Longfang (20 page)

Chapter Eighteen

Elian flinched at Shadow’s hiss of pain. His dragon-bone sword was clumsy and oversized for the delicate task of removing the spears, but he had no choice. Metal knives
struggled to cut through dragon flesh. At least the sword did so cleanly.

‘Keep going,’ Pell told him. ‘You’re nearly there. Shadow knows you’re not deliberately causing more pain.’

It was a messy job, and it would get worse. This was the first spear and his hands were slick with Shadow’s blood. They did not have long. The hunters were already in sight, but Elian felt
relatively safe for the moment. They had landed high up on a ridge and it would take the hunters some time to reach them.

The spear came loose with the same horrible wet sucking sound he remembered from the time he had drawn the spear from Fang’s thigh. His stomach turned. He had nothing with which to stem
the flow of blood flooding from the hole in Shadow’s side. All he could do was to hope that none of the spears had hit major blood vessels, or the bleeding would not stop. He could not even
cauterise the wound.

‘Thank you, Elian!’ Pell said, his voice thick with relief. ‘I couldn’t have done that.’

‘Have you got any spare cloth, Pell?’ Elian asked, deliberately changing the subject. He had never seen Pell show this sort of emotion and he found it embarrassing.

Pell thought for a moment. ‘I’ve got some spare clothes in my pack.’

‘Grab whatever you’re happy to live without, fold it into a pad and press it over the open wound. You’ll have to wait for the worst of the blood flow to stop. I don’t
have any medicinal herbs to help form a clot, so it might take a while.’

Elian ducked under Shadow’s extended wing and walked back along her body, leaving Pell to scrabble through his pack for something suitable with which to plug the wound. Continuing around
her tail, Elian reached the first of the two spears lodged there.

‘Shadow either got lucky, or she has tougher scales than you, Ra,’
he observed.
‘Your wounds look a lot deeper than this.’

The first weapon had not penetrated far through the surface, but it was wedged tight. He moved along to the second. Again the wound looked superficial. The spear he had taken from the underside
of Shadow’s wing was by far the worst. Her armoured scales must be weaker there.

‘Shadow’s injuries will give her more trouble than mine,’
Aurora said.

‘Why? Have you got healing abilities that I don’t know about.’

‘Of a sort. Not in the same way that Firestorm heals, but enough that once the spears are out, I will regain my strength quite quickly.’

‘That’s a relief,’
Elian admitted.
‘I was worried about how much blood you might lose from five deep wounds. I’ve got no way of sealing them. How much
time do I have to work on Shadow? The spears look as if they’re going to be tricky to remove.’

For the slightest moment, Elian felt as if his mind were soaring out from his body and flying down into the valley below. The sensation stopped abruptly, and he staggered as mind and body
reconnected like stretched elastic snapping back to its resting state. He was about to ask Aurora what had happened, but realised he did not need to. The bond between their minds had grown so
strong that he often found his thoughts mixing with those of his dragon. Their minds were becoming ever more intertwined. She had mentally reached out to try to find the dragonhunters and had
inadvertently taken his mind along for the ride. The sensation had been alien and he had instinctively retreated from it. What if he had relaxed and gone with her? What would that feel like?

‘You have about a quarter of an hour before we’ll need to move again,’
Aurora said, interrupting his train of thought and bringing him back to the real world.
‘We’ll just have to keep hopping ahead of them until we can fly more freely. Let’s hope the wound under Shadow’s wing doesn’t restrict her too much, or we may have
to start looking for ways to slow the hunters down.’

‘Quarter of an hour!’ Elian muttered aloud through gritted teeth. ‘They aren’t giving us much breathing space, are they?’

Aurora did not answer. Elian knew from her silence that he should focus and get on with what needed to be done. Pell was on the other side of Shadow, so he tilted his head back and called over
to him.

‘Tell Shadow to brace herself. I’m going to start on the second spear.’

‘Go ahead. She’s ready.’ Pell’s voice sounded strained. Elian understood perfectly what he was feeling.

Elian decided to take out the spear embedded in the thicker part of Shadow’s tail first. Gripping the shaft close to the wound, he tested the weapon’s resistance with a steady pull.
He hoped he might be able to just pull it straight out, but after a small initial movement the spear held fast.

There must be a barb under the scale, he realised. The only way to get it out would be to cut a path for it through the hard surface. The problem was identifying where to cut. The barb could be
on any side of the spear – or there might be more than one. The spear tips Elian had found after the previous attacks had all been subtly different. He was kicking himself now for not having
taken them away from the meadow and disposed of them. By leaving them where they had fallen, he and his companions had effectively rearmed the hunting party with their original weapons and given
them a second chance.

Elian probed each side of the entry wound with the tip of his sword in an effort to identify the barb. Shadow flinched a couple of times and Elian did not want to imagine what his efforts must
feel like. Having explored the wound as best he could, he decided where he needed to cut and sliced through the scale with the tip of the sword. Even though the blade was made of pure dragonbone,
the scale resisted his efforts. He was sweating profusely when he finally managed to ease the spear free.

Moving swiftly to the spear further down Shadow’s tail, he repeated the process. Although trying to be gentle, Elian was aware of the time it was taking. Aurora did not say anything. He
could almost feel the hunters getting closer.

The last spear came loose with unexpected suddenness, taking Elian by surprise. He fell backwards onto the ground, crying out as he fell.

‘Are you all right?’ Pell called.

Elian brushed himself down. He was more shocked than hurt.

‘I’m fine,’ he called back. ‘Shadow’s all done.’ He picked up the two spears and ran around Shadow’s tail and under her wing to where Pell was still
pressing a large blood-soaked wad of material against her wound. ‘That’ll do, Pell. We need to get out of here. The hunters will be on top of us any minute. Is she able to fly
again?’

‘She says she can, but I don’t think she’ll be able to fly far,’ he replied.

‘Good enough,’ Elian said. ‘Let’s get away. Her other two wounds aren’t serious. They’ll hurt, I’m sure, but they’re not bleeding badly. Come on!
Mount up. I don’t want to have to cut more of these out of her hide,’ he added, brandishing the two wicked-looking weapons.

With a final wave of the spears, Elian broke into a run to cross the short distance to Aurora. But there was one last thing he had to do before they left. Throwing the weapons down on the grass,
he sliced through each of the long wooden shafts just above the dragonbone tips with his sword. The shafts he left where they lay. The tips, he collected. Sheathing his sword, he slipped his arms
through the straps that held the scabbard across his back. A few more long bounding steps and he was scrambling up Aurora’s uninjured foreleg and into his saddle. He tucked the spear tips
into his saddlebag and buckled down the cover, barely finishing before Aurora leaped forwards and hurled herself into the sky.

They set off not a moment too soon. Even as they took to the air, the hunters crested the ridge and launched a volley of weapons. Elian held his breath as they hurled their spears. His heart was
thumping, but none came close.

The hunters shrank to tiny figures in the distance almost before Aurora had settled into a steady flying rhythm. Aurora’s present speed was about three times that of a galloping horse. In
theory they should outrun the swiftest of hunters with ease, but in their present state the dragons could only fly for a matter of minutes before they needed to rest. Also, each launch sapped the
dragons’ strength more than all the time they spent flying. The acceleration and strength required to get off the ground was tremendous and the strain would be particularly telling on Shadow,
whose injury would be tested with every launch.

Elian looked for her. Force of habit made him look above and to either side, but he eventually spotted Shadow quite a long way below and behind. She was struggling to maintain height and was
barely level with the top of the ridge from where they had launched. His stomach tightened. Her wingbeats looked awkward and off balance.

‘Can Shadow keep going, Ra?’
he asked, sending his feelings of concern through the bond.

‘Not for long,’
she answered.
‘The pain in her right wing is making it impossible for her to fly properly. It’s a miracle she’s airborne at
all.’

‘What about you? I’m sorry I didn’t have time to care for you straight away, Ra. You know I wanted to.’

‘I know you did, Elian,’
she responded, her voice warm and reassuring.
‘You did the right thing. The wound under Shadow’s wing was the priority. Mine can wait a
little longer.’

‘But I can feel your pain,’ he said, speaking his thoughts aloud. ‘I know how much it hurts.’

‘You can also feel that the pain is bearable,’
she pointed out.
‘I am strong, Elian. Normally I would say that Shadow is the stronger dragon, but as you can see, it
is she who is struggling. We must stay focused on getting away from the hunters. If we can reach the Castle of Shadows that’s where they will lose heart.’

‘Why there?’
Elian asked.

There was something Ra was not telling him and he did not like the idea of secrets between them – especially when it came to their quest. He tried to look into her mind to see what she was
holding back, but he could sense nothing other than a deep unease.

‘The Castle of Shadows is not its only name,’
Aurora said, her voice uncharacteristically bleak.
‘Some call it the Castle of the Dead, others the Dark Keep. But most
know it as the Castle of Despair. I would say this final name suits it best. If the hunters follow us in, there is no telling how the castle will treat them. One thing I will guarantee, though
– joining or human, they will not enjoy the experience.’

A cold clamp of dread tightened inside Elian’s stomach. The Castle of Despair – just the name caused a blanket of depression to settle over him. His heart became leaden in his chest
and for a moment it felt as if someone had attached weights to his limbs. His entire body was suddenly heavy with weariness.

A rising pocket of air caught under Aurora’s wings. The sudden bump caused Elian’s stomach to lurch and his hands to clutch the pommel handle with a white-knuckled grip. The jolt
startled him and his mood lifted. It was with a certain amount of amazement that he realised how familiar the air rush and the rhythmic motion of riding on Aurora’s back had become in the
space of a few short weeks.

He looked down at the countryside sliding by below him with fresh eyes, and the wonder of it filled him afresh. It was hard to imagine ever being totally at ease when flying in turbulent air,
but he had already become so comfortable in smooth conditions that he no longer even thought about how high he was above the ground. How long would it take before turbulence would also become
second nature?

They flew on for about ten more minutes, keeping to the valleys and holding their height. The mountains to either side were lower than those around the area of the Oracle’s cave, but they
were still too high to consider climbing over with the dragons in their present state. When Aurora spoke again, she did so with deep concern in her voice.

‘We’re going to have to land,’
she told him.
‘Shadow can’t go any further. She’s going to try to land on the top of that ridge ahead.’

Elian could see instantly where Aurora meant. There was a spur jutting out from the side of one of the mountains. Towards the top there was an area of dense woodland, but the majority of the
spur seemed to be grass-covered, with just a few occasional boulders jutting up like broken teeth.

He looked back at Shadow and then forwards again at the ridge. The night dragon would have to climb at least a hundred spans to land on the top. Would she make it?

Aurora was flying level with the top of the ridge as she approached. She stopped beating her wings and used her momentum to glide the final few dragonlengths. Elian had learned to trust her
judgement and the final tilt of her wings combined with two powerful strokes brought them to a light touchdown.

No sooner had Aurora landed, than she turned to watch and encourage Shadow. Elian could feel his dragon urging Shadow on, but she was never going to make it to the top of the ridge. Despite her
awkward-looking wingbeats, she had gained some of the height she needed. She was flying approximately fifty spans below the top of the ridge, but she seemed intent on landing.

It was only in the final moments of her approach that Elian realised what Shadow was attempting to do. Aurora broke into a run back across the grassy ridge to keep Shadow in sight as she began
to disappear out of view under the nearby horizon. Elian hung on tight, trying to cope with the unusual motion. Normally when Aurora ran with him on her back, she had her wings extended. With her
wings folded back her running motion was totally different. It felt unnatural, but he was as anxious as his dragon to watch Shadow touch down.

The night dragon was trying to land on the steep upslope, a short walk from the ridge top. To land there would be difficult for any dragon, but to try it with a wing injury seemed foolishness of
the highest order. For a brief moment Elian thought the huge black dragon had executed the impossible to perfection, but as Shadow swooped upwards to parallel the slope her right wing collapsed
with the strain of the manoeuvre. She rolled, crashing into the slope and ploughing to an abrupt stop on her side with her wing folded back awkwardly.