Race

"Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to what might be the most spectacular sporting venue anywhere in the world. This is the Caldera Baleara, the ruins of an ancient volcano over half a mile wide. The eruption that blew this place apart threw so much rock and dust into the atmosphere that archaeologists use it for dating ancient sites as far away as the northern coast of Anjou.

"But today we're not here for ancient history. You're watching DNN Sport 1, I'm Sam Tinbru, and this is the tenth race of the 1454 Imperial League of Dragon Racing. With me in this tiny boat in the middle of this massive volcanic crater is my long-suffering companion, Bob Anmo, and Bob, this is the beginning of a new era for the Imperial League."

"It is. The first race of the post-war era to take place outside the Empire's borders, a huge step on the road to mending the rift between Imperial and Carthagian aerosports."

"A very important step. And the organisers have put on an absolutely stunning event."

"I don't think the cameras do it justice, Sam. If you're watching at home, I urge you, next time you're planning your holidays, to think about coming here, even if it's not for next year's race. This place is… it beggars words."

"Well, hopefully not completely, we do have a race to commentate on in just about an hour or so from now, and it's shaping up to be a spectacle worthy of the setting."

"Yeah. Phoebe Tenryuu pushed Lucia Aelschu very hard last time out in Anatolia despite the course there really not favouring her dragon Soot, but they should be more even here. Lucia may have won the battle in qualifying, but it was only by a few hundredths of a second."

"Yes, Lucia's back on pole position for the first time since April and Royal Hermeia really seem to have turned a corner. There's a lot for a big dragon like Aelschu's Olympia to like here, the back half of the course is a huge sweep out around the north side of the caldera, where it's open to the sea, but the south side is twisty, in and out of some very steep cliffs."

"More Soot's sort of territory."

"It is, especially with this course's signature feature, the new record holder for the steepest dive in the Imperial League, down to the seventh ring. We haven't seen it happen yet, but they've claimed that dragons could hit ninety knots – over a hundred miles an hour – down there."

"They've said that, but I wish they hadn't. I know they do a lot of safety testing, but it really scares me through there, especially with how tight the riders will be wanting to turn round the promontory to get to the eighth afterwards. That's how dragons get wing injuries, if a rider gets too ambitious with that kind of corner."

"Well, let's hope it doesn't come to that, we're still down one rider, with Lautern's Nikita Coro out, Incandesia still recovering from her horrible ankle injury two races ago. The latest update there, by the way, is that the recovery is going well and they're expected to return at the first race after the summer break. That corner is going to be essential if Phoebe is going to take the fight to Lucia this afternoon."

"It is, Soot will be a lot more nimble through there and after that there's still another five hundred yards of twisty stuff for him to pull away before the open section where he'll be vulnerable to Olympia's speed. We should see Feran Andoal pulling some heroics there, too, as he makes his way through the field after a dodgy qualifying run."

"Yes, Feran's looked off form all weekend, but we'd expect him to pick up at least a handful of places in the race, it's not at all out of the question for him to finish in the points still."

* * *

The lights went out and Soot lunged. Up through the first ring, Olympia held the clear advantage. Phoebe breathed, focussed on matching the steady motion of her legs to her dragon's wings. Out from the stadium, the course led over parkland – no big car parks on this remote island – and Phoebe didn't try to force it, letting Olympia stretch his wings and pull away on his natural, wider line.

Off to the left, the sea glistened across the width of the caldera, haze smudging away the low line of the north island. The air was bright and salty, breezy and fractious but never so strong that it posed a problem for the dragons. Scattered white yachts gleamed at their moorings off the sandy bay by the stadium.

Through the second ring, the sculpted parkland below gave way to wilder scrub rising to the cliff and, beyond it, the third. Leaning gently left, feet secure in those wonderful new stirrups, Phoebe pulled Soot's line inside Olympia's. The bigger dragon needed a much wider entry to the third ring than Soot, and bringing him across their path, left to right, sapped Lucia's lead.

They crossed the caldera's rim with Olympia a length off Soot's nose, but half that length was out to the side. Phoebe allowed herself a toothy grin, air plucking at her lips, and shifted her shoulders and weight a little further forward. Soot stretched his next stroke, dropping sharply and cruising into the ring much closer to Olympia's tail.

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Black rock, shimmering in places with wind-borne moisture, rose to their right, close enough to be blurred with speed. A hundred and eighty yards away, the fourth ring hung by the crease where the cliff swung out leftward again. It didn't make the tightest turn ever, but it was still tricky for the bigger dragons.

Phoebe steadied herself, holding Soot from throwing himself at Olympia in flat flight. There was a better opportunity coming up.

"You can see Phoebe's waiting for the dive, she could have had Soot right up under Olympia's wings if she'd wanted."

"Sensible stuff from the youngster, that. No need to risk their safety with a drawn-out fight when she can focus on setting up for the big move."

"Yes, it's almost inevitable that she'll pass Lucia there, the question is whether she can consolidate that lead enough to stay ahead for the rest of the lap."

"I fancy her chances, look at how keen Soot is up there through the fifth, and he doesn't look like he's struggling the way he did in Anatolia."

"That was smooth, it's a delight to watch him when he and Phoebe are in sync like this. Behind them it looks like everyone's away safely, look at the gap that's already opening up between Phoebe and Arden in third, though!"

As the seventh ring approached, Phoebe felt her skin fizzing inside her race suit. She waited for the perfect moment, all but ignoring the shining golden shape of Olympia flapping in the air in front of her. Soot's stroke rose and fell through her legs, but her core felt perfectly settled over his spine.

Olympia passed the seventh, dipped his left wing almost vertical, Lucia slamming herself to his left, and then both wings folded and they dropped. As soon as they were clear, Phoebe did the same, throwing her body out wide to haul Soot's course over, then back in and up astride as the dive took them.

She stretched out, pressing herself flat along his neck, her crownfeathers matching the curve of his wings, warding off the sharpest edge of the now-much-faster air on her cheeks. Beyond the eighth ring were five hundred yards of sea over which you could make your turn toward the ninth, but the ninth was in the other direction, tight behind the high rock stab of the headland they were now plummeting past. The tighter you turned at the bottom, the better.

Ahead, Olympia's wings opened cautiously, half-way and flat, and he cruised out and still down through the eighth, carrying so much speed he probably couldn't safely beat his wings for a moment. Blood howling a crescendo, Phoebe hauled backwards, spreading her crownfeathers like a miniature parachute that felt like it was going to pull her head clean off.

Soot responded, wings snapping wide, rakishly angled, so that he was beginning to corkscrew in the air even as they speared through the ring. Phoebe stood in the stirrups, weird combinations of drag and momentum and gravity balancing so that she was almost straight-backed, almost floating, the top of her head pointing at a spot half-way up the knife-edge of the headland as Soot raised his wings for his next true stroke-

She didn't quite lock her right knee in time, and as Soot's body rose, dragging that rock-steady stirrup with it, the whole force of his uplift went past her, and her left was weightless and his spine struck her leg and her whole body upended and her vision went grey and speckly and then black.

"Phoebe's fallen! Phoebe's- oh, that's not good, she went right round her right ankle, it must have caught in her stirrup, oh this is terrible, she's flopping about badly in the fall, too."

"That kind of spin will black a rider out for a few seconds, featherfall should catch her-"

"Yes, you can already see it, by reflex it's sort of like the quills on a shuttlecock, it naturally drags the body upright, it looks like Phoebe's already stirring."

"Wait, Soot's going back for her, that's not, he should be trained- he shouldn't get any closer to that cliff, Tokugawa's Teeth, there's no-one to call him back!"

The whining in Phoebe's ears and eyes subsided, the day suddenly very bright and cold as she surfaced into the downy, buoyant feeling of featherfalling. For a moment she wondered what the name of this beach was, there weren't any cliffs this high near where the family usually vacationed, and her father would be furious to see her freejumping like this.

Shadow fell across her and her brain caught up. The race. Soot. She looked up to see him, wings half-furled, diving towards her. No! She was already drifting closer to the rocks, if he came after her-

Frantically, she waved at him, glaring up into the sun, flagging him back out towards the sea, praying that the gestures wouldn't push her any closer to the cliff. That was the real danger here, she had to keep them both off it.

Soot pulled slowly out of his dive, leaned away to a much gentler spiral, and Phoebe heard him let out a high, keening cry. She couldn't see the nearest part of the cliff, her back was to it and she couldn't turn her head because that was where all the drag was coming from that let her fall safely. Carefully, she widened her crownfeathers, bending her neck forward and finding it horribly stiff.

"Okay, it looks like she's got it under control, thank the Eternal Emperor for that. I was properly frightened for a second, there."

"Yeah, that was a scary one. I've been saying all weekend that dive is trouble, and here it's proved on the first lap of the race."

"There's the safety launch coming into shot now, looks like Phoebe won't have to be in the water for long."

"Good, she'd be in more danger there than in featherfall, the cliffs go right down to the water, and let me tell you, you wouldn't want a wave throwing you against them."

"Yes indeed. Looks like all the other dragons got through safely, Lucia's got a pretty decent lead and Phoebe's fall puts Arden Markwe into second, Royal Hermeia are really reaping the benefits of that. What do you think went wrong for Phoebe, Bob?"

"Difficult to say, looked like she just missed her stance slightly, in a high-force corner it only takes a small mistake to send you flying like that."

"Inexperience, then?"

"Aye, or just bad luck. She'll be in trouble over Soot's behaviour, though."

"Following her down?"

"Yeah, I'll be surprised if there's not a penalty over that at the next race. Dragons aren't supposed to do that."

"Yes, the rules require competing dragons to be trained to get clear of the site of any rider fall and return as quickly as possible to their stables. An unridden dragon is a risk to everyone – other competitors as well as the crowds. It looks like Soot's starting to fly back in the direction of the stables now, but you can tell he's still watching Phoebe's fall."

"Funny, that, I haven't seen a dragon lapse in that way in a long time."

"Well, the rumour's long been that Phoebe tamed Soot from wild last winter. Could be a sign that the training was a bit rushed relative to race-bred dragons?"

"Could be, could be."