Chapter 8
Beaten, battered, and bruised, Fercius found a formidable spot to sleep by. Although he knew these wounds would heal in time, and that life itself was a gift after a battle like this, he couldn’t help but fret over his wounds, keeping most of his self-pity to himself, the gauze on his front left leg was annoyingly itchy.
Why. He thought. How does this affect me, why declare war? How is the death of one man so different from the death of another? Millions of peasants could die to fire without a country being even phased into combat, and now, to the death of a single individual – entire countries quake.
Yes, he loved Darko, and would stay by his decisions regardless, but he was not one to share his affections. Fercius had as deep a respect for the army as he did for Darko, but he didn’t think either should be risked for the death of a single person. Out of his vexed mind, he brought this question before the other dragons, who were wallowing in pain and self-pity as well. Perhaps a more shared pity, they enjoyed complaining amongst each other.
The dragons were congregated in different areas throughout the settlement, the smaller dragons preferring to group up in smaller alleyways, where larger dragons would have difficulties harassing them. Some dragons grouped by race, a bunch of Terran dragons sitting near the town square, a bunch of the younger dragons crowded up next to an older Terran dragon that had a massive gash in his right side by his back, where his plating was weakest. The variation in size was immense in the Terran group, three or four smaller dragons capable of fitting under the wing of the older Terran.
Ever since Darko had left to the officers’ lounge for the night, Fercius had begun feeling lonelier, looking for familiar faces. He got up from the corner of the building where he wanted to sleep.
Maybe I could find Lorna. Is that really a good idea…
Fercius sensed a presence behind him and turned his head around slightly to see the dragon out of the corner of his eye.
“Nice flying with you today, Fercius.” he said.
Turning around, Fercius recognized the dragon from their small squadron that had been dispatched into the woods, an Arabus dragon, wearing the colors of the desert.
“Your eye.” Fercius said, seeing that his left eye was completely gauzed up.
Not even the gauze could hide the massive scar that extended past his eye to his forehead, though.
“Heh, yeah.” the dragon looked away, noticeably annoyed at the loss. “I didn’t choose to be here…”
“None of us did.” said another dragon, this dragon had a splint on his rear left leg, forcing him to walk with a limp, he had also been in the formation, he was a pale reddish brown color, possible a mix between a Vulcan and a Terran.
“Hey, we’re here to defend our names!” Lorna exclaimed.
“We’re here for revenge.” muttered the scarred dragon.
“Land.” suggested the third.
“From what Darko’s been saying, this was the last straw, apparently R and B have harassed us before.” said Fercius.
“Well they killed our King, this is what happens.” said the scarred dragon.
“What, Scar, more of us have to suffer? More have to die to follow the death of one?” asked the dragon with the limp.
“Hmm, if you call me Scar I’m calling you Trifoot.” replied Scar.
“Why not.” replied Trifoot, laughing slightly.
“Well I still prefer to call myself Lorna. Besides, plenty of people know my name.”
“Well I’m sorry we lack the popularity you two have.” Scar said sarcastically.
Trifoot whispered something into Scar’s ear, and they both laughed, looking at Fercy and Lorna with secretive eyes.
“What!” Lorna asked, glancing at Fercy and then back at the two dragons.
“Did someone say something?” Scar asked, his gauze making it slightly easier to look serious.
Fercius laughed, Lorna finally deciding to smile as well. Once the laughing stopped, though, and the sound of the wounded began filling their ears, things became quiet again, the dragons simply looking at one another, sharing more than just a gaze.
“We got through this together.” said Fercius.
“Indeed.” Scar replied.
“I still don’t like it.” Trifoot muttered.
“Neither do I.” Fercius added.
“It’s what we’re designed to do.” Scar argued. “Look at us, we don’t need to wear any fancy armor, the shield is to protect the rider. Our skin is more than enough to take what these humans have to offer.”
The memory of their dead Vulcan wingman proved that they were wrong, but they all nodded anyways.
It was very dark now, the sun long gone, the wounded whimpering and the dying dead. They had decided to sleep by a small farmhouse near the town square in the barn. He was here, he had survived, only now was he beginning to realize how lucky he really was, having overheard Darko regarding the casualty rate.
“They were ready for us.” Darko had said.
They had lost 17 dragons and 42 soldiers to this attack, and had killed 19 dragons and more soldiers than they could count.
Fercius got up, fatigued but restless.
The dead could sleep all they want.
He shook the hay off of his hide and walked out of the barn, it was raining lightly, and although Fercius had initially hated the rain, it seemed soothing this particular instant, the cold droplets trickling down his nose to his feet, running down his spine, crawling down his body to the wet mud below. The coolness made him forget about the pain in his leg. War wasn’t friendly, he saw no honor, no heroes, only corpses. Hundreds of dead littering the alleyways, roads, and central plaza. They needed a convoy of carts to clean the city.
Walking along the walls of the building, he could see the burn marks from the flame-strikes that had missed; chunks of the façade missing. Sections of wall had even been burrowed through, with an abandoned battering ram sitting by the broken down rear entrance gate. The battering ram was designed to be carried by half a dozen men, three on each side, with the wheels merely mitigating the friction of the ground below them but definitely not getting rid of it.
Fercius wanted to be alone with his thoughts, alone with his feelings, looking towards the Apalene mountains, where somewhere off in the distance Rin’Tsu was most likely sleeping, safe.
That being his last thought, Fercius awoke the next morning underneath the battering room, using the intact axis for the rear wheels as a pseudo headrest. He hadn’t even remembered lying down, but – ignoring the terrible stiffness of his back – felt well. His scars were now simply badges of his veterancy. His wings, comfortably folded around his body for warmth, refused to open at first. He waited patiently for the blood to start flowing through them again as he peeked his head out from under the ram.
The wagons that had scurried along the corpses in the night had done their jobs well, if Fercius hadn’t known better, he would have never thought hundreds of people had just died here. The marks along the walls were still prominent, but forgettable.
The sun was high, and the ram’s roof was hot, startling Fercy as he brushed his tail against it.
“I’m hungry.” he said to himself, walking into the castle. He could smell the food cooking for the soldiers, but dragons got their food a little differently.
“Fercy!” Lorna exclaimed, “New rules state we have to hunt in groups, you weren’t thinking of leaving without me, were you?”
“Hmm? No, of course not.” he didn’t mind the attention.
Lorna’s interest in him made him curious. It wasn’t often that other dragons wanted to be around him.
“What about the others?” he asked inconspicuously.
“They… already left.” Lorna replied.
“Right.” Fercius grinned.
“What are you implying?” Lorna snapped defensively.
“Nothing.” Fercy flushed.
Hunting wasn’t something Fercy seriously enjoyed or despised. He never thought about the importance of the lives of the animals that he ate, and considered them to be nothing more than sustenance. Alka – these four legged furred creatures – were his preference, as they were not only easy to catch but very tasty. Hunting was something Fercy did on his own time – alone.
But here was ever-interested Lorna, who had initially been the most irritating dragon Fercy had ever met.
“I didn’t think you’d have survived the first day in the war, let alone our trek in the forest.”
He remembered the dying Vulcan in the woods.
“Sometimes I wish I hadn’t.”
She laughed, “Why not?”
“I despise killing…”
Lorna found that ironic.
“This isn’t killing?” She asked, swallowing a crawler.
“This is nature, necessity, instinct.” Fercius replied.
“So is war.” Lorna said calmly, staring bleakly ahead.
“That’s debatable. I consider it pointless.”
“Depends on your definition of pointless…”
“So you’re a wizard now?” Fercy retorted.
“Well, my last lancer was…” she replied, a pinch of sorrow in her voice.
“Oh.” Fercius said, looking away guiltily.
“I was only trying to make conversation.” Lorna said, disturbed and avoiding eye contact.
Fercius opened his mouth to say something, but decided against it, seeing the look on Lorna’s face – asking what the hell she wants now would be a rather unsound idea.
He was lucky, because what followed was something he had never heard Lorna say before.
“I haven’t been the best dragon I could have been.”
What an understatement. Fercy thought to himself, still looking beyond the fact that she was actually apologizing.
“I’d like you to know that this war has really opened my eyes, and I don’t want us to harbor any negative feelings towards each other due to our past.”
Dumbstruck, Fercius didn’t quite know what to say, but saw an Alka, and therefore decided that the cowardly tactic of avoiding the subject was in order.
“Oh! Alka!” he exclaimed.
“Kill it!”
“This isn’t killing.” Fercy explained, “What we did in the forest was killing, this war is killing. What we’re doing now is… is…”
“Fooding?” Lorna asked.
He laughed, “Yes.”
“The Alka was fooded, not killed…”
“Very thoroughly fooded.”
They laughed, slightly more full and energetic.
The feeling subsided, however, as Fercy felt a stinging sense of déjà vu; of being back in that castle on the Appalene mountains; of fighting; of dodging.
Dodging…
Fercius instantly veered to the right and spun around, a burst of flame igniting the tree below him, disappearing behind him as they picked up speed.
“Is that massive Terran dragon up there fooding too?” Lorna asked nervously.
“Fooding us!”
The dragon was bigger than Lorna and Fercy combined.
“What do we do?” Lorna asked.
“Submit.” The terran dragon replied. “Running will just make your flesh stringy and sour.”
“Running is good.” Fercy whispered to Lorna.
“Run where?”
“Down.” he pointed, “We can shake him in the trees.”
They dived, and the Terran dragon sighed and dived after them. He had been higher than them, and was able to pick up speed quickly. The tree line was a mere 30 meters below them, but the dragon was right on them. Fercius could feel the air pushing him aside as the dragon swooped by him.
“We made it.” he said, landing on the soft forest ground.
There was no response from Lorna. She wasn’t there; the terran must have caught her.
“Lorna!” he cried, beating himself back up above the tree line.
The dragon was gone…
Lorna was gone.
Something cried out a few hundred meters away, just beyond the tree line behind a rock. Fercius began to dart towards the boulder, assuming her and the terran would be behind it, unaware of the fact that he has just passed the outskirts of the forest and was now in open ground.
Well he became aware – but only after he felt the other dragon swooping up behind him, having hidden by the lip of the tree line just before the rock. Fercy was hit hard, crashing on the open grass, the dragon landing right in front of him, the impact of his feet touching the ground making slight tremors in the ground, matched only by the tremors in Fercy’s veins as his heart raced. Lorna wasn’t by the forest, which meant that she must have actually been by the rock, which also meant that she was too injured to move from there.
“What did you do!” Fercy yelled, beating himself away from the dragon and getting ready to charge.
The dragon simply stood on the grass and grinned, bracing himself for Fercius’ charge.
“Honorable of you to fall for the bait… but foolish.” the terran sneered, “Now you’re both doomed.”
“No…” Fercy said, charging, “but you are.”
He accelerated with all his might, hoping to strike with the same devastation he had struck the wall of his home once.
He missed, the enemy dragon laughing and firing a burst of flame at Fercy, knocking him across the back and onto the floor. The burns devastated his backside, cascading across his wings and singing their tips. Every beat of his wings had a world of pain backing them, but he knew he had to stay mobile and in the air.
Adrenaline was all that kept Fercius aware, and as the terran dragon charged him, he dodged, the effort from the dodge forcing Fercy to land and watch the terran dragon come about. The terran readied another flameburst, but Fercius just collapsed onto his side, too tired to get onto his feet again. The terran dragon decided against the burst and slowly made his way towards him, victorious and hungry.
“Now hold still, we all have to eat.” the dragon whispered, kneeling down and slipping his jaws over Fercius’ throat.
“But… why fellow dragons?” Fercy whimpered, barely able to breathe from the pressure applied.
“Dragons are tasty, and as a war target, I have no qualms about feeding on you and your mate.”
The dragon clamped down hard on Fercius’ throat, not giving him enough time to correct the terran’s last statement.
This was it, Fercius had thought it would be more painful, but there was barely any blood, the terran’s fangs simply keeping him secure as the dragon’s molars applied pressure. He could feel himself giving way, this was it, the terran prepared to finish Fercy as he jerked his head to the side, trying to snap his neck, it didn’t work, and instead knocked Fercius into the ground and freed him from the dragon’s grip. Desperate, Fercius took advantage of this and lunged at the terran’s neck, biting down hard; making sure his fangs had their chance at digging in. He tasted blood and heard the terran’s yelp of surprise and fear. It was over, there was a fountain of blood and Fercius began drinking it as he bit, the taste of it fueling his anger and fear and adrenaline and hate for what this terran had done to Lorna. By the time the taste went away, the dragon was lifeless, lying on his side on the ground, with Fercius still clamped down hard on his neck.
With his thermal senses finally telling him the dragon was gone, he let go, the blood exhilarating Fercius, he had never felt this way before, roaring in triumph over his enemy.
With his adrenaline fading, he slowly flew towards the rock.
“Lorna.” he asked, preparing himself as he neared the boulder.
Please don’t be dead, he thought to himself.
“Fercius!” she cried.
And with that, he sprinted the rest of the way, landing by Lorna’s side and sniffing her down. She reeked of blood, especially by her wings and foreleg. She was in no condition to move but her heat levels were holding.
Lorna was looking at Fercius the same way though; flabbergasted by the amount of damage he took.
“There’s blood all over you.” she said, worried.
“It’s not all mine.” he said.
The boulder was slanted in a way that gave shade from the sun, and provided shelter against the elements. This was good, as it didn’t seem that either of them would be going anywhere fast.