Conflict – Hesitations

Written July 15th, 2020 - September 18th, 2020.

Published September 25th, 2020.

A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed the last chapter, and this one. I do work hard on these things, so if you have some thoughts on this, I'd appreciate if you told them to me. The work is getting big enough to where I'm afraid there might be plot holes.

There are a few puns and bits of humor scattered about this one, especially in the latter parts, specifically for you guys (and girls) to enjoy.


July 10th, 5,015: Somewhere in the Rainwing Kingdom

The world should not have had to depend on Glory being right. The world, always cruel, did depend on Glory's rightness, and her ability to act on a gut feeling, but then, she thought bitterly, there was a part of her actions now which was entirely wrong.

The enemy invasion was also wrong, but – and this was an important 'but' - how much did that justify her actions? How much of what she was doing was predicated by a lust for power, a desire which sought to be justified by anything? It was wrong to conscript Rainwings to war, or mandate they bear the repercussions of a conflict they had no part in. She could persuade them to volunteer, of their own accord; but how much of it was their decision if she persuaded them, and where did their free will end and her manipulations begin?

The world should not have had to depend on five dragonets of the age of seven. It should not have had to depend on Kinkajou, who at the time of Darkstalker's rise had possessed the grand total of three summers. It was a twisted truth, that events favored dragons who were young so. It was as if there was a being playing the figureheads of Pyrrhia against each other; as if a guiding talon had set history on this course, and was meddling in it even now, for its own ends.

It was the out-of-place blue scale on Glory's reptilian coat which brought her out of her mental fugue, for though there was no one here in this sequestered place, she tenaciously guarded her exterior, which was the gateway to the outside world, especially in a Rainwing. She faded the scale to its usual light green, then practiced her moving invisibility for a while, trotting back and forth on the platform, breathing softly through her nose and incidentally taking in Kinkajou and Fatespeaker's scent from where they'd stood the evening before.

The cool morning air and flowing blood sharpened her mind. A dewy mist hung in the rainforest, as far as the eye could see, which was little, because of the bamboo woods which stood thirty feet tall beneath her, and the tree trunks, and the dense, leafy canopy above her, which let in a precious amount of outside light during the daytime, but now opened into a dark blue expanse. It was unlike the vestige of yesterday's sunset, for this time the light side was in the east instead of the west. A new day was blooming.

She could stay here for it, thinking, or do the hard thing, the thing she did each day. Queen Glory was about to go meet her people. She tapped her talons on the hardwood platform, rare in the jungle, then leaped off the edge, as Fatespeaker had, and cut lithely through the forest, as Kinkajou did, her head racing above nothingness.

It was a short flight in the ethereal, palpable mists, through the thick air which curdled in wisps around her wingtips for a moment while she flapped, and left droplets of dew streaming down on her back. Everything was blue, and then the blue brightened: when she reached the Rainwing village the first hint of orange was creeping into the shortening shadows. The yellow light of daytime was only a few hours behind.

To say that the Rainwing village was the only Rainwing village was unfair to the other members of the tribe who lived in the rest of the rainforest, but hardly anyone in the other tribes knew of the existence of the other places, which was why even in the official accounts about the Dragonets of Destiny those habitations were left out, and Queen Glory was said to be monarch over a few score of squat tree-huts and change.

This was untrue. It was a big forest, and peaceful dragons like Rainwings multiplied in it like rabbits did on the southern Skywing steppe. Few animals could kill a dragonet and get away with it. Fewer still could think to take on an adult and live, save for the vipers. When a dragon generation was merely eight years, and they'd had centuries to multiply, their population was a large one indeed.

It was no surprise to Glory, then, that when she flared her wings and set down her talons on the bamboo rigging, there were already dragons going about their business, which was having breakfast, or weaving wicker baskets to contain breakfast, or chatting quietly but busily. It was a peaceable lifestyle made possible by the size of Rainwings. For animals such as scavengers, life was very different inside this dragon-sized place, which for them might be described as akin to living hell.

At any rate, that didn't concern Glory much. What did concern her was the aforementioned chatter, which she found enlightening more than entertaining. Often dragons knew about things she didn't, things which they didn't consider being worth her time to bother about, but which might snowball into difficult problems if not addressed.

It was with these thoughts in mind that she approached the two dragons who were lounging by the edge of one of the decks which connected one tree-platform to another, the sloths on their necks a short distance from a long way down, but quite safe on their owners' necks.

This reminded her of Silver. Sloths lived for quite a while; often thirty years or more, but Silver had been getting old when she met it, and last summer the elderly gray had passed away in its sleep.

And there went the scale again, turning blue when it was supposed to be green. It was this one, she decided, that started all the trouble. Once it changed the others jumped on the bandwagon like turncoats.

"Hey Glory," said one of the dragons, his voice light and merry. If she remembered right his name was Kiwi. "We were expecting you, since you're always jumping on here, so we woke a few minutes ago and decided, hey, why not wander down here and wait for you to show up?"

"You were right on time," said Glory. "I've been awake for half an hour, so we're on the same schedule."

And with that 'we', the queen ingratiated herself with her people. Eventually Kiwi came up with a matter of interest.

"There's a Sandwing who came in last night, did you know?" asked Kiwi. "He was dying to see you."

Glory cocked her head. "They always are."

The group laughed, all save Glory, whose eyes twinkled at the levity. It was all so surreal; the sudden gravity of purpose weighed down her wings, and here she was having a morning chat.

It was to bring her closer to her purpose.

"He said he needed help."

"They always do. What was his name?" asked Glory, storing the occurrence in her mental filing drawers; the compartments of her mind which allowed her to subdivide her attentions. The more existential thoughts she put in a different place.

"That's the funny part. He said he didn't have any, but we could call him Nonam. We didn't tell you because Fatespeaker came back before he arrived and she said you were pretty tired, and didn't want to go back and tell you."

Kiwi shuffled his wings, dispelling the light mist, which the sun was already burning away above the green canopy. Was he afraid of the consequences of not telling his queen?

"I couldn't have known," said Glory, releasing the weight from the Rainwing's shoulders. "Where'd he come from?"

"Oh, nowhere spectacular, just from out east. Fate said he looked in all sorts of a hurry before she went off to the Nightwings. She wants to go to the Mudwing kingdom suddenly. Maybe something bad happened and she sensed it!"

"She has as much supernatural power in her body as you or I," said Glory. A cold talon was tugging at her heart, telling her to go talk to Nonam, ere the leash of polite conversation chained her here forever. "Sandwings in the jungle is ironic and I'll never understand it."

"Sunny was fine with it," said the other Rainwing. "Or she was being nice to us."

"That dragon is a kindred spirit, more so than me."

"Oh, you're alright. Did you hear Fruit Bat was going off yesterday about you wanting to start a war? I don't believe it," said Kiwi. "Unless whoever we're doing it to deserves it. Then they'd get a righteous tongue-lashing."

The rumor mill worked night hours, too? She'd thought it only ran on the weekends. Kiwi peered at her with his head over his forearm and wide eyes. What did he think she would say? Did he expect her to refute Fruit Bat? She couldn't: that would be a falsehood, and a breach of trust.

"Most lies have a grain of truth, somewhere. That's what makes the good ones more believable," said Glory. "I'm taking precautions because I think there are bad actors out there, dragons who want us dead, or slaves."

Kiwi frowned at the word 'slaves', remembering what the Nightwings had done, then brightened. "Oh, whatever. Dragons survived the scorching, Darkstalker the first time, Darkstalker the second time, a bunch of wars in between, and a whole bunch of other bad stuff. What's the worst that could happen?"

He was so, so naive. Glory had seen a lot of things; dead dragons; near-dead dragons, and dying wretches she'd killed herself. There was Scarlet, whose scales she'd melted with acid, and there was Gill, the father of her best friend, who'd she'd killed with magical death spit.

That scale was going to turn blue again. She stopped it with a thought, and so regained control.

"I'd go to the Mudwing kingdom, then, and find out," said Glory. "I'm worried all the same."

A pause.

"Oh," said Kiwi. "Well. Best not waste your time if you are all that worried. If you want to find the Sandwing, he's in the healing shelter. Bullfrog says he was exhausted out of his mind. Your secret invisible death guard is probably keeping an eye on him."

"I'll go check him out, thanks."

Glory trotted off and sighed on the inside. Another of Deathbringer's ideas, and an element she didn't need in her life. She could take care of herself, thank you. The guard might be useful in battle – but they were too few to make a real difference. She would set them to protecting Fatespeaker's demonstration expedition, to keep things from going wrong.

She wanted dragons to see what was going on and decide for themselves, but she also didn't want them to die.

A rustling beneath her, a soft scratching of scales against bark. It was probably Heliconia, awake and on shift. They worked on shifts now – four years of peaceful reign meant the guard had been relaxed, and there were rarely more than two dragons keeping an eye out at any one time, out of a professional sentry core of a few: more than ten, fewer than twenty.

A drop in the bucket, she thought, when compared to the size of a Skywing sortie, or the Skywing armies, which at their height amounted to tens of thousands.

Eventually she'd have to fill up the bucket.

Another mental adjustment of her scales sufficed to disguise her thoughts by the time she half-glided, half-cantered into the healing shelter. Once small and a simple stopover for bruised dragons or those with toothaches, it was now a decent-sized establishment, with vine-cord mats laid over the wood and netting which made up the floor. The mats were easily replacable; one of Bullfrog's inventions, which let him tidy up the environment and mask the scent of blood.

More space had been added, too: where the place had existed on one side of a tall kapoc tree, it now wrapped around the trunk, though the original furniture remained here. It was where Kinkajou and Turtle had hidden themselves in the town during the Darkstalker Incident.

While interesting, that history was not particularly important. What was important was the sleeping Sandwing stretched cat-like on a wooden cot, chest heaving even in sleep, mumbling something. His scales were pale and tan; his limbs long and muscular, his wings large compared to his body, which was small for a Sandwing of his age. He was Sunny's height, stouter than her, but only just, and it was that size which granted him survival. His wings were pocked with holes, as if punched with an awl: fresh gashes ran horizontally along his sides, two or three weeping blood. He looked like he'd been to hell and back, only to find the Doc waiting at the exit, ready to put him through an earthly version of the final punishment.

Bullfrog was standing in the corner, cleaning out a bowl and a wickedly sharp, fire-poker like instrument with a wet cloth, imported and of Mudwing make.

"How is he?" asked Glory.

"Lucky to be alive," said Bullfrog. He was frowning; the blue scales and green dots a wry semicircle dappled by the morning rays. "He was delirious when he stumbled in last night, saying the world was doomed. He wanted to see you but honestly I don't know if he's in a state to talk coherently. He's been cut up by something or somebody, but not by claws. Spears? It was something sharp. I've never treated cuts which weep and weep and are almost impossible to close. Even without the wounds, he's almost done in by exhaustion."

"If he woke up, would it be alright for him to talk?"

Bullfrog shook his head.

"He'll want to talk, but it won't be good for him. If he has a fever I'll bleed half the blood out of him, just to keep him quiet."

The Sandwing stirred, and his breaths became deeper, more restless.

"It's out of my talons now," said Bullfrog. "He's incredibly bullheaded."

"As are we all," said Glory.

She trotted nearer to the Sandwing and waited for him to gain consciousness, tail wrapped around her legs. Her shadow fell over his eyes and they opened, wandered about the room for a second before fixating on her.

"Another version of the good doctor, come here to torment me?"

His voice tried hard to be intimidating, but it cracked at the end. He raised his head, then let it fall to the cot with a thump.

"No," said Glory. "Didn't you say you wanted to talk to me last night?"

Then she waited for the realization.

"Ohhhhh. Sorry." He spread his snout into a weak grin. "You would not believe, the things I had to do, to get here. The rest of us er all dead, or captured by them. And – moons. Food. Water. Please."

Glory looked to Bullfrog, and Bullfrog gave a talon-up for the okay. A bit of food was brought from the shelter's stores, and water in a bucket. Nonam sniffed at the fruit, and nibbled at it, and in the end decided he didn't want it, but drank up the contents of the pail without stopping to breathe. When he was done he looked up and around, more alert, and grunted a thanks. Then, when Glory felt it was polite, she bade him continue his story.

"Who are they?" asked Glory. "And who were you working with?"

"Last question first," he said. "Huh. Better start at the beginning of the thing. I'm Nonam."

"So I heard."

He raised his head again, managed to keep it up longer this time.

"Don't ask why."

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

Nonam got up and leaned against the wall, tail sagging, wings folded, chest beating hard. Then he groaned, and then he spoke up.

"It was the night of the first of July, so, eight and a half days ago now? I can hardly believe it's been that long. About midnight there's a big ruckus, smoke, fire, commotion, chaos, the works. I poke my head out and there's anarchy in the streets, dragons I don't recognize the tribe of, firelight casting everything in shadow. Then I look down and there's this Seawing running around, dodging enemies, dragoness in tow. That's brave. So when he makes it to me I yell down and ask if he needs a talon, which he did. We fight our way out, see. His name was Wells."

"The name rings a bell."

Another period of quiet settled in the room, during which Nonam took deep breaths and recovered from talking for two minutes straight. Then the weak grin transformed into a smile.

"So he did get out, or talked to a dragon who did," said he.

Bullfrog crushed a green berry, then squeezed the juice into a wooden sleeping dart, but no one noticed.

"I'm glad. But as for me, he probably thinks I'm dead. What happened next, see, was we got out of town and headed to this nearby fort, and told the commander about the predicament. He didn't believe us at first, but some wasp blood and the glow from the fires convinced him."

"You say wasp blood. What's that?" asked Glory.

"Uhh, how do I put this in drawing-room language? I don't think I can, but I'll try. They're big, ugly sons of dragons, heh, with four wings, and the ugliest black and gold pinstripes you ever saw. I don't know if it's war paint or what."

Nonam coughed, but went on.

"Those are the dragons overrunning the continent. They use long things like you Rainwings' blowdart launchers, and they have fangs and stingers and such. They've got poison, they've all got poison, but no fire, thank the moons. There's venom in the darts, probably on the spears, everything they use. But anyway, at Burgeon I stayed behind and fought it out. Wasn't much of a fight – I used all my fire back in Abalone, and what I had was embers compared to a full blast. The Seawing garrison was all sleepy. There were no Mudwings in sight. And the enemy showed up in force, and asked us to surrender. I think that was what they were saying, anyway. They speak an accented version of what might've been Common a thousand years ago."

"Are they dragons from here pretending to be from a new tribe?" asked Glory.

"Moons I hope not. Anyway, we told them they could shove their white flags where the sun doesn't shine – scuse my language, but that was the least graphic way I could put it."

Years of dealing with obstinate Nightwings meant Glory knew what he was talking about. She flicked her tail, wishing she could do the same.

"Then they came out with those tube thingies and started shooting. A couple dragons fell before we knew to duck, everyone except me, who was already hiding behind the battlements till they flew over top the fort and collapsed in on us. There was fussing and fighting and biting and kicking and scratching, and death and destruction this way and that, and no one knowing what to do but fight to the last dragon and hope it bought our friends an extra minute or two. I lived 'cause I ran, ducked into an open door and worked around to the gate through a roundabout way, murdered the wasp standing guard, then flew down and hid."

"How long?" asked Glory.

"All night, and all day, and half the next night, eating what I could find, until the fury died and I decided it was the right time to move. The thing about wasps is, they can't see in the dark like a Nightwing can, or even a Seawing, they're slow, and they fall for the oldest tricks in the book. Right away I knew I wanted to get to the rainforest, because that's what's closest."

"I'm not just here to tell my story, as tragic as it is. The Mudwings need help. They need it bad. I guarantee you what happened in the last war will happen in this one. They'll fight like he – heck, and they'll give the enemy more trouble than it's worth to keep the land, but without food they'll starve. There's not enough fertile delta land to ranch to feed them. Half their diet is wild animals – but in bad years those are wiped out in a jiffy. Somebody needs to support them, or they'll die on their stomachs."

He grunted again.

"So much food in this place, moons. Even if you don't want to dedicate Rainwings to what's happening over there – and you do, trust me – even if you want to stay out of this war, support the Mudwings." Then he shrugged. "It's not my call to make. Three weeks ago, it wasn't my choice to make it. But I think it's the right thing to do, see. That's why I came here."

Glory looked into his eyes.

"We'll do what we can."


July 10th, 5015: Somewhere in the Mudwing Kingdom.

The sun was shining, the fog was clearing, and his soldiers were running low on rations, splints, and everything else. Since meeting the obstinate Mudwing merchant in the north of the kingdom, Thrush's forces had worked their way south, pulling their usual hole-punch maneuver in what they guessed was the wasp front line, then exploiting it as hard and fast as they could; wrecking supply convoys wherever they found them, and freeing POWs wherever they went.

It did not disturb Thrush that the enemy was using Mudwings as slaves. The majority of the original hundred who'd come down from the palace had been dragonet soldiers, fighting as soon as they'd grown enough to be useful in a scrap. The Mudwings were being worked to an early grave, but at least they had job security.

So he freed them, and let a few join his growing ranks, putting them to use in an ambush wing he'd set up, which collaborated with his line wings to sow confusion in the enemy ranks every time they encountered dragons more dangerous than freighters.

And then there was Peril. She was full of trepidation at times, and of fire in others, in more senses than the literal one. A killer in a unit of killers, she had not yet made a kill, and Thrush was beginning to feel she was more hindrance than help. Still, though, he kept her with them because she might prove useful in the future, and because there was nowhere else for her to go now, except to the mountains, to Clay – if Clay was lucky enough to be at Jade Mountain, instead of here.

He needed all the help he could get. The Hivewings – for that was what they were called, said the Mudwings – reacted quickly in these lands, too quickly. Either there was a company of scouts tagging along without being seen, relaying his every move to their reserves, or dragons were escaping his raids without him noticing, which was impossible, because he was sure last night that he'd had all their throats cut.

Apparently, he hadn't. It was for this reason that the Skywing Expeditionary Company – a misnomer now, if ever he'd heard one – was making a tactical retreat southwards. He planned to get out of sight of the wasps chasing him, then circle northwards and get home, but circumstances so far were not co-operating, and he was growing more frustrated by the hour.

If they went much farther like this, his best bet was the rainforest, where the thick cover would protect them from probing eyes. That he had not already decided on this course was because he knew the jungle was green hell for Skywings and he didn't want Peril burning everything down, which was inevitable in thick woods.

"Something up ahead, sir," said the lieutenant. Thrush scanned the marshes three hundred feet below, saw nothing except a log, only this log was curiously pointed in the mud, and its ends had protrusions not unlike a nose -

"Mudwings," he said, between breaths. "Treat with caution. Pass it down."

While his second in command communicated this to the soldiery, Thrush made contingencies. His greatest strength was short-term planning, and his next greatest was the gift of organization, which made the ragtag band tagging along with his core Skywings an actual threat instead of a distraction.

Now he needed to balance the need for expediency against the possibility of the locals offering help. Casting a glance over his shoulder, he saw that the Hivewings were strung out fifteen miles behind, their shapes blue and blurred by the thick marsh air, which was a different kind from the clear, dry air further north. That was forty-five minutes worth of separation; a little more if he was lucky and they stopped for a rest break.

He glanced down. A Seawing had crawled out of a nearby pond while he wasn't looking and was waving a dirty napkin which might once have been white.

"Halt!" he said. "Ready talons."

Slowly, chaotically, the center of mass of the group came to a stop, its constituents circling in a holding pattern above the Seawing, and the Mudwings who were emerging from the marshes like earthworms surfacing after a rain.

"Lieutenant, parley. Tell them we have a battalion of wasps chasing us and we're not risking an even fight."

"Yes, sir."

The lieutenant dropped a wing and sideslipped, losing altitude in a half-turn which saw him facing north-west by the time he reached the ground a span away from the Seawing. Captain Thrush saw his lieutenant eye the mud around his feet, then step forward to talk to the Seawing. They chatted for a while, the strange dragon nodding in understanding and saying things now and then. Though he could not hear their words, the mood of the conversation trended towards agreement. Inside of five minutes the lieutenant flew back up.

"The sergeant says he'll help out, though his forces number less than two-score," the Skywing said.

Since when had Skywings cooperated with Mudwings? Hard times meant unconventional bedmates, he supposed. Thrush had never had the privilege of fighting with Seawings, always against. Now this lone Seawing wanted to prove his mettle.

"Is he staff or regular?"

"Just a sergeant, sir. He had the Seawing patch."

"Did you ask him if he knew of anywhere we could get supply?"

"No, sir. Do you want me to ask, sir?"

Thrush shifted his tail leftwards so it would stay in-line with his wings during his slow turn.

"Excellent, thank you," he said. "Tell him to stay there, and we'll get the wasps to overfly his position."

He now had to keep the enemy forces close enough to the ground so the Mudwings could reach them before they could react. A span was too close, because the buried muddy would never see the enemy coming in his peripherals, and a hundred feet was too far: heavy as a Mudwing was, he needed an extra wing-beat to ascend that distance, by which time his prey would have moved.

A plan clicked in his mind. Yes: this one would work well enough.

There was a rustle of wings, and the lieutenant flew up again.

"He says that will work for him, sir."

"Good," said Thrush. "Now tell eighth wing and wings one through three to climb two hundred yards, conventional doctrine, to engage on my say-so. Execute a rush when expedient. Go."

"Yes, sir."

He broke his holding pattern and swung back to the hundred-fifty odd dragons under his command, letting the lieutenant find the others.

"Fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh wings, with me, altitude not to exceed fifty yards," said Thrush. It was an order most puzzling for a tribe accustomed to fighting in the expanse of the blue yonder, and that strange quality was reflected in the second's hesitation before the usual chorus of yes sir, and the falling out of the wing's members, mostly Skywings, all arranged by geographic origin.

If there was one thing worse to a Skywing than surrendering, it was losing his battle brothers.

His lieutenant came down momentarily from supervising the company of dragons Thrush had given him, looked at Thrush, then Peril. What to do with her?

"Your group," said Thrush, then, louder, so the blue-eyed dragon could hear: "You'll be with the lieutenant, Peril."

He looked again to the Hivewings, who'd doggedly closed the range, and were now merely five miles away. Spitting distance.

"Advance two miles towards the enemy!" he called. "Full. Retreat as necessary towards the ambush point."

They needed depth, and space to trade instead of blood. Holding an arbitrary point was stupid, he figured, beating his wings a notch below capacity, to prevent exhaustion. Instead of securing a box in the air, he sought to retreat and roil the wasp veins, so fixating them on their foes that they wouldn't notice they were being drawn into a trap.

Thrush crossed his talons, knowing his soldiers would perform, knowing everything depended on enemy inexperience and that singular Seawing and his company, ignoring the voice in his head that said no plan survived first contact with the enemy, and the nagging sense that soon he would be counting casualties instead of spoils.

From here on half the action could only be watched, and action it was, as the enemy piled on a burst of speed and ascended in a shallow climb, above Thrush's position, flying too high for the Mudwing ambush. Then the center of the enemy advance halted, and their elements orbited around a central point for a minute or two, before they organized into three columns and proceeded.

No reserves buzzed the backstage of the battle; the enemy was going all-in.

Thrush craned his neck upwards to watch them, as their bodies blocked out the nooning sun, and darts whistled down like rain. Most of them missed; a few punched through wing membranes and down to the mud; others glanced off the angled scale and thin profile of the Skywings. Though the first hit was rarely lethal, the second could be, and taking a third in quick succession meant death.

The rapidity of the enemy advance took the lieutenant by surprise. Almost too late did his forces recoil, executing a turn in sequence, where each Skywing whirled in place and took off flying, so that where before the lieutenant had been in the vanguard, he was now at the tail of the formation above Thrush, exploiting the Skywing speed to avoid entanglement with the striped dragons nipping at their talons.

Their departure meant Thrush and the odd flight of Mudwings beneath were without top cover, and the wasps were looking to repay the Skywings for their energy tactics with interest. An even score of the enemy climbed a hundred feet extra, rolled, and dived from above, their scale patterns an optical illusion of stillness even as they fell in a mass, all at once. For a moment Thrush's eye was stuck behind them, and then it came unglued, seeing the deadly spears glinting, the shadows on the marsh plunging towards the Skywings' shadows.

Too bad they'd trained for this.

Thrush beat his wings sideways and held his spear up and to the side, towards the enemy he felt would hit him, who was hurtling downwards with all the speed and control of a runaway boulder. Then it hit. Faster than the blink of an eye Thrush's spear snapped; there was a gust of wind and his arms wrenched sideways. He did not try to hold, but let the momentum of the impact spin him twice in the air, then cast away the broken stub and pulled out his backup weapon; a short, throwable javelin. His bones ached, but he was alive.

The same could not be said for the wasp, and many of its brethren. The hundred extra feet of altitude had turned them into what were known as dirt darts, a name coined for diving Mudwings back in the great war. There came a point when a dragon was diving so fast it couldn't open its wings and pull up; if they extended they would be ripped off by the rushing air. It was a problem all tribes shared, and it was exactly what had happened here.

The mud beneath him was boiling; splashes of murky water rising dozens of feet and falling in rings to the swamps below, from which tails and talons protruded like bones from a windswept battlefield. Two dragons crawled from the marshes, and another pair flew away, having narrowly avoided the fate of their crashed counterparts. Thrush's stomach tightened.

What he'd witnessed was mass suicide.

He swallowed.

"Fall back, two thirds," he said, ordering the group to retreat at an effort equivalent to a canter. They left a pair of Skywings dead in the mud, their necks broken when the wasps crashed into them – but what was two to sixteen?

The Hivewings faltered like the ocean at the turning of the tide, their ranks chaotic until someone shouted for pursuit, and the enemy surged; the bravest at the fore and the slower soldiers behind, caught up in a vengeful frenzy. So rapid was the change in their pace that they nearly caught Thrush himself; the Skywing line was indented in the center by dragons trying to get away, and the freshly recruited units nearly broke. The veterans turned and held, giving up ground inch by dreadful inch. One soldier died here, another died there; a Hivewing burst through the dragons before Thrush with two wings trailing fire and died to the captain's quick slash.

A moment later the veterans yielded, retreating in good order; scratched, bruised, battered, poisoned, but indelibly alive and a threat.

"Enemy on the right!" a soldier shouted. His voice was hoarse.

Thrush threw his gaze eastwards even as his body wheeled, taking him south. A score of dragons were nipping at the heels of the Skywings there, coming on faster than the others. Thrush's forces were not at their top speed, not yet, but they were going as fast as they could while still fighting the enemy behind them. If the right flank retreated too far it would leave Thrush's center exposed, vulnerable unless his lieutenant sent top cover.

Then came Peril.

She sliced the air with a flight of fellow Skywings flying beside her, and yet she was the first of them the eye caught when it looked at the group. The smoke curling from her wingtips was unnatural; her blue irises unworldly. The enemy had a moment to look, and then she was upon them, punching into the middle of the flanking group and sailing past like an arrow through paper.

Where she went dragons burned; first to her glowing torch of fire, then to the scales that melted wings and charred limbs to ash. Two died then, and one shriveled and fell, insectoid wings crumpled because the air had grown too hot for them. The four other Skywings hacked their way through the enemy formation, downing three more, and in that moment the enemy push died.

Or should have.

A more cautious enemy commander would've slowed the pursuit and reorganized his forces. The average soldier would have frozen on the spot. But – and here lay the mystery – the enemy just kept coming. Suddenly their formation tightened to a point, the remaining dragons flying for the Skywing center at increased speed, a speed Thrush had not known they could achieve.

Again the Skywings were caught. Again the fresh recruits retreated too quickly, and again the veterans slowly gave ground against the newly regenerated foe, whose cries rent the air in eerie unison. Caught off guard, the center was pushed back, farther and farther until the line of dragons holding back the enemy snapped, and unleashed the black mass of soldiery onto the inner sides of the flanks.

It was then that the top cover rushed. A rush was a devastating sweep of dragonkind all diving at once, and crippling the enemy with the onslaught. The forty-odd dragons poured like a lethal waterfall straight from above. Like a falling boulder they crashed through the enemy ranks, ignoring the blowdarts which peppered them, and hindered them, but did not stop them.

Four Skywings plunged into the earth, unable to pull up in time: a cataclysmic spray arose from them and the wingbeats of the rest as they zoomed away with six hundred feet worth of speed powering them. The Hivewings clustered closer to the earth, those which were left; a few were killed, or burned, or forced to descend because their wings were affected by the wet.

It was then that the Mudwings struck.

The ground boiled like a cauldron, and the air filled with their fell roars. The Mudwings were everywhere, as if their number had been multiplied three-fold, and the suddenness of it all caused the enemy to pause, all of them stopped dead in the air at once, ears cocked to the new sound. Thrush saw them twitch in unison before abrown, obscuring spray rose over the low-flying formation. When it collapsed the Hivewing formation had burst at the center and thirty Mudwings had taken its place.

The enemy fell apart. Every remaining soldier dropped out of formation and scattered away, heading generally east, but north and south as well; an exodus of defeated foes departing in a rout.

The lieutenant dove from the top portion of the Skywing battalion (it was battalion-sized now, larger than a sortie and certainly greater in number than a company), flared to bleed his speed and join up with Thrush.

"Do we pursue?" he asked.

"No," said Thrush. "We haven't the time, and I feel we'll have more to deal with than them in a moment. Casualties?"

"We don't know yet."

Thrush looked to the Mudwings on the groundand set eyes upon the Seawing who was with them, talking in their inner circle, giving orders, ideas, reassurance. The dragon (he'd said his name was Wells) beat his wings and took off towards Thrush.

"Thanks for the help," said the captain when the Seawing had come within earshot. "We're transiting to the Rainwing kingdom. Would you like to join us? We could use a force like yours."

The sergeant shook his head no. "These dragons are fighting for their home. I can't leave." His jaws parted as if to say something, paused, and then spoke. "It was good seeing you around."

That was not what he had been about to say.

"Need any supply?"

"Sure."

Thrush withdrew a few wingbeats, making it clear that he was retreating to converse with his dragons only. "Have the soldiers remove a meal's worth of food from their packs, each," he said to the sergeant. "Quickly."

Although they had pilfered much from the enemy convoys, they had also recruited extra mouths. The food situation was worse than Thrush would've liked, and it wasn't about to get better. Sergeant Wells understood this, and looked askance at the expeditionary soldiers when they began disgorging the contents of their satchels and carry pockets.

Thrush got closer. "Our thanks to you."

"It means a lot," said Wells.

"Don't worry about it being too much for us," said Thrush. "Half of it is enemy ration bars."

Every dragon in hearing range chuckled, and Wells shook his head with a smile.

"We appreciate it."

All the supply was given to a flight of Mudwings to carry. They went down, but they did not come up. Instead they milled around in the marsh with their fellows.

"Are they allowed to go?" asked Wells.

Thrush was going to miss the extra punch the Mudwings brought. They were decent fighters, and they had potential.

"Yes," he said, and then, louder, "All those Mudwings who wish to join their brethren may do so."

Another flight of Mudwings went down, flying and waving their talons. So long! They were followed by still more, and more, until those of their tribe remaining with the first expeditionary unit were seven.

"Is that all?" said Wells.

"That's all."

A pause. Then Thrush turned. "Form up! We have a hundred and fifty miles to make before sundown."

Wells nodded and descended.

Fifteen minutes later and seven miles away, Thrush hadn't lost the bottomless feeling in his gut. The opposite had happened; his stomach was tight and unpleasant as he flew, thinking of the battle.

Twenty of his dragons died. It was a rare engagement that resulted in no deaths. He had been an officer long enough to accept that harsh reality. What made him uncomfortable was the queer behavior of the enemy. They had killed themselves in a dive they couldn't pull out from.

That alone was strange, he thought. Most dragons knew their velocity never to exceed; even if there was no way to measure it there came a hissing in flight, a warning flutter that told you when you were about to hit the other side of heaven. The Hivewings bore past that without a thought. And the way they had reacted during the battle, had gone from barking orders and shouting battle cries to uttering wordless roars… it discomfited him.

What was going on?

Thrush cleared his furrowed brow, alleviating the soreness, then rubbed it in flight. He was heading away from the Skywing kingdom now, away from where he wanted to be. Even if the expeditionary unit made it to the rainforest without any further delays, their sudden, unexpected arrival might scare the locals and strain the relationship between his kingdom and Glory's.

It was complicated.

He stiffened his neck and flew on that day, passing over the fallow marshes and squalid trading posts which dotted the landscape every few dozen miles along their route. They were traveling through the heart of a gutted tribe; the proud race that'd held the Skywings back, and the Seawings when they came. At times Thrush would catch noses buried in the mud, or the outline of wings submerged just beneath the surface of the brown backwaters. A few dragons crawled from the soft ground and cheered as the Skywings flew past, then hurriedly withdrew, as if fearing they would be caught.

What a thing to witness; the death of a nation. Thrush could've stayed, but it was more prudent for them to go. Basing their activities in the Rainwing kingdom would give them leeway against the Hivewing force – assuming the rainforest remained unconquered. The thought bothered him, and it stuck. Surely the Rainwings would fight like hell if they were invaded – and then he thought of four years ago and how it had fallen to five dragonets to retrieve the Rainwing POWs, which was damned unprofessional; on the Rainwing and Nightwing side both.

He'd stay on his toes even after they'd reached the jungle.

Evening came on, and camp was made on a slight rise in the ground, a watch set, a combat air patrol posted for the night. Fortunately enough, his forces ran into a herd of water-buffalo grazing the reeds in a slowly-flowing backwater. The beasts stampeded when they saw the dragons coming, but there was nowhere for them to hide; the Skywings herded them like dolphins circling a fish school, and picked off about thirty of the animals before dusk intervened, so that by the time the sun set there were hardly any left.

There was no firewood, but the Skywings in the group more than made up for that. They heated the ground with their fire until it steamed, then lay the carcasses on the dirt to warm, a habit formed in the mountains, when often it was necessary to reheat a frozen kill that had been cached in the snow. They did this for the Mudwings as well; for the temperature was dropping beneath that of their natural body heat, and it was then that their broad torches of flame died to a harmless sputter.

"This more than makes up for what we gave to Wells," said Thrush to his lieutenant. Both Skywings were resting on the hill, watching Peril as she tried and failed to preserve her supper. By the time she got to eating it the food was charred.

"A stroke of good luck all round, sir," said his subordinate. "We must remember, though, we can't let them eat too much in this warm weather, or they'll get sleepy."

"Good you remembered," said Thrush. "Go tell them to save a portion for tomorrow's breakfast."

And the lieutenant did. As he got up a shadow fell across the delta. The air had cooled, and its mild temperature brought night mists, pleasant wisps of moisture that drifted ephemerally between the willows. Soon, however, it thickened into an impenetrable fog, so dense that the moons' disks disappeared and it was impossible to tell where the light was coming from: the hill was plunged into gray darkness, and the combat patrol which had been circling above them just fifteen minutes ago was lost.

Thrush hoped they would have enough sense to land within the cloud cover until morning. It was standard protocol developed from the last war, but he knew the low-viz could make dragons nervous. It was making him nervous, too. He started at every noise within earshot, every breath, every movement of the dense, heavy air that felt like a breath.

Alone on the crest of the shallow rise, he waited until morning, dozing on his feet. A tinge of yellow brightened the gray mists which had swirled around him for hours. Sunlight was eating away at the top layer of the fog bank, penetrating to the ground beneath. He grunted as he stood up, stretching his wings to their full length. Morning had come.

Thrush was as weary as ever.

He trotted around on the foggy hill, calling. "Sound off! First wing second wing third wing fourth wing, all! Head-count!"

Most of them had gone to sleep at the bottom of the hill, and were easily roused. About eighty rose to the call, leaving forty unaccounted for. Ten more soon emerged from the marsh; they'd left to do their business during the night and hadn't been able to get back to camp. That left thirty, which was more than Thrush would've liked, especially since the remaining Mudwings were all here, and couldn't be counted as deserters. He could not leave Skywings behind.

In the event, they couldn't find the CAP until the fog cleared up and Thrush ordered the friendlies to take to the sky, hoping to flush out the lost soldiers. As he did so he noticed a score of dots to the west, nearly five miles away. Were they red or orange-black? It was impossible to tell in the morning light, when the shadows were still long.

"Block formation!" he called. "Two-thirds west."

They could be friendly, in which case he had nothing to worry about, or they could be enemy; it was hard to tell which. Still, as he drew nearer he noticed that the bandits had solid wings instead of translucent ones, and a wave of embarrassment at his trepidation washed over him.

It had been hard to tell.

So the score of dragons turned out to be the thirty-odd missing ones, and the expeditionary unit was restored to its full strength. The whole business had taken more than an hour, counting from when he'd started organizing them till now, and that was far, far too much. A Skywing could make thirty-five miles in that time; a Mudwing in the region of twenty.

What a waste.

They flew for most of the day, eating midair when they needed to; soaring on updrafts when they required a rest. The wind blew placidly near the ground, if at all, but at five thousand feet it was a steady breeze out of the south-east, which hurt as much as it helped, as their destination was south and west.

A hundred pairs eyes pored over every inch of the view, alert for the enemy. There were a few, but they were all at low altitude eating the dirt, and Thrush didn't want to give up his altitude and energy for the periodic contacts at first; to his eye the enemy was doing a whole lot of nothing. After flying over several groups during the afternoon, however, he decided to give the boys a little fun. The opportunity came about a half hour later, when the sun had passed its apex and was slowly falling towards the western horizon.

"Contact front, left, low, Hivewing probable," came the word. "Company strength."

"Acknowledged," said Thrush. "Skywings of first and second wing, detach and investigate; talons free for a half hour. Pass it down."

The word rippled through his formation, passed on with even diction by soldiers who knew how to communicate. Often inexperienced hands would rush their speech, and the units on the receiving end of the chain would end up with orders that sounded like they were the product of a long game of Messenger. There was none of that in his battalion: soldiers and officers had brought the new guys into the fold.

Almost thirty Skywings broke from the formation, which Thrush ordered to slow speed. This way they would be easy to regroup with once the fighting ended. He had picked Skywings to attack because they were going in from a high altitude, too far up for a Mudwing to descend quickly. The toads were the original dirt-darts.

First and second wing hovered in the air for a minute, corporals talking back and forth and selecting a plan from the Skywing textbook. This done, they dived at an oblique angle towards the enemy company, which was beneath them and about three miles away.

Thrush watched from afar, dissecting the enemy response with a probing eye. The enemy separated themselves into three distinct wings, each organized in a miniature crescent. Quickly they climbed a thousand feet, maintaining cohesion until the merge. The idea was to encircle his forces in pincers and attack from three sides. It was a good maneuver, and one used in the great war, but it was paper against thirty Skywings slicing the air at lethal speed.

With a flick of their wings first wing went into a slight climb which took them above the enemy soldiers instead of into them. Second wing blew fire, then raced past the enemy formation on the left, which wheeled to follow the swiftly moving Skywings. For a brief, brief moment there was a gap between the center and the flanks, and the dragons at the tips of the crescents who'd been cast off by the sudden movement.

That instant was enough. First wing plunged from overhead, killing their targets with javelins through the back; light, multi-purpose spears. It was so quick there was no time for the enemy commander to see it coming, but when the Skywings were gone he ordered his soldiers to chase them down, though first wing was already five hundred yards away and opening the gap.

Whereupon he was hit from behind by second wing.

Thrush took note. The enemy here didn't know how to fight Skywings. They didn't know to drop to the deck when the Skywings were on the attack, nor gain altitude when their foes were on the defense. With the exception of yesterday's strange battalion, their commanders were removed from the loop; reacting to out-of-date information, charging after Thrush's forces reactively instead of proactively. Thrush watched during the thirty minutes as the enemy took half their strength in casualties, and he shook his head when he watched their commander do the same thing over and over and over again.

That kind of non-thinking had to be doctrinal. A dragon had to be educated to do something that stupid. Too many cadets dogmatically clung to the maneuvers they learned in the academy, and once they were confronted with a situation the book didn't tell them how to get out of, they folded.

It would be a stroke of luck if this kind of thing penetrated to the enemy's higher ranks. He could speculate, but he didn't know. All he had was his battlefield observations.

Eventually first and second wings came back, every dragon among them grinning with fire in their eyes.

"We stuck it to them, cap," said first wing's corporal. "Their souls can burn in hell."

"Aye!" shouted the soldiers.

"Don't mess with Pyrrhia, cause you get the tail."

"Aye!"

"And don't mess with your captain, because he can put you on half rations for the rest of the week," said Thrush. "… Casualties?"

"Nothing serious. Five dragons with flash burns from blowback. Two with broken limbs from near-misses. Two dead. That's it for both wings, sir," said first wing's corporal.

"Good job tigers," said Thrush. "Join up and get a move-on."

He threw his head south. "I don't like the look of that storm."

The harmless wisps of cloud that had developed during the mid-morning and early afternoon had coalesced, growing like weeds do when the gardener isn't looking. Now they towered like castles in the sky; their buttresses at Thrush's altitude, their tips at twice that height, blooming upwards as he watched. To his south they had grown together, and beneath their smooth bases Thrush saw dark, hanging veils of rain. They could grow much more before day's end; it was only the middle of the afternoon.

Some of them were leaning over at the top, as if they were being affected by strong, high-altitude shear. That was never a good sign.

"Full speed on my bearing," said Thrush.

It was a step up from the two-thirds they cruised at, and the Mudwings puffed to stay with their Skywing counterparts. In the Sandwing armies it was standard practice to have a navigator in every wing; a tradition that began with Oasis and was preserved in Blister's forces till war's end. In Skywing forces that fell to the company or battalion commander, and that meant him.

"Steady-up," he said to one of the Skywings beside him. The dragon was flagging, nostrils slick with the moisture that made up half the air. "We may have to land to ride this one out."

A storm was a dangerous place for a dragon alone. If Thrush took his Skywings through a thunderhead his forces would be scattered like jetsam in a raging river, no matter how good they were. He was outpacing the wind, but the front of the storm was outgrowing both him and the breeze. If things kept up like this the turbulence would catch up with him by four o clock, and the cloud front shortly afterwards.

He was not far wrong.

Darkness fell over the mud flats while the clouds drew nearer, and a dreadful tingling grew around his spine, telling him of a buildup of some force invisible to his senses of sight or hearing or smell. A galvanizing sensation built on his tongue, as if he was gnawing a piece of metal. Banks of mist sloped down from the clouds and near to the ground, like a devouring monster's maw.

"Get down," he shouted. "Orderly, orderly. Pass it along."

Thunder rumbled and the tingle flared. The Skywings reigned the air, but they did not own it. At times it arose, and danced to the tune of another master.

Wing after wing spiraled down to the soft ground, to the lee of a hillock. The vegetation was short in these parts, and the top of the knoll offered a perfect view of what was happening. A notch of clear sky appeared amid the cloud base, and Thrush stared at it, unaware of what it meant. It passed over their heads, and as it did so he saw that the cloud next to it was swirling.

Now the wind came. It tore at his scales and buffeted up his wings and made the loose rushes dance a spinning jig through the air, till they were carried off westwards and northwards, over a stand of willows. Again he looked up at the clear patch, and this time he saw behind it a gray talon of cloud reaching down, disappearing in tufts, rising, coming down again, its sides spinning like a hurricane.

Beneath it the trees wavered and bent. They did not fall, as in a normal gale, but were torn from their roots and pulled upwards, spinning about the talon of cloud that had thickened and become a gray column, churning the dirt like butter and lifting great gobs of it into the sky. The ground shook beneath his claws, and he stood there as if turned to stone, only his eyes moving to track the gray tower which rumbled northwards away from him, chugging along like an implacable engine of destruction, though it had only descended a moment before.

Then the rain arrived in sheets, and the tornado was gone. It vanished into the gray blankets of precipitation that splattered off their backs and ran down their wings in rivers that ran off to the soft ground. The earth swiftly turned to mud; warm, watery dirt that the Skywings sank to their ankles in. Grime splashed up from the puddles and got in everything; scales, weapons, food pouches, nostrils, so that in less than two minutes every Skywing in the battalion was as miserable as they thought they were going to get.

As soon as he thought that the hail hit; cold balls of ice that smacked into backs and tails and heads and left tender bruises where they'd bounced off. Thrush curled up and wished he was somewhere else, like under the willows; the ones that'd been leveled by the storm.

There was nothing to do but stay there and ride it out. For the second time today he was at the mercy of insouciant weather.

Thrush's ear flicked and he heard incipient mumbles of conversation; some soldier had figured now was a good time to talk, of all the things.

"This storm is grounding us. I love to think what it's doing to our wasp buddies."

Laughs. Even in Thrush the joke provoked a rain-drenched smile.

"Guy Hornet's trying to light a fire from two sticks."

Steam hissed from the ground and white vapor swirled around ice chunks bigger than coins, and water sapped his will to move. Still, morale was on the up.

"Get Cragg to tell us some jokes," said another soldier. "He's got the good ones."

"Cragg ain't around no more. He's dead."

"Damn."

Thrush waited. The voices perked up.

"Bet this isn't so bad for Peril."

"You wanna walk up to her and ask if you can be out of the rain, pretty please?"

"Ahahahahahahaha. No."

"Why not?"

An obscene joke followed.

"Stuff it," said another voice. "We don't talk like that."

"Sorry sarge."

Little chatter like that helped pass the time.

"Hey, where's boss?"

Thrush peered out of the shell he'd created with his body. "Here," he said. His voice was guttural and weary. A dragon's four-legged shape materialized from the gloom at his side, and his breath hitched before it showed itself as an orange-scaled Skywing; a freshly promoted corporal by the name of Falcon. He drew a red cylinder from his pouch.

"It's a spyglass, sir," he said. "I liberated it off the enemy commander after he died. The glass is kinda fogged up but it's interesting."

Only young soldiers could be fighting a war and still grab these doohickeys and souvenirs. Thrush remembered dragons in the last war who would've given their right arms to keep their bric-a-brac and contraband if they could. Mementos were often confiscated.

"Can I see it?"

Falcon held it out with a talon, sheltering it from the rain with an outstretched wing. Thrush gripped it firmly before the corporal let it go, as if the dragon were afraid of it falling to the mud. It was indeed a telescoping spyglass, of extremely fine make. The material smelled like fine, tempered steel, coated in a layer of protective red paint, with gold trim at the wide end and black paint at the other. Thrush doubted it was real gold, because if that was the case the enemy army would have trouble with unscrupulous sergeants stripping the precious metal right off the equipment.

He peered through the lens, sweeping it around the camp in its compact configuration – the rain made it impossible to see farther than a few hundred feet. The lines of the fallen trees and the hill were pristine, untouched by the rainbow aberration that plagued most spyglasses of Pyrrhian make. Few militaries could afford nice items like this for their company leaders.

"You've made an excellent find," he said, taking it away from his eye. Falcon nodded, waiting, his shoulders tense. "Keep it."

He held it out to the corporal, who nodded. There were few words exchanged then; just a mutual acknowledgment of respect. Many officers in Thrush's position would've confiscated the instrument for one reason or another.

"It's getting late, so we'll make camp here," said Thrush. "Your wing is on first shift CAP tonight."

"Yes sir."

"Dismissed."


Again things came to pass as Thrush had predicted them. When the storm passed it was evening, a bleak one, for the clouds still hung like a pall in the sky, their bases two or three thousand feet up. Fog piled up in the marshes and spread up the shallow slopes, white tendrils creeping and forming and retreating and forming again. This time the battalion was more prepared for it. They were clustered together in a close ring, save the combat air patrol, who came down shortly after dark.

Falcon was very pleased with his spyglass.

Soon afterwards most of them were asleep, save the night watch. Around three in the morning there was an alarm; a commotion which shook Thrush awake and had him spring to his feet. Four-legged shapes were running around in the dark, squealing.

It took him longer than it should've to figure out that they were wild pigs. Damn hogs.

He went back to sleep.

The most notable thing about the next morning was not the sunrise, or the lack of it in the cloistered early mist, but how far Thrush got before he realized he'd woken up. He took in the scattered, thin clouds in the sky, reducing the sunlight to a cool glow, and later the deep gash of destruction on the ground. The rent led north-west in a track that curved slightly westwards the farther away it got, widening with distance. Everywhere it had churned up the mud water had come and filled the crater, so that a new river had begun overnight.

And to think he had almost settled west of the willows…

He remembered hearing a factoid once; that the north Mudwing kingdom had the most cyclones of any place in the world, between the hurricanes of the fall season and the thunderstorms of summer and spring. He wondered how the Mudwings made do here, in a place that to him looked barren as the desert.

Thrush was from a different tribe. It was difficult for him to understand.

What he did understand, however, was that their journey was coming to a close. It was during the afternoon of that day – the twelfth – that he sighted the rainforest, and in the evening that they arrived at its borders.

Some in the battalion celebrated. Thrush did not. He knew more than they about the rainforest. It was their shield to bear the blows of the enemy while his battalion struck back from behind its green walls.

So Thrush took all in stride when the Rainwings came and bade them eat and drink, and tell their tale. To the chameleon-like tribe his force was more of a curiosity than anything else. They would get to word Glory soon; to Ruby, maybe. They worked harder than ever before (they said) but he never could find what it was they were doing, besides learning, poking around in Skywing bags not to steal anything but to find out how the straps attached to each-other and the buckles stayed put. They even offered to replace any cords that were frayed, an offer Thrush graciously accepted.

Peril they treated as if she were a mystery. The dragoness was middle-aged back home, where the kingdom was still recovering from the war and having much of their population killed – more than an eighth, less than a fifth. Here she was called young, her serious bearing out of line with her age.

With Peril lay the rub. She would not 'burn down the rainforest' as one of his soldiers insensitively put it, but she would leave a path of destruction wherever she went on the floor. She certainly couldn't reside in the Rainwing tree-houses and hammocks. Thrush decided to leave her near the edge of the rainforest and give her quiet time for awhile.

The twelfth came and went, and the afternoon of the thirteenth was lazily passing by when Thrush received word from Glory.