Ruins of Camelot (34 page)

And then, unexpectedly, a large weight dropped to the ground directly in front of Gabriella.  She startled despite her weakness and lifted her head.  Her eyes widened slightly.  Slowly, unblinking, she pushed herself back onto her knees.

The dragon took a massive step backwards.  Its orange eyes surveyed her meaningfully, and a grating rumble uncoiled from deep in its throat.  In front of the dragon's feet, lying on the snowy ground between it and Gabriella, was an enormous dismembered leg.  It had belonged to one of the chortha, although the trickling blood implied that this was a fresh kill.

The fur was almost entirely burnt off of it.  Its meat was already cooked.

There was a flicker of dark wings, and suddenly, Featherbolt landed atop the gigantic flank, fearlessly ignoring the great dragon behind him.  He pecked at the singed meat, tore off a strip, and gobbled it greedily.

Gabriella stared at the steaming hunk of beast, then over it, to the waiting dragon.  The smell of meat, tainted by the dragon's breath as it was, acted like evil magic on her stomach.  It growled eagerly.  Was it a trap?  A trick?  A figment of her delirious imagination?  She crept forwards almost involuntarily.

The dragon watched, exhaling great, low gusts of heat.

Gabriella touched the flesh of the dismembered leg.  Slowly, casting a glance up at the watching dragon, she drew her sword, cut off a strip of the meat, and smelled it.  A moment later, she devoured it.  A wave of dizziness and warmth washed over her as the sustenance sank into her stomach.

The dragon observed this stoically.  Then it coiled low to the ground, snarled a puff of blue fire, unhinged its wings, and threw itself up into the darkening air.  Snow swirled as it swooped overhead and wheeled around in a wide arc.  It landed again some distance away, dropping to a strangely disgruntled crouch with its head lifted, watching.  After a moment, it furled its wings and lay down.  Its orange eyes glowed in the dimness.

Still perched atop the steaming hunk of leg, Featherbolt let out a screech.  He bent and tore off another chunk of meat.

Feeling like someone in a very strange dream, Gabriella looked from the dismembered leg to the dragon and back again.  The bite of meat in her belly called hungrily for another.

She ate.

Heat and strength flowed into her with astonishing quickness.  She scooped handfuls of snow and consumed those as well, quenching her thirst.

When she looked up again, stopping her meal before she overwhelmed her stomach, the moon was high overhead.  Stars spread across the sky like silver dust.

The dragon had crept closer.  It lay full-length on the snowy hill, its head no more than ten paces away.  Snow had melted around it, revealing the dead yellow grass of the steppe.  Its orange eyes were half-lidded but opened up fully as Gabriella rose to her feet.  A puff of blue flame blew from its nostrils.

Deliberately and carefully, Gabriella approached the dragon.

When she was three paces away, the dragon raised its great head and breathed a long, grating growl, lifting its lips to show rows of dagger-like teeth.  Gabriella stopped for a moment.  She stared into the beast's orange eyes, and then began to move forwards again.

The dragon arose suddenly, keeping its head low, and drew back a step.  A deep snarl rumbled in its throat.  Ribbons of smoke began to issue from its nostrils.

A shudder of fear shook Gabriella.  And yet she continued to move forwards, slowly raising her right hand, palm out, fingers spread.  The falcon sigil swung at her throat.  She sensed it there, felt its warmth against her skin.

She touched the dragon's great, scaly snout.  It was hot and hard, rough to the touch.  Slowly, barely breathing, she stroked it.

"It's all right," she whispered, her voice trembling faintly.  "I know how difficult this must be for you."

Gradually, the dragon seemed to relax.  Together, the young woman and the dragon stood there in the moonlight.  Some distance away, Featherbolt perched on the remains of the dismembered leg, watching with interest, his head cocked to one side.

Eventually, Gabriella drew back.  She felt more alive and awake than she had in weeks.  She turned her back on the dragon and began to scout carefully around the hills, seeking scraps of wood to use for a fire.

When she was through, she piled them into a small, neat stack.

The dragon lit it.

When morning came, she found that the dragon had distanced itself again.  It lay several hills away, making a brownish lump against the dawn sky.  Its head lifted as she stood up.

The fire had burnt down to embers, but heat still radiated from it, making a dry circle of dead grass on the hill.  Gabriella breakfasted on more of the dismembered chortha leg, then carefully cut and wrapped several strips of the now cold meat.  These, she placed in her pack.  As she slung it onto her back, Featherbolt screeched once and leapt to her shoulder with a flurry of brown wings.

She began to walk again.  She had only gotten a few paces when the dragon launched itself into the air with a great clap of its wings.  It swooped low over the snow, racing its shadow, and then landed with disconcerting heaviness directly in front of Gabriella.  It lowered its head and stared at her, its orange eyes blazing intently.  Heat snuffed at her from its flared nostrils.

"What?" she said, willing herself not to step backwards.  Perhaps the dragon had rethought the logic of their strange alliance.  Perhaps its violent, bestial nature was reasserting itself.  Gabriella swallowed hard.  "What do you want?  You're… er… in my way."

The dragon growled.  The noise of it was like gravel in a deep, muddy well.  Its breath hissed, hot as a furnace.

With a force of will, Gabriella moved to walk around the dragon.  It watched her piercingly.  When she moved past its extended head, the great beast reared up.  A gust of flame melted the snow where she had been standing moments before, and Gabriella halted, her hand dropping instinctively to the hilt of her sword.  Featherbolt startled and took off.  The dragon leapt nimbly but heavily backwards, its claws tearing ragged, dark strips in the hilltop.  Once again, it blocked her path and lowered its head to face her.

Gabriella stared at it.  If its intention was to eat her, she thought darkly, then it would have done so already.  She tilted her head at it and frowned.

Overhead, Featherbolt circled against the brightening sky.  He screeched impatiently.

"You want me…," Gabriella mused aloud, "to…
ride
you?"

The dragon huffed.  It did not understand her words, and yet it regarded her meaningfully, as if trembling on the verge of non-verbal communication.  Tentatively, she reached out to the dragon's snout again.  Its nostrils flared at the scent of her nearness.  She touched it, and it flinched slightly, as if fighting the urge to snap her arm off at the shoulder.

She moved aside the massive head, trailing her hand along the line of its shut mouth.  Snaggles of fangs protruded up and down along the lips, forming an interlocking mesh.  Gabriella touched one of the teeth.  Its edge was serrated, sharp as broken glass.  The dragon did not move but watched her warily.  Slowly, Gabriella moved past the head, still drawing her hand along the scaly skin, feeling the bundle of monstrous jaw muscles and the tensed sinews of the long neck.  The plates of the dragon's spine jutted up in a line over her, casting her in their shadow.  There was a break in them between the beast's shoulder blades.  As Gabriella neared this, the dragon hunkered lower, kneeling on the snow and pressing its belly flat to the ground.

Gabriella stopped.  She was terrified at what she was about to do, and yet she knew she must attempt it.  The dragon was apparently not going to let her pass on foot.  If the beast was indeed going to let her ride it, however, she might actually get to Merodach and his citadel in time to stop the attack on Camelot.

Still,
she thought fearfully,
that is a very big
if
.

She steeled her nerve and reached up, hooking her hand around the rough edge of the nearest of the dragon's spinal plates.  The beast did not move.  Holding her breath, Gabriella placed her foot on the dragon's bent shin, using it like an enormous step, and pushed herself up.  A moment later, with a heave and a turn, she straddled the dragon's neck, fitting herself into the narrow gap of its spine plates.  She was positioned above the very base of the neck.  The bony humps of the dragon's shoulders were behind her on either side.

The beast inhaled.  She felt the expansion of its chest, the subtle lift of its spine.  Then, with a whump of air and motion, the wings unfurled.  She sensed the shadow of them fall over her and barely had time to embrace the spinal plate ahead of her before the dragon kicked massively upwards, hurling itself into the air.  The wings clapped down, catching the air and tossing snow up in swirling clouds.  Gabriella hugged the rough plate of the dragon's back and squeezed her eyes shut.  Her stomach sank away as the dragon bore her up, up, accelerating into the cold sky.  The enormous, leathery wings pounded the air, making a noise like ocean waves, only faster and deeper.

When Gabriella opened her eyes again, she was terrified to see the ground far below, dotted with tiny trees, their shadows stretched out behind them in the dawn light.  The hills had become crescents of lavender shadow, dropping gradually behind as the dragon hurtled onwards, still picking up speed.  The wind whipped around Gabriella's face and made her eyes water.  Slowly, however, her terror began to fade, and a cautious, heady exhilaration began to take its place.

She raised her gaze from the unrolling ground far below and peered ahead, daring to shade her eyes with one hand.  The mountains were still far off, but they already seemed closer.  There was a screech in the near distance.  She turned towards it and saw Featherbolt swooping along next to her, tracking the dragon easily, his wing feathers fluttering in the rush of the wind.  For the first time in days, Gabriella felt the subtle resurgence of determination.  She was going to make it in time, perhaps even by the end of the day.  She would find Merodach's hidden citadel in the Theatre of the Broken Crown.  There, finally, she would confront him.

Then whatever was destined to happen would happen.  Her thoughts and plans ended there.  It was as if the enormity of what she had to do when that time came was simply too big, too monumental, for her mind to grasp.

Despite her determination, she had to admit to herself that she was afraid to confront the madman.  She was, in fact, more afraid than she had ever been in her entire life—more than when she had faced the murderous Goethe over the corpse of her best friend, more even than when she had encountered the rampaging dragon in its own den.  Her fear was like a poison elixir, rich and potent, but one that she forced herself to drink fully, one drop at a time.  There was no turning back now.  Her duty was unavoidable.  With the help of Featherbolt and the dragon, she would go to her destiny willingly, her eyes wide open.

And when the finale came—
whatever
it held for her—she would welcome it.

She would embrace it.