Shadow (2 page)

‘Shadow!’
he called through the bond. He was unsure if he had managed to mouth the name aloud, or if the call was purely mental.
‘I’m
slipping!’

‘Try to hold on, Pell. I’ve never been very good at catching,’
she replied, trying to slow down without making Pell’s predicament worse. It was not easy. The
slightest force might prove fatal, so her delicate efforts had little immediate effect.

‘I’m too cold,’
he admitted, a growing sense of horror building fast.
‘All my strength has gone.’

It was awful. He had never felt so weak. Hearing Shadow’s admission made it worse. If he fell and she could not catch him, he would die. To survive a fall from this height was unthinkable.
In the two rotations they had been together he had only felt close to falling once before, and that had been momentary. This was different. He had got himself into this situation through foolishly
pushing on in the extreme cold.

His body slid a little further. He tried with all his might to pull himself back up into the saddle, but he had passed the point of no return. Little by little his fingers slipped from their
precarious hold on the pommel. He could feel his heart tightening with horror. Suddenly he lost his grip altogether.

‘Pell!
’ Shadow’s mental voice was full of panic as she felt him slip from the saddle.

A heartbeat later Pell was hanging upside down by his left foot, which was caught in the stirrup. He bounced against Shadow’s side, the airflow flinging him around with invisible
hands.

‘I’m still with you,’
he replied, grunting as his body thumped repeatedly against the dragon’s scales.
‘But I’m not sure for how
long.’

He looked up at where his foot was trapped, then down at the long, long drop to the ground, thousands of spans below. His boot was firmly wedged, but the foot inside the boot was not. He had
always preferred his boots to be a slightly looser fit than was fashionable. A horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach told him this was a preference he was about to regret.

With gritted teeth he twisted his body and reached up towards the stirrup. Trembling with the effort he forced his mitts closer and closer, but the more he tried to reach towards his trapped
foot, the more savagely the wind flailed him against Shadow’s side until a particularly violent impact left him seeing stars and forced him to straighten.

Pell was strong. It was one of his defining characteristics. Under any other circumstance he would have grabbed the stirrup with ease, but the cold had robbed him of his flexibility and
strength. It was so frustrating he wanted to scream, but he resisted the temptation. Ignoring all sensations of disorientation and discomfort, he tried again. Fighting the wind and the stiffness in
his body with every ounce of muscle power he could muster, he forced his hands up towards the stirrup again. Little by little his hands stretched closer and closer.

‘Aaarrrrrghhhh!’ The growling roar ripped from his throat as somehow he found the final ounce of strength he needed. His right hand grabbed hold of the stirrup at the precise moment
that his foot slipped free of his boot. For a moment he hung there, scrabbling to reach the stirrup with his other hand to strengthen his hold, but his weight and the pull of the wind was too much
for his numb fingers. Despite his very best effort, his grip failed and he fell.

‘Shadow!’
His call was instinctive and instant.

‘Pell!’

Shadow tipped into a steep spiral dive, but held off folding her wings completely until she was positioned perfectly above him.

‘Spread your arms and legs,’
she ordered him.
‘Try to imagine you are a bird.’

‘Imagine I’m a bird? I don’t have wings, damn it!’

‘No,’
Shadow agreed, her mental voice returning to her normal soft tones.
‘But if you want me to catch you, then you must calm yourself and do as I say. Try to
stabilise your body so that you are falling flat on your stomach, with your arms and legs stretched out. That way you will fall more slowly. It will make it easier for me to catch up with
you.’

The calm tones of Shadow’s voice in his head were a tonic. The unfamiliar feeling of fear had spiked through Pell’s mind and a metallic taste formed at the back of his mouth. The
dragon’s soft voice of reason, giving him clear directions, helped him regain a measure of control as he struggled to do what she asked of him. Initially he stabilised himself on his back,
but with a little experimentation, he managed to flip over onto his stomach and stay flat, with his arms outstretched and his hands cupped. He did not feel as if he was falling any slower. If
anything, he felt as if he was falling faster than ever.

‘That’s good, Pell. Just hold that position. I’ll be with you shortly.’

He was falling blind. He tried cracking open his eyelids the tiniest sliver to see how far he was from the ground, but it was no use. The wind was too strong. It prevented him from seeing
anything. How long had he been falling? It felt like for ever, but that was most likely his imagination. Where was Shadow? Surely if she was going to catch him, she would do it soon?

A sudden swirling bump of air sent him tumbling out of control again. Pell panicked. His heart was thumping so hard in his chest that it felt as if it might burst free.

‘Shadow!’

‘Sorry about that,’
Shadow said softly in his mind.
‘My closure speed was too high. If I’d grabbed you, I might have killed you with the impact. Stay calm.
Get back into the position you were in before. I’ll try again in a moment.’

‘We must be running out of height—
’

‘Let me worry about that,’
Shadow said quickly.
‘Get back on your stomach. I can’t catch you if you keep tumbling.’

Pell did as he was told. It took a heartbeat or two, but he managed to settle into a face-down position again. How long had he got? He could not get the thought out of his mind. It could not be
long now. Was there really time for another attempt? He could feel Shadow’s concentration through the bond. She would do everything in her power to save him. The surety in that thought was an
incredible source of comfort. Her focus gave him such hope that little by little he began to feel himself relax.

‘Oof!’

The talons crashed hard into his back and legs, but he cared nothing for the pain as they closed around him. He was safe, he realised. Shadow had done it. She had caught him. The relief and the
pain, combined with the sudden crushing force that took his breath away as they pulled out of their headlong dive, were all too much. In the blink of an eye, Pell spiralled swiftly into the sweet
oblivion of unconsciousness.

Chapter Two

‘You’re doing really well, Nolita,’
Firestorm the day dragon told her as they flew out from the top of the volcano and turned northwards.
‘Try to distract your mind from the things that cause you most distress. You could try counting my wingbeats. The repetition should help calm you.’

Nolita clung to the suggestion like a lifeline. No sooner had they cleared the volcano’s rim than the ground fell away beneath them and her fear of heights loomed over her like a dark
wave. It felt as if the crushing weight of it might crash down on her at any moment. Her stomach tightened and her breathing quickened. She had nothing left to throw up, but that would not stop her
retching if she could not master the fear.

Counting was a good idea, she realised. She could even count with her eyes closed, which would save her looking down. Her main worry with this was that the smooth, rhythmic rising and falling of
Firestorm’s back might send her to sleep. Although it was not yet an hour past midday, she felt exhausted.

Nolita had been the first of the four riders to be tested. Her nervous anticipation of today had kept her awake most of the previous night. The emotional trauma of the test of bravery in the
Chamber of the Sun’s Steps, together with the pain and shock of the dragon orb sucking blood from her fingers, had left her feeling weak and drained of energy. The experience still felt
unreal, like a particularly intense dream. However, she knew that if she reached down into her saddlebag, she would feel the globe that was the day orb. It seemed like a miracle, but somehow she
had risen to the challenge. All she had to do was to return the orb to the Oracle and her part of the quest would be over.

‘Thank you, Firestorm. I’ll try,’
she replied aloud.
‘I’d like to keep my eyes shut as I count, but I’m worried about falling
asleep.’

‘Don’t fret, dragonrider. I will warn you if I sense you are sliding towards sleep. And please, call me Fire. Most dragonriders use a shortened form of their dragon’s
name.’

Dragonrider. She, Nolita, was a dragonrider! Who would ever have thought it? For as long as she could remember, Nolita had suffered a terrible fear of all large creatures – even the most
gentle ones. Add to that a terror of heights that had prevented her from playing even the most simple of climbing games as a child, and the miraculous nature of her current situation became
apparent. The idea that she would ever ride high in the sky on a dragon’s back was laughable, and yet here she was. If only my brother and my sister could see me now, she thought. They would
be amazed.

‘Thank you, Fire. I appreciate your help and understanding,’
she said, realising with a start that she had not answered him. Her thoughts were so easily distracted at the
moment.
‘I’m not sure this will ever be easy, but I’ll try.’

Closing her eyes, she began. ‘One, two, three . . .’ By the time she reached thirty, her heart rate began to drop and the tight feeling of sickness in her stomach started to subside.
There was still a bitter taste at the back of her mouth, but she ignored it and continued counting.

Kira glanced left at Nolita to see how she was doing. Nolita was flying on Firestorm alongside Kira’s dusk dragon, Fang. Elian was riding his dawn dragon, Aurora, ahead
of them, leading the way northwards towards Orupee and the Oracle’s cave.

At dawn tomorrow, Aurora was planning to make a gateway into the other world. Aurora could have created the gateway at the enclave of the day dragons. There was no limitation on where she
created them, but gateways could only be formed at dawn, when the barriers between worlds were at their weakest. Elian had pushed them into beginning the journey immediately after Nolita’s
triumph at the test of bravery. He had made her face up to her fears and ride her dragon again, cleverly reinforcing the boost in self-confidence she had gained. Nolita could hardly refuse to climb
back onto her dragon in front of her entire enclave.

‘
Fang?
’ Kira asked.
‘Do you know where we’re going to find the griffins that Barnabas mentioned?’

Barnabas, senior rider at the day dragon enclave, had identified the ‘brave ones’ from the Oracle’s verse about the second orb as the half-lion, half-eagle creatures of legend.
Even the dragons acknowledged the wisdom of the elderly rider, so Kira felt sure his interpretation of the riddling words was right.

‘I have some idea, yes,’
Fang replied with an amused chuckle that rumbled around in her mind.

‘What’s so funny? It would be good to have some idea of where the next orb might be. So where will we be heading?’

‘I’d rather not say just yet. Aurora and I decided it would be better to wait until we had everyone together. It’s funny, because we had just decided that you would be the
first rider to start thinking about the griffins, when you asked. It must be your hunter’s instinct.’

‘I’d say it was common sense,’
she replied.
‘But we need to find Pell first, and that might not be so easy. Let’s start with that. Where’s the
enclave of the night dragons? Have you ever been there?’

Just speaking Pell’s name set Kira bristling with barely concealed anger. The boy’s arrogance had led him to abandon them before the quest had begun. He had not listened to reason,
but instead insisted that the Oracle’s reference to the ‘brave ones’ had meant the leaders of the night dragon enclave. His misinterpretation and pig-headedness had set him on a
course that could spell disaster. If the night dragon leader discovered what they were doing, he would move against them. That did not bear thinking about.

‘I have seen it from a distance,’
Fang said warily.
‘The enclave is in the largest of the mountain ranges in Isaa. It’s not a good idea to get too close
unless you are a night dragon. They are very protective of their enclave. I do not want to sound prejudiced, but the night dragons are not welcoming to other dragon types the way that day, dusk and
dawn dragons are.’

‘So how are we going to make contact with Pell and Shadow if they have reached the enclave before we get there?’
Kira asked.

‘Well, the sensible option would be to wait for them to leave,’
Fang suggested.
‘If they get there before us, then the night dragons will already know that the
Great Quest is underway. From what Barnabas said, that will spell trouble. What sort of trouble, I would rather not guess. The night dragons have an unsavoury reputation when it comes to dealing
with those who stand in their way.’