Creation Mage 6 by Dante King (red scrolls of magic .TXT) 📗

“One of them kicked the door to make a point?” I asked.

“No, Thunder was a bit crosser than that,” Leah said. “She booted that foolish Mr. Fotheringay right through the door.”

Thunder snorted. It did not sound like an apologetic or remorseful snort.

I looked up at Lightning. The pegasus was still peering at me with a vaguely distrustful eye, although she was allowing me to continue to stroke her flanks.

“I promise, I’m all yours,” I said. “I won't try anything flashy. If you’re willing to carry me, then I’ll put my faith in you. How about it?”

The pegasus looked at me with a slightly dubious eye, as though she had scant regard for my potential flying skills. I pointed this out to Leah, who laughed.

“You forget,” she said, “Thunder and Lightning are not your average horses. These fine fillies are possessed of rare intelligence. I’ve met plenty of humanoids who, if brains were dynamite, would not have enough to blow their hats off. These girls though, they’ll take us exactly where we need to go. And take us fast too. They have carted more than a couple of Chaosbanes into Manafell for one reason or another. I imagine you are a good flyer, despite the fact that you have not flown a pegasus before. You strike me as a man who can turn his hand to most things, but in this case, you can just sit back and enjoy the ride.”

I liked the sound of that. I enjoyed the thrill of riding on a broomstick, but I was on vacation and what were vacations good for if not for turning off the old brain once in a while. Leah had made today sound like it would be innocent sightseeing. However, what a Chaosbane considered innocent most other people might consider a minor felony.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll follow your lead. I’m more than willing to trust Lightning, if she is willing to trust me.”

Leah clapped her hands. “Goodo. Let’s not beat around the bush any longer then, we're burning daylight here.”

With the athleticism of a gymnast, she vaulted onto the back of her pegasus. More slowly, I followed suit. I did not want to do anything to offend Lightning, not when our friendship was so young.

I managed to find a comfortable position behind the beast’s wing joints. Once I was on Lightning’s back, I was struck once again by how solid and strong the pegasus was. I figured I could have tried to break a lead pipe over the mare’s back and she probably would have taken about as much notice as she might have a horsefly.

With a snort, Lightning followed Thunder and Leah out of the barn and into the paddock.

“Right,” I said. “Now what do we do?”

“Easy,” Leah said. “Now you just hold on to your butt and let Lightning do the legwork.”

“Don’t you mean the wing-work,” I said.

Leah snapped fingers and pulled a mad face at me. “That’s right,” she said. “I’m always getting that line wrong.”

Without warning, the iron-hard muscles of the pegasus bunched beneath me. I just had time to suck in one reinforcing breath before Lightning leapt up into the frigid sky.

Holy shitballs, I had ridden on the back magical creatures before, and I had felt the sort of acceleration that only a broomstick could provide, but this was something else entirely. I had never experienced such insane acceleration at the hands of something that did not have an engine. Never, in all my life, had I gone from standing still to, well, I couldn’t even hazard a guess at how fast I was going.

It was like someone had strapped feathery wings to a Kawasaki Ninja H2 and screwed the throttle down all the way. I barely had time to grab onto Lightning’s neck and hunker down against the roaring wind. To my astonishment, once I had tucked myself alongside the neck of the flying creature, everything calmed down.

The pegasus was a marvel of aerodynamic natural design. I had to squint my eyes against the inevitable air that stung them, but apart from that, the ride was surprisingly comfortable. Leah and Thunder zooming along in front of me. Leah’s hair had been torn free of its normal bunches. Now, it flew behind her like a bright pink banner.

We passed over many fields and little rivers, estates as grand as any others that we had seen thus far. Always, the pegasi kept one wing dipped to the right so that they were continuously moving in a south easterly direction, toward the sprawling glittering mass of Manafell.

Leah had been right. The capital city was not that far from the Chaosbane ranch. Not as the crow flew anyway. Queen Hagatha’s estate, though, was obviously enormous, and it required us to circumnavigate it for about ten minutes before we began to descend toward the metropolis, toward the greatest city in the Kingdom of Avalonia.

We landed, with very little fuss, outside the city walls. Thunder and Lightning walked us along a wide dirt road filled with people coming to and from the city. Piles of slush lined either side of the side of the road, and the earth under the hooves of the pegasi was blackened and cracked.

When I pointed this out to Leah, she shrugged. “After heavy snowfall, the city guard brings forth a dragon, or a team of drakes, to melt the road to the capital for some miles.”

“A dragon used as a snowplow?” I said, amazed. “That’s nuts.”

“Is it?” Leah asked dreamily. “I thought it made rather good sense. Keeps the main trade route open, the taxes and merchant fees jingle-jangling into the Queen’s coffers, and the road free from highwaymen. There’s no deterrent quite like the threat of being barbecued by a