wire cage. Burke was strapped into a leather harness, barely able to move. His little bubble of safety was now his death chamber.
'Kanati!' Charkon growled as he sank his claws into the mesh. 'You should have learned your lesson twenty years ago!'
With a grunt, he tore the mesh aside.
'Humans are weak!' Charkon shouted, reaching in to take Burke by the throat. 'Dragons are strong!'
To prove his point, Charkon yanked Burke from the remnants of the cage, snapping the leather straps that held Burke in position. Burke was certain his right thighbone fractured as it pulled free of the harness. However, since his whole leg was completely numb, he wouldn't know until he put weight on it.
'This feeble rebellion was a fool's dream!' Charkon snarled. His single eye was full of scorn. 'They said the man who took my eye was clever! But a clever man would have stayed in hiding! A clever man would know there isn't a chance mankind will ever best the dragons!'
Above, there was the rattling sound of a harness being unfastened. Burke struggled with both hands to try to open Charkon's claws even a fraction of an inch, so he could breathe.
Charkon chuckled and squeezed even tighter.
'Go on, clever man,' he taunted. 'Give me one reason mankind has for hope!'
Burke twisted his chin upward as heard the creak of the cage door swinging open above. The movement of his chin created a tiny passageway for air. His words escaped in a barely audible whisper: 'We… don't… eat… our… young!'
Anza dropped from the sky, her sword extended. The tip landed atop Charkon's skull with her full weight driving it. The finest blade Burke had ever crafted lanced into Charkon's head, sinking to the hilt. Anza somersaulted away, landing on her feet. If Burke knew anything about earth-dragon anatomy, the tip of her sword was now resting in the center of Charkon's liver. The earth-dragon's eye rolled up in its socket and his grip slackened.
Burke dropped to the ground, remaining on his feet for a full three seconds before he toppled over in agony. Ah, yes. Right femur, definitely broken. He hit the ground hard, blood speckling the white snow before him. His spectacles landed nearby with the unpleasant tinkle made by dancing shards of broken glass.
He could no longer see anything but blurs beyond the length of his arm. Ragnar's men were cheering. From people shouting back and forth, he surmised that the last of the earth-dragons had been slain, and Shandrazel's army was in full retreat. Mankind had won this day. Perhaps, if his internal bleeding didn't finish him off, he'd give out a cheer of his own when he woke up.
For now, he settled on allowing the ghost of a grin to flicker across his lips. He closed his eyes as the sound of cheering faded. He was only barely aware of Anza's hands on his face, increasingly lost to all sensation but the cool and gentle kisses of snow flakes melting on his cheeks.
Jandra clung tightly as Hex glided across the snowscape. The winter storm had stopped midday, leaving the world draped with a blanket of white. It was such a peaceful scene, it almost made her forget they were flying toward a war zone.
After they'd made the long trek through the underground to escape Jazz's kingdom, she'd convinced Hex to return to the Nest. Bitterwood had refused to accompany them. He'd remained behind with Zeeky and Jeremiah, saying the children should not be left to face the world alone, despite Zeeky's insistence that she wasn't alone… her parents still spoke to her through the crystal ball.
Upon returning to the Nest, they'd learned of the invasion of Dragon Forge, and of Shandrazel's plan to retake the fort. Now they were heading for the town, or, rather, for Shandrazel's encampment.
Jandra felt introspective. The world below her seemed sculpted from cotton, a soft world with soft edges. The only unpleasant thing about the scene was the stench-even unseen in the distance, the foundries of Dragon Forge filled the air with their fumes.
'Bodies are being burnt,' Hex said as he smelled the smoke. 'I expect we'll find that Shandrazel has already retaken the forge.'
Jandra suspected that's what they'd find as well.
'That will be one less problem to worry about then,' said Jandra. 'When I left the palace, I had three big worries: who took Vendevorex's corpse, where could I find Bitterwood and Zeeky, and what was Blasphet up to?'
'Now you know the answers to two out of three of these. This isn't so bad.'
'But I still have two missing bodies to worry about. Since they didn't find Blasphet's body, I think the Sisters of the Serpent must have taken it. Are they planning to worship his corpse?'
'I don't know much about religions, but could even humans be so irrational as to worship a disfigured corpse?'
'Maybe. And since Ven's body vanished around the same time that Blasphet's worshippers were freeing him, I can't help but think there's some connection. Since we never did learn the location of Blasphet's temple, that's going to be the second item on my list of problems to tackle after we make sure this Dragon Forge situation is under control.'
'What's the first item?'
'My old tiara,' said Jandra. 'It's still sitting unguarded and unlocked back in the palace. I'd hate for it to wind up in the wrong hands.'
'We won't tarry long at Dragon Forge,' said Hex. 'Shandrazel may not be a warrior by nature, but he's certainly smart enough to squash a human uprising on his own.'
Jandra frowned. Something about Hex's tone made it seem like he felt that humans were naturally less intelligent than dragons. 'Don't underestimate mankind. One thing that Jazz's implanted memories have shown me is that men didn't wind up in subservience to dragons overnight. Humans might have ruled the world if Jazz hadn't been actively working to cripple them. If she hadn't killed everyone who knew how to make gunpowder, for instance, the world would no doubt look very different.'
'What's gunpowder?' Hex asked.
Jandra furrowed her brow at the question. She was frequently beset by these moments of cryptomnesia. Odd bits of knowledge flashed through her awareness as her brain endeavored to catalogue Jazz's forced memories.
'I'm not sure,' she said, as Hex flapped his wings to lift them higher. The winter wind bit into her bare cheeks. The cold helped pull her back into here and now; she had fallen too easily into daydreams since Jazz had altered her mind. 'It's so frustrating. It's like parts of my brain aren't talking to each other. I know that Jazz thought that gunpowder was dangerous, and spent centuries killing any human who knew how to make it. I have another memory of what it looks like and the chemical formulation. But these memories are just hanging there, disconnected. I'm not even certain what a gun is, or why you'd want to powder one! I have no idea if it would change the world or not.'
Hex's shoulders stiffened ever so slightly as Jandra spoke. She'd grown quite sensitive to his reactions as she'd ridden him. She could sense his emotions in the subtle movements of his muscles beneath her thighs.
'What?' she asked.
Hex started to speak, then stopped.
'What?' she asked again.
'If an individual is nothing more than the sum of their memories, what will happen if Jazz's memories ever fully take root within you? Will you become her?'
'That's crazy,' Jandra said. 'I still have my own memories. I'm still Vendevorex's daughter first and foremost. I'm not going to forget that.'
'But you aren't Vendevorex's daughter, not in truth,' said Hex. 'How can you trust your memories when the central memory of your life is so…' Hex paused, searching for the right word, '… so edited.'
'That's a very diplomatic way of putting it,' said Jandra. 'I know the truth, but I choose not to dwell on it. I know that Vendevorex killed my true family, though Jazz thought that I might still have a surviving brother. But I'm making the choice to remember the good things I got from Ven: self sufficiency, discipline, and compassion. So, yes, I suppose I am editing my memories.'
'Perhaps,' said Hex, 'in the end, it's not what we remember that defines us, but what we willingly forget.'
'Spoken like a true warrior-philosopher,' said Jandra.
On the horizon, the town of Dragon Forge was a dark blot on the white landscape. The chimneys belched black
