Draka

Outside the gate was a scene of barely contained chaos. Children were crying, their piercing wails cutting through the night, while the older rescuees were talking all at once and trying to handle the kids while dealing with their own fear and confusion.

Adding myself to the situation could not possibly do any good, so I remained in the shadows at the end of the tunnel. Besides, I didn’t feel like enduring the stares of the scouts until I’d had a wash and a good sleep. It would be some time before Valmik came with the older people we had freed inside, and I should be able to get out unseen through the shadows if I really had to. I would just rather not risk revealing what I could do, even here.

Two young people, who looked like the oldest of the rescuees, were shouting at Pot who was fighting a losing battle in trying to calm them down.

The woman was right up in Pot’s face, though it might have been because she could barely see in the dark. There were a few lanterns and improvised torches spread around the area, but the light was pretty dim. Either way, the woman looked like she was close to violence. “You can’t seriously ask me to leave without my daughter. I refuse!” she snapped, her voice trembling with anger. At the same time, the young man waved his arm at the group of kids, where the older children were trying to care for the younger ones while the raised voices just made things worse. “And you can’t expect the children to sleep out here!” He shouted. “With no tents, no blankets? Why can’t we just go back to the village?”

The young woman couldn’t be any older than eighteen. The young man was the only one of about the right age to be her husband, if she had one, but by the way they stood I didn’t think that he was. Probably a sad story there, that I would never know and couldn’t do anything about.

“Please!” Pot said, his hands up. “I understand that you’re upset, but we have to take you back to Karakan! The council–”

“The council doesn’t have children as little as two to keep safe and fed!” the man interrupted.

“Or a baby girl not three months old still in the clutches of those monsters!” the woman added and advanced on Pot, who took a step backwards.

“I’m sorry, but we don’t have the people to escort you at night!” Pot protested.

Meanwhile, the captured man knelt by a tree, his arms and legs bound behind him, with a spiteful smile on his face. Only him, though. I might have overdone it with the venom against the little guy, but…

I focused and shifted. Flowing out from the tunnel I headed first for the nearby stream to wash off the gore I’d collected, not that I noticed any in the water. It didn’t bother me, but I was pretty sure it would put the others on edge. When I returned I looked around until I saw Herald, sitting a little way away from the chaos with her siblings. Makanna was slumped against a tree, asleep, while Herald and Tamor sat close, talking to each other.

Not wanting to risk being seen, even with the darkness surrounding me, I made my way among the trees. I made sure to have several trunks between me and the crowd before shifting back and limping over. Herald and Tamor both started when I got close, then relaxed when they recognised me.

“Mercies be blessed,” Herald said, reaching out to place her hand on my neck, as though to convince herself that I was real. “What happened to your leg?”

“Got hit.”

“Hard enough to hurt you?” Tamor said.

“They had a magic user.” I didn’t want to elaborate. “How are you two doing?”

“We’ll be fine,” he said, and waved to his older sister. “Makanna is spent, but she is good at what she does. She’s saved us a fortune in potions over the years.”

“She would not let me go after you,” Herald grumbled.

“Valmik told me. Don’t tell her, but for once I’m glad that you listened to her.”

Herald scowled at me, but she didn’t look like she meant it.

“Valmik,” Tamor said. “He’s–”

“Fine. He came in after I… finished up, in there. He’s bringing the rest of the people out.”

“The valkin. You killed them all?” Herald asked.

“Yeah. One or two may have gotten away, but I don’t think so.”

“Good,” she said, dragging her fingers over my scales as she looked towards the children. There wasn’t a trace of pity in her voice. “I suppose you must have done something, in there. Last time the prisoners took days to wake up. Now, you went in and a short time after…” she waved her hand vaguely. “This.”

“You remember how the valkin leader had a staff, last time?”

“The one with the fang on top?” Tamor suggested.

“I never saw it,” Herald said, ”but, like Tamor said. The bone staff, with the fang?”

“The valkin here had one just like it. I smashed it. I’m guessing that undid whatever was controlling these people.”

“A magical focus, then,“ Herald said. “That would do it.” She went silent for a moment, then pointed toward the gate. “Look! The others are coming out!”

So they were. Led by Valmik, a procession of the older villagers left the tunnel. Though in fairness, only two or three were actually old. Most looked to be in their thirties to fifties, which was apparently enough to be discarded as undesirable. There was a commotion as the younger crowd saw and ran to greet their elders, and then a joyous scream of “Elva!” as the young woman I’d seen ran to collect a small bundle from one of the older ladies.

As far as I could tell we’d saved everyone. There were tears, hugs and kisses all around, and all in all it was pretty damned heartwarming. It was sweet enough that the last of the fire went out inside me.

I’d hoped that once the anger was gone, it would be replaced with pride and satisfaction. There were hints of that, though they may have been leaking through from the dragon and mostly I felt emotionally… flat. Empty. I was just tired and in pain.

It was a familiar experience, though it had been a while. Running on adrenaline is just another kind of high, and with every uncontrolled high there’s an inevitable crash. Usually, the ways I got my adrenaline highs meant that there would be a dopamine rush, but even that would pass sooner or later. In my case the crash usually took the form of an emotional emptiness, and that night was no exception.

I lay down heavily, letting the cool ground sap the last of my energy.

Herald kept silently stroking my neck. “You have done well, my friend,” she said in Tekereteki, as softly as was possible in such a hard language. “These people are safe thanks to you.”

“It was pure luck that I found them,” I objected wearily.

“Luck also well,” came Tamor’s unexpected voice. “Do never… Umm, negations are hard… Not to disparage luck?” He looked at his sister. “Did that sound about right?”

Herald smiled at him. “Well done, brother. But you need more practice.”

“I didn’t realise you spoke Tekereteki,” I told him. “From Herald it sounded like you and Makanna would rather leave the old country behind you.”

“Mother, father teach. Childhood. Talk then, now… to forget? No using.” Tamor grimaced. “You’re not far from the truth. From the things our parents told us about Tekeretek, and from what I’ve learned since they passed, there is nothing I want from there. But Kitten here never stopped. She kept our parents’ language alive, speaking to sailors and merchants’ assistants. Despite our best efforts,” he added with a smile. “And here you are, speaking it like a native. I’m pretty sure you even have a noble accent.”

We watched the freed villagers for a while. The mood was much improved now, especially with a bunch of parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles to look after the kids.

“What’ll happen now?” I asked.

“Well,” Tamor said. “We don’t have tents or anything for all the people, so we’ll probably have to make a bunch of fires and have them huddle up to keep warm until morning. Once Rib and Arlal come back from hunting our missing slaver–”

“Missing?” I interrupted, lifting my head from the ground a little to look at Tamor. Herald’s hand stopped petting me for a moment before it continued.

“I am sorry,” Herald said, looking crestfallen. “The man you told me about before you went in. He is missing.”

“Well, shit,” I said, but my heart wasn’t in it. I laid my head back down on the ground. I was too tired to worry. “Don’t know what you’re sorry about. It’s not your fault. I should have killed him, or hamstrung him or something. You think he’ll try to rescue his friend?”

Tamor snorted. “These bastards? I doubt they have any loyalty to each other. No, I think he’ll try to make it to either the drop-off or the city, to report what happened. Or he might try to escape south or across the sea, if his boss doesn’t tolerate failure. Hard to say, but hopefully Rib and Arlal will get him. They’re very good at their job.”

“They didn’t do so well against our prisoner.” It was uncharitable of me, but it was true.

“No, but if they end up in an actual fight something has gone wrong. Their job is to find hidden people, or ambush them, and dispose of them without a fight. You don’t need to be a duelist if your opponents never see you coming.” Tamor looked over towards our captive. “That guy… I wonder how far along he is. Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s at his first or second high minor, and all or most of them combat related. And that’s on top of him being skilled and well trained. Valmik would have turned the fight in our favour, though. That’s why the other slaver focused on tying him up.”

“Until he came for me,” Herald grumbled. “The worst thing is that I saw him coming. I tried to fight back, and there was nothing I could do. He was stronger, faster, and better than me.” She looked at the palm of her free hand, the one that had been cut. “Fucking embarrassing.”

“It worked out,” I said from the ground. My exhaustion was catching up to me. I’d been pushing my shadow magic too hard, and if not for my hip I might have fallen asleep already. “And you got one,” I added, thinking of the slaver she’d shot down in front of the gate.

“I suppose,” Herald snorted, still caught up in her own perceived failure.

Tamor watched us, me lying flat on the ground, Herald stroking my neck. I couldn’t read him. After a while he pushed himself to his feet and walked over to Makanna.

“What’s important is what we learn from this, right?” he said as he tried to coax his sister back to wakefulness, at least enough to walk. “Come on, you all. I want to be doted on by the man I love, Herald should probably do some guard duty, and you two,” he said, looking between Makanna and myself, “need to get somewhere warm to rest. The morning is going to be rough, and we still need to watch over all these people until then.”

“Can’t let ‘em see me,” I mumbled, getting my feet under me through a titanic effort.

“Keep the light between you and them and they won’t even see a shadow,” Tamor said, forcing some encouragement into his voice. Right. He was probably tired, too. And sleepy. He’d been awake since this morning, and it was well into the small hours now.

I ended up sharing a tent with Makanna, she in her bedroll and me curled up on the ground. It might have been uncomfortable, but she was barely awake when Tamor helped her get her boots and armour off, and I was too tired to care. I shuffled around until I finally found a position that was tolerable for my leg, and fell asleep.

I woke to an incredibly high-pitched, though quickly strangled, squeak. My eyes flew open and I looked around, searching for a threat. I wasn’t in my cave, and I was on the ground. I never slept on the ground!

Then my groggy brain caught up with the situation and I relaxed.

“Morning, Makanna,” I said.

She was sitting up, covering herself with a blanket while slowly rubbing her face. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t expect to see you, of all people, first thing in the morning. Don’t you usually sleep in a tree?”

“I got hit last night. My leg’s hurt. Didn’t want to try climbing.” I didn’t tell her that I probably could have shadow-climbed a tree. For one I was keeping those abilities under wraps, just in case, and for another I’d frankly been too tired to try. Besides, sleeping in a tent had sounded like a nice idea.

“You’re hurt?” Makanna asked, and I saw some genuine concern on her face, which was more than I’d expected from her. “Do you want me to try and do something about it?”

“Thanks,” I said, meaning it. “But no thanks. I just need some rest, and you need your energy to walk back to the city.”

She shrugged, but looked a little relieved.

“Last night really took it out of you, didn’t it?” I said.

“Yeah. Tamor was lucky. His cut wasn’t bad. Herald, though…” she shook her head. “She was putting on a brave face, but that blade went to the bone. Flesh, tendons, everything. It takes a lot of focus and effort to fix things like that, but the alternative was for her to lose almost all use of that hand, so…”

I was briefly stunned. I hadn’t realised that it had been that bad! And rolling halfway down the hill with that… Herald must have been in agony while she talked to me.

“Thank you,” I told Makanna softly. “I know that she’s your sister but… thank you. And I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“It was my fault, wasn’t it? At least part of it.”

She shook her head. “I saw the same thing you did. We couldn’t risk them taking her. Perhaps we could have freed her some other way, but if we’d thought for too long it would have been too late. You gambled. You won. I’m happy that you did, so don’t be sorry. If anything, accept my thanks and let’s leave it there.”

“Sure.” I still felt some responsibility, but it felt good to have had a positive exchange with Makanna, especially after the previous night. If she was satisfied, I didn’t want to push it.

Half an hour later the camp had been struck, the bodies having been buried during the night. Most of the nine fighters were trying to bring the rescued villagers to some kind of order before marching them back to Karakan. The exception was Herald, who was keeping me company in the hidden depression behind the hill, where the camp had been. I was helping by not being seen.

Rib and Arlal had returned around sunrise, without the missing slaver. Herald told me that Rib was unhappy, to put it mildly, and I’d heard her ranting and swearing up a storm down below until some responsible soul managed to shame her enough to spare the children more of her extremely colourful language.

Perhaps I should have killed the man. If nothing else a dangerous criminal was still free, when he could have been put out of everyone’s misery. But we had needed prisoners, and when you need to make a snap decision it doesn’t matter how good your hindsight is.

I said my goodbyes to the scouts out of sight of the villagers and the prisoner. We made it quick. They were polite enough, but there was still that wariness. The camaraderie that had started to grow was gone.

“We will be leaving soon,” Herald said when she joined me. She looked tired, between the magical healing and being awake during the day, a time that she’d normally been sleeping as of late. “I do not suppose you will be coming with us?”

“Normally I would shadow you from a distance, but my leg hurts too damned much for me to walk that far. I need to return home and rest. Sorry.”

“And I am sorry to leave you, but it cannot be helped,” she said with a tired smile. “And we will meet again soon. I am sure that Rallon will want to talk with you, and there is the reward, of course.”

The gleam in her eye was impossible to miss. If anyone loved silver as much as I did, it was this girl. Although she was pretty free with spending it, whereas I… wasn’t.

“Speaking of rewards, I have a request to make.” I’d been thinking a little, and I wanted to try something. “When you receive my share, I would like as much of it as possible in gold.” I was planning to move my hoard, and the less physical volume, the better. “Also,” and here I had to steady myself. It was hard to say, or even think, but I fought through my instincts and prejudices and, after a long silence where Herald began to look concerned, I emerged triumphant. “Could you spend some of it for me?