With their opponents flat-footed and weaponless, the dragons moved to the attack. Their fusion blades shattered their enemies’s shields and drove the constructs onto their heels. With a roar, the Shambala team thrust their heads forward and unleashed streams of fire in green, red, blue, gold, and silver. The flames speared through the constructs, bursting mechanical heads and shattering armored torsos. The dragons followed through, sweeping their blades to shatter their foes’ legs before the constructs hit the ground. The dragons fell back into a defensive posture just as quickly as they’d struck. They cycled more jinsei into their cores and waited for the next challenge to appear.
More constructs emerged from hidden doorways at the arena’s edges. These were armed with longbows and wore quivers of arrows across their backs.
“How do we defeat that?” Hagar slumped down against the wall, her back to the arena, her legs sprawled out in front of her. Even her red Mohawk seemed deflated by the seemingly impossible task that lay before us.
“Maybe we won’t have to fight them directly,” Niddhogg offered. “You didn’t face them in the first two challenges.”
“And that’s exactly why I’m sure we’ll face them now,” I said. While my two companions seemed dejected by the challenge we would certainly face, I couldn’t help but be exhilarated by what I’d seen. My whole life had been a struggle against impossible odds. I’d done my very best when my back was pushed against the wall. Even with a hollow core, and no one to guide me, I’d beaten impossible odds to achieve victory.
I refused to believe the coming challenges would be any different.
“We should go,” Hagar said. “Watching this isn’t doing my confidence any favors.”
“Wait.” I put my hand on her shoulder. “I want to see the rest of their practice.”
The dragons burned the archers’ arrows out of the sky with their flaming breath, then charged in to shatter the constructs with powerful swipes of their fusion blades. It was a stunning display of raw power that showed me the dragons were even stronger than I’d imagined.
But even the strongest of creatures have a weakness. I just had to find it.
And, as the constructs reset for their next exercise, I realized the answer could be right in front of me. I counted slowly. When I reached thirty, the next set of constructs appeared and the scrimmage began again. This time, the dragons faced off against creatures that were much faster than they were, but also much more lightly armored. The Shambala team defended themselves with the same spinning blade technique they’d used against the sword circle and used their breath to finish the fight.
I started counting again.
The next set of attackers, enormous constructs with massive axes and armor plating so thick I couldn’t imagine even the dragons’ fire cutting through it, appeared around the dragons when I reached the count of thirty.
The dragons handily dispatched these new enemies, as well. Rather than a brute strength attack, they focused precise strikes against the large constructs’ joints. Fusion blades carved through knees and ankles to bring the constructs down. Dragons darted in and unleashed gouts of breathed fire through the chinks in the armored plating to reach the delicate mechanisms within. One by one, the oversized constructs collapsed onto the stone, silver jinsei leaking from their ruptured joints.
The dragons’ breath no longer cycled easily. They took deep, gulping breaths and exhaled in noisy bursts. That had been an impressive workout. They’d dismantled dozens of constructs with only the briefest of pauses between rounds. I scratched my chin and considered that. They were strong and fast. They had natural armor and breath attacks that could blast through metal as easily as an arrow through a sheet of paper. Those flames would have no trouble burning away robes and the flesh beneath.
I considered our dilemma, and a slow smile creeped across my features.
Of course. The dragons did have a weakness.
Now I just had to find a way to survive long enough to exploit it.
The Plan
KNOWING HOW TO TAKE down the dragons was not the same as doing it. After I explained my ideas to Hagar and Niddhogg, the dragon nodded slowly.
“It’ll work, but it’s going to be hard, kid.” Niddhogg scratched his chin as he fluttered along beside me. “If you make even one mistake, or if you misjudge the timing, that’ll be the end of you. And your team.”
“Sounds like a typical Jace plan,” Hagar said. “How far will the rest of us have to stick our necks out to make this work?”
“Not far.” I shouted to be heard over the wind wailing past the bridge. “We need something to help us resist fire, though.”
“Professor Shimizu,” Hagar offered. “Maybe he can help us come up with some potions.”
“Good idea.”
We were halfway across the bridge when a gust of freezing wind blasted across us. A shadow swept overhead, and the leathery thump of flapping wings drew our attention to the sky.
“Run!” Hagar’s feet pounded the boards and sent dancing vibrations down the bridge’s length.
A dragon twice the size of Elushinithoc wheeled through the sky above us. It hovered there for a moment, then vanished behind a passing cloud.
I chased after Hagar and we plunged into the cavern just ahead of another gust of freezing air that sent Niddhogg shooting past us, his stubby wings flapping wildly to avoid a collision with the rough stone walls.
The wind whipped Hagar’s hair around the top of her head like a crown of fire. I caught a glimpse of a wilder, more dangerous version of her than I’d ever known. There was something in her eyes that warned me that the woman I saw at school was not very much at all like the woman who went on secret missions for my clan. She winked at me, then raced to the portal and vanished.
The wind kicked up again and carried a rich floral scent to me on
