Agnize

::: subchapter As the knife plummeted, my hope fell with it. I hung there on the net for a few beats and then Adwyn arrived. He didn't glance at me; he unsheathed a short blade. In a half-dozen quick, precise swipes, he slashed at the netting. But instead of trying to cut all the way through like me, he resheathed the sword, gripped netting and pulled. It came right apart, and Adwyn had flown through before my eyes unclouded. I flapped after him, frills folded, tail coiled. Glancing behind me, the flock of guards had reached the nets. But they didn't all try to squeeze through Adwyn's hole, they just followed his example, without swords, ripping the net with their claws. I turned away, looking for the thieves and finding them, after moments of scanning, both flying low over the town. Nothing much had changed, aside from my falling behind Adwyn --- about five or six wingbeats --- and thieves now having a crushing lead on us: they were more than thirty wings in front of Adwyn. Our flight lead us over the cliffs, then back toward the town. The valleys between the cliffs grew wider, the streets filthier, the dragons walking and winging below browner. It all looked familiar enough, even coming from this direction; I flew around this part of town enough times going to the Sgrôli ac Neidr every evening. I gained on Adwyn, and we both gained on the thieves --- even with the gliders, they couldn't outfly us. It was long moments of threshing --- I even heard the third short ring echo below us. The thieves were flagging, flying lower and lower. Then they dropped out of the sky all together, landing somewhere among the dustone and bamboo buildings. Laughing, I let a fanged grin play across my face. They were done. Dragons flew so much faster in the air than we can hobble across the ground. They couldn't escape us now. Adwyn dove down before me, and I followed him, and togetherffff we glided the thieves' sudden drop and found them low-walking to a basalt house with flaky windows and dented bamboo door. I knew this house --- the librarian lived here. My eyes flicked back to the thieves. They weren't even high-walking! What were they doing! By the time we lighted down behind them, the thieves had reached the house. I stared, wondering what they wanted with the librarian's house. When they reached the stairwall to the high porch, they leapt its height. Atop the porch, one thief pounded heavy, cracking knocks against the black bamboo while another called out into the house, but we were just far enough away to not make out what. They glanced back, saw our approach, and their knocking became more panicked. Adwyn was leaping to the porch. Had we at last cornered them? And then they seemed to give up on the knocking and calling. Instead, the taller thief yanked off their cloak and glider, throwing it to the floor. Underneath was tight armor. Schizon. Aluminum plates. What? Weren't these poor farmers? They wore the sort of tight fullrobes that wouldn't look out of place on a prefect. My eye caught the familiar way they had the human corpse tied to their backs, just like Hinte. As I watched, and as Adwyn pulled himself onto the porch, the shorter thief clawed at the rope harness. When they shook themselves, the corpse thunked off onto the bamboo porch. Both thieves ran to either edge of the porch! Each took off in a separate direction and flew low away. Adwyn had reached the porch with a curse, and I was only a few moments behind him. After checking the body, he turned to me. "Kinri! Take this corpse back to Digrif and Gwynt. Order the guards trailing behind us to split up here. Then follow Gwynt back to where Rhyfel ordered us to return." He didn't even look for my reaction before blasting off into the sky, chasing after the shorter, craftier thief. Who, I remember, still had a cloak on. I climbed onto the porch. I didn't linger, anxious energy still thrumming through my veins and Adwyn's order ringing in my frills. The glider was ripped from the cloak. The human was tied to my back. The trailing guards were right there. Adwyn's words were given. I was in the air, flying away. Winging the line from the abandoned building back to the market, I wasn't sure what to think. This just got twistier and twistier. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ When I dropped out of the sky in front of the cart, the only difference I noticed was the mother and fledgling had been chained, and there were six more guards orbiting the pile of seeds and seedbags --- the cracked cart was gone. Digrif waved to me and Gwynt smiled just a bit. "You made it back!" "Where is Adwyn-sofran?" I said, "The thieves split up. One of them dropped their stolen corpse, and Adwyn chased after the other." Gwynt nodded, even as his eyes paled at the mention of a corpse. "...Alright. Rhyfel said to regroup by the edge of the market as soon as we find something. Did you fly back with the ape?" "Uh, I have this glider. It takes the strain off my wings." Gwynt nodded and strode off, other guards falling in step behind him. When he leapt, they leapt, and Digrif and I were a few beats late. The guards settled into a skein, a 'v' shape with Gwynt at the head. I took a spot the very end of the left fork of the skein, leaving Digrif with a spot right behind me. Down on the ground, the remaining guards lead the mother and the fledgling away. I glanced back at Digrif --- he was peering at me. He cleared his throat. "Hey, how did you know the cloaked dragons were going to fly off?" "I guessed? I saw one of them looking at the sky, and I just --- jumped." Digrif shook his head. "How did you two get to be such natural adventurers?" "I'm not. At all! I'm about as far from an adventurer as you can get." "So am I, I think. But I can't do any of the things you and Hinte keep doing." "So? I don't like almost dying. It's scary! And I don't like having the weight of doing something important pressing down on me. I always mess something up." Digrif stayed silent after that. I turned my gaze up to the sky. Dark clouds were piling up, so dark I wondered if it would ash today. It wasn't ashing down now, not yet, so we kept flying. Ahead, Gwynt shifted out of the head of the skein, and another guard took the lead. The rest of us shifted back. I looked, and Digrif had flown over to the other fork. I flew on in silence. The skein-head rotated a few more times, more clouds came near the suns, but at last we came the alleyway again, and I glided down with the rest of them, letting the glider do the work for my tired wings. The guards had cleared the area around the alley, and about eight had stuck around, now just milling about down there. Among the guards were prim figures in the black and gold halfrobes that told me they had to belong somewhere in Frinan administration. Where had I seen them before? On Cynfe? And then there was a lone figure in a very black cloak with dark, dark red accents. From the way no one ventured within spiting distance of them, they must be an inquirer. We lighted down, and waited. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ::: ::: subchapter The fourth little ring rung out, and you'd be forgiven for thinking we'd worked on a schedule. Almost on time --- but not really on time --- the last of the guards lighted down in this little blocked off area. What started as a slow pulse of guards coming in, or (some) leaving --- too slow to call it a flow or even a trickle --- had accelerated until here came dragons that, if not familiar, had become recognizable after the big gathering earlier. The pink guard arrived with a cowering plain-dweller, looking smug and wearing their best imitation of Rhyfel's savage grin. The pink guard was passing the plain-dweller to another, older guard. I watched that guard, and saw them take the plain-dweller to a closed off area with several other dragons, a mix of brown and one or two red. Ffrom was among them, and so were the fledgling, hatchlings, and the mother from the cart. Jerking my gaze back to the pink guard, I found, standing near them, Rhyfel the younger and Hinte. Hinte's wings --- the first thing I looked at --- were still covered under her cloak. On her back sat strapped a glider. It wasn't the kind the thieves used: it was brown wood and woven wings of triumphant pale gold and gray. Covering Rhyfel and Hinte, a fine layer of ash and soot sat and blew in the wind. The other guards looked stony-faced, not seeming to have found anything at all. Very few --- three, it seemed like --- carried anything at all. One didn't even have a human corpse as their finding. Instead, they had a Hägre hog. Maybe it was an easy mistake to make if you had never seen a human. But didn't they at least have a sketchmaster drawing an impression or something? They should at least know what they were looking for. I stared at Digrif, until I had his notice, and directed my gaze back at Hinte. Whatever was going on with him earlier, he got my meaning. Obliquely, Digrif and I moved about, trying to get to where Hinte waited. Rhyfel, clad in black and golden reds, waved for the attention of Hinte, the grinning pink guard and a few others that had the same dusty look about them. Closer, I could make out, right on the high guard's neck, a bloody bandage. If the stains told the whole story, the wound must be a forefoot or two in length. When Rhyfel had their attention, those guards and Hinte started following him over to one of the prim figures. Hinte, in contrast, had one of her cloak's sleeves hiked up, and bandages covered it too. It was the very same leg that had been slashed by the apes in her fight last night. What starless luck. As we crept toward the center of the small crowd of guards, I felt powerful yet faint flapping in the distance. I turned, claws dragging tracks in the gravel. Was it the thieves returning? That messenger returning? It wa