Broken Path, Starless Tail - 20. Chapter 20

Landing on the road, Valrinda was panting heavily. Beckett scrambled to his feet. “Are you okay?” he asked. There were cuts on his chest and face, slices marring his beautiful dark scales.

“I’ll heal. Are you hurt? Did it get acid on you?”

“Acid?” Beckett spun, checking the back of his body where he’d thought the stones were too hot. He sighed. “No, no acid. I’m fine. What was that thing?”

“That was a chacory. We were lucky that was a young male, probably just left it’s maternal flight. More than one is much harder to fight off, especially if they’re smarter than that one.”

“That was a young chacory? And they come in bigger fucking groups?” No wonder Valrinda had wanted to avoid them. “Damn. I’m sorry. I never wanted to put you in that kind of danger.”

Valrinda heaved a sigh. “You didn’t. I did by flying the way I did today. If I’d been higher up, we’d have been safer. It never would’ve read my vibrations on the low thermals and come to investigate.”

“What can I do?” Beckett hovered his hands over the wounds he could reach. Valrinda was still breathing hard, and he’d never done that before.

“Gotta wash off the acid.”

“Right, I can do that.” Beckett grabbed his flask. He pulled the top off and the began to pour the water over the slashes in Valrinda’s scales, starting with the highest he could reach and working his way down. With each wound he rinsed, Valrinda eased until he was nearly on his belly and his sides had stopped heaving like bellows.

The first chain that they threw over Valrinda’s neck took both of them by surprise. It was thick, and dark, and tinkled as it slid between his spikes. The wisps moved faster than Beckett could, and they laid chains across Valrinda’s wide shoulders and back by the time he got out his shout, “What the hell are you doing?”

Beckett couldn’t believe it. He’d thought they were safe, that his vision had been wrong. How could trusting his gut have gone so badly? Valrinda was a dragon, a warrior and a free being of the skies. No one should ever chain him.

“I won’t let you chain him up and make Valrinda a slave!” He rushed at the closest pair of wisps who backed away, spreading their hands with fingers facing down. Valrinda reared up, roaring and flapping his wings, and the wisps couldn’t reach him anymore. Those still holding chains cried out in dismay, but the ones on him didn’t move an inch.

“No, no,” they chanted.

“You bet no,” Beckett said fiercely.

“We do not chain up.”

“Not enslaving.”

“Honoring. Chains of victory and protection.”

“He saved us, so we will share runes with him.”

Valrinda turned his head, studying one of the chains on his back that he could see. “Oh.” All the fiery anger in his voice that had echoed in his bellow of rage had dissipated, almost comical in its contrast. “They are runes of protection, not ensorcellment.”

Beckett goggled at him. “What?”

“The chains. They’re engraved with protection runes for strength, healing, and speed. I don’t even know how they would have gathered enough metal to create them, much less get someone to make these blessings.” Now he sounded awed. “They’re priceless.”

“You saved us! No one eaten.”

“No one burned or dead.”

“It is foretold. We bring these, but wait for the prophecy to unfold.”

“The time is now, it is truth. You will need these chains, so we will provide you with all that you require to protect Beckett.”

The way the wisps spoke gave Beckett whiplash, speaking one after the other, holding one conversation with many voices. It was headache-inducing. Could they trust it? Valrinda seemed to already be convinced.

Beckett couldn’t read the runes, so how would he know? He beckoned Valrinda down. “Are you sure?” he whispered.

“Yeah. If they’d chained me, I wouldn’t have been able to rear up or flap my wings. They’d have trapped me on land unless ordered to fly. We can trust them.”

“Just a little bit ago you were sure it was a disaster traveling with them.”

“And yet now my wounds are healed.”

“Holy shit, they are.” There wasn’t a single sign that Valrinda had been clawed or burned by the chacory’s acid. His scales gleamed, all the gashes closed up recovered without even a scar to mark their place.

“So we let them put more chains on you?”

It was all too surreal. The wisps showed even more deference to them both, chittering among themselves. Valrinda flew higher but checked in frequently by swooping down and then flying back up. He said the protection runes quieted his movements on the air currents.

Beckett thought he looked even fiercer than before, the chains highlighting his thick muscles that flexed with every wingbeat as they lay taut over his body. No way would any creature attack them now without thinking twice.

They traveled two more days on the black road before the signs of civilization started to make appearances. The first were abandoned carts then animals wandering the desert that came to them. The wisps swarmed over it all, and somehow it disappeared into their packs or the carts they were towing.

Valrinda swooped down the third afternoon and said, “The city is up ahead. You’ll get there tomorrow.”

Beckett felt his heart race. This was where his vision came into play. Approaching the city on the black road in the company of the wisps, Beckett flying above them decked out in chains. Was it a warning? An omen of the place they’d find the star?

He kept his head on the swivel, trying to figure it out.