Protagonist Bound (53 page)

Oh no.

The guards seemed to realize what I had and began to fly out of the way. It proved to be not a moment too soon. For in the next instant the dragon let out a burst of twenty-foot flames that would’ve barbequed them all.

When the dragon finished releasing his fire he swiftly turned and began flying in our direction, disregarding the remaining guards, and the city completely.

No one wanted to say what they were thinking at that point. But as the gap between our carriage and the creature began to seem less and less massive, the tension became sufficient enough for someone in our group to speak up.

“Guys . . . ” Jason said. “Is that thing headed toward us?”

The dragon’s distance was now closing in on three or four miles. His eyes practically seemed locked on our carriage. And in that moment, as if to prove a point, he emitted another roar and began flapping his wings even faster.

Oh, dang.

I pivoted around to the open window separating Daniel and me from the inside of the carriage.

“SJ,” I called back, “please tell me you have another sleeping potion in that bag of yours.”

My friend grimaced, looking ashamed. “I am sorry, Crisa. But I may have used my only other sleeping potion to unlock the Capitol doors.”

“May have?”

“Okay, I definitely did.”

“You only had
two
of those? You’ve got, like, fifty potions in that sack!” Blue exclaimed.

SJ narrowed her eyes. “Well I did not set out to make sleeping potions when I brewed the rest of these, Blue. I do not like sleeping potions. I simply made a couple with the extra ingredients I had so as not to be wasteful with the potion lab’s inventory.”

“SJ,” Blue growled.

“Oh, calm yourself, Blue,” she responded as she pulled three silver orbs from her pouch. “These should work just fine too. But—”

“But what?” Blue asked.

“But you have to get them inside of his mouth.”

Daniel had increased the speed of our carriage to its capacity and the Pegasi were flapping through the skies like their lives depended on it—swerving back and forth and up and down as they tried to shake the dragon off their trail.

SJ looked out the rear window and then at Daniel and me through the front one. “Good luck,” she said.

“Wait, you’ve got the best aim. You should do it,” I asserted.

“Are you mad? I may have the best aim, but I am terrified of flying on Pegasi. I can hardly do it even when someone
else
is driving, let alone on a direct course for a dragon.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The speed and erratic way the dragon is moving make it impossible to get a clear shot from this carriage,” SJ explained. “Someone would have to get fairly close to him to have a chance of getting the potions into his mouth, and the only way to do that is by being on Pegasi.”

“You heard the girl,” I said, grabbing the portable potions from SJ and stuffing them into my pocket. “Jason, Blue—we’re on.”

Jason didn’t move. “You guys go,” he said.

“Dude, are you kidding me?” Blue asked in disbelief. “Isn’t annihilating a dragon, like, one of your lifelong dreams?”

“Yeah, but taking three Pegasi away from the carriage will slow it down too much. And I saw you guys in the Twenty-Three Skidd tournament; you and Crisa are better shots than I am. You two should do it.”

Dang, that’s pretty big of him to say. Seriously, way to take one for the team.

“Good call,” Blue nodded in agreement. “Crisa,” she turned to me. “Let’s go.”

I shoved my wand into my boot and tossed SJ my satchel. Then I helped Blue through the window and out onto the driver’s perch. There was barely enough room for the three of us. Nevertheless, Blue and I stood there alongside Daniel—holding onto the roof of the vehicle to steady ourselves as we prepared to jump.

We surveyed the five Pegasi before us. Their holographic wings were shifting in color a lot more erratically now that they were going so fast. And the colorful, smoky exhaust coming from their nostrils was way more intense too, like the billowing stacks produced by the front end of an old locomotive.

With SJ’s levitation potion at work, removing two of them wouldn’t cause the carriage to lose any altitude. But, as Jason had noted, it
would
cause the carriage to slow down. So this had to be done quickly and it had to be done now.

The wind was intense and the whole vehicle was shaking from the turbulence, both of which we’d have to take into account when we made our leaps of faith.

I gestured at Blue. “After you!”

She tightened the cord of her cloak around her neck and turned to Daniel. “Keep it steady,” she told him.

He nodded and strengthened his grip on the reins. Blue took a deep breath, released her fingers from the roof, and pivoted toward the Pegasi. Without the slightest hesitation, she jumped off the driver’s perch.

Her legs and arms outstretched, she landed with a thud on the saddle of the nearest Pegasus to our right.

I watched her work rapidly to unlatch the Pegasus from the reins—freeing him from the rest of the group. When she’d unhooked the last buckle, she and her steed carefully eased out of the line-up and began flying adjacent the vehicle.

All right, my turn I guess.

I peered out over the edge of the carriage at the stampeding hooves below. Vivid memories of the Twenty-Three Skidd tournament suddenly flashed through my head like a horrid flipbook. I remembered what it felt like to be dangling upside down—thrashing in the air; my prologue pang hitting me like a recurring thunderbolt and causing the world to go black.

“Problem?!” Blue shouted, calling me back to the present.

“No; I’m good!” I lied in response.

Deep breath, Crisa. It’s all in your head. You’ve got this.

I exhaled and jumped—my eyes locked on Sadie, the closest Pegasus to the left. I landed on her a split-second later, but nearly slipped off the saddle from the force of the jump. My hands grasped desperately at her mane as I resisted the urge to scream. Thankfully, I grabbed hold just in time and was able to pull myself upright.

My nerves rescinding, I proceeded to follow Blue’s example and unhinge the latches strapping Sadie to the rest of the herd. Soon enough, she too was free and the two of us flew around to meet Blue and her Pegasus.

With the carriage out of the way, Blue and I now had a perfectly clear view of just how critical the situation was. The dragon—scales glinting in the setting orange sunlight—was some 700 yards away and gaining. He was snorting puffs of smoke, and his dead-on eye contact with us confirmed the notion that our shared flight path was no mere coincidence. For whatever the reason, he was definitely following us.

Blue and I kept pace with the carriage—flying directly behind it as we tried to come up with some sort of plan.

“So how do we do this?” Blue shouted through the sound of the wind and the dragon’s roars. “Except for that part of his armpit, arrows and spears just bounce off that thing! Which means—”

“Which means we need a distraction!” I suggested.

“Are you offering?” she asked.

“Uh . . .” I glanced back at the dragon—scales sharp like ice picks, incisors the size of lawn chairs, and eyes fervidly glowing gold. “It wouldn’t be the worst thing I’ve had to deal with today!” I finally answered.

“Good!” Blue said. “It’ll be just like the Twenty-Three Skidd tournament!”

Yeah, if that Twenty-Three Skidd tournament had involved an enormous monster trying to kill us.

“I’ll distract him; you go underneath and hit his weak spot!” I told her. “Then I’ll take the shot!”

Blue nodded, then she and her Pegasus pulled off—dropping and disappearing into the clouds to get into position. I gave Sadie a little kick and turned her around as well. She and I headed straight for the dragon. When we were within forty feet of the monstrosity, I maneuvered her to abruptly swoop up right in front of the beast’s face like an irritating pest.

That certainly caught his attention. The dragon halted to a stop as fast as a gargantuan creature could halt to a stop in mid-air, and took off after me. Diving, swerving, jettisoning in every direction—from there he kept on my tail no matter what I did. I guess I had ticked him off something fierce, because he sure was committed to pursuing me. Much more than I’d thought he’d be anyways.

I finally saw Blue some one hundred feet below and climbing. In response, I began to level off my flight pattern while reaching into my boot and pulling out my wand.

Gee, I hope this works.

Lacrosse sword
, I semi-confidently commanded.

Sure enough, my wand morphed into the spear I was so used to handling now, but then sprouted a small basket at its lower end and an elongated blade on the top. Even buttons to operate an optional extender grip function appeared beneath my fingertips.

I was relieved.

Honestly I hadn’t been positive that my wand would change into the lacrosse sword since it was only meant to turn into weapons. But I’d figured, hey, if it had a sharp blade, technically it
was
a weapon, right?

Apparently the wand’s enchantment and I were on the same page because it hadn’t fought the transformation in the slightest.

Sadie and I continued flying—waiting for my opening—and I couldn’t help but note that it did feel a lot like the tournament again. Well, except for the understanding that there was a significantly higher chance that I’d be barbecued if I missed my shot this time around.

The unorthodox Twenty-Three Skidd weapon in my hand, I removed the portable potions from my pocket and loaded them into the basket of the lacrosse sword. I then signaled Sadie to change course and we made a beeline directly for the dragon.

In the distance I saw Blue doing the same; only she was about twenty feet below our target, creeping closer to his skin with every passing second.

Sadie whinnied as we headed for the monster, obviously asking me if I really meant to be literally entering his line of fire and, if so, was I nuts? Regardless of her protests, I egged her on. For the truth remained that there actually was a method to my madness.

The distraction was working. At that moment, the dragon’s attention was completely locked on me—his giant, golden eyes so focused on my trajectory that he didn’t notice Blue coming up underneath him. He was barely fifty yards from me when she flew right below his armpit.

For a scary beat I didn’t see her while she and her steed were blocked from sight by the folds of the dragon’s wing. But then the dragon seizured in agony again. She’d done it; Blue had managed to get close enough to the dragon to give him a good jab in the armpit with her hunting knife.

I saw her and her Pegasus barrel out of the precarious spot just as the dragon roared with unbridled rage. The instant he did, I activated the extender grip function on my lacrosse sword.

The dragon’s stomach began to glow orange again, but his fire never came to fruition. I gave my weapon a powerful swing and launched the portable potions from the basket. The glass orbs soared straight into the beast’s open mouth while Sadie and I did another sudden swoop upwards to avoid colliding with him.

Blue flew up to meet me then, and the two of us watched as the potions rapidly took their toll. The orange glow on the beast’s gut died out. Silver smoke escaped his nostrils just before ice crawled out of his throat and speedily encased his entire being.

The creature struggled—thrashing about to fight the potions’ effects—but before long his whole body was a solid ice sculpture. Then, since ice sculptures couldn’t levitate, he plummeted through the clouds below and fell completely out of sight.

Blue wiped a bead of sweat from her brow as the last of the dragon vanished from view. “Dang,” she huffed. “Remind me to pay more attention in potions class from now on.”

She glanced behind us at the carriage. It was a decent ways off and was quickly approaching the dimming horizon. “Come on,” she said, her face cast in shadow and her hair caught in the autumnal glow. “We have a lot of ground left to cover.”

I stared down at the hole in the clouds through which the creature had fallen, then back in the direction of the city.

I couldn’t believe how far we’d come in a day. Moreover, I couldn’t believe how much had
changed
in a day.

Within the last twenty-four hours I’d learned that I had magical powers, the boy who’d haunted my dreams for years was most definitely real, and that he and some group of antagonists wanted me dead. It was a lot to process, especially when you added other factors like forged protagonist book conspiracies and the priority elimination of Paige Tomkins and Natalie Poole to the mix.

With all that had already unfolded, it was really anybody’s guess what else the five of us would find on our way to collect the other items on Emma’s list and reach the Author. Our quest was a shifting road. Pretty much everything about it felt indeterminate now—up in the air as it were.

And yet . . . there was one thing I did know for sure. One understanding that was so powerful it was enough to compel me to forge ahead despite all hindrances, odds, and uncertainty working against us.

I was hooked.

Yes, feelings of dread and doubt pulsed through me about my own shortcomings, the mysteries surrounding us, and the people who were trying to kill me. But even so, part of me just didn’t care. Since the moment I’d first taken off toward the sky in that mushroom carriage, we’d been moving forward. And even with the growing weights on my shoulders I knew then that it didn’t matter what antagonists or monsters stood in our path; that was the direction I had to keep going.

The collision course I’d set myself on with my fate might very well have been a perilous, or even fatal one. But I would continue moving forward on it regardless. For I was as adamant about seeing where it would go as I was about seeing how far I could go.

My mother had always told me that I’d be a great protagonist one day. And I still didn’t know if she was right, let alone what it really meant to be one. Nevertheless, I concluded now that the only way to find out was to press onwards like this—keep going and embrace, not fear whatever changes might happen along the way. Because while change could certainly be negative, its very existence was a beautiful thing.