With a large sigh, Shraikou gathered her courage and pushed the bar door open. A wave of noise, light, and warmth enveloped her as she entered, the boisterous environment making her slightly uncomfortable. As she edged her way to the barman, she passed intoxicated groups loudly boasting to the tittering girls at the next table over, and lone strangers quietly nursing their mugs. Several staggering males were fistfighting, their thoughts on only their opponent.
Shraikou glanced around furtively as she stepped up to the bar counter. The barman, a pot-bellied verteran proud of his many scars, hastened over to her. Just as she was about to ask him for a drink and any news of the war, a loud thud announced the arrival of several more guests, and the barman looked up in surprised irritation.
A group of three newcomers had burst through the door, their cowls hiding their faces but not the sharp, deadly swords belted at their waists. They glanced around warily and all noise in the bar stopped, even the giggling girls. The leader of the three stepped forward, one hand on his sword hilt. His eyes glowed crimson beneath his hood, and the silence held for several seconds before all patrons of the bar returned to their own business.
With an apologetic glance at Shraikou, the barman walked over to where the three intruders were waiting, a bit further down the bar. Shraikou observed their conversation out of the corner of her eye, careful not to move her head. The leader of the three cloaked strangers spoke in a low tone, his voice medium in pitch. Shraikou couldn't catch any words, but heard the urgency in his tone. The barman nodded and turned, filling three mugs with his finest mead. Meanwhile, the three dragons glanced around the noisy, poorly lit bar. Shraikou tried to keep her head still and avoid drawing attention to herself, but her efforts were in vain, as the smallest of the three murmured something to his companions and jerked his hooded head in Shraikou's direction.
At that moment, the broad barman returned with their mead, and the three dragons gratefully accepted the proffered drink. Their leader asked the bartender a short question, and he glanced nervously at Shraikou before answering. Shraikou slipped her left hand down to her sword hilt and grasped the supple leather, drawing it slightly from its sheath and revealing an inch of dark obsidian blade. To her right, the torchlight revealed the three shadowed dragons approaching her. Shraikou tightened her grip on her sword.
"Are you Shraikou?" The leader of the three's voice took on a smooth, honey-like tone as he looked her up and down.
"Shraikou Wavestripes," she replied, giving her full name. Wavestripes came from the purple-blue stripes that marked her periwinkle body, looking slightly like seaweed. "Why do you ask?"
"You are the only dragon in this tavern who remains alert to our presence. This shows the type of dragon that we are looking for."
Shraikou blinked. "Looking for? If you think I will submit to your wishes, then you have another think coming." The fire in her voice was at just the right level, not enough to offend but with an unmistakable strength.
"Not at all, honorable Wavestripes. I do not know if you have heard of the rebellion against Gryffon in this town?" The dragon's voice was even, but when he spoke of Gryffon, his crimson eyes flared beneath his hood.
"Yes, I know of it." Shraikou's voice was short; Faug was a small town, yes, but they were deeply intertwined in the political affairs of Tambarà Altituda, and most inhabitants regarded the rebellion as a despicable movement, Shraikou included.
The dragon who had first noticed Shraikou stepped forward at her tone, but his leader snapped an arm out and halted his progress. "Come now, let us not speak like enemies," he said in a soothing tone. Shaking his head, he knocked his hood backwards, and as it rested on his back, Shraikou silently took in his features.
He was handsome, in a dark sort of way, with mud-green scales, black horns and stripes, and intelligent though cruel red eyes. Many horns adorned his head, giving him a fierce look beyond the coldness in the glowing red orbs that stared out from his eyes sockets. "If you are allied with the rebels, then we are," Shraikou snapped.
"Ah, that is the problem. Most view our group as needless disturbers of the peace, but there is so much more to it. If you will let me tell you?" The green dragon then reached out a hand and placed it on Shraikou's shoulder.
Shraikou leaped backwards, drawing her sword fully from its sheath and landing, crouched, on the floor. Her tail waved behind her like that of a cat, and she hissed like one in warning.
Almost immediately the other two dragons leaped at her, and she raised her sword in defense, the obsidian blade causing her attackers to quickly alter their flight and land clumsily to her side. The gold guard and pommel of her sword glinted in the torchlight of the alehouse, and Shraikou leaped backwards in a one-handed back handspring, landing in a battle stance.
All three of the intruders advanced upon her, their crude steel swords held before them. With a bubbling snarl, Shraikou leaped into the air and brought her sword down upon her attackers, who barely managed to snap their swords up to block in time. As she grated the flat of her sword against theirs, her feet came down and kicked the tallest of the three in the back of his head. Her talons sank into cloth and then scales, and then beyond that, and suddenly the dragon fell limp, becoming a deadweight. Shraikou quickly pulled her talons from the dead dragon's head as he sank to the ground, and landed behind her two remaining attackers, quickly whirling around to face them.
They were staring at her, one in astonishment and the other in naked rage, his blood-red eyes flaring dangerously. With a hiss, Shraikou lunged for the door, racing for her life, as she did not doubt that their leader would kill her easily in his current state. She leaped around obstructing patrons of the bar and slipped around barrels of mead and supports for the roof of the tavern. Her attackers were right behind her as she knocked the door aside and raced into the forest, knowing that if she could just make it that far she would be okay.
The crimson-eyed dragon caught her tail in his talons just as Shraikou lunged for the safety of the trees. She jerked to a stop almost instantly, a hiss escaping from her mouth as her nerves were flooded with a flash of pain. Her free hand snapped out and wrapped around a tree branch, and Shraikou summoned her power with a fierce, yet strange, battle-cry.
The screech of a falcon tore from her mouth, and roots sprang up from the ground, wrapping themselves around the two rebels about to beat Shraikou's back and folded wings. As the roots tightened around their necks, Shraikou felt the hands grasping her tail weaken their hold, then lose it entirely as they fell to the forest floor.
Breathing heavily, Shraikou thanked the tree whose roots had just destroyed her enemies, then, with a frightened glance around, raced off into the forest.