hovered in a tight formation, but now two prongs, like those of a pincer, thrust forward from the dark reptilian mass, companies of wyverns advancing to enclose the rebels in the middle.
The air displaced by their wings made the carpet beneath her bobble, like a raft on a sea growing choppier by the minute. The heat of their breath, even from a distance, prickled against her skin. And though she could not smell them through the mask she wore at the rebels’ advice, her nostrils felt as if they burned with the stink of sulfur.
Mohandas Kashkari, Titus and Iolanthe’s classmate from Eton College, came to a stop next to them. “We need to get into formation.”
Belatedly, Iolanthe noticed that the rebels had maneuvered into groups of three.
“Two on offense, one on defense—that’s me,” Kashkari explained hurriedly as he helped Titus and Iolanthe onto individual carpets. “The carpets I’m giving you have been subordinated to mine—I’ll steer for the group. Make sure to keep me in sight.”
The carpets had been formed into an L shape, with a bottom ledge for standing on, a long vertical side for holding the rider upright, and the upper end rolled down to make a comfortable yet solid hand rest at waist height.
“Better fight standing up,” said Kashkari.
Iolanthe kissed Titus on his cheek just before Kashkari set their carpets to the correct distance apart.
“May the might of the Angels propel you to unimaginable heights,” said her beloved.
It was an old benediction, from a time when the powers of elemental mages decided the fate of realms. She sucked in a breath. The battle was fought around her; did its outcome also hinge on her?
“May Fortune shield you against all enemies,” she replied, her voice trembling a little. “You too, Kashkari.”
“May Fortune shield us all.” Kashkari’s answer was grim but firm. “And don’t lose sight of me.”
Her carpet leaped to the left. Her fingers dug into the hand rest—she hadn’t expected the motion. Now she understood Kashkari’s repeated instructions: she needed to keep him in view so that some part of her consciousness would attend to his subtle shifts of weight and prepare her for any abrupt changes in direction or velocity.
“Does the base have any strategy for dealing with a siege?” Titus asked Kashkari, his voice raised above the general din, as squads of rebels zigzagged about them, calling out to one another in a variety of languages.
“No,” Kashkari answered, maneuvering them toward the center of the crowd. “Our strategy, in case of discovery, has always been to evacuate personnel and equipment as swiftly as possible—not to stay and fight.”
But with the bell jar dome in place, that preferred option was gone. They all must stay and fight.
“Are you all right?” Titus asked her. “Sleepy?”
Less than three days ago, they had come to in the middle of the Sahara, knowing nothing of how they’d arrived there, knowing only that they must not fall into the grasp of Atlantis. But no sooner had they started their escape when they found out that Iolanthe had been penned in by a blood circle tailored specifically for her. Even with Titus weakening the power of the blood circle and the help of both a triple dose of panacea and a time-freeze spell, it almost killed Iolanthe to cross the blood circle. The panacea had since kept her under near-constant sedation, to preserve her life.
“I’m awake.”
She had seldom been more awake, her nerves vibrating.
The rebels zoomed by, crisscrossing her vision. Beyond them, the wyverns, spread like a fisherman’s net. And beyond them . . .
With all the chaos, she hadn’t noticed that though a large number of wyvern riders had entered the bell jar dome, even more remained outside.
The arrival of allies was the surest way of breaking a siege—and she and Titus did have friends nearby: forces from the Domain were in the Sahara, alerted to the prince’s presence by a war phoenix he’d deployed two nights ago. But could they breach this defense?
“Is anyone working on the translocators?” she asked, her chest tight.
Translocators provided instantaneous transport to distant destinations. The rebel base had two, but neither was functioning.
“Yes,” answered Kashkari.
He did not sound entirely confident. Not to mention, they didn’t know whether the rebels’ translocators had suffered a simple breakdown or whether they had been compromised by Atlantis. Once a translocator had been compromised, there was no telling where a mage would end up.
Her uncertainty must have shown in her face. “Don’t worry,” said Kashkari. “We will protect you.”