Draka

According to the humans we had about a hundred and thirty miles to cover. That would take them about four or five days, and that was with them mounted and riding along a good, gravel-covered road, not the churned up mess that was the northern road through the forest.

I could have been there in less than three hours. Sempralia and I were going to have a conversation when we got back.

The first two days were entirely uneventful. I flew endless circles above the humans, barely aware of time passing. I soared and I kept an eye on them, but nothing happened. I couldn’t even join them on their breaks, since the landscape was so open. I probably got spotted a hundred times in the air — if I could see a human on the ground, they could probably see me in the air — and I wondered if that was part of why Sempralia had anchored me to the trio of humans. But while an unknown flying creature circling a mile up was a cause for concern, that same creature being seen sitting around near the road would probably trigger either a panic or a mob, and I didn't want either.

I spent some of the time feeling for the little threads that connected me to Nest Hearts. They’d been getting easier to find the last few days, and a faint but growing need told me that the power of the one I’d last eaten was running out, wearing off, being consumed or something else. Most of the threads pointed back north, or west to the mountains and beyond, but more and more led south. I tried to keep track of those, in case we got close enough to one of them for a detour.

As night drew close on the first day I flew ahead and landed as covertly as I could, hiding in a dense field along the road.

“It looks like there’s an inn in the next town,” I told them. “You should just stay there for the night.”

“What about you?” Garal asked.

“As long as I know where you are I can just head over to the mountains and find somewhere to hole up there, then come back in the morning. Just keep an eye on the sky, and I’ll recognize you once you’re on the road again.”

Lalia spoke up, with a surprising amount of concern in her voice. “What about food? You haven’t eaten all day, have you?”

I threw an exaggerated glance at Maglan, who gave me the most forced grin I’d ever seen. “Don’t worry. I promised Herald, remember? But I haven’t eaten, no, and flying all day’s hungry work! No worries, though. I’ll hunt something up in the mountains tomorrow night or the night after. I don’t need to eat too often.”

Lalia didn’t let it go, though. “Are you sure? We’re getting our expenses covered, and hunting takes time, doesn’t it? I’m sure we could figure something out.”

I looked at her skeptically, but she looked entirely serious. “I mean, yeah. If you could buy me one of those big birds or something — nothing too big, five or ten pounds of meat, counting the insides — that’d be great. I’m sure we could figure out a handover.”

“That’s settled, then. We’ll figure something out, and if we can’t, we’ll try along the road or in the next village tomorrow.”

“Sure, yeah. Thanks!”

“Don’t mention it.”

Garal grinned at the two of us. “Look at you two, getting along,” he said, and Lalia gave him a playful smack on the arm. “We should get into town and arrange rooms, then. Draka, we’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, see you,” I said. I made my way deeper into the field before taking off and climbing as fast as I could. If the locals saw me, they saw me; they could damn well get used to it. The town ahead of the trio was a place with no walls but about two hundred buildings, which seemed to have sprung up around a bridge where the road crossed a large canal. I circled above them until they got into the town proper, then turned west to the mountains to find a place to sleep.

I returned to the skies above the town shortly after sunrise, to find the three humans already waiting on the road at the southern outskirts. The second day passed as uneventfully as the first. When we managed to meet up they had a whole leg of lamb for me. It had been sitting wrapped up for a good few hours by then, but I didn’t mind.

“Hope it’s enough,” Maglan said as they handed it over. “The innkeeper arranged it for us. We couldn’t get anything live, but he had a boy run over to the butcher’s. It’s not a problem with the bone, is it?”

“Not at all! Here, you’ll want to see this.” I grinned at him, then broke the leg in half at the knee. Then I tossed the thigh up in front of me, snatching it out of the air in my jaws. With a few deft movements I turned it around so that it was aligned with my gullet, and then I simply swallowed it. It took some work, and I’d never been sure if I actually unhinged my jaw whenever I did that, but it wasn’t at all uncomfortable. And the look of Maglan’s face, somewhere between fascination and horror, was priceless.

“You’re quite the topic of conversation,” Garal said after I’d swallowed the rest of the leg.

“Oh, yeah?

“Yeah. A few people saw you land in that field, and take off again. They asked us about it, since we’d stopped along the road. We told them that we’d been trying to spot you, but that we weren’t going to be trampling someone’s field, especially if there was some big, flying creature in it. They seemed to accept that.”

Lalia snorted. “Accept it? There was a chorus of ‘Ayes’ and ‘Yeaps’ from all the brave men who insisted that they’d have gone after you if they could have seen you. As if a single one of them could have done more than amuse you.”

They slept in a smaller village that night, and on the morning of the third day the trouble began. Clouds had rolled in during the night, and at the altitude I kept to even I was feeling the chill. The humans had been on the road for about two hours, moving into a more hilly landscape where plowed fields gave way to pasture, when I noticed a pair of riders following them. They were moving parallel to the road, perhaps a mile to the east, and cutting through the various plots without a care for whose crops they trampled or whose sheep they frightened. I didn’t like that, but I also didn’t want to make myself too obvious by swooping in for a closer look. For all I knew they weren’t the least bit interested in my group, and since they neither approached nor left I chose patience, keeping an eye on them as they kept pace and distance with my three companions.

Two hours later Garal and the others stopped for a break, and one of the two took off to the north-east while the other stopped, moving into a position where the hills wouldn’t block their sight of the trio. That started all kinds of alarm bells ringing in my head, and I made a snap decision. I could have followed the rider that left, or I could have gone for the one that remained. Instead I chose to stay and warn the three I was supposed to be accompanying.

Ignoring anyone who might see me, I passed low over the small camp the trio had set up, then landed in a pasture behind a hill where the rider wouldn’t be able to see me. A flock of sheep scattered as I came down, and with my blood up as it was I had to consciously rein myself in from going after them. A large, shaggy dog, the kind that I could never quite understand how they see anything past their fur, calmly took a position between me and the flock. We looked at each other. It was a bloody big dog, standing as tall as I did at the shoulder, but it didn’t bark or make any aggressive moves. I felt like it was telling me that as long as I didn’t start anything, it wouldn’t either, and after a few seconds I ducked my head, turned around, and took a few steps away. When I looked back over my shoulder it had laid itself down, though it was still watching me keenly.

It didn’t take long for Garal to appear around the hill, riding Melon at a trot. “Mercies, that’s a big dog,” he said when we were close enough that he didn’t have to shout. “I’m guessing that with the way you came in, whatever it is is urgent?”

“Yeah. You’re being watched. Two riders followed you for a couple of hours, then as soon as you stopped here one took off. The other is still watching the camp. For sure that they saw me coming down, too. What do you want to do?”

“Well…” Garal thought about it. “You suspect that they’re with the Tekereteki raiders? The Silver Spurs, was it?”

“I don’t know why they’d be interested in three travelers, but yeah. Them, or the council’s keeping an eye on us. Or the Cranes. Or someone else, for all I know. This whole setup stinks.”

“It does. All right. The horses really do need some rest, but we’ll just have to push them a little farther. According to the map there should be another village five miles up the road. We’ll stop there and hope that deters whoever’s following us, and you can get a better idea of who they are in the meantime.”

“Right.”

Garal headed back. I decided to put some distance between us before taking off again, to make it a little less obvious that we were together. The dog had been relaxing a bit, but sat up attentively when I moved, so I made sure to keep my distance from it and the sheep until I was far away enough that running shouldn’t spook it. I liked dogs and always had, and I didn't want to give it any grief.

Once I was back up it took a moment to find the rider. They’d dismounted and put their horse under a tree, and it was a damn sight harder to spot a person crouching on the ground. But there they were, still where I’d last seen them, presumably still watching my three companions.

Screw it, I thought. I’d give them something else to focus on for a minute.

Instinct, of course, told me to just kill whoever it was and be done with it. No matter who they belonged to they shouldn’t be stalking my humans, and they should suffer the consequences. And as so often I had to force myself to disregard Instinct’s advice, because if it was someone from the council, or the army, or some local militia, or really anyone except the Tekereteki mercs, then killing them would be a terrible look.

Warning them off, also known as scaring them shitless, though? Swooping at them, going a hundred miles per hour ten feet off the ground and roaring at them? That was fine. They shouldn’t be in whatever line of work they were if they couldn’t handle being swooped at now and then.

I passed above them so quickly that on the first pass all I had time to see clearly was a bearded man staring at me in absolute horror as he threw himself to the ground. By the time I came around he was on his feet, dashing for his horse. I came in slower the second time. I got a better look at him, but it didn’t help much. He didn’t look like he was in uniform, but that didn’t rule out much. I guessed that the regular cavalry probably wore uniforms, but I wouldn’t expect them to wear them if they were out spying on someone. Nor did I recognize him as one of the Tekereteki mercs. But there was one easy way to check if he was one of them.

Well, in for a penny and all that. After I made my second pass I turned and braked hard, setting down a hopefully non-threatening distance away from him as he was getting on his horse.

“Hey, you! Beardy!” I shouted at him in Kira’s vulgar Tekereteki. He turned in the saddle to stare at me, slack-jawed, as his horse snorted and pranced beneath him. And the predator in me saw just what it wanted: recognition.

“Yeah, I’m talking to you!” I said, trying to soothe Conscience by confirming what I already knew. We wouldn’t want to make a terrible mistake, after all. But I hadn’t needed to worry.

“You speak!” the man answered me in that same vulgar Tekereteki, and that was all I needed. I was forty feet away, but what was forty feet to me? I pushed off hard, claws gouging the earth as my wings tore the air, and I bowled that murdering bastard out the saddle before he had a chance to spur his horse into motion. I didn’t smash him into a sack of broken bones the way I would have if I’d been diving on him, but I still carried him a good distance before he hit the ground, hard. I stepped off, watching him, letting him slowly catch his breath and get to his feet if he could. I hadn’t been sure if he’d broken anything, but when he got on his hands and knees I was somewhat impressed. The bastard was tough.

I told myself that I was giving him a chance to surrender or say something to save himself, but I knew, deep down, that I was just playing with him. He was one of the raiders, I was sure of it, and they murdered villages and captured magic users to send them into slavery. There was little he could do to save himself at this point.

Perhaps I should have tried to interrogate him, but his reply to what I said next nipped any chance of that in the bud.

As he rose unsteadily to his feet, looking half out of it and having trouble grabbing his sword, I told him, “Bekiratag is alive and well in Karakan, by the way. If you all were wondering.”

When he spoke his voice was slurred, but it dripped with contempt. “Beki,” he grunted, and spat a red glob into the short grass. “That traitorous whore.”

And then he died. One moment he was standing there, swaying on his feet. The next he was a red mess underneath me.

It was his tone more than anything that made me snap. Merely saying her name with that kind of contempt was enough for me to throw myself at him in a fury, and in his state it wasn’t like he could either escape or fight. If circumstances had been different I might have overlooked it; it was such an incredibly stupid thing for him to say. He’d probably hit his head and wasn’t thinking properly. But I’d been lethally frustrated for days at that point, and then this murdering bastard spat after saying my Kira’s name. My kind, sensitive Kira, who just wanted a chance to be happy. When he spoke her name the way he did, when he insulted her with such contempt, all that frustration suddenly had a deserving outlet. Here I had someone in front of me who, in my eyes, very much deserved to die, and there was absolutely nothing holding me back.

So, if he wanted to make sure that I didn’t get anything useful out of him, well, bloody great success!

Before the bearded mercenary decided to commit suicide by dragon, I’d been thinking about what to do if I had to take him prisoner. Now I had to decide what to do with the body. Even Conscience had no regrets about what we’d done, but I couldn’t very well leave the guy there. I was pretty sure that I was in some kind of shared pasture, and I’d come down enough from my murderous rage that I didn’t want to leave a shredded corpse for some shepherd to find.

I looked at the body. I considered the direction his companion had ridden off in. His horse had run the same way.

I felt a nasty grin creep up my face. I had an idea.

Reconnaissance only. No one would ask me to put myself at risk if I agreed to go south. That had been the agreement. But then, when had anyone needed to ask me to get violent? Holding myself back was my natural state at this point, and once I relaxed that control it was easy to let it slip further and further. Reining myself in again, that was the hard part. Despite my frustration, despite the need that was starting to nag at me again, I’d been alright as long as there was nothing to provoke me. Now the bearded Silver Spur had given me the perfect excuse to drop that control almost entirely. I had three humans in my care. They were in danger. And I had started to destroy those that threatened them, but this one man was not nearly enough. He’d had a companion, who had surely gone back to report to the main group.

I had killed one of my enemies, but it was not enough. Beyond the fact that my companions were not safe yet, I was not satisfied. Not by far. It was probably a stupid idea to leave my companions behind just to go off and be spiteful, but as it happened I was glad that I did, or they wouldn’t have had the warning they had.

I’d stuffed what I could back inside the dead mercenary scout before I took off with him gripped in my feet. It only took about five minutes before I could see something whipping up a lot of dust in the distance, and a few minutes later I confirmed what I suspected; it was a band of horsemen, and they were coming my way fast.

Once I got a little closer it became clear that there were too many of them by far for me to take on by myself. When I'd wiped out the small group that Kira was part of, I had taken them by surprise. They’d been resting, not ready for a fight. The ones ahead of me now would see me coming, and there were about a dozen of them. Probably not close to all of the remaining Spurs, but too many for me to take on alone in the open on the best of days. It was another frustration, but one that I would have to bear for now. I’d promised Herald and Mak not to take any more risks that I had to.

I considered my options, and decided that there was realistically only one thing I could do. Something that I’d wanted to try for a long time.

My human side had an older brother, David. When we were growing up he’d been obsessed with the second world war, and despite my own complete lack of interest a few things here and there had stuck with me. One thing that he’d shown me about a million times was how small airplanes carrying bombs would dive on ships and tanks and other things, lining themselves up and going almost into free fall before releasing their bombs and turning up again. It was a tricky maneuver to copy, but I gave it a shot.

I started from about a mile up and dove on the riders at an angle. I got the freefall part right, but perhaps I should have waited before I released my payload. Since I wanted to be able to see what happened I dropped the remains of the bearded merc from about a thousand feet up, but unfortunately he lost all of his forward momentum and hit the ground a few dozen feet in front of them instead of smashing into the lead rider as I’d hoped. The panic that caused among the riders was bloody funny, though.

I was sure that they must have gotten a good look at me as I came in, but I didn’t care. Let them see what they were dealing with. Maybe that would make them think twice about being such utter bastards.