Shadow (16 page)

‘Come on,’ he urged her, grabbing her hand and pulling her towards the waiting dragon. ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’

‘She’s so big!’ Nolita breathed, her feet unresponsive and her hands shaking. ‘So big!’

‘Yes, she’s big,’ Elian repeated. ‘And that’s a good thing, Nolita. If she wasn’t that big, we wouldn’t get out of here. Now move, or I’ll throw
you over my shoulder and carry you.’

‘Oh, gods!’ she whispered. ‘Can’t you just leave me behind?’

‘Nobody’s leaving anyone behind,’ Elian growled through gritted teeth. ‘Now climb up, damn you! Now.’

Something in Elian’s voice finally got through to Nolita. She reluctantly followed as Elian pulled her by her arm until they reached Shadow’s foreleg. The slightest of hesitations
signalled her last token resistance before climbing gingerly up Shadow’s side and settling behind Pell and Kira.

Pell held his breath as Elian swung into position behind Nolita. There was no time to wait for him to get comfortable.

‘
Let’s go,
’ he ordered Shadow silently.

In a heartbeat, she turned towards the mouth of the cave and the open night sky. Elian wobbled slightly before finding his balance. Pell looked over his shoulder to check that everyone was set.
He saw Elian stretching around Nolita’s waist, trying to get a firm hold of the ridge in front of her, but the ridge was too big to offer him a solid grip.

‘You all right?’ he asked.

‘Tell Shadow to go,’ Elian replied quickly. ‘I’ll be fine.’

A wailing screech from outside the cave mouth sent shivers down Pell’s spine. It did not bode well. At least one night dragon was airborne. If the enclave was already roused against them,
then they would not stand a chance.

‘What’s happening, Shadow?’
he asked.

‘Rumours are spreading of something amiss,’
she replied.
‘Hold on tight. This might get a little rough.’

There was no time to pass on the warning to the others. Shadow suddenly took several bounding steps and launched into the night sky. No sooner was she airborne than she began to beat her great
wings with mighty strokes, powering upwards in an effort to gain the advantage of height over any dragon that might try to stop her. It proved a good tactic. A wave of spine-tingling screeches
pierced the darkness below and the night air was suddenly full of the sound of whooshing dragons’ wings.

‘They will not pursue us far without their riders,’
Shadow said confidently.
‘But they know that to fetch the riders now will give us too much of a lead. If we can
just get out of this canyon, we’ll have a good chance.’

‘Won’t having four of us on your back put us at a disadvantage, Shadow?’

‘It won’t make it easy,’
she admitted.
‘But let’s not look for problems. I am strong – far stronger than most.’

‘How many are after us?’
Pell asked, scanning the darkness for signs of movement.

‘I would rather not count,’
Shadow answered.
‘You concentrate on staying on my back. I will worry about the other dragons.’

Shadow continued to climb at a tremendous rate. Pell sensed that even with four riders on her back, she was climbing faster than he had ever experienced before. He could feel her effort through
the bond. His underarms ached in sympathy with her straining wing muscles.

The pressure change in his ears was another clue. He had got into the habit of swallowing regularly when climbing and descending to even out the pressure on his eardrums. The pain could be quite
intense if the pressure built too much. Tonight he could hardly swallow fast enough. The pressure was building so quickly that no sooner did he swallow than he could feel it starting to increase
again.

There was no question of talking to the others. Silence was their greatest asset. He knew instinctively that Shadow was about to employ her most impressive ability. Not all night dragons could
do it, but Shadow had long since mastered the art of silent flying. As with Longfang’s mastery of visual camouflage, Shadow’s skill was so complete that she made the whispering flight
of a hunting owl seem noisy by comparison.

With her purple-black scales, Shadow could disappear into the darkness every bit as effectively as Fang, for not so much as a breath of air would speak of her passage. When she employed her
ability, it was as if she extended a bubble of silence about her. The only time she could not use it effectively was whilst climbing, which required high-powered wingbeats.

A slight movement caused Pell to look around sharply to his left. There was something there. He was sure of it. Was it another dragon? He could not tell.

‘Hang on.’

It was not much of a warning, but it was more than the three riders behind him got. To Pell’s surprise, rather than turn away from danger, Shadow banked sharply towards it. There was a
sudden jar of impact as she struck, followed by a fast fading screech of rage. Pell saw nothing of the dragon they had attacked. It was too dark. All he could tell was that Shadow had succeeded in
forcing their pursuer to lose a lot of height after the collision, as the source of the screech fell away from them at a considerable rate.

‘What did you do?’
he asked, craning his neck and scanning the sky for signs of further danger.

‘I flipped him,’
Shadow replied.
‘I had to do it then or risk him gaining the advantage of height over me. It’s hard to gain height when you are upside
down.’

‘Did he crash into the mountain?’

‘No, but he lost too much height to pose us any further threat,’
Shadow said, sounding smug.
‘The others will be more careful about how they approach us now, which
is exactly as I had hoped. It’s time to see just how good the other night dragons are.’

Despite having experienced it many times before, the change in noise level was as astonishing to Pell as ever. His three companions gasped behind him and he grinned as he gave a whispered
‘Shhhh’ over his shoulder.

He remembered the first time that Shadow had demonstrated the ability to him. One moment the great whooshing of giant wingbeats filled his ears, the next . . . nothing. Total silence. It was
eerie. Tonight, however, rather than sending chills running down his spine, it brought a warming sense of comfort.

Shadow had long ago explained to him that whilst a night dragon’s ability to see in the dark was good, it was not her first source of reference when flying. Rather like a bat, hearing
became her primary sense in the dark. Unlike a bat, however, night dragons did not screech in order to generate echoes. Instead they had a separate sense of proximity that worked similarly, but on
a totally different frequency from that of sound. In concert, these two closely allied senses built an image in the dragon’s mind that when added to any visual cues created a
three-dimensional picture of incredible completeness. Apparently Shadow’s stealth ability was unusual because it was able to confuse a fellow night dragon’s sense of proximity. Pell
knew this made her ability special, but had never really seen its full effects until now.

No sooner had Shadow gone silent than she folded her wings and dropped suddenly. Pell’s stomach lurched and his heart began to pound. They felt as though they were falling, although there
was no sound of wind-rush. The solid reality of Shadow’s back beneath the riders became an important source of reassurance as everything took on a strangely surreal feel.

Shadow did not drop far before she silently eased out her wings and arrowed in close to the right hand wall of the canyon, where the darkness was at its most intense. It was so dark here that
although Pell knew Shadow was all but brushing her right wingtip against the rocky mountainside, he could see nothing of its dangerous proximity. He trusted Shadow completely. He could feel her
confidence through the bond and he relaxed. She was in her element. It never crossed his mind to think how the others might be feeling.

The sounds of dragons in pursuit were obvious now that Shadow was flying so silently. There were some below and behind, at least two above and behind, and one that was flying almost alongside
them in the middle of the canyon.

‘There’s loads of them, Shadow!’
Pell said tentatively through the bond.
‘How are we going to shake them?’

‘Don’t worry, Pell,’
she replied.
‘There will be a degree of danger for the next few minutes, but I’m going to show them shortly that trying to follow
me is not a good idea.’

Chapter Fourteen

As the tight canyon twisted and turned, so Shadow began to switch from one wall to the other. The first time she switched, she did it so subtly that Pell nearly failed to
notice. The only clue was when she dipped underneath and behind a night dragon. She passed so close that Pell felt as if the dragon’s tail might inadvertently swipe him out of the saddle.

In the instant that Shadow was directly below and behind the other dragon, she let slip a deliberate wingbeat noise designed to attract attention before continuing her silent slide across to the
deep shadow of the opposite wall.

The results were spectacular. Before the unsuspecting dragon knew what was happening, several chasing dragons were stooping down on top of him with talons extended. The resulting melee was
chaotic and noisy, allowing Shadow to abandon her silent flight and power upwards a few strokes, once again giving her the advantage of height over her pursuers.

Pell could feel her amusement through the bond as she changed back to silent flight again. She was actually enjoying this! The thought shocked him and a chill settled in the pit of his stomach.
They were engaged in a deadly chase, being pursued by an unknown number of adversaries, and Shadow was having fun!

In the secret part of Pell’s mind a question gnawed. Was his dragon completely sane? He had always known her desire for power and recognition matched his own, but tonight he was seeing a
side of Shadow she had never shown him before.

The tangle of dragons in the centre of the canyon began to separate, but before the confusion had been totally sorted out, Shadow dived back in and stirred it up some more. In a deft move, she
slid across the top of the fight and briefly locked her talons onto the wingtip of one of her would-be pursuers, unbalancing him such that he slewed sideways and collided with a second dragon. Both
plummeted, briefly out of control, only to split a lower formation that was still climbing towards the fray.

The screeches of rage from the dragons needed no translation. Suddenly, the levity in Shadow’s mind disappeared and Pell felt a terrible sadness through the bond.

‘What’s wrong?’
he asked, worried.

‘One of the dragons below us just met her end,’
she replied, her voice cold and distant.
‘I didn’t mean to hurt her. It was an accident. I was trying to put
them off following us.’

‘Of course you were,’
Pell replied quickly.
‘They weren’t exactly playing friendly. With all those dragons in such a narrow canyon, confusion and collisions
were always a danger.’

‘Well, that’s not quite true,’
Shadow admitted.
‘But I appreciate your support. We need not worry about immediate pursuit any longer. They have called off
the chase.’

‘Great!’

‘Don’t get too excited,’
she warned.
‘They’ll be after us again soon enough. I was given a message from Sharptail, one of the older dragons. He called
to me as the decision was made.’

‘Really? What sort of message?’
Pell asked, intrigued.

‘A message of banishment,’
Shadow responded, her tone in his mind flat and emotionless.
‘He made it clear that if either of us ever return to the night dragon
enclave, we will be killed on sight. We have been declared outlaws.’

Outlaws! It took a moment for the magnitude of the word to sink in. Outlaws! A week ago, when the Oracle had told them they would be undertaking the Great Quest, Pell’s imagination had
revelled in the glory such a prestigious life purpose would bring him. Had the Oracle foreseen this day? Had it known that the status Shadow and Pell craved would be cruelly denied at every turn?
Pell had assumed from the outset that he had been chosen for his strength and potential. What if he had really been chosen because he was an outsider, different from all the others? There was a
twisted sort of logic in that.

‘Oh, gods!’ he breathed. ‘What have we done?’

‘What’s the matter, Pell?’ Kira asked over his shoulder in a low voice. ‘Is everything all right?’

What could he say? The situation was as far from all right as it could possibly be, yet his troubles were his own. The immediate danger was past.

‘It’s nothing, Kira,’ he said eventually. ‘They’ve turned back. We’re in the clear for now. The dragons are returning to the enclave to get their riders. If
they’re going to chase us, then the real pursuit won’t begin again for a little while.’