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A white-tipped spear erupted from Father’s neck, and he turned mouth wide and roaring at the black-armored figure who stood atop a rock, silhouetted against the burning trees behind. Arrows that glowed as they flew struck Father all about the neck and jaw and burned there.
Wistala staggered forward, feeling the dogs pull at her. She spat the last of her flame at dog haunches clustered at Father’s back leg and pulling him over, and was rewarded by agonized yelping above the snarls of the three dogs dragging at her.
Father rolled, crushing the dogs, sending others spinning off into the darkness, the spear lodged in his throat like a great bone. The Dragonblade leaped forward and slashed at Father’s belly, opening a wound fully the length of Wistala.
Other men stood at some kind of machine on the peninsula. It sent an oversize arrow into Father’s side, punching through scale as easily as her claw-tip could go through a leaf.
“Father!” she cried.
The Dragonblade ducked under Father’s bite and swept up with his sword. Father’s head and neck crashed down, almost severed.
Wistala forgot the pain, forgot the dogs trying to pull her limb from limb.
She looked into Father’s eyes as the battle fire faded and they went dry and glassy. AuRel, Bronze of the Line of AuNor, had joined Mother in the stars above.
Wistala wailed out her pain to the sky.
The Dragonblade knelt and kissed the pommel of his sword, and his men broke into some manner of song.
Wistala bit into a dog, exchanging pain for pain. It howled, and the Dragonblade’s men left off his victory song and turned toward her.
Other men, some carrying two-handled saws, gathered behind.
She wouldn’t end up on these rocks, her head and claws sawed off. Wistala gathered what remained of her strength and managed to stand. She tottered a few steps toward the edge of the cliff, dragging dogs at every step. The dogs pulled back, at war with her body.
Perhaps the Dragonblade read her intent. He ran forward, bloody sword held out, waving on the others, who stood gaping at Father’s bloody wounds.
The two still-living dogs snarled and fought her every step, their muzzles covered with blood, the spiky hair on their backs standing straight up. They dragged her back, away from the ledge, toward the Dragonblade.
“You shan’t have—,” Wistala grunted. She swung her tail, knocked a dog off its feet, and lunged at the ledge. She got the claws of one sii over. Now she had some real traction.
Tearing—pain.
Fly! She’d fly once before she died.
She got a saa at the edge, and the dead dog fell over the side, its jaws finally relaxing. Freed of its weight, she coiled her spine and jumped.
Wistala felt light as one of Bartleghaff’s long tip-feathers as she spun through the air. She struck the prominence Father used to climb up from the river, rolling over on a growling dog and hearing a snap, and felt free air one last time before she plunged into the cold, roaring river.
BOOK TWO
Drakka
WHOSOEVER SAVES A SINGLE LIFE HAS SAVED A WORLD.
—Hypatian Low-Priest Proverb
Chapter 11
Drifting, flying, but the air—so cold. Impossible to see through the clouds.
Tiring—so she glided. A hurtful pull in the back—had a wing joint slipped?
Now she could see.
A hominid bent over her, face shadowed. Can’t raise her claw to strike it—
A sound, sharp and regular tap-top-tap-top, movement in time with the beats, lulling her, and she slept. . . .
