Page 53 of Consorting with Dragons

“Why areyouhere? How did you find out I was on Horvath?” Travon asked, firing the questions at me, his voice as cold as I remembered. “How is it you keep interfering with me?”

“I know all about you, Travon. And I know you’re here running from King Davos and the Tygerians. They know it too, by now, and I hope they catch you and split you open like a rotten piece of fruit, right down the middle with one of their blades. You’re as worthless as your father always was.” Not strictly true, of course, but I was hopeful that Rylan would escape and get word to my men and to his grandfather, in roughly that order.

He crossed over to me quickly and hit me with his open hand. Easy for him to do since my hands were tied. One of his men came forward to kick me in the back of the head for good measure. Unable to catch myself on my knees, with my hands behind my back, I hit the ground hard but managed to sneer up at him. “Fucking coward! Untie my hands and try that again.”

Instead, he sent two of his soldiers over to do his dirty work. They hit me and kicked me a few more times, and I laughed up at them, just to mock them.

“Is that the best you can do?”

“How did you find us here?” Travon shouted, spittle flying from his mouth in his agitated state. “Where’s that Moravian boy you were with on Lycanus 3? What did you do with him?”

“What makes you think I did something with him?” I said, addressing the last question and ignoring the first ones. “Besides he’s none of your fucking business.”

He kicked at me again, but I rolled to my side on the ground, missing some of it. I had no idea how much time I might have lost while I was knocked out, and I was glad to hear he didn’t know where Rylan was. Maybe Rylan and the dragons had gotten clean away, though I held out little hope that Rylan would have had sense enough to leave me to my fate and go for help. I was terrified that he’d get himself captured.

“Take him!” Travon shouted, and the soldiers dragged me to my feet and then past the big tent that Rylan had mentioned. He’d said that it was located in the middle of camp. Hostile faces watched me on all sides as I was dragged past them, but none of them looked familiar. Soldiers were all around, none of them looking particularly alarmed, which again gave me hope that they didn’t know anything about Rylan.

We kept going toward a big tree on the edge of camp, and I saw to my horror that they were already through with any interrogation efforts, because they were throwing up a rope to hang me. An old-fashioned method of execution, but effective, for all of that. They had thrown down a crate underneath a noose they’d fashioned from the rope, and it was hanging there waiting. They must have put it up while Travon was questioning me. Apparently, they were taking no chances of me getting away from them and providing information on their whereabouts.

I tried not to make any of this too easy for them, struggling against them when they tried to get me up on the crate and kicking out at whatever I could reach, but with my hands bound, there wasn’t much I could do. They were trying to get the noosearound my neck, but I kept going limp and dropping to the ground, so they had to haul me up again. Soldiers from the camp came to surround us, jeering, ogling me and shouting advice to the ones trying to hang me. No doubt they all wanted to get a good view of my imminent execution.

The noose was finally mostly fastened around my neck, half choking me to death. They hadn’t done it properly, and I stood more of a chance of breaking my jaw than my neck. I looked out at the crowd, and I swore I caught a glimpse of Colonel Bentine’s ugly face at the back, his beady eyes avid and his mouth wide open, screaming along with the other members of the bloodthirsty mob. I thought perhaps I recognized a few other Horvathian soldiers in the crowd near him as well. If I managed to somehow get out of this, their heads would roll.

By twisting my neck, trying to stall for time, though I had no real hope of rescue, I managed to make the noose slip up too high, and they came over to adjust it again, cursing me. Just then, a commotion behind the mob caught my attention. A huge plume of black smoke indicating a fire was streaming down the row of tents, billowing in huge, inky clouds as it came closer. I watched in surprise and joy as the flames flared up bright orange, engulfing everything they touched. Sulamon was winging his way toward me, the source of the fire streaming from his open mouth as he lit up the camp with his terrible inferno.

Complete chaos took over as men ran screaming to get away from the flames and the sparks that were spewing down on them and their tents. He swooped closer and I saw him grab up a soldier who was firing at him. He bit him in half and got him stuck in his teeth. As I watched him, he spit the pieces of him on the ground and shook his massive head, splattering the crowd with flame. The crowd watching screamed in abject horror as they watched this grisly display, and then he reared back andloosed yet another huge jet of flames that came streaming from his throat. He incinerated another entire row of tents, some with people inside. Their anguished screams added to the chaos.

Over me, there came another dark shadow. and I looked up to see Rylan come swooping down on Talon’s back. Rylan’s beautiful face was fierce as he spotted the noose, and they swept toward me low enough that Rylan leaped down to the ground from Talon’s back, landed in a rolling jump and pulled out his knife as he scrambled up beside me on the crate and cut the rope with a few strong hacks of his knife. Meanwhile, Talon flew in circles around our heads to guard us, and Sulamon continued to wreak havoc on the camp, leaving it in absolute ruins. Almost the entire camp was on fire at this point in the proceedings.

No one seemed to even think of fighting them, because like Talon, none of their Golden dragons breathed fire, and they seemed to be more peaceful and not nearly so dangerous and savage as Sulamon and the other Reds. Sulamon landed near me, looking exhausted, but after making sure Rylan was safely back up on Talon’s back, I leaped up on Sulamon’s broad leg when he offered and lay down low over his back, yelling for Rylan to do the same and take cover. A few blasts from disruptors were finally being aimed our way from the surrounding trees. I glanced over and saw Rylan lying low over Talon’s shoulders, urging him to fly straight up into the sky.

Sulamon flew past the smaller Golden but stayed close to him as we soared up over the decimated camp and up above the trees. Soon we were beyond the range of their weapons and winging it toward the south and home. I had to trust Sulamon to navigate the way, because my eyes were almost swollen shut by this time from the beating I’d received. By the time he landed some hour or so later, I was almost unconscious and slumped across his back, the reins wrapped around my wrists to keep me from falling. When and where we landed, I wasn’t sure, but I waswith the ones I loved best in the universe. They had saved me, and if I died then and there, I would have been content.

I didn’t die, though, and when I awoke, Rylan was bathing my face in cold water, exclaiming softly over all the bruises, as I lay stretched out on the ground beneath some trees. He saw that I was awake and solicitously held a cup of water to my mouth. I choked down a little and found that I was aching all over. I was alive, though, and that was all that mattered at the moment.

“Sulamon and Talon have gone into the lake,” Rylan told me, “to find some fish. They’re going to bring us some back, and I got us a fire going so I can cook ours when they get here.”

“You know how to do that?”

“Of course,” he said with a smile. “Close your eyes and rest until they get back and I get some cooked. I found your medicine kit in your packs and gave you an injection for the pain. I put some cold packs on your face too.”

I was still feeling achy enough and I was out of it enough that I didn’t argue much. The next thing I knew, I was awakening again with a start, forgetting for a moment where we were. I sat up, holding onto my sore ribs and took a look around. The cold packs had taken down some of the swelling, and I could see Sulamon and Talon taking a nap nearby, with a huge pile of fish bones beside them. Rylan was in front of me, squatting beside the fire, roasting a big fish on a forked branch. He had stuck the fish through the ends of the stick and was cooking it to golden perfection. I could have eaten it raw at that point, actually, because I was starving.

He heard my stomach growling and glanced back at me, grinning. “It’s almost ready. How are you feeling?”

“Like somebody beat me and kicked me half to death and then tried to hang me.”

He laughed and scooted over closer to me. Groaning, I sat up beside him so he could feed me pieces of hot, delicious fish withhis fingers, in between gentle kisses. I pretended to be annoyed by the kisses, but I don’t think I was fooling either of us.

After a while, he stopped and caught my eye. “I have to go back, Quinn,” he said softly.

“What? What are you talking about? We barely escaped, and you’re certainly not going anywhere.”

“Don’t you see? They won’t be expecting us to attack again, but it’s why we have to. I need to take them by surprise and finish this thing before they leave this moon. That king tried to kill you, and he wants to expand his kingdom and do even worse. There’s no telling where he’ll go next. He employs mercenaries and it may take my grandfather a while yet to catch up to him if he gets away from us here. We can’t take a chance on him getting away.”

“But Sulamon is exhausted. And none of this is your responsibility. Wait for my men to arrive.”

“Sulamon’s better since he had some fish and a rest, and of course, it’s my responsibility. This moon is my home now, and besides I need to avenge you and what they tried to do to you. If I don’t go back and finish this thing, they’ll get away. Travon’s options are limited, but I think we’ve badly hurt him and got him on the run. I need to finish what we started.”

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