fly away while she was airborne.
Shed read The Battle for Black Bastion. She knew that Helgira had put out a call for assistance at some point. She would pretend to be one of the mages coming to aid her.
Her disguise in place, she approached the wyvern with extreme caution, leaped atop it, grabbed onto its skinny, scaly neck, and steeled herself to be violently tossed about.
Only to have the wyvern drool a little.
This was not a problem for which shed prepared herself. On the one hand, she was thrilled that the prince had used the heaviest spells. On the other hand, she was faced with a comatose steed when she needed a lively one that would fly fast enough to rip off all but the most meticulously adhered wigs.
Revisce.
Nothing.
Revisce forte.
More of the same.
Revisce omnino!
Still nothing. This last was supposed to be a spell that came just short of making the dead walk.
She smacked the heel of her hand against her forehead. The next second the wyvern let out a glass-shattering screech and shot up. She screamed and threw her arms around its neck.
The wyvern careened about the great hall with her hanging from its neck. She didnt know whether it had been traumatized by the princes spells or whether it was her weight that made it frantic. Either way, it was doing its best to shake her loose.
She swung one leg up its back. The wyvern flipped upside down. She yelped and lost her footing.
The wyvern, one of the most ferociously intelligent beasts, must have noticed how her legs swung out as it banked a rapid turn. It threw itself at a pillar, pulling away only at the last possible second. She had to yank her legs into her chest to avoid smashing them on the pillarand losing her grip on the wyvern.
The beast tried again. She tucked herself into a fetal position and cleared the pillar by less than an inch.
All of a sudden she remembered that she now controlled airhow could she have forgotten? Time to make this struggle a little less one-sided.
She willed a gust of headwind. The wyvern was not expecting that. With its wings spread wide, it was pushed by the current to a nearly vertical position.
She hooked her legs around its bodyfinally, a better perch. Now how to get the creature out of those doors without any reinsnot that she knew how to work a set of reins in any case.
Well, the prince kept calling her the great elemental mage of their time. She had better come up with something.
Once the wyvern had leveled, and once she was sure her seat was secure, she hit the wyvern with a hard current that forced it to bank left. Then, a three-pronged approach that more or less hurtled the beast toward the front doors of the great hall.
Her efforts were inexact. The wyvern did head in the general direction of the doors, but it broke through the large rose window above instead, exiting the great hall in a shower of splintered wood and broken glass.
A messy business, rescuing princes.
It must be the fatigue of running five miles at the end of a day during which he had eaten only a handful of biscuits since breakfast. There was no other reason for Titus not to have vanquished the wyvern after a quarter of an hour.
He ducked into an alley. This was not good. Instead of fighting the wyvern, he was running away from it. So he could catch his breath, he told himself. It could not possibly be that he was afraid. Of dying uselessly. Stupidly. Of never seeing Fairfax again.
He crept along the edge of the alley. No sounds emanated from the cowered populace, or the wyvern. He held out his hand to feel his waythe sky had become completely overcast, the night impenetrable. His fingers came into contact with another wall.
He was in a blind alley.
He barely managed to throw up a shield as a stream of fire shot toward himthe wyvern had trapped him. He swore. He had not made this kind of mistake since he was thirteen, a lifetime ago.
Aura circumvallet.
The wyvern spewed more fire, but his spell acted as a holding pen for the fire. He shot two jets of flames at the wyverns belly. Subtle magic could not duplicate the scale of elemental magic, but he was decent at it.
The wyvern flew up to avoid his fire. He ran. But the beast again blocked his way at the mouth of the alley. He shot two more streams of fire. This time the wyvern was prepared and shielded itself with the outside of its wings. Dragon fire might singe its wings, but ordinary fire lacked the power.
He dove under one wing. The wyverns spiked tail came at him. He threw himself to the ground and rolled away. Still the end spike opened a nasty gash
on his side.
He screamed in pain. And with that pain came an angry rush of energy. Flamma caerula.
A blue sizzle shot out of his wand into the wyverns belly. The beast twitched and roared. The momentum of the struggle at last shifted in Tituss favor. Several minutes later, the wyvern was carrying him toward Black Bastion, while he applied salve to his person to stop the bleeding.
He wished his injury hadnt happened. If you are cut, you bleed, Hesperia had told him long ago in her classroom. He could only hope his blood wasnt dripping out of the Citadels copy. All those mages in there, looking for the cause of Haywoods disappearancea bleeding book in their midst would not go unnoticed.