The Unwilling Aviator (Book 4) (23 page)

"Are you one of them?" Fred wondered.

Cheatum coughed and quickly shook Fred's hand. "I'm afraid I'm in the opposite betting pool, but I still wish you well."

Fred grinned. "Thanks. I'll try my best," he promised.

Fred and Ruth left the line and walked over to their kite. Ruth had a grin on her face when she leaned toward Fred. "I would be very glad to win the tournament," she told him.

Fred smirked. "So would I, so let's go do it," he replied

They strode over to their kite and Ruth helped Fred into his straps before she took her place in front of him. Rather than one at a time like at the practice, starting at the east end of the cliffs the officials lined up all the kites ten feet back from the edge of the cliff so they would have an equal start. Behind the kites spaced at the ten-foot intervals were fifty anchor spools, one for each of the competitors. Fred noticed a giant horn that sat on the ground with its pipe stretched out behind it. Its bell was two feet wide and from its position atop the cliffs the noise could carry across the entire city valley.

When everyone was lined up the head official stepped in front of kites. "Before we begin I will state the rules of the competition," the man shouted to the aviators. "The first rule is no one shall attack another kite until both kites are a hundred yards above the city. The second rule is that no weapons can be used to cut the rope or kite of an opponent. Only your own tow rope can be used to defeat another kite. Finally, as a friendly reminder-" he pointed at the sun in the west, "-you are limited to half an hour before night falls. If there is more than one kite left than the tournament will be continued tomorrow. If for any reason we need to end the tournament early this horn will blow and we will reel you in." He gestured to the large horn and its operator. "Any questions?"

"Can we get started?" Advesario spoke up. Several of the other aviators guffawed, but the official scowled.

"Very well," the high official agreed.

The man stepped back to the edge of the cliff and raised his arm. The aviators tensed. There was silence from the crowds below. The man lowered his arm and the kites sprang forward. The tournament had begun.

CHAPTER 26

Being the least experienced, Ruth and Fred were one of the last ones to leave the ground. They pulled the kite up to fly to the other aviators high above them, but before they reached the group the aviators sank into battle. As the pair climbed ten of their fellow competitors fell past them, their lines cut by the blades of the other kites.

They reached the battle altitude and Ruth took evasive maneuvers as five of their opponents decided they were an easy target and dove at their tow line. The pair had the advantage in that the pilot was beneath the squire. Fred could see Ruth's muscles tense before she moved, and he adjusted his own movements to match hers. That made their movements more fluid and less wasteful so they exerted much less energy than their foes. Ruth was ever-conscious of their rope tail and made sure to keep it constantly whipping about so no one could pin it down and cut through it with their own rope.

Unfortunately, for all their skills they were still outnumbered five-to-one and it was only a matter of time before an opponent dragged their rope across Fred and Ruth's anchor line. Two of their kite foes swooped down so they flew on either side of Fred and Ruth while another pair took the spots behind and in front of them. That left them very little space to maneuver as the final foe of the five guided themselves toward their anchor rope.

Fred glanced to their right where their final enemy was approaching their rope. "Ruth!" he shouted.

Ruth bit her lip and glanced around. Side to side, and forward and backward were not an option, but there were two other directions. Up would mean their rope would still be in danger, but down. . .

She whipped her head up to Fred. "Please hold on! I'm not sure if this will work!" she ordered him.

"What will work?" he asked her. Fred's eyes widened when he saw her reach up to where her amulet lay hidden beneath her disguise. "No! Nonononono!"

Ruth rubbed the amulet and her body began to change to her gargoyle form. Unfortunately, the setting sun still cast its light over the sky and the right side of her body quickly transformed to stone. The sudden weight meant their kite plummeted toward the ground and dragged their anchor line out of harm's way. At the cliffs the strongman at their spool frantically reeled in their line so it wouldn't fall onto the roofs beneath them.

Fred gripped his handles as the wind whipped past them and the ground was fast approaching. Ruth rubbed her amulet before her entire body changed and she reverted back to her human form, but minus the disguise. The entire episode only took a few seconds, but for Fred it felt like a few eternities.

Ruth glanced at her female self and the color drained from her face. "Oh dear," she murmured.

"The ground!" Fred reminded her. Their descent had slowed, but the ground still loomed large beneath them.

"Sorry!" Ruth apologized.

Ruth shifted her weight to the rear and the front of the kite lifted up. They caught a draft which propelled them into the sky, but they still flew beneath their opponents. The anchor ropes of their foes dangled around them like barbed fishing lines and Ruth turned her head to grinned at Fred. "Should we?" she wondered.

"Yes," he firmly replied.

The pair leaned to the right and flew westward, dragging their line with them. Their blades cut across that of two of their opponents' lines and the ropes tore. The two kites wobbled and shook. Without their anchor line their kite was now a glider, and in order to steer a glider one needed to shift their weight along the rungs to turn the machine, rendering the handholds beneath the canvas useless and the aviator dead weight. Since the squire was only a secondary pilot and the glider was so large, the best the glider passengers could do was point the front of their glider downward to land on the rooftops and streets. The fickle wind also forced their landing as it shook their gliders and tried to toss them end-over-end.

Their remaining three opponents steered away to safety. Fred slumped in his harness, but Ruth tightly gripped the bars beneath her and looked her female hands. "Are you able to change me to my male form?" she asked Fred.

Fred shook his head. "No. Humans are too complicated for me," he replied.

She pursed her lips. "Then we must remain below and away from the others so they do not see me or we may be disqualified."

"That sounds easy," Fred commented.

The effort would have been simple if they hadn't caught the attention of an enemy kite who swooped down and tried to cut their anchor rope. Ruth yanked the front of their kite up and to the left. A gust from beneath them forced their kite to take a sharp turn and they swooped away from their enemy, but the other kite wasn't deterred. It flew after them and made for their line again, but Ruth swung them back and forth and whipped their line to and fro so their opponent couldn't snag it with their blades without risking snagging their canvas on the anchor rope. Fred glanced behind them and scowled. It was Advesario trying to down them.

Fred looked back to Ruth. "Do you think we can change places with them?" he asked her.

She turned her face up to him and smiled. "We can try, but be ready," she replied.

"Why-eeee!" Fred yelped when Ruth shifted her weight hard to the left.

They tilted to the left far enough so their anchor line was a few yards away from Advesario's cutting line. Then Ruth used her gargoyle strength to yank them tip the front of the kite almost completely perpendicular to the ground. They arched backwards so at one point Fred's feet flailed above him.

"Are you trying to kill us?" he yelped.

"You must hold still!" Ruth ordered him.

Their kite completed the perfect circle and once more Fred's feet kicked beneath him. Their loop meant they fell just behind and to the left of Advesario's kite, and his anchor line whipped around a few yards front of them. Advesario turned and smirked at them. He kicked his squire and pointed at the front of their kite. Together they pulled back the front of their machine and tilted their kite so it started the loop. Unfortunately for them, their anchor line rose and tightened right in front of Fred and Ruth. The pair looked at each other with wide grins. They had them now.

That is, until a horn blew from the cliffs and they felt a tug on their line. The kites stopped their battling and all glanced down their ropes to the cliffs. The officials at the edge of the cliff pointed to the east. Fred and Ruth turned their gazes in that direction, and Fred squinted when he glimpsed a wide, dark cloud barreling toward them. The front constantly rolled from the top of itself to the ground beneath it. It swept along the top of the cliff walls covering a mile a moment and swallowed everything in its path. Dark shapes of trees and boulders tumbled in its shadowy depths. Everything inside the monster was dropped behind the mile-long body of the cloud and left the landscape in a ruin of broken trees and cracked rocks.

The color drained from Fred's face and his voice was an octave higher than usual. "What's that?" he squeaked.

Ruth's eyes widened and she whipped her head up to Fred. "We must land," she told him.

The cloud sped along the ground and consumed mile after mile of wind-swept trees and rocks. The people in the city below them cried out in despair and the pair felt a tug on their line. They were being reeled back to the cliffs, as were the other kites. The pull backwards caused their kite to tip this way and that as the small gusts of the area fought against the unnatural towing of the kites.

"Why? What is it?" Fred asked her.

"A terrible wind. We must land now," she ordered him.

Fred nodded and followed her lead as she leaned to the left. Unfortunately, their rope line was already half dragged in, so they floated above the reaches of the rooftops and streets. When Ruth tried to turn them toward a rooftop the tight anchor line pulled them back level with the top of the cliffs. In her attempt to right themselves they nearly flipped over, and only Fred's quick pull on a wing leveled them parallel with the ground.

They still had fifty more yards left on their line when the crew on the ground forsook their posts and raced away to the stairs. That left the kites stuck in the air with a rope line too short to land in the city below them. Many of the kites turned toward the top of the cliffs in an effort to land and ditch their machines for the stairs.

Fred's stomach sank as he watched the officials and strongmen flee. He glanced eastward and his eyes widened when he saw the cloud was nearly upon them. Ruth turned them toward the cliffs and followed the other kites toward the safety of the ground, but only half made it to the landing area before the cloud rushed over them.

Their kite was yanked westward with the wind and it tumbled end over end. The whole world went black as they clutched onto their harnesses and the rungs. They didn't know which way was up and which was down. Sharp sticks and rocks scratched and bruised them. They were pushed along for a hundred yards before they hit a stop. Their rope line had reached its end, but their reprieve only lasted a moment. They heard a horrible snap as their rope line snapped and they tumbled onward.

Fred thought the storm would never end until a faint light appeared to his right. The stones and sticks lessened, and in a moment night light broke over them. The sun had finished setting and what little rays that remained were swallowed by the cloud that disappeared over the western horizon. The pair were ten miles westward from String and a hundred feet in the air. Other kites were not so lucky. Many hadn't made the journey that far and lay strewn on the ground between where the pair floated and the city, dropped from the air by the cloud that disappeared in the distance. Their aviators and squires stumbled out, but others lay on the ground with broken limbs and serious cuts and bruises.

Others flew around them either lower or higher, and their kites were in much the same condition as that flown by Fred and Ruth. The pair had lost a few feet of their trailing edge and there were large holes in the remaining canvas. To make matters worse, without the rope line they were without a rudder. The kites were now gliders, and the aviators couldn't manage the machines with the handholds and their squires weighed too little to effectively control the gliders.

The normal winds of Kite blew past them and those gliders that still flew wobbled and tilted. Many fell toward the ground, but their practiced aviators were able to pull up and save them from a hard crash landing. Ruth and Fred's glider shook and tried to perform the same dive to the ground. Fred yelped when they lost ten yards, then another. Ruth tilted left and right in an effort to stabilize them, but she didn't weight enough.

"Fred, I need your weight!" she yelled at him.

"How?" he asked her.

"You must get beside me and lean with me!" she told him.

Fred fumbled to release himself from his harness, but the straps had been tightened by the wind. He scowled, pulled out his staff, closed his eyes and pointed the end toward the harness over his chest. A small fireball shot out and hit the straps. The extreme heat burned through the thick cloth and would have burned through him if he hadn't fallen downward. Fred landed on Ruth, and she grunted but kept them both from falling through the rungs.