Jean Rabe - Redemption

The creature’s leathery wings beat strong and steady as it climbed into the night sky and cut its course against a violent wind. The full moon illuminated a manticore easily the size of a hatchling dragon. It had the body and coloration of a lion, a disconcertingly human-looking visage, and a long, ropy tail ending in a clump of deadly spikes. Without warning the manticore threw back its head and roared, an eerie sound that sliced through the howling wind and sent shivers down its three passengers’ spines.

Dhamon Grimwulf sat just behind the head of the manticore, wedged with Fiona between two of the spikes that ran the length of the creature’s back. He leaned as far to his right as safe and practical, avoiding the manticore’s flailing mane, but the wind stung his eyes and caused the ragged garment’s sleeves to billow and snap like a sail. He thought the wind oddly warm, despite it being early fall and so late at night, and despite their flying at least forty feet above the tallest trees of the black dragon’s swamp.

Fiona’s breath was warmer still, and gentler, against his neck. The Solamnic Knight’s arms were wrapped around his waist, her chest pressed tight against his back. She spoke into his ear.

“I must buy a fine gown for my wedding, Dhamon. When we reach a city… it won’t be long until we reach a city, will it?”

Never mind, Fiona, that you haven’t a single steel piece in your pocket, Dhamon thought, or that there will be no wedding. Your beloved Rig is dead, and you are mad. You and I saw him die an arm’s length away.

“My mother always told me I look best in blue,” she added.

“Colors don’t matter, lady. Only thing that matters right now is that this damnable beast is flying too fast.” The grumbling came from Ragh, the sivak draconian who was perched precariously behind the Knight. “Much too fast in this strong of a wind.”

He repeated his complaint twice more, getting no reply—either because Dhamon or Fiona didn’t care or couldn’t hear his whispery-hoarse voice above the wind and the beast’s noisily flapping wings. The draconian was clearly distraught, and his legs were growing numb because he had them clenched so tight around the manticore’s haunches. Ragh dug his stubby claws in for good measure, feeling the manticore’s coarse hide ripple in protest. The creature roared again.

“And we’re too damnably high.”

Though most sivaks could fly—they were the only draconians who could naturally do so—Ragh had lost his wings to a cruel punishment and had no desire to see if he could survive a fall from this lofty position.

He kept his eyes trained on the back of Dhamon’s head, sucked in a deep breath, and tried to calm himself—fighting the sensation that his stomach was rising into his throat. After nearly an hour had passed and the air had cooled a little, the draconian indeed managed to relax—if only slightly. He decided to chance a brief look below. Peering at the darkness underneath that marked the weave of cypress branches, Ragh spotted a gap in the foliage and through this caught a glimpse of a silver ribbon, which was the moon reflecting off a river tributary. There wasn’t much more of the swamp to clear now.

Training his eyes to the west—the direction in which they were headed—Ragh spotted what looked like a pane of black glass, which was the New Sea. Beyond it, barely visible, stretched the wrinkled landscape of the Eastwall Mountains of Abanasinia. A bank of pale gray clouds hung above the peaks like a mantle, and yellow threads of lightning flickered inside the clouds.

Far beneath them, Ragh sensed something worse than a storm brewing. There’d been a prickling at the back of his scaly neck ever since they had left the ground, his uneasiness growing worse by the minute. He’d told Dhamon right away, but Dhamon said he didn’t detect anything. That was better than an hour ago now. They certainly seemed to be all alone up here, high in the sky. Nothing was around to bother them.

Still, Ragh took another glance down, this time after several minutes spotting… something… his eyes were far too keen to play tricks on him. There was something there, something definite paralleling their movement, a black shape amidst the darkness of the tree tops. No, two shapes. Maybe three. Definitely three. But everything was too murky, and they were moving too fast to make out details, save that the “somethings” had wings and were sizeable.

Perhaps he should shout to Dhamon Grimwulf and Fiona that he’d seen… something. Shout that something definitely didn’t look right about the shapes following them. He was certain he could be heard above the wind and the wings if he truly wanted to be heard. Perhaps the manticore should dive and hide in the uppermost canopy of the swamp rather than cut through the open sky where there was no cover.

“Fiona,” he growled. “We might have company. Fiona?”

No reply.

“Dhamon?” Ragh persisted. Perhaps the shapes were nothing more than a few giant owls, coincidentally headed in the same direction. Or perhaps the strong wind might be tossing the branches a certain way to create shadowy illusions. He craned his neck around Fiona’s slender shoulders. Dhamon had his head thrown back and was letting the wind rush across his face, enjoying the ride in the way Ragh used to enjoy flying when he had wings. If Dhamon—with all of his preternaturally sharp senses—was not at all concerned, the draconian told himself, then he needn’t be concerned either. But… he did see something.

Or did he? Ragh squinted and blinked away the tears caused by the wind, stared downward, trying to again find the shapes. There was nothing there now. He stared for several minutes. Nothing but treetops.

So… no reason to alert Dhamon after all. No reason to be dismissed as a worrier, chided about his nerves.

The sivak sighed and withdrew his claws from the manticore’s hide, placing them lightly around Fiona’s waist. Then, like Dhamon, he canted his head back, closed his eyes, and let the wind stream across his angular, silver face.

Dhamon had heard the draconian, had also heard Fiona say something about Rig. He ignored them both. He was trusting that the manticore knew the way to Southern Ergoth, to the Solamnic outpost on its western shore where he wanted to deposit Fiona. The female Knight had slipped into madness following Rig’s recent death in the black dragon’s city, and Dhamon realized she needed someone to tend to her.

He considered himself neither qualified nor obligated to do so. Still, he knew that no matter how insensitive he’d been to people lately he couldn’t simply abandon her. And so, this aerial voyage.

“Rig’s dead, Fiona,” he said, as much to himself as to her. Dead and likely filling the bellies of the foul creatures on display in the city. He doubted the black dragon’s lackeys went to the trouble of burying anyone. Dhamon had never truly considered Rig a friend, at least not a close one, but he had respected the mariner and he had, in grudging fashion, admired him, at times envied him. The mariner’s death sat uneasily on his conscience, as if there was something he could have done to prevent it. One more departed companion to add to Dhamon’s list. To know me is to risk death, he grimly mused.

Dhamon sighed and breathed deep of the air, which was cooling as they flew farther and rose higher away from the heart of the black dragon’s realm. He realized some part of him was relishing this crazy ride. It reminded him of the times he was paired with a blue dragon in the Dark Knights’ army. He rode that swift dragon at every opportunity, reveling in flying high above the world, feeling cocooned by the air, the wind, the clouds, and the sky.