I couldn't breathe. "Tamin."
Before he could say anything else, I turned and ran as fast as my legs would go. They were hunting Dragons for food? They were trying to kill my friends? I'd eaten them? That was why the meat had tasted bad! It was people, not beasts! They'd been feeding humans to the Righteous!
"Tamin!" I screamed, terrified something had already happened to the boy.
I almost made it. In my panic, I forgot to watch, forgot to look around me, and an arm grabbed my dress, pulling me to the ground. The man behind it pointed his gun at my head and smiled.
"Ayla Ross." His voice was cruel. Worse, I recognized him as the shorter man who'd chained me to the post: Phineas. I didn't know him well, and I hadn't been raised with him, but it seemed he remembered me. "You're surprisingly healthy."
"Why are you killing them?" I lifted my hands, letting the empty gun fall to the ground.
His eyes narrowed. "Because they make it too easy. All these lizards group together, just waiting to be harvested."
"They're people!" I insisted, realizing he meant this was our meat. This was where the hunters went. This was why hunters always came back wounded by arrows.
Phineas's fingers tightened. "They don't even speak. They aren't people, Ayla. They're animals."
I saw movement behind him but knew better than to look away from Phineas's face. "They can speak. They speak a language called Vestrian. I've been learning it. Some of them even speak English."
"Lies."
I nodded at him emphatically, desperate to keep his attention. "It's true."
A dark-striped arm wrapped around his throat at the same time as a blue tail plunged into his leg. "It's true," Zasen said in English, yanking the man off his feet so the gun was no longer aimed at me. Both of them hit the ground, but Zasen would not release the man's neck.
I quickly lunged forward to pull the rifle away. "Don't kill him!"
"What?" Zasen asked, his eyes flicking to the man's leg. "I stung him, Ayla."
I nodded, hoping he could understand what I was trying to do. "Don't kill him." Then, holding up one finger, I rushed back to our house.
It was just next door, so not far, and I had to know more. If they were intentionally hunting Dragons for food, and this wasn't the first time, then I needed to know when they were coming back.
Stumbling into the house, I saw the body of the last man sprawled out on the kitchen floor. The blood stain beneath him had gotten much larger. Not caring about any of that, I waded through the mess, feeling the dampness soaking into my bandaged feet as I grabbed a glass.
With my hands trembling, I filled it halfway with water and then ran back as fast as I could. Phineas, the man Zasen had stung, was grunting in pain, trying to claw at the wound in his leg, but Zasen held him as he looked around warily.
"I have the antidote," I said, rushing to Phineas's side. "This can help you."
"Ayla..." Zasen said, stunned. "That - "
"It's the antidote!" I snapped in English, hoping he understood.
"Please," Phineas gasped, reaching for the glass I held.
I pulled it away. "It will cure you, but I need to know when you're coming back."
Phineas shook his head, and Zasen was staring at me in shock. "Ayla," he hissed one more time.
So I glared back at Zasen. "I'm saving him," I insisted as sternly as I could. "He's my friend. I know your Dragon secrets now, and I'll use them for my friends!"
Phineas groaned, writhing with the pain of the venom, but his eyes were locked on the glass. "I can't tell you," he panted.
"I will give you the cure if you tell me. No one needs to know," I assured him.
"Holidays." He sucked in a breath. "We get the meat for holidays."
"I know that," I said. "But when do you come? How long before the holiday do you leave?"
Phineas grimaced as pain shot through his leg. "Takes two days to get here, sometimes more depending upon the weather, but we can't travel in the daylight. Too many of them around and we can't see well enough."
"So two days here," I said, inching the glass a little closer. "So when do you leave?"
"Twelve days before the holiday," he groaned around the agony. "Two days here, a day or two to hunt, and two days back. Gives us five days to butcher the meat so the women don't see it."
"Good," I praised as I passed him the glass. "Drink that. Drink all of it. Every holiday it's the same?"
He sucked back the glass of water, nodding as he did so. "Yes. If two holidays are close together - less than a week apart - we hunt for both, but always twelve days before the first one."
I simply patted his shoulder and gestured for Zasen to release him. The man's arm was trembling, and once the water was gone, Phineas dropped the glass as if his hand could no longer manage to hold it. That was enough to make Zasen let go, but he looked confused.
Then I stood, glaring at the dying Mole. "Phineas, if you end up in Heaven, then tell God he's evil. If it's Hell, then let the Devil know you deserve to burn." Then I leaned into his face. "Because that was not the cure. You laughed when you thought I was going to die. Instead, I found the Wyvern. Now it's my turn to laugh."
"No..." Phineas breathed, realizing I hadn't saved him after all.
Ignoring him, I turned to Zasen. "Tamin's in the trees."
Zasen tossed up his hands and shook his head in confusion, well aware the man was already too far gone to do anything. "What did you give him?"
