Draka

Returning to the others took a while.

I’d been quite consciously keeping a lot of emotions bottled up, so once I started crying it was hard to stop. Besides that I was just so goddamn relieved that I hadn’t messed everything up. Herald, on her part, was quite overwhelmed by my declaration that she, essentially, was the best and most important thing in the world to me. We ended up just sitting there in the tunnel, hugging and crying, until the lightstone faded. It was nice. It had been a long time since I had a good, happy cry. And since dragons did not cry, it reaffirmed that there was still a lot of human in me.

But, return we did. Herald enjoyed the drop into the throne room just as much as I’d expected, and then it was back to the Hub and down the tunnel to the gate. If someone was there who wasn’t supposed to, I figured I’d deal with that if and when it happened. But no one was. I could only suppose that they were too clever to go into the forbidden, pitch-black tunnel on day one.

The next two days weren’t very interesting. I made sure to get some sparring in with Mak, but otherwise the humans were busy with each other, getting to know our new neighbours, getting them settled in, and keeping them in line. Ardek, surprisingly – or perhaps not so surprisingly, given his ‘love me’ advancements – became a useful link between Herald, Mak and the others, and the newcomers, helping smooth any friction when either of the sisters found it necessary to go dictatorial on them.

Herald and I didn’t have time to go for another flight. There was just too much for them to do, but whenever she knew that I was nearby she’d sneak off to reassure me that things between us were better than ever. She was very concerned that I’d think she was avoiding me, which I thought was very sweet and considerate of her.

On day four after I’d ‘invited’ the northerners to stay with us, Lalia arrived. She came in not long after noon, looking harried and riding a lathered Windfall. I found this out when I was woken from a very nice nap by the sound of a commotion in the camp. They did not take the arrival of a hard-riding armoured woman very well, with roughly half of them panicking and trying to hide the children, and the rest preparing to defend themselves.

Lalia’s reaction, on finding the beginning of an actual settlement where she’d expected a rough, possibly-but-probably-not occupied campsite, was to rein in Windfall and shout, “Someone tell me what the fuck is going on here, right now!”

It took the arrival of Rib to defuse the situation and convince the northerners that Lalia was, at least nominally, friendly. “I need to speak to Mak or Herald, immediately,” Lalia demanded once she was satisfied that all was as well as could be expected. “Them, or you-know-who. It’s about the boys.”

I’d been watching this from a nearby tree. Lalia’s general urgency already had me interested and a little worried, and the mention of what I could only assume to be Tamor and Valmik got me really worked up. I really wanted to just drop out of the trees and talk to her, but I still didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of showing myself to our newcomers.

Fortunately, Rib was pretty sharp. “Head north, around the bend,” she said, loudly enough that she could be sure that I’d hear her. “I’ll go get the sisters and meet you there.”

Lalia gave her sharp nod, turned Windfall, and headed in the indicated direction. Rib looked up into the trees, finding me after a few seconds, and jerked her head after Lalia before heading towards the Gate to tell Herald and Mak what had happened.

I followed Lalia and joined her the easy way, moving through the shadows. I would have gone the ‘descend from the sky with the thunder of wings’ route, but I felt bad for Windfall. The poor boy looked upset enough as it was after a long, hard ride. He deserved to relax a little.

And Lalia probably didn’t need that kind of surprise either, even if it was always good to remind her of where we stood with each other. Another time, I told myself. I didn’t even appear suddenly behind her, and felt pretty proud of my restraint! Instead she got to greet me with a dignified “Draka,” as I walked out of the undergrowth. She gestured back towards the camp. “I see your collection’s growing.”

“They asked for a safe place to live, and I granted it. No pressure, no coercion.”

That only got me a raised eyebrow.“You’re disposing of the city’s territory now? Handing out charters?”

“We can talk about who controls this place in law and in fact, if you want to. But what will you do if I say yes? Fight me? Bring the rest of the Wolves? And if I say no, will you tell these people, who have already lost everything, that they can’t stay here?”

She frowned. “You know that I won’t.”

“Then the answer to your question doesn’t matter, does it?” I sighed. “Look, Lalia. They were in a bad situation and they asked for help. I couldn’t say no. That’s about it.” I glossed over the details about them being outlaws and me terrifying Jekrie into begging for my protection, probably out of fear for all of their lives. It was better for everybody if she didn’t know that.

Her eyes softened a bit at my words, and the atmosphere was a little more friendly after that.

“So what about striking back at the raiders?” I asked. “I’ve been hoping for days to hear that you’re ready to go, and nothing.”

“I know,” Lalia said, looking oddly guilty. “We’ve been ordered to pull our patrols back closer to the city. Rallon was fucking livid when he told us, but the order comes straight from the council.”

“Sounds like bullshit to me.”

“Yeah. Good thing that Rallon had some warning ahead of time, and had already sent out every Wolf in fighting shape, isn’t it? But we didn’t exactly have time to send someone for you, so… “

“You went without me?” I felt oddly hurt by that.

“Yeah, it was that or lose the chance. But the medallion you gave us led us straight to them, so you’ve done plenty!”

“How did it go?”

“Could have gone better,” she said unhappily. “Light casualties on both sides. They saw us coming – good scouts, I’ve got to give them that. We had them well outnumbered, but they were already moving by the time we reached their campsite, and we only got some of their scouts and part of the baggage train. It should fuck them over pretty good, though, so that’s something, but Sorrows take us if we try to do anything more now. Can’t go against the council now the order’s given or we’ll be violating the contract. The medallion’s helping us keep track of them, and they haven’t returned south, so we’re keeping up patrols as close as we can to wherever they move. We’ve seen off one of their raids already.”

“That’s something.” It was a small relief, at least. “So what do I do about Kira?”

“The Tekereteki merc who looks Karakani? Yeah, that’s something else I’m here for. We didn’t take any prisoners, and Rallon wants me to question her, if that’s alright with you.”

“I don’t have a problem with it. She doesn’t speak any Karakani, though, so you’ll need Herald or Mak to translate.”

“Not you?”

“No.”

“Just, ‘no’?”

“I’d think Rallon would trust them more than me,” I said matter-of-factly. “And she likes them. Besides, I’m feeling lazy.”

“Yeah, fine. Although knowing those two they may not give me the opportunity once they hear my news.”

When I asked what was up with the men she just told me that there had been a message, but that she didn’t want to repeat herself once Herald and Mak got there. I figured I could be patient, so we just made small talk while we waited. The Wolves seemed to be doing alright, other than the officers being annoyed at being held back by the council. They had temporary quarters arranged in a different warehouse while the old one was being repaired, and most of the soldiers were housed there. The officers, though, were all staying in various inns, and it was clear that Lalia was not happy about the idea of having to give up the room that she shared with Garal to move back to a barracks. She didn’t say anything outright, but it was pretty clear from all the signals she was giving off that they were making good use of their private room.

Ah, I thought. To be young and in love and still human.

“Oh, and that Barlo guy came looking for us at the inn,” she said after I successfully steered the conversation away from her, Garal, and things that I’d rather not start missing. It wasn’t like I could do anything about it, given my ‘condition’, that being that I was a big ol’ lizard. “He came looking at the old place and the guards sent him our way. He said he had something for you, about some scholars or something like that? Didn’t leave a message, wanted to tell you in person. I mean, he said it was for ‘an important lady in the mountains’, and that he’d been told to contact Garal, but it wasn’t exactly hard to figure out who he meant.”

“I was hoping that he’d get back with something!” I said. I’d have been more excited if I wasn’t already so curious about what had Lalia all worked up. “Can you or Garal help set up a meeting?”

“Yeah, no trouble,” she said, shrugging slightly. “He left an address and all.”

Another person who’d been asking about me was Lahnie, apparently. I took the fact that Lalia was even mentioning her sister to me, instead of hoping that I’d forget about her, as a friendly gesture. It had hardly seemed possible a few months earlier, but our relationship actually wasn’t terrible anymore, once Lalia decided that she didn’t have a chance in hell of taking me on. Soon after that, however, Herald and Mak came into sight, and Lalia wasted no time relaying her urgent news.

“There was a letter,” Lalia explained, “from Tam and Val. We, uh… we read it. Hope you don’t mind. I know it’s a shit thing to do but we were really worried about them and thought it might be important. And it was, just, not as important as how we got it.”

Mak frowned. “Yeah, kind of a shit thing to do, Lalia. Though I get it. So what’s got you so worked up that you rode poor Windfall half to death getting here?”

“Fucking innkeeper’s been stealing your letters, that’s what!”

“What!?” Herald exclaimed incredulously, while Mak kept her anger to a scowl and a restrained, “That bastard!”

“The mail carrier came in from the harbour while Garal and me were were at the door, or he’d have disappeared this one too. We heard who it was for, and it wasn’t like he could keep it from us when you both had said to give us all your mail. And then the carrier commented on how that was two letters in one week, and wasn’t that interesting? And then we beat the crap out of Reben for a while until he admitted that he’d been handing your letters to someone. There’s been three more that you never saw!”

“Wait,” Herald said, “You beat up old Reben?”

“I mean, we didn’t go straight to that. There was a bunch of talking first. He was being evasive, we caught him in some lies… you know Garal, he’s good with that. Then we beat him up when he wouldn’t tell us what happened to your letters.”

“Bastard,” Mak growled. “We’ve been waiting for word for weeks and he’s been stealing our letters! I’ll see him fucking hang for this!”

“That might be excessive,” Herald said soothingly, putting her hand on Mak’s shoulder. “I am as… nearly as angry as you are, but you know as well as I that Reben would not do something like that unless he was being coerced.”

Mak just kept scowling silently.

“What did the letter say?” Herald asked, and Lalia stuck her hand inside her armour, coming out with a soft leather tube which she handed over.

“Here it is. But the summary is that they were supposed to be back already, but their ship was delayed by bad weather. We can expect them any day now.”

“That is fantastic!” Herald said, smiling brightly. “I cannot wait–”

“And they’ve sold… whatever it was. Congratulations by the way. I expect I’ll be calling you ‘my Ladies’ soon.” Lalia grinned ruefully and went on, “But whoever has the letters knows about that, too. And I don’t think you’ll have any trouble coming to the same conclusion we did about who that is.”

The dragon rose in me at just the suggestion. We all knew who she meant. Who else could she be referring to but the Night Blossom? Who else had the motivation? And she knew about our treasure, and that Tam and Val would be arriving soon. There was no way that she was not having the harbour watched. She would have expected them already, but surely she wouldn’t pull her men back just like that?

No, we needed to go. Tam and Val would be walking into an ambush. If we were not there to help them, the treasure would be lost, and I would leave a trail of corpses from the harbour to the north gate before I let that happen. I didn’t care who saw me, and I didn’t care about the consequences. Let the heroes and the adventurers and the monster slayers come, and suffer the consequences of their idiocy! I was not going to let the Sorrows-damned Night Blossom steal my treasure!

Or hurt Tam or Val, of course. I couldn’t lose track of that.

As the anger built inside me it was joined by a strange kind of relief, an anticipation of cutting loose and releasing all the tension that had been building over the last few weeks. And I could see it mirrored in Mak. I could almost hear her heart speed up as the corners of her mouth twitched. She looked first at me, and we shared a moment of understanding before she turned to Herald and said, “Get your things together, Herald. We’re going, immediately. I’ll tell the others. It’ll be a long walk, so–”

“I have a better idea,” I told them, cutting Mak off. “One that is much faster than walking, and that leaves plenty of time for Lalia to talk to Kira.” The three looked at me questioningly. Then, slowly, Herald’s face split in a huge smile as she realised what I intended to do.

“You said you wouldn’t kill me!” Mak screamed in my arms. “You promised! I’ve done what you asked! I’ve served you the best I could! I bound myself to you forever! Please! You promised!”

Mak was not enjoying her introduction to the pleasures of flight.

We had left as soon as the sun reached the mountains and had been flying for perhaps 30 seconds. Herald was on my back, whooping and hollering as loudly as the first time, but Mak… she’d had her misgivings, sure. She’d expressed a slight discomfort with the idea of being carried in my arms as I flew the three of us to the edge of the forest, just north of Karakan. And, yeah, she’d been pretty stiff and she hadn’t really been breathing, as such, as I took off. But I hadn’t realised that there was a very real problem until I got to a few hundred feet, and Mak opened her eyes.

Mak had never mentioned a fear of heights. Perhaps she hadn’t known that she had one, or perhaps it was the fact that she was hanging under me, with nothing but my good will between her and a long drop followed by a very final stop. Either way, Mak was not enjoying her first flight.

A minute in, and I was thinking that I should have just put her in the big bag. She was small enough, and I was sure that the fabric could take it. But it would be so undignified! I couldn’t do that to Mak!

Two minutes in I decided that I could, and should, definitely do that to Mak. Herald seemed to have realised that Mak was not, in fact, screaming with joy and excitement, but the situation felt too urgent – and I was too proud – to turn back. At least by that point she’d gone from screaming to barely audible begging and bargaining.

About five minutes in Mak had gone completely silent, from what I assumed was a combination of Herald’s gentle, soothing touches and Mak’s own grim acceptance of her fate. After that the rest of the flight went pretty smoothly! Mak didn’t weigh that much, and while I’d felt the strain I was pretty sure that I could have made it the rest of the way to Karakan if I’d wanted to. The accomplishment, carrying two people for 25 miles or so, felt really good, Mak’s lack of appreciation notwithstanding.

The whole flight only took us about half an hour, but judging by how profusely thankful Mak had been and the way she worshipped the ground once we set down I was pretty sure that, if she had her way, she was done with flying forever. That, unfortunately, was not up to her. I checked on her, and she hadn’t gone flat on me the way Kira did, so I was pretty sure that she could soldier through if she had to. Letting her dangle like I had, though, that was not going to work, and I took the opportunity to ask Herald to think about some kind of harness for her. I refused to consider a saddle. There was a distinct difference in my mind between carrying someone and being ridden, and anyone who thought that I would tolerate the latter was in for a very nasty surprise.

As Herald and I looked down the long, sloping road to the city, the sun dipped behind the horizon. “I want you two to walk in through the gate,” I told Herald. “If the gates are being watched, I want them to know that you are back.”

“Is that not an unnecessary risk?” Herald objected. “Would it not be better to fly us in after dark, so that they do not know that we are there?”

“No!” Mak exclaimed, having made it to where she was sitting on her heels and looking up wide-eyed at her sister. “No, I… I need time. Give me that, at least.”

“No worries, Mak,” I said. “You are not flying anywhere else tonight. Perhaps it would be smarter, perhaps not, but if there is anyone watching the gate, I want them to see you. I want them to worry. Because they must understand that if you are there, I might be around. But they will not know for sure, nor do they know what I am capable of or willing to do. It complicates things for them.”

“If you are sure…” Herald said.

“I am,” I reassured her. “I will make my own way in. Stay together and I will find you.”

“How–” Herald began, then looked at her sister and said, “…right. I need to learn to take that into consideration.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It is a strange feeling. Especially when you move around a lot, Mak.”

“I like it,” Mak said, getting to her feet and rubbing her face. “I find it… reassuring,” she added thoughtfully. “Knowing that you can always find me. If something happens. It feels safe.”

“Huh,” Herald said, looking from her sister to me. “I suppose it would.”

“This does not disturb you?” I asked Herald. She hadn’t been completely comfortable with the idea when I first told them. “It could be the magic talking.”

“A little, perhaps. But it is far too late to worry about which of our thoughts are genuinely our own, and which come from your influence, is it not? Let us say that I understand Mak’s perspective. If I were captured again, knowing that you could find me would certainly give me some peace of mind. And the satisfaction of knowing that whoever captures me is already dead, whether they know it or not.”

“Right,” Mak agreed.

I couldn’t really argue with that, nor did I really want to. She was right. It was too late, and I’d only said something because I felt that I should be worried, but honestly, I wasn’t. Just as I should be worried about the degree to which I was objectifying Mak in my mind, but I wasn’t that, either. Mak belonged to me. She had made herself very important, and it was nice to know where she was. And as long as she stayed with Herald, it meant that I knew where Herald was, too. It was like having an AirTag on my keys in case I lost them.

I sent them off marching down the road, then took to the skies. It would be a little while before full dark, when I could safely approach, but we had the whole night ahead of us. We were all well rested, I had made sure of that, and we had much to do. I could barely wait.

Gods and Mercies and Jesus Christ for good measure, but I was excited. I was angry, that cold, comfortable anger that I felt whenever I thought about the Blossom. And I was eager, almost impatient, to get to grips with helping out my friends and messing up my enemy’s plans. But above all I was excited, a feeling that grew as the light dimmed and the time to go came closer. I had been on the defensive for too long, and lately I had started to hate it. It felt like most of what I’d done since we busted out and left Karakan had been me making the best of the situation, and I was tired of it. At least now, when I reacted I was reacting forward. I had been itching to go on the offensive, and the Blossom had given me the perfect excuse. There was a sense of urgency now, no reason to wait, no excuse to hole up and wait for better days.

It wasn’t like I had a plan. At least not beyond "Rescue the dudes in distress, unleash hell on anyone in my way," but I was satisfied with that. I’d leave the strategy and the tactics to Herald and Mak, and the others once they arrived sometime the next day. I told myself that this was Command guiding me, pushing me to delegate to those under me who were best equipped for those things, but it could just have been me being lazy.

Planning wasn’t really my thing, anyway.