Chapter 26: One Morning in Prina

Sylph was on edge, like a starved wyvern in front of a pantry. Her dragonheart simmered whenever a guard spared them more than a glance. She expected them to yell and charge. More often than not, the only reason they looked was to joke about Brandon’s sunburn.

It was midday when they were forced to interrupt their search and endless questioning of slavers. Most shops and stalls closed down during the hottest hours of the day and people sat down to have lunch in the shade. Compared to Halfhill’s extremely busy midday, it felt strange to see an entire city wind down like this. Even her ears could relax as the surrounding noise quieted down, the loudest remaining sources were flowing water and the sizzling of hot plates and pans.

Brandon and Sylph settled down next to a large group of merchants resting in the shade of a few enormous palm trees. A heavily trafficked public well sat right in the middle of the small plaza. To her surprise, both humans and dragons drank from it. Several small taps on the human side and a trough on the dragon’s side separated them very distinctly, but both drank the same water. She looked like a wild animal as she quenched her thirst, but she knew better than to complain at this point.

The sheer amount of water she went through in a day of sweltering heat would last her a week back home. Thankfully, it was freely available, even in a town like this. Little rest areas slightly off the beaten path were common. With the various dragons and humans resting in the shade and the smell of food wafting over the fountain, it was easy to forget where she was, that all these dragons were slaves and others had to sit in small cages under the burning sun a few streets over.

Brandon returned from a food stall with a meat skewer in hand. He leaned against the wall behind her and pretend to toss her the parts he did not like. The meat tasted bland, and he missed more than a few times, so the crunchy sand added some uncomfortable texture to the non-existent flavor. But she gulped down everything she could get her pfod on. Even though it was barely half a meal, her stomach felt full, aggravated and sensitive after not having eaten for a few days.

A singular guard appeared from the main street and paced around the fountain. Sylph watched him. She knew it was only a matter of time before they found them. Not that they had used the time well so far. The best hint they had was a single slaver. He noted she looked similar to someone he could not remember. Brandon pressed the matter, but it did not result in anything. Another went pale at her sight, stammering about how he would not trade Aer again after what happened in the arena and he lost his investments.

A familiar, fully grown Sol caught her gaze as he approached the well. His scars shone brighter today in the midday sun and his eyes met hers as he lowered his head to drink. It was Dust, and, as yesterday, nobody seemed to mind him going about his business alone and without a collar.

He took a few gulps of water, shook away the drops from his snout, and sat down opposite to them. “Did Aron pester you again?” Brandon shook his head. “I see. Good for him. Found the arena yet?” he asked, but the tone and pronunciation of his question betrayed him. On purpose, she guessed.

She shook her head. His intentions remained unclear, but he knew Brandon and she were not who they pretended to be.

Dust looked around, sweeping his gaze over the surrounding humans and dragons, and the guard. He casually curled his tail around his legs, then lowered his head to address Sylph directly. “You look uncomfortable. Must be the foreign food acting up.”

“I am not-” Sylph went silent as he gestured for her to follow with a nod. Brandon grabbed the rope, but Dust shook his head. “I will show her to the pits. I doubt you want to follow. But you have my word as the Untouched that I shall return her momentarily.” He raised his massive pfod and pointed towards a semi-secluded open area a few houses down. He wanted to talk to her; alone, without suspicious humans around. She gave Brandon a nod herself before following down to whatever “the pits” were.

Her curiosity was sated rather quickly. A shoulder high wall of stone enclosed a rectangular field of sand. The description of open-air litter box came to mind, but they had not designed this for small wyvern. Even she scrunched up her nose at the sharp smell emanating from within as they stopped at the entrance. Thankfully, it was vacant. “It seems I wasn’t quite clear enough with my directions. This city can be confusing even after several glances.” Dust’s nostrils twitched, and he focused on Sylph.

His stoic expression relaxed, and his head swayed back towards the fountain and Brandon. “How old did you say you were? And where did you hatch?” For the first time, his voice sounded genuine and unchanged.

Her tail twitched. Dust knew what she wanted. Finally, the answer seemed so close. “My egg was stolen from Prina by some merchants, maybe seventeen years ago, hatched way up north and-”

“There they are!” a shrill voice pierced the street and interrupted her. The raised naked fingers pointing at her made it pretty obvious that they found her. Dust sprung to attention. His body fell into a fighting stance, but after seeing who the guards pointed at, he relaxed and took a generous step backwards into the pits.

“Why?” was all Sylph managed to ask before he bowed his head and ignore her. “Please, what do you know?” But Dust did not answer. Realizing the futility of the situation, Sylph jumped up and made a mad dash towards Brandon.

She turned around for a second, still sprinting forwards. Four guards came rushing after her, spears in hand, no crossbows. Tanno in the lead. On a second glance, Tanno’s armor was more ornate, shiny and pompous than his peers. He was not only a real guard; he was their superior.

Sylph passed the fountain, where Brandon joined her sprint. They should flee the town, but Dust knew something and was perhaps one of the few dragons that did. She had to find him again after losing the guards. Or perhaps he could find her even out in the desert, he was a Sol after all.

Brandon followed close behind her. The rope flailed in the wind, slapped into the side of her stomach and flicked against her wings. Human and dragon alike jumped to the side as Sylph and Brandon lead the chase through the main street. She did not know if it was a blessing or curse that the streets were busy once more.

Her eyes darted around the little alleys, nooks, and side-streets as they dodged those not fast enough on the uptake. There was no hiding in a town they did not know. Losing the guards was the only way.

Sylph looked behind. She had gained distance; the guards fell behind, slowed by their armor. Her dragonheart pumped liquid fire through her veins that burned away the itchy sting in her lungs, overshadowed the pain in her thigh, and narrowed her focus on the only thing important. But it would not last forever. She had to be quicker now, before her strength faded.

“Syl—” She slammed her paws into the sand to slow down. Not only the guards had fallen behind, Brandon too. While he had the endurance in the long term, short term, his human body failed him.

She took the precious second to control her breathing and forced the fire out of her head. Narrowing her focus too much left her open. Buildings to all sides, people running and watching, the guards closing in, Brandon barely catching up, and she did not know where they were in relation to the next gate. They had taken a right, then a left and followed the main street either north or south, might have been west too.

Brandon arrived, panting and pointing forwards. “Keep going. Side gate.” Thankfully, one of them knew could keep track of directions. They might stand a chance deep in the desert, they could survive on cacti, the guards would-

Her world exploded as two hammers smashed into either side of her head. When she opened her eyes, she tasted something metallic. The world was both up and down at once. Her ears pulsed in dull pain. Brandon held his ears as he bent downwards to her face, said something she could not hear.

She ignored the painful ringing. They had to continue. She forced her unwilling legs to stand up, moved her shaking tail back to being straight and sped up through the mess of colorful, blurry afterimages. She felt the sand, focused on putting one paw down in front of the other, no matter if that was up or down. Forward, go forward.

Another flash of pain, lesser but not less painful, stopped her dead in her tracks. Her ears went numb as she tumbled to the ground and slid several tail-lengths over the coarse sand. Exploiting her ears was the nastiest trick she could think off. She turned to Brandon. “Run!” She mouthed the words, unsure if she even spoke.

“But-” his answer was a faint whisper in the cacophony of sound rumbling through her head.

“Just run!”

He took off into a side-street and looked back one last time, not stopping as he did. Sylph turned back to the guards just in time to see the net fly towards her.

She shook herself, tried to throw off the net and forced herself to stand once more. Her dragonheart purred with heat, slowly approaching the dreaded burnout. Her back tingled; She would not go down without resisting.

The net jumped as somebody pulled on the inlaid rope. It tightened and robbed her of the last ground under her feet as it closed around her. She lost all footing and fell forward. There was another sharp pull, and the net grew even tighter. It forced her wings against her body and bunched up her legs like a piece of meat hung out to dry. Her tail was uncomfortably stuck somewhere in the middle of it all.

The two bravest, or the two lowest ranked, guards approached with what appeared to be a leather strap.

The net was tight and left her nearly motionless, but only nearly. She figured she had one chance before they would tighten it even harder. One chance and she had to make it count. The guards got closer, stopped near her head, and she realized that the leather strap was meant for her snout as they weaved it through the net under her jaw.

The guard on the left, a young man with a stubbly beard, poked his hand through the net just a little too far. She snapped at his fingers, but the net tightened a scale’s width away and he pulled away. The more she pushed one way, the tighter the other end got. With the strap now under her jaw, they never came close to touching her as they tightened it around her snout. The leather bit deep into her scales and forced her mouth shut.

Tanno strutted through the bunched up guards and bent down towards her, beads of sweat on his forehead. “I have a few tricks, too. All it takes is a large bell and a net with metal strands, and that’s how you catch an Aer.”

He poked the top of her snout with a satisfied giggle. While the prick of his finger was tiny, the sheer disrespect dwarfed even the pain of the constricting net. Sylph tried her best to speak, and while her insult was creative and extremely obscene, the tight strap around her snout served as a chastity belt for her tongue and spared the ears of the guards surrounding her.

“I am sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.” All she managed was an even less comprehensible grumble. Tanno gave a hand signal and three guards pulled her through the streets like a sack of potatoes. Sand and gravel bruised her legs and belly. She could not see more than the backs of the three guards and the occasional interested face of a passerby peeking down. Hopefully Brandon had escaped. She did not see any guard running after him. Perhaps Tanno was only interested in her.