Then I heard him roar.
I opened my eyes, and saw two black shapes flapping toward us like shadows on the wind. Mavrik and Nova wheeled in circles around the tower, their wing beats like thunder in the air, as they tried to figure out how to get to us. The tower’s cone-shaped roof was too small for them to land. It was time to earn that radical middle name.
I reached toward Beckah, offering her my hand. “Come on. You have to trust me!”
She looked absolutely terrified. Her eyes were as big as saucers, and she trembled as she took a few small steps toward me. Even Felix looked like he thought I’d totally lost it as he stood there with his mouth hanging open.
I caught Beckah by the hand and started to bring her in closer, helping her climb out onto the ledge with me. That’s when Felix finally woke up from his trance of shock and awe. Suddenly, he grabbed Beckah by the back of the dress before she could climb out the window.
“She’s not coming with us,” he declared. “It’s too dangerous.”
“What if those masked men come back for her? We can’t just leave her—!” I started to argue, but Beckah cut me off.
“You’re not leaving me behind!” She struggled against his hold on her dress, finally managing to squirm out of his grip. “He’s my daddy. I’m going!”
Beckah didn’t seem afraid anymore. She swung her legs over the side of the windowsill, and was hanging onto the ledge while the wind snatched at her skirts. She gave me a look of determination, like she was trying to convince me that she really wasn’t scared.
I looped an arm around her waist, and pulled her toward me. I figured I had about two seconds before she got scared again and did something to mess up my aim. So before she could figure out what I was about to do, and right when Mavrik was circling back toward us . . . I jumped. I jumped off the ledge ten storeys in the air, and I took her with me.
Beckah screamed, but I could barely hear her as the wind rushed past my ears. I just held onto her as tightly as I could as we fell, and braced myself for what was coming; either death from the fall or what I hoped would be a dragon catching us.
Mavrik did catch us. He came darting through the air, wings spread wide, and hovered just long enough for us to crash into him. We hit hard, and it knocked the breath out of me at first. I was dazed, relieved, and trying to get my bearings.
We landed on Mavrik’s back just a few feet away from the saddle, and I started dragging Beckah toward it with all my might. She didn’t fight me at all. In fact, she was clinging to my chest like some kind of frightened baby animal. I had to pry her off me when I finally got into the seat and crammed my feet down into the leg sheaths on either side of the saddle. With Beckah sitting in my lap, I kept one arm wrapped tightly around her waist, and finally got a chance to look back at Felix.
He was standing on the ledge now, looking at Nova as she circled around the tower. I saw him make some kind of prayer sign with his hand before he jumped. I heard him yell, saw him drop, and Nova dove after him with a trumpeting roar.
She was bigger and slower, so she missed him at first. As she zoomed past, she stretched out one of her strong hind legs to snatch him out of the air by the boot. He hung upside down, screaming and flailing until Nova tossed him back up into the air like a cat playing with a dead mouse.
He flipped end over end, and came back down to land right in the saddle with a hard thud. He had his arms and legs wrapped around her scaly body, and sat there clinging to her until he finally realized he wasn’t about to plummet to his death. Then he got himself situated in the saddle, and we veered away toward the horizon.
Where are we going? Felix asked me with the sign language we’d learned to use in the air.
I only had one free hand since I was hanging onto Beckah, but I still managed sign back to him, Halfax.
I’ve got the lead, he signed. We’ll fly low and watch the roads. Maybe we can catch them before they get too far away.
I nodded, and was glad to let him lead since I really had no idea how to get to Halfax from here. I was starting to let myself hope. If we could find Sile, then surely we could find some way to save him. Maybe, just maybe, this would work.
sixteen
It was a pretty good plan in theory. We were going to do low passes along the roads, looking for any sign of recent travelers and the men wearing white masks. But as the hours began to drag on, we had to broaden our search, and still didn’t find any sign of them at all. It was as though they’d disappeared completely.
The sun was starting to rise, and the early morning wind was bitter cold. Beckah was shivering, and I could hear her teeth chattering. She definitely wasn’t dressed for this altitude, so I took off my cape and wrapped it around her to keep her warm.
“Jae?” She whimpered and grabbed one of my hands as I reached around her for the saddle handles. “What if we can’t find him?”
I clenched my teeth because now I was beginning to worry about the same thing. “We’ll find him, Beckah.” For her sake, I tried to sound sure about that. “Don’t give up.”
Felix and Nova swooped in close, and he started giving me hand signals again. We need to land and come up with a new plan.
Right, I agreed. Let’s stick close to the roads, just in case.
He nodded, and Nova veered away to find a good place to land. Mavrik and I followed, keeping close on his tail. We found a good spot where the main road leading toward Halfax dipped down through some low marshlands. There were lots of big trees covered in hanging moss, and just enough room for the dragons to drop down and land. Our dragons could hunker down under the trees so no one could see them, even from the air. It was the perfect hiding spot to rest and keep a lookout for any passing traffic without giving ourselves away too easily.
As soon as we dismounted, the dragons rooted around in the mud to find places to lie down, but neither one of them looked happy about it. The mud stank like rotting compost, and it was slimy and thick. It was miserable to walk around in it because it would just about suck your boots right off your feet. Finally, we found a spot dry enough to at least sit down.
“If you’re right about them going to Halfax, then they’ll have to come by this way,” Felix grumbled as he plopped down and started trying to rake the disgusting silt off his boots with a stick. “This is the only road through the marshlands. Any other way would take you days to get around it.”
“I don’t understand how we could have missed them. Maybe we should have been flying lower.” I was helping Beckah hobble through the sludge. She had to hold her skirts up to keep from tripping, but they still got caked in mud.
“We should have been plenty low enough to see them on the road.” Felix sighed as he gave up trying to get the mud off his shoes. He was leaning back against a tree trunk, staring up at the morning sky. “We have no armor, no weapons, and no food. This is definitely a new level of stupid for me.”
I sat down beside Felix, and Beckah settled in right next to me. She leaned against me, and was already sound asleep before I had even gotten comfortable. It was weird to have her clinging to me like that.
“I didn’t mean for you to come with me, Felix. I know this’ll probably ruin my career and get me kicked out of the academy. I didn’t want it to ruin everything for you, too,” I told him. “If we get caught just blame it all on me, okay?”
He chuckled, and gave me a teasing punch to the arm. “Nice try, small fry. We’re in this together. I couldn’t let you run off and get yourself killed, not after what happened with the saddle last time. You’re right. I should have believed you then. And I do believe you now.”
I smirked back at him; that made me feel a little better. “So what’s the plan?”
Felix let out another loud sigh, and put his head back against the tree trunk. “I was about to ask you the same thing. I guess you should tell me exactly what you saw, first.”
So I did. I told him everything I could remember about sneaking out of the room, about seeing Sile with his hands b
ound, and the four men in white masks that had him at knifepoint. It hadn’t looked good, and we’d lost critical time trying to find someone to help us.
“I know it sounds crazy,” I said, trying to get comfortable with Beckah leaning against me. She was sleeping so hard she didn’t even quit snoring when I pulled her legs over my lap so she was resting with her head against my shoulder.
“After what happened with the saddle, not really.” Felix was chewing on the inside of his cheek, looking thoughtful. “The white masks do sound like the king’s private guard, though. I’ve only ever seen them around when someone from the royal family is visiting. But, if anyone could pull off a kidnapping like that in the middle of a ball, it’d be them. They’re an elite guard trained in extreme stealth and hand-to-hand combat. They’re usually handpicked from the military, and then completely removed from society. No one knows much about them because everything about their training is totally secret. It’s like a cult, I guess.”
My heart sank a little. “Why would they want to kidnap Sile?”
Felix just shook his head, and we both sat there for a long time in silence. This was bad. If these guys were the king’s elite guards, what chance did a couple of fledgling dragonriders stand against them? Even if we could find them, we probably wouldn’t be able to free Sile. We really had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.
“How did you do that earlier?” Felix asked suddenly. He was staring over at me with a weird look on his face. “How did you call Mavrik to you? And from that distance? It was incredible! I’ve never even heard of someone doing that before.”
I blushed. “I don’t know. It just . . . felt like what I had to do. It was just an idea. I wasn’t even sure he’d hear me.”
“You’re really weird sometimes, you know that?” Felix laughed, but I could still see that strange look in his eyes. It almost seemed like he was a little bit afraid of me now. I wasn’t sure how to feel about it either, but it kind of bothered me that he seemed disturbed by it.
Felix offered to take the first watch while I slept. As much as I wanted to rest, I just couldn’t get comfortable. Every little noise woke me up, and I had terrible dreams of darkness, and creatures slithering through the marshes toward us. When it was my turn to keep watch, I knew I had to get up just to walk off my nerves. I carefully moved Beckah over so she could lean against Felix instead.
“Sile’s gonna kill us for bringing her along,” Felix muttered sleepily as he licked his thumb and wiped some mud off her cheek. “He won’t want her around the dragons. He probably doesn’t want her around us, either, but I guess he didn’t have much of a choice when you volunteered to watch her tonight.”
I was surprised he knew anything about her, especially since Sile had never mentioned her before to me. “How do you know that?”
“That’s how it always is, Jae. You can’t be a dragonrider and be a family man, too. Trust me. If dragonriders do get married, it never lasts long.” Felix had a hollow sound to his voice, like he sort of understood. “If you bring people you care about into a world of war and danger, then someone is going to get hurt. Usually, it’s us. We have one of the most dangerous jobs anyone can have. Most dragonriders just decide it’s better not to have people in your life like that—people you can’t stand to lose or who depend on you. That’s why you’ll see a lot of them with broken families, more than one failed marriage, or no family at all.”
As I stood there over them, watching Beckah sleep against Felix’s shoulder, I started thinking about what she’d told me about her own family. “She said her parents aren’t getting along. That’s why she ended up at the duke’s house in the first place.”
Felix looked down at her, too, frowning like he felt bad for her. “I guess those of us from noble families kind of dodge the worst of it . . . because we don’t expect our parents to pay much attention to us anyway. I mean, my dad was never around to begin with, even though he’s not a dragonrider. He has always had problems with his vision, so he never would have made it through the academy. It didn’t make any difference, though. He’s never had any time for me.” He hesitated, and I could tell just by the way his expression darkened that he must have felt a lot of anger toward his father. “The worst part is being alone. She’ll hate that, you know?”
I did know. I knew exactly what it meant to be alone. Finally, I thought I understood why Felix had wanted to be friends with me in the first place. I was probably the only one who could understand the value of having someone be there for you, especially when your family wasn’t.
“Yeah, but we’ll be there for her.” I gave him a half-hearted smile. “Someone should be. It might as well be us.”
Felix just smirked and closed his eyes. “Speak for yourself, nanny.”
He had no room to be cracking jokes at me for babysitting. “Well, you still have lipstick on your face, you know.” I snorted.
Felix started blushing and wiping his face. “Yeah yeah, you just go keep watch and let me sleep. We’ll start the search again in an hour. Those guards couldn’t have just vanished. Maybe we just missed them. We’ll check every road between here and Halfax if we have to. ”
I tried to let that give me some hope as I walked away. We weren’t giving up yet. There was still time to find Sile. It was already late in the morning, and my stomach was growling. The few hours of restless sleep I’d gotten only made me even more tired, but I knew there was no way I would be able to relax until I knew Sile was alive.
I paced a wide circle around where they were sleeping, keeping them in eyeshot at all times while I explored. The marsh went as far as the I could see, in every direction. I could hear strange sounding birds cawing in the trees. Frogs made high pitched ringing noises in the tall reeds. Sometimes I heard something splash in the water nearby, and it made me jump. It was an eerie, smelly place.
Through the trees and hanging moss, I could see the road close by. It was built up on top of a dirt levy so wagons and horses didn’t have to fight through the mud to get across the marsh. I climbed up to the top of the levy and stood in the road, looking down both ways without seeing anyone. Something about this place gave me the creeps, like maybe something was watching me that I couldn’t see.
I walked down the road for a few yards, swatting flies away from my face. Even though I was worn out, and worried about Sile, it was nice to have a few minutes to myself to think. I thought about the things I’d heard Sile say. Something about tampering with gods. I wondered what that meant, and what it had to do with him. What could he possibly have done that would make anyone want to kill him?
It was so quiet except for the birds and frogs, and that’s when I heard Beckah scream. It almost made me jump out of my boots. My heart started to pound, and I started running as fast as I could through the mud and slop to get back to them. I hadn’t let them out of my sight for more than a few minutes . . .
. . . . But I was already too late.
There were six big men standing in our small clearing, and all of them were armed with swords and crossbows. But there was no way these guys were soldiers. They were wearing black cloaks, and mismatched pieces of armor. All of them looked filthy and sweaty, and they laughed at me when I stumbled into the clearing.
“That’s it? That’s the best yah got?” A man with a long curly beard had Beckah by her hair, and was holding a long dagger against her throat. He laughed at me and grinned with his crooked yellow teeth. “A halfbreed wearin the king’s colors? Now that’s a joke I never heard before!”
A few of the other men laughed again, and it made our dragons snarl. Nova and Mavrik were crouched together, hissing and showing their teeth as the men pointed crossbows at them.
“Let the kids go,” Felix growled suddenly. He was standing with his back to the tree where he’d been sleeping earlier. Another man had a sword pointed at him, and Felix had his hands raised in the air. “You’ll get a ransom for me, but you’d be wasting your time with them. A halfbreed and the daughter of a po
or country knight don’t go for much.”
The bearded man cackled another gravelly, rasping laugh. “You think I’m interested in ransomin’ any of you? Don’t be stupid, boy.”
“We don’t have any money!” I yelled at him, feeling my face burn with fury. “We don’t have anything for you to steal!”
When they all laughed at me again, I realized what they were. Slavers. I’d seen these kinds of people before. Filthy liars who captured anyone they could to be sold in the slave market. They weren’t going to care who we were, or what we had; they would sell us off as workers for the mines, or worse.
“The halfbreed won’t fetch much,” one of the men pointed out. “He looks sickly. We’d be better off dumping him at one of the prison camps.”
The bearded man seemed to agree. He pulled Beckah’s hair and it made her whimper in pain. “We’ll more than make up for the loss with her. A pretty young thing like this? There are plenty of pleasure houses in Halfax that’ll pay twenty in solid gold for her. I bet no one’s ever even kissed those soft lips of hers yet.”
“Leave her alone!” My face burned. I was seeing red. Beckah was looking right at me with her big green eyes begging me to do something.
One of the slavers aimed a crossbow right at me, and gave me an evil smirk like he would shoot me just for fun. It made Mavrik roar with rage, snapping his teeth and making the guys pointing their crossbows at him a little nervous.
“Call off the dragons, halfbreed,” the bearded man commanded. He was looking right at me. “And I won’t cut her throat open right here.”
I wanted to tell Mavrik to burn them all to dust. The arrows from the crossbow wouldn’t have hurt him much, not with his thick scales to protect him. But I wasn’t going to risk Beckah’s life. I couldn’t risk her being burned along with them.
“Go, Mavrik.” I told him. My dragon looked at me like he couldn’t believe I was agreeing. His yellow eyes narrowed, and he hissed again in defiance. “It’s all right. I’ll be fine. Just go. Take Nova with you.”
Fledgling (The Dragonrider Chronicles) Page 13