[coronatiger]

When I turned around, Ælios was injecting Nillet with a syringe, and she woke up. Xipil asked me to make sure she was calm, but there wasn’t really much to do. Nillet barely managed to sit up, she was so wobbly, and it seemed to me that her lights hadn’t quite been lit. Xipil pointed at Nillet’s shadow and I could see there was something off about that too. I helped Nillet stand up, in the hope that walking might wake clear her mind, but she fell to her knees and threw up. I quickly pulled her hair out of the way and patted her back while she retched.

Ælios woke Korro as well. He wasn’t as fragile as Nillet, but he needed help getting around. Hylda took care of that, while I attended to Nillet. When she could stand again, everyone was ready to go. Yana passed me my backpack and I wriggled it on, which was slightly difficult when I also had to make sure Nillet didn’t topple, but Yana stepped in and aided.

Nynos waited for us outside the lab, and as he turned to lead us away, I noticed he had a dagger concealed under his forearm, ready to attack. When we got up on deck, Nynos told us where to find the rowboat. It was already lowered into the river, and ropes hung down from the railing.

Two groups of priests stood a short distance away with a lion cub between them, shouting at each other. Several of them were holding weapons. It almost looked like a religious war was about to break out. Most of them didn’t mind us, so we hurried along to our escape vehicle.

I stated the obvious, that Korro and Nillet weren’t fit to climb on their own, in case my companions were too distracted. Both Xipil and Wolfram were in pain despite trying to hide it, and Grogg was certainly preoccupied with the dragons.

Wolfram offered to climb down so he could catch Korro and Nillet when we lowered them. Xipil made the knots to secure the two patients, and we got them down without incident. That was when our luck ran out. Grogg climbed next, and with only one usable arm, he slipped and crashed onto the rowboat. I heard something break, but Wolfram reported that there was no gushing leak anywhere, so we could still use the rowboat. Hylda tried to hurry down to Grogg to make sure he was unharmed, or at least not too badly injured, but she overestimated her climbing skills and ended up in the water. At least she got a soft landing.

Yana and I started climbing next. Xipil just dove into the water so he could rescue Hylda. As soon as Yana was over the railing, she lost her grip on the rope and landed next to Grogg. While I had worried that Grogg might have broken the boat, Yana was too slight to break anything but herself. When Xipil called out for an oar or something to help him get Hylda over to the boat, I decided to kill two birds with one stone.

Some of the soldiers and priests had stopped arguing amongst themselves, and were coming towards me, looking angry. I hurriedly pulled a knife, and with a goodbye smile, I severed the rope above my grip. I landed with one foot on either side of Yana and rolled to the side, then used the momentum to whip the trailing rope out to Xipil. “Take this end,” I commanded Wolfram, who promptly started pulling Xipil and Hylda towards us.

I knelt beside Yana. Above, a priest was scowling at us. He shouted something that Wolfram said was a prayer for us. I didn’t pay attention to the priest, nor to any of the other belligerents back on the ship. Yana needed me, and she greatly appreciated the care and attention I provided. She might not have broken anything, but she’d be blue and black all over.

Xipil and Hylda took the oars and got us safely to the east bank. When Grogg stood up to get out of the boat, he put his foot where he had landed and finally made the hole I had expected. Thank You, Ashtar, for getting us safely ashore.

It was almost as dark as night due to the bad weather the dragons brought. I looked around and saw a light in the south, perhaps a quarter of an hour away, and asked the others if we should seek shelter there. Xipil said he didn’t want to meet anyone while the tempest lasted. As if his mention of the bad weather was a signal, the sky opened above us. Most of us hid under the rowboat, which Xipil and Hylda had pulled up the embankment. Xipil remained outside, watching the sky, and Grogg sat nearby, clutching his maul while staring towards the east.

The throbbing in my wound subsided, and I spoke a short prayer of thanks. With Grogg and Xipil outside in the rain, there was room for Yana to lie down. She needed help getting over the shock, and I instructed her in the same breathing exercises that I had made Wolfram use, not two hours before.

Grogg returned to the river where he began to chant. “Ogra, Ogra, Ogra!” The wind shook the rowboat, and Wolfram had to go outside to fasten it with ropes. Xipil assisted. When the boat was secured, Wolfram came inside again, but Xipil went down to Grogg.

A powerful lightning bolt struck ground a short distance towards the east. A few seconds later, two more bolts crashed against the fields, closer this time. Wolfram returned to the downpour to set up his lightning rod, or as he likes to call it, his totem pole. I didn’t see the wisdom in that. I closed my eyes, touched the ground, and prayed.

More lightning rained ever closer, and Wolfram shouted for Grogg to come back to the shelter. The next lightning bolt landed only twenty or thirty meters away, and I felt the electricity in the air. Then a wind blew past us, shaking the rowboat and making it groan.

I felt a tug on my shoulder and opened my eyes to find Yana looking scared. “What was that?” she asked, pointing towards the river. I thought I heard Grogg’s chanting from the direction Yana pointed, but I could just make out his outline a little further to the south. “I can’t see anything in the dark,” I admitted. Yana squinted. “A shadow is trying to take Xipil,” she burst out.

I ran where Yana had pointed. There was no time to stop and apply venom to my knives if Xipil was being attacked right at that time. Wolfram lumbered after me, weapons at the ready. Xipil greeted us calmly from the darkness when we arrived; his camouflage skin made him almost impossible to detect. I wondered how Yana had spotted him.

Now that I was closer, I could see Grogg standing next to Xipil and chanting, despite also standing ten meters away. I asked what was happening. “I made a decoy Grogg,” Xipil explained. “Bite a stone and break a fang,” I cursed at him, then stomped off back to the rowboat.

The rain quickly chilled my anger at Xipil for scaring Yana, and I was my usual self again – or at least as usual as I am under the full moon – when I ducked back in under the cover. I relayed that Xipil had made an illusory Grogg, but Yana insisted there was something wrong with it. I asked how she could see anything in the dark. “It isn’t that dark, is it?” she asked anxiously. I opened my mouth to speak, but then another lightning bolt struck behind me, down at the river where Xipil, Grogg and Wolfram still were.