Astrid continued to sip her coffee and snack on the biscuits even after the patrons started screaming. Felix was the first to stand. He rushed through the coffee house against the flow of the panicked patrons. The hostess was screaming in one corner, covering her head, while the two servers were ducking away from the kitchen. Two plump men ran out of the kitchen, chased by an old Rilnese man armed with a rolling pin.

His blue eyes were lifeless. His motions were jerky and uncoordinated. He lurched forward and took a feeble swing at Felix. He was rewarded for his efforts promptly with a punch to the face that would not have been outrageous in a pit fight. The man's skull buckled inward with a sickening crack as his neck snapped. He tumbled onto the ground, trembling.

"Are there any other Rilnese workers?" Felix snapped.

"No sir!" one of the bakers replied.

"Everyone remain calm!" Felix bellowed. "Stay inside!"

"I knew this man," Shane said, looking down at the twitching body on the floor. "Gone, completely gone. Nothing alive in those eyes."

There was an explosion outside, somewhere in the city. The force of the blast rattled the windows of the coffee house. Stones and shattered glass collapsed onto the tiles outside. This was followed by the distinctive roar of a fully-transformed drake.

Felix turned to face Astrid, who remained unphased at her table. "I need to go!" he shouted. Then he shoved his way through to the door and sprinted out into the central square, glancing around frantically at the rooftops. Dozens of citizens were fleeing from Rilnese workers, who were mindlessly attacking with butcher's knives or broken chair legs. Directly to the north, across the square, a blue drake was slowly rising from the ruins of a building. The beast twisted its neck around and puffed up its chest.

Felix knew exactly what was about to happen. He covered his eyes with one arm to block out the blinding azure light. Waves of heat washed over him as the drake razed the nearby ground. The air smelled of burning flesh.

"I will protect the civilians if I can," Shane said, levitating just a few inches above the ground. "It seems that we must be allies."

Felix nodded. Then, he sembled.

The copper-laced tiles of the street fell away, and then cracked apart as Felix pressed his massive claws down. His wings took up most of the empty space in the square, making a takeoff tricky. The blue drake was struggling to free itself from the crumbling building. It would need to die before it managed to take flight. The blue drake seemed to notice Felix for the first time, and it began to draw in breath in response.

Not enough time to kill it with fire.

Felix charged forward into the drake's blind spot, with all four of his limbs clattering along the disintegrating road. He snapped out with his jaws, caught the enemy drake by the throat, and crunched down. A feeble stream of blue smoke escaped the drake's maw. In one practiced motion, Felix ripped the drake free from the building and tore into its throat with his claws. Empowered by Astrid's blessing, his claws easily pierced blue scales, flooding the building with blue blood and chunks of flesh. Its body began to disintegrate, leaving behind a mauled human corpse.

Turning to face the square, Felix flapped his great wings and began to sprint forward on all fours. However, Felix realized that takeoff would be impossible without severely injuring his wings. He buffeted the air against vertical wings and came to a stop in the center of the square.

Felix heard the sound of thunder. He turned to see Shane shooting bolts of lightning from his palms, incinerating his own kin. Waves of wind reverberated around his body. "You cannot leave on your own!" Shane cried, his voice amplified by the wind magic. "I might be able to help you get over the city walls. I will stay and protect the Purple Dragon!" Waves of wind washed over Felix. Like a seabird hovering over a beach, he caught the wind in his outstretched wings and angled his entire body down. This created a tension between gravity, pulling him forward, and the free airspeed, pushing him back.

It was enough. The road began to drop away, and with a little patience Felix was able to ride the wind high enough to take him clear of the rooftops. From the landing yard, the other paladins were beginning to take off, frantically beating their crimson wings, curving in long arcs toward the north. Huge plumes of smoke rose from the city streets below, and from a slightly higher altitude Felix was able to make out the shining blue scales of enemy drakes directly below the soaring paladins.

Why don't they fight? Felix wondered. The leading red drake began a base turn for approach to the north west quadrant of the city. That's the approach for the Viscount's courtyard. An emergency summons?

Felix put this thought out of his mind, and turned his attention to the blue drake just below. It was smashing its claws into the crumbling buildings on either side of an alley. With one brave leap it managed to free itself from its narrow prison. Felix heard a snapping sound every time the creature's wings struck the buildings on either side. It was willing to kill itself. It began to rise above the rooftops, although it was unable to prevent its tail from gyrating.

Even with the blue drake in full pursuit, the train of red drakes continued on their paths. With a quick glance to either side, Felix took in a mental image of the air just behind him. No enemies following from behind. It was safe to fall back and line up to attack. The blue drake mindlessly began to pull ahead. Felix simply waited for the beast to cross into his cone of fire. He took a deep breath, and then struck the blue drake with a long lance of crimson flame, taking off one wing.

To one side, three drakes were attacking an airship. With bouts of azure flame, they cut long gashes in the gas bags keeping the craft aloft. The wooden hull of the ship began to plummet, too far away for Felix to react. A death sentence for the sailors on board. The three blue drakes turned their attention to Felix and the train of red paladins. They roared, blasting flames into the sky overhead, flapping about wildly. The red drakes, his own allies, essentially ignored the peril.

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Focus on the fundamentals, Felix thought. He ran away, trading his airspeed for vertical. Astrid's blessing remained in effect, enhancing his strength as he ascended. The three enemies did not coordinate, and instead followed him into the vertical, nearly colliding with each other. A head-to-tail circle would be acceptable here. I am much faster than they are.

The head-to-tail circle was tilted, like a coin standing on one edge. Keeping them in sight, Felix continued to slowly loop inverted, pointing his head down at the city streets. Then he fell, cashing in vertical for airspeed just as the enemy was struggling to ascend. Not surprisingly, the zombified drakes lacked any semblance of discipline. They immediately began to hover in one spot, with their tails twisting like springs, so they could take shots at Felix with their blue flames.

His higher airspeed allowed him to simply roll out of their nose cones. Felix tilted vertically, then relaxed his tail wings, causing his main wings to catch against the incoming air, entering into a divergent feedback loop, an unstable, violent motion that flipped him toward the pack. Perhaps indulging in the moment for too long, Felix breathed out, sending a column of death straight through the first drake and into the second. In the matter of moments, the third drake attacked, but it was too late. A slightly-delayed lance of flames struck its opening maw, severing the head. Smoldering bits of wing and sinew floated in the air above the city.

And there, far below, just over the sound of the alarm bells, Felix could hear people cheering.

He had lost track of exactly where he was relative to the other red drakes. He had drifted close to the approach path for landing at the Viscount's cottage. The watchtower was flashing, an emergency message to the Draconic Paladin contingent. The first drake in the train was just about to touch down on the marble-tile courtyard, and the next drake in line was turning for final.

Felix waited for a space to clear up on the approach to the Viscount's courtyard. In the meantime, he patrolled near the city walls, ripping the wings off of any blue drakes he could find, mostly out of boredom. The sun had crested the mountains and bathed the smokey city with eerie golden rays by the time a slot in the train was available. Felix lined up and made an unremarkable landing on the marble tiles of the courtyard.

The other paladins were lined up at the edge of a neat lawn. The Viscount stood on a small platform between two fountains at one end of the courtyard. The old man had dispensed with the usual, ornate regalia of his office, in favor of drab tan clothes, a leather hat lined with fur, and a pair of glass goggles. Felix approached the group in his human form, and the Viscount regarded him coldly.

"Paladin Felix, why did you not answer the summons? The instructions in the signal were clear. We are to evacuate the city immediately without fighting."

"Evacuate? For what purpose? Many of the enemy drakes are already dead."

The Viscount reached into his jacket and pulled out a sheet of paper. He offered it to Felix.

High Ministry Contingency Orders - Category B - Situation 14 - General Uprising of Rilnese Workers Including Enemy Draconic Assets: Allied draconic military assets south of the Black River region are to immediately evacuate and regroup in the city of Black River. The enemy is not to be engaged. Critical political assets, including the local Viscount and any noble family members, are to be carried during the evacuation. Further orders will be furnished once the assets reach Black River.

"Abandon the city?" Felix said incredulously. "Absolutely not. Where is the Lord Paladin? Does he know about this?"

"The Lord Paladin is unconscious," one of the other paladins said. It was a younger paladin, a man named Liam. His massive dark red beard hid any expression.

"Then who is the ranking Draconic Paladin in the city?" Felix asked. He glanced around, and knew the answer even before Liam responded.

"You are," Liam said.

"Indeed, and I invoke the Principle of Subsidiary. We will protect the civilians in this city." Felix began to rapidly issue orders to the other paladins, assigning two paladins to protect each quadrant of the city from enemy drakes. Each soldier saluted and marched away in turn.

"The High Ministry will hear about this," the Viscount protested.

"The High Ministry does not have local knowledge," Felix hissed. "I do. There is no reason to abandon the city right now. I have given my commands." He turned and left the old man by himself in the courtyard.

As Felix walked away, he felt a hand on his shoulder. "Do you know what you have done?" Liam asked. His red eyes seemed to glow in the light of the dawn. His blood red uniform was unkempt.

"What do you mean?" Felix asked.

"You killed twelve of those bastards," Liam said. "I have never seen anyone fight like that before. I don't think any of us have. You were killing drakes that we couldn't even see. When you gave me orders I almost soiled my trousers. What happened to you?"

Felix turned away. "I am needed in the city center."

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

A long wall of Rilnese corpses, shaped like a semi-circle, framed the space outside the coffee house. Shane, with his blue hair shining in the sunlight, stood side-by-side with Brigid. Across from them, in an uneasy standoff, a Quarian man sat atop a horse, flanked by two ruffians with crossbows. Felix made a hard landing on the copper tiles behind the three Quarian men and began to semble into his human form.

As Felix approached the man on the horse, he took first notice of the blood-red armband that decorated each arm. The man wore a plain-white uniform that had been soiled with blood and mud. He did not seem to be afraid. In fact, he looked at Felix with disdain as he approached.

"Friend Paladin," the man said. "I am Commander Gero, of the Heritage Militia. I was expecting your kind to flee the city."

"Enough! Why are you here? What business do you have with my companions?"

"Companions?" the soldier asked. "These two foreigners must be killed. When the Rilnese armies arrive, they will kill the children while the mothers are forced to watch. They will cook the children and force the mothers to eat them. They seek to exterminate us. We must tolerate no foreigners in our city!"

"You say nothing that I have not heard your ilk say before," Felix said. "The one with purple hair has a short temper. I am surprised you yet live. The founder of your order is an oathbreaker and a fraud. Furthermore, I will not tolerate threats against my companions. Now get out of my sight."

Commander Gero looked fearful as he twisted his horse around and trotted off.

"Welcome back," Shane said. "Just in time it seems. Those people made strange allies up until the point the enemy had been routed. Then they became suspicious."

"Heritage Militia," Felix sneered, "come out of the woodwork looking for a fight."

The blue-haired man walked forward and knelt in front of the wall of corpses. His own kin, slaughtered like animals. He said nothing.

Brigid approached Felix. "The Princess is pleased with her breakfast, however she finds the noise offensive."

"This is all her fault," Felix answered.

"Dispossess yourself of that attitude," Brigid said. "When you go inside to face her, throw yourself at her feet and acknowledge your inadequacies as her servant."

Felix sighed. "That might be for the best."