WHEN THEY WOKE, WITH dawn’s light filtering down through the deep red leaf-canopy layers above, Yaarah made no comment about her presumptuousness. Instead, he whipped out his bag to make several crucial annotations he had apparently formulated at some point during the night. His brain must be so busy and stuffed full of significant thoughts, that it worked even while he was asleep.
Allory peered muzzily at the Felidragon, wondering if she had not sensed a paw-hug tugging her close in the night, a burry lullaby soothing a shrieking Scintillant Fae?
Saps’ sakes, she could do without the dying dreams.
Twice. She used to think she’d die of terror. Being stomped on like a bug – by her own Dadfae – put that into perspective, didn’t it? ‘I’ll end you, runt!’ Not the first time her Dadfae had threatened to end her life’s sap. Her behaviour had driven him off the proverbial limb many a time.
Rising with care for her bad knee, she tottered off to find a quiet place to throw up.
Mid-afternoon of their fifth day on the wing, now many miles from any place that Allory knew or recognised, the jungle came to a literal, lopped-off end. Branches and impenetrable foliage one instant, clear air the next. The Felidragon unleashed a deafening hiss of annoyance and swerved back under cover, jinking several hundred feet back into the jungle proper before choosing a new approach – smart thinking in case anything had seen them emerge – and sank his talons into a convenient branch.
After a waiting for a few minutes, he slunk forward to the edge once more.
They peered out through a screen of serrated russet leaves. Ahead, grey-white mists shrouded a broad valley that cut away from the base of the jungle. Gnarled greenish-grey tree roots gripped and trailed down a cliff many hundreds of feet tall, Allory noticed, meaning that the jungle floor must have risen to this point. Seen across the insubstantial white drifts, the pristine mountains appeared to float upon nothingness. So sharply etched against the pure azure sky did they stand, each fold and edge and crevasse perfectly picked out by Middlesun’s gaze, she had to massage her chest and tell her palpitating heart that this was not the moment to forget how to beat a steady rhythm – nor how to beat at all.
Just. That. Awesome!
A little to her right side a tall volcanic cone stood alone and aloof, distinguished from the other peaks by its regularity and the tell-tale conical shape. Pure white robed its upper third. Allory touched her tingling antennae, entranced. Mountains. She had no idea bare rock could be so stark, so massive, so majestic.
“Up there is where we’ll find Inixipi the Healer Sage,” Yaarah said, with a graceful tilt of his wing to indicate the cone, “but firrrr-st, we’ll have to cross a valley crawling with Tyrowyverns.”
“Let me guess,” Allory sighed. “Something else that dearly wants to eat us?”
“Never the bluntest talon in the paw, are you, Sparkles? Indeed. Millions of hungry mouths. They are small, draconic and highly aggressive swarm hunters, mrrr-frrr. Thankfully, they like to sleep at night, although that is not entirely guaranteed. This will be a chance to demonstrate my unmatched camouflage skills. Not to gild the golden fur, as we Felidragons say, I am a master of the art.”
“Aye. About all I’ve imagined so far is you being impossible to find inside one of those legendary Human treasure chambers.”
“Nice vote of support, partner.”
Her weak smile failed to convince anyone of anything.
Allory sighed and began to turn away, only to pause as his warm paw touched her shoulder in a gesture of sympathy. He had done that often these last few days, she had noticed. The Felidragon had been a cocoon of comfort during her grieving, mixing a few light-hearted jokes here and there with long silences when she was not in the mood to talk, offering unsubtle hints regarding eating or bathing when she needed to, and teaching her the fundamentals of Dragon jungle craft rather than hassling her about a lack of progress in understanding the issue with the Middlesun. In fact, Yaarah was such a compassionate soul that she began to suspect that perceptions of worth among his kind, similarly to hers, revolved around protective or provider roles, such as hunters and warriors rather than the scholarly in his case, or hers? Unknown, as yet.
Reaching up, she gripped his paw briefly in her two hands. “Yaarah, thank you.”
He gave her a slow wink. “When are you going to dance for me?”
One day when I’m no longer broken.
“Anyways, frrr-hssst, I propose we rest until nightfall,” he hurried on, “by which time I will have changed my coat in preparation for a fast night crossing to the mountain.”
“How do you do that?”
“This trick involves plumbing my deepest and most mysterious Felidragon powers, murrr-hurrr-HARRR!”
Translated into practical terms, this meant eating several pawfuls of black orchid petals harvested from the mid-canopy layers a few miles from where they had stopped, and then meditating while summoning up one of his cat-magic abilities. Allory took a nap and woke to find his fangs gleamed considerably brighter against a coat turning black from the inside out. She dozed again. Her shoulder ached unbearably. Waking, an almost-black Felidragon greeted her, his new colour a shadowy gold that played tricks with her eyes and it was only early evening, hardly as dark as it could become in the depths of the jungles.
“That look’s definitely the Dragon’s whiskers,” she approved.
“Takes a little doing,” he said, preening and arching his back in a limber feline stretch. Fae spines did nothing of the sort. She decided it looked painful and that Felidragons could probably tie themselves into complex knots. “Taxes the mind, but the effect will last for a few days. We still have a five-hour direct flight across the valley ahead of us.”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Not that their flying majored on the ‘we’ part, but she appreciated the attempt at solidarity.
Talk about touching, she followed the flicker of the Felidragon’s eyes and dropped her hand from fingering the soul locket. He did not believe, did he? Yet she knew she had inserted a new poem fragment within and the locket felt … weightier, somehow. Where had that memory come from? When? Was her memory as broken as the rest of her?
All she wanted was a sense of normalcy and not to feel the threads of reality relentlessly unravelling between her grasping fingers. She wanted to dance yet felt as if that were a limb lopped off, part of her which had died back there at the colony.
Lightly, she said, “No Hyperdragons to worry about?”
“They tend to avoid one another’s territories, frrr-ssst, but should any turn up, that would be rather awkward. The plan would be to lead one lot into an encounter with the other whilst we slip away to fight another day.”
“I see. Likelihood of success?”
“Let’s talk about something else, shall we?”
Sitting together on a tree branch about half a mile above the mists, they waited for full nightfall. Allory had a firm leg to lean against. With both his head and hindquarters curled up into the better part of a semicircle, the Fae girl found herself nearly surrounded by Felidragon, but this fact failed to alarm her as before. Nor did the rising cries, caws and shrill shrieks of the nocturnal predators concern her, except peripherally.
Allory touched her bandaged shoulder uneasily. Yaarah said that it looked infected despite the application of cleansing saps; it unquestionably smelled worse every day and happened to be leaking a fair amount of mustard-coloured pus laced with traces of her silver blood. Not a good sign. Not good at all. It also hurt less, which might mean that the nerves were past the point of no return.
As the Dragon swarm passed over the face of Middlesun once more, the azures of daylight deepened into the sapphires and purples of twilight. With the change came a corresponding change in the colours of the mountain peaks, making them seem to move, deepen, swell … she did not quite know how, but that was her impression. The shades and nuances of their natural beauty shifted moment by moment. He had told her that the Pixies were famously touchy and irritable, and that their help might come at a price. Pixies loved nothing more than a good bargain. They also lived high enough up the volcano that their caves and burrows stood above the permanent snowline. Exciting!
Viewed in the faint last-light before full night, the volcanic cone looked more ethereal than ever. Allory realised that her trepidation had to do with whatever was down in the valley rather than what lay up the mountain. Did she sense something of what lay ahead? Or just being a fraidy-Fae as always?
“It’s time,” Yaarah whispered. “Mount up.”
“Coming.”
Allory climbed an unfamiliar dark mound of fur and settled herself above his shoulders. On second thoughts, she strung her Momfae’s bow and made sure the quiver of arrows was ready at hand. She might not be much of a warrior, but two Ripper Baboons had fallen to her dubious skills. Maybe these Tyrowyverns would not appreciate a few Faerie arrows buzzing about their heads?
Mighty hunter that I am? Please.
Spreading his wings, Yaarah tipped out into the void. As he dipped away from the treeline, he turned up the acceleration. He had spoken of a rapid crossing and meant it. Besides, a weather front approached and the Felidragon did not want to get caught out in the open. Soon, frisky winds began to gust along the valley, breaking up the drifting mists. The Dragon kept a steady rhythm and height, panting in time with each hardworking wingbeat. Below, all was darkness, but Yaarah said the entire valley floor was a single swamp dominated by the Tyrowyverns, who were so neighbourly and delightful, no other creature crossed that area alive by foot or by paw.
Several times, Allory’s sharp Fae night vision picked out swarms of small, deep emerald draconic creatures flitting ahead of them with a bat-like motion. Those must be Tyrowyverns. Her companion flew around or over them, moving quickly but without panic. The slight glow cast by a flotilla of Wisps drifting at a lower altitude, apparently at odds with the wind, made her conclude that they must be a deep khaki green, most likely very well camouflaged against swamp vegetation.
Her sharp Fae gaze caught the flitting of larger creatures hunting in and amongst the white storm billows. Hyperdragons? Had to be. Immediately, she leaned close to warn him. Yaarah did not panic. He drew in his magic and sped along, keeping a little lower now to try to use the remaining banks of mist to their advantage, but that was where the trouble began. A chance glancing collision with one of the smaller Dragonkind sent it tumbling off course, croaking harshly. At once, the warning calls spread. Emerald spots swarmed in huge numbers from the depths.
The chase was on!
For a good long while, Yaarah’s speed and agility kept them in the lead and out of danger, but by the time they were about three-quarters of the way across, he had begun to tire noticeably. Suddenly, a Tyrowyvern smacked into his face, breaking his rhythm. He jinked and accelerated again but had to swerve as two more appeared in front of them. The gloomy overcast combined with their deep emerald colouration made them exceptionally difficult to pick out against the backdrop; Allory barely saw one that swooped and tried to pluck her off his back, taking a few of her hairs with it.
Even night sight had its limits.
She jabbed at his mounded shoulders with her toes. “Come on, Yaarah. Faster!”
Sighting a shot in defiance of a tearing pain gripping her shoulder, she fired and had the satisfaction of seeing her arrow pluck a Tyrowyvern out of the sky ten feet ahead. Its friends mobbed the screeching creature with flashing fangs and ready appetites, the melee quickly falling away into the depths.
“Result!” he crowed.
“I’ve no idea how,” she spluttered, nocking another arrow at once. Suggids! When had she become a crack shot? No idea. Maybe desperation demanded skill, because she hit targets with four of her next six shots, somehow helping to keep them out of the worst trouble. Each hit distracted the swarming Tyrowyverns as all in the vicinity made a beeline for a late dinner, even though only one of her shots appeared to have been fatal.
“Mrrr-frrr, still not going to make it,” he panted. “Can’t fly much further.”
“We’ll get there. Keep going.”
“I’m shattered. Wings about to fall off. Can you –”
“I could try something.” Allory placed her hands on his fur, spreading them out as far as she could before digging in her digits. He shivered as if the sensation tickled.
Alright, ariavanae. Want to do something for me?
Allory tumbled into her desired state of calm so abruptly, her focus wavered and nearly snapped before she recovered. Glorious warmth suffused her body. More startling by far, a slight but discernible luminosity – more than clear given the darkness – shot like lightning down her bare arms and into his fur. Had she seen or imagined slight patterns beneath her skin? She tried to ignore the phenomenon. Let her capricious magic be whatever it would.
At once, Yaarah surged through the sky as if stung, roaring as he burst through legion Tyrowyverns in a shower of electrical sparks that leaped from his wings and tail, even his whiskers. They screamed across the final several hundred feet of mists as if shot by a crossbow and tilted upward. Coarse grey rock blurred in her vision.
The Felidragon flexed his muscles to launch them skyward.
At exactly the same moment, they both gazed up and spotted no less than a dozen Hyperdragons hurtling down the mountainside toward them on an intercept course.
“HRRR-MRRRWWLL!” he yowled. “Where did they – ambush!”
“That crack – comes another, see?” She pointed and realised that the last place Yaarah was about to look was back over his shoulder. Not with all those Hyperdragons closing in. “Two more!”
“They’re with the Pixies?”
She gasped, “How can that be?”
“Too late, trrr-ssst! Something’s very wrong here. Allory, hide yourself! Now!”
“Where? How?”
“Inside my travel pack.” When she began to protest, he snapped, “Get out of sight! QUICK!”