Draka

The city was desolate, even for an early, overcast morning. At least the part between the mercantile quarter, where the inn was, and the Palace. Those few desperate souls who scurried along the streets moved cautiously, looking around corners and crossing intersections quickly. No one looked up. They were too focused on avoiding any possible fighting.

I didn’t see any sign of active combat, but as I got to the Forum it was clear that this was where the most blood had been shed. The stone was stained dark, as were the steps of the Palace itself, and dozens of bodies had been laid out in rows on the great square. I couldn’t tell which way the fighting had gone; The bodies were in two distinct groups, but I had no way to tell which group was which. Either way the Cranes were gone, and that meant one of two things. They had either succeeded in whatever they were trying to do, and had left, or they’d failed and been driven off.

People slowly started huddling together, looking up and pointing as I circled low above them. I tried to make up my mind as to what to do. Herald and the others were safe for the moment, which was my biggest concern, but that wasn’t the only reason I wanted to find the Cranes. I wanted vengeance. The Cranes couldn’t get away with this. They had killed and maimed people I knew. They had wounded my humans, my family, and damaged our property. There was no question about if I was going after them; Instinct screamed for vengeance, and Conscience wanted us to find the Cranes to track them, to make sure that they weren’t coming back to attack again — maybe even to help bring them to justice. The only question was if I’d involve the humans on the ground or not.

I searched the upturned faces for any that I recognized. Despite the hour it didn’t feel unreasonable that Rallon or Sempralia might be there, if they were still alive. I didn’t find them. There were some people who were clearly in charge based on how they were dressed and how others were gathered around them, but no one I knew. In theory the whole Council should know about my deal with Sempralia and what I’d been doing in the south. Despite what Sarvalian had told me about the lady justice’s possible reasons for keeping me in the dark, I didn’t have a whole lot of trust for the woman at the moment. For all I knew she’d been running the whole show on her own, with her colleagues none the wiser.

Ah, fuck it. I didn’t know which way the Cranes had gone, and I didn’t want to waste time flying off in the wrong direction. I picked the one guy with the most orbiters. He was standing next to some other man who had a few followers of his own, looking up at me, and I landed fifteen feet from them, to gasps and screams and awed whispers of “The dragon! The dragon!” Half of the people around them scattered, but were replaced by a number of loyal, if nervous guards who cautiously moved in to surround me.

“Councilors!” I said, addressing them both with all the arrogance and imperiousness I could muster. “Which way did the turn-coats go?”

When I addressed them, the more important-looking man, a thin, old fellow, rediscovered his wits and shuffled back a few steps, putting the other man half between us. “Dragon!” he breathed. “Apologies, ‘Lady Dragon’! Why are you—”

“The Cranes!” I demanded. “Where did they go?”

“They—” he turned to the man between us, who was regarding me with hard, narrowed eyes. This man looked to be about the same age as the presumed councilor and was just as thin, but where the councilor looked almost frail, this man was made of tanned leather and steel wire. “Lord Commander, if you would, tell the Lady Dragon where they went!”

The commander chewed it over for a second. He didn’t look surprised to see me, but neither was he pleased about it. For a moment it looked like he might refuse to tell me anything, but then he gave me a snort and a nod. “South,” he said gruffly. “They left through the south gate, then turned east.”

“All of them?” I asked.

“Sorrows take me if I know, but I hope so. Enough of them.”

South and east. That would do. “Thank you, Lord Commander,” I said, and turned. The guards around me, and the crowd gathering beyond them, surged back when I moved. I leaped into the air, and the people now behind and below me rumbled with surprise, fear and wonder.

I turned generally south-east, cutting across the harbor, and followed the coast out. I didn’t bother with the gate. I’d passed above it when I came in and hadn’t seen anything. That had been ten or fifteen minutes earlier; if the Cranes had all left the city when they withdrew from the Favor they had at least a forty minute head start. If they were all mounted, which I had to assume, they could have made it seven or eight miles from the city, farther if they didn’t care much about their horses. I climbed rapidly until I was high enough that I’d blend in with the dark clouds; I still didn’t know what I was going to do once I found them, but I wanted the option of following them without being spotted, and I shouldn’t have any trouble seeing a large group of riders even from a mile up.

Perhaps I should have asked why the Cranes had attacked the Palace in the middle of the night. I understood going after the councilors, but if they’d attacked the Palace in the middle of the day they might have been able to kill most of the Council anyway. But what was the point of doing it at night? There had to be one.

It did occur to me that their attack in the city had been timed to coincide with the Happarrans crossing the river. A little before, even. Perhaps the only goal had been to distract the Karakani commanders and delay their response to the invasion?

It took me fifteen minutes to find the Cranes, following the coast south. They were pushing their horses hard, and without my worry to drive me I couldn’t keep my speed up the way I had on my way north. My flight muscles burned, and when I could finally switch to a lazy glide, which was still more than fast enough to catch up to them, I groaned with relief. Locking my wings like that was practically effortless, and I held my position above and slightly behind them, invisible against the thick clouds that were rolling in, circling occasionally so I wouldn’t overtake them.

Following them passively like that gave me time to think. Now that I’d found them I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. There were too many of them to try to stop; I didn’t know how many they’d been originally, but it looked like they numbered well over a hundred now. I didn’t know where they were going, either. Happar seemed like a safe bet, but the border was more than a hundred miles away. At the pace they were going they’d have to stop and rest their horses long before then. I’d picked up enough from Garal and Lalia to know that even a strong, healthy horse couldn’t keep going at a trot or a canter for more than six or seven hours, and then only if you planned to let it eat and rest properly the next day. We’d taken several days from the city to the border because we didn’t want to risk the horses’ health.

The Cranes’ pace bothered me. It was unnecessary. They were miles from the city, and there was no one chasing them. There was no one who could chase them; the Karakani cavalry were all in the south, the Wolves in the city were all dead, injured, or trying to help their comrades, and the rest of the Wolves were on patrol and wouldn’t know about the Cranes’ betrayal for hours. So why the hurry? Why push their horses so hard instead of saving their strength? They’d need their horses to be in peak condition once they got close to the border, to avoid the army. It didn’t make any sense.

I soon realized their goal was much closer than that.

A little more than twenty miles south of Karakan the cliffs opened to a bay, and in that bay ten ships lay at anchor. They were large enough that I spotted them easily from a mile up, and all my intuition told me that there was no way in hell that this was a coincidence. I flew ahead to check them out. They all lay close to the shore, their sides facing land and with long wooden ramps extending into the surf from openings in the upper hull. In the sea outside the bay three sleeker ships waited, as a fourth burned on the rocks.

The Cranes didn’t need to worry about joining up with the Happarans or crossing the border. They’d done their job, and now they were leaving.

I was furious. I had a deep seated need to hurt them for what they’d done, and now they were getting on a bunch of boats and sailing out of my reach? It was absolutely unacceptable. I wouldn’t allow it. In a moment of absolute insanity I considered trying to destroy the ships, and started to descend to look for rocks to drop on them. It must have been Instinct’s influence, but thankfully I snapped out of it quickly. Not only was there no way I could do any meaningful damage to these things — they were something like two hundred feet long, with massive masts and dozens upon dozens of oars each — but they were well defended. Besides their large crews, the ships had large crossbows at the fore and aft, with stacks of bolts like small spears next to them. I imagined trying to swoop in on the ships and getting shot at by twenty of those things.

Nah, fuck that! I’d watched Game of Thrones! I knew what those things could do! Sure, my ex, Alex, had to pause the show to rant about how ridiculous it was when one of Dany’s dragons got shot down, but I wasn’t going to risk it. If I wanted to do anything I would have to hit the Cranes now, while they were still miles away from the ships. And I was going to do something.

I approached the column of fleeing turncoats with a smug sense of anticipation. I could see them ahead of me, the distance shrinking rapidly as we approached each other, and my focus narrowed until they were all I could see. I’d only get one shot at a first impression, and I wanted to put in my best effort.

I was going bowling.

My plan was to dive and pick up some ridiculous speed, then level out and turn all of that into horizontal momentum. In my arms — with some help from my legs; it was awkward, but it worked — was a large, jagged rock. I’d found it below the cliffs by the water, and it was the largest thing I’d been able to find that I could grab and fly with. Getting back in the air had been a bitch, but I’d done it, and now I was lining myself up to strike.

Let’s see how they like a big bloody boulder moving at a hundred miles per hour, I thought viciously as I readied myself.

There was a small wrinkle as I began my descent. From the west I could see another group of riders, about two dozen strong, moving in to meet the Cranes. I couldn’t be sure, but my guess was that they were a Grey Wolves patrol that had spotted the cloud of dust that the Cranes were kicking up. If they were Wolves they’d be completely ignorant of what had happened in the city, and I wasn’t going to let them get ridden down by an overwhelming force if I could help it. Hopefully, though, that wouldn’t be a problem.

I turned my descent into a steep, controlled dive, not quite a freefall but picking up speed rapidly. The ones I thought to be Wolves were still a few minutes out, but they were also on a hill, so they’d have a front row seat to what was about to happen.

I knew from experience that simply diving from a mile up took around twenty seconds, but it would take a little longer this time since I needed to control my dive carefully with the extra weight. I wanted to do as much damage as I could, so I timed my dive to put me just in front of the Cranes when I released my payload. That way me and my rock wouldn’t lose much speed, and the thing should plow through them like a cannonball. I targeted the lead guy. I had no idea if their commander would be at the front or not, but I couldn’t be picky.

By the time I started leveling out I was sure that they’d seen me. I’d gotten to a size where, with my wings spread wide against the cloudy morning sky, I should be visible from the few hundreds of feet that remained between us. To my absolute joy, they responded to the threat by bunching up, instinct and training telling them to close ranks against an approaching threat.

I went horizontal twenty feet above the ground, barely a hundred feet in front of the Cranes. I let go immediately. The rock dropped straight down and we shot forward, crossing those hundred feet in a moment. We were close enough that I could see their astonished faces, raised to watch me as I came.

For a heartbeat all I could hear was the air tearing around me. Then there was a mass of wet, splintering noise, and the sweet sound of screaming pandemonium erupted behind me as the Cranes and I passed each other and two hundred pounds of rock plowed through them. God, I loved being a flying creature in a world with no concept of aerial attacks!

Their close ranks had made sure that my rock did more damage than I possibly could have hoped. I wondered, distantly, how many people I’d just killed. But thinking about it was pointless. In the seconds it took to have that thought I was far past their column and starting the turn for my second run. I’d get a good idea in a moment.

The Wolves were thundering down the hill. I didn’t know their intentions. Perhaps they knew of me, and were coming to join in on my side. Perhaps they had never heard of me, or thought that I’d gone rogue, and were coming to try to help the Cranes. It didn’t matter.

I came around. The Cranes had stopped, and were forming into a large circle studded with spears and a few bows, all pointing in my direction. In the center of the circle was carnage.

When I’d attacked a small contingent of the Silver Spurs, I’d felled the two lead horses with my venom, probably by blinding them and making them stumble. This time it was hard to make out how many horses and humans lay in the squirming pile that the Cranes had gathered around. While I hadn’t seen it, I could easily guess what had happened. The rock I’d dropped, weighing about two hundred pounds and traveling at something like a hundred miles per hour — not counting my targets’ speed — had hit the first horse or rider and just kept going. It must have taken out dozens of them in a fraction of a second, and in their close ranks those who were hit would have knocked into the horses beside them, taking them down as well. As I approached I could see dismounted people trying to get to any survivors, probably to try to heal them with magic or give them healing potions.

I decided to avoid the helpers. Killing their healers, magic users or not, would have weakened the Cranes considerably, but I chose not to. Perhaps I’d spent too much time with Kira, but it felt like anyone who chose to be a healer must be worthy of some mercy. Besides, there were plenty of targets around them.

I flew fast and erratically, closing the distance in heartbeats. Arrows zipped past me, but none were magically empowered and those that hit only grazed along my scales. Archery was clearly not the Cranes’ strong suit. I’d been planning to turn left and spray that side, but my mind was changed for me when a goddamn javelin flew at me and I had to jink to the right instead. I saw it pass as if in slow motion; three feet of dark wood, tipped with ten inches of barbed metal, perhaps bronze by its color. As if arrows weren’t enough; now I had to worry about javelins! I was reminded of the harpoons the Barlean fishermen had thrown at me. Those had drawn blood. At our combined speeds, and with the mass that thing must have had, I wouldn’t have been surprised if it skewered me!

I emptied my venom glands at the nearest Cranes and turned up and out, quickly putting distance between us. I didn’t know if it would be enough to kill any of them, but the point was to cause fear and confusion. I didn’t have a plan anymore; I’d dropped my rock. That was as far ahead as I’d thought. From here on out I was making things up as I went.

We were only hundreds of feet from the cliffs, so I dipped over the edge, landing among the stones. I didn’t waste time searching; I simply grabbed something big, a hunk of stone that I needed both hands to hold, and went back up. I didn’t bother with anything fancy, and I didn’t get close. I just climbed to a thousand feet, dove at the mass of circled riders at a sharp angle, and dropped my rock from high above them, well out of javelin range. This time I went into a long turn immediately, so I could keep my eyes on them, and grinned with satisfaction as they milled about, getting in each other’s way as they tried to get out of the way of the falling stone. Two of them got smashed out of their saddles.

The Cranes milled around. The Wolves got closer. I returned to the cliffs to rearm.