Chapter Twenty Seven

I managed to find a quiet spot to bathe where humans wouldn't be screaming or throwing rocks at me while I was trying to divest myself of all the foul smelling mud. Thankfully Kylah had already done a decent job explaining what was happening and who I was to those who lived near the center of the village. So while they might not trust me the way her own people did, at least they weren't coming to kill me, either. Back beyond the main stretch through town there was a little pond where they had dammed up another branch of that same creek. While it wasn't very deep, it was a good spot for them to collect fish for their tables and their markets, and it was a good enough spot for a dragon to bath. I took my time scrubbing my scales clean, I wanted to make sure I got that rotten stench off of me. And I wanted to make sure Kylah had enough time to calm the men calling for my blood. It wasn't going to do any of us any good if I had to defend myself against the people of the very first town we'd come to save.

When I was both clean and convinced that people weren't going to try and kill me anymore I climbed up out of the cool waters and shook myself off. I rinsed my mud splattered helmet as well, and just in case Kylah hadn't been as successful as I'd hoped I put it back on. And just to give her a little extra time talking, I took my time in wandering back towards the center of town. I even paused to admire some shiny black and blue birds perched high up in the trees. I had no idea what they were, but they certainly were noisy. Yowling and chittering down at me as though they thought I was going to climb up that tree and devour their eggs. As if! Even if they did have eggs this time of year I'd much rather devour the birds themselves, the eggs would be barely worth the effort. Though I rather doubted that would be much comfort to them.

As I walked back to the center of town, the winds picked up a little, their direction shifting. They plucked several leaves from the trees and swirled them about me, some already brown, others just yellowing, and all dancing in the air on their way to their final resting place somewhere on the forest floor. The wind brought with it the scent of rain, though it was sunny now, I suspected if I took to my wings I would see rain clouds in the distance. The rains that we'd flown through in the days before had missed Kylah's village, but not by much. This coming round I suspected would not miss our current location.

Thankfully by the time I eventually meandered back, Kylah had convinced at least the majority of the town that I was in fact on their side. I thought I heard the phrase “He's a good dragon" bandied about, and as much as it made my stomach twist and my snout crinkle up, I decided if that was what it took to convince them to let me keep my blood and organs inside my body, then so be it.

Much of the day was spent talking to the people of the town, explaining our causes and plans, and planning our next move. We already knew which towns we were going to next, but we wished to include as many residents of Croglin as possible. For the most part, Kylah and Ravek ended up doing the talking. I think they liked the idea of being our de facto leaders and doing the talking for us all about as much as I did. That is to say, not at all. But even they had to admit that for now it was in our best interests. While the people of Kylah's town had come to trust me and were more then willing to listen to whatever I had to say, the people of Croglin had not yet reached that plateau. In fact, they were still far below it. I doubted they were yet more then a single step above “Look, a dragon, let's kill him."

I suppose a step above that was still better then standing with both firmly planted on the grounds of dragon killing.

So for the time being, I played a different role in Croglin then I had in Kylah's village. There I had taken charge, against my better judgment. Here, I let my better judgment tell me what to do for perhaps the first time in my recent life, and I convinced Kylah and Ravek to speak for us. I hung back, and only spoke when people came to speak to me. I didn't exactly act subservient mind you, I did not want them to get the impression I was Kylah's pet, or even servant. Rather I played the role of her personal bodyguard, her enforcer, and the heavy weapon in the little army she had rallied to help free her town. In time, they might get to know me as more then that if they chose too, but for now, I was happy merely to be “the dragon on their side."

In my own heart, I had always imagined Kylah as the leader of this little army, anyway. They may not have been her intention, but as far as I could tell she had been one of the few to truly stand up to the bandit army before she'd met me, and even in defeat, she had remained the only one truly willing to take a stand and fight for her people and their freedoms. She had been willing to die for that cause, and while she may not have felt she was qualified to lead this group, I felt differently. As far as I was concerned, her own convictions brought her strength and qualification enough to lead them. This was her war from the very beginning, and I knew that forcing her to step up and take the lead here among humans who would not trust me would only strength her as a leader. It would also strengthen her in the eyes of her own people, and I hoped that in time they would come to her for answers and leadership, and not the grumpy old dragon they were currently turning too.

The way the humans acted in this village was much closer to the way I'd expected the people of Kylah's village to act. Though they let me walk their streets and move amongst them, they did not follow me around as Kylah's people had. They did not embrace me and bring my food and gifts and drinks; at least not at first. Instead, some of them brought those things to Ravek and to Kylah, seeing them as the liberators and the dragon as perhaps the tool, the weapon.

And they were not as jubilant as Kylah's people, either, though they were certainly happy to have their inn back. I imagine because the bandits had not yet brought about the sort of pain and suffering and loss they'd brought to Kylah's people, their reactions to being free of them were understandably more muted. Though, as the day wore on, and it became more and more clear that the bandits had in fact been captured, and Kylah's town really was free, the sense of relief around the town began to grow. Even if they had not yet had their buildings burned and their people murdered, they knew well enough what had happened to Kylah's people. The bandits had used that as a tool of fear, and it seemed to take a little while for the town as a whole to come around to the fact they were now free of that very fear.

By the evening they had warmed considerably to Kylah's people, and even put together an impromptu feast and celebration in the city square, near the inn we'd captured all the enemy solders in. People brought out tables and chairs from their own homes and businesses, lining them up in the street. They all looked horribly mismatched, square tables, circular tables, crescent shaped tables, dark mahogany wood alongside paler pines, gray stone tables with iron legs, and every sort of chair I could imagine plus many more. Stools and wooden chairs and overstuffed recliners, chairs covered in leather, stools that were nothing more then flat tree stumps. And as the food began to come out dish by dish and bowl by bowl, I couldn't help myself, I had to investigate further.

I had spent much of the afternoon hanging back a little, always near Kylah but never truly involved in her talks. Though she went out of her way to come and pet my muzzle and rub my neck, showing everyone what a nice beast I could be. For now, I imagined that was how they saw me. Little more then a tame beast. Much as the idea of being “tame" made my spines flare up along my neck, I tried to take it in stride. I could see the caution, the wariness, and the suspicion in the eyes of almost everyone who looked at me. Some of them were curious too, but it was a different sort of curiosity then I'd seen in Kylah's home. There, they all wondered about the strange dragon who had nearly gotten himself killed trying to save humans he didn't even know. Here, they just wondered how she'd tamed me and why I wasn't eating them.

I took some measure of smug self satisfaction to find that there were humans that acted the way I'd always imagined they would. Some of them looked as though they were appraising just how much my hide would be worth if they cut it from my flesh. I even told one human “It's worth more to me then it is to you," but by the confused look on his face and the way he quickly turned and walked away, I'm not sure he was actually thinking that after all. For all I know, he might have been thinking about his wife, and then I'd really gone and made him worry!

But when I saw all that wonderful food laid out upon the table, people mingling all around it, laughing and pouring drinks for each other, kegs of age propped up upon tables and cups and mugs passed amongst everyone, I couldn't hold back any longer. At first I was surprised Kylah hadn't already come and invited me to the celebration, but then I realized she hadn't invited anyone else, either. Everyone here was already invited! And while I might not consider myself part of that group anyway and I was sure some of the townsfolk did not either, Kylah certainly did. She was simply waiting for me to make my own way over as well, she wanted me to do so of my own accord so that the people would not come to think she held any particular sway over us.

When I finally approached her, she smiled at me, rubbed my muzzle in both hands. “About time you came over here, Lovely Dragon. I was starting to think you were sick or something. It's not like you to stare at food without trying to eat it."

“I know," I chuckled. “But I didn't want too- “

“Nonsense," she cut me off, making sure I wasn't the only one who could hear her. “You're one of us, Vraal. It was you who saved my town, and it was your idea to save this town, and all the others as well! If anyone deserves this feast, it's our Dragon Hero."

Immediately I heard people around me murmuring amongst themselves. What did she say? It was the dragon who saved her town? The dragon's idea to save the other towns? Surely they'd misheard. Or had they? As the questions and confusion swirled around me, as the people tried to reconcile what they always thought they knew of dragons and what they were seeing right in front of their eyes, I narrowed my own pale blue eyes to glare at Kylah. This was supposed to be her time to take her place as leader, and here she was shifting the focus right back around to me again.

I hissed a whisper, and unlike her, I made sure she was the only one who could hear it. “Sneaky little wench!"

Kylah just smiled at her, and scratched my chin in a way she knew would have me purring in no time, lifting her own voice even higher then before. “Oh, Vraal, don't be so modest. If it weren't for you risking your own life, and nearly losing it to save my own, we'd all be little more then slaves right now. It was only a matter of time until they marched us all off and burned the rest of our village before you came along to save us! Of course you can have some of this food, you didn't think they'd put it all out for us, did you? How silly of you to think they'd neglect the Hero of my city just because he's a dragon!"

And with that, Kylah slowly turned around, and gave everyone near her a very long, meaningful look. She certainly had a way with words. And with people! Though I wasn't sure if it was a good way, or a bad way. Whatever way it was, it worked! Before I could even say anything else, people of Croglin all up and down the line of tables were offering me whatever food they could. I wasn't sure that they had dropped their suspicions of me, but Kylah was definitely making them think twice about the way they viewed me! She had planted the seed of doubt in their minds, doubt that the dragon really was just a tamed yet dangerous beast, and now she was watering it by constantly referring to me as the hero of her village.

Much as I wasn't sure I liked her tactics, I was still a dragon, and that meant I was never, ever to turn down food. Kylah soon found herself engaged in a discussion with the mayor of Croglin, and as if just to try and get me to liberate myself from her when among humans, she gave a little shove, and smiled. I stuck my tongue out at her best I could, which had the inadvertent effect of making several other people around my laugh.

So I slowly walked down the long line of tables, and as ripples of discussion about the potentially heroic deeds of a mere dragon washed through the crowd like waves growing on a lake as the winds slowly rose, more and more people began to not only offer me bites to eat, but actually engage me in conversation. Or at least, attempt too.

Most of which was utterly asinine, but at least they were trying, which elevated them another step or two away from “Kill the dragon". For my part, I did my very best to avoid being too sarcastic or impolite with my answers. It helped that I'd heard some of these questions before from Kylah's people, though they all had the benefit of seeing me first crush their enemies and topple their towers, but also seeing lying helpless and hurt, and fighting for my life. These people had seen none of that, but thanks to Kylah's efforts and the fact I hadn't yet eaten anyone, were slowly coming around to me.

So I answered their questions best I could. Yes, of course I have a name. Yes, you heard Kylah call me it, but no, it isn't Vlaag. Good try, though. You may call me Vraal. No, not Vrol, Vraal. Yes, it's a longer sound. Bodyguard? Yes, I am Kylah's bodyguard after a fashion. Oh she did, did she? Well, yes, she was telling the truth about that. I did save her life, yes. Rescuing her town was her idea, but I was happy to help. Because, I didn't think what nearly happened to her should happen to anyone else. What? It's Vraal, didn't I already tell you? Oh, that was someone else, my mistake. Yes, I nearly died saving her town. If you must know, yes, it was my idea to save the other towns, too. No, she's the real leader here, I'm just trying to help. Well, she's just being modest then. What? Are you serious? …Well, I wouldn't call it belching fire, exactly, but I can do that. …No, I can't do it that way! No, I don't want to see you try, how much have you had to drink? …Really, that much? Could you direct me to the ale, then?

As I made my rounds from table to table, sampling food that ranged from delicious to bizarre to burnt to inedible and back to delicious again, I slowly began to let my guard down. At first I hadn't realized I had raised it, I'd gotten so used to walking among humans back in Kylah's village I'd barely even noticed that I had tensed up around this humans the way I had back when I'd first met the others. Only as I began to relax did I realize they'd been making me nervous again. And while they didn't exactly open up to me the same way Kylah's people had, at least we were making progress.

I made sure to tell everyone who offered me something to eat that I enjoyed it very much even if that wasn't at all the case. I would never in my life be able to understand how Kylah could act so disgusted about my well aged meat and then immediately extol the virtues of rotten milk shaped into a lump with veins of blue mold running through it! It tasted so sharp and strange that I was sure it wasn't supposed to taste that way, like I'd just eaten an entire pawful of rotten, moldy mushrooms. I tried to politely point out all the blue mold running through the so-called cheese, told the person who offered it to me that I thought it had gone bad, and they just laughed! Called my a silly lizard and told me it was meant to be like that!

At that point I decided I was full, and went for the ale. By the time I had reached the area where all the kegs of ale were, I had gained a follower. Though she hadn't yet said anything, I saw her out of the corner of my eye, following a few steps behind my tail, and watching with wide, blue eyes. It was that same little girl who'd hit me with a rock, and try as her mother might, she couldn't get the girl to stop following me. I could hear the mother whispering too her, dragging her away time and again, only for the girl to wander right back over to me. I couldn't quite hear her well enough to know if the mother still genuinely thought I was dangerous, or simply thought I might be angry at her and her child for nearly getting me attacked earlier on.

Hoping to lay the matter to rest, I finally turned around to smile down at the girl as warmly as a dragon could. Which probably made me look as though I was going to eat her. As soon as the mother got a look at all my sharp teeth, gleaming in the light of the fading sun, her face went ashen. She tried to grab the little girls hand to drag her away, and I realized quite a few people were now watching, a couple of them even with hands on the hilts of swords, or axes. Though I meant to be the one to break the ice and try to be nice to the little girl, she beat me too it.

“Hello, Mister Vraal!"

 Trust a child to be the first one to not only pick up my name on her own, but to get it right. And to be the first one to actually lose all sense of fear around the big dragon who'd been wandering about her village all day. Not only that, but she came right up and began to pet me on the nose, rubbing around my nostrils as soon as I lowered my head for her. She must have been watching Kylah pet me during the day.

“I'm sorry I slaid you! I thought you was a evil dragon! Not a good dragon."

Ah, so that was where that annoying little phrase came from. Well, I decided that do to her age, I'd let it slide for now. Her words made me laugh just a little bit, and I gave her hand a few gentle licks. She giggled and pulled her hand away, wiping it on her blue dress. “That's alright, Little One," I said, pulling my head back. “What's your name?"

“I'm Lucinda!" She announced, apparently quite proud of my moniker.

“That's a very nice name," I told her, perking my ears up in a vain attempt to look a bit like a friendly cat. I flicked my tail tip a little, and cocked my head to the side. “And what - “

“I made this for you Mister Vraal!" She cut me off, and jumped up to toss something over my head. It was a ring of bright pink flowers all woven together to form a circlet, which she managed to toss around one of my ridged, dark gray horns upon first attempt. “Now you're pretty!" She giggled and clapped her hands.

Pink Flowers? Pretty?! Suddenly I wished she was still hurling rocks at my head! I smiled best I could, and thanked her, which made her beam. It also made her turn to her mother and say “See Momma! Told you he was a nice dragon!"

That made me smirk. While the child's attention was turned away, I lifted my paw, fully intending to take the circlet of pink flowers off from around my horn. Though across the tables, I caught sight of Kylah, who was smirking even wider then I was. She pointed to the little girl and shook her head, silently telling me to leave it on for now. No wonder the little girl knew my name AND made me a pink flower tiara. Kylah was in on this! This had to be part of her getting back at me for my earlier stunt. At this rate, the next step might as well be neutering myself and calling myself a pretty, pretty princess. I stuck my tongue out at Kylah, and with the pink tiara still hanging from a horn, turned towards the tables with all the kegs of ale.

The face of the man there was ruddy and red, and I wasn't sure if it was flushed from sampling a bit too much of his own product, or if it was because he was suddenly very nervous to be standing in front of an angry dragon stuck with pink flowers on his head. “May I…uh…do you want…some…er…"

“The strongest you have, in the biggest container you have." The man began to look around for something big enough to serve a dragon in, and counting the kegs of ale, I decided two things. One, that they had more then enough to spare, and two, that it was time to act more like a dragon. I had to do something to balance out the damn flowers, after all. “Never mind, I'll just take this one."

I moved forward, hoisted up an entire keg between my paws, and then set it down in front of me. I sat back onto my haunches, pried the wooden top off the barrel, and tossed it aside. Then with half the people assembled for the banquet watching, I shoved my whole damn muzzle into the keg and gulped down as much of the surprisingly honey sweet ale as I could in a single breath. I finally pulled my head back up, gasping for air and licking the sticky sweet droplets off my snout.

“This is really good," I said to no one in particular, though Kylah was watching me from a short ways off. “I thought ale had more bubbles."

“That's mead, Vraal," Kylah said bluntly, not bothering to hide her smirk. “The way you were chugging that, you probably just drank about a dozen ales, there. Then again, I know you well enough to know that's not that much for you. But I also know you're not going to stop, either! Just try not to pass out and crush the good people's tables, alright?"

“Oh, get mounted, Kylah," I muttered, and dunked my head back into the mead.

As it turned out, Kylah was right about the mead, and right about me. It was stronger then I'd anticipated, and I drank way too much of it. I damn near emptied that barrel by myself. And just as Kylah warned, at some point in the night I ended up passed out completely. At least I'd managed to pass out in the middle of the street, and hadn't just slumped down against one of their tables. By the time I eventually awoke, I couldn't remember half of the night, but I hoped that the people of Croglin were impressed by heavy drinking! Not like they needed any other reasons to dislike dragons.

It was the morning sunlight that finally woke me again. I opened my eyes to squinting slits, and even that faint streaming sunlight hurt. My eyes throbbed, and my brain throbbed harder. Ugh. Gods. I wasn't used to hangovers, cause I rarely got them even when I drank a lot. I must have really done myself in with that mead.

Somehow I'd ended up sprawled on my belly across the middle of Croglin's main street, the cobblestones were digging into my scales and sensitive places. Not only had I passed out in the middle of their street, but I had lain clear across it. My gray scaled jaw ended up resting against the woven reed welcome mat on some business's wooden stoop, while my tail stretched out and brushed up against the doorway of a little tavern on the other side of the road. Which of course left the bulk of my black scaled body stretched out across the road itself, one black wing draped haphazardly across my side and over a section of road like an old blanket worn thin that had blown in the wind and eventually come to rest against the oversized lizard blocking traffic.

With a groan, I slowly pushed myself up to my paws, and shook my head. That turned out to be a big mistake, as the pain pulsing in my skull increased ten fold as soon as I shook it. I grabbed at my head with a front paw, clutching my skull at the base of one of my ridged horns. Something pink obscured my vision, that damn flower tiara was still hooked around my horn. And I couldn't be bothered to remove it right now, either. So I just pulled it to the side and let it hang down at the side of my head, dangling from my horn like festive jewelry.

It was still early, the beams of shining sunlight that seemed to pierce my eyes like hot knives were the first such rays to make it through the forest slowly losing it's canopy to autumn's touch. But the businesses that lined the main thoroughfare were starting to open for the day, and down the street there were at least two carts laden with goods ready to be sold. Both of which were being pulled by very nervous looking mules, whickering and rolling their eyes at the big black obstruction. They were only slightly less nervous looking then their drivers who had probably been waiting for me to wake on my own because they were too afraid to wake me themselves.

I growled a little, deep in my throat. I wasn't angry at them, but I wasn't exactly pleased with myself for getting so drunk. I hoped I hadn't done anything too embarrassing that I couldn't remember. Kylah had enough to tease me about already. I turned away from the two carts and began to hobble down the street. I slow, lumbering gait was about the best I could manage right now, and I still couldn't bring myself to open my eyes any further.

The cobblestone road was slightly slick and slightly damp. I wasn't sure if it was just a coating of morning dew or if it had rained during the night! All the light gray stones looked uniformly darker then usual, and my back and wings felt slick and damp as well. If it had rained, it hadn't rained hard. But usually cold rain against my wings woke me, and swiftly. It certainly looked like it had sprinkled at least, I'd really been out of it! I had to admit, I was impressed. Usually human mead wasn't near as strong as they seemed to think it was, nothing like their stronger spirits after all. I had a particular fondness for whiskey, and while this was nothing like whiskey, it had been a lot stronger then I'd given it credit for.

As soon as I had the chance, I staggered off the main road and into the forest. By the time I'd neared that little pond they had dammed up, I realized just how painfully thirsty I was. My entire lengthy throat felt like one long perched, scratchy desert, and my tongue felt so swollen I was surprised it wasn't stuck between my teeth, wedging my muzzle open. At the water's edge, I drank until I'd completely filled my belly, and then I curled up in the merciful shade to try and get my headache to ease. Before I knew it I'd fallen back to sleep.

I woke up some hours later, feeling considerably better. My headache and the rest of my hangover seemed almost completely gone. One good thing about being a dragon, as rarely as we did get hung-over, at least we got over them very quickly. Especially with a belly full of water to speed us on our way to recover while we slept off the worst of it. Not that the ability to recover swiftly from a hangover made up for generations of systematic slaughter, but it was better then no benefits at all! That and flight.

Speaking of which, now that water had once more replaced alcohol in my blood stream, my belly was starting to rumble ominously. Time for food. And also time for all that water I'd drank and the alcohol it was replacing to return to the earth! I wandered a little ways off from the pond before relieving myself, I rather doubted they'd appreciate  a dragon pissing into their water supply.

Once I was comfortable again, I walked to an opening in the trees, and leapt into the air. The swirling wind gusts buffeted the trees as I swiftly rose above them, sending dead and dying leaves into whirling colorful arcs beneath me. It also startled a few birds who'd sought shelter in the tree, and left them scattering in all directions, squawking and cawing their disapproval at the larger creature. I supposed I should have conducted myself with a little more etiquette when it came to other creatures who could fly. But hey, I was bigger then them! If they wanted to complain too loudly I'd just eat them.

I spiraled above the small but spread out town a few times, rising only slightly with each rotation. Now that the town knew of me I felt relatively safe to fly without fear of being shot from the sky. Now and then something pink and cheer fluttered into my vision as I ascended, and it took me a few moments to realize I was still wearing that damn flower circlet! I thought about ripping it off and tossing it down, but something told me Kylah would have me by the balls if I broke that little girl's heart now. And the thought of Kylah having anyone by the balls was enough to strike fear in even a dragon's heart. So I let it flutter, though I twisted it around a little to tighten it down so it wasn't waving in front of my eyes the whole time. Now and then a pink petal or two broke free of it's mooring and sailed off into the wind, twisting and dancing as it fell away from me.

From above, the town didn't seem as colorful as it did while walking it's streets. Peering down from the air it looked like a collection of earthen tones thanks to all the roofs that were shades of brown, gray, and in a few cases, black. Some greens as well where the mosses and vines had slowly crept across tiles and thatch. And even now the trees seemed to have less leaves then the night before, a few more skeletal branches stretching up towards the sky like wooden spears and tridents looking to gouge my belly. The leaves that were left had ever more yellow, orange and red mixed into the fading green, and shades of dried brown were taking over entire swaths of forest. This area might have been a few days behind the advances autumn had already made in Kylah's town, but it looked as though autumn were swiftly seizing control here, as well.

From above, I found the ravine with the bridge I'd been comparing myself too, the sky blue coloration of the arched roof of the covered bridge really stood out in the middle of the forested hills it lay between. Beyond it was another collection of houses spread out among the trees atop the flatter area on the crest of that hill. One of the houses had an immense garden out back, and though everything else was starting to wilt in preparation for the coming cold, there were still many late blooming bushes and flowers spread throughout the garden. Dark blues and purples, some white blossoms, a few autumn roses the color of fresh blood, and a vine covering a tall wooden latticework arch that was positively crawling with pink blooms. Either that was the house the little girl lived in, or she'd been stealing someone's flowers! I certainly wouldn't put that past her.

I eventually flew beyond the edges of the town, and found myself a herd of elk from which to choose my breakfast. I was in luck, there was a young, tender looking buck that had probably just reached adulthood, and while normally I wouldn't take a prime stock animal from a herd, this one seemed to have broken a hind leg recently. It was limping along best it could, but it was never going to heal right on it's own, and the elk certainly wasn't going to win any competitions for a mate, let alone escape the first pack of wolves or other predators who came across it. Luckily for me, I happened to be just such a predator!

In short order I'd dispatched the crippled elk and eaten my fill of it's warm flesh and entrails. This time I decided against trying to gorge myself on the blood from it's throat, the last thing the people of Croglin needed while trying to get used to the idea of a dragon in their midst was to see me returning to them completely coated in blood! Once I had my fill, I returned to town, bringing with me what was left of the carcass. There was a butcher in town I vaguely remembered talking too the night before, and once I'd returned I deposited the carcass on his front stoop. Surely he'd have plenty of things to do with the remains of an elk. There was still an entire haunch there, and I'd left him the head as well. It seemed a perfectly reasonable gift to me! Then again, I was a dragon, and to a human it might seem as though I was threatening his life should he not cater to my every whim while I was in town.

Either way, I left the carcass and went to find Kylah.

I found her down the street with Ravek, and a few local men including the captain of their town's guard. They were discussing plans for the guards to join up with our own forces, though it was of course strictly voluntary. And they were also going over equipment inventories and other things that would have bored me back to sleep. I was more then happy to have Kylah and Ravek go over all the minutia and report back to me with the most important basics. After all, dragons were terrible with minutia, just look at our homes! Scattered with all sorts of things we couldn't even remember owning, let alone where we might have gotten them from.

As they talked, I walked up behind Kylah, and with one paw, I finally pulled the stupid little crown of flowers of my head. The flight had left it significantly worse for the wear, most of the blooms only had about half their petals left and it looked quite raggedy. I considered telling Kylah that made it a good fit for her, but instead I just placed it over her head, and let it hang around her own neck.

“About time you woke up, you drunkard!" Kylah said with a laugh, pulling her hair out from beneath the flower Tiara, which was now a blossom necklace.

“I'm not a drunkard," I muttered, lashing my tail tip. “For your information I have been awake for hours! I was walking in the forest, and…"

“You were passed out by that pond," Kylah said, grinning and folding her arms under her breasts. “I came to get you and you wouldn't wake up, so I left you there."

“I was hunting," I said, licking my muzzle. “I was only in the forest for a little while. Then I went flying! I even brought that butcher I talked too last night a gift!"

“What sort of gift?" Ravek asked, walking up alongside Kylah.

“An elk!" I said, proudly.

“Oh, that's very kind of you, umm…Sir Dragon," one of the locals said, probably just trying to placate my inevitable wrath.

“Probably not as kind as you think," Kylah said with a sly grin. “How much of the elk did you eat first?"

I glared down at her, huffing and bristling my spines. Then, I twisted one ear back, and let the other droop a bit as I said, “Most of it."

“At least…he tried?" That same local said, no doubt hoping I wouldn't make a gift of his remains to the next town we visited.

“That's right," I nodded, picking and choosing my way through human expressions until I found one that I thought suited me. “It's the thought that counts, after all. And, ah, a rose by any…"

“You're no rose, Vraal," Kylah said, scratching my chin until she had me purring a little. “But at least you don't smell like you shat yourself anymore."

“Keep it up, Kylah," I said with a playful growl. “And I'm going to eat you some day."

Chapter Twenty Eight

The next two villages fell swiftly. Abdon first, and then Renstone. Both were again smaller then Kylah's village of Emerfeld, and we conquered them much the same way we took Croglin. We first surveyed them by sneaking in a few of our people posing as traveling merchants, and at night I flew above the towns to familiarize myself with their layouts. Then we surrounded them in the middle of the night, and moved in as swiftly and quietly as possible. Both instances went nearly as smoothly as Croglin. In one case, two of our enemies were killed, and one of own own men was wounded, but thankfully we did not lose any soldiers. And once more I stayed back for a while and let Kylah and Ravek talk to the locals. They explained our cause and our goals, and they explained that unlike every other dragon they may have previously encountered or heard of, I wasn't a monster. And much like Croglin, though at first they were skeptical, the majority of the villages were eventually won over to our cause.

In fact, the village of Renstone was more then eager to pledge troops to assist us. As the nearest village to Talhof, Emerfeld's sister village, our enemies had already begun to take them over. People had been beaten and jailed for speaking against them or refusing to feed and house their soldiers without proper payment. Renstone also had more enemy soldiers within it then the other smaller villages, enough for them to put up a mild resistance before we could fully swarm the city.

The villages were a little different. Where Croglin lay amidst a series of rolling, forested hills, Abdon lined the banks of a small, lazy river deep in a shady valley. Like the others, it was not a very big village, but they did cater to the occasional traveler with skills craftsman and tailors, and with a wide variety of produce grown all along the valley that once a month the other villages came to purchase. They also subsisted on the wide variety of fish they could net from their river, much the way Emerfeld always had a good selection of fresh seafood to add to it's markets. Abdon seemed to be nearly one long street, with just a few side streets here and there, but I enjoyed walking the main road once the people had gotten used too me. I liked all the buildings painted the colors of the sea, everything from deep azure blue to angry stormy gray and emerald green. I had been near the ocean a time or two, enough to see the waves crashing in the distance and smell the salt filling the air, and for some reason this village reminded me of that.

Renstone on the other hand, was a little closer towards the mountains in which my kind once dwelled. Close enough for the small village to occupy several deep stone quarries where they cut immense slabs of marble and granite, and then sold them to the other villages in the area. I suspected the name of the village came from the phrase “Rend Stone". No doubt Talhof, the larger city, had initially begun all the quarries generations again and “Rend Stone" began as a small camp or inn and tavern catering to the stone workers, and the rest of the village sprung up around it. Now, the quarries were worked by men from both Renstone and Talhof, though Renstone had laid claim to most of them. Or at least the quarries had been worked before the bandit army set in. Now all the stone work was done either by the bandits themselves or more likely by men they forced to labor for them. I was fairly certain that the wealth of good stone and minerals was one of the reasons the bandits were so keen on conquering this area, and I was just as certain that if my plan worked and Kylah's people declared themselves a country that same stone would help fund their new home.

Renstone was a little less colorful then the other human villages I'd been through, but that wasn't to say it was drab. It was a little more tightly compacted then Croglin, with interweaving streets all lined with shops and businesses and homes, and the main street lined with a variety of stone working shops, and more taverns per person then any other human city I'd yet seen! I couldn't help but like Renstone.

Unfortunately Renstone was also the start of our problems. While in Croglin and Abdon we were able to retake both villages without any casualties on either side, our Renstone campaign ended with a brief but pitched battle in the small square at the center of town. Here the enemy was a little more dug in, firing arrows at our people from upper stories, and attempting to surround us by doubling back through alleyways when they saw us coming. Thankfully, a blast of fire from our little army's resident dragon took out the archers and their hiding place, though it didn't exactly endear me to the locals. And we had more then enough troops by then to let them think they'd surrounded us, only to have more of our people pour in behind them.

But in our victory we failed to realize that their extended resistance was covering for the escape of a few of their local leaders. Only the next morning when we'd rounded up our newest batch of prisoners and counted them did we realize we were missing a few men. Between our spies and the local townspeople providing plenty of information once they were sure they were free, we realized that despite our rather impressively full jail of bandit soldiers, we were still about four men short. A search of the town revealed only a few sets of boot prints in the mud left from rains the night before in an alleyway that lead to a space between wooden poles in the primitive wall surrounding the small village.

Damn. I blamed myself for letting them escape, I'd gotten too cocky after the last two villages had fallen so easily. Kylah tried to deflect blame away from me, and tried to take it herself, we all should have kept better watch for any other possible exits. But I decided there was little we could do about it now aside from speed up our plans. Given the relative distance to Talhof and their own fortress, I was sure the four escaped men would have to Talhof first. From there they might send word back to their fortress of what was happening, but if we were swift, by the time our enemies mobilized any sort of backup, we would have already conquered Talhof and been ready to move on their fortress itself!

I told myself that this simply added a new sense of urgency to our movements. Nonetheless, I had word sent back to Emerfeld to prepare themselves to withstand any possible invasion. I also sent a portion of our men back to help defend the town just in case. Thanks to the liberation of three villages, the army we'd brought with us initially had swelled just like I'd hoped it would. I would have liked even more men to take the next town, especially now that they'd probably be ready for us. But I was more worried about Kylah's home, and I thought we had plenty of men. Already we had many more men with us then had occupied Emerfeld, so the numbers were in our favor at least.

I was thankful for the fact that the villages in the area already had a relay system of sorts for sending messages between themselves. Each village had a group of trained hawks or similar birds that knew the route between towns, and the hawks carried small scroll cases tied to them which contained the message. So we were able to pass along news of our success, and also of our failure. The hawks were swift and would make short work of the distance between villages.

In Renstone we were also able to add to our stocks of weapons and armor thanks to the increased number of soldier-bandits that were captured here. Boiled and padded leather armor with metal studs from the average soldier, and heavier iron link chain mail from the officers that escaped, along with a single suit of plate mail, and an iron breastplate with a lion emblazoned upon it, no doubt stolen from a soldier of some other country. A few extra swords and shields, and some extra long bows as well, plus a single crossbow. We portioned those out to all the new soldiers we'd aquired from Renstone so that they'd be ready for the next battle. Kylah wanted nothing to do with the plate mail or the breast plate, claiming they were too heavy for her to be as mobile as she liked, and I supposed she had a good point. Especially with her injured shoulder, though I could have argued that meant she'd better put the plate mail on anyway.

In the end one of the heavier, large new soldiers in our army decided to wear most of the plate mail, though he didn't put everything on. I had to admit, it did look rather bulky and obtrusive the way it covered his body in steel, he looked as though he should be riding an equally armored horse and leading a Calvary charge. Given the sort of guerilla warfare we were engaged in, lighter armor was probably best after all, at least until we had to consider engaging what was left of the bandit armor in more traditional war.

We planned to take Talhof much the same way we'd taken the last three towns. In the middle of the night, perhaps even just before dawn. We knew though that they were going to expect us this time, and would have a little time to make preparations, and so we worked to alter our plan a little bit. Talhof was much larger then the last three villages we'd been too, though not quite as large as Emerfeld. Some of the local stone workers and merchants used to visit Talhof often, and some even had family there, so they knew the layout of the town quite well. Working together, they drew out as detailed a map as they could, along with input from several captured soldiers who were far more eager to tell us what they knew then they were to end up an old dragon's dinner.

Not that I'd befoul my belly with some stringy, dirty sweat-soaked bandit, but they didn't need to know that.

Talhof had two main gateways leading into and out of the town, one to the north and one to the south. As with Croglin I planned to send men to either gateway. However, unlike Croglin I didn't expect us to be able to get in without being noticed. So, I planned to make our entrance as noticeable as possible! Mostly by breaking down the gate myself, burning down the guard towers located around it, and killing anyone who tried to stop me in the attempt. I would have a group of men with me, who would pour into the town just behind me, and with any luck, we'd get most of the town's defending soldiers rushing to aid their comrades and stop their advance. Then once most of their army was engaged around the south gate, the rest of our men, save perhaps some we kept in reserve, would rush in through the north gate. I had not determined how we would get that gate open, I might have to fly across town and open it myself. Or perhaps if I was able to take a few men and drop them off inside Talhof without being spotted, they could open it while I went and made a distraction of myself destroying the other gate. We could have to at least in part play it by ear, as the humans said. I mentioned we might have to figure that part out by the scales on our tails, and no one seemed to know what the hell I was talking about, so Kylah gave me the human phrase.

I liked ours better.

When everyone was ready we began our march to the last of our targets, Talhof. Wary of sentries, we kept to the thickest parts of the forest. It was slow going, made all the more miserable by the steady, drizzling rain that began the day after we left Renstone, and showed no signs of letting up anytime soon. The skies above the canopy of trees we sheltered under were leaden and gray, hanging low and oppressive like the swollen belly of some great pregnant monster. I knew it must be snowing like mad back home in my valley, and while it may snow for days back home, here it would be just rain. Cold, icy rain that dug beneath my scales, chilled my wings, and ran into my eyes. I knew it must be even worse for all the humans accompanying me, no matter how thick their cloaks were sooner or later that rain soaked through them, and drenched them to their pale pink skin. Leaving them stuck in sodden, clammy clothing.

At night it was worse. We dared not have a fire even to fight the chill because of the concern it might be spotted. All our plans would be for naught if they turned the tables and ambushed us in the middle of the night, slaughtering us while we slept. When we could sleep, that was. Many of us, myself included, stayed up much of the night shivering and wondering what the hell we were doing out here. I sheltered Kylah beneath my wing and let her take warmth from me, the rest of us huddled beneath the largest trees we could find, or whichever still had enough leaves to provide shelter.

During our march across the lands, autumn had advanced swiftly. Or perhaps we had advanced higher in elevation then I'd realized. Whatever the case, very few trees now had any life yet clinging to them. Many of them were already naught but spindly brown skeletons reaching up at the gray skies as if seeking to claw a hole though the sagging gray gauze that separated us from the sun. The rest still clutched weakly at a ever-thinning veil of browns and reds, though each cold gust of wind tore a few more dead and dying leaves away from their home and cast them mercilessly to the ground.

I feared as we marched that our men would lose heart, lose hope. That they might decide to return home instead, and try to negotiate with our bandit enemies. I was convinced that to do so now would bring them only death, or slavery. Our enemies had long since proven they had no compassion whatsoever for our people, and if given even the slightest chance they would grind Kylah's people under their boot heel so deeply that they would never again have the strength to lift their faces from the mire. All of those who had risen up against them would be used to make an example to the rest of the people, and they would not taste freedom again for generations, if ever.

No, we had to push on despite the hardship if they were to complete this bid for freedom. This was their one and only chance, I was sure of it. And so I was heartened that despite the cold and the misery of hard travel on little food and little sleep, very few of the men complained, and not one turned back. I offered them what encouragement I could, though Kylah had quickly taken the reins there, and was always talking to them about how we had to send these people a message. Telling them the bandits would have turned back already, and that was why we were going to best them, why we deserved our freedom!

I added what I could to her statements, and told them that this weather was a blessing. As miserable as we were, the enemy would be the same. They probably wouldn't expect an attack so soon in the middle of such unpleasant conditions. And that with any luck the heavy, cold rains would have delayed their preparations, as well. If we were able to attack under the cover of the rain, I expected us to be that much more successful.

By the time we had reached our staging point for our attack on Talhof, the rain was heavy then ever. During the trip it had come and gone, giving us enough of a glimpse of sunlight  to warm and dry just a little, only for the rains to return. And when they returned they came back worse then before, as if angry at us for daring to dry out while they took a break from soaking our bodies and dampening our spirits.

However, I was once more heartened to see those same spirits heating back up as soon as we had Talhof in sight. The men knew this was the last village we had to liberate before we could kick these greedy bastards out of our lands for good. Then it would be on to their fortress, to do to them what they had done to us! And once they were driven away, we would have our very own country, and perhaps even a relatively powerful king to ally ourselves with, and back our bid for our own land.

I couldn't help but laugh at myself when I thought about it. I'd already come to consider these lands mine, as well. As if these were my people. Though, when I took to the darkened skies, and gazed down into the skeletal forest at all the men preparing themselves for war, men who had followed me here and relied upon me for what already seemed like ages, men who had overcome their instincts and teachings to trust a dragon, I could not argue that point. By now, these were my people. I bore their hopes for lasting freedom and a good life upon my wings, and I would not let them down.

What was happening to me? I had come here for two reasons. I had come here to make a name for my people, to do something great and prove to anyone who would listen that we were more than monsters. I may well have been the last dragon, and I'd be damned now if I'd let the whole world remember us that way. And I had also come here for Kylah, my last friend. I had come to care for her and I could not simply let her walk off to her own death without trying to help her. And now that I'd succeeded in that, I found myself embroiled in something else, something greater. I was here for another reason now, a reason larger even then my own plans to find a place for dragons to be welcome. It was almost as if I was turning into something else, changing little by little every moment I spent amidst the humans.

But just what I was becoming, I had no idea.

We began our attack just before dawn. The low hanging clouds that had kept our bodies and spirits wet and cold over the last few days had sunk even lower, finally making themselves useful. Thick fog covered the lands as we crept through the barren, autumn-rent forests that surrounded Talhof. In the lower fens and creek beds we slunk through the mists sometimes grew so thick I could barely see the end of my snout in front of my face. I liked it that way though, it meant they had no way in hell of seeing us coming. I made absolutely certain that no one even considered lighting a torch as crept every closer to our destination.

The lands surrounding Talhof were slightly hilly, run through with many small creeks and streams. The grounds were sodden and muddy everywhere. Now and then my paws slipped and I knew the boots my men wore would provide them little more traction. Paws and boots alike would have trouble against soaked mosses, wet, slippery leaves and muddy ground. At times we had to find a way around the waters where usually placid creeks had swollen into fiercely raging rivers that I might yet have been able to wade across, but I couldn't say the same for the humans. I just hoped we didn't walk headfirst into any stone quarries we couldn't see the edge of through the fog until we were plunging over it!

Though we had not brought torches with us, the guards that patrolled the wall around Talhof had plenty of them. As we drew nearer and nearer our target city, the lights shining in the fog were like ghostly beacons to us, flickering and shimmering in a way that caused the fog to glow as though it were filled with fluttering apparitions. I felt almost like we were a swarm of moths moving inexorably closer to the flame; I just hoped we did not burn ourselves too badly.

As before, I split our forces into several groups. Kylah and many of our men came with me to attack the south gate, while Ravek lead a larger group of men to the north gate to await their time to strike. Preferably once most of our enemies had engaged themselves at the south gate! A third group of soldiers was splitting off to surround the place and try and cut off any escape. We also had two signals prepared, one that would order them to regroup at the south gate, and one that would call for the same at the south gate. In that way, I hoped that I had prepared for any eventuality.

What I had not completely prepared for was a full-fledged iron portcullis protecting the south gate. From my earlier fly-over of the town I already knew that unlike the other villages, Talhof was encircled entirely by a strong, sturdy stone wall. Their history with stone quarrying meant they had a surplus of strong stone, and put it to good use keeping their town safe. However, since the bandit army had taken over they'd gone a step or three further, forcing the townsfolk to labor at raising the wall a good deal higher, and replace the old wooden gates with much sturdier iron portcullis built into the wall itself.

That much I had not expected until I was nearly face to face with the gatehouse at the south end of town. There the wall swelled in all directions like a square-shaped growth on an old tree branch, making room for the gate keeper's quarters inside the wall itself, and for all the chains and pulleys connected to the portcullis. The top of the wall had also been recently turned into a walkway complete with notched battlements for the soldiers striding the wall to take cover behind in the event of an attack. From the looks of things our enemies had been planning to turn this town into their second base of operations, probably because of it's stone resources. A pity I hadn't met Kylah and set all this in motion before they'd had a chance to reinforce the town. Still, we were not planning on a siege or even a traditional military attack, so the wall and it's gates did not change our plans too severely.

I didn't think it would be a wise idea to ram myself through a portcullis, helmet or not helmet. So I'd either have to get someone on the other side of it to break into the guardhouse and retract it manually, or maybe I could just wrench it right off of it's hinges? Did a portcullis have hinges? Whatever it had, I could probably tear it off them. Though if I wasn't careful, I was going to get myself filled with arrows. Again.

There were two guard towers rising up on either side of the portcullis, just behind the granite and mortal wall. Torchlight flickered off the drowsy faces of the guards in both towers. Poor bastards probably thought that had the lucky assignments tonight; the peaked roof of the towers kept the shielded from the constant, cold rain while the rest of the guards that prowled the grounds were soaked through their skin. However, their luck was about to take a turn as they would be the first targets of my archers.

We took up position, and hid ourselves just beyond the wall in the fog-shrouded forest. I wanted to make sure the other groups had plenty of time to get into position as well, so we remained just off to the side of the wide main road cobbled with stones smoothed by generations of travelers. As we waited, I silently gestured towards my archers, then to the guards in the watchtowers. As they nocked arrows, I held up a paw, signaling them to be patient. Other guards were patrolling the walkway, and I signaled to more archers to prepare to take those guards down too, as soon as we moved. Then I waved my paw at the two guards standing just in front of the portcullis, and tapped my own black scaled chest. I would take care of them.

I had noticed in my earlier flyover, before the worst of the fog moved in, that many of the guards here seemed to be better armed then those even in Emerfeld. No doubt because they knew we were coming for them. The two standing out front wore thick, heavy looking chain mail, and each also had an iron breast plate strapped around his chest. Both also wore padded but open faced iron helments, with a little metal bar down between their eyes. They had swords at their hips, and a long hafted spear in their hands. They looked ready for war. No, they looked ready for dragons. No matter.

I had fought and killed men better prepared to face dragons then they were.

Our own men would match them best we could, though we were certainly a motley sort of army. No uniform, no sort of order to the armor we wore. I let them put on whatever they chose or whatever they could find to fit them. Among us we had a lot of padded and stiff, boiled leather. Other men had thicker leather armor with strips of metal sewn in place for added protection, or metal studs. Quite a few of us also had chain mail that had either belonged to the old village militias or had been taken from our routed enemies. A few of the soldiers serving as infantry even had mismatched bits of heavier armor. A breast plate here and there, a man with a closed face helmet but no breastplate, another man with armored greaves and gauntlets to go with his otherwise simple chain mail. Some of us had sword and shield, others had only sword, or ax. A few had mace and hammer, some even had work hammers taken from a smithy, or scythes from some farmer.

The only thing we shared besides a desire to see these five villages united in freedom once more was a simple blue arm band we all wore. That was a new addition, only added after we had re-taken Renstone. Once it was clear that a few of our enemies had escaped, we worried they might later attempt to infiltrate our ranks either before we moved on Talhof, or during the assault. I had everyone gather up blue cloth just before we left, and on the way here I had them all tear it into strips and wrap a band around their arm. If someone was not wearing the blue armband they were not one of us. Which meant they were either from Talhof and wished to join us, or they were an enemy attempting to deceive us.

When enough time had passed, and my patience was at an end, I signaled the archers to move forward. As soon as they had clear shots, they were to take them. They waited just long enough for the two guards patrolling back and forth along the south section of wall to come into range, and then unleashed a volley of arrows. The silence of the fog-shrouded night was cracked by the whistles of dozens of arrows slicing through the air all at once, like a swarm of furious hornets rushing past my ears. And a split second after the silence cracked, it was shattered entirely by loud shrieks and screams of pain as each of the guards we'd targeted was hit by several arrows all at once. Chain mail was excellent protection against blades, but not so effective against arrows. Arrows buried in men's chests and bellies, and for every arrow that was turned away by armor, another one and sometimes two found their mark. One man toppled from his guard tower, screaming all the way down. Another man with an arrow in his heart slumped over the railing, clutching at it and spitting blood for a few moments. And the two on the walk soon took arrows to the throat as well, diminishing their screams to mere gurgles.

No sooner were the arrows loosed then I burst from the trees, bounding straight towards the front gate. To their credit, the guards standing just in front of the gate were quick to react, splitting up a little and hefting their spears. To my credit, they were not quick enough. Rather then run head first into the pointy end of a spear, let alone a gate I wasn't going to be able to crash through so easily, I spun sharply on my paws, whipping my tail around at the nearest guard. He made a feeble effort to defend himself by raising his spear but my tail snapped it in half as easily as I could have snapped a twig between my paws. The spear shattered with a tremendous CRACK and the man's face had only an instant to express his bewilderment before my tail smashed it in. With all the momentum I had, the thin wooden haft of his spear had barely slowed my down, and my tail may as well have been a sledgehammer pounding into the side of his head. It crushed his helmet into his skull and lifted him off his feet to send him pinning wheeling through the air, limp arms and legs flailing before he collided with the granite wall, a sickening crunch still twisting my belly as what was left of him crumpled to the ground.

As I finished my spin to once more face the gateway, I felt pain lance my side. The other guard had been quickly then I thought, and as I'd been spinning he managed to get around beside me. However, unlike the man who'd buried his ax in my ribs, this human clearly had no experience with dragons. He simply thrust his spear head on at my side where both my ribs and some of my thickest, toughest scales protected my most vital organs. The pain was only minor, more startling then anything else as he'd barely even managed to penetrate my scales. I jerked myself away from him, a small trickle of crimson running down my black scales.

He seemed surprised he'd done so little damage to me, but not half as surprised as he appeared when Kylah snatched his face in her hand from behind, pulled his head back and cut his throat. She dropped him to the ground to leave him clutch at his gaping neck, with blood gushing over his fingers instead of reaching his brain the pain would not last long. I knew Kylah preferred to be merciful even to her enemies, she gave him the quickest death she could with the tools she had and the situation she was presented with.

“I could have done that," I hissed to her as I turned my attention back to the gate.

“You could have, but you preferred to let him stab you," she jabbed me right back, trotting up to the portcullis with me. “Can you get it open?"

“We're about to find out," I said, pushing my paws through two of the gate's openings. Crafted from a series of vertical iron bars and a series of horizontal iron bars, it was a formidable thing for humans to try and get through. But it gave a dragon plenty of paw holds to get a good grip upon!

Just as I was about to try and wrench the damned thing from it's moorings, the wooden door to the guardhouse just beyond it flew open, and another guard ran forward. This one was not wearing his armor, just a simple gray tunic and dark breeches. He didn't even have boots on, he was either off duty, or just to lazy to bother suiting up properly when he'd been assigned to watch over the portcullis gears. He ran straight towards me with his sword raised, intent on ramming it right through the soft part of my paw pad. I tried to jerk my paw back a little too fast, and it caught against the bars.

Kylah, as calmly as if this was something we did every day, reached over to one of our men nearby and snatched his loaded crossbow from him. She thrust it up against one of the openings in the portcullis, and fired it straight into the man's face just before he could drive his blade through my trapped paw. He went down scratching and clutching his blooded face, crossbow bolt jutting from his cheek. If we hadn't been planning on causing a distraction here already I'd have been worried about all those screams.

I carefully worked my paw back out, and got a better grip on the portcullis. “Thanks," I muttered.

“That's twice I've saved your scaly ass in two minutes, Vraal!" Kylah smirked at me as she handed our soldier back his crossbow, which he quickly reloaded. “I'm either getting better or you're slipping!"

“That was the first time," I growled. “That spear barely hurt me and I was about to kill him. And you saved my paw, not my ass."

All around us, our men were massing. Archers had nocked fresh arrows, those with procured crossbows had loaded them, the rest had their weapons at the ready. A few were even tossing up ropes with metal grappling hooks over the wall, trying to find a place to snag them on something secure. We did not have many such devices but we'd passed a few out to each group. One man managed to get his hooked in well, and soon he and a few other soldiers were scaling the wall.

With a grunt of effort I yanked at the portcullis as hard as I could. I felt it budge, I felt it bend, and as my front legs began to ache with exertion, I heard something pop. Whatever it was, I hoped it wasn't mine. But the gate seemed wedged against the stone in which it's upper section was moored and would usually retract into. So I tried something different, instead of trying to pull it out, I shoved it up as hard as I could. It was heavy and stiff, and I growled in pain as I reared up onto my hind legs, pulling the gate upwards, trying to force it to retract. Suddenly there was a loud SNAP, I think a chain must have shattered somewhere and most of the resistance vanished. Then it was easy to push the portcullis all the way up into the wall, though now that I'd broken it's chains I had to hold it open or it would fall back into place.

“Inside!" I hissed. “Everyone inside, I'll hold it up."

I had to remain on my hind legs for a while as soldier after soldier poured into the city. One glanced into the gatehouse and reported that I'd broken the locking mechanism that bound the chain used to raise and lower the portcullis, and it was going to be stuck lowered until someone fixed it. That was fine, I was just stuck standing awkwardly for a while. As I people flooded through the gateway, I heard cries in the distance. Enemy soldiers were coming to reinforce the gate, and before all of us had even gotten inside, I could already hear steel clashing on steel, along with screams of fury, and then cries of agony. Just as we'd expected, this was going to be a much more serious battle.

Suddenly an arrow screamed right past my body, through the gateway. Someone on the other side had spotted me holding the gate open, and was trying to bury arrows in my belly! That they missed was probably more luck then anything else, as even in the midst of a battle a dragon's underbelly was a fairly easy target when he was stuck on his hind legs. I glanced around, there were still a few more soldiers yet to get in.

“Damn it, Kylah," I snarled at her, dropping any pretense of stealth. “Get in there and make sure no one shoots me in the balls while I hold this open!"

That made her laugh as she ran inside to help locate the enemy archers, but I wasn't joking! If I were a human aiming at a male dragon stuck rearing on his hind legs, I'd be aiming to incapacitate, and I knew where I'd be aiming. Another arrow shot past me, this one tore through the membrane of my right wing even though I had it folded up against my body. “Kylah!"

A moment later, and I heard another distance scream, I could only hope she'd found that damn archer! Finally, the last of our men were running through the gate, but one of them didn't make it. A third arrow whizzing through the gateway buried itself in the poor man's throat, sending him stumbling backwards onto the road, dying before he'd even made it inside. I felt my heart twist, in a way I blamed myself for that. This was all my plan, after all.

He thrashed a little on the roadway, and soon went still, blood pooling around him, washing down the cobblestone into thin red rivers by the rain that kept falling.

I finally released the portcullis and it crashed back down, slamming into the street with an echoing metal on stone crash. With no one else needing to get inside, I took a few steps back, and jumped. I fanned my wings hard, just enough to get me up over the wall. My right wing stung like hell where the arrow had pierced it, but it wouldn't ground me and it certainly wasn't going to kill me. As soon as I was over the wall, I folded my wings once more and let myself drop down to the ground, just inside the town.

As soon as I landed I found myself in the middle of what was already becoming a bloody, pitched battle. I had hoped to draw most of their forces down to one end of the town, and that seemed like exactly what I'd done. If this was only a small part of their men, we were going to be in serious trouble. Ahead of me men in mismatched armor and blue arm bands clashed with more organized foes, lots of men in chain mail, and even a few in full plate armor and closed-face helmets swinging broadswords, and cutting a bloody swath through my people. Archers behind them kept many of my men back, and occasionally exchanged fire with our own bowmen. Already, I saw more of our men laying bloodied, writhing in pain, or worse, already still and limp on the grounds then we'd suffered in any other town we'd attacked so far.

Yet I knew this battle was only just beginning, and it was time I waded into it's bloody waters.

Already the plaza just beyond the gate we'd breached was filled bandits playing at being soldier, and our men and woman fighting for their freedom. On my right side, the tall granite wall I'd just flown across, and on the left side of my body, shops and businesses, possibly homes as well. Buildings made from wood, others from stone bricks and blocks cut from the nearby quarries mortared together. There was not a lot of room for me to manuever here, I couldn't even have opened my wings all the way. And while ahead of me, our men fought atop the cobblestone plaza, beneath my paws was only mud and sodden grass.

A few soldiers broke away from our enemies ranks, slipping down a side street and reemerging in front of me to try and flank my men. As soon as they rounded the corner and turned their backs on me, I bound forward and sprinted down the muddy alleyway. Too late the men heard my snarling breath and pounding footsteps of my paws over the clashing, screaming din of battle. I  ran straight into the group of humans and bowled them over, knocking them about the alleyway like wooden toys in a child's game. With my helmet clad, horned head I butted one man straight between his shoulder blades and sent him flying straight into the rampaging crowd. Whatever bones I hadn't broken would soon be crushed as he was trampled under foot by some of his own men.  Another man I'd hit with a paw, and he was tossed through the air to careen of his friend straight into the brick wall of a nearby building, then back to the ground where he rolled through the mud and tripped up another companion. A fourth man ended up smashed between my body and the towering granite wall, crumpling slowly to the ground when I moved away from him. One man somehow managed to avoid me, ducking back into the alley only to step back out behind me. I paused just long enough to glance back at him and casually lift a hind paw off the ground before I kicked back and caught him straight in the chest. The tremendous cough he gave as his iron breast plate buckled and collapsed into his sternum just before he was launched well off his feet and sent soaring down the street was probably the last sound he ever made. He hit the dirt a little ways off and rolled a few times through the mud, but never got up.

With the first group of men to run across from me dead or disabled, I decided they might as well make themselves useful. The soldier who'd only been tripped up was now pushing himself to his feet, trying to the mud that now coated his face and greasy hair out of his eyes. He soon had bigger concerns though as I grabbed him around his muddy chain mail covered middle and hoisted him off the ground with both front paws. Rearing onto my hind legs once more I quickly spotted my targets, and hurled the struggling man right towards the line of heavily armored soldiers who had so far managed to thwart our people's advance.

My aim was excellent, and my living projectile may as well have been a boulder slung from a catapult for all the damage to did to my enemies. Though their nearly shoulder to shoulder line of steel and long bladed swords had been formidable enough against arrows and what few blades got close enough to pose a threat, it was not so helpful when an entire human being suddenly flew through the air and crashed straight into the side of one of the armor-clad soldiers. The force of the impact send the armored soldier sideways, right off his feet and with a deafening crash and clang he plowed straight into his nearest ally. Who in turn was knocked off balance and was soon stumbling around. Thanks in part to the extra weight of all that grimy, battle stained steel, he soon losting his footing and toppled to the ground, and in the process caught the knees of the next soldier. He dropped straight backwards, his arms pin wheeling around a little bit on the way down. At least until his head sharply impacted the cobblestone street, then he simply went still. Soon a little blood was trickling out the openings of his iron helmet.

That left just one man in the full armor standing against the flood of our men who were more and more beginning to surround him through the plaza. At first, the line of archers they had set up a little further back to help cover their advance held us off. But soon the other soldiers that had come to fortify their gate found themselves getting backed up closer and closer to that heavily armored man, and he found himself retreating slowly towards the archers.

No sense in letting them pick us off anymore. Though I didn't just want to run out and get myself filled with arrows before I could take them down. I'd tried that once before and I didn't enjoy it in the least. A quick glance around and I found what I needed. A very sturdy looking building crafted from heavy dark gray stone blocks and thick looking white mortar, which I hoped wouldn't collapse under my weight. I'd had enough of that, as well. Hoping for the best, I quickly clambered up the side of the building and stood upon it's roof. From there I had an excellent view of the archers. I was glad to see one of them take an arrow to his chest and fall to the ground, that would give me one less to deal with. I backed up, still praying the roof didn't give way, and then ran to the edge of the building.

I leapt off the roof, but didn't even open my wings. Rather I used the power of my hind legs to propel me just far enough to reach the archers, and I dropped right on top of them. I managed to get two of them with my fall, a hind paw against the chest of one man, and a front paw against the throat of another. My weight was more then enough to instantly crush them against the cobblestone street, and before the remaining archers had to chance to try and run or nock more arrows, I whirled myself around. Between the whipping of my tail, the lashing of my claws and the snapping of my teeth, I had soon taken down the entire group of archers, and gotten myself nice and bloody in the process.

My heart hammering with the excitement of my victory, my blood pulsing through my minor hearts, I took a deep breath and threw my head back, roaring my triumph to the heavens and the stars. As I'd hoped, my roar propelled my men forward, spurring them into greater action. The remaining group of enemy soldiers clustered nearby was quickly overwhelmed. A war hammer came crashing into the head of the lone remaining well armored soldier, denting his helmet and likely his brain as well. Soon, what soldiers remained in the plaza were either being killed, or if they were smart dropping their weapons and surrendering. We would take as many prisoners as we could!

Just as I was reminding my men to spare their lives if they surrendered, pain exploded along my right side, just behind my shoulder. I cried out in surprise, twisting my head around to see an arrow jutting from my body. Adding a new wound to the side of my body that had until now remained mostly unscathed.

Oh, that was it! I was more then done with these Gods-damned archers! A quick search revealed the culprit to be a soldier positioned in the next closest watchtower, and as soon as he saw me looking his way, he ducked back down. And almost immediately, another shot up in his place and took another shot at me! Thankfully this arrow missed me, but not by much. One of my own men fired an arrow right back at them, but it slammed harmlessly into the wooden wall that surrounded the top of the watch tower. The last time I'd tried to root out archers from a tower I'd nearly gotten shot in the face in the process, and I'd damn near dislocated my shoulder trying to bring down the tower.

This time, though, I had a better idea. “Kylah!" I snarled. Whereever she was, she called back to me, something about being “a little busy". That was fine. I could handle this on my own, I just wanted to make sure everyone knew she was left in charge! “Get the wounded to safety, and get ready for their counterattack! I'm going after those damn towers!"

“Don't get shot in the balls!" was all she replied with. She had a real attitude problem sometimes.

“Thank you for the advice," I snarled back at her, before I bound forward into the nearest alley I could find.

I'd had more then enough of archers in watchtowers filling me full of arrows, and I was about to make sure that never happened again. At least this battle! I knew I'd need to get that arrow out of me sooner or later unless I wanted to open myself up and start bleeding out again, but with any luck we'd be finished with this town a lot faster then Kylah and had needed to save Emerfeld. And though having that arrow buried behind my shoulder burned like hell, it was still no where near as bad as it had been having my entire left side pockmarked with the damn things. I really hated arrows sometimes, it seemed much like chain mail my scales made great protection against most blades, but didn't do such a good job against projectiles. Then again, they did absorb enough of the arrow's force and momentum to keep them from reaching anything vital, so I shouldn't curse my natural armor too much.

Instead I'd just curse the archers. No, forget that. I'd kill them instead.

The watchtower sheltering the soldiers that shot me was not too far from the entrance, near the corner of the wall, but my men had not yet had a chance to clear it out. And given that hidden archers would be a problem for us as we pushed into the city, I figured I might as well at least take out all the watchtowers myself. I knew the city's occupiers would soon send another, better organized wave of soldiers towards my people, and in doing so they would probably set up snipers and roving squads of men as well. No matter, as long as we were able to engage the majority of their force at the south gate, and the rest of my men succeeded in remaining hidden, we should be able to surprise them with the second half of our force, and hit them from behind. Trap them in between two groups of our forces, sort of a hammer and anvil effect as Ravek had called it. The force group was the anvil that our enemies would push themselves up against, and the second group was the hammer, smashing into their backs.

But first, I had watchtowers to deal with. Watchtowers filled with archers. I really, really hated archers. After darting through alleyways barely wide enough to give me room to manuever, I dashed out across an open street, through an intersection. As expected, an arrow whizzed just by me, but thankfully this time it did not add to my pain. A second arrow soon followed, this one just nicking my tail. Now, I knew they were ducking back down to nock another arrow, and that meant it was my time to strike.

I was going to enjoy this. 

*****

That's all for now! Thank you ever so much for reading, and if you've enjoyed, please click the FAVE button and leave a comment with your thoughts on the latest chapters, and the story so far!