her size and not even fully out of the water, its head alone half the size of her, but little rivaled the jaw strength of a titan, even one as young as her. She clamped down and shook her head, tearing lumps of flesh from the creature’s face, her neck spines raised, tail whipping with fury.
With a shriek, the creature broke free, head thrashing in the air. Leyra fell back, wings flapping to right herself, narrowly avoiding the creature as it writhed in agony, showering them in black blood and muddy water.
An ear-wrenching scream sounded from behind, the second creature no doubt seeing its chance to strike. In an instant, Leyra was at Tauran’s side, pulling him upright with her front teeth closed around the fabric of his jacket.
Tauran gasped in pain, his left leg buckling under him when he tried to stand, and he fell against Leyra’s shoulder, his grip on her cramped as he pulled himself up and over her back. Before he was even fully on, she ran, racing along the torn-up pathway to drier land ahead. Arrow was suddenly right above, diving with claws outstretched. Tauran didn’t look back, but he heard the creature’s shriek when Arrow’s claws met their mark.
“Kalai!” Tauran cried, voice raw and grating in his throat. He twisted on Leyra’s back, trying to catch a glimpse of them. The sky was an endless pale gray. Tauran’s stomach twisted. They had to be okay. They had to.
“Up here!” Kalai’s voice from Tauran’s left made him flinch back around. Arrow soared alongside them, his formerly pristine white scales splattered with grayish-green mud.
“Are you hurt?” Tauran shouted.
“We’re fine! Keep going. There’s land up ahead!” Kalai waved them forward.
Tauran looked at Leyra’s body moving under him, his grip tight on the spines at the base of her neck. The rest of his body was stretched out along her back, between her wings. She held them raised, pressed along his sides as if to keep him in place as she ran, faster than a horse, too fast for the creatures to keep up. The sound of her feet against dry ground instead of soggy soil couldn’t have been sweeter.
She didn’t slow until she was panting from exertion and was forced to stop. Little nervous coos left her between deep drags of breath and Tauran stroked her neck with gentle hands, trying to calm her despite his own racing heart.
“You’re okay, girl. It’s all right now,” Tauran murmured, hands searching her neck and throat for injuries, but she’d been lucky. Lucky and strong. The blood on her face wasn’t her own. She looked warily at the pools behind them, letting Tauran inspect a small scrape on the tip of her nose. Slowly, he sat up, wincing as he dragged his legs awkwardly in front of her wings.
The sound of wings heralded Arrow’s arrival. Tauran’s attention turned to Kalai. He sat astride Arrow, face and chest splattered with mud like his dragon. “Is she hurt?” Kalai asked.
“I don’t think so.” Tauran’s voice was hoarse from shouting and he cleared his throat.
Kalai unclipped the harness and leg straps and slid off Arrow’s back, giving the swiftwing a brief hug before turning to Tauran.
“I fucking hate the Terror Marshes,” Tauran said, gingerly sliding off Leyra’s back when she kneeled.
It was a drop of only a few feet, but the impact still sent a searing pang of agony up Tauran’s leg all the way to his spine, and he collapsed, his fall stopped only by Kalai’s frantic grip on his elbow.
“You’re hurt!” Kalai gasped, pulling Tauran against his chest.
Tauran gasped, waiting for the stars in front of his eyes to fade. A cold sweat sprung up on his brow. “It’s… it’s not so bad, I just…” He swallowed.
“Of course it’s bad, you can’t stand!”
“Just give me a damn moment!” Tauran’s voice was sharp and Kalai quieted. The silence stretched on as Tauran clung to him, pathetically, arms shaking. He sighed and dropped his head against Kalai’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I snapped, I’m sorry.”
Kalai hushed him softly, his gentle hand at the back of Tauran’s neck calming some of Tauran’s cramped shivers. “You’re in pain. What happened?”
“My leg got trapped when my horse went down.” Slowly, Tauran straightened. His right leg ached from holding all his weight. Carefully, he put his left foot down, a sharp insistent pain crawling its way up the limb, clawing at the bone and turning his joints to jelly. “Fuck.”