Chapter 35
Thirty-Five
Tobias
The wild man screamed and rushed me. I stood my ground, ready to hold him back, but Ayla moved before I could.
Shoving to her feet, she put herself between the man and me.
A curved blade appeared in her hand as if by magic - or I simply hadn't noticed it before.
That dog of hers shifted to her side, showing all of its very sharp teeth.
And she screamed words I couldn't understand. The man yelled back. The Wyvern shoved the man away from Ayla, so I dropped down to check on Sylis. He was curled around his gut, clutching the wound as if it hurt more than he'd expected.
"Hey," I breathed, making him look at me. "It's going to be okay now."
But he shook his head. "Tobias, it's a gut wound."
And my blood ran cold. We all knew about those. They might not seem bad at first, and a woman could sew it up easily. The problem came later. Gut wounds festered. They grew infected. Always, they killed.
"No," I whimpered, shaking my head to deny it. "It's not that deep, is it?"
And he lifted his hands. Blood covered both them and the wound, but I could see the puncture in his gear. It wasn't as shallow as I'd hoped. That knife had definitely gone into his body, meaning it was fatal.
As the realization hit me, everything else out here faded away. Sylis was supposed to get the code. He was going to marry Felicity so Callah could make plans with her. I needed him to help me with this, but he wouldn't. He was going to die!
"Ayla!" I begged, reaching up to grab her leg.
The dog spun, snapping quickly in my direction.
It was enough to make me jerk my hand back, but the Reaper had been pushed away.
The Wyvern stood between him and us, lashing his tail furiously.
The commotion had drawn a bit of attention, but all of it was from Dragons.
The only gunshots I could now hear were in the distance.
Ayla knelt beside me. "Tobias, do you want him to live?" she asked.
"I need him," I said. "I do, but it's a gut wound, Ayla."
She turned to look at me, her pale eyes piercing with the calmness in them. "I know. Tobias, I can sew him up. I can pack the wound so he'll make it back...." She glanced at Sylis, then back to me. "But we both know what will happen."
"Can you save him, though?" I begged. "Please? He's my friend! You don't understand. Except for Callah, he's the only person down there I can trust, and she's a woman, so I have to treat her as my wife outside our rooms!"
That rocked her. I watched her entire body sway, and she blinked twice. "You married her?"
"Lawfully wedded friends," I told her. "We only share a bed to sleep. The marriage was not consummated, Ayla, but we pretend. That means I'm the one to punish her, and I won't. She can heal the women now, and she is! I'm too stupid to know better, right?"
"And it's working?"
I nodded. "But Sylis is going to marry Felicity, and that will get him promoted. Once he's a team leader, he'll be given the code. Then we can get out!"
"Or we can get in," she countered.
"Both," I told her. "Callah will make sure the women are ready when it happens, but to make it happen, I need Sylis!"
"I won't..." Sylis said, grabbing my hand. "Tobias, I won't live that long."
Ayla all but ignored him. "Do you want him to live?" she asked me again.
"Yes!" I gasped, not sure why she wasn't listening.
"Do you still want that even if he's not down there?"
And I finally realized what she was asking. She'd told me Dragons had medicine. She was a healer, so she probably knew exactly what kind they had. She was saying she could save Sylis, but not there. Here! He'd have to stay.
But movement made her look away. I followed her gaze to see more Dragons crowding around us.
Dogs too, but the Dragons were pulling close, almost forming a line between us and the wild men and those dogs.
Ayla's was still beside her, but the rest were watching us, looking like they wanted to kill us if we moved the wrong way.
Then a broad, tan-looking Dragon crouched across Sylis's body and looked right at me. "What's the code?" he asked in English.
"I was going to get it," Sylis panted. "Please, Dragon. Spare my friend. We tried, but I couldn't let him die."
Ayla pointed at Sylis. "He saved him." Her finger moved to me. "But they don't have the code yet, Drozel. If I send this man back to get it, he'll die before they come back."
"We can't get through the doors without that code!" the man called Drozel snarled.
Ayla didn't even flinch from his rage. She pushed into it, closing the distance between them.
"And this man will die down there, making him useless to us.
Tobias is helping. Callah asked him to, and you should know her name by now.
She trusts him enough to marry him, and I don't know what else to do but save this man! "
The tan Dragon turned his attention on me. "You married Callah?" His tail snapped like a whip cracking, the stinger on the end extending with the motion.
"She. Is. My. Friend!" I growled.
"She is," Ayla confirmed. "And Tobias is Jerlis's nephew. He knows that, and he knows about the women in quarantine, but I can't send Sylis back to die, Drozel. It doesn't help us, but he still could."
"And the Reapers want to tear him apart right now," Drozel said. "So what do you want me to do?"
"I can say he died," I told them, only understanding half of what they were saying. "No one will wonder about that because you kill so many of us. And now that I'm late, I won't need to hold the women."
"Hold them for what?" Drozel demanded.
"In line," I said, looking at Ayla in the hopes she could help.
"What women?" she asked.
"The ones from here," I explained. "We came only a few days ago. Not long enough to need to come again, and they made us capture all the women who look like us. They went to quarantine, Ayla."
"Fuck!" she snarled, shoving to her feet. "Sylis? Did you know about this?"
He nodded, still clutching his gut. "We stay at the edges. We don't want to kill Dragons, but we can't do nothing. They'll shoot..." He gasped in pain. "...us."
"He knows everything," I told her. "Save him and he'll tell you. Won't you, Sylis?"
He nodded. "I want to stop it. I want to be free."
The man named Drozel stood and turned in one motion. "Tayle!" he roared, the word one I didn't know.
A woman rushed in. She and Ayla traded words in that other language, and the woman immediately began checking Sylis over. When he tried to keep his hands on his wound, she made a warning sound, but she didn't bother using words. Likely because Sylis wouldn't understand them anyway.
I wanted to help, but Ayla grabbed my arm, pulling me to my feet. "She's a medic, and a better one than me." Then she looked at the other man. "Translate for her, and do not let anyone hurt him."
"Can do," the tan Dragon agreed.
Then Ayla dragged me forward. "Enough!" she snapped at the line of angry wild men. She grunted, then yelled another word. When silence fell, she rambled off something else, and I caught a word in there that sounded a lot like "English."
The Wyvern nodded, added a few more things, and finally the wild men began to disperse. That didn't mean they looked pleased, but they still left, and a few of those Dragons pulled closer.
"English," the Wyvern said, switching to my language for a moment. "It's all Tobias knows." Then he continued speaking to the others in the words I couldn't follow.
A smaller, green man moved to me, offering his hand. "Tobias, I am Omden, a friend of Merienne."
"How is she?" I begged.
He smiled, the expression a strange one on his scaled face. "She's healing well, and adapting even better."
"She had the baby," Ayla told me. "Tell Callah she's fine.
The baby didn't turn, but it was removed with surgery, and both are fine.
She'll be able to have more children in the future if she wants, but she doesn't have to.
Dragons have medicine to prevent pregnancy as well.
Meri's happy now. She sews clothes in colors so bright Callah can't even imagine them, and she doesn't have to raise Gideon's child.
She gave it to women who want to make sure he grows up like a Dragon. Everyone is happy about it."
"Oh, she'll be so relieved," I told her. "Callah's been worried she was already dead."
"She's fine," Omden told me. "She is my guest."
And I tensed. "Do not hurt her. She is a good woman, and she's worth more than simply as a wife!"
"No, no, no," Ayla said. "Tobias, Omden has someone in his life already." And she pointed at the man kneeling by Sylis.
"What?" I asked.
"My partner is Drozel," Omden said.
"Like husbands," Ayla explained, "but two men, not a man and a woman."
My mouth hung open. "He…"
I paused to shake my head as if trying to clear it.
This man was married to another man? Was that what Sylis had been hoping for?
Not that the elders would allow such a thing, but men still dreamed.
But had he kissed me, hoping I'd want the same thing?
I didn't, but if this man did, and was allowed to…
"Sylis kissed me, Ayla," I said, hoping this might work. "I was confused, but he's not the only one who does that?"
"Does what?" Omden asked.
"A man who kisses men!" I explained. "I... It's..."
"Not done in the compound," Ayla explained for me. "Marriage is expected. It's to produce children. There is no affection, Omden. They don't understand any of that, just like Meri doesn't."
"I was hoping he'd say it," Omden admitted with a shrug and a mischievous smile. "Sex, Tobias. That is the word. Men who have sex with men."
I made a face in disgust, unable to help myself. "I do not want to hurt the person I care about."
And Omden hung his head. "So, it's clearly a universal fear down there. I see."
"Yeah," Ayla said. "But what do we do now?"
"If what you're saying is true," I told her as the Wyvern moved to her side, "Sylis needs to stay here. Ayla, that's why he helped me. He thought that because I don't want to consummate my marriage to Callah it meant I was like him."
"Are you?" the Wyvern asked, looking at Ayla with a brow up as if hoping to be caught up.
"You were right, Zasen. Sylis kissed Tobias," she explained. "He now has a gut wound and will die down there. Tobias can say he died in this fight, and we can save him - "
"And learn what he knows without a time limit," Omden pointed out.
The Wyvern nodded. "Which will help."
"But," I said, "I don't have the code, sir. Sylis was going to get married so he can be promoted. He was told he'd be eligible for promotion then, but not now. He needs to prove he's ready for leadership."
"So we still can't get in," Ayla finished for me.
The Wyvern turned his eerie eyes on me. "Then you'll have to do it. Your other option is to get Callah out. Bring her here, and we will let you live. If you leave her..." He smiled cruelly. "I'll let Ayla sting you with my tail."
"I won't leave without her," I told them, "so your threat is meaningless. I'd rather die than leave her in there to be wed to another man!"
"Then become a leader," the Wyvern told me. "Use your friend's 'death' as a cause for vengeance. Lie, Tobias. Deceive. It's what your elders are doing, so play the game better than them. Ayla says you're the biggest man down there. Use that. Become the best warrior they've ever seen."
"How?!" I demanded, glancing back to check on Sylis. "To become a respected hunter, I need to bring back meat. To do that, I have to kill the same people I'm hoping will save me. I won't do it!"
"Then be smarter," Ayla told him. "Claim the dead someone else killed. Run faster, fight on your own. Be so crazy they won't want to keep up with you, and keep returning in one piece." She looked down at her hands - the ones covered in Sylis's blood - and smiled. "Be more like a woman, Tobias."
Then she swiped her hand across my cheek and down my neck. I could feel the stickiness she left behind. That was my friend's blood. It was on my hands too, so what was she doing? What did she mean about being like a woman?
"I don't understand," I admitted.
"If you have blood on you," she said, "they'll assume you killed someone.
If you take credit for what a dead man can't, they'll be impressed with how much damage you did to us.
If you run ahead, alone, no one will see to know it's all a lie.
That's how they make this work. The elders lie, the leaders lie, and so many men lie too.
So lie, Tobias, but lie smarter and better than they do - like a woman would. "
"But if I'm in the front, the wild men will kill me. They tried to kill Sylis, and if you weren't here..." I looked back again. "Will he really be okay? Will you tell me if he's not?"
"That," Ayla said, gesturing to my friend, "is a minor injury up here.
We can stop infections. My friend was hit with a grenade the last time I saw you.
I put my hand into his gut, pulled out metal, and today he's here.
He's not only alive, but fighting. So I promise Sylis will live.
But you're going to owe me for saving his life. "
"Anything," I promised.
"You have to save Callah."
And I smiled. "I am." But she'd just reminded me of the letter.
"And I brought this to leave, hoping it'd get to you.
" Reaching into my shirt, I pulled out the folded and sealed paper with a hand-drawn phoenix on the front.
"I'll protect your friend, you protect mine, and maybe it'll be enough for us to somehow stop all of this. "
"Or die trying," she agreed.