Total pages in book: 295
Estimated words: 282090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1410(@200wpm)___ 1128(@250wpm)___ 940(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 282090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1410(@200wpm)___ 1128(@250wpm)___ 940(@300wpm)
I pivot as much as the saddle will let me at the crunching sound of bone shattering. A wyvern falls from the fight, half its head bashed in. One down. Three to go.
Tairn pulls the steepest turn I’ve ever experienced on his back, and my vision dims at the edge as he brings us nearly vertical before tipping his wing left and falling into a dive. I blink furiously into the wind and rain as we fly to Aotrom and Ridoc’s aid.
Ridoc’s doing all he can from Aotrom’s back to dislodge the wyvern, stabbing his sword into its snout, but the dammed thing won’t let go.
Sliseag gets there first, slashing out at the wyvern with his swordtail and cutting into a foreleg. When it doesn’t let go, he pivots to close his jaw over its neck, but unlike Tairn, he isn’t strong enough to snap a neck with a bite and loses precious seconds, leaving himself exposed to the remaining pair of wyvern.
We’re not going to make it in time.
The pair changes course, veering from Aotrom at the last second and aiming for Sliseag.
We’re almost there, but everything happens so fucking fast that it’s as if the rest of the world slows down.
In one heartbeat, the closest wyvern opens its jaws.
In the second, it blasts green fire across Sliseag and Sawyer dives backward out of the seat, narrowly avoiding being burned to death and rolling down Sliseag’s spine with a smoking boot.
In the third, it completes its assault, snapping at Sliseag’s exposed side. Sawyer kicks at the gaping jaws to save his dragon from the bite, but in the next, he takes it himself, his leg disappearing between the wyvern’s massive teeth.
“Sawyer!” Ridoc yells.
Sawyer’s scream rips into my soul, and I nearly echo it when the wyvern’s jaw locks with an audible click as Tairn slows his descent directly overhead, only a dozen feet above Aotrom as the remaining wyvern ducks under the fight.
Tairn’s weight shifts, and I know he’s chosen an angle of attack and is about to dive, but in this position, there’s only time to save Sawyer or Sliseag, not both. Sawyer bellows in pain as the wyvern half drags him off Sliseag, wrenching away its ugly gray head before snapping again.
My stomach twists and my breath threatens to seize.
Fuck, there’s nothing left below Sawyer’s knee.
He’s losing blood and his grip.
No. I’m not going to stand by and watch another one of my friends die. I refuse.
Grasping the dagger in my left hand and the crossbow in my right, I slice through the leather strap of my belt as Tairn dips his right wing, giving me the perfect angle for one. Single. Second. “Forgive me.”
“Don’t you dare—”
“Kill the other one quickly for both our sakes!” I’m already moving, sheathing my dagger and lunging from the saddle, gaining one, two, three running steps before I leap.
Andarna. Xaden. My sister. Brennan. They all flash through my mind as my arms swing through the fall, finding only air, but it’s my mother’s face I see in my mind when I land on Aotrom’s back, the soles of my boots finding purchase at the edge of one of his spine scales.
“Silver One!”
“How’s that for a running landing?” Holy shit, I made it.
Ridoc must think the same, because he stares at me in pure shock for a good second before he yanks his sword free of the wyvern’s nose, then moves to plunge it again as I start running toward him. “I can’t get the fucking thing off him!”
My heart pounds as hard as my feet as Tairn completes the dive to my right, a patch of black filling my peripheral vision. Ignoring the self-preservation instinct that tells me this is a bad idea, I race to Ridoc and shove the crossbow into his hands. “Fire it once I’m on Sliseag and get back in your seat!”
“Once you’re what?”
I don’t pause to answer the question, too busy running onto the nose of the godsdamned wyvern that’s currently having part of its throat ripped out by Sliseag.
I run up the slope between the shrieking wyvern’s eyes as it sinks its teeth deeper into Aotrom, then onto the flat of its head between its horns as Sliseag tears his jaw away.
“I’m going to throttle you myself once”—Tairn growls, and I hear the distinct sound of bone crunching in the distance—“I get you on the ground!”
I nearly roll my ankle on a spike halfway down the wyvern’s gyrating neck and catch myself as Sliseag swings his head back to the wyvern attacking his rider, but Sawyer’s grip along his spine scales is too tenuous for Sliseag to maneuver quickly. The dragon can’t defend his rider without losing him.
He lets loose a skull-shaking roar as the wyvern takes another snap at Sawyer, swinging his tail with no effect.