The worst thing about the dragon was that it proved Ciaran right.
Asra was in no shape to be fighting anything, let alone a dragon. Sleep deprivation made her sluggish and weak. Her limbs were as heavy as anchors, and there was a delay between when she thought about moving and when her body obeyed.
The second worst thing about the dragon was definitely the fire. A blast erupted out of the beast’s mouth. Asra turned and grabbed Bane by the scruff and butted her shoulder into Ciaran to knock him out of the path of the blaze. She dropped Bane onto his lap and said, “Keep him out of the way.”
She turned again and launched herself at the dragon. Her jaws closed onto its throat, but the metallic scales provided no hold, and her teeth slipped as if she’d grabbed onto an icicle. She slammed onto her back, the air rushing out of her lungs. She wheezed and sputtered as the dragon’s claws descended on her, and she only just managed to roll out of the way before its paw slammed into the ground.
Asra gasped, trying to draw as much air back into her lungs as she could. For a moment she considered taking a page out of the horse’s book and making a break for it, but even if she could maintain her normal speeds, there was no outrunning something that could fly. And how would Bane and Ciaran get away? She had no choice but to fight.
In the split second it took her to consider this, the dragon issued another wave of fire at her. She lunged to the side, but her tail singed in the blazing stream. Although the adrenals kept her from feeling much, she knew it was badly burned.
A brown blur caught her eye—Bane had wriggled himself free of Ciaran’s grasp and rushed toward the dragon. The monster opened its jaws, ready to snap the dog up whole. Asra snagged the ridgeback just in time. She dodged the dragon’s razor teeth and dropped Bane back into Ciaran’s lap.
“I told you to keep him away!” she barked.
“Behind you!”
Asra turned just in time to see a flash of claws. The skin and flesh along her ribs tore open in long, ragged lines. She snarled and gritted her teeth against the searing pain. The dragon raised its head for another fire attack. Asra forced herself into the air, snapping her jaws near its throat, then darted away from Bane and Ciaran. She had to keep it away from them.
The dragon let out a solid stream of flame, following Asra as she ran behind the creature, trying to stay out of its range. The dragon’s tail swung around and caught her in the chest, sending her flying into a tree trunk. She scrambled to her feet, trying to blink away the fireworks in her eyes.
Her head swam, and she knew she wouldn’t last much longer. She needed to end this quickly. She needed to find a weak spot.
No sooner had the thought crossed her mind when an arrow flew through the air, landing in the dragon’s left eye with a squelch. The beast roared, pawing at its face. Asra turned to Ciaran, who had already nocked another arrow on his bow. Bane snarled and strained against the rope that attached him to a sturdy tree.
“Asra, the wings!” Ciaran shouted. “Keep it from flying or it’ll burn us from the sky!”
Ciaran’s next arrow pierced the dragon’s sensitive wing membrane. The beast snarled and unfurled its wings, preparing for its ascent.
Asra rushed the creature once more, springing up and grabbing the thin wing skin as high as she could. She shook her head and kicked with her claws as she fell back to the ground, shredding the thin skin. The dragon roared and shook itself, knocking Asra loose. But she anticipated the fall this time, and she twisted her body around to land squarely on her paws.
The force of the landing sent shockwaves through her muscles and made her ligaments tingle, but nothing felt broken. The dragon launched itself into the air, but after only a couple of wing beats, it faltered and slammed into the ground below, sending several trees toppling down. The dragon righted itself and plodded toward Asra and Ciaran, blood and vitreous fluid dripping from its crushed eye.
“Any other ideas?” Asra asked as she moved in front of Bane and Ciaran to shield them.
“Snap its neck,” Ciaran said, pulling another arrow out of the quiver. “Like you did that alligator.”
“How? I can’t hold onto its scales.”
Ciaran loosed the arrow, and it glinted off the beast’s neck. The dragon lowered its head and swiped at Asra with its massive horns. She jumped to the side, narrowly avoiding being gored.
“There!” Ciaran shouted to her. “The horns are just bone.” He ran to Bane and untied the rope from his collar. “Bane will distract it. Finish it as quickly as you can.”
He released Bane, and the dog rocketed toward the dragon. It turned its gaze onto him, swatting at him like a fly. Asra ran a wide arc around the beast until she was lined up directly to the side of its massive head.
She skidded to a halt, then sprinted toward the dragon as fast as she could force her limbs to move. She leapt, grabbed the horn that was closest to her, and sighed a small breath of relief that her teeth held fast. She swung her hind legs forward as she catapulted underneath the dragon’s neck, providing further momentum. The beast’s head twisted at an unnatural angle, and as Asra’s feet touched the ground on the other side, she felt a satisfying crunch and pop in its spine. The entire body went limp and dropped to the ground like a stone. Its feet twitched, its tongue lolled out, and then it was still.
Bane barked at it for a few moments more, then crept toward the body, neck craning to get his nose as close as possible while maintaining distance with the rest of his body. Asra clamored over the neck and pressed her ear against the chest. No heartbeat.
Ciaran stumbled toward the corpse and said, “Is it … dead?”
Asra nodded, then slumped to the ground. The adrenals were rapidly fading, and her exhaustion and pain hit her at full force.
“Asra, you’re in horrible shape. We need to get you fixed up.”
She looked down to examine her injuries. Huge chunks of fur on her tail had burned away, and some of the exposed skin had already sloughed off. It hurt like hell, but Asra was confident it would heal quickly.
Her bigger concern was the gaping wounds on her side from the dragon’s claws. There were four long, deep tears along her ribcage, the fur surrounding it soaked in blood.
The wounds frightened her far more than the dragon itself. They were deep into the muscle. One of them even exposed bone. They would take forever to heal on their own, and it would be nearly impossible to keep them clean enough in that time to prevent infection. She could heal it just fine with magic, but changing out of her fur in this condition would be a death sentence.
“We need to get out of here,” she said, hauling herself to her feet, wincing against the pain. “We don’t know how close by any others might be.”
Ciaran frowned, but after a moment he nodded and said, “We’ll have to go back to the tunnel. It’s not too far.”
Asra sighed and nodded. She had to admit she was grateful that he wasn’t taking the opportunity to rub this whole mess in her face.
Asra sniffed the air, then curled her lip and said, “We’ll have to grab that damn horse on the way out, too.”
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They reached the entrance to the tunnel early that evening. Asra’s limbs trembled as she gazed up at the opening. It gaped like an angry maw, ready to devour its prey whole.
Asra tried to ignore the way her heart rate spiked every time she thought of being stuck in that thing for days. She would never admit to Ciaran that that had been a large factor in her decision to push through the valley. It was bad enough she had to admit he was right about the dragons.
It looked so much like the tunnel her comrades had used to escape Nolan’s attack. Asra remembered the way the rough stone scraped her paw pads as she limped the dozens of miles to the exit on the other side of the mountain. The hushed whispers of the other survivors roared in her ears like a howling wind—What if the humans break through and find us here? How did they find us in the first place? Who let them in? Asra had been as silent as the stone that encased them, dreading the moment the others would discover her guilt.
“We should get going, Asra,” Ciaran said from atop the horse.
Asra startled at his voice. She hadn’t realized she’d stopped, and couldn’t tell how long she’d stalled. She swallowed and nodded, too nauseated to speak.
As they stepped inside, Asra became hyper aware of every sound that reverberated through the cave. The clicking of her claws on the stone. The clicking of Bane’s claws, lighter and quicker than her own. The dripping of water from spiky ceiling outcroppings. The scurrying of rats on the ground and bats above them, hidden somewhere in the twists and bends of the long path. And the clomping of the damn horse's hooves.
Every vibration threatened to shake the entire mountain down on top of them. What was keeping this tiny hole from collapsing on them? Some human ingenuity and architecture? As clever as humans may be, they were no match for the forces of nature. Her father had proven that during the attack.
The light of the entrance faded behind them. Soon the only light came from a poorly maintained spell along the tops of the cave walls, casting an eerie phosphorescent light. Asra’s eyesight was better in the dark, and her nose could guide her through regardless, but she wished she could create a little fire nonetheless.
When the outside light had vanished, Ciaran said, “Hang on, Asra. We need to take care of your wounds.”
Asra didn’t stop. “We need to keep going. We don’t know how close whoever’s following us might be.”
“We need to get you cleaned up.”
“I’ll heal fine on my own. We wasted enough time in the valley.”
“Don’t say we.” Ciaran’s tone was sharp enough to cut through the stone surrounding them. “I tried to stop you from going into the valley to begin with. You didn’t want to listen.”
Asra whipped her head back to snarl at him. The last thing she needed now was an “I told you so” from the prince. She had expected him to falter, to back down, maybe even to cower. But he sat steadfast, his brow and mouth set in tight lines.
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Asra’s breath caught in her chest. She had seen that exact expression on Nolan’s face as Asra begged him to leave her home alone as a small girl. She’d never considered just how much they looked alike.
But unlike Nolan, there was a softness to Ciaran’s eyes, and his voice was gentle when he spoke. “Asra, you need help. Let me help you.”
Asra growled and stalked off down the tunnel. Her tail smarted, but already new skin was forming, fresh fur replacing the singed fur. The gashes on her side pulsated with pain, and they weren’t showing any signs of mending, but the bleeding had stopped and Asra was confident they would be healed by morning.
The horse’s hooves resumed their clomping, and the fur down Asra’s spine stood on end.
“What about infection?” Ciaran called behind her. “You said you don’t handle infection well. We at least need to clean it out.”
“We don’t have enough water.” They only had the few bottles they’d collected and filtered earlier that morning. If the tunnel collapsed on them, Asra and Bane might be able to get away with lapping at the small trickles of water running down the tunnel walls, but Ciaran’s more sensitive human body would have to make do with the last clean water bottles they had left. There wasn’t enough to wash out her wounds.
Ciaran paused for a moment before he said, “We could use the rest of that moonshine.”
“Hurry up, or I’m leaving you behind,” she said.
As they continued on, Asra tried her best to focus on the path in front of her. She made the mistake once of glancing up at the ceiling and was overcome with vertigo. Her stomach lurched and her head swam, and she tripped over Bane. She mumbled an apology to the dog who wagged his tail graciously at her.
Then she heard the sound again. Her ears swiveled back and forth, but she couldn’t pinpoint its location.
“What’s wrong?” Ciaran asked.
“You don’t hear that?” Asra said.
“Hear what?”
Asra stopped, flicking her head side to side, hoping she could nail it down.
“It’s sort of … a booming noise,” she said. “Or a roar?”
“Is it the same sound you heard before?”
“I can’t tell.”
Ciaran furrowed his brow and tilted his head, listening intently. “I don’t hear anything. Maybe it’s another storm? Or the dragons?”
Asra’s nose curled. She shook her whole body out and listened again. She couldn’t hear it anymore.
“It must be nearing midnight,” Ciaran said. “I think you may just be tired. Should we stop for the night?”
Asra debated for a moment, then said, “For a couple of hours, for you and the horse to rest. Then we need to keep going.”
Ciaran dismounted as he said, “You need to rest, too. Are we setting up the concealment spell?”
“I won’t be able to put it together without hands.”
“Do you want me to help you? You could tell me what to use and how much, and I could … ”
Asra snarled a warning. Her mind flicked back once more to his brother, Nolan’s eyes wide with feigned wonder as he interrogated her about her home. She’d thought Nolan had been interested in her people’s concealment spell strictly on an academic level. More importantly, she thought he’d been impressed by how clever and grown-up she was. If Asra could make such an impression on a king, surely her father would have to stop treating her like a child.
“I’m only trying to help you, Asra.”
Asra flopped to the ground with a huff, her back turned to Ciaran. As she examined her wounds, she heard him settling the horse and setting out his sleeping sack.
The scratches on her side burned and throbbed with every heartbeat. She nosed at the closest one, hissing at the searing pain that shot through the wound. The flesh was puffy and hot on her damp nose.
Asra couldn’t handle Ciaran being right again. She set to licking out each gash, wincing against the pain and foul taste. It wasn’t ideal, but this would at least get the dirt and grime out. As she worked, she listened for the sound from earlier, but it seemed to have stopped. She hoped it hadn’t just been a figment of her imagination.
When she finished cleaning her wounds, exhaustion and pain racked her body, and her limbs trembled from the exertion. The events of the day would have depleted her even on a good night’s sleep, and she hadn’t achieved any meaningful rest for almost forty-eight hours.
She sniffed the air toward the entrance far behind them. She didn’t smell anything. She didn’t hear anything. She glanced at Bane, who was curled up next to Ciaran, snoring without a care in the world. Perhaps she could rest her eyes for a few minutes. Her injuries would probably be all better by the time she woke up, and the thought of sleeping through the pain of healing was tempting.
Just until Ciaran wakes up, she told herself, and she rested her head between her paws and closed her eyes.
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“Asra!”
Asra’s head shot up, her claws scrabbling on the damp rock beneath her. She swung her head back and forth, trying to locate the threat, but saw only the horse, Bane, and Ciaran, who stared aghast at Asra’s side.
“Have you been licking at your wounds all night?” he said.
Asra grumbled and said, “I cleaned it out, like you wanted.” She tried to stand but was hit with a wave of fresh pain. Not only did it hurt even worse than it had before she’d fallen asleep, but now it itched like hell on top of it. She bit back a yelp.
“You did a lot more than that!” Ciaran said.
Asra glanced down. The fur around each gash had been licked away almost entirely, and the skin there was red and angry. The gashes themselves did not look any better than before she had cleaned them.
“You need to leave it alone,” Ciaran said. “You’re going to give yourself hot spots.”
Asra wasn’t in any mood to argue. “Pack up. We need to get going.”
As they continued their trek through the tunnel, Asra listened for the roaring sound from the night before. She couldn’t hear it, but she swore she smelled the fire from the dragons on the outside. Sometimes she felt the vibrations in the ground as a mighty tree succumbed to the flames and slammed to the ground.
Could the destruction outside lead to a cave-in? The thought of being buried alive dominated her mind. Her whole body grew so hot she wouldn’t be surprised if she caught flame. Perhaps the heat was from her infected wounds. Or perhaps it was from the dragons’ fire outside. Fire had stopped her from saving her father, moments before he was buried beneath the mountain. He had been so close, if she could have just found a way to get past the flames …
“Asra, what’s wrong?”
Asra startled once more at Ciaran’s voice. She panted in short staccatos, her legs quivering, and caught her breath just long enough to mumble, “Nothing.”
“Well, all of your panting is stressing Bane out. Can you please stop?”
She glanced down at the ridgeback. His hackles were raised, his body stiff and hyper-alert. He looked up at her and let out a soft whine.
“Sorry,” she whispered to him. She shook herself out again, Bane following in kind, and resumed her brisk trot down the tunnel.
However, she couldn’t shake the sight of the flames from her mind. Her father had cast them there to block her path. He knew what he had to do to protect everyone else, and he didn’t want her in the way. But if someone told him that everyone was safe, that the survivors were all in the tunnel, he could escape with them. Asra just had to climb over the flames, get him to listen …
A booming roar caught Asra’s attention, snapping her out of her reverie. She froze, her ears twitching back and forth, trying to locate or identify the noise. It sounded like thunder. Like falling rocks.
Then there was a crushing boom on the side of the mountain. The ground trembled, and small rocks shook loose from the ceiling and pelted Asra.
The mountain was going to cave in.
She hurtled herself toward the exit, barely registering Ciaran’s shouts behind her. Her paw pads ripped as she skidded around bends on damp rock. She had to get out. She wouldn’t be buried alive like her father.
The exit to the tunnel appeared around the next bend. Asra barreled toward it, registering Ciaran’s shout too late.
She leapt out of the opening, but as her paws came down, there was no ground to meet them. Treetops replaced what she expected to be solid ground. She flailed, her jaws grasping for branches as she fell. Her teeth finally closed around one, but it snapped under her weight. She slammed into the ground. coughing and wheezing.
Asra lay still for a moment, heart pounding, taking inventory of her new injuries. It was difficult to narrow down body parts through the whole-body pain. Her right front leg hurt. Possibly a sprained pastern. Her ribs ached. Bruised, most likely. They didn’t feel broken, thank the gift. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to concentrate.
The soft thud of nearing footsteps shot her eyes open. A man approached her. She righted herself, wincing against the pain, blinking to focus her eyes. The man was pale, with dark brown hair and broad shoulders.
Nolan.
Asra forced herself to her feet, snarling with her head low, readying herself for the attack. It must have been Nolan who had been following them the last several days. She wouldn’t need to travel to him after all. He had come to her.
She opened her jaws. Nolan threw his hands up beneath her, shouting words she couldn’t make out. How satisfying that he would spend his final seconds alive begging for her mercy, the way she had begged him as a little girl.
She reared her head back, but before she could strike, a chestnut blur launched itself toward her leg and bit down hard, shaking furiously.
Asra turned her fangs to the new attacker, but a sudden wave of clarity washed over her. The pain in her body subsided. She blinked. It was Bane latched onto her leg, his growls reverberating up the limb. She glanced at the human and realized it was Ciaran, not Nolan. The horse stood a few dozen yards back, nervously stamping the ground.
“Bane, out! Out!”
The dog obeyed Ciaran’s command and promptly padded to his owner’s side as the man pushed himself up off the ground.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Ciaran shouted.
Asra shifted her weight on her paws, unable to come up with a reasonable answer. Her head still reeled from the intoxicating promise of tearing out Nolan’s throat, taken from her so abruptly.
“Why did you take off like that?” Ciaran said, brushing off the dirt from his trousers.
Asra snarled. “Because the whole tunnel was caving in!”
Ciaran ran a hand through his hair, his mouth moving wordlessly for a moment before he said, “What the hell are you talking about?”
Asra growled and whipped her head up to the tunnel exit above her. Her eyes widened and her jaw slackened. The tunnel and all of the surrounding rock was still intact. There was no rubble. No smoke or debris billowing out of the exit. The tunnel hadn’t caved in at all.
Her heart pounded as she searched her mind for an explanation. She’d seen the rocks tumbling around her, felt them striking her body … hadn’t she?
Asra took a step back, lowering her head and tucking her tail between her legs. “Sorry.”
Ciaran muttered to himself as he gripped his hair so tightly Asra thought he might rip his own scalp off. “Are you all right?” he said after a moment.
Asra looked herself over. The bruising in her ribs had healed, as had the bite on her leg. Asra’s brow furrowed as the crunching pain flashed through her mind. Bane had bitten her down to the bone. Even for her this was unnaturally fast healing. She turned to her other side and grimaced—the gashes there didn’t appear any better.
“I’m fine,” she said. “We should get going.”
She ignored Ciaran’s steady stream of curses as she headed into the forest. She tried not to think about the wound on her side. Even she couldn’t deny that the wound was getting seriously infected. It was bad news if everything else was healing and that still festered.
Asra pushed the concern aside. She just needed a couple good nights of sleep and the wounds would get better.