It's not supposed to snow in the South Forest, but the weather in the second-emptiest corner of Shelha is not the only thing behaving strangely. When an ex-tyrant started acting up again, Sethral had hoped it meant the end of lazy days and monotonou...
"... And three!" grunted Taz. He and Fletch flung their weight against a makeshift stone lever. The rock in front of them rumbled backwards. Jay darted through the hole, nabbed a Drakon guard by the wing and spun it into a wall. It went still.
"Good job," panted Fletch.
Jay did a helicopter in the enclosed space, sniffing the air. He bounded left down the tunnel they had found themselves in.
The tunnel-rocks were a product of preexisting caves and landquake cracks, a jumbled maze of tunnels, holes, rooms and slots barely wide enough for a Coppertail to squeeze through. Jay kept stopping and sniffing at intersections, then picking routes that somehow avoided all Drakon contact until right outside the prison room. Taz and Fletch wriggled through the last crack as hissing exploded in the cave beyond. They emerged to find Jay swishing his tail among several dead Drakons. He trotted to the cave's far side and gave a click and a hiss down a chasm. There were startled cries from its depths. Several Coppertails whispered gleeful greetings while Taz and Fletch investigated the sides of the chasm. Jay paced the rim, pretending not to hear the stream of clicks, pops and hisses being fired back at him by Adder, the herd's Northlander. Someone smacked Adder and got hissed at.
Finding a suitable route, the two Rocklanders vanished into the shadows. Moments later, Fletch called up, "There's a tunnel exit here that they've almost excavated! We'll take them out through there. Are you good on your own?"
There was no reply.
Jay stood frozen as a huge white shape uncurled from the shadows, shaking off the dust that had been masking her scent.
"I figured I would catch at least one renegade with this setup," said Winter. "It worked out better than I'd hoped. And who are you, Coppertail? You smell like a Northlander."
Jay backed towards the wall. The Mountainair started forwards, feeling her way through the darkness with frightening grace for a night-blind creature.
"Jay?" called Fletch from below.
"Jay, answer us!" said Taz, annoyed.
"Jay?" said Winter softly. "You have an interesting name..."
There was a blur of motion. Winter pounced and the Northlander dove between her paws. He was back through the crack as her hindclaws gouged rock where he'd stood a heartbeat before. In the cave, Winter lay down and rolled in the dust again. The scent of charcoal erased her smell before it could drift down the chasm. She got up quietly and padded out of the room.
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Sethral crept through the rocks, her wings half spread to dissipate the heat already blurring the air around her. Rock flat dust, luckily, was everywhere. It had not been hard to camouflage. Ahead was the tunnel exit where the twins and Jay had agreed to lead the Coppertails. Sethral checked for Drakons and peeked over a rise towards it. Her blood ran cold. Drakons. Nearly thirty were crouched behind rocks in front of her, downwind of the tunnel.
