by Sam Hall
We got back to the room without saying a word. There was no need to, I’m sure Scalla felt like I did, that we’d survived something horrific. I settled down on the bed, staring blankly, unable to get that last blow out of my mind. The only thing that jerked me out of it was a knock at the door. “Captain Keya asked that we show you to the amphitheatre,” a female rider said. I nodded my head and got to my feet. Scalla lay on one of the other beds, curled up in a ball, her back to the door. I closed it behind me with a click.
The riders didn’t have much to say on the walk over there, just pointing out landmarks to help me remember the route. They perked up a little when we reached the pavilion. It was massive, bigger than several footy fields big. Seating rose up on every side, capable of holding huge crowds. I looked up to see a few dragons performing intricate manoeuvres. We all watched dumbly, the skill they demonstrated, the everydayness of going about your work somehow inappropriate right now. If your dragon wasn’t going to die, its throat ripped out by another, was pushing it to perform aerial gymnastics the way to spend your time together? I stepped out onto the sand as the dragons performed dramatic stoops, pulling up at the last minute with a backstroke of their wings before settling more gently down on the ground. Riders slid off their backs, a woman yanking her helmet off with a cry that sounded startlingly similar to the Queens during the queen fight. Her long brown hair worked itself free of her regulation bun and she ran over to one of the other riders who’d just dismounted, throwing herself into his arms. Then he removed his helmet.
Keel smiled down at the girl, ruffling his hand through her hair before turning to see us. His smile didn’t falter, he slipped from the girl’s grip, walking over, her hot on his heels. “You all ready for tomorrow? Last training session, but it’ll be a brutal one. You’ll be practising your sequence over and over with Keya, then we’ll be doing a run-through of the whole thing until Keya’s happy. A twelve-hour day at least.”
“Who’s this?” the female rider said, coming to stand at Keel’s side, very, very close.
“I’ve told you about Tess and Miazydar before,” Keel said. “This is Sabelina, she’s one of our most accomplished trick riders.”
“Oh, the cadet,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders. “Keel, we’re going to the Dragon Arms for a celebration drink. You in?”
He looked over at me for a moment and the shrugged. “Sure, you coming, Tess?”
After what I’d seen today I was fairly certain I wouldn’t be able to eat a thing, let alone drink alcohol. The very bright red of Lirrulith’s blood still stuck in my mind, along with the screams and the brutality. I shook my head.
Sabelina talked to the riders that had escorted me here, getting them to agree to come with as Keel moved to my side. “Are you OK?” he said, looking me over. I made a vague gesture. I didn’t have the energy to put into words something that he was unlikely to understand.
“Are you coming, Keel?”
“Did you want me to stick around?” he said.
I shook my head. “I’m going to bed. I’ll need to if I’m gonna be jumping off dragons for twelve hours straight. You go.”
He just nodded, patting my shoulder, green eyes looking into mine before turning and running after his comrades, leaving me standing alone in the darkening sunlight in the massive empty theatre.
35
Which is where I was standing the next morning, just as the sun was rising, except now the amphitheatre was far from empty. Dragons were dropping into every available space, riders running between them. I hitched my helmet up on my hip and reached out to Miazydar.
How are you? We’d spoken late into the night about what I’d seen yesterday. It was a circular, pointless conversation. Like most people in affluent countries, there was a lot of talk about the issue of the day followed by a sense of powerlessness as you considered what to do about it. The problem with Aravisia is I couldn’t just toddle up to the local cafe and have a macchiato to take my mind off it, I was living and breathing this abhorrent situation and I had no idea what to do about it.
Something will happen today. There are attendants running everywhere. The queen, Ulle, took a turn for the worse last night, but that’s not it. I’m supposed to go with this Olongth fellow to demonstrate my abilities, but I’m tossing up whether or not I should comply. I’m not sure letting these people know what I can do is advisable.
What are the full extent of your abilities? I don’t think you’ve ever told me.
My abilities are your abilities.
That’s what you always say. So you’ll fly in and be really awkward if we’re in danger?
You are more than your fears, Tess.
Yes, but I certainly am not going to be able to fly myself to safety if something goes wrong in training.
We are one. A danger to you is a danger to me. We will prevail.
I shook my head, watching as Captain Keya strode across the sand towards me. I’ve gotta go. It’s time to practise throwing myself off perfectly good dragons. Let me know if things get too weird on your end.
“Are you ready, cadet?” Keya said.
I wasn’t. I thought I had this down, Keel and I had practised the same fight sequences, the same jump and captures followed by yet more choreographed fighting over and over and over. Apparently, he’d been pulling his punches though.
“C’mon, cadet. My lieutenant said you had this,” Keya said, dropping her spear down into a neutral position and flipping her visor up. I struggled to find my balance, arms flailing, but was pleased I was finding my feet faster and faster. The issue was Keya was adding a little extra oomph in her strikes and that momentum was messing with my reactions, throwing the whole sequence off. I didn’t say that to her though. “Let’s focus on the jumps,” she said with a sigh. “They’re the crowd pleasers so as long as you have them down, you’ll be fine. You’re going to need to count a little higher for the pickups. There're more dragons and we’re performing in a bigger space, so they’ll take longer to get to you.” She smiled when she saw my expression. “Don’t worry, ground eating puts the mood of the crowd off. They’re either shocked and horrified or baying for more bloody and neither is what we’re looking for. Just trust your fellow riders, cadet. Count to Thirty—”
“Thirty! I was counting to twenty at most.”
Keya held up a hand. “Thirty and we’ll be there, I promise.” She watched my face and then smiled, placing a hand on my shoulder. “We strike without warning, cadet. You should’ve been dead a thousand times over before now and someone’s always caught you. They will again. You ready?” I nodded. Her eyes went to the horizon as she tapped into the comms unit in her helmet. “Radath and Hinkler, you’re doing pickups for the cadets.” She gave them the coordinates, pulling her visor down with a snap and then said, “God speed, cadet,” and shoved me off.
My yelp no doubt deafened everyone in comms range. Usually, I threw myself off with a carefully orchestrated backward somersault, something I’d practised over and over on the fence that ran along the back of the cottage. Instead my arms and legs clawed at the air as I struggled to orientate myself. 1 Mississippi, two Mississippi... I forced my body to obey, arms out to slow my passage somewhat, toes pointed to the ground. Five Mississippi, six Mississippi. You’d think I’d be used to it by now. Practise was the best thing for anxiety, if I had enough time to try, try, stuff up, improve, try another tack then develop a level of mastery, I was normally OK, but I guess there was no getting used to BASE jumping off flying lizards. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. That familiar sensation of shitting my pants while knowing help was on the way began to rise, but I needed to push past that because it wasn’t yet. Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two. Was I counting too fast? Did you use Mississippi between double digit-ed numbers or not? Twenty-five, twenty-six. The ground was rushing up to meet me; I was starting to pick up details I couldn’t see before. I didn’t like details, details meant I was getting close enough to die. Fuck, what number am I up to? Is it thirty? My
head whipped around as I looked for my incoming dragon but everything was a blur. A scream built up in my chest. I wanted to yell out on the comms link that I needed a pick up. What if they’d gotten distracted or run into some issues themselves? Surely this was thirty seconds already. I wanted, needed to say something. I was going to die here in a foreign realm, never to see my sister, my family again. Never to organise platters of fresh prawns for Mirenese. Never to hear Jez’s ridiculous tall tales about her sexual exploits. Tears pricked my eyes and I screwed them tight in shame. “Guys, pickup needed. Help me!”
“Pickup here,” a terse reply came. Dragon claws slammed around my body, me jerking in response to the break in momentum, every muscle aching because I’d neglected to go loose. Tears ran freely now. This was my first jump, it was only ten seconds longer than the first one and I’d broken. I knew I had to stop it, I wasn’t able to see properly and I simply couldn’t afford to sob my way through the next routine. “Drop in 3,” the dragon rider who’s beast was carrying me said. “Be ready in 3, 2, 1, go!”
I dropped at the exact moment, my arms and legs tucked in tight against my body so I didn’t drift over, letting them go loose as I hit the dragon’s spine before rolling into a standing position. My legs were shaking as I moved into the hand to hand combat stance, arms up like knives. My vision was a messy smear, but I relied on muscle memory to take me through the sequence. I ducked, struck, spun and rolled, just as I had been taught, only stopping when we reached our final form, a standoff of mutually assured destruction, both hands ready to chop at the other’s neck.
Being able to do the routine didn’t stop the tears, rather it made it worse when we stopped. I tried to hold back the sobs, not wanting every rider in Aravisia to hear the ragged sound of my breath, the hiccuping sounds I make while ugly crying, but I had no choice. My opponent dropped their arms and when he flipped open his visor, I saw it was Keel. His brows creased with concern. “Tess, what—?”
“You need to practise those longer jumps, cadet,” the Captain’s voice came over the comms with a crackle. I could hear the grit of her teeth in her tone. “Lieutenant, get her up and then I want thirty-second jumps, over and over until she’s got it, then some forties.”
“That’s insanely high. Who’s going to see her up that high?” Keel said.
“You questioning an order, Lieutenant?”
“No, I—”
“I need to break her of that fear. I thought you’d done that. You had, to a certain degree, but she’s as reliant on a twenty-second pickup as anyone else would be of a much shorter one. I need her to jump without fear and trust that we will be there to catch her. Can you do that or do I need to assign another officer?”
Keel stared at me for a moment. “No, sir.”
“Then get her up there, rider.”
“Yes, sir.”
I got it together as Artor, Keel’s dragon, took us up. The tears dried up, the sobs stopped apart from those last remaining spasms when your breath stutters in your chest, marking the passing of my hysterics. Instead, a flat, empty shame settled over me. I looked out at the morning sky as we went up, it was featureless and bluish-grey which somehow made me feel better. “Let’s do 40,” I said, my words coming out as little more than a rasp.
“What?” Keel’s voice came through the speakers in my helmet.
“Take us up. Keya’s right, I have to get used to this. No time like the present.”
Tess?
I’m OK, I’ve got to do some longer jumps. I’ve had a sook about it and I’ll be fine.
No, Tess, I—
Miazydar, I’ll be fine, I just need to focus. I’ll see you on the other side.
I was conscious he was trying to contact me again, but what was I going to do, lie in bed with my dragon, eat ice cream, plait each other's hair and talk about the shittiness of being forced to jump off a dragon’s back for the edification of the masses? It was time to stop thinking and do. I got to my feet as soon as Artor stopped, hovering in space. “This is it, Tess, Just—”
“Pickup in 40,” I said and then threw myself off the dragon.
I didn’t wonder if there were dragons below me, didn’t wait for a reply. Someone did, I heard a muttered, “Roger that,” but I paid it little mind. I arrowed down towards the ground, the sand rushing up as I fell, the burble of the wind as I went reverberating through my helmet, my body shaking like a doll from the speed and momentum of my drop. “Pickup incoming,” a voice said. I forced myself to relax, letting my muscles go loose right when I wanted to hunch into a ball. “Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, gotcha!”
I hung within the dragon’s claws like a dead bird, all the life punched out of me despite the rush of adrenalin forcing my heart to smash against my ribcage. “I did it,” I gasped, struggling to draw breath into my aching ribs. “I did it.”
We did it. It was then that I looked down at the claws that had me and my heart sank when I saw they were red. I looked up and saw the same creamy under scales I’d lain against so many times before. “On the ground, cadet, now,” the Captain’s voice barked at me.
You came.
Of course I did, Miazydar said.
That’s not a good thing. I need to do this, to earn my place here. I need to do this without you.
Why? Why must you do this without me? Everyone else has their dragons here, why not you?
Because Captain Keya said, because the Queen doesn’t wish your colouring—
Bullshit.
My dragon never swore, his voice sounding, to my mind, like Benedict Cumberbatch’s. I guess the whole Smaug voiceover thing was probably a factor, but to me, he had the same stiffly aristocratic tone that seemed to hide a million hidden depths.
Take me to the ground, Miazydar, I said.
He obeyed but when we reached the sand, Keya was standing with Hunderly at her back, looking pissed. M obviously figured he’d double down on his bad behaviour and strode forward, sheltering me in the canopy of his wings, hissing abuse at the two of them. Hunderly, a heavier weight dragon than mine, shifted slowly, his stance making it apparent he was more than confident he could meet any threat my dragon made head on.
“He’s supposed to be in the breeding pens, ready to cover Her Majesty’s queen,” Keya said jabbing her finger at Miazydar.
“No cage you could build can hold me,” he snarled back, snapping his jaws at her. “You ask too much. None of your little toy soldiers are being asked to free fall from thousands of metres above the earth, to be caught by other rider’s dragons. You ask too much.”
“Maybe I do.” Keya had removed her helmet, no doubt to prevent herself from broadcasting to the entire rider contingent practising. “I’m just a soldier like all the others here. I get my orders, just like everyone else and I’m expected to obey them or face the consequences. The consequences here being Hunderly being redeployed to a ground-based soldier. The Queen came up with this display, it’s she who designed your role in it. Does she hope you fall to your death, to become little other than a smear on the sands? I’m sure she does, when she remembers to think of you. You’re an aberration, Tess, and absolute monarchs don’t enjoy aberrations. I’ve tried to do the right thing here, I’ve used every damn trick in the book I have to try and get you ready for this bloody event and you know what, you’ve risen to every damn challenge. I don’t have time to coddle or console you through this last bit, all I can do is throw you in and hope you’ll come out on top. Sabelina’s ready to take your role at any point, she’s your understudy. They’ve got it all planned out, what they’ll do if you can’t step up. But Tess, you can’t let them win. If you can make the jumps, fudge the fights, but make those jumps, the people themselves will award you citizenship. You’ll be a star and even Her Majesty knows not to fuck with the populace’s darling. So dragon, I need you to go back to the cage you’ve been assigned and await the dubious pleasure of throwing a leg over her majesty’s beast while your girl dominates this event. Can you do that? If
anything goes wrong, you can be here in a heartbeat, right?”
“As long as I’m not too far away. They spoke of moving us to the breeding complex?” Miazydar said.
“OK, that’s less than a click from here. Will that be an issue?”
“No, much further than that and it becomes harder, but no, that should be fine.” I heard the massive sigh in Miazydar’s chest and then his neck curled around so I was caught in its serpentine coil. My heart, he said.
And you are mine.
The rest of the day was spent jumping, jumping, jumping. The experience was beginning to numb me. Keya wanted to go higher again, I went. She wanted to do several jumps, capture, jump, capture sequences where I was travelling from dragon to dragon like some kind of bizarre platformer game, so I did them. When I landed on a dragon’s back I went through the motions of fighting whoever was there. Everyone seemed content to just move through the fight sequences then let me jump again, well, except for Sabelina.
I’d just landed in a crouch on the back of a grey-green dragon when a rider attacked. A wooden spear came crashing down on my shoulder, sending pain shooting through my aching body. I jerked to my feet, unfazed when the dragon shifted abruptly under me. I’d gotten my air legs awhile ago and now automatically compensated for it. The rider didn’t seem to expect that so I performed a roundhouse kick to the face, not putting too much power into it or my foot would smash into their helmet. Instead, it was more a shove, particularly as I aimed for the chin rather than the skull. The rider’s head was sent flying, the kick tipping their helmet back and dragging them with it. I snatched up the spear as they lost hold, trying to not fall from the dragon. I watched them closely in case I needed to call for a pickup.