Sunbright stared through thick fingers at her grin.
"Traitor."
She stuck out her tongue. "Sissy."
Knucklebones had guessed correctly. After a while Bly returned and announced that the duel was set. Lady Fayina's team would launch from her mansion, three blocks hence, and Lady Bly's team from here. Their opponents were a man and woman in a flitter marked with an F. By common consent with the other "gamers," no other flitters would launch at that time. The object was to knock your opponent from the sky.
They could shoot the flyers, tear or ram their wings, grapple on, or use any other method. There were only two rules: no magic, and they mustn't crash themselves or their opponents on the city. The opponents were not to meet, or spy on one another, until the duel. Nobles would gather in the late afternoon to watch and cheer, judge, and lay sizeable bets. "So put on a good show," Bly commanded.
"Good show," Sunbright groused. "We're pitted like dogs on short leashes."
"Such are commoners to the high-born," Knucklebones nodded. "Good for work or play, to live or die or suffer, as long as we do as we're told."
"No wonder this empire crumbles," the barbarian complained. "If it treats its people, the foundation of its wealth, like animals-"
"Animals eat better," Knucklebones interrupted, then stretched like a cat. "We should pillage the kitchen, build up our strength."-Sunbright held his stomach- "I'll eat. You fast. We don't want to knock the enemy from the sky with puke."
"You're…" the barbarian hunted for a word, "… unkind."
Knucklebones smiled and sashayed up the stairs. Sunbright stared bleakly at the flitter.
"It's time. Get in. And don't step through the wing. We need it."
"I'd rather just jump off the edge of the city and get it over with," Sunbright said as he climbed carefully through bars and wires and finally squeezed his big frame into the small wicker seat.
In three hours, Knucklebones had rummaged through the cellar and garden shed, and cobbled some tricks. Tied with thread across the front of the cockpit were a dozen long arrows with heads a foot wide. The thief had scavenged rake teeth in the hopes these T-shaped arrows would shear through gossamer fabric and disable a wing. Another addition was a long scythe blade spot-welded to the nose of the flitter like a mosquito stinger. And lastly, a length of light chain with a long hook nestled between them on the seat.
How they'd ply these Sunbright didn't know, or care. "We're doomed, and that's plain," he said dramatically. "I was born on the tundra, an earth-dweller. I don't belong in the sky."
"Hush, and do what I say, or you'll visit the earth sooner than you'd like," Knucklebones scolded. "I intend to land us whole and hale. And stop whining. You'll jinx our luck."
"If we had luck, we wouldn't-I'm not whining!"
From the entrance to the cellar, a maid heard a signal from above and called, "They're ready!"
Knucklebones grunted, "Drop your feet, country mouse. You're a country bat today."
Stiff as a zombie, Sunbright planted his boots, caught the edges of the flitter, and marched forward. Servants had shot the bolts and unlocked the outside door, and it did indeed gape upon nothing but blue sky and blue hills in the vast distance. The barbarian closed his eyes as the thief called, "Run, run, run, run-here we go!"
A hop, a stomach-lurching drop, a sickening tilt toward the ground, and a prolonged scream from Sunbright…
Swearing a steady streak, Knucklebones twisted and yanked and shoved the twin steering bars until suddenly, as if by magic, the wings scooped wind and the flitter buoyed on air currents like a boat. Quick experimentation and fast hands leveled them.
Knucklebones hooted with laughter as she hauled a bar to her belly, made the nose of the glider climb, then level again. The framework vibrated like a balky horse at a run, the wings and wires hissed, gusts of air slapped their faces and mussed their hair, but she hollered, "I've got it! I can fly! We're saved! Open your eyes, damn it!"
Unsquinching his eyes, stomach, and bowels, Sunbright peeked, and gasped. His boots dangled over a mile of sky. Spread in all directions were summer-yellow fields giving way to dull green forest and blue hills. Far to the north he saw the Narrow Sea like a squiggle of quicksilver. "Lord of War!" he screamed. "Beyond that's tundra!"
"True! But we need to spot the other flitter! Look around!"
Head hunched between his shoulders, Sunbright craned until he saw the city. It was a blur of white buildings atop a blurry mountain to his watering eyes, but his keen tundra vision picked out "I see them! White wings marked with an F!"
"Tell me something useful!" Knucklebones yelled back. "What are they doing?"
"They're…" he said, straining to sort out the picture. Between the jiggling and dipping of their craft and the other, they might have been two drunken dragonflies. "They're coming after us, I think!"
"They're supposed to be good! Arm your bow, and I'll loop!"
"You'll what?" he screamed. "Aagh!"
Cranking twin bars in two directions, Knucklebones hooked the craft in midair as if yanking reins. The wings shuddered and Sunbright hurled prayers, but when the thief snapped the bars back, they were level and pointed at the floating enclave. Bearing directly for them like a war chariot was a white-painted flitter marked with Lady Fayina's emblem. Knucklebones bit her lip and aimed the craft like a spear.
"When we're close enough, shoot! Then arm again, but wait till we're close!"
Sunbright broke threads to pluck a T-headed arrow, and nocked it. He had trouble drawing the tall bow in the cramped cockpit, and had to lay the wood sideways. Knucklebones pulled her head back as the string kissed her nose. The man grunted for holding the draw. "You're steering right at them!"
"Aye!" the thief yelled above the hissing wind. "We won't kill them from afar!"
"But aiming right at them?"
"Let them veer aside!" she yelled. "Shoot!"
The craft were so close together now Sunbright saw freckles on the female flyer's nose. Both flyers were dressed in green, both redheads, and the barbarian realized they were brother and sister. The woman's mouth worked as she shouted, and her brother leveled a crossbow with a big, barbed bolt. Before the other could shoot, Sunbright loosed. He had the satisfaction of seeing the arrow slash through the cockpit, but it only spanked off the metal frame, and did no damage.
"Shoot the wings, damn it!" called Knucklebones. "Watch out!"
The redhead shot. The barbed bolt sizzled over Sunbright's head, punched a hole in the overhead wing, and stayed fast. The barbarian reached to yank it free, but the bolt jumped as if alive, almost slashed his fingers, then tore free and tumbled away. The two craft had overshot, and nothing showed ahead but city.
An amazed Sunbright heard Knucklebones yell, "They tied a thin line on the bolt! He ripped it free to reel it in! Look!"
Sure enough, down and left sailed the flitter. The redheaded woman had indeed dodged from Knucklebones's dare. Below it trailed a black bolt on a silvery line that the man was reeling in. "They can shoot at us all day like that!" he exclaimed.
"Arm your bow!"
Fumbling, Sunbright nocked as the thief threw them into another gut-churning turn and spin. As they steadied, the enemy flitter was ahead and side-on. He called, "Why don't we spiral all the way to the ground, like a maple leaf?"