Song of the Dragoons

It was still storming heavily enough the next morning that I barely registered that the night was over. Rain slammed like an avalanche against the windows, but at least the wind had calmed down to a gentle moan instead of a deadly roar. Flashes of lightning illuminated the empty communion hall, devoid of everyone except for me and Juniper, who had her head rested up against my shoulder.

I sat up with a start, breathing hard. A shock like a hot wire in my bones ran through my wings, or where my wings would be, and I hissed in pain. It faded fast, but not even being able to rub the phantom limb to try and alleviate the pain, just having to sit with it until it vanished, was nearly torturous.

"Grace!" I called out in a loud whisper, just in case folk from the village were around. "Arthur! Where is everyone?"

Grace's head popped out of the trapdoor at the back, which I hadn't registered was open. Her reddish hair hanging upside down looked like a fiery mane framing her warm face.

"Hey, up here!" she said. "We just made food. Didn't want to wake you up early!" With that, she vanished back upstairs.

I grumbled and rose from the hard, wooden floor. My back was stiff and crackled as I stretched and wrapped the blanket around me like a cloak to shield against the cold. I scratched Juniper behind the ears for a few minutes before I went anywhere.

"Hey, girl," I whispered. "I'm glad I can still give you the attention you deserve, Juni." I tilted my head. "The thunder doesn't scare you too much does it? No, no…you're a brave girl."

I stood, despite her protesting eyes. "Gotta go eat, now," I said. "I'll come back, I promise." She let out a huff of indifference, and I went and climbed the ladder.

The other three were crouched beneath the low ceiling at the back of the attic, huddled around a tiny tin stove with a blackened metal pot sitting atop. I could smell the stew inside from the bottom of the ladder. It wasn't anything extraordinary, but apart from the salty meat and boiling potatoes, there was the scent of a few simple spices that I hadn't had the pleasure of tasting in over a year.

They had just begun to ladle the stew out into boxy metal bowls when I crawled over. Arthur gave me a cheerful wave. "Good morning to you, Belfry!" he said. "Hope you're ready for a day of flying!"

I glanced up at the wooden roof that echoed with the sounds of driving rain. "Are you sure we should be flying in this weather?" I asked, my voice still a bit groggy from sleep.

"'Course," said Arthur. "It's only a bit rainy, so it might not be fun out today, but we'll surely make it. The wind's what you've got to watch out for, and it hasn't picked up, for now."

"For now," Rosalie repeated with heavy emphasis. "Thank the holy saints. I'd sooner take a hundred days riding through the downpour than another crash."

"We didn't hit the ground that hard," said Arthur, though he took the ribbing with a grin.

Grace's face, on the other hand, didn't indicate any confidence. "I would have thought it'd take more than a stiff wind to crash a dragon," she said under her breath.

"Oh, I'm sure that I could get used to it," said Arthur. "It was only a few days after I changed." He slammed his bowl on the floor, already having completely drained it of stew. "So! We're going north today, right? You said you had a plan, Grace, are we going to be spending the night anywhere specific?"

Grace nodded, setting her own bowl aside as she retrieved her map. "If all goes well," she said, "we're making for Wrightsmouth." She drew out the line from here to her academy again, explaining as she went.

"I'm sure we'll be there by tomorrow evening," she said. "We'll still want to set out as soon as possible, but you two can fly really fast, even when you're not thrashing yourselves to sprint the whole way."

Arthur visibly preened at her claim. "Right!" he said. "Well, if we're heading out soon, I should go ahead and get changed, shouldn't I?" he scooted away, over to the ladder. "I've got to go tell Father Chester and his wife that I'll be leaving for a good long while, but after that I'll be waiting for you over the hill."

The rest of us finished our food much slower, and in silence, with people filing out as they did. Rosalie left first, then Grace, leaving me alone again. My food was starting to go cold, but I was beginning to feel sick anyway. Not from the food; it was fine, with a nice peppery flavour to elevate it above gruel. I knew the feeling came from dread, the dread of having to turn back into a dragon. I wrung my hands and ran a hand down my face. I'd miss my own, normal face, but maybe I could be human again that night. That would at least be something.

I gathered up all the dishes, leaving my bowl still a quarter full, and headed downstairs. Grace had just finished inspecting her spear and packing away all of the gear. She took the dishes from me as I passed by.

"Not hungry?" she asked, her brow creased with worry.

"Not feeling good," I summarised.

"About what?" asked Grace. "Flying? The storm?"

"Changing," I answered. I wrung my hands again, doing my best to savour my last human moments for the day. "Feels like I just figured out how to be human again, and I'm already going back."

Grace paused before she finished tying the rope to the mattress again. "Belfry," she said, morose and serious, "if you don't want to turn back, we can walk the rest of the way. It shouldn't take more than a couple weeks—"

"No!" I interrupted. "No, no. It's fine. I'll be okay. I signed onto this, I can at least take us to the academy. I can hold on that long."

Grace looked like she'd been slapped. "Alright. If you're sure. Just, please don't make yourself miserable, Belfry."

It was my turn to pat her on the shoulder. "I'll do my best," I said. "We've got to do what we've got to do to make it through. If the dragoons can help us, it'll all be worth it."

"But what if—"

"Nope!" I said and walked out the door, letting it slam a little too hard behind me. She was worryingly close to convincing me, and I couldn't let her talk me out of this. I just had to keep this up, and not think about it too much. It'd be fine. I'd be fine. I had to be.

Outside, the rain was dense enough that I couldn't really see the village from here, a sight that did not at all assuage my fears about flying. Rosalie noticed me as she stood under the eaves, brooding. "Are you ready to change?" she asked.

"Yes," I said, doing my best to will the word into being truth. "I'm ready."

"Good," said Rosalie. She turned and pointed off towards what I thought was the northwest, opposite from the village. "Just head that way behind the hill. You shouldn't be seen regardless, but it would be best to take all sensible precautions."

"Okay," I said. "Um…how do I…do it?"

"Change?" said Rosalie. She shook her head. "I wish I could give you advice from experience, but I think you will forgive me for not knowing exactly what that feels like. From what Arthur has described, I would simply suggest inverting the metaphor he gave you. Let the human part of you…sink, out of sight."

"Okay," I said again, breathing hard. "Okay. Okay." I took a step out into the rain, raising the blanket over my head. "I'll go do that."

Rosalie gave me a solemn nod, and I left, running barefoot through the cold standing puddles that filled every flat surface there was, until I was over the ridge and onto the opposite hill side. I came to a stop slowly, the irrational voice in my head still trying to convince me that maybe if I just dawdled long enough, I wouldn't have to go through with this.

No, I told myself, locking my mind down. I am going to do this, and it won't be so bad.

I took a deep breath, then another. I took off the spare clothes I wore, setting them down on the grass for lack of a better spot, though I still kept the blanket wrapped tight around me just in case someone else was in view. I closed my eyes and concentrated, bringing me back to that sea I saw myself above yesterday. I imagined my own human self sitting in the boat beside me. Her eyes were closed and her face was serene, almost meditative. I didn't remove the rope from her; I simply willed her to be cast overboard, and she was. I imagined that body splashing into the sea, and sinking beneath the waves.

Again, I felt a sickening feeling in my gut. It really was best described as a "sinking" feeling this time, almost like how it felt when I pulled up sharply after a dive in flight. My legs wobbled and went numb, and I collapsed to the ground, laying on my side. The process wasn't nearly as agonisingly painful as the first time, but I was still filled with an intense discomfort all throughout my body that verged on outright pain, a feeling like every muscle badly needed to be stretched all at once. It was strong enough for me to arch my back, hiss, and grit my teeth as they sharpened within my muzzle, and my bones shifted and snapped into their new places.

Without the pain to numb every feeling besides agony, I actually had time to get a feeling for my new body as it warped. I felt like clay under the hand of a potter, except in this instance it was more like I was a piece they had decided to shatter and put back together again, all misshapen and wrong, like an ill-thought out counterfeit. At least feeling my body as it changed hopefully meant that it wouldn't be so jarring to live in after I finished this time.

It was all done in only a couple minutes. The sinking feeling in my gut slowly subsided, replaced by a brief spark of heat in my chest that I assumed was my inner fire igniting. I pushed myself to my feet, gathering the blanket that had fallen aside midway through the transformation and bundling up the cast-off clothes before heading back up the hill to the church.

Grace and Rosalie were both standing outside by now. Grace gave me a cautious smile. "You lived," she said with a small and entirely forced laugh. "That's still you in there?"

«Uh-huh,» I said as I handed the bundle of thoroughly soaked cloth to Rosalie, returning to the thought-speech from yesterday. «Still me.»

"Why would it not be?" asked Rosalie.

Grace shrugged. "Eh, I don't know. I also don't know why it would be. Just making sure." She dragged the mattress out of the door with Juni plodding along just behind her, and slung it over my back as I tied the rope in front. I knelt down, and Grace climbed aboard with the dog, putting her snugly in her little compartment.

Rosalie snapped her fingers. "Very good," she said, looking dubiously at the mattress but refusing to comment for now. "Let us go wait on Arthur."

We would do no such thing, because by the time we crossed over the hill one last time, Arthur was already waiting for us at the bottom in his draconic form, his tail wrapped around his legs, the split at the end held wide as he used the fan of membrane in between to aerate his face, flinging water droplets away. Once he noticed us, he stood and swung his tail around behind him, the fan snapping together again as he did.

Rosalie climbed onto his back, using no saddle just like last night. Arthur shook his head and neck like a dog.

«Ugh, rain,» he muttered. «Ready to go, Belfry?»

I nodded. «Let's go.»

Arthur returned my nod, and when I was satisfied that Grace was holding on tight, I lifted off into the air with Arthur close behind me. The rain pelted down on my wings as we began to soar, but Arthur had been right. Without the wind buffeting me around, it was only an inconvenience to fly through the downpour, like running through mud.

Thankfully, though, the rain soon lessened, at least enough that we could see the ground below us. Not that it was much different than it had been. In the grey void of rain that clouded the horizon, the moor seemed even more endless.

The minutes crawled on until they passed into an hour in flight. My wings were numb from the battering of the weather, but I still had some stamina in me to push on for a while longer. Behind me, I saw Arthur's eyes scanning the ground, flitting across the grassy fields like they would tell him something.

«Okay, I'm bored,» he called out.

«I don't know what you expected,» I said. «We said that we'd be flying for hours until we got to Wrightsmouth.»

«I know, but still.» Arthur let out a bored groan that had the tenor of a growl in this form. Then, his face suddenly brightened. «Oh, I have an idea!» he said.

«Before you suggest anything, we're not stopping.»

«No, no, no, that's why it's a good idea!» Arthur beamed. «We can keep going where we need to, and train our flight muscles a little more, and keep from getting bored at the same time.» He pointed out ahead of us with one claw. «There's a big standing stone out that way, close to the edge of the moor. It's got a bunch of symbols carved in it and an orange banner tied to the top, you can't miss it. We can race there.»

Rosalie grimaced. "Arthur, my friend, are you sure that this is a good time to play games?"

«I hate to kill your fun, but I agree,» I said. «I would really rather not get lost out here and end up wasting a ton of time, assuming we don't get killed by whatever monsters you told us about fighting off.»

From my back, Grace huffed loudly. "Well, I think it's a good idea," she said. "He's right about the training. It might make the leg tomorrow easier if you get used to going faster for longer."

«Yeah!» Arthur chimed in again. «Plus, you wanted to join the dragoons, right? I'm sure they'd want us to be as fast and in-shape as possible.» He climbed a little, before abruptly breaking into a dive, picking up alarming speed before levelling out and shooting forward, already pulling way ahead of us.

Rosalie startled at the manoeuvre and tightened her grip on Arthur's wings. "Arthur, you reckless block of lead!" she cried, her voice getting quieter as the two grew more and more distant.

«I'll see you there!» Arthur called back at the edge of my vision. «If you get lost, just roar and we'll find you!»

I stared ahead, stone-faced with light annoyance, stubbornly refusing to pick up any speed. Grace leaned forward to look me in my face and poked at my shoulder. "Hey!" she said. "Are you going to go after them, or what?"

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«They're going to crash,» I said. «If they don't crash, they'll get lost, going so fast. If they don't get lost, we won't be able to catch up with them without doing either of the other two things. We're going fast enough.»

Grace snorted and casually laid down. "What happened to you?" she wondered aloud. "The Belfry I knew loved to race down mountainsides, even in the rain. Now it's all caution with you. You know you don't always need to expect the worst case outcome, right? You can afford to take some risk, some of the time."

«"What happened to me" is that I got left alone to take care of myself for five years,» I grumbled.

"Are we really still on this?" said Grace. "I thought we were past it."

We definitely are not, I thought to myself, but didn't say that part aloud. «Moving on doesn't make the past unhappen. I'm not trying to ruin anything, really. I just want you to be safe.» I looked back towards Grace with a glower. «Also, I'm not going to do any serious manoeuvres with Juni on my back. Or you, for that matter, without a proper saddle.»

"Yeah, I didn't want you to try doing a loop or anything," said Grace. "I was more expecting you to…flap your wings a little harder, or something, I don't know."

I sighed. «Fine, I'll try,» I said. It was more than just using more force; I had to change the angle of each flap, moving my wings forward to scoop up the air and thrust it backwards to push us forward. I could tell it'd tire me fast, but we did pick up some speed compared to just soaring. The extra speed meant the raindrops were also moving faster when they landed in my eyes. For some reason, it didn't really hurt like I expected it to, but it definitely clouded my vision and forced me to blink frantically to clear water out of my eyes. I wondered if the dragoons gave their dragons some kind of eye protection for days like this.

«So,» I said. «Speaking of the last five years, I don't think I ever actually asked you what kind of mercenary work you did. Bounty hunting? Monster contracts? Bodyguard?»

"Oh!" Grace said with genuine surprise. "Uh, closest to bodyguard, I'd say. I mostly worked for trade caravans that ran between towns over here in the western Vale. So, I had to fight off bandits and the occasional monster. But honestly, the jobs were peaceful more often than not, easier money than I would have thought."

A chill went down my spine at the thought of Grace being with any of the caravan's I'd robbed over the years. I would have recognised her if she had been, but the thought still made me sick.

"I took some other odd job contracts here and there," Grace continued. "That's the benefit of being a free sword, I guess. You always get to pick your work." An uncharacteristically dour expression came over her. "I am glad for it, in the long run. Fighting is definitely something you have to get used to, especially when it's people on the other end. I preferred fighting monsters. I actually had a journal for a while where I kept some observations I made about them. I had hoped I might be able to get it printed as a bestiary for other mercenaries, but then I read an actual bestiary and realised that mine was a little…meagre."

«You'd probably want to go to school for that kind of thing,» I said. «Still, I'd bet your knowledge from experience is pretty good, if it's gotten you this far, alive and not missing any limbs.» I mused on that thought for a moment. «Speaking of, there's no way you know what exactly was wrong with those bandits we fought last night, is there?»

"Not a clue," said Grace. "I've never seen anything like them before in my life, except when we—"

«—were in the monastery,» I finished at the same time she did. «That's what I was thinking, too. Do you think it's a disease? A curse, maybe?»

"Can't say. I've never seen a disease do anything that extreme, but my thinking is that for a curse to have hit both the monastery and random bandits on the plains, it would have to have come from a maledictor spreading it on purpose." She leaned forward, pointing down past my shoulder. "Oh, but I can tell you about some of the monsters on the Wildmoor I know about! You might find it interesting."

I looked down where she pointed to see a herd of large beasts walking slowly across the plain, the adults half again as large as cattle. They were reptilian, covered in leathery greenish-brown hides, with long faces bearing rear-facing horns and heavy tails tipped with bony spikes. A dozen or so little ones missing the horns and tail spikes plodded along near the middle of the herd, snapping up swaths of grass as they moved.

"Those are kratodons!" said Grace. "They're herbivores, pretty docile unless you bother their children or get too close to the males. Some people even keep them as herd animals, and sell the meat, hide, and eggs."

I eyed the beasts warily. They were as large as me; I couldn't imagine trying to wrangle creatures that large as a human. The amount of damage they could do if just a few ornery adults got loose would surely be frightening.

«Why would people ever keep creatures like that?» I asked. «Unless their eggs are made of gold, that seems like a lot of risk.»

"It's riskier than herding cattle, I guess," said Grace. "But kratodons really aren't all that different from animals you're more familiar with. Plus, you know about Corbenshire leather, right?"

«I do,» I said.

"Some of it, they get from hunting deer near the forests in the west, but the highest quality stuff is kratodon skin. Most of the wild kratodon herds of the Vale are here in the moor, so it's something of a point of pride for the shire to make things with them, and they get a lot of money for doing it."

I nodded, scanning the landscape for something else to ask her about. I had to admit, I was finding this stuff fascinating, and it was a pretty good distraction from the numb tingling of my wings. The next thing I caught sight of I almost wrote off as a piece of terrain. Three shadowy figures huddled beneath an overhanging tor, looking like pillars of gloom sticking out of the ground.

I hooked a claw towards them. «What are those things?» I asked.

Grace squinted. As she did, the shadows spread wide feathered wings, black as the night sky. I could see their scaly bodies and greyish-white frills around their heads as they took to the air, bearing straight towards us.

"A problem," Grace said under her breath. "They're a problem."

«What are they, though?» I asked as panic filled my voice. I angled upwards towards the cloud cover and away from the approaching wyverns, but a rumble of thunder made my wings shiver, and I hesitated in the air.

"Toarbecs!" said Grace. "Feathered wyverns, they hunt during storms. They use the storm clouds as cover and to make lightning. They're a lot more dangerous up here! Dive!"

«Uh–okay!» I said and complied as fast as I could, breaking into a shallow dive towards the ground. The toarbecs flew upwards behind me, the rush of air as they passed catching my wings and threatening to send me into a roll before I stabilised. I looked back as we neared the ground, the grass and rocks rushing past. I couldn't see the wyverns anymore, except when lightning flashed directly overhead and illuminated their silhouettes against the clouds.

"Stay low to the ground!" Grace ordered, turning around in her seat and searching through her pack.

«Did you bring my pistol?» I asked. It wasn't easy to focus simultaneously on speaking and dodging the random obstacles that jutted up now and then from the terrain. I jerked my left wing up just in time to avoid crashing into a boulder that loomed out from the curtain of rain that formed the forward edge of my sight.

"If I did, it'd be soaked and worthless in this weather!" shouted Grace. She cursed, for once cinching her pack shut without pulling whatever she hoped to find out. "Damn it, wish I had those javelins…" she murmured to herself.

I had to keep glancing back and forth between the space ahead and Grace on my back, and the wyverns that were still pursuing above us. With all the adjustments I'd made to my trajectory to avoid a crash, I didn't even know what direction we were going anymore.

One of the toarbecs dove out of the cloud, and as it did, Grace slowly stood up on my back, holding her spear in one hand. "They're going to come up alongside!" she shouted. "I'll try and shake them off us! When they start shaking their wings, swerve to the side!"

«Why!?» I cried.

"Trust me!" was all the assurance Grace gave. One by one, the wyverns all dipped out of the clouds, picking up speed and gaining on us as they did. Two of them stayed above me and to my left, but I kept my eyes on the one that dove even lower to my right. I flapped my wings as hard as I could to stay ahead, but the wyvern was faster, slicing through the air like a bullet. I could see its long, sharply pointed beak and its beady bird-like eyes as it drew closer.

The monster let out a cawing cry, like a demonic raven. Grace responded with a cry of her own and lunged towards the beast, leaning against my wing with one hand and using the other to thrust the spear forward just as the wyvern raised its head back, about to peck at my flank. Her spear struck the creature's shoulder joint. It cawed again in pain, its wing flailing and faltering as it tried to stay airborne.

The extra weight on my own wing caused me to falter too, and I had to lash my tail to the side to keep a balance. Completely on accident, my thrashing tail struck the wyvern's own, and it spun to the side, careening into the ground until it tumbled to a stop, disoriented and unable to fully right itself before it vanished into the weather behind us.

Grace pulled back, still standing as the other two toarbecs let out bloodcurdling screams and dove to either side of me. The first one swooped down to my left, dropping beneath me before suddenly pulling back and climbing past. As it did, its wing ruffled and shook quickly back and forth, sending a cloud of dark grey dust into the air around my left wing. I tried to roll to the right and swerve away, but the other one caught me as I did, digging its talons into my wing. I hissed in pain; the membrane was too thick for the toarbec to have cut through, but it was able to puncture my scales and draw hot blood to the surface.

That pain was mild compared to the flash of lightning that arced through me. Sparks danced within the cloud of dust the other toarbec had spread for only a brief moment before a single lance of static electricity jumped out from the dust and into my wing, searing through my shoulder and down into my left hand, where it jumped through the air again into the ground. I roared as my wing seized up, spreading itself wide of its own accord and sending me rolling to the side. We crashed into the ground, taking the brunt of the impact in my right flank as I skidded several feet, tearing up the muddy topsoil as I did.

"Shit!" shouted Grace. "Belfry, are you okay!?" Her cries were joined by Juniper's frantic barking, which I took as a better sign than complete silence.

I pushed up and onto my feet, flexing my wing to get out the vestiges of that lightning bolt that lingered in my system while I felt my flank in case my ribs were broken. Thankfully, I was tough enough for that to have only given me a host of small cuts and scratches. As I stalled, I heard a screech and looked above. One of the toarbecs was swooping down towards us, talons outstretched.

"Hrah!" Grace shouted as she stood, planting the hilt of the spear against my spine and pointing the tip towards the oncoming wyvern. Its momentum carried it onto the blade, impaling itself a foot deep on the weapon even as it drove the haft sharply into my back, forcing all the breath from my lungs. It struggled and thrashed until Grace shook the spear hard to the side, pulling it out of the toarbec's chest and letting it fall to the ground in a heap. I stumbled towards it, not giving it the chance to stand before I raised my hand and stamped down hard on its neck, hearing a confirming snap as I did.

«Maybe don't do that again,» I gasped to Grace as I struggled to regain my air. «You damn near broke my back with that manoeuvre.»

"Not a lot of choice here!" Grace shouted, panting and breathless from the exertion by now. "Get back in the air!"

There was another screech, and I turned to see the last toarbec diving straight down towards us, just like the last one. Adrenaline-fuelled blood pounded in my ears as I shifted to face it and bounded forward, jumping into the air and angling sharply upward.

"What are you doing!?" screamed Grace.

I didn't have enough focus to spare an answer. I was acting on instinct, the same thing that took over last night with the bandits. The wyvern and I sped towards each other, threatening another crash. At the last second, I tilted my wings and pulled back. As the toarbec passed by, my hands met its talons, and we each grabbed the other. I felt it cut into my hide with its talons as it thrashed and flailed in my grip, but it wasn't even a quarter of my weight, and it couldn't escape on its own.

As it struggled, I let out a roar of effort and brought my arms up, hurling the creature up into the air in front of me. It spun in the sky for a moment in a last-second attempt to regain its bearings and escape, but I met it before it could right itself. I opened my jaws and clamped down where its neck met its body, sinking my teeth into its flesh. The sweet taste of blood filled my mouth as I held it by its throat, and the human part of me felt the urge to vomit, but I held strong. The wyvern limply pecked at my neck as it let out gurgling squawks, only managing to give me surface wounds before it went limp, and I let its broken body drop from my jaws onto the landscape below.

A rumble of thunder punctuated the end of the fight. I didn't realise how hard I was breathing from a mixture of exhaustion and panic until I noticed that taste of blood wafting down my throat. I stuck out my forked tongue and reluctantly opened my mouth towards the sky, letting the rain rinse the blood from my mouth and rubbing my arms to get it off my hands.

«Eugh!» I said, not even intending to voice the disgust that surged through me as the adrenaline wore off but doing it anyway. «Ugh, ugh, ugh, that was awful, saints.»

Grace took a deep breath and gave the sky another scan before finally sitting back down and putting her spear away. "Where did that come from?" she asked shakily.

«I have no idea!» I said, spitting the last of the contamination from my mouth and shaking my head. «It just came to me. Instinct, I guess.» I paused, before realising how that sounded. «Not in an "I-think-I'm-losing-my-mind" way. Just that I know how to fight, and apparently this body knows how it works. I feel fine. I'd rather not bite a monster again, but I'm fine.»

Grace seemed convinced by that, at least. "Okay, if you're sure." She wrapped her arms around my neck, and I couldn't tell if she was just trying to keep herself steady or giving me a hug. "You did good, that was good teamwork." I sensed her face break into a smile. "Hey did you see me when I jumped over to the side? That was amazing!"

«Yeah, that was scary.» A thought ran through my mind like another jolt of lightning. «Do you know what direction Arthur and Rosalie went?»

Grace looked around at the uniform terrain and shook her head. "N…no, I think we got all turned around in that. They said to roar if we get lost."

«Mhm,» I said, coughing and clearing my throat. «Make sure Juni doesn't bolt. This is going to be loud.»

I gave her a moment to prepare before raising my head and bellowing the loudest, most ferocious roar that I could. The sound tore at my throat, and I was glad then that I spoke mentally in this form, because I knew that I would have lost my voice with that. The call reverberated outward, thundering across the plains until the echoes vanished into the distance.

A minute or so later, another roar came back to us. I pricked my ears up and focussed on the sound, more of a trilling whistle than my heavy bellow. It wasn't as far away as I thought it would be, coming from somewhere maybe a couple miles behind us and to the right. I banked around to face the source, and flew as fast as I could.

Soon, our destination hove into view. A great obelisk, easily twenty feet high, maybe more, stood in the middle of a wide flat expanse, far from any gullies or hills. It was cut into a tapering rectangle and topped with a pyramidal point. Its faces were weathered and windbitten, but I could still make out a number of runic carvings on each one. Squares of heavy, colourful cloth were suspended from it about halfway down its height, propped up at the other end on poles to make a loose shelter from the rain. Beneath it, Arthur and Rosalie sat, waiting. Arthur's tail stirred to motion when he saw us, flicking back and forth like the wagging tail of a happy dog.

«You made it!» he shouted. «You had us worried.»

"Terribly worried," concurred Rosalie. She nudged Arthur in the ribs with her elbow. "It's exactly what I told you. You left strangers to these lands on their own in a storm. Of course they got lost."

Arthur hung his head. «I'm really sor—oh, saints, you're bleeding.» He grabbed the edge of my wing as I knelt down to let Grace down and unfurled it, looking at the thin cuts that had been drawn along the membrane by the wyvern's talons. «What happened out there?»

"Toarbecs," said Grace. "We handled it. Nothing more than surface wounds, I think."

I grunted in agreement, yanking my wing back out of Arthur's hand. «Maybe next time let's not go haring off into the distance before we're all agreed, hm?»

«Agreed,» said Arthur. «I'm sorry. I guess I got a little too excited at the idea of being able to do things like this with someone. It's not like I've ever met any other dragons, and even if I did, you and me are the only ones who've ever spoken.»

«I understand,» I said. «We survived. Just think ahead. Please.» I turned my attention to the pillar. It was an odd landmark, isolated as it was, a single monument that jutted up out of the field. «What is this place, anyway?»

«Oh!» said Arthur. He poked Rosalie with his wing. «You like talking about random places like this, Rosa!»

She looked unbothered by his gesturing, but rolled her eyes and stood up, gesturing up towards the obelisk. "This is called Theor's Stone," she said. "It's the largest of the moor's waypoint stones. You probably passed some on the way here, even if you didn't realise it. They are ancient markers; the glyphs used to point towards the nearest settlement." She put her hand on the monument in reverence. "The settlements they marked are mostly gone, but this one still points to Bryn Corben. It's the only one that real roads still pass by, too. The main road to Wrightsmouth is only a few hundred paces that way." She pointed north.

"So we're on the right track?" asked Grace.

"Correct," said Rosalie. "Wrightsmouth is nearly directly northwest of here, as the crow flies. We're about halfway."

«We're also at the edge of the moor,» Arthur said, his voice carrying a touch of foreboding. He picked at a lump of mud with his claws. «I've…never been this far. I've only heard about the forests out here from Rosa's stories.»

«I've been past the edges of my map for a while now, too,» I commiserated.

"Hey!" said Grace. She dramatically plopped herself down on the ground, retrieving our set of rations. "Going into the unknown is what adventure is all about!" She handed out some of our dried meats and crackers. "Let's celebrate halfway with a bit of rest, eh?"

I was more than happy for the opportunity to sit still for a while. I devoured my share of the rations, and drained our water jug dry. Thankfully, Arthur and Rosalie had brought their own water, so we had just enough to go around. I listened to Grace and Arthur beg Rosalie for more details about the stone as we waited for the jugs to collect rainwater.

"Is it magic?" asked Grace. "It looks like it's magic."

"I believe so," answered Rosalie. She placed a reverent hand on the stone. "I've never seen it myself, but I've heard that an occultist enchanted the moor's waypoint stones centuries ago so that they could be a warning system. The moors are lashed by powerful storms; when one of those storms produces a tornado, these stones are supposed to glow brightly, so that anyone who can see them knows to seek shelter."

«That's the second time you've used that word,» I said. «What even is a "tornado"?»

«It's a spinning cloud,» said Arthur. «They come out of storm clouds until they touch the ground. They're wrapped in winds strong enough to rip a house off the ground.» He visibly shivered. «I knew someone who was killed by one, a long time ago. I'm glad this storm was pretty weak. I wouldn't ever wish for you to experience one.»

I had that to chew on while I watched the clouds swirl overhead.