The Broken Scale (The Dragon Riders of Arvain) (45 page)

             
“Can you believe how many dragons are here? I knew there were a lot of us, but I didn’t know there were this many.” Hayden followed Draek’s gaze from dragon to dragon.

             
“There are still more out there too, some still on missions and others at the five towers,” Shane said.

             
They spoke for a few minutes before they realized that most of the dragons had left the landing area and had moved on. They ran to the arena as fast as they could and hoped that they were not late for the games.

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Hayden had been knocked out of the first event during the first round. All they had to do was dive down from the sky just like they had done during their first fly through, but as they soared in between the stands; they would launch spears at targets that were being pulled behind horses.

             
Since there were so many riders, they had to shorten the number of competitors per event. Only a few riders were allowed to compete in multiple events; although first years were allowed to compete in any event they wanted to, but once again it seemed that Hayden and Draek were the only ones willing to try in most of them.

              During the first round, the riders were hitting the target so hard that some were knocking it over. Others were throwing their spears straight through the center and were going halfway into the ground.

             
Hayden was sitting on Draek’s back high above the stands awaiting his turn. As soon as Draek got the ok, he sped off towards the arena. Hayden had been holding the spear the whole time he had been waiting so that he would not have to draw it right before their turn.

             
Hayden had to focus on keeping the spear pointed straight as the wind tried to pull it from his grasp. As Draek righted himself, Hayden saw the horse take off in fear, pulling the target behind him as he frantically tried to get away.

             
When Hayden was close enough, he threw the spear and Draek pulled up and flew back into the sky. Hayden watched as the spear flew, his form had been perfect but his aim had been significantly off . The spear flew well over the target and nearly hit the horse.

             
Hayden did not have to hear the crowd to know that they were laughing at him, but it did not bother him much because he was going against riders who had been doing this for many years. Some even had to do it with real targets,  whereas Hayden had to use targets mad of straw.

             
Cass was hovering over the arena so that the dragons and their riders that competed had to fly under her. Elizabeth wanted to keep her in center view as much as possible so that everyone remembered that this year a golden dragon had hatched. Cass was the overall judge of the event, but she was not needed when it was Hayden’s turn. It was clear to everyone that he was out of the running for the first event. Hayden and Draek landed at the same clearing again but this time there were servants there to give them something to drink and, if they needed it, something to eat.

             
The next event was archery, one that Hayden planned to enter, and Hayden had very little time to rest. He took his drink of water and jumped back into Draek’s saddle. A servant brought him his bow and two quivers that were strung together so that he could throw them across Draek’s neck and have one quiver on each side. Hayden watched as the servant tightened down the quivers so that they would not fall
off during flight. Hayden pulled back on his bow to test its strength, and when he was satisfied that it was going to be enough he waited with it sat upon his lap.

              The dragons that made it through the first round were back up in the air and repeating the process all over again. As time went on and fewer dragons took to the air for the next round, more dragons came up beside Hayden and Draek with their own bows and quivers full of arrows.

             
“Riders in the archery event, take to the skies!” a judge yelled at the tops of his lungs. Draek and the other dragons , jumped into the air and made their way over the arena, and Hayden guessed there were close to forty others with him.

             
It was the same style event as the last one: one at a time they dive in and fire one arrow at a moving target and then they fly back over the arena. They all fell in line behind each other and circled high above the arena, making a giant circle. Hayden and Draek had done two full passes before the first dragon lunged towards the center of the circle and plummeted to the arena. Hayden leaned over his saddle and tried his best to see how the rider did, but it happened so fast that he couldn’t make it out.

              He guessed that the rider must have done well, though because as he left the arena he held his bow over his head in triumph. Hayden guessed that this was going to be more difficult than the previous archery event, but he had no idea what he was in for.

             
Dragons kept diving one after another until they started picking up the pace, and soon after one rider went down and made it to the arena to shoot, another dragon was already diving behind it. Then Draek said what Hayden had been waiting for.

             
Hold on, it’s our turn.
Hayden Held his bow tightly in his left hand and while they had been circling in the air, he had drawn an arrow and notched it. His right hand had a death grip on the front of the saddle.

             
Draek made the dive and Hayden was worried that he might drop his bow or arrow and he could only imagine just how embarrassing that would be. As Draek pulled out of the dive and tried to level out through the arena, Hayden let go of the saddle and pulled back the arrow.

             
He did not aim so much as he let his instincts take over. He released the arrow slightly higher and in front of the target. As soon as the arrow was on his way he had to grab the saddle again as Draek began to climb again. He heard the crowd cheer and looked back in time to see a servant pulling the arrow out of the target. He did what he had seen some of the other riders do and he held up his bow over his head and cheered.

             
The first few rounds thinned out their numbers quickly. Most of the riders flying with Hayden looked to be only a few years older than he was, most of the elder riders either did not want to participate or they were waiting for what they considered to be the more important games.

             
It didn’t seem like it had been long before Hayden and one other rider remained in the event. They had been told to circle higher, That way they would be going faster and so they could not see what the other was doing during the last round.

             
Hayden and Draek were told to go first and they did not hesitate. Hayden had gotten somewhat used to the diving at this point, but now it was a little bit longer than the others. As they made their way down, Draek tried to concentrate on Hayden, ready to obey his order the second it was given.

             
As they entered between the stands, Hayden saw the target was still moving like normal and he pulled his arrow back to shoot. Each round he had waited for the last moment to shoot, when the target was almost beside him and he was unable to turn any more, that way the target was at its closest point to him and was easier to hit. He did the same thing this time, but right before the target was right beside him, the target shot back behind Hayden’s reach and he could not turn around to shoot at the target.

             
They pulled it. Roll over your left wing,
Hayden shouted in his mind. He looked over to his left, took in a deep breath and pulled his still drawn bow to point to opposite way of the target.

             
The crowd thought that he had completely missed when Draek passed the target, but when he flipped over, they had no idea what was going on. As Draek tucked in his wings and flipped, Hayden squeezed as tight as he could with his legs and tried not to let the force of the turn make him lean back. Once he was upside down, he could see the target for a split second, and to make matters worse, one of the servants, thinking that since Hayden had just passed he was done and could move the target back to where it needed to be for the next rider, was blocking a third of the target with his body. Hayden saw that shortly after he let the arrow go.

             
Draek righted himself and Hayden’s world came back right side up. He quickly turned around in the saddle and saw the servant laying on the ground and the arrow sticking out just under the center of the target.

             
Hayden could not believe what they had just done, and this time Hayden could not hear his own yelling over the crowd and Draek.

             
Cass had watched as Draek and Hayden had swooped in and passed the target and when Hayden had not shot she was disheartened. It was short lived, though, and was quickly replaced with amazement when in the time it took Draek to get upside down and start back up the other way, Hayden had fired.

             
Not only had he fired, but he hit the target, and near to the center too. The next rider did not get to see Hayden’s amazing feat, so when the target shot behind him he just eased the tension off of his bow without firing his arrow and slammed his fist against his knees as the flew back up over the arena.

             
Hayden and Draek had circled back behind the rider to watch his attempt. Hayden could barely contain himself when the rider fell for the same thing that he had, the only difference being that Hayden found a way around it. Draek flew close to the arena, allowing the crowd a chance to cheer for them a while longer. Hayden had no problem with it as he waved with the bow still in his hand.

                            After that event, Hayden decided not to compete in them all. These events were to test the best riders who had been doing this for longer than Hayden had been alive. Draek wasn’t tired, but Hayden could tell all the flying was taking its toll on his wings.

             
Draek went to go rest and eat some of the meat that the servants had prepared for the dragons. Hayden did not even want to guess how much cattle had been killed in order to satisfy the multitude of hungry dragons.

             
Hayden went into the stands and met up with Fendrel and Shane. Rilora and Draek had spoken, and Draek told Hayden where they were. They both congratulated him on a job well done but he shrugged off their praises, he had heard enough of them from the random people in the crowd while he tried to find them.

             
The next few events became feats of strength for the dragons and did not involve their riders at all. They had contests to see which dragon could breathe fire the longest or which could fly the highest. They held races where the dragons had to fly to various check points and finish right above the arena.

             
As the events went on, Cass and Shaylin continued to judge over the combatants, always being fair with their calls. The people all cheered for her as she told them her ruling. Hayden watched the events with interest but found himself more than once staring at Cass as she sat upon her golden dragon.

             
As night began to fall, they finally called an end to the days’ games and with the crowd cheering all the way, they began spilling out of the arena and headed back to the confines of the city.

             
“Tonight, I think it would be a good idea if you lot called it a night and went off to bed instead of coming over,” Fendrel told Hayden and Shane as they made their way through the stands.

             
“Why not, we love coming over,” Hayden tried to argue. Shane agreed in earnest with him.

             
“And I like you guys coming over, but tomorrow is that last day of the Festival of Games, so that means the Crucible, which you both need to be rested for. The other thing is I have been putting off my packing and I need to get it done if I am going to leave after they give out the awards.” Fendrel said.

              Talking about Fendrel leaving was not something that Hayden enjoyed. It was something that they all knew was coming, (he had told them many times exactly when he was leaving) but they still didn’t like it.

             
Fendrel knew how they felt about it and did not want to stand around and hear them try to talk him out of leaving. He smiled at both the young riders, congratulated Hayden on a job well done, and mixed in with the leaving crowd.

             
Hayden and Shane followed the crowds out of the arena, but not back to the city. They met with their dragons back at the clearing.

             
“How are Draek’s wing joints doing?” Shane asked as they got ready to jump into their saddles.