Tammy crept through the dense forest. The stump of her right hand itched where it was growing back, not that it made any difference for her movement. She was far stealthier than I’d ever imagined; she’d said that she had an Advancement that let her move more stealthily in shadow, and I’d believed her, but being there with her in the night gave me a much better understanding of what she’d meant by that.

  Tammy reminded me of nothing so much as a large hunting cat. As best I could tell she had some combination of my own Stealth Advancement and the part of Herald’s vision that let her see better in the dark. She made hardly a sound as she moved; she was barefoot, and her soles were incredibly sensitive, which together with some kind of boost to her grace made her steps sure and light. Her vision was much like mine at night; a sea of grays. But she went one step beyond; her grays had a sort of shimmer to them that suggested not only different light levels, but something else, too. Base colors, maybe? It wasn’t quite like seeing in daylight, but it really wasn’t that much worse for most purposes.

  She was scouting ahead of the others; their tracker had said that the hunters they were following couldn’t be more than twenty minutes ahead of them, so when it got too dark to travel any further she’d volunteered to continue and see if their quarry had also stopped for the night. Zabra had objected, apparently, saying that their tracker should go, but Tammy had convinced her by arguing that not only was she the stealthiest person in the party, but by pointing out that she was the only one who spoke the language of the people they were tracking. Zabra had finally relented after making Tammy promise to be careful, and to return at the first sign of trouble or if she didn’t find anything in half an hour.

  That was where Instinct had alerted me, telling me what was happening and graciously ceding her place in Tammy’s head so I could watch. “Since you fret so alarmingly,” she’d said; I suspected that she was just being nice.

  She was stalking into the wind, and suddenly that wind turned just a little, bringing with it the faint scent of smoke. I would have expected some kind of excited or satisfied sound, but Tammy remained silent. All she did was sniff the air, and then she continued her progress, changing her direction just a little.

  Soon, a bright spot appeared in the distance, white among a million grays. Tammy dropped closer to the ground, creeping closer with painful slowness and absolute silence. Honestly, I thought Mak and I could move quietly, but this was something else! Although… I hadn’t actually asked her if the Advancement she’d gotten was a Minor or a Major. With how stealthily she moved, and with the amazing night vision she’d received as part of the package — as good as Mak’s spell, pretty much — I suspected it might have been a Major. Which, all right. Fine. I could accept that.

  I was also aware that envying my brainwashed thrall wasn’t a good look, but I couldn’t help it!

  Soon Tammy, and thus I, could hear the crackling of a small fire. I expected her to return at that point, to gather the others so they could attack, but instead she continued creeping closer. There were no voices to listen to so far, so I figured either she wanted to see if they were whispering, or she simply wanted to get a closer look and maybe verify how many there were.

  I began to worry when she came close enough to see the one man sitting watch. There were three tents, but only one man, and he was silent. The only animal sounds were the night birds and the soft whickering of the hunters’ ponies. So why didn’t she pull back, I wondered. These were people trusted to infiltrate an enemy city and go hunt a bloody dragon; they were guaranteed to be dangerous, and I doubted very much they wouldn’t be wary in the monster-infested north!

  Things turned very quickly.

  From behind Tammy came the soft sounds of someone moving stealthily through the undergrowth; not as stealthily as Tammy, or even Mak with her borrowed Stealth and Grace, but still barely noticeable. Tammy froze, becoming, as far as I could tell, perfectly still. I felt her remaining hand come to rest on a pommel; of a dagger or a sword I didn’t know, but I suspected a dagger since I hadn’t felt anything bounce against her leg as she moved.

  The sounds came ever so slightly more from the right than the left. That was bad; it was her right hand she was missing. She turned her body, leading with her head and moving so slowly that there wasn’t so much as a movement of air or a creaking joint or tendon.

  A hooded form resolved out of the grays of the background, moving unhurriedly past Tammy on her right. He was no more than a few feet away, close enough that if she’d wished she could have reached out and touched — or stabbed — him. And this was where I truly understood just how good her stealth was. She wasn’t hidden; not really. And yet this man, this hunter, passed within just a few feet of her without a glance.

  I might have thought that he was playing it cool until he called out to the man on watch. “I’m back, Tal!” the man said while he was still close enough to Tammy that she could have slit his throat. “And Peret was right. There’s a party following us. A woman who looks too damn pampered to be out here, and seven men who look like fighters. Rough city scum, you know the type. They’re about a mile behind us. Nine horses, though. Can’t say if the extra’s a spare or if they have someone out.”

  “Don’t suppose there’s any chance they’re here by coincidence?” the watchman, Tal, said as the unnamed man walked into the camp.

  “Not on your life,” the unnamed man said, squatting by the fire. “Not if Peret picked up on them.”

  Tal sighed. “Yeah, you’re right.” With that he took the stick he’d been using to stir the fire and used it to thwack the cloth on the nearest tent. “Hey, Peret! Wakey-wakey, we’ve got some Karakani to kill!”

  “Oh, fuck off!” came a muted voice — Peret, presumably. “I just got to fucking sleep!”

  “You’ll be sleeping in the arms of the Huntress if those Kani come on us when we’re not ready. Better we go deal with them now.”

  “How many?”

  “Eight or nine,” the unnamed man replied. “Seven of them looked like fighters, but, you know… street trash fighters. Or… well, one of them looked like he might be trouble, but a couple of arrows from the dark will deal with him easily enough. Come on, now. I’ll report in while you two get ready. You want to make the emperor proud, don’t you?”

  “Fucking…”

  Tammy had heard enough. She turned and started making her way back toward her own camp, as silently as she could, and I… I stirred. I withdrew from her enough that I had her hearing and vision overlaid on my own, not sure what to do. Or rather, I was absolutely sure what to do, but I’d promised Conscience and Instinct to let Tammy and Zabra deal with this on their own.

  You bloody galah! Conscience snapped at me. That was assuming they’d get the drop on them, or at least a straight fight! This is a surprise attack at night! Go!

  That did it. I got up and started for the doors, which still stood open.

  “What’s wrong?” Mak asked.

  “It’s Zabra and goddamn Tammy,” I groaned. “Zabra and Hardal and their boys are about to get attacked, and Tammy’s out in the forest on her own!”

  Mak’s face became almost entirely blank. “Is that so bad?” she asked, and I wondered how carefully she’d framed that question in her mind. She couldn’t do anything that might hurt me. She couldn’t suggest anything that might cause me pain. And she knew I cared for Zabra; she’d even encouraged me to accept that I might, possibly, love her. But she still hated the woman. She might not have had it in her to beat her to death when she was defenseless, and she might have felt bad about using Kesra to reduce her to a babbling, begging wreck, but she still hated her, and with very good reason. This put Mak in a tricky situation. She couldn’t kill Zabra. She couldn’t even hurt her, now that she belonged to me. But if Zabra should happen to die here in the forest, more than a hundred miles from home, Mak wouldn’t feel anything except a pang of regret that I’d lost something, and a vicious satisfaction.

  It was almost painful to tell her, “Yes, it is.” I was gentle about it, but it was clear from the way she kept her face blank of emotion that she wasn’t happy.

  “Okay,” she said and glanced toward Herald, who was sitting up on her bedroll and watching me with worry in her eyes. “Do you need us?”

  “I want you,” I admitted. “But I can’t drag the two of you into danger to save someone who brutalized you. No. Stay here.”

  I could see in Herald’s eyes that she considered arguing, but in the end she just nodded and said, “Be careful!”

  “I will,” I told her then turned to the group in general. “It’s not far by air. Whatever happens, I should be back before long. Keep your eyes and ears open, and be ready to close the doors, all right?”

  “We will,” Mak assured me. “Now go! Rescue those two…” She sighed. “Just rescue them.”

  “I’ll see you soon,” I promised. Then I hurried out the doors and took to the sky, crashing up through the branches without bothering to look for a break in the trees.

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  Tammy was hurrying back toward the camp, moving as quickly as she could while still making minimal sound. Soon, though, the sounds of movement came from behind her, gaining on her quickly; the hunters had geared up, and they were not at all as worried about alerting anyone so far from their pursuer’s camp. That wasn’t to say that they were noisy; comparing Tammy to them was the difference between a large cat and a small pack of wolves stalking through the forest.

  Tammy picked up the pace. I understood well enough; she could have hidden and remained safe, but she was absolutely loyal to me, and therefore to Zabra. That, and I suspected Tammy had exactly two friends in the world, and Zabra was one of them.

  Her pursuers still gained on her. Soon they were close enough that Tammy could hear the nearest man’s breathing. I couldn’t feel anything, only being deep enough in her mind to see and hear what she did so I didn’t accidentally fly full speed into a tree or the ground, but I imagined her tensing as she made her decision.

  Tammy broke into a run.

  She was still no louder than a large cat doing the same, and I doubted she was any more visible than a panther at night, but hushed voices still broke out behind her asking if someone had startled an animal or something similar. Then one of them, working on instinct, deduction, or some Advancement, hissed, “Shit! The ninth! Pick it up!” and the chase was on.

  At a dead run, Tammy was only minutes from the camp. I could feel her there, ahead of me, but I was still miles and miles away. I was beating hard enough that I felt a slight burn in my wings and the wind roared past me, despite Stealth and Grace each making me more aerodynamic, but it was going to be tight.

  As time wore on it became more and more clear that it wasn’t going to be tight. I simply wasn’t going to make it.

  My fear and worry slowly built toward a panic. They would have to survive this fight without my intervention, or at least hold out long enough for me to arrive. With three archers firing at them from the dark, Mercies only knew how that would go. I couldn’t lose them. I couldn’t! Only days ago I couldn’t have even considered the kind of despair I felt at the thought, but I didn’t care. It was there, cold and raw and entirely different from anything I’d ever felt before. When Mak had been injured I’d been terribly upset, but I’d also been sure that she’d pull through. When Onur got knifed in the gut it had been a little closer to what I felt now, but nowhere on the same level. What I felt, as I pushed what must have been ninety or a hundred miles per hour in level flight, was a gut-wrenching certainty that by the time I reached Tammy and Zabra there would be nothing left for me to do but avenge them, and it tore at me no less than when I’d been moving my hoard, and all my instincts told me that I’d been robbed in a way that I could never be made whole.

  Hold out! I begged silently, as I watched and listened to Tammy running through the forest and beginning to cry out the alarm. It didn’t matter who they’d been or what they’d done. All that mattered was who they were now: my Zabra, who’d just started something beautiful and risked losing it for my sake; and my Tammy, to whom I was everything and who’d risk her own life to give Zabra a fighting chance.

  I was close. I was so close. I could pick out the spot, only a few miles ahead, where Tammy broke out of the trees into the small camp, calling in Barlean for Zabra and her men to arm themselves and take cover. I was beginning my dive when the first two arrows came in, one striking one of Hardal’s men, the other glancing Hardal himself as he reacted and twisted, impossibly fast but not fast enough.

  I roared, an echoing wail of anguish and loss, as the third arrow struck Zabra in the back as she ran for a nearby tree, falling to one knee. And I watched with pride and despair as Tammy ran, grabbing her friend by the back of her jacket with her one hand, midstride, and dragged her stumbling forward until she too cried out and fell. She looked back, and there was a long, thick shaft extending from the back of her thigh.

  Together, Zabra and Tammy dragged themselves into the relative cover of the trees as Hardal and his remaining men — only four, now — disappeared toward the direction Tammy had come. Zabra’s breathing was wet and ragged; Tammy’s, quick and pained. “She’s here, she is!” Tammy whispered, her voice choked as she fumbled at her belt-pouch. “I heard her, I did! Just hold on. Please, Zabra. Just hold on.”

  I withdrew from Tammy. I couldn’t watch anymore.

  Then I arrived.

  I didn’t bother slowing down. I aimed some distance north of where Tammy was, and with two seconds to spare before I turned into a crater I Shifted. The world came alight as I fell smoothly through the canopy of the trees, and it was filled with the sounds of steel on steel, the snapping of bowstrings, and the screams of men.

  Picking out the three Tekereteki hunters was child’s play. Not only were they all facing south, but they each glowed with magic in some way. Which meant that they were certainly bonded, but I had no sympathy for them. They’d wounded my Zabra, perhaps fatally, and my Tammy. There could be no coming back from that.

  They’d wanted a dragon. They were going to get a Sorrows-begotten dragon.

  Two of them were on the ground. One was holding his own against three shapes, while two closed in on the other — then one, as a bow twanged and one of the two fell.

  The shooter was up in a tree. I decided to start with him. I snaked up the tree, twisting around the bark and branches as he nocked another arrow and drew it back. Then I reached him, and enveloped him completely, and he gasped with shock and horror, then stopped breathing entirely as I squeezed him as hard as I ever had. What I’d given Zabra and Tammy had been gentle, loving caresses compared to the hell I plunged that man into before I Shifted back, sunk my claws into his torso, and tore him in two. He didn’t even scream. The only sound around us was the wet spatter of gore and the creaking and cracking of the branches under my weight.

  Then I roared into the night, and if the men on the ground hadn’t heard me the first time, they did so now. Every damn one of them hesitated; not that it changed anything, but it was satisfying to see.

  The lone man on our side who’d been approaching one of the hunters had reached his target, and they were locked in a blisteringly fast duel that told me that he must be Hardal. I’d seen Hardal fight before. He’d held off five opponents confidently enough to wear them down instead of going for a quicker, riskier chance at victory. I left him to his duel.

  Of the other three only two remained standing, the third dragging himself away with one hand pressed to his thigh. I didn’t care one wit about them, but they were on my side, and they could use some help.

  I leaped out of the tree, flaring my wings briefly to take some of the impact from the forty-foot drop off my joints — I was a big girl, and large animals generally didn’t fare well falling from heights. Then I charged with another roar. The hunter tried to disengage from his two opponents, turning to face me, but Instinct was driving my shadows before me in the darkness and they took him a full second before I arrived. He froze for a brief moment, and that was all it took for one of Hardal’s two fighters to lunge and drive his sword through the man’s throat. Not that the man already being mortally wounded stopped me; I could do many things, but ignoring momentum wasn’t one of them. It was all I could do to avoid taking the two friendlies with me as I bowled into the dying man, crushing him under my weight as I tucked and rolled.

  When I looked up, the two men were gone. One was kneeling by his wounded friend; the other was running to help Hardal. I’d expected them to flee once I arrived, but they must have listened to Tammy about how great I was. That, or they were just hard, loyal bastards.

  I approached Hardal as he was having the fight of his life. The last hunter was as fast as Hardal was, and I literally couldn’t follow most of their exchanges. Nor could I really tell if either had been cut, except for the glancing hit from an arrow that I knew Hardal had taken earlier. The man who’d gone to help looked to be at a loss, the exchanges too fast for him to really be able to interfere without possibly messing up Hardal’s rhythm.

  I had no such problems. Instinct sent my shadows to cover him, but it did nothing. The man was capital-F Fearless, like Tark and Katil had been. No matter. I hissed, “Hardal! Back!” and the man obeyed without hesitation. Then I hosed that bastard hunter down with venom. My glands had been full to bursting for days, and the bigger I got, the more I had to give.

  Credit to him, he closed his eyes and held his breath. Not a great move when fighting someone like Hardal, though. Against a normal man, even a skilled fighter, he might have had a chance depending on his Advancements. Hardal stepped in and, faster than I could follow, removed the man’s swordhand, slashed his throat, and then drove his sword into his heart for good measure.

  Then, as the last hunter fell bonelessly to the ground, Hardal started rubbing his eyes and coughing furiously. Because he’d stepped into a place I’d just hosed down with venom, and that shit aerosolized.

  I left him and his men to fend for themselves. The fight was won. Now I needed to tend to the people I actually cared about.

  I crashed through the undergrowth and the camp, arriving at record speed where Tammy and Zabra lay. Tammy, bless her mutilated soul, took a moment to whisper, “She’s here. We’re safe, we are. You’ll be all right, you will. Okay? You’ll be all right!” Then she gently laid Zabra on her side and tried to stand.

  “Don’t,” I told her, in the gentlest tone I’d ever used with her. “You’re hurt. Don’t make it worse.”

  “I will live, Mistress,” she said, with more determination than conviction. But no matter how much she wanted to stand in my presence, she obeyed. She relaxed back onto the ground best she could, and I silently thanked her for not having a shred of pride or assertiveness in the face of my will. I doubted she could have stayed upright, if she’d managed to stand at all — her face was pale and clammy, her eyes dropping, and blood was soaking into the soil under her thigh.

  “Have you had any healing?” I asked her.

  “Only had one potion on me. Gave it to Zabra. Mistress,” she said heavily, the pain and blood loss beginning to catch up to her now that she could relax.

  “Dammit,” I muttered, and turned back toward the surviving men. “Hardal!” I roared, and a few night birds scattered from the surrounding trees. “Get Tammy a goddamn potion!”

  “Spar!” Hardal barked. “Is Tremmel going to be all right on his own the next minute?”

  “Yes, boss!” came a tired voice from the other side of the camp.

  “Then do as the Lady Dragon says and get a potion to Miss Tammy. Then bring me one for Perry. I can’t stop this damn bleeding.”

  “Yes, boss,” the same voice, Spar, said with much more energy. A man stumbled into the camp and went unerringly to one of the tents, grabbing a many-pocketed bag and opening one of the compartments as he cautiously approached me.

  “Ah… an honor, Lady Dragon,” he said, then used his teeth to break the wax and uncork the bottle he’d fished out. He seemed unwilling to get closer to me, then steeled himself and darted in to kneel by Tammy. “Here, Miss Tammy,” he said, holding out the bottle to her. “You know the drill. Only half. Then you need to get the arrow out and pour the rest in the wound.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” I told them both. “I just need her and Zabra to survive the next few minutes. They’re coming with me.”

  They both looked up at me, Spar with fear and confusion, and Tammy with joy as though she’d just been granted her dying wish.

  “Drink it down,” I told Tammy. “I’m taking you to see Mak and Kira.”

  We ended up breaking the shafts of the arrows, but only so I could more easily hold the two of them. It wasn’t easy. I didn’t trust Tammy to be strong enough to stay on my back, and Zabra was out cold, so I had to take the both of them in my arms, gripping the packs their men hastily threw together for them with my feet.

  I left Hardal and his men where they were, with no intention of returning to them and orders to loot the hunters’ camp and return to Karakan when they could. Other than Hardal, Spar and the third man were mostly uninjured — Hardal insisted that a glancing hit from an arrow didn’t count. Two were dead, but two more should pull through with care and potions. I didn't much care either way, personally. I’d never liked Hardal; I tolerated him because he was useful to Zabra and Kesra, and I doubted his men were any better than him. Still, it was good to know, because I knew that Zabra cared about all of her people, no matter how rotten.

  As I made the flight back to Malyon, as quickly as I could, two things occupied my mind. The first was to be careful not to jostle my precious cargo. They may have had potions in them, but they could still bleed out if their wounds were aggravated too badly.

  The second was, Mak and Kira are going to hate this.

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