“Stoop, gain velocity, cup wings at the bottom, slingshot upward, flap hard and find an updraft, rise into clouds”-Koryon scanned the low-lying cloud cover frantically-“where you hide and wait for an advantage,” he finished slowly.
“He had to use another updraft. The wind by the mountains, or-” Elgan stopped as the flaming ruins around them snapped into perspective. “Kory, this place is Jaegendar’s playground. He laid out a whole system of updrafts for himself. . . . Get up high, shifting from thermal to thermal, and see if we can fool him.”
“I don’t think we can fool him,” Koryon said gloomily. Clearly they didn’t. For his next attack, Jaegendar dropped out of the clouds like a stone, leaving a small jagged hole before the cloud closed behind him, and swerved toward them with barely a flip of a wing tip. Elgan shouted and threw himself flat; Koryon, inelegantly, stalled and let himself tumble.
Elgan hung on desperately. “Get close to the clouds. At least he can’t dive like that again.”
Koryon flapped up, avoiding the obvious updrafts. The weather was restless; crosswinds shook them and required Koryon to make constant corrections just to stay over the hillside. This far up, their breath came out in white plumes.
Elgan tapped Koryon’s side. “Look.” Jaegendar, ahead, was moving slowly away at an angle as he scanned the sky below him.
“So, where do we hide?” asked Koryon.
“We don’t,” Elgan said. “We charge, diving with no wing-noise and lots of speed. Pull out at the last minute. I have an idea.”
When he had finished explaining his plan, Koryon said, “This isn’t an inn, and he doesn’t want to be entertained.”
Elgan looked at Jaegendar’s effortless flight. “We have to try something.”
With a sigh of misgiving, Koryon moved forward, catching a last breeze to rise and then drop, gaining momentum. Elgan watched their target cautiously, ready to call off the attack. He never looked their way. Jaegendar was nearly motionless, wings wide to catch an updraft and spilling slightly when he rose too high. He was a perfect target as he looked intently down at a circular pond, deep and rimmed with steep limestone in the green hills below him.
Elgan looked down as well. The pond was completely calm, untroubled by any ground-level breezes. It was like a mirror-
Elgan saw, to his horror, that both dragons were clearly visible in the pond.
“Break off!” Elgan screamed but he was already pulling the reins in a vicious left. Koryon banked immediately, the steepness of the turn pressing Elgan down into the saddle.
Jaegendar spun, his teeth showing in a terrible smile. He aimed for the point where Koryon would have to pull out of the turn or stall.
Elgan tugged the reins hard to the right. Koryon muttered, “All right,” and flipped nearly over, his left wing high where the right had been. Elgan grabbed for the saddle as they spun off in a foolish, energy-wasting, clumsy maneuver that saved their lives as Jaegendar shot past them, his claws close enough to ruffle Elgan’s hair.
Elgan said quietly to Koryon, “We’re dead.”
Koryon agreed. “If we’re very lucky.”
“Hide in the clouds?”
“He’d only follow us in. He can go anywhere we can.” Jaegendar was moving toward them again, gaining speed.
They heard a rumble of thunder. A storm, climbing over the mountains, was dropping in low. The clouds were very dark, ragged underneath with whirling winds.
Elgan leaned down to Koryon and said, “Cloud-suck?”
“What a rotten idea. We’ll be thrown around like toys.” Koryon added, “No dragon in his right mind- Oh, Right.” He turned toward the storm. “Watch my back.”
“Aim to the left of the storm, zigzagging.”
As they moved directly under the cloud, Koryon quit beating his wings. The thunder was deafening, close, the air rough enough that Elgan had to clutch the saddle swivel and squeeze his legs tight to hold on. The air rushed upward around them. In seconds they were inside the thunder cloud.
They rocked about in darkness, illuminated by flashes. Koryon corrected constantly to stay upright. Elgan hung on, remembering a story in the lore of a dragon who had been knocked unconscious by the buffeting and expelled, head down, from a storm.