Wednesday Briefs: Broken Path, Starless Tail Chapter 24

 

“Okay, it’s fine. You’re fine.” He wasn’t fine. Beckett hadn’t realized how quickly he’d come to rely on the guides that had found him wandering down the path after he’d been sent without a fucking clue through that weird ass portal thing by his best friend’s cat. Or mostly all powerful galactic being thing. Whatever he was.

He’d gone from wilderness to a city after days, possibly weeks of travel as everything blurred together. Beckett was exhausted and despite everyone’s assurance that he’d somehow just know what to do when he needed to do it, he didn’t have a fucking clue.

And now he was alone. The idea made him want to vomit, and Beckett cast another panicked look around the street like he’d somehow missed his giant dragon.

But no, everything was still silent and still and there was no one but him. How could no one have seen or heard the attack or Valrinda crash through the wall and come to investigate? Something fucking weird—or magical, which was the same thing—had to be going on.

And here he was, just standing in the street like a sacrificial lamb. “Dumbass,” he muttered. Stretching up, he grabbed the lower lamp off the hook on the street pole and hurried back inside the barn. At least in here, there were signs that the animals saw and heard the shit go down. The beasts in the stalls near them were antsy, stamping and calling out.

Beckett carefully set the lamp down so it wouldn’t tip over and start a fire. He hurried into the rest of his clothes and thrust his arms into his jacket, shivering once he realized how cold he’d gotten standing outside in just his thin shirt. Stamping his feet into his boots, he wiggled his toes.

Dressed with his pack and coin pouch, he picked up the lamp and then foundered… what was he supposed to do? He couldn’t leave to find Valrinda because he needed to find the star.

But he had no idea where the star was.

The wisps.

They’d disappeared and wouldn’t come close because Valrinda was pissed at them, but maybe he convince them to help now. Valrinda had said they were close. Maybe he could find them.

 

Beckett was cold, tired, and hungry from wandering the city without any luck. It had been at least an hour, and he was out of ideas. And completely lost. He’d tried to stay away from places that looked too sketchy, with dark alleys and run down buildings with cracked windows or frayed awnings, both for his own safety and sure that beings drawn to shiny objects wouldn’t go there either. At least it’d gotten light enough that he could put the lamp back on an empty hook and didn’t have to fear attack from a dark corner quite so much.

Spying what looked like a café with benches out front, he slumped down in front. Slipping a hand into the pouch out at his belt, he grabbed one of the crescents. He needed to get something to eat and drink, and he could see someone or something inside bustling around. He sighed, rubbing his forehead, then fisted the coin.

“Beckett?”

“We found you.”

“The shiny was hidden, but then we saw.”

Beckett jolted and opened his eyes, almost falling off his bench. He was glad he’d put his back to the wall of the building next to the inn or tavern he’d sat down at, or he would have been dumped down in the dirt with no way to get clean. The wisps were talking over each other, finishing each other’s sentences almost before another stopped speaking, but he’d gotten used to that while they traveled together. He waited for them to stop, then started asking his own questions.

“Where were you?”

“The black one was angry.”

“He would eat us.”

“Gobble us up!”

“He would not,” Beckett protested. At least, he was pretty sure that Valrinda wouldn’t have done that. He’d been angry, but angry enough to eat thinking, speaking creatures? No… he wasn’t like that. “Something attacked us last night, and now Valrinda is missing. I need you to help me find him.”

“Not the star?”

“It is shiny. Bright!”

“So bright it glows in the night.”

Wait, had they already found the star? “You know where it is?”

The wisps all crowded around him, pressing together. “We did, we did!” For once they spoke together.

“Shh!” he hushed them. Beckett looked around, but while the city was waking up and there were people starting to move around no one seemed to be paying attention to them despite the wisps acting crazy. Maybe it wasn’t crazy for them. “Where?”

“A keep, full of shiny things, locked up tight.” The wisps pointed behind him. “That way.”

“Shiny magic locks up the shiny things.”

Beckett groaned. “Fuck.” Of course whoever took the star had magic. It was a star, after all. How’d someone take and keep a star without magic? He should have anticipated that the star would be protected from being taken back by magical means too.

“We need Val,” he said. He had no idea how to counter magic. He’d probably need magic of his own, and he had no idea where to get it. “Can you find those chains that you gave him?”

“Hmm, perhaps.”

“Not shiny, but they were ours.”

“Still have traces, so we might,”

“Find him that way if we all focus.”

Them, focus? Damn, it really would be a challenge. “Where should we go? Do you have a place you were staying.”

“Yes, come, come.”

Before the innkeeper could even open the doors, Beckett was already on his feet and off again, no chance to buy anything to eat or drink. He sighed, but there’d be time for that later. Now that there was hope to find Valrinda, that was his whole focus. 

Wednesday Briefs: Broken Path, Starless Tail Chapter 23

 

“I don’t know, it’s your mission.”

He was too tired and too frustrated to be indignant. Well, too indignant. “What do you mean, you don’t know? Aren’t you supposed to be my guide?” He’d taken that to mean that Parallax was sending him someone that would know where to find the star that had been taken from him, but he was getting more and more of an idea that Valrinda was more along for the ride.

Not that he wasn’t a wealth of knowledge about the world that Beckett found himself in. He’d have had no idea where to go or how to find the road, how to trade to get money, his new clothes and stuff. Not to mention he’d probably have been killed by one beast or another. There were probably smaller things that didn’t come near a dragon but would consider a human a tasty snack.

“I feel like we’ve had this conversation before.” Valrinda curled around him, tucking a wing near his feet.

“Maybe. I’m just… lost.” Maybe it was what that asshole had said. “How in the hell am I supposed to find a star? What if it isn’t here?” He’d had that vision, or whatever it was, but what had it really shown him?

“I believe in you.” Valrinda laid his head down, creating a circle around him where he was nestled in the hay.

It really was the worst bed. Loud, stiff, and a lot of little pieces were stabbing him through the towel he’d put over it. His feet ached, but at least he was clean, and didn’t have to worry about something coming out the darkness to attack them.

 

Valrinda’s roar and the jerk of his wing from around Beckett sent him tumbling off the pile of hay onto the hard packed dirt. “Wha—?” Beckett jackknifed up and whipped his head around, trying to see in the dark stable. There were no lights coming in through the thick glass windows, so sunrise was still far off and the magic light that had been up in the corner was gone or blocked by Valrinda.

He could hear scuffling, the harsh sounds of something breathing in a sharp whistle, and then metal on metal. Or… metal on scales? Was Valrinda being attacked. “What’s happening?”

“Stay there!”

It wasn’t like Beckett had a choice. He couldn’t see what was going on or help Valrinda if he didn’t have the ability to move without killing himself in the pitch black. Why the fuck had he thought he didn’t have to worry about something attacking them. Of course that jinxed them.

Slowly creeping backward in a crouch, feeling his way and hoping he wouldn’t run into something he didn’t expect, Beckett tried to find the corner of the big stall he’d been sharing with Valrinda. His fingers brushed the rough wood, and he slid alongside it after he found the short wall that bordered their area. It felt like flimsy protection, but it was all he had. Maybe he should have gotten a room like the innkeeper had suggested so at least he’d had a door with a lock.

Or maybe he’d be hurt, captured, or dead if he was the target of the attack. Beckett smacked himself on the forehead and leaned into the corner. He had to wake up and get smart. Who knew they were there? The wisps, but he didn’t believe they would send someone to attack them. They could have done it themselves at any point, including when Beckett had been alone while Valrinda was flying above them. So who else? Just the innkeeper.

“Val—” Wind whistled in front of him, and Beckett jerked back and smacked his head on the wall.

“No!” The shout cut him off, then a crash echoed through the stable. The walls shook and light from the lamps on the street shone in through the ragged hole in the wall. Valrinda was gone, and so was whoever or whatever was attacking him.

All except for a pale white arm on the ground at Beckett’s feet, the hand clutching a metal spike and elbow joint glistening white and red as it dripped in the dirt.

Beckett’s mouth dropped open and he heaved. Bile burned up his throat, and he turned, vomit spewing as he clung to the wall.

That spike wasn’t clean; it looked like the attacked had stabbed Valrinda. Was that why he shouted? Was he dying right then, out in the street all by himself while Beckett puked his guts out like a wimp? Damn it. Beckett dragged the back of his hand over his mouth, swallowing convulsively, and gingerly stepped over the nasty mess in the stall. Snagging his gear, he crept toward the hole in the wall.

His chest rose in short, sharp bursts. He tried to listen, but Beckett couldn’t hear anything over the blood pounding in his ears. Glancing around, he spotted a sharp stabbing tool thing for picking up stuff out of stalls hanging on the wall that hadn’t fallen down. “Better than nothing,” he muttered. He grabbed it in two hands, trying to figure out how to hold it, then approached the hole again.

Jaw clenched, knuckles white, Beckett jumped out of the hole in the wall and into the street… “Ah!” he barked.

At nothing.

No attacker with matching milky white flesh missing an arm and dripping blood. No Valrinda sprawled out dead or waiting for him to come out so they could find a safe place to hide.

Not another being appeared on the street, despite all the noise of the fight and the wood board scattered everywhere from a giant dragon and something else bursting through a wall. The lights flickered white gold against the velvet blue of the night sky, but Beckett didn’t see Valrinda flying over the city either.

He was all alone. 

Wednesday Briefs: Broken Path, Starless Tail Chapter 22

 

“Friend,” the beast scoffed. “There is so much you don’t know.”

“And let me guess, you’re just dying to tell me.” Like he was just going to take a stranger’s word over what he’d experienced with Colby, or how Mr. and Mrs. R had treated him. Sure, he’d never expected their crazy cat to claw him up, grow ginormous, and create all this magic mumbo jumbo crap he was living through right now, but still….

Who in their right mind would just accept a stranger’s vague, supposed dire warnings? Beckett had suspended a lot of disbelief, but the one thing he would never do was believe that his best friend would ever do anything to hurt him. That wasn’t who Colby was, even if he had a crazy cat.

That’s where this whole thing started. Colby’s cat clawed him up, and the next thing Beckett knew he sent him through some crazy tunnel of light in search of some star so he could get his tail back. Not that that made any sense at all, right?

Becket was still pretty sure this was all just a fever dream or infection coma or something like that. But hell if anyone was going to badmouth his friends!

“You’re trapped in a web of lies, and you don’t even know it.”

“And you’re a complete stranger that came charging at us on the back of a monster that looks like it wants to eat me, spouting complete bullshit without saying how you know me or why I should given a shit about what you have to say. Do you think because you’re the only other human here I’ll instantly trust you?” He scoffed. “Yeah, right. I’m not that dumb. So excuse the fuck out of me if I say get the hell outta our way because I don’t care what you think.” By the time he stopped yelling, Beckett’s throat hurt and his fists ached from how hard he had them clenched.

Valrinda shifted slightly, but it was enough to press his forearm against Beckett’s side. His warmth infused Beckett, the heat radiating off him. Beckett knew he was there to help him, and damned if he was going to doubt that again. He also knew Valrinda was ready to scoop him up and take off if that creature attacked.

The other human’s face wasn’t quite clear through the screen covering most of the cage walls. “You just think you know. When you’re ready for answers, you’ll find me.” His beast’s heads snapped then it spun and took off across the desert.

“Where is it going?”

“No idea. There’s nothing out there that I know of.”

The beast’s legs rapped an uneven thump across the hard sand that faded faster than Beckett expected. “I thought only the road was safe?”

“It is the safest way to cross the desert, but not the only way. I wouldn’t want to cross it on land or the sky, but that isn’t to say no one can. The wisps sometimes manage it, and they hide their camps quite well when they want to.”

“So you’re saying they weren’t hiding on purpose when we tried to avoid them.” It wasn’t a question. Beckett looked around, but he couldn’t see any indication that they hadn’t been completely alone on the road. There wasn’t even a scrap of cloth or footprint in the sand. No wonder Valrinda had been so suspicious of them.

“Still want their help to find the star?” Valrinda asked.

“I think I need all the help I can get.” He felt so out of depth, with no idea how to solve this puzzle. Find his guide, follow the path, yadda yadda. Well the path was about to end in a big ass fantasy city and he had no clue where to go or what to do after that. “Do we call for them or something” He pictured calling for them like calling for a dog, or more likely a stubborn cat that was in hiding, and couldn’t smother the snort and chuckle at the thought of clicking his tongue and rattling some food bag or something.

“They’ll catch up. Let’s go.” Valrinda started walking toward the city.

“You’re not going to fly?” Surprise stuck Beckett’s feet right where he was on the path, and with his much longer body Valrinda got ahead of him quickly.

“I feel like I need to stay close to you.” He prowled over the black stones like a sleek oversized lizard, his wings folded and long tail whipping behind him in the air.

“Hey, watch it! Try not to get that close.” That tail had been too close moving that fast.

“Then catch up. We’ll never reach the city and an inn with a bathing tub and stable if you don’t hurry up.”

“A bath?” He’d pay for a bath. Eyeing the pouch on his belt, he shrugged. Hopefully he could pay. He hadn’t had a chance to really bathe since the pool at the treehouse, and he was ripe. Days old sweat didn’t smell good on anyway.

Darn dragon smelled like smoke, salt, stone and heat but that smelled good to Beckett. He felt bad for Valrinda, who was forced to sniff his stink.

“Think we’ll reach the city today?”

Valrinda looked down. “I do.”

 

He was right. He was also right about the wisps catching up, but they kept their distance now, like they knew Valrinda was upset with them and would do something if they got too close.

Fortunately, there were plenty of inns with huge stables on the outside of town. Had they been for the beast on the road? Beckett was too tired to ask. He paid for the stable, a huge tub of hot water to be taken to an empty stall by where Valrinda was plus a blanket for later.

He relished the water while it was fresh, then used the towel to dry off and as a buffer from the scratch hay. Sinking down, he sighed. “Well, what now?” 

Want more flash?

J Ray Lamb

Julie Lynn Hayes

Wednesday Briefs: Broken Path, Starless Tail Chapter Twenty-one

 

Damn, he hated being right. Around mid-morning on the next day, when the city was still the faintest smudge on the horizon to Beckett, Valrinda came swooping down. “There’s a large cloud of dust heading our way.”

“Dust?” He thought it was just the nature of the desert, not something coming for them.

“Well, obviously something is making the dust, but for that to happen, something must be kicking up enough sand and dust on the sides of the road to make such a thick cloud even I can’t really see what is coming. Just… there’s a lot.”

The wisps were squeaking and talking over each other, rushing around. Beckett couldn’t make out anything they were saying, they were so frantic. “What? What is it?”

“I don’t know.” Valrinda lowered his head. “Quiet!” he thundered.

The wisps froze.

“Better. Why are you so scared?”

“It is the protector.” The way they said the last word, then chittered and clung together, proved they didn’t view the cause off the dust to be something positive, like they viewed Valrinda with awe after he protected them from the chacory. No, they feared it.

“Protector of what?” Beckett asked.

“The city.”

“The master.” They all squeaked in alarm and started patting each other’s faces, like they weren’t such which one had said that and wanted to no one to say more.

Beckett, as American as they come, didn’t like the word master when it came to someone who thought they were in charge of other people. He scowled, staring toward the city. “What should we do?” he asked Valrinda darkly.

“I’m stronger than any protector,” he said proudly, posing with his wings spread. “Especially with these runed chains protecting me. Stand beside me, ready to leap up on my shoulders just in case.”

“But what about the w—” Beckett stopped, looking around. The wisps had melted away in just the few seconds that Valrinda’s posing distracted him, and if he hadn’t known they’d traveled with them, he would never have known they had been there. “Where did they go?”

“Hiding. They’re wisps. It’s what they do.” Valrinda shrugged, but then he’d never really had anything good to say about the wisps. “They’ll come out if we win.”

“Win?” He didn’t like the sound of that at all.

 

Valrinda’s sight was definitely improved by the wisps’ chains. It felt like an eternity of waiting, Beckett’s stomach churning with acid and heart trying to lurch out his chest with the strain of not knowing what was coming toward them, before the cause of the cloud of dust finally came into view.

When it did, he wished it hadn’t. Not a dragon, or a chacory, so at least it didn’t have wings. But the monstrous beast had three heads that bobbed and wove as it charged forward and two wide tails that whipped behind it, making the large cloud of dust. A much smaller being rode on its back in a metal cage that was strapped to the thing’s green sides and along the wider, primary neck in a thick collar.

“What is that?” Beckett shuddered, balling his hands up into fists to hide their shaking.

“I-I don’t know. Be prepared to climb on. I don’t see wings. We can escape.”

“We can’t. We have to go to the city to find the star, and that’s where that thing came from, the city! We can’t just leave.”

“I can’t let it kill you either.”

Beckett didn’t want to die, and he didn’t want Valrinda to get hurt fighting a creature that was twice as big as he was with unknown defenses. “What is that on his back?”

Valrinda cocked his head, “A… human? Another human is here? Why didn’t I know that?”

“This isn’t the time to worry about that,” Beckett hissed.

“Then when? Humans come here once an age. It’s very rare. Usually only magi—” He cut himself off. “Not the time, right.”

It really wasn’t. The huge beast came to a stop when even Beckett could see the human inside the glittering cage. Protection or possession? He wasn’t sure until he started yelling. The beast’s two outside heads wove and snapped at the air, baring fangs as long as his hand.

“So you finally made it here, Beckett. I wondered if you ever would.”

“Do I know you?” Yelling at least made his voice shake less.

“No, but I know you. Know your so-called friends. Have you unraveled all their lies yet or are you still trapped in their little game?”

None of what he was saying made sense? Knew my friends? The only friend I had here was Valrinda. He wasn’t playing games. “I’m here to save a friend.” Not that Beckett would necessarily call Parallax a friend, but his family was. This whole thing was crazy but he wasn’t going call it a game. 

Want more flash?

J Ray Lamb

Julie Lynn Hayes

Wednesday Briefs: Broken Path, Starless Tail Chapter Twenty

 

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. 

Want more flash?

J Ray Lamb

Julie Lynn Hayes