Artegal must have also felt they were getting hemmed in, because his wings started pumping again, and he climbed, ignoring gunfire and pursuing helicopters. She was so worried about him getting shot, she stopped worrying about falling.
This was only the first part of it. They’d been seen by the human side. Now, they needed to be seen by the dragons. He headed north and west, to the border, to the narrow valleys where they had practiced flying. Kay huddled on Artegal’s back, wrapped in her coat for warmth, as he rocketed deeper into dragon territory.
This flight wasn’t as exhilarating as the others had been. Before, they’d been playing. This flight had purpose. It was serious, more serious than anything she’d ever done. More serious even than her father’s funeral, which had, in some ways, seemed like watching a movie about someone else. But this—she felt her blood rushing in her ears.
She wanted to know she was going to be okay when this was all over. Artegal was taking her to see dragons. She wondered if this was what it felt like to go to war.
She wondered if she ought to be waving a white flag of truce.
The mountains grew closer. Artegal pointed toward them like an arrow. All the times she had looked north, watching the dragons, specks soaring in the distance, she never thought she’d be this close. Now, she wondered if she had secretly wanted to go to them all this time, like climbing a rock face that was off limits, an exotic spot on her map. She wanted to see, just for a moment.
When Artegal veered, she looked over, around the sail of his wing, and saw them. Dragons, three of them, like castles in the sky, growing larger as they approached.
It was far too late to change her mind, to turn back, and she grew afraid. She didn’t want to do this; she didn’t want to be here. She huddled on Artegal’s back, but there was no way the blue and red ropes and her black parka would blend in with his scales.
A roar echoed toward them, then modulated, changing pitch, tone, rhythm. Artegal roared back in a clipped way she’d never heard before, different from his full-lunged shouts. Speech. This was how dragons talked to one another.
He climbed and spun so that his back faced them. This was what they’d come here to do, just like showing off for the news cameras. She had to do her part now.
She crouched to her knees, braced against the harness, and waved, making sure the dragons could see her.
Two of the dragons were different shades of green; one was brilliant red, like a ruby. They split apart, arcing around Artegal, coming from both sides, and flanked him, penning him in.
They could force him down in a way the helicopters couldn’t. They could match his speed, his maneuverability. They were bigger than he was. Artegal was a young dragon, after all. If they caught him, what would they do with her?
Take me home, Kay wanted to yell, but the wind would carry her words away.
Then she thought, maybe Branigan was right. He was a spy, and he’d been planning to carry her back to Dragon and keep her hostage all along. Everyone would know where she was because they’d flown over Silver River. They’d advertised the fact that he was kidnapping her. She was an idiot. She should have stayed home. This whole time, she should have stayed home. She never should have gone back to meet Artegal that second time. The dragons were soaring toward them now, gaining altitude, getting above Artegal so they could force him to the ground. And Artegal wasn’t doing anything.
But that was a ruse. A moment later, he dropped a wing.
His whole body tipped sideways and fell, low enough that his wing cut into the treetops. Then he raced up, wings pumping hard. The pressure of the harness dug into her, and ropes dug into the scales of his shoulders, and she was almost floating, hanging against the harness.
He flew higher than they ever had, and she started to wonder how high he could go, and if it would be too high for her, because the air was thin even here, and she was having trouble drawing breath. But he wasn’t flying straight up. He was making an arc. A high, narrow arc. At the apex of it, he seemed to hang for a moment, hovering, motionless, his wings swept back, his nose pointed down. The other dragons were far below them.
He dived. As they dropped, his speed increased. He fell like a bomb to the silver ribbon of water that was the border, and while the other dragons might reach him, they couldn’t stop something going so fast.
The speed and cold tried to flay the skin from her face. She wanted to look, to watch the ground come up, to see what the other dragons did. But she had to bury her face in her sleeve and cling to the ropes while she tugged against the clip on the harness, seemingly weightless.
When Artegal spun, she tried to brace and ride with it as they’d practiced. But this was different, flailing, out of control—his wings stuck out, flapping loudly, caught against the air instead of using it. Kay jerked against the harness. And Artegal fell.
It shouldn’t have been possible—he was made for flying, built for the sky. But he tumbled until, with a massive grunt and shudder through his whole body, he spread his wings, which filled with air. His body jerked, swung, yanked to a stop. Kay crashed into his back. Then she saw what had happened.
Jets rocketed overhead—Kay didn’t hear them because they were moving too fast, leaving the roaring sound of their engines behind them. They went right overhead, maybe only a few hundred feet above them. Probably more, but it felt close, close enough to knock Artegal out of the air with their passage.
Artegal climbed again. As far as she could tell, he was trying to regain his bearings. She could almost feel his heart beating through his back, and she wished she could see his face, to tell if he was worried, scared, angry, or something else.
Now that the jets had passed on, she could hear them, a mechanical scream that didn’t sound at all like the dragons calling to one anther. Two of them, flying side by side, the new, super-agile jets. The Dragonslayers. They arced around, tracing a vast circle around the area.
The other three dragons turned to pursue the jets. The jets broke apart, made sharp turns, and moved to face them. Artegal hovered, watching. He seemed poised between wanting to join in the fight and wanting to flee.
The three dragons engaged the jets.
If they’d been conventional jets, the dragons would have flown circles around them. But when the dragons spun and twisted, their long tails coiling and snapping behind them, wings dipping and flapping, these jets turned with them, pivoting on their specially designed engines. Two of the dragons worked together to keep one of the jets between them—for a moment, they looked as if they were trying to trap it, to grab it in their claws as they’d snatch at their prey. The jets and bodies of the dragons were almost the same size, but with their long necks and tails, the dragons were bigger and could envelop the aircraft. The jet’s afterburners flared, and it rocketed ahead, out of reach.
At the same time, the other jet spun toward them, dodging out of the way of the third dragon, harassing it. It fired. Guns or missiles or something. Kay only saw something flare like a spark from the jet’s underbelly, and trails of white smoke flew away from it. But nothing happened. Whatever it was, it didn’t hit anything.
It was a real dogfight, like in an old war movie. They looked like crows fighting over a scrap of food. Kay couldn’t follow the actions, couldn’t guess what each player would do next. Artegal groaned. Kay felt it through his back, a rumble like thunder.
The first jet broke away from the two pursuers, and again the other jet fired. The dragons dodged—nothing would hit them. The second jet was intent on helping the other, on firing at the two dragons, which were leading it away, drawing it on—giving the third dragon, the scarlet one, a chance to act.