“I have big feet,” I told him, just in case he was wondering.
“It doesn’t matter if it was little or not,” the wall dragon said. “It still went into my eye. Do you know what that feels like?”
“Yes, yes,” the cliff dragon said. “It hurts. Who knew that my big, wonderful huntress could be brought down by the foot of a wizard. Certainly a story for the ages.”
“You’re not funny,” the wall dragon said, growling just a little as she continued to rub her eye. “And it was just a lucky shot.”
“Excuse you, lucky shot,” I snapped as Randall helped me to my feet. “You wanna put your face down here again and see what happens? You’ve still got another eye I can take care of for you.”
“My word,” the cliff dragon said, staring down at me. “You certainly are a violent little creature, aren’t you?”
“Damn right! I’m hard-core! Come at me, lady-bro!”
“Six hundred years of life for this,” Randall sighed.
“Well,” the cliff dragon said to her mate. “As soon as you’ve sufficiently recovered from what I am assuming is a life-changing injury, perhaps we can continue on with the plan?”
“Life-changing,” the wall dragon snapped. “Nice. Please, continue to mock me when I could have possibly been blinded. It’s not my fault he’s a wily little bastard.”
“I’m wily,” I whispered to Randall. “That means hard-core.”
“That’s not even remotely close to what it means,” Randall said. “Now if you don’t mind, maybe we can stop chatting and get out of here?”
“Oh, you can’t leave!” the cliff dragon said. “We have a plan.”
“I’m changing the plan,” the wall dragon said. “I feel like I should be able to take his foot as recompense for his trespasses against me.”
“That certainly seems fair,” the cliff dragon said. She looked down at me. “Be a dear, would you? Let her have your foot. It’d make things easier.”
“No, thank you,” I said. “In case you couldn’t tell, I’m kind of attached to it.” Then I snorted and elbowed Randall. “Get it? I’m attached to—”
A gust of wind blew around our feet. Off to my right, I heard the sound of something flapping, like clothing or the pack or— I looked over to my belongings.
A square wooden object lay propped in the snow.
Atop it, white fabric snapped back and forth in the wind.
A sail.
“Holy shit,” I breathed. “I just had the best idea ever. Or the worst. Maybe both at the same time.”
The cliff dragon continued to fuss over the wall dragon above us. I began to edge my way over to the pack. “Come on,” I hissed at Randall. “I know what to do.”
He moved slowly, never taking his eyes off the dragons. “You said the same thing before we came here, and look where we are now.”
I ignored him, bending down slowly to start shoving my possessions back into the pack. Ryan’s letter and his autograph from long ago were still tucked inside. I sighed in relief at the sight of them. I’d been sure they’d been lost in the snow.
Randall helped me gather everything up, and when he reached for the wooden device, I shook my head once.
He frowned at me, looking back down at it.
As of now, it looked like nothing, just a folded piece of wood with fabric draped over the top of it. But I knew what it was.
A sand sailboard belonging to the Wolf of Bari Lavuta.
Ruv, my wannabe cornerstone.
A gift, though I didn’t understand why.
I thought it precious, but he’d slipped it into my pack before we’d left Mashallaha.
Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.
And if this worked, if we lived through the crazy that was going through my head, I’d have to thank him one day.
“When I say, you need to run toward the cliff edge,” I said in a low voice to Randall. “You stay behind me. Get my bag. Leave the other thing to me. And when we get to the edge, you jump when I say jump.”
Randall stared at me with wide eyes. “You want me to what?”
“I’m serious.”
“I know. That’s why I think you’re out of your mind.”
“Randall,” I growled. “Do you trust me?”
He opened his mouth, closed it. Then again. He sighed. “Gods help me, but yes. I do.”
That shouldn’t have made me as happy as it did. But for some reason, knowing that the man whose nose I’d once turned into a penis trusted me made me want to crow just a little bit.
I’d have to save that for later.
I looked back up at the dragons. The cliff dragon had the wall dragon’s face in her claws, cooing softly at her, telling her that she was the biggest and the bravest and the strongest huntress that had ever existed.
“Aww,” I said. Then, “Run.”
Randall ran, hoisting my pack onto his back. I was at his side, and the dragons roared behind us as we moved. Without slowing, I reached down with my good arm and scooped up the sand sailboard. It was heavy, the pieces of it clacking together as I clutched it under my arm.
There was a small lever on the side, and I prayed to the gods that it was all I needed to know about how to open it up. I should have paid more attention to it, or at least tried to fiddle with it while we were in Meridian City or in Castle Freesias, but I hadn’t even thought about it, sure it was just a way that Ruv was trying to get in my good graces.
“I hope you know what you’re doing!” Randall shouted at me, his beard trailing over his shoulder behind us.
“Me too! Er, I mean, I totally do!”
“What? I don’t know who you think you are—”
Somehow, even as dragons chased after us on a snowy mountaintop far from home, even as we were most certainly running toward our inevitable doom, I managed to grin rakishly at Randall. “I’m Sam of Wilds.”
And then I curled my arm across my chest before swinging it out in a flat arc, thumb pushing down the lever before I hurled the device as hard as I could.
The sand sailboard snapped open, the wooden slats locking together, the board hitting the ground as the sail itself climbed the thin pole that rose up. It slid forward right up to the edge of the cliff and began to tip, and no, no, no, we weren’t close enough, it was going to go over without us and we would be trapped. I thought green and gold (not specifically but abstractly, like the idea of what they could be), and even though the ancient words weren’t there, the intent of them was, and a rock broke through the surface of the snow on the edge of the cliff, hit the bottom of the board, and knocked it back away from the cliff.
“Oh hell,” I heard Randall pant next to me. “You can’t be serious about this!”
I winked at him, even though my skin was clammy and I felt like vomiting. Undoubtedly, this was probably going to be the stupidest thing I’d ever done, and if we survived, Randall was most likely going to kill me.
But then I felt the heat of the dragons behind me, and I knew we had no other choice.
Besides. If the gods were certain I would be the one to face Myrin in some ridiculous final showdown with monologuing, sass, and probably a lot of my clothes billowing awesomely, then they would make sure I survived.