“I can’t right now, sorry. Maybe another time,” I said in my best ‘yes you should be suspicious’ tone.

“Yeah, no time,” Liv hurried to say. “We really have to go.”

Chief Garoth nodded. “I understand. I’m sorry to hear that.” Tapping his staff against his horns, he clapped his bottom hands. 

A baseball-sized stone erupted from the wall and slammed into Liv’s chest. Flying back, she hit the wall hard. The gun slipped from her hand. I dove toward it, forgetting for an instant that my arms were tied behind my back. I hit the floor face-first just short of the gun. Luckily, my fall was softened by the furs. 

Liv jumped to her feet and kicked me in the face. Yelping, I jerked back instinctively. She went to grab the gun. I tried to spit fire at her. Pain raced up my arms to sear my throat. My body spasmed with enough force that I hit the gun with my forehead and sent it sliding out of Liv’s reach. She sprinted after it. 

Gritting my teeth against the pain in my face and arms, I struggled to get to my knees. There was no way I’d be able to stop Liv in time. Luckily, Chief Garoth wasn’t done dealing some hurt. He swung his staff furiously, apparently out of magic again but fully capable of using his staff as a baseball bat as he fought off the siblings. Ren danced back and wrestled a small metal club from a side pouch on his bag. He wielded it just as furiously as Garoth, chipping away at the chief’s stone staff. 

Leaning against the wall for support, I dragged myself to my feet. With my hands tied and the rope stopping me from using my magic, I didn’t have much hope of being useful in this fight. I had to get my bindings off. 

A bone-rattling roar shook the ground. Ceiling stones cracked and fell. One hit my shoulder and brought me to my knees again. Cursing, I realized the sharp cracked stone might be a blessing in disguise. I shuffled around so my back was toward it, and I blindly stabbed my wrists at its sharpest edge. I scraped off a layer of feathers and skin, but the ropes snapped. 

Fire flickered at my fingertips without me even summoning it. I jumped to my feet with every intention to jump on Ren and melt his club to a useless pile of slag. But another roar sent more stones falling from the ceiling and walls. This whole building was coming down. Even Ren and Liv knew it; they’d stopped going after Garoth and were shielding their heads instead. 

Confident Garoth could handle himself with them distracted, I ran to Aster. He was still mostly unmoving, but his eyelids flickered when I crouched next to him. I hooked my arms under his back and knees. Trying to pick him up nearly threw out my back. He was way heavier than he looked. I’d have to be in dragon form to lift him, but then I’d be too big to get out the doorway. 

Not that that would be a problem for much longer with the roof coming down. I transformed, acutely aware of the magic draining out of me. With Aster this close, I could always use a little of his if I needed to, but I didn’t want to risk taking more than he could afford to lose. I easily scooped him into my arms just as another roar sent a good portion of the ceiling crashing down inches from my tail. Part of the wall came down with it, blocking the walkway to the door. Good thing I had the feet and wing claws suitable for climbing cliffs—or piles of rubble. 

A shriek distracted me from my escape plans. I spun around to see the two borin healers, one with her leg pinned beneath a stone and the other desperately trying to push it off her. With my arms full, I bit down on the stone instead and dragged it off. The woman’s leg was clearly broken. She wouldn’t be climbing out of here, even with the other borin’s help. 

I hooked my wing claws under her arms and dragged her to her feet. She whimpered in pain but didn’t protest, instead clinging to my wings. The other borin ducked beneath my wing, apparently hoping I could protect her from falling debris. As yet another roar brought down more chunks of stone as big as my head, I hurried to the place where the ceiling had fallen in. Stones bounced off my wings and nicked my flanks, but they weren’t nearly enough to stop me. Unfortunately, the pile of rubble was. 

The stone buildings were built side-by-side, so close not even a borin could squeeze between most of them. Where the wall had fallen in this building, I could see through to the other. I had to climb all the way out over the pile of rubble without my hands or wing claws while also minding a borin on foot. My claw-missing feet didn’t seem up to the task. 

Nevertheless, I stepped on the dubiously solid pile of rubble. Stones slipped out from under me, and I had to twist to avoid falling on the injured borin or Aster. Rock shards cut through my thin wing membranes. 

Hissing, I used my head to push myself to my feet. I couldn’t climb like this, but I didn’t have time to make several trips to get everyone out. More and more stones slammed into my back, assuring me that if I left anyone behind, they would be dead by the time I got back. I had to find another way out. 

Through holes in the shorter wall at the end of the house, I saw it was a little farther from its neighboring building. I might be able to squeeze the borin out through there and free up my wings to climb out myself. Only, what if there was someone in that house? If I brought it down on top of them, how would that be any different than leaving these borin behind to die? 

The second long wall, the one still standing, cracked along the foundation in the wake of another roar. It was coming down soon, no matter what I did. I placed Aster and the injured borin directly under me, nudging the uninjured borin to join them. She did. Bracing my hands and feet against the floor, I tucked in my head and wings and slammed my shoulder into the cracked wall. It came down, but so did the ceiling. 

A huge slab of stone crashed into my shoulders, driving me to my elbows and knees. Gasping for breath, I fought to stay up. I lifted my left wing and shoved the stone as hard as I could, leaning to the right at the same time. It slid off, crumbling to pieces as it impacted the other rubble. 

I grabbed Aster and the injured borin and stumbled out into the narrow walkway between this house and the next. The neighboring house was already in shambles, so I had no trouble caving in its wall to give me some more room as I squeezed down the walkway. 

As soon as I got out into open space, the uninjured borin dragged the injured one out of my grasp and half-carried, half-dragged her in the opposite direction of my tent. Not far behind my tent reared the glacial dragon tearing buildings from the ground like they were little more than kid’s toys. 

I knew I couldn’t fight him, and Chief Garoth couldn’t either, not with his staff drained. The only thing we could do was run. I turned toward the front of the healing house, looking for Chief Garoth. 

Covered in dust, his face heavy from the burden of seeing his home brought to ruins, Garoth looked back at me. Ren and Liv stood by him, supporting each other. They gaped at the destruction the dragon had caused, at bloody footprints leading from ruined homes, at lifeless bodies crushed beneath fallen stones. 

I’d never seen death like this. My only experience with death was watching my great grandma lying on a bed in a coma for a week before they pulled the plug. That was nothing like this. This was a massacre, one I couldn’t do anything about. But I might be able to stop the ones responsible from ever doing it again. 

I rounded on Liv and Ren, flames licking at my beak. “See what you’ve done? Their deaths are on your heads. And yours will be on mine.” I’d made the decision without even thinking, but I lunged at them fully prepared to end this here and now. 

Chief Garoth jumped between us, brandishing what looked like a fractured half of his once impressive staff. “Do not burden your soul with their deaths. My people are dead, and I will carry out their justice. You need to go, now. Take your friends and leave. Head north to the hunters’ camp and retrieve the other human.” He shook the staff again. “Leave this place, young goddess. That is an order I must insist you obey.”

Every fiber of my being wanted to ignore his order. Ren and Liv came here for me, and they enlisted Frozen Tooth’s help to get me. If I’d never come here, no one would’ve died. I owed them whatever small retribution I could give. But as I looked in Chief Garoth’s eyes, I knew I couldn’t disobey his instructions. As much as I cared about his people, he cared much more. Their vengeance was his to take, not mine. 

Snapping my beak shut, I looked back at Frozen Tooth one last time before heading toward the northern outskirts of the village. 

Izzy and the voidcat were there, the only semi-still figures in a sea of fleeing people. Izzy seemed to be arguing over the two dufflars with a pair of borins, the two healers I’d saved from the rubble. The dufflars—gray, silky-furred animals with slender legs and elegant horns—paced nervously as the uninjured borin woman tried to drag their reins away from Izzy. 

I waded through the fleeing borins to get to Izzy.

“No, you can’t have it. I- Mars, you’re here.” She tugged the dufflar back toward her. “Tell her that fancy dude gave us the deer things to ride.”

I shook my head. “They need them more than we do. I can carry you.” 

Reluctantly, she handed over the dufflars’ reins. The voidcat, who had been perched on the second dufflar’s back, furrowed her brows at me and Aster. 

“What’s that you’re carrying? And why-”

“Get on my back, and I’ll explain along the way.”

She flitted to land on my shoulders. Just her sleight weight made my countless cuts and bruises all the more painful. I winced at the thought of Izzy’s weight. Still, I knelt so she could climb on. From the moment she touched my side, I had to fight not to cry out in pain. As she climbed up, my legs trembled under her weight, already strained by the impact of the falling ceiling and now carrying Aster’s weight. 

When I tried to stand, there was a moment when I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do it. It took bracing with my wings and tail to get all the way up, and even taking a few steps forward was a struggle. 

A borin’s chatter drew my attention back to the healers. The injured one was sat on one of the dufflars, its reins in the other borin’s hands. She waved at the second dufflar, whose reins hung loose at its neck. With pained smiles, the two of them made their way after the rest of their village. They’d obviously left the second dufflar for me, something I was infinitely glad for. The slender creature didn’t look like it could carry two people, so it only made sense that Izzy rode with the voidcat while I carried Aster. 

“There, Izzy, you’ve got your dufflar ride. Please get off.” As she slid off and nearly brought me to tears in the process, I addressed the voidcat. “Hey, uh… cat-”

“It’s Fleck.”

“Yeah, Fleck, I need you to ride with Izzy, keep her warm and all.”

“Izzy?”

We didn’t have time for debate. As soon as the dragon was done with eating houses, he would likely come after us. “Yes, Izzy. I know she’s a pain, but could you just-”

“No, I mean, who’s Izzy?”

I sighed. “She’s the small female human.”

“Oh, okay.” She flew down to curl up around Izzy’s shoulders. 

“Let’s go, Izzy. We’ve got to set a decent pace if we’re going to keep ahead of the dragon.”

She laughed nervously. “Well, you know what they say—you don’t have to outrun the dragon, you just have to outrun the four-armed bear people.”

I growled. “If we had time, I would thrash you for saying that. Just shut up and move.” I started after the borins, wincing with every step.