Draka

The large side doors of the warehouse opened onto a yard. The stables looked pretty new and solid, so I guessed the Wolves must have had them built after they took over. You probably wouldn’t need any draft animals when you could hire magically strong workers with high endurance from a labour pool the size of a city.

The yard was clear, just like Garal had said. “I’ll meet you outside the north gate,” I told them, then leapt into the air with a few beats of my wings. It was a nice, cloudy night, dark as hell and perfect.

I climbed high enough that there was no way they’d be able to track me. Of course, I didn’t head for the gates. I didn’t want to let them out of my sight and, besides, my wing-shoulder still ached a little. So instead I came back down, landing on the warehouse’s roof on the side opposite the yard, and shifted. Then I crossed the ridge of the roof. The yard had some light, but was dark enough that I could see a little. Sure, I’d told Lalia that I’d be fine with them looking after my humans, but I wasn’t going to risk the Blossom sending a bunch of her goons after them on their way out, and me sitting there by the road like an asshole wondering why they never showed up. In the dark I could follow them without being seen just fine. The buildings were generally close enough that I should be able to cross between them, and when they were not I’d either fly or figure it out.

I was not letting anyone take Herald and Mak from me again, that was for sure.

They got the animals out, saddled and bridled and packed and loaded and whatever else you do with horses and pack animals. I was never a horse girl. Garal and Lalia chose to walk, and whether it was out of consideration for the horses or the others I respected it. It was probably the horses, though. From what little I’d seen they really liked those horses.

Each of them threw a surreptitious look at the sky at some point. If it made them feel better, more power to them, but it was pointless. They wouldn’t have spotted me even if I was there. The city wasn’t bright enough to light up the clouds, and I would have just been swallowed by the darkness, black on black.

After checking all their gear they wasted no time getting their move on. They trooped out the gate into the street and I followed them, moving to the street-side edge of the roof. There were quite a few mercs milling about in the street, and the half-hearted cheers and mutters told me everything I needed to know about how popular it was to be kicked out this late. Most of those poor bastards would probably have been sound asleep if not for me. Happily for them it was unlikely to happen again.

The group moved down the street, away from the small square I’d seen the day before. The streets were not quite empty, but anyone who acknowledged the group quickly moved on, not wanting to draw the attention of four very clearly armed people, two of them in the blues and greys of the Wolves. I’d been able to tell from my initial flight that we were close to the harbour, which made a lot of sense since we’d been in a warehouse and also meant that there was indeed a lot of city between us and the northern gate. By some kind of silent agreement they moved along small streets instead of heading for any of the wider, more brightly lit thoroughfares I’d seen. I moved, silent and invisible, from rooftop to rooftop, keeping ahead whenever I could and shifting back to rest while I waited. Every so often I would have to move farther down a street to find a place narrow enough to cross, and failing that I simply leapt, helped along by my wings. If anyone was sleeping under those roofs they might wonder what was going on, but I was confident that I wouldn’t be spotted, and on some level I don’t think that I cared. Let them see. Let them wonder, and let them fear. They’d know soon enough.

No, the little voice reminded me, that was not a good idea. And the voice was right. But I was so tired of hiding. I was being hunted, and I was not retaliating. It galled me. The most annoying thing was that if I just kept out of sight for a few months it would probably just… go away. The humans would think that I’d moved on, and they’d stop hunting me. And if I didn’t want it all to start up again, I could just stay in the shadows, hiding like a frightened animal. Like prey.

And that was the smart thing to do. Because if I started killing the people hunting me they would just keep coming, because that’s what humans did. Hell, the bounty would probably just keep mounting until adventurers and hunters seeking their fortune would come from across the sea just to take a shot at me. Which would be flattering, but annoying and ultimately dangerous. Especially if I had my humans with me.

Right. The humans. I’d been drifting, moving along without really paying attention where I should. I was maybe fifty yards behind them and started moving to catch up, but then something caught my eye. Across the street two figures moved in the shadows of an alley, looking out at the party and then quickly sprinting up to the next cover where they did the same thing. They were clearly following my humans.

Jealous anger flared, but with it came a wild excitement. My thoughts had driven me to an impotent frustration and here, conveniently, was something to vent that frustration on. Fighting was good. I didn’t need to think and worry while I was fighting.

The two figures were trying to stay in cover, which forced them to move in sprints. I had no such issue. I shifted out of the dark and took a flying leap across the street, then pursued the pursuers on the rooftops and overtook them, dropping into a dimly lit alley seconds before they themselves reached it.

As they joined me they almost didn’t see me. They were so focused on their quarry that one didn’t see me. The other caught me in her peripheral vision, then turned and looked at me, a choked, squeaking “Run!” escaping his throat.

As I pounced I got a good look at his face and I realised that, God fucking damn it, it was another kid. An actual child, thirteen years old, maybe fifteen at most if he hadn’t eaten properly for most of his life. And I couldn’t do it. The voice screamed at me, and I pulled my claws in and closed my teeth on air just before I slammed the boy to the ground. As this happened his partner turned, and it was another child, a girl no older than him. She looked at me, then at him, with an impotent anguish.

“Rel!” she whispered.

“Run!” he choked out again, and she did. Without another sound, she turned, and ran.

I let her go. What the hell was I supposed to do? Cripple or kill this boy so I could go after her without letting him get away? I growled, more out of frustration than anything else, and the boy on the ground went limp and began sobbing silently.

“Are you one of the Night Blossom’s people?” I asked, my face less than a foot from his. I didn’t know what I could do even if he said yes.

He squeezed his eyes shut and just lay there, crying, while my humans got further away.

“I’m talking to you, boy. I’ll give you one more chance to answer me, before I get rid of you and go after the other one. Are you, or are you not, one of the Night Blossom’s people?”

He shook his head urgently. It made him look like a baby who didn’t want to eat his mush.

Damn it, where did that image come from? That wasn’t something I needed to think of.

“No? No, what? ‘No, don’t kill me?’ Or ‘No, I’m not?’ Answer me, boy!”

“No!” he sobbed. “I’m not! We’re not! Some guy paid us to watch the Wolves, and if two dark women came out we were supposed to follow them and tell him where they went! He may be one of hers, I’m not sure!”

“Yeah? Well, here’s a new job for you. I want you to take a message. I want you to tell whoever was paying you, that the Night Blossom’s special guest says that if she’s so eager to see me again, all she has to do is wait. Can you do that?”

The boy sobbed silently.

“Words, boy.”

“Yes!”

I patted him on the cheek. “Good. Run along now. Oh, and if I wasn’t clear, I plan to do some terrible things to the Blossom’s people, so you’ll probably want to stay away from them for a couple of months.” I got off him and used my wings to leap onto a building across the street without waiting. Maybe he’d do what I told him. Maybe not. I didn’t really expect a child to hand over a threatening message to a crime lord. If I wanted to keep my head down I should have killed both him and the girl, but the voice hated that plan, so I didn’t. Now, they were probably going to start spreading all kinds of stories, and I wondered how long it would take before a description of me found the wrong ear. Days? A week? A month at most?

Still. Terrorising children. I was real damned proud of myself for that.

Having a conscience was awful sometimes.

As far as my little group of humans knew their whole trip out of the city was uneventful. Nobody challenged them, and the guards at the gates didn’t question why two squad leaders from the Wolves would want to leave the city at night together with two easily recognisable adventurers. Especially not when everyone was in full gear. Ardek drew some questioning looks, but the guards clearly didn’t think it was worth an argument.

I crossed the wall on the wing a few hundred yards away, then flew a few miles ahead of the party and sat down by the road to wait. I greeted them with a cheerful “What took you so long?” when they got close enough to hear, though by their jumpy reactions most of them hadn’t seen me yet.

“Have you been waiting long?” Herald asked when she got closer. I matched step with them, falling in next to Herald.

“Not really,” I answered in Karakanian, for the others’ benefit. “I was keeping an eye on you for a while to make sure you made it out okay, but all that happened was that some kids were following you. I got rid of them.”

I heard a sharp intake of breath from somewhere behind Herald, but when I looked it surprisingly wasn’t Lalia. Instead Ardek was looking kind of sick.

“I scared them off,” I huffed at him. “I didn’t hurt them. They were harmless. May have trouble sleeping for a few days, though.”

“But they saw you. And you spoke to them.” Herald stated.

I sighed. “Yeah. Would you have preferred it if I killed them?”

“No,” she said sourly. “I suppose not.”

“There you go. Hopefully no one will listen to a pair of hysterical kids, and if they do I guess I’ll just have to lay low for a while. That, or just give up on being unknown and kill a lot of people.”

“Could you not just have left them alone?”

“They were following you!”

“And what harm did that do?”

“Maybe none, maybe they were directing an ambush. I didn’t know. That’s the point. I had no idea what harm they might do, so I dealt with them. And… I needed to vent a little,” I admitted after a short silence.

She seemed about to say something acidic, but closed her mouth, puffed some air out her nose, and instead said, “That, I can understand. We are not just going to let this stand, are we? I think both Mak and I need some… I do not even know for sure. Revenge, I guess, but that seems like too limited a word.”

Revenge? That was a good start. I let all my grievances with the humans of this world rise freely to the surface. All the indignities and annoyances they had me convinced that I had to subject myself to, whether they knew it or not. The loneliness, the discomfort, the constant knowledge that there were people out there who would kill me for clout or for gold. And now, recently, the very real pain and fear and loss that had been inflicted on me. I took all of that, and focused it into one form, an avatar of all my frustration and suffering. A woman who smelled like jasmine.

I couldn’t do anything about every human, but I could do something about some of them. And I could do some very specific things about her.

“No,” I said. ”We are not going to let this stand.”

We were silent for a while then changed the topic to happier things. Herald talked a little about businesses she and Mak were considering making offers on once Tam and Val came back with the money. Since it was hard to know if the men would sell the book we’d found or not and if so for how much, though, the sisters hadn’t been able to go very far. Even showing too much interest at this point could work against them, possibly driving up prices. But when they hadn’t been working they’d had pleasant evenings, going to the theatre or listening to music, or, in Herald’s case, spending long, relaxing hours in the academic library. Not needing to worry about money was, we agreed, a wonderful thing.

On my part I told Herald about how I’d scared off the scholars, and while she didn’t quite laugh I at least got some weak smiles out of her. “I cannot believe you did that!” she said, slowly shaking her head. “Though I suppose I should not be surprised. You can be so dramatic sometimes!”

“It worked, did it not?”

“It sounds like it did, but… I do not wish for blood to be shed, but are you certain that it was wise to let them leave?”

“Wise? No, I am not sure at all that it was wise. But it was important to me to give them a chance, for one reason or another. I cannot quite remember now. Either way, it is done, and if they return I will deal with it then.”

“Well, at least it was funny,” she said, putting her hand on my neck for a moment before lapsing back into a comfortable silence.

About an hour after we entered the forest we took a break, and when we kept moving Garal and Lalia insisted that the others get on the horses. Ardek was noticeably limping on his healing leg, and both Herald and Mak looked wiped. I should have expected that. They’d had just over a day to recover from several days of horrible abuse, and the fact that they were willing and able to come this far was impressive enough.

Garal and Lalia had made repeated, valiant attempts to engage the rest of us in something that resembled normal conversation, even Ardek. They’d warmed to him somewhat after it became clear that his only involvement in the sisters’ ordeal was a short stint as a guard, before I came along and ruined his day. He’d been a petty criminal before joining the Blossom, sure, but from what any of us could tell he wasn’t bad, just unfortunate. Sadly for our two mercenary friends he was as taciturn as Herald and Mak. They all had things to deal with.

“What about you, Draka?” Garal asked, lengthening his step for a moment to catch up with me. Herald, on Melon, and I were at the front, me off the side of the road, eyes open for anyone I needed to hide from. “Are you feeling any better now that we’re out of the city?”

“I guess. Fewer people to hide from. Probably won’t run into anything we can’t easily handle. Still pissed, though. I’d looked forward to it, you know?”

“Hmm?”

“Visiting the city. I’ve wanted to go there ever since I first saw it, but thanks to the goddamn Night Blossom my whole experience there has been killing and hiding. So. Kind of pissed about that.”

“You’ll be back, in better times,” Garal said with a confidence that I wished I could match. “You may not be able to move around openly, but I’m sure we can figure out a way for you to relax with the people you trust, at least. It’s a big city. Lots of safe, hidden places.” He grinned at me. “Think about it. We could get you those fish whenever you wanted. They grill up really nicely, too.”

“Figure that out, and I’ll put you on the full disclosure list. “

“There’s an incentive if I ever heard one.”

“Garal,” I said after another mile of silence. “Do you ever feel left out?”

“How do you mean?”

“Maybe that’s the wrong question. Do other people ever make you feel left out?”

“Because I’m a mercenary? Or because I’m so devilishly handsome?”

He followed that up with a rakish smile, and I snorted. “No. So… Herald, Mak and Tam are Tekeriteki, right? And I understand that’s giving them some trouble.”

“Right,” he said, and the way his tone and the set of his face and shoulders changed told me that he knew where I was going.

“Well, you look different from the average Karakan, if you forgive me for saying so. And you’ve got a bit of an accent. You’re Barlean, right? I’ve seen a few other Barleans, but not many.”

He sighed. “I was. I don’t really consider myself Barlean anymore, nor do they. But I’m not alone. There’s a few of us former Barleans here and, besides, I have the Wolves. And our common friends,” he said, smiling back at the others. “Do I feel like an outsider? Sometimes. Rarely. When I see a Barlean crew in a harbour tavern, laughing and singing in my mother tongue, it can be hard.”

“What happened?”

He smiled sadly. “Nothing. I committed no crime, and no one exiled me. I was born without a love for the sea, that is all. If I went to sign up with a crew they would welcome me with open arms. But I won’t, so I’m lost to them. They’re not angry. They’re just sad, because they don’t understand.” He looked past me into the darkness of the forest for a while. “I’m sorry. I’d rather not talk about this anymore. Not now.”