Chapter 74
Seventy-Four
Ayla
A s Zasen ran, the blue end of his tail was visible behind him. As if that was a flag, it drew the attention of the Moles. A shot hit the ground beside him, but not close enough to stop his charge. It also told me which way to shoot.
I simply pointed in the general direction, made sure I wouldn't hit Zasen and held the trigger down. Bullets flew from the end. The sound of it was loud, making my ears ring. It also stopped the gunshots coming at Zasen.
He grabbed the man's arm and pulled. Dust lifted up as the Dragon's body slid across it, but that was one more thing to make them harder to hit. Kneeling by the edge of the house, I paused, listening, and then shot again when I heard another pop from across the street.
Zasen slid the guy into the gap beside Saveah's house and the next, then turned to check on him. "Hey, Pem, you're going to be ok," he told the younger man, who was definitely not Kanik.
"Fuck," the man groaned. "Can't breathe."
"We're going to get you some help," Zasen promised. "Ayla, make sure no one sneaks up on us."
"Ok," I promised, wanting to both watch what Zasen was doing for first aid and also make sure no Moles were headed this way.
But a rustle made me spin, lifting the gun over Zasen and the wounded Dragon just to aim it at the sound. As the darkness took over, my eyes were working even better, so I saw the silhouette of the man easily. When his tail lashed, I lowered the gun and Kanik stepped out.
"Medic's coming," Kanik said. "We saw you pull him, Zasen."
"Good," he said. "I'm going to get him stable. You stay with Ayla."
"And?" Kanik asked.
Zasen looked up, his voice turning hard. "And you kill them. All of them."
"We can do that," I promised, bending over to slide Jamison's gun against the side of Saveah's house where it wouldn't be visible in the shadows. "Just collect all the guns you can, okay?"
"Okay," Zasen said as another shot went off well down the street. Back in the neighborhood behind Saveah's house.
"Let's go," Kanik said, waving for me to follow.
I did. Together, we jumped over bushes and slipped between trees, not caring about whose yard we were in. The goal was to get to the Moles, not be polite. We had to stop them.
But as we turned to move between houses, the Moles did the same, coming at us from the opposite direction. I couldn't shoot! Kanik was in my way.
That didn't slow him down at all. The man's tail lashed out, slamming into the first man's leg. His arms followed, slicing with the krael he was using, aiming for any part of the men's bodies that were exposed. Then, when both of them stopped fighting, Kanik stung the second man for good measure.
Immediately, I bent to grab the magazines from their weapons.
"What are you doing?" Kanik demanded as he rushed to my side. "Why do you want the guns, Ayla?"
"Because they kill Moles!" I hissed. "I don't have a fucking tail, so I'll use a gun!"
He nodded, accepting that. Then, "This way." And he pulled me into the gap beside one house and another. "The Moles will search the streets, trying to find anyone outside. They may break into houses, if they can. We need to push them out before anyone gets hurt, and time is running out."
"But Zasen..." I said, looking back towards where we'd come from.
"He'll be fine," Kanik promised. "Ayla, we need to get further down the street so we can push them out. If we kill enough, they always leave."
"I don't like shooting around the houses," I told him as I followed where he led. "Kanik, the bullets can go through the walls. I need to aim where it can't hit anything so no one dies."
"No one?" he asked.
"No one important," I corrected.
Together, Kanik and I made our way to the far end of the neighborhood, and then pushed our way back, slowly moving closer and closer to the city wall. The pops of gunshots were slowing down, but Kanik assured me there would always be a few stragglers waiting for someone to poke their head out of a house.
Like Zasen, Kanik used a set of krael. Unlike Zasen, his were shaped with more spike than blade. He also had a small bow across his body the same way I did, but his arrows had black feathers. As we walked, he hung his krael from his belt and pulled his bow away from his body, getting an arrow ready, just in case.
Quietly, we snuck around houses, looking in every corner for someone wearing black. He kept his tail up and ready the whole time. The very end of it was vibrantly purple. That shifted to dark brown quickly and his polka dots grew in size the closer to his torso they got.
He was lovely. I wasn't sure how I'd never noticed that before, but as I followed him through the eerily silent street, I was stuck staring at the rippling muscles of his back and legs. This man was the ultimate hunter. He was made to not be seen. Even his pretty coloration blended into the night, it seemed.
Step by step, we kept moving. When a gun fired only a few houses over, I had to struggle not to yelp in fear, but Kanik didn't have that problem. Following the sound, he ran, leaving me to belatedly chase after him.
Then a woman began screaming.
"I'm saving you," a man snarled in English, so I ran a little faster, coming around a house just as Kanik slammed into the hunter. His tail hit first, but he didn't stop to let the venom take effect. Kanik just hacked and slashed, spinning around like he was some kind of whirlwind.
Behind him, the woman was backing away. Her shirt was ripped at the shoulder, as if the hunter had been dragging her, but she was tailless! I hurried towards her, thinking I was helping, but the sight of me - or my gun - made her scream again.
The sound brought more of the Moles. While Kanik was busy dealing with the one man, another stepped into view with his weapon raised, but I spotted him first.
"Drop it!" I warned him in English, aiming my own at his head.
"What?" the man gasped, completely confused.
"Drop the gun," I ordered. "Step away from it. Guns are dangerous and these are people!"
Then he chuckled. "I remember you. You're that bitch we hung out, aren't you?"
"Ayla!" Kanik yelled.
I ignored him and pulled the trigger, knowing I had my shot lined up. Naturally, it missed, so I stopped trying and just shot. The hunter shot back, but before his gun could go off a second time, he dropped, one of my rounds finally connecting.
"Is everyone okay?" I asked in Vestrian, turning back to check on the woman.
Kanik was kneeling over the Mole he'd killed, but nodding. The woman was cowering against another house. I had no clue how she hadn't been shot, but I wasn't going to question that right now.
"You need to be inside," I told her.
The woman's eyes flicked over to me. For a moment, she just stared in fear, and then she ran. Beside me, Kanik pushed himself to his feet, but I saw a red mark across his arm.
"You're hit," I gasped.
"Cut," he corrected. "The man had a knife. It's okay. I'm okay," he promised.
Grabbing my arm, he pulled me forward, but as we passed the body of the hunter I'd shot, I saw the mess on the ground. A bloody, disgusting mess. No, that had been his head and brain. My stomach twisted in disgust, but I pushed it down, knowing I didn't have time for this. Sadly, my mind jumped back to why they were here.
Hunting.
Dragons.
Meat.
I couldn't stop. I couldn't allow myself to think about that - it made me too angry. I also couldn't hear any gunshots, so maybe it was already over?
"Are they gone?" I asked.
"I don't know," he said gently. "Probably not. Not yet."
I just nodded and started walking again.
"Ayla," he begged, jogging a step to catch up with me. "Let me take you to one of the houses. You'll be safe."
"No."
"Ayla..."
I turned to glare at him. "No! I can help, Kanik. I am helping. I'm also so shitting tired of being weak and helpless and.... I don't know!"
"Fucking," he corrected, one side of his mouth lifting up. "Fucking works better there than shitting. Trust me on that."
"Then I'm fucking tired," I told him. "I want to make this stop. I want to help."
"Then let's go make sure they're all gone," he told me, showing me where to go next.
We barely made it a block before someone in the main street yelled, "Move and I'll blow your brains out!"
English. That meant one thing. I pulled the old magazine from my weapon, dropped it on the ground, and slammed a new one into place as I rushed forward. My hand was flicking off the safety as I rounded the corner of the house to see another hunter aiming his weapon at a Dragon just in front of our house. Both of them had paused, and the Dragon actually had his hands up.
It was a Dragon I knew. I recognized the hunter as well. Drozel and a man I'd sewn up many times were in a standoff, but it seemed neither one knew Kanik and I were here.
"Cyrus?" I yelled, calling the hunter's name. That was enough to make him look over at me, and I refused to waste the chance. "Drozel. Run!" I ordered in Vestrian, lifting the gun into place and looking down the sights the way I'd been taught as a little girl.
At the edge of my vision, I saw the Dragon bolt, but Cyrus jerked his weapon up, turning towards me. My finger tightened on the trigger, and the pops were loud. It was as if they echoed off the houses on either side of us, but I didn't dare let go. There was nothing behind him right now but an empty house. No one else was around. I also knew that if Cyrus managed to get off a shot, there were Dragons somewhere behind me. Kanik was - and there was a chance he could be hit.
I had to kill this man.
So many of my bullets missed, but one slammed into his throat. More hit his chest. Blood sprayed and Cyrus dropped, forgetting about his gun as he clutched at his throat. I took one step forward, into the street, intending to grab the weapon - and something hot slammed into my hip.
I didn't hear a sound. I only felt the flare of pain and then weight smashed into me from the other side. A flash of brown made me realize that it was Kanik just as we both crashed into the dirt. My necklace flew out of my shirt and up, over my chin. I grabbed at it, terrified I'd lose the thing, but I couldn't put it back in my shirt because Kanik was pressing me into the ground!
That was when my brain registered the sound of gunshots flying just over our heads. Lying half over me, Kanik twisted, aimed, and then loosed an arrow. The bow bounced right in front of my face, but the bullets stopped.
"Ayla?" he pleaded, turning me onto my back as he lifted up and looked me over. "Did you get shot?"
"My hip hurts," I admitted, twisting to see why.
There, right across the side of my pants, the leather was split and my skin was red. Raw flesh was visible, but it wasn't deep. Not as bad as when the woman had cut me with the kitchen knife, at least.
"It's just a graze," I assured him.
Kanik sighed in relief. "Thank fuck," he breathed. "But now will you let me get you back to Saveah's?"
"I'm fine!" I insisted. "Pain is fleeting. It's easy to ignore. We have to get the Moles out of here."
"And I'm starting to feel like my roommate's showing me up," he joked, pushing to his feet just to offer me a hand.
I took it. I also needed it, because while I could ignore the pain to a point, that wasn't the same as not hurting. I had to limp. Not badly, but only because I refused to give Kanik any more reasons to lock me back inside. With each lurching step, my sign die and the ring bounced against my chest, the jingle oddly comforting.
Together, we made our way up and down multiple streets, but we didn't see any Moles. Instead, we ran into Jeera, who I learned was also on the city guard. She was working with another man I didn't know. A tailless one. They traded information with Kanik, the four of us trying to figure out where any Moles might be left.
If there were any, they weren't on this side, and the gunshots had stopped. Jeera suggested we head back to the main command area to see if anything else needed to be cleared. That was up the street, not far from the market.
We didn't use the main road. The Moles liked shooting down it too much to take the risk. Instead, we backtracked, treading through people's yards to find a rather large group of Dragons all converging in the same way. Clearly, this was the command post.
There, we found Zasen and Drozel talking to other Dragons. Zasen was clearly giving orders, pointing off in different directions only to have people head that way. To me, it all looked very official, but I still felt confused, like I was waiting for the next bad thing to happen. But as we got closer, Drozel spotted our group and tapped Zasen's shoulder.
The Wyvern turned, saw me, and it seemed like nothing else mattered. Forgetting about everything else he was doing, Zasen rushed forward, pulled the strap of the gun off my shoulder, then crushed me up against his chest. At the same time, he managed to pass the gun to his sister, and then he was leaning me back so he could check me all over.
"Ayla, are you okay?"
"I'm fine," I assured him.
"She got shot," Kanik corrected. "Grazed."
Zasen just chuckled. "Which means she's fine. This one's tough, Kanik. Terrifyingly so."
Then Drozel stepped closer. "Zasen, I'll take over. You worry about getting her checked out."
"Really?" Zasen asked.
Drozel looked over at me, then forced a weak smile. "She saved my life. Yeah. Really. Seems you were right after all. This one is worth keeping around."
That was enough to make me smile. From his tone, I was sure it was a compliment, and right about now, it felt huge. I had no idea how many Moles I had seen killed, and I was terrified to learn how many Dragons had died tonight. But there was one family that was supposed to be my responsibility, and I'd left them alone.
"We need to check on Saveah and the kids," I told the men.
"Moles already ran," Zasen promised, gesturing for me to start walking - or limping. "Although there weren't many of them left to run. I'm not sure they got any bodies this time."
"I saw at least one of ours dead," Kanik admitted. "West side, in the street."
"We'll figure all of that out tonight," Zasen said. "I'm just trying to tell myself this was a win right now."
"It was," Kanik promised.
"And yet it wasn't enough," Zasen said. "I'm starting to think it will never be enough for the Moles."