Free Dragon Tears by Nancy Segovia

whatever passed between them, for he turned to face forward and said, “I’m ready if you are.”
    “You’re going to carry Rat?” Patrik asked
    “If it’s okay with her, it’s okay with me.”
    “What if she falls off?”
    “She won’t.”
    Patrik wasn’t so sure and tried to push Rat off Larkin’s back. She hissed at him and dug her claws in deeper. He tried again, and this time she snarled and took a bite out of one of his fingers. He jerked his hand away and shrugged. “Don’t blame me when you fall off, cat.”
    “Let’s go,” he said to Larkin.
    ∞
    Their days and nights fell into a monotonous routine. They rose at sunrise, flew until dusk, set up camp, and repeated the process the next day. The first night out, they rigged a saddle and harness for Rat. With the cat securely tied into place, Patrik was silently relieved, and the days passed in a mind-numbing blur with little change except for the storms.
    The only thing that relieved Patrik’s boredom was the thrill of flying. At first, the boy was too afraid to look, and kept his eyes squeezed shut. But it wasn’t long before his curiosity took over. He marveled at the way the world below him appeared. From the air, everything looked tiny and simple. Even the tallest trees seemed like toothpicks, and mountains mere molehills. Whenever the dragons caught an up current or a downdraft caught them, he whooped with joy at the sudden surge of power that bounced him around in the saddle like a toy boat in an eddy. It wasn’t long before flying each day became the day’s main goal, and when it was time to land for the day, he couldn’t hide the look of disappointment on his face.
    Twelve days had passed as they flew over mountains and valleys, lakes and forests. They tried to determine how close they were to the Sea of Lights, but it was impossible.
    “I just don’t know,” Wizard Allard said on the evening of their twelfth day. “According to the scrolls it takes almost a full quarter season to make it from the royal city to the shores of the sea. But that’s on horseback. There’s no way to judge how far we’ve come on dragon-back. No one’s ever done it. However, we must be getting close for the scrolls say that the sea starts where the Highlands end, and since we’re in the Highlands the sea can’t be that far away.”
    It was storming again as they tried to set up camp at the end of their twelfth day of travel. Rat scrambled to get under the lean-to, but the wind kept ripping the stakes from the ground. A particularly violent gust caught the tarp and blew it into the fire. Patrik leaped for it, jerking it out of the flames.
    “Maybe we should go on and try to out-fly this storm,” he hollered over the wind.
    “Very dangerous for the dragons,” Wizard Allard shouted back. “The wind gusts are too erratic.”
    While the two humans made camp, Redwing and Larkin left to hunt for food, and Rat was off doing whatever it is that cats do. Somehow, Rat always managed to bring back an extra rabbit for the stew pot, and Larkin had become particularly adept at finding edible grains and berries, pointing them out to Patrik so he could gather them for their evening meal. It puzzled Patrik that Larkin always knew where to find human food, and he questioned the dragon about it one day. Larkin merely shrugged his huge shoulders, and said, “I can smell them.”
    Redwing, however, showed no interest in anything except hunting down four-legged prey. The red dragon had been an excellent addition to the expedition. She filled their days with stories about the dragons, their beliefs, and their habits. Older than Larkin, she had accumulated more dragon knowledge, and both Patrik and Allard listened in eager anticipation as she shared that knowledge with them.
    In the evenings, she lit their fires for them, as Larkin still hadn’t learned how to flame. One blast of dragon fire started even the wettest wood, for which they were all grateful after a day of