Once more they trudged through the Rainforest. Once more they endured the miserable heat, rough terrain, and unceasing insect swarms. Once more they constantly looked over their shoulders, eyes wide and worried over what might be on their tails, pursuing them.
Only Mastermind seemed to be in a good mood. Good in comparison, at least—he still struggled like the rest of them—but there was a little more spring in his steps. There was some excitement in his eyes, as though the prospect of finding out more about this creature encouraged him on. Glory supposed she couldn't be surprised about this, considering who Mastermind was, but she wasn't comfortable with it. After all, she still suspected he knew more than he let on, even if he still said nothing when she pressed him.
Their pace had picked up significantly since they'd started, too. Before they were going slow, methodically searching for signs of what they were up against. Now, they were just trying to get home. And although Glory suggested Caiman or Lemur fly ahead for more aide, both refused to abandon her, citing how a group of three dragons had already been eliminated, and it was possible that their larger group was the only thing that had kept them from being attacked more than they already had been.
For the most part, the group was silent as they went. Glory could only imagine the other's minds were like hers: thinking about the losses of Tarsier and Preykiller and how it could have been stopped, along with worry about who might be next. Twice dragons had gotten picked off with hardly a fight, and twice they'd had to do nothing but move on.
The next break wasn't until around midafternoon, when they stopped for a brief meal and to rest their weary legs. They'd stumbled across an open area in the Rainforest, roughly circular, where they were able to sit together in a circle, looking behind each other's backs. Lemur passed out the dried fruit from his bag, which they nibbled on in silence, none of them very hungry.
"Tell us a story, Lemur," Glory suggested, eager to break the silence and simply get her mind off of the two deaths earlier that same day, "If you feel up to it, I mean. I think it will do us all some good."
"Yeah," Caiman agreed gruffly, "Let's have one."
Mastermind was silent, Deathbringer just grunted, but that was as much encouragement as Lemur needed. He gave a tired sigh and pulled himself up. He paused for a second in thought, then opened his mouth.
Three dragons went out on a hunt one night
One with a bow, one with a spear, one with a sword
They searched far and wide for a yellow-tailed swan
Under the light of the shimmering moons
The shimmering shining moons
Glory smiled softly, relaxing as he spoke, trying to let herself be lost in the budding tale.
The dragon with the sword went out first
He found the swan and gave it chase
But it flew away ere it saw his blade
Under the light of the shimmering moons
The shimmering shining moons
She wasn't familiar with this story. In a way, it resembled his first one, and though it didn't have the poetic flare of the other, she found herself nodding along.
The dragon with the spear followed the first
And tracked down the swan where it landed
But the swan saw his spear and it took off again
Under the light of the shimmering moons
The shimmering shining moons
Glory blinked, and tilted her head. Shimmering and shining. She looked behind Leumr. It…it almost looked like there was a shimmering behind him. A shifting of leaves though no breeze of wind. An odd smell filled the air, one of decay.
The dragon with the bow went out last
And drew the string from afar
The swan never saw the arrow and fell
Under the light of the shimmering moons
The shimmering shining moons
The light of the shining moons.
The forest behind Lemur moved, and Glory opened her mouth to shout a warning. Lemur was smiling, proud of completing his tale, when he was suddenly jerked backwards by an unseen force. He cried out, Glory and the others jumping to their feet, and it was Caiman who immediately leapt forward into the fray.
"Die you worm!" the green dragon shouted, unsheathing the blade at his side and attacking with outstretched claws. There was a large snarl that echoed his cry, and Glory lost sight of both Caiman and Lemur for a moment as the latter was dragged into the foliage.
She heard Lemur give a cry for help, which was cut off suddenly a half-moment later.
But Caiman was still fighting, and as Glory came closer to offer aide she saw him grappling with…something. She couldn't tell because, really, she couldn't see. There were signs of scales where Caimans claws dug into his opponent, there were flashes of color contrasting with the bushes around them and the ground below, and altogether it seemed to be a shifting form that writhed against him. For an instant she saw what looked like an arm stretch across the Rainwing's body, a mottled green like the Rainforest around them, before it almost instantly turned the same hue as Caiman's scales and practically disappeared against them.
What was clear, though, was when she saw materializing almost out of nowhere a maw filled with teeth. It bit down on Caiman's shoulder, and the Rainwing roared in pain. There was more thrashing, and Caiman was pushed to the ground as what was visible disappeared again. But it was not fully vanished; Glory saw the plants rustling as it took off, and she opened her mouth and sprayed her venom in its direction. Beside her, she saw Deathbringer throwing chakrams at it, but whether any hit she could not say. There was no roar of pain, and after a matter of seconds the forest quieted and the assailant was gone.
"Son of a snake!" Caiman cursed, his talons on his shoulder where he'd been bitten, splatters of blood dripping from clawmarks and bitemarks. "What was that thing?"
"I don't know," Deathbringer answered, looking around, "But it got Lemur."
Her focus on Caiman and his fight, Glory had almost forgotten about the other Rainwing. He laid a short distance away, and Glory only got close enough to see that his head was twisted at an unnatural angle before she flinched away. Once again, one of their number was dead.
"I could hardly even see it," Caiman grunted, "And it felt like wrestling a tree. I've never felt anything like it." His wings sagged, and he staggered to his fallen comrade. As he'd done with Preykiller, he closed the eyes of the other Rainwing. Glory noticed that as he turned away he pounded the ground with a clenched claw.
But she also noticed something else. She looked back at the last dragon of their group, Mastermind, who had hardly flinched from where he'd been sitting before. His head was slightly tilted, and his eyes were wide. Not with fear or shock, but clear excitement. The she heard him speak, the soft words under his breath but unmistakable in that moment.
"It's better than we ever dreamed."
For a second, Glory looked at him in confusion, then that confusion quickly turned to all-out rage. "You worm!" she shouted, and the Nightwing started as though suddenly realizing he'd spoken out loud, "You've known about it all along!"
"I…I…" he stammered, stepping back as Glory took a menacing step towards him. Only a wing from Deathbringer blocking her path kept her from launching herself at him right there, although that effort on the assassin's part was halfhearted. "I don't…"
"Why didn't you say anything?" she snarled, "You just watched as they died!"
Mastermind clearly didn't know what to say or do, simply taking another step backwards. Caiman wheeled on him, too, and the Nightwing's eyes were frightened as the three dragons closed in on him.
"Tell us what you know, everything," Glory demanded, "Or I swear to the moons that I'll feed you to that thing myself."
"I…I can't!" he continued to insist, "I swore an oath!"
"I don't care," Glory growled, "Deathbringer, make him talk."
The assassin didn't even try to protest. He pulled out a chakram, and Mastermind wilted.
"O—okay, okay!" he raised a claw, "I'll tell you what I know! Please, just don't do anything regrettable."
Deathbringer snorted, but lowered his lethal weapon.
"Speak," Glory demanded again, her want for answers the only thing greater than the lust for his blood in this moment.
"It's a…well…it's hard to really say, really," Mastermind stammered, "You have to understand, we were trying to come up with…I mean, we didn't really know what we were doing."
"Get to it," Caiman prodded, brandishing the same blade he'd just slashed at the creature with.
"What's attacking you…it's a Nightwing creation," Mastermind told them, "I suppose creation is the right word, isn't it? It was our…our first attempt, so to say."
"Your first attempt at what?" Glory hissed.
"Our first attempt to take the Rainforest," came his answer as he slowly recomposed himself. "To kill the Rainwings and seize your kingdom."
Glory narrowed her eyes in confusion. "Explain."
"Once Queen Battlewinner decided our goal was to invade the Rainforest, there were a lot of ideas on how to do it," the Nightwing scientist explained, "Some dragons wanted all out warfare, other dragons wanted a more…subtle plan. We had an animus in Stonemover—this was before he deserted—and anything was possible. So Battlewinner created a plan, swearing all involved to complete secrecy."
"The idea was to create a weapon, or series of weapons, to infiltrate the Rainforest and slowly pick you off from the inside," he continued, "But it could not be a Nightwing, and it needed to be able to kill ruthlessly and efficiently without fear of detection. So, we created something new. Something that wasn't a dragon."
Deathbringer tilted his head at this. Glory looked at him, and she could see that this was certainly news to him. As important as the assassin had been to Nightwing plans, he hadn't been informed on everything, it seemed.
"We took what worked well in the Rainforest—Rainwing biology—and decided to mix it with the one other thing known to be consistently lethal to dragons: the dragonbite viper. Using Stonemover's magic, dragon and viper were combined into one creature. A living amalgamation, of sorts. A creature bred to live in the Rainforest, bred to kill."
"A monster," Deathbringer said.
"If you choose to call it that, yes," Mastermind nodded, "We made it strong, with enhanced Rainwing camouflage and viper venom and claws and all it needed to kill. And we let it be smart—but not too smart. We wanted to train it, to control it. To that end was my role in the matter. I worked with Stonemover in the early stages of training, teaching it commands as I studied it. Like the pet dogs some tribes have, it proved an apt learner."
"So you released it on us?" Caiman asked with a sneer.
"No, no, no," Mastermind shook his head, "The project was never finished. Stonemover vanished not long after the training began, and it with him. It was always assumed he had destroyed it when he deserted the tribe. There were only a few dragons that even knew about it, and the queen wasn't about to announce a search for a secretive killing machine on the loose. As far as we were concerned, the experiment was over, and we moved on to different things."
"Clearly, you were mistaken," Glory snorted.
"Yes, we were," Mastermind nodded, "I don't know how it got here, but obviously it was not destroyed like we thought."
"If that is your monster, why's it attacking now?" Deathbringer frowned, "It must have been here for a while, and we haven't lost dragons to it before. At least, not in such numbers."
"I've been wondering that myself," the scientist answered, "And I think I do have an answer. I studied dragonbite vipers quite a bit when I was involved in this project. The snakes can be extremely territorial, especially when they reach maturity and look for a mate. They reach that maturity at around eight years. The project was started eight years ago. It might be going on these killings less for food—although clearly it makes a meal of the more nutritious parts—but more to impress and attract a mate."
"So a whole lot of good dragons died because an unnatural monster wants to get laid?" Caiman huffed incredulously, "Sounds like a cruel joke."
"It's just a working theory, as there are still a lot of unknowns," Mastermind told him, "But with that in mind, we have an excellent opportunity here. If we can capture it, we can study it. I could even attempt to complete its training!"
Glory just looked at him incredulously. "Study it? Are you joking? This thing has just killed three dragons in the past day alone! We are here to kill it, nothing more!"
"But think of the benefits!" he insisted, "Yes, it may be animus-made, but it's still a living, functional creature. Who knows what kind of interesting biological secrets it might hold. We can't pass up an opportunity for discovery like this."
"Absolutely not," Glory repeated her thoughts bluntly, "We kill it, that's it."
"But…" Mastermind began, but she silenced him with a glare.
"You're already on the thinnest ice in Pyrrhia," she told him, "You should have told us this long ago, not now. Dragons have died because of you. Why didn't you tell us?"
"I…I vowed secrecy," he defended himself once again, "And…and I couldn't be sure until now. But I am! Please, Queen Glory, you need to let me try to capture it, or at least contact it. I trained it in signals—I might be able to get it to obey me again."
"Shut up," she hissed, finally silencing him, "We are not going to try to control it. We are not going to study it. We are going to go back to the village, then return with enough dragons to kill it if we have to burn down half the forest to do so, understand?"
He looked down. "Yes," he said meekly, although he was clearly unhappy about it.
"Now," she turned to Deathbringer, "Which way is home. I'm getting sick of this jungle, and I'm getting sick of death."