If this had been her good hand, Vulpine knew he would be dead. As it was, the blade caught in the bone. Pain radiated through his whole body, but the blow wasn't fatal.
"A good effort," he said, craning his neck toward her. "I suspect you might have won on the ground." He snapped his jaws onto her cheeks, sinking his teeth down until they rested on her skull. She let go of both the blade and his whip, and reached for his mouth. Her hands never reached their target.
He opened his jaws and gravity claimed her. As she slipped into freefall he saw, at last, fear flash into her eyes.
It was a most satisfying sight.
"So much for the angels," he said. "Where's the damned pig?"
There was a grunt at his back.
He craned his neck and saw the black and white beast gliding along behind him, his snout only inches from the tip of Vulpine's tail.
"You'll do nicely for dinner," said Vulpine.
The pig snorted. With the barest boost of speed, he shot forward the final inches.
Vulpine winced as the pig's jaws clamped down on the last vertebrae in his tail.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR:
DAWN OF A GOLDEN AGE
Vulpine's tail was stretched straight as an arrow. He kicked, trying to reach the beast that held him, but his tail was much longer than his legs. He beat his wings harder. The bones along his spine popped. The pig simply wasn't flying as fast as he.
It finally occurred to him that if he slowed down, he would have the slack needed to reach the pig.
It occurred to the pig at the same instant to fold up the silver wings that held him aloft.
Vulpine was yanked from the sky as swiftly as if he had an anchor tied to him. His head whipped skyward as he dropped. In the space where he'd just been, several of his feather-scales floated in the air. He spread his wings, straining desperately to control their descent. They were falling toward Dragon Forge.
On the walls of Dragon Forge, Burke paid no attention to the battle overhead. He knew Anza and Vance could handle anything that was thrown at them, and would keep Jeremiah and Poocher safe. Instead, he focused his attention on the spy-owl. The catapults to the south were nothing but splinters. To the east and west, the dragons milled about in confusion, unsure of their orders.
The northern catapult didn't suffer from this lack of guidance. Here, the catapults were being loaded with barrels of pitch and oil. They were still a minute or two away from being able to fire, however. More than enough time to aim the cannon his men had just mounted on the wall.
Anza spread her arms, turning to face the ground as she fell. The wind was like a giant invisible hand that held her in the sky. Of course, since the ground was racing nearer, the giant invisible hand wasn't doing a very good job.
The river was too far to reach. There were no convenient hay piles in sight. The sky-dragons who'd filled the sky earlier had gone into retreat.
She sighed. The world beneath her was beautiful. True, the hills around Dragon Forge were covered with decaying corpses and barren red earth cut through with deep gullies. The trees were twisted and stunted, and the whole area was so polluted it was as if giant buckets of ash had been dumped. But in her heart, she knew she would miss this world terribly.
A long, muscular arm wrapped around her waist. Her descent came to a sudden halt as Stonewall's momentum carried her parallel to the earth. She looked across at Jeremiah, who gave her a weak wave. She looked up into the gleaming eyes of her rescuer.
"I didn't mind catching Jeremiah, and I don't mind catching you, but I can't make any promises about the pig."
She nodded.
"You're brave," he said, as he wheeled to the north. "You didn't scream when you fell."
She smirked. The thought had never even crossed her mind.
It took all the strength left in Vulpine's wings to guide their fall toward the northern catapults. The pig still dangled from his tail, forcing his spine perfectly perpendicular to the earth. His wings were spread into twin parachutes, giving him some control, though they were still going to hit the ground hard. At least the pig would hit first.
He saw Sagen next to the loaded catapults, gawking at the odd sight of his father and the pig.
Vulpine was too winded to call out for assistance. No matter. When they hit the ground, he'd make short work of his portly tormentor.
There was a loud boom at his back. He couldn't turn his head to see the source of the whistling noise as it raced through the air toward him, then past him.
A black steel ball trailed smoke toward the catapult where Sagen waited. It landed at the base of the wooden war engine.
There was a flash of light and heat, and a clap of noise that made his teeth rattle. Dirt and smoke was thrown into the sky. Vulpine raced ever closer to where his son had been.
There was nothing left atop the hill but a smoking crater.
Before he could change his direction, he plunged into the smoke. Suddenly, the weight on his tail vanished, and the pig let out a loud squeal. Vulpine tried to flap his wings but the ground turned out to be only inches below him. He crashed onto the burning earth, rolling to a halt against a broad, splintered beam that had once been the arm of the catapult.
His left wing felt broken. He flapped his right wing to try to clear the smoky air.
Something moved in the smoke before him.
The pig?
It drew closer.
Jeremiah.
The boy held Vulpine's knife in his hand.
"We saw where you fell," he said.
Vulpine rose up, supporting his weight against the beam as he unlooped his whip. He coughed as the smoke choked him.
"That knife's too dangerous for you to play with, boy," said Vulpine. He flipped the whip back over his shoulder, intending to bring it forward and strike the knife away. At the far reach of his back stroke, the whip snagged and yanked from his grasp. He looked over his shoulder and saw the giant who'd dived to save the boy standing behind him, the braided leather wrapped in his enormous fist.
He turned back to face the boy.
Only now the dark-haired girl was in front of him. She had twin rows of puncture wounds along both cheeks that painted long stripes of blood down her face.
Unlike her earlier blankness, this time she smiled.
"We're… on… the… ground," she whispered. Her right hand closed around the knife still jutting from his breastbone. He trembled as she pulled the blade free.
Burke watched the drama unfold in his spy-owl, frustrated by the smoke that obscured his sight. He let out a slow sigh of relief as Anza limped from the cloud. Jeremiah followed close behind, with Poocher trotting along beside him. The pig was covered in soot and had somehow lost all of the quivers that had been draped over him, along with his visor and the wings.
Finally, Stonewall stumbled out of the cloud. He had a large blue bundle tossed over his shoulder. Burke dialed the spy-owl to its sharpest focus and saw a limp sky-dragon, its jaws bound with what looked like a whip.
Burke stood up, stretching his shoulders. He'd folded up his wings after carrying the spy-owl onto the wall. The wings were so big, he'd been worried he might accidentally knock someone over the battlements. He grabbed his crutch and turned around.
Ragnar stood behind him. "I've killed five men to reach you," the prophet whispered. The big man wasn't carrying any weapons, but his chest was matted with blood. His hands shot out and grabbed Burke by the throat.
Burke's eyes bulged as the hairy man squeezed.
"Dragon Forge is mine!" the prophet hissed.
Behind Ragnar came the sound of rushing footsteps. The prophet turned his head just in time to see a large leather satchel swung at him. There was an explosion of paper as the bag caught the prophet across his face and ripped at the seams. Books flew everywhere. The prophet's fingers slipped from Burke's throat and the hairy man tumbled over the edge of the wall.