by Drae Box
“They want paying and favours.”
“No favours. That always ends badly for people like us.”
Us? wondered Aldora. Law enforcers or Giftens? “Do you have some money I can give them?”
He dipped a hand into one of the pockets at his trousers, revealing a wad of Newer currency. “That’s all we can spare to give them,” he said, putting it in her waiting hand. “That’s two hundred newbs. I don’t want to risk more than that.”
Aldora nodded. “Thanks.” She headed back into the attic.
“I have money,” she said as Antonio and a few of the others looked her way. She spotted as the woman with the guns looked at the Eastern Barbarian with the red tattoos on her face.
“You need to go to Tren,” said the gun seller, holding her hand out. Aldora gave her the money. “There was a guy there when you were in there with your royal official. The guy we saw was wearing an inspector’s uniform but he looked really nervous when he came out. He took one thing — something in a blue bag, and left. I was curious so I asked Shay to follow him.”
“He got on a bus to Tren.”
Aldora thanked the two women and joined Pedibastet and Raneth downstairs. The boys were where she had left them. She stood next to Raneth, watching Pedibastet continuing to be fussed. “What did you find out?” asked Raneth.
“There’s a woman controlling Oreg with ties to Tren called Lodema – if she actually exists – and that dagger at Teton’s belonged to someone associated with one of the assassin guilds in the Barbaric East. They also told me an Eastern Barbarian they think might have something to do with Lodema is around and a man that might have been an inspector snuck out of the inspectors’ headquarters when we were there with something in a blue bag and left for Tren.”
“I remember the bag, but an assassin.” Raneth shook his head. “That can’t be good.”
“The lady is done petting me,” said Pedibastet as he jumped down from the sofa and strolled towards the door. “We should go back to the brothel.”
Sitting cross-legged on one of the lumpy beds, Aldora considered what to do next. This was Raneth’s assignment, but it felt as much hers as his, and he had chosen to include her. He was making sure Pedibastet’s chicken was cool enough for him to eat, blowing on the small silver dish Sasha had brought for the cat. We need to find out whether the information about the blue bag going to Tren is correct, so we can look into that and Lodema whilst we’re there. It’s probably a good idea to leave Oreg anyway, especially if there is an assassin after one of us and the moth dragon is still out of the arena. Pedibastet stood on Raneth’s right knee with his white front paws and sniffed at the little silver plate hopefully. Raneth carefully placed it on the bed next to his leg. “We’re going to Tren next, right?” asked Aldora.
Pedibastet lifted his head and spoke over Raneth as the royal official said they would. “After we have eaten, we will head there and look for clues about this Lodema person,” said the Prince of the Cats, “and try to find out what the blue bag holds. Raneth, you can form into your griffin-self to make our travel quicker and heal you of whatever venom is left in your system.”
“It will still take two days to fly there, if it doesn’t rain,” warned Raneth, looking at Aldora.
I can handle two days of flying. She nodded willingly, giving Raneth a smile of encouragement. “I can put up with rain even if it makes the journey take longer,” she promised. Especially as forming will make you better, she thought, observing how his olive skin was still slightly whiter than it usually was, and his eyes were glassy and had large smears under them.
“And I’ll need to land to make, uh, pit stops and to sleep when we get tired.”
“Of course,” said Aldora softly. “Just don’t drop me this time.”
Raneth frowned, turning his attention away from Aldora and onto his chicken salad. “We should probably send a note to Regina asking if she knows about Lodema, assassins working in the area, or if Algernon’s spies do.”
“Another good point,” said the Prince of the Cats between mouthfuls. “You should do that now so that when we arrive in Tren the information they have, even if it is a big fat nothing, will be waiting for us.”
Aldora smiled as she gave a small nod of agreement. “Do you want me to tell Sasha to send a note?”
“I’ll do it.” Raneth stood up, glancing suspiciously at Pedibastet and then at the chicken in his salad. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Aldora watched as he left the room then glanced at Pedibastet, who was looking at Raneth’s plate.
“That’s his chicken,” she warned before glancing down at her own chicken salad. “You can have some of mine once you’ve finished your own.”
Pedibastet’s tail flicked. “If I must, I suppose I can leave his be.”
After they had eaten, the three Giftens stepped out into the garden behind the brothel. The skin on Aldora’s body grew goosebumps in the evening’s cool air. She folded her arms tightly to her and resisted the urge to shiver as she walked towards an orange rose bush. The flowers were heavy with petals, their thorny branches not quite reaching where she stood. She turned to face Raneth. He stalked into the centre of the rectangular garden, passing her without a word. Pedibastet sat at her feet, tail swishing in the grass as they waited.
Just as Raneth had on Alexis’ boat on the Quest, he turned slightly away from Aldora as he focused on using his family’s blood-gift. He gently closed his eyes, and as Aldora exhaled her next breath, paper-thin black lines traced feathers across his skin and rippled onto his clothes which shrank closer to his frame. The tips of the feathers lifted away from his skin and clothes and turned white; the only other colour, a royal red, erupted across his chest in speckles like arrow wounds. The red bled down the feathers, becoming more solid where they tapered at the bottom of his rib cage. The red feathers on his arms were the first to flick away from his body and settle as real feathers against his skin.
As Raneth’s shoulders moved back and his rib cage twisted and stretched into that of a lion, Aldora noticed him wince. I’ve never asked if this hurts him before. Shouldn’t I have asked him that before now? The muscles in his body twitched visibly and Raneth pitched forwards, catching his weight with misshapen hands that were shortening at the fingers and growing claws that sheathed into his new lion paws. Next, Aldora viewed Raneth’s legs, noticing that they had almost finished their transformation already – the ankle had shifted up his leg and become dainty and covered in tiny white feathers. She turned away as a yellow beak sliced forwards from his face, curling into a sharp tip at the end. His ears became cat-like and slid to the top of his otherwise bird-like head.
“He is almost done,” stated Pedibastet, rubbing his side against Aldora’s leg.
They were just waiting on the large white feathers to finish forming from his shoulders to his hips. The red tip of the griffin’s tail swished slowly whilst he waited. Aldora smiled as the wings finished forming and the griffin turned his gold eyes to her.
“Get on, Aldora. We must go to Tren City.”
Aldora rushed over to the griffin as he prowled towards her, his triangular, red-tipped ears twitching at sounds she couldn’t hear. Glancing down at Pedibastet, she noticed he was turning his ears in the same direction. The griffin rubbed the top of his white head against Aldora’s shoulder. She rubbed between his ears and he stilled, then she eased closer to his shoulders. The griffin lowered his head slightly and Aldora used it to climb atop him, careful of the folded wings. Once she was secure, Pedibastet joined her and settled onto her lap.
The griffin unfurled his wings and beat them a few times, allowing the feathers at the very tips to pat against the ground. Aldora leaned over Pedibastet, wrapping her arms loosely around the griffin’s neck and resting her head against the warm feathers. The griffin jumped, pushing down on the air with his wings. Aldora’s grip on his neck tightened as he jumped again. She smiled, knowing that with the next jump he would climb upwards, but just the
n the griffin growled and stilled.
“What is it?” she asked softly, lifting her head away from his neck and looking where the griffin’s attention had zeroed in: the fence behind the roses where she had stood.
Pedibastet lifted his head from her lap and looked in the same direction. “Oh no,” he murmured. He huddled against Aldora’s lap and gripped his claws into her thighs, making her wince.
The griffin darted over to the fence, the jerk of motion almost knocking Aldora backwards. She grabbed fistfuls of feathers and pressed her knees against the sides of the griffin’s front legs so she wouldn’t fall off.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” She didn’t know why she asked; in his griffin-self, Raneth had no way to communicate the answer to her.
His front half dipped and Aldora almost toppled forwards. His hips wiggled behind her, his wings still outstretched, before he jumped. Aldora rocked against his neck as he went over the fence, back paws lightly touching the top before they landed on the pavement on the other side.
Snarling, the griffin spun to the left. The feathers Aldora held twitched in her fingers as the ones around her hands and along his neck and shoulders stood upright. Aldora sucked in a breath.
The moth dragon.
The furred dragon stood facing them, its trunk arched, a rumble coming from deep within its chest. Raneth parted his yellow beak and hissed.
Aldora winced as Pedibastet jumped down from her lap.
“I’ll stay out of the way!” said the Prince of the Cats as he fled down the street.
“Can’t we just fly out of here?” asked Aldora, before Raneth jumped sideways, avoiding a spew of dragon vomit. “Its wings are injured.”
She looked over the vanes of the dragon’s wings, just as she had in the arena when the rocks had been thrown. The damage was still there.
No. We can’t leave and Raneth won’t want to, she thought. Not with the people it’s already likely killed and those it will if we don’t stop it.
“You’re right,” she murmured, drawing the Dagger, her left hand gripping Raneth’s feathers so hard that she risked dislodging them. “We can’t leave this roaming around.”
Aldora’s hands trembled in Raneth’s feathers as he darted close, smashing a paw against the moth dragon’s face, aiming for the eyes. At the last moment, the dragon lowered its head and scrambled back. The fingery snout reached for Raneth’s neck. Aldora batted it away with a hand, surprised when the trunk recoiled. The dragon snarled, its backside pressing against the wall of The Rover.
The griffin huffed and tilted his wings, exposing their undersides to the dragon as he lifted his chest high and strode closer, cheek feathers ruffled, tail slashing side to side. When he lifted onto his back legs, Aldora yelled, and the wad of feathers in her hand ripped from Raneth’s neck. She rolled off his back, landing with a thump on the ground behind him, narrowly missing some of the moth dragon’s vomit. The stench wafting from it as it burned into the pavement made Aldora’s stomach roll. She scrambled to her feet and retreated slightly, pressing her back to another building and watching Raneth. She could barely see the moth dragon past his wings.
What’s he doing?
The wings shifted, sweeping back to the griffin’s sides as he folded them away, safely tucked against his sides. His paws batted at the air in front of the dragon’s eyes, not hitting the dragon, but making it press itself hard against the back wall of The Rover, snout sweeping constantly, dodging and trying to aim at the griffin’s paws.
The griffin spun, smashing its hip against the dragon’s side. The dragon stumbled to the left. Aldora gripped the Dagger tighter in her hand. Could she help without accidentally hitting Raneth? What if he got in the way and was struck by the lightning? The Dagger wouldn’t purposefully kill an uncorrupted Giften law enforcer, but Raneth could still get hurt if he got in the firing line.
I’ll have to wait, decided Aldora as the dragon launched at Raneth, leaping into the air, its own cat-like paws outstretched. Wait until Raneth’s not so close. She winced as the two collided, rolling and snarling. She heard Raneth’s beak snap once, twice, and flinched. A pressure at her leg made her look down; Pedibastet had joined her side.
“Aren’t you going to help?” he asked.
“How?” She pointed the Dagger at the angry ball of dragon and griffin. “I can’t without hurting Raneth.”
Pedibastet’s tail twitched. “That thing in your hand is a blade.”
The squirming ball of entwined dragon and griffin bashed against a brick wall and the two separated. They faced one another as Aldora crept closer. Her heart thudded in her chest as the dragon’s snout aimed for Raneth’s chest, but her partner dodged, the vomit splattering against the wall behind him. I need to distract it long enough for Raneth to deliver a killing blow, thought Aldora, aiming for the dragon’s backside as she continued to stalk closer. She glanced at the griffin. Feathers were ruffled all along his body, patches on his chest gone, revealing the thin white fur underneath. His gold eyes looked at her and the dragon snuffled, lifting its snout into the air. The griffin lunged and grabbed the snout in his beak.
“No!” screamed Pedibastet. “Don’t sever it! You’ll get the acid in you!”
Aldora stopped, watching Raneth. His gold eyes were focused on the dragon as it squirmed, its paws ripping feathers from his shoulders as it wrestled to free itself, head tugging every which way.
She ran, lifting the Dagger’s blade towards the dragon’s hips. Raneth was too close to disengage safely. She had to do it.
Now.
She slammed the Dagger’s gold blade into the dragon’s back leg. She yanked it down, feeling the muscle give under her hand, and her stomach twisted. She felt sick; the moth dragon hadn’t asked to be held captive in Newer, or maliciously injured so it couldn’t fly away to suitable territory. Aldora dodged to the side as the dragon wrenched its head towards her, front paws lifting. Raneth was flung towards Aldora. He let go, wings flaring, and landed on his paws at her side. His hip briefly touched her and Aldora edged away from him.
I can’t stand right next to you. I’d get in your way.
She and Raneth had never fought together like this before. She’d never had to battle right at his griffin-self’s side. She’d always hung back, or Raneth would end the fight so soon that it didn’t matter.
But this is different. This isn’t a person, or Thane and his riding dragons. Just a wild dragon.
She looked at the moth dragon as it bared its mouth, its snout lifting. Raneth pounced again and Aldora jerked to his side, Pedibastet’s warning ringing through her ears as the griffin’s beak clamped onto the dragon’s neck this time. He wrestled his head violently side to side, large paws clamped against the dragon’s neck, claws outstretched and digging in. Aldora didn’t know if the acid went up the dragon’s throat before reaching the snout, but she couldn’t risk it. She leapt onto the dragon’s back, a foot smashing into a wing. Its whole body shook under her, and the rough yanks of Raneth shaking his head almost made her fall off. She dug her free hand into the mottled fur at the back of the dragon’s head and stabbed the Dagger down.
It sliced between the shoulder and the neck. The dragon reared up, leaving Raneth dangling on his back paws. Aldora clung to the Dagger so she wouldn’t fall off. She saw the end of the snout as it curled back towards her.
No.
Not caring if she fell off now, she climbed to the dragon’s head, pressed a foot against the Dagger’s handle and snatched the snout in her hand. She squeezed it and felt something hard press against the palm of her hand.
The acid?
She could barely breathe, and her other hand clung desperately to the dragon’s fur as Raneth leapt back. He was safe. He was safe thanks to her.
The griffin spat out a chunk of dragon flesh and Aldora felt the creature tremble under her. She climbed down and grabbed the Dagger, wrenching it free even as Raneth’s bloodied beak plucked her from the dragon and fled several metres away, befor
e placing her on her feet.
She wiped the Dagger clean on her sleeve and looked for Pedibastet. He was already halfway to them. She turned to Raneth. He didn’t look great, but he also didn’t look injured. Feathers were misplaced across his chest, shoulders and neck, but there wasn’t any blood on them or in the visible patches of his fur undercoat. He jerked his beak towards his back and gave her a high-pitched purr. Then he lowered his head and neck, giving her easy access to climb onto his back without harming his wings. She climbed on and they waited for Pedibastet, who quickly launched himself into his usual spot tucked against Aldora. He snuggled against her legs as she looked towards the moth dragon. It had already stopped breathing, its body slumped. She rubbed between Raneth’s ears and then slipped her hands around his neck. He extended his wings and jumped, then jumped again, launching them into the air.
Chapter Eleven
Raneth
The royal official safehouse in Tren was cold. Dumping his bag by the door, Raneth glanced around the cloakroom, looking for the book that royal officials were supposed to fill in when using the property. He heard Aldora shuffle in behind him.
“By Freda’s blade, it’s colder in here than it is outside,” she murmured.
“That probably means we’re the only royal official team in Tren,” explained Raneth, spotting a corner of a brown book poking out from behind a radiator. “Cray’s installed a heating system. Standard Giften one.” He patted the radiator and grabbed the book. “I’ll turn it on in just a second. Go on through, A.”
“Come on, Pedi,” uttered Aldora, wrapping her arms tightly to her torso and leading him down the corridor that matched the royal official flat in Oreg perfectly.
Raneth watched her go – the tip of Pedibastet’s tail wafting lazily as he prowled after the Dagger Bearer – before opening the book. Nobody’s been here since November. That means the food will have spoiled unless it’s tinned. I’ll have to do a food run. He filled in the book, choosing to use his royal official identification number instead of his working aliases or his real name, then he strolled to the end of the corridor, pausing only for a moment by the kitchen doorway to reach up into the Giften-Southern fuse box and turn on the building’s utilities. He stepped into the kitchen just as the Southern Kingdom fridge-freezer started to gurgle and hum and other kitchen appliances run by Southern Kingdom electricity systems woke from their slumber more quietly. Raneth could just make out the whine of the radiator in the kitchen; they would be warm soon.
