Dragon (A Histories of Purga Novel)
Chapter Twenty-Seven

The drive was long, mostly uneventful and extremely boring. They drove for most of the day, nearly thirteen hours, before Zoie finally realized they needed to stop for a break. It was late evening by that time and the sun was just starting to go down in the west.

Asher watched the brilliant pinks, blues, and purples light up the sky with a growing sense of apprehension. He couldn’t help but feel he was going to be too late to save Keiara.

They ate in the car. They were little meals that Asher and Fowler managed to scavenge from the desert. Edible plants and some small, bitter desert fruits mostly. They did practically nothing to quell their rumbling stomachs, but that was all they had. If Asher had been thinking, he would’ve raided some of the food from Gar’s hut before they’d taken off. However, the impending army bearing down on them caused him to forget about the food and now they were stuck eating bland grasses and roots and bitter fruit.

Blink chirped next to his head, and he idly had the machine go through a dozen or so transformations, including a mechanical hawk. He found that one to be the most entertaining. And the likeness was actually quite good, if you looked past Blink’s gleaming metal surface, mechanical eyes, and razor sharp beak.

“Did Rone give you that?” Zoie asked, looking back at him.

Asher nodded.

“It’s actually a very unusual gift,” she remarked.

“How so?” Asher asked, curious.

“An un-blueprinted nano-machine is rare. There are only a handful of people that can create one. Rone has a unique gift for them. Always has,” Zoie responded.

“What does un-blueprinted mean?” he asked. He remembered Rone saying something about blueprints when he gave him Blink but he couldn’t recall exactly what they did. He assumed they were the drawings of white lines that Zoie had pulled up before.

“Not using a blueprint. We need the blueprints to create the machines because there are a lot of technical parts that are required to make them actually work. The nanos can become whatever material is needed to make all the parts that create the entire whole. But our people quickly found out, sometimes because of disastrous accidents, that if even one part is missing then the entire machine fails. It is extremely difficult to define exactly what is needed, right down to the last motherboard, to make the machine work and keep all of that information in your head while you are creating it, so to compensate for that and make it easier, we have the blueprints. Each machine we create has a blueprint that defines everything that is needed for the machine to work. All we have to do is press the button. The blueprint is sent to the nanos, and then the nanos create it. Some people, like Rone, can hold all of that information in their minds while they are creating what they want and make the machine without the use of a blueprint. There aren’t many of them though and they’re the ones that usually create new blueprints for the rest of our people to buy,” she explained.

Asher listened with intense concentration, drinking in every word.

“So, you can create whatever you want so long as you have a blueprint for it. Except for people like Rone, who can create things straight from their minds?” he asked.

“That’s right,” Zoie answered. “Although, people like Rone will still use blueprints, just because it requires less concentration and is much faster. Sometimes, they’ll make things and then transfer that data into a blueprint so that they’ll have quicker access to the machine later, like Rone’s flightpack. He created it when he was eight and then transferred the data to a blueprint. He shared that blueprint with my son a couple of years later and then my son gave the blueprint to my daughter and me. We used the flightpacks to escape our refugee camp’s destruction.”

She stopped talking suddenly, her face crumpling. She started crying and Asher looked on uncomfortably.

“Are you okay?” he asked after a second.

“My husband sent us away before the attack happened. He didn’t make it out,” she responded, sniffling.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Asher told her with complete sincerity. He felt for her. The man had basically sacrificed his life so that his family would be safe. He respected men like that. Men who were willing to lay down their own lives to protect someone else’s. Again, he was struck by how noble some of the Rooks were and wondered again how wrong his own people were for hating them. Apparently, not all of them were the stone-cold killers Fowler had described or the monsters that Niku believed them to be and hated them for.

Zoie just looked at him without really seeing him. He could tell she was lost in some past memory, probably dealing with her late husband. She didn’t say anything else for the rest of their break. When night started coming on, Zoie rounded up everybody back into the vehicle and they took off again.

The rest of the journey went by just as slowly and didn’t end until morning light just started peaking over the horizon. When the sun finally made it into the sky, a city could be seen in the distance.

The skyline was impressive, to say the least. Buildings stretched up higher than Asher would’ve ever believed possible. They inspired feelings of both amazement and fear. How could his own people hope to defeat a race that could easily create such things? How could they defeat people that could do things that seemed to defy all the natural laws of the world?

“That’s a little frightening,” Fowler said from behind him, echoing his own thoughts.

“That’s the Outpost city of Dare, named after Virginia Dare who founded it,” Zoie told them. “It’s still a couple of hours away from Roanoke, but it’s where my daughter and I end our journey. I’ll not take her back there to be locked up and imprisoned, or possibly murdered, for no reason but to slake some mad man’s bloodlust.”

“I understand and I wouldn’t have it any other way. It will be dangerous there, and I don’t want either of you to lose your lives. You stay here and try to replace somewhere safe,” Asher told her.

“You mean we have to walk the rest of the way?” Fowler complained.

Asher turned around and shot his friend a dark look.

“Uh…sorry. I mean we get to walk, yay!” he said with obviously fake enthusiasm.

“I’ll fly us the rest of the way. It won’t be as fast as this machine can take us, but it’ll be faster than walking and will only exhaust me. So stop complaining,” Asher told him, gritting his teeth. Sometimes, Fowler acted too much like a child. He turned back to Zoie. “Do you have someone in that city that will offer you protection?”

“Yes, my sister and her husband. They both live there. We’ll get shelter and food from them. Don’t worry,” Zoie said.

“We’re staying with Auntie Carissa and Uncle Oscar?” Aeri said with a sleep-slurred voice. She blinked her eyes slowly open. “That’s good,” she murmured.

As soon as the words left her mouth, she slumped forward again, asleep. Fortun was nestled close to her, his eyes darting to everyone with something like protectiveness.

He’d really taken to the Rook girl and Asher was glad for it. She had something of Gar and maybe that would help ease her loss.

Blink gave a loud chirp. Asher hushed it, hoping its noise didn’t wake Aeri up.

They spent the next hour in silence as they came up to Dare. When the city’s outer wall loomed in front of them and blotted out the sun, Zoie became a little nervous.

“They’ll not like two Terraquois passengers. The guards would arrest me and my daughter,” she said this with a mixture of embarrassment and shame. She stopped the car abruptly.

Asher knew what she wanted them to do, and he understood her reasons, but he couldn’t help feel a little sad at their parting. He’d gotten to know both of them so well on their trip across the desert and he thought he would even count them as friends.

“I’m glad I met you,” Zoie told him. “And Gar, and your sister. I think maybe we’ve been wrong to hate each other for so long.”

Asher couldn’t help the tears falling down his face. Even Fowler was a little emotional.

“You guys make such cool stuff,” he said, his voice hitching. “Such cool stuff.”

With that, he turned into a chameleon and climbed onto Asher’s shoulder.

“Thank you. I’m glad I met you too and I won’t forget you,” Asher told her. “Goodbye.”

Zoie waved, Aeri snored, and Fortun chittered.

He smiled briefly and then shimmered into his hawk form, carefully picked Fowler up in his talons, and spread his wings. He caught a nice gust of wind that carried him into the sky, Blink following him into the sky. When he was high enough, he started winging his way in a westerly direction. Far off, he could just make out the massive city of Roanoke. Its buildings and defenses were even more impressive than Dare.

****

About halfway to Roanoke, Asher dropped like a rock from the sky. He could feel Fowler freaking out in the cage of his talons and heard Blink beeping rapidly like it was worried about him. He ignored them. He was simply too tired to keep going. He had to rest.

He landed a second or two later and shimmered back into his human form. His head swirled sickeningly from exhaustion. He took a couple of deep breaths and managed to avoid tumbling into the desert sand.

Fowler changed back and glared at him.

“You almost scared me to death!” he yelled, clutching his chest. Asher imagined that it was racing erratically. “Literally! I think I’m having a heart attack!”

“Calm down.” Asher walked over to his friend and patted him on the back. He looked around. They were in enemy territory now. He was nervous and scared but the desert looked deserted. “I’m sorry. Just take some deep breaths and you’ll be fine.”

Fowler scowled at Asher again before he started taking large, deep breaths. In a couple of minutes, his heart started to slow and his legs didn’t quite feel like a quivering bowl of rice pudding anymore. When he felt fully himself again, he heard his stomach grumble loudly. He looked at Asher.

“I need food,” he said, sitting down in the sand. He swiped a hand across his forehead as the hot desert sun beat down on him.

“I’ll see what I can replace, but it won’t be much. The area around here looks barren,” Asher responded.

He walked off with Blink coming along and left Fowler by himself. He searched for a long time and only came back with a handful of bush leaves, some shriveled fruits, and water that Blink managed to tap from a couple of cacti. He put the water into a skin he kept on a strap that went around his shoulder. When he got back to Fowler, he could see the unmistakable signs of disappointment on his friend’s face.

“That’s all?” he asked, putting his hand on his stomach when it let out a loud roaring gurgle.

“That’s all. You’re welcome to try your luck as well, but like I said, it’s pretty barren.”

They ate their meager meal in silence and when they were done, they shimmered into their animal forms again.

Asher picked Fowler up and flew into the air. Blink resolutely followed him and Asher was glad the machine was there. It was Rook technology and since they were heading to their main city, he felt more at ease with its presence.

He found several good thermals to carry him along, which was good. It saved his wings for when they would really be needed.

Roanoke got closer and closer, but still seemed so far away. He thought the world would end before that elusive city was finally within his reach. It was like some kind of cruel torture device that the Rooks devised. Some kind of trick. The city would always loom in front of you, so large you thought you might be able to touch it, only to realize that you were still several hundred miles from it. Asher cursed them silently, but continued flying with single-minded determination.

Finally, they reached their destination. Out of caution, Asher climbed higher into the sky so that he and Blink were merely dim specks. He could see several Rook machines circling the air over the city. Soldiers in black clothes were also flying around on flightpacks.

Despite his elevation, Asher could still see very sharply. He saw rubble, debris, destruction, and ruin. He saw more black-clad soldiers stomping through the remains with weapons in their hands. They all seemed to be heading in the same direction, so naturally, Asher followed from the sky. Eventually, the soldiers seemed to congregate at a central building that loomed higher than all the ones around. It rose so high that it’s top seemed to disappear into the clouds. Sunlight reflected dazzlingly off its thousands of glass windows.

He looked at the ground and found a huge commotion taking place. From up above, he really couldn’t tell what was going on. There was a pile of wood, a couple of people walking around on a large circular area next to the wood pile, and then the horde of soldiers crowding the streets in every visible direction.

For a long time, nothing seemed to be happening. Then a figure walked out of the tall building, striding with purposeful steps toward the landing where the wood pile was. Following along behind him was a massively deformed giant with a weapon for an arm.

Asher shuddered inwardly as he imagined that brute in battle.

He tracked the two figures as they came to the circular landing with the wood pile and a horrible feeling suddenly entered Asher’s gut. Something bad was definitely getting ready to happen.

As if on cue, a female figure walked out of the building a few minutes later. She was flanked by a group of soldiers. Two at her side and two right behind her.

Asher dropped lower, found a thermal that caught him, and started doing circles. From that vantage, he watched the soldiers prod her forward, obviously painfully. Asher saw them lead the girl down the stairs and to the pole with its pile of wood. His dread turned to outright terror.

They were planning to burn her to death. His gaze went to the figure, who was being tied to the pole, and without a doubt, Asher recognized her.

It was Keiara.