It took most of the day, but Whitney and his wagon full of refugees finally made it back to Fettingborough. None of them had planned for the return trip, it just seemed the most logical thing to do. For one, there was very little chance the Drav Cra would escape the bridge and decide to go back to Fettingborough. Whitney and his crew were worthless after being used to make the Glassmen hesitate.
The other reason Fettingborough made the most sense was it was one of the final communities until Panping. The Wildlands still stretched out before them, and although Whitney didn’t expect to find anything worse out there than a Drav Cra army, there would undoubtedly be the regular manner of beasts: lions, bears, your occasional goblin horde. Just like anyone in the Glass Kingdom, Whitney’d heard all the stories about bloodthirsty humanoid goblins living in primitive villages at the base of the Dragon’s Tail and sacrificing virgins to the sun and stars—but he was one of the few who’d encountered them in person. They were little more than scaly little lizard creatures that stood on two legs most of the time. They didn’t speak. He questioned whether they even thought. And they certainly didn’t wield spears or wear armor. They were, by far, the least threatening predator in the Wildlands.
For most, being back in Fettingborough conjured up bad memories, but no one complained at the opportunity to stretch their legs. The Drav Cra had left the village mostly intact. Now in the daylight, it was clear that about half the population of the place was left alive to grieve for those lost and others maybe never to return. They were all just tools for taking the bridge and making threats. The Five Round Trousers looked mostly the same as it had the night before, and the basement was still stocked with food and ale. The Drav Cra had been hasty and sloppy in plundering supplies.
Whitney felt a little bad, like he was stealing from the barmaid he’d met in his cage, but he was sure she’d have wanted the escapees to get a bit of respite.
The thought of her brought a pang of guilt. Had he left all those people to die back on the bridge? Would Rand actually try and help them? Whitney thought for sure the man had decided to grab the Caleef and high-tail it as soon as he’d stepped foot onto the bridge.
Whitney found a new room at the Five Round Trousers that wasn’t scorched by Aquira, and Gentry got his own since there weren’t many travelers left to take the rooms. There was nobody to give payment to either.
Gentry hadn’t spoken much since the return. He’d been through a traumatic experience and needed some alone time to process it all. They all would. Aquira wouldn’t leave Whitney’s side. He practically had to beg her to stay with Gentry so the boy would feel safe and promised if she did, he’d find a way to remove her crude muzzle as quickly as possible. There weren’t any locks so he wasn’t sure what to do yet.
Benon and another man Whitney didn’t know were off in the fields behind town burying Conmonoc alongside many locals. Some of the others joined them to say words, but most stayed in town, eating their fill and resting. A priest of Iam would’ve been nice to ease emotions—Whitney didn’t believe in much, but those eyeless weirdos always knew just what to say—but they were all still off in Hornsheim playing house. The church itself was empty but for a local woman and her kids, kneeling before the Eye of Iam and asking “why.”
He’ll never answer, Whitney thought as he passed them on his way to the stables.
Most of the Pompare Troupe’s stuff—tents, cooking wares, wagons, and the like—had been recovered by the stables, still hitched to their horses. The Drav Cra didn’t bother to take a thing. Even the Pompares’ fancy carriage hadn’t been ransacked. Francesca was already in the kitchen, grateful everyone had made it back alive. She was working hard to produce something hearty to give the people a morale boost.
Talwyn and Lucindur cared for the horses and the two massive zhulong they now owned. The poor things were mighty spooked, and Lucindur played her salfio while Talywn brushed them.
“So, where are the Pompares?” Whitney asked Lucindur, nodding toward their empty carriage. He’d barely finished his sentence before Talwyn was hanging on his neck, showering his face with kisses.
“You saved us,” she said. Then, in his ear, whispered, “You deserve a reward.” He felt the distinct feeling of her warm tongue on his earlobe. He let out an uncomfortable laugh followed by an involuntary shudder.
Whitney gently pushed her back and said, “It was nothing,” then looked to Lucindur. “The Pompares?”
Their trip and subsequent unloading had been hasty, and Whitney had failed to take a proper roll call.
“They weren’t in the other cage?” she asked.
Whitney shook his head and swore. “Did you see them at all after they went upstairs last night?”
“No.”
Whitney jogged back to the Five Round Trousers and checked the Pompares’ room. It was private, all the way at the end, so he hadn’t looked yet. He quickly turned away and retched at the sight of Fadra Pompare naked in a puddle of his yig and shog.
Gentry called from down the hall, and Whitney turned. “Stay there.”
“What’s wrong?” Gentry asked. The boy stroked Aquira, her mouth still held shut in the metal muzzle. She slithered out of his grasp and tried to run to Whitney, but her injured wing was attached to her left leg, and she stumbled, squawking in pain. Whitney scooped her up.
“Nothing. Just… It’s empty. No need to…” His voice trailed off as he closed the door and met Gentry down the hall. “Let’s go figure out how to get Aquira free. What do you say?”
Gentry nodded.
“All right, find a table for her, and I’ll be right back,” Whitney said, and gingerly handed her to him.
Outside, Whitney found a couple of townsmen and told them what he’d found. “Could you discreetly get rid of the body? Don’t want the boy knowing just yet. He’s been through enough.” They nodded, and Whitney said, “He’s going to be heavy.” They groaned but did as he asked. Considering all he’d done for a few of them, and their relatives, they couldn’t deny him.
Lucindur sat on a stoop by the general store. Whitney took a seat next to her and said, “You okay?”
“Fine. You?”
“Fadra’s dead,” he said softly.
“What? How?”
“Throat is slit. Did you know he slept naked… unless they were… blagh.” He shook the thought away. “Modera isn’t there. We should have someone search for her.”
Lucindur closed her eyes for a moment, exhaled. “I’ll handle it.”
“Thanks,” Whitney said. “Oh, and don’t tell the boy yet, huh? Let him deal with what he’s already dealing with before adding more to his load.”
“Right. Talwyn too,” Lucindur said as she walked, then approached another group of men, presumably sending them out to sweep the town for any who might have avoided being captured in the first place.
Back inside, Gentry must have noticed Whitney’s concerned expression. “The Pompares will be fine,” he said. “They always are.”
Whitney wasn’t sure who the boy was trying to convince. The sad truth was that lords and ladies—and no mistake could be made, that was how the Pompares behaved—were rarely fine without those who cared for them.
Whitney forced a nod of approval and a meek grin, then took a seat with Gentry at the same table they’d all gathered around just a few nights before—though it felt like a lifetime ago. Aquira lay prone on the table as they worked on removing her muzzle. It was a crude design, certainly not designed for a wyvern since nothing was designed for a wyvern.
For an hour, Whitney tried with very little success, and he was getting frustrated. Aquira kept trying to fly, but one of her wings was cut, and the contraption held the other in place against her body. It didn’t help that she kept screeching and jerking her head away. For a creature that was supposed to be smart, she didn’t seem to understand that Whitney was trying to help. That she felt he was hurting her on purpose pained Whitney beyond words. It felt like he was hurting Sora…
“Please, Aquira, I’m not trying to hurt you,” he said. “I need to get this thing off. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
The words soothed her for the moment, and Whitney was able to continue. There was no lock, nothing to pick. Once the ring snapped closed, it was designed to stay that way. Small spikes dug into Aquira’s frills. If not for her glaruium-strong scales, they’d likely have killed her already.
“Come on, come on, come on,” he demanded under his breath. Whitney had been using the sword that Ugosah, the mustached Drav Cra man dropped during their fight on the wagon, prying at the seam and hinges over and over. He threw it down in frustration when, for the third time, a shard of the weapon broke off in the muzzle.
“Shog in a barrel,” Gentry said.
“Hey, don’t say…” Whitney started, then waved his hand. “Shog in a barrel is right.”
“What are we going to do?” Gentry asked.
Whitney shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Aquira snorted, and a puff of smoke rose from her nostrils.
“I wish she could talk,” Gentry said.
“Would make this whole thing a lot easier, wouldn’t it?” Whitney said.
Aquira perked up. She stood now, gesturing in a way that seemed a lot like she was nodding her head. She puffed smoke again and tried to fly, but her injured wing had her moving in tight circles. Puff. Puff.
“Lay down, Aquira,” Whitney scolded. “We’ve gotta get this thing loose.”
She puffed again, and Whitney tried to force her to lie down.
“Are you trying to tell us something?” Gentry asked.
Puff. Puff.
“Stop it,” Whitney said again.
“I think she’s trying to say something!” Gentry insisted.
Whitney let out a breath and said, “Okay, fine. I’ve been trying to get her to talk to me for months. You think you can figure her out? Be my guest.”
“Really?” Gentry asked.
“Pick her up,” Whitney said. “Careful of her wing.”
Gentry carefully lifted the wyvern.
“Do you have an idea how to remove your muzzle?” Whitney asked Aquira, feeling stupid even as he said it.
Aquira… nodded.
Whitney smiled, then cleared his throat. “No.”
She nodded again, and Gentry smiled this time. Ear to ear. Unapologetic.
“What do we do, girl,” Gentry asked.
She shook her head.
“See, she’s just moving around,” Whitney said. “That thing is making her uncomfortable. Can you blame her?”
“No, I think she’s still telling us something,” Gentry said.
Aquira shook her head harder. Then her big eyes looked around the room. She shook her head again.
“Nothing… or… Not here!” Whitney exclaimed, then realized he was shouting. Nobody in the tavern was in the mood for that kind of excitement yet, troupe, locals or otherwise. “Somewhere else?”
Aquira extended her neck in the exit’s direction. She squeaked as the contraption dug into her scales.
“Walk?” Gentry asked. Then he turned to Whitney and said, “Walk. She wants us to walk.”
Together they started toward the door. Whitney still felt a little silly, but he couldn’t deny that Aquira was acting funny.
“Aquira, tell us where to go, One puff for right,” Gentry instructed, “two for left. Let’s see how smart you really are.”
They went outside, passing by Lucindur and the others.
Puff.
They went right, and Whitney wondered if the wyvern truly guided them. When they reached an intersection, Aquira did nothing, leading to more suspicion. Had Whitney so desperately wanted some kind of connection to Sora that he’d imagined her pet was talking to him?
When they didn’t move, Aquira flapped her injured wing and nudged them forward. About a block later, she puffed twice, and they turned left.
“Aquira, where are we going?” Whitney asked just before she screeched and flapped wildly. “Here?”
Aquira nodded.
Gentry would have put her down, but she could still barely walk.
“The blacksmith?” Gentry asked.
Aquira nodded again.
“Aquira, you’re brilliant!” Whitney exclaimed, grabbing the wyvern from Gentry’s arms. He threw off all restraint, thinking he’d figured out her plan. He remembered back in Winde Port, in all the fire and chaos, how Aquira was zipping through the white-hot flames like they couldn’t damage her.
“What? What did I miss?” the boy asked as he followed Whitney.
The front door swung open, and the shop was empty. Dust motes carried themselves in the sunlight, dancing like Talwyn on stage. The town blacksmith was nowhere to be found, and his entire stock of goods had been pilfered. Apparently, it was worth something to the marching savages.
“You sure you can handle it?” Whitney asked Aquira.
She didn’t respond except to flap her good wing in a frantic attempt to move forward.
“What are you talking about?” Gentry asked.
“I hope I’m right,” Whitney said as he threw open the curtains over several windows, flooding the place with more light. In the center of the room stood a wide, brick forge already filled with coal as if the blacksmith had been getting ready for the day when he was taken—although that couldn’t have been true since the raid happened at night. Whitney tenderly placed Aquira down, then made his way to the side of the forge and, using a bit of flint and steel, struck up a flame.
“On the bellows,” he told Gentry, pointing. “Squeeze then release, slowly. Let the flame build.”
“How do you know about this stuff?” Gentry asked as he pumped, forcing the flames higher.
“You pick stuff up when you travel the world,” Whitney said, then realized how stupid he sounded telling a kid who had spent his entire life on the roads of Pantego about world travel. In reality, Whitney had learned what to do in Elsewhere Troborough, helping the blacksmith make farming tools for his parents and the other farmers.
Smoke started to fill the room, burning Whitney’s eyes. Gentry started coughing. Waving his hands around to clear the air, Whitney said, “Flue. Gotta open the flue.”
Gentry reached up and threw a lever and immediately the smoke began evacuating the room.
“Guess you don’t learn everything out in the world,” Gentry said, laughing. He stopped the moment he looked down to see Aquira’s sad eyes and still-muzzled mouth.
“All right, girl.” Whitney lifted Aquira to eye level. “You sure about this?”
Puff. Nod.
“Wait. What are you going to do?” Gentry asked.
Without answering, Whitney placed Aquira down on the warm brick. The wyvern looked back before lowering her head into the flames, hot as the magma in the bellows of the Dragon’s Tail where only the bravest and greediest dwarves mined.
Whitney winced, and Gentry screamed, “What are you doing!”
“Don’t worry,” Whitney said. “She’s impervious to the stuff… I think.”
As they watched the metal turn yellow, the fire started to die. Whitney looked up to see Gentry had stopped pumping the bellows, enraptured by the sight before him. A beat passed before Gentry’s eyes met Whitney’s and Whitney offered an assuring nod.
“Oh, right. Sorry.”
“Good. Good. Keep doing that.” Whitney said as he quickly spun a circle, looking at the tools at his disposal. He found a pair of gloves and slipped them on, then snatched up a broken hammer and chisel and placed them down near the anvil.
“Okay, that’s enough.” At Whitney’s words, Gentry stopped pumping. Sweat glistening on the kid’s forehead. Fear twisted his features.
Careful only to touch her with his gloves, Whitney lifted Aquira from the flames and placed her on the anvil. Despite having a fiery hot ring of steel around her snout, Aquira never looked better, as if she were somehow revived within the flames.
“I’ll try t
o be careful, but you have to try not to move, you hear?” Whitney said.
Puff.
“I guess that means ‘yes.’” Whitney drew a deep breath, then coughed from the smoke rapidly filling his lungs. “Okay.” He coughed again. “Here we go.”
Gentry closed his eyes as Whitney placed the sharp end of the chisel against the glowing steel right at the hinge, then gripped what was left of the hammer’s shaft and drove the head down. It clanked. Aquira groaned. The muzzle didn’t move.
“Those spikes,” Gentry said. “They’re going to kill her.”
“They won’t. Her skin is strong as glaruium. Try not to worry.”
The hammer came down again and again.
“A little more. Almost got it.”
Finally, the clasp popped and half the manacle clattered against the anvil. Whitney hadn’t noticed the bit that was stuffed far down her throat. He pulled, and it took Whitney’s full strength to pull it out. The poor wyvern gagged, Whitney nearly threw up, and then the whole, white-hot contraption clanked to the floor.
Aquira shook her head and stretched her neck. When she opened her jaw, a plume of smoke escaped.
“You did it!” Gentry said as he reached in to pick her up.
“She’s hot as heated steel!” Whitney grabbed him. “Don’t touch.”
Aquira recoiled slightly and bobbed her head.
“You really can understand me, can’t you?” Whitney asked.
Aquira didn’t respond.
“We need water,” Whitney instructed.
“Where can I—”
“Try the stables. There’s gotta be a trough still full.”
When Gentry left the building, Whitney turned to regard Aquira. She continued to cough up a mixture of phlegm, smoke, and liquid fire. A chunk of the table beneath her melted away. Whitney stared at her and remembered the first time he and Sora had met her in Winde Port. He remembered how Sora had marveled at the creature like she was the most amazing thing she’d ever seen.
“Do you…” Whitney swallowed. His throat was insanely dry from the heat. “Do you know where Sora is?” he asked. “Is she still in Panping?” Saying it out loud gave him goosebumps. He couldn’t believe he didn’t think of asking earlier.
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