Urszula had me sit in front of her on a saddle that wasn’t really large enough for two riders. She feared Seraf’s shifty maneuvers might take me by surprise and spill me, and frankly, so did I.
While she adjusted the strapping, I sat there gazing out over the void we imminently intended to occupy. My stomach tumbled at the prospect. It was like waiting in line for a wicked, scary rollercoaster like that beastly Hulk contraption at the Islands of Adventure theme park.
To distract myself from my imminent doom, I reached forward and stroked Seraf’s leathery neck, one of the few soft spots in her armor. The insect’s hide was a lot warmer than I expected given her cold blooded nature.
Holes in her side wheezed with every movement. She had no lungs, just ventilation ports that ran the whole length of her body.
And those compound eyes, the way they curved around, some of them had to be watching me, even though she faced straight ahead. Freaky.
Urszula’s cool breath wafted past my ear and her hair brushed gently against my neck as she leaned forward.
“Hold on,” she said. “We are ready to go.”
She pressed one hand firmly against my stomach, claw-like nails digging into my skin. The other held an elaborate set of reins connected to six points on the mantid’s integument that allowed her to command to her mount with a flick of her wrist.
“Yaaah!” she said, her voice gone deep and guttural.
Seraf scuttled to the edge of the mesa, opened her wing cases and hopped over the brink without a moment’s hesitation. I clamped my eyes shut. I couldn’t bear to look. I pictured us plummeting down the side of the mesa, bashing our brains against the rocks.
I had witnessed the helicopter-like power of Seraf’s flutter, but I wasn’t prepared for the vigor of her vibrations. Her thorax rattled the heck out of the saddle. It was way worse than Renfrew’s Suzuki, more like a Harley with a thrown pushrod. Each oscillation ratcheted the levers that drove her wing beats.
Once we got going, I settled down and actually manage to open my eyes and enjoy the smooth, controlled glide all the way down to the banks of the river. It sure beat being manhandled up a cliff in jaws of a giant ant, I can tell you that.
Seraf was capable of only short stretches of flight, so we made the rest of the journey in short hops, passing over the many twisting channels of the river bed to the opposite bank. From there it was out onto the outwash basin where the river ceased to be a river, and then around the bastion of foothills that guarded the massif harboring Frelsi.
The landings, however, were a little too abrupt for my comfort. An F-18 landing on an aircraft carrier probably had a gentler go of it. Seraf’s tactic was to glide and then stall about ten feet off the ground, dropping straight down and hard on bent legs that cushioned much, but not all of the impact. My poor crotch took the brunt of these impacts. Talk about saddle sore.
Urszula must have taken pity on me, because when we pulled into the box canyon, she guided Seraf down with a nearly horizontal approach, skimming over the tops of bushes. We skidded across a dried mudflat and curled to a stop at the edge of a pond.
I sat there, gathering my breath when, without warning, Urszula shoved me hard off the saddle. I flailed, fingers grasping, slipping on the mantid’s sleek and slick cuticle. I landed in a patch of dust.
Urszula laughed, hopping down nimbly beside me, her eyes displaying something between malice and mischief. Now that she was healed, it was almost scary to see the bundle of wiry energy that was her normal self. The days of hauling her around like an invalid were over.
