I drifted in and out of sweat-drenched sleep. I opened my eyes to see the full blue moon and the stars salting the black sky. They were rocking side to side above me. I felt like I could wretch, so I clenched my eyes shut again. I heard Goar grumbling something about me to Mia but was too weak to hang on his words. I opened my eyes again as a bright light hit my eyes. Was it morning already? I covered my face with a weak hand. The light moved from me to the rest of my clan, a beam of light from a high metal wall.

I looked up at the steel wall. Men stood upon it in the darkness with rifles pointed down at us. They shouted something down. I heard the warbled voices as if my head were underwater. I tried to focus my eyes, but they danced in my head. Where had I been? Why was I on my back? I felt with my four fumbling hands that I was in my red robe and the elephant skull helmet was tucked into the crook of my arm.

I was stretched out on some kind of leather. I looked up and Goar looked down at me. He was holding two of the poles that suspended me in the air. I looked down past my booted feet to see Elridel and Veagon holding the other end. I could just see the dwarves' heads bobbing above the sides. Thurnar winked at me.

Tootsie flew into my vision, and I glared at her. I could see her mouth moving but luckily, I could hear none of her glib chatter. I breathed in and smiled at the hummingbird. “I think I could like you if I were always deaf.” I said aloud. She must have heard me because she crossed her arms and flew out of my sight. I caught some of the others spin their heads to look at me. I remembered they could not see her and considered explaining more but I was just too tired.

I saw Millie’s head poke up and look down at me from my right and could tell she was angry about something. She had probably been talking when I said it and assumed I was speaking of her. Good.

We crossed under the steel wall through a gate large enough for a dinosaur to enter through. I looked up at guards dressed like gladiators with spikes coming up from their shoulder pads and elbow pads. They had long hair pulled back and assault rifles with curved clips. One of them was smoking a cigarette and flicked his ashes down at me. We came to a stop.

I watched the man flip me a finger then thrust his four fingers under his chin and flick them out. Funny I thought, you can’t curse but you can gesture.

I looked back down at my feet to see why we had halted. There was a bald man with a chin as broad as big as a boot heel speaking to Mia, beyond him was a different world. There were neon lights and disrepair paved streets. Stone buildings with broken windows. Barbed wire fence surrounded a warehouse. Some men blasted past on four wheelers with swords on their backs.

All races of creatures walked around on the streets going into buildings. Someone stood on a corner ringing a bell and standing in front of a cart. Two teens were beating on a man in the alley behind a brick building. Trash and tires lined the street. Tires were piled on the sidewalk with dirty children climbing on them. Mixed smells of meat, exhaust and human filth bore down on me.

I tried to shake my head to recover my hearing, but it was still warped. I could tell there was more noise inside the walls of this town, or city whatever it was but the sounds and my deadened sense of hearing, blurred the noise together into a cacophony. “Where are you taking me?” I called up to whoever was listening.

Shia reached down a hand from somewhere behind me and stroked my chest and shoulder with her long fingers. I looked over to a pair of werewolf children playing on the sidewalk. I reached up and plunged my pudgy fingers into my ears and twisted. It wasn’t any better when I finished.

We started moving again and I looked up to see Goar’s big head giving me a reassuring smile. Then we turned and I was carried into a brick building with blinding white lights and peeling white wallpaper. A head I didn’t recognize appeared above my face and shined a flashlight into my eyes. When they pulled the flashlight away, I saw she was a dragon woman. The size of a common woman with a head somewhere between a gator and a snake.

I clutched the poles I was being carried on as the dragon woman pointed with her clawed scaly hand to something in the room and spoke. I grimaced as I saw her split tongue flicking around in her mouth as she spoke. I smelled chemicals, bleach, alcohol and vinegar. I tried to pry my eyes off the woman to look around the room but as much as I turned my head my eyes remained on the ugly woman. I was dropped on some sort of bed and the dragon woman waddled over to me.

She slipped spectacles up on her face and began speaking again with her forked tongue slipping out and around in an odd dance. I felt my eyes growing wider as I stared up at her. She looked behind her and addressed Goar. I saw him laugh. I wondered what they were plotting and willed my body to jump up and run from the room. I was too heavy though. My arms felt like lead when I attempted to lift them. I could raise my arm, but it would drop back down to my side shaking after just a few moments.

The dragon lady produced a syringe and plucked it into my arm. I panicked. I felt my heart slamming in my chest and my eyes searched for the door. I saw Goar walk over to the door and slide a chair out. He sat down on it, and I watched the chair sag under his weight. Mia walked out talking with the dragon lady and Shia stood at my feet crossing her arms.

I felt my lids growing heavy. I tried to string together my thoughts. “Tootsie.” I called but my mouth felt lazy. “I’m sorry Tootsie.” I said and fell into blackness.