Ready for more of Parallel Quests? It took me forever to finish this damn pair of chapters, but I finally got 'em done.
Chapter Three - The Human
Riley? Kenny’s voice asked me from somewhere. Great, was I having some weird out of body experience? What happened last? Oh, yeah, I should be waking up as a human now. I felt light-headed, so either I was ridiculously drunk or my head really did weigh less. Considering how blurry my vision was, I was leaning toward the former.
I reached for something to help me up, and found a hand reaching out to me. It felt weird, so I was willing to accept that something had happened to me. It wasn’t until I saw my own hand that I realized something had happened to me. It wasn’t my scaley hand that grabbed whoever was helping me up, it was a very human hand that I was looking at.
So it worked? I tried to say. I heard the words, but they didn’t sound like my voice. If I were thinking clearly, I’d probably realize that my voice really wouldn’t sound the same, considering I’d just changed from dragon to human.
“Oh, it worked, honey,” Sharena said. “Are your senses coming back?”
“Uh-huh,” I said, with a minor groan.
“Good. I have to tell you something important, though.”
“What?”
“You’re not exactly male anymore.”
Well, that explained a few things that weren’t common for human boys, like the feel of my hair partway down my back or the lack of something swinging between my legs. “Is there a mirror around here?”
“Before that, take these,” she was holding a bundle of clothes out to me. Suddenly, I felt slightly embarrassed. I was a human girl now, and there was a human boy my age in the same room with me. He was getting to see a naked girl, he was probably enjoying the experience. I looked over at Kenny, and realized he was looking away from me. Either he realized the awkward situation, or he didn’t like girls.
I took the clothes and looked around. “Is there somewhere I can change?”
“Of course there is.” She pointed to a door that I hadn’t noticed before, but this woman was a magic user, so there might not have been a door there earlier.
I thanked her, then walked into the room she’d pointed at. It was a plain bedroom, with a very basic bed, dresser and mirror. I took a deep breath and walked over to the mirror and looked at the new me for the first time. The human girl I saw in the mirror was darker skinned than Kenny was, and about an inch or two shorter than him. I’d been six feet tall before, but now I had to be about five foot seven. I didn’t often look at human girls, so I couldn’t really tell if my breasts were too large or too small. They felt large to me, but they were also new to me.
I brought one hand to my nipple and lightly touched it. It felt really weird. I pulled my hand away quickly, because it felt too weird. This whole thing felt too weird. Maybe I should have just taken my chances in my normal form. I turned away from the mirror and looked at the bundle of clothes that Sharena had given me.
I pulled out the underwear first and held the article in my hand. It felt… Weird. Soft. I’d never worn underwear, but I’d seen enough humans (well, not too many) taking off their clothes to swim that I knew how to put on their clothes. I sat down on the bed and slid the underwear up my legs. My legs were long, it felt weird. Weird described this whole experience. I stood back up and pulled the waistband over my hips. I looked in the mirror again and the image still looked odd.
I found something to cover my breasts and it looked confusing to me. How the hell was I gonna put this thing on?
There was a knock on the door. “How’re you doing, honey?” Sharena asked.
Should I ask her for help? Did I really even need to wear this? “I’m... “
The door opened and I was suddenly joined by Sharena. “I kinda figured this is where you’d get stuck.”
I blushed. “What… Um… What even is this?”
She smiled. “It’s a bra, sweetheart, and you’re gonna want it in the long run.” She took it from me and told me to hold my arms straight in front of me. She put one arm through one strap and one arm through the other and then pulled it onto my chest. To say it felt weird would be both an understatement and a broken record at this point, but that’s exactly how it felt. “Okay, now reach behind and I’ll guide your hands so that you can hook it by yourself.” I felt her hands take mine and then I was grabbing the two ends and hooking them together. “There we go, now we’re all taken care of, and the excitable teenage boy in the other room won’t be getting a nose bleed every two minutes.”
I looked in the mirror again and the girl in front of me had an uneasy look on her face. I couldn’t even begin to describe how odd this all felt.
“Thanks,” I said. My voice sounded distant, like I wasn’t really in my own body, and to an extent that was true.
“Sorry about this, by the way.”
“Huh?” What was she apologizing for?
“The potion I gave you was an accident. I grabbed the female potion by mistake.”
“There’s different potions for different genders?”
“Well, you can’t use the same potion for different genders, silly.”
“Is there some reason you can’t give me the male potion now?”
“If I were to give you the male potion now, it would cancel out the female potion and return you to dragon form, then neither potion would work on you again.”
“That seems… Odd.”
She sat down on the bed in front of me. “Magic is a very picky thing, especially potions. Things need to be exact, and that means that the ingredients in one potion can counteract the ingredients of another, even if those ingredients are similar or even the same.”
Was she telling me the truth? I couldn’t tell. It really shouldn’t matter to me, either, since my choices were hide as a human and live or take my chances as a dragon and likely die. Not good odds. At least I looked like any average human girl.
Sharena placed a hand on the rest of the clothes. “The rest of the clothes are a simple pair of pants and a shirt. When you’re all dressed, see me about some shoes. I think I’ve got a pair of boots that you should be able to wear.”
“Thanks,” I said, trying to manage a smile.
“No worries, sweetheart.” She stood up and grabbed my hand. “If it weren’t for Kineas, I’d probably just leave you in the forest and naked.”
“Really?”
She shook her head. “No. I just like to let Kineas think that I’d do that.”
“He seems to like you.”
She smiled. “Well, he should. He’s my step-son.”
If it wasn’t for the mirror, I’d have never seen my confused look for the first time. It looked funny, actually. “If you’re the wife of the town’s greatest dragon slayer, why do you live in the woods?”
“That’s a trade secret, young lady, and if you’re a good girl, I’ll let you know one of these days.” There was my confused look again. “Oh, c’mon, it’s just a little mom humor.”
“Why were you so willing to help me if your husband is a dragon slayer?”
She traced the scar on my hand. It looked smaller now that I was human. “Get your clothes on first, okay? If you’re going to be my adopted daughter, I’m going to have to let you in on the family secret.” She smiled again, then walked out of the room and left me alone.
I sighed. Family secret? I was just a dragon in hiding who had to pretend to be a member of the family, why would I really need to know the family secret?
I reached for the clothes and pulled the pants on first. Wearing underwear alone was strange, but feeling fabric all over my legs was just… It felt even weirder. I ran my hands up my now clothed legs and shivered a little. How was I ever going to get used to wearing clothes?
I pulled the shirt over my head next. The front of the shirt was open a little bit, showing the tops of my breasts and the… Area in-between. I’m sure girls had a word for it, but I didn’t know it. I took another look at the human girl in the mirror and saw how awkward and unsure of herself she looked.
I took a deep breath and left the bedroom. Sharena and Kenny were both sitting on a couch that I hadn’t noticed before. Clearly these trade secrets of Sharena’s were all over the house. In fact, the place looked more like a house and less like what I assumed a gay bar would look like.
“Riley, please sit down over here,” Sharena patted a chair in front of the couch. I walked over to it and sat down. Yet another awkward feeling in a day full of awkward. Sitting on rocks felt normal to me, but soft, comfy chairs was nothing but different. “First thing, here,” she handed me a pair of boots, just like she said she would. “Do you need any help getting them on?”
I shook my head. “No. I’ve seen humans do this before.”
“That’s good.” She crossed one leg over the other and placed her hands in her lap. “Now, it’s time to let you in on the family secret.”
“Why?”
“Riley, you’re a member of this family. Even if you weren’t in hiding, just being a friend of Kineas would make you a member of this family.”
“Then how is this still a secret?”
She laughed. “Kineas doesn’t have as many friends as he lets on.”
Kenny rolled his eyes. “You just had to say it, didn’t you?”
“As I was saying, you’re a member of this family now. Kineas’s father, Irvine, is a dragon slayer.”
“I know that part already,” I said.
She gave me a somewhat amused/annoyed look. “I wasn’t finished, young lady.” I could tell she was enjoying that. “Irvine knows that there are dangerous dragons and not-so-dangerous dragons. Ever since before Irvine and I were married, he’s brought the not-so-dangerous dragons to me, and we’ve helped them survive in the world.”
“You run a dragon underground railroad?”
She nodded. “Yes. Most dragons harbor no ill will towards humans, so Irvine and I set up the D.U.R. so that these dragons can - “
I cut her off. “Did you just abbreviate that as D.U.R.?”
“If you’re going to tell the “dur” joke, I’d save it. Kineas thought it up years ago.”
I looked down at my feet. “Okay. You can go on.”
“As I was saying, Irvine and I set up the dragon underground railroad so that we could help the dragons that aren’t dangerous.”
“How do you know?”
“What do you mean?”
“How do you know when a dragon isn’t dangerous to humans?”
She sighed. “It’s not easy. Not many of them are like you.”
“Like me?”
“Riley, I can read you. I pointed to the bedroom over there and you went in there instantly. I could tell from the moment I saw your face that you’ve lived in a house before, correct?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“How old were you?”
“About four…”
“Mommy! Mommy!” the girl shouted. I tried getting up and moving, but I couldn’t. I was too weak. The girl poked at me with a stick. I sort of made a noise, but I could barely hear it, so odds were good the girl couldn’t really hear it, either. “Mommy! Itsa doggy!” I would have corrected her, but understanding human and speaking human were two very different things.
An older woman, probably in her forties, came over to the girl and I. I was fairly certain this was the Mommy the girl had called over. “Blodwyn!” she said, with a very… Stern sounding voice. “That’s not a doggy, baby girl, that’s a dragon!”
The girl - Blodwyn - looked up at her mother with wide eyes, then back to me. “Really? Can we keep it?”
“Baby girl, please, don’t touch it, okay? It looks hurt.” The woman reached down and picked me up. I nuzzled up against her and enjoyed the comfort of not having to move on my own for now.
The woman carried me into her house, where Blodwyn hopped up on a… A… A thing for people to sit on. Her mother set me down on something flat and wooden in front of the girl. I looked over at Blodwyn, who looked concerned. I tried to smile, but I couldn’t.
The woman touched me on the side where something had hit me. I didn’t know what the man had been using on me, but the thing that hit me had been thin and long, with a sharp point at the end. The pain shot through me again, causing me to groan. The woman clamped her hand over my mouth, which I tried to push away, but I couldn’t. I was too weak to do anything to stop her.
“It’s okay,” she said, “I’m not going to hurt you.” I wanted to tell her what a good job she was doing. My side was killing me more now than it had been when I landed behind her house. “Can you talk?”
Blodwyn giggled. “It’s a dragon, Mommy! Dragons can’t talk!” If only I could talk. I’d make that girl eat her words.
Her mother smiled and squeezed her hand. “That’s not true, sweetie. Can you stay here with our little guest while I get the first aid box?”
The girl nodded. “I will, Mommy.” I watched the woman leave the room and then looked over at the girl, who was smiling widely at me. “You’re cute,” she said, “I hope you stay here and live with Mommy and Daddy and me!”
I rolled over and sighed. I tried to go to sleep, but it just wasn’t working.
“Do you have a mommy like I do?” Blodwyn asked. I turned back to her and shook my head. “Do you have a daddy?” I shook my head again. “You don’t have a mommy or a daddy? That’s so sad…” I saw tears building up in her eyes.
I tried to slide myself across to her, but it was difficult to move. She reached out to me and helped me along, and I curled up in her lap. It was comfortable. I needed it.
By the time the girl’s mother returned, I was asleep.
“Blodwyn and her family pretty much raised me.” I looked down at my feet. “I left them when I was about seven, and I haven’t seen them since.”
Sharena was still watching me with very studious eyes, while Kenny looked like he was about to fall asleep. Great. I wish I’d known this story would bore him. Sharena smacked him on the arm, rousing him out of his near-sleep experience. I giggled lightly, not even loud enough for me to hear.
“Did anyone aside from Blodwyn’s family know about you?” she asked.
I shook my head. “No. I was the family secret then. It wasn’t unusual for me to be sleeping on the couch, and then woken up and asked to move into the basement closet.”
“You let them do that to you?” Kenny asked.
“Actually, they let me do that. I didn’t really want to be out in the open.”
“You mean, you wanted to hide?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Especially after the white dragon showed up. It was either hide, or die.”
Sharena was still examining me, almost like she was… Testing me. What was she thinking about me? Why was she watching me so closely? It was starting to creep me out. My natural response was to hug my knees to my chest, which I’ve seen human girls do before.
Sharena turned to Kenny. “Take Riley into town, okay? Show her around.”
I said, “I can’t.” She and Kenny both turned toward me. “They heard my name. Isn’t it gonna be kinda suspicious if a girl named Riley shows up the same day as the dragon named Riley?”
Kenny turned to Sharena and said, “She’s got a point.”
She rubbed at her chin. “Yeah.”
“So what do we do?” I asked.
Sharena sighed. “For now, you stay in the house. I’ll bring you some books to read - “
Kenny cut her off. “Um… She doesn’t know how to read.”
She sighed again. “You never learned how to read?”
I rolled my eyes. “I was a dragon. Kinda hard to hold a book, even though I was small for my age.”
“Fine, I’ll bring you a radio. Kineas will help you learn to read. You’ll need that for school when I get you enrolled in a few days.”
“Why do I have to go to school?”
She smiled. “No step-daughter of mine is going to stay at home while her brother goes to school.” She squeezed my shoulder as she passed by. “Besides, you’re seventeen years old, there’s plenty of people your age to meet at school.”
I heard myself gulp.
“In other news, the white dragon was recently sighted at a train depot ten miles north of Endawa this afternoon. Casualty numbers are unknown, but we’re told they number low for a white dragon sighting.”
I kept looking at the book, but the words weren’t exactly turning into something I could read. I sighed. School. I had to learn in less than a week what real humans got seventeen years to learn. Even the comic books that Kenny brought in weren’t helping. Pictures didn’t help me understand words.
“The casualties came mostly from a passenger train returning from the war, as the depot was understaffed. We’re told that the trains stopped at that depot because of commotion in the cargo train, and the Imperial Guard believes that the white dragon was going after something in that train.”
The bed felt too soft. It’d been years since I last slept on a bed, but it still felt too soft. Or, was I too soft? I still had scales the last time I slept on a bed. I sighed. This whole thing was getting… Irritating.
“That was Imperial News at Five. A few stories they didn’t touch on, I noticed, were the heist in Kepton last week. One of the thieves, a Jaide Farson, was arrested, but he’s made mention of a partner that he’s not going to give up. What’s being done about this partner? Are the Imperial Guard going to hunt this guy down? Or am I gonna havta take out my dagger and take this punk out myself?”
There was a knock on my door. I flipped the radio’s power switch to off. “Come in,” I said. My voice was still strange to me, but I was getting used to it.
Kenny walked in with some kind of board game. “I thought you might need a break from your reading practice.”
I set the book down on my night stand. “If you can call this practice. I’m still not getting anything.”
“Don’t feel bad about it. Some people have trouble learning how to read.”
“That’s not making me feel better. I have to fit in at your school, and I bet most of your classmates know how to read, don’t they?”
He sighed. “Yeah, they do.”
“How’s it gonna look if your sister doesn’t know how to read?”
“They’re gonna know you’re adopted, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Is it common that adopted kids don’t know how to read?”
He set the game down on my bed and pulled the top of the box off. “Let’s just change this conversation and get to the point where you relax, okay?” He pulled out the board and set it in front of me. “Now, the goal of the game is to buy properties with money and try to bankrupt the other player, okay?”
“That sounds like it needs reading.”
“It does, but I can read the cards for you.”
“You’re not gonna cheat, are you?”
“Of course not. Believe me, I have no reason to cheat.”
“I’d never know, y’know.”
He smiled. “I don’t feel the need to cheat when I’m playing against my sister.”
“I have this one question, though. Why do you call Sharena by her name if she’s your step-mom?”
“She and my dad didn’t get married until a couple years ago, and my birth mom is still alive, in town.”
“Why don’t you live with her?”
He shrugged. “She’s not… When my dad started hunting and helping dragons, she got jealous of all the time he and Sharena spent together. Sharena’s been my dad’s best friend since they were kids, and dad knew Sharena used magic, so he knew exactly who to go to the first time he found a harmless dragon.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Mom left him, told him never to look at her again, and just threw her wedding ring at him.”
“That’s just cruel.”
“Yeah. Dad and I moved in with Sharena a couple weeks later, and they got married a few years after that.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “My mom clearly wasn’t in it for family. Dad loved her. He mainly married Sharena so that she could be my legal guardian in case something happened to him.”
“So, your dad doesn’t love Sharena?”
“I didn’t say that, he just loved my mom more than she loved him.”
I felt sorry for him. Here, I didn’t have any parents, and I felt sorry for him because his parents had such a complicated relationship. It was starting to remind me of Blodwyn and her family.
“He’s not a pet!” Gwyneth shouted. Blodwyn was sitting on the couch beside me, petting me. I wouldn’t mind if they did treat me like a pet, honestly. “Don’t treat him like one!”
Byrn shook his head. “He’s a dragon! He’s not a person! He basically is a pet, all he does is play with Blodwyn and sleep!”
Gwyneth looked irritated. “What else do you expect him to do? Don’t you know what people would do if they found out he was here?”
I lifted my head a little. “What would they do to you and your parents if they found me?” I asked Blodwyn.
She shook her head. “I dunno. But Mom makes it sound bad.”
I laid my head back down on the couch, like a sad dog. Or, at least what I thought was a dog. I’d never seen one, but Blodwyn described them to me once. Her parents were doing nothing but yelling at one another, and it was making me feel horrible, because they were arguing about me.
Blodwyn patted me on the head, then went to the bathroom. I slipped off of the couch, walked to the door and sighed. I didn’t want them arguing about me, and I didn’t want the family hurt because of me. I loved Blodwyn and her family, but I needed to be gone for them. I opened the door, walked outside, and never looked back.
Chapter Four - The Thief
“Where are we going?” Sari asked. She was walking on the rail, perfectly balancing herself. I had to give her credit, that was a pretty difficult thing to do. I was simply polishing my knife, which was something I did whenever I woke up. I was honestly surprised that she was still with me, and hadn’t just robbed me in my sleep.
“At the moment, we’re just walking the tracks. I don’t know where to go, exactly.” I pulled a canteen out of my pack, took a drink and then handed it to her. “Just because we started this quest doesn’t mean I know how we’re gonna do it.”
She gulped down a little more of my water than I expected her to. “Really?” she asked, sarcastically. “And here I thought you knew everything we’re gonna do.”
I glared at her. “It’s not just that I don’t know where to go, I don’t even know where we’re headed. It’s not like I grabbed a map or anything.”
She passed my canteen back to me. “We’re headed for Endawa,” she said, “a nowhere little town..”
“Do you live there?”
She shook her head. “Nope. But I’ve been there, though. I hid out there for a couple days after my ex and I pulled this job in Kepton.”
“You had a boyfriend?”
“I had an ex boyfriend. We were together for about three days, then we were partners in crime.”
“What did you steal from him?”
She glared at me. “Nothing. He got caught, I didn’t. It was that simple. What’s it matter to you?”
I slipped my hand to my sword hilt. “I like to know who it is I work with. It’s kinda the reason I’m alone.”
She smirked. “Sucks to be you, then. Everybody should have friends.”
I had friends, once upon a time. Hell, I used to have a family.
I put those memories out of my mind. It wasn’t good to dwell on the past. Especially my past. I moved my hand away from my sword and relaxed myself. Sari was walking ahead of me, and didn’t notice.
I felt something in the tracks. I knelt down and placed a hand on the track, and then I stood back up. “Move.”
“What?” Sari asked.
“Something bigger than a train is on its way.”
I spotted and small ditch just ten feet away, and bolted for it. Sari was there before I even had a chance to slide to a stop. We waited, a good twelve minutes later, something big rolled past us on the tracks. It wasn’t going fast, likely due to its size. It wasn’t like a normal train, and looked more like a castle on rails. Every third car, there were soldiers standing guard, very familiar looking soldiers. They were wearing the same gear as the six men that attacked me the day before.
We watched it pass, and once it was finally gone, I climbed out of the ditch, followed by Sari, but I wasn’t paying much attention to her. Those soldiers came after me, and they were guarding that train. I needed to find it.
“You seemed pretty fixated on that train,” Sari said. She was filing her nails with a small knife.
“I’ve seen the guards before.”
“Know any of ‘em?”
“No, but I’ve killed some of their friends.”
“Those are Royal Escorts, which means that train had a member of the Imperial Family on board.” There was something in her voice, some sort of recognition, and something else that I just couldn’t figure out. “Who’d you piss off up high to get Royal Escorts after you?”
“Who said they were coming after me?”
She smirked. “You were the one who said you killed some. Royal Escorts don’t leave the sight of a member of the Imperial Family unless they’ve been ordered to kill somebody. Everybody on the continent knows that.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know what I did, unless you count sneaking on board a train to avoid the fighting.”
“You mean, you’re not a soldier?”
I shook my head. “Not a legit soldier, no. I’ve seen my share of fighting, against both.”
The look on her face told me she was much the same way. Granted, she was a thief, so that made quite a bit sense. Just going from one town to another would probably put her up against different soldiers. But there was something different about her. She had some sort of recognition when it came to the Royal Escorts she mentioned.
We came to a small lake, a little less than ten miles away from the town. I knelt down by the lake and splashed some water on my face. It had been about six weeks since the last time I had a real shower, but light bathing in lakes kept me from smelling like rotting wood on a hot day.
Sari pulled off her top, wiggled her skirt off, took off her boots and jumped into the water. She swam around for a good five minutes, almost like she was part fish or something. “C’mon, jump in!” she shouted, once she finally surfaced.
I shook my head. “Nah, I don’t think so.”
She blew me a raspberry. “Why not?”
I shook my head again, then looked toward the town. “So, whaddya know about that place? You said it’s called Endawa?”
She did the backstroke over to the edge of the lake where I was standing. “It’s a nowhere town, nothing really interesting to do, nobody special to steal from. I hid out here once, and the Imperial Guard never thought to look for me.” She pulled herself out of the lake and pulled a small towel from a pouch on her quiver. “There’s this neat pharmacy, though the lady who works there is kinda… Creepy, to say the least.” She turned toward me. “Her kid’s pretty hot, though.”
I sighed. “That it?”
“Kinda. I doubt we’ll run into him, but have you heard of the dragon slayer Irvine?”
The name sounded familiar, but I didn’t know it. “I don’t know.”
She pulled her panties back on and gave me a weird look. “You’d know if you heard about him. Most of the dead dragons on this planet are courtesy of him. Both the Selen Empire and the Tameran Republic treat him with more respect than they do their own royalty.”
“What does he have to do with this town?”
“He lives here.”
I raised an eyebrow. “A tiny place like this produced an amazing dragon slayer?”
“And your hometown produced a guy who can actually beat me in a straight fight. Don’t assume.” She put most of her bikini top back on, then turned her back to me. “Wanna tie me down?”
Part of me wanted to know why she couldn’t do it herself, another part of me really didn’t care, and the third (typical red-blooded male) part of me rationalized, Cres, it’s a hot girl asking you to put her bikini on her, just do it. Although I didn’t see Sari as potential dating material, she was a damned attractive girl.
“Whatever,” I said, as if it didn’t matter to me. I spotted a dark red circle under her left arm. “What’s this?”
“Huh? Oh, that’s my birthmark.”
“It’s not very big.”
“Birthmarks don’t need to be big, Cres.” I finished tying off her top and then handed her quiver over to her. She reached into it and pulled a rubber band out of a pouch, then tied her hair into a ponytail. “Okay, ready to go?”
“I have been,” I said. “You’re the one who derailed us by going for a swim.”
She blew me a raspberry again. “Whatever,” she said, mocking my tone of voice from just a minute ago. I shook my head.
The nowhere little town that Sari described was actually pretty busy. People were milling about, children playing in the streets. That pharmacy that Sari had mentioned before had kids running in and out of it, with the owner chasing a few of them out for playing in the aisles. On the rooftops, there were men sitting in ballistas, aiming at the sky. This town was both enjoying a lazy Saturday and preparing for war at the same time.
I walked into the pharmacy. There were only three people inside aside from me, the woman who owned the place, a boy my age and a cute girl my age, who was sticking close to either the boy or the woman.
“Looking for anything in particular?” the woman asked.
“Just came in to buy a drink. Um… Quick question: Do you take Republic currency?”
She sighed. “We’ll take it, yes, but I’ll have to give you Imperial change. We don’t often get Republic money here.”
I grabbed a bottle of soda and brought it up to the counter. The girl was eyeing me, like she recognized me or something. I didn’t recognize her, but I’ve met a lot of girls in the past two months. Maybe I saw her at some point.
“This it? Nothing for your girlfriend out there?” the woman asked. She nodded toward Sari, who was standing outside, looking annoyed.
“She’s just a friend, and no.”
She walked over to the cooler I’d gotten my soda from and set another one down beside mine. “It’s on the house.” She also tossed on a couple of granola bars. “It’s a little rude to bring a girl like that along and not buy her something.”
“Thanks,” I said, with a slight bit of sarcasm.
I paid for the drinks and granola bars (even though she told me that Sari’s were free) and left the building. Sari gladly took her drink and snack and munched away at it loudly. I sighed. Some girls.
“Hey! Sarika!” I heard from somewhere. Sari and I both turned and I spotted this boy running toward us, a big smile on his face. My hand drifted to the hilt of my blade, because something about him didn’t feel right.
Sari didn’t look pleased to see him, either. She grabbed him by the collar and pulled him into an alley a few feet away. I followed her, after making a quick look around. Something told me he was being followed. “What are you doing here, Jaide?” she asked. “You got caught.”
“They let me out, for some reason.” He glanced over at me. “Who’s this guy?”
I was about to answer, but Sari cut me off. “He’s Cres. And he’s none of your business.”
Jaide raised his hands in a back off gesture. “Okay, okay. Good luck with this one,” he said, directing the line to me and pointing at Sari, “she can be pretty feisty.”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever, you still didn’t answer my question.”
“Yeah, I did. They let me out.”
“No, they didn’t. The Imperial Guard [i]never[/i] just lets somebody go.” She drew her knife and put it to his neck. “Who’s got your leash?”
He pushed her away. “I got loose, okay? Nobody’s got their claws on me.” He readjusted his collar. “I really snuck away from them, okay?”
“And you just happened to come here?”
“We were gonna meet up here, remember? I took my chance that you’d still be here.”
I grabbed him by the collar this time and shoved him against the wall. “Why’d you shout to her in the middle of a crowded street if you weren’t trying to clue somebody in that she’s here? If you were alone, you would have come up on her quietly.”
“Dude, nobody can sneak up on this girl. She woulda gutted me if I’d tried.”
Sari let out a small groan. “Please. Your aftershave would have told me who you were right away.” She folded her arms under her breasts and stared him down. “But Cres is right. You’re not here because you wanted to catch up with me after escaping. How many of them, and where are they?”
“I’m telling you, nobody is following me. What do I gotta do to prove it to you?”
I watched him closely. There were things about him, things that I couldn’t tell if Sari was noticing. His eyes were darting back and forth, between me and her. There was sweat on his forehead, and his hand had moved to an empty sheath. He wasn’t carrying a sword, but I couldn’t tell if he had a knife.
I grabbed his arm and pulled his hand away from his sheath and slammed him against the wall. “What are you doing?” I demanded, never raising my voice but keeping it authoritative. Something hit the ground when he hit the wall. I knelt down and picked it up, a pocket knife. “Why were you getting this out?”
“I always have that out. It sits in a holder in my sleeve, you knocked it out when you slammed my hand against the wall!”
Sari kneed him in the crotch. His eyes bulged, his hands went to groin, and then he fell over, unconscious. “Pick him up.”
“What the hell did you do that for?!” I nearly shouted.
“This way, we can rent a room at the inn and question him there. The idea that people could be watching us out here is giving me the heebies.”
I sighed. Something told me today was gonna be a longer day than it already had been.
“Was that the kid from the pharmacy?” I asked, setting Jaide down on the bed. He’d been squirming a little in the bag, but that wasn’t anything another well-placed kick from Sari hadn’t cured. I considered asking her where she’d gotten the large burlap sack we’d stuffed him into, but decided against it. That quiver of her’s seemed to have more than just arrows in it.
“Looked like him. Maybe his mom’s pharmacy is just a part-time gig.” Sari shut the door and locked it. “Now, let him out of the bag.”
I untied the knot and pulled the bag off of Jaide, who was still mostly unconscious. He stirred a little, but didn’t wake up. “You’re not taking this too personally, are you?”
She glared at me. “You’d be taking this personally if your ex-partner ratted you out.”
“What’d ya steal that he’d actually turn you in for?”
She sat down on the other bed in the room. “We didn’t actually get anything. The job went bad.”
“Then what were you going after?”
“Fruit.”
“Seriously?”
“Look, I’m a thief, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a heart, okay? Kepton’s a poverty trap, and the Imperial Guard were transporting crates of fruit through the town like it was some sort of show. Jaide and I were gonna steal the fruit and give it to the people.”
“Robin Hood would love you.”
She glared at me again. “Shut up, okay?”
I pulled some zip ties from my belt and tied Jaide’s wrists. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way. So why’s this Kepton place so bad?”
She relaxed, then cleared her throat. “Early in the war, the Empire was drafting people to fight. Anybody who wouldn’t go found their way to Kepton, which was outside Imperial territory. When the war got bad, and the Empire started annexing the rest of the continent, that meant Kepton fell under Imperial rule.” She looked toward the window. “Everybody who wouldn’t go to war was there. And once the Imperial Guard found out about it, they didn’t just drag the draft dodgers off to war, they torched the place.”
“How many died?”
She shrugged. “I dunno. Too many, as far as I’m concerned. Ever since then, Kepton’s been a shanty town, and treated like it’s one of the Empire’s greatest conquests.” She looked over at Jaide, then stood up, walked over to him, and grabbed him by the collar roughly, waking him up. “What did you tell them, Jaide? Did they let you go to get to me?”
He pushed her off using his shoulders. “They didn’t ‘let me go’, okay?!” He snapped the zip ties off. “I got away from them, and they weren’t Imperial Guard. I don’t know who they were, but they knew about you, about your… Abilities.”
I drew my blade and put it against his neck. “Did you tell them about her?”
“No! They already knew! ‘Lead us to Sarika’, they told me. I don’t even know how they knew your name.”
“I saw Imperial Guard snatch you, so how did these other guys get you?” Sari asked, moving my sword away from his throat.
“The Guard threw me on a train, and then these guys in swanky suits came into the car and started asking me questions. I swear, they looked like they crawled right out of a fancy party.”
“How’d you get loose?”
He sighed, then rubbed at the back of his neck. “One of the Guard came into the car with a meal for me, and I knocked his helmet off of him. After that, I just barely got away from some Royal Escorts. I don’t know when, but they moved me to a different train, coming from the Republic. I musta been out cold when they did it. When the train came to a stop - “
I cut him off. “The white dragon was attacking the train yard,” I finished.
“How’d you know?”
Sari answered, “Because Cres killed the Escorts that were chasing you.” She turned to me. “Looks like you didn’t do anything to piss them off.”
I ignored that. “You came straight to Endawa right after the depot was assaulted, didn’t you?” I asked Jaide.
He stood up from the bed. “Yeah. I took my chances that I might actually see Sarika here, and I waited. I haven’t even gotten any sleep, save for those times you knocked me out.”
Sari coughed out a laugh. “If you’d walked the tracks a couple hours later, I’dda tried to rob you instead of Cres.” She pulled some more zip ties off of my belt. “I’m gonna tie you up again, and we’re gonna leave you here.” I saw something out the window. I moved over to the window and saw several of those Royal Escorts. Who had they followed? Me or Jaide? “We’ll send somebody in to find you, and you tell ‘em we left for the Republic, got that?”
“Too late,” I said, “we’ve got company.”
“What?”
“Escorts. Seven of them. At least.”
“Were they following you?” Sari asked Jaide.
“I don’t see how!” he shouted.
I picked up Sari’s quiver and bow and handed them to her, then pulled my knife and cut the ties off of Jaide’s wrists. I handed him the knife. “If I find that in either me or Sari, your head will be in a very small box.”
They gave us no trouble until we reached the front door. I looked around for the kid from the pharmacy, but there wasn’t anybody here. There were only six rooms in the place, it wasn’t really big enough to hide in. Jaide was right behind me, and Sari behind him, ready to loose as many arrows as she needed to.
The idea that these Royal Escort guys were here for Sari had crossed my mind more than once in the three minutes it took to get from the room to the front door. Somebody had wanted Jaide to tell them where she was, whether that was because of what they’d done in Kepton or maybe even because of what she could do, I didn’t know or care. I hadn’t known her long, but I was still going to protect her from being captured by the Empire.
The streets were empty now, almost as if everyone had been ordered back into their homes. The very idea of this made me uneasy. I motioned for Jaide and Sari not to move, then slipped my blade back into the sheath. I stepped out into the street slowly, carefully. I looked up and down the street and watched as the Escorts moved into position on the rooftops ahead of me.
I looked back at the inn and saw that Sari had moved into position, just like I told her. She had come up behind the Escort on the roof of the inn and impaled him with an arrow from behind. Clearly these guys didn’t know the concept of body armor. The Escort she killed made no sound, so the others didn’t know what had happened, because they all trained their bows on me.
I motioned for Jaide to join me, then grabbed him by his shaggy yellow hair. “Lookin’ for him?” I shouted. “He’s with me. You want him, you gotta go through me.”
One of the Escorts jumped from his vantage point and drew a sword. “We’re here for Sarika.”
“What do you want with her?”
“That’s not of your concern.”
“Shame. Damn shame.” I tilted my head to the right, and an arrow flew right into the Escort’s covered face. I pushed Jaide back toward the inn just as several arrows from their side were loosed on us. I made my way to the Escort’s body and relieved him of his bow and quiver of arrows. I wasn’t as good a shot as Sari, but I was manageable.
I didn’t stop moving. I sprinted for a storefront about six doors down from the inn. I didn’t even realize it was the pharmacy until I broke through the window at the front. That girl was there, but otherwise the place was completely devoid of people. I motioned for her to keep quiet, then I drew my procured bow back and loosed an arrow at one of the Escorts at about the same time one of Sari’s arrows hit him.
I had no view of Jaide or Sari, though every now and again, I could see an arrow hit near an Escort. I couldn’t tell if she was missing on purpose or because she was constantly moving. The Escorts were moving, too, which suggested to me that neither side was really capable of hitting the other right now. I drew another arrow and took aim at an Escort that landed on the ground in front of the pharmacy. He drew his bow and fired an arrow at me, but I dodged it. I was about to shoot him, but Jaide jumped on him and blood flew from the man’s chest.
I turned back to the pharmacy girl and asked, “You got a ladder to the roof?”
She shrugged. “I dunno. Today’s my first day.”
Shit… I hopped over the broken windowsill and ran out to Jaide, who was still tearing the Escort to shreds. None of the remaining Escorts were focused on us, which told me they must have cornered Sari. I grabbed his shoulder. “Hey!” I whispered, “C’mon!” He turned from the body he was mutilating and I almost didn’t think I was looking at Jaide for a moment. His face was less human and more wolf-like, and his hands had grown razor-sharp claws. “What the hell?!”
He pushed my hand away from him and stood up. “You never asked,” he said. “Where’s Sarika?”
“What the hell are you?”
“Ask when we’re not fighting Royal Escorts, and I’ll tell ya.”
I sighed. “Fine. Now, let’s go find Sari and get the hell outta town.”
Almost as if on cue, Sari screamed. We both looked in the direction of the scream, and I saw someone dressed in Escort clothing falling from the building across the street from the pharmacy. I didn’t think, I simply ran, and dove to catch her before she hit the ground. There was an arrow sticking through her leg, blood flowing freely. I looked up at the roof of the building and saw a single Escort looking down at us, and then several more joined him.
I’d seen seven before. I’d severely underestimated the number.
I ripped the arrow from Sari’s leg, causing her to cry out in pain, then I turned to Jaide. “Think you can distract ‘em?”
He rubbed at his cheek. “Gladly. Get her outta here.” I nodded.
I moved, sprinting off in the direction opposite from where the Escort’s were. I heard the sounds of fighting, and knew almost instantly that they were going to make it as slow and painful for Jaide as they could. I’d treated him like shit, and now I was indebted to him. Dammit, the irony.
I came to the edge of town, literally. It was a cliff, and down below was nothing but water. Sari was unconscious, so I couldn’t ask her if she was ready for a swim. I took a deep breath, and then an arrow clipped me across my left cheek. I felt blood seeping from the wound, and my decision was made. I jumped, and braced myself for the inevitable landing.
The water was cold, and painful when I landed. I kept hold of Sari, but it was difficult. This fall would have woken me from the dead, but she was still out cold. I envied her. The current was strong, and nearly split us apart more than once, but I held her tightly. I tried to swim against the current, into neutral territory, but in the end I couldn’t.
I lost consciousness as I watched the Escorts reach the cliff, one of them carrying Jaide over his shoulders.
