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And on and on glided the pursuit. Didn’t they have buildings to burn and gold to steal? Why didn’t they close and put an end to him?
Painful beat-glide. Painful beat-glide. Painful beat-glide. On and on through the night.
A black scar broke the moonlit ground ahead.
Could it be the Tooth Cavern? He knew it opened to the sky not far north of the bridge at the Lower World. He altered his course a little south.
Fool! More the fool! The change proved to be a telltale to the pursuing dragons. They beat their wings harder, closing.
He expended what strength he had left trying to stay ahead; still they closed.
And still they fired no weapon, just kept him under observation.
At last the cavern was in his glide-path. No elegant flying, just a simple turn and descent. He closed his wings a little to hurry it, making for the canyon floor.
The leading two followed. The third stayed above, watching the action.
He looked frantically for some sign of the tunnel, the enclosure of the Lower World, but there was none. Columns of rock could be seen ahead; perhaps they were the beginnings of the teeth.
Reaching the stone columns, he swerved around one, the next painfully bashing his wing tip when he miscalculated his turn. Now the lead flier was closer behind, his companion a little farther back, and the Copper didn’t dare roll his good eye toward the sky lest he hit the cavern’s side.
There. Darkness ahead. As a dragon he could see well enough. He wondered how good the night vision of the riders was. Would they let their fliers choose their own path?
He whipped into darkness, and the first pursuer drew even closer.
These rocks he knew. He’d flown around them often enough in his practice flights as Rayg tested the joint brace.
The fat one ahead, in fact, had a deceptively wide but shallow route around the east side, and a narrow but deep channel to the left.
He approached the fat rock as though going around the east, then at the last moment rolled and shot through the west gap. But instead of continuing down the cavern he stayed in the turn, hoping to meet his pursuer coming around the other side—anything but nose-tip to nose-tip.
A flash, a thump in his wing, and they were past each other.
He found himself flying headlong toward the second hag-ridden dragon. The rider put a shimmering piece of metal to his shoulder and something whirled past his ear, turning tight circles as it cut the air—a crossbow bolt.
The Copper dove for the surface, and so did his opponent. He rose to turn and the opposing dragon lashed out with a saa as they passed, opening a wound in his belly.
He turned back south for the bridge.
Now the third dragon descended, its rider leaning over and struggling with his weapon. The Copper made for the tunnel, but the second pursuer banked in front of him. The rider hurled some kind of apparatus of chain and steel balls but missed, thanks to the tight turn his mount was making in the narrow walls of the canyon.
Ahead the Copper saw the first dragon shooting out of the mouth of the cave, the strapped-on leather chair hanging askew and reins loose and flying free in the breeze. He’d dismounted the rider!
Now in the cave he saw the hag-rider sprawled on the floor, unconscious or dead. He flapped into the canyon, the darkness promising safety, but still one dragon followed.
He didn’t have time to wonder what had happened to the third.
The chasm descended sharply and he banked around a bend, and there ahead was the bridge.
He loosed a bellowing war call: “Firemaidens, cry havoc!”
He turned for the south side of the bridge and a crossbow bolt punched through his wing.
Under the bridge and up, he saw two shapes hiding at the openings of the short tunnel through one of the rocky “teeth” on the new bridge. As the dragon trailing him closed they loosed their flame and spread it.
The dragon closed its wings, and the rider crossed shield-elbowed in front of the Copper’s face. They passed through flame together, the oily, burning mess sliding off dragonscale but clinging to the rider’s exposed surfaces. The dragon flipped over, whether by orders, instinct, or accident, allowing the fire to fall off.
Until a stalagmite clipped off its rider from the waist up as neatly as a blade.
