The rest of the way I tried to learn more about Herald and her siblings, and she told me a little about Karakan as a place to live. I asked about her childhood and gathered that her siblings hadn’t been born there, but she had. There was a lot of pain there, though. She either evaded or simply didn’t answer most of my questions, so I let it go.
The little family, Valmik included, didn’t have a permanent home in the city, which surprised me. They carried most of their stuff with them, staying a few days or weeks at an inn and then moving to another when they wanted some change. Adventuring paid well enough, and inns could be cheap enough, that this hadn’t been a problem for years. Until Tamor got locked up, that was. Apparently, another reason to avoid becoming a magic user was that you needed a licence to use magic inside the city, which Tamor had neglected to pay. He’d excused himself by saying that he would simply not use any magic in the city, but then Makanna had gotten drunk, and some merc had gotten handsy, and Tamor saw that and...
"My sister can take care of herself!" Herald insisted on that. "Her judgement is usually sound, and you have not seen her fight. She is good. But sometimes she has a bad night, and she tries to drink it away. Alone. And there are many men, and some women, who would take advantage."
Arseholes with no conscience are a universal constant.
Tamor hadn’t been locked up for getting in a fight. The guards had been pretty sympathetic on that point, since he had a good reputation and the merc did not. But unlicensed magic was apparently serious shit, and he’d been slapped with a 100 Eagle fine on top of the 20 Eagles for the licence. When he couldn’t pay they’d thrown him in a cell, and he was looking at several years of what was essentially slave labour overseas until everything was paid off.
Without Tamor, Makanna and Valmik were very limited in the jobs they could do without seriously risking their lives, and money started running out. Their friends had lent them some, but there was a limit to what they could afford. And when the money was almost gone, and the deadline before Tam got shipped off was only days away, Makanna had accepted the job in the mine. It was dangerous, they knew that, but it was their last chance. Makanna and Valmik had planned to go alone, and when Herald found out she was furious. The older adventurers had taken Herald along on a few simple jobs before, so after a lot of wearing-down Herald had convinced them to take her along.
“I know that I am not Tamor,” she said bitterly from on top of Melon. “I cannot fight like him, and I cannot spot danger like him. But I am good at what I do. I can shoot fast and accurately at fifty paces, a hundred or more if I take a second to aim properly. And I can spot things that those two would have never seen. I know that we would have all been dead without you, but I think that they would have been dead without me, no matter if you were there or not. And then I would have been alone!” I could hear the threat of tears in her voice. “Tam would get shipped off, and they would just never come back. And I would be left with no one and no money. What were they thinking? I would rather be dead with them than left behind!”
I believed her. I could have said something about Tam being the last one left if Herald had died with the others, but right now she felt every word she said. I understood Makanna and Valmik not wanting to risk her life along with their own, but of course Herald was angry! In their eyes she was still a kid. A kid that they had all helped raise, if I had it right. But she was seventeen, which is a whole thing in itself, and beyond that she was literally more advanced than others her age. Of course she wanted to be treated as an equal! And of course she didn’t want to be left suddenly all alone at a really confusing time of her life. It was a damned mess, and I hoped that they all would work things out before shit blew up.
At that point it had been a while since we left the main road, and it wouldn’t be much longer before we reached the bandits’ hidden path. Neither of us had said a thing since Herald’s short rant, but we weren’t as on-guard as we should have been, either.
“Hello, miss,” came a cheerful voice from the trees. There was a rustle of disturbed foliage from the opposite side of the road, and two men on horseback appeared on the road, cutting Herald off in both directions. They wore shabby leather armour and carried swords, with bows on their saddles, and couldn’t have looked more like outlaws if they tried. Herald had her bow with her, of course, but it was unstrung. Not that it would have mattered at that distance.
I froze among the bushes. Fuck! Fuck-fuck-fucking… Why had I been so careless? I should have smelled them if nothing else. Of course they would have people watching the road. They were bandits! Robbing people on the road was half of what they did!
Herald, to her credit, didn’t freak out. As soon as the men came out of the trees she was turning Melon to face them, so that she had them on her right and left instead of in front and behind.
“Where might a pretty girl like you be going this fine morning?” the man to her left continued. He had a long face, his hair cropped short, and I hated his smile.
“My, she’s a tall one, isn’t she, Paak?” commented the other with a serious look on his round, bearded face.
I couldn’t see Herald’s expression, but her voice was a little unsteady when she answered.
“I am on my way to visit some family.” She was side-stepping Melon slowly, putting her closer to the man on her right but also getting out of my way. Smart.
“Isn’t that nice, Tor?” the man called Paak said to the other one, as both began to close in. “But you must know that these roads are dangerous, miss. Why don’t you come with us, and we’ll keep you safe?
“I have some money–” Herald began, opening her cloak on one side to show her money pouch.
“I’m sure that you do,” the man called Tor said jovially. “But there is no need for that. Your company and cooperation will be reward enough, won’t it, Paak?”
“Indeed! Now, why don’t you get off that fine horse,” Paak said, loosening his sword in its scabbard, “and we’ll all go and get to know each other?”
Oh. Hell. No. That was far enough. Paak was almost right in front of me thanks to Herald’s manoeuvring, and Herald’s sword was still hidden under her cloak. With any luck they’d focus on me.
A switch flipped, I stopped thinking. I just acted. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t roar or hiss or spit venom. I simply crashed out of the bushes and launched myself at Paak. Of course, since I couldn’t use my wings among the trees I couldn’t leap and bowl him out of the saddle the way I’d wanted to, but I got high enough.
Paak reacted almost instantly, and the man was fast and strong. I went straight for his throat, but he batted my head away with his right arm while he drew his sword with his left. My head ringing, I dug my claws into the armour around his waist and dragged him from the saddle. As he fell he tried to stab me, and I felt a blow high on my chest, but the point of the sword skidded off my scales and rattled down my side. Thank you, Fortitude!
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
The bandit fell on top of me, screaming as he tried to manoeuvre his sword to cut or stab at me again while the other hand closed around my neck, just under my head. Unfortunately for him I had four clawed limbs. Clamping my talons around his armpits, I pulled my legs up and kicked at anything I could reach. I don’t know what killed him, or when. I just kicked over and over until he went limp.
Rolling the dead man off me I looked up and saw Herald sitting on Melon, who was stomping and snorting unhappily. The bandits’ horses were gone, and beyond Melon’s legs I could see Tor lying still in the dust, blood pooling around him.
“Herald!” I called up. She didn’t answer, or even move. I walked around Melon, leaving bloody prints behind me, and looked at her.
Herald was staring at the dead man. Her sword was in her hand, the tip of it red with blood, and she held it pointing at him.
“Herald?” I said again, more gently as my bloodlust slowly cooled. “Are you hurt, Herald?”
She turned her head slowly to look at me. “No,” she said distantly. “He never got his sword out.”
“Oh, okay,” I said lamely. “That’s good.”
“Yeah,” she said, and returned to staring at Tor’s body. “They were going to…”
“Yeah,” I said softly. “I think so.”
“Men look at me. They always look at me. Some words here and there. But no one ever…” She waved her sword slowly towards the corpse.
“They’ll regret it if they do,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. “You’re like a fucking snake with that sword.”
“I just reacted faster than him,” she said, then turned to look at me. “I never killed someone before.”
Oh, boy. The trauma kept piling up, didn’t it? And then I realised that I had just killed someone. A piece of shit who deserved it, sure. But I had killed a human being. I was covered in his blood from thighs to tail, and I could smell his innards cooling on the ground.
“Yeah,” I said. “Me neither.” I felt sick. My human side wanted to throw up, but the dragon saved me from that. Something must have come across to Herald, though, because her face changed. She looked less dazed, and more concerned.
“Are you okay, Draka?” she said.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. How could either of us be okay? “I think I will be?”
“Do you need a hug?” Herald asked, as though it was the most natural question in the world.
Did I need a hug? What kind of question was that? The dragon was outraged at the mere suggestion. That I, the mighty Draka, the terror of the forest, would accept pity from this soft creature. It was insulting. It was unforgivable!
Herald slid heavily out of Melon’s saddle and crouched in front of me. “Can I give you a hug?” she said, and I could see tears in her eyes.
“Yeah,” I said. “Sure.”
So she threw her arms around my neck, and with my head resting gently on her shoulders she cried softly into my scales.
----------------------------------------
“We should get off the road,” Herald said a few minutes later, releasing me and sitting back. She sniffled and wiped her eyes, then moved over to Tor’s body. She looked at him, then steeled herself. She bent down and rolled him over, and then started undoing his belt.
“Uh, what’re you doing?” I asked.
“They have swords and money pouches,” she said flatly. “No sense in leaving them here.”
“Right,” I said, turning to look at the other dead man. His face was oddly peaceful, considering that he was a ruined mess of blood and shredded meat below the waist. I had torn the belt while I kicked but the scabbard and money bag looked whole, if badly stained with blood, so after some hesitation I took them. I pried the sword out of his hand and slid it into the scabbard with some difficulty. I handed them to her.
“You, uh, probably shouldn’t look at the other guy. It’s pretty nasty.”
“Alright.” She strapped the two swords to Melon’s saddle and put Tor’s money pouch on her own belt.
“Here.” She put the strap of Paak’s bloodied money pouch over my head. “I will sell the swords in the city and bring you your share when I can.”
“Yeah, great,” I told her. “Hey, Melon’s pretty calm, isn’t she?”
“She is,” Herald said. She rubbed the mare’s flank, then plucked a small yellow fruit from her saddle bag and offered it to her. Melon grabbed it with her lips and crunched placidly. “She is not a trained warhorse, but I borrowed her from a mercenary I know. She has seen worse.”
“Should we get them off the road?” I asked.
Herald shook her head. “There is so much blood on the road that it will be obvious what happened here. The bodies may as well be found. Besides, the horses will likely find their way back home, and these two will be missed anyway.”
“I could…” I trailed off, swiping my claws through the air with no enthusiasm. “Make it look like a monster attack?”
“That… Yeah. Good idea,” Herald said, looking slightly sick at the idea. Placing her foot in a stirrup, she leapt smoothly into the saddle. “I will go on ahead. Then, let us continue,” she said, putting some courage into her voice. “I want to be back in the city before nightfall, and I need something to show the Wolves.”
I needed to work up some nerve, but I savaged Tor pretty convincingly. It felt wrong. He was already dead, and he’d been a piece of shit when he was alive, but desecrating a corpse like that still felt wrong.
At my insistence we stayed off the road after that, with me moving far enough ahead of Herald for her to be able to bolt if I found anything else. But no one else was watching the road, at least not here, and I showed her the secret path and where it joined the road. After pointing out the track and how easy it was to follow, I took Herald the long way around so that we approached the bandit camp from the south, along the hills, instead of from the forest. I showed her the path that led into the hills and above the camp, and pointed out the place with its wall and gate under the overhang. There was very little activity that I could see; either they were out, or the bandits were late risers.
After that we turned back. I followed her all the way back to where the forest ended and the fields began, the stone walls and a few towers of the city visible in the distance. We talked little over the hours, and only stopped to rest and water Melon. I kept wanting to apologise to Herald for putting her in danger the way I had. If there had been one or two more bandits on the road the outcome might have been very different. I should have known better. But every time I stopped myself. Herald, more than anything, wanted to feel free and capable. She wanted to show that she could handle herself, and she had. Besides, I felt that Herald would not be happy about an apology. Today had been hard on her, but she had a look of quiet satisfaction on her face that I didn’t want to disturb.
I wasn’t going to stop her taking risks if that’s what she felt that she needed to do. Even if I wanted to, it would be laughably hypocritical of me of all people to lecture her. I was only there because I decided to go spelunking alone, and then I made that worse by checking out a new opening. Crevices do not just appear in caves. If they do, something very bad has happened. And I, in my wisdom, had gone, “Hey, cool!” and jumped right in. So if Herald wanted to take some risks, I was right there behind her. Right now that meant making sure that she didn’t get killed leading these mercs to the bandits.
Among the rage, greed and jealousy that kept coming through, the dragon had one virtue. Dragons were patient. At least I was. So I found a tree, close enough by the road that I could keep an eye on it but far enough away and with leaves thick and shady enough that I was virtually invisible. There I climbed up, wrapped my tail around a branch, and settled in to wait.