Firestorm (27 page)

After the storms of the previous day, the sky looked almost washed clean of cloud. A few fair-weather cumulous clouds bumbled along in the distance, widely scattered and showing no signs of
growth. Aside from a very occasional light bump, the air aloft was smooth and the breeze light.

Once free from the top of the first volcano, however, Nolita’s fear returned in force. The side of the volcano dropped away beneath her so far that at the base leagues below, individual
trees were no longer distinguishable. Woodland had become a carpet in another shade of green. She was alone on a dragon’s back, far, far above the ground. Her fingers clamped even more
tightly around the pommel of the saddle, her knuckles bright white with the effort. Her head started to spin with dizziness and her heart pounded as she fought to remain conscious.

‘Don’t look down. Don’t look down. Don’t look . . .’ she panted, frantically trying to regain control.

‘
I will not let you die, Nolita. If you fall, I will catch you.’

Nolita clung to Firestorm’s words – not for comfort, but because at this moment she could think of nothing worse than to have the dragon’s talons, or jaws, pluck her from the
air.

Must not faint, she thought. Not far to go. Focus on the peak. Look for the orb. Stay in control.

Somehow she fought down the panic attack, ruthlessly suppressing her natural instinct to pass out. The ground was rising towards them again, and as their height reduced, her panic lessened. She
saw the flash of light on the southernmost edge of the rim long before she saw anything in detail.

‘Did you see that?’ she called aloud.

‘
Yes, Nolita,’
he replied.
‘It was very bright. We’ll be there in just a moment or two.’

They swooped in to land with Nolita holding her breath. The drop to either side of the rim appeared horrific, but the dragon landed lightly and without hesitation.

As soon as Firestorm had settled, Nolita unlocked her fingers from the pommel and slid down his side. She hurried several paces from the dragon and sat down. Suddenly it was all too much; the
effects of her wild emotional swings caught up, her stomach convulsed and she vomited.

‘
Are you all right?’
Firestorm’s voice in her head was filled with concern.

‘A lot better now,’ she replied aloud with a laugh that held a note of hysteria. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘Give me a minute and I’ll be
fine.’

Chapter Twenty-Three

Nolita’s head was spinning. Her chest felt tight with a combination of raging emotions, together with the physical after-effects of the flying and her sickness. With her
eyes closed and her head in her hands, the trial of bravery she’d been through so far began to blur into a dreamlike montage of images, yet she did not need to pinch herself to know that it
had been real.

She opened her eyes and eased herself gently to her feet. The orb was nearby, mounted on a plinth of solid metal that must have been put there to prevent it from being damaged. Nolita approached
it cautiously, a sudden premonition prickling her senses.

The orb was a little larger than an apple and looked to be a perfectly spherical piece of hollow crystal. It was beautiful, refracting multicoloured rainbows of colour in the sunlight, but at
the same time it looked disappointingly ordinary. How could recovering this pretty bauble help to save the Oracle? Did it have special powers? She reached out her hand towards it, but hesitated.
Her fingers hovered for a moment above the surface of the crystal and then she withdrew them. This was what she had undergone the trial to obtain. What was she waiting for?

‘What is it, Nolita? Is something the matter?’

‘I’m not sure, Firestorm,’ she replied aloud, grateful to have a reason to voice her misgivings. ‘It’s probably my imagination, but I’ve got a weird feeling
something’s not right here. I think there’s something about the orb that Barnabas hasn’t told us. Do you think this could be another part of the trial?’

Firestorm concentrated for a moment. Nolita could feel him reaching out with his mind.

‘I sense nothing from the orb. As far as I can tell, there’s no danger here,’
he said, giving what Nolita interpreted as a mental shrug.
‘If you don’t
wish to carry it, then place it on my tongue and I’ll keep it safe within my mouth as we fly back.’

Firestorm moved around and lowered his head until his lower jaw rested on the ground a few paces to Nolita’s left. She flinched as he opened his mouth and pushed his tongue forward. To be
this close to a dragon’s open mouth, even if it was not angled towards her, caused the dark clouds of fear to boil up inside her mind again. She staggered slightly, as dizziness brought her
to the brink of fainting. Grabbing the metal plinth on which the orb was mounted, she steadied herself, closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath.

On opening her eyes, she did not hesitate. In one swift movement, she reached out with her right hand, grabbed the orb with her fingertips and turned her palm upwards to support the crystal. The
instant she did so, she realised that her forebodings had been correct. Where her fingertips held the orb she felt the strangest sensation, as if her fingers were being sucked in through the
surface of the crystal.

She tried to return the orb to the plinth, but her hand could not release it. Pain erupted in her fingertips and she screamed aloud as hot spikes of lightning shot up her arm.

‘What is it, Nolita? What’s happening? Put it down! Put it down!’
Firestorm’s voice echoed loud in her mind, but she could not respond. Her eyes widened with
horror as the first droplets of blood formed on her fingertips and trickled down the inner surface of the hollow orb, drawn by the fierce suction force. Even as she watched, the droplets began to
collect at the base of the crystal. More blood followed, as the initial droplets became an increasing flow.

Panic overtook her. Still screaming, she staggered back from the plinth, the pooling blood sloshing around inside the orb. She grabbed her right wrist with her left hand and began to shake it
with all her might, desperate to dislodge the leech-like globe of crystal. The consequences of breaking the orb if she dropped it did not enter her thinking. Pain and terror at what the orb was
doing to her overruled all other thought.

‘Give it to me! Give it to me!
’ Firestorm’s voice in her head mirrored her panic.

For the first time since first encountering Firestorm she ran to him gladly. Her desperation to be rid of the orb momentarily enabled her to put aside her fear of the dragon and reach out to him
for help.

‘Put it on my tongue,’
Firestorm ordered.

Without thinking, Nolita thrust her arm between the dragon’s great jaws and placed the orb on Firestorm’s tongue. The dragon flinched slightly at the contact, for no sooner did the
orb touch him than it began to draw his blood as well. To Nolita’s horror, however, no matter how hard she pulled, she could not release her fingers. Dragon blood was now bubbling in great
quantity from Firestorm’s tongue and mixing with the blood still flowing from her fingertips. The bright red rivulets were mixing and darkening as the orb slowly filled.

Was it her imagination? Was the orb growing? Would it keep sucking their blood until they were both empty husks of skin and bone?

Oh, gods, don’t let it be so! she prayed, her mind shrieking with the pain in her hand. It was almost as if a line of fire was racing from her fingertips, up her arm and into her head. The
burning terrified her. Pain had never frightened her before. She had always had a high tolerance to physical discomfort, but this sensation was different – almost alien in its origin. Was she
now going to add another fear to her list?

‘It’s slowing.’
Firestorm’s voice in her head was calm now.
‘Relax, dragonrider. You’re not going to die.’

He was right. The orb was almost full and the pain was receding.

‘I believe I understand the Oracle’s riddle about this orb now,’
Firestorm added thoughtfully.
‘Like all riddles, the meaning is obvious when you know the
answer.’

Nolita was intrigued, but the pain in her arm was still too distracting for her to want to know the answer. ‘Save it,’ she replied through gritted teeth, still straining to pull her
hand free. ‘The others will want to know too. You can tell us all together.’

As suddenly as it had held her, the orb let her fingers go. The abruptness of it caught her by surprise and she stumbled backwards. Before she realised what had happened, she was flat on her
back and seeing stars from bumping her head on a lump of volcanic rock.

‘Ow!’ she said, gently probing the back of her head with the fingers of her left hand while flexing the painful fingers of her right. She sat up and checked herself over. The
fingertips of her right hand were clean and undamaged. If it had not been for the orb full of blood resting on Firestorm’s tongue, it would have been easy to conclude that the entire episode
had been a waking nightmare. The back of her head felt tender, but there was no sign of bleeding there either. She had been lucky, she concluded, climbing gingerly to her feet.

Had she really just put her arm inside a dragon’s mouth? It did not seem possible. Even the thought of such a thing was ridiculous.

The sound of Firestorm’s laughter filled her mind. ‘
I doubt your brother or sister would be brave enough to do it,’
he said casually.

‘Sable and Balard wouldn’t be
stupid
enough to get into a situation where they needed to,’ Nolita answered. She laughed too, the nervous tightness in her throat causing
her chuckle to squeak and crack. Her fear of Firestorm had lessened considerably. He still scared her, but the mindless fear that had paralysed her in the past had retreated. It was not gone, but
she had defeated it to the point where she could keep the emotions under control.

Just as well, she thought, because I’ve still got to ride back.

It would be good to put it off further, but she knew that to do so would risk the return of previous levels of fear. Her mind and body had been subjected to so much terror during the past few
minutes that if she was ever to be hardened to it, now was the time.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We’ve got what we came for. Let’s get back to the others and enjoy our moment of glory.’

Firestorm closed his mouth, the orb of blood still resting on his tongue.

‘And be careful not to swallow that thing. I’m not going looking for another one,’ she added.

‘
As far as I know, there is no other,’
Firestorm replied.

‘Then please try to resist any sudden urges to convert it into dragon poo!’

Firestorm snorted with amusement and tendrils of smoke curled from his nostrils.

Nolita climbed up onto Firestorm’s back and settled into the saddle. She looked around. In a few heartbeats she would be airborne again. Despite feeling more comfortable in the dragon
saddle, the familiar clamps of dread gripped her gut with their icy pressure.

‘
Are you ready?’
Firestorm asked.

‘No, but do it anyway,’ Nolita answered aloud.

Firestorm did not need telling twice. He launched off the rim of the crater with a mighty leap, his great wings setting an urgent pace as they climbed back towards the higher peak that was home
to the day dragon enclave. It was not a long flight back, but despite his excitement at their success, Firestorm took his time manoeuvring down into the crater that housed the entrance to the
chamber of the Sun’s Steps, keeping all his turns gentle and predictable for Nolita.

They landed gently to cheers even louder than the ones that had followed them when they left. Elian and Kira ran forwards to meet them. A large crowd of dragonriders, all cheering and clapping
enthusiastically, followed closely behind them.

‘Are you all right? Did you get it?’ Elian asked breathlessly, his eyes wide with excitement as he looked up at her sitting on Firestorm’s back.

‘We’re so proud of you, Nolita,’ Kira interrupted before Nolita could answer. ‘We both know how difficult that must have been for you today. Whether you got it or not,
we’re really proud.’

Nolita flipped her right leg over the pommel to join her left and slid down Firestorm’s side onto his folded foreleg. Then she stepped forwards again and landed on the ground next to her
companions. They both pulled her into a hug.

‘Yes,’ she said with a beaming smile as she returned their embrace. ‘We got it – but the orb gave us a final surprise. It sucked our blood.’

‘It did
what
?’ Elian and Kira exclaimed in unison.

‘Did you say “our blood”?’ another voice interjected. It was Barnabas. The crowd of people around them parted respectfully to let the old dragonrider through. The three
companions drew apart and turned to face him.

‘Yes, sir. The orb sucked blood from both of us until it was full,’ Nolita answered.

‘Interesting! The records indicate that the previous two riders who won the orb could not break free from it until it was full of their blood, but neither mentioned it drawing blood from
their dragon,’ Barnabas said thoughtfully. ‘I wonder . . .’