Since the massive dragon Patriarch had been unleashed on the streets below, Valen had hoped they might be able to get away safely with their most dangerous foe distracted. Though the thought of what that ‘distraction’ was doing to the people who had risked so much to help him and sister was sickening, he could not afford to think right now.

Not yet.

His hopes for a free escape were dashed, however, by the sound of roars coming from multiple directions. He looked around and immediately saw where they came from. Four of the Blackscale Knights serving directly under High Lord Velitarii were hot in pursuit. Apparently, instead of following their master down into the battle below, they had been sent to their dragons so they could take to the sky. Whether that was so they could get a better assessment of the conflict below before they came down to join the fight, or so they could watch and wait for Raenelir, it did not matter now.

What mattered was that they were coming straight for them, and whatever hope Valen might have had for a speed or maneuverability advantage was dashed by the fact that Raen now carried four people instead of two, Samuel and Simon still gripped tight in his clawed feet. Luckily, the dragons all wore armor, which meant they would not be faster than the Highborn. But they would certainly be able to keep pace, which did not bode well for their chances.

“Hera, hold on tight!” he managed to shout, trying to speak loud enough for his sister to hear. Luckily, it seemed as though she could, because she hunched down lower on Raenelir’s back, pulling Aevra down to hide under her form as she tried to squeeze herself tighter against the wyvern.

There was a blast of heat, and a stream of flames suddenly ripped through the air no more than a foot or so above Valen’s head. He could feel the heat despite the cool of the sky as they ascended further and the whipping of the wind that blasted against him. If that had been much lower, it would have roasted his head.

Raenelir twisted and spun out of the way of an attack from one of the dragons, the one that had tried to burn them alive flying by overhead and lashing at them with one of its clawed feet. They managed to avoid the hit, but Valen could already tell that the weight of four people was slowing the wyvern down even more than he had thought. He could still react relatively quickly, but his movements were sluggish compared to normal. He was not strong enough to keep this up for very long.

Valen could feel the Highborn’s pulse begin to rise, his own following suit. Something would have to happen to change things, and soon, or they would not even make it past the edge of the city.

“Raen, go low!” he shouted, trying to keep the command simple and hoping the wyvern would understand. Raenelir spared a quick glance towards Valen, and he took the chance to point downwards, towards the buildings whizzing by beneath them. The wyvern seemed to understand him yet again because he began to dive, rocketing down toward the rooftops now a good distance beneath them.

This seemed to take the dragon riders by surprise. It took them a couple of moments to recover and turn their own drakes around to give chase. They dove, the wind ripping at Valen faster than anything he had ever felt. His eyes began to water, but he kept them open. He could not just shut his eyes and look away forever.

They were approaching the rooftops too quickly to stop, and for a moment a shock of panic hit him at the thought of escaping death at the hands of the Empire, only to meet it by crashing at high speeds into the buildings below.

Thankfully, Raenelir suddenly spread his wings back out, catching the wind and wrenching his momentum to almost a halt before he brought them back down and then up and then down again, managing to start moving forward along the tops of the buildings. The rooftops were still uncomfortably close to the wyvern’s feet however and, as a result, also the screaming forms of Samuel and Simon.

It seemed that the twins had finally lost their cool.

For a moment, Valen hoped that might have been enough to lose their pursuers, but the roars of the dragons quickly reached him again and he glanced back to see that the riders had done the same as them, unfurling their wings at the last moment to halt their momentum and then taking off in pursuit.

Only one of the dragons botched it, legs catching the top of one of the few stone buildings in this part of the city and sending it and its rider rolling off to crash into the street below. Valen found himself very grateful that Raenelir was such a skilled flier, because otherwise they very likely would have met a similar fate.

He could not allow himself much time to think about that, though, because the other three riders were still after them and they seemed to be closing the distance. Raen was breathing more and more heavily. Valen knew the Highborn, while strong, could not handle strain like this for too long, especially when they still had to make it out of the city and across Westlake to where their supplies were waiting.

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Valen caught a glimpse of a series of taller buildings that seemed to tower over the rest. Deciding they were their only glimmer of hope, he shouted loud enough for Raenelir to hear him again.

“Raen! Go!” he cried, and this time when the wyvern looked at him he pointed in the direction of the series of towers. It was not long before they had almost reached them that Valen realized they were entering the military district. The towers were scattered across a large section of Lakevale filled with the barracks that housed all of the city's guards. Imperials took notice of their passing, but with the chaos erupting at the center of the city many of the soldiers that would have normally been there were gone, likely sweeping the streets for more signs of rebellion.

Some that remained carried bows, but none could have even begun to try to nock and draw in time to fire at the wyvern and his passengers.

Once they reached the tallest of the towers, Raenelir began to tilt and wheel about, going through a complicated series of maneuvers around the structure as the dragons and their riders tried to follow suit. The sheer athleticism of the Highborn wyvern could not be matched by them, however, even if they were able to keep the same speed thanks to the extra passengers that Raen was carrying.

Still, the wyvern would not be able to keep up such a highly athletic series of movements for too long with the added weight. He was not large enough yet, and likely would not be for several years more at the least. Not to mention that they still had to try and make it across Westlake to the supplies that awaited them and then try to find a place to hide long enough to recover without any dragon riders finding them.

It was a lot. Maybe too much, with how heavily Raenelir was already breathing and the way his movements grew more and more sluggish as the seconds ticked by.

Luckily, it seemed that the tower served the purpose he had been hoping it would. One of the riders grew frustrated with being unable to follow their quarry's movements and tried to follow directly instead of simply circling around for the off chance they would get a shot at them. The rider brought her black-scaled dragon around in a tight arc and then dove after them, trying to emulate the complicated maneuvers they were going through, and managing to keep up for a short period of time before the bulkier, less lithe drake clipped the stone tower with a wing painfully enough to pop the entire limb out of place and send both dragon and rider careening to the streets below with a roar and a scream.

He could not be complacent with that, however, not now. There were still two more riders after all, and they seemed to have realized that instead of flying in after them they could just land nearby to wait out their prey. After all, eventually Raenelir was going to simply be too tired to continue what he was doing. That moment was already rapidly approaching.

Mind racing, Valen tried to think of something more they could do. He might have been willing to risk clashing with the two remaining dragons directly if Raenelir was not so exhausted and if he was not currently carrying four people and a much younger wyvern. Yet it was what it was, and that left them with no options that he could think of right now.

That is, until he saw the thick cloud of smoke that had risen from the center of the city, drifting across the sky in the direction of Westlake. Immediately he knew that their only chance to make it out of Lakevale alive would rely on whether they could make it to that cloud of smoke before the dragon riders were able to catch them. Gritting his teeth, he rested a hand on Raenelir’s side, bending forward as much as he could without hurting Hera and shouting one last time.

“Raen!” he cried, and the wyvern looked back, the exhaustion in his eyes intermingling with a fierce determination that Valen could almost sense radiating from the wyvern. Valen pointed towards the smokescreen, the wyvern following his direction until he saw what it was he was pointing at. Immediately the Highborn spun out from amongst the tower and shot faster than any arrow or bolt through the smoke.

The dragon riders, realizing what it was that Valen and Raenelir were trying to do once they saw the cloud from the fire started by their leader's giant dragon, leapt from where they had been waiting, their dragons carrying them as quickly as they could manage.

It felt like the next minute or so lasted forever, their pursuers slowly catching up as the Highborn's stamina began to lose out. Inch by inch they gained on them through the sky, but the cover of the smoke loomed closer as well. It became a race whose winner would be determined by whether Raenelir could make it to the smoke cloud before the dragons could completely close the distance.

Valen’s heart thudded in his chest with the rush of mortal danger, the wind ripping at him, yet in that moment where their lives hung in the balance and all he could trust in was the wyvern and the wind that pulled at them, he felt a sudden peace come over him. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced, save for maybe the first time that he flew upon Raenelir’s back on the night they left their home behind. Somehow, someway, as they reached the cloud of smoke and crossed into it and he reached up to cover his face, he realized that his fear had fallen away and that he knew they were going to make it.

Into the smoke they went, following it back towards it source. Valen waited long enough to make sure the riders had followed them in before he pulled on Raenelir’s neck, squinting through his stinging, teary eyes as he directed the wyvern up, out of the smoke and higher into the sky. Once they had ascended from the smoke they broke off their flight and hovered there for a moment, watching, waiting for the second when…

One of the riders emerged from the top of the smoke cloud and Raenelir roared a challenge, diving as if to meet them. The dragon rider panicked, thinking they were about to crash into each other at full speed.

Then at the last second lightning suddenly cracked through the sky, blinding everyone, it seemed, except for Raenelir as they peeled off to the side. They passed within inches of the dragon’s reach and then back into the smoke, this time heading away from the city center, toward the walls of Lakevale and beyond, even as the clouds that seemed as though they had appeared out of thin air opened up, drenching the city below them in rain.