Wren urged the white-scaled dragon onward.
They reached the source of the flashes and bangs in good time. This close to the fight, Wren was able to see the shapes of the ships and the people aboard them, but the blinding rain combined with smoke that grew ever thicker was painful. Her eyes and throat stung painfully. Sensing her discomfort, Aurora ascended high enough to escape the worst of the smoke, allowing Wren to truly see what was going on beneath her.
It was even grimmer than her first assessment.
The Verlantian navy had three times the number of ships as Lorne—and, going by the numbers out on the water, it was clear that just about every ship available to the Lorne navy had gone out to protect the Dragon Isles. There were a scant few out on a distant fishing expedition, but Wren knew they would not have made a difference in the grand scheme of things.
It was too much.
Upon the deck of the Verlantian ships, each and every soldier Wren could see were fully kitted out in shining metal breastplates and leather armor, with spears and bows and arrows and swords aplenty at their disposal. In a long-range attack out at sea, the Dragon Isle navy was unmatched. However, in a situation like this, where the Verlantian ships were so close, the soldiers were able to spill out onto the Lorne ships and attack hand-to-hand. The Lorne men aboard did not stand a chance. Their cannons were quickly being rendered useless by Verlantian soldiers getting on deck and destroying them.
Where are all of our Riders?
She swung her head around wildly to try to spot them. Then the sickening sound of a crossbow bolt whistled through the air to her right, and she saw a soldier fall from his airborne mount. The maroon dragon screamed and dove after it’s Rider.
Wren gaped, heart in her throat. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.
A Rider flew by her side on her large, sage-colored dragon and screamed. “Get higher, Wren!”
Layra. Her commander.
Another bolt whistled through the air and Layra rolled with her mount and avoided the projectile. Wren nudged Aurora with the heels of her bare feet and her dragon soared upward as another Rider fell down.
Then another, and another, and another.
It did not seem to matter that the air was full of smoke and rain and fog; wherever the Verlantian soldiers aimed, a Lorne Rider fell from the sky. How did they see so well? She could hardly see the ships from the sky. Aurora circled the battle as Wren tried to work out whom or what to attack first. Most of the dragons were simply not fast enough to prevent the bolts from hitting them, either. The terrifying sound of one such creature screaming for its life tore at Wren’s soul, before it fell in a heavy thump of wings and tail and teeth onto the prow of a Verlantian ship.
The enemy soldiers did not seem to care that the ship was quickly taking on water and would surely sink as a result of the fallen dragon: in a matter of moments, another ship had approached and settled side-by-side with it, and the soldiers deftly jumped aboard before the very deck below their feet sank into the stormy sea.
They were too organized.
They are going to win.
“Princess Wren?” someone screamed to her left. Wren and Aurora both turned at the sound of the shout. It was Jed, the captain of the navy, and his emerald-green behemoth of a dragon Sett. Wren had known the pair of them since she was a small girl, and she trusted them with her life. He always knew what to do.
“What’s the plan?” she shouted over to him, knowing that the man was not going to insist that she leave the battle immediately.
He gave her a once-over and a grim smile. “It’s good to see you alive, Princess.” He pointed toward the Verlantian ship that had saved the soldiers from the sinking one.
“If we can take down that ship, then we can at least get some damage done before we’re finished,” he said. “Give our people a chance to flee.”
Wren didn’t like hearing that at all—that their defeat was imminent and inevitable. In truth, she had known that from the moment the Verlantians attacked her wedding. All she could pray for was to do some damage and hope to save as many people from the fray as possible.
She nodded. “Understood. What do you want me to do?”
“Aurora is faster than any other dragon we have under our control,” Jed replied. “Act as decoy, so the rest of the Riders can avoid the crossbow bolts and coordinate an attack on the ship. Can you do that?”
“It’s done.” Wren could do nothing but growl ferociously. Beneath her, Aurora rumbled out her own response. “What use is the fastest dragon in the isles if we can’t run circles around the Verlantian filth?”
Jed smiled, but it was more of a baring of teeth, pleased with her answer. With a nod, he turned from Wren and began moving the rest of the Riders into an attacking formation along with Layra. Wren took a deep breath, then patted Aurora.
“Let’s do this, girl,” Wren whistled, in the tongue of the dragons. Her voice was barely audible over the rush of the wind around her, but she knew Aurora understood. With the barest of nudges from Wren, the dragon spearheaded a sickening descent toward the Verlantian ship, Wren clinging to her mount for dear life.
Breathe, just breathe.
She knew, in all likelihood, that this would be the last day of her life. Her day. All she could do was protect Britta and slay as many of the enemy soliders as possible before the end.
“Let’s do this!” she roared, just as Aurora careened out of the dive moments before she would have crashed through the deck of the Verlantian ship. Soldiers yelled and scattered with fright, and Wren was gratified to see that the enemy was so courageous when faced with the fearsome jaws of a dragon hurtling straight toward them.
They scrambled to aim a wickedly huge crossbow at the pair of them, clearly perturbed that they had not seen them in the first place. That was what Aurora did best: sneak attacks. Blindingly fast and almost impossible to see, her prey didn’t know they were dead until they were.
We can do this.
Aurora climbed back up into the sky, her wings pumping hard. All they had to do was follow the years of training the two of them had undertaken together.
The first bolt fired was easily dodged. The second and third crossed paths in order to try to catch Aurora in the middle, but she dodged them, too. There wasn’t enough time to fly out of range. Wren whistled.
With wordless agreement, Aurora snapped her wings closed and dove for the waves. Wren braced herself, pulled in a deep breath, and closed her eyes against the sting of the sea. They cut through the water smoothly. She opened her eyes and held on as Aurora swam beneath two enemy ships, the water bloodied and full of sharks. Aurora banged the bilge with her skull.
Even beneath the waves, Wren heard the cries of surprised and fearful soldiers in reaction to the tumbling of the ship. But then a cannonball came hurtling through the water toward them, and Wren pressed heels to her dragon, just barely managed to direct Aurora back out of the ocean before the deadly weapon could hit her tail.
That was too close!
She gasped for air as the soldiers scrambled to redirect their crossbows. “Higher!” she commanded.
Aurora’s response was a mere click of her tongue, as if telling Wren not to worry.
The two of them repeated this series of actions three more times, Aurora diving down toward the deck of the ship only to swiftly back out at the last second, then going underwater to dislodge the soldiers and prevent them from firing crossbow bolts at the other dragons in the sky. Finally, Jed and Layra managed to lead a coordinated attack against the ship with four other Dragon Riders.