Iron Flame, page 56
Visia backs up to where we stand, bounces up on her toes, and runs, pumping her arms and legs, then launches herself across the roped-off area and lands cleanly on the other side.
“See, if she can do it, we’re fine,” I assure Luella, hoping it’s not a lie.
“She’s six inches taller than us and not nearly as winded.” Luella swallows. “And no offense, but you look like you’re about to pass out.”
“I’m not,” I lie, taking a second to adjust the slipping wrap on my left knee. I haven’t had enough water or enough time off my feet today, and my body is more than happy to let me know about the neglect.
Gods, I never would have made it through Gauntlet if I’d felt like this that day.
Gauntlet. An idea takes hold.
“I’ll—” Ridoc starts.
“Wait a second.” I brace my right hand on the cliff to keep from losing my precarious balance and study the area above the trap, noting one of the thinnest cracks in the rock. Ridoc’s the best climber we have, so it just might work.
“What are you thinking?” Dain asks. “Don’t tell me nothing. You have those little lines between your eyebrows.”
“I’m wondering how attached Ridoc is to his sword.” I breathe through the nausea that always accompanies the dizziness.
“It’s standard issue,” Ridoc replies, then follows my line of sight. “Oh. You’re thinking…”
“Yep.” I glance at Luella so he catches on, and he nods slowly.
“I can’t guarantee it will hold.”
“Try.” I lift my brows.
Ridoc reaches for his sword.
“No.” Dain draws his shortsword, leaving the long one sheathed. “Use this one. It has a longer pommel, and it will be easier to work in.” He hands the sword to Ridoc, then looks over at me. “I still know how your mind works.”
Sloane scoffs.
Ridoc takes Dain’s shortsword and sheathes it in the empty spot at his left, then climbs up a few feet before scrambling horizontally across the cliff face.
“What is he doing?” Luella asks.
“Watch,” I say quietly so I don’t startle Ridoc.
Hand over hand, he carefully moves across the rock, then plants his feet on a foothold that I can’t even see, let alone trust, about halfway across. He frees the shortsword, drawing his elbow back as far as he can without losing his balance, then jabs it into the cracked rock with full force. The screeching sound is worse than a pissed-off gryphon.
“Rock,” he says to Dain, reaching back with his right hand.
Dain picks up a loose one the size of my fist, then stretches his long arms out toward Ridoc, handing it to him.
Ridoc slams the rock against the pommel, hammering it deeper into the cliff until almost every inch of the blade has disappeared, and I don’t miss the slight flinch on Dain’s face. Ridoc grips the hilt and tests it with one palm, then two.
I hold my breath when he drops all his weight onto it, and thank Dunne, it doesn’t give. He rocks his body backward, then swings forward, letting go at the height of his arc and landing on the other side of the rope.
This might work.
“And suddenly this is the Gauntlet, not Parapet,” Sloane mutters.
“Easy,” Ridoc says, then pivots to face me and holds out his arms. “Let’s go, Vi. I’ll even catch you.”
“Fuck off.” I lift my middle finger but grin across the haze at him. “I’m really hoping you’re right-handed,” I say to Luella.
She nods.
“Good. That hilt is eight inches—”
“Seven,” Dain corrects.
“Imagine a man actually shortening a girl’s estimate,” Maren teases.
I can’t help but smile. “Right. Seven inches. Just have to jump far enough to grab it, then swing across like Ridoc.”
Luella looks at me like I told her we’ll be climbing the rest of this cliff by hand.
“Want me to go first?” I offer.
She nods.
“Please take the dizziness and I swear I’ll build you a bigger temple in Aretia,” I pray to Dunne. But maybe that plea should be aimed at Zihnal, because damn do we need some luck. Butterflies attack my stomach.
“You’re sure?” Dain asks.
I level a glare at him.
“You’re sure.” He restates it as fact, then backs up to give me more room.
I bounce up on the balls of my feet, then spring forward, planting that last step just before the rope and leaping toward the hilt.
I feel every beat of my heart marking time as I’m airborne.
Reach it. Reach it. REACH IT!
My right hand makes contact first, and I grip hard, slamming my left into the available space and holding tight as my body swings so I don’t fly forward and trigger the trap.
“You’ve got this!” Ridoc shouts, holding out his arms.
“I will kick you in the face if you try to catch me!” I warn.
He grins and backs up a few steps as I take breath after breath, pushing back the blackening edges of my vision with sheer will, refusing to let the dizziness win.
I will not fucking die today.
Rocking my body back, I start to swing just like I’m on a Gauntlet obstacle, whipping my feet forward and back. When I have enough momentum, I mutter another prayer and let go, flying toward that rope line.
I hit the other side, and pain explodes in my knees as I fall forward, catching myself with my palms. You made it, you made it, you made it, I chant, forcing the pain into a neat little box and shoving a lid over it and stumbling to my feet. A quick sweep of hands tells me I haven’t dislocated my kneecaps, though the left argues that it came damn close to abandoning ship.
“See?” I force a smile to my face and turn. “You can do it.”
Maren pats Luella on the shoulder, and whatever she says makes the smaller flier nod as I back up, moving toward the center of the ledge and giving her space to land.
She takes the obstacle just like I did, her feet kicking for distance before she reaches the hilt and holds tight.
“There you go!” I shout. “Now swing until you feel you have the force to carry you.”
“I can’t!” she cries out. “My hands are slipping!”
Shit.
“You can,” Dain encourages. “But you’d better move now.”
“Move, Luella!” Maren yells.
Luella starts the same rocking pattern Ridoc and I used, swinging her feet to gain momentum, then lets go.
I hold my breath as she hurtles toward the line of safety.
Her feet land just before the rope and her eyes lock on mine, widening with terror as she throws herself forward, like the trap won’t notice her misstep if she’s quick enough.
Oh, fuck. Maybe Dain’s wrong. Maybe the trap is twelve inches before the rope line. Maybe she’s in the clear. Maybe we all are.
But clearly I have prayed to the wrong god.
Everything somehow slows and yet happens at once.
Luella dives forward, hurling her body where she was looking—at me instead of Cibbelair—and I barely have time to open my arms before she impacts, driving me backward at an angle into Visia…toward the edge of the cliff.
“Vi!” Ridoc shouts.
I try to pivot, to heave as much of our weight toward the safety of the wall as I can, but there’s not enough time or strength, and we flounder, tangled in one another.
Feet trip other feet, and I start to fall. We all do.
A hand grasps the waistband of the back of my leathers and pulls, changing the direction of my fall. Ridoc. My feet lose traction as my momentum shifts, and I hit my knees near the edge of the cliff just in time to see Visia and Luella start to slide over.
And I can no longer stop time.
“No!” I scramble forward, rock scraping over my torso, and throw out my arms, reaching for whoever is closest as a sound like gushing wind rushes over my head.
Visia grabs hold of my left hand and Luella grips my right wrist, the weight of both women nearly taking me to join them. My right shoulder pops from the socket, and agony rips from my throat with a scream.
Visia fumbles for a handhold along the cliff wall, but Luella has both hands locked on my wrist, her feet kicking for purchase.
“Pull me up!” Luella shrieks, and I’m in too much pain to verbalize that I can’t.
“Ridoc!” I shout as the edges of my vision blur, then blacken. “Help me!”
Feet pound, but Luella’s grip slips from my wrist to my hand, and I chance a look back over my right shoulder, hoping for rescue as Visia’s weight disappears, plucked from the side of the cliff by a giant beak.
Cibbe.
Visia was in his way. The gryphon dumps the rider on the ledge and then cranes his enormous neck toward Luella as bootsteps race down the ascent.
But all I see is Ridoc, staggering backward toward the wall, two arrows piercing the side of his abdomen.
“I’m all right.” He nods quickly, glancing down at the arrows, blood trickling from his mouth.
No. No. NO.
I scream up the cliff for the only person who can save him now.
“BRENNAN!”
When a gryphon bonds, it does so for life. Guard your life as you would your gryphon’s, for they are forever intertwined.
—Chapter One, The Canon of the Flier
Chapter
Forty-Four
Booted feet scurry toward me from both directions, and Sloane grabs hold of Ridoc as Dain hits his knees beside me, then lunges forward, reaching for Luella at the same moment Cibbe does.
I rip my gaze from Ridoc’s and focus on Luella’s hazel eyes as she slips down my limp fingers.
“Hold on!” I demand. They just need another second.
But she slips farther, and Cibbe’s beak closes on nothing as she loses her grip and falls, the cloud swallowing her whole.
“Luella!” a woman shouts from the left.
Cibbelair screams, and the shrill sound vibrates through my chest as I stare and stare and stare at the space where Luella was, as if she’ll somehow emerge from the mist.
As if there’s any chance she’s alive.
“Damn it!” Dain quickly pushes back onto his knees. “Vi—”
“I can’t move.” My voice drops to a whimper. “My shoulder’s out.” Any second, the adrenaline will wear off and the true pain of the injury will hit.
“All right.” His tone immediately softens. “I’ve got you.” His hands wrap around my rib cage, and he carefully lifts me to my feet, my right arm hanging uselessly at my side.
Cibbe’s screams become a keening wail.
“Something feels wrong,” Tairn says.
“It’s all fucking wrong.”
“You dropped her!” Cat charges toward us from the other side of Cibbe, fury rightfully etched in every line of her scowl.
“I never had her.” My chest crumples under the unbearable weight of the guilt because she’s partially right. I may not have dropped her, but I didn’t save her, either.
“Cat, no.” Maren hurries around us, putting her hands out as if to block her best friend. “I saw it happen. It’s not Violet’s fault. Luella almost killed both of the riders because she couldn’t jump the trap.”
“You fucking dropped her!” Cat surges against Maren. “Cibbe saved your precious rider, and you dropped our flier! I will kill you for this!”
“Knock it off!” Maren shouts. “You kill her, you kill Riorson. Everyone knows it.”
Fuck, it always comes down to that, doesn’t it?
“I can—” Cat starts.
“Take one step toward Violet, and I’ll throw you off this fucking cliff myself,” Dain warns, his voice low and menacing. “Unlike Riorson, I don’t give a shit who your uncle is.”
“I’ll do it just for fun,” Sloane adds.
“Ridoc,” I manage to say around the pain that throbs from my shoulder then devours the rest of me.
“Alive,” he answers weakly.
“Cat, let it go. Cibbe doesn’t have long,” Maren says, her hand trembling as she reaches for the gryphon.
Cat breathes deeply, then nods, moving to the gryphon’s side.
“Gryphons die with their fliers,” Maren explains, her tone softening as she strokes the line where feathers turn to fur.
Like Tairn and me.
Cibbe lets loose a stuttered, three-beat cry, and the entire cliff, both above us and below, echoes it, as though the gryphons grieve the loss of the flier as one.
The beat of wings approaches as Dain leads me back from the edge, and I watch the mist, waiting for a flash of orange, for Marbh and Brennan to arrive.
“Put my shoulder back in.” My voice croaks as I glance at Dain.
“Shit. Are you serious?” He lifts his brows.
“Do it. Just like when I was fourteen.”
“And seventeen,” he mutters.
“Exactly. You know how to do it, and we don’t have any healers nearby.”
“You don’t want to wait for Brennan?” Dain takes hold of my arm.
“Brennan will try to mend me first, and Ridoc is dying. Now do it!” I snap, bracing for the pain.
A strap of leather appears in front of my face. “Bite down,” Maren orders over Cibbe’s cries.
I can’t look at him, can’t watch his healthy body die just like Liam’s had, so I face forward and bite.
“One.” Dain lifts my arm slightly and adjusts. “Two.” He brings my arm out to a ninety-degree angle.
My teeth mark the leather as I fight the scream working its way up my throat. Ridoc has been shot with two arrows. I can handle this.
“I’m so fucking sorry,” Dain whispers, putting his other hand between my neck and shoulder. “Three!” He rolls my arm forward and I clench my jaw, my eyes squeezing shut as white-hot pain sends stars flashing across my vision and he puts the joint back into place.
The relief from the worst of the pain is instant, and I remove the leather from between my teeth. “Thank you.”
“Never thank me for that.” He lifts my arm above my head, making sure it’s in place, rotates it back down, then bends my elbow, tucking my arm across my chest before sliding his belt off and fashioning a temporary sling. “How is he?” he asks over his shoulder.
“Losing blood,” Sloane answers as an orange claw lands on the ledge where the trap had been and Brennan executes a perfect roll-on landing.
“Are you—” He comes running at me, scanning me for blood.
“I’m fine! Save Ridoc!”
“Fuck.” Brennan levels a look at Dain’s leg. “You’re next.”
“It’s just a graze.” Dain glances down at me. “It just caught the edge of my thigh.”
Brennan crouches next to Ridoc and starts working.
“It’s all right,” Maren tells Cibbe as the gryphon collapses, his head hanging over the edge of the cliff as his cries grow softer. “You have earned an honorable death.”
Another set of wingbeats fills the air, and I face the mist, waiting for Tairn’s disapproving scowl. But I don’t feel him any closer than before.
“You did not ask me to fetch you,” he says sternly.
The mist parts like a scene from a nightmare, and gray, gaping jaws fill my vision, opening wide to reveal dripping teeth that snap closed around Cibbe’s neck, snatching the gryphon from the ledge before falling back into the mist.
My heart stops.
“What the fuck—” Sloane whispers.
“Wyvern,” I manage to whisper, my head swiveling toward Maren and Cat. They’re the only people here who’ve seen one. “Wyvern, right?”
“Wyvern,” Cat replies, her eyes wide with shock. Maren is still as a statue.
“Wyvern!” Dain bellows, and all hell breaks loose.
“We can’t see anything in the cloud cover,” Tairn growls.
“But they can see well enough to eat us!” I can already feel him on the move. Thank gods Andarna is in Aretia. “Get up the cliff!” I shout at Maren, grasping her shoulder with my uninjured hand and shaking her to snap her out of it. “Get Daja up the cliff!”
She blinks, then nods. “Daja!”
Dain yanks me out of the path as the gryphon charges forward, and I can only hope the adrenaline rush is enough to get them up the last couple of ascents.
“I can’t move him,” Brennan says, his sight solely focused on Ridoc’s wounds. “I’m blocking most of his pain, but I can’t move him, Vi.”
“And we’re sitting ducks here,” Sloane mutters, looking at the mist as more riders and gryphons push by.
“Go,” Ridoc whispers, opening his eyes and finding mine. “Get off this trail.”
I kneel beside him and take his hand. “We made a deal, remember? All four of us live to see graduation. We. Made. A. Deal.”
“Ridoc?” Sawyer pushes toward us, his eyes bulging with fear as he brings up the last of our squad and Tail Section begins.
“They can’t see,” Brennan says, his voice tensing as his hands move, snapping one arrow in half, and then the second. “Aetos, the dragons can’t see!”
“On it!” Dain looks up the cliff, and I hold Ridoc’s hand tight as Brennan slides the first arrow out of his abdomen.
“You’re on what exactly?” Sawyer snaps at Dain.
“Cath is relaying to Gaothal that Cianna needs to wield some wind so the riot can see,” Dain responds. “You can’t do anything here, Henrick, so get the others to safety!”
Sawyer clenches his fists. “If you think I’m going to leave my squadmates—”
“Sounds like your wingleader gave you an order, cadet,” Brennan says, his tone flat.
“Take Sloane.” I look over at her as she draws back, clearly offended. “I had to hold Liam while he died, his dragon already eviscerated by the jaws of a wyvern, and I will not watch his sister suffer the same fate. Get up the fucking cliff!”
