"That's not my name anymore."

He laughed. "You were always such a sniveling little brat. That's why I never proposed. You think you know more than everyone else, but you have no clue what it takes to feed you women. You can't imagine the hardships we go through for you. And when you're asked to do your one duty, you refuse?"

A cold smile began to curl my lips. "My God is loving, Jamison. Yours is a lie."

Then I flicked the bow up, drawing and releasing the string as fast as I could. I didn't have time to truly aim. No, I was just trusting all the days of shooting at targets. I didn't need to hit him perfectly, as the shot at the other man proved. I just needed to stop him.

He turned, raising his gun, and my arrow slammed into his shoulder - right at the joint. The man's arm dropped to his side. The weapon fell from his fingers, bouncing as it hit the ground, but I was still moving. Reaching over my shoulder, I pulled and nocked another arrow, then shot.

"You stupid woman!" he screamed, backing away even as my second arrow landed in his thigh.

Jamison stumbled, but now I was stalking him. "They taught you to fear the Wyvern," I screamed. "Now you will learn to dread the Phoenix. That is my name. I am not Thadius Ross's property. I am mine! Do you hear me?"

"Ayla!"

I'd just gotten another arrow on the string when Zasen burst from behind a house across the street, rushing towards me. Jamison and his partner weren't alone, though. They came in four. Always four.

My eyes jerked to the right as another man lifted his gun. I drew the bow and released. That shot slammed into his ribs, just under his lifted elbow. For a moment, the man stood there, looking almost confused, before he staggered.

But my distraction gave Jamison enough time to run - or hobble. He was retreating, heading for the gate, and the fourth member of their group was moving to cover him.

"You cannot have her back!" Zasen roared out in English before loosing an arrow of his own.

The blue-fletched end was the only thing visible after it slammed into the fourth man's chest, right into his heart. He was dead before he hit the ground.

"I think Kanik's wounded in the street," I said, trying to make it the rest of the way around Saveah's house to see.

"That's not Kanik," Zasen promised.

I pushed my head through the wood and the string of my bow so it rested across my body, then turned back for the dead man. "We still need to help him!" And I grabbed the gun.

"What are you doing?" Zasen asked.

Searching the corpse's body, I found a second magazine and tucked that into the waistband of my pants, flicked off the safety, and then stood. "I'm covering you, Zasen. I can't pull the man out of the street, and he's going to die there without help." Then I moved to the gun Jamison had dropped and took the magazine from it as well. "And this time I won't run out of bullets."

He nodded. "I trust you, Ayla." And then the Wyvern dropped his bow, bent, and rushed out to where the brown Dragon lay wounded in the middle of this firefight.

Seventy-FourAyla

As Zasen ran, the blue end of his tail was visible behind him. As if that was a flag, it drew the attention of the Moles. A shot hit the ground beside him, but not close enough to stop his charge. It also told me which way to shoot.

I simply pointed in the general direction, made sure I wouldn't hit Zasen and held the trigger down. Bullets flew from the end. The sound of it was loud, making my ears ring. It also stopped the gunshots coming at Zasen.

He grabbed the man's arm and pulled. Dust lifted up as the Dragon's body slid across it, but that was one more thing to make them harder to hit. Kneeling by the edge of the house, I paused, listening, and then shot again when I heard another pop from across the street.

Zasen slid the guy into the gap beside Saveah's house and the next, then turned to check on him. "Hey, Pem, you're going to be ok," he told the younger man, who was definitely not Kanik.

"Fuck," the man groaned. "Can't breathe."

"We're going to get you some help," Zasen promised. "Ayla, make sure no one sneaks up on us."

"Ok," I promised, wanting to both watch what Zasen was doing for first aid and also make sure no Moles were headed this way.

But a rustle made me spin, lifting the gun over Zasen and the wounded Dragon just to aim it at the sound. As the darkness took over, my eyes were working even better, so I saw the silhouette of the man easily. When his tail lashed, I lowered the gun and Kanik stepped out.

"Medic's coming," Kanik said. "We saw you pull him, Zasen."

"Good," he said. "I'm going to get him stable. You stay with Ayla."

"And?" Kanik asked.

Zasen looked up, his voice turning hard. "And you kill them. All of them."

"We can do that," I promised, bending over to slide Jamison's gun against the side of Saveah's house where it wouldn't be visible in the shadows. "Just collect all the guns you can, okay?"

"Okay," Zasen said as another shot went off well down the street. Back in the neighborhood behind Saveah's house.

"Let's go," Kanik said, waving for me to follow.

I did. Together, we jumped over bushes and slipped between trees, not caring about whose yard we were in. The goal was to get to the Moles, not be polite. We had to stop them.

But as we turned to move between houses, the Moles did the same, coming at us from the opposite direction. I couldn't shoot! Kanik was in my way.

That didn't slow him down at all. The man's tail lashed out, slamming into the first man's leg. His arms followed, slicing with the krael he was using, aiming for any part of the men's bodies that were exposed. Then, when both of them stopped fighting, Kanik stung the second man for good measure.

Immediately, I bent to grab the magazines from their weapons.

"What are you doing?" Kanik demanded as he rushed to my side. "Why do you want the guns, Ayla?"

"Because they kill Moles!" I hissed. "I don't have a fucking tail, so I'll use a gun!"

He nodded, accepting that. Then, "This way." And he pulled me into the gap beside one house and another. "The Moles will search the streets, trying to find anyone outside. They may break into houses, if they can. We need to push them out before anyone gets hurt, and time is running out."

"But Zasen..." I said, looking back towards where we'd come from.

"He'll be fine," Kanik promised. "Ayla, we need to get further down the street so we can push them out. If we kill enough, they always leave."

"I don't like shooting around the houses," I told him as I followed where he led. "Kanik, the bullets can go through the walls. I need to aim where it can't hit anything so no one dies."

"No one?" he asked.

"No one important," I corrected.

Together, Kanik and I made our way to the far end of the neighborhood, and then pushed our way back, slowly moving closer and closer to the city wall. The pops of gunshots were slowing down, but Kanik assured me there would always be a few stragglers waiting for someone to poke their head out of a house.

Like Zasen, Kanik used a set of krael. Unlike Zasen, his were shaped with more spike than blade. He also had a small bow across his body the same way I did, but his arrows had black feathers. As we walked, he hung his krael from his belt and pulled his bow away from his body, getting an arrow ready, just in case.

Quietly, we snuck around houses, looking in every corner for someone wearing black. He kept his tail up and ready the whole time. The very end of it was vibrantly purple. That shifted to dark brown quickly and his polka dots grew in size the closer to his torso they got.