Qualifying

"Hello, everyone, and welcome to Skalldyrfjord in northeastern Norda. I'm Sam Tinbru, and this is DNN Sport 2's coverage of qualifying for the Grand Prix of Norda from the spectacular Guttefjellet course. It's an old-style course, the first true mountain race of the year, with dragons starting down here right by the beach and climbing over three thousand feet to the summits of Guttefjellet and Boddelen before plunging back down again. And, Bob Anmo, that makes for an extreme test for any dragon."

"Hi, Sam, yes it does, very much so. It's a very simple course, in some ways, only eight rings, so it's at heart a physical challenge, but much of the difficulty here comes from weather – the wind is unpredictable, it swirls around the tight rock basin under those peaks, there can be rain, even the sun can be an headache depending on conditions."

"So which dragons should we expect to prosper here?"

"Big dragons, this has always been a circuit for big drakes. There's only really two tricky manoeuvres on the circuit, the first corner out of the stadium towards the mountain, and then cutting around the notch in the ridge at the fifth ring, that's the only place where a small dragon might gain some advantage."

"What about the fast chicane between from the seventh ring to the eighth, back into the stadium?"

"Well it's really too fast, is the thing. Riders have to be nimble swinging left around the shoulder of the mountain, but they don't do a lot of decelerating there despite the long dive from the peaks. We've even seen golds overtaking silvers through there – Olympia on Corredeira, for example, back in '51."

"You expect Lucia Aelschu to continue to dominate here, then? She's had a fine run of form lately."

"She has, and Olympia always does well here. For me the question is whether any of our other front-running golds can show up today and tomorrow. Based on what we've seen in practice, I'm not sure they can. Incandesia's still recovering from injury and Nikita Coro hasn't got zir confidence back. We're still waiting to see Lyonne Ertku live up to his promise on Phosphora. Renner put Gerry Ipemas on the podium last race for Temisia but they've seemed off this week. The Augir drakes are firmly in the midfield."

"There's not much sign of bad weather to shake things up, either. It's a beautiful summer day here, the air is a fresh twenty-one degrees centigrade, and the forecast is for it to stay clear and bright all the way through tomorrow."

As Soot plunged down from the peak under the sixth ring, Phoebe could watch his shadow race across the black rock below. The descent was almost forty-five degrees, and she held herself stretched out along his neck, ankles locked in the stirrups, hands and arms under her body, feeling blood pooling in her head. Even at this angle, Soot beat his wings steadily, forcing their pace as much as he could. They needed every last fraction of a second.

Ahead and below, the seventh ring swelled to meet them. The mountainside bulged, the rock greener and patchy with scrub lower down. Phoebe pulled her weight back a little, putting a few inches of wind between her belly and the ridge of Soot's neck. The dragon shortened his stroke, just slightly, in response.

As they crossed the seventh ring, she shifted onto her left leg, not too far, keeping it under her, and Soot leaned in, still descending, turning now as close as she dared bring him to the curve of the cliff at her back. Crownfeathers taut and fluttering, she waited for the moment.

There. Phoebe threw her weight right as hard as she dared, across Soot's back and onto the right stirrup, hanging now off his flank as he pulled hard with his right wing. Their course tightened and tightened and they went through the eighth close enough that Phoebe all but felt it tug at her hair. Applause rose from the stadium terraces as they levelled out and Phoebe steadied herself for the gentler descent towards the first ring.

Directly ahead, the first ring faced onto the open water of the fjord. Phoebe set her eyes on the horizon, positioning her body again for minimum drag on Soot's rhythm as he powered to the end of the lap. She let him go headlong, through the ring and straight out towards the water, and only once they were clear and through did she sit up and lean right for the cooldown lap.

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"One minute, fifty-three point one." Petunia said immediately. "Ninth."

"What? What'd I do wrong?" She was sure the lap had been perfect.

"You were green in all three sectors."

Green meant the best time she'd set all session. That was the best she and Soot could do, and it was only the ninth-best time. Soot was circling lazily around towards the second ring, and she let him find his own pace as the course started to rise again.

"What does a rider have to do to cope with that kind of frustration, Bob? Being at a course that truly doesn't favour their dragon?"

"Well, I don't think there's any magic trick. It's a test – for all the riders with smaller dragons, this weekend. Feran and Phoebe especially, they've had such promising seasons but this place seems to be a wall for them. You can see Phoebe's doing everything she can, Soot just doesn't have the strength for the climb."

"How much is that going to hurt Phoebe in the longer term, do you think? Her championship challenge is fading, she could be on course for a third consecutive no-points finish."

"We'll see. The next few races will tell us a lot about what Phoebe Tenryuu is made of. Feran's got two world championships to fall back on when his ego takes a knock. Phoebe's young, and extremely vulnerable, I think. The press haven't been kind to her this last month."

"Yes. Lyonne Ertku comes through to complete a lap and it's… one fifty-one four, that puts him third, that's a good showing for Lyonne."

"It is, he's starting to step up for-"

"Wait, what's happening at the ridge?"

Phoebe forced herself to keep her weight up off Soot's spine as he hauled his weary way up the mountainside on his cooldown lap. The climb followed the jagged crest of Gutefjellet's north approach, the cliffs black with shadow on one side, shimmering in the sun on the other. Past the blade-like shape of the mountain's summit, she could see the higher peaks beyond, their permanent snow-caps gleaming.

Soot raised his head before Phoebe saw the movement. She felt her dragon's whole posture change, his stroke tighter, shoulders tense. Tiny dark shapes, little more than flecks, crossed in front of the distant snowfield. Soot huffed, and then she felt him draw breath.

She reached forward to pat him, to try to calm him, but he ignored her. His cry when it came was high and piercing, ringing from the bowl of rock below. He was pulling away from the line of the course, too, away past the summit towards those distant wings, still so small that Phoebe could barely track them. She leaned back rightward, and Soot sort-of took her lead, his head still turned slightly left. His wings didn't relax at all.

The answering cry, at this distance, sounded somewhere between a hawk's call and a wolf howl. It seemed to emanate from the rock below, quiet but pressing in on all sides, haunting in its clarity. Soot pulled his stroke even tighter, beating his wings for raw ascent, well above where he needed to be for the next ring. Phoebe gritted her teeth and leaned hard forward. She had to keep him low enough to make the ring, they couldn't afford a penalty for missing it.

"Been a while since we've seen wild dragons trying to visit a race."

"It is… how many are there over there? It's hard to see from these cameras. Three? Four?"

"They're coming this way."

"Yes, it looks like they're responding to Soot's call, I wonder-"

"They're lunar, too."

"That's what I'm thinking. If Soot was race-raised and trained, he wouldn't be calling out to wild drakes like that."

As soon as they were through the third ring, Soot veered left, still pulling higher, the flank of Gutefjellet falling away below. Phoebe let him have it for a minute. It was a steep climb to the fourth ring, floating right above the mountain's peak, and there were no rules about how long it took them to get there on a cooldown lap. She couldn't remember if there were any rules about handling encounters with wild dragons.

Not that these were truly wild, Phoebe was sure now. The four night-black shapes were much closer now, cruising over the next ridge up from the race summit. Their formation wasn't as precise as when Soot had bade them farewell in February, but it was the same lopsided V with a space open for Phoebe's mount. She felt a tingle spreading across her cheeks, heat welling around her eyes.

The lead dragon bellowed, and now that they were over the same valley as Soot, the sound seemed to roll around the rock basin for a long time. Soot responded with a shorter bark, and then another high, keening cry, modulating back and forth between pitches that made Phoebe's teeth ache.

A mile or more away, she watched Soot's stablemates sinuously duck their heads, still in close synchrony. The leader started to turn away, and Phoebe let Soot wait and watch, still flapping, still climbing, still with his neck bending in that direction. The last dragon of the wing looked round as they swept through their turn, letting out a parting cry.

Soot wheeled right, back towards the mountain. Phoebe flattened herself on his shoulders, reaching as far around his neck as she could with her arms. He didn't like being hugged, but she needed to send him some sort of signal.