"Fly faster!" I shouted. "Fly!" We sped up, and I didn't even have to kick Carnda's side—she recognized the urgency in my voice and raced ahead. Thord caught up. I looked back, taking a moment between wingbeats to focus on Zarek. He was laughing hard enough to hold his stomach. It was all a feint.
"False warning," I said, so we slowed. "He was just toying with us. He either can't reach us with his magic or he doesn't fear us."
"Let us hope it's the first one. I'd hate to think he had no reason to fear us. Sometimes self-confidence is a weakness, but other times it's because they know they will win."
We passed over the Black Islands where the giants had first appeared on Drachia. Wooden huts had been built across it, and I wondered if the giants were making homes there, then realized the huts were too small. There were mortals out in front of the buildings, tending their own fires that roasted what I assumed to be venison and auroch. So the mortals had not been penned up or eaten. The giants had built huts for them and brought them food. They were safe. My own kind were safe.
And it crossed my mind that if I were just to let the giants defeat the dragons, every single mortal would no longer be a slave.
"I wonder if I'm on the wrong side," I said.
"What do you mean?" Thord asked.
I told him what I was thinking. He shook his head. "No. You are on the side of right. Though the giants are taking the land by force and releasing the slaves, you know that the dragons are cultured and can be reasoned with. Judging by the fires, which are made to anger the dragons, and to give them more pain, the giants are not kind at heart. Not in the slightest. And you have a loyalty to the dragons, because of Brax and his family. You have chosen the right path. The harder path."
"You sound like Maestru Alesius," I said.
"I'll take that as a compliment. But it is truth. We are on the right side." He sounded confident. "Now, we have to figure out our destination."
We were now out over the ocean. The land was far enough away that the smoke behind us looked like a long bank of fog.
"So where is this island on which you first found the giants?" he asked. "If I were to guess, that would be the best place to start."
"Yes, and, again, there may be some flag or… or sign that points toward the direction the giants travelled."
It took a bit of thinking and calculating between us to figure out where the island was. I'd ridden there on Brax, who was basically a living compass. He had a natural way of remembering locations without using fancy math. Thankfully, our assassin map-reading courses and mathematics were helpful.
"I'm glad you paid attention in cartography," Thord said.
"When you only have one eye, you have to get the best marks."
"It takes brains, too," he said. "Of which you have plenty."
Another compliment? Why did every compliment just make me feel wary? It was either my training or my personality. "Well, we had better use our brains to get to this island."
"I'll do the breathing spell," he said. And, after speaking several old tongue words, a bubble appeared around both his head and his swan's. "Now your turn," he shouted, his words garbled by the bubble.
I summoned our own breathing bubbles and the moment they appeared, we aimed Carnda and Gorgon for the airstreams in the heights.
4
The Odd Odds
We had been lucky enough to find an airstream that took us in the right direction. Travelling in the higher skies was like flying through a dream at such a great speed that it felt unnatural and beautiful. The water below us blurred by, and occasionally we saw an island that looked like it was sailing ahead, even though we were the ones who were moving.
We did not yet fully understand why these powerful airstreams existed, or even where they all were, but their presence had changed how I viewed all the different lands of the world below us. We were closer than I imagined to every continent, which meant that we could share resources, knowledge, secrets, even goods back and forth once the rest of the lands understood this method of travelling. But that meant war could also be easily exported from one land to another; within a few hours a battalion of dragons or a small army of glider warriors could land on an enemy shore and begin creating havoc.
I pushed those thoughts out of my head and concentrated on enjoying the feeling of the four of us alone in the air.
Then I made the signal that it was time to leave this current and we dove out, finding the air suddenly more rugged and shaking as we slowed down and circled lower and lower. I spoke the words that popped the air bubbles, and Carnda made a noise that sounded grateful. Maybe she didn't like the constriction, but I had grown used to it. Plus, I really preferred to breathe. And perhaps her flight to the palace of Dreki had been her first time in those currents, with an air bubble summoned by Maestru Beatrix. That was how intelligent this bird was. She could follow directions that involved her flying to the land of dragons and finding me.
"Where is it?" Thord asked. He'd left his air bubble on and I couldn't help but laugh. "Oh," he said and snapped his fingers, and it vanished. "I don't see your island."
"It wasn't that big," I replied. But I wondered as we circled lower and lower from this great height if we had calculated incorrectly.
"One missed number and we could be off by many leagues," Thord said. "Maybe you didn't deserve top marks in cartography class."
"My math is never wrong!" I answered. "Unless I miscalculate. Ha!" That last part wasn't a laugh, but a declaration of joy. A familiar triangle-shaped island had appeared in the distance. "There! See! Have more faith!"
We shot forward until the island became larger. There was no sign of the dead dragon, and the tides had washed away the marks in the sandy shore that showed our first battle with a giant. The only things that remained were the goats we'd seen earlier. We landed next to the cave hill.
"So this is it," he said. "I'm sure those goats are happier now."
"Why?" I asked.
"Well, I can't imagine anything more nervous than livestock on a small island with a dragon."
"He was raising them," I said. "So they must have learned to accept hay from his talons."
"Wow! A dragon who is a goatherd. Now I've heard of everything. Maybe I could have shared goat birthing advice with him." He sniffed in a rather deep sniff that for some reason reminded me of Brax. It was as if he were trying to get a scent. "I wonder how his goats taste."
Thord was licking his lips, and the look on his face was disconcerting. It appeared he might want to tear into one of the animals right at this very moment.
"Let's just leave them for now," I said. "And keep an ear and eye out, in case there are more giants." Though looking at the leagues of empty ocean, I guessed that was unlikely. The place seemed peaceful and was rather picturesque, if one liked lonely islands with a hill, a cave and a few trees. It didn't take us long to walk around the entire island, discovering a few more goats, but nothing else of interest.
"I doubt the giants left a journal with a map to their homeland," I said aloud as we explored the cave. It smelled as bad as it had earlier.