They stood quietly for a moment, looking around at each other awkwardly while they waited for Ashd to come back.
“Vingarin’s gone,” Rodgard said, after a few minutes of silence. “I saw Badj fall. Took a spear right through the chest.”
“At least it would have been a quick death,” Rigolard said, in his usual pragmatic fashion. “Vingarin would have died when Badj hit the ground. Hopefully he landed on top of some of those humans and crushed them to death.”
“May he find peace in the afterlife,” Koradan muttered. “We should burn a cup of gerian for him. Except that we don’t have any. And heaven knows where we’d find anything remotely similar in this strange new world.” Gerian was a strong alcoholic drink that was popular in taverns in Chalandros. Or at least it had been, until the grain it was brewed from stopped growing in response to the soaring temperatures and drying climate.
“Once we settle somewhere, we can light a pyre,” Rodgard suggested. “And bake a fish on it for Badj.” Fish were the vreki’s favourite food, though it had been years since any had been available in Chalandros.
“There’s one brighter thought,” Melowin said, ever the optimist. “There’s a chance there’s fish in this world. Rumour has it they have oceans.”
“They certainly have rivers,” Koradan agreed.
“How about that, Bnaa?” Melowin said, scratching his vreki along the spiny fronds that ran down the side of his head. “Once your wing heals, you can go catching fish.”
Loud wingbeats interrupted the conversation, and Koradan turned to see Ashd coming in to land again. He sent up a cloud of dirt and clods of grass as his long claws gripped the earth, then he circled back, heading over to Koradan.
His report was simple but not entirely encouraging.Village. West. Small. Maybe safe? Maybe fight? Human.He rounded it off with a vague feeling of uncertainty.
“He says there’s a small village west of here where we might be able to get supplies,” Koradan reported to the rest of the group.
“A village means humans,” Rodgard said, stating the obvious. “And humans hate our kind. We’d do far better to avoid them entirely.”
“Without medical supplies, Bnaa can’t fly. And I’ll be damned if I’m leaving another one of our team behind.”
“How the hell do you think you’re going to get humans to cooperate with us?” Rodgard asked. “Even if they decide not to kill us on sight, we have nothing to trade with. No food, no jewels, nothing but our weapons and armour, and there’s no way I’m parting with that. They’re not going to just hand out bandages and herbs for free.”
“Then we offer to work for them,” Koradan said, knowing how ridiculous it sounded even as he said it. “There must be something that humans need that five strong men and four dragons can accomplish. And I’m sorry, I know you’re not dragons,” he added, as he felt a ripple of annoyance across his mental link with Ashd. “But the humans are going to think you are.”
“Maybe the first thing they’d want us to do is repair their field,” Sigmore said, casting an eye around the mess they’d made of the place. “At least it’s just grass, but they’re not going to like having gouges dug through the middle of it.”
“Then we make that part of the deal,” Koradan said. “Ashd, do you think it’s fair for you and the other vreki to move all the soil back to where it belongs?”
Ashd’s reply was an amiable one, but also a practical one. If the vreki were going to continue flying and landing, they would need somewhere convenient to do so. And there was no point repairing the paddock if they were just going to mess it up again.
“How close is the village to the mountains?”
Close. Hang off side below in shadow easy walk.
“Okay, can you give me a picture of that?” Koradan asked, not quite able to translate Ashd’s string of words. The image that came back at him was clear and encouraging. The village sat a few hundred metres from a high cliff face, where it would be relatively easy for the vreki to land. They could then climb down the cliff and walk back to the village with no more need to mess about landing in fields. “Sounds like a plan, then.”
“Are you serious? We’re just going to walk up to a human village and politely ask them to please help a group of demons and their dragons?” Rodgard asked. After days of helping the refugees cross the gate, they were now well aware of how the humans viewed the various peoples of Chalandros.
Koradan didn’t take offence to his second’s challenge, but at the same time, his answer was firm. “Do you have a better idea? Bnaa can’t fly. We have no supplies to treat his wound. What alternative do we have?”
“Get the vreki to climb the cliffs and hide in the mountains?”
“And if we do, then we risk Bnaa never being able to fly again.”
“Perhaps that should be up to Bnaa,” Rodgard said, turning to Melowin.
Melowin looked at Bnaa, then quickly turned back to Koradan. “Bnaa says it’s not fair to make him decide the fate of our entire team. He says that you, as the leader, should do that.”
Koradan looked at the faces all around him, both salas and vreki. “Does anyone else have an opinion they’d like to share before I make a decision?”
It was no surprise when Ashd slithered into his mind.Village, he said, though there was a thread of uncertainty in his tone.
“I think we should try the village,” Sigmore said. “Bel says that sooner or later, we’re going to have to meet some of the humans. It would be a hard life to live in the mountains, just the ten of us all alone.” Sigmore was the youngest of the team, and often the most willing to take a risk. But his point about living alone was a valid one.
