Chapter XI

Winding Paths

Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

"I feel like I've done this already today." Incandiasa grumbled with false cheer. "What do you want?" She growled to the black dragon that had intercepted her from the north. "I have got better things to do than satisfy the curiosity of every dragon this side of Warfang." She added, letting smoke trail from her nostrils, a promise of what she would do if her time was wasted.

"Very cute Inferno, but you don't frighten me." The black dragon said with such a condescending sneer in his voice Incandiasa felt the urge to try and tackle him out of the sky, even though he had a foot at the shoulder and three metres in length on her, not to mention a great deal of mass.

"Excuse me, but you've definitely got the wrong dragon. My name is Incandiasa." She growled. "Who are you and what do you want?"

The newcomer regarded her with the sort of imperious expression that immediately brought Cyril to mind. Cyril after catching her and a few other youngsters slipping carrion into his quarters as a joke and about to set a gruelling essay about the history of the elemental Guardians as punishment.

"Do you know where you are? What is happening? What I am?" He questioned with a trace of cruel humour and mocking in his voice.

"Pyrrhia, southwest of the Claws of the Clouds, close to the border of the Mud Kingdom." She answered, drawing on information she'd gleaned from her brief time hunting with Scarlet.

"The Sand dragons are currently stuck in a war of succession and dragged everyone else into it. As for you, you are too superior by half." She replied.

"You've got an awful lot of nerve talking back to me." The dragon replied, his tone darkening. "I am Morrowseer of the NightWings." He added, with enough gravitas Incandiasa had a feeling he must've done something she'd neither heard of, nor cared about to earn it.

"Charmed. You still haven't told me why you're here." She pointed out evenly.

"I was looking for a dragonet who ran away from home." Morrowseer replied smoothly. "I mistook you for him." He added. "You match his description very closely from a distance. He answers to the name 'Inferno.' If you happen upon him in your travels, bring him to the Talons of Peace and I will see to it you're richly rewarded."

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind." Incandiasa replied. "Good day to you."

With that, she wheeled around Morrowseer and continued south-west, vowing that the next dragon who tried to stop her was going to feel the full force of her growing frustration.


As it happened, the fourth encounter Incandiasa had with another dragon was with one she'd previously met.

"Gyrfalcon." She greeted tersely. "It looks to me as if you've got enough soldiers to apprehend your criminal." She observed, nodding to the five additional soldiers currently encircling her in addition to the dragoness who'd been accompanying him initially.

The bigger dragon shook his head.

"Her majesty, Queen Scarlet of the SkyWings, sent me to find you specifically on suspicion of colluding with the outlaws known as the Talons of Peace." He replied. "You're under arrest." He added simply.

Incandiasa couldn't help it. The situation was far too asinine.

She chuckled, as she hovered, her mirth growing to a full blown laugh before she could stop herself.

"How, by the Ancestors, did she come to that conclusion?!" She growled. "I am done with everyone accosting me, mistaking me for someone else and wasting my time!" She roared, before wreathing herself in flame and surging forward with a beat of her wings, causing the dragon to Gyrfalcon's right to recoil in shock and give Incandiasa an opening to barrel through, before letting her corona of fire to dissipate in favour of rising and veering to the north so the sun was at her back, before spitting a fireball into the wing chasing her.

It exploded in their midst and sowed chaos in the ensuing cloud of smoke, giving Incandiasa a precious second to power towards the south as quickly as she could.

She stopped cold as she saw a second wing closing from that direction, she wheeled to the west only to see a third wing and with a sinking feeling turned east to see a fourth wing,-this time composed of brown dragons rather than the red 'SkyWings' currently closing in on her as Gyrfalcon's wing cleared the smoke cloud and encircled her again.

She roared her frustration to the sky.

"Fine." She spat. "Fine. I'll go with you. Straighten this out." She turned to Gyrfalcon and fixed him with a furious glare. "But if I learn my friend is dead and that I could have saved him if not for this delay, I will kill you." She promised coldly.

Gyrfalcon met her gaze evenly.

"You may try." He replied. "However, I am not so easy to kill as you might assume." He replied as the other three wings closed in and formed a loose sphere around her.

"And if it's the Talons of Peace you're looking for, a dragon calling himself Morrowseer delayed me not half an hour back near the river, then headed north once he'd got it through his thick head I wasn't who he was looking for." She said. "He also said if I found said dragon to go looking for him with them for a reward." She added.

"I'll be sure to pass that along to her majesty, as well as your cooperation." Gyrfalcon said with a trace of irony on 'cooperation'. "I cannot promise any more than that." He added gravely. "Standard escort spread, two above, two below." He ordered, addressing the assembled wings.

Without comment, two dragons ascended to a position above the group while two more dropped below, while the others spread to their respective wings, with Gyrfalcon's in the lead, lending Incandiasa a not unimpressive escort.

"Move out." Gyrfalcon called and once more with precision the formation began flying back towards the mountains, with Incandiasa at their heart.

If this turns out to be a fit of pique on that dull scaled salamander's part, I'll turn Rigal loose on her. She thought to herself, letting her bad mood smoulder.


Inferno was quite glad for the sleep, having sparred with Breeze and Gull, endured a swimming lesson at the former's hands and then a combined flying and hunting lesson at the latter's along with learning more about Pyrrhia in general.

All in all, it had been a long day and if the lessons had been a little haphazard, they'd certainly been informative.

He wasn't all that surprised to find himself in an arena again, although this time, something was different:

Instead of worked stone, the arena he currently occupied was ringed by rough stone tiers that seemed to have been roughly carved more rather than carefully masoned. Great spires of weathered rock soared into the sky in a ring around the arena, casting long shadows as the moons shone behind them and a gigantic web of metal cables spanned between the spires.

Movement caught his attention and he looked to see before him sitting in the sand with an attitude like relaxation, despite the iron tang of blood in the air, a small creature roughly a tenth his size.

It stood, tucking a dark helmet under its arm as it did and turned in Inferno's direction, revealing a lined, pale face, intense brown eyes and no trace of fear.

"Vermilion." The figure greeted with a decidedly strange accent.

Inferno stepped back in shock and glanced behind him to see a SkyWing approaching with a silk sash draped across his shoulders.

He was more startled by the diminutive creature though:

It was wearing armour and bore a knife at its hip, along with what appeared to be a short spear slung across its back.

This in and of itself wasn't surprising. By appearance it looked like a scavenger, from how Breeze and Gull had described them.

What was startling was it was speaking and that he could understand it.

"That's really unsettling." The SkyWing said, rustling his wings.

"Try having to evade every dragon in this place." The scavenger countered. "Especially after that harridan ordered a sweep specifically targeting those degenerates you call scavengers." It added, though Inferno had a feeling it was male.

"Have you had enough fresh air for one evening?" The dragon called Vermilion replied. "Peril is coming and the last thing I want is to be held up by her." He added, with a clear note of anxiety.

"Nevermind Peril. What did you learn about that dragon that came in with an armada as escort?" The scavenger asked, sounding impatient.

"She stands accused of conspiring with the Talons of Peace and treason. She seems outright mad as well, talking about 'Dragon Realms,' 'Elemental Guardians,' a 'Dark Master' and all sorts of outlandish concoctions." Vermilion replied. "Having the weapon that one of the Talon dragonets stabbed her with didn't help her case." He added knowingly.

"About that, do you think you could either get that sword to me or me to it?" The scavenger asked. "Or to wherever that dragon is being held?" He added.

"Possibly…" Vermilion said dubiously. "The weapon has been taken to the armoury,-likely with the other scavenger weapons, as to this 'Incandiasa,' I'll probably have to question her on the Queen's behalf, so I could smuggle you in…" He trailed off. "Look, we can discuss this as easily in my cave as here, can we go before someone decides you'll make a good after dinner snack?" He said anxiously.

"You've got to stop assuming I'm completely helpless." The scavenger said seriously. "But leaving a corpse out here isn't going to do either of us any favours, so lets." He conceded clambering up between Vermilion's wings with surprising agility, before Vermilion took to the wing, one parting comment just audible.

"You've really got to stop doing that." The dragon said as he circled out of the arena and out of sight.


On the other side of the continent, Inferno snapped awake with a jolt.

"Inferno?"

He sat up and turned until he could see Breeze silhouetted by one of the moons.

"Yeah, another crazy dream." He admitted, standing and stretching, before padding over to where she was perched on a rock looking out at the still night.

He briefly explained what he'd seen and heard.

"Vermilion, huh." Breeze said curiously. "Do you think that was a memory?" She asked.

"I…don't think so." He said. "The moons…they looked to be the same as they are right now." He added, nodding to the night sky framed by the cave mouth. "The strange part is, I've never seen any of those landmarks in my life." He added.

"You wouldn't want to." Breeze said grimly. "You just described Queen Scarlet's arena and her Prison in the Sky." She added by way of explanation.

"But this Vermilion, you know him?" Inferno prompted. "Is he a friend of yours? Could he help us?" He asked.

"He's Scarlet's eldest son." She replied. "And I sincerely doubt it. He's something of a coward and he wouldn't dare cross his mother, which while it isn't advisable in normal circumstances, in his case probably would be quite literally, a death sentence." She added.

"So there's nothing we can do about this?" Inferno asked trying not to sound too hopeful.

Breeze shook her head.

"It's just too dangerous. Too much chance of being caught or killed." She replied.

Inferno sighed.

"I thought so." He admitted. "I just…it felt like- I don't know. The name the scavenger mentioned? 'Incandiasa'? It sounds familiar." He said. "I can't place it, but I swear I've heard it somewhere before."

"Really?" Breeze said, then hummed quietly to herself as she thought. "I'll see if I can't find any news on her when we head north." She promised. "Anything that keeps us away from the IceWing's damnable Wall. The archive is on our side of it, but that thing gives me the creeps. And not just because there're reliable accounts of that thing firing ice-spears at anyone who isn't an IceWing trying to fly over it."

"What?" Inferno asked in disbelief.

"Some ancient animus dragon made it ages and ages ago." Breeze replied. "Not sure how things were at the time, but if the IceWings want to stay behind their wall in their frozen wasteland now, that's fine by me. I've never met one that didn't act like someone had rammed one of their precious icicles up their tails." She admitted.

"Real charmers, I take it?" Inferno asked.

"To hear them tell it, it's a utopia where everyone's perfect and there's perfect harmony." She replied. "If I believed that, I'd believe there's an animus somewhere in this mountain and I'd currently be-" She stopped cold. "Nevermind." She said. "Suffice to say, I wouldn't be here right now." She said more quietly.

"What's wrong?" Inferno asked curiously.

"Nothing you need worry about." Breeze replied. "If it becomes relevant, I'll tell you and Gull, but really, I'd just prefer not to talk about it." She said.

Inferno hesitated, tempted to press for an answer to sate his curiosity, but ultimately nodded.

"How long until the next watch?" He asked instead.

"Still a while yet." Breeze replied. "You might as well rest up." She added. "My treat."

Inferno nodded and began to retreat to his previous spot, but paused at the base of the rock.

"Can we head off tomorrow?" He asked. "I don't see much sense in putting off leaving after that." He added.

"I'm considering it." Breeze assured him. "No one seems to be around, so it's not like it'll be any great loss."

Inferno nodded again as he curled up.

"Thank you." He said, before he closed his eyes and tried to drift off to sleep again, while he turned the vision over and over in his mind.

A talking scavenger?

What?

All in good time, though if it hasn't been obvious up to now, this story is basically a continuation of a previous story of mine called Guardsman, which has undergone a switch from what Spyro originally crossed with in it.

I'm trying to make it so that Guardsman isn't required reading, especially since at about the three quarter mark it went a little bit crazy with canon characters from the setting that wasn't Spyro and went into something of a nosedive for it.

So, that dirty confession out of the way, onto the special mentions:

Thank you to:

The Friendly Space Marine for soundboarding ideas.

theuone, MinecraftZerneas and GryphonBuscus for reviewing.

See you all next time.