by Ruby Ryan
Flying was an incredible sensation. The wind pulled tears from my eyes, which immediately froze against my cheeks. I buried my face in Sam's feathers, which felt warm and safe.
Through my bond with Sam, I could feel the dragon transforming. A release of unspeakable power; a nuclear bomb bursting into light behind us, before the sound and shock wave could arrive. I wondered how Sam was going to fight him up here. He'd injured the dragon before; surely he could do it again.
I have a plan, he thought to me, as if he were reading my mind.
"Does it involve taking me back to Denver while you fight the dragon up here?" I yelled over the wind. "Feel free to drop me off somewhere. Any warm bar will do."
I felt Sam laugh internally.
We soared toward the highest peak up ahead, an obtuse wedge aimed at the sky. I wondered how going this way would help us compared to fighting anywhere else. But I could feel Sam's confidence in his plan, whatever it was, and that helped banish the negative thoughts creeping into my brain.
The dragon's roar behind us was almost a supernatural event. The sound carried strangely in the mountains, a scream of pain and pleasure that made the air itself vibrate. Sam twisted his eagle's head around and I did the same.
The beast was deep blue against the white of the mountain. It flew roughly, chaotically, not at all like the gracefulness of Sam in his gryphon body. The dragon flew as if urged on by primal instinct more than conscious thought. A starving animal chasing after its only chance for a meal.
Thinking about it chilled me to my soul.
We reached the peak, which Sam curved around in a tight change of direction. Then my stomach flew up into my throat as he dove, soaring down the mountain at an extreme angle. The tree line quickly approached, and for a split second I feared Sam would crash into the tall leafless poles.
But of course he pulled up, spread his wings to rapidly slow our speed, and then dropped straight down to land on his paws.
Out.
I slid off his back and landed in the foot-deep snow with a grunt. The mountain shielded us from the dragon's view; he hadn't yet appeared around the edge of the peak yet.
Stay here, Sam commanded, his sharp eyes pleading with me. Whatever you do, don't leave this place.
I tried to say, "I promise," but what came out instead was, "I love you."
I flinched. Oh my God.
But I felt the emotion reflected back at me, and it almost seemed like Sam's beak curved up in a smile.
And then he was launching himself in the air, quick beats that pulled him up the mountainside. Within seconds he was halfway to the top, and curving around the way we came.
"I love you," I whispered again, stepping behind a tree to watch from cover.
20
SAM
I love you too, I thought as I climbed into the air, eager to protect my mate.
Because that was what I wanted most. Not to save my own ass. Not to defeat the dragon in whatever strange feud this was. The thing that burned inside of me like a white hot poker was the need to protect her.
I rose up the mountain, then turned around the side.
The dragon was a hundred yards away, almost to the point where he could see where I'd left Ezra. Good; it'd worked. He didn't know where she was.
Now for the tougher part of my plan.
Hoping to catch him off guard, I flew directly at the dragon. He opened his jaws, but not to spew fire: his neck coiled back and then lunged like a cobra, fangs eager to bite down on my body. I pulled sideways away from his chomping jaws, extending my talons to rake along the side of his neck in passing. The pleasure inside me at feeling my talons cutting through dragon scales was immense. I continued my attack toward the wing, which was only partially healed from our last battle, long black scabs that marred the surface like cooled lava. But before I could rip them open the dragon twisted and his wing fell below my grasp. I quickly pulled myself in the other direction as the dragon's tail whipped forward, blowing through the thin air like a wrecking ball.
I screeched with anger. The dragon roared with pain.
And then I sensed something: a sapphire on his back, pulsing with him. A quick turn of my head gave me a glimpse of it, identical to my own. A sapphire heartbeat that I needed to silence.
Fearing the dragon's fire, I shot away from him to gain some distance before resuming my charge. The dragon curved around in a slow arc toward me, long and sleek and blotting out the sky like a stain. A stain I needed to erase. That was my purpose as a gryphon, I knew. To fight the dragon, to kill him, to ensure he couldn't do what he wanted to this world. In that moment I felt my purpose with razor-sharp clarity: if I didn't kill the dragon, something terrible would occur.
Ezra and I couldn't just fly away, even if we wanted to.
DIE, the dragon screamed in my brain, rapid and angry.
He flew directly at me, and I doubted I could avoid his fangs this time. I flinched first and flew diagonally away from him, but he followed, cutting me off. I had no choice but to dive away from him as his jaws opened wide and flame burst into the air, heat scalding my feathers from a hundred feet away.
I was faster than him. I needed to use that to my advantage.
I climbed into the air, and he slowly followed. His wings beat almost in slow motion because of his size, but mine were rapid as I tried to move through the thin air. When I had a height advantage I flew above him and then dove behind, but he was ready and twisted around, spraying a rainbow of fire across the sky. I pulled sideways at the last moment, this time so close that the fire singed the feathers of my left wing.
Screeching in pain, I could feel the dragon's pleasure.
There was no way for me to beat him this way. I was already exhausted from our short battle; the low oxygen affected me more than him, since I was the one doing three times as much flying.
I wondered if I could go to where he'd shapeshifted and grab his assault rifle. But I doubted the rifle would do much good against a dragon; the bullets would probably feel like pinpricks, or bounce off harmlessly. Unless I hit him in the head, or that sapphire on his neck. Unlikely, with my meager shooting experience.
My original plan came back to me. The reason I'd dropped off Ezra where I had. It was risky, and probably wouldn't work, but it was quickly becoming my only choice. And I needed to try it before I was too tired to outrun the terrible beast.
I curved around and flew directly at the peak of Mount Antero.
21
EZRA
Ten minutes ago I was worried that I was going to die. Now the same fear hit me, but for Sam.
He was beautiful as he cut through the sky like a feathered paper airplane, gliding along the air and then diving impossibly fast. Graceful as if it were a choreographed dance. But although the dragon's flying was pitiful by comparison, an exhausting effort from a tank of flesh, it was more than enough to handle the gryphon. When Sam dove, the dragon sprayed fire in a shield across the air. When Sam tried to come around behind, the dragon swung its tail like a whip. Sam tried different strategies and different angles of attack, but it was no use against the huge fire-breathing animal.
The totem in my pocket pulsed with frustration at the sight.
Their battle took them on the other side of the mountain, where I couldn't see. Unable to stand there and wait for the conclusion of the fight while feeling Sam's emotion through our bond, I took off at a jog around the curve of the mountain, just inside the tree line where I had at least the illusion of cover. Even though Sam had told me to stay put, remaining in the trees was essentially what he'd asked me. I'd be safe if I stayed within the trees for cover.
"I'm coming Sam," I muttered as I high-stepped through the pristine snow.
22
SAM
I circled Mount Antero once, eying the crust of snow along the face. Biding my time.
Searching for the perfect spot.
The dragon followed steadily. He was in no rush; I got the impression he wanted me
to return to my human form, which he could then destroy with a single, easy bite of his jaws. And I began to fear that might happen; the longer we flew, the more exhausted I became. Not just from the flying itself: from being in the gryphon form. It was like hanging from the end of a ladder, and feeling your grip slowly weaken. If I didn't maintain perfect concentration I might lose that grip and shift back into a human.
And if the fall didn't kill me, a few minutes of nudity in the thick snow and frigid wind of 14,000 feet certainly would.
I twisted to consider my pursuer, maybe a thousand feet behind me. It was time to make my move.
I flew low, bleeding altitude as I followed the curve of the mountain, and the dragon followed. He probably sensed I was fatigued, which was entirely true. But I wasn't done just yet.
Turning along the top of the tree line, I soared around the base of the mountain peak, gaining incredible speed in my long glide. Then when the dragon had lowered himself to the same height, and his view was partially obscured by the mountain, I quickly rose again, beating my long wings with what energy I had remaining. I flew at a 45-degree incline back toward the peak, hopefully out of sight from the dragon. I needed him to keep flying along the trees, or it wouldn't work.
Please work, I thought as I reached my spot. It was an outcropping of rock a hundred feet beneath the summit, on the opposite side of the mountain as Ezra. That was important.
I filled my enormous gryphon lungs, opened my beak wide, and screeched.
It was a high pitched battle cry, a shriek of love and fury and defiance. My throat burned from the effort and my eagle eyes watered as the terrible sound boomed across the mountainside and echoed off the surrounding ridges, rolling across the Colorado plain. I screeched until my vision went white and my lungs quivered, until every speck of air had been forced out.
I sucked in a breath and watched what I had done.
The dragon curved along the trees below, just as I had hoped.
The avalanche began as only a few trails of snow falling across the surface of the snow near the peak, but then an enormous shelf broke away suddenly. The massive crust collapsed on itself, knocking loose the impacted snow beneath, falling and knocking more snow loose and falling, and tumbling, and cascading down the mountain. From here it was obvious, but from below it would barely look like anything. White against a deeper white. Stray flecks of snow flying across the blue sky.
The dragon heard my screech and adjusted his flight to come straight at me, mere feet above the snow. I could feel his sapphire gaze across the distance, surprise and then the bloodlust overwriting any conscious thought.
He saw the moving snow too late. He reacted poorly, pulling back his wings as if to beat air against the oncoming snow. The weight of a billion snowballs sledgehammered into his chest, sending him tumbling backwards, and he let out one final roar of surprise as he was sent down the mountain. I watched his dark shape tumble and spin, and the snow covered him more each time, until eventually there was only white.
He was dead. Crushed beneath tonnes of snow. Nothing could survive that, no matter his size.
The surge of satisfaction and joy was a geyser in my chest, and relief, most of all relief that it was over, that I could change back without the fear of being burned alive, and Ezra and I could help Thomas and escape. I reached out through our bond to share the victory with her, expecting to sense her somewhere off to my right, where I'd left her.
But that's not where she was.
My joy fell away.
Once I knew where to look, I spotted her immediately with my eagle eyes: down along the trees, at the edge of the avalanche zone. But the avalanche was a widening wedge of collapsing snow, and the wave was slowly moving across the mountain towards her.
My love!
Without thought, I leaped into the air.
23
EZRA
I was an idiot.
Running around the outside of the mountain, all I felt was love for Sam. The need to be with him, to watch him, as if that somehow would help in his battle. I couldn't be a spectator. It wasn't who I was.
But it was obvious now why he'd insisted I stay where he left me. He wasn't trying to keep me in the trees.
He was trying to keep me on that side of the mountain.
The avalanche plan worked brilliantly, crushing the dragon like a freight train and burying him within moments. But the snow was moving incredibly fast, and it was expanding outward, coming in my direction, and for a long moment I couldn't understand what I was seeing.
I turned and ran straight down the mountain. It was more of a controlled fall, sliding on my butt from tree trunk to tree trunk, listening to the growing roar behind me. I could feel the vibration in the ground like an earthquake, shaking the trees so much that snow cascaded down from bare branches, which added fear to my movements. It was coming. I couldn't outrun it.
I was going to die.
The snow snapped the trees behind me as easily as if they were twigs, loud explosions that echoed above the greater roar of the avalanche. Climbing a tree to try to gain some height might have worked, except there were few branches at the lower levels that I could use, and I doubted I could move fast while wearing all these layers. Plus, with the adrenaline coursing through my veins I didn't think I could stop for even a second. I had to keep running. My panic was a visceral thing.
The violently snapping trees grew louder, closer. I couldn't get away in time; it was now obvious. I would make it another twenty feet before the snow overtook me. The thought of all that snow on top of me, an unfathomable amount of weight, made my lips quiver with fear.
Hundreds of thief pinches, two dozen cars stolen, being shot at by a maniac who then tried to burn me to a crisp with fire from his throat... and it was snow that was going to be my death. What a fucking way to go.
I began to accept my doom when I felt Sam.
He dove with reckless speed, flying through the trees just above the breaking wave of snow. His talons clamped down on my shoulders painfully, then yanked me off the ground.
But the trees were too close together. I felt Sam pull in his wings to fly between two, but he was too slow and the tip of his left wing slammed into a thick trunk. Then branches tore across his right wing, ripping away feathers and skin, and Sam screeched.
I screamed with him, sharing in his pain and fear.
But somehow he maintained enough lift to glide us out of the trees and into the open air. I looked down to see the avalanche continuing through the trees, knocking them over as easily as a child knocked over toy blocks. I tried not to think about what would have happened if he'd been a few seconds slower.
"Sam, are you okay?"
I barely felt any thought come from him as he glided to the left, away from the avalanche. His left wing trembled as he flew, and I could see the terrible gashes in the underside of his right wing where the feathers had been torn away. The pain pulsing through the totem was so raw and intense I almost passed out myself.
I don't know how Sam did it, but he kept us in a steady glide all the way back to our camp. The moment we were over the flat plateau he dropped me to the ground. Then he was crashing himself, landing roughly on the snow and sliding across to slam into the metal shape of the radio array.
By the time everything settled, he was changing back into his human form.
Lurching to my feet, I realized that the pain I'd felt wasn't all from the bond with Sam. I reached into my coat to feel my shoulders, and my glove came away coated in red. His talons had cut me pretty badly.
Still, I ignored my own pain and ran to Sam, who was now nude and shivering on the ground.
Vertical gashes ran from his hip to his nipple, and one arm bent at a wrong angle. It looked dislocated. I put my hands on him and held him for a moment, savoring the feel of his hair against my cheek.
"Sam! Can you hear me? SAM!"
His eyes fluttered behind their eyelids, but there wasn't anything else.
"What.
.." I heard across the clearing.
Thomas was prone on the ground, exactly where we'd left him. He twisted his head, trying to see what was going on.
I took care of the most pressing need first: I dragged Sam into the warm work tent, finding some spare jackets to cover him. Then I went and helped Thomas; he couldn't put much weight on his injured leg, but we managed to hobble over to the tent too.
He asked why Sam was nude, and how he was injured, and where the crazy gunman had gone, but I ignored him.
The med kit had enough bandages to patch up the entire US Army, which was good because between the three of us we ended up using all of them. Sam's wounds weren't deep, but it still required two rounds of gauze before they finally stopped bleeding. Thomas's gunshot wound was worse; judging by the pool out on the ground he'd lost a lot of blood, and if not for the scarf I'd wrapped around it earlier he might have bled out. But the bullet had gone all the way through, so it was easy to wrap the bullet holes tight with cloth and tape.
Only then did I peel off my own clothes and tend to myself. Now that I had a chance to stop and actually process it, the punctures in my shoulders stung something awful. But with Sam unconscious and Thomas looking the wrong shade of white, I suffered through a few splashes of rubbing alcohol and did my best to cover my wounds.
The next part was harder.
I found the telephone, but there was no signal. Same for the laptop: no internet. We would later discover the avalanche took out one of the radio relays on the mountain, but that didn't help me just then.
Thomas was able to use a pole as a cane and hobble around, but Sam was still unconscious. I fashioned a sled from a sheet of metal and spare rope, and laid him flat on the surface. Using that, I was able to slide him down the mountain ten feet at a time. It was a struggle since I had to constantly stop and readjust Sam on the sled, and keep him from sliding all the way down the mountain out of control, but slowly we worked our way down the path. Twice the sled caught an edge on the snow and flipped, sending Sam's body rag-dolling onto the ground. Each time sent pangs of guilt and helplessness into my chest, the fear that I was failing Sam, but I did my best to calmly readjust him and continue on.