Warriors of Wind and Ash (Merciless Dragons #2)

Perhaps my brother and Hinarax are right. Perhaps taking human form now and then could enrich our lives in ways beyond the pleasures of sex. Food is limited on Ouroskelle, but if we learn how to cultivate crops and cook meals as they do here on the mainland, perhaps I wouldn’t have to be so constantly anxious about our food supply. As dragons, we would still need to hunt from time to time, but those hunts could be fewer and farther apart. We could sustain ourselves with smaller meals when in human form, and we’d have a greater variety of edible options.

As Hinarax rises and the woman hands over our food, a shout from down the street catches my attention. A group of armed men and women are striding toward us. One carries an ax, another a thick staff, and the third a crossbow. The leader, a stocky man with a prodigious frown, grips the hilt of the sword at his hip. On his left shoulder gleams a silver medallion emblazoned with a curved pair of leafy branches.

“Ho there!” he calls. “You! Put down your bundles and raise your hands!”

I dislike him at once, and I stare at him coldly, even as his companion lifts the crossbow and readies it.

“Put your things down,” repeats the man with the medallion. “By order of the village watch.”

“The village watch?” asks Hinarax.

“That’s right. You’ve been flashing around a lot of jewelry, paying a king’s ransom for things like directions, meat pies, and—” He glances at the gathered villagers.

“And old beat-up shoes,” offers the woman behind the table. I throw her a glare, and she shrugs unrepentantly.

“That’s right,” continues the man with the medallion in a pompous tone. “As the constable, it is my duty to take into custody all suspicious characters that might otherwise heretofore cause something of an unseemly uproar in this here, our peaceful village, what has just started to recover from the toils of war, and therefore we do not under any circumstances welcome such strangers as yourselves, who must be either fine lords fleeing the new regime, or brigandish thieves of the robberly sort. In which case, in summation and conclusion, the proper course of action is to put you two in a cell and commandeer or requisition such articles of value as you might have upon your persons.”

“You’re the guards of this village. You don’t like the way we barter, so you’re taking our treasure and imprisoning us,” translates Hinarax pleasantly.

“Not to put too fine a point on it—yes,” replies the constable.

Hinarax leans over and whispers to me out of the side of his mouth. “We could transform.”

I glance around at the villagers crowding the street, at their fragile homes and their tables of simple wares. Transforming into dragons here would cause too much damage, and word of the incident would travel swiftly to the King of Vohrain. Much as I ache to get to Serylla, it’s too early to reveal our true nature.

“We’ll go along with them,” I mutter to Hinarax.

“Right.” He doesn’t seem at all perturbed by the idea of being locked up. In fact, he looks rather excited about it as he addresses the constable. “We’ll come with you and give you our valuables, as long as you let us keep our food. And the shoes.”

The constable looks rather surprised, but he says, “Fair enough.”

The armed men close in and escort us along the street to the only stone building in the village. A storm like the Mordvorren would devastate a place like this, where most of the structures are fabricated of wood and bricks. These people are fortunate the Mordvorren decided to hover over Ouroskelle instead of battering the coastline.

What’s strange to me is the way the Mordvorren vanished so abruptly, without a trace. When I left my cave, I expected to see it receding into the distance. But the ocean and the sky were clear on all sides. I haven’t taken the time to ponder it until now… and within seconds I’m distracted from the mystery as I enter a human building for the first time.

As we step inside, I summon my limited experience with humans during the war, as well as everything I learned from Serylla, and I try to identify as many items as I can. Tables. Chairs. Fireplace. Some black metal rods that stand beside the fireplace… not sure what their function is. Lanterns. Rugs. Maps on the walls. And books, very large books, one of which lies open on a table while a woman hunches over it, writing rows of numbers and phrases in the Eventongue. Some sort of notation, perhaps to do with the business of the village. She looks up at Hinarax and me, and I get the distinct feeling that her sharp eyes are taking in every detail. Something about her reminds me of Jessiva, my brother’s keen-eyed, red-haired captive, and the similarity sets me on edge.

We’re taken to a small room at the back of the building… “a prison cell,” Hinarax whispers, with all the delight of a hatchling seeing a waterfall for the first time.

Straw covers the floor of the otherwise empty cell. If we were to transform in here, we would explode right through the stone wall into freedom. Perhaps we’ll do that during the night. We could transform long enough to break out, then switch back to human form and run for the woods. Once we put enough distance between us and the village, we could take to the sky and find cloud cover. As long as the people don’t see our dragon forms, they’ll think we had secret magic or hidden explosives to facilitate our escape.

The constable takes our jewelry, placing it in a small brown satchel which he buckles shut and pats contentedly. “I’ll keep this safe until we figure out what’s what with you two.” He slams an iron gate shut across the doorway of the cell and locks it, a process which Hinarax observes with keen curiosity.

After the constable stumps away, I seat myself onto the straw, propping my back against the wall. “Once it’s dark, we’re leaving.”

“We could have tried to fight them in our human forms,” says Hinarax. “I’ve watched weaponless men battle with their fists and arms. They kick, too. Some of them even bite, though I believe among humans that’s considered dishonorable.”

“You and I aren’t trained to fight in this form,” I reply. “This was the only choice if we wanted to maintain our disguise and avoid causing damage. The Bone-Builder knows we’ve done enough harm in this land already.” The ache of my guilt joins the gut-wrenching pain of Serylla’s absence, and for a moment I don’t know how I’ll survive the agony of it all.

Hinarax gathers his locs and sweeps them over one shoulder before sitting down beside me. “The war was inevitable. In your position, any of us would have done the same thing. We followed you into battle, not just because of your bone-oath, or because of your title, but because we could see no other way.”

“Perhaps we need to become a bit more innovative, as a species,” I reply.

“I won’t argue with that. But my Prince, you must not carry the weight of the war alone. We were all there. We all made choices. You were not solely responsible.”

I inhale deeply and let the breath out gradually. I think I have been waiting for one of my people to say those very words to me. It does not absolve me for what I have done, but it gives me a little relief.

After a long silence, Hinarax inquires, “What’s the plan, my Prince?”