avoid all their hits, but I concentrated as much healing as I could on Dora’s wings. There hadn’t been a reason to travel armed on this trip. I knew Dora’s paws were scorched, I could feel her pain, but we needed her wings.
