Iris's Guardian

by Lisa Daniels

  Awful images flashed through her mind. The babies, thrown across the room, so that they lay in lifeless bundles in the corner of the room. Or her sisters, taken away to the mansion, never to return. Or her mother, having done everything possible to protect her children, beaten or left for dead. She didn't even want to think about what they'd do to her grandpa.

  Sobs hitched in her throat. Terror consumed her thoughts, not for herself, but for the family she'd left behind. The family she wasn't supposed to care about, because people tended to die too fast and too soon. Dangerous to love, they said. Dangerous to let your heart out of its box.

  The stamps grew louder. She sped up, but couldn’t outrun them. Not if they turned into huge wyrms, crossing the field in strides. Not if they were trained soldiers, and she was just a poor, underfed serf. Also, she smelled too distinctive, covered in manure. Her only chance was to bury herself in something to hide her body and scent, and hope they passed her by.

  Don't think about them. Keep that heart locked up tight. Keep it away from everyone who wishes to harm it.

  Her powerlessness chafed at her. Why couldn't she do anything? Why hadn't she braved the idea of wandering into the wilderness before, hoping to find a place away from all the fucking wyrms?

  She yelped as she ran into a clearing and saw a man there. Shit. Shit! He froze in shock as she sped past. She didn’t look behind her. Didn't want to risk it, didn't want to look back and maybe see him have those horrible yellow eyes. She needed to keep running.

  Part of her wanted to collapse at that point, and give up. How did she expect to escape these monsters? The stomps vibrated nearer. Where from? The guards chasing her, or the stranger in the woods, in a place he had no business being? Whoever chased her, they shortened the gap. Their stomps grew louder. Her heart threatened to burst out of her chest. She then heard a distinctive, cultured voice say, “Oh, bother. Slow down! Stop running!”

  Her heart iced over. Her blood became frozen crystal. She glanced back to see the man running after her in the dark. She sobbed in terror as he seized her by the wrist, easily outstripping her speed.

  “Sorry about this,” he said, before transforming. “Wow, but you're really gross. You know that, right? Where did you land? In a giant cow-pat?”

  Anya let out a piercing scream as talons encased her, and she heard the beat of wings as the monster carried her off the ground.

  Chapter Two

  There was only so long Anya could keep screaming until she decided that her breath was wasted. It didn't do anything to improve the situation.

  Then there was the other peculiar thing. First off, Anya had never imagined that you could get dragons with wings. Wyrms didn't fly. But this thing did. So he... wasn't a wyrm?

  “Are you done screaming yet?” he said, sounding rather irritated. “Because I have sensitive ears, and really, you're not doing yourself any favors.”

  She didn't bother responding to him. Her heart throbbed painfully, and now that she could peek through his talons, she saw the ground a long way off, and the tops of trees and rolling hills. He could flex his claws and crush her to death, or release them and drop her to her death. Screaming at him to release her didn't seem like the best idea right now.

  “Well? Aren't you going to say anything? Hello? It's considered polite to talk to your rescuers.”

  Rescued? Anya blinked her brown eyes in confusion. Her terrified, sluggish mind tried catching up with his words. Hard to think with her blood pounding so fast, with her limbs shaking like wheat in a strong breeze. Hard to think when you were trapped in the claws of a fucking dragon, thousands of feet in the air.

  Part of her fear melted, enough to unblock her throat and provide the dragon with words. “You say you rescued me?”

  “Didn't I? I mean, I can fly back and drop you in the woods again if you want. But I'm pretty sure I saw a bunch of wyrms chasing you, and that you were on your last legs, trying to get away. And in a dreadful state. I might have to take several baths after handling you. As for you – I'll be sticking your head under the water until you're squeaky clean. Don't you peasants ever clean yourselves?”

  His rapid chatter confused her. She didn't have conversation with dragons. Especially not ones that seemed to like the sound of their own voices. Her exhausted mind tried to wrap itself around the concept that he seemed to think he'd saved her.

  “What will you... do with me?”

  The dragon was silent a moment. His wings batted through the air, buffeting the wind on either side. His body lurched forward with every beat, as he propelled himself through the air. “Plenty of things. I plan to take you home first. I live in a drake and human settlement called Tarn. I'll take you there first, get you scrubbed up and fed, because you look like a disgusting shit monster, and then we'll see what to do from there. Put you into one of the programs we have running for the humans, helping rehabilitate them from wyrm slave conditioning.”

  Drakes? Rehabilitation? What?

  “What's a drake?”

  “Why,” the dragon said, vastly amused, “me. I'm a drake. You know, with the flappy wings and sexy scales. Wait. You've never seen a drake before?” When she didn't answer, he made a tsking sound in his throat. “You really are isolated, aren't you? Okay, quick lesson. There are wyrms. Big ugly things that don't like anyone. There are drakes like me, who don't wish to see humans turned into slaves. And humans. Clear enough so far?”

  Anya closed her eyes, too exhausted to care, to think. He seemed to sense this, and let out a rattling sigh.

  “I'll tell you later. Let's get you back. But please trust me when I say I'm your ally. Drakes are actually supportive towards your kind. And I don't want to see you dead at the hands of those wyrms.”

  Anya nodded, even though he couldn't see it. It wasn't like she had a choice, anyway. She was stuck in this drake's talons, whether she trusted him or not. “Okay.”

  She kept her eyes closed, before a question popped to mind. She cleared her throat and shouted through his talons, “Why do you care... if I live or die?”

  He dipped in the air, causing her stomach to lurch. “Someone has to,” he eventually said. “And others of my kind agree.”

  What a novel concept. Dragons that cared. Anya's world view began slowly crumbling. She always thought... she always assumed that the world was black and white. Cruel wyrms, and suffering humans. Yet, being in the sky right now, she instantly realized that the world was a lot bigger than she expected.

  She'd never left the plantation. For all her talk of freedom, of making a new life for herself, she’d never found the courage to leave her prison.

  Perhaps she was as much a coward as the rest of her people. That idea sank her heart, and again made tears stab at her eyes. The tears came harder when she remembered the people she left behind, their fates unknown. They'd essentially sacrificed themselves to ensure her survival. Six people for one. Didn't seem like much of a fair trade.

  “What's your name, human?” The drake had a soft voice, sounding as if he was one step away from breaking into song. It held a certain poise in it. He also spoke much fancier than her rough plantation accent. More like the wyrms. Except he claimed he was nothing like them. And seemed to dislike them as well.

  “Anya,” she said. No last name. Serfs didn't carry last names. Giving her name to him made her feel naked somehow. That name was special. It belonged to her. It was about the only thing that did in these plantations. An honor bestowed to her for making it past ten years of age.

  “I'm Kalgrin,” he said. The night air continued to whip around them, and she huddled deeper into the crevice of his talons, using them as a windbreak.

  Kalgrin. She committed the name of her savior to mind. She allowed her mind to dare now, to absorb the fact that Kalgrin actually wanted to help.

  “Are there places where humans are free?” Her heart twitched at the prospect. “Places where we don't have to worry about wyrms?”

  “Yes,” Kalgrin answered. “Ther
e are. There are also places where wyrms have a hard time doing things. Such as the town we're going to, because drakes run it.”

  “Are there many drakes?”

  “Not as many as wyrms.” He let out a sigh at this, which drifted away in the wind. “Or believe me, the world would be a much better place now.”

  Huh. How strange. Dragons... helping humans. The concept sounded so alien to her ear. Dragons hated humans. That was what she'd been brought up to believe.

  And this Kalgrin... he didn't. He'd scooped her up, smelly and all, with the intention of taking her home and bathing her.

  It seemed laughable, and she might have done so had she not been terrified about the fate of her family. She didn't know how to express that to Kalgrin, though, so she remained silent instead.

  His strong, melodic voice cut through the darkness, penetrating Anya’s brain. He spoke of something else, but her mind now wandered, no longer paying attention. She examined her filth-caked arms under the stars and moon, realizing she must look like some kind of primeval sludge monster. Not something you wanted to touch. She didn't even want to be in her own skin right now.

  When Kalgrin fell silent again, Anya asked the next burning question in her mind. “Why were you lurking in the woods?” It did seem a little suspicious to her somehow that he happened to be there. Especially if he could fly around wherever he wanted. Imagine having wings like this. The places she might go, the hills and forests her eyes would see.

  Imagine having such power at her fingertips. A stab of jealously hit her stomach.

  This Kalgrin probably didn't realize how lucky he was. To not be a soft, weak human, to have the awesome power of his form and flight. To be able to do anything he wanted. No wonder humans were so easily enslaved, if everything around them possessed more strength, more freedom. It was the way of nature – for the strong to suppress the weak.

  A depressing thought, but it made sense.

  “Oh, that’s easy,” he replied. A long, red tail whipped in front of her, making her mind jump in surprise. Red? He was red. She struggled to see the color of his scales, encased inside them, but the glint of moonlight there... red like the color of blood. She shivered. “I was planning to make it to the plantation owner’s house and murder him.”

  The statement confused Anya. For a moment, she remained utterly speechless. “What?”

  “Once he’s dead,” the drake continued, acting as if he didn’t expect her to be stunned, “or just before, the rest of my kind will arrive here to take the rest of you out, and place you in better homes. Unfortunately,” the dragon iterated, “it seems you were being chased for some reason. There's too much attention right now, too many eyes watching the ground and the skies.” He didn’t seem irritated at having to cancel, however.

  Slowly, surely, it began to sink in. A drake had saved her. Some type of dragon she had no clue existed. A drake that had every intention of walking into the plantation and murdering the wyrms there. That realization hurt. If she hadn't said anything… if she hadn't tried to prise some life out of the humans… would they be free right now?

  No. There's no way I could have predicted something like this. I never even knew he existed. I had no reason to think anything would change. After all, nothing had changed for the first eighteen years of my life. Nothing at all.

  Still, a tightness squeezed around her heart.

  “I’ll need to quickly intercept the launch point and tell the others to go to the plantation another time, but it’s not a problem.”

  All the words sunk in, accumulating to one, incredible idea. He really did help humans. He really fucking did.

  Incredible. And just like that, some of the tension leached out of her muscles. She no longer held that fear of being dropped, of being taken someplace awful as he did nefarious things to her.

  Still wasn't safe yet, though. And she still didn't understand this drake's purpose in doing something that so obviously benefited humans, and crippled fellow dragons.

  Best not to complain about that yet. Although... “I still have to ask. Wyrms see us as dirt beneath their toes. What stops you from thinking the same?”

  He let out a long, dry chuckle, only too happy to explain.

  “For a drake, the measure of our kind is not in how we treat our equals, but in how we treat our inferiors,” he responded. “Wyrms, unfortunately, don’t really see you as sentient beings. Drakes do. We have human forms for a reason.” The dragon paused for a moment, then wrinkled his nose. “You really smell, though. Sorry.”

  “I had to go through a privy to escape,” Anya replied, slightly wry. He dipped, rolling her out of the section of talons that shielded her. The wind was really cold. It dried the stuff on her, which made her partially worry that she'd never be able to get it off.

  “Your turn, little human. May I ask why you needed to escape? You must have done something pretty bad for those wyrms to decide they'd prefer you dead.”

  A sense of betrayal seethed. “I was sold out by another human. For encouraging people not to be weak.”

  The dragon made a tch sound. “Yeah, that’ll do it. Don’t like our serfs thinking for themselves and all that. Another human sold you out?” He fell silent a moment. “Poor wretch.”

  “You're calling him poor? He sold me for some extra meals! My family...” the phrase choked in her throat. “My family might be dead because of him. He doesn't deserve to be called human.”

  “A novel concept,” Kalgrin said. “To think that someone doesn't deserve to be one, when for all intents and purposes, you are the lowest of the low.”

  “There's always lower.” Anya's words came out a whisper, whisked away by the wind, but he heard. “We're already low enough. We don't need to be the animals they think we are.”

  Kalgrin let out a barking laugh. “Truer words have never been spoken.” He sped up, his wings thumping on either side of the air. “And don't worry about your family for now. I intend to return. We'll find out what happened to them then.”

  It was the best he could offer. She couldn't persuade him to bring her back, not when the wyrms likely still searched for her, and bristled with anger. She didn't know the fate of her family, but it was pointless to imagine. To fret over it. She did, anyway, and raised her hands to her lips, intending to bite them in anxiety, before stopping.

  Yeah. Maybe not.

  How far did Kalgrin need to fly? Far away from her masters, for sure. Far away from her life, which already seemed so distant, though just this afternoon, she'd been hacking away with that accursed scythe, plotting murder in her soul.

  Needing a distraction from the dark cesspit of her thoughts, she again peered out at the world above and below her. She didn’t see much of the stars from inside Kalgrin’s talons. The world below her was dark, lit only in small patches by lights. Hard to see anything now as night strengthened its grip. Clouds began to flit over the moon, obscuring the stars bright enough for them to see.

  Exhaustion snapped at her soul. All that fear, worry, and potential grief, along with the bone-breaking work of a long harvest, caught up with her. The tears had long since dried on her dirty face. Not knowing what else to do, she closed her eyes and tried to sleep. She tossed and turned in Kalgrin's talons, finding them uncomfortable.

  She didn’t enjoy the dreams that came with her fitful sleep. Dreams of her whole family slaughtered, sightless eyes facing the ceiling, their hut trashed, as the wyrms continued looking for her. She dreamed of herself as the dissenter, the one who dared envision a different future from the one they held. She saw the traitor as well, some nameless plantation worker with his sly, mean little eyes, prepared to fuck over the lives of everyone else for the sake of it. The wyrms with their sinuous, wingless bodies looming above the tiny human village, jaws snapping in the dark, eyes a bloody red as they searched.

  These nightmares felt disturbingly close to real life for Anya.

  Something else appeared in her dreams as well. Other voices, not ones she recogni
zed. Arms holding her, saying they needed to pick another time.

  Another time? Another time for what? Still, it made for a better dream than before. And she swore she no longer felt the rough talons encasing her body, or the wind whistling through the small gaps, or the cold seeping into her bones.

  She jerked herself fully awake when loud, clopping noises rent the air. To her surprise, she found herself in the arms of someone who walked along a cobbled street. Tall stone and wooden houses leaned on either side, and a horse-drawn carriage clattered past. A man sat in the driver's seat, his face tainted by shadow, though gaslights illuminated the entire street. She even saw stone walls around the houses that reached five times as high as she suspected Kalgrin to stand. Perhaps they protected the people inside. Or prevented them from escaping.

  Wait. She was in someone's arms? Kalgrin in his human form? She strained to look, cheeks flushed slightly at the notion. One arm looped in the crook of her legs, below her knees. The other supported her just under her armpits, and her head rested against the cushion of his shoulder.

  She didn't get a great view of him – just a glance of chin at first. Then he adjusted his head to face Anya for a moment. She caught clever gray eyes, a straight, angular face that gave him a thin jawline, and a charming smile that displayed pristine, sharp canines. She blinked in surprise.

  He's handsome! And then there was her, a thing yanked straight out of a bog.

  Oh no. He was carrying her. Her with all the filth upon her body.

  “Good early morning, my little mud monster,” Kalgrin said, grinning with those brilliant teeth. “Welcome to Tarn. My house is over there.”

  They approached a small house up a slope, made out of reddish stone, visible from the street lights that decorated the lanes.

  “Were you talking with people earlier?”

  “Oh? Yes. I had to call the attack off, remember? Since I rescued you.”

  Right. She did remember.

  “You look worried.”

  “I...” Anya flushed, glad he couldn't see it in the thin light. The gas lamps didn't cover everything. “I'm... dirty.”