Exhaustion drags at his movement. His body cries out for rest. If he stays still for another minute, he will curl up and sleep until morning. Until the Merchant marches in.
So, he hauls himself up and drags his body forward and to the left, seeking the desk.
Step four. Bring flameweave near Remara.
He doesn't have energy left to call out to her. He staggers into the side of the desk and follows it around to the handles, then... then...
Up again?
Once again, he wants to scream. He can barely keep his head up, much less lift his claws to climb.
This time, when the story rolls off his tongue, his voice is ragged. "An' the prince couldn't lift the sword no more, but took out daggers!" He pictures the prince of the story, bleeding all over and swaying on his feet, still lunging into the fight, and Ha'Drak snaps his teeth around the first handle.
Never givings up. Am fight all the ways. Face on Merchant, big confused when blind voidflyer vanish. I wins if I gets away. I wins!
He flips over the edge of the desk, sobbing at the effort. He rolls over once, twice, and fetches up against Remara. All at once, the cocoon of heat around him disappears as she absorbs his cargo. He waits to hear her voice.
Nothing.
Is one more step. Five. Drag books over.
His chest clenches at the thought of precious pages on fire. He shakes it off, scolding himself. "Is just... stupid numbers-books," he pants. "Returns... bad book... before, yes? Is like... that. These dumb. Boring... is fine to burn!" Unconvinced, he turns, groping his way toward the ledgers. He grasps for a better argument. "Ledgers... important... to Merchant. Hurts him... little bit... if burning."
Better. The tightness in his chest eases as he drags the first ledger back to Remara.
It's difficult to move his limbs, but every time he wants to lie down, he thinks about the Merchant's face and the gouge-marks across his nose. Ha'Drak is making his own slash at the Merchant if he can finish this, so he pushes leaden limbs on. Even so, as he piles the fourth ledger by Remara, he slumps to the desk. He cannot lift a claw, or even twitch his tail.
Heat. Sharp, sudden heat, and then the pages he lies on are aflame. He revels in the warmth, feeling the flames lick around his snout and tail. They wreathe his hide, soothing him. He tries his very hardest to ignore how the crackling of the pages sounds like stories screaming.
Is. Only. Ledgers!
A whoosh. The crackling stops. He flicks his tongue out, encountering only soft, fluffy ashes. Stone cold.
She burns ledgers, then take all heat. Next, she open window, climb on back, and is being eyes. We fly.
He cannot so much as twitch. There is nothing left in him. He lies in the ashes of the ledgers, shuddering, water leaking from his eyes. Now she can escape, but he will not be able to.
There is a gooey-warm touch on the tip of his snout. "My friend Ha'Drak you have done well thank you."
He tries to tell her he can't fly now, even if she plays the part of his eyes, but he can't move his jaws.
"Returning took too much from you and I see that the plan has to change some do not worry we are still leaving together but I need all the heat I can get if I'm going to carry you away so I will stoke my heat with the rest of the books you stay here and I will be back for you."
He nearly throws himself off the edge of the desk after her.
Not my good books! Not precious books!
He can do nothing but wheeze through clenched teeth as the first sounds of ravenous flame reach his ears. Wood whines and cracks a few moments later, and smoke taints the air. Within minutes, he hears a crash that vibrates up through the desk.
Stories he will never see. Information he will never learn. Arguments he will never enjoy. A whole wall of books is dying, dissolving to ash across the room. It's as if a badger stormed into a nestmother's cave and crushed a whole colony of new laid eggs.
My fault. Am sorry. Sorry, books. So sorry.
The roaring ceases so sharply, Ha'drak would think he'd lost his ears if he hadn't heard Remara do this moments before. In the silence, footsteps slam loudly on the stairs.
He comes. Cannot move. Am dead.
"No no no he was not supposed to come!" Remara cries from across the room. "What do I..." she fall silent as the Merchant's footsteps pound through the doorway. The footsteps stop dead.
When he does speak, the Merchant's voice is softer than a bed of moss and smoother than a well-oiled leather cover.
"Well. This was not the expected result. I suppose I shall have to take a loss on this experiment. Carpet... books... shelves... my chairs..." there is a sharp intake of breath. "My ledgers. 'Phany. That will take a lot of memory work. Very inconvenient to replace all this. Quite a bit more to that statue than I thought. Where is it, Little Flit? Where have you hidden the statue?"
Ha'Drak moans with the barest motion of his lungs.
"I understand. You need some encouragement. That's alright, the special gloves should help." A drawer on the desk slides open for five seconds, then shuts. The temperature in the room drops. "And if I haven't heard everything I want to in a few minutes, well. I think our relationship will be irreparable at that point." The freezing, biting aura grows stronger. Ha'Drak pictures that gloved hand descending toward him. "So, I would consider what you're—"
The Merchant's words disintegrate into agonized screams.
There's a smell in the air that turns Ha'Drak's guts inside out. It's one of the smells from town, when the Merchant passes places that cook human food. Meat. Like meat over a fire, except this is fouler. The air is full of smoke and blood and screams.
Crashing. Smashing. Something large is knocked over, large enough to jolt the whole desk. The screams fade into erratic whimpers and gasps.
Something is happening. Ha'Drak's earfins swivel, but he can't interpret the sounds.
Sliding? Scraping?
Remara's trembly words reach him, rising in volume as she draws close. "It is alright my friend we can leave now you hold still I see you will have trouble moving but I can carry you most of the way."
The Merchant gasps out, "Leave, if you think that will save you, I will-"
She interrupts the Merchant, her voice bearing the thunderous fury of a rockslide. "You will do absolutely nothing because if you so much as stand up from there before we get out I will come back over there and you will lose more than your sight!"
At that, Ha'Drak finds he can forgive this slaughterer of stories.
A hot, gooey substance slides under his body, and her voice vibrates through his bones, "Courage friend we are almost out here we go across the desk and there is a window here he always kept it closed but I have just opened it now this is a little bit tricky so I need you to trust me do you think you can I am going to assume the answer is yes because the last thing I can do is leave you here just hold very still please."
As she speaks, it is as if his body is sliding along surfaces, propelled by this heated substance.
This her? But... was... statue... was little person statue...
"Now listen tell me if you can spread your wings and fly down even once more to the ground outside?"
Ha'Drak moans again, flicking his tongue out once. "Nnn. Nnn."
"That is unfortunate because I do not know how to fly." She is quiet for a time. A fresh breeze clears the smoke from his nostrils. Behind him, the Merchant continues making strange, wet noises. Ahead, where the outside must be, night birds call to each other.
Finally, Remara says, "I'm going to lower you to the ground like I am a rope whatever you do do not move I have not tried to do this before and I need to concentrate."
The substance under him shifts, gathering itself around his torso. A moment later, he is gently rolled over an edge into thin air.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
He tenses, weakly straining his wings.
"Don't move!"
He stops, letting his body hang limp. He can feel it, now. In the swinging of his wings he can sense the gentle sway back and forth in airspace, the short drops down, then down again. Something lowers him from the window, clasping him tight around the barrel of his body.
Maybe... maybe we really gets away. Maybe it works.
The hot substance wrapped around him vibrates. A groan rises from Remara the lower she sends him. Alarmed, he thinks back to the little hand-sized statue melting and turning into a rope. How much rope can she make of herself?
The vibration hums harder. She keens at a higher pitch with each drop. Ha'Drak wonders how far before he touches the ground.
Far above, the Merchant bellows from the window, "Na'Refa! Na'Refa, catch them! They're escaping!"
Snap.
Ha'Drak plummets, hitting the ground hard enough to knock the air from his lungs. This last, desperate horror of hunted prey drives him up on his legs. Na'Refa is coming. Wings bigger than standing humans churn the air overhead. He remembers the limp voidflyer hanging from those cruel talons.
"Mara!" he croaks. "Mara!"
The warm grip on his body vibrates. "Here," says a faint voice.
The air above him stills. The firetongue has targeted him, like any hawk moments before the prey-dive.
"Where shadow? Nearest shadow, now!"
"All on your right is shadow!"
"Put out 'Mara light now!" With that, he turns and dives to the right.
At first the shadow writhes away from him. He feels it close by, but he cannot reach it. Then, Remara's grip on his body goes cold. Stiff. As the sky above him whistles with Na'Refa's descent, the shadow ceases fleeing and welcome him through.
He plunges in and hovers, suspended, in this place where warm shadows caress his scales. He entered without even a thought of exit. He can't think too long or he will picture a bad place to come out. Where is a good exit? Where can he...
Home.
A most familiar image rears up in his mind, a place he needs to go as desperately as a river seeks the ocean. It is a dark cave. Small, with two painstakingly dug chambers. It is a place of carefully stacked books and walls embedded with mirror shards to reflect sunlight in. It is night now, so there will be little light in there and plenty of shadow. As he sees the safest place in this world in his mind, the smell of leather and packed earth fills his nostrils. His body stretches taut, like a string jerked between two hands, straight to the snapping point as the smells become stronger and the picture in his mind clearer.
A moment later, he tumbles from the shadow, hitting the ground. There is a smashing, cracking sound and a horrible tearing in his body. His mind shuts down.
----------------------------------------
Sun.
Sun.
Sun on the scales. Gentle. Soft morning-sun through trees.
More. More.
----------------------------------------
Water splashes him. Large, wet plops strike his body. Grateful, he opens his mouth to allow the rainwater in. When it lessens, he licks the remnants from his own hide and any nearby dead leaves.
When the rain stops, a tiny patch of warmth moves back and forth across his hide, soothing him back to sleep.
----------------------------------------
This time, he wakes knowing that he has slept. He must be in some great shaft of sunlight, or else he has been left in an open field. Either way, he rolls onto his back and spreads his wings, greedily soaking in the light.
Something in his body does not feel right. He starts a check.
Earfins open. Shut. Snout there. Neck good. Forelegs bend right. Foreclaws open. Shut. Belly there. Hind legs... Hind...
He rolls onto his side and curls inward, feeling for his hind legs. They end at the hocks, and when he swishes his tail, only a stump responds.
Sheared off. Bad exit.
Sprawling out once again, he ticks off the injuries in his head. Eyes gone. Hind legs. Tail. Cracked bones? No, feelings that cracked bones fixing themselves from sleeping in sun. Hind legs most important, needs must be able run off. Fixing hind legs first. Then what? Tail helps with the balance when no-eyes, but could do eyes back. Eyes back taking longer, though. deathspill burns hard to heal. Getting tail first, then eyes.
But... am home... with books... still no can read?
Ha'Drak snarls aloud, "First we live! We get all'a way better, then we read!"
"Yes please get better I do not have any skills to help you in this and sometimes animals come too close to you and I have to yell as hard as I can to scare them off but I don't know how often that will work."
The voice is threadbare but it still offers a string of words end to end without pause. Ha'Drak snaps open his earfins. "R'mara?"
"Hello Ha'Drak I am glad you are awake it has been many days and I can't move you please are you able to move yourself and follow my voice because you are just outside of a cave and I think that inside the cave you will be safer."
He rolls onto his stomach and tests his limbs. Quivery, but stable. "Can do, but not yet. Need sun, much sun as can gets. Water... can bring water?" he asks, his tongue flapping against dry gums.
"No I am sorry I know where some is but I cannot bring it."
"Then. Even more, gotta get sun. Cannot last forever on morning dew. Gotta get legs grown and find water. Will go cave at nighttime. When gets legs, you lead me water?"
"That I can do."
----------------------------------------
It is two more days before Ha'Drak has enough leg regrowth to stumble after Remara, lurching right and then left as the uneven legs and lack of tail throw him off balance.
"When you came out you were missing two of your legs and tail and I couldn't make you move at all I don't even think you heard me and I could not move you anymore I lost much of myself in the escape and there is not enough of me to move your body as I did before I'm not sure I could move anything bigger than an acorn right now though of course I would just set it on fire..."
Her voice is different. What was once a gentle ringing now has a harsh, nearly discordant edge to it. It grates on his ears, but he needs water and she is doing her best to lead him to it, guiding him with an endless stream of chatter and the feeling of a small, charred track under his foreclaws. Morning dew and condensation in his cave is not nearly enough. Still, as he falls over on his side for the ninth time, he vows to dig an emergency rain-collection cistern in his cave system, far from the books.
"...I have been keeping up my heat but I want you to know that I stay out of your cavern I went in only once but as soon as I saw your books I left quickly because you seem to care very much for them and I do not want to cause more damage besides there is plenty of dead foliage around that I can use I just have to be careful to drink in the fire as fast as I set it and I can build up little stores of heat that way without being a danger as long as I stay focused besides I am even smaller now so it is even easier to heat me though I suppose it is even easier to lose heat..."
Soon he hears the little creek, the one that always has at least a few drops running even in the dryer seasons. Right now it's a merry, babbling stream of water that he stumbles into up to his belly. Thrusting his snout in, he takes great, guzzling draughts.
On an impulse, he ducks completely under, rolling around on the creekbed, dragging himself over well-worn stones. Loose, dead scales pull free as he twists and wriggles underwater. He thrusts his muzzle up just long enough to catch his breath before ducking under again. He will scrub every touch of those obscene gloves off his body if it takes him half a day.
When he finally drags himself onto the bank and spreads himself out to dry, he is warm inside and out. He can't see himself, but he pictures a beautiful, shining black hide, gleaming with water and well on its way to healing everywhere. For the first time in weeks, contentment returns to him.
Well. Would be better if had book here an' eyes back, but s'okay.
"R'mara?"
"Yes Ha'Drak?"
"We got out."
"Yes."
"Didn't think it could. But did."
"Yes."
"An' I did it twice. Fly shadows blind. Never does, y'know? Is bad idea. Verybad. But do twice, and second time! First time was in same house, but second time... not even know how far home is from Merchant house. Felt strange when trying, like stretch too far. But did it."
"I never want to do that again."
"Yeah, never," he says absently. "Bad idea." But lived. Twice. He lifts his head and turns it toward her voice. "R'mara, you hurt?"
"I am alright I am much smaller because I had to leave some of myself behind but I can fix that if I find a source of sand so I am well."
"Sounds diff'rent."
She makes an odd noise. "Sound different how?"
"Dunno. Sounds diff'rent. You sure not hurt?"
"Of course I'm sure I'm not hurt you're hurt and so are the Skytes back there and so is the Merchant now I'm perfectly fine."
Ha'Drak folds his earfins, his eyelids reflexively opening wide. "Oh. Merchant almost... you saves. Saves me twice from Merchant."
Silence.
Ha'Drak tilts his head. "R'mara?"
Silence.
He slithers forward on his belly a bit until he noses into her. She's right, she's much smaller now, maybe human-thumb sized instead of human-hand sized. Her whole hug barely fits on the end of his snout as she clings there.
"I know he did terrible things and I know he deserves pain but I do not like making myself something that is painful and destructive it hurts me in places you cannot see it or ever fix it when that happens and sometimes it has happened around me by accident but this time I saw him reaching for you and I am so very small Ha'Drak but I was so very hot from burning the study up I couldn't think of anything else to make him stop long enough for us to run but to make him blind too and so I flowed straight up from his foot to his leg and up his belly and everywhere I went his clothes burned into his skin and he was screaming and crashing into the wall and the bookshelves and I kept climbing up until I got to his face and I burned a path all the way there too and then I destroyed his eyes on purpose and that will never heal and maybe that is right but I am very injured inside from the doing of it."
The discord in her voice heightens so far that Ha'Drak can distinguish two tones, striving against each other in every word. He lets her cling, wondering if this is what nestmothers feel like when a hatchling cries over their first sheared limb.
A sigh gusts out of his nostrils. "Do not understand at all. Merchant deserves. But. Am sorry it hurting you." He spreads his wings and curls them forward, enveloping his head and the strange little creature hugging his snout. "You did the savings. Did good to help get free. Did not have to, but did. Thanking you."
She says nothing, only continues huddling against his nose.
"R'mara?"
"Mmm."
"What does you now? Where lives you? Has colony? Mate?"
Silence.
"Hmm. R'mara, could ask big huge favor? If'n not going nowheres yet, could stay an' help blind voidflyer until gets eyes back? You's good eyes, an' I 'members lotsa stories. Stories help with everything. Favorite story even helps me keep going when didn't want movings no more at Merchant house, and we escape! Mebbe tellings you stories helping you know what do next?"
The creek laughs along its channels, loud and boisterous as it flows. Birds challenge each other from opposing trees. Insects click and chitter along the ground. The sun is warm on his scales and a playful breeze rustles leaves both low and high. Amid the sounds of his home, he barely catches her response, a vibration as subtle as two pebbles brushing against each other.
"I would like that my friend Ha'Drak."
But there it is, and that is good enough for him.