“Zaarusha!” Ezaara’s scream died as the last man fell to the earth.
Tharuks closed in, red eyes gleaming.
With a roar, Zaarusha wheeled in midair, her wingtip sweeping a tharuk off its feet. It tumbled down the slope in a flurry of gathering snow, limbs flying.
“Get to Lush Valley Settlement,” the tharuk leader bellowed, spinning to face the queen, claws out.
Three beasts fled down the mountain toward Western Settlement and Lush Valley.
Five men dead. Ezaara pulsed with rage. “Let me kill one.”
“No, that man needs your help.”
Ezaara snapped her head around. Her healer’s pouch. She could help.
Zaarusha threw another tharuk off the slope and swooped in for the leader.
A jolt of pain ripped through Ezaara. But it wasn’t her—it was Zaarusha. “Are you all right?” Ezaara asked.
“Fine,” Zaarusha snarled, ripping the tharuk’s body in two. Black blood sprayed over the snow. His body thudded down the slope in the wake of the fleeing tharuk trio.
They landed, and Ezaara undid the straps, scrambling out of the saddle.
Rushing to the man’s side, she knelt by him. She took his wrist, feeling his heartbeat, where the blood pulsed weakly over his bone. His chest was a bloody mess, making a wet sucking noise every time he breathed. The poor man. There was nothing she could do for him, except ease his passing. Ezaara raised his head and shoulders, resting them on her knees.
His eyelids fluttered and he groaned.
“Here, chew this.” She placed some arnica flowers in his mouth. “They’ll taste awful, but will help the pain.”
He ground the flowers between gritted teeth. “My wife …” It was barely a moan. “My littlings …”
His jaw fell slack, shreds of arnica petals still on his tongue. His head lolled to the side.
Oh, gods. Ezaara folded the man’s hands over his chest and laid his head to rest in the snow. Her eyes burned. She swiped at stray tears. “Zaarusha, I couldn’t save him.”
Throat tight, she went to the other men, checking them. All dead. The snow was a mass of churned black and red, scattered with chunks of wood and bodies of men and beasts. “We’d better clean up.” Only a few hours’ flight from Lush Valley, and they were already burying people.
Ezaara gestured at the men. “They were guarding the pass. This wood must’ve been for a beacon fire to warn Western Settlement of an attack. Some of those tharuks have slipped through. We have to go back and warn my people.”
“We can’t go back,” Zaarusha replied. “I’ll tell the blue guards—the riders and dragons who protect this part of the realm.”
“Dragons don’t protect Lush Valley.”
“Why do you think no tharuks have ever come over the Grande Alps before?”
Klaus was so wrong. Dragons didn’t destroy at all. The very dragons he’d despised had kept them safe—unseen, beyond the chain of alps that encircled Lush Valley’s wide basin—protecting the three villages cradled within: Southern Settlement, Lush Valley Settlement and Western Settlement.
“Let’s light that beacon fire.” Ezaara frowned. “Will people know what it means?”
Zaarusha replied, “Your father, Hans, will.”
“First, we’ll bury these men.”
“We could give them a funeral pyre,” Zaarusha suggested.
“No, their families need to be able to find them.”
Zaarusha dug a grave and Ezaara buried the men, shoveling icy dirt into the hole with numb hands. She found stones for a cairn, and plucked a pine branch, wedging it between the stones as a marker. If only she could’ve done more.
Ezaara dragged a log back up to the pass, adding it to what was left of the warriors’ wood pile. Zaarusha ripped out dead trees and flew them up. Ezaara could’ve left the queen to collect the wood, but the burn of her muscles and the ache in her limbs paid tribute to these men who’d tried to protect the pass.
Bit by bit, the pile grew.
“That’s enough, Ezaara,” Zaarusha said. “It’ll be dark soon. Once I light this wood, the beacon will be seen for miles.”
Ezaara wiped her brow, wrinkling her nose. The stench of tharuks made her gag, and the sight of them turned her stomach. “What are they? That black blood and rotten stench—they’re unnatural.”
“Years ago, a powerful mage opened a world gate and let Commander Zens into Dragons’ Realm,” Zaarusha said. A vicious face loomed in Ezaara’s mind. She tried to block it out, but Zens’ enormous yellow eyes followed her. “Zens created an army of tharuks, without breeding them—the way we take a cutting to grow a plant. They do whatever he commands. They catch and enslave our folk and use plant extracts to make slaves submit to Zens’ will.” Zaarusha shared memories of tharuks in mining pits, whipping slaves who were only half alive—thin shells with deadened faces.
Ezaara shuddered. “Throw the beasts on the fire, too. Erase every trace of them. This is not a funeral pyre to honor them—just their wretched bodies providing fuel to warn our people.”
“My pleasure.” A ripple of feral satisfaction radiated from Zaarusha.
When the fire was blazing, Ezaara clambered back into the saddle. Her back and arms ached and her feet were numb.
“Come, it’s been a tough first day,” Zaarusha melded. “I know a place where we can rest.”
Gripping the saddle, Ezaara closed her eyes, but couldn’t erase the images of the body-strewn snow. “We have to fight these beasts. Stop them slaughtering our people.”
“I know, Ezaara,” Zaarusha said, “that’s why I need you.” Flipping her wings, she flew along the ridge. “Eighteen years ago, my last rider, Anakisha, my mate Syan, and his rider were lost in battle.”
Zaarusha shared a memory.
Zaarusha was wounded, roaring. Her rider slipped from her saddle and
