Dragon (A Histories of Purga Novel)

Asher flew as fast as he could through the trees, his heart pounding with exertion. It was nearly pitch black with night coming on and his hawk’s eyes weren’t well suited for the task, but so far he managed to keep himself from being brained by a tree branch or a tree trunk. A chirping sound emanated from his left and he turned to see Blink. He’d retrieved it from its hiding place after slipping away from his dad. Technology of any kind was viewed with suspicion and automatic hatred. So he had stashed it somewhere safe so that he wouldn’t have to watch it be destroyed. Whenever he’d gotten a couple of spare moments, he’d gone to watch with amazement as Blink turned into whatever he wanted. He was awed with the thing and the applications it could have.

Right now, however, it was in its drone form, flying fast and eagerly beside him.

Asher thought he would’ve been making better time by now, but his progress was considerably slower thanks to the chameleon he grasped in his talons. The extra weight, along with the sluggish pace due to nightfall, made it that much harder to get to his destination. He cursed his bad luck when Fowler had caught him trying to sneak out of Vitari and then demanded to come with him as payment for keeping his silence. Asher tried to persuade him against it, telling him flat out that he was flying to Roanoke to try and save his sister. Fowler, however, hadn’t backed down or relented. Eventually, Asher agreed to let his friend come with him and now they were flying toward the sentry post where Gar had previously been stationed with all haste. They were about thirty miles ahead of the massive army marching through the woods on their own way to Roanoke. He knew that his dad was in front, riding one of Beltar’s beautiful horses. He knew that almost every able-bodied warrior was with them, male and female, along with the thirty or so Callers the village had to offer. Along the way, battalions from Untari and Candu had met up with the army while the battalions from Yowil and Ledun will travel around the forest from the north and meet with them in the Javardi desert.

He pumped his wings, trying to keep up the speed but eventually exhaustion overcame him. He found a nice, thick branch high up in the trees and settled in for the night. Far away, some miles distant, the army stopped and broke for camp as well. Faintly, Asher could see orange, flickering glows from dozens and dozens of campfires.

He let go of Fowler and they both tried to get as comfortable as they could. Blink continued his ever present hovering beside him and Asher fell asleep to the constant humming sound the machine made.

It felt like he’d been asleep only a handful of seconds, but all of a sudden, sunlight poked at Asher from behind his closed lids. He cautiously blinked them open and found the dappled light filtering through the thick forest canopy high overhead. He stretched his wings and shifted his talons slightly. Fowler was in front of him, literally sticking to the tree branch, the eyes on either side of his head closed. He thought he could hear his friend letting out soft, whistle-like snores, but that might’ve been his imagination. Blink was still floating next to him, looking as if it hadn’t moved an inch the whole night.

Asher looked to the army’s camp and found them on the move again. They marched rapidly through the trees, some in their animal forms, while others were still human. A double line of horse-bound warriors, thousands strong, led the army with his father, Tarvo, dead center. Now that it was daylight, his superior vision could easily see the big man, even though he was still several miles away. There was a twisted look of hatred on his face that made Asher even more nervous.

He jabbed the end of one of his talons into Fowler’s soft hide. The little chameleon jumped up, opened its eyes, and lashed out with his tongue. It hit Asher’s talon and stuck there. A shiver of revulsion ripped through him and he glared at Fowler, who blinked and then disengaged his tongue.

Asher ruffled his feathers, grabbed the chameleon again, and took off through the trees.

He felt a little better now. Flying by night was a tricky thing for him and he didn’t do it very often, but traveling in the day, that was a different story. He had no troubles there. He zipped through the trees, even with Fowler’s extra weight, as though he knew on a deep level where every single one was. His vision was sharp and he could see for some miles with no problems. All in all, he made up whatever time he’d lost sleeping and was about forty miles ahead of the army now. He did some quick math and was confident that, based on the average speed of the army against his current speed and the remaining distance to where he needed to go, he would have plenty of time to complete his task.

With that confidence in his head, he kept flying.

About an hour later, a very tired Asher caught sight of his destination in the trees ahead of him. He felt a burst of relief on seeing it and put on more speed.

Right as his wings were about to give out from exhaustion, Asher flew through the window of Gar’s sentry hut. He expected to find Zoie and Aeri in there, but neither one was inside. He definitely wasn’t a big fan of Rooks and was fearful of them as a whole, but he’d thought the little girl and her mom were nice enough and wanted to make sure they fled to safety before the army stopped here to bury their fallen hero, Gar.

Without question, the two Rooks would’ve been found and they would’ve been killed without thought or mercy. He could all but see Niku frothing at the mouth to execute two live Rooks. The young warrior had given Rone enough hell while he spent those couple of weeks in Vitari. Now, ever since his dad had declared war, Niku seemed more adamant and willing to fight than most. It was like his being denied rights to Rone had only made him eager to kill as many of them as he could.

Asher looked at Blink, a reminder of Rone’s kindness and generosity, and couldn’t help but feel Niku was wrong about them. Not all of them were cold-blooded killers. Not all of them were monsters.

He touched down on the floor beside Gar’s nicked up kitchen table and shifted back to his human form. Thankfully, his father hadn’t posted a new guard yet because of his preparations for war.

Fowler shifted back also while Blink flew in closer to Asher, hovering around his head. Whenever Fowler, struck by awe or curiosity, tried to touch the drone, it would beep harshly and zap him with a tiny electric jolt. Fowler tried to do so now. The minute his finger touched the cool metal, a small hissing zap filled the air and Asher heard his friend cry out in sudden pain.

“Why won’t it stop doing that?” he asked, looking around Gar’s hut.

“It doesn’t like you, I guess,” Asher responded, distracted.

Where could they have gone? he asked.

He looked to the trap door that led to the ground. It was up and the ladder was down. They must’ve left the hut, but for what reason?

“Come on,” Asher said. He went to the open trap door and started down the ladder. Blink and Fowler followed after him.

Asher hit the ground some minutes later and immediately searched for signs of passage. The two girls didn’t exactly make it easy, but they didn’t cover their tracks all the way either. The biggest, most obvious sign, was the fact that Gar’s body was no longer there. It didn’t take him long to realize what prompted them to leave the safety of the hut and he cursed harshly underneath his breath. This was a delay he hadn’t anticipated.

“What are we looking for?” Fowler asked, his voice a hushed whisper. “And where’s the old guy’s body? Shouldn’t it be here?”

Asher didn’t answer him and he chose to ignore the slightly disrespectful tone his friend had towards Gar. Fowler rarely, if ever, ventured out of Vitari. He didn’t know Gar. He didn’t understand. To Asher, the man had been like a second dad and his death hurt so much it was nearly unbearable. But he did his best to ignore his grief and try to finish Gar’s last mission for him (to protect the Rooks) before he left for Roanoke.

It took nearly twenty valuable minutes to finally locate them. He had to stop several times to listen to the sounds around him. For the most part, all he heard was the swaying of leaves through the branches, animals talking with each other, or insects buzzing through the air. It wasn’t until he was twenty yards away from Gar’s hut that he heard soft crying and leaves being disturbed. He stopped quickly and focused on those sounds.

“What is it?” Fowler asked, but Asher hushed him with a harsh word.

He followed the sounds, trying hard to make sure he had them pinpointed accurately, and finally burst through some thick underbrush to a particularly big monoak tree. Sitting in the grass and leaves at its base was the mom and her daughter. He felt a huge wave of relief as he walked up to them.

They turned to look at him when they heard him coming through the bushes. Aeri let out a soft gasp. He saw a trace of fear hit her little face before she recognized him. Then she softened a bit but her eyes were still red and puffy. Her mom, Zoie, was no different.

Asher looked slightly beyond them, to a span of freshly turned earth directly in front of the tree. A simple marker made from a large boulder they had excavated from somewhere nearby was on top. The surface was marred by writing and Asher could see that Gar’s name was carved as carefully as the mom could make it.

“What are you doing?” he asked them.

“Wow. Rooks!” Fowler exclaimed from behind him as he burst through the bushes.

Zoie and Aeri looked at him, alarm registering in their eyes again. Without pause, Zoie expertly and quickly flipped through her blueprints and pressed her finger to an image. A whirring sound filled the air, nanos flew out, and a taser was suddenly aimed at Fowler’s chest.

“Stop! Stop! I won’t hurt you. Don’t shoot me,” he shouted.

Fowler ducked down and put his arms over his head, his body shaking.

“Easy,” Asher said, his voice calm. He stepped in front of Zoie’s weapon, putting himself in the path of whatever the thing did before it could do it to his friend. “He won’t hurt you.”

“What’s happening?” Zoie asked, her voice still hoarse from crying. “Why are you here?”

“I was right. My sister’s kidnapping caused my people to go to war,” Asher explained. “Our army marches now. I’ve come here to take you to safety. Gar was protecting you and since he is no longer here,” he paused as a moaning wail erupted from Aeri, followed by a rapid series of chitters. Surprised, Asher glanced up and found Fortun clinging to the tree trunk. He looked protectively at Aeri. “Since he is no longer here, I wanted to make sure that I saw you both to safety.”

“Where will we go?” Zoie asked, getting up and brushing bits of leaves and needles off her legs.

Aeri did the same and the minute she was all the way up, Fortun jumped from the trunk to the ground and then climbed up onto her shoulder.

“I don’t know. We’ll just have to figure it out on the way. The army is close, if we hesitate any longer; they will catch you both and kill you. With my sister’s kidnapping, my father is out for blood. He won’t show mercy to your kind anymore.” He left it at that, and the menacing threat was enough to motivate both. They got up and joined the two of them.

Blink flew closer to both Zoie and Aeri, chirping excitedly, but they still seemed a bit numb. They didn’t respond and so Blink moved on to Fortun. The drone chirped at the monkey and the monkey chittered excitedly back.

Asher took one last look at Gar’s burial ground. He said a silent goodbye to his old friend and then gathered his little troop and got them moving.

“I wish you hadn’t buried Gar,” Asher said, offhandedly.

“I could do no less for him,” Zoie responded, offended. “Not after he watched over me and my daughter.”

“I understand that, but my dad was going to have Gar’s body transported back to Vitari for a proper funeral. He’ll probably assume Rooks have taken it as some kind of mockery and enrage him further.”

“Yeah,” Fowler chimed in. “Funerals are always honored traditions for our people. We have strict responsibilities to the dead to make sure they are ushered into the Fields of the Eternal properly. I never really saw the need, since they were dead, but you know how things go with tradition. You have to because that’s how things have always been done.”

Asher put an elbow into Fowler’s ribs.

“Ow,” he complained, rubbing his side. “What’s that for?”

“Show some respect,” Asher growled. “He was a friend.”

“Okay, okay,” Fowler replied, rubbing his ribs. “Sorry.”

“I’m sorry as well,” Zoie responded. “I meant no offense. I just wanted to do something to help him.”

“I don’t blame you,” Asher reassured her. He looked to Aeri and found her crying again. He could tell by the look in her eyes that the idea to bury Gar had really been hers. “Or you, little one. What’s done is done. I’m sorry that I mentioned it.”

Aeri didn’t look like the matter was closed. In fact, she looked worse and cried harder.

“I’m s-sorry,” she said, her lips trembling. “He was n-nice to us. He pr-protected us.”

Asher stopped their group suddenly and went down on both knees in front of Aeri.

“Listen,” he paused, trying to recall her name. “Aeri, right?”

She nodded.

“What you did was very brave. And I know that Gar would’ve loved it. He would thank you himself if he could.” He looked her in the eyes. He tried to make himself sound more grown up. It wasn’t usually a hard thing to do for him when dealing with adults, but with kids it was different. He still felt like one of them. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I promise.”

Finally, she stopped crying and nodded her head.

“Are you okay?” he asked her. She nodded her head again. “Okay, let’s hurry. The army is moving pretty quickly. They’ll be here shortly. We have to get going.”

Aeri grabbed her mother’s hand. Zoie picked her up instead and everyone started moving. Fortun kept pace at their sides and Blink hovered in the air above them.

Asher led the way through the forest, backtracking to the base of the tree where Gar’s hut was situated in its branches. A little farther and they were out in the desert, the heat of the day already baking the sand and making it really hot to walk on.

Fowler griped and complained but Zoie and her daughter never said a word. Asher kept glancing behind him, afraid that the Terra army would march out of the trees at any second. He couldn’t let them be found and in the company of two Rooks.

He stopped them after they walked down a large sand dune and out of direct sight of anyone just emerging from the tree line.

“We need to get to Roanoke as fast as we can,” he said to Zoie. “Is there anything you can do to get us there quicker?”

“Yes. I have something that might work.” She raised her right forearm closer to her face. The octagonal box affixed to her flesh went as black as night for a second and then started glowing bright blue.

Asher moved in a little closer, curious to see what was on the screen. Several little icons littered its surface and he watched Zoie touch her finger to a simple box of dark blue with the letters BP in white on it. The screen immediately changed to one split into a dozen smaller boxes. Inside each one were shapes made of white lines. He watched her search them for a second until she found what she needed. Then she touched her finger to it and it expanded to fill the whole screen.

“You can make that?” Fowler asked, poking his head in closer to examine Zoie’s mechpak too. There was a note of awe in his voice and something like admiration.

“Yes,” Zoie said. “Stand clear.”

Asher and Fowler both stepped back, as did Aeri. Fortun stayed with the little girl.

Zoie pressed her finger to a white button with the word ENGAGE written inside it. The mechpak’s screen abruptly disappeared and was replaced by vents. They opened, as did the vents on her other mechpak, and nanos surged into the air. There was a huge cloud of them and in a moment the tiny machines all started swirling and combining together. In seconds, a vehicle big enough to transport all four of them hovered about two feet off the ground.

“Wow!” Fowler said, excitedly. “You guys might be brutal killers but you make some pretty wicked stuff.”

Asher jabbed him in the ribs with his elbow again.

“What?” Fowler asked, gruffly. He rubbed his side.

“Shut up,” Asher told him in a hissing whisper.

“We’re not killers,” Aeri said, her bright eyes hot with anger.

“Sorry, sorry,” Fowler responded.

“Let’s go. I can hear things coming from the forest,” Zoie said. She forced her voice to remain steady. She gave no indication that Fowler had upset her.

Asher focused on his hearing and found that the woman was right. He could hear neighing horses, along with other animal sounds, and the thunder of hooves and footsteps.

They army was almost on top of them.

He got into the vehicle next to Zoie, who was behind the steering wheel. Aeri and Fowler got in the backseats with Fortun sitting between them. Blink came in for a landing on Asher’s lap and stayed there.

When everyone was buckled in, the hover vehicle shot forward, racing its way to Roanoke.