Storm Warning by D. C. Key

Author:D. C. Key [Key, D. C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DragonFox Productions
Published: 2024-02-10T00:00:00+00:00

22

KYLARA

Once we were in the air, I clicked over to the wing aetherwave comm as everyone formed up. I took point. Benjamin on Aliadrix and Kestrel riding Malagast to my right and left, respectively, then Andre astride Isfeng and Sonya on Paravox. The two war mages flew at the ends of the V.

“Alright, everyone. We don’t know what to expect, and the dragons are nervous on top of that. I’m taking that as a bad sign. We’re going to pass the wall and go slowly, as close to walking speed as we can. Maintain visual on each other. Any questions?”

“If we encounter any hostiles, do we engage or flee?” Kestrel asked.

“This is a scouting mission.” I looked around at the others. “We flee if we can, fight if we have to.”

Ahead, the churning gray wall loomed. Once we were inside, if instruments were useless, we’d be depending on our dragons and their innate sense of direction. We’d done this before, and all bonded rider-dragon pairs trusted each other implicitly. It was this trust that helped me keep the butterflies at bay in the face of this unknown, but I could still feel them waiting in the pit of my stomach and back of my mind.

Slowly, we closed in on the unnatural cloud, and I adjusted my goggles to zoom in on the flows and eddies of the mist. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I thought I saw faces form and dissipate in the gray mass ahead. We continued to close, and at the last moment, just before we broke through, I couldn’t help myself, even with the respirator, I held my breath.

Then we broke through the grey wall.

The temperature dropped immediately, and ice crystals began creeping over my goggles a little faster than the defroster could handle. I felt a surge of magic as Illvaren invoked his power to protect all of us, dragons, riders, and war mages.

“It’s cold,” Benjamin grumbled to the rest of us over the aetherwave.

Kestrel laughed. “No shit.”

“Ease up.” I shifted a little on Illvaren’s back, and he pulled up, hovering roughly while I cleared my goggles with a gloved fingertip. I could dimly see the others doing the same. “How’s the Icarus gear holding up?”

“Everything’s in the green,” Libra reported.

“Five-by-five,” acknowledged Ambrose. “Sensors and detections are basically useless. Are you sure we can find our way back out if we go too far?”

Unbeliever. Illvaren sniffed.

“It won’t be a problem,” I replied.

“Anything?” Sonya asked. I could dimly see her raise up in her saddle to peer over Paravox’s bobbing head.

“Nothing,” I replied as the rest of the wing stayed quiet. “Let’s keep going forward slowly.”

Illvaren seemed to anticipate my desire and started forward, struggling a bit in the thicker air. All four of us kept up our sweep, and I occasionally tried to raise the Thunder Child on the comm. Nothing, not even static, came back. Entering the fog had cut us off from the outside quite cleanly, almost like we’d passed into a different world.

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