“Oh my, these could be my ruby slippers!”
Tracking Malice proved difficult, despite his size. The massive dragon leaped and bounded and shifted through buildings like it was a ghost, leaving a shattered trail. Wolf chafed at the slower speeds that others traveled, but True Flame would not relent, and Wolf had to acknowledge that the older elf had battle experience, where he did not.
The trail led up the Monongalia River valley to beyond the Rim, and then disappeared without a trace.
“There is something wrong here,” Wraith whispered to Wolf as his Hand gathered close. “Smell the blood?”
Wolf gazed at the still, boulder strewn forest around them. There was a slight blurring to the trees, as if a mist hazed the air. He would not have noticed it if the sekasha hadn’t called his attention to it. Pulling out a survey map for the area, he confirmed his suspicions.
“I think this might be an oni encampment, covered by an illusion.”
The sekasha pulled their ejae, readying themselves for a possible ambush.
Forest Moss did a ground scry, took a few steps and repeated it several times until he stopped beside an ironwood sapling. “Wolf Who Rules, break this tree.”
Wolf aimed a force strike at the sapling and unleashed it.
The sapling vanished when the leading edge of his blow struck it. A tall square stone, inscribed with spells, replaced the sapling for a heartbeat before disintegrating into rubble. An oni camp sprang into being around them. The boulders changed into rough cabins. Mossy logs became well-gnawed humanoid carcasses. Blood soaked the ground and everywhere was dragon tracks.
“All the magic flowed toward the sapling.” Forest Moss nudged the remains of the crude oni spell stone.
The sekasha moved out to search the cabins.
“Malice has wallowed in magic and feasted on oni.” True Flame used his sword tip to point out that the skulls were horned. “Maybe it slipped its bonds, like the little one did.”
“There were no spell markings on Malice.” Wolf wondered too the significance of the dragon’s name. Tinker had called Impatience ‘hyper.’ If the dragon’s names reflected a personality, perhaps one named Malice needed no prodding to wreak havoc.
“I am not sure what the other beast is, but there is no mistake here, this is an oni dragon.” True Flame pointed out a four-toed print in the dirt. “The little beast has five claws like the hand of an elf.”
Red Knife reported for the sekasha, saying that the cabins were empty of oni and any evidence of what they planned. “There were, though, a hundred oni here only hours ago.”
“It is a good thing that we delayed, then.” Earth Son earned a sharp look from even his First, Thorne Scratch. “We would have had to face both oni and the dragon at the same time.”
Instead both had vanished away after having time to lay cooperative plans.
The dragon tracks led down to the river.
Earth Son made a sound of disgust, eyeing muddy water. “None of us will be able to track it in that.”
“If Malice was sent by the oni on Onihida to distract us, then he will circle back to the city and attack.” Wolf was glad that Jewel Tears was protecting the enclaves. While the Stone Clan was weak on attack spells, they had the strongest defensive spells. “We should return.”
True Flame nodded.
Tinker and Jin found a working computer station and with some jury rigging managed to get her state-of-art camera interfaced with the two decade old systems.
“I recorded about six hours so this is going to take a while.” Tinker started the play back.
“…we’ll build a dictionary of his words,” her recorded voice started out the recording. Cloudwalker had been filming the dragon but having trouble tracking it as it moved through the scrapyard’s offices.
“Riki says the dragon’s name is Impatience,” Tinker said, “but Riki has lied to me — a lot.”
Jin attention was on the recording. He nothing but he frowned slightly at this.
“…mmmenananannaaaaaaapoooookaaaammmammamamyyyyyyaaanananammmmoooo…” Impatience rambled on the recording.
“I’m not familiar with the name.” Jin paused the recording after another minute of the dragon’s monologue. “Dragons usually use a lot of words to say anything. Like ‘a pleasantly warm but not too warm, sunny, cloudless, time of the day that isn’t dawn but the sun hasn’t quite reached its zenith’ for good morning. It considered rude to get to the point too quickly. When you talk to a dragon, you’re supposed to elaborate as much as possible.”
“Dragon Etiquette 101?” Tinker asked.
“Historically, rude tengu are dragon snacks. This dragon, however, is being very to the point. He might come across as impatient to other dragons, which would explain his name.”
“So you understand him.”
“Yes, so far he’s said ‘what is this object? Oh, this moves. Ah, it makes light. I wonder how. This part twists. What are these? I see. It does not work without those. Why does it not make light? Have I broken it? It seemed as if it was suppose to come apart. A diagram. I must have them backwards. Ha, ha, ha.”
“Yeah, I got the laughing part.”
A female astronaut flew into the cabin with tengu grace, “Wai Szi is awake and wants to see the scarecrow.”
The tiny tengu woman was awake and looking surprisingly well compared to how awful she had been before. She gasped as Tinker swam into the infirmary. “Oh my, you are here! Oh, look at you! You’re so beautiful.”
Tinker blushed. As a female elf in a deep jewel red silk dress in zero gee, she was attracting a lot of attention from the crew. “It’s the dress.”
“Ah, yes, it not so practical in space, is it, my dear? Xiao Chen, can you find her something to wear?”
Xiao Chen had been the crewmember that summoned them to Gracie’s side. The tengu female nodded, cocking her head to study Tinker’s size before moving off, graceful as a bird in flight.
Jin looked at Tinker as if noticing the silk flowing around her for the first time and then smiled. “I don’t know. It’s good for morale. At least with the guys.”
Tinker smacked him and found herself floating backwards.
He laughed, and caught Tinker before she could hit something. “I am only joking.”
“Shoo, shoo!” Gracie shooed Jin away. “I want to talk to her without your noisy squawking.”
Jin smiled fondly at his cousin and flew away.
Gracie held out her unbroken hand to Tinker. “Let me look at you.” Gracie had tears in her eyes, which Tinker expected, but not the brilliant smile that the fragile tengu bestowed on her. Tinker found herself smiling back. “You’ve got Leo’s eyes and his smile.”
“Yeah, I guess. The patented Dufae face.”
“I’m so happy to see it. It hurt so much that I hadn’t been able to give Leo a baby. It made losing him all the more horrible. He was a wonderful, wonderful man and he was utterly gone.”
It occurred to Tinker for the first time how awful to lose your husband — never see him again — and a sudden fear took root in her. What if she couldn’t get back to Windwolf? What if she never saw him again?
“There, there, my love.” Gracie wiped Tinker’s tears away. “We’ll get you back to him somehow.”
“Yeah, I know, we’re working on it.” Tinker sniffed.
“Let me see your leg. I know Jin, he probably didn’t think to clean that cut. He might be Dalai Lama of the crows, but he’s hopeless with first aid.”
Gracie deftly took off the bandage, gently cleaned the wound and applied an antiseptic and re-bandaged the cut.