Longfang (9 page)

They rested for just over an hour. The two girls sat quietly soaking up the heat from the fire and taking the opportunity to eat and drink. Occasional movements in the snow at the edge of the
melted area niggled at the corners of their eyes to begin with, but it was not long before all fell still and silent aside from the gentle crackle of the fire.

The girls talked in low voices, and first Kira and then Nolita told of what had happened after they had split. Nolita told Kira about the fear she had experienced when she had thought she was
going to spend the night alone with her dragon. Kira was a good listener and spending this time with her reminded Nolita how much she missed her older sister, Sable.

It was Firestorm who insisted they move again. The snow was still falling, as was the temperature.

‘We cannot delay any longer,’
he told Nolita.
‘I sense night dragons approaching. They are still some distance away. I can’t tell if they have located us yet,
but if we stay here, they will find us for sure.’

Nolita wasted no time. She was on her feet in an instant.

‘Night dragons!’ she said, grabbing Kira by the arm. ‘We’ve got to go! Now!’

The two girls scrabbled to throw their things into bags and climb up onto their dragons. In little more than a minute they were on the move, taking the path that Firestorm had burned through the
trees on his way in.

There was no sign of the ice worms as they made their take-off run through the deep snow outside the cover of the trees. Nolita was glad and Kira felt an even keener sense of relief. Launching
into the darkness was less frightening to Nolita than in daytime. The lack of visual cues made flying easier to cope with.

No sooner were they airborne than they turned to the south, powering along at a frantic pace in an effort to slip away from the approaching night dragons. The fast rhythmic beating of the
dragons’ wings infected both girls with a breathless sense of urgency and a creeping anxiety that the night dragons would begin actively chasing them at any moment.

Nolita felt Fire reaching out frequently with his mind. He searched ahead for any sign of Aurora and Shadow, and then more tentatively behind them to try to discern if the night dragons were
aware of them. As he said nothing, she remained content to concentrate on keeping her fear of flying under control by counting his wingbeats and keeping her eyes firmly shut.

On they flew, the relentless falling snow and bitter temperature gradually chewing through Nolita’s thick clothing until once again numbness began to creep across her body. In subtle
incremental shades the sky brightened in anticipation of the rising sun. Whenever she did briefly open her eyes, the snow-covered landscape below appeared a ghostly grey/white in the pre-dawn
half-light. The spectral shadows and the hypnotic falling snow gave ample reason for Nolita to keep her eyes shut as much as possible.

‘More trouble!’
Firestorm’s warning was preceded by a surge of emotion through the bond.
‘I sense Shadow and Aurora ahead, but the main body of night dragons
are there, too. They must have split up to search for us.’

‘What do you think we should do?’
Nolita asked.

‘There is nothing we can do,’
Fire said, his voice sounding frustrated.
‘They’re too far away. We will not reach them in time. Aurora’s forming a gateway.
Segun is closing. She has no choice. Shadow’s gone.’
He paused.
‘Aurora’s gone, too. They have left us behind.’

Chapter Eight

‘Bloody hell!’ Jack swore as a huge explosion lifted the tail of his aircraft, leaving it pointing almost vertically down at the ground. His ears rang with the
aftershock of the noise as he wrestled with the controls, desperately trying to coax the machine back into level flight. He pulled back further and further on the yoke with little noticeable
effect. The aircraft was accelerating towards the ground in a death dive.

A glance over his shoulder was enough to confirm the damage was bad. The tailplane was in tatters and there were gaping holes in the fuselage. His elevators were almost completely gone, leaving
him with extremely limited pitch control.

‘I’m damned if I’m going down in enemy territory,’ he growled, pulling back the yoke as far as he could. ‘Come on, baby! You can do it. Don’t let me down
now.’

The sound of the wind in the wires built rapidly from its normal whistling song to an unearthly howl as the aircraft plummeted towards the ground. The needle on the airspeed indicator cranked
around rapidly, already exceeding the maximum recommended velocity. The aircraft was falling at a speed that Jack knew could tear the fabric apart . . . and it was still accelerating.

Was this the end? Would all his combat experience be concluded by one lucky shot from the ground? It did not seem fair. Against all the odds, he had survived far longer than perhaps he deserved.
He had gambled time and again during combat, but somehow he had always managed to return home in one piece. He had begun to feel almost invincible – a dangerous illusion that had claimed the
lives of all too many of the flying aces.

‘Oh no you don’t,’ he snarled at his machine, his teeth gritted and his lips pulled tight in a determined grimace. ‘I’m not ready to die just yet.’

He could see the lines of the trenches ahead. If he could just flatten the dive sufficiently, he would at least impact the ground on friendly soil. Many pilots had miraculously walked away from
crashes before. He just needed to give himself the best chance of survival. At least if he crashed on the right side of the lines and lived, he would not have to worry about being dragged off as a
prisoner of war.

He suddenly realised that in the shock of the moment, he had not touched the throttle control, which was still in a cruise setting. He throttled it back to idle and instantly began to feel the
slowing propeller act like an airbrake. The airspeed stabilised, still dangerously high, but no longer increasing.

‘JUST A LITTLE HIGHER!’ he yelled, releasing his frustration in a great shout. The muscles in his arms started to twitch with the effort of sustaining the pull force, but little by
little the nose of the aeroplane began to climb, as the earth loomed closer and closer.

‘How long have we got, Ra?’ Elian called aloud.

‘Not as long as I’d like,’
she replied.
‘It’s not quite dawn yet. The barrier between worlds isn’t weak enough to form a gateway. Besides, I
don’t want to use all my strength getting us there. I must be able to get us back again at the next opportunity.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Climb,’
Aurora said bluntly.
‘The higher we can get, the closer to dawn we will be. Segun will expect us to run, but I’m hoping he doesn’t know about the
gateways.’

‘Surely Widewing will be able to out-climb us even if we get above her,’
Elian pointed out, searching the sky above for signs of the incoming night dragons.

‘Yes, but if we’re quick, she won’t reach us in time to prevent our escape.’

Elian clung tightly to the pommel grips as Aurora pounded the air with her wings, converting every possible scrap of energy into height. Shadow powered past them and climbed away at a seemingly
impossible angle. If it had not been for the reported proximity of Segun and his lieutenants, Elian felt sure that Pell would have enjoyed showing off his dragon’s superior strength.

‘He’s probably enjoying the moment regardless,’ Elian muttered, grinding his teeth at the thought.
‘Where are Segun and his cronies?’
he asked Aurora
silently, trying to shift his focus back to more practical thoughts.
‘I can’t see them anywhere.’

‘Closing from our right,’
she answered.

‘Shouldn’t we turn left to give them more of a chase?’

‘If we were looking to drag out a long chase, then yes that would be logical,’
Aurora admitted.
‘But at the moment, Segun and his men are being very casual about the
interception. They think they have us outmanoeuvred. If we turn away, they will almost certainly accelerate to curtail the chase. I don’t think we would gain anything other than to increase
their focus. I want to keep them over-confident.’

As they climbed higher the sky around them continued to brighten. The line of mountains towered to their right and Elian’s excitement rose as he saw them catch the first direct rays of the
sun. Dawn was close – really close. Almost at the same moment he noticed the movement in the corner of his eye. Four black dragons were closing fast from slightly above and to their right.
Even as he looked, they began to turn and descend on a rapid intercept course. By Elian’s best estimate, he and Pell had less than a minute before Segun and his men caught up with them.

‘I’ve made contact with Fire,’
Aurora announced suddenly.

Elian’s heart leapt. ‘Just in time!’ he exclaimed, inadvertently speaking aloud in his excitement. ‘Where is he? Are Fang and Kira with him?’

‘Yes, Fire is flying with Fang, but they are too far away to be of help,’
she replied.
‘They are also too far away to reach us before the dawn window. I’ve told
them to run for it. I don’t think Segun is aware of them. He and Widewing are totally focused on us. We are going to leave without them.’

‘What? But we can’t, Ra!’
Elian protested.
‘The Oracle said we were to work together, remember? If we go through to the other world, they will never catch up
with us.’

‘I have not forgotten the Oracle’s words, Elian,’
Aurora said, her voice determined.
‘But we have no choice. Segun is out for blood. If we lose this opportunity
to slip through his fingers, he will not give us another. I have told Fire we will look for them “at the place where the shadows dwell,” wherever that may be. We must hope for the
Oracle to let slip another clue when we deliver the second orb. If any team can find the third orb, it will be Kira and Fang.’

Elian knew his dragon was right, but abandoning them here felt terrible. His chest tightened and a lump formed in his throat as he felt Aurora gathering her energy to form the gateway. Kira and
Fang were the partnership most likely to outwit Segun and the night dragons, but he felt a certain sense of responsibility towards both of the girls.

Elian sensed the moment of dawn through the bond. It brought with it a surge of power that filled him with burning energy. Aurora’s concentration was total. In the swirling snow ahead the
familiar grey circle of swirling nothingness that led to the other world was barely visible. He heard Aurora’s directions to Shadow as the bond between them momentarily swelled. In that
instant of total openness, he shared her deepest thoughts. His heart pounded as he realised she was no more comfortable with leaving their friends behind than he was. Also there was the conviction
that they had no choice. Elian’s breath caught in his throat.

Shadow dived into the vortex ahead of them. A heartbeat before they followed, Elian glanced over his shoulder to see Segun on Widewing powering towards them, no more than a few dragon-lengths
away. Even through the falling snow Elian could see his expression. The look of fury on his face was unlike any Elian had ever seen before – then he was gone. Grey limbo swallowed Elian. A
brief feeling of weightlessness, then the twisting snap of emergence, followed the gut-wrenching twist of entry.

Aurora came out directly behind Shadow. Elian instantly looked back over his shoulder to see if Widewing had somehow entered the vortex, but the gateway had collapsed immediately behind them. If
Segun and his dragon had entered the vortex, they had not made it through to the other side.

They had been out of the vortex just a few seconds when a barrage of explosions split the air around them with great roars. Puffs of smoke, some black and some white, marked each blast of sound
and light.

‘Shadow and Pell are terrified,’
Aurora announced, sounding almost smug.

‘I can’t say I blame them,’
Elian replied, his ears ringing and his heart thumping.
‘Let’s get out of here, Ra. Someone’s directing those
flash-bangs at us and I don’t think they’re meant as a friendly hello. They sound far more powerful than the stingers that hit you before. Also, if we’re hit, we don’t have
the benefit of Firestorm’s healing breath on hand. Let’s not push our luck.’

‘You are right, Elian,’
Aurora agreed.
‘Wait a moment, though!’

‘What?’

‘It’s that man in the flying machine again,’
she said, sounding almost irritated.
‘It seems we can’t avoid meeting him.’

‘The same one again!’
Elian exclaimed.
‘Where?’

‘Below and to the right,’
she replied.
‘And if I am not mistaken his machine is badly damaged. I believe he is going to crash.’

‘Quick! Do something!’

‘What do you suggest?’
she asked.
‘I can’t catch something that big.’