She cocked her head, trying to make sense of what she saw. It looked like a second city, but her study of maps of the area hadn't revealed a city there before. Was this the Free City? She'd heard that was abandoned.
The earth-dragons and ox-dogs surrounded the base of the statue. The ox-dogs were too bulky to climb up the statue's neck to reach her. One of the bolder earth-dragons looked ready to make the attempt. She loosed a throwing knife. It shot like an arrow to the exact spot on the stone that the dragon's thick claw was about to grasp, throwing up bright sparks. The earth-dragon pulled back and cast a wary eye toward her.
Anza looked up. Her true target wasn't the earth-dragons or the ox-dogs. A sky-dragon dove at her, a valkyrie judging from the armor. In her hind-talons she carried a spear nearly twenty feet long, with the point on a path that would stab right into Anza's heart.
Anza counted the seconds, her legs tensing until the last possible instant.
She leapt up, slapping the tip of the spear down and to the side. The shaft painlessly slid along her rib cage and hips. At the apex of her leap, she closed her fingers, clamping onto the sky-dragon's leg.
Her feet jerked from the statue. The sudden weight sent the valkyrie into a spin. Anza held on with all her might as the world whirled around her. The dragon fell at a sharp angle, beating her wings furiously to regain control. Anza tucked her legs up as they dashed past the tips of the trees that lined the river. The dragon carried her out over the dark water and she let go. She tumbled through the air and smacked into the water with the full surface of her back, her arms and legs outstretched. It was the most painful landing possible, but it wasn't fatal. She sank beneath the icy water, breathless from the impact.
She kicked, driving herself further downriver, struggling to stay below the surface. Her lungs were burning. White stars danced before her eyes. At last, she could take no more. She rose to the surface, turning to her back, floating gently upward so that only the tip of her face broke the water. She drew in a long silent breath as she scanned the sky. Dragons were everywhere. She plunged below the surface again, kicking hard to get as close to the bottom as possible. She wanted to leave no ripples that they might follow.
The current was strong, lending her speed, but she was swimming blind. She had no way of knowing how far she'd come. She swam until she couldn't help herself. She had to surface again. This time, she rose with much less grace and control. She'd pressed too far. Her heart felt full of needles. She splashed to the surface, gasping loudly. She fumbled to free a knife from her belt, but it fell from her trembling fingers. She tried to catch it but the sudden motion plunged her face underwater.
She inhaled a chilling lungful of icy liquid. She grew still, trying to calm herself, letting the buoyancy of her body carry her upward. She lay immobile at the surface, drifting, her nose barely above water. She wanted to swim for shore, but anytime she tried to turn her head she sank back beneath the river.
She closed her eyes, feeling numb. Water washed into her throat. She coughed violently, her limbs flailing uselessly in an attempt to find something solid to grab.
She forgot where she was or why she was so cold and closed her eyes again.
A HAND WRAPPED around her wrist. Her eyes fluttered open as she was dragged through shallow water across smooth river rocks. Her rescuer was a woman about her own age, dressed in a long white robe that was wet from the knees down. Anza coughed again, so violently that she pulled her arm free of her rescuer. She rolled over onto her belly on the stony bank and coughed up water. Her coughing triggered something deeper inside her and she started to vomit, bringing up teaspoons of clear, pale, bitter fluid. In the aftermath, she lay on the uneven stones, completely empty. All her life her father had trained her to treat her body as a machine. She knew how to push it the limits of its engineering. Her muscles and bones composed a finely-tuned master clockwork. Now her gears were stripped. She couldn't even lift a finger.
'Poor thing,' the girl who had pulled her from the river said as she squatted next to her. She placed a hand under Anza's shoulder and rolled her to her back. 'We have to get you back on your feet. If you don't keep moving, you'll freeze. You'll go to sleep and never wake up.'
Anza found this thought acceptable. Her eyes closed. It would feel good to drift off peacefully, never to-
SLAP!
For a half-second, Anza wondered about the source of the sound. Her ice-cold skin was numb. She dimly felt the pressure of the blow on her cheek but no actual pain. Slowly, a tingling set in, as if her cheek were being stung by a thousand bees.
She lifted her hand to her cheek, rubbing it.
This small motion wore her out. She noticed fingers lingering near her face. The fingertips were pale white and puckered. Were they hers? She dropped her arm back to her side, and released a long, shuddering breath as her eyes closed once more.
Anza's eyes snapped open. The girl had her hand raised, preparing to strike a third blow. Instinctively, Anza caught the girl's hand as it raced toward her face.
She sat up, giving the girl a stern glower.
'Sorry,' the girl said. 'Can you stay awake now? Do you think you can stand?'
Anza shook her head. She was surprised she was even sitting. The white-robed woman moved behind her and wrapped her arms around her torso, lifting her. Anza found her footing and was soon standing on wobbling legs. The girl draped Anza's arm across her shoulders to support her.
'My goodness,' her rescuer said, looking down at Anza's buckskin clad body. 'You certainly have a lot of knives.'
Anza shrugged.
'I'm Colobi,' the girl said. Anza looked more closely at her rescuer. She was shorter than Anza and a bit heavier, with large breasts and plump shoulders. Her hair hung loosely around her face, so blonde it was almost white. Colobi's face was flawless as porcelain, without a scar or blemish. Her eyes were a bright, crisp blue.
'Let's try walking,' said Colobi, taking a step forward.
Anza strained to move her feet. She had to look down to see if they moved. She really couldn't feel much save for the two burning suns in her cheek where Colobi had slapped her.
'What's your name?' Colobi asked.
Anza made no effort to answer. She focused on putting one leg in front of the other as they slowly walked away from the dark river.
ANZA REGAINED CONTROL of her legs by the time they reached the Free City. The town was surrounded by a palisade of logs. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tents had been erected by the road leading to the gates. Anza sniffed the air. There were earth-dragons nearby, a lot of them, as well as humans. She tried to remember everything she knew about the Free City, but her head still felt stuffed with snow. She did remember, however, that the place had been abandoned in the aftermath of the attempted genocide within its walls. So who were all these people?
A tent flap lifted and a sky-dragon stepped out. The sky-dragon looked straight toward them and raised a fore- talon in a gesture of greeting. 'Good evening, sister,' the sky-dragon said. 'I see you've found an injured soul.'
'I pulled her from the river, brother,' said Colobi. 'I think she's the one the aerial guards were hunting.'
Anza pulled free of Colobi, stunned by this betrayal. She raised her hand to the scabbard on her back. Her fingers were still too numb to grasp the sword.
She shoved her fingers beneath her armpits to try to warm them.
'There's no need for alarm,' the sky-dragon said, shifting half his body back into the tent. 'No one will betray you. Everyone is welcome here, human or dragon, no matter your past. I was once a tatterwing, surviving as a bandit, until the healer found me. He repaired my body and then charged me with the duty to repair my soul.' The dragon pulled back from the tent carrying a heavy quilt. He approached Anza and draped it over her shoulders.
Anza frowned, her body tensing. Was this some trick? Through sheer will, she commanded her fingers to move again, opening and closing as blood flowed back into them. The bones of her fingers ached.
'I can see you're skeptical,' said the sky-dragon. 'You'll see the truth once you meet the healer.'
