The Fly House (The UtopYA Collection) (45 page)

Maeve searched the lower fog and suddenly, she knew what she could do. 

She thrust her knees into Trust, bolting him upward, into the heart of the fight.  Ready or not, she had to get word to the Rhas that pummeling the enemy wasn't cutting it.  Blinding the Galls, as the Cirrus had, would be the way to win.

"This is fuckin' crazy...absolutely fuckin' crazy," she chanted as Trust rushed upwards, the wind in her face.  A Gall tore across their path.  She knew her doused dragon would be no match for any of the Plutians' realized urban myths, but her head was on autopilot and the one thought of saving the Rhas directed her every move. 

She just had to make it to Diem.  That was it.  With Forge and Span's speed, the dragons might have a chance to overcome the Galls.  It might give them the edge.

The Cirrus dipped up into the mouth of the funnel again and disappeared.  Maeve, shooting up from below, saw the Gall that raced for the mouth too.  The beast dipped to enter just as Forge shot from the edge, another Gall on her tail.  Diem was hunched over his dragon's neck, oblivious to the threat behind him.

"Watch out!" Maeve shouted, but the clash of claws and the shrill whistling and roars of the flaming dragons erased the sound of her voice.  The Gall closed in on Diem from behind.  Maeve smashed her knees to Trust's sides, dislodging some of his plates with the pressure.  Trust shot like an opened balloon, whizzing across the airborne battlefield.  His plates scattered in the sharp wind behind them.

Overtaking the trailing Gall, Trust pressed his wings down in one hard beat.  They were neck-and-neck with the Gall behind Diem.  The Gall's jaws opened.  Its neck strained, reaching toward Forge's tail.  It was now or never.  One hard blast of flame would cook the attacking dragon's eye. 

Maeve slammed her knees into the igniting bag beneath Trust's skin.  Trust opened his mouth in anticipation of the flame, but Maeve felt the pillow of igniting fluid slip from beneath her knee cap.   It bubbled backward, behind her leg.  She readjusted her hold and tried again, the bruises immediate as she crushed her legs against Trust.  The dragon only grunted.  The puffy diaphragm slid, like a greasy jellyfish, behind Maeve's knees again.

Maeve shrieked.  The Gall turned its head, the scope of its eyes narrowing like points on Maeve.   She was nearly jerked off of her seating as Trust peeled away from the Gall and plummeted toward the ground.  He wasn't hurt and Maeve was confused only until she felt the Gall's flame warming her back.  Trust's dive was faster.  He raced away from the heat and won. 

Maeve looked back over her shoulder as Forge barred her claws and came down screeching from the air on top of Gall that had attacked them.  Forge's talons ripped at the animal, but the Gall was twisted in her grasp.  Maeve could see Diem struggling with the Gall's rider as the two dragons, locked in battle, shattered all other sound.

The Gall jerked out of Forge's grasp.  In the blink of an eye, the Gall turned and struck, latching onto Forge's wing.  The creature cranked backward and with one vicious shake of its head, Forge's plates rained down.  Another, and there was a mighty crack as the Gall's fangs pierced Forge's wing.  The Gall's jaws released and flung Forge away. 

Maeve couldn't grasp what she saw.  Forge spun through the air as Diem lost hold.  The two split away from each other.  Diem's body twirled in a free fall as Forge spiraled into the dark clouds below. 

Maeve didn't scream.  She flattened her ass to her dragon and gouged his sides, sending Trust bolting toward Diem's falling form.  Trust raced Diem for the dark clouds below. 

Maeve scooped her knees, pushing Trust into the bottom of a deep, arcing dip.  Trust mimicked the direction she gave, the center of his arc shoveling beneath Diem, intercepting the fall.  Diem landed hard on the dragon's back.  Maeve shot out her arm as Diem reached for hers.

He worked his way forward, sliding down behind Maeve.  His eyes scoured the ground for Forge. 

"Her wing was broken," Maeve shouted to him.  He nodded.  "We have to go back up, they need us!"

Diem nodded again.

Maeve guided Trust back up through the thick clouds, emerging just above the dark fog.  The two peered up at the swirl of dragons above them.  A Gall chased Cirque; two Galls worked to capture Soar between them.  Maeve gasped, but she pressed her knees to Trust, giving the signal to rocket them back into the battle, but Diem's palm pried her leg away.

"This dragon can't handle that." His voice was hot in her ear.  Maeve twisted to look at him, but his gaze tracked the fight overhead.

"He's going to have to," she argued.  "They're losing up there!"

"He doesn't know how to perform in a battle and he's been doused.  Those Galls will kill all three of us before he can even strike." 

"But I know how to kill them!" Maeve shouted.  "I saw Cirque kill one!  He burnt its eye out!"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes!  All we have to do is hit them in the eyes!"

"That's not going to be easy to do, but there's something...something else about these dragons..." Diem said.  His brow dipped as he studied the beasts overhead.  Then, "Ratfish!" he shouted, "That's it!  They look like ratfish!"

"Who cares what they look like?  We've got to go flame them in the eyes!" Maeve said.  She shrieked as Soar narrowly escaped a triangle of Galls as they closed in around him.  "We can't just sit here and watch them die up there!"

"You don’t understand!  R
atfish!  That's how we’re going to defeat them!" Diem shouted with a laugh.  Maeve gaped at him.  How the hell could he be so hysterical about ratfish when the Galls were up there closing in for the slaughter?  Diem leaned into her ear, the embossed muscles of his chest pressing through his shirt.  "The Plutians imported animals that were suited to the dragon trade into our environment!  They mutated the genetic configuration of the animals they had available and re-engineered breeds, suiting them to their needs!  That's why hampigs look like porcupines and guinea pigs and fish..."

Maeve nodded, but every vein in her was straining to get back to the fight.  "I still don't get it."

"See how the Galls are riding in pairs?" Diem pointed.  "The riders keep adjusting to guide the Galls apart.  The dragons want to attack each other.  If the Galls are part ratfish, guess what will happen if we knock off the riders?"

Maeve waved her finger in the air.  "They kill each other!"

"Let's go!" Diem shouted.  He produced a fire seed from his pocket, flashing it to Maeve.  He gently pried up one of Trust's plates and rubbed the seed against the dragon's skin.  "There should be enough ignition fluid in the dragon's sweat.  The Plutian's suits are fire proof, but if this works, they won't know the difference!  Now get me in close!"

Maeve didn't waste another second.  She pressed her chest to Trust, gripping his plates as she focused on the precision of her guidance.  Diem laid down over her back, further easing the wind pressure.  They rose like a buoy, popping up just behind the furthest dragon in the most western point of the Galls' triangle. 

"Steady," Diem whispered to her.  His knees pressed forward, but Trust didn't take his direction.  Maeve repeated the direction with her own knees and the dragon drifted closer.

Maeve could see the back of the Plutian's head.  He wore a glossy, dark suit that matched the color of the night sky.  The Plutians' forms appeared human, although Maeve couldn't be absolutely sure, since their entire bodies were completely covered.  As the rider of the Gall in front of them suddenly turned to glance over his shoulder, Maeve saw that their faces were covered too.  All she could see were the vague planes of the rider's features beneath the fabric.

All Maeve focused on was how the Plutian's knees moved.  The rider was giving the Gall direction to peel away from formation.

"Now!" she shouted.  Diem slit the fire seed on the edge of one of Trust's plates and hurdled it through the air at the Gall's rider.  The seed sparked as it ran the distance between the two dragons, hitting the Plutian's left arm at full flame.  The line of fire raced up the rider's arm.  In seconds, the whole seed took and the rider was engulfed.

The rider slapped at the flames and lost hold on the Gall.  Maeve dipped Trust below the fight and surfaced behind another Gall.  Diem fired a pod at the rider.  The second Plutian did the same as the first, slapping at the flames on the surface of the suit until the rider lost grip on the dragon and fell.   Maeve charged Trust up between the two undirected Galls.  They nearly pounded heads in pursuit of the young heathen, but as they closed in on one another, Trust was forgotten. 

The Gall's eyes narrowed.  They slammed straight into one another, tearing and grinding and flaming as brightly as two chandeliers fighting with crowbars.  They ripped each other to pieces in the air. 

"Let's help the others!" Diem pointed to four Galls in a triangle, advancing on All.  The Cirrus eluded them by dipping into the side of the funnel and emerging like a needle thorough a sock on the other side.  The Cirrus rounded and slid up beside Trust.  Still two wing spans apart, Mark gestured from the back of his dragon and Maeve felt Diem's body jerking behind her as he returned gestures.

"What are you doing?" she shouted.

"I'm telling him to knock the riders from the Galls!"  Diem explained.  Mark nodded and the Cirrus darted away, disappearing into the side of the funnel, the same way he had come.  "We have to get up into that wormhole!"

Two Galls rounded from opposite sides of the funnel before they could move, on a collision course for Trust.  Maeve saw them from the corner of her eyes first, and held Trust steady.  She could feel Diem's muscles tensing up behind her, waiting for her to make her move, but he stayed silent.  His breath was shallow, barely warming her cheek.  The Galls closed in, their jaws opening, ready to clamp down on whichever parts of Trust they reached first.

Maeve's knees surged upward against Trust's plates.  The heathen blew straight up.  The two Galls crashed in the rift left behind.  The riders dropped and the Galls latched onto one another, whirling in a death spin and disappearing below.

"That was luck," Diem breathed in her ear.  His voice was jagged with adrenaline. 

"Luck nothing," Maeve said.  "That was skill."

The two flattened down again, soaring around the edge of the funnel, back toward the battle ground on the opposite side.  What they found on the other side shocked them both. 

There were only four Galls still in the air. 

Soar, raced over the top of one and yanked the rider from the Gall by spearing the suit with one of Soar's talons.  The riders squirmed on the tip of Soar's claw until the dragon shook the Plutian loose.  The rider fell to Earth as his dragon attacked the two Galls to the right.  Impulse aided the rider
-less Gall by knocking another Plutian rider from the back of another Gall.  

With only two Galls left, Diem swung his arm in a fan blade circle over his head.  Span and Mark's dragons shot away, racing toward the funnel mouth.  Maeve understood at once.  The last two Galls turned to follow. 

All blasted out of the bottom of the tunnel.  Mark sliced the air with his signal.

"He failed!" Diem said. 

Span signaled back and shot up into the funnel opening.  The Galls rushed in behind him.  Impulse's dragon looped, upside down, rolling over the top of the Gall.  Impulse reached down, plucking the rider off the Gall's back.  He heaved the Plutian into the open air.  The alien went down flailing.

Impulse signaled to Diem.  The Echo dragon shot away, into the funnel, even before Diem responded.  Maeve only felt his heavy groan against her back.

A screech whistled through the air as the last Gall clamped onto All's tail, behind them.  The Cirrus thrashed to get free as the Gall chewed upward.  Mark clung to his dragon, watching the Gall eat its way up All's tail as if it were eating a French fry.  All shrieked as he was being slowly eaten alive, but Mark waited for a clean bite that would separate the Cirrus from the Gall for even a moment.  But the Gall's lower fang speared into the next section, keeping All tethered before the Gall took the next bite. 

"There are no more fire seeds," Diem shouted.  Maeve's soul fell into the bottoms of her boots.

"We have to flame him," she said.  Trust had already failed, his ignition bag was about as much use as a jelly sandwich wedged in an electronic device, but Maeve knew there was no other options.  So did Diem.

"Try," he breathed.  It was all Maeve needed to hear.  Once more, she tightened her knees to Trust's plates and the dragon sped forward, as if he was a bull jumping into a rodeo ring.  He shot to the side of the Gall, opening his mouth. 

All screeched and flailed as the Gall continued to eat.  The Gall growled as it caught sight of Trust.  The alien dragon whipped its tail.  Maeve thrust her knees upward and Trust bolted with it, avoiding the tail like a skip of a jump rope.  But she couldn't keep jumping.  Falling back beside the Gall, Maeve saw the Gall's rider rip at the suit stretched over its face. 

Her blood turned to ice.  She remembered Tiddy shooting the line of venom that severed Wind's neck.  Coring.  The rider tore away a hunk of the suit, but it only exposed an eye. 

Maeve realized she had only one shot, before the rider uncovered his mouth and cored one of them or all of them, with a sickening line of venom.  She pulled Trust up from the Gall as Diem protested with a shout.