to call back and forth.
'Burke!' someone yelled.
'Burke,' others echoed.
'Burke's ghost!' a voice shouted.
Burke grimaced. Convincing men he wasn't dead while floating a yard above the well could be tricky. But he still wasn't planning to land. He patiently reloaded the shotgun. Anza folded her wings back into the disk and drew her tomahawks. She stood in a stance that was both relaxed and impatient. Men began to cautiously step into the streets.
Vance followed her lead. He folded up his wings and drew his sky-wall bow, placing an arrow against the string and waiting, watching. Beside him Jeremiah drew Vulpine's knife, but kept his wings spread wide.
A moment behind them, Poocher and Thorny drifted down from the sky. Poocher let out a small grunt; all four of his cleft hooves touched the rim of his well at once. He stood next to Jeremiah. The pig also left his wings open. Burke wondered if he knew how to close them.
Thorny folded his wings in while his feet were still a foot above the well. He let out a loud 'oof' as he landed. He looked up at Burke and said, 'I'm your friend, and I'd die for you, but I'll be damned if I'm ever going to fly for you again. I'm giving my wings to Bitterwood next chance I get.'
'I don't think he needs them,' said Burke as he finished loading the shotgun.
'No man needs these things,' Thorny grumbled.
'Is it my imagination, or are you in a bad mood?'
'I feel like a cranky baby. Sixty is too old to be teething again.' To show what he meant, he pulled back his lips and revealed his gums. Where once there had been more gaps than teeth, there were now freshly minted chompers, ten times whiter than the old teeth that surrounded them.
By now, the square around the well was filling. The crowd was full of men shouting Burke's name-not cheering him, or greeting him: merely announcing his presence to others.
Burke looked down the avenue to the red brick house at the end.
He clenched his jaw as the door opened.
VULPINE WAS IN the habit of waking at dawn. In the quietness of the morning, he pondered the words he'd said to Balikan only a few weeks before. The world was in no danger of running out of days, or years. Yet, Vulpine was keenly aware that he was not the world. His body possessed a sluggishness in the chill of the morning that reminded him that his youth had long since vanished.
His kettle whistled upon the small oil burner. He picked it up, welcoming the warmth of the wire handle in his stiff fore-talon. He poured the oily brown contents into a tin cup. He sniffed it, savoring the complex sharpness of the odor. The soup was a mix of shaved barks, roots, and organs. The bark of the willow tree was especially bitter, but there was no questioning that it soothed the aching of his muscles. The root of the sassafras offset the bitterness somewhat with a medicinal tang and a touch of sweetness that prodded his thoughts into clarity on cool mornings. Alligator testicles, dried and powdered, ensured his continued virility and gave the whole mix a musky bouquet and salty aftertaste.
He crouched by a low table and sipped his morning medicine, reading the letter that had been delivered yesterday by Chapelion's messengers. He ground his teeth at Chapelion's incompetence. More of the aerial guard had abandoned the palace. Some new charismatic prophet had apparently established a base in the Free City and was drawing a following of both humans and dragons. Worse, Cragg, the beastialist who had inherited Rorg's abode, had announced that his tribe was seceding from the rest of the kingdom. There were reports that Verteniel, who oversaw the coastal abode that included the Isle of Horses, was prepared to do the same. This had always been the true danger of the empty throne-not that the other sun-dragons would try to conquer the kingdom, but that they would simply decide they could manage the affairs of their own small fiefdoms better without the interference of a king.
Faced with all this bad news, he welcomed the interruption when Sagen pushed aside the flap to his tent.
'Sir? May I speak with you?'
'Please come in,' said Vulpine. He motioned toward the kettle. 'May I offer you a cup of my daily elixir?'
Sagen's nose wrinkled as he contemplated the oily fluid.
'I promise it grows on you,' said Vulpine.
'Breakfast can wait. I was awakened with news only moments ago. I felt it was important that I consult with you at once. There's been… activity… at Dragon Forge,' said Sagen, sounding hesitant in his choice of words.
'So they've poked their heads out again after yesterday's bombardment?'
The skin around Sagen's eyes bunched up as if he were pondering how to say his next sentence. 'There are reports that the blockade has been breached, sir.'
Vulpine sighed. 'Let me guess. The earth-dragons got so twisted on goom they fell asleep at their posts and let more refugees into the fort.'
'No sir,' said Sagen. 'It was breached by the air. By angels.'
Vulpine tilted his head, not quite certain he'd heard this correctly. 'Angels,' Vulpine said calmly. 'Men with wings.'
Sagen nodded. 'And a pig.'
'A pig?'
'Yes sir.'
'With wings?'
'Yes sir.'
Vulpine closed his eyes and rubbed his brow with his fore-talon. His scales felt especially dry this morning. Sagen, as a product of his bloodline, was designed to be among the most sane and intelligent dragons who'd ever flown above the earth. He was certain his son wasn't deranged. So, angels. And why not? He'd never believed in their reality, but the Ballad of Belpantheron spoke of them, and there had reportedly been an angel who'd come to the defense of the Nest during the recent nastiness with Blasphet. Perhaps that angel still lingered in the area, along with a friend or two.
'How many?' he asked, opening his eyes.
'Counting the pig?'
'I don't see why not.'
'Six. The pig, a woman, and four men, ranging in age from a boy to a wizened old man.'
Vulpine took a sip of the hot elixir. He swished it around on his tongue for a moment, allowing the heat in his mouth a few extra seconds to warm his brain.
'Who reported the sighting?'
'Arifiel.'
'Ah,' said Vulpine. He didn't especially like the female, but she'd shown no tendency toward exaggeration or fantasy.
'Her sighting was confirmed by a score of earth-dragons, though given the weakness of their vision I'm not certain we can give much credence there.'
'The word of Arifiel is enough,' Vulpine said. 'It's an odd development, I'll grant you, but we'll manage it. I'm familiar enough with human mythology to know they associate angels with death. Perhaps they're harbingers that the end is near.'
'Is the end near, sir?' asked Sagen. 'Many of the guard have noticed the lack of activity within the fort in recent days. The walls are practically undefended. We could be at the town center within minutes. Why must we tarry?'
Vulpine started to mention the wheeled-bows and the guns as good reasons, but held his tongue. He looked at the correspondence before him. Had he miscalculated the greater danger? He thought he was keeping chaos from spreading by containing Dragon Forge. But what if, by focusing on the few square miles of earth within the circle of the blockade, he was ignoring the greater danger at his back? What if they won Dragon Forge, but lost the kingdom?
'Summon Arifiel and Sawface,' said Vulpine. 'Let us hold a council of war.'
'Why Sawface? You know his opinion. He will want to charge the walls of the city and rip the limbs from every living thing he encounters.'
'True,' said Vulpine. 'And I'm intrigued to see if I can find any reason to argue against his doing so. Have them
