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hair’s-width from her
chosen course. Pell did as he was told and kept his head and eyes straight ahead, though his stomach leaped at the sudden noise of the great dragon voices. He felt the disturbance of their passage
in the air around him. The dragons had missed them by no more than a few spans.
    ‘Well done,’
Shadow said, pleased.
‘Keep ignoring them. It’s the best response to such nonsense.’
    ‘But why didn’t you make fools of them?’
Pell asked, gritting his teeth with frustration at having to let these dragonriders literally fly rings around them. Both
watch dragons had now zoomed back to position themselves on either side of Shadow.
    ‘Because I did not wish to be responsible for the unnecessary deaths of my fellow night dragons and their riders,’
Shadow responded.
‘What they just did was both
ridiculous and very dangerous. One wrong move by either could have seen them crash into each other. At that speed and height a collision could have proved fatal for both the dragons and their
riders. Don’t worry. I imagine Segun and his dragon, Widewing, will be as unimpressed with their idiotic behaviour as I am. They do not suffer fools gladly.’
    Shadow was right, Pell realised. But knowing this did not make ignoring the two watch riders any easier. His competitive spirit yearned to demonstrate that he and Shadow were more than a match
for them. If he had not been under time pressure to present his request to Segun, he might have pushed Shadow into showing the two watch dragons and their riders some real flying skill. But the
meeting with Segun was far more important. When Segun and his council of senior riders discovered that Pell and Shadow were here as part of the Great Quest, everything would change. His status
would rise. If he succeeded in the Quest, he might even be invited to join the senior council.
    Pell quashed any thoughts about reacting to the watch riders and kept his focus forwards. The watch dragons flanked them for a while, but soon lost interest and turned back to retake their
places on the watch posts.
    Shadow powered up the pass and into the maze of mountains beyond. It was well that she knew the range intimately, for Pell realised it would be easy to get lost amongst the peaks. He had not
come here often during the two season rotations since he and Shadow had met, but his previous visits had failed to give him any sense of familiarity with the route through the valleys.
    It was theoretically possible to enter the mountains at any point, but there were only three main routes into the heart of the range that did not require risking the dangerously thin air of high
altitude flying. Dragons could enter over the peaks, but it was not without risk, and several foolhardy riders had died attempting it. This made the night dragon enclave the most difficult of the
four enclaves to access, but the easiest to defend.
    They dropped down the other side of the pass into a great valley that ran northwest to southeast, and Shadow made a gentle turn to the right. The sheer scale of his surroundings made Pell feel
very small and fragile, and for a moment he understood what it might feel like to be a fly weaving through a crowd of humans armed with swatters. This vulnerability did not generate fear, rather an
edginess that heightened his awareness.
    Flying in the vicinity of such huge mountains was never without danger. Even in fair weather there were numerous traps for the unwary. Valleys funnelled wind, accelerating the air and creating
swirling eddies in the most unexpected places. Then there were vicious up- and down-drafts that could be caused by any number of triggers. Under certain conditions, the air crossing the mountains
could even react in such a way that severe air currents, like great waves, could be experienced up to one hundred leagues away. As they turned up that first major valley, Pell wound safety straps
around his wrists and checked that his feet were securely fixed