"My," said Blasphet. "That was fast."
"What evil are you working now?" Metron whispered.
"You sky-dragons always seem so confident you can outfly us sun-dragons. Smug, even," Blasphet said. "It's time we put that assumption to the test."
Arifiel circled the bell-tower, shouting to Sparrow.
"Why isn't the smoke affecting you?" she cried out.
"I don't know," said Sparrow, sticking her neck out the gaps in the iron bars that had fallen to close the window. "It knocked out everyone else in my barracks but it only makes my eyes sting. I fought my way here to have you ring the alarm. Humans are attacking the Nest!"
"We know!" said Arifiel. "By ringing the bell, you've sealed the windows. You've trapped everyone inside!"
"Oh no!" Sparrow cried. "I didn't mean… I was only…"
"You only did what you were trained to do," said Arifiel. "I tried to ring the alarm myself-it's only because I failed that you've sealed the fortress instead of me. You have to get to the gear room. You must reverse the gates!"
Sparrow set her jaw in an expression of determination. "You can count on me," she said. Then, her eyes widened as she looked out over the lake.
"Sun-dragons!" she cried out, pointing with her fore-talon. "Are they coming to help?"
Arifiel looked toward the perimeter of the lake, as the dark shapes of a dozen sun-dragons flapped toward them. Perhaps they were here to help? A sun-dragon could rip open the iron gates that sealed the fortress with ease. But, in the moonlight, her keen eyes quickly spotted a strange detail. There was something on the backs of the dragons. Riders. Human riders.
"Go," Arifiel called to Sparrow. "Open the gates."
Sparrow gave a crisp salute and bounded down the steps. Arifiel flew back to Zorasta, who still held a position a half mile away from the Nest. She flew in a tight circle, surrounded by five or six remaining members of her flock.
"Sun-dragons!" Arifiel shouted.
"We see them," said Zorasta. "And their riders. This is more of Blasphet's handiwork, I wager. A clumsy gambit, at best."
"Clumsy?"
"If we were fighting on the ground, the sun-dragons would be a force to be feared. But we fight in the sky! We are valkyries! The air is our kingdom. We're swifter, more agile. Their size and power will be meaningless. We'll tear their wings and send them to inglorious deaths! We need not wait for others. Green flock, attack!"
Zorasta's brave words were matched by her speed and grace as she swiftly flew to the lead of the flock. She wore no armor, but some soldier had given her a spear. The flock fell into a V formation. There were nine valkyries in the charge, though only five had spears. Arifiel felt a sense of foreboding, though she knew that Zorasta was right. With their superior speed and maneuverability, the sky-dragons had little to fear.
Zorasta darted directly toward the lead sun-dragon, on a path that seemed as if it would lead to a nose to nose collision. It was a familiar tactic. At the last second, the flock would rise to avoid impact and then rake their spears along the larger dragon's wings. This maneuver had been drilled into them since they were old enough to lift a spear.
Spearless, Arifiel knew she would have to rake with her hind-claws-not as effective, yet still deadly. As the distance between her and the sun-dragons narrowed, she noticed that the great beasts all wore iron helmets. Atop each helmet was a nozzle attached to a long flexible tube leading back to the human rider who straddled the dragon's shoulders. The tubes seemed made of bovine intestine. Behind each rider was strapped a series of inflated sacks that looked like linked cow stomachs.
As Zorasta reached a distance of a hundred feet from the lead sun-dragon, with only seconds to go before she executed her attack, the woman riding the dragon squeezed a large bellows. Instantly, a jet of white flame shot from the dragon's helmet, changing night into day with its intensity. Zorasta screamed as the flames engulfed her. Arifiel veered left, dodging the burning stream. Zorasta fell toward the lake below, still aflame, leaving behind a black plume stinking of burnt feathers.
Before the flock could react, jets of flame shot out from the other sun-dragons and the sky was crisscrossed with a deadly white hot web. Arifiel used all her strength to climb higher, above the killing zone. Below her she heard the screams of her sisters. Reaching a point where she felt she would no longer be in danger, she craned her neck downward. The sun-dragons and their riders continued to fly toward the Nest. None were harmed. In their wake, eight burning valkyries, writhing in agony, fell in spirals toward the distant water. Only Arifiel had escaped the initial assault.
Rage gripped her. No sun-dragon could ever fairly best a sky-dragon in aerial combat. They had won due to surprise and trickery. With a battle cry that caused all the riders to look upward, Arifiel pulled her wings tightly to her side and fell toward the hindmost dragon. She now knew what she faced. She had no trace of fear within her. The sky was the kingdom of the valkyrie. These invaders would pay the ultimate price for their trespass.
One irony of the Nest, Sparrow realized, was that her own home stripped her of her greatest advantage over her assailants-she couldn't fly in the maze of rooms and stairways that led to the core of the island. There were a few halls long and wide enough to cover in flight, but none high enough that she could avoid the humans. They seemed to be everywhere she turned.
Fortunately, the humans mostly traveled alone or in pairs. Their mission wasn't to overpower the dragons-the paralyzing smoke had done this. They were instead methodically moving from room to room to slit the throats of unconscious dragons.
Sparrow had lost track of time since she had sounded the alarm. Five minutes? Ten? She'd killed six humans, not counting the three in the tower. The girls she fought always looked startled at seeing her move toward them so freely. This element of surprise no doubt protected her better than armor ever could.
Sparrow moved ever deeper into the Nest, toward the gear room. To her relief, she covered the last few floors without encountering resistance. Her relief turned to dread as the silence on these floors struck her. Had the humans already killed everyone?
She rounded the final corner and discovered a cluster of seven humans standing in her way. The girls looked up, their eyes wide as Sparrow rushed them. She buried her spear in the first human and released it, leaping over the falling body to clamp her toothy jaws tightly into the throat of the girl behind her. She pulled back as that human fell, beating her wings once and rising up so that she could kick out with her hind legs, gutting a third girl. The whirlwind of violence had lasted mere seconds, but now the element of surprise was gone. The remaining four rushed her, swinging their long knives, the black blades wet with poison. Sparrow skittered back down the hall, swinging her tail to trip the closest one. The girl proved too nimble-she leapt over Sparrow's tail and slashed with her knife. Sparrow dodged, but the girl still left a slender gash in Sparrow's shoulder. Sparrow bit her attacker in the face, feeling the girl's jawbone snap between her teeth.
Sparrow spat the girl away and danced backward, readying for further attack. The girl stumbled blindly, in obvious agony, falling against the woman behind her. Her knife clattered on the floor, spinning toward Sparrow's hind-talons. Sparrow lifted the knife and threw it with a kick, burying it to the hilt in the belly of a fifth girl. Now there were only two women left on their feet. They both edged back, knives held at the ready, warily watching for any opening.
Sparrow was now unarmed. Her left wing hung limp and lifeless. The tiny wound shouldn't be causing her to lose all feeling, should it? Yet with each heartbeat, her whole body grew increasingly weak.