They had passed the smudge of the trading post when the poachers attacked.

They were trundling along in silence when Chesfi spun, snarling, and leaped off of the wagon over their heads. She shifted size as she soared, landing on something they could not see with a scream that turned Tseetsaa’s insides to water.

Chesfi’s action was what saved them.

Almost as quickly as Chesfi moved, Kachaark was turning, his crossbow lifting to his shoulder and firing in one smooth motion.

Their fighters were following Chesfi’s lead, shifting to put the wagon at their backs. There was a snap, then the wagon stopped moving. That would have been concerning, but Tseetsaa had heard it often enough now to know it was Sinchach breaking the enchantment that propelled the wagon.

Singmij had suggested they start warding the wagon as soon as they had turned off the road, so now Nuliyaa and Miyt crouched inside, a stack of warding sigils at their sides as they waited for the existing sigils to start wearing out under the pressure of the attack. Tseetsaa scrambled to the middle of the wagon and stood tall in the middle with her legs spread slightly to brace against the rocking of the wagon. Her hand dropped into the bag of sigils hanging down from her shoulder.

Nuliyaa and Miyt did not have to wait long. Whatever mages were among the attackers, because there were definitely more than one this time, started raining down on the wagon with sigils. It felt like a horde of strong-armed children were pelting the wagon with pebbles. Sinchach was hunched down, hands flashing and muttering words as he worked on some spell.

“Noise!” Tajak snapped as he fired bolt after bolt. “Make noise for the dragon!”

That was right. If they had any hope of surviving this, they needed the dragon to come. Tseetsaa felt her lips lift with a tiny smile. She could make plenty of noise.

She reached into the bag and pushed aside the controlled wind that Sinchach had her using during the last couple of attacks. She wasn’t even sure they would be effective when they still couldn’t see their attackers. She dug deeper before her fingers finally hooked around the twine she’d wrapped around the stack she wanted. She pulled the stack out and grabbed the first off the top. She cocked back her arm and she threw one sigil after another, focusing on the directions where the wards seemed to be taking the most damage.

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

Their fighters fell to their knees against the force that ripped away from those booms. Nuliyaa and Miyt dropped against the wagon as Tseetsaa threw up her arms to protect herself.

A scream ripped through the air and then half of the attackers were visible.

“You hit one of the mages,” Tajak said in awe. He flashed a quick grin at her before aiming his next bolt at one of the now-visible attackers. Heat pooled in her cheeks.

“Good work!” Cheeyt called. “Try not to kill us!” The heat flashed through her again when she saw the cuts across Cheeyt’s cheek.

Then Sinchach jumped up, pushed past Tajak, and started blowing a powder off of his palms. The stream of powder just kept going, far beyond what he would have been able to hold in his hands, spreading and settling on the bodies of their attackers.

And there were so many more attackers than they had dealt with previously.

It felt like Tseetsaa’s heart was seizing up as she took in the people swarming them.

Then she reached back into her bag for the wind gust sigils she’d pushed aside before and she started throwing them as fast as she could aim. Sinchach, done with the powder, started throwing sigils as well.

But the opposing mages, now that their invisibility spell was down, were focused on taking out their sigils before they could land.

Tseetsaa heard Chesfi snarl and whipped around to find the Malk, then froze.

They’d caught her in a net.

Chesfi was throwing herself around, her movements becoming more and more frenzied as the net caught around her. Her snarl turned to a terrified scream.

And suddenly Tseetsaa knew how they had caught her the first time.

Nuttulch pulled an ax and jumped to her defense. More of the attackers turned to face him, driving between Nuttulch and the others. Saknuu was fighting ferociously with a short sword Tseetsaa had never even seen before, trying to get back to Nuttulch’s side.

Kachaark cried out, dropping to a knee for a moment before surging forward with his horns leading. When he pushed to his feet, one arm hung limply.

Singmij’s crossbow went flying. She dove for her ax and pushed into the attackers. Cheeyt was cursing, though whether it was because Singmij was now in the middle of the people she was trying to shoot or because she knew it was getting bad, Tseetsaa didn’t know.

And Tseetsaa wanted to curse, too, because Singmij was in the middle of the people she’d been targeting.

Tseetsaa’s world went white with pain. She dropped with a scream, curling toward her left side.

“Tseetsaa!” Miyt screamed, suddenly crouching next to her. Her mother pressed her side and she tried pushing her off. That hurt!

Nuliyaa grabbed her arm. “Tseetsaa, stop!”

Was Nuliyaa crying? Nuliyaa never cried.

“Sinchach! Get the wagon!” Tajak yelled.

Tajak never yelled. What was going on? She looked down. Her side was soaked in red. Did they have a bottle of wine in their supplies? That didn’t seem like something Nuliyaa would have spent money on.

Then her mind drew the connection between pain and red and she realized she was hurt.

“Here.” Sinchach passed up a healing sigil. “Put this on her.”

“She’s bleeding so much! Give us more!” Nuliyaa snapped.

“No, then she’ll fall asleep.” Sinchach pulled back before Nuliyaa could grab any of the other sigils from him.

“Nuliyaa, calm down,” Miyt said, taking the sigil and repeating the spell as Sinchach spoke it for her.

“Singmij!” Cheeyt screamed. Tseetsaa couldn’t see what happened, but it had to have been bad.

Sinchach muttered something, then jumped back off the wagon. “Nuliyaa,” Miyt said as she knotted the littiichangs over Tseetsaa’s hip. “Go back to work.”

“Miyt—”

“Back to work, Nuliyaa! Before we all get hurt.” Nuliyaa scurried to lay down a warding sigil that had just burned into nothing.

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Miyt leaned closer to Tseetsaa. “Press hard, here,” she said. Then she grabbed Tseetsaa’s bag and stood up. She pulled out one of the sigils and threw, muttering the spell Tseetsaa herself had been repeating over and over again. She heard wind and knew Miyt had hit true.

“We don’t have many of these left,” Miyt said, her voice so dead calm that Tseetsaa somehow knew her mother was terrified.

Then sound blasted over them. A sound that she recognized as a roar after her body had already thrown herself down among their supplies. Miyt crouched down over her, her arms sheltering Tseetsaa’s head.

A shadow that stretched far wider than Tseetsaa could process brought darkness for a moment. The dragon roared again. Kachaark bellowed back, then Chesfi’s screams died before she called as well.

The attackers turned their weapons on the dragon, firing as they ran. The dragon dove among them and Tseetsaa saw more than one fall before the dragon looped around to come back to them.

Kachaark limped in his direction, all weapons discarded. Nuliyaa jumped off the wagon to follow.

“Thank you, great one!” the Minotaur called.

“Why are you thanking me, trespassers?” the dragon growled.

***

How were they going to convince the dragon to let them pass peacefully?

Every step Nuliyaa took to follow Kachaark ached, but she pushed herself to keep up.

Then Chesfi was at her side and Nuliyaa leaned against her flank gratefully. Though she wasn’t sure who was holding who up. Perhaps they needed each other.

“The Posow Pounce greets you, Great One! You have our deepest gratitude,” Chesfi said, stopping to bow deeply with her forelegs stretched out in front of her. The dragon’s gaze jumped to her. “Our pursuers were very determined to bring us harm.”

“These—” the dragon used his tail to motion to the rest of their group “—do not look like the Posow Pounce.”

“Yes.” Chesfi gave a ripple of her shoulders that must have been a shrug. “They are hirelings. I am returning from Keeyl.” Chesfi bumped Nuliyaa and Nuliyaa bowed as deeply as Chesfi had. Kachaark was already down as much as his injuries were allowing him.

“Your hirelings do not belong in my territory.” Steam flowed out of his nostrils. “I barely tolerate your kind.”

“We felt we had to warn you,” Nuliyaa blurted out when it didn’t seem that Chesfi had figured out how to reply to that.

“Your hireling is speaking to me,” the dragon said to Chesfi.

“She has human manners,” Chesfi said apologetically. Nuliyaa almost fell over. She hadn’t known Chesfi even knew how to be apologetic. “We did need to warn you. Poachers seem to have settled at the river crossing and they have gotten bold enough to test your borders.”

“I doubt they are bold enough to try for me,” the dragon said, almost looking like he was smirking.

“Perhaps not,” Chesfi said, “but they have been bold enough to steal away many Malks and Pucas.”

“Why does that bring you to my territory?”

Chesfi hesitated again. “We have important information,” Nuliyaa murmured low enough that only Chesfi could hear her. Or so she hoped. How good was dragon hearing?

Apparently not as good as she feared because the dragon didn’t look at her. Or maybe he just thought her insignificant enough not to pay attention to.

Chesfi must have agreed with her prompting, because she continued, “I discovered important information about these poachers while in Keeyl and I am returning to report. I beg permission to cross your territory in order to return this information sooner.” She tilted her head, turning a contrite expression that made Nuliyaa want to snort. “We would have followed the appropriate protocol to request an audience with you had we not been attacked.”

The dragon’s eyes narrowed. “Oh? And what gift have you brought me?”

Nuliyaa’s mind blanked. They didn’t have anything in the wagon that would impress a dragon. It was mostly food. And of that food, they had a lot of rice. She doubted the dragon enjoyed a rice-based diet.

Soft footsteps made her glance over her shoulder. Miyt had approached, her latest project spread wide in her hands.

The littiichangs almost gleamed under the sunlight from the sheen of the fabric and thread. The embroidery, stitched from a dark blue thread that almost sparkled, it was so fine, also showed glints of beads. Nuliyaa hadn’t realized her mother had been making a dragon pattern.

Shockingly, the dark blue thread almost matched the color of the dragon’s scales.

Normally, Miyt worked with everyday fabrics and sturdier threads to make garments appropriate for the markets near their apartment in Wumaltsmaas. But she had used the last of her income from her sales to purchase the silks, wanting something special to sell in Nengmek. Singmij had encouraged her, saying such goods were even more rare in Nengmek than in Wumaltsmaas and that she would easily be able to find a buyer. The money from that project would have gone a long way toward supporting them while them company grew.

“Miyt,” Nuliyaa whispered, her heart breaking. She didn’t want her mother to give up those hours of work.

Kachaark limped over, took the littiichangs almost reverently, and turned back to the dragon. “Your gift, Great One.”

The dragon examined the littiichangs for a long time. Nuliyaa found herself holding her breath.

“Closer,” the dragon demanded and Kachaark obeyed, though Nuliyaa saw the way he winced every few steps.

When he was close enough, the dragon leaned forward and touched his snout to the fabric. “Soft,” he murmured. His eyes almost crossed as he looked. “Sparkles.”

He abruptly sat back on his haunches. “Your offering is accepted.” He snatched the littiichangs, somehow being gentle enough not to rip it with his claws even though Kachaark barely released it in time. He turned on three legs, the littiichangs still pinched between the claws of one paw. “I will monitor your passage. If you stray from your line, I will have great delight in hunting you.”

They all bowed again. “We are honored, Great One,” Chesfi said.

He crouched, then launched into the air and flew away.

“Never been saved by clothing before,” Kachaark said, flashing a wide smile at Miyt

“No, it is not a common weapon,” Miyt said dryly. Then she motioned them back to the wagon. “Go see Sinchach! Now, before you bleed to death!”