Song of the Dragoons

Grace took the opportunity while we waited to go fetch some food for the flight. I had decided it would be better to go hungry than potentially get bad marks by letting Cynthia and Leo know how unprepared the five of us who camped last night really were, so I was starving by the time Grace returned with a small box. Although, I was surprised when I opened it to find the normal quality meal replaced with dried and salted meats and berries.

"Hmm…those are travel rations," Rosalie observed.

Grace scratched her head. "Huh. I just asked for a meal for the flight…."

"Did you tell them which flight?" asked Ingo.

"I did," answered Grace.

"It's probably more training," said Ingo, bending down to take a handful of whatever fell to hand. "We won't have nice dinners made by real cooks out in the field. If we're on our own for the commission, then we might be eating things like this even off mission."

«As long as I can use a kitchen, I can make better things than this,» Griffin mumbled as they quickly scarfed down their portion.

"You can cook?" asked Grace.

"Mhm," Griffin hummed. «My friends always told me it was good. So I guess I can.»

Grace shrugged. "I mean, so-so cooking is better than rations," she said. "Plus that sorts out the 'team cook'."

She stared at a piece of jerky before suddenly slapping her forehead. "Oh, saints," she muttered. "I just realised. We've been training two whole weeks, and we never actually figured out what people's jobs are."

Arthur snorted. «Well, it didn't take long for you to pick a cook.»

"No, I mean jobs on a mission!" Grace insisted. "Like scouting. Navigating. Bloodcraft. That kind of thing. That's really important. We need to know that before we get into a situation where we need a specialist, or people are going to get hurt."

"Or die," Ingo tacked on. "She's right. You always assign duties on a team like this. I've been wondering when we would do that for a while."

«If you've been thinking about it, why didn't you say anything?» I asked.

"I'm bad at assigning these things," said Ingo.

«Right, but you still could have said something so the rest of us could figure it out,» I said. Ingo shook his head and said nothing.

"It shouldn't be that big of a problem, right?" said Yura. "We all pretty much know what everyone here is good at. It will do to simply allow people to fall into the roles that they feel most comfortable performing in the moment."

«I don't know if we're that familiar with each other's skills,» I worried.

"Oh, nonsense," said Yura. "Like she said, we've been training together for weeks. That's more than enough time to understand what people are skilled at."

I crossed my forelegs over each other on the tiles. «Alright. What am I good at?»

Yura raised a finger. He stared into the middle distance for a full fifteen seconds before answering. "You're good at fighting."

«Oh, surely that doesn't count,» said Arthur. «We're all good at fighting by now.»

"That also wouldn't inform anyone's position on the team," added Rosalie. "Since fighting is something all of us will need to do. It can't be any one person's job alone."

"We can at least determine who the best is," said Ingo. "That would be me. That is useful to know."

Yura suddenly snapped his fingers. "Medicine!" he said. "You've been going to the medical wing so much, you're bound to know quite a bit more about medical treatments than the rest of us."

I raised a brow ridge. «Lucky guess,» I said. «And it's only right because I asked sir Linus to teach me. Otherwise I would have just been going in there and telling him that I feel the same as yesterday.»

«Grace and Ingo are right, though,» I said. «We need to know what everyone's good at apart from the things that we're all good at. Or else we'll just end up tripping over ourselves when we actually need to act.»

"Well, whose job is it to pick out skill sets?" asked Yura.

"A leader," grumbled Ingo. "And we don't have one of those."

"I can do it," said Grace, standing up and doing her best to look assertive. "I think I'd be a great leader."

"No," Ingo said flatly. "You wouldn't."

I could sense the sting of that barb through the bond. Grace flinched. "Why not?"

"Too excitable," said Ingo, "too headstrong, not enough ability to make compromises and hard decisions."

"I can do all of that!" insisted Grace.

«Not to undercut you, sister,» I said, «but you've been a mercenary for the last five years. Did you work with a crew, or alone?»

"Alone, mostly," said Grace. "I mean, I worked with people who were employed alongside me sometimes, but I didn't have a regular party to travel with."

«Yeah,» I said. «No offence, but I agree with Ingo.»

"What!?" shouted Grace, her face twisted up in hurt.

«I know you're level-headed and competent,» I assured her, «but I don't know if you've got the skills to direct other people. That's something that requires practise, just like anything else, and by the sounds of things, you haven't got any.»

"Do you?" she grumbled. It was a rhetorical question, but I had an answer.

«Yes. A fair bit, actually.» I shook my head. «I don't think it translates to this, though. I'm not volunteering myself. Not at all. I think that unless someone has some secret history as a general or something, we should honestly just play this by ear. We'll do the mock mission now, and then maybe our first mission afterwards, and we'll decide on someone by the time we get a commission. That way, we'll be able to see who's able to take charge in situations where we need leadership. Alright?»

"I'd rather it be now," said Ingo.

"But I'd also rather us have an opportunity to discover who has the talent," countered Yura. "If we designate someone who makes a poor leader now, any good leaders among us won't have a chance to show it." He shrugged. "And apart from Belfry, as she says, there aren't any among us with experience to rely on, so this is a talent that we will need time to discover within us."

"Eloquent," said Rosalie. "But I agree."

«I think so too,» said Griffin.

"Yeah," Grace grudgingly agreed.

"Ninth Flight!" Cynthia's voice shouted from the courtyard. Soon her face appeared at the edge of the garden as she knelt to look down at us directly. "Rested up?"

"Yes, sir!" said Grace, some of her vigour returning.

"Good!" said Cynthia. "Then, get yourselves up here! The last phase of your test is beginning."

I rose from the ground and stretched as she stepped away from the edge. «Ready?» I said to Grace.

«Enough,» she responded. That response didn't exactly fill me with confidence. Although the prospect of getting back to the trial seemed to excite her, she was still a lot more down than she had been before. Was she really that torn up about not being the flight's leader?

Either way, I let her climb onto my back so we could climb out of the garden together. Cynthia and Leo were already in their own saddles as they waited for us at the yard's centre, and the whole flight was ready to ride by the time we lined up in front of them.

"Alright," said Cynthia. "This is your last test, and the most important one, too. All of the basic skills that you'll be expected to have to keep this vale safe will be tested in a mock mission. There aren't any rules on what you can do, apart from a bar on getting outside help. You have only each other to rely on. Leo and I will be travelling with you to make sure any damage is contained and no one dies."

Dies? What kind of threats were we about to face?

"Your goal is to finish the job well," Cynthia continued. "Ensuring that no civilians are harmed is your number one priority at all times. Getting the job done fast is secondary. If you need to take six days to make sure that the targets get out alive and unharmed, then six days it is. Just be aware that people in need of protection are also in need of things like food, water, and sleep. Taking longer is worth it to keep people alive, but sometimes taking too long is its own danger. Understood?"

"Understood," the flight echoed.

"Good. We'll proceed with the briefing." Nalezen began to pace back and forth in front of us as Cynthia began laying out the situation. "We've received a report that there have been attacks from an unknown monster on the roads to the west of here. The monster has yet to be identified, but until now it has only made off with people's horses and cattle. However, this morning a small merchant party headed from Kaer Killithick in the west to the Anchorhead monastery has been reported as missing by the monks. Their wagon wasn't found anywhere within a day's ride of the monastery, suggesting they have come under attack by our mystery beast. Your mission is to first find the missing merchants, if they are still alive, and ensure they get to safety. Second, you must discover what monster has moved into the area, and eliminate the threat."

Nalezen stepped back into the centre. Yura cleared his throat. "Do we get any questions about that information, or…?"

"No," said Cynthia. "Your information will often be limited in a real mission. This is all you have, and it's all you'll get. Work with it. If you need more, investigate yourselves."

Nalezen shifted restlessly. «The sun is fleeting,» he said. «Are you ready to begin the mission?»

"Yes!" Grace shouted, echoed shortly after by Arthur, Rosalie, Griffin, and Ingo.

"In that case, begin!" shouted Cynthia. I jumped into the air as soon as the words left her mouth, and the others were right behind me. Behind us, Cynthia put what appeared to be a small timepiece into a pocket in her coat. Even if time wasn't the primary factor in this test, we were being timed.

We circled around each other in a rising spiral for a few moments before I broke off first, pointing the group west. «Where do we start?» called Griffin.

«Didn't you say you were good with a map the other day?» I asked. «Does that extend to being able to keep us going in a straight line? We need to find that road first, then we can search it for signs of an attack.»

Griffin glanced skyward towards the sun. «I can do that,» they said.

«Good.» I tilted my wings up, catching the air and falling back out of the lead position. «You take the lead for now, then. Keep us going west. Everyone else, keep on the lookout. Any idea what kind of creature this sounds like, Grace? Arthur?»

«She said it was taking people's horses and cattle,» said Arthur. «So I'm guessing it's big. I don't know of any monsters that do that.»

"Some big wyverns do," said Grace. "Like rocs. But if it were rocs, they would probably have been able to tell us that it was a bird. Rocs are kind of hard to mistake. I'd put money on this being a misreport, and the creature is just taking…well, pieces of their prey instead of the whole thing. That opens up the options a lot, but that does mean we won't be able to figure out what it is just from what we've heard."

I hummed, thinking. «We'll have to see if it left any clues at the site, then,» I said. «For now, just keep your eyes out for any nests and anything in the air that's big enough to look like a threat.»

"Understood!" said Yura, promptly beginning to scan the mountain forest.

It wasn't full mountains underneath us for long. As we flew west, riding a brisk current of air that swept in from the cold northeastern sea, the blocky mountains gradually fell away into only slight-blocky hills, the ridges and sharp corners worn away once the earth no longer buckled beneath the stone. The forest remained coniferous, a deep green field that spread out in all directions, but it became denser as it no longer struggled to find purchase amongst precarious stones.

The road that we eventually came to after a half hour or so was less of a "road" and more of a "trail". A small path made of dirt barely cut through the forest, seeming instead to meander around denser groves of trees to avoid the strain of having to cut any down. I could see why, too; this close, I could more easily see that town to the southwest, settled into a hollow beneath the cliff upon which the dilapidated fortress I had caught sight of several times sat, overlooking a bay beyond it. The town couldn't have been large enough for more than ten thousand people, at the very most, and I couldn't imagine that a small town like that had a whole lot of traffic to an abbey miles and miles away. Travellers were probably mostly the monks' supply runners, or merchants buying and selling the monks' drink, cloth, or metalwork, whatever they traded for supplies up this far north.

"Should we spread out to search?" asked Yura.

"That would be foolish," said Rosalie.

«She's right,» I concurred. «We don't have a way to signal each other right now if we do find something, and saints know we don't want to run across the monster if we're in what, groups of four? Not that I doubt anyone here's ability to fight, but I'd prefer we stay safe and stay alive, yeah?»

"Which way, then?" asked Ingo, looking between the town on our left and the distant abbey on our right.

«North, towards the monastery,» I said. «That's a longer distance from where we are. More likely the attack happened on that stretch of road than the south one.»

"The monastery is also more isolated," added Grace. "A town might have hunters or farmers that spook monsters out of the surrounding area, but a monastery probably doesn't have either of those things. Less people means more monsters."

«Yura and Brand, you two keep altitude,» I said, motioning towards the sky. «You keep watch for any dangers. The rest of us will fly low and slow and search the road from the air.»

"Not too slow," said Ingo. "We've got people waiting on us. If they're still 'alive', however that works in this game."

«Right, which is why we need to take enough time to make sure we don't miss where the attack happened,» I pointed out. «If we miss it because we're moving too fast, we'll need to search the entire road again, and that would waste more time than if we just went a little slower.»

"Fine," grumbled Ingo.

«Alright, let's go,» I said.

Although I had been the one to suggest we go slow, it did begin to wear rather fast. I went to the front again to keep our pace, and we only went just fast enough to keep us in the air without expending unnecessary energy constantly flapping our wings. The track was rutted, though only lightly, confirming that it wasn't often travelled. There seemed to be one specific place that had been used repeatedly as a campsite about halfway between the settlements, with a small ring of stones that had been heavily blackened with char and ash. We landed there a moment, searching for any signs of struggle, but neither I nor the other dragons smelled any trace of anything but small woodland critters passing by recently, and there weren't any visual remains of passage either.

Luckily, when we finally did see the wreckage of the attack, it was just that: easily visible wreckage. A rather bare-bones covered wagon had been drawn several feet off the main track and tipped over to lean against a sturdy tree. I immediately recognised the tactic. It was the version of "circling the wagons" that you did when you only had one, and it was most definitely an act of desperation, since it risked botching the wheels and axles.

«There!» I said, pointing. The others noticed it too, and we swooped down to land just beside it. I could smell the stench of the attackers immediately, a foetid odour that stank of filth and rotting flesh, so much so that if I hadn't known any better, I would have suggested that the wagon was attacked by the dead themselves. I could smell blood, too, a heavy sweet scent that lingered at the edges of the wagon and made me wonder just how far Cynthia and Leo had gone to set this up.

There was another scent too…something metallic, but it tickled my brain in a very particular way that I immediately reeled against. It reminded me of that fuzzy-minded feeling I'd had in the fight with Ingo, but this time it felt more like an intoxicating fog than a pressing weight. Something hypnotic but altogether wondrous feeling. It was difficult to resist.

Thankfully, when I went to circle around the wagon, I didn't find any human body parts, but there were pieces of animals. Not horses, but deer, a pair of them gutted and stripped of much of their meat and left to rot near the front of the wagon. They must have been stand-ins for the horses. I felt a little sick seeing it, which I was glad for. I had been worried about what other "instincts" might crop up from the dragon's mind, but either it had no interest in these carcasses, or I was strong enough not to feel it.

"Flies," Grace said, sliding off the saddle and poking at the meat with her spear. It made a horrendous squidgy sound and I had to look away. "No maggots yet, though," she continued. "Can't be more than a day old."

«Hey, Grace?» said Arthur. «Do you think you can take a look at the claw marks here on the wagon?»

Grace nodded and hurried over. Everyone was investigating something, with the exception of Ingo and Brand, who stood opposite each other in the road, I guess keeping watch. I wasn't sure how much of this was real, but if there really was a monster that might be out here, I did appreciate the added safety from that. I took a look at the road, finding the tracks that showed where the wagon had run off into the trees. The ruts were sudden and sharp, indicating they turned hard and fast. But there weren't any other recent tracks at all. The monster could have been flying; Grace mentioned that wyverns could have been responsible.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

There was a tearing sound from the wagon, and then a cascade of metallic clinking. "Whoa!" Yura shouted. "That's…quite a lot of merchandise."

I walked around to take a look at what they'd found. The side of the cover had been cut open, and a whole heap of silver had come tumbling out. It was almost entirely kept in tiny bars, like the large ingots I thought of whenever I pictured bulk metal, but in miniature. Immediately, I could tell that that was the source of the intoxicating smell. Silver. Of course. Linus had said that those stories had roots in reality, and the number of tales in which maddened dragons amassed a hoard of precious metals were some of the most common.

My breath shuddered, but I pinched my finger between my claws and leaned my mind against Grace's. As before, the feeling of her stalwart resolve reinforced mine. More worryingly, though, I heard the same sound from Arthur and Griffin.

«Wow…» said Griffin. «So much silver….»

"Not just any silver," said Yura. He picked up a bar and held it to the light, where it shone with an opalescent sheen not normal of any metal that I'd ever seen. I felt my stomach clench as he took it, a momentary bolt of intense stress shooting through my brain. "Quicksilver. They use it in alchemy. I bet the monks are alchemists, and this was a shipment not just of food and clothes and things, but alchemical ingredients.

"There aren't any people here, though," said Rosalie. "Not even any corpses."

«Do you…think they would put corpses here for a test?» Griffin asked nervously.

"Fake ones, at least," said Grace. "So it clearly wasn't the smell of food that attracted our monster."

«I don't know,» said Arthur. «Can't you smell it? I know I'd come pretty far to find out what that was.»

Grace and Rosalie gave him a weird look, and he shrugged. «What?»

"I don't think it smells like anything but metal," said Rosalie. "Are you doing alright?"

Arthur seemed offended. «Of course I'm alright! Does it really not smell? You said it was quicksilver, I was assuming that it was different than normal silver.»

"It's infused with vis," said Yura. "But you can't smell vis."

Griffin squeezed their eyes shut and shook their head, reeling several steps back. «Arthur…» they mumbled. «Don't—grrh—don't…take any, please.»

«I wasn't going to!» said Arthur. «Saints above, what do you take me for?»

Brand was suddenly behind me, muscling me out of the way. She stepped over the pile of silver, standing between it and Arthur, and growled a long growl.

"She says she 'knows your greed'?" said Yura. "What does that mean, Brand?"

Brand didn't answer, and Arthur growled back. «Why is everyone jumping on me!?» he snarled. «I just said it smells! Saints! Is that such a problem!?»

«Arthur!» I cut in. I fought through the…intoxication really was a good way of describing it, a mental block that made my thoughts more sluggish and tougher to keep pinned beneath inhibitions. «She's not attacking you. I get how you're feeling. Trust me. I do.»

«Me too,» whispered Griffin.

«We'll talk about it when we get back,» I said. «Just…just take a breath, and step back.»

Arthur's eyes flicked towards me, and for a moment I saw exactly what I was afraid of. The look in his eyes…there wasn't any reason behind them. But then Rosalie put her hand on his shoulder, and his slit pupils dilated again and focussed. His growls died out. «…Yeah,» he said. «Will do.» He walked away from the wagon, the steps feeling heavier than normal.

I anxiously scratched my arm. If that was how a little pile of silver did to him, I was dreading the moment we found any gold. I could still feel it, too, but it didn't seem to be affecting Griffin and I as strongly as Arthur. Maybe he was susceptible to "greed"? I guessed that meant that I was susceptible to…"rage" was probably the best way of describing how I had lost control in that fight. Thankfully, Griffin at least seemed resistant to both.

I caught up to him, walking alongside. «Are you okay?» I whispered, speaking only to Arthur.

«I…don't know,» he said. «My head feels weird. Kind of…foggy.» He glanced back towards the wagon. «They better not take any.»

«They won't,» I assured him. «But…you won't, either.»

His eye twitched. He stopped walking, one of his hands clenching tight against the soil. «Yeah,» he agreed, but his thoughts came at the same time as a low, uncontrolled growl.

I stopped there. I didn't want to push him too hard, in case more talk was just bringing him closer to the edge. I couldn't lie; I was afraid of what he might do if he crossed that line like I had. I had nearly killed Ingo, who was far better at fighting than I was, especially at the time, and that was when I was human. I did not want to find out what a break would do to someone who was a dragon.

Thankfully, the flight broke from the wagon only a few minutes later, cautiously walking over to meet up with Arthur and me. "Is everything alright now?" asked Rosalie, concern breaking through her mask of calm as she hurried to Arthur's side.

«Later,» I reiterated. «Did you find anything else?»

"Yes, actually," said Grace. "Feathers, and I was able to get something from the claw marks on the outside of the wagon. I think it's a gryphon. Probably a nesting male, given the season."

«Oh!» said Arthur, finally finding something to latch onto that wasn't the silver. «Yes, probably a nesting male. If it's only just started attacking travellers recently, it probably has chicks to feed. Which also means that the "people" who we can't find might still be alive. You said the attack couldn't be more than a day old?»

"Yep," confirmed Grace.

«Gryphons start taking prey alive once their chicks reach a year or so old. So the people might be badly injured, but if we find the nest fast, we might be able to get them out before they get eaten.»

"How long do we have?" asked Rosalie

«No idea,» said Arthur. «Could be anywhere from a few hours to a week.»

«I think I know how we'll find it, at least,» I said. «If it flew off carrying bleeding people or pieces of deer, there could be dripped blood marking its path back to its nest.»

"That's not a visible enough path to follow," said Ingo.

«That's why we won't use our eyes.» I tapped my nose. «The gryphon smell is strong here. Between its own smell, the smell of the prey, and the smell of any bloodstains it dropped in flight, I think we can follow it. I'm, uh, not used to picking out scent trails, but hopefully a trail less than a day old will still be there.»

«Oh, it should be,» said Griffin. «Actually…now that you mention it….» They put their nose to the air and sniffed, walking carefully away from the road and towards the woods, giving the wagon a wide berth. «…This way,» they said, pointing forwards.

I nodded and knelt down to pick up Grace. «Let's follow,» I said. «We'll stay on the ground to make sure we keep the trail, and hopefully sneak up on the nest. I'd rather not get into an open battle with a monster if we can help it.»

We started trekking through the forest, letting Griffin take the lead, seeing as how they seemed to have a better grasp on following scents than the rest of us dragons. Not that I couldn't smell it myself, especially when we found one of those blood stains or drops of viscera that fell into the low grass or clung to the bark of a tree.

The path unmistakably led upwards, though not far enough east to get back into the mountains. The sun wandered steadily westward, as we walked, and I could feel exhaustion starting to set in. I was hungry, after all the exertion from the flight portion of the test and the relatively long flight here, especially when all that was only off the back of one meal. I took a swig from my bottle gourd, which was as chilly as the afternoon air around me, a nice contrast to how hot I felt from moving. I wondered if that heat had something to do with how I didn't sweat in this form. I never thought that sweat would have been something I missed, but apparently it had its benefits. I spread my wings to cool off instead, moving them in circles through the air to disperse the heat from the membrane.

Eventually, we started climbing a particularly tall hill, and Ingo signalled us to stop. "Look," he said, pointing up. The tree above him seemed to have lost half of its branches on one side, like someone had given it a shave. Looking around, a lot of the trees around us had lost branches, all on different sides, all crudely torn off at the base.

«We're close,» said Arthur.

"I think we're there," said Grace, pointing up at the summit of the hill. It was a pointy hill, with a very narrow peak that was surrounded by a clearing in the forest. A tall, rectangular hunk of bedrock punched upwards from the top, and in its shadow sat a large clump of woven wooden twigs, branches, and limbs. The pieces of the nest seemed dry and brittle, like they'd been separated from their trees for a long time. I couldn't see any creatures sitting in the nest from here, but I could hear small shuffling sounds and the quiet noises of animals that sounded somewhere between a squawk and the peeping of baby songbirds in the spring.

I stepped up to one of the trees near us, rearing up and hooking my claws into its bark. «Grace,» I said, «can you climb up a little bit and see if you can see the parent?»

Grace answered by acting, unhooking herself from the saddle and jumping up into the branches. She scrambled several layers up the tree, using the cross-brace of her spear as a makeshift hook, until she got to the highest branch sturdy enough to hold her and looked out towards the hill.

Right as she reached her perch, there was a screech from up the hill, and a massive form burst from the nest, its great, ashy brown wings spread wide as it flew away to the east. It moved too fast for me to see anything other than its feline tail, wicked-looking talons, and the thick mane that wreathed its neck and went down its spine.

Everyone ducked into the ground, or the tree branch in Grace's case, but the gryphon didn't seem to notice us. When it was clear he was gone, she stood up again taking another glance at the nest.

"Well," said Grace, her voice betraying no nervousness at all. "The father's gone. I can see three chicks, and…I can see our 'victims' too. I'm guessing they're supposed to be alive."

«Good,» I said as she clambered back down and back into the saddle. «How injured are they?»

"Hard to tell," said Grace. "They've used training dummies with cuts all in their straw limbs. There was blood, but I couldn't tell from here whether that was fresh or from the gryphon's previous kills."

«But…it was real gryphon young?» asked Griffin.

"What did you think it would be?" asked Ingo. "Someone in costume?"

«I don't know…» said Griffin. «The people in danger weren't real. I thought the monster wouldn't be real, either. It seems like a big ask for just a test.»

«Seems simple to me,» said Arthur. «Especially if it's just babies in there. They won't be hard to kill with eight people working together.»

Griffin whipped their head around. «What!? Why would we kill them?»

"It's part of the test?" said Grace, seemingly perplexed at Griffin's reproach.

«No!» said Griffin. «We just need to get the people out of there. We don't need to kill babies to do that, they won't stop us. And the parent isn't here to stop us, either.»

"Were you paying attention to the briefing?" asked Ingo. "We're also supposed to clear the monster out."

«That just seems…unnecessary,» said Griffin.

"We have orders to follow," said Ingo. "If you don't like them, quit."

«Not helpful,» I said, shooting Ingo a glare.

«Griffin…» said Arthur. «We have to do this. If we don't, they might hurt someone.»

«But—!» Griffin continue to protest. «It was going east! They're just hunting in the mountains, no one lives there!»

«Even if they won't hurt anyone now, they will when they grow up and try to claim more territory around here,» Arthur cut them off. «There isn't anything we can do about this without hurting the young. If we just kill the father, the young will starve to death. If we try to relocate them, the father might become more aggressive if he can't find them. The best thing we can do is make sure they die fast. If the father comes back and finds them dead, he won't have any reason to stay or over-hunt anymore, and will probably abandon this nest. Any other option would need us to kill the father and leave the young to die slowly and painfully. This is the best we can do.»

Griffin stared down at their claws and the grass between them. Arthur took a step closer and nudged them with his wing, holding onto their tail with his own. «Trust me. I've done things like this before.»

Griffin yanked away from him. «Good for you,» they snapped. I blinked. In two weeks, Griffin hadn't ever shown any anger before now, and of all people, Arthur was the one to pull it out of them.

«We'll make sure it doesn't hurt,» I said. «I get it, this is nasty business. How about you stay near the trees? Keep an eye out for dad if he happens to come back.»

Griffin sulked, their wings drooping. «Fine.» They let Ingo down to the ground and sat down by a squat spruce at the tree line.

"Good as we'll get," grumbled Ingo.

«Hush,» I said. «Let's get this over with.»

I took the lead hurrying up the hill, deciding to forgo stealth given that all we were dealing with were babies. The nest itself was large, larger than any bird's nest I'd ever seen before, nearly as wide as my entire wingspan. Inside were the dummies that Grace mentioned, alongside three baby gryphons. They looked like giant baby birds, half the size of an adult human and covered in the beginnings of a coat of brown down feathers. They had long tails that looked like those of rats without their coat of fur on, and big sturdy wings that they used like forelegs as they walked haphazardly on all fours. They had hooked beaks that they held open towards the air as soon as we came to the top of the hill.

Arthur and Ingo walked around the nest to get to either side of the gryphons. They stood, readying themselves, and each gave me a nod. I returned it, and lunged. It wasn't any harder than putting down a sick lamb, and with the strength of a dragon, I at least didn't have any chance of messing it up. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried not to listen as the pathetic squawking ceased with the sound of a snap.

I stood back, turning my eyes away from the nest while Yura and Brand picked up the dummies. The cuts were difficult to gauge without real human biology, but one of them seemed to only have surface cuts, while the other's arm was totally shredded. Despite that, this was neither the time nor the place for an impromptu amputation.

"What will we do with the bodies?" asked Rosalie.

«Leave them,» said Arthur. «The parent needs to know they're dead, or he could go on a rampage thinking they're missing.»

I should have felt gross. Maybe not as much as Griffin, but still. It was only a test. Did they pick out innocent babies to point us at, or were they taking advantage of monsters that really were a problem for the nearby town, even if the attack had been fake? I didn't know, and I never would.

But no uncertainty or regret came to me, a fact that itself started to make me nervous.

"Let's get out of here," said Yura. "I'd rather avoid a fight with an angry gryphon tercel, if it isn't absolutely necessary."

«Agreed,» I said. «You're sure the father will leave after this?»

«As sure as I can be,» said Arthur. «That's how I've always heard you're supposed to deal with gryphons.»

I glanced back at the nest, then over at where Cynthia and Leo were hiding on the opposite end of the hill. Killing the chicks was necessary either way, like he said earlier, but I was still a little nervous about leaving the adult alive. We couldn't afford to fail. It really came down to whether I trusted Arthur's experience enough to stake our success as a flight on it.

"He's right," said Grace.

«I didn't think he wasn't,» I whispered. «But you know how I feel about unnecessary risks.»

"I'd say fighting an adult gryphon is a pretty unnecessary risk," she said. "Not that I don't think we can do it, but is it not safer to leave it? All they said in the briefing was to 'eliminate the threat'. Driving it away counts, surely."

«Surely,» I agreed, letting her convince me.

It was at that moment that I heard Griffin silently, mentally shouting, «Move! He's coming back!»

The others were close enough that they dashed into the trees. I wasn't. Both Grace and I had the same reflex, and I darted behind the tor overlooking the nest, pressing myself up against the ground.

I heard the flapping of wings and then a harsh crunch as a heavy weight landed on the branches. I glanced over to the woods, and mentally spoke to the team. «I don't want to hear any sound,» I said. «If you can get a clear shot, Rosalie, take it. Grace, if she shoots, we finish it off.»

I slowly slid my axe from its sheath, and carefully crept forward, snaking my long neck around the rock to get a better eye on the gryphon. It sat in its nest, nudging the unmoving chicks. It let out a quiet caw, then nudged another one. When neither responded, it let out an anguished screech, and leaned back on its haunches, looking up towards the sky.

A loud crack shot through the clearing, the report of Rosalie's gun. Blood sprayed in a brief fountain from the side of the gryphon's skull. The bullet didn't go all the way through, but it made the monster stumble enough to be vulnerable. I pounced, raising my axe high as Grace leaped off my back at the same time. We both struck downwards, my weapon hitting the beast in the neck and hers digging into its shoulder.

The gryphon squawked and flailed, desperately trying to free itself from the two weapons pinning it down, but its movements only served to aggravate its new lethal wounds. The scent of metallic, stale blood was replaced by that of the sweet and fresh kind, and the sounds were gradually drowned in it until the monster's body began twitching as death set in.

I pried my axe free, and Grace did the same with her spear. The blood dripped down from the blade onto my claws, and I felt a small rush go through my mind. I reached out for Grace's consciousness to lean on in case the violence was getting to me, but strangely, I felt the same emotion from her.

I put that aside; if she was feeling the same way, it must be normal. It was probably the adrenaline all coming at once. I walked a few paces away from the summit before taking off into the air, flying slowly enough that the others in the tree line had enough time to catch up with us. Once we were all together, we picked up speed, going back east.

Only a mile or so later, as we flew over the mountain ridge, Griffin paused, suddenly braking and hovering in the air as they looked back towards the sound.

«Griffin!» I shouted. «Come on, we don't have time to waste! The "people" need medical attention!»

They let out a low whimper, but did eventually follow the rest of us as we made our way back towards the fortress. The sun was setting by the time we made it, sunken below the mountains that bordered the western edge of the fort, putting the courtyards in shallow shadows as we landed in an unoccupied one.

I let Grace down, doing so with enough urgency that I just about shook her off my back, and gestured towards Yura and Brand with my wing. «Put the dummies down, I need to have a look at them.»

Brand obliged, slinging them down on the ground with about as much gentleness as I expected from her. I hurried over, turning them onto their backs. While most of the knowledge of examinations that Linus had taught me last week had been focussed on humans and dragons, I could at least tell what injuries these stand-ins were crudely trying to represent. Just like Grace had said, one seemed like mostly superficial cuts, but the other one had its entire right "arm" torn to shreds, so much so that the elements of the bag holding the straw were almost entirely gone, revealing the wooden strut underneath.

«That one's fine,» I indicated the relatively unharmed one, «this one is losing its arm. Yura, Brand, come here. Grace, give me your spear.» I moved the dummy's arm out to the side to make this as easy as I could. Linus hadn't exactly trained me for this, but I was the only one with medical knowledge in the group, so I was the closest we had to a surgeon.

«Brand, I need you to breathe fire on Yura's weapon until it's super hot. When I say "now", press it against the arm stump, alright?»

Yura chuckled. "Oh, don't worry, I've got some experience with this," he said. He held out his bruiser, and after Brand gave it and him a brief sceptical look, she breathed a small jet of flame over the metal.

I was very glad that I was doing this on a dummy instead of a real human, but this risk of failure was still real. I was keenly aware of Cynthia and Leo's eyes on me as I set the spear up, point down and slightly stuck in the dirt beside the dummy's arm like a giant lever. If I ended up "killing" the hypothetical person, we'd surely fail, and I only got once chance.

«Okay,» I said, steadying my breathing. «Ready?»

"Yes, sir," said Yura.

«Three…two…one…now!» I yanked the spear down, slicing through the wooden joint with ease using the keen blade. I brushed the discarded arm to the side as Yura immediately knelt down, touching the flat side of the bruiser against the socket. The wood started to smoke before Yura stepped back.

"Normally, I'd hold it for a few more seconds," he said, "but I think if I did that, our friend would catch fire."

"That's fine," said Cynthia. She had jumped down from Nalezen's back and walked over towards the flight, a smile on her face and her hands clasped behind her back. "It's clear that you know what you are doing, at least, as much as I could expect from anyone who didn't attend an academy of medicine."

«Is that it for the test?» I asked. «Or do we need to fly these things over to the town?»

"No, that won't be necessary," said Cynthia. "That is indeed all for the test."

"And?" Grace asked, trembling with both excitement and trepidation. "Did we pass?"

"Well…." Cynthia began to pace back and forth. "We'll be going over that now. Line up and listen up." We did as instructed, everyone getting into a rough line beside their partner.

"First," she began. "The individual tests, combat and aerial ability. As I said earlier, all of you did at least relatively well in these. There was some struggle with the combat, but overall, the only one who did poorly was Griffin." She turned her eyes on them. "You relied far too much on Ingo, to the point that you hardly participated in the test at all. Your partner excelled, so while you showed deficiency, together you were adequate, but you should think about training more. He will not be able to do everything for you."

Griffin gave a small, nervous nod before Cynthia continued. "The aerial test was much the same, with all of you having landed somewhere on the range from adequate to good, with the exception of Brand. As with Griffin, I seriously advise you to work on that. Especially considering your partner's physical impairment, it is extremely important that you have skill in the air."

Brand huffed, which seemed like enough of an affirmative for Cynthia. "And lastly, and most importantly, the field test." She stopped pacing and stood dead in the centre of our line, scanning each of our faces with an impassive expression on her own. "Your investigation skills were good, excellent even. Determining the source of an attack by only its aftermath is a highly useful skill, and it's good to see that you have that. Some of you will need to work on…controlling your impulses," she shot a glance at Arthur, who anxiously shuffled in place, "but the situation did not escalate. As for the task of eliminating the threat, you did…decently."

"Only decently?" said Grace, deflating.

"The ethos of the corps is that threats should be dealt with swiftly and decisively," said Cynthia. "While I'm glad you showed the initiative and intelligence to think of multiple ways around a problem, it would have been preferred for all of the threat to be dealt with."

"The gryphon's dead, though," said Grace.

"Indeed, and I am glad that you had the ability to deal with it when it showed its face. But if it hadn't, it would have left."

"Right," agreed Grace, seemingly confused at her line of logic. "It would have left. The problem would have been gone."

"Indeed. Leave…and go where?" Cynthia began pacing again. "It is vital that you realise that while you will have an area of focus once you receive a commission, your responsibility is the whole of Rimewater Vale. Leaving the gryphon alive gives it the chance to settle again somewhere it might stir up trouble again, killing livestock or even people. While in these parts of the province, it will more than likely go somewhere quiet in the mountains, that chance is something we would prefer you don't take."

"So, what, are we just supposed to kill every monster we see, even if they're not hurting anyone now, just because they might later?" Grace asked.

"Careful with your tone, Sir Grace," said Cynthia. "But yes. You are. If there is a threat, you remove it, no matter how minor. That is what it means to protect."

Grace took a step back and kept her mouth shut, but I could feel how incensed she was at that comment.

"However," Cynthia continued. "In this instance, you did well enough. Just keep in mind the consequences your actions, or lack thereof, may have in the future." The impassivity finally wiped off her face, replaced by a wide smile. "On that note, I extend to you congratulations. As a flight, you have shown that you have the skill to advance in your career as knights of the Dragoon Corps. You've passed your tests."

Grace's excitement did not return. All that we managed was an affirmative nod and a smile from Yura, of all people.

"You still have one more task before you receive a commission," said Cynthia, her voice returning to deadly seriousness. "A mission awaits you. A real one, this time, with real lives at stake and no oversight from us." She stepped aside, and gestured back towards the keep. "Go and rest. Make sure you temper your celebrations. Leo and I will have a mission selected for you by the morning. You will set out once you've been briefed."

She began walking back herself, with her fellow officers behind her, leaving our flight to think on what she said. As soon as she had crossed the threshold of the keep, I felt a soft hug from Grace.

"You did good," she said, her voice uncharacteristically heavy. "I'm proud of you."

I allowed myself to lean into her embrace, wrapping my wing around her to return it. It did feel good to have a little pride every now and then. Good enough to ignore that fuzzy feeling that sprang up in my head again at the feeling.