Chapter Thirteen

Run

 

Roja got the feeling something was wrong long before he heard or saw anything. He thought it was his survivor’s instinct at first. Okay, well, calling it a “survivor’s instinct” was giving it a bit too much credit. He had simply gotten in trouble a lot over the years, and he had become very adept at picking up when someone had their eyes on him. It had gotten him out of scrapes with the constabulary on several occasions. 

But this wasn’t that. Every time he looked around, there was nobody following them, nobody keeping an eye on them to report things back to Legima at the orphanage. But the buzzing in the back of his head persisted. And he wasn’t the only one. Selico kept twitching slightly, his eyes quietly scanning the crowd. On the surface, Maria acted as she always did, loud and boisterous and playfully combative, but she locked eyes with him several times, and held his gaze for just a second. Unspoken, they communicated their discomfort to each other.

The others didn’t feel anything. Iana, bless her, looked divine, like a godswoman of an old cult, her robes flowing around her and the lights from the festival reflected in her big eyes like a thousand stars. Roja would have enjoyed her smile more if he wasn’t so busy trying to figure out what was wrong. Maximilio had Aisha on his shoulders, and her giggles whenever one of the lanterns floated down and she could catch it for a moment would have brightened the darkest day. Eodhan walked next to them and pointed out little market stalls. 

It looked like a little family. Maybe the Mad Queen wasn’t that mad, after all? Roja wished he could participate. He wished he didn’t feel like he should be telling them to run. He wished, deeply, that he knew what was wrong. And then he found out and he wished he had told them to run anyway. The feeling in his head dropped to his stomach.

It was like the air was drawn out of the world. A gust of wind blowing past them, silencing all conversation and music, then dying down just long enough for the quiet to set in, before it all erupted in a single detonation of noise. 

It was like a roar. Roja had heard animals roar before. There had been a travelling circus he’d once snuck in to see. They’d had big cats, and an alligator of some kind. This sounded something like that — like both of those — but amplified a thousandfold. The roar of something ancient and angry. And it was coming from above. 

There were no more lanterns above them. The wind had taken them. Instead, there was a dragon. Something from fairytales. Something impossible. Something with wings as large as sails and a maw that could easily devour a horse whole. Something with emerald eyes that burned like green fire. 

Its massive wings crashed down on the rooftops above them, supporting its weight. Around them, roof tiles and bricks started to crash down, and Roja realised he’d simply been standing there, staring. What was a person supposed to do, when a creature out of myth landed practically on top of them? He looked around. Everyone else was still staring, likely expecting to snap out of their collective daydream any second now. 

He realised they weren’t going to. Quickly, he devised a plan. Running over to Selico, he punched him in the arm. Then he did the same for Maria. So far the plan. He really hoped one of them would know what to do. Then the dragon roared again and they were all thrown to the ground. The force of its rage and fury made their knees buckle and their heads split. He felt like he was going to start bleeding out of his nose from the sheer pressure of it. 

“Run!” Maria shouted, her voice muffled. Whether it was air around them, still thick with force, Roja’s ears not working properly yet, or Maria’s own voice suffering ill effects somehow, he couldn’t tell. But that didn’t matter. Pushing himself to his feet, he looked at the others. They seemed to be suffering even more. Aisha and Iana had their hands pressed to their ears, their faces a mask of silent suffering. 

Maximilio and Eodhan were both clutching their heads. Roja clenched his jaw, and realised he was going to have to save them. Selico was pushing himself up, but he had never been the one to lead the charge. Not that way, at least. 

Rushing forwards to the others, Roja was ready to play knight in shining armour. Even if he had never really felt like it, there was a weird and kind of ugly part of his mind that didn’t hate the idea of rescuing Iana, knowing she’d smile at him like that again. 

He made it two steps before his foot snagged at something and the cobblestone rose to meet him swiftly and harshly. His teeth dug into his tongue as his jaw was slammed shut with force, and he tasted copper. It was all a blur, his head pounding. He didn’t even know what he’d tripped on, but it was still wrapped around his leg. Kicking it was like hitting rock. 

Selico and Maria were both shouting something behind him, something he couldn’t hear because he was being pulled backward by the thing on his leg. His friends grabbed his arms, but all that did was draw them along with him. He finally looked down and wished he hadn’t. The thing around his leg looked like a snake, or a thick vine, and it was coiling and twisting against his every move. Following it with his eyes, he realised to his horror the thing came from above him. And there were more, descending tendrils that moved with a purpose. 

Roja was being lifted by his leg, and there was nothing he could do. Kicking, screaming, the help of his friends all amounting to only pain and bruises. He’d shout, but the air had been knocked out of his lungs and now he was slowly but surely finding himself struggling to breathe as he was being pulled up and away from his friends. 

The whole world was moving and spinning as he was yanked this way and that, but through all of that, he caught a flash of silver. With a shout that might have been heroic, Maximilio brought his sword to bear and struck at the tendril as best he could, but the angle meant that he either had to strike uncomfortably high or risk taking off Roja’s leg. 

Eodhan was at his side a moment later, hacking at the thing with a small but clearly sharp knife. Chunks of matter were being thrown in every direction, hitting the ground with wet slaps. The ichor inside was a yellowish white, and Roja only noticed because one piece landed on his face, temporarily stunning him out of his panic. 

He didn’t have long, however, because the combined efforts of the two boys meant that the thing that had been coiled around his leg had lost its strength, and he fell down to the ground, slamming his face into it for the second time in as many minutes. His nose and lips tingled painfully but at least he was free, and getting himself back up. 

“We have to go!” Maria said, struggling with a tentacle that had wrapped itself around her wrist. Maximilio’s sword cut through it, got stuck halfway, and was yanked out of his hands when the tendril pulled back. Immediately, it was replaced with half a dozen more. Roja grabbed Maria and ran, stopping only for a second to see if the others were following. When he did, he caught sight of the dragon in its fully horrific glory. 

Using its wings as front legs, it crawled over the buildings, a head like an ornate wood carving sniffing the air, its eyes visible even from a great distance. A dragon, just like he’d seen in puppet shows and picture books. But what scared Roja the most was where it differed from the stories and the pictures. Where giant tendrils snaked from its back, around its humongous wings, and reached down, down at the scattered and the terrified. 

Down at him. 

So they ran. He tried not to think about how he’d seen cats toy with mice or sweet and gentle dogs turn into wolves when something small tried to run from them. He tried not to think about those tendrils, like thick vines that felt like they could crush the air from his lungs.

And he tried not to think about how, between all the noise and fear and the air rasping in his lungs, he could hear the thing roar, over and over again. But most of all, he tried not to notice that it was gaining on them. 

The only thing they could do was keep their legs pumping and their eyes forward, trying to find their way through the winding streets of Suddenne, back to the Cloth Hall, where the size of the building — as well as hopefully the city guard — might keep them safe. Maria and Selico were keeping pace, but Aisha had started to trail behind. Max had picked her up, but it slowed him down. 

All around them, debris rained down from the buildings as the creature caught up to them, a massive shadow overhead that blackened the night sky from its deep blue to a murky, green blackness. Roja turned to Selico just in time to see him yanked away mid-step. He tried to stop in his tracks, to turn, to grab and rescue his friend, but all that did was trip him, bouncing him across the cobblestones. 

Something in his left shoulder snapped and pain shot through his torso, like burning needles piercing his skin and making him feel like he was about to throw up. His vision swam, stars circling the edges of his perception, but he couldn’t close his eyes. Pushing himself back up with his other arm, he wanted to shout to Maria to grab their friend’s hand, but it was too late. Two of the tentacles wrapped themselves around her waist, and lifted her with the same ease they had Selico. Then, something strong and terrifying slithered around his leg, and the world fell away. Below him, Iana jumped to grab him, but she was too late. Their fingertips barely touched, and then the ground suddenly became a thing, far and conceptual. 

The tendril pulled him and the others close to the dragon’s chest, where Roja noticed several other children were sobbing and crying. Thankfully, all of them were alive, but there must have been a dozen of them. His left arm hanging uselessly down, shoulder screaming at him each time he tried to move, Roja tried to free his other arm when he smashed his forehead into something solid. 

Something metal. 

It was the pommel of Maximilio’s sword, just inches from his face. Redoubling his effort, he wrenched his hand free, the skin on his arm raw from rubbing against the hard surface of the tendrils the dragon used to keep them all pressed against it. But he was free. 

Grabbing the handle of the sword, he pulled. Nothing. Shoving his shoulder against it, he felt the blade move, but it also bit into his shoulder. Roja couldn’t tell if he wanted to curse or bless Max for keeping his sword so sharp. Why did he even have a sword anyway? And why didn’t Roja get one? He should’ve gotten a sword. 

With a grunt of effort and a stabbing pain in his shoulder, the sword nudged free. He almost dropped it. Almost. His shoulder was getting warm and he realised that this was probably blood soaking into his clothes. Something for future Roja to worry about. 

“Maria!” he shouted. “Selico!” He looked around but saw no sign of his friends, his vision obscured by the mass of green tendrils and screaming children. In that case, all he could do was try to free himself so he could look for them. 

He was vaguely aware of a lurching feeling in his stomach as the dragon moved and more children were added to the fold, but he couldn’t allow himself to focus on that at the moment. All he could do was hack and slash at the attacking vines around him. 

It wasn’t until he was almost through the one holding him that he considered that this might not have been the wisest course of action, and that was just one swing too late. With a splash of white ichor and a screech from the dragon, the tendril holding him snapped off. He briefly managed to hold on to one of the other vines, but he couldn’t support his weight with just the one arm. He fell through the vines, smashing against them, past screaming kids, until suddenly he was free, and realised that the dragon had taken flight. 

The city was below them, more than a hundred feet. Higher than he’d ever been. 

There was nothing between him and the ground, and that nothing was getting smaller by the second. Wind whistled past him as he first made out individual people, then individual faces, and then individual cobblestones. He realised, vaguely, that he wasn’t going to survive smashing into them. 

Not that he could do much about it. He closed his eyes and tried, very hard, to think of Selico and Maria in his last moments. He also tried very hard not to wet himself. 

His eyes shot open as something crashed into him before he hit the ground. The air was knocked out of him, he felt his entire chest crack like dry bread, and his other arm snapped like a twig. He would have screamed if he didn’t feel like he was drowning. 

Roja’s vision went, his ability to see gone from the pain or the confusion or something else entirely. He couldn’t even feel his legs.

But he heard a voice. A familiar one.

“I’ve got you,” the Mad Queen Vera said. It was the last thing he heard before the soothing cold of darkness took him. “I’ve got you.”