V3Ch41-Stalking
The dragon and the Hero looked down at the beastgirl and the mummies from thousands of feet in the air.
“By Kur, you were right, Aoife,” Chad said grudgingly.
“My nose is never wrong,” the dragon replied. She had only realized when the catgirl took the others and began to move away that the three beastgirls all smelled, more strongly than the town as a whole, of undeath.
By the time Aoife had processed the meaning of the odor and conveyed it to Chad, the three beastgirls had disappeared, not just from view but from all Aoife’s senses. The dragon could sense they weren’t on a nearby street. They had gotten distance. They were probably regrouping.
The most prudent course was a retreat.
The sight of the multiple undead flanking her as the catgirl reemerged to search the streets was the final confirmation as far as Aoife was concerned.
They had something to do with this necromancer. They must be close associates of his.
The catgirl must be someone important to the necromancer, the dragon assessed. Those undead feel powerful. Surely he doesn’t have many such creatures, or he would have the town better defended, and we wouldn’t have been able to enter in the first place. She recalled the smell of pregnancy hormones from the beastgirls. Perhaps they are his mates…
“It’s a shame,” Chad said, breaking her train of thought. “Those beastgirls were really cute. I guess now we’ll need to target them if we want to draw the necromancer out. He’ll have to come out when he sees his women pleading for their lives. Even if he didn’t, they’d be able to tell us where to find him.”
What are you saying?! What sort of human are you?
Aoife felt a visceral sense of something - not quite disgust, since it took a lot to turn a dragon’s stomach - but lowness. This human’s plans were beneath her.
“Chad, there are two pregnant mothers among the beastgirls you just mentioned,” Aoife said, forcefully keeping her voice calm. “As I just said. Carrying humanoid children. The delicate young of your own kind. Do you feel nothing at the thought of targeting them? Or trying to force information from them? How exactly would you go about that?”
He shifted uncomfortably on her back.
“I, um, hadn’t thought of it that way. Hadn’t thought of them as pregnant mothers, I mean.”
She lifted her head slightly, turned, and gave him a sharp look.
How is that possible? I only just mentioned that they were pregnant a few minutes before we made our escape.
“It’s probably the necromancer’s evil spawn, anyway,” the Hero said, swallowing.
“Evil infants?”
She pictured him crushing dragons’ eggs, as the spawn of an “evil” race. That was not unheard of.
“Look, they were coming back to fight us,” Chad said, gesturing at where the catgirl continued to prowl up the port’s streets, searching for them. She looked barely larger than an ant from up at their height. “The catgirl came looking for a fight right after we left. Would you have us run from their challenge?”
“That much is true,” Aoife said. “They were returning to fight us. Very well. I will defeat the catgirl, while you watch for the necromancer. We can take her prisoner if you wish. We will not pursue the foxgirls. They have displayed no combat capabilities, nor did I sense much power from them. The catgirl is a different matter. Armed and dangerous.”
“Exactly!” Chad said, smiling, though it looked forced. “I didn’t realize you had this soft side to you, Aoife. That plan is just fine.”
“I am not soft. There is not a single soft thing about me. I simply have standards. Among dragons, those who feed on eggs are the lowest of the low. Scum. I would not do it if I was starving to death.”
“That’s frankly not the reputation that dragons have. Interesting.”
Which is why you could not accept the idea that I was trying to act as a guardian for that village you ‘rescued’ from me when we met, Aoife thought. Or perhaps you did not want to believe it for your own, less than heroic, reasons. I wonder if the place still exists now, without either the Hero or myself to protect it. But you will probably never think of it again, will you, Chad?
The dragon was beginning to understand the Hero, she believed. The more she understood, the less she liked.
Keep your mind focused on the conclusion of the mission, she told herself. I’ll demand a rematch with him, and our association will either radically change or end. One way or another.
***
Kistana hissed quietly to herself as she rounded another corner.
She could smell the dragon and the Hero’s scents everywhere she went - they had clearly been walking around the port for some time before they ran into Vidalia, Victoria, and Kistana - but now they appeared to have vanished into thin air.
They could be anywhere… and they’ve probably been doing reconnaissance on the town. Plotting an attack. At this rate, I won’t be able to pick up their trail. We need a plan to defend ourselves from them. They’ll be able to come after us anytime they want. Not to mention the fact that the dragon woman can presumably fly. Walls won’t do much about that, and more importantly…
Kistana had no way of tracking and hunting something that didn’t need to walk or swim to escape her. She could follow a mana trail, at least for a relatively short distance, but mana shed by entities moving through the air usually drifted away randomly in the wind. It wasn’t easy for her to track, for instance, a bird.
Kistana scanned the sky visually again, but once more, she could see nothing except suspiciously shaped clouds.
She shook her head and turned to former Beastking Ethelstan, who stood on a rooftop above her.
“Pardon me, Your Highness?” she asked.
She swallowed. She hated asking this. She felt like she was letting her future husband down.
“Yes, huntress?” the mummy replied.
She lowered her head but made herself say the slightly bitter, pride-crushing words.
“Could you please contact King Tybalt and ask him to cut his negotiations with the dragon and the elves short?” she said. “We… need him back. His other fiancees are in danger, and I confess, I will probably be inadequate to protect them. If the enemy doesn’t attack now, while we’re prepared…” She let her voice trail off and sighed.
There. The words were spoken.
The mummy paused for just a fraction of a second before answering.
“Huntress, I am dismayed to have to inform you, we have been out of contact with King Tybalt almost since the moment that he and the dark elf left.”
Alarm bells went off for the catgirl.
“Is he - is he all right?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“We believe so. If he was dead, I’m told we would sense the permanent severing of his connection to us. Our best guess as to what happened is that he was transported somewhere we cannot reach him. The elves have extensive magical defenses, if their society is anything like what it was when some of them shared this land with the beastfolk. That might explain it.”
“I see,” Kistana said. “So we’re on our own…”
She felt a heady mix of anxiety and excitement. She feared something happening to Vidalia, Victoria, or Mariella.
But the challenge was also an opportunity for growth.
Protecting the others is up to me. I can’t give up. We’ll just have to make ourselves a hard target and prepare for a fight.
***
Aoife and Chad - it was mainly the dragon’s efforts, frankly, since she was the one who could fly - continued to observe the catgirl and the mummies.
From far above, they followed their prey to where she lived in a house with the other beastgirls. They staked out the house as best they could, considering that it was now likely impossible for them to enter Whadesgart discreetly.
The apparent undead-and-beastfolk army had made the town its base, and the defenses around the place grew substantially over the next day.
There had been mummies and a few undead stationed around the house.
Gradually, more assembled, until there was a full company of a couple hundred undead posted around the house.
Aoife and Chad found that encouraging. They thought it meant that, at any moment, with his defenses finally fully in place, the necromancer would appear, cloaked in unholy power, perhaps wearing a skull mask and gripping a bony rod that boosted his necromantic abilities.
At least that was how Aoife imagined a necromancer. She had never met one - only almost met the master of the Dread Swamp - and it was the sole aspect of this trip besides fighting the catgirl that still had her a little bit excited. She had heard impressive things and now seen some rather daunting things in the swamp.
But there was no sign of him.
The beastgirls came and went only rarely and under heavy guard, half of the mummies and a squad of undead accompanying any outing. There was a feeling in the air of danger. They clearly knew they were under threat, and it seemed that their mate had no immediate way of resolving the difficulty.
He is hiding. Perhaps weak after all.
“We need to attack and get this over with,” Chad said as the third day dawned. “Nothing is happening. They’re only getting more prepared for us.”
“I think they have prepared as much as they possibly could and will likely slowly let their guard down if we delay,” Aoife replied. “I am willing to attack, though. This wait is as boring for me as it is for you. We can do it the next time the catgirl goes out on one of her patrols.”
Chad nodded and grinned. Aoife forced a smile in return.
She thought it would be a good fight with the catgirl. When she walked the town, accompanied by her bodyguard of mummies - she didn’t bring any other undead, since she seemed to require less protection than the other women - she carried a ridiculously large bow and exuded a powerful crimson aura.
That aura gave Aoife a pleasant sense of danger, which made her interested in doing battle.
But she was also aware, having observed the catgirl from a distance repeatedly - and having perhaps been observed in turn, though it was hard to be certain - that like one of the foxgirls and the human mage who lived with them, the catgirl was pregnant.
Aoife preferred not to kill one who was carrying life in her womb.
She didn’t want to say so to Chad. As little as she cared about his opinion, she refused to appear weak to anyone.
And it wasn’t weakness on her part. She would do it if necessary. She just had a code internal to herself.
So they watched and waited for their moment.
It was the morning of the fifth day.
The catgirl left bright and early with a handful of her mummies.
Aoife and Chad hid between a cloud and the sun to minimize their chances of being spotted. They waited for the catgirl to be near the town walls, too far from the others for backup to be timely in coming.
Then they dove out of the sky.
Aoife breathed a dense cone of fire around herself as she dropped, then tore through a building to ensure she would have adequate room for her fight in the town’s central street.
She had learned a lesson about fighting in a shape other than her true form. She wasn’t about to make that mistake again unless she had to.
The Hero jumped from her back an instant before she struck. He landed in an alley, and as Aoife popped her head out of the wreckage of the building she had demolished, the two of them stepped into the street, each taking one side to make it more difficult for the catgirl to flee.
For her part, the catgirl stood her ground.
She seemed surprisingly happy to see them. Both she and the mummies all around her smiled as if they were in on some private joke, though the mummies’ expressions were harder to see through their bandaged faces.
“You two finally made your move,” the catgirl said, her tone almost mocking. “We were starting to get bored.”
She nocked an arrow as tall as she was to a bow of even greater height.
Chad and Aoife exchanged a nod, and then each lunged at their respective foes.