“Thanks,” Riyo said in a small voice, whispering right into his ear. It tickled. “Fly, Ushaska.” Her voice remained gentle even as she was giving commands, and this time her voice didn’t tickle his ear, it made his heart jump in a strange way.
As Ushaska started running, Riyo’s body pulled away from Manato’s a little.
“Hold on tight,” she instructed.
“Okay.”
The up and down movement was surprisingly intense, but it was nothing Manato couldn’t handle, so long as he held on for dear life.
Unlike Manato, Riyo was matching her posture to the dragon’s moves. But even as she did, the position of her chin didn’t change much. It remained pressed against the top of Manato’s head, a little to the right side. There was more to the saddle than just being something for the rider to sit on. It also had spots for them to place their feet, and a bit that stuck out above the dragon’s neck with grips for them to hold on to. Riyo had her feet on the footrests, was gripping the handles, and was raising and lowering her hips. She was matching the dragon’s motions, probably trying to minimize the burden on her mount as it carried her. Manato recognized that he was being a burden. His weight had been added to hers, and all he could do was cling on.
“Sorry, Ushaska!” he said. He felt bad, but there was nothing he could do about it right now. If he tried to imitate what Riyo was doing, he’d just get in Ushaska’s way instead.
“It’s okay,” Riyo whispered. “I won’t make Ushaska do anything she can’t handle.”
A shudder ran down his spine.
Ushaska gave the ground a hard kick.
We just took off.
It was his first time riding a dragon, or flying through the air, but Manato immediately understood what was happening. It was completely different from jumping.
So this is what it’s like to fly.
It felt like he was being pushed up, and also like he was being pulled up. He could have interpreted it either way.
“Whoa!” Manato shouted despite himself. “This is incredible!”
He felt like Riyo chuckled at that. He couldn’t hear her laughing, and he couldn’t see her face, but he got the feeling that she had.
Manato didn’t want to cause trouble for Riyo or Ushaska. He just held on as tightly as he could. He wanted to become one with the dragon, if that were possible. He couldn’t move his head, so that greatly limited his field of vision. Ushaska was definitely flying, but honestly, he had very little idea where they currently were, how high they had risen, or what way they were going. He couldn’t see Yori and Haru on Karambit either, so he was really curious. Maybe it would be better for him to keep his eyes shut?
“Ra! Diii! Aaaaance! Ra! Diii! Aaaaance!”
“Huh.” Manato could hear the man’s voice.
“Radiance.”
“Ra-di-ance.”
“Ra! Di! Ance!”
And the voices of the converted.
Boom! There was a rumbling noise, possibly the wall being destroyed.
“Ah!” Manato yelped.
Ushaska was going down. They hadn’t been constantly ascending since they had left the ground. There had been a lot of up-and-down motion. He felt like they’d done some circling too. Karambit was ahead of them. He wasn’t sure exactly how far. Ushaska must have been following the other dragon. Based on how the ground looked, they weren’t that high up.
Actually, they were flying pretty low. So low, he worried they might fall. Manato let out a laugh.
“Wait...” he said to nobody in particular.
Was that what the farm looked like when it was seen from up in the air? Was Ushaska plunging into the farm from above? No, the angle of descent wasn’t steep enough to call it a plunge. Maybe a third of the farm’s walls had been destroyed.
He could see the converts. Haru had told them that there had been hundreds at the ruins of the keep, and yeah, he felt like that sounded about right. There were scads of them hanging around outside the destroyed walls. But he couldn’t hear the man’s voice now. Had the saint stopped smashing the walls? Was that it?
There was something standing next to a section of the wall that hadn’t been destroyed yet. Was it a person? Was it the saint?
Its body—or rather, its shape—was awfully strange. It appeared to be an upside-down triangle with limbs hanging out of its sides that were more like big hammers than arms, and two legs that looked awfully skinny growing out of its underside. It didn’t seem to have a head.
The saint twisted its body. Was it looking up? Manato couldn’t tell where its face was, or where its eyes could be, if it even had any, but he felt like it was looking at him.
“Hah! Hahhh! Hahhhhhh!” That voice. It was the same as the voice of the man who’d been shouting “radiance.”
“Haruhiro?! Is that you, Haruhiro?! Do you long for the light, Haruhirooo?!”
Karambit, who was carrying Yori and Haru, and Ushaska, who was carrying Riyo and Manato, passed over the saint’s head not even a moment later. Manato felt like they’d only barely managed to pass over it, as if the saint could have jumped up and knocked them out of the air. Though, they might not have actually dropped that low. The saint didn’t try to do anything to them, and Karambit and Ushaska rapidly raised their speed and altitude after that, making Manato worry that they were going too high instead. High and fast. Man, were they fast.
“You look like you’re having fun,” Riyo whispered in his ear.
“Eagh!” Manato cried out without meaning to. “Um, Riyo, could you not do that?”
“What do you mean?”
“Urkh, c-come on, that tickles! Heh heh!”
“I’m sorry.”
“Nah, you don’t need to apologize! Ha ha ha! Urkh, I’m starting to feel weird... But don’t worry, I’ll deal with it! Heh heh heh.”