There was a weird smell as we walked, and at first I thought it might’ve been someone’s lunch.

With the turts’ bags sealed tight, you had to wonder where. I’d left my bags with the turts, and Digrif, padding on beside me, had too. Hinte, on the other side, had kept her bags, but having bought that roast I wouldn’t guess she brought lunch.

Looking down from the haughty cliffs, the stone-shells were big rank boulders in front of me, but they moved. Gwynt and the prefect perched up there, and I would have smelt this on the black-tongued guard before now. Was it the prefect?

Throwing my gaze further, there was Rhyfel the younger and Adwyn up front, and Cynfe nowhere to be seen, not even behind.

When the wind turned and the smell waned, I tossed my head and kept on. Must be ambient. But slowly, the scent crept up again, now turned almost toothsome. Flicking a tongue, whirling the forks, you could catch details⁠ ⁠—⁠ coppery, and like boiled meat⁠ ⁠—⁠ and fill in the details: glasscrab meat.

They served it at the Moyo-Makao, always to a lot of applause. All I knew about cooking it was how delicate it was, scooping out only the good meat, with the shell all shattered and crizzly; and how long it took to cook, with the skin taking to heat like dirt. Cooking it was a day and a night’s work, but you did it for the taste.

The smell wavered and waxed with our march forward, until more details resolved: underneath and beside it were the smells of blood and smoke and spice. It made me slow down, and when I looked I saw more and more tongues waving.

This wasn’t the smell of a wild glasscrab.

I wasn’t sure what could cook meat in the lake. A dragon, out camping in the lake? But you couldn’t enter the lake without a sifting license. Were they trespassing? Or maybe they came here with a friend who didn’t tell that entering the lake is trespassing, and illegal. Completely understandable, really.

Hinte would’ve taken a mess of a detour into the lake⁠ ⁠—⁠ through the cliffs and caves and badlands⁠ ⁠—⁠ and it couldn’t be an accident. She didn’t even flick when Adwyn revealed her crime. And she said she’d sifted for almost half a gyra⁠ ⁠—⁠ but did you get that good at siftings that quick? On your own?

Hinte was smart⁠ ⁠—⁠ smarter than me, maybe. Ushra was that legendary alchemist, Gronte was that artificer turned fugitive. And yet, I couldn’t swallow that answer.

Adwyn hissed from somewhere up front, “Does any else smell cooked meat?”

“I do,” I said, amid a chorus of agreement from about everyone. “Smells like cooked crab meat.”

“Well,” someone started, “there’s a few sifting parties out this ring. Maybe they got a snack.”

“Mlaen canceled sifting today, idiot.”

“She can do that?”

A sudden scraping sound snapped off the conversation. You looked up⁠ ⁠—⁠ and a boulder stabbed down until it became a rock explosion! The sound was earthy thunder. A scar was gouged, a crater of rock and glass tears, and some blood that might’ve been a wormrat.

I was over by the rock in a leap, with Digrif and the prefect.

“Get away from the rock!” someone yelled, and it was Rhyfel.

There came a certain patting sound from behind, like the rain after the monumental thunder.

I was turning confusedly around⁠ ⁠—⁠ and a brown ape charged right at us! Snarling like a wildcat, wrapped in rags striped with grime, and lunging as if pouncing forth, it came at us⁠ ⁠—⁠ and the thing wielded a wicked bronze spear, and it was only like a spear. Something deadly, something known.

The spear went for the gray drake. He dodged out of the way, out of my sight. Then came his scream and I looked and there was another ape, and ropes were smacking against the cliff wall.

The new ape twisted its spear, and it pulled it out and there was his blood, dripping.

The black-tongued dragon was standing up, the white-cloaked dragon was standing up, the scarlet drake was coming, the orange drake was coming. There were swords out now. Three.

The green wiver was beside the other ape, and punched it. The ape staggered with a yell. I saw it’d stood over a bleeding pink drake and I saw the spear now stabbed at the drake again. In the sunslight the bloody thing seemed to glint.

With a tackle, the cliff-dweller was here now. The ape hit the gravel now, growling, and like that the spear was finally just a thing, rolling pathetically on the ground.

Pained, terrible yelling behind me. There was turn, and I was looking at an ape just strides behind me, restrained by a thick gray net that glinted baleful. Sizzling black burns touched its brown skin under the nets.

I smelt the ozone of magical lightning.

On the other side of the ape a blue-green wiver stood, fangs bared and lit bright in the sunslight. She wasn’t looking at me.

“Th–thanks.”

The blue-green wiver leapt over me.

Behind me, one ape now had a sword, and behind it a black-tongued cliff-dweller writhed with a belly open like a book. The gray drake, bleeding from his breast, lay on the ground still, but he sometimes moved. Near the cliff wall, the orange drake pinned the first ape, forefeet wrapped around its neck.

The dark-green wiver had a knife that didn’t glow, and another ape stood between her and a scarlet drake wielding his sword.

The prefect dashed up to them, and the ape lashed out once. The prefect bled in a gash just under the neck. And fell to the ground screaming.

The dark-green wiver stepped toward it. The scarlet drake stepped toward it.

The ape was shouting, looking around, and its face was contorting as if crushed by something. And it was wet, and streams of water rolled down from its eyes. The shouts became howls, until the scarlet drake lunged and wrapped a claw around its neck, and there was silence.

Someone shouted, and it was the adviser:

“Another one! From where we came!”

We turned. A fourth ape was treading toward us. It was naked, not wearing rags like the other two, and it walked slowly, on the hindlegs. The forelegs were extended, and both of the forefeet splayed; nowhere on it was a weapon.

A memory came from someplace distant, Chwithach telling me that apes were intelligent, but not equal to dragons. Did it want to say something with this? Emphasizing that it meant no threat?

This ape dropped to its knee, and it yelled, an utterance that was just a long string of garbage sounds. Some might resemble syllables, if something was very wrong with your throat. It yelled again, similar yet different, almost more familiar⁠ ⁠—⁠ and then again. The last one was something like intelligible:

“I go of peace dragon.”

Rhyfel let ape in foot fall, and it didn’t move. He measured his way forward, frills adjusting, tongue flicking, until he was steps from the ape, sword held in a way that could be the ape’s death in less than a breath.

The high guard spoke, telling us, “I reason it means I come in peace, dragons.”

“An odd demonstration,” Adwyn said, backing off his ape, and standing where he could see all three of them.

Rhyfel scratched his cheek, and when he spoke again, he had an in an accented voice pitched very high. It wasn’t y Draig.

The ape shifted its face, and there might have been something to read there, if you could read it. It spoke again, and there were sounds common with Rhyfel’s utterance. Of course, the texture was a world’s difference, and you wouldn’t have called it the same language if you realized it was language.

Rhyfel glanced at Adwyn. “It’s another Ulfame. That keeps things simple. It says it’s spoken with dragons before⁠ ⁠—⁠ and it claims we had some deal, and that we have betrayed them.”

Adwyn nodded. “With the thieves, most likely.”

Hinte jabbed a wing at it. “Ask why it isn’t attacking like the others.”

Rhyfel spoke again. The ape replied.

“It says its comrades were only grieving the ape you killed, and lashing out because of it.”

A sudden start in front of Adwyn. Onto the moving ape, he dropped a foot, and held the forelegs in wing. The ape was restrained like that, as it squirmed and whirled its head around. It saw the ape knelt in front of Rhyfel’s sword, and then it saw, laying on the ground by him, the motionless ape.

“You kill they monsters,” it howled, and it made more incomprehensible sounds.

Looking at that wet-faced, howling ape, and at the ape knelt down and curled in on itself, they seemed so small. The haunting creepiness of their visage remained, but the weakness tempered it. Between Cynfe, Hinte, Rhyfel, and Adwyn, the apes couldn’t hurt me.

“Adwyn,” I murmured, slipping toward him. “Just to be sure⁠ ⁠—⁠ the faer hasn’t any secret alliances or trade or whatever with the apes, right? Just checking.” I spoke low, and exaggerated the growling, hissing and clicking of my speech, spoke fast, and in general made it harder for the apes to grasp.

“Of course not.” He whisked a wing, and peered at me. “You’re thinking these apes must have been assisting the thieves⁠ ⁠—⁠ or whomever the thieves work for?”

“Well, sort of. I’ve no idea why, though⁠ ⁠—”

“I see it clearly: the thieves work with the humans from the shadows, but they saw them as game pieces⁠ ⁠—⁠ so killing them off was always in their plan, a plan which you⁠ ⁠—⁠ which we played blindly into.”

“Oh.” I said with my frills drooping.

Then I grinned. “Well, why don’t we wreck those plans?”

“What are you suggesting, Kinri?”

We’d been speaking lowly⁠ ⁠—⁠ but everyone was looking at us.

I said, “Hey Rhyfel-sofran, interpret for me please?” The big scarlet dragon glanced at Adwyn, and the adviser nodded.

“You got it,” Rhyfel said.

“Human!” I said. Rhyfel turned it to a few words, with deliberate, exaggerated pauses between them. He didn’t speak as quick as the apes. I continued, “You have been manipulated! We are not the dragons you worked with. They left you here, here to die!”

Rhyfel translated, and stumbled over one or two things before the human interrupted, standing up, and shouting. It was translated, “He asks who killed their comrades?”

I paused, some wide look on my face. I prayed the stars the human couldn’t read dragon faces.

“Ah, you see… there was something of a misunderstanding,” Adwyn said as I was still thinking my response. “The first of your friends was killed by a rockwraith, correct?” As he translated, Rhyfel made a slithering motion with his foreleg, hissing and flicking his tongue energetically.

The human turned its head to the right.

“He says yeah.” But he didn’t say anything.

“We found it⁠ ⁠—⁠ him, first,” I said. “But when my friend went to investigate, your friends mistook her for a rockwraith.” Hinte moved in the corner of my eyes⁠ ⁠—⁠ it looked to just put her knife up.

The ape made a cryptic motion with its arms.

“He asks why you stole their bodies, then.”

“To bury them.” I blurted.

Rhyfel translated. And there was silence.

Adwyn was nodding at me, and smirking. “Indeed. We are not your enemies, human. The other dragons are. The dragons who truly stole two of your friend’s bodies. We need your help to discover those real betrayers, the manipulators, and you can avenge your fallen friends.”

Rhyfel translated, “He says they will consider our offer, alone. He wants us to release the others, and return the bodies.”

“Kinri,” Adwyn said.

“What?”

“Do you see them cooperating?” he asked, still restraining an ape.

“We have no choice.” Hinte answered for me. “The thieves have two bodies. They can undermine our plan, as it stands.”

“Yeah. The thieves have the other bodies⁠ ⁠—⁠ so long as they do, we share a common interest.” I looked up. “And we have no idea where these apes came from. It could be a search party already, for all we know.”

Meanwhile, Rhyfel said something to the ape, and it made a harsh sound.

Adwyn hummed at me. “Well reasoned. I glimpse hope for you yet.”

“Um, excuse me?” I said, my voice taking on some ariose pitch. “I am not in courts of sky because I don’t wish to be, not because I am unable, Gyfari.”

Did I just say that aloud?

“Feh. You fooled me.”

Rhyfel sheathed his sword, and the human did not attack. Adwyn released his human⁠ ⁠—⁠ and it didn’t attack. Cynfe was over here, suddenly, and removing the net. That human got up, so slowly, and staggered toward its conspecifics.

Rhyfel was at the tortoises, pulling off the blankets, carrying the corpses to the humans.

I watched with my feet dug into the ground as the humans hefted the three corpses and one (hopefully) unconscious.

They walked toward the Berwem.

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There were still skinks twisting about. Smelly tentacle-snails crawled, and that might have been a lesser spider scuttling about. Anurognaths leapt from cliff faces, some eagle cawed very far away, and maybe the shadow of a dragon unawares drifted by.

The world didn’t stop, even as this final mission had. We picked up pieces, silently.

You knew things had gone awfully wrong when it was up to me to do heavy lifting.

I strained. Poor frail Digrif blurbled on the cusp of⁠ ⁠—⁠ death, yet somehow smiling, like the witness to a secret. He murmured something about heroes.

My forelegs clasped the black cloak threaded with blue and pink cloak, its green-scaled owner on the other side, and between us we lifted Digrif. Nearby, Gwynt, the prefect, and Ceian were also carried, uplifted by everyone’s cloak save my own. It was how we got the bodies up against the cliff wall, where we knew the vulture-bats wouldn’t try their stars.

You heard the fourth short ring trill in the distance.

The injured dragons lay against the wall, bleeding into the open. The guards brought no bandages.

On either side of me, were the uninjured or comparatively uninjured. Adwyn, the military adviser; Rhyfel, the high guard; Cynfe, the faer’s high secretary; Kinri, the dead weight; and Hinte, the alchemist.

We all looked to Hinte.

Adwyn spoke first: “Have you looked at all the injuries?”

“Yes.” She contracted her frills. “They will die before a flyer finds anyone. Perhaps they are already dead. Humans have poisons.”

Rhyfel took a step that could’ve started a lunge. He said, “Then what are you waiting for? I know you have potions.”

“Consent.” She hadn’t flinched. “Ask them if I may apply my alchemical mixtures to possibly alleviate or regenerate their wounds.”

The scarlet drake stared fire at her.

Meanwhile, the orange drake and the blue-green wiver were slinking over⁠ ⁠—⁠ to the prefect and Gwynt.

I paused, then found myself at the side of the warm-gray drake with a hole in his breast.

The heavy foot falls came⁠ ⁠—⁠ the high guard’s⁠ ⁠—⁠ and then Ceian’s voice.

“Hey Digrif,” I said.

He gibbered something. In there, somewhere, were the syllables of my name.

“This is important, so just nod okay? Hinte wants to heal you up with alchemy.”

Digrif’s head lolled.

Elsewhere, Rhyfel’s voice came, his tone like low yelling. Farther was Gwynt’s voice, firm and strained, and the prefect, some desperate pleading.

I poked the frail warm-gray drake. “C’mon. Heroes don’t⁠ ⁠—⁠ go out like this. You saved me⁠ ⁠—⁠ us. C’mon.”

A laugh, hissing. More gibberish⁠ ⁠—⁠ then something like a nod.

“Yes!” I lunged, and hugged Digrif, and got blood on my cloak.

I dashed back to Hinte and told her. She was already tending to the prefect, and the little gash under his neck. The thin cliff-dweller, naked without robes, wailed under the application of die Wundervernarbung.

Behind us, Rhyfel was still speaking, in that restrained yell, but Ceian’s voice rose to it, cutting in.

Soon the scarlet drake padded up behind while I twiddled halluxes, and watched Digrif slowly writhe.

“Ceian consents,” said the high guard. “Heal him.”

“He does not. I have frills.”

“I said heal him.”

“No.”

“Gronte-wyre⁠ ⁠—”

“Hinte. I am Hinte. Scion of Gären, heir of Ushra. I am not yours. You cannot order me.”

Rhyfel stood there, frills twisting slow. He drained of expression in breaths, as if building the sigh he expelled. “Ushra’s reputation has twisted you. Like an overgrown vine. Or a cancer.”

Hinte laughed.

As the drake walked away, she was whispering, “As I said, he isn’t as tongueless as he acts. As angry, as afraid as he is, and he doesn’t light to making threats. Even Adwyn does not manage that. Even Cynfe.”

Hinte stood up from the prefect. “I may not be acceptable as a guard now. And yet he does not brandish that.”

As we strode back toward Digrif, an orange drake stood a distance from the injured. Hinte glanced.

“Gwynt has declined your offer.” The adviser had a face weighed by sadness at wing’s length. He nodded once, and Hinte nodded back.

“Why? Do they think they can heal without Hinte’s help?”

“They don’t trust alchemy. It’s not right, it’s not natural. They’ll pray their bodies or the spirits might heal them.”

I shook my head, and we stepped away.

Hinte worked on Digrif, wiping die Wundervernarbung on his breast. Time passed.

Digrif had drifted off to sleep, and I’d watched Hinte apply die kleine Heylpflanze to Adwyn. Rhyfel refused. When Hinte went to check on Gwynt or Ceian, they wouldn’t allow her to apply anything at all, even bandages. Adwyn stitched up the cliff-dweller’s split-open stomach, and Rhyfel tied his cloak around Ceian’s chest riddled with spear holes.

I now stood away from the wall, watching Digrif lying there, healing. But my eyes tended back toward Gwynt or even Ceian. How they’d manage without alchemical support. Why they’d try such a thing.

Adwyn was beside me. He said, “I understand if you don’t wish to watch this. Cynfe has leapt away. You may too, I will find you when⁠ ⁠—⁠ it is all done.”

I looked at the adviser. His fangs weren’t out, and I kept mine in too.

I crouched and leapt, leaving two dragons healing by alchemy and two dragons whose fate was left to the endless stars.

----------------------------------------

The tenth long ring came in the quiet. A chime, yet it seemed a knell.

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I sat on a cliff and watched skylands float by. Lying on my back, frills full and eyes gazing sighingly at the sky, I couldn’t have missed the thudding footsteps drawing toward me.

“Who’s there?”

Instead of responding the tall cliff-dweller drake stood above me, face carved in deepest solemnity. I watched him, he watch me.

Rhyfel the younger finally said, “Gwynt is dead. Ceian is dead. I hope your peace with the apes is worth it.”

When I rolled over and stood, the high guard was padding his way down from my cliff.

I upturned my head and stared uncomprehending at the starless blue sky.

----------------------------------------

I stood on a cliff and watched suns drift by. Orbited by a harsh silence, I didn’t miss the scraping footsteps drawing toward me.

I didn’t mistake the grape smell, and as Hinte stood there beside me, I might have heard for the first time the silence that wreathed her.

Then she spoke. “Do not listen to what Rhyfel said, and don’t bother mourning the dregs. Their deaths are meaningless.”

"…Why?”

Hinte pressed a wing out of her cloak. In it was a pink phial.

“A mixture? I don’t get it.”

“Die Wundervernarbung. Enough to have healed them both. They refused. They died.”

“But… why?”

“This town loathes alchemy. Instead of taking the cure, they prayed to their false gods, their Dwylla, to save them.” Hinte waved a wing toward the four solemn dragons below. “This is the extent of his capability.”

I could only look up.

Breaths passed, and it might’ve been profane, but I tried a last time to say, “So Hinte, about earlier, I⁠ ⁠—⁠ I am sorry. Even if you don’t want apologies, I still shouldn’t…" But Hinte wasn’t there⁠ ⁠—⁠ she’d left before I opened my mouth.

* * *