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Chapter Twenty Nine

I leapt into the air and beat my wings hard, and fast. Normally I’d have worried about the archers in the other towers trying to shoot me while I was flying, but the fog was so thick I doubted they could even see me. Even the tower that had hit me had probably just been shooting at the big shape moving around in the fog, and much further away then that I was as good as invisible. I fanned my vast black wings just a few times, and the effect swirled the fog and mist around me, casting it off in swirling vortexes that would have been beautiful and transfixing if I weren’t already so fixated on killing my enemies and keeping myself alive.

I circled tightly around the tower as I ascended. I knew they’d probably try and take another shot at me, and I made sure to keep my speed and my altitude varied. And I watched the tower as I circled it, as soon as I saw a human pop up with his bow, I folded my wings and dropped out of sight. Then I threw my wings open again and swooped right back up above the tower! One arrow whizzed harmlessly above me, the other arched too lower and whistled by me, well below my belly and even my tucked limbs. Hah! That had actually worked! Maybe I wasn’t so bad at this after all.

As soon as they’d both fired their arrows, I dipping a single wing and spun hard, pulling both wings in to drop my altitude, and send me straight into the tower. At the last moment I back winged and brought myself up almost vertical, bracing each hind paw on a support pole, my front paws grabbing onto the sturdy wooden railing. Perhaps not as sturdy as I remembered, as the railing itself snapped beneath my front paws as soon as my weight and momentum hit it. The top half of my body kept moving and my chest crashed down against the floor of the watch tower. Alright, so I hadn’t thought this through as well as I should have. I rather expected the tower to either hold my weight or topple over like a tree snapped in a heavy gale, I did not expect it to do a little of each. Then I felt the whole tower start to lurch and shudder, it may not have held my weight as well as it first seemed!

It took me only a moment to recover, still clinging to the side and floor of the tower now like an oversized gecko walking up an ungainly tree. I snatched up the nearest archer around his throat with my front paw, and pulled him forward smashing him through what was left of the battered railing before tossing him to the ground. The other one dropped his bow and drew a long, curved knife from his belt, but no sooner had I tossed the first archer down, then I lashed out with my paw once more and knocked the blade from his hands, sending him stumbling towards the far railing in the process.

Then the whole tower lurched a little more, sending me sliding a little further across the floor, towards my enemy. Once more I grabbed an archer around the throat and head, as it was among the easier handholds for a dragon to use on a man. Rather then toss him over the edge as well, I rammed him straight up into the arched roof of the watch tower. Like new growth rising from the ground in spring, his head erupted through the thin, thatch covered tile of the peaked roof and somehow, stuck there. It was quite comical! At least to me. Granted, I wasn’t the one with my head stuck through the roof of a watchtower that was beginning to topple over! Laughing both at his predicament, his stuck head and his humorously legs which looked as though he was struggling to run in mid air, I kicked myself back off the tower with my hind legs. The action was enough to finish the tower off, the supports snapped and the whole tower came crashing down, exploding into a cloud of dust and splinters and a pile of shattered would, with an equally shattered archer somewhere inside. The thunderous crash shook the ground, and as I flared my wings to stop my fall, I heard a cheer erupt from somewhere in the fog. My men were happy, that was good! That also meant the next wave of soldiers hadn’t arrived yet, but no doubt it would.

As I twisted back around in the air to find my next target, I could already hear the muffled shouts of men giving orders somewhere deeper in the town. Well, they weren’t the only ones who could bark orders at subordinates. I might not have relished leading an army of men when I felt they should lead themselves, but some part of my natural dragon arrogance certainly enjoyed being able to give humans orders.

Dropping a wing I spun back towards the entrance, finding my way more by the sound of my peoples voices than anything else. Thick as the damned fog was, I could barely tell which direction I was flying. Once I found the plaza, I saw Kylah standing near the center of it, ordering the men around as I’d planned to do. I circled them once to take stock of how the first part of the battle had fared for us. It looked as though we had at least a dozen men killed or injured, those with serious wounds had been dragged off to the relative safety of an alleyway and few men who found themselves thrust into the role of battlefield surgeons where doing what they could to bandage the worst of our people’s wounds.

Our people. More and more I found myself referring to the army as “my” army, it’s soldiers as “my” people. As if I was truly one of them. Kylah might tell me that I was one of them now, but I knew in my heart I was not. I could be their friend, I could be their alley, but I could never be “one of them”. And did I really wish too? I had hated their kind so much for so many years, yet here I was helping them. Shedding blood for them. What had changed, and what was changing in me?

I had no time to debate that with myself right now.

I landed hard in the center of the entryway plaza. For the first time, I noticed that much like in Emerfeld the cobblestones there had been arranged and painted into colorful images. It almost looked like a blue dragon from the right angle, romping about in a green field. A field that had been stained with the blood of those giving their lives for their people’s freedom, and those that sought to take it from them. The dragon was likely in my imagination, but the blood beneath my paws was most certainly not. The rains were washing most of it away, but it was a stain that would linger in my mind longer after my eyes could no longer perceive it.

Kylah ran over to me, and I gave her a cursory glance, then flicked my horned head back towards my shoulder, and the arrow jutting from my scaly body just beyond it. “Get it out. Quickly, Kylah.”

Kylah did not hesitate or even bother to tell me to brace myself. She simply walked up to my side, wrapped her fingers around the hilt of the arrow, and pressed her other hand against my shoulder. Then she pulled firmly but smoothly, and soon the blooded arrowhead emerged from my rent flesh, followed by a fresh blossom of blood bubbling forth and running down across my scales. The rain that collected across my back and dribbled my body helped to wash away the little river of red.

Another man ran up to Kylah with some wet bandages, and a little clay pot of that sticky resin they used to affix them to my body. Kylah pressed the bandage against my wound, and I snarled in pain, unsheathing my claws till the worst of it had passed. “You’re not going anywhere else till I stop the bleeding.”

“I have other watchtowers too…”

“No, Vraal. When the bleeding stops.”

I wasn’t going to wait that long. But I’d let her impede the flow a little at least. After a moment, she replaced one blood soaked bandage with another soaked only with rain, and once more the pain shot through my body as she pressed it firmly against me. I hissed, my tail lashing as the wound throbbed steadily. “Kylah,” I muttered between hissing breaths, my ears flattened in pain. “You are the worst surgeon…”

“And you’re the biggest baby. Quite your whimpering, you whiny hatchling.”

That made me grin. She’d gotten nearly as good as me with the teasing. I glanced back at her, a smirk revealing only a few of my fangs. “Gonna bite you.”

“Won’t have anyone to baby you anymore if you do.”

I chuckled to myself, and glanced up the road. Damn, it was foggy. I could hardly even make out any details of the town in this sort of fog. The main road was lined with stone buildings of several stories tall, interspersed with a few smaller wooden buildings, but aside from the vague details I’d picked out while swooping above them, I couldn’t see much else! Here and there tall trees stretched up above the buildings lining the road, probably older then the town itself. Like the forests around the city they’d long since lost most of their lives, and from above they looked like the many-clawed paws of some monstrous beast seeking to rend my belly as I flew above it so that it might feast upon my entrails as they spilled to the ground. Ancestors Spirits, but I could morbid sometimes.

When the pain relented a little more, I remembered why I’d landed in the first place, and it wasn’t just to get that arrow out of me. I called out for everyone still able to fight to gather around me, and I was glad to see just how many of our men were still on their feet, still looking for more battle. Still fighting to take control of their own lives. Most of our men hadn’t yet even been wounded. Even more heartening, many of those who had been wounded were continuing the battle anyway. Men with bandages around their arms, legs, a few even with wounds on their head and face, ready to fight on as long as they could. I did not know how well they would be able to fight now, but I would not tell them to turn back or to hide in the shadows while their friends fought on.

I tried to explain the situation quickly, and issue my orders efficiently. “Our enemies are preparing their counter attack! I heard them giving orders after I took down that tower. With any luck, they have no idea that this is only half our force. They’re probably going to come down here and hit us with everything they have! I fully expect them to split off into groups, slip through the alleyways and try to hit us from all sides.

“So, I want our archers up on roofs! Get moving, now! Hide yourselves, and prepare to snipe the enemy wherever you see them. If possible, let them past you and then let your arrows fly at their backs. A few other archers remain behind and hide yourselves in cover around here. Try and keep the enemy pinned between you for as long as possible. Some of you soldiers and infantry men, get down into those alleyways. It didn’t seem too confusing to me, mostly just a grid layout like the areas right around the main roads back in Emerfeld. Get ready to intercept all the bandit soldiers they send to ambush the main force.

“As for the main force, well, do what you did to the first soldiers who tried to stop you!” That got a cheer from the men, despite our losses, our enemies causalities had been much higher. But we wouldn’t be able to take the next group by surprise the same way, so I had to hope setting up ambushers on rooftops and in the alleyways would give us a different advantage. “All of you archers who stay here in the entry plaza, get ready to pick off their own archers, and anyone with a crossbow. No doubt they’ll try and give their troops cover to advance. I’m going to take to the skies, and as soon as they near you, I’m going to burn as many of them as I can.” That got another cheer from my people. Whereever our enemy was, I hoped they could hear us cheering. Let them know we were unafraid, let them wonder what might make us crazy enough to cheer in the middle of a battle. “As soon as it’s safe, get in there and finish them off, but be ready for another wave of attackers, I won’t be able to get them all. And don’t forget, they know I’m here. They’ll be ready to rush in as well as soon as the flames die down, I’m sure. But you all know what you’re in for. I know you all volunteered for this part of the attack, knowing full well it was the most dangerous part to be involved in.” I let that sink in a little, I wanted them to know I realized what I was asking them to do, just as I wanted them to realize I knew full well that everyone who’d come to the south gate had volunteered to do so. We all knew that was where our heaviest causalities would come from, and I now found myself increasingly proud of the sacrifices they were willing to make for their own people. “You’ve all done me proud, already!”

That brought a fresh round of cheers from those still standing in the plaza, and I quickly turned my attention to Kylah. “After I burn those soldiers, it will be time to go to the far get and let our friends in. With any luck, the enemy will think I’m just a cowardly beast retreating, and taking our commander with him. We’ll make a few detours, though, cause I’m planning to downing the last of the towers before let our friends in. I don’t want them to rush through only to get picked off!”

“Right,” Kylah said, pulling the bandage away to check the flow. It was down to a trickle, and despite my protests she smeared some sticky sap across a third bandage and pressed it to my wound to try and keep it clean during the rest of the battle. I wasn’t sure how long it would stay there with the rains, but I didn’t take it off, either. “I’m going to lead them until you come back for me, though! So don’t take too long, and don’t get killed!”

I turned around to press my muzzle to her nose, grinning. “I’ll do my best.”

Kylah blinked at my sudden proximity, but she lifted a hand to stroke my jaw line, and she pressed her lips against the soft spot just between my nostrils, lowering her voice. “I mean it, Vraal. Don’t get killed.”

My smile widened as I nosed her. “You either.” I flicked my tongue tip across her nose, not caring what anyone around us might think, and then I backed away. As soon as I was clear of her, I leapt into the skies once more. The air from my wings sprayed mist across her face, and swirled the rains and mists all around her. Fog rippled across our army, revealing them in full for the briefest of moments before the ghostly clouds closed back in and once more transformed our proud warriors into ghostly apparitions.

For a few, all to brief moments, silence closed in. After the din of battle and the screams of pain, after the shouts of my orders, the sudden silence was as thick and smothering as the fog itself. Just as I was about to think it as the calm before the storm, the twang of taut bowstring ran out and shouts of surprise and screams of pain broke through the silence like a sharp lance through a wooden shield. The shouts came from both sides of the road, just as I’d suspected they were trying to sneak up on is in the fog. And the archers I’d sent to the roof had already begun picking them off.

Soon, I heard more screams and shouts, and this time I also heard the hissing, scraping, and clanging of steel on steel. My soldiers springing out to meet their own in the narrow, cramped alleyways, adding blood to the murky waters that ran down the alleys edges and drains. For a few moments, I simply circled above the plaza, listening to the sounds. There was a strange feeling of helplessness that clung to me like a spider’s web I couldn’t quite clean from my scales. I knew my men were done there, killing on my order, and possibly dying by my order as well. I wanted to help them, I wanted to fight by their side! But in the tight corridors of city alleyways and under the layer of thick, choking fog, there was little I could do to help them. I’d barely be able to tell friend from foe, I couldn’t use my fire or I’d burn my own men, and even my claws and teeth might shed the wrong blood.

All I could do was wait for the foe I myself could engage, and hope that my men would be victorious.

I did not have to wait long. Whether they’d already been planning their assault to take place just after their men infiltrated the alleys or whether they moved it up when they realized their ambush had failed, they were soon charging down the street. Up in the fog, I circled a few times, just low enough to make out the shapes of my foes passing through the mist far below. The first group of men they sent charged our line, organized into the shape of a wedge designed to drive through our own defensive line. These men all bore chain mail, sword and shield, prepared for close quarter combat. A few also bore armored pauldrons upon their shoulders, or armored gauntlets on their forearms, and many wore helms of one type or another.

None of that mattered as the moment they crossed the invisible line my people had set up, Kylah shouted FIRE! And as soon as she gave the signal, a hailstorm of arrows bore down on the wedge of bandit-soldiers from the rooftops and alleyways they’d just run past. Men screamed in agony and surprise as the sharp bolts punched through the steel-ringed covering, driven deep into their backs, and their legs, and their arms. Most of them fell, some died, some remained writhing and crying out in the streets. Those who were not hit began to frantically search the mist-shrouded alleys and rooftops for their attackers. Confusion set in, one man called for archers to cover their retreat, while another called for a second infantry charge to bolster their advance.

Our first ambush had worked better then I’d planned, I did not even need to descend to use my fire against these men. I knew whoever was commanding our enemies would not be fooled the same way twice, but I was not prepared for the callousness he would display towards his own men. The moment our soldiers moved forward to engage what was left of the wedge formation, now broken and scattered throughout the road, I heard someone else shout “FIRE” as well!

This time the cloud of arrows that whistled through the air as they arced up into the sky and fell back to earth was not our own, and they fell upon friend and foe alike. Their commander had sent in his men to draw us out, and was now firing upon his own people! A sacrificial pawn, as it were. Damn it! Perhaps I was not so clever as I thought. My guts twisted up, I felt as if I’d sent my own people in to die now! Tortured cries and strangled screams filled the air, I could only hope that more of our enemy had suffered in that sacrificial attack then our own people.

“Cover! Cover, return fire!” Kylah yelled far below me. An order to both our soldiers and our archers, and I was glad to hear the order relayed among our men. At least it did not seem like too many of them had fallen to the cascade of arrows. Soon, bowstrings were popping and snapping randomly around the rooftops and alleyways as our own archers to began to pick targets of opportunity, and fire at whoever they could. Now and then a yell of pain followed the taut snap of the string and the whistle of the arrow. Though the bandits knew we were there now, there was no way for them to see exactly where my men were hidden in the fog and the darkness. Especially as my men knew well enough to keep on the move to keep from being located.

Soon the rest of our archers still located in the entry plaza had nocked arrows and as one let them loose. I knew they had no idea where they were aiming, but then again, neither had our foes. We both had only a general sense of where the other was, firing blindly through the fog and hoping to down our foes before they downed us. A hell of a way to fight a battle. With any luck the men we had sent to stop them in the alleyways had done just that, and were now working to flank our foes and hit them from the side and the rear just as they’d planned to do to us. I heard more screaming from our enemies, and I heard muffled orders, though I couldn’t quite make them out. At this point, our little armies were just about even.

Or at least they were until I folded my wings and dove towards our enemies, praying I’d not get a face full of arrows in the process.

As soon as I could make it more then fuzzy shapes through the fog I picked out my targets. Most of the enemy force lined the main road on either side, sheltering behind wooden carts and stands, piles of crates, stone stairways, signs, and anything else they could use for cover from the arrows. Quite a few dead soldier lay scattered about the middle of the road, with wounded soldiers crawling towards the alleyways, and in a few cases being helped off by their companions. Trails of blood were smeared across the cobblestone, the rains washing some of it into little red rivers that sloshed between the stones, and eventually swirled in pink eddies amidst the muddy waters running along the little drainage canal on either side of the road.

In the brief time I had to identify targets it looked as though everyone had gotten mixed together in the frantic scramble for shelter from our arrows. The archers no longer stood in lines but mingled with heavy cavalry bearing pikes and leaning up against walls and fruit carts, soldiers with sword and ax and shield in studded leather armor and chain mail and iron breast plates all brushed up against each other. The lack of formation made it harder to enact my earlier plan to blast their lines with fire and then let my men charge in, but I supposed that plan was dashed the moment that the commander of our enemies made it clear he had no qualms about killing his own men so long as ours died as well.

No matter. The plan was adaptable, and hopefully so were my men. The dive took only a few seconds and I lined myself up with the left side of the road, sucking in as much air as I could. I threw my wings open just before I crashed into the streets, and by the time the first men spotted me and screamed in fire, I was already exhaling. And by the time the second man spotted me and began to call for the archers to target the dragon, he was already on fire. I strafed the entire side of the road, exhaling till my lungs were empty and burning, squeezing my fire bile gland till it ached. I unleashed a steady stream of white hot fire all along the side of the road, igniting everything and everyone who stood there. Some of them men further long the road were able to dive into the alleys just in time to avoid my flames, a few swung swords and axes at me, one tried to drive a pike into my belly. But anyone trying to strike me from below would find himself ablaze the moment I swept over head. Only when I was totally out of breath did I beat my wings and ascend to the skies once more.

Yet that was only for a moment. I gulped down air, and spun back around to the other side of the road. My sharp turnaround was so quick that as I streaked down the other side of the road, the screams of men from my first strafing run were just beginning. Yet the stench of charred flesh and hair burnt to ash was already rising sharply enough to cut through the ever present scents of fog, fresh rain, and the coppery stink of so much spilled blood. I had no time to pity the men burning to death, no time to worry if they had families of their own, and no time I wish I could give them a quicker death. They had brought this on themselves the moment they chose to conquer this town and make it their own, and treat it’s people like their slaves. They would kill me any chance they got, and they would kill every one of my men and their families just to make an example. They would kill Kylah, unless we killed them first. It was a terrible thing to have to do, but it was nonetheless just that; something we had to do.

The bandit soldiers didn’t expect me to swoop down again so soon, let alone with another stream of fire. I strafed the other side of the road just as the men there were caught in indecision. Should they take to the alleys and hide from the beast in the sky, or should they run across the road to try and help their friends? Anyone who did not make the decision fast enough found himself consumed by dragon fire. Once again I swooped low over the soldiers, roaring my fury and blasting my fire across them all until my breath gave out and my both my fire bile gland and my flame gas organ throbbed sharply from all the pressure I was putting on them.

By luck, skill, or miracle I was once more unscathed as I pulled up from my low altitude strafing run. A few arrows whistled past me, and a sword tip scraped my belly, but no one caused my any harm. I, on the other paw, had caused their ranks tremendous harm. I’d hardly wiped out their entire force but I had dealt a serious blow to both their ranks and their morale. Everywhere below me, men were screaming in agony, writhing in piteous pain up on the streets, or already still in death as the flames consumed what was now a hollow shell. For a moment, sympathy and guilt twined like twisting, thorny vines around my heart. Though I had no love for humanity, I had never considered myself a cruel dragon. Till I had met Kylah I had never once felt guilt over killing a human, but even then I had not endeavored to do so in a torturous manner save perhaps the slayers who had nearly taken my son from me. Now, though that guilt squeezed my heart with ever tightening fingers of ice.

I forced myself to banish the thought. A guilt-wracked dragon was not going to be a very good ally to Kylah and the others. I told myself once more that these bandits had brought this on themselves. To help myself lock away the pain for a little while, I thought back to the day I had met Kylah, and the four men who were going to rape her, one after another. I had felt no guilt about killing those men, nor did I now. I should feel none about protecting my army and it’s right to freedom.

My army. That made me smile a little.

As I winged my way back up into the fog, I called out my orders, tendrils of mist snaking around me, spawned from the wind blowing off my wings. “Move up! Advance, finish them off! Watch for archers and ambushes in the alleys, and take their position!”

I knew there were yet more enemy forces in this city, and the strange, off-tune whistling noise I heard somewhere below me told me that the survivors of my fires were calling for reinforcements. Good. Now that they were drawing even more of their people towards the south gate, it would be time for Kylah and I to go to the North gate, and open it up. Though, first we had to rid the town of those bothersome watchtower archers!

I was glad I’d taken so many long flights with Kylah in the last few weeks, it had gotten my wings back into shape for the sort of swift, precise aerial manuevers I was doing now. Much as I loved flying, I’d gotten a bit lazy with my flight in my old age, and hadn’t performed the sort of acrobatic tricks I used to pull in my youth. Now, those same maneuvers I’d created just to impress some cute little female were now saving my life! Or at least keeping me relatively arrow-free so far.

I winged my way back towards where we’d entered the city, swooping low to watch our men spread up the road. They were moving slowly and cautiously, but with definite purpose. Now and then a few arrows flew at them from the darkened alleyways, and I was glad to see arrows returned just as swiftly, followed by a few of our soldiers plunging down that alley to root out our hidden enemies.

“Kylah!” I called, dropping to the ground and folding my wings for a moment.

“Over here, Vraal,” she called out, and I quickly turned towards the sound of her voice. She and a man from our little army were tending the wounds of some poor soldier who’d taken an arrow in the belly. They hadn’t removed it yet, and I wasn’t sure if they were going to be able too or not. He looked vaguely familiar, I think he was one of the shopkeepers who’d been so happy to serve me food at the markets when I’d first helped to liberate Emerfeld.

I whined a little. I did not like seeing any of our men hurt, and I knew we’d already lost quite a few of them. But it was even harder seeing one of those I’d actually come to like fallen to such a painful wound. He was still conscious, and he managed to lift his head long enough to give me a smile, of a sort, though blood flecked his teeth and his lips, and his face was pallid and drawn.

“You’re doing well,” I said softly, feeling like a fool as soon as the words slipped from my muzzle. I was hardly used to consoling wounded men, or trying to make them feel good in their last moments. It wasn’t sure which I was doing, because I didn’t know if he was going to survive or not. He smiled a little more and put his head down on the muddy alley, dirt and blood caked his head and his clothing, poor fool didn’t even have armor on and it still looked like he’d taken out a few of our enemies before he himself fell.

“Go,” he whispered hoarsely, pushing at Kylah weakly with the hand he’d been using to squeeze her own a moment before.

“But, I…”

“Go!” He said again with a little more force, then coughed up a bit of blood, and groaned in pain, reaching for that arrow before the other man stopped him.

“The surgeons will be here any moment,” Kylah whispered to him, then rose up before she changed her mind. “Be strong, and I’ll see you soon in victory!”

I backed out of the alleyway, and when we were out of earshot, I whispered, “Is he going to make it?”

“I don’t know,” Kylah replied, brushing sodden brown strands of hair out of her eyes. The way she cast her eyes down to the ground told me she didn’t think he’d last long enough to see us again. But I supposed we always hope for the best. “Don’t we have towers to destroy and gates to open?”

I smiled and dipped my wedge shaped head in a quick nod, then dropped to my belly. I grunted in pain when the movement jarred my aching side where the arrow had pierced me, but it was only a minor wound, especially compared to the one I’d just seen the old shopkeeper enduring. Everyone here was risking their lives for their own people, their own freedom. Some of them were even giving those lives up, and yet they seemed happy to do so it if meant their families and their children’s own families would grow up free, and secure. As Kylah scrambled up onto my back, careful not to slip against my wet and slick scales, I briefly wondered what might have become of my people if more of us had been more willing to make that sacrifice to keep our species alive. If instead of hiding from the world and our enemies, we had met them head on. I’d like to think perhaps there would still be more dragon alive today if that had happened, but it probably would have just strengthened humanities believes that we were monsters.

Strange now that I found myself risking my life for others, and yet they were not dragons. To think that some grumpy old dragon would risk his life for humans of all things! A few months ago I’d have thought the idea was ludicrous. And even now I wasn’t entirely sure what I thought I was doing, or what I hoped for accomplish. For the moment, I planned only to accomplish the destruction of some watchtowers, and the liberation of this city. Then, assuming I survived this, I planned to fill my belly and get in a damn nap!

“What are you chuckling about?” Kylah asked, so used to flying with me now she barely even flinched when I leapt into the air, ascending sharply through the fog.

“Myself, I suppose,” I admitted, rising swiftly and circling over the plaza. I saw a group of our enemies running across the road, from one alley to another on the far side, and I called out their positions. Soon our own soldiers were converging on them from both sides, and after a short skirmish, they had killed two of the bandits, and accepted surrender from the rest. “I’m…sorry about…that man, he…”

“Hush, Vraal,” Kylah said firmly, rubbing my neck as we rose into the sky. “Everyone here knows what’s at stake, and everyone here chose to be here. No one here regrets it. Besides, we don’t have time for sorrow and regret right now, we have a job to do! If we win this battle, then we’ll mourn our losses and celebrate our victories, and then we’ll move on to the next battle. And if we take that fortress from them, then this land will truly be ours again! Everyone who falls will have fallen to help ensure us the future of our own home, our own freedom, and none of us will ever forget that! But first we have to make that happen!”

I nodded, I had no words that would match up just then. But I smiled to myself, and had soon located the next watchtower. I might not have words at the moment, but I had plenty of actions! And I had a little fire left, too. As I hadn’t exactly been running on a full stomach the last few days of marching in the rain, I didn’t have as much flame gas built up as usual, and I’d used up most of my fire bile on those two long strafing runs. But I had just enough to take down a tower, at least.

I saw the shadow of it looming ahead, and I could faintly hear them calling out positions of my troops as my people began to advance further in the city. Below me, I saw a few bodies, several of our own soldiers who’d been ambushed and killed thanks to the directives issued by the watchtower guards. They couldn’t see far through the fog, but they could see far enough to make it difficult for our people it make it through those streets.

I winged a little higher until I was above the tower on my approach, hoping as busy as they were scanning the grounds they’d fail to look up in time to see the dragon approaching. Just as I neared the tower, I told Kylah to hang on, and folded my wings up against my body. Like an arrow that had reached the apex of its flight and turned back towards the earth, I shot past the tower on my way towards the ground. But unlike an arrow as I passed the watchtower I roared, and spat a stream of fire that engulfed the railings, the roof, and the two guards inside. One writhed about on the floor, trying to put himself out, though the wooden floor too soon caught fire. The other screamed and toppled over the railing, tumbling head over heels several times on his way to the ground, flames and sparks and embers all fluttering up into the air behind him before he hit the ground with a soft whump.

I pulled back up and swooped just overhead of the red brick building behind the watchtower, my belly scales nearly scraping the red-brown tiles of it’s roof. With a hind paw I touched off against it’s gray stone chimney, pushing myself a little higher into the air. Though I used a bit too much force, and the stone casing cracked. After a moment of wobbling, the cylindrical stone toppled over against the baked clay tile roof, cracked several tiles and then rolled off to plummet to the ground and shatter against the streets.

“Vraal!” Kylah said, slapping my scaly neck with her hand.

“Whoops,” I muttered. But really, what good was a dragon if he couldn’t cause a little destruction?

Then we were on our way to the next tower. There were still a few left, though the two by the north gate I wouldn’t worry about because I knew our archers there would be able to neutralize the guards inside and probably already had. I’d already destroyed one near a corner of the wall, and now another inside the town. I had just enough fire left inside me to destroy one more, and we turned back to cross the main road again, and destroy the other watchtower looking over it the same way I’d burned down the previous one.

I was out of fire after that, but when we soared over a tavern, I had another idea. I hit the ground just long enough for Kylah to break into the tavern through the back door, and roll out a hefty keg of the same potent spirits I’d lit aflame in her own town. Then she grabbed a lantern from a nearby iron pole near the main road, and we were back in the skies. I headed next for the far corner, the northwest tower. I wanted the men waiting at the north gate to know it was their turn to rush into the town, and I wanted to give them a sign we were winning!

I soared well out of eyesight above that tower, then I dove down and hurled the cask at the tower. It shattered the railing, and it’s iron bands snapped, the wood exploded and spirits flew everywhere. Then I circled swiftly around the tower while the archers eyes burned with the harsh liquid, and Kylah hurled her lantern inside. The glass shattered and the whole watchtower went up in a brilliant ball of red-orange fire! Waves of painfully intense heat washed over us, but the men inside didn’t even scream, the force of the blast had either killed them immediately or instantly seared their throats beyond use. For their sake, I hoped it was the former.

Though there were still a few towers left, it was time to let in more of my men. As I neared the gate, arrows that had probably been held steady on their marks since the attack began were finally loosed. Sharp whistles and harsh screams accompanied the guard’s nearest the gate’s fall from the walls and towers. Though they were applaud able in the willpower they’d have needed to hold their positions in the face of invasion, it was that same adherence to duty that now saw them filled with arrows as the second half of our force made itself known.

There was a small contingent of soldiers left guarding the north gate, but it was clear that over the length of the battle so far, many of the men stationed there had already been called away to help fight off the invaders. Arrows and crossbow bolts fired through the portcullis into town felled a few of the remaining guards, and those that scrambled out of the line of fire suddenly found themselves contending with a large, angry dragon and a woman who was very fast with a sword.

I dropped from the sky on one side of the north gate and Kylah leapt from my back immediately, unsheathing her sword in the way down. She landed in a crouch with the blade in front of her, and instantly had to deflect a quick series of strikes from several attackers who tried to surround us. Across the gate, more men ran towards us, and once more were felled by crossbow bolts shot through the portcullis openings. And as they began to turn back, I bound across the plaza there and tore into them.

I snapped my teeth down around one man’s shoulder, my sharp fangs popping through his stiff leather armor with the same sort of pop an arrow made as it pierced taut canvas. He screamed in pain as my teeth tore flesh and cracked bone, shattering her shoulder and his collar blade and nearly severing his arm. Just before my teeth met in the center of his body I spun myself around, and jerked my head to the side, releasing him from my maw. He was hurled straight into his nearest friend and they both tumbled across the street in a bloody pile.

Another soldier brought his sword down against the side of my neck, and thankfully my damn scales finally did their job. His blow was deflected, his blade sliding harmlessly across the scales of my neck all the way down to my shoulder. Before he could finish recovering from the failure of his strike and move to a move defensive position, I’d twisted my body around and lashed out with a front paw. My claws sunk into the rings of his chain mail, but not as deeply into his body as I’d hoped. No matter, gripping his mail I wrenched it as hard as I could, tearing it away from his body. The chain rings all twisted and popped and split with a horrible metallic shearing sound, like scraping my claws across hammered tin. My claws also left deep gouges across his rib cage, shredding his blue tunic. He stumbled away from me, dropping his weapon and grabbing at his belly with both hands, blood welling up between his fingers and his arms. When he turned and tried to run, part of me felt merciful, and I let him go.

Back across the road, Kylah was making short work of her own opponents, injured shoulder or not. While she did not heal as fast as a dragon, she had still healed well, and seemed to be just as dangerous with one sword as she had been with two. And though I hated to think where her dark steel and dragon bone blade had come from, it was certainly a far better weapon then those used by her enemies.

Though she faced off against three men surrounding her, Kylah seemed a whirling cycle of precise strikes and steel death. Sparks flew in the fog as blades clashed, Kylah managed to deflect every slice, thrust and blow aimed her way, and while he enemies deflected a few of her own strikes, that only left them open for more. One by one the men fell. One had his throat cut, the other his femoral artery, and the third found himself run through by Kylah’s steel. He dropped to his knees and she pushed him off the sword with her boot, then wiped the blood from the blade across his breeches.

“Not bad for an injured girl,” I said, glancing around to make sure we had a moment of safety.

“Watch it, Lizard, or you’re next!”

“Think you can get the gate?” I waved my paw at the portcullis. “I’d rather not have to hold it open this time!”

In lieu of reply, Kylah trotted up to the wall, and threw open the door of the gatehouse. This time she found it empty, and while I kept watch, and our people cheered beyond the gate, Kylah worked the mechanism and soon had that portcullis rising. Once it was retracted high enough for our people to flood into the city, she locked it in place. As they swarmed around me, cheering and eager to join the fray, I told them what had transpired so far. I gave them general orders, told them which way to go, and warned them to watch for ambushes and hidden archers. I also reminded them to watch for the blue arm band incase any of the enemy tried to trick them.

Once everyone was through, Kylah lowered the portcullis again and jammed the mechanism. We could always fix it later but it would make it all the more difficult for our enemies to escape our fury this time with no direct gateway out of the city. For now, I decided to leave the last of our forces on watch just outside the walls to try and prevent anyone else from escaping either via secret passage or by clambering over the wall.

Kylah soon returned to me, and after I lowered myself down, she climbed back atop me. “I’m a little worried about the townspeople,” I called back to her, leaping once more into the air.

“Why?” She called back, raising her voice to be heard over the wind.

“What if they side with our enemies? I can’t help but imagine they would have told them to expect an invasion by barbarians or some dragon’s enslaved horde! It’s not like they would have told them we were coming to liberate them! I’m sure the battle must have woken them up yet, but I haven’t seen any!”

Kylah gave a half shrug, rubbing the side of my neck. “We’ll just have to deal with that as it arises, if it does! Hopefully they’re smart or cautious enough to remain inside until someone wins! Then we can explain what’s going on to them just like we did to everyone else. Hopefully they’ll be so happy to see those bastards dead or in chains that they won’t think too hard about the lies they were told! Long enough for us to explain the truth to them!”

I liked her optimism at least, even if I did not always share it.

I rose in a tight spiral, ascending once more over the city drenched in rain and slathered with fog like some thick white confection spread across the prey of our army. By now the sun was preparing to rise, and though it’s first rays had not yet spilled across the horizon, the flood of it’s light was just about to overflow nighttime’s bank. Already it was beginning to lend the fog an eerie, purplish hue that made it feel even more like we were wrapped in some twisted, oddly hued dream.

Below us, the second half of our forces streamed through the streets, from above they looked like pulsing, moving organs beneath the sticky, purple white skin of some deep sea creature. From our vantage we saw them encounter a little resistance, but they had soon cut through it, and it was not long before they were filling all the little side streets of the city like blood through it’s many veins, heading towards our regrouping enemies. They were just about to bring the hammer down against our foes, and break their backs once and for all.

“Vraal!” Kylah cried out. “Tower!”

Distracted as I’d been by watching our forces through the spectral mists, I hadn’t noticed how close I’d gotten to one of the watch towers we had yet to rout. Kylah threw herself against the back of my neck, flattening herself out best she could as arrows hissed through the air above her. One of them flew just under my chin, I felt fletches tickle the fine gray scales there. The other arrow just missed Kylah’s back, nearly scraping her chain mail, and punched a hole through my left wing membrane. The pain was sharp, instant and severe, enough to make me cry out and my body jerk as blood ran from my wing and dribbled to paint the ground far below with crimson splotches. But it was not near enough to drop me from the skies, and certainly not enough to do anything more then really piss me off.

“Get me next to them!” Kylah screamed, pushing herself back up against my back.

Some of my spinal ridges and spikes flared up in anger, and I dipped a wing to swing back around towards the tower. “Are you going to do something crazy?”

“Yes!” Kylah said, drawing her sword from her hip, and moving to stand up on my back even as I flew.

“Good!” I called back to her. “I like crazy!”

“Fly along side them, and don’t make me fall!”

At this point I would have liked to point out that if she fell from a dragon’s back because she’d decided to stand up in mid-flight, that was her fault, and her problem. But I flew as steadily as I could despite the speed I was picking up and the constant motion of my wings causing my back to ripple beneath her boots. She bent her knees a little and braced herself, and before the archers had even finished nocking another set of arrows, I was already alongside them and Kylah was already doing something crazy.

With the grace and over-confidence of a cat, she leapt from my back just as I passed alongside the tower. The look of surprise on the nearest archers face as some crazed woman hurled herself off the back of a flying dragon was truly delicious, even if it only lasted for a moment. Kylah’s sword plunged through his chest, punching as easily through his stiff leather armor as the dragon scales it was meant to cut. As her feet caught just between bars of the railing, the sword erupted from his back, now dyed crimson. Even as Kylah was yanking her sword back, she was also pulling herself over the wooden railing and into the watchtower.

I kept a wing lowered, and circled the tower once more as she moved to engage the second archer. He’d drawn a short sword or a long bladed knife, I couldn’t tell which, and for a few moments the two of them skirmished. They danced back and forth inside the small structure high above the ground, the sharp clangs and hisses of steel contacting steel and scraping against it rang out, assaulting my ears.

Suddenly Kylah stumbled back and for a brief but heart stomping moment I thought the man had bested her. I realized about the same time he did that it was all an act, part of an elaborate feint, and as he thrust his blade towards her chest, she deftly twisted around and caught his wrist with her free hand. She yanked him forward then swiftly spun around him, and she just as he passed her, she kicked him in the back and sent him tumbling over the wooden railing. His scream lasted only a moment before he smashed face first into the cobblestone at the tower’s base.

Kylah sheathed her sword and climbed up onto the railing. I circled round the tower’s apex, and before I could come up with any sarcastic remarks about the general state of her sanity, she leapt from the tower! Springing out of a crouch to fly across the space between dragon and tower, landing upon my back and wrapping her arms round my neck like an angry lion pouncing upon an elephant. She nearly slipped right back off of me but thankfully her firm grip round my neck kept me from having to try and dive after her. Which was good, as that probably would have resulted in both of us splattering against the stone road.

“That crazy enough for you?” Kylah said, laughing as she got back into her usual position at the base of my neck.

“It’s getting close,” I said with a smirk.

“Good! Let’s take out the rest of them then!”

Between the two of us, the rest of the towers and their occupants barely stood a chance. Though before we got to the last of them, some of our men got there first. The last few towers had flames licking up their supports as fires raged around them. The archers inside leapt to nearby roofs, where they soon decided surrender was in their best interests as our soldiers surrounded the buildings.

From there, I winged my way around the city as the sun rose. Kylah and I called out orders to our people below wherever we found them, helping them to root out pockets of resistance. And though the sun was finally crawling across the horizon, it did little to burn away the fog or the heavier clouds above it still sending sheets of drizzle and rain cascading across the town. As dawn progressed, the light seemed to grow in minor increments, and the cold, bleak night gradually shifted in an a cold, gray dawn.

Here and there fighting still raged, especially in the main streets. Near the center of town, where the occupiers had made their headquarters, they were making their last stand. For the most part our people had surrounded the area, but Kylah and I found a few other groups of roaming enemies working to flank our people. Whenever we spotted them we called out their locations to our troops, or descended and dealt with them ourselves. I dove up on one group, hoisted a man up in my talons and swung him about like a club, using him to knock his kin up against the walls of the nearest buildings and down into the street.

Trouble began to brew when some of the townspeople got the wrong idea about us. I was sure that the bandit soldiers had spread false propaganda about us, and especially about myself. Here and there we came across groups of men and woman trying to attack our troops, and trying to defend the occupiers. Granted, it was only because they thought a dragon and his bewitched army had come to burn down their town much as they’d heard Emerfeld and the other villages had all burned to the ground.

Of course, the fact that I’d lit quite a few buildings on fire with my earlier strafing run probably didn’t help our cause much. Nearly every storefront where I’d blown my fire had caught aflame, as had trees, carts, food stands, even a carriage or two. This time though we were lucky in that all the rain kept the flames from spreading too far, and when I’d flown back over the area, it didn’t appear as though any entire buildings were lost.

And as the battle progressed, it become clear that more and more of the townspeople either didn’t believe our enemies to begin with, or were more willing to believe their own eyes then the lies that spilled from the tongues of their oppressors. Kylah and I came to find ourselves near the central square of town where the last of the serious fighting was going on. Our people were making progress, though it was laboriously slow. Our two groups of forces had successfully squeezed and for the most part defeated what was left of our enemies, forcing them to retreat to their headquarters.

They had taken what was once the town hall for themselves and transformed it into their local headquarters. It was a fitting building for them to make their last stand in, imposing as it was. The building was quite old, and built to represent and commemorate Talhof’s success with stone quarrying, and their status as one of the largest and wealthiest villages in the area.

Built from blocks of granite and marble, the building resembled a minature castle, and was the focal point in the center of town. Walls of gray and white rose high above all the other buildings in the area, though lichens and mosses and the darkening stains of time and rain had discolored the old walls greatly, especially around the edges of the parapets and battlements along the roof, and the base of the walls, where they met the floor.

It had four small towers topped with turrets and stone battlements, and each of those was now occupied by a group of archers slinging arrows down at the crowd below. The building had not initially been built to serve as a fortress, though, and so it also had four entrances, one on either side of the square shaped miniature castle. Each entrance was a tall, wooden set of double doors, made of thick oak, with metal bolts and studs holding them together. And from the looks of it, barricaded from the inside.

It stood in the center of a circular plaza that was now filled with men, and filled with blood. As sickening as the sight of so much red washing across the cobblestones and slowly rinsed away by rain was, it looked as though it boded well for our people. I saw quite a few dead and injured bandit soldiers around the castle, and only a few of our people being dragged away. But there was a ring of men all around the castle, and near each entrance that ring grew to several men deep. Each entrance was also guarded by men in heavier armor, some with plates of steel strapped all around their bodies, others with breastplates and helms, and also large tower sheilds protecting them from arrows. The archers atop the small castle’s towers were focusing their efforts on keeping our own men back, and trying to pick off any of our snipers. I saw one man already laying wounded atop a roof. So far, no one had been able to get up there to help him because the archers still had a clear shot.

“This looks familiar,” I muttered to myself, though Kylah heard me even above the winds of flight.

“You gonna try crashing through this roof, too?”

“Something like that,” I muttered, and circled once more. “I need to find something heavy!”

“Why, what are you going to do?” She called back to me.

I twisted my head, beating my wings harder to rise higher into the sky. Then I flashed her a wicked grin, exposing as many of my fangs as I could. “Something crazy!”

Chapter Thirty

It was not hard to find something heavy in a town subsisting partly on stone quarrying. The question quickly became just how heavy did I want it? I chose something just about as heavy as I could carry, a stone statue of some old warrior that had already been toppled onto it’s side and lost it’s head. I would have chosen a simple block of stone but I needed something I could carry, and a statue provided far more handholds for me then a block I’d probably crush my fingers beneath trying to slip my paws under it.

The statue was located in a small plaza near an intersection of the main road and another road nearly as large. A little circular garden took up the center of the intersection plaza, with half barrels neatly arranged all around it and filled with flowers. Though thanks to the autumn the bright red and blue flowers had nearly died away, and thanks to the cold rains the dirt filling the ponds was washing away. The statue I chose used to stand on a pedestal in the middle of the circle of flowers, but at some point in either the occupation of the town or the battle to free it, the stone warrior had toppled over and crushed one of those wooden flower barrels beneath it, leaving shattered planks of wood and mud scattered all over.

“Hope this isn’t a particularly historic or important statue,” I muttered to Kylah after landing near by, and grabbing it in my paws. I grasped it with one paw beneath the arm holding up a stone sword, and another around the base of the cracked shield across it’s other arm. “Cause I don’t think it’s going to survive the battle.”

“If anyone asks, I’ll tell them we found it shattered and broken wherever you plan to put it,” Kylah said, patting my neck.

I glanced back at Kylah, grinning and flaring my spiny crests in mischievous amusement. “Somehow I don’t think they’re going to believe you after this.”

Gritting my sharp teeth, I leapt into the sky and hauled the statue with me. The weight was much heavier then anything I was used to carrying, it weighed as much by itself as that whole damn bag I’d brought from my home to Emerfeld. It strained my front legs to lift it, it hurt my wings to haul so much weight, and it made my shoulders burn just to keep it in my grasp. But uncomfortable as it was, that was just about perfect for what I had in mind.

Now that the sun was up, the fog and mist had lifted but only slightly. Just enough to make it look as if the entire town was veiled in a thick, gray-white blanket of gauze. The thick clouds swirled and billowed away from me with every beat of my wings, only to surge up behind me and close up the temporary space I’d created. I flew higher then before, until I had reached the center of town where that little castle lay. Then I circled it a few more times, just low enough to get a look at the lay of the place without giving any of the tower archers an easy shot at my belly.

“I probably should have let you off already, in case this doesn’t work!” I said, flatting my ears back against my head as I circled once more. “Just hold on really tight and hope I don’t get us killed, alright?”

Kylah wrapped her arms around my neck, holding on nearly as tight as she had the very first time I’d ever taken her into the sky. “I really hate you sometimes, Vraal!”

I could barely breathe through the tightness of her grasp, she was nearly pressing the scales of my throat all the way into my trachea. But I wasn’t going to ask her to let go now because I really was afraid she might fall off if she did! I dipped a wing and a sail, and spun back around, aligning myself with one of the entryways of the castle. From what I could tell, it was the front door, it was the largest and most ornate of all of the double doors, and probably the most secure. It also had the largest continent of remaining enemy soldiers there, a solid line of men wrapped in steel shells wet with drizzle and blood, brandishing swords and axes. Ahead of them, a line of pike men kept the rest of our army beyond the tips of their spears, while the archers far above occasionally loosed arrows at anyone who dared to get too close.

“Shoot this down,” I hissed, folding my wings to my side.

Almost immediately I went into nearly vertical dive, dropping straight towards the ground, using only my sails to serve as a rudder and keep me on course. Without my wings, the weight of the statue pulled my faster to the ground then ever. My sails strained and ached, feeling as though they were about to be torn from my tail by all the force pressing against them as I rocketed towards the ground. I dove so sharply that Kylah began to lift off my back, and for a few nerve-racking moments she was only bound to me by her increasingly tight grip around my throat. To her credit, she didn’t scream. Much.

By the time the archers saw me hurtling through the sky towards the castle it was far too late for them to do anything to stop me. The nearest one tried to fire an arrow at me but it went wildly off course, vanishing into the fog that parted around me like deer hide parting round my claws. Ripples of fog blew off the back of my body, leaving an open, gaping wound in the mist for long moments that struggled to close and heal itself. Just as the archers saw me too late to try and shoot me down, so too did the men standing before the double doors see me too late to get themselves the hell out of the way.

I knew breaking this dive was going to hurt like hell, and it probably wouldn’t feel too good for Kylah, either, but it would be better then smashing straight into the ground or the castle wall. Soon as I saw the men in front drop their pikes and start to scatter, and the men in armor struggle to move quickly enough in protection that had suddenly become like steel cages, I snarled in effort and hurled the statue forward. Even I could barely throw the damned thing very far, but I gave it just enough forward momentum along with the great speed of my dive to send it straight into the line of men and the door behind them,

Like chess pieces knocked aside by a petulant loser, the statue crashed into the men in heavy armor and knocked them flying in all directions. Steel buckled into flesh, bones shattered and men were smashed and crushed and flattened as though they were the ones tossed from such a height. One man was flung directly into the double doors with the statue right behind him, I had aimed to throw the statue straight into the door, and happened to knock the men aside in the process. The statue itself exploded through the towering double doors at the front of the castle, the carved wooden doors and the crossbars that locked them shut exploding with a thundering crack louder even then the clap of thunder bellowing just over head. The men standing just inside the doors to guard against any intruders were nearly obliterated by a sudden wall of stone, wood, steel and flesh all erupting together as the statue crushed the armored guard into and then through the door, blowing it apart. Then in turn the statue shattered into several large pieces and a veritable army of stone shrapnel, a deadly granite flower blossoming in all directions as once as the statue met the marble floor just inside the entry hallway.

When the thunder died down, the screams and cheers began. But I was too busy trying to avoid killing myself and taking Kylah with me to hear them. The moment I hurled the statue I threw my wings open, flaring them and my sails to their full extent. The pain was instant and intense all along my back and along my tail as every tendon and muscle attached to my wings and sails was suddenly stretched to it’s complete limit. Fire roared all along my spine, stabs of sharper pain shooting out along the length of my wings and my sails as a few muscles and possibly even sinews tore. Dragons were made to dive safely, but thanks to that statue I’d picked up far more momentum then I’d ever have before while diving.

Worse, thanks to all that extra speed I didn’t immediately pull back up the way I was used to doing when I flared my wings! For a few agonizing and truly terrifying moments I kept right on hurtling towards the ground. I could nearly smell and taste the cobblestone around the castle by the time I finally broke my fall. The last few seconds seemed to go at half speed as my descent seemed to first slow to a crawl, and then finally reversed. Air filled my wings and lifted my once more and as I felt I’d probably broken my momentum, I forced myself to beat my throbbing wings. That only spread and increased the pain along my back, but it sped up my ascent, and soon I was rising almost vertical back into the air, just up along the edge of the castle wall. My belly scales nearly scrapped the stone as I shot up along the wall, once more nearly throwing Kylah from my back. I soared up past one of the towers, close enough for me to snatch the startled archer from his perch. As he screamed and thrashed about in my paws, I dipped an aching wing, spun back towards another tower, and hurled the hapless makeshift projectile at once of his friends. They collided and both toppled over the battlements and spun through the air as they plummeted to their doom.

I wasn’t sure how much longer my injured wings were going to carry me without at least a little time to rest and heal. I spun back around through the air, back towards the door I’d shattered. Pulling my wings in a little, my heart still racing fast enough to make my minor hearts throb near my tail, I headed back for the ground. I landed near where a few of the armored men who’d escaped the statue’s wrath were still trying to hold my men off. Though, when they saw me descend nearby, they broke off their engagement and tried to run for what they perceived as the relative safety of the castle.

I spun towards them, pivoting about on my paws, roaring in fury. From my back, Kylah yelled to her men, calling for a spear. As our own soldiers pushed forward, now freed of the enemy’s armored line and two of the tower archers, one of them snatched up the sharp pike dropped by a fleeing enemy, and tossed it up to Kylah. She leaned to the side without leaving my back and smoothly caught the weapon, and together we charged into the castle.

The spear gave Kylah just enough reach from atop my back to strike our enemies, and as I entered castle’s entry hallway, we began to fight as one. One of the retreating men snatched up an axe dropped by dead bandit soldier upon the floor who had a large spike of shattered wood lodged in his throat. Just as he whirled around to try and bury the ax in my snout, another man came up alongside me with a sword, intent on trying to drive it through my scales and into my bowels. Kylah deflected his sword away with the steel tip of her spear, and I knocked the man aside with my claws.

He recovered swiftly and this time swung the battleaxe low, trying to cut my front paw off, or at least my finger. I snatched my paw up off the ground just in time, and I heard Kylah’s spear ring out as it stuck the other soldier’s breastplate, but did not penetrate it. Realizing I was taking up most of the hole I’d created in the shattered door, I tried to press forward. I lashed out with my front paws a few times to try and push the man back, then snapped at him with my jaws. He proved to be a swift and agile opponent despite his heavy breastplate and steel pauldrons upon his shoulders. I did get my claws to scrape deep gouges in his breastplate however, forcing him back a few steps.

The man at my side, meanwhile, tried to get around me, and Kylah yelled “Tail!” So of course I swung it at him, and caught him in the midsection, driving his armor into his belly and knocking him off his feet. From there, following her directions I swiftly pivoted around again to bring Kylah back into range as he struggled to rise once more. The man with the axe tried to press the advantage, coming up around the side of my head to swing his blade in an upward arc aimed for my throat, but I hadn’t taken my eyes off of him, and this time rather then kill him in a single blow I struck with my claws again, bringing them right across the inside of his fore arms, through muscle and tendon, while pulling my head back out of range best I could. All at once his hands went limp, and the ax dropped from his grasp, clattering to the floor. At nearly the same time Kylah drive her pike down into the throat of the man she’d been battling with, leaving him to gurgle his last breaths and clutch his bloodied, rent throat.

With the other soldier I’d just wounded unable to fight back effectively for at least a moment, I decided to spare his life. My own soldiers were pouring in now, and it wasn’t long before he was pinned to the ground with a boot pressed against his throat. Taking a moment to look around, I saw that the other three doors all lead to the same ground floor entry hallway. Though the castle was at least four stories tall, the ground floor seemed to be devoted to little more then a show of grandeur. It was a good two stories tall, with elegant, fluted white and gold marble columns forming colonnades in rows that supported the grand arches that spanned across the ceiling. Lanterns hung from wrought iron coils affixed to every other column. The floor was of marble tiles alternating black and white, the old city hall was definitely designed to showcase the relative wealth that Talhof had enjoyed before the bandits came.

All along the stone walls were strange, lighter areas of varying shapes and sizes. It took me a moment to realize those were places were paintings and tapestries had once hung, before the bandits had looted them and sent them back to their own headquarters. Almost all the other decorations were gone along with the furniture which had probably been set around the place. At the far end, a wide, spiral staircase curled gracefully up to the next floor. It looked as though it had once had a golden railing made to look like stylish ivy leaves wrapping around the side of the stairs, but even most of that had been stripped away.

The last of the holdouts inside the castle had fled up that staircase, which was fine with me, they had little more room to run, and soon they would either surrender, or they would die. At this point, either chose was acceptable to me. I licked my muzzle, glancing back to Kylah with a grin, perking my ears and flaring my crests just slightly.

“Enjoy the ride?”

“You’re insane,” was all Kylah said, still hefting her pike. She ran her thumb against the polished wooden haft, then glanced around to see how many of our men had made their way inside. “Let’s get the other doors.”

“Right,” I said, quickly trotting towards the nearest one, followed by a group of our soldiers. As each set of double doors was placed at a different wall of the castle, I doubted those still guarding them from outside knew exactly what was happening. All the better for our troops to ambush them from behind, and trap them between lines of our steel. Rather then unhook the crossbar that fortified the door, I simply grabbed it in my paw, and tore it away, metal brackets and all. I tossed the broken bar aside, and then moved back a little to yank the doors open.

As soon as the doors were open, I rushed through them and drove my helmeted head right into the back of the closest soldier. My steel and my head proved stronger then his armor, collapsing the back of his steel plate as I sent him pitching forward flat onto his face. Another man turned towards me and before he could attack, I lashed out with my claws and tore his helmet from his head, leaving deep, bloody gouges across his face in the process. Then using his helmet like a cudgel, I twisted my body back and forth, bludgeoning everyone I could with it! Splattering one man’s face, crushing another’s helmet into his skull. While Kylah jabbed her spear first one way then another, keeping everyone around me from getting too close to my sides. Before long as more of our men poured out around me, flowing through the doors like ale from a keg with a broken tap, our enemies were throwing down their weapons and dropping to their knees in supplication. I ordered my men to show them mercy but bind them firmly and guard them closely, then turned back inside to survey what was left of our battle.

I was heartened to see that some of our other soldiers had already opened the last two sets of doors and engaged the remaining enemy soldiers outside. And more of our men were already running upstairs to clear out the last two hallways. I wasn’t sure I could make it up those stairs with either crashing through them or getting myself wedged helplessly in some hallway in the floors above, so I decided I had best let my men handle the rest of the castle. I’d had enough of getting myself in trouble inside buildings that were too small for me.

It was not long before prisoners were being marched back down those same stairs. I knew then that we had been victories. Talhof was ours. I waited until the castle was nearly full of our troops, and then I took a deep breath. On my back, Kylah dropped her spear to clap her hands over her ears. She was the smart one. Because when I roared as loud as I possibly could, the roar of victory, the signal to all our men everywhere that the town was ours, the sound was nearly trapped by the stone walls, bouncing and echoing and growing in strength until it was a cacophonous eruption of furious noise that would leave everyone’s ears ringing for hours, even mine. Everyone save Kylah, she was always the smart one.

But much as my roar might have pained them, our army embraced it. Our men began to scream and cheer, adding to the terrible sound of victory. Their voices joined mine as they hoisted bloody weapons into the air, and even as my breath gave out and my roar died away, my men roared for me. Roared for us, for our victory, for our freedom. Outside the castle, more soldiers heard the sound crashing through the open doorways as loudly as the statue I’d thrown had crashed through them before. They too carried on my roar, and soon the entire town of Talhof was bathed in the sound of victory. Victory guided by a dragon, freedom spear-headed by a dragon, yet earned by humans.

Humans I was no longer ashamed to say I was proud of, or ashamed to say I was friends with. I might not be one of them, but I would stand by their side any day, and now I knew it.

When the roar had finally died down, Kylah slid off of my back. She tossed down the bloodied pike, and turned back towards my, running her hands along the underside of my right wing. I flared it out a little for her, wincing in pain at the motion. Then whimpering a little as she probed and prodded the very sore base of my wing joint. She licked her lips and scowled at me, hooking some hair behind an ear.

“How’re your wings?” This time, there was no sarcasm or humor or anger in her voice, only concern.

I folded my frilled ears back against my head, twisting my neck around so I could peer at the base of my own wing. “Not good,” I admitted softly, sighing a little. Then I licked my nose, and gently curled my tail tip around Kylah’s midsection. “But thank you for asking.”

Kylah scrunched up her face and furrowed my brow. “You might it sound like you’re surprised I’m concerned about you.” She flashed my a smile, and gently rubbed the scales of my tail. Then, she reached up and not so gently began to poke and squeeze my wing joint again.

“Ow, ow!” I cried out. “Kylah, now is not…”

“Hush, Vraal. I’m trying to see the extent of the damage.”

I lowered my head, my crests sagging a bit and my ears drooping. As she examined my wing I felt like a hatchling with a bruised belly being inspected by his mother in front of all his friends. “Kylah, they’re watching,” I said, trying to squirm away from her.

“And they all saw you nearly tear your own wings off, so they know why I’m examining them. Stop acting like a child.”

“I don’t think I did any permanent damage,” I said, though I relented in my attempts to escape. “I think I may have turn some muscles and some tendons, but I was able to get back into the sky, which means I didn’t do any damage that’s too serious to prevent me from flying.”

“Perhaps not,” Kylah said, running her fingers along the bones of one half outstretched wing. “But no flying until they’ve healed.”

“Aww, Kylah…”

“You heard me, Mister.”

Spirits, we really did sound like mother and hatchling at the moment!

For the moment, I nodded my horned head in acceptable of her judgment. Telling her otherwise wouldn’t do me any good, and I knew she was right, I needed to let my wings heal before I did any more serious flying. While I didn’t think I’d done myself any sort of lasting injury just yet, I did not want to push my luck. Pressing injured wings too hard could turn minor injures into the sort of major ones that kept a dragon grounded for months or worse.

I thought I could probably manage the flight back to Emerfeld but not much more, and it would hurt like hell to do so. I didn’t want to be away from Emerfeld too long though, sooner or later the bandits were going to realize we had re-taken all our towns and they would want to launch a counterassault, I was sure. Their most likely target would be Emerfeld, it was after all the closest city to their fortress, and the largest of the five towns in the area. I needed to get back there with Kylah and start planning our own response. Perhaps we could even conquer their fortress before they had time to organize an attack. Or maybe we could let them put their army together, and draw it into a trap. Between Emerfeld and Talhof, and all the towns between we certainly had enough men now to form a viable army of our own.

At least we would once the people of Talhof realized we were on their side. I suspected many of the townspeople had not dared set foot outside their homes with the furious din of battle and bloodshed echoing through the morning fog. Now that the worst of it had died down they would start to take cautious steps out from their homes to see what happened. We would have to organize groups of soldiers to go around town and talk to everyone, explain the situation, tell them they were free. And tell them that yes, the grumpy old dragon walking around was actually their friend.

In the smaller towns it hadn’t been that hard to gather up most of the inhabitants into the central square and let Kylah and Ravek address them all together. But here in Talhof that wasn’t really going to be possible. Though the city was small by some human standards it was nearly the size of Emerfeld with many little neighborhoods and networks of streets and side streets and alleyways. In fact it would probably be the rest of the day before we were sure the town was cleared. Bandit soldiers might yet be hiding in alleys and taking refuge in homes either sympathetic or forced against their will to shelter the soldiers.

“We should find Ravek,” I said, opening my wings a little further to test them. I winced and pinned my ears back as it sent fire along my sides. “You and he need to start organizing groups to began going through town and talking to the people. If you can gather them up into large groups it should make it easier, then they can spread the word themselves.”

“In a minute, Vraal. We should clean and sew up your wound, first. That arrow wound is bleeding again.”

I glanced back along myself, and saw fresh blood dribbling down my black scales. At some point, probably my insanely steep dive, the bandage had come off. Since I’d been standing inside instead of out in the rain for a little while some of my blood had started to dry and crust my scales an ugly red. I lifted my front leg and worked my shoulder back and forth to see how much more it made me bleed. The movement made the arrow hole throb harder in pain, but it didn’t make me bleed too much more.

“Later,” I said with a shake of my head as I set my paw back down. “I’m only bleeding a little. We need to make sure this town understands what’s going before they turn against us out of fear and disinformation. And we need to gather all our wounded and make sure they’re all treated.” I licked my muzzle, and glanced down at the ground. I noticed my paws had left a few bloody prints that I’d tracked in from outside. “And we need to count and identify our dead.”

This was the first battle we’d had as an army where we’d lost some of my our friends. There would be celebration for our great victory, but it would also be tempered by mourning, as well as the knowledge we were not quite finished. We had one more great battle left to fight if we wanted our freedom to truly last.

“What’s that little smile for?” Kylah asked, her voice soft as she gently rubbed her fingers against my chin.

I imagined it was an odd time for me to smile, right after I’d mentioned counting our dead. That wasn’t what made me smile, though. I leaned into her hand, turning my pale blue eyes to her own green ones. Her eyes shone even in the dark.

“I’m smiling because I keep thinking of this army as my army, the freedom they are all fighting for as my freedom. As if I couldn’t just rise, injured wings or not, and fly from this all any time I wanted. I suppose I’m amused that I keep thinking of myself as one of you, now.”

Kylah simply smiled at me, and wrapped her arms around my head, just below my horns, and hugged me against her chest. “You are one of us, Vraal.”

*****

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