Aevrin
Thegraydragonloweredhis head next to the campfire and snuffled. Apart from the stars twinkling overhead and the flames painting a ten-foot circle red, the mountain around them was utterly dark.
“It’s cider. You wouldn’t like it,” the rancher squatting on the other side of the fire said conversationally. Brandishing a metal spoon, Aevrin reached over and stirred the pot hanging over the fire. His clothes made him look bulky and angular: thick, treated leather hide that buckled only with difficulty, but made burning hurt a little bit less.
It was calm. Nothing but smokebugs crackling and the distant, crooning call of a manticore, too far away to worry Aevrin. They’d camped on a flat section of the rise, a mile or more from the dirt cart-road that curved past the mountain’s base, five miles or so from Riveker ranch. The two of them had spent all day searching for the missing cattle. It was dark now, and growing cold, with nothing to show for the day’s work.
Kazeic’s nostrils flared again. A rumble started low in the drake’s throat, the sound dragons made when they were building a flame. Aevrin’s eyes found his bonded companion instantly.
“Don’t youdare,” the cowherd warned. Kazeic narrowed his dark eyes and gave his human a reproachful look. “Don’t mess with my fire just because you’re not getting your way.” Aevrin gestured with his spoon. He knew Kazeic could understand him perfectly, even if the drake couldn’t talk back.
The dragon drew his head up, muttering. Then he huffed a burst of blue heat right at the base of Aevrin’s fire. With a yelp the cowherd dove backwards across the terrain, dropping the spoon as he tucked and rolled over his shoulder. The dragonfire was so hot his whole body felt seared through, even though it had missed him by a foot. With a low hum of laughter, Kazeic lifted his scaly body up and turned away from the fire.
Aevrin rose to his feet and glared at the asshole dragon. He tugged the triangular cloth hanging around his neck up over the lower half of his face to filter the air. The once respectably-sized fire roared in front of him, smoke stinging his eyes.
“Bastard,” Aevrin muttered, and slowly shook himself off. The cider was boiling. The fire died back down quickly, its fuel spent. He waited a minute for the now soot-blackened metal pot to cool. With his spare shirt, Aevrin at last picked it up and poured the bubbling spiced cider into his canister.
He tugged his mask back off, blew on the drink hard, then closed his eyes and took a sip. A bitter taste filled his mouth.
Aevrin immediately spat out his mouthful with a grimace. It didn’t taste burnt. It tasted like someone had mixed grallo root tea with the cider. Likesomeonehadn’t washed the canister properly. He craned his head back to stare up at the handful of stars visible through the trees and sighed heavily. Resigning himself, he took another sip. It tasted no better than the first.
Kazeic paced to the edge of the firelight, where it dissolved into the mountain’s shadow. He growled. The sound from the dragon’s throat was so deep the forest itself shuddered, the needles on the pine trees fluttering anxiously.
“What is it now?” Aevrin muttered, half to himself. He set the drink down and reached for another branch to feed the dying fire.
Kazeic was an asshole, but he wasn’t prone to spooking at shadows. Aevrin peered past Kazeic with a frown, listening to the peaceful chorus of bugs and breathing deep the smokey pine air.
Kazeic hissed. The dragon turned over his shoulder, tail stiff. He gave Aevrin an accusing look, as if to saycome, human,dosomething.
The drake’s haunches gleamed in the red fire light, slightly taller than the armored cattle Aevrin’s family raised and far deeper-chested. Unable to fly easily beneath the forest, his wings were pinned tightly back, as if the mere thought of scraping a branch with his wing-fingers was offensive.
With an annoyed sigh, Aevrin dusted his hands and stood. Instinctively, he checked that his axe was strapped to one hip and his knife was sheathed on his thigh. Then he pulled his crossbow off his back. If Kazeic had scented the cattle, there might be rustlers, too. Ordinary thieves wouldn’t dare take the armored, fire-breathing bulls Aevrin’s family bred for the imperial army. Anybody who rustledthosewas bound to be dangerous, and a little bit crazy.
Just because Kazeic was offended by whatever problem lay in the shadows didn’t mean Kazeic was going tohelp.He was like a surly cat, in that way. Why do the workif he had a human to order around?
Aevrin loaded his bow with a practiced hand long calloused by farm work. Then, nestling the stock of the crossbow against his ribs, fingers on the lever-trigger and bolt pointed outwards, he lit a torch from the fire. It ignited instantly.
Slowly he paced towards Kazeic. At first swing of the torch, he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. The dragon calmed as the cowherd approached, satisfied he’d alerted his rider to whatever had gone wrong in the night. Kazeic hissed again, once, as Aevrin passed him. Then the dragon slunk back to the fire and threw himself onto the ground with a dramatic earth-shaking thump and a grumble.
“You know I drew bad luck, the day I bonded you,” Aevrin informed the drake flatly.
Kazeic huffed. It was, Aevrin had no doubt, a mutual sentiment.
In front of Aevrin was a gully of sorts, with crumbling gravel instead of plants. Past that, where the ground evened out again, was a stand of trees and a thicket of undergrowth. His torchlight caught for a moment on the wild green ahead, on the reflection of a pair of eyes staring at him. It was only a griffin. A magnificent one. For a moment man and beast stood frozen, staring at each other. The griffin broke away first and vanished silently back into the forest.
“Really, Kazeic?” Aevrin muttered, lowering the torch. “Not like you to get worked up over…”
He broke off mid-sentence as the glow of his torchlight hit the gully. A woman lay there. He hadn’t noticed her there before, when he’d given the landscape a cursory glance in the dying evening light before setting up camp. She looked badly hurt. Why was she evenouthere, in the mountain wilds?
His first thought was that he was too late.
His second was that, if she was alive, he couldn’t make her wait another second for help.
Cussing under his breath, he clipped the crossbow swiftly over his back and scrambled down. Aevrin worked his way skillfully across the loose rocky slope of the gorge. In moments he was crouched at the woman’s side, plunging the torch butt-first into the crumbling red ground.
“Miss? Can you hear me?” His low voice came out tense with worry.
It was hard to tell much about her, when his eye just kept seeing the hurt. She was his age, mid twenties, with gold-brown hair, pale skin, thick curves. But right now she was also bruised, bloody, and lying like a sack of milled grain someone had dumped on the ground.
