Draka

When I arrived at the camp I was met by Makanna and her spear. Thankfully she swung the point to the side and moved to try to see past me.

“What’s wrong,” she said urgently. “Are you being chased?”

“No,” I said, panting to catch my breath. “Bastards! Slaving bastards!”

“Calm down!” Herald demanded as the others stirred. “What are you talking about?”

“Human slavers!” I said, taking a moment to collect myself. “There are humans back there, right now, talking to the valkin about buying people!”

“Damn,” Makanna hissed and turned back to the others. “Come on, it’s time. Pack up quickly. We should be there if there’s an opportunity.”

I’d hoped to rest before we left. I was tired and hungry, but the situation had changed. Five minutes later we were moving, and I explained how I’d snuck down to the lower level and down the stairs.

“There were about twenty of them in total. Six humans,” I told them. “There’s no way we can take them head on.”

“I know,” Makanna said. “You say you can open the gate at the surface?”

“I did before.”

“Then we’ll get out and set up an ambush outside, hope they come out that way,” she said. “If the group that comes out is small, just the humans, we take them, maybe follow them. First sign that we’ve been spotted, or if we can’t decide the fight in the first seconds, we get out. Is that clear, everyone?”

“Got it, Mak,” Tamor said. Valmik gave a “Mmmh,” of agreement.

“That means you, too, Herald,” Makanna said, looking back.

“I understand,” Herald said. I could hear the eye-roll behind her words.

Makanna frowned at that, and looked at me. “And you?”

“Don’t worry about me. If you need to bug out, I’ll try to hold them off. Don’t forget what I am. I can take a hit.”

I saw her eyes flick to my missing horn, where she’d healed a pretty nasty head wound three weeks earlier.

“Lalia chopped me in the neck with her sword, and I’m still standing,” I told her, not mentioning that I still felt the bruise a little. That earned me a surprised look.

“Well. In that case I won’t tell you what risks not to take.”

When we got close to the chamber I went ahead. The guard was still missing, and I quickly returned to the group to hurry them along. Then came a long, monotonous climb through the featureless tunnel, made even more boring by the silence that Makanna strictly enforced. When I couldn’t take it anymore I offered to scout ahead, increasing my speed until I was out of sight and then switching to my shadow form. I could move at least as quickly as I walked, with the added benefit of being completely silent. It drained me faster, but we’d be out soon, so I didn’t worry about it.

That was my longest jaunt in shadow form so far. I went all the way to the exit, but found it still closed. There was no sound from the outside, but soft light spilled in through the hole so I couldn’t check without opening the gate, and I wanted the others there when I did. So instead I walked back, passing the time by trying to talk to the dragon, which was a sure sign that the boredom was getting to me. The dragon didn’t respond, but it rarely did. This time, though, I had the feeling that it was hiding. Dragon bone. That was what it had called the valkin leader’s staff, and it was still badly shaken.

I felt kind of bad for it.

I met the others after ten, maybe fifteen minutes, telling them that the tunnel was clear and that it was daylight outside. That gave them a boost, and they picked up the pace.

“So,” Makanna said pointedly as we reached the gate. “Are you going to let us out?”

“I want you to do it,” I replied after some hesitation.

“You told us–” Makanna said, her eyes narrowing.

“I know, and I’m almost completely sure that I can open the thing. But I want to see if you can.”

I’d considered saying “you or Tamor,” but there was pretty much only one way I could know about Tamor having magic, and I didn’t want to upset the balance between the two sisters.

“Listen, Makanna,” I said as she looked about to argue. “If it doesn’t work, I’ll do it. Just put your hand on the stone and will it to open. Push some magic into it. I don’t know how you do it with healing or the sight thing, but try that, maybe?”

Makanna looked at me doubtfully, then pressed the palm of her hand against the flat stone of the gate. “Open,” she said. Nothing happened, but then, I didn’t expect anything to. I hadn’t even seen any gathering of magic in her.

“C’mon,” I said, trying to sound encouraging. “You need to believe it. Try again. Really focus. You have to want it to open, the way you want a wound to heal. Like… make yourself know that there is no other way for this to go than for the door to open. Alright?”

Makanna looked at me with a small frown, clearly not liking being lectured, then turned back to the gate. I tried not to hold it against her. She’d had a rough couple of days.

She pushed her hand more firmly against the stone and closed her eyes. I saw her relax gradually, from her face to her shoulders out into her arms, and she started whispering to herself under her breath, too low for me to hear. Whatever she was doing, it seemed to be working. A small ball of magic gathered in her chest, and she opened her eyes and whispered, “Open!”

The lines around the door flared, and the gates swung outwards. Makanna stared at me, eyes wide and mouth slightly open, before Tamor grabbed her in a fierce hug from behind.

“Great work, sister!” he said with a big smile, and stepped out into the morning sun.

The rain was long gone. Puddles decorated the ground in places and small, fluffy clouds drifted in an otherwise blue sky. Everything smelled of wet stone, fresh and clean, and in a patch of scrubby grass not far from the gate Melon raised her head and whickered a greeting.

I wasn’t sure how much of that the others saw right away. Almost as one they squeezed their eyes shut, shading them with their hands as Makanna called out, “Right, damn it. Every damn time. Here, come here.” They huddled up, she undid her spell, and they all could finally look around.

Herald smiled and walked over to Melon, while Makanna and Valmik began to look around the tunnel entrance and talk in low voices. Tamor stood smiling in the sunlight, the long sword strapped across the small of his back rattling as he stretched and breathed deep in the fresh mountain air. Me, I walked back to the gate and put my hand against the stone.

It took a few tries, during which I became more and more conscious of the others glancing at me. Finally I got myself worked up to the point that, with a muttered “Come on you fucking wanker!” in good old English, the gate slowly swung shut. The shadow magic came pretty naturally to me, but I could apparently only manage opening and closing the gate when I was acutely embarrassed. I was going to need to work on that.

“Gather around,” Makanna ordered after a short while, and we did. “We’ll take places here, here, here, there, and over there,” she said, pointing to five spots above and to the sides of the gate. “Herald, I want you over there, where you can hide Melon and use your bow to good effect. I’ll be here, Tamor and Valmik, I want you above the gate. Madam Draka, If you don’t mind, I’d like you to stay by the door and listen for anyone coming. I think that with your wings you’ll be the fastest at getting out of the way.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” I said. It wasn’t like I had any better ideas. I’d much rather leave the planning to the pros than try to meddle.

“Thank you. Once you hear something, take a position there,” she said, indicating a place to the side of the gate across from where she would be. “When I give the signal I want you to smash into them and confuse them, then get out immediately before the rest of us strike. If you can take out the leader, that would be best. Your primary job after that is to catch anyone that runs, together with Herald. Otherwise use your judgement.”

“Yes, boss!” I said, half joking. I tried to give a salute but forgot about my long neck, so I probably just looked like an idiot.

“The rest of us, simple plan. Once Draka is out we hit them with all we can, quick and dirty. Strike to disable and disarm first, then clean up. Alright?”

“Understood,” Valmik said, and Herald and Tamor both confirmed as well.

As we prepared to take our places Makanna got close to Tamor and said something I couldn't hear, glancing at me. Tamor nodded and clapped her on the shoulder, then went to his assigned place. My guess was that it was something about his abilities, and Makanna didn't want to share. That was alright. She'd use me, but trust could only grow so far in a day.

We took our places, and we waited, making small talk and joking in low voices to take the edge off. There was even some soft singing, and Makanna impressed me by singing a ballad in a surprisingly rich soprano. Still, the air was thick with anxiety and tension. I thought about what Tamor had told me, how neither him nor Makanna had ever killed a human. Now they might be about to, and who knew how they’d handle it? And though we’d try our best to avoid it, some of us may soon be injured or dead, and we all knew it.

The others impressed me. Despite the risk we were taking no one had argued against it. No one had even hesitated when Makanna said that we would be ambushing the slavers. We wouldn’t hang around if the fight looked like it might go bad, but we were sure as hell going to try to free those people. At least the ones the slavers had wanted. For the rest… we would just have to hope that they were still here when we could return with reinforcements.

After some time, definitely more than an hour, I heard the sounds of distant footsteps coming from the tunnel. I spread my wings to catch the others’ attention. Tamor, I saw, was already alert and looking my way. I shouldn’t have been surprised. They had told me that he was supposed to be good at sensing danger.

“They’re coming,” I hissed, and moved quickly to my assigned position to the side of and a short distance from the gate.

Everyone else immediately quieted down. They checked their straps and readied their weapons, then hunkered down to where I could barely see them. I waited in silence, too far from the gate to hear any sounds escaping from inside. Then the gate slowly opened, to the sound of stone grinding on stone.

First came a small group of prisoners, blinking in the sunlight but otherwise not reacting to what must be their first trip outside in days. They walked forward, their faces as blank as they had been inside the mountain.

The first thing that made me realise that something was off was seeing the couple at the front. Probably in their sixties or older, they were followed by a matronly woman, then an older man missing a hand. All in all nearly twenty people left the tunnel, not a child, a young adult, or an able bodied man among them. These were not the prisoners the humans had agreed to take. These were the others, the ones that they had told the valkin to deal with.

As if to confirm my thoughts, four valkin guards, carrying spears and looking as bored as I’d ever seen them, stepped out into the light behind the prisoners, their skin a pale blue-tinted grey in the sunlight. They were blinking and shielding their eyes, briefly blinded. Makanna and I shared a look, and she nodded.

I took two loping strides, beat my wings hard, and launched myself forward. One of the four blinked in my direction, its eyes opening wide in surprise. It opened its mouth, to speak or scream, and then I slammed into them.

They were too close to the prisoners for me to want to risk using my venom, so I settled for landing on the one that had spotted me, knocking it back at least two metres as I hit. I snapped at its throat, but even stunned it twisted away just in time and my mouth closed over its shoulder, drawing out a hissing scream that became choked and shrill as I bore it down, dug in my claws, and used it as a springboard to continue in the direction I’d been going. I heard gasps and angry shouts from the others, and as I landed a few metres away I turned in time to see Valmik and Tamor drop behind them as Makanna came in from the side.

The three standing valkin were all facing me, meaning that they saw Makanna but not the two men behind them. The creatures clearly had some experience, recovering quickly from their shock and turning to attack Makanna. The one closest to her thrust its spear at her chest, but she dodged easily, almost flowing to the side as she responded with a thrust of her own. The valkin parried quickly with the butt of its spear, but Makanna used the momentum of the parry and let it carry her point down and forward into the creature’s back leg. It let out a scream, which cut off suddenly as one of Herald’s arrows took it in the hollow of its throat. As it gurgled Makanna grabbed its spear and swept its legs out from under it.

The whole exchange had taken perhaps three seconds.

The two guards that were left had been slightly farther from Makanna. When Makanna’s spear lodged in their companion’s leg they tried to use the opening, but one was forced to throw itself backwards and face the two men as Tamor lunged, driving his long sword through the chest of the other. I saw an orb of magic swirling in Tamor’s chest, and when he struck some of it flowed from him and into his blade, which cut through the valkin like the creature was made of tofu. Between Tamor and the remaining guard stood Valmik, his shield up and his short sword ready above it.

The valkin looked around itself with wild eyes. Its spear pointed at Valmik, but it was backing up, clearly more concerned with keeping the three humans it could see at a distance than with trying to attack. Then it saw me, and stared.

I don’t know what it had thought it was that attacked its companion. A pitch black mountain lion, maybe. If they had mountain lions here, that is. Whatever it had thought, it was not ready for the reality. “Hassaaak!” it hissed almost under its breath, eyes wide as they flicked between Valmik and me. “Hassaaak! Hassaaak!” It kept repeating the word, its voice growing louder and louder until it suddenly stumbled forward with an arrow in its side.

Valmik used the advantage. He easily battered its spear to the side with his shield, closed, and opened its throat with a swift slash of his sword.

It was staring at me as its blood spilled and it crumpled to the ground.

To my surprise, both the valkin that I had pounced on and the one that Herald had shot were still alive, if barely. Any thought I might have had about trying to interrogate them was cut short as Makanna drew her knife and grimly slit their throats.

I didn't feel bad, of course. This time I wouldn't have had any concerns about killing anyway. With the gremlins we had gone into their home. They’d been eating miners, but I didn’t know that at the time. The bandits had been murdering, raping bastards, but they'd also been human, which should count for something. Non-human slavers? I looked at the dead valkin, and felt nothing but anger, pride, and satisfaction.

I did hate that we only had some of the prisoners, and a small part of me insisted that we had the wrong ones. The less valuable ones. That, I felt bad about, and it fed my anger. And on top of that I was still tired, and growing hungrier. The hunger meant that the dragon was getting cranky, and that leaked in and made everything worse.

“Is everyone alright?” Makanna asked as she rose to her feet. Tamor and Valmik both confirmed that they were, and when she looked at me I dipped my head in a nod. Herald waved and grinned, never having been in harm’s way. Makanna looked satisfied with that.

“Well done, everybody,” she said with obvious relief. “I don’t think that could have gone better.”

“What about the prisoners?” Tamor said as he approached the group of humans. They hadn’t reacted at all to the violence, only having stopped when there was no one urging them on. Now they stood, as if waiting to be told what to do.

“I don’t know,” Makanna said. She walked up to them. “Grandmother,” she said, standing in front of an old woman. “Can you hear me? Do you understand me?”

The lady didn’t answer. She stared blankly ahead, her lips moving now and then as she sucked her teeth, and that was it. Makanna and Tamor both tried to speak to several of the prisoners, with the same lack of effect.

“Okay…” Makanna said. “Sit down?”

The humans all sat. They didn’t just drop to the ground, but sat down carefully as if it was their own idea. One or two even brushed away some pebbles before settling in.

“Stand up,” Makanna said. They did so. One old man had trouble getting up, and the one-armed man helped him with a firm grip.

“So they’re not completely thoughtless,” Makanna mused. “Follow me!” she ordered, and walked ahead of the group. The villagers followed.

“Stop!”

They did.

“Alright, so we can move them. That’s good.”

“But many are missing,” Valmik stated.

“Yeah,” I said, my throat tight with anger. “The leader of the slavers said that they wanted the kids, the young women, and the strong men. Easy to guess why.”

Valmik’s face twisted with disgust. “They were separated. So where are the others?”

“Still inside?” Tamor suggested. “Or another exit?”

“I cannot imagine the slave traders wanting to remain in the tunnels for longer than necessary,” Herald said as she joined us with Melon. “I was only there for hours, and I am glad to be out. There must be a different exit. Farther down in the hills, perhaps? Closer to the city?”

“The city would be avoided, would it not?” Valmik said. “The risk of discovery would be great. Perhaps they have a ship on the coast?”

“Slavery’s illegal, I hope,” I said.

“Enslaving innocent people? Here, yes,” Valmik said. “Punishable by death.”

I looked at the people we had freed, then at my companions. My friends, perhaps. “Do you think you can handle these people?” I asked tersely.

“We’ll take them to their village,” Makanna said. “If they haven’t recovered by then… I guess we’ll have to try and get them to Karakan.”

“Not like we can leave them to fend for themselves,” Tamor agreed.

“There may not be much for them in the village in any case,” Herald said, her voice creaking with guilt. “I believe that goblins have taken everything of value.”

“Little bastards,” Makanna grumbled.

“There was an agreement, and it was broken,” Herald said with a sigh. “It was not the villagers’ fault, but you know goblins better than I do."

“I still don’t like it,” her sister replied.

What the hell were they doing babbling about damn goblins? There were still people in the hands of those fucking slavers!

“Anyway!” I cut in loudly, silencing them. “I’m gonna fly off and see if I can find a bunch of slavers and their victims.”

Herald stared at me. “I forgot that you can do that.”

“Yeah, no worries,” I snapped. “I’ll come back if I find anything that I can’t deal with. Otherwise… see you at the lake in three or four days.”

Herald looked at me, her face hard to read. She turned her head to look at the villagers, then back to me. “Better make it four,” she said softly, then looked at Makanna, who nodded reluctantly.

“Alright, good.” I turned to go, but hesitated and turned back. That had been bad. I was angry, but not at them.

“Herald, it was good travelling with you. Really. Rest of you, I'm glad you're alright.” I said. “I’m… you all are great. You could have gone home as soon as you got out, and I wouldn’t have blamed you, but you risked a lot for these people. That’s… I respect that, yeah?”

With that, still angry but now feeling more than a little awkward and embarrassed, I took off.