Draka

Lalia and I went south along the hills to save time. Going back to the road would have been a serious detour, and Lalia wanted this done with as quickly as possible. On that, at least, we agreed.

“Hey, slow down a little,” I told her. She’d pulled ahead for the umpteenth time. I’d worried about how the horse would handle the rough terrain, but the gelding must have had a mountain goat somewhere in his family tree. He moved as easily over loose stone as he did through the forest undergrowth and seemed to have no trouble seeing in the dark, and keeping up with him was not easy to do. Especially since he hadn't taken to me anywhere near as easily as Melon had, and even with Lalia's skillful handling he still obviously preferred to keep some distance.

Lalia shot me a look over her shoulder, but she reined in her horse and allowed me to catch up.

“Why do you insist on walking if you can’t keep up?” she asked, making no effort to hide her annoyance.

“I told you, there’s a bear following us.” I’d picked up the scent half an hour earlier. It wasn’t strong, but we had the wind at our backs and the scent stayed with us. The thing was staying close, and considering the monster I’d seen in my early days I was not going to make any assumptions about its intentions. “I’m not going to leave you here only to have to backtrack to find whatever’s left of you.”

“Okay, first, most bears sleep during the night. We probably just passed a den,” she said, as if lecturing a child. “Second, I can handle a bear just fine. And third, even if I couldn’t, Windfall can outrun any damned bear in any damned terrain. Just fly ahead, so we can get this over with!”

Me and Lalia, we didn’t exactly get along. She hadn’t questioned Rallon’s order, but I could tell that she wasn’t happy about it. Still, we had gone from outright, open hostility to something more like passive-aggressive sniping, so that was something!

“Yeah, not happening,” I told her firmly. “Fourth, some animals are monsters. I’ve got a bad feeling, and unfortunately there are people I care about who’d miss you. I’m not taking any chances.”

She sighed. “Fine. Then how about you go find the thing and decide what we need to do, and I’ll promise to shout if something tries to eat me? If it’s stalking us I don’t imagine you’ll have to go far. You could… circle.” She gestured vaguely in the air.

And we could both get what we wanted. She could move quickly and not have to be near me, and I could be sure that she was safe. I meant what I’d said. I didn’t care much about her, myself. I probably wouldn’t just let her die, no matter what. But my few friends liked her, and that made her important to me whether I liked her or not. Besides, it wouldn’t look very good to Rallon if I let one of his captains, or whatever she was, get killed during our first joint venture.

“You know what? Good idea,” I told her, then leapt into the air. And I could actually do that now. Before I passed my latest threshold and got my Strength advancement, getting in the air had always been pretty awkward. The problem had been that I couldn’t leap high enough to beat my wings properly without them hitting the ground. Instead I’d jump as high as I could, then make short, furious flaps until I got high enough. Now, though, my legs were strong enough that I could leap to chest height on Lalia, mounted as she was, and with one powerful beat of my wings I was climbing.

Once I was up there I started circling. I could glide completely silently. Even when I beat my wings it didn’t make much noise, and I was pretty much invisible against the night sky, which Herald had confirmed for me. Besides that, between my naturally good night vision and my shadowsight there wasn’t much that could hide from me.

Combining all of my advancements I was pretty much a lethal surveillance drone. I wondered how much an invisible, airborne scout would be worth to Rallon.

While I pondered how great I was, I kept an eye on the ground around, and especially behind, Lalia. There wasn’t much to see. Rocks and boulders, trees and logs and bushes. Rocks and boulders, trees and logs and bushes. Rocks and boulders–

One of the boulders was moving.

I folded my wings and dropped. “Lalia!” I screeched as the ‘boulder’ went from a stealthy creep into a lumbering sprint. “Behind you!”

On the ground I saw Lalia look up, then behind her. She paused for a split second, then urged Windfall into a full gallop. The gelding was fast, but the bear, somehow, was gaining on them. Fortunately it was so focused on its prey that it didn’t see me coming.

The bear was huge. It might have been bigger than the first monster I’d seen, though I had been a bit smaller then, so it was hard to say. With size comes strength and mass. I might have gotten a little bigger and stronger lately, but when it came to sheer weight I had nothing on this monster. I turned and hit it from the side after five or six seconds of near freefall, and I damn near bounced off the thing, tumbling over its back and only barely catching myself before I hit the ground so that I turned a crash into a heavy landing. I’d been hoping to knock it down, but all I managed was to make it stumble, piss it off, and shift its attention to me.

Well, Lalia was safe. Mission accomplished.

I began to right myself to take off again, but had to throw myself back as the monster swiped one giant, clawed paw at me. I was durable, but I was not invincible, and the thing looked strong. Even if it couldn’t get through my scales, I wouldn’t put it beyond it to break bones, mess up my joints, or at least give me a concussion if it hit me. It kept coming at me and I kept having to back up, dodging left and right and always backwards. I tried to spray venom at it but the damn thing actually closed its eyes and lowered its head! It wasn’t just way bigger than the average bear, but smarter, too!

The thing had me on the defensive, leaving me no time to do anything but stay away from its attacks. That was not going to work. Sooner or later I was going to stumble or slip up, and once it got one good hit in it would be that much more difficult to avoid the next one and it would snowball from there. If I wanted to get out alive I had to get past it, or stun it, or make it back off. Anything that would give me enough room to breathe that I could get in the air, or shift, or climb a tree. Anything that got me out of its reach for more than half a second. I could only see one way to accomplish that.

The next time the bear attacked, so did I. I bunched my legs and raised my head to draw out a high swipe. When it struck at me with its right paw I quickly dropped and pushed forward on its left, raking its leg and side with my claws as I went. I almost made it past, and then I was rolling sideways, with no idea what had happened.

I didn’t have time to think. I was on my back and the bear was on me in an instant, crushing me with its weight as it tried to bite into my neck. I got a grip on its head before it could bite down, but even with my Strength it was all I could do to hang on and keep its jaws away from me, my claws reaching nothing but thick, loose skin as it dragged me across the ground. I couldn’t even kick properly, and I couldn’t shift because I couldn’t focus on anything except staying alive for another tenth of a second. All the while the monster was pummeling me with its paws, and though its own claws couldn’t get through my scales they didn’t need to. I felt every single blow, and even if the actual damage was minor it was preventing me from taking a single good breath.

This is it, I thought, feeling oddly detached from it all. I’m going to run out of air, and then I won’t be able to hold it off any more. And that’s that.

Suddenly two sounds cut through mine and the monster’s combined snarling. There was a rising, furious cry, a thunder of hooves, and it was past. The bear reared up with a roar, turning and swiping towards its right side, but there was nothing there to hit.

I had an opening, and I took it. I didn’t attack. I did not want to bring its attention back on me if I could help it. Instead I flipped on my belly, took two leaping strides, and practically ran up a tree.

It was not brave, and it was not dignified, but it kept me alive. As soon as I started moving the bear turned back to me, and I felt it bat my tail as I went. But I was safe.

Or so I thought, until the tree shook and began to lean.

The damn bear wasn’t trying to climb the tree. It was too smart for that. It knew that it was too heavy. Instead it was trying to push the tree over, shoving into it, pulling back, and shoving again. And it was working. With every shove the tree shuddered, and every time the bear pulled back the tree leaned a little more, a crack appearing in the ground several feet out as roots were pulled out of the soil.

Too damn smart by half.

My body felt like… Well, like I’d been pummelled by an overgrown grizzly bear. I wanted to either shift or fly off, but I could see Lalia coming back at a full gallop and the monster was turning to look at her. I had to give her an opening.

Bending my neck so that I was facing down, I tried to spray. It didn’t work well, since bending my neck like that mostly closed off my windpipe, but even though I only managed a dribble I got the effect I wanted. The bear turned its head to protect itself, and I let go of the tree.

I dropped straight onto the bear’s back, digging in my claws and holding on for dear life. The bear went wild, standing on its hind legs, flailing and twisting to try to either reach me or shake me off, but I held firm, biting over and over to both keep its attention and to hopefully get some venom in its wounds. I only stopped biting to yell at Lalia as she approached.

Lit by the moonlight, Lalia came charging in with her sword held out to the side. Her eyes were wide and she came in screaming with her teeth bared, looking equal parts awesome and terrifying. “Go south!” I shouted as loudly as I could. “Keep going south!”

I saw a flicker of understanding and a nod, and then she passed us, sword flashing and carving a deep cut into the bear’s hind leg. The instant it dropped to all fours I sprang off it and climbed up a new tree, then shifted and moved to another tree, then another before I shifted back, leaping from the tree into the open air and taking to the sky. I stuck around, circling long enough to make sure that the bear demon had had enough and wasn’t trying to follow Lalia.

I was hurt, but I wasn’t injured. I was bruised and battered, but nothing was broken. I was alive, and so was Lalia.

Most importantly, I was right. Bears sleep during the night, my scaly arse.

I caught up with Lalia five minutes later, where she’d stopped to wait for me. After she reluctantly admitted that yes, there had indeed been a bear, and I begrudgingly thanked her for not leaving me to handle the monster on my own, we continued. Together, and at my pace, though I tried to keep a good one.

“Don’t read too much into it,” Lalia said after we’d been moving for a while. “Rallon wants to work with you. And Herald and Garal like you, for some reason.”

“Yeah. Right back at you.”

The silence was a little less tense after that.

Getting to the mountain gate and back to the road was easy. All it took was time. Lalia snuck past the mining camp, which was occupied again, and I flew right over it with no one the wiser. I guided Lalia to the gate, and she was sure that she’d be able to find her way back on her own, without any trouble. She also insisted that she’d be fine to return to the city on her own, but I still kept an eye on her from the sky until she reached the main road.

Only then, with the sun getting high, did I return to Rebatia and the gate in the hills.