Draka

The scent of fresh blood hung in the air. We were just outside of the campsite by my mountain, with the wind coming in from the northeast. I smelled blood. Lots of it. Something big had died, for the smell to be so strong. And I smelled bear. I doubted that it was the bear that bled.

“Everybody,” I said, interrupting the two simultaneous conversations, “be alert. There’s a bear around, probably the same bastard that’s been staying one step ahead of me for weeks. And I think it’s a big one.”

Kira looked alarmed at my tone, so I told her, “Big bear. It should avoid us, so probably no danger, but stay behind the others.”

“The horses seem fine,” Pot said, and he was right. The horses weren’t skittish, or at least no more than they always were around me. Mostly they were tired, though, so that might have been affecting them.

“Still,” I said. “I smell it. And there’s a lot of blood on the air, like… an elk or a really big boar or something.”

“Alright, so we get a fire going, no worries!” Rib said, waving towards the campsite.

“The horses are going to be a problem. We’ll need to watch them.”

“Nah, these are good boys and girls. They won’t run off anywhere.”

“I’m more worried about the bear coming for them.”

Rib blinked. “Oh. Yeah, right. That. But why, though? If it has a fresh kill, why would it bother?”

“Don’t know. I’ve just had a bad feeling about this bear for a while. It’s just always around, never showing itself but never there when I’ve looked for it. Damn thing is… stalking me, or something.”

“Sounds like it’s dumber than your average bear, then.”

“Yeah, but I’m worried it’s the big bastard Lalia and I fought.”

“How about this,” Pot said. “We can get the nightcrawlers and your newest addition tucked away in those tunnels of yours, and Rib and I can stay out here napping with you up a tree or something. If it comes around we’ll deal with it.”

“You two? Aren’t you both dagger specialists? How the hell do you expect to fight a bear? Especially if it’s that monster?”

“By distracting it so you can chunk it, mostly,” Pot said. “That and poison.” He dug a little vial out from a belt pouch. “Powerful numbing poison. Coat a blade with this and get a good cut or stab in and that limb’ll be useless in seconds. Good stuff! Don’t usually get to use it because, you know.”

Because they’d usually sneak up and cut throats. Yeah, I knew very well.

“Alright,” I said, though I wasn’t at all confident. Though, worst case, I thought, we’ll have to sacrifice a horse or two while Rib and Pot get up a tree. “If it is the big bastard, though, and if it comes for us or the horses, I do not want you two fighting it. Lalia and I barely got out alive, and that was with her mounted and with a sword. Those knives of yours are going to do exactly jack and shit to that thing, and who knows if the poison will even work?”

“As you say,” Rib said as Pot began to protest. “We’re not monster slayers, either of us. Right, Pot?”

“Right,” her cousin answered, his disappointment obvious.

“Alright.” I spoke up. “The rest of you, you know what to do. Mak, get everyone in there, but maybe don't show the prisoner how the gate works. She's like you. Understand?"

Mak nodded.

“I’m leaving her in your hands. If she does anything stupid, subdue her. We still want to question her.”

“Right.”

I turned to our captive. "Kira, follow them inside the mountain. It will be dark and the exit will be closed, but it will be safe as long as you stay with them and do not wander off.”

“And if I do?” she asked.

“I could hunt you down, but I will not need to. You will die of thirst in the dark before you find a way out. No one alive knows where those tunnels go.”

Kira swallowed, then nodded. “I will stay with Makanna,” she said firmly.

"Good." To the others I said, "Go on. I'm sure that you're all tired. Sleep well. I'll see you in the evening." I wanted to say that they all managed fine their entire lives without me telling them what to do, but that wasn't exactly fair. I had a hold on each of them, and for all I knew Command was making them more… deferential?

'Subservient' came unbidden to mind. One part of me really liked that, and the other hated it. 'Deferential' would have to do.

With four of the humans safely tucked away with most of the gear, I rejoined the two cousins. They'd set the horses free to wander the campsite, trusting them not to wander off. Oddly, I missed Stalwart the mule. He'd never warmed to me the way Garal's Melon eventually had, but he'd accepted me. There was something about domestic animals fearing me that my human side just couldn't accept, and which excited me in a way that I wasn’t entirely comfortable with. Those problems went away when an animal stopped behaving like prey.

Maybe I should get a cat, I thought.

I woke up in the afternoon to a feeling of wrongness. At first I thought that it was because I couldn't see Rib or Pot, but I remembered that they'd followed my example and decided to get up a tree just in case. No, it was something else.

I couldn't smell the bear any more. And the scent hadn't gotten fainter and then vanished, I was sure of that. It was just gone.

The wind was slowly shifting. Maybe that was why? It had been coming from the north-east before, and now it was more directly easterly. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on just my nose. That was still unfamiliar but getting easier with experience, and as I… merged more and more with my dragon. I smelled the forest. Boar, perhaps. A faint whiff of blood.

A gust came in from the south-east and I smelled bear, strong, close, and fresh.

My eyes popped open and I shifted my neck around the trunk of the tree, looking in the direction of the scent. Nothing. I didn't hear anything, either, until a soft "Koh-ahp!" drew my attention to Rib, who gestured a question. I shrugged best I could and shook my head, then gestured south-east with my head. Rib's reaction was a shockingly eloquent, full-body 'What the hell do you mean?', but at least she turned to look in the right direction.

Two minutes later the thing lumbered silently out of the trees, going around the campsite. It was enormous, but a deer would have made more noise. It snuffled around, but its eyes were on the horses, who had somehow not reacted to it at all. The thing was right there, and they just kept grazing! Then, behind it, came two brown, fuzzy lumps that by their size could have been mistaken for fully grown brown bears, but which I realised must be this monster's cubs. I was taken back to a sunny day months ago when I'd been learning to hunt, and a chance encounter had made me feel so small and vulnerable.

The mama bear and her cubs had found my mountain, and oh, my, had they grown.

The dragon wanted to fight on principle. If it had been a regular bear, even a big one, I would have gone for it, no doubt. If it had been the big bastard I fought with Lalia I might have tried, for the sake of the horses. But this? A giant the size of a small elephant, with cubs? No. Sorry horses, but I valued my own hide far higher than that.

While the cubs gambolled into the campsite and started pushing the log benches around, more curious than afraid of the fire, the mama stopped and sniffed. Slowly she raised her head and looked up. I looked at her. So did Rib and Pot, whom Rib had woken up. The bear looked at all of us, then huffed loudly.

She lumbered up to the humans' tree, raised herself to her full height, and slammed into it. Rib and Pot hung on for dear life as the whole tree shuddered and leaned under her weight. There was, perhaps, a chance that she only wanted to warn us, but I couldn't exactly risk it. They were climbing higher, but she could knock that tree down. I didn't have a single doubt about that. And I was not going to let two people I liked become part of the circle of life if I could help it.

"Look out!" I screamed and threw myself across the long gap between our trees. My wingtip clipped a branch, which smarted bad, but I made it, crashing into the cousins' tree a few feet below them.

"Hold on to me!" I said, and they looked at me incredulously.

"How–" Rib started, but I cut her off.

"I don't fucking care how, grab onto something and hang on!"

"Shit! Right!" Rib looked at her cousin and said, "Back or front?"

"Front, you're thinner!" Pot said, and I nearly panicked when he dropped four feet to a branch below me. Luckily I was distracted by Rib clambering onto my back, legs along my sides and her arms around my neck.

The dragon in me hated it. I had to consciously restrain myself from trying to bite her, grabbing her, trying to shake her off, anything! Then I was distracted from that by Pot squeezing in under me and throwing his arms over mine, which the dragon also did not like at all.

Looking down I saw that he'd hooked his legs over Rib's, like some kind of goddamn circus trick.

"Did you rehearse this!?" I asked, as the bear slammed the tree again, almost making me lose my hold with the extra weight.

"Misspent youth, tell you some other time!" Rib shouted from my back. "Have you ever done this before?"

"Kind of, a couple of times!" I fibbed. I'd landed a couple of times while carrying Kira. That counted as multiple trips, I told myself. "Hold on, and be ready to run if the weight is too much!"

"What!?" Pot shouted from beneath me, and then I kicked off.

I nearly hit the ground before my wings kicked Newton in the arse and let me climb again, Rib whooping and Pot, who nearly got flattened, screaming his head off. One of the cubs took a swipe at us, but it seemed more playful than serious. The mama was not happy about us getting anywhere near her cubs and came after us, but I got us high enough to be out of her reach.

With Rib on my back and Pot held tightly in my arms I fought like hell to gain altitude, but it worked. They were heavier than anything I'd carried but not too heavy. Rib got in the way of my wings, but not too bad. I couldn't go for miles and miles and miles like I had with Kira, but…

Really, there was only one place I could go. I’d never tried out of fear of dropping Herald – I’d never imagined doing this with anyone else – but having tried it with Kira and now having been kind of forced into action by a three-tonne bear, I figured, why not? I needed to be able to get to my humans, and I couldn’t exactly drop the cousins off anywhere and leave them. It was a flight of only a few minutes, made longer and far, far harder by the extra weight, but soon we reached the ledge, and the cave. The grand entrance to my home.

“When I tell you, I need you to drop!” I shouted to Pot.

“What?” he shouted back, eyes wide.

I stopped my momentum above the ledge. The extra weight made a controlled hover pretty much impossible, and I was jerking every which way as I beat my wings furiously, trying to get to a height where Pot wouldn’t break his legs.

“I can’t land with you on my chest!” I shouted. “You’ll get crushed! I need you to let go with your legs!”

He looked down quickly, then back up. “Okay,” he shouted to me. He did not sound okay at all, but he unhooked his legs from Ribs and dangled down my front, swinging every which way as I fought to stay somewhat still in the air.

“Right. When I tell you, I’ll let go, and you do too!” I let myself drop, then yelled “Now!” right before I beat my wings, letting Pot fall the last nine or ten feet as I shot back up. Looking down I saw him hit the ground and roll backwards like an acrobat, then get unsteadily to his feet and let out a loud woop.

After that, landing was simple, just a matter of bracing a little extra.

“Oh gods!” Ribs moaned as she slid off my back. “Oh sweet Mercies! Blessed embrace of earth!” She got on her knees and touched her forehead to the thin soil.

“It wasn’t that bad, was it?” I asked, not entirely sure if I should take her seriously. She’d sounded like she was on a rollercoaster for most of the flight.

“Nah,” she said, getting to her feet with a weak smile. “I could even see it being fun! Just… with some warning, you know?”

“I’ll let you know in advance the next time I schedule a bear monster, how about that?”

“That’d be great, yeah,” she said. “Really, though… Mercies, you get to do that whenever you want. I never envied the birds until today. Or you, I guess.”

“Never really knew what you were missing, huh?”

“Well. I,” Pot said, “call ‘back’ next time.”

I led them inside. Perhaps I could have left them on the ledge to go watch the gate and wait for the bear to clear off, but for all that I trusted them there was no way that I was leaving them alone with a clear line to my hoard. There were limits to how far I’d trust anyone except, perhaps, Herald.

The light dropped off sharply, as always, as soon as we got past the first bend of the cave system. All the cousins had to see by was the glow slime. I wondered how I’d get them down there without breaking their necks slipping on a wet stone, but they were prepared. As soon as it got properly dark Pot produced a small vial, drank half, and gave the rest to Rib. “Health and honour to you,” she said, shotting it, then blinking as her eyes not only dilated but took on an almost catlike sheen. “Interesting place you’ve got here,” she said, looking around the narrow, sloping tunnel.

“Yeah, it’s an alternate route inside,” I told them evasively. “I’ll get you to the others and then I can let you all out when it’s clear.” I was pretty sure that they’d figured out where we were, but I wasn’t going to confirm anything. As we descended they told me a little about that ‘misspent youth’ Rib had mentioned, one that was probably still in full swing considering that I doubted that they were above twenty years old, twenty one at the very most. It involved increasingly risky methods of sneaking out at night and, yeah, doing what was pretty much really stupid circus acts, including one where one of them rode on the back of a horse and the other clung to its front. A shattered leg had put a stop to that particular trick.

“Here,” I told them as we reached the crack in the wall. “I need you to squeeze through there.”

“Looks easy enough,” Pot said, eyeing the stone. “But, uh…” he gestured lamely at me. “What about you?”

“Just you worry about yourselves for the moment, alright? And mind the pit on the other side.”

Pot shrugged and began sidling, Rib following him a moment later.

“Alright,” Rib called from the other side, looking back at me. “Now what?”

I wasn’t worried about letting them in on my secret. They didn’t quite have that obedient feeling, but I still felt that I could trust them and, again, I was so tired of hiding. And frankly, I was counting on a mix of respect, honour, and fear to keep them from doing anything stupid, like betraying me.

“Now,” I told them, “I just need you two to not freak the hell out. Maybe sit down first, I don’t know. And I need a promise from the two of you that you’ll never speak to anyone about what you’re about to see, except Herald and Mak. And Ardek, I guess.”

“Uh, sure?” Pot said.

“I’m serious. I need a promise.”

“Alright,” Rib said. “Whatever secret you are about to reveal, I swear that I will not spread it to anyone except those you’ve mentioned. On my honour as a Tavvenarian and a member of House Terriallon, and on my life and that of my cousin Poterio.”

“Hey, what in the hells…” Pot said. “But yeah, same here. On Rib’s life. Good enough?”

“Yeah,” I said. That was probably as serious an oath as either of them could take. Then, without further delay, I shifted.

“Oh!” Rib shouted and fell back, nearly going off the ledge. “Oh waves and stars! What the–”

Pot, meanwhile, was sitting exactly where he had been, staring slack jawed at me as I flowed through the crack and shifted back next to them on the ledge. He just kept staring at me in silence for a long while, then said, “That’s impossible.”

“Dragon magic,” I countered.

“Magic is like… no. What you just did… Rib? What was that?”

“That’s impossible,” Rib agreed from behind me.

“Come on, Herald took it much better than you. Mak and Ardek, too.”

“The three people who follow you around and do whatever you say?” Rib asked. “Herald who loves you, and Mak and Ardek who are absolutely, utterly terrified of you?”

“I mean–”

“Invisibility is not a thing, Draka,” Pot said. “It’s something you see in plays or hear of in myths and legends. Shapeshifting, or whatever you did, same with that. It’s not something that anyone can actually do. Magic doesn’t do that!”

“Dragon magic does,” I said, and shifted, then shifted back. “Or will you deny the evidence of your eyes, or however that line goes? Now come on, we need to get down there before Mak opens the gate to pee and gets eaten.”