"Wake up you lazy pile of shit!"

The shout was accompanied by a kick to the belly. Aytin whooped and jerked, instinctively curling into a ball.

"I said get up! There's work to do!"

Aytin cracked his eyes and slowly forced cold numbed muscles to work. They had doused him again last night. Just like every night since Xantha had left. And they made sure to use enough that no simple heated stone would keep him from succumbing to the cold.

There was no use lingering. They would just withhold his food. Or beat him. Usually both. He shoved himself to his knees as well as his bound hands would allow.

They had started tying him up again, too. At least it was only at night, and only in front. After all, it wasn't like he could fly anywhere. He rustled his wings on instinct and winced.

The gashes in his wings itched and burned, vertical slashes of dark bruising. Both wept a blue tinged, sticky fluid. And they were both constant sources of pain as the young dragonette forced himself to his feet.

"Hands," Nyx ordered, gruffly.

Wordlessly, Aytin extended his arms. With a few deft motions, the brigand removed his bindings. Then she shoved a handful of jerky and some nuts into his hands.

The dried venison might as well have been leather. Probably from the flank of the skinny deer that they had killed a few days before. The quartet of dragonnets who had remained to guard their prisoner hadn't bothered to share any of the better cuts.

He tried a nut. It wasn't much better. There was a bitter edge to it. Definitely too early in the season. But with the stingy rations that his captors forced on him he ate every bite, and wished for more.

Nyx had left the water buckets near the door. Empty, of course. If he wanted a drink, he would have to fill them himself. If he didn't want a drink, that was too bad. His captors had made it clear it was his job to fill them, no matter what he wanted.

The shell of the keep didn't have a functional well. Either there had never had one or, more likely, it was buried under a pile of rubble. A cistern survived, but it was a leaky ruin with only a thin skim of brackish water.

Aytin started walking.

As a rule, keeps rarely had their main entrance at ground level. It was so much more convenient to build a platform midway up. Takeoffs were so much easier when there was a little altitude to work with.

This keep's landing platform had long since rotted away. In fact, it was almost certainly the source of the massive hole in the wall. Most of the dragonettes preferred to come and go through that hole, even if it was awkward to get a running start inside of the ruins.

Aytin had to use the narrow postern gate. It was just one more reminder of his mutilation.

He didn't bother looking back as he left the keep. He knew Nyx would be watching from the ramparts. Probably with at least one more of her four fellows. They liked to operate in pairs, with two watching him and the others out foraging or looking for Faelon's corpse.

So far they hadn't found the dragon's body or the bounty of trade goods he had carried. The storm had made marking the exact crash sight impossible, so they had quite the area to search. But they were hopeful that they would find it soon.

Aytin idly considered what he would do if they followed through on some of the plans he had overheard. Faelon was massive, and he had carried a staggering amount of supplies. Who was to say what had made it down intact and what had been ruined?

Ratting them out to Xantha when she returned might be satisfying, but costing her any part of the trader's cargo was equally appealing.

The hilltop was fairly flat, with the remnants of a few outbuildings scattered around the keep. As Aytin approached the edge, it dropped off fast. More of a mesa than a hill, making it the ideal sort of location for dragonettes to build on.

To a person without working wings, it seemed much less appealing.

Aytin followed a narrow gully downslope. A loose rock slipped under his foot. He nearly stumbled and instinctively flared his wings for balance. That saved him from a tumble, but he let out a hiss of pain as the sudden motion pulled at the holes in his wings.

Cursing, he pushed on.

At least the sun had risen enough to peak above the crest of the hill. Aytin carefully extended his wings, just a little. It hurt, but the warmth felt good on his back. It helped to drive away the last of the night's damp chill.

The gashes pulsed with their own heat, in time to his heartbeat. It was the heat of a wound that was on the edge of festering. Angry blue swelling, edging towards black told the same story.

So far it was contained. The rest of the wing membrane was still its normal sky blue. But if that ever changed no healer, regardless of their skill, would be able to save the wings.

Aytin tried not to think about that as he trudged along.

The gully joined with another. A gentle gurgling along with a trickle of water coming from the other path revealed the spring was close. No more than a dozen strides away, in fact. A steady stream poured out from a crack had cut its way through the side of the rocky slope.

There was a place where the water spilled off the top of a small stone in a miniature waterfall. Aytin splashed through the pool below and stuck his head beneath it to suck down gulp after gulp of the cool, clear flow.

It had a sharp, metallic taste to it, almost like licking a steel blade. And there was a hint of a musty smell to it. But it was wet and the ragged dragonette hadn't had anything to drink since the night before.

He thought about filling the buckets from the now cloudy pool. But he decided against it. Just as he had every other time before.

'They'd dump it over my head and make me go back to get more. Probably give me a few new bruises, too.'

Filling the pair of buckets directly from the flow didn't take long. Aytin made sure to secure their rough lids for the trek back. He had forgotten once and lost most of that load before he made it halfway.

Going up the treacherous slope with two full buckets was hard work. He was panting when he reached the peak, and sucked down another gulp before leaving his burden just inside of the keep's walls.

Zan met him on his way out.

"Show me your wings," he demanded. Although it wasn't quite an order. More like a strong request.

When Aytin gingerly extended both wings, the other dragonette bent to examine the angry gashes with a disapproving eye. As he reached out to gently touch one of the wounds, Aytin recoiled in pain.

"Hold still." This time it was an order, and one backed by mithril.

Aytin did his best to comply, gritting his teeth and only shuddering as he was poked and prodded.

Soon enough, Zan straightened. "Wait here." He disappeared into the keep, and returned with a few jars along with a mortar and pestle.

One container held a dark and viscous liquid. A few drops of that were first in the mortar. They were followed by some dried green berries, brown leaves, and what looked like plain old yellowed grass. Finally, a scoop of some chalky white powder and a splash of water completed the concoction.

Zan grunted slightly as he worked to pulp the individual components into a smooth paste. Then he gathered a generous glob up with one hand and motioned for Aytin to extend a wing.

His touch still hurt, but this time it left behind a cool numbness. Wherever it went, the hot throbbing receded. Aytin relaxed muscles he never knew were tensed.

"Where did you learn this?"

The question just sort of slipped out. Aytin had avoided any interaction with his captors beyond taking orders. But unlike the rest, Zan had seemed to treat his role as that of a jailer, not a torturer.

"I used to work in an apothecary in the capital."

The reply was matter of fact, not the stinging rebuke Aytin had expected. It gave him the courage to ask, "How did you end up out here?"

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

This time Zan didn't answer right away. In fact, he gave his patient a piercing look. But eventually he did decide to respond.

"Do you know how hard it is to make a profit as an apothecary in the city? When there are a hundred others like you, who have been around longer than you have, and have relationships with all the traders to get first crack at the best ingredients?"

Zan never paused his treatment as he spoke. His hand continued to move, leaving numb relief in their wake. But he did look the younger dragonette in the eyes as he asked, "Do you know how much some people will pay you to ignore certain laws?"

"I don't understand."

The former apothecary sighed. "Do you know what the difference between the paleweed I used here and a tasteless poison that would stop your heart in a few moments is?"

With all of his questions, Zan sounded like some of the teachers from his childhood. But Aytin wasn't even sure what paleweed was, so he shook his head.

"A little oil, a little heat, and a little patience. And another thing," he continued as he moved on to the other wing. "Nobles hate each other. No." For the first time, he paused his ministrations. "No, hate is not strong enough. They absolutely fucking dispise each other. But they can't show it, and they certainly can't order a wing of their household guard to go off and assassinate one another. So they turn to people like me.

"Only one stupid bitch got sloppy and when the guard caught her they managed to figure out I was the one who had sold her an extra strong sleeping draught."

"Oh."

"Yeah." He gave the western horizon a dark look, as if he could see the capital from here.

"Only three things saved me." Zan had gone back to work, but ticked each one off on his free hand. "First, that bitch was so incompetent that she managed to get caught before pulling off the murder. Second, for all her failings, she at least kept her mouth shut. And third, it really was a sleeping draught. Just as long as you only used a spoonful at a time.

"So when they couldn't prove I had known what she would do with the stuff, they at least threw me into the mines instead of the ocean."

Aytin didn't know what to think about that. He just stood in silence until Zan finished smearing the goop over his wounds.

"I'll probably need to do this again at some point," the apothecary-turned-brigand commented as he gathered his supplies together. "Let me know when it starts to throb. This sort of burn tends to get infected, and Xantha made me swear to keep you in one piece. At least, as long as you behave."

He said the last bit as he made his way into the keep to put away his gear. Iit was a not so subtle reminder that even if Zan wasn't as nasty as the others, he wasn't a friend, either.

That thought was reinforced when Zan emerged from the keep with an ax over one shoulder and a crosscut saw held loosely in his other hand. "Time for cutting some firewood. You had better get walking." He pointed downslope, towards where a small copse of trees grew not far from the foot of the hill.

It was a long way down, but for once being a prisoner worked to Aytin's advantage. There was no way his captors would trust him unsupervised with anything resembling a weapon. So he made the trek unburdened.

Zan touched down nearby as Aytin arrived at the trees. He'd been circling above, keeping an eye on the crippled dragonette. Not out of any sense of protectiveness, of course.

Wordlessly, he set the saw against a trunk and then took off again. He alighted on top of a boulder that had come loose from the nearby hill uncounted years before. It was a perch that someone without wings would be hard pressed to climb.

Aytin retrieved the saw along with the water skin next to it, and he got to work.

He went to the tree he had been working on for the past few days. Judging by the char, lighting struck it a few years before, and sometime since then a windstorm had blown it over.

The handsaw bit easily into the dry wood. If he worked hard, Aytin could have the day's firewood cut before the sun traveled much past its peak.

He wasn't working hard.

'What's the point? They don't care how long it takes to finish as long as they don't have to do their own scut work.'

A pile of rounds began to build. When Aytin had four logs ready for splitting, Zan flew down. Setting up a dozen paces behind his charge, the former apothecary began to use his ax to reduce the first of the logs into more manageable sized chunks.

A rustle of wings announced a new arrival.

"I'm just so glad to see the two of you working so hard." Nyx's voice positively dripped with sarcasm.

Aytin had only added a single additional log to the pile since the splitting had begun. From the slow thunk of the ax, it was obvious that Zan hadn't been particularly keen on his own work.

"Go fuck off, Nyx. There isn't shit to work on and you know it."

"What do you call fixing up our home?" she snapped. "I'm the reason there's a roof over the lookout post."

"A roof protecting against what? Besides that big storm and the drizzle the next morning, it's rained maybe twice in the last two months!"

"Rainy season is coming. You'll be glad of that roof when it hits."

"By then we'll be swimming in gold and out of this dump. Why should we care about fixing up a place we're gonna leave?"

"Because there is no guarantee that we'll see a single bent copper from that crippled whelp. And what then?"

"Xana will get us our money." Zan said it like it was a pronouncement delivered to him directly by a god.

Aytin could almost hear the exasperated ear flick Nyx gave in response. "She's full of herself from that trick with that artifact, whatever the watery hells it is."

"The barometer."

"Whatever. Just because she knows which way's north and figured out how to convince some trader she can predict the weather doesn't mean she's fucking omniscient. I mean, look at him!" She snaked her head towards their prisoner. "He's a scrawny fourth-born son. We'll be lucky to get ten gold off of him."

Aytin stiffened slightly at the comment. But he didn't have any honor left to defend. And deep down, he figured that she was right.

"She'll get us our money," Zan repeated. "Maybe not as much as she hoped, but nobles are loaded. Especially ones that own a copper mine."

"Just give me the damn ax." Nyx snatched the tool from her comrade's outstretched hand and started at the next log with a will.

Meanwhile Zan took his time gathering an armful of split firewood and took off towards the keep. Aytin was quietly grateful they didn't make him carry it, but he doubted that he could move enough in a day to keep the fires lit.

"Get back to work!"

The young dragonette jumped at the snarl. He had paused to watch the argument. The bickering between his captors was the closest thing to entertainment he had. But unlike Zan, Nyx wouldn't hesitate to beat him if she thought he wasn't pulling his weight. He forced himself to resume his cutting.

When Zan returned, he wordlessly swapped positions with Nyx while she took a much larger armful of firewood than the male had.

"Who the fuck does she think she's showing off for," Zan muttered to himself. But he did chop a little faster than he had before.

The cycle repeated twice more. Aytin was starting to worry that he wouldn't be able to keep up with Nyx's pace. If she returned and found no logs ready to split, well...

Thankfully, she only gave him and his half cut length a disgusted look. "You can pack it in. We're done." To Zan she said, "Juniper and Opal are flying this way, so you won't have to strain your precious wings with more trips."

"Fuck off, Nyx. I pull my weight. I just don't feel like wasting my time on stupid shit."

The other two dragonettes in their little group chose that moment to land, forestalling the coming argument. Personally, Aytin was disappointed. Nyx hated the male almost as much as she hated her young captive. The difference was that Zan's skills and position meant she couldn't take it out on him physically.

She had actually threatened to do just that during a shouting match on their first evening alone. The trained apothecary had gone quiet before asking if she knew what the antidote for green dragon poison was. That had shut her right up.

But while the threat of physical violence was off the table, Aytin still took a measure of satisfaction at the sight of the two going at it.

"Did you find anything?" Nyx asked the pair of newcomers.

"A brace of rabbits," Opal replied, holding up the pair of dead animals.

"And whoever lived here before must have planted some apple trees because I found a few on the western edge of the clearing," Juniper chimed in.

"They're still green, though. And they're tiny."

"They'll be fine in a week. Two, tops."

"It has to have been a hundred years since anyone lived here. Those trees have gone wild."

"So what if they're small. Apples are apples!"

The pair were always like that. But despite the constant bickering, they were inseparable. And also nearly indistinguishable, save for Juniper having her earrings set with jade and Opal wearing a pair with iridescent white stones.

Nyx cut off the debate before it could get any further. "What about finding where that damned dragon crashed? You two said you were going to search for it." There was an expectant note in her voice.

"We couldn't find a thing.”

"Maybe he landed in a lake."

"Yeah, but Kalthor says he saw him fall in the forest."

"I didn't see him fall."

"Are you going to tell a dragon that he's a liar?"

Aytin uncapped the waterskin to take a drink as he watched the show. As he did, he idly scanned the forest in the distance.

And as his eyes passed over a particularly dense clump of trees, he froze.

He was still staring at a point on the treeline when Zan's voice registered.

"Are you deaf or something? Hand it over."

Aytin looked dumbly at the other dragonette's outstretched hand, then realized he was still holding the loaned waterskin. Wordlessly, he passed it over.

Feeling the weight, Zan scowled. Then he noticed the puddle of water at the other dragonette's feet. "Fucking inconsiderate shit," he snarled as he stopmed off.

Aytin didn't care. It might have been only for a few moments, but he knew what he saw. And it meant whatever punishment Zan or any of his other tormentors could think up meant about as much as a wingbeat in a storm.

Something was watching them. And even if it was too far to make out details among the trees, Aytin didn't need any to know what was out there. He could see its color clearly enough.

Whatever was out there, it was the black of corruption.