Flicking out my tongue, I analyzed scents first and could say with certainty that this particular box had last been handled by Reshar. Him again. I hoped that was a good thing, but the male had always threaded the line of trustworthiness in a way I didn’t like—unlike his brother Zathar, now the leader of Haven, who was as straight an arrow as could be.
“What is that?” Jolene whispered as she came to stand at my side, her legs straddling one of my coils in a way that would have seemed rude, had she been anyone else. I rather liked having my coil between her legs, though, and if my younglings weren’t on the other side of the room, I would have raised it to rub between her thighs.
“A way to call for help, I hope,” I answered, focusing on the weird square again rather than my heated thoughts. Later, once we were safe, I’d remind my bold Jolene that she was my one true mate—that I might not have declared my loyalty from the start, but it had always been in my heart. She certainly didn’t have any problem pressing closer and invading my personal space for a more thorough look, my denial of the bond forgotten, or perhaps not important enough in the face of things.
“Ah, that looks like it might be a comm device. Is it?” she asked. Since I did not know what a comm was, I shrugged, and my thumb brushed along the wavy lines on the shiny surface. That was all it took—a light flicked on inside, not like with a light source, but in a small oval shape. All kinds ofsymbols were visible now—not ones with letters I could understand, but strange ones that held no meaning for me. I tapped one at random, hoping it would work somehow. A large symbol appeared briefly, one that looked very much like a denial, and then it was gone again.
“Hmmm, you might have a screen full of contacts there. Do you know which one to call? Where did this even come from?” Jolene said thoughtfully. I shrugged, a sense of inadequacy crawling up my spine. Kusha had secretly enjoyed fiddling with relics; that’s why I’d spent many a day hunting skyships with her when we were young. But it had never drawn me, not the way it drew some of us, like Corin and Artek.
“I asked one of our guards for it. I thought if we could call Artek or Haven, they might come to help us. And if not mine, they would definitely come to help my younglings…” My gaze went from the strange relic to where the three of them were playing with what remained of the wood stack. It appeared they’d outlined the town and the fence, and I almost wondered if they weren’t trying to hatch their own escape plan.
“Try this one. It doesn’t have that slash mark across it the others have. I think those are disconnected, but that one might work,” Jolene said. She hadn’t followed my line of vision but stayed focused on the relic, her dainty, clawless finger pointing at a small symbol in the corner. She was right, it was the only one that did not appear crossed out. I tapped it, my scales shivering uneasily along my spine. I was not a superstitious male; I did not believe in ghosts or vengeance from our ancestors if we disturbed their peace. This still felt… dangerous. What if it wasn’t a communication device? What if it was something else?
Gray streaked with white scattered across the tiny, oval surface. A noise squealed—sharp but low-pitched. It did not carry far, just far enough to sting my ears. The next moment, the image began to resolve itself, not exactly into anythingrecognizable, but better. A shadowy shape thatmightbe a head, though the silhouette was all wrong, with sharp spires rising in dark slashes to the sky and something glittering green and gold.
“He...llo, who… is this?” a voice crackled—interrupted and broken, but there was just enough for me to understand the question. I shared a quick look with Jolene and found her smiling encouragingly at me. She even nodded and curled her hands around mine, holding the relic to raise it in front of my face.
“I am Khawla of Thunder Rock. I need to reach Artek. Do you know Artek?” I said loudly, though careful not to speak so loudly that it would be intelligible to anyone outside. I saw my younglings raise their heads from their plotting game to look curiously my way. The strange image was getting a bit clearer still, becoming a Naga face with black scales and blinding white all around him.
“Khawla...signal… bad. Artek is not… What… need?” If this stranger said his name, it didn’t come across, but with more clarity in the image, I had the faintest idea who this might be. I’d never personally met him, at least, I’d never spoken with this male. I had, however, observed him in his camp several months ago, shortly after the skyship with Jolene first crashed on Serant. This male was once the Shaman to the golden Serqethos Clan. What was his name again? Levant.
“We are trapped. We need help. The Queen will execute my younglings come morning,” I said, the last words I whispered, because I did not need the little ones to hear them repeated. Ducking closer to the device, I practically inhaled it as I spoke. I hoped that helped, because I really needed to get this message across. Levant was not the Shaman I needed, but with younglings in danger, I was certain he’d try to reach Artek for us.
There was a lot of crackling noise, and the image of the strange, foreign shaman danced and warped. It looked like hemight have a set of horns rising from his forehead. The only word I caught was “Human,” and then the image vanished, the relic turning back to a simple silver square with a few sinuous lines. Human? What did that mean? I hoped Levant had caught enough of my words to understand what I needed, and how dire it was. With a sinking feeling in my gut, I was certain he had not. We were going to be on our own.
Very well. I rose, tucking the square into a pouch at my belt, and eyed the interior of my home. “Get ready to leave, everyone. Dress warmly.” Jolene followed my lead, shrugging into her new coat with a fur-lined collar, then rushed to help a surprisingly willing Nisha into her own coat and tail warmer. I double-checked weapons and then set about tightening straps on backpacks and jackets until I was certain everyone was ready.
“Now what?” Jolene asked, flicking her eyes from the door to the small window at the back above my nest. I decided to head there first, certain the small window was under less strenuous guard than the door. It was held shut by hatches to keep the cold winter air out, but used as a ventilation gap in summer. The shutters opened from the outside, but I cut their ties with my knife, and that did the trick.
It was still light outside, but the sun was beginning to sink toward the horizon. Snow was painted a soft violet and looked undisturbed across the roofs of my back neighbors. I saw no sign at first of a guard and was ready to wedge myself through the tight gap first when I heard a noise—voices at the front door. We either had to hurry or abort this first attempt.
Then it was too late. A male slipped around the corner of my home and had full view of the open hatches. It was Imvru, and on his tail were several more males. There was no denying that they’d seen me, but they did not raise the alarm. From another direction, Reshar was also suddenlyapproaching. I held my ground then, waiting to see what they were up to when they came to huddle around the small window.
“Good, you had the same thought we did. They’ll expect you to wait till dark,” Reshar said when he reached us. Uncharacteristically, the male had tied his pale blue hair back for once, rather than letting the long waves fall about his shoulders. He was wearing his hunting gear—so were the others—as if they were ready to go out, though it was far too late in the day to do so.
Imvru reached out to clasp my shoulder. “No killing younglings, my friend. We’ll help you escape. Reshar is going to create a big distraction, and we’ll cover your retreat.” I did not even ask questions; I took that at face value because I wanted nothing more than to believe these males were good at their core. They were an odd mix of mated and unmated, but all those who were mated had several younglings in the same age range as mine.
“Tell Zathar hello for me,” Reshar said with a mocking laugh and a barely-there bow of his head. He slipped away while Imvru and his group helped further open the small ventilation window and pull me through. They were crazy to do this, it could harm their standing in town, even see them cast out for it. Yet I couldn’t deny that seeing this many familiar faces felt good, too. To know that I hadn’t been the aloof, distant, and different scout as much as I thought I’d been. These males were proving to be my friends.
“You’re crazy,” I told Imvru. Reshar was already gone, and I wouldn’t have said that to his face anyway. If there was one male with a slightly skewed view on life, it was he, and we all knew that. Imvru was the steady one—calm, always fitting in just right.
He didn’t even blink when I said it, just shook his head. “No killing of younglings,” he repeated, and on the heels of those words, one of the unmated hunters breathlessly asked if Jolene really was my mate. I saw looks shared then andrealized some of these males might be here to satisfy their curiosity, too. Jolene had mentioned that on her arrival here, many hands and tails had touched her, and I knew exactly why that was.
Reaching through the window with my tail, I touched my mate’s cheek with the very tip, and the sigils along my body glowed to life. It felt like I might be able to control them now, hide them with a touch, but I didn’t think I ever wanted to. The touch, as it turned out, was the signal my female had been waiting for. She was ready to assist, onboard with the plan, even if there barely was one. She rushed to lift my younglings through the gap before tossing our packed supplies out and following herself.
I helped her land on her feet with a coil of my tail, while my younglings divided their packs among each other with the help of the hunters. “I’ll carry you and Nisha, we’ll be faster,” I told her, and she did not protest that, either. She tied her ‘snowshoes’ to her belt and took out her sling and pouch of stones instead. As soon as I had Nisha situated on my back, we were ready to go. There couldn’t have been better timing: noise erupted across town that sounded very much like a stampeding herd. The tamed Varkarsa we kept for milk and wool—Reshar had sent them running into the square. Clever, and relatively harmless.
Even so, the chaos would only fool the Queen and Msera for a minute, and I didn’t know who would try to stop us and who wouldn’t. With an execution order hanging over our heads, would some dare to use lethal force? We could not take the risk, and from the grim expression on Imvru’s face, he was thinking the same. “Go!” he mouthed.
We could only go as fast as Daois could manage. He was the smallest, but Rasho was holding tightly to his hand and pulling him along. I made sure to stay right behind them so I could never lose track of where they were. The boys needed no urging once we started moving, and, like I’d previously suspected from their game with the wood chunks, they’dplanned a route. I could only applaud Rasho’s choices as he led the way around storage sheds and headed in a circular fashion toward the wall. It was not the most direct route, but it was definitely the one with the least visibility and fewest obstacles.
Even so, shouts were going up, and hunters were giving chase. It flashed me briefly back to a moment nearly a year ago, when I’d led the charge chasing Zathar and his mate as they escaped from town. Then, I’d tried only to go as fast as would seem enthusiastic, while purposely aiming wide so as not to hit them, and that’s exactly what Imvru and his group were doing now. Even more boldly, Imvru actually got into Msera’s path when he joined the chase, and the two tangled clumsily.
The wall was approaching, but we’d have to go over it, and that would be nearly impossible for Daois and Rasho unless I tossed them up. That would take time, and we did not have that kind of head start. “No, this way, Dad,” Rasho said as he suddenly swerved. Daois was ahead now, arrowing away in the completely wrong direction—toward a shed, not the wall. They were out of sight of our pursuers, and then suddenly, I didn’t see my youngest son anywhere at all. Panic clawed at me, but Rasho was confident as he grabbed my hand and pulled.
“Oh no, you don’t!” Jolene muttered, and with a swish of her strange weapon, a stone launched right over my shoulder. I heard a yelp that was more surprise than pain, while she was already swinging the next one with force in the direction of the hunters on our tail. Now, I was relieved those stones couldn’t do real harm, but also happy she was striking true and providing a distraction.
“This way, Dad,” Rasho said again, and I didn’t pause to think but let him pull me behind the same shed where Daois had vanished. The back door was cracked, and the shed was built right up against the wall that surrounded the town.Following my oldest son’s lead, we ducked through the door and I yanked it shut behind us.
