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There were other black smears of dying dragon-flame in the sky. They’d done no damage to the enemy that she could see. Even the Aerial Host dragons hadn’t caused blood to rain down. Was this the death-flight of dragonkind?
Finally a troll fell, but it took a dragon with it. They went down together, both trailing wing skin and bone in a fluttering mass as they fell.
“We’re done for,” a dragon called.
“Hunting them is one thing, but this!”
Wistala watched one of the griffaran turn in pursuit of a dragon. The graceful female dragon turned tight, her wings, body, neck, and tail working together, and even her spinal fringe doing its duty to stabilize her in the air. The griffaran tried to match it, and like a runner losing his balance, the air went out from under it and it fluttered and fell in a confused manner for a moment before righting itself.
They’re body-heavy and underwinged, Wistala thought.
NiVom and Imfamnia had made a mistake, tinkering with the griffaran. Nature is capable of perfection and adding dragon-blood means a subtraction somewhere else. They took a supremely deadly flier and made it tough and frightful, resistant to arrow and fire, but it had lost the lethal speed and maneuverability that made it such a threat to dragons. Flying against the griffaran was a contest between an osprey and a buzzard.
“Sloppy fliers. Like bumblebees! Don’t engage, hit light and dodge the counterstrike.”
“Pair off,” DharSii bellowed. “Pass word: Pair off! Just nip them at the wingtips!”
For the more experienced former warriors of the Aerial Host, the tactical advice wasn’t necessary. They’d already sniffed out these mutated griffaran’s weakness and were improvising methods for taking advantage of it.
One of the Lights—AuRon’s daughter Varatheela, by the look of it—flapped hard, her wingmate trying to keep up. She went straight at one of the glistening, reptilian griffaran. It raised its claws to meet her snout, but at the last moment she turned on her belly—a very dangerous move—and grabbed a sii-ful of feathers out of the edge of its wing as she passed.
Ungainly before, the dreadful griffaran plummeted like a duck with an arrow through its wing.
“Those edges are everything with a bird-wing,” DharSii said. He executed a dive and two griffaran swooped to follow. Extending legs, wings, tail, and even griff to their maximum, he slowed his pace in the air and they passed overhead, claws out and grasping at air. Both were marking DharSii’s course rather than each other and collided. A loose feather flew up and the two griffaran, senseless or dead, fell limp from the sky.
“I watched your brother making that move once,” DharSii said, watching with satisfaction as the griffaran struck the mountainside. “He slows himself more easily than I.”
NiVom must not have had much time to evaluate his new griffaran against live dragons. Of course, keeping secrets meant no one could tell you when you’ve gone wrong.
The trolls were another matter.
Don’t think of it as a battle. Think of it as a big hunt.
“Same thing as our hunts, only in the air,” Wistala said. “One of us draws its attention, the other one strikes!”
“I’m first,” DharSii said.
He plunged into the path of a troll and spat whatever remnants of his firebladder he could—more to get the troll’s attention than in expectation of setting it alight. He made a convincing show attack, lashing out with quick flips of his wingtips and tail in a series of blows aimed at its stalked sense-organ cluster.
The troll rolled—an unexpected move—and its arms windmilled, striking DharSii hard in the side. DharSii sagged under the blow and a wing went folded, the sign of a bad injury to the back muscles or ribs.
Wistala, silently asking the sun and spirits to have it be a clever ruse, folded her wings and dove. She didn’t open them again, even when she struck the troll a hard body blow. She ripped with sii and saa, tearing the roots of the troll’s butterfly-like wings to shreds, felt it pounding her back, but she kept her wings closed tight as they fell like bloodily mating dragons.>The troll placed his hand on the Copper’s chest, felt around, then turned away, kicking sand upon the corpse with those ridiculous back limbs.
“It appears you win again, AuRon,” Rayg said. “Though by default. Your amazing string of luck in single combat—”
With a screech Nilrasha ran forward.
“Wait, you won’t be harmed!” Rayg called. “That was just—”
She threw herself upon the huge troll, back legs tight against her side after the leap. She pedaled frantically with them, removing the troll’s scaly skin in bloody strips. The troll let out a gibbering hoot and then the blood quit spraying as it collapsed.
“You may depart, Natasatch,” Imfamnia said. “I think you’ll find it an easy glide to the surface.”
“No. Whatever fate my beloved and the father of my hatchlings faces, I share it with him.”
“As for the loser’s mate, you may go, too.” Rayg let out a corkscrew call and the trolls pawed back from Nilrasha. “We’ll see that the former Tyr’s body is properly—”
“No,” she snarled at the trolls, covering her mate’s body with her own.
