Hooking the belay to her harness, she anchored for him, studying him as he knotted the other end of the rope to his harness and started his climb. The muscles of his arms flexed under his T-shirt, his strong fingers keeping a sure grip on the rock. His skin shone with sweat, and his face flushed with the effort. His smile was wry. He looked really good. She was lucky, dating one of the best-looking guys at school. Lucky to be dating someone who thought it was cool to go rock climbing on a warm winter day.
Silver River settled back to normal, mostly. Most of the news vans and crews that had arrived to cover the situation packed up and left. The sense of relief was plain—people tended to smile a little too big, laugh a little too hard, for the next week or so. A few more cynical people said that the dragons were just biding their time, lulling the town into a false sense of security, and that the air force ought to bomb them first, before it was too late. Everyone else felt like they’d avoided a disaster. They could still see dragons flying around the mountaintops, far to the north.
She counted down the days to the next meeting with Artegal. She was grateful that she hadn’t been grounded or had her driver’s license confiscated after her run-in with her father. This time, she carefully constructed her story of going hiking. Asked permission in advance. Promised not to shut off her cell phone. Promised to keep an eye skyward and come home at the first sign of trouble. That said something, if her mother was still worried about trouble.
Alibi in place, she raced to the trailhead and the usual meeting place.
There was a chance he wouldn’t be there. She had no idea how the crash and its aftermath had played out on his side of the border. That was part of why she was so anxious to talk to him. What had the dragons really thought of it all? The pundits on the news shows could only speculate.
The creek was mostly frozen. Icicles, lattices, and sprays lined the bottom of the log bridge. On this sunny day, the whole scene sparkled like diamonds. Kay crossed the bridge, then paced to keep warm, bundled up in her parka, hands in her pockets.
If he didn’t show, she couldn’t even leave him a note, on the chance someone might find it. If he didn’t meet her, maybe that would be for the best. Maybe they’d both be safer if he stayed away and they never met again. But then she’d always wonder. She’d always worry that he’d been grounded, whatever dragons did to ground someone. But her heart ached at the thought of never flying again, of feeling the high wind scouring her face, and of looking down on the world as if it were a map.
She heard a brushing sound, like a branch dragged across soft earth. The creak of trees, like in a wind—but there wasn’t any wind. It was a dragon moving on foot through a forest.
Then Artegal appeared, his head leading, snaking forward on his long neck, arms and wings pulling him along. She had almost forgotten how bright his scales were, the way the mottled sunlight played off them, the way they shimmered in light and shadow, like sunlight on the ice. Her heart raced in fear at the sight of him all over again.
He saw her, blinked, and sighed, a noise like a growl. “You came.”
Her smile was thin. “So did you. I guess that means things aren’t so bad?”
“Elders understand. An accident, not an invasion.” He rumbled a growl, qualifying the statement. “Was a long argument, though.”
“Did you tell them? Did you talk to them about what happened?”
He settled on his haunches, pulling his wings close, and his lids grew heavy. Almost like a wince, Kay thought. Like he was trying to decide what to say. “I wasn’t there. Not old enough.”
“So you couldn’t—” She stopped herself. She couldn’t expect Artegal to have an influence on the dragon elders any more than she could influence her own government.
“I did what I could,” he said, fog curling from his nostrils as he sighed. “And you? Did the pilot tell?”
“No,” she said. “No one’s said anything about it.”
He grumbled, in either agreement or relief, or was simply sighing again. He looked at her, looked at the sky. “What now?”
She knew what was probably the safest thing to do—stop doing this. Stop meeting at all. Hope nothing more happened. But that didn’t feel like the right thing to do. “My mom works for border enforcement, and the thing that frustrated her most is that we didn’t have a way to talk to you guys, to explain what happened. She thought if we could just explain, everything would be all right. Instead, we sat around waiting for something bad to happen, for you to attack. If something like this happens again, we can keep talking. You and me. We have to.”
The lip curled, scales flashing. “Agreed.” Then he purred. “And the flying?”
She’d been thinking about that far too much. Because she was pretty sure she had the same gleam in her eyes that he had in his. “I don’t see how we can get away with that again. I don’t know how we got away with it before.”
“You don’t want to,” he said.
“No, I do,” she said quickly. But the consequences. It wasn’t the falling off, the getting in trouble, the lying she was having to do to keep this secret. This was so much more than staying out after curfew or getting pulled over by her sheriff father. This involved the rest of the world. “But if we got caught…I’m not sure people would understand. That we’re—”
“That we’re friends?”
She scuffed her feet in the dirt and looked up to the bright blue sky, wanting to go back there. There was still so much she hadn’t seen. But she didn’t know what she was getting into.
“My mentor would understand,” Artegal said. “Others will, too. So we should practice. In case.”
“In case?”
“In case we’re needed.”
She couldn’t imagine when that would be or what it would entail. But she remembered the first few times she went climbing, how she didn’t make any progress at all, and how her hands and arms hurt so much, she cried. But she’d practiced, until it came naturally. Artegal was right. They had to practice, if for no other reason than they may need this someday.
That was a good excuse, anyway. Really, she just couldn’t wait to fly with the dragon again.
11
Kay returned to the book, Dracopolis, continuing to try to ferret out some kind of translation. She had decided, mostly by looking at the pictures and the kind way the dragons and people regarded each other, and the angry way the men who carried the swords and spears appeared toward the end of the book, that the person who had written and drawn this had loved dragons, and hated when people fought with them. Maybe the author had some advice for a person who lived in a world where humans and dragons feared each other.
Copying out the Latin from a page that seemed to recount when the fires and wars started, she found a word she recognized: virgo. And variations: virginem, virgine. From the pictures surrounding the text, she could work out a meaning before she found a translation.
There was a sacrifice. A woman in a white gown—one of those characteristic medieval figures, flattened, with large, oval eyes, a tilted head, thin curving limbs—stood on a platform raised up in a clearing at the edge of a forest. Iron shackles, painted black, bound her to the platform. Her brown hair flowed loose down her back. She was neither smiling nor frowning, and it was hard to tell if she was really so calm or if she was simply a flat medieval drawing incapable of showing emotion.
Amid the trees, the dragon came for her. His mouth was open and filled with sharp teeth.
The virgin sacrifice. They really did it. So, according to this scene, Artegal was supposed to be eating her, not flying with her. But Kay looked, double-checked words in the online Latin dictionary, and didn’t find anything on the page that meant “eating.”
It was all so vague.
She studied the pages with references to flying. If she ever were caught and needed to defend herself, maybe she could bring the book. Work up some story about doing a history project. That would go over well.
In the meantime, they flew again. It wa
s an all-day activity, because of how far into the hills Kay had to hike in order to reach their valley. After flying for an hour, Artegal walked back to the border as close as he could, and Kay hiked the rest of the way to her Jeep, which was hidden on a turn-off near a little-used dirt road—with all the ropes and gear slung over her shoulders. Exhausted, she then had to call Jon and tell him she was too tired to go out on a Saturday night. He’d sounded hurt and asked questions about what she’d been doing, why she was tired. She couldn’t answer, of course, and she couldn’t blame him for being grouchy. She kept assuring him that she really wanted to see him, but she wouldn’t be good company. The excuses sounded lame, but what could she tell him? The other alternative was to stop going to see Artegal, which she wasn’t going to do.
Two weeks later, she and Artegal flew again. Kay felt she was starting to get good. Or at least better. She didn’t scramble every time he swooped or dived. He started to be able to do corkscrews and loops without her yelping and wrapping the ropes around her hands in a death grip. She learned to let the force of movement keep her steady. By balancing and steadying herself instead of gripping as hard as she could, the flights were much easier on her hands. She stopped getting blisters.
Part of it was Artegal simply loved flying, and so was willing to be very patient with her, was willing to fly and circle as she grew more confident and secure. He said that not all dragons loved to fly. Some of the older ones stopped being able to. They tended to stay underground, guarding hordes, raising the young. Kay realized that the human military could never be sure of the number of dragons by counting the ones that flew. They based their estimates of dragon population on this. She wondered how far off those estimates were.
The Dracopolis manuscript described a system of communication used by dragons and their human riders. Kay had worked out some of it, a few phrases, including a section admonishing the reader that riding dragons was not like riding horses and you couldn’t use bits or bridles. That seemed clear to Kay. Why would you need a bridle when you could just talk? Who could even contemplate putting a bridle on a head that large, and how did you talk a dragon into putting a bit in its gigantic mouth without it eating you? But in the air, dragons couldn’t always hear, so in ancient times riders would use a rope with knots tied in it and stretched across the dragon’s back. By pressing the knots into the scales, a rider could get the dragon’s attention and communicate simple ideas: Look left, turn right, I’m in trouble. Kay made up a rope like this for her and Artegal—it had three knots, one for left, one for right, and one in the middle to get his attention. They tested it and found their own code to use.
In mid March, they made their third flight after the jet crash. Life had gotten back to normal, everyone breathing sighs of relief because it seemed the dragons understood what had happened and didn’t hold it against the humans. It made everyone feel better because it meant that maybe the dragons weren’t so alien after all, and maybe the humans didn’t have to be afraid so much.
Kay could have told them that.
But the jets came again.
Kay and Artegal were in their valley, circling, enjoying the first day in weeks that was warm enough to melt snow. Flying, Kay felt so much closer to the sun, so much warmer. They’d had a lazy practice, and Artegal dipped lower, preparing to land.
Far overhead, far distant, a mechanical roar echoed. She could feel Artegal snort more than she could hear him, a vibration deep in his lungs. A questioning sound, confused. But Kay recognized the noise—the roar of a jet engine. She looked up, scanning the sky, searching for the plane. Hard to tell how close it was or where it was going, because sound was unreliable when it came from something moving that fast. It seemed far away. She hoped it was far away.
Artegal climbed, swooping upward in a wide loop, craning his neck, looking for the intruder along with Kay. She grew worried—the engine sounded loud. Probably just a trick of the air. No plane would cross the border into Dragon air space, especially after the crash. They needed to hide, just in case.
“Artegal, we should get out of here!” she cupped her hand and yelled. She pressed the left and right knots in the rope across his shoulders, which meant, We need to land. He cocked his head; she couldn’t tell if he’d heard her.
Then, the plane sped overhead. A narrow triangle, sharp nose, angled wings, engines in back—a jet fighter shaped like an arrowhead. It didn’t make a sound; the roar followed a moment later, which meant it was traveling very, very fast—faster than its own sound.
Artegal roared. Kay had never heard him make a sound like that. It surged through his whole body; the vibrations rattled her teeth. His lungs worked like bellows under her, and the sound echoed through the valley, like thunder, like a mountain falling. The appearance of the plane had startled him. It may even have scared him. She could only tuck her head in and hold on as he dived, flattening his wings to streamline his body and increase his speed.
He pulled up as he reached the treetops and skimmed along the tops of them, up the side of the hill, over and out of the valley. He kept going, beating his wings hard to speed up. Level now, somewhat stable, Kay had a chance to see where the plane had gone. The plane was on the wrong side of the border, and this time it looked to be on purpose. But that was crazy.
The jet had looped around and was following them.
It had seen her. That was the only reason why it had turned. The pilot had seen her and Artegal together and had to investigate. The dragon was growling with every breath; he’d seen the jet following them. They both knew he couldn’t outrun it.
But she didn’t expect Artegal to slow down.
The whole sky seemed to be filled with the mechanical roar of the jet. It echoed and thundered like Artegal’s roar had, but felt different. It had no breath of living air behind it.
The dragon’s flight had become almost lazy. He barely moved his wings, and the trees passing below them slowed to a crawl. Kay wanted to scream at him—why wasn’t he doing something? Why wasn’t he doing more? But his strategy became clear when the jet roared past and raced far beyond them.
Artegal wheeled, changing direction and flapping back the way they’d come, back to the valley where maybe they could hide before the jet had time to loop back around and find them.
But the jet did a flip in midair. Artegal stopped and hovered. The plane overshot them—then it pivoted, starting another long loop and simply flipping until it faced backward and shot ahead, barely losing momentum. Kay had been watching jets patrol her whole life, and she’d never seen one do that. They weren’t supposed to be able to do that. The dragons had always been more maneuverable.
Artegal panicked. He twisted in midair, wings flapping, shifting, until he launched in yet another direction. Then he flew, straight and fast, not wavering—away from the border, to what he thought of as home and safety. He roared again, and for the first time Kay saw the beast of legend, the dragon that had haunted human tales for thousands of years. No wonder people had been surprised that dragons could speak. A dragon flying over a medieval village, roaring like this, maybe breathing fire, wouldn’t notice people scattering like ants before him. She was just a piece of fluff clinging to his scaled hide, helpless. The direction that meant safety to Artegal meant a greater danger to her.
The jet, for whatever reason, did not follow them any farther into dragon territory. Again, it did its strange midair flip to match Artegal’s direction, but after following a mile or two, it looped back and rocketed away, south and across the border to human territory.
Kay was relieved. But she couldn’t get Artegal to slow down, to consider landing. He wouldn’t look at her no matter how hard she leaned on the knots in the ropes.
He just kept going, as if terrified of the monster that had chased him.
She huddled on his back and tried to figure out what to do. Really, though, she wouldn’t be able to stop him no matter what he did. She was so small and weak.
Maybe this was why people had started k
illing dragons. People didn’t like being helpless, and some people weren’t very good at being friends. So people and dragons fought. Now, both sides were too scared to even look at each other. Artegal seemed like he was going to fly all the way to the distant mountains before stopping. If that happened, she was pretty much screwed.
Her parents would never know what happened to her. She’d never see Tam again. She’d never see Jon.
She got up on her hands and knees and pounded her fist on Artegal’s shoulder, putting her whole body into it. He had to feel that—scales flinched under her hand. Then she screamed, “Stop!”
He snorted, shuddered, as if waking up from a nightmare. He spread his wings, which caught the air like sails, and braked, dropping straight down to a clearing below. Kay closed her eyes and sighed, breathing out thanks. Once she was on the ground, she could run. On the ground she could do anything. It was only a hundred feet up that she was helpless.
Hind legs forward, he slammed to the earth, and she slid across his back, yanking hard against her harness. Instead of folding his wings back, he rested them on the ground. His neck slouched, and he was breathing heavily. Exhausted, maybe. Still frightened.
Hands shaking, she unhooked herself and slid down his shoulder. The ground rocked under her. Her legs wobbled, and she sank. It was as if she’d ridden a roller coaster times a million. She sat there, trying to breathe, reminding herself that she was supposed to be running away. She was facing a wall of silvery scales, and a great gray wing was tented almost directly above her.
He raised his head on its long, snakelike neck. She looked back into those onyx eyes. She scrambled backward through dirt and pine needles. She didn’t mean to, but she saw those eyes, that mouth that could close over her in one bite, remembered how scared she was and wanted to get away.
Artegal lowered his neck and head, pressed his body to the ground. Pulled his tail tight around him, making himself smaller. He looked like a rock now, instead of a monster. This was a different kind of frightened.