Half an hour later Ryan was sweating in the saddle. Thistle had leveled out and now they were soaring just above the clouds, trying to figure out a plan. Ryan’s breath came out in heavy puffs of hot mist, it was freezing at this altitude! Of course the Frostys wouldn’t notice, they didn’t even feel the chilly wind that made Thistle zoom over the earth at a crazy speed. Ryan knew his dragon was nervous. Forest dragons weren’t made to fly this high and he knew it. Every time he managed to find a jet stream, he would mentally scream as he was jerked forward.

            “So, are we going to take them by surprise?” Daemon’s voice interrupted his thoughts.  “Perhaps dive bomb the front lines, drive them back?”

            Ryan was jealous at how cool Daemon looked, like he was perfectly fine at thousands of feet up in the air. Fraylon was similarly unfazed, his wings handling the strange currents masterfully. They weren’t even breathing heavily in the oxygen-depleted air! Ryan wrapped his billowing cloak tighter around himself. “Yeah, but where is the front line? It just looks like a huge mass of people.” Indeed, marching thousands of feet below, was the unruly shape of a massive army that stretched all the way to the forest. They were marching steadily onwards, and from this height they looked way too near to Baroke for Ryan’s liking.

            He gulped. “Yeah. You take on the people from the north. I go for the south. See the little brown ones? Let’s start off with that, okay? Shake them up a bit.” Ryan gave a deep breath as Daemon nodded and Fraylon dipped his wings to soar north, where he became lost in a cloud.

            “Let’s give a count of ten,” Ryan’s words were choppy as his teeth started to chatter. Thistle nodded, preparing his wing muscles for a massive dive. “Ten, nine,” he felt his heart quicken in his chest like a frightened rabbit and he patted Thistle’s neck, sending soothing thoughts. “We can do this. Eight…. Seven.”

            “That’s it,” Thistle muttered. “I can’t stand it anymore. I’m going for it.” He angled his huge head downwards and dove.

            Ryan screamed but his voice was stolen by the wind. He crouched lower in the saddle, fearing that he would be peeled off Thistle’s back. The straps keeping him on the saddle flapped against his legs and he winced as the metal hit his legs repeatedly. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see. All he felt was the wind biting his face, leaving him feeling numb. Tears streamed down his cheeks before the wind swept them away.

            Then suddenly Thistle snapped his wings out and silver ribbons trailed from the edge of his wing tendons. The huge muscles of his wings strained with the effort, Thistle let out a cry of pain as his wings filled with air. Ryan gasped as he felt a sudden jerk that made his stomach feel like it had dropped to the ground. Quickly, he grabbed three bombs from the saddle bags as Thistle leveled out and rocketed over the earth at an insane speed. Black and red armor splotched before his eyes. His icy fingers fumbling, he popped the caps off the first one and tossed it overboard.  The other one’s cap came off easily and he let it fly. Twin booms sounded simultaneously behind him and he smiled, letting the clamorous shouts of confused men fill his ears like beautiful music.

            One more… he fumbled with the lid, feeling like he had butter on his fingers. This one was slick with moisture, it had probably been sticking out of the bag as they fell through the clouds. He cursed under his breath, his hands slipping repeatedly. “I can’t-get it off!”

            Suddenly Thistle let out a roar as Fraylon flew towards them like a silver comet, his slender wings cutting through the air. They were both going too fast! It was going to be a head on collision if someone didn’t move- and fast. Ryan’s hands clamped on the bomb’s lid, his magnified eyes like a frog’s from the goggles.

            At last second, Fraylon twisted sideways and his body whooshed fast, incredible fast, but it seemed to be in slow motion for Ryan. Thistle’s wings were extending upwards to get more lift, almost clipping Fraylon’s left wing, the ice dragon’s tail raking the scaly part of Thistle’s wing. Then they were gone.

            “Whew, that was-“ Ryan started to say before he looked down to find he had the cap in one hand and a smoking bomb in the other. “Aaah!” he chucked it away from him before it exploded not ten feet away, the shock making Thistle waver mid-air.

            “Ryan!” Thistle snapped as he struggled to right himself. His talons raked across a helmeted head, making a horrendous noise, and his tail knocked a man clear off his feet.

            “Thistle, you’re flying too low! Go higher!” Ryan screamed. Suddenly his eyes caught something that made his blood run cold. Several sets of triangular, sharp heads were aimed directly at them, their feathered ends strung tight on bowstring. “Holy- Thistle, gain altitude. Now!”

            Thistle powered higher, his first wingstroke broken by one of his wing talons striking a horse. Frantically, he beat his wings again and again, gaining heigh painfully slow. Already one arrow had banged against the armor covering Thistle’s rib cage, nearly stopping Ryan’s heart with the noise. He fumbled in his saddlebags for another bomb when another arrow ricocheted off the scaly part of Thistle’s wing and the shaft smacked him in the face. Thistle rose another ten feet, breathing heavily. His wing muscles screamed, already sore from pulling up from a massive dive. He grit his teeth and flew higher, his head pumping for more leverage.

            As hails of arrows soared up to the forest dragon, Ryan finally got his hands on a light green bomb. “This will do,” he muttered, aiming and throwing it as hard as he could when Thistle was on a downstroke.

            POOF!

            Ryan gagged as the whole area was engulfed in a toxic green cloud. “Thistle, how many beans did you eat for that one?”

            “Too many,” Thistle managed. He ascended above the fart cloud. “There is no way they could survive that one.”

            He climbed until he was once again as small as a normal-sized bird to the onlooker. Fraylon was waiting for them up there, Daemon looking rather cross on his back. “That was a errikim plan, Ryan,” he snapped. “You could have gotten us killed! I thought you knew what you were doing!”

            “Okay, okay, so it wasn’t the best plan. But do you have a better one, Mr. High and Mighty?”

            “As a matter of a fact I do,” Daemon said coldly. “Let’s tag team this so our dragons don’t get too weary. And be careful, I saw what you did back there. Thistle spreading his wings too fast could damage his wings. Try to make it more gradual-“

            “And what do you know about flying?” Thistle sneered, his frill extending in annoyance.

            “Enough. Fraylon and I have done our share of high-altitude flying in the mountains of Grunde,” Daemon rose a slender eyebrow. “We know the ropes.”

            Thistle’s frill slowly sat back against his neck. “Eh, I guess you’ve got a point there.”

            Daemon smirked, which made Ryan even more annoyed. “So.. as I was saying, we tag team it. And don’t dive so low. The bomb will explode whether your ten feet above or one hundred feet above, correct?” Ryan nodded sullenly. “Well then, try to stay as high as you can. The wind is coming from the north so make sure that you don’t fly directly above the front lines, otherwise it will miss them. Most of the bombs you threw hit ten feet away from the men due to the wind.”

            Why does he have to be so darn sensible? Ryan pouted. Thistle laughed at his Rider’s annoyance internally.

            “Okay, so since Lauri’s instructions were rather… vague, we need to ration our times well. I know Fraylon can do this for four hours straight without much exhaustion, how about Thistle?”

            “Thistle could do six,” Ryan said proudly, patting Thistle’s conifer side. Er… I’m not so sure about that, Thistle said mentally, but didn’t open his mouth to refute the claim.

            Daemon raised an eyebrow but his icy blue eyes belied merriment. “Fine then. We’ll tag team the first hour to keep the Vulnarians on their toes, and then you two will do an hour, alone while Fray rests up. Then I’ll take over for an hour and so on. Sound fair?”

            “Yeah, whatever,” Ryan said before Thistle knifed through the clouds once more.

            Daemon’s plan was actually very good, although Ryan would never admit it. When the hour was through, they had blown up at least three hundred soldiers, all the while being out of arrow range. And halfway through Thistle’s hour, Ryan was relieved to find they were already retreating. “Yeah!” he hollered as he threw another bomb into the fray. “Take that you big fat sons of motherless goats! We did it, Thistle!”

            They were having so much fun that Thistle refused to rest during Fraylon’s hour. “This war is going to be done by lunchtime,” Ryan assured Daemon as he got ready to dive again. “Just you wait and see.”

            Daemon shook his head, his blonde hair flying. “I wish it were that easy. But we’re just doing our job. Fray and I checked the perimeter.. there’s thousands more Vulnarians hidden in the tree line. I can’t help but feel we’re just rattling the cage.”

            Ryan blew a raspberry when Fraylon dipped his wings to soar back down to the battle line. “That guy is such a party pooper. Can’t he just say ‘good job. We’re going to win this thing in no time’ or something?”

            “Yeah…” Thistle said, not really listening. His eyes were on Fraylon as his beautiful, frost-encrusted wings unfurled and he coasted over the battle line. How did the little frost dragon fly like that? He tried to study his movements so that he could replicate it.

            Suddenly the frost dragon twisted in the sky, his wings clawing furiously at the air. “What’s happening?” Ryan yelled from his back.

            For a second Thistle didn’t reply. Then something hurtled out of nowhere and Fraylon’s high-pitched roar rent the air as he was almost thrown from the sky by a large object.

            “What is doing that?” Ryan yelled, holding onto the horn tighter. “Is it magic?”

            “No..” Thistle said grimly, allowing his body to drop a hundred meters. “It’s a machine.”

            Sure enough Ryan watched as men heaved a large rock into a large cupped container. The container was attached to the strangest contraption Ryan had ever seen. A whole string of gears and pulleys were protected by a triangular wooden frame. And as Ryan watched the scoop suddenly shot loose and projected its missile straight towards the frost dragon. Fraylon just barely avoided it, masterfully riding the wind current created by the flying rock. But they just kept coming. If even one hit him, he’d be out.

            Ryan got out his large golden bomb and smiled at it gravely. “It looks like we’re going to have to take out the big one, eh?”

            Thistle snorted, “Look how it rattled when it threw the rock. We could take it out with less. Use the red ones.” He flicked his tail, trying to stay balanced in the turbulent winds above the clouds. “I think the winds have picked up. I know what Lauri said but we’re going to have to go in for close combat, otherwise we’re going to lose the shot. You ready?”

            Ryan blinked hard. “Ready if you ar-Aaah!” Even before the word left his mouth he found that the earth was rising up to meet them, the wind pressing against his chest. He opened his mouth in a soundless scream, clutching the horn like his life depended on it. Thistle opened his wings, just inches at a time so that his flight pattern curved. His muscles burned with the effort but he refused to do what his wings wanted and fully extend them. Get ready, he told his Rider before snap! his wings shot open and he zoomed just overhead, right next to the strange contraption. Ryan threw one bomb, which sent the first creation up in flames. The second one, however, exploded three yards away from it, rendering a few people ash marks on the ground. Just two more left….

            Thistle was powering upwards for another dive when he felt something hit his left wing.. hard. Forced off rhythm, he fell awkwardly to the ground, where he found himself surrounded by fifty grim faced men gripping their weapons, glaring at them so hard Ryan was surprised he wasn’t already dead. “Uh…hey guys,” he said, fake-cheerfully.

            Thirty swords lunged for his throat.