by Hana Starr
Seven more expeditions later was when the inevitable happened. Rornak was pretty sure that it was his fault for letting his guard down, and as a result letting everyone else have theirs down, too. Still, he’d been preparing for this. Everyone had. They had all their drills and strategies down to the second, and then he failed to actually initiate one.
Still, up until that point everything ran smoothly. He deliberately avoided any prolonged exposure with Nelly, though he made sure not to neglect her because he knew just how important he was to her –in the necessary sense only, it seemed. He was the closest tie she had here, and that meant he would be the messenger between her and all his people.
As the days went by though, it seemed like she might end up needing him less and less. Working in a very intimate manner with others would do that, he supposed. Building the engine was a very in-depth process that involved a lot of explanation from him on how the various parts fit and operated together. Most of it seemed very confusing to her, but once she actually got her hands in and began to explore the different mechanisms, her understanding expanded rapidly. Very shortly, a few other dragons had gathered around –mainly to watch the dumb creature that was a human fumble around with things they had known since childhood, only to be amazed at how adept she was.
For their reactions, Rornak couldn’t help but to feel pride. It wasn’t like he’d done anything but a lot of guesswork, but now their confidence in him was bolstered.
“Perhaps I was wrong,” one of the dragon guard admitted to him quietly in passing. And it was not an isolated incident. And that was just the first day of true work!
After that, Nelly was never alone as she worked. There were always a couple pairs of hands ready and willing to hold out the next tool, or make a small suggestion in an almost reverent tone of voice. Rornak peeked out of the tunnel once to watch them beneath the overhang, and was startled to hear Nelly growling out a few simple words in his own language!
Was there no end to what she could learn?
After the fuel port was completed, he allowed a day of leisure and feasting that used up the last of their food store. The next day after that, he went to Nelly in her private chambers. This time however, he waited before it.
“Nelly?” he called softly, for it was still very early and many of his people were still asleep. He didn’t want to awaken them with his voice echoing down the tunnels.
“Come in,” came the soft reply.
He entered with his eyes low, fighting the memories of the last time he entered and found her in the midst of touching herself. It wasn’t that he minded, it just stung that she had forgone his advances in favor of doing such a thing herself.
What’s wrong with me? he thought, allowing himself to let the dejection overcome him for an instant before shoving it all back. Lifting his head, he saw her perched on her bed with her legs folded and the drawing cloth lain across her lap.
“I did not mean to disturb you,” he started, “but I thought that you might like to know that we will need you to head out for another expedition today.”
“Right,” Nelly said, nodding very matter-of-factly. “The engine port is done, so it’s time to build the casing.”
The casing would house the very first part of the engine, and so on and so forth. They would build the ship from the bottom up, and this was step two. Going in such small increments did not make the wait any easier, but he suspected that more and more of his people were bound to come around and assist.
And so it went, with each trip beginning and ending without a single hitch. He rotated those who were allowed to go, though Horule often volunteered; Rornak had no misgivings about the big dragon now, not when he seemed just as eager as anyone else now. He also often roamed around the area while they were searching for the necessary supplies, but now he made certain to announce it to his leader. After the first couple trips however, there was still no sign of the invaders at all during their trips and that was when Rornak made his mistakes.
What they needed for this particular trip was no mere armful of small components, and so could not be found just in the lab. No, there was a storage of sheets of metal on one of the lower layers of the main city fortress, which meant a new secret entrance that would take them much closer to the roving patrols of invaders than ever before.
Still, Rornak felt confident as he headed outside with a smaller patrol than he’d been taking. It was him, Takla, Horule, and Nelly. This was going to be Takla’s first run, and she looked fit to burst with excitement.
“Are we ready?” he asked, dragging out one of the sleds and dropping it onto the ground.
“I am!” Takla replied and lunged forward, slithering into dragon form so he could help put the harness on her. He did so, pretending not to notice that Nelly was watching him touch all over this other female.
When they were all harnessed up and ready to go, Nelly climbed into his sled and held on.
With that, they were off.
This limited flying, harnessed and forced to remain near the ground, was infuriating as it was freeing. He longed to surge up into the skies, to pound his wings for height rather than speed. With the world beneath him, he wanted to chase after the stars and spit flame in celebration to them before folding his wings and dropping down.
Even better if it was with a mate, climaxing and then breaking apart just as the freefall would have come to a deadly end.
His tail lashed, jolts of frustration in his mind.
“Hey!” Nelly cried out from behind him. “Careful! You almost hit me!”
Rornak growled an apology she couldn’t hear, his blood churning with embarrassment; fighting against the urge to slink away, he dropped into a run with his paws slashing over ice and stone before putting everything he had into the flight again.
Very quickly, he arrived at the mountain. As he was far ahead of the others, he slowed down to a lope and began to intensely search the cliff faces before them. It had been awhile since he was last here, and he couldn’t remember the exact location.
Nelly spoke from behind. “It seems like there are a lot of secret exits and entrances here. Isn’t that a little odd?”
He shrugged his shoulders, unable to speak. Fortunately, he quickly found exactly what he was looking for: it was a crack several feet up which looked hardly wide enough to admit even his arm, but it was bigger on the inside than it appeared to be. Having located it, he shifted back to his normal form and shrugged again as he spoke.
“It may seem odd if there are no such modifications to the cities where you lived on your own planet. However, not a lot of these were intentionally designed. Before we learned better, we tunneled through and scavenged much of the mountains which surrounded us.”
Nelly laughed. “You’re telling me that all these secrets that the invaders haven’t found are just mine shafts, or tunnels were diggers like Takla found food?”
Rornak allowed himself a grin. That was pretty funny now that he actually thought about it that way. He was just about to answer when the others arrived.
The momentary sense of peace between them began to fade as he was forced to turn his mind back to the task at hand. After dragging the sleds away into hiding behind a small outcropping of rocks, just like all the other times, he stood in front of the crack and considered his options. There was no way that they would be able to carry back all the metal that they needed in one trip, so he figured it would be best to have even fewer people than this. Which meant he had to do something that he never thought he would.
“Horule?”
The big, dark dragon lifted his head. “Yes?” he asked, and there was some sort of hesitance in his voice.
Rornak winced but there would certainly be other times when Horule had his chance. “Why don’t you stay out here and guard this area? I don’t like how close we are to these scum and we do not need one of them to follow us inside. The last thing we need is to be corralled inside between two threats.”
Horule’s eyes flashed, but
he nodded. “And if you do not come back out?”
“Then summon the others and attack,” Rornak replied, his eyes also flashing. For once, it seemed like the two of them were in complete agreeance with a single course of action. “Another leader will always rise but Nelly is our only chance of success. Do we understand? Protect her at all costs.”
The human looked like she was about to protest, but Rornak shook his head at her and she kept quiet. Like with many things, this simply wasn’t the right time.
Reaching up, Rornak dug his fingers into the side of the cliff so that his fingers locked in place against the barest of holds. Then, he lifted himself up and sideways so that he would fit through the crack. Jagged edges pressed against his chest and back, but he just adjusted his breathing and comforted himself with the thought that he could feel that the space around his left side was wider than the right.
“Takla,” he said softly, “help Nelly up, and then follow close behind.”
“Yes, sir,” Takla replied seriously.
He started to shuffle along sideways to make room for them, and then twisted his body around properly as soon as he could. His shoulders relaxed as soon as the pressure was gone, and he felt much better. There was going to be no problem this time around, just like on all the others. He could just feel it.
Soon enough, Nelly was nudged up behind him. Instinctively, he reached back to take her hand and she took it.
Just for guidance, he told himself, and then started forward. Akait were blessed with the ability to see better in the dark than Nelly could, but it was an imperfect gift; it was more a thing of shapes and subtleties than actual vision. They still needed light if they were to tell any details about anything, but he didn’t need it right now because all he wanted was not to run into the walls.
True to his promise, the walls widened so far apart that he would almost have been able to spread his wings to their full length if he desired. And this tunnel was much shorter than the others. Blue light was apparent around the bend before they even got very far.
Suddenly, he stopped and tilted his head. Nelly ran into his back and then jumped away like a startled cat, and then ran into Takla.
“Oof!” the slender alien growled. “Rornak, what are you doing?”
“Hush,” he commanded and strained his hearing. What was that odd sound? It was loud and indistinct, distorted by the metal and stone, but he thought it sounded like raised voices. Why?
Then it occurred to him. Was there trouble? Had Horule been found?
“Don’t move,” he snarled, his whole body tensing. Nelly froze, stopping her nervous shuffling. He hated to sound so cruel but he needed to be able to…
And this was a new sound. It was unmistakable, even garbled like this, and his eyes flew wide. There were no real words to describe it, only that it sounded like air smacking against air.
Someone had just spat a mouthful of flame, and that could only mean one thing: Horule had been discovered, and was fighting.
Rornak was torn! Horule had been so loyal, but he had to think of Nelly. He had to think of the human woman, but was one of his men really worth the sacrifice.
But he wasn’t alone, was he?
Steeling himself for backlash, he snapped, “Takla, take Nelly and leave. Grab a sled and leave. Go home. Tell no one to venture outside. I am going after Horule!”
Dropping down into his dragon form, he leapt forward and let the beast inside fully come out. No more holding back, and he didn’t even glance over his shoulder when Nelly cried out. “Wait!” she screamed. “Rornak, what’s going on?”
He didn’t answer, because he could hardly understand. He let his mind open up, all of his senses flaring awake as he searched for where Horule might be. Bursting out into the hall, he snapped his wings out so carelessly that he felt bruises form from contact with the walls. His tail lashed, and his claws punctured the floor, and he couldn’t help the gout of flame that spewed from his maw.
Horule!
And he roared.
His kind were not allowed to roar until a certain age, which he had not yet reached. It was a matter of dominance, but that did not matter now. He was the eldest, and he needed to reach his fellow Akait and there was no other way to ensure he would be heard.
From somewhere not very far away came strange guttural cries, and he lashed his tail again. Obviously there had been a patrol of the invaders near, who were caught completely unaware of his presence. Bolstered by anger, his slow blood thumping hard, Rornak strained his hearing but no response came from his troubled friend. There was only one option left, and he charged in the direction of the invaders.
By the time he got to them, they were prepared. Footsteps thundering, they were charging him, too.
Roaring again, Rornak spat flame as he lunged around the final corner and then used his powerful rear legs to launch himself into the fray. There were only two, and obviously prepared for him because they held shields of metal up in front of their white suits; the shields weren’t enough to keep his bulk of pure muscle from knocking them over, flat on their backs. The impact sent their arms slapping out to the side, the shields uselessly knocked away.
Another gush of flame slid from his throat, and they started to scream. The sound only lasted for an instant, and then he put a gigantic paw on either invader’s chest and sank his claws in hard. Material like nothing he’d ever felt before split beneath the curved points, and then he felt metallic edges ripping at his quick, and then he finally encountered tender flesh.
Tightening his grip, Rornak snarled and then shoved himself backwards. There was a sound of rending flesh, like when he used to hunt with his father the currently-hibernating monsters which roamed the icy plains, and then silence from the invaders.
Scarlet blood stained his talons. His forked tongue flickered out to taste the reek of copper, and then he snapped it back into his mouth as he heard footsteps again. More than before. Too many to count. Still, he snapped his wings out and reared to face them as they came up behind.
His mind blanked. He couldn’t be seeing this. It didn’t make any sense. He started to back away, flicking his tail lower and folding his wings as his tongue flicked out again.
It can’t…
There were at least twenty of the white-suited invaders pounding down the hall towards him, their boots heavy and clomping while their visors were dark and menacing. However, it was not the sight of them that bothered him, not even the fact that they were carrying those dangerous weapons which could end a life in a flicker of eyelids. No, it was the dark shape leading them.
Rornak couldn’t help it. Words needed voiced, and draconic lungs could not provide, so he shifted back into his other form.
Horule did the same.
At first, he wondered if his fellow Akait had been taken prisoner but he was not restrained in any way. And then he prayed for a misunderstanding, that Horule had been running away, but his manner was not of a male pursued but a male leading just as he had always wanted.
“What are you doing?” Rornak said, lowering his voice dangerously. He had no idea what to believe, but he definitely didn’t want to believe this. It had to be some sort of mistake, something he wasn’t understanding…
Horule tossed his head, shaking out his shaggy hair. He was flushed paler than usual, and Rornak could smell his anger as hot as flame. “You were a fool to lead us away when these people came. You were a fool.”
He still couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe this kind of betrayal, this level of back-stabbing. The invaders hung back, giving the two of them room and time to communicate.
Isn’t that nice of them, he thought bitterly. “What was I supposed to do? They were killing people!”
“None of us would have died if we didn’t fight back!” Horule snapped. “We started it, like a bunch of crazed wild animals instead of the sentient beings we’re supposed to be.”
Rornak was horrified. “Do you regret your existence?”
“I
regret letting a weakling like you lead us along for so far. Do you know what you have done? You have made enemies while I have made friends. If only you listened to me. I tried to help. I tried to tell you, to explain, but you would not listen to me that there were friends to be found here, and so I had no choice. You never gave me a choice!” Horule’s voice rose with more emotional than he had ever shown before in any situation. “You were determined to sit in that little hole and place all our lives in danger while making wild guesses, while there were a people right here all along who could help!”
He flinched away and covered his ears, but he couldn’t escape the yelling.
“This is all your fault!” Horule shrieked, his hands balling into fists and his whole body shaking.
“No!” Rornak shouted back, realizing something. “Maybe one of us did start a fight, but it was not those of us who were assembled. They attacked and killed without warning! You’re being tricked and lied to! You’ve lost your loyalty to a group of murderers.”
