Page 41 of Ignite the Infernos

In a pattern each of the Syphons knows by heart, I pitch to the left and up, zipping through Enslee and Vero, then down through the center in a practiced waltz of sandcycles.

“I hate this part,” Sofann whines, and I really wish Olinta hadn’t unbuckled behind me, because I feel her holding on for dear life while we all scramble to make it to the ridgeline.

Out of nowhere, Iker comes crashing down from the heavens, Herm and Sondar right on his tail.

“What the fuck!” Gable growls when he has to break formation in order to avoid being clipped by one of Iker’s silver wings.

The wyvern is supposed to be leading the two Wing members on his ass away from the rest of us, not joining in on the action. Iker dive-bombs Aeson like a crow pestering an eagle for the fish clutched in its talons, and the two go head-to-head.

Enslee curses the old bastard for his hypocritical break in protocol, but he can’t hear shit sans a com. The gauntlet finally comes into view, and we abandon our evasive maneuvers and fly full tilt into the hollowed-out canyon we’ve been aiming for since we abandoned our wards for the first and last time and tore out into the desert.

The canyon walls are just wide enough for a dragon’s wingspan, but it will greatly limit their maneuverability. Overhead, rocky arches stripe the full length of the canyon, which means once you’re inside the gauntlet, it’s difficult to get out, and picking off sandcycles from above isn’t an option.

I fall back a little, letting Enslee, Amadi, and Vero take the lead while Mayur, Gable, and I bring up the rear. The shadows of the canyon blanket us, and my visor auto-adjusts to the change in light until I can once again see everything clearly.

A wyvern’s scream and the outraged roars of several dragons follow us into the canyon, but when I look back, the owners of those vocalizations are nowhere to be seen. We keep a steady pace, expertly navigating the keyholes of the canyon and avoiding the snares and fly lines we’ve fit throughout the terrain. I haven’t flown this route in almost five months, so I pull up a map of the booby traps and fix it to the right side of my visor, just in case.

“Wyverns, go,” Craith orders quietly, and I wince as the command crackles over our coms.

We try not to use them in here because the signals can sometimes fuck with the older detonators buried in this valley. Thankfully, nothing explodes, and I reach back and tap Olinta twice, before giving her a hand signal that tells her she’s got this. She squeezes my hand affectionately once and then jumps off the back of my flier. The sandcycle totters a little, but I get her right in no time and watch as Olinta, Sofann, and Craith streak ahead of us on their fly-packs as they race to take up their positions throughout the canyon.

And now we wait.

Chapter 19

Aeson

THE WYVERN SCREAMS IN OUTRAGE as Sondar and Herm pin him to the ground and hold him there. The big bastard is bleeding from bites and claw marks in several places, and they look slow to close up, evidence that he’s been away from a Source for too long. Jori is headed back to the camp to bring the collars we brought to manage the wyvern’s shift so we can take him into custody.

I ride the current in a tight circle, checking the skies for any more ambushing wyverns or dragons, but there’s still only the one. Karis and Ogdan flank me, and I quickly check in with Chastain and Tove.

“ETA?” I ask mentally, eyeing the entrance to the small canyon Ever and the other five fliers just darted into.

“I accidentally ate one,” Chastain croaks back. “It flew right into my mouth.”

“Almost done,” Tove answers when it’s clear Chastain is focused on . . . other things.

“No means no, you beetle-brained bastards!” Chastain bellows like a war cry, and then he cuts back out again.

“Give us another five,” Tove declares evenly, but I can sense her accompanying eye roll. “There’ s one more batch of these fuckers that the airhead needs to blow away, and then we’ll be clear.”

“Looking forward to it,” Ogdan chimes in, and there’s no mistaking his amusement.

It was a good ambush. I’ll give Ever that, but enough is enough.

“Let’s go,” I order both Ogdan and Karis, and we round the hull of a mountainous yardang and get our first look at what’s in store for us next.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think we were entering the narrow chamber of some long-dead beast’s rib cage, one so big it makes dragons look more like dragonflies. Just like everything in The Scorch, the landscape is barren, rock and sand and little else . . . that we can see, anyway. Though I suspect we’ll run into a few more beetle-like scenarios before this run is through.

“If you’d spent the last sixty-odd years planning an escape route from The Horde,” I ask Ogdan and Karis, “how would you defend this stretch?”

I flap my expansive wings, hovering at the mouth of this very obvious trap while I quickly try to assess what might be in store for us the second we cross the threshold.

“Judging by their fliers and gear, the traps will be rudimentary. I’d say rocks, nets, probably more bugs or other creatures willing to take us on in defense of their territory or offspring,” Ogdan checks off.

“The real question is, how much do they want to hurt us?” Karis adds. “And I don’t mean us specifically, but The Horde. Do they want to delay, incapacitate, or kill us outright?”

I huff out a breath, and smoke trails after it. “All the above,” I quip.