Voices of Dragons

Jon was beyond words, his face locked in terror.

“Jon! Artegal! Stop!” She called to Jon and looked over her shoulder to Artegal, unsure who she should yell at first.

Jon fell, limbs splayed, gazing up at the monster that had stopped at the edge of the water, as if he might spring forward. Artegal had lowered himself to peer more closely at the strange human. Kay was standing next to his huge head, but he hardly seemed to notice her.

“This is my friend, Jon,” Kay said to the dragon. “Jon, this is…this is Artegal.”

Kay’s two friends studied each other.

“Oh my God,” Jon breathed, his voice shaking a little.

After a long moment, the dragon breathed, “Hello.”

“Jesus, Kay!” Jon said. Kay tried to remember the terror she’d felt the first time the scaled face looked down on her. She couldn’t remember it very well.

“It’s okay, Jon! I swear to you it’s okay.”

Artegal turned to her, head shifting on snakelike neck. “Why is he here?”

Sadly, she said, “He wouldn’t stay away.”

“It talks!” Jon said.

“Of course he does,” she said.

“You can’t come with us,” Artegal said.

Jon looked like he was having trouble breathing. Never taking his eyes off the dragon, he sat up. “C-come with you? Where?”

Artegal nodded, a tip of his narrow snout, and turned to Kay. “We should go.”

“Go? Kay, what are you doing?” Jon demanded.

“Jon, please go home. If you see my mom—I don’t know what to tell her. Make up some excuse. Just keep them from looking here.” She put on her climbing harness and started laying out the ropes. Artegal crouched to where she could throw them over his back.

“Are you doing what I think you’re doing?” Jon said. “Kay, that’s crazy.”

Kay secured the knots over Artegal’s chest before turning on him. “Jon, please, we have to do this.”

“But why—”

Artegal’s head lifted, his neck straightening. He looked around, sca

They’d been arguing, not paying attention. Kay tensed, anxious to spot what had startled the dragon. She heard only one thing: the rapid beat of an approaching helicopter. Then she saw people, men in black fatigues, rifles pointed ahead of them, emerging through the trees. The first was visible a dozen yards behind Jon, but when Kay turned, she seemed to find them everywhere. She hadn’t heard them at all.

Now, they surrounded the area.

Action erupted. A couple of the soldiers shouted cryptic one-word orders and replies. Something launched from the trees, and Kay choked on a scream because she thought it was a bullet or a rocket. She realized then that she’d believed no one would shoot at her, that even if the soldiers did follow her and find her with Artegal, they wouldn’t shoot.

But the shot wasn’t a weapon—it was some kind of net, weighted on the corners, that flattened as it sailed toward Artegal, too fast to dodge. The dragon turned, shouldering it away. Instinctively, he batted at it with a claw, and the net tangled around his arm and wing—as it was supposed to. Twisting his neck, he snapped at it, snarling, exhaling smoke.

Branigan hadn’t really expected her to spy on Artegal. So he used her to trap him.

Shouting now, Kay ran forward to tug the net away.

“Artegal, stop a minute!” He did, looking at her, his black eyes wide.

She jumped up to reach the tangled length of the net, grabbed it, pulled. She couldn’t find the ends, couldn’t find where it had gotten caught; the more she tugged and twisted the net’s ropes, the more snarled they became.

Artegal stretched his head high, his neck curving over her, which must have given him a view of the whole clearing, and of the soldiers swarming toward them. She was close to his chest and heard him inhale, his body expanding, and a sound like a growl rattling deep in his chest.

Then, he exhaled, an explosive burst of air—and fire.

The dragon turned, sweeping a line of fire in a long arc around them, clearing a space, keeping the soldiers at bay. It sounded like a forge, a blow torch, and Kay fell to the ground, arms over her head, choking at the soot-and-ash smell of it, her head ringing with the sound of trees catching fire. Heat washed over her. It was just like the fire in town, flames meant to kill. She was in the middle of it, and she couldn’t move.

“No! Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”

Sheltered under Artegal’s body, Kay looked. Jon dashed across the stream, splashing in the water, not bothering with the bridge. He was yelling at the soldiers, who now turned and leveled their weapons at him. Once again, Kay almost screamed in panic. But there came a shouted order to stand down. A few of the trees burned, orange flames climbing, sending up tendrils of smoke, and one of the soldiers yelled into a radio.

Artegal’s fire had kept the soldiers back, had made them hesitate. He’d given her more time. She got back to work, and this time the net came free. With a shudder the dragon shed the rest of it.

“Kay, now,” Artegal said with a snort. He crouched low, hunched protectively over her.

Kay grabbed the ropes and hauled herself onto Artegal’s back. He launched, straight up.

“Stop! Hold it!” There must have been a half dozen gruff male voices yelling at her, commanding her.

A noise popped like a firecracker.

“Don’t shoot!” she heard Jon yell again.

Then she didn’t hear anything but wind in her ears.

She didn’t have her harness clipped on. She looped the ropes around her arms and clung to them, keeping herself flat against the dragon’s back because that made her more stable.

“I’m not hooked in!” she shouted to him, and thumped his shoulder. She felt the snort of acknowledgment echo through his lungs.

They didn’t have to do any fancy flying. That wasn’t the plan for this trip. They just needed to be seen.

Once clear of the trees, Artegal leveled off. His wings flapped hard, and she hadn’t realized how much soaring he’d done on their other flights. Those had been almost leisurely, riding thermals, swooping in circles, his wings stretched like sails, sometimes not moving at all. Now, his muscles bunched, released, the wings scooping over and over as they flew faster and faster, wind whipping past her. She wasn’t built for this. Artegal, on the other hand, was streamlined, cutting through the air like a missile. She couldn’t see over his shoulder to judge their location, but he must have covered miles in the last few minutes.

She heard a strange, distant thumping—mechanical, sinister. Helicopter. She looked around and saw it past the shadow of Artegal’s moving wing. There were several of them, coming from all directions; a couple were black, sleek and military, but a couple of others were white, with news cha

The military had kept the pictures of their earlier flight secret. This time, Kay and Artegal needed to be seen by the cameras.

When Artegal banked again, she saw that they were well over the border, just like they’d pla

She’d pla

After unlacing one hand from the rope, she found the carabiner at the front of her harness. Her heart was racing. She hoped Artegal didn’t make any sudden lurches while she was dangling like this. Don’t look down, she murmured to herself over and over. Don’t look down, don’t look down. She kept her gaze focused on the ropes and the gleaming scales of Artegal’s back.