I could see where others hid. Ground level, inside buildings and shops.
It wasn’t anything that would help. Not like this. We’d run out of time.
The moment of truth. Borrowing a technique from the dragon. I ran, leaping onto the trunk of a car that had been knocked further into the street, then set foot on the roof of the car.
I leaped, wings extended, and flapped, bringing the wings down hard.
The fire was stirred into life. Hot air reached me, rising beneath the wings.
I didn’t erupt into flame, which was fantastic.
I didn’t plummet into the fire, either.
The problem was with building momentum. My wings carried me forward, but they didn’t carry me higher. I had to flap again to bring the fire to life, to stir the air into action once again beneath my wings.
If anything, I was losing height, inch by inch. Failing to rise, even with the momentary benefits of each wave of hot air.
I tested my ability to turn, fractional movements of my arms. Being able to stay very still was a benefit.
Testing my ability to fly, or to glide, while literally above a trail of fire was perhaps not my smartest move, but I didn’t have any fast routes to high places. Elevators wouldn’t work with time stopped.
I heard the sound of crumbling masonry. Looking to the source of the sound, I saw that the dragon had noticed me, and now clutched the wall, looking down, tensing muscles.
The act of looking very nearly made me tilt off course, off onto pavement that was spread with snow, ice, and little dots of flame where flaming spittle had touched it. I righted myself, flapped, struggled.
I was still losing altitude, perilously close to actually touching the flames, I looked ahead. Traced the paths the flame painted.
More fire was better. It meant more heat, more air rising.
If I could fly over it, rather than straight into it.
The most fire, as it happened, was beneath and around the giant’s feet.
It posed a problem of sorts. Go for it, and risk being crushed even if I had to throw myself to one side to avoid the flames, or give up on this attempted flight?
I went for it. My wings moved, wood creaked and threatened to snap altogether, and it got worse as the warmth of the fires I was stoking into life made my body dry out.
The dragon leaped down, wings spread.
The giant lowered his chin to look down at me, ice cracking and falling from where it had frozen in clumps at his beard.
In the time it took to fall the two and a half stories to the fire, I almost managed to reach his foot.
The fire blazed. Already active, without need for a beat of wings to animate it, the hot air waiting.
The dragon hit ground, close, and the impact stirred air. Air, in turn, caught my wing, and knocked me off course. Away from the heat and upward draft.
Acting on instinct, I changed course, aiming for the fire at the giant’s heel, so the leg would be between me and the giant. In the doing, I very nearly sailed headlong into fire.
A change in the angle of wings, flapping-
Altitude. Ten feet, twelve, fifteen.
I stalled. I wasn’t an expert in flying. There was only instinct, luck, and a scarce bit of know-how. The angle was wrong, the hot air sliced past my wings instead of catching them, and I paused, riding the residual current. All at once, I dropped, straight for the flames.
I stuck out one leg, dragging my foot against the giant’s leg, spread my wings once again, and tried to catch the fire.
Still sailing down toward it, albeit at an angle, now.
Another shift of angle. Wings spread until the joints almost hurt.
I caught the hot air once more, just as I threatened to run out of fire, sailing past the giant and toward a dim, cold section of street.
I turned, instead, one wing dipping low, a perilous one foot away from dancing tongues of flame.
Small grace that the wingtip there was bone, not wood.
I turned, I stopped descending, angled each wing, and rose in a lazy spiral, around the giant’s leg.
I was graced with a glimpse of the bristling dragon, mouth wide, teeth on display, fire leaking at the corners of its mouth.
I was forced to close my wings as I passed between the giant’s thighs, back brushing the bottommost section of his sewn-hide kilt, and flapped more to try and hold on to my altitude after.
The dragon watched. Aware, tensing to lunge.
The giant turned, and I was at the same height as his hand, where it rested just beside his thigh.
Unable to rise. Dragon waiting to leap at me and snap me out of the air if I dropped.
Something told me I wouldn’t be able to simply dodge it by changing course.
I could only hold position, waiting and watching.
The giant’s hand came around. A little bigger up close than I might have anticipated, cupped and ready to simply catch me.
I flapped again, pushing myself back, away.
And a little bird rose up, spiraling up around and past me as I’d spiraled up and past the giant’s legs. Giving me a push.
The hand passed beneath me.
I flapped, Evan flew around me.
I rose, scaling higher, past the giant’s elbow, shoulder, and then past his head.
One large, dark eye peered at me, following me as I ascended.
“Hahahahaha,” Evan cheered. “Yes!”
The giant, below us, dropped to one knee. The movement down into the fire sent more air up. I rose further.
“Awesome awesome awesome!” Evan cried out.
My eyes were on the pair below.
The giant picked up the dragon. Large as the giant was, he still needed to get both arms beneath the dragon to raise it up, cradling it.
It snapped at him, and he batted at its head with the fingers of one hand in rebuke, two fingers sealing the dragon’s mouth shut.
Evan’s movements, flying around me, passing beneath me, gave me a push here and there to stay aloft.
Can’t fly without help, I thought.
The thought of help made me think of the others. I could see their hiding spaces. The areas the dragon had attacked. The broken shop windows, the shattered doorways.
A lot of damage done, individual elements adding up to make it that much more likely that people would ‘what the fuck’ out of Jacob’s Bell, the moment they woke up.
Giving reality less traction. A bit of a story, and the place would disappear into a sinkhole, or something. The news might not cover it, and Jacob’s Bell would be lost. The records of it existing simply finding their way into dusty corners and wastebins.
But that wasn’t my focus, exactly. My focus was on the dragon, and the sheer power it wielded.
I needed to stop it.
A sparrow and a wooden man with wings fighting a duo that had no doubt been together for a very long time.
“Yes, yes, yes! Hahahaha! Love the wings! Best call you’ve ever made!”
“Ho!” The giant proclaimed.
Firmly gripping the dragon, he hefted the Other. Legs straightening, arms going overhead, the giant hurled the reptilian beast skyward.
I closed the fingers of my wings, but didn’t draw them close to my body. I pulled my fingers free of the elbow, and did what I could to hold the wings in position. I drew the Hyena as I dropped, straight for the dragon, the giant, and the flames.
“Worst call!” Evan shouted, from his position far above me. “This is worst call!”
It was a fall, or a dive, or both, or neither.
Straight for our opposition.
For a dragon the size of a one-car garage.
It bared its teeth. Ignited spittle filled the air behind it.