Her hearts pounded.
Father always said this was the worst moment. The moment before action was inevitable, that there would be no further delay, and from the next beat of your wings you were committed. The moment of choice.
She stood frozen. So big. It will be fast if it can run.
If she could commit herself with words first, maybe the rest would come easier: “It’s time, Avalanche.”
There. I’ve said it.
“Now for battle?” His tail flicked up, a white battle banner.
“Now for battle. All you have to do is run from the troll.”
“Brave Master Eyen rode battle. Troll came. Brave Master Eyen fell. I ran then.” His ears drooped a little, but maybe it was because of the wet.
“This time I want you to run,” she said, jumping as lightly as she could onto Avalanche’s broad back. Even with her scales, she couldn’t weigh as much as a young elf warrior arrayed for battle. “The best thing you can do is run. Faster you’re out of its sight, the better. Now walk on.”
Avalanche walked, but she could feel him holding himself back at every step. According to Rainfall, the stallion had spent his colt-hood and youth in training, learning to run at other horses and enemies, and the old instincts were coming back with action in the air, though there were wiry gray hairs mixed in with his softer ones on his mane and tail these days.
Wistala was grateful to ride Avalanche. She wasn’t certain her feet would be as sure as the stallion’s, walking along a bridge toward the spot—just across from the repaired timbers—where she knew the troll lurked.
But she was committed. Avalanche would walk her into peril whether her feet were willing to go or not. She felt her griff extending and contracting nervously, she tried to hold them tight against her neck hearts to stop the rattle.
They clomped across the wooden timbers, a dragon-length expanse covering the fallen arch. She felt certain her hearts were on the verge of quitting.
The snake-head orb at the end of its tendril lay on the side of the bridge, motionless, looking like a forgotten drinking gourd left by some traveler. Though she could smell the troll now, as could Avalanche. But he moved on, stepping faster if at all, with sure-footed courage.
Wistala’s claws set themselves into the leather quilting.
She heard the troll shift weight.
“Now, Avalanche!” she squeaked, in Drakine, but she slapped his muscular rump with her tail.
Avalanche let out a cry and leaped forward onto the stonework, hooves slipping just a little in the wet. Wistala hung on for all she was worth, but far better than the excitement of the run was the absence of fear.
The troll’s dreadfully huge three-digit hand just brushed Avalanche’s tail as it came down, and she felt no fear. The body, all gaping mouth and terrible stench, heaved itself onto the bridge behind them, and she only looked with amazement at the length of its forelimbs illustrated against the familiar width of the bridge.
She urged Avalanche on with another tail-slap.
The troll began to run after them. It used its long front legs and short back limbs in pairs long-then-short, long-then-short, in a strange unbalanced sort of run that made her think of a goose taking flight across a still lake, with wings beating strong and feet frantically working.
Avalanche was almost at the far end of the bridge when Wistala jumped off, giving him a last flick of her tail. She skidded to a stop on the wet bridge stones.
The troll came, Wistala thought its gait ungainly compared with that of a horse—even a dragon-dash was a thing of beauty compared with the troll’s careen.
She jumped to the east rail of the bridge, where her rope was tied. This wasn’t part of her original plan, but an addition of Rainfall’s, who didn’t like the idea of her belly-flopping into the river, even with the banks in spring flood.
Now to attract a troll!
She stood on her hind legs and extended her neck as far as she could. Her griff bristled, and she rattled them against her scales for all they were worth.
Tchk-tchk-tchk-tchk-tchk-tchk-TCHK!
Her ears rang with the sound. The troll pulled up, confused by the sound, its waving orb-topped tentacle turning her way, backside expanding and contracting as it breathed.
Avalanche disappeared into the distant rain.
The troll set its arms and legs, ready for anything, battle or flight.