“Yes, but usually only when you’re smaller than they are.” Damien glanced out at the line of thin trees and bushes off the roadway. “Where is the rest of your clan?”
The draekin hissed. “Like I would tell you, filthy humans!”
Damien sighed, standing, then snapped his fingers. Beside him, Kaz’s canine form contorted suddenly, and the imp was returned to his crimson and terrible state, though still clad in the green sweater.
The draekin looked on Kaz with surprise, then it seemed to calm, pushing up onto its haunches with another wince.
“It’s bad enough you’re attacking things much bigger than you with those kinds of injuries, but why are you even out here in a field? And by the road?” Damien scanned the nearby tall grasses again.
Rolling over another grumble in its throat, the draekin looked from one of them to the other, and then back to Kaz. “We had a den, but it was destroyed. We don’t have anywhere else.” It moved its arm tenderly.
“Well, you are very lucky I found you and not one of those Holy Knights.”
The draekin growled then, but not at them. His lipless mouth curled down into something like a frown over his fangs. “Those knights are the whole reason we’re out here. They set fires in our den and cut down almost every one of us that wasn’t burnt alive.”
Amma covered her mouth. “What did you do to make them attack?”
“Nothing!” It lunged at her with the word, eyes sharp and full of pain.
Damien did not stand as defensively as Amma thought that reaction warranted, but the creature didn’t really move from its spot. Instead, Damien leaned down just a little, looking at him closer. “Draekin raise livestock and forage, and they have songs and stories of their kind. They’re almost exactly like dwarves but with scales. Unless they were, I don’t know, waging some sort of tiny war on the nearest town—and look at him, I doubt it—they probably warranted no such attack. Of course, they wereexistingwhich is quite a risky thing here in the realm from what I hear, so well protected by the Holy Knights of Osurehm.” There was a heavy tinge of sarcasm in his voice.
“You speak like you know us,” the draekin hissed.
“I was raised by your kind in the infernal mountains,” said Damien.
The draekin’s beady eyes appraised him dubiously then spoke again in a series of clicks and growls that Amma knew had to be a language but was completely incomprehensible to her.
Damien nodded. “And may the rock you rest on always be hot.”
The draekin’s tongue darted out, and he visibly relaxed. “There were a hundred of us, but now we’re only eight.” With some effort, he gestured over his shoulder to the thicket. There was a rustling, and two more draekin shuffled out, both injured and supporting one another. Behind followed an elderly one with a bit of a hunch, then another, younger and thinner, holding claws with an even tinier one, and a final draekin with a swath of cloth strapped around her and a speckled egg nestled inside.
Amma’s eyes widened, stomach twisting at the blame she’d been so quick to lay at their clawed feet. The colors of their scales ranged from a greenish hue to a deeper blue, and though they were all short, she could clearly see now the difference between a child draekin and the adult who was struggling to stand before them.
The smallest one was most cautious, hiding half behind the others and peeking out, a thumb in its mouth. Amma could barely contain the urge to pick him up and give him a good cuddle. Even with the teeth, she couldn’t imagine the sweet, little thing being a threat, so why would the Holy Knights chase the lot of them off? Though, he said there had been a hundred, so there was no chasing for the others, she supposed, only death, and this certainly hadn’t been the only child.
“Aszath Koth, do you know it?” Damien was looking over all of them as they cautiously came to stand in a small huddle.
A few of the others nodded.
“You will be welcome there.” He pulled a scrap of parchment from the pouch on his hip, and as Amma watched, she saw the rolled-up Scroll of the Army of the Undead hidden inside. Damien ran a hand over the blank parchment, and with a puff of smoke, a symbol drew itself in fire across it. “When you enter the city, find the Infernal Brotherhood of The Tempest. They display this symbol on their temple near the city gates, but they are quite difficult to miss. Tell them Lord Bloodthorne sent you and that they are to help you find the other draekin clans in the city. And don’t drink the wine.”
The draekin looked over the bit of parchment for a long moment when he took it, then folded it away and nodded solemnly. With another strange click, he turned for the others and began to head back for the thicket.
“Wait!” Amma ran back to the knoggelvi and dug around in the satchel strapped to it for the rations they’d bought in Elderpass and returned, handing them off. Then she scrambled into her own pouch for the rest of her coins. The draekin passed the wrapped-up rations to one another, but eyed the coins she was thrusting at him suspiciously.
Damien waved his hand. “Coin won’t be useful to them here—most of the humans in Eiren won’t give them the chance to spend it.”
“But what about in Aszath Koth? They will need something when they get there.”
“Well, yes, I supposed when they reach the city that will be,”—he raised a brow as the draekin finally cupped his claws and received the sum from Amma—“well, that will certainly be averyhelpful amount.”
Amma pulled back as quickly as she could after giving over the last of her gold, silver, and copper. The draekin with the egg strapped to her chest stepped up to them. “We, uh…we’re sorry we tried to eat you.”
Damien shrugged. “Everyone must eat.”
The littlest one started chomping on what he’d been handed immediately, and with a full snout croaked out, “You’re the nicest humans we ever met.”
Amma grinned over at Damien, and he snarled. “Well, I’m not really human.”
