"So, how does it feel? Is it weirding you out like when I sat above your shoulders?" I asked, forcefully tugging on the double-braided paracord rope to be sure Anea could feel it beneath her scales. The dragon rolled her neck side to side like a horse, and I could feel her breaths getting heavier from where I perched on her back.
"Well, I don't like it, but it isn't as bad as I feared. It's pretty different to you gripping the back of my neck, but it still kind of feels like you're trying to choke me. I think I can live with it though, especially if it helps you hold on back there. It will be a rather long flight tomorrow even without landing for you to rest. I'll put up with almost anything that gets us back here faster." I nodded, then took a deep breath to steel myself for what came next.
"Ok then. Are you ready for a test flight?" I asked. I felt her wings shrug.
"I'm always ready to fly. Are you sure these vines will hold you?"
"Ropes," I corrected. "Not vines. And yes, they'll hold. At least at first." Anea cast a skeptical glance back at me. "And I can hold on without them if I have to. Come on, how many times have we been over this?"
"Apparently one less than I need to be happy," she rumbled. "Ok, fine. If we're both ready..." She trailed off as she hesitantly unfurled her wings, leaving me ample time to voice any last second doubts. I had plenty of those, but none concerned our safety. I only had moderate confidence my idea would work exactly as I hoped. That was the whole point of a test flight. So, I just stayed quiet and took the extra time to adjust my left leg, unraveling then rehooking it a bit more securely through the second rope loop tied around Anea's torso behind her forelegs.
Anea didn't like that. She paused with her wings fully open and half raised to squint her distaste back at me for the umpteenth time that afternoon. I remained hunched over her shoulders in the takeoff position I'd decided on. After a few long seconds of meeting my determined gaze, she heaved a final sigh of resignation. Then she shook herself, looked skyward, and crouched low to the ground. The next second, she exploded up underneath me and sent us rocketing into the air!
Just like the last time I rode on the dragon's back, intense g-forces and wind conspired to wrench me off my perch and send me plummeting to my death from the second we took off. My focus was wholly devoted to the crucial task of holding on, but I was grateful to find my ropes made that much easier. My grip on the one around Anea's neck kept me from sliding backward while the one looped around my legs and her torso kept me centered on her back. The ropes also kept me from floating away during each stomach flipping upstroke of her massive wings. After the first dozen or so power flaps to quickly gain altitude, Anea's flight smoothed out as she transitioned into her preferred soaring style of flight with occasional shallow sweeps of her wings to keep up speed. After several seconds of level flight, I felt safe to relax my clenched muscles a bit and look around.
"Woah," I said, my heart beginning to thump with excitement instead of alarm. We were already at least a hundred feet above the treetops and still climbing fast. She must have found an updraft to ride. "See?" I asked, quite happy with how the flight had gone so far. "That takeoff was way easier than last time we did this. All we really need is something for me to hold on to."
"Alright. I'll admit it," she said, sparing me a quick glance over her shoulder. "This is going a lot better than I feared. And for once, I'm happy to be wrong." Anea dipped her left wing to roll us into a gentle bank, and my feet twitched for the rudder pedals I'd normally use to coordinate such a maneuver. Obviously, nothing happened, emphasizing to me that I was just a passenger. Not a pilot. Anea continued her slow turn for a full three hundred sixty degrees and beyond, and I realized she was spiraling to stay in the rising column of air. How does she know where the edge is? With nothing better to do, I relaxed even more and leaned up, craning my neck left and right to take in the god's-eye view of the valley gradually sinking below.
The canopy was a tossing sea of green except for islands of glowing yellow and fiery orange standing alone every here and there, marking the few deciduous trees interspersed in the pines. They, the ever-cooling temperatures, and the permanent crowns of white capping most of the surrounding peaks served as persistent reminders of the fast approaching winter. After a few minutes taking in the forest, I started looking further out for any straight lines cutting through the wilderness, which would indicate some kind of human presence. Nothing was visible nearby. I did spy some irregularities in the distance: a definite, continuous something that might have been a road wrapping around the mountains beyond the closest ridge, a straight line of discoloration crossing the valley to the north, and a single, flashing red light that likely marked a radio tower far to the south. That was it, as far as I could tell. I really had crashed right in the middle of nowhere. After several minutes and a few thousand feet of climbing, Anea rolled out of her bank and soared out of the thermal. The air had been steadily chilling as we rose, but the icy wind that met us when we left the updraft hit me like a slap in the face!
"Shit!" I gasped, coughing as the shockingly frigid air stung my lungs and sent my heart racing. I recovered soon enough. I was wearing my winter coat and a few layers of pants which kept me reasonably warm, but my bare hands and face were exposed to the burning, biting cold. I huddled as low to the dragon's back as I could and hunched my head low between my shoulders, but I fought the urge to tuck my hands into my armpits. I needed to keep my grip on the reins. Then I felt a floating sensation in my gut and looked up to catch Anea casting concerned glances back at me.
"It's too cold for you, isn't it?" she asked, continuing her rapid descent.
"It's... not-t that b-bad," I answered, failing to keep my shivering out of my voice. Really, it wasn't. If I had some gloves and a scarf, I would have been fine. "Just have too much skin exposed." I felt more than heard Anea's frustrated growl. "I just mean I could put up with this for a while if I had too," I added, guessing what was irritating her. "I would like you to take us back down where it's warmer, please."
"Why is your first instinct always to hide your pain from me?" she asked, still irked. "I thought we weren't going to have any more secrets."
"Uh... Because a little cold isn't a big deal." I said with a frown. "I let you know when I really need your help, but I can pretty much take care of myself day to day."
"I know that. I don't understand why you're so determined to make things harder for yourself just to keep proving it."
We were getting close to the treetops, and I searched for the clearing while Anea began leveling off. I soon spotted it: an unusually large clearing for this part of the forest with a stream bisecting it and a fire flickering on the eastern side. The dragon circled the perimeter once to bleed off speed while I readjusted my grip and braced for touchdown. With a final sharp bank, we turned parallel to the stream and descended steeply. Anea swept her wings forward to slow down, then swung her tail and hips beneath us in a final flare before dropping heavily onto her hind, then front legs. She jogged a short distance across the clearing to shed the last of her momentum and come to a stop. I untangled my legs from the restraining rope and slid down the dragon's left leg to the ground while she furled her wings. I stayed by her side with a hand resting on her foreleg until she turned to look at me.
"Adrian, I'm worried about tomorrow. I've been worried since you said you needed to go back to your people one last time. I'm afraid that once I take you to a human town, you won't come back. I trust you!" she interrupted me as my mouth opened to protest. She reached down to nuzzle my shoulder. "I trust you," she repeated more gently, "You could hurt me because of that trust, and while that does frighten me a bit, I know you won't. But I don't trust other humans. No matter what you say, this idea of yours seems incredibly dangerous to me. If someone recognizes you, you will have to flee, and you might have to fight. You will need to be at your very best, and if you let yourself get all twisted up inside you won't be." She stepped away toward her incubation fire, and I followed, swallowing down the nauseating mix of dread, regret, and guilt that had become all too familiar to me in the last few days.
"You're right. I know how to control my emotions, but I've never dealt with anything like this before. Writing that email is going to be the hardest part." How do you tell your family you aren't dead, but they probably still won't ever see you again? A wave of gut-wrenching homesickness filled me at the thought, and saying goodbye to my family wasn't even my only problem. I'm deserting. There was no other word for it. I'm breaking my oath of office. I'm betraying the faith my squad, my family, my people placed in me. There won't be any going back after tomorrow. I'll be a criminal. "I've got to do it, though," I said, voicing my thoughts. "All of it. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I go back and leave your kids behind to die, but letting my family keep thinking I'm dead is also too much."
"I understand," Anea said, stopping as we neared her fire. She inspected it while I began to untie my restraining ropes from around her chest. "I wish there was a way you could help us without cutting yourself off from other humans. I am sorry." I shot an annoyed glare at her.
"I told you, you don't get to blame yourself for my choices. I know exactly what this is going to cost me, and I've made my decision anyway."
"As you've said many times. But it is my fault you were ever faced with that choice. I know you can see that. Denying it does not seem to be making you happier."
"Please drop it," I asked. "At least until after tomorrow. This is going to be hard enough without those kinds of thoughts distracting me."
"Alright," she said as I finished with the last knot and pulled the second rope off of her. She made a show of shaking, stretching, and rolling her shoulders while I inspected the braided rope for signs of wear. "Well, at least your ropes worked. I didn't feel like I was about to accidentally shake you off this time."
"Hmm," I grunted noncommittally. I didn't immediately see any sign of fraying, but I didn't expect to after such a short flight. Eventually though, Anea's hard scales rubbing against them would probably start causing damage. I'd have to keep a careful watch for that. "These are workable. I can do better though. I slipped sideways a few times, and the ropes slid with me. It didn't happen today, but I think a hard buffet at the wrong time could throw me over your shoulder and leave me dangling against your leg. And I think the leg rope should be thicker; I definitely felt it stretching." I'd braid another rope the same length and width of leg rope this afternoon. The rope had held, so doubling up should be enough of a safety margin.
"Or you could just let me carry you," the dragon grumbled under her breath, laying down with her right side to the fire. I ignored her grousing and set the ropes down along with my flight vest next to the ejection seat from my old fighter. Then I gathered some new cord to start weaving my next length of rope.
The day of the earthquake, my glacial brain had finally remembered that I'd left hundreds of feet of cord behind in the form of the parachutes that had failed to deploy during my crash. I'd told Anea about it and asked her to find the seat and bring it back to our clearing. She hadn't been enthusiastic because no matter how much I tried to explain, she couldn't understand how useful rope would be to me. Eventually though, she'd decided to trust that I knew what I was talking about and left to search for my original crash site. When she'd landed later that day with the heavy seat, she'd been unexpectedly pleased with its metal frame and asked why I hadn't mentioned that part to her.
That was when I learned why there were legends about dragons hoarding treasure. Their skeletons incorporated tough metals like iron or titanium to make them both lighter and stronger for their size. Along with a constant supply of food, dragon hatchlings needed metal objects or ores to gnaw on so their bones would grow properly. That was why dragons in ages past had taken to raiding human towns and caravans for whatever metal they could grab and carry away. Anea had been planning to go back to the wreck of my fighter and bring back some metal fragments, but she'd been delaying the journey because there were no convenient clearings near there for her to take off from. I actually saved her a full day's worth of walking with my errand, so it ended up being a big win-win.
Once I cut enough cord away from my main chute to work with, I returned to Anea and sat down with my back against her side, facing the flames. While I wove the cords into another rope, we went over the plan again. Tomorrow, we would study the weather and assess the odds a storm would hit while we were gone. If one seemed likely, we'd have to stay at the clearing and protect the fire. If the weather looked cooperative, we'd feed the fire and set off for the closest human town Anea knew of.
This town was a small cluster of buildings at the foothills of the mountains some distance past the western edge of her territory. Only one road led to and from there, and there were houses thinly scattered along that road. Anea had never gotten very close before, but she felt confident she could land within a few miles without a huge risk of being noticed. Then she'd either find some place to hide, or she'd leave, and I would walk the rest of the way to the town on my own.
From there, the plan was simple enough: just be inconspicuous and forgettable. I'd be wearing the civilian clothes Anea had "found" for me. Even covered in ash and dirt stains and burned in several spots, they'd be practically invisible compared to my blood-soaked, half-shredded flight suit. I still only had military boots for shoes, but I didn't think anyone would be looking that close. I expected local news stations and papers had been showing my picture since I'd gone down in the area. But I did have a month's worth of beard and hair growth, which ought to keep anyone looking out for First Lieutenant Johnson from easily recognizing my face.
My first goal was to get access to a public computer and check on what had happened to the rest of my squad in the skirmish I'd kicked off. Then I wanted to verify nothing more serious had happened because of the incident. I was bracing myself to either learn nothing about my squad from the public record or find out that some of my friends had died that day. I wasn't sure what to expect regarding potential wider consequences, but I now believed I was unlikely to find my country and China locked in a shooting war.
That air battle had been over little more than political posturing. Surely leaders on both sides had recognized that their machinations had gone too far once real shots were fired. But then, what if one or both sides were too proud to admit they'd made a mistake? There was a distinctly non-zero chance that the U.S. had retaliated to the bomber incursion and subsequent ambush in some way to avoid appearing weak or complacent... and if the cycle of escalation started, where would it end? The question had been eating at me for weeks. Tomorrow, maybe I could finally lay that fear to rest.
After I found what I needed from news feeds, I'd write an email for my family and send it to my brother, Logan. We were close, and I was sure he'd know the message really was from me. I still didn't know what I'd say, but I did feel that shorter would be better. I didn't trust myself to stay focused when reunion with my family, even virtual reunion, was just a few clicks away. But since I was committed to staying with Anea, I couldn't take the risk. As soon as I logged onto my email account, a data system would know I was alive and back on the grid. That information would eventually find its way to the Air Force or any of a dozen law enforcement agencies. I'd be on a countdown of unknown length to disappear again or get scooped up gun-toting agents.
If I felt there was time, I also wanted to try visiting a general store and picking up some supplies. I had a wallet with my ID and credit cards, but no cash. Useless in the wilderness, critical the second I got back to civilization. As long as my credit hadn't been canceled, I could gather more proper equipment for this crazy adventure I'd embarked on. Then I'd walk out of the town and get far enough from other people that I could talk to Anea without drawing attention. She'd guide me to a spot where she could pick me up and then, presto, we would be on our way back into her territory and away from my old life for good. It was a simple plan as long as nothing went wrong. And that was what worried us the most.
Between the two of us, our luck was complete crap. The only really good thing that had happened to either of us recently was finding each other, and that was just as likely in spite of fate as because of it. So, me venturing off on my own into the chaos of human society seemed like a golden opportunity for karma to resume its vendetta against us. What if I got recognized and arrested? What if I got run over by a car? What if someone decided I looked like the perfect sap to mug? Or maybe I wouldn't get recognized, but some cop might decide I looked a bit too scruffy and down on my luck and detain me for loitering, vagrancy, or some other bullshit like that. Worst of all was the possibility that someone might see Anea. She'd never figured out why the Veil didn't work on me, and the thought of going near other humans raised the disastrous specter of discovery in her mind again.
"What makes you so sure you'd feel any better about this even if you did know why the Veil doesn't blind me like it's supposed to?" I asked, reminding myself to be patient. Sure, we were retreading old ground with this conversation, but this was still very much life or death to Anea. Potentially apocalyptic, even. "What if it just doesn't work on all humans?"
"It might be that simple," she growled, uneasy. "I just hope it's not. If more humans than you can see us, it might as well be all of you."
"Not necessarily," I reasoned. "There are plenty of people who tell stories about seeing supernatural creatures. Most other people don't believe them. I sure as hell didn't. I thought people who did believe in big-foot, ghosts, and sea-monsters were just crazy. Tch!" I snorted ruefully. "Not anymore, but that's just because I've been seeing ghosts myself. If I hadn't though-" I cut myself off as the dragon, who had been quietly staring into the fire like usual, suddenly stiffened and jerked her head around to gape at me, eyes wide and jaw hanging open. "Wha-"
"You've seen spirits?!" she demanded, astonished. "Where? When?!"
"I, uh..." I stammered, taken aback by Anea's reaction. "Oh shit. I guess I never actually mentioned that to you, did I?" She growled wordlessly in response, her teeth showing.
"No, you never told me that, you rock-head!" she snarled when she recovered enough to speak. "Ooooo... I've been tearing my scales off trying to figure out what makes you special, and you never thought to tell me you can see spirits?!"
"I can see spirits now!" I barked defensively. "It doesn't change anything. I never saw a Veiled creature before I crashed out here."
"Spirits," the dragon stated after taking a deep, steadying breath, "are not creatures, Veiled or otherwise. Not anymore. There is nothing of them to see, and therefore nothing to hide. I have never seen a spirit, Adrian. How have you?"
"Oh," I said.
"Yes, 'oh!'" Anea snapped, still annoyed but calming down. "Although, I suppose I never told you that." She shook her head vigorously. "Alright, when did you first see a spirit? Before or after you first heard me?"
"Before," I answered, slapping my forehead in exasperation. I had the answer this whole time?! What was worse, I recalled a few times I'd specifically decided not to talk about the shadow. "It came to me right after I crashed, while I was trying to decide whether or not to choke on my own lungs. Then it followed me to your cave, and I saw it a few times there. Actually," I added, a chill rushing down my spine at the memory. "I didn't just see it. It talked to me every time it appeared. Said it was there to help me cross over or something, I don't know."
"Grim," she muttered quietly, staring off into nothing.
"What?"
"Nothing. Well," she hesitated, blinking repeatedly, "maybe not nothing after all. It's an old story about a shadow that comes to the dying to take their souls from their bodies." My blood ran ice cold at her words.
"And you call it 'Grim?'" I demanded. "We have the same story. We call it the grim reaper." As I said the words, I remembered my last encounter with the shadow haunting me, and some of my horror faded. What did it say? It just eases the journey? "What the hell are they?"
"Nothing to fear, supposedly," she answered slowly. "Adrian, all I know about them are from stories even my parents thought were myths-"
"Anea, please. One of those things has been chasing me for a month. They're real, Ok? Please tell me whatever you've heard about them because I've got nothing."
"Well, their story is not a happy one. Spirits, souls, whatever you want to call them, aren't meant to exist on their own in this world. You and I, our minds connect our souls to our bodies. Our souls experience the world through our bodies; they see it through eyes and smell it through noses, and they interact with it through teeth and claws. When the body dies, the soul is not supposed to linger here. It goes somewhere. Except, according to legend, some beings fear whatever comes next so much they manage to avoid making the journey, even after their bodies have expired. But then, what are they to do?
"A soul without a body would be like a spark without fuel, or a wing without air. It isn't whole. It might not be able to see, or smell, or even feel. It might struggle to think, since even thoughts rely in some ways on flesh. It wouldn't even be able to die. Most spirits go insane before long and resort to possessing any creature they can dominate in order to escape from the nothingness they are otherwise trapped in. According to this story, that's where a lot of monsters come from." Again, Anea made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Is that what floated up out of that deer-monster?
"There is only one thing that can keep a being's soul from degrading into a monstrous essence after it is trapped here. Purpose. And apparently, one of the purposes the 'sane' souls cling to is stopping others from sharing their fate. They go to beings fighting their death and ensure they don't linger. It isn't a pleasant task as they seem unable to follow those they send onward, but it's supposed to keep them from falling to madness. As long as they hold to their purpose forever. That's why we call them the Grim Ancestors." She shrugged, brushing me lightly with her wing. "That's the story anyway. Much more to the point, if you've been seeing spirits of any kind, that finally gives me a solid lead to work with."
"A lead?" I asked. "You mean me seeing spirits isn't the answer? Wait, dammit, of course it isn't. Because the next questions are: 'Well, why can I see spirits?' and 'Well, what does that have to do with the Veil?' Do I have that right?"
"More or less. It does make me more confident that you are unique, though. I'd like that a lot more than discovering that the Veil itself is failing." I just nodded. I never wanted to see what humanity would do to Anea and her world if they knew it still existed.
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
The weather was clear the next morning, and Anea declared she didn't smell any hint of a storm on the biting morning wind. I got dressed, then double checked my restraining ropes for any signs of damage I might have missed yesterday. Anea made her preparations as well, carefully stacking a large pile of wood on her fire, arranging the branches so that they'd fall toward the center of the pit as they burned. This incubation fire wasn't nearly as large as the one she'd maintained in her cave; it wouldn't last for days without tending. All that fuel would be nothing but glowing embers by noon, and if we weren't back by evening, the eggs might start getting dangerously cold. As long as everything went well, we should get back by early afternoon at the latest. As long as I don't get caught.
My nervousness, which had been carving a nice deep pit in my stomach since last night, began migrating up to a tightening knot under my chest, and I made a snap decision. I dropped the ropes I was only half finished inspecting, walked over to the streambank, and took a few deep breaths. Then I turned downstream and shouted at the top of my lungs, spraying a stream of liquid fire onto the sandy bank.
"What are you doing?" Anea asked, startled. I loosed a second tongue of flame before answering.
"I'm draining my fire lung. I don't want to take any chances with it today. Nothing good could come from me breathing fire around other humans. And I do not," I interrupted myself to flame a third time. "Ever want to use this on another person." I watched the vigorously burning venom run down the shallow bank to the stream, leaving a fiery trail behind. It didn't go out when it met water, instead spreading out over the surface and raising wispy ribbons of steam as it was swept away by the current. I shook my head and continued. "If I run myself dry so I can't breathe fire, that's just one less thing that could go wrong."
"I don't like it." Anea rumbled. "You haven't flamed without meaning to in days, even when I try to scare you into it. I see no reason why today would be different. With your fire breath, no human without a bow or firearm can touch you unless you allow it. You are giving up a huge advantage, and I feel that you will need every advantage to make it back to me if you do have to fight." The flames on the sand continued to merrily burn without any sign of sputtering, and my stomach churned with nausea at the thought of what they would do to a person covered in them.
"I really don't care. I've seen what this venom does to living things, and just the thought of using it on someone is making me sick. But I know what I'm like when I fight. If I get desperate and I have this ability available, I know I will use it." I looked up at her and patted my sternum. "This is an extremely cruel weapon. I am not giving myself the option of using it on cops just doing their job by arresting me." The dragon met my gaze with steel in hers.
"That's a noble sentiment, but it would hardly help them. If you let yourself get caught, I doubt I could rescue you without being seen. If it comes to that, I won't have a choice but to kill anyone who gets a clear look at me. Unless you tell me you want to stay with your people, I'm not letting anyone take you from me. You don't want to use your fire on others? Good." She declared. "There would be something very wrong with you if you were eager to burn people. But that is not the only way to use your venom." She paused expectantly, but I had no idea what she was talking about. My eyes drifted back to the dragon-fire still scorching the bank.
"How else are you supposed to use it?" I asked when the flames finally, reluctantly began to go out.
"Come on, not even a guess?" she complained. "Fine. You could just show other humans your fire breath. They will never expect it, and it should frighten and distract them. Then you'd have a chance to strike in another way or escape. Also, if they see you flame once, they'll know what you could do to them, and they'll be reluctant to challenge you again."
"Or they might just shoot me," I muttered. Anea was silent for a few moments.
"Adrian, if you're having second thoughts about doing this," she began.
"No," I interrupted. "Well, maybe I am, but I still need to do this." I swallowed past the tension that still lingered beside my heart. Great, now I've also got to worry about keeping other people safe from Anea. "Alright, you win. I'll keep the rest of my venom for a distraction and hope I don't even need to use it for that. We should go. The sooner we take off, the sooner we get this over with."
I picked up the ropes I'd dropped and finished my inspection, then Anea crouched down to allow me to tie them around her chest. Once they were secure, I donned my flight vest to add a little more protection against the spike I had to lie on, wrapped a strip of cloth from the ruined Sylvan cloak around my lower face and neck as a makeshift scarf, and pulled two socks on over each hand in place of gloves. Then I climbed up to my perch and twisted my arms and legs through the ropes while Anea stood and walked to the western edge of the clearing, where the sun was just beginning to reach the ground.
She unfurled her wings and angled them to bask in the morning light, drawing in so much heat that I could feel her torso warming even through her scales and my clothes. After a minute, she half-furled her wings and jogged to the center of the clearing, then turned to face the nippy wind. I had just enough time to gasp in anticipation as she crouched and extended and raised her wings, then she hurled us into the sky, and I was finally on my way back to civilization. Except I'm not. Not really. I'm just going back to say goodbye. The sorrow and loss I'd been suppressing welled up to the surface for a moment, stinging my eyes with a threat of tears before I forced the emotions back down. I'd always hated goodbyes.
The flight was long, by far the longest one I'd yet taken with Anea. Even though we flew lower than she would have alone, after only a short time I was shivering in the freezing wind. The wind also forced me to keep my eyes closed most of the time, which made it difficult to focus on anything other than my warring feelings about my mission in the town. I couldn't give myself over to them. I had to keep a clear head for now. I could fall apart on the return flight if I needed to.
Eventually, I started counting Anea's periodic wing-beats, and opening my eyes to check our progress every thirty or so. First we flew south down her wide valley for around an hour. I didn't know exactly how long because my watch hadn't magically started working again. I'd have to pick up a new one if there was time. Anyway, after the first hour, she turned west and crossed the ridge through a pass between two white-capped peaks. She could have flown above the mountains, but she refused to climb higher than the snow-line carrying me.
I was grateful for that. I felt like a block of ice by then and was starting to worry about frostbite. My improvised winter gear was helping, but it wasn't enough. The sock-mits let far too much wind through, and the scarf did nothing to protect anything above my eyes.
Behind the first ridge, a wide range of mountains still stood between us and our destination. There were no straight, convenient valleys to follow here. Anea had to weave between the peaks, gradually winding her way through. I was only able to keep a vague sense of our overall western direction by noting that the morning sun was never in our eyes. Anea never wavered though. It was clear she knew exactly where she was going. Then suddenly, when I opened my eyes for a brief check of our surroundings, there were no more mountains beyond the next gap. The land ahead sloped down in rolling hills until it met the vast blue Pacific Ocean in the hazy distance.
Ignoring the burning wind, I looked around for any sign of the town through my streaming eyes. "How close are we?" I asked.
"Not that far. I can already see the black-road ahead of us." I shut my eyes for a moment to try and relieve their stinging dryness, then opened them in a squint to search. I thought I saw it too. The trees were thin here in the foothills of the mountains, but the clear cut line running north to south still stood out plainly once noticed. I even glimpsed the asphalt a few times through the gaps in the canopy. We'd be over it soon. Then Anea banked right to fly north closer to the mountains.
"Hey!" I protested automatically to the unexpected course change. "I wanted to see..." I trailed off as I realized why Anea wasn't flying over the road.
"Sorry. I should be hidden, but I am not going to be careless. I plan to keep as much cover between myself and your people as possible." She sounded nervous. No. She's afraid.
"Anea, are you alright?" I asked, unraveling one arm to stroke her shoulder soothingly.
"Yes. It's just... Before, I always had a lot more altitude under my wings when I came this far west. And I didn't do it often." She paused. "I swear I keep seeing archers hiding in the trees down there, but I know humans use firearms now. It's just making my scales itch to be in arrow-range of the ground so close to humans." I cast a skeptical glance at the ground. We had to be at least two thousand feet up. No arrow could reach this high. I didn't point that out to Anea both because that would do nothing to ease her fears and we would be descending to land soon enough.
"If you're right about the Veil, no one can see you," I reminded her instead. "And if you're wrong, they won't believe their own eyes. They certainly aren't going to try shooting at you as long as you're far away. Take all the time you need to find a spot to land. If you think it's too dangerous this close, you could drop me in the woods behind those mountains, and I can walk from there."
"No," she said emphatically. "You'll take too long to walk from back there. I'd have to leave to tend to the fire and come back tomorrow. I am not leaving you here by yourself." At that point, I noticed the trees obscuring the road ended in a wide clearing not far ahead. I could see the road there, and even a few cars-
I blinked a few times in surprise, looked again, then closed my eyes and rubbed them roughly with my free hand, trying to force out some tears to moisten them. Dry eyes. The wind dried my eyes out and screwed up my perception. After a few seconds, I looked to the visible stretch of road again, and chills raced up my spine as the same ominous sight greeted me.
"Anea," I said quietly. "Those cars over there. Do they look like they're moving to you?" The dragon turned her head to peer at the half dozen cars spaced with driving distance between them, strewn haphazardly on either side of the road. They were too far away for me to see if any people were hanging out around them.
"Um, no. I don't think they are moving." Crap. "Is that unusual?"
"One car stopped on the side of the road is unusual. That," I pointed. "Is creepy. If they'd all stopped for the same reason, they should be grouped together." Another chill ran down my spine as a second oddity stood out to me. I'd had my eyes glued to that section of road for a full minute, and not a single other car had driven past. Then, as I thought about what that probably meant, I sighed in relief. "Ok, that's probably just a dumping spot or some kind of tourist attraction. This clearly isn't a well-used road." Anea was silent for a few long seconds, then she began pumping her wings hard to climb as she turned toward the road. "What are you doing?" I asked.
"You were right the first time. Something strange is going on here. Every time I've come here before, humans have been swarming up and down that black-road in those machine-carriages. It's too still. I should have seen it sooner." Oohhh shit! That was the exact opposite of what I was hoping she'd say! We soon reached the road, and Anea began to circle to give us a clear view up and down it. And what we saw was beyond my worst fears.
"Oh my god..." I whispered in shock. All along the road, on both sides as far as I could see, there were cars and trucks parked in the middle of their lanes or just off in the grass. Not a single vehicle was moving. None had any lights on. And I couldn't see a single living person. "Get us down there," I wheezed, dread squeezing my heart in the old, human way and making it hard to breathe. Anea didn't argue. She just angled down to descend and rolled out of her bank on a northerly heading.
"I'll take us down, but I am not landing in that. Even I can see something very bad happened down there." I nodded. I felt numb. I couldn't think straight.
"What the hell could have caused this?" I asked myself. I shook my head, then asked more usefully, "Do you see anyone? In the cars or hiding in the trees?"
"I don't see anyone. Adrian, this is scaring me." She said, peering at me over her shoulder.
"It's scaring you? Good, cause I'm about to piss myself."
"Why would humans do something like this?" I couldn't answer. I could barely think, I was so horrified. As we approached the road, it became apparent that many of the vehicles had open doors and trunks. The occupants hadn't simply vanished. They'd chosen to abandon their cars. That also meant they hadn't been killed by whatever caused this. The realization didn't bring anything close to relief, but it shook me loose of the paralyzing terror that had been smothering my thoughts.
"All those cars stopped working at the same time," I stated, not believing my own words. "They had to. They wouldn't be spaced out like that if some had still been working; they'd be jammed together end to end. And people wouldn't have abandoned their cars unless they thought no help was coming." I found it easier to do my thinking out loud for the moment. "There's no mechanical failure that could have caused this. This can't be an accident. Somebody did this. This was deliberate. This had to be an attack."
With those words, I fell silent. Anea left me to myself and focused on getting us to the town as soon as possible. I spared a moment to wonder what was going through her head, but only a moment. I was too busy hating the ones who had done this. Because there was one clear answer to who had the ability and the motivation to carry out an attack like I was seeing. China.
I had only been gone a month. It was inconceivable that relations with any other nation could have deteriorated to this point in so short a time. And strangely enough, even though I'd been agonizing that my actions in that air battle had made something like this more likely, flying over car after dozens of cars lying dead and empty in the road below enraged me beyond the capacity for guilt. A month!! A goddamned month! Less than that, actually, because this didn't happen yesterday. Someone would have still been waiting for help with their cars if it had happened recently.
This could not be a rational retaliation for what I'd done. I only knew of one weapon capable of causing what I was seeing. In theory, it was a weapon of utter devastation, something even worse than nuking cities. The further Anea flew and the more dead cars I saw, the more convinced I became of my suspicions, and the more vindicated I felt. If they actually did it, they had to be planning it from the beginning. I might have been the excuse they used, but this is what they wanted! Thank god I was the one to spit in their eyes! They can all go rot in hell!! If we found what I now expected, a town without electricity, overflowing with more terrified, hopeless people than it could possibly support, that would confirm it beyond any doubt for me.
Before long, but not soon enough, a cluster of buildings became visible in the distance. It was approaching midday, so there was no way to see from this far if there were any lights on in the town. The wisps of smoke rising from the outskirts weren't an encouraging sign though. "GODDAMMIT!!!" I screeched, slamming my fist down hard.
"Hey!!" Anea barked, glaring back at me. "Don't hit me!" She looked ahead again without further reproach.
"I'm sorry," I apologized, ashamed.
"Forget it. What made you so angry?"
"That smoke," I said, pointing. "That's got to be from campfires. There shouldn't be campfires that close to the town if everything is alright. I think they mean I'm right." I wasn't.
We were about five miles out when Anea threw me the next curveball. "Adrian. I don't smell any humans."
"What?! How?! There should be hundreds of people down there!"
"There were. I'm sorry, I should have said: I don't smell any fresh human scents. There is a lot of human scent in the air, but it's all stale. I don't think there are many of your people in that town. If there are any at all." My jaw dropped. That made zero sense! People lived down there. I could see dozens of houses around the town center. Abandoning your car was one thing, but who would abandon their home in a crisis while it was still intact? I squinted toward the still distant town, looking for signs of catastrophic damage. I didn't see anything, and if there was damage that couldn't be seen from here, it wouldn't be enough to make everyone flee on foot. I looked at the smoke again, and a violent wave of nausea almost overwhelmed me as a horrific possibility crossed my mind.
"You don't smell any, uh... burning meat, do you?" I held my breath.
"Um..." She hesitated as she sampled the air again. "No. Maybe a tiny bit. A lot of human scents smell burnt to me, but I don't smell anything like a lot of burning meat. Why?" I let myself feel some relief, but I didn't relax even a little.
"Because I really don't want that smoke to be from piles of burning bodies." Anea glanced back at me sharply. "Where are you planning to put me down?" The dragon was so startled by the question that we dropped several feet and the spike I was lying on raised up enough to poke me in the stomach.
"Put you down?" She repeated. "I'm not! I already told you, we can fly as close as you want, but I'm not landing anywhere near something that scares you this badly!" My gut sank like a stone.
"Anea, come on. You can't expect me to be satisfied with a few flyby passes. There have to be clues down there to what's going on, but we won't see them from up here. I have to know what happened here."
"Why? What do you think you're going to do about it?"
"I don't know!" I spat, disgusted to hear the question bouncing around in my head spoken aloud. "This is beyond anything I imagined we'd find here! It changes everything. How am I supposed to know what I should do before I even know for sure what the hell happened?!"
"Because nothing's changed," she said gently. "Not for you. Your choices are the same: go back to your people or remain with me. You still think like a warrior. You want to protect your people and kill whoever hurt them. But you chose to walk a different path. You said you'd stay with me and protect my hatchlings. And as terrible as whatever happened here must have been, it has nothing to do with us. You can't protect everyone, Adrian."
Watch me! I thought furiously. She was dead wrong. I knew it. But Anea was spooked. At the best of times, she wasn't interested in helping humans as a group. She saw no upside to investigating this disturbing mystery, especially because any risk to us was also a threat to her eggs. I had to convince her she needed the answers on the ground as much as I did.
"How can you be sure this won't affect us?" I asked. "We don't know what happened down there. I have suspicions, but they don't explain where all those people went. And even if I'm right, then that could still be bad for us. And by us, I mean you, me, and your kids."
"How?" she asked suspiciously, well aware I would be trying to manipulate her.
"Picture hundreds of starving humans invading your territory to clear-cut trees and hunt all the prey they can eat this winter. Do you think that might affect you?"
"Why would they do that this winter? They haven't before." She wasn't convinced, but she also sounded upset by the prospect.
"If this," I pointed at the road, "Is widespread, it means the people who live down there won't have food brought to them like they've had for their entire lives. Do you see any farms or herds of animals around here?" I looked around myself to check, since my focus had been elsewhere. "I don't. And it's too late in the year to try growing anything now. If they're still around, and if this problem isn't fixed soon, all those people will either have to hunt through the winter or starve to death. We should at least try to find out where they went. Maybe this is somehow a local problem and they were evacuated. If they weren't, we could have a serious competition problem this winter."
Anea didn't respond. She seemed focused on the town, which we were now within a mile of. Suddenly she gasped, wrenched hard to the right, and dove for the treetops! I almost got tossed over her left shoulder at the violent maneuver; I'd been riding with only one arm wrapped through the reins. With a loud grunt of effort, I pulled myself back in place and threaded my arm through the restraining rope again.
"You have got to start warning me before you do shit like that!" I complained, looking down over the side of the dragon I'd nearly fallen off. The canopy was streaking by right below, and I shuddered as I realized how close I'd just come to repeating the stunt that had landed me with Anea in the first place.
"Sorry. I just saw two-legs walking in the street. Had to break line of sight." I wilted in relief.
"Oh, thank God. Wait," I said, quickly thinking it over. "Well shit, so they haven't disappeared, but we still haven't seen any sign that electricity is working. But if there's a lot of strangers hanging around, I should be able to drift in and out of there without causing suspicion. I can find out what I need from them and-"
"Adrian," Anea tried to interrupt my rapid-fire scheming. "You don't understand-"
"NO!" I shouted, fed up with her timidity. "You need to put me down right now! Maybe I can't do anything to help, but I at least need to know what's happening! It's going to drive me insane if we fly away-"
"WE'RE!! LANDING!!!" Anea roared, making my ears ring. "Stop talking and let me explain why. I saw two-legs walking around, but I still don't smell any humans nearby. None! If there were any humans that close, I would smell them. So those were! Not! Humans! Do you remember the last time I failed to scent a two-leg?" I blinked, so shocked I forgot my outrage over my jaw clamping itself shut at Anea's command.
"Faolin?" I asked after working my mouth open. "So those people back there..?" My head spun, and I couldn't finish. If Anea was right, then it threw everything I'd been considering as a cause for what we'd seen out the window. It meant anything could be possible.
"I think so. Those were probably sylvan in that town. If they were, then you were absolutely right. This changes everything."