Page 85 of The Dragoneers of Longbourn and Pemberley
Valeraine kept encouraging Lelantos to speed up, with her reins and her knees, by chanting, “Just a little more. Just a little more.”
She didn’t have a landmark to measure how fast they were going, just the wind of their passing and the beat of his wings, flinging them ever farther into the clouds. “Just a little more. Then, you can rest for a year. Just a little more. Faster.”
How far was it to the midway checkpoint? Did this derby even have a normal checkpoint, or could it possibly have more than one? Kesley would have gotten the route from the race officials when he checked in, but he hadn’t passed on that vital information. She would have to follow the other riders.
Valeraine urged Lelantos lower now, speeding as they dropped, and searched the sky. She saw the colorful shapes of dragons below her, and pointed Lelantos that way.
She counted the dragons. Could they make up for their botched beginning?
Eight dragons immediately ahead of her. Of course, the real winner of the race could have already turned around, and these were lagging behind. But she chose to hope. There was still a chance for Lelantos.
As they dived, they passed a few of the dragons, who fell away under and behind them, out of her view. Now, five dragons ahead of her. The first of them landed on a large hillside, dotted with recently cut stumps, and took off again, coming back.
“There! We land on the hill.” Lelantos saw it, too — no stranger to the routes of derbies — and adjusted his trajectory.
The first dragon, a black brute, was on a collision course for them, coming away from the hill along the same route they were on. The black dragon gave a growl of challenge, intimidating and loud, but Lelantos stayed his course, roaring back with the gravelly tone of an elder, past his prime but not past the spirit of racing.
The crash was coming for them, and Valeraine tugged on the reins, hoping for a dodge to the side. They couldn’t afford to fight this dragon, one of the fastest and fiercest in Kinella.
But Lelantos was still spoiling for a fight, and gave another roar. She could feel the meaning of it: a challenge, an insult.
The black dragon juked closer to them.
Lelantos flicked his claws forward, pivoting in the air.
Instead of being met with answering claws, the black dragon opened its jaws, and spewed fire forth.
Valeraine had just enough time to see a smirking rider on the black dragon, before her vision was engulfed in flame.
The heat was everywhere, but where she felt it most was her eyes. She had snapped them shut, but her lids still felt the power like the sun on a summer’s day. She felt a lurch, and held on to the pommel as they collided with something.
It wasn’t getting colder. It was getting hotter. Now, she felt the heat centering on her cheek.
She opened her eyes: immediately in front of them was black dragon. She saw the light of flames, mostly on her right side, out of her vision.
Valeraine’s mask — the fragile paper-mache contraption that it was — had caught fire. She grabbed for the tie with one hand, holding on to the saddle with the other as the two dragons weaved back and forth, trying to claw each other. She ripped the mask off, immediately cooled by the air hitting her face.
Was she burned? Was she scarred? She didn’t feel pain, but didn’t trust the sensation. She patted herself down, looking for fires. Some smell of burned hair and harness lines, but it seemed the wind had put out any other fires. The direct blast must have missed her.
It was all that black dragon’s fault. They needed to attack it, to take it down with its smiling rider.
No.
Lelantos needed to disengage.
She checked the feelings within herself: outrage at their attacker, bone-deep fright at being lit on fire, and a small spark of competition — to beat this black dragon and all the others.
Valeraine focused on her competitive spirit, fanning the spark into her own flame, and funneled that feeling to Lelantos. They needed to win the derby.
“Lelantos,” she called, “to the hill!”
He weaved in the air, trying to claw the black dragon’s wings.
Valeraine took a deep breath, and tried to project calm, determination, the urgency of getting back to the race. She focused on the hilltop, and the place they would land.
She recalled the exhilaration of that first dive, from the derby so many months ago: the light feeling of zooming, of racing to the finish, the joy of the power of a dragon. They needed to capture that.
“Lelantos! To victory!”
