Fight and Flight (Magic 2.0 Book 4) Read online

  “You don’t think we can take on the dragons ourselves?” Brit asked.

  “On the contrary. We know you can.”

  “But you think you men can do it better,” Brit said.

  “No, I’m not saying that we can do it better,” Jock said. “Just that we should be the ones to do it.”

  Gwen said, “One moment, please. My associate and I would like to have a word in private.” She put her hand on Brit’s shoulder and flew them straight up, several hundred feet onto the air, well out of the men’s hearing range.

  The two women floated just below the cloud cover. The Scottish Highlands sprawled out in all directions like someone had taken an immense sheet of dark green paper, crumpled it up, then attempted to smooth it out again.

  “It’s just so typical,” Brit said, fuming.

  “Yes,” Gwen agreed. “It is.”

  “They always think women are useless.”

  Gwen suspected the conversation would go in this direction and intended to head it off at the pass. She nodded, as if agreeing, and said, “Yes. Yes. Except, when you think about it, that’s not actually what he said, is it?”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Well, no. If you look at what he said, he told us we’d done more than our part, and, from his point of view, we have. I mean, they already think we saved their lives and killed three dragons when they haven’t killed even one. Then we carried them over a distance that would have been more than a day’s hike for them in about a half hour. And we led them directly to the dragons, so they didn’t have to spend any time or energy searching themselves. Look at all the things we’ve done for them, balance it with the fact that we are two people and they are four, and you’ll see, we have done way more than our share of the work.”

  “Yes, we have! Of course we have! But do they see that?”

  “Brit, they’re the ones who mentioned it.”

  Brit seethed at Gwen, but said nothing.

  Gwen said, “I know.”

  Brit continued seething.

  Gwen said, “Yeah, yeah, I get it.”

  Brit looked away in disgust.

  Gwen said, “Yes, I understand. But I need you to calm down. Please? You’re right that men in general don’t give women the respect we deserve, and don’t value us as highly as they should, but we aren’t dealing with men in general here. We’re dealing with those four guys. We’ve known them less than an hour and we can already recite the names of all of their wives and children, and most of those children are daughters.”

  Brit said, “Okay, great, they love their wives and daughters. That doesn’t mean they respect them at all.”

  Gwen said, “I dare you to go down there and say something bad about Morag.”

  Brit snorted, which signaled that Gwen had won the argument.

  “We brought them because they feel that they need to kill the dragons to save face,” Gwen said. “They don’t want to spend the rest of their lives having little Rut ask them to tell the story of how they valiantly allowed us to carry them, then they bravely stood by and watched while we did all the work.”

  Brit said, “But we both know they can’t actually hurt the dragons.”

  “And they don’t have to. They’ll run in, fire some arrows, and wave their giant knives.”

  “Swords.”

  “Same thing. Anyway, we let them do their best, then swoop in, get rid of the dragons, thank them for loosening the pickle jar lid for us, and we all get on with our lives.”

  Brit and Gwen landed. Brit said to the Highlanders, “We’ve discussed it, and we think your first plan is the way to go. We’ll provide backup. I have a question. Last time you attacked the dragons it didn’t go well. What are you going to do differently this time?”

  Jock said, “Last time, we stumbled upon the dragons with no warning. We didn’t have time to prepare properly. This time, we’ll be fully prepared and ready.”

  Gwen said, “Then I guess you’d better start preparing.”

  In the end, Brit felt grateful to Gwen for talking her down from her anger cliff. If Gwen hadn’t, Brit would not have gotten to watch the men’s battle preparations, a fascinating spectacle that she and Gwen would remember fondly for the rest of their days.

  First, each man proclaimed their willingness to die in battle, for the honor and safety of their wives, children, girlfriends, parents, and dead ancestors, most of whom they listed by name.

  Then the men took turns praising the other men in the group, boasting of their skills, remembering their past triumphs, and saying what an honor it would be to die by their side in the coming battle. The last one to speak, Mungo, said in a voice choked with emotion, “It would be worth dying, and I’d do so with a smile on my face, if I knew any of you, you who fought and risked death beside me, would live to carry my bones, or as many them as you can find, back to my beloved Grizel, so that she can divide them amongst Seonag, Jinny, and Torquil, my firstborn son, who is entitled to a double share of my carcass.”

  After that, the men hugged, cried, and removed their shirts.

  Brit said, “Oh! I didn’t know it was this kind of party!”

  Gwen shushed her harshly, then whispered, “Don’t remind them we’re here. They might stop!”

  When all of the men had stripped to the waist, they smeared each other with blue paint, all the while boasting of their courage, their skill in battle, and the quality of the paint patterns they were creating.

  Each of the men had a unique paint pattern, with differing parts of their faces and torsos left bare. They looked quite fearsome, except for Kyle who had a bare patch in the shape of a curved line on his belly, and circles around his nipples, causing Gwen to tell Brit, “I’ll never look at a frowny-face the same way again.”

  Each man took one more turn speaking, though by now they were so keyed up it was more yelling than talking. They all bellowed poems about battle or delivered a litany of threats until the last man, Jock, their leader, shouted out a poem that was made up mostly of threats. Then all of the men turned their faces to the sky and screamed for all they were worth.

  Brit said, “They’re pretty much the opposite of Phillip and Martin, aren’t they?”

  The communal scream ended. Jock grabbed his bow and ran over the crest of the hill in the direction of where the dragons were still resting by the lakeside. He shouted, “In we go, men, to fight, and most likely die!”

  All of the men cheered and followed him.

  Gwen said, “They’re the opposite of Phillip. They’ve got a little in common with Martin.”

  Brit and Gwen flew straight up and hovered, ready to move in and take over when the Highlanders got tired.

  “They really are very brave,” Gwen said.

  Brit nodded. “They fully expect for at least some of them to die, but they’re still running into battle.”

  “They aren’t running very fast.”

  “Well, the ground’s wet and uneven. And the yelling is slowing them down. There’s a reason Olympic sprinters don’t scream through the entire race.”

  “Good point,” Gwen said. “Although that would be fun for the spectators. It’s really touching, how devoted they are to their families.”

  “It goes without saying that we can’t let any of them die.”

  Gwen said, “The way I see it, the question isn’t: Will we have to save them? it’s: Which one of them will we have to save first?”

  The sorceresses watched as the four bare-chested, blue-painted men ran in a clump across the rugged landscape toward the now perplexed-looking dragons.

  True to the plan, Jock stopped while his friends continued. He nocked an arrow into his bow and fired it in a graceful arc that sailed over the men. The distance was so great, and the trajectory so high, that by the time his arrow had bou
nced uselessly off one of the dragons, he had already fired a second, and was reaching for a third.

  The dragon that the arrow hit shuddered and looked at the oncoming men, still screaming bloody murder, waving their weapons and shields as they approached. The dragon watched them for a few seconds, then took to the sky. All five of the other dragons followed, the last one lifting off the ground just as the men reached the spot where it had been lying only seconds before.

  Mungo shook his sword at the retreating dragons and shouted, “That’s right! Run away!” He probably meant to say more, but his concentration got broken by an arrow that zipped past his head and stuck in the ground. Mungo turned and shouted, “Jock!”

  Mungo saw that the dragons were headed back over the attacking party’s heads, straight for the lone man firing arrows at them.

  Again, Mungo shouted, “Jock!” Like the dragons, he made a beeline for his lone, vulnerable friend, which unfortunately meant charging straight through his other two friends, who had followed him into battle. He shoved Kyle and knocked Leslie over, all the while shouting, “Jock! Jock! Jock!”

  Mungo realized that Kyle and Leslie were not following him. He turned and ran backward for several steps, to look at Kyle helping Leslie up. “Jock!” Mungo yelled.

  Kyle asked, “Jock?” while hauling Leslie up by one arm. There was a blue smear on the grass where Leslie had fallen.

  “Jock,” Leslie gasped, and with that all of the men sprinted back to help their friend.

  Still hovering a half mile away, watching events transpire, Brit sighed and said, “Jock?”

  Gwen nodded and said, “Jock.” Then they flew.

  The dragons followed a low, slow flight path, looming over the ground with their wings spread wide, casting large, dark shadows on the ground and oozing menace. The sight of them approaching only sped Jock’s bow, unleashing arrow after arrow as quickly as he could while still bothering to aim. He had focused his attention so exclusively on the dragons that he didn’t even realize that the arrows were bouncing off of them and falling straight down into the path of his friends, who were risking their lives, sprinting directly beneath the dragons, trying to reach him in time to help.

  The dragons reached Jock before his friends, of course. At the last possible second, he withdrew his bow and crouched behind his shield. He held out no hope that a single wooden shield could hold off the fire from the first dragon, let alone the five more that followed it, but one does what one can.

  He looked at the back of his shield, and the grass beneath him, and he thought of his wife Coira holding their girls, Effie and Nessa. Then the world seemed to turn bright orange. The dragons were upon him, and the fire had begun. Next, he could expect a quick but painful end.

  The orange light intensified, then lessened, then went away, but the pain never started. Jock looked up over the top of his shield and saw that the first dragon had passed, but the second opened its mouth to take its turn. Again, the world turned orange, but Jock quickly realized that he was unharmed inside what appeared to be a perfect dome made of fire. He lowered his shield, stood, and spun around to find Brit the Younger standing behind him.

  “Hey, Jock. You’re pretty good with that bow. Coira would be proud.”

  He hugged her with all of his might, lifting her feet off the ground and smearing the front of her clothing and her face with blue paint. Luckily the force field didn’t need her continued efforts to remain in place. After the hug, they laughed in an uncomfortable, flustered kind of way.

  As the last dragon in line passed overhead, they saw the others running through the grass, followed by Gwen flying behind, keeping them as safe as she could. Brit managed to drop the force field just in time to keep Mungo from running face first into it, then managed to re-create the force field, despite being trapped in the center of the loudest, most violent group hug of her life. Through a small hole she could see a patch of sky. Gwen flew by, looking down at her, smiling, then flew off after the dragons.

  Brit began to fear she might suffocate, but then one of the men shouted, “They’re on us again!” It hadn’t taken long for the dragons to circle back. The lead dragon opened its mouth for a fresh blast of fire. The men transitioned from joyful-group-hug mode into fight-fiercely-for-survival mode. They released each other and turned so quickly that Brit fell to the ground, no longer supported by the men’s grateful arms.

  None of them but Jock knew about the force field. From the rest of the men’s point of view, he and Brit had merely withstood the fire without harm. And they had all been too preoccupied to notice when Brit put the force field back up. The men all rushed to raise their shields in hopes of fending off the flames long enough for Brit to work whatever magic she had used to save Jock, not knowing she’d already done it. Kyle discovered the force field first. He stood farthest from Brit, and thus closest to the force field, so close that when he raised his shield, its top edge hit the inside of the force field and bounced back, hitting him just above the eyebrows, giving him a nasty cut and knocking him unconscious.

  The dragons soared overhead in single file, expending their entire lung capacity as they passed. Brit looked at the men hiding beneath their shields, then looked at the blue-smeared mess they’d made of her robe and shook her head.

  “Relax guys, we’re safe.”

  Jock lowered his shield first and shouted, “She’s done it! Brit the sorceress has saved us all!”

  Brit saved herself from another round of aggressive gratitude by asking, “Is Kyle hurt?”

  The men turned, stricken, and regarded their friend, lying unconscious and bleeding on the ground. They converged on him just as the final dragon flew past. As soon as she knew Kyle was breathing, Brit said, “Okay, you guys stay here. You’ll be safe. I’m going to go help Gwen.”

  She left the Scotsmen tending to Kyle and flew to join Gwen. It looked as if the dragons had been lining up for another run at the men, but Gwen got out in front of them, deliberately making herself their primary objective.

  Gwen triggered the weaponized macro she’d been working on back before the dragons posed a real threat. Her robe got longer and billowed out behind her. It grew, rippling and waving, and utterly enveloping the lead dragon in thousands of yards of gray fabric. The five remaining dragons peeled away, abandoning the lead dragon and flying past it and Gwen on all sides.

  Gwen disconnected from the mass of cloth and it began to constrict, blocking the view and binding the wings of the dragon. Every time she’d done this before, the entangled dragons had fallen to the ground, helpless. Of course, Jeff had manipulated the dragon’s actions in real time to make them seem natural. These dragons had nobody manipulating their actions. It turned out that the dragons weren’t actually held aloft by aerodynamic forces. The fabric-covered wings moved in stunted, flailing jerks that apparently counted as flapping, but the dragon remained aloft and continued moving forward, its claws tearing at the fabric.

  Gwen created a goal in front of the dragon. It staggered blindly through of its own accord.

  She heard Brit say, “Let’s get after the rest of them!”

  Gwen turned to find sixteen Brits floating behind her. She looked at the retreating dragons. The five of them had re-formed and fled toward the horizon. “I dunno. I think we’re going to have to think of a better plan. They seem to be learning. They flew slower this time, so they could dodge.” She turned and addressed Brit, disregarding the decoys. “I only got one of them by using my macro, and it didn’t work like I expected it to.”

  “How did you know which one was me?” Brit asked.

  “The others aren’t smeared with blue paint.”

  She looked at herself and let out a disgusted “Eugh.” She deactivated her decoys and said, “Don’t go away. I’ll be right back.”

  Brit disappeared. Gwen hung alone in the air for a moment, then Brit
reappeared, squeaky clean in fresh clothes, with her hair still slightly damp.

  She said, “While I was in the shower, I got to thinking. Maybe we aren’t using our friends down there to our greatest advantage.”

  Gwen arched an eyebrow. “You were in the shower, thinking about how to use four burly men?”

  “Shut up. I’m just saying, this is Scotland. The dragons are essentially flying sheep.”

  “Flying sheep. It’s strange. Real sheep don’t fly. I wonder how these dragons with the instincts of sheep got the hang of it so fast.”

  Brit waved a hand at their surroundings, pointing out the fact that the two of them were hovering high above the ground. “People don’t fly, but we seemed to take to it pretty fast.”

  Gwen said, “Good point.”

  “Anyway,” Brit continued, “one or two of the guys might have been a shepherd at some point. They may know things we can use.”

  Mungo and Jock stood, shoulders slumped, heads bowed, while Leslie sat on the ground, cradling Kyle’s blood-covered head and shoulders in his lap. Gwen and Brit landed next to the three standing men. Before either of them could ask, Leslie looked up at them, his face a mask of grief, and said, “He’s dead! My friend Kyle is dead!”

  Gwen watched Kyle for only a few seconds and said, “He’s breathing!” She said it cheerfully, passing on what surely would be seen as happy news.

  Kyle said, “Breathing his last!”

  “I dunno,” Brit said. “He’s breathing steadily.”

  “He’s strong,” Leslie lamented, “always has been, but there’s only so long even a man like Kyle can last with such grievous wounds. Oh, I don’t look forward to telling poor Morag that her Kyle is gone. She’s likely to be inconsolable.”

  Jock said, “I could tell her. It might be better actually.”

  Mungo said, “Really, I think we should all be there. We were all his friends.”