POCHA
Dagar lay next to her, his arms crossed behind his head, gazing up into the night sky.
She’d felt it the moment she’d laid eyes on him on the first day of training, back when they were both goofy, awkward teenagers—a feeling like suffering through a long, wearying journey, then at last coming home.
He’d been different these past months since losing his dragon. Distant. Irritable. Sometimes angry. But that familiarity had remained.
Oh, by the gods, just kiss him already! Razune griped in her mind, punctuating her complaint with a yawn.
Shut up. I’m trying! Pocha simnaled back.
She couldn’t blame her dragon. Poor Razune had been forced to suffer through her pining for years now. It was wild how Pocha didn’t hesitate to battle Lacunae, golenae, dreadful mages, Admite fighter planes, and even her fellow Skrathan—but this gangly doofus had her tied in knots…
Well, enough was enough.
In a sudden burst of bravery, she raised herself up on one elbow.
Dagar’s eyes had closed as he drifted toward sleep.
She leaned over him now, her gaze upon his lips, her breath held tight in her chest. She moved toward him slowly.
Her body stirring, hands trembling, eyes drifting shut… Closer... Closer…
The thud of wings stirred the air. Dagar’s eyes snapped open, his hand going to the knife at his belt. When he saw Pocha looming over him, he frowned with confusion.
“What?” he asked.
“What?” she repeated dumbly.
“What are you doing?”
“What are you doing?” she shot back.
“I was asleep…” he said, baffled.
Pocha panicked, searching for words, but luckily, the slap of leathery wings sounded again, and she and Dagar both looked skyward.
Lure was coming in fast, and it only took a glance to see that something was wrong with Axjan.
His wings were flapping lopsided, and he was dropping too rapidly.
Pocha and Dagar scrambled to their feet and leaped aside just as both dragon and rider landed in a tumble, showering dirt and stones everywhere.
But Lure was agile, leaping clear and rolling back to their feet with shocking grace.
Axjan, too, was back on his feet in seconds, snorting in frustration and shaking his head like a dog shedding water.
“You okay?” Pocha asked, jogging over to them.
“Fine,” Lure said, brushing off their pants. “Axjan is going to need some help, though.”
The dragon brandished his left wing, and Pocha saw some of the leathery webbing had been slashed.
“What happened?” Dagar asked.
Lure looked grim. “Do you want the bad news, or the other bad news? The Lacunae from Charcain aren’t following us anymore. They’re encamped at the spot where we broke off the road and headed into the mountains.”
“And?” Pocha prompted.
“And the witch and her forces are making their way down from Empra...”
“To join them and pursue us,” Pocha surmised, a sick feeling of dread rising in her belly.
Lure nodded grimly. “There’s more. I was hurrying back here to tell you—just on the other side of those peaks, we were intercepted by a dragon.
A huge piscean. It attacked us, shredding Axjan’s wing before we were able to fight it off.
It took off north into the mountains, shrieking an alarm as it went. ”
“Alerting the other wild dragons…” Dagar said. “Shite...”
“It’ll be back with others,” Pocha said, her heart racing. “We’d better get moving. Camp isn’t going to be safe.”
“You can’t escape the eyes and nose of a wild dragon,” Dagar pointed out. “They’ll track us wherever we go.”
“True,” Pocha said. “But the problem may be the valley we’re in. It may be important to them. If we move, they may leave us alone.”
“That’s a lot of mays,” Dagar said. “If we push deeper into the mountains, we may run into more of them.”
“But if we turn back, we’ll definitely be in the teeth of the Lacunae,” Lure pointed out. “And if we stay here, we’ll definitely end up a dragon feast.”
“We have no choice but to push ahead,” Pocha concluded. “And fast.”
Dagar sighed. “You ever wish you’d wake up in bed and realize this was all a dream?”
In bed. For a flash, Pocha thought of the moment before Lure arrived. Two more seconds, and her lips would have been on his…
“Every day, brother,” Lure said, clapping a hand on Dagar’s shoulder. “I’d wake up with a tit in one hand and a cock in the other—and bacon sizzling over the hearth. But for now, dragons are coming.”
Pocha nodded. “Lure, find Sayrah the Healer, see if she can stitch Axjan’s wing. Dagar and I will wake everyone and get them moving.”
Lure gave a nod and hurried off. Pocha started to move too, but Dagar caught her elbow.
“Wait. When you woke me up. It looked like you were about to say something.” He looked down at her, his big brown eyes as guileless as a child’s.
Pocha’s mouth opened. She froze, her heart beating in her ears. Her hand went up toward his face—he was so tall, she could barely reach it.
Courage, Pocha. Just say it…
“I… you…” Her trembling fingers went to his hair. “You… need a haircut. You look terrible,” she blurted.
His lips, which had hung open in anticipation a moment before, quirked into a grin. He snorted. “Not half as bad as you smell.”
She punched him in the chest, giggling like an idiot.
He grinned back at her, chuckling, and for half a second, they were just a pair of goofy first years joking around at the Skrathan madran.
Then, as one, they both seemed to remember what was looming over them.
Swords at their back. Wings in the sky. Lives hanging in the balance.
And they both rushed away to rally their fellows, break camp, and run.