Voices of Dragons

by Carrie Vaughn

  Looking at local topographical maps, she found a valley—barely a valley, more like a forgotten space between a set of hills close to the dragon side of the border. It was too close to the border to be frequented by dragons, but hidden from surveillance on the human side. It may give them enough space to experiment.

  She told Artegal about the place, describing it in terms of compass readings based on the map, so many degrees from north. He better understood when she marked it in relation to the setting sun.

  “I know this place,” he said. “It is good.”

  “I found something else in the book,” she said, after they’d agreed on their plan. “It’s newer, I think. Someone wrote down coordinates on a piece of paper and slipped it between the pages. It’s for a place way north and east—near Greenland, do you know where that is?”

  “The Arctic islands?” he questioned.

  “I think so.”

  He purred thoughtfully. “East, where my mentor vanished.”

  Someone had copied down latitude and longitude, believed they were important enough to write down. But they didn’t label the coordinates—to keep them secret? “You think he went there?” Kay said. “Who wrote the note?”

  “I do not know,” Artegal said.

  A week later, they met somewhere other than their secret glade by the creek. Knowing her parents, knowing the patrol schedules and where she could go and have it be unlikely she’d be found helped her hide. It also helped that she’d grown up in these woods and knew the landmarks. She could leave the trails and not get lost.

  She parked her Jeep at a trailhead where it wouldn’t be out of place. This required a couple of extra miles of hiking to reach their meeting spot, which meant starting out stupidly early. She brought along with her yards of rope and her rock-climbing harness. She kept thinking, This is crazy. Completely insane.

  “You’ve been doing a lot of hiking. Especially for this time of year,” her mother had observed when Kay left the house.

  “It’s been helping with all the stress at school,” Kay had explained. Her mother seemed pleased with the explanation, as if proud that Kay was handling the stress on her own.

  She wore her warmest layers of clothing and brought along chemical warmers for her boots and gloves. She didn’t need them at first, hiking hard with her climbing gear in a backpack. She was sweating.

  Artegal had already arrived and was waiting. He tilted his head to study the equipment slung over her shoulders. “Make harness. With this?”

  “I’m not sure it’ll even work. It may not work.” She kept saying that, and yet she wanted to try it. How different could it be? You secured your line. You clipped in. You didn’t fall. End of story.

  “We’ll try,” he said, and that was that.

  First, she arranged the line on the ground in front of Artegal, eyeing the dragon and trying to estimate how much it would take to circle that giant frame. A figure eight would work best, she decided, looped over his chest in front of and behind his wings and meeting in the back. “Will this hurt you if it goes over your wings?”

  He snorted a puff of steam out his nose. “As you say, I’m not sure.”

  Leaning forward, he lowered himself to the ground, on top of where Kay had spread the lines out. Taking one end of the line, she touched Artegal’s shoulder. The scales were smooth, cool. She imagined that if she knocked her knuckles on them, they’d ring out. She lay her hand flat. A jump and a couple of steps would carry her up to his back. They’d been meeting each other for weeks, but they’d only talked. This was the first time she’d touched him since the day he fished her out of the river. It seemed awkward.

  Artegal, his head turned to watch her, nodded once.

  Pulling with her hands, pushing with her feet, she scrambled up the slope of his shoulder and found herself kneeling on his back. She had to think to keep her balance. She could feel his body shift as he breathed, the rhythmic movement of lungs, in and out.

  He seemed huge from this angle. She could stand on his back, and it would be like standing on a smooth, flat floor.

  She did this three more times, to bring the other ends of the rope up. She looped them together and knotted them securely as if she were tying a rope to someone else’s harness. She left herself a loop and a carabiner—a steel oval with a hinged closure—to secure her harness to.

  He didn’t seem to mind her clambering all over him. She thought she would have felt it if he flinched or winced. Leaning on his back, she called to him, “Tell me if I’m hurting you.”

  His lip curled. “Would take much more to hurt me.”

  She checked every line, knot, and carabiner three times. Finally, she put on her climbing harness, secured around her waist and legs. She’d left her helmet at home—if she fell from the air, a helmet wouldn’t do much good. She thought she was ready. Standing on the ground by his shoulder, she looked at Artegal, into his shining eye.

  “Are we sure about this?” she said.

  “We can prove the book is not false,” he said. “And—is exciting. An adventure.”

  That, she understood. “It sure is.”

  “If something goes wrong, call to me,” he said.

  Once again she climbed up his shoulder, to the middle of his back, between his forelimbs. She snapped the carabiner on her harness onto the loop on Artegal’s harness. She stretched out, lying facedown, bracing with her legs.

  “Ready?” he said. Even with his head turned, she could just see the corner of his eye at the end of his long stretch of silvery neck.

  Not really. But she never would be until she did it. She held onto the ropes as tightly as she could. “Yeah.”

  He walked, carrying her on foot for a quarter of a mile, to the line of forest that marked the valley. The motion felt lurching, shoulders bunching and lifting as he moved his arms and wings, his hind legs causing his whole body to roll like a boat as he pushed himself forward. If she were prone to motion sickness, she would be sick from this. But she crouched, sitting up slightly on her hands and knees, letting her body shift and rock with the motion. She could even start to look around her and marvel at the world from fifteen feet off the ground. High branches passed by at eye level; birds flew below her.

  The path he took crested, then started downhill. He didn’t warn her when he launched straight up, fast as a rocket.

  She fell and slammed against his scaly back, grunting as the harness took all of her weight. The breath was knocked out of her. Dangling, she rolled over until she was looking up at bright blue sky. She grabbed the rope and pulled herself back to stability, digging her toes in, bracing. Artegal flinched a little—no more than the shiver of muscle she’d have when shrugging off a fly. If he was going to do things like that without telling her, then he’d just have to put up with her scrambling on his back.

  The muscles under her bunched as he stretched his forelimbs and raised his wings. They became gleaming sails on either side of her. At the same time, he tipped up, almost vertical, and she gasped as her legs swung free. But her knots held, her harness gripped her comfortably just as it was supposed to. She’d secured the lines well enough that they slipped only a few inches, shifting along his back. They didn’t seem to interfere with his wings. It was just like climbing. She wasn’t going to fall.

  Almost immediately he flattened, skimming along the treetops where he was less likely to be seen. Lying on her stomach, she mostly saw him, his neck stretched forward, the wedge of his head cutting a path through the air, the thick muscles of his back bunching, relaxing, bunching again as his wings dipped like oars. When the wings swept back, she could see past his shoulder to a carpet of treetops, the tips of conifers speeding past in a blur. In the distance, mountains surrounded them. Above her, nothing but sky. It was a big world.

  The scales were slippery, and when he made a sudden banking movement, she lost her grip again, letting out a yelp as she fell. Scrabbling for purchase, she rammed an elbow into the base of a wing. He grunted, and the rhythm
of his wing strokes faltered. He swerved and flapped harder to keep upright.

  “Sorry,” she called, wondering if he could hear her over the wind.

  He leveled off again, and she regained her balance in the center of his back. Her muscles were already stiff from bracing, but she thought she’d found the best position: lying flat, propped on her elbows, holding the rope across his shoulders, using her feet to keep her steady, shifting with his movements instead of against them. Struggling against his rapid turns had caused her to fall.

  Wind howled around her. Gripping the ropes tightly, she huddled as if in a storm. But she was flying with a dragon. Flying. She grinned, laughter bubbling up, but the wind kept her gasping for air, and the sound never quite burst forth.

  He sailed around the valley, dipping his wings to turn one way or another, soaring just above the treetops. No fancy tricks—they were both getting used to this. But she grew comfortable enough with the harness, the movement, the view, and the feeling of being at the mercy of a large, living creature. No, not at the mercy of—they were partners in this. She started to enjoy herself enough that she was disappointed when the dragon tipped his nose down and dipped into an open space among the trees.

  He tucked himself, pulling up his neck and body, stretching his hind legs forward to take the landing, and sweeping his wings back like a hawk to control his descent. She was practically dangling off his nearly vertical back as they passed by the top of the trees.

  She’d have expected them to crash into the trees, ripping through branches. A total mess. But for all his size, Artegal was agile. He hit the ground without a stumble, while inertia slammed her into his back, causing her to lose her breath again. Just as carefully as he’d unfurled them, he tucked his wings in and settled, leaning forward on the tips of his fingers and shifting on his hind legs.

  Her hands were cramped from holding a death grip on the ropes. She almost couldn’t open them. She shivered because even her coat and winter clothes hadn’t been enough to protect her from the blast of wind. If they did this again, she’d have to wear warmer clothes. And learn to trust the harness and rigging. If she could learn to use it to balance, she wouldn’t have to hold on so tightly, and she might be able to look around more.

  If they did this again—she couldn’t wait to do this again, even though they weren’t supposed to be doing this at all.

  She hung there, unable to move for a moment, trying to catch her breath and unclench her body. Artegal curled his neck around, trying to see her. Over his shoulder, she caught the corner of his gaze.

  Then she laughed. “Oh my God!”

  “Well?” he rumbled.

  “That was amazing!” Fumbling, she unclipped her harness and fell, sliding down his shoulder to sprawl on the ground. “What about you? Are you okay?”

  “Your weight is little. Easy to carry. But we could adjust the ropes.”

  With his clawed forelimbs, he showed her where the ropes had slipped and pinched under his wings, where they could be tighter across his back and looser across his chest to allow easier movement while remaining secure. She did the best she could with cold, stiff fingers. As she stepped back, Artegal rolled his shoulders and stretched his wings, flexing against the harness. He seemed to nod in satisfaction.

  “Better,” he said. “It will need testing to be sure.”

  Half hopefully, half fearfully, she asked, “So this means you want to do this again?”

  Instead of speaking down to her, he lowered his head, almost to the ground, so they were on a level. “Don’t you?”

  She nodded as enthusiastically as she could, hoping he’d understand. “Of course! I mean, I’ve flown before, in airplanes, but this—this was so different, so amazing. I could see everything, everywhere. I felt like I could touch clouds—I mean, the air even smelled better.”

  He purred, as if in agreement, and seemed pleased.

  “Is it always like that?” she said. “Do you ever get tired of it?”

  “No,” he said. “Never. We are made for flight.”

  He’d made her a part of that. It was better than conquering a rock face. And they would fly again.

  8

  Kay started doodling dragon wings in the margins of her notes in class. Then, drawing in harnesses around the wings, in different patterns, thinking of different ways to arrange the ropes. Then she’d scribble it all out, glancing around nervously, hoping no one saw what she was doing and got suspicious. At night, she dreamed of falling and of stopping abruptly, pulled up short by the ropes and harness, then soaring. She lost sleep, thinking of and waiting for the next time she and Artegal would go flying.

  It came two weeks later.

  They experimented to find the best way of fitting the ropes into a harness. He crouched low so she could reach the knots and make adjustments. Kay added a knot in front so she could adjust the lines from both sides, and not just at his back, and that seemed to help. She learned to make the knots lay flat so they didn’t irritate Artegal’s skin. His scales looked hard, and they seemed like armor—they could act like armor, too, the dragon said. At least in the old stories, against weapons like swords and arrows. But the skin underneath was sensitive and would chafe and itch if pressed wrong, like an awkward wrinkle in a piece of clothing.

  Never mind what the military wanted to know about the dragons. The biologists would kill for a chance like this.

  Finally, they had a harness that looked a little more solid and functional than the first one. She couldn’t believe they’d managed to get away with it at all last time. Not only had the flimsy set of ropes she’d rigged up as a harness worked, hadn’t fallen apart and sent her plummeting—but she and Artegal hadn’t been discovered flying. So, why not try it again?

  She cracked open a pack of hand warmers and put them in her gloves, hoping they would keep her from getting stiff with cold like last time. Her own climbing harness was on and secure. Once again, Artegal crouched and flattened his wing to let her climb up his side.

  Settling on his back felt familiar. His back was broad enough for her to lie flat on, but not so large that she couldn’t see over his shoulders to the world around them.

  She snapped in, told him she was secure, and braced as he lurched into motion, walking to the launch point. This time, she was ready for it. When he bunched his muscles, so did she, bracing. This time, she didn’t slip or lose her breath when he launched straight up, leaping into the air.

  The valley fell away below them. Wings stretched to their fullest, Artegal started a wide, lazy circle across the width of it. A carpet of evergreens lay below, climbing both sides of the U-shaped valley. Swaths of snow were visible on bare rock outcroppings. High overhead, the sun painted the whole scene gold and silver. Except for the wind whipping around her head, all was silent. Artegal didn’t make a sound, except for a faint rippling in his wings, like sails.

  At this height, nothing mattered. Not school, not dating, not arguments with Tam, not laws about the border that weren’t fair. Her smile grew wide.

  Artegal stretched out like an arrow, streamlined, cutting effortlessly through the air. He changed direction, tilting his wings, and she held on, adjusting her weight to keep her balance. He could see her if he lifted his head and turned slightly, but that broke his aerodynamic shape, so he didn’t do it often. They’d have to work out a way to communicate. He could feel her, so maybe they could work out a system of signals. As it was, she hoped he could see her smile and know that everything was okay.

  He turned the valley into a track, flapping a swooping oval up one side and down the other, tipped almost on his side as he passed along the hills. The force of his flight pulled Kay down, but her harness held her, and as Artegal increased speed, she stayed anchored to him.

  He huffed—she felt the sudden expansion of his lungs—and she took that as a sign he was about to do something. She gripped the ropes and anchored herself by lying flatter against his scaled back.

  Then, he swung around. Inst
ead of the gentle, lazy tilting of wings and gliding in a wide arc, he lurched, and dived. Wings swept back now, he turned a sharp angle and plummeted, racing faster and faster to the ground. He spun until Kay thought he was out of control, and she shut her eyes to keep vertigo from overwhelming her. Surely they’d hit the trees soon, they were going so fast. She opened her eyes, just a slit, in time to see his wings reach out at the last moment, fill with air, and swing his body upward again. If she hadn’t already been lying flat, she would have slammed into him and lost her lunch. They were definitely going to have to work out some kind of communication.

  She laughed, screaming.

  This was what maintained the balance of power between the dragons and human aircraft over the last sixty years. Human forces may have had bombs and missiles, but their planes could never maneuver like this, turn on a dime in midair, brake and hover without stalling out. The dragons needed so little effort to outfly artificial human wings.

  Artegal climbed and dived again. Kay was a little more ready for it this time. The dragon’s body was definitely better designed than the human body for this sort of thing. She gasped for air every time he made a sudden turn.

  But when he caught an updraft and simply glided—a ship of the air sailing in the breeze as if he’d been born there—she felt as if she herself were flying.

  An explosion echoed, too sharp and vicious to be thunder. Kay flinched and felt Artegal’s back muscles shiver with the same surprise. He turned, swooping around and gaining altitude to look. She sat up to try to see over his shoulder.

  Past the ridge, over the forest north of the border, a black smudge drifted at the end of a trail of dark smoke. Something had caught fire and fallen out of the sky. A short distance away from what must have been a plane crash, a white parachute drifted down, a pilot dangling at the end.

  For a moment, both dragon and pilot seemed to hover in midair, the pilot slowly falling, twisting back and forth at the end of his lines, looking straight across at the dragon with the girl on his back. He couldn’t possibly miss them.