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Its mother.

No, no, no, he thought, suddenly frozen again, this time in horror. His heart echoed the sentiment, all but slamming through his chest despite there being no physical reason for it. But there were times when his human mind took over, and right now, it supposed that he needed added strength.

To run, presumably, only that wouldn’t do any good. If a hatchling could track him and Gillian all the way here, the mother would have no difficulty doing likewise. She was probably sleeping off her latest meal in the coolness of her cave, as Rathen had mentioned that she’d been hunting. But as soon as she woke up—

Kit’s stomach cramped. He didn’t want to think about the logical conclusion, but he had to considering that he had no idea how to shut down the portal. He’d only ever had pocket ones, the sort of thing he borrowed from his Lady when needed, and nothing like this.

He could spend hours looking for a lever, only to never live long enough to discover that the gateway was activated by a spoken word. No. He had to get the miscreant back onto its side of the barrier before its mother realized it was missing, then find Rilda and—

Wait.

Wait.

Hadn’t there been three of them?

He said a very bad word, then said a whole string of them, something that seemed to amuse his captive to no end. Only it was more like he was its captive, since the damned thing weighed more than it had any right to. And required vampire strength to pull off him, and then to tuck under his arm like a squirmy puppy if puppies weighed four hundred pounds, whilst he looked frantically about for the other two.

But they weren’t there.

Kit paused, a thousand things tearing through his mind at once: worry about Gillian, for he did not think that she was likely to back down from a bunch of war mages, he truly did not; concern about what an enraged dragon could do in a city built out of wood; and where the other two babes were, because he couldn’t just return one!

So, he was left hefting a creature almost as tall as he was and almost three times as fat, with the two-inch claws on the end of its scaley toes leaving gouges in the floor as he dragged it about, looking for its brothers. Or sisters—he had no idea how to tell the difference—whilst it shredded what was left of his clothes in search of more sweets.

Which he dearly wished he had as it might have drawn the other miscreants out!

But he had no sweets and no more fat babies, either. In desperation, he stuck his head through the portal, despite the very real danger of getting it ripped off. And finally spotted a second little creature—in the arms of a very confused looking adolescent dragon, namely Rilda’s pet Tremolina. She did not appear to number childcare among her gifts, as the fat baby was chewing on one of her horns as she looked around in what was clearly consternation, searching for help.

Or for a scapegoat.

“Hoooonnnkkkkk,” she screamed immediately, at first sight of Kit. And then “HOOOOOONKKKKKK! HOOOOOONKKKKKK! HOOOOOONKKKKKK!” It was like the world’s biggest goose, the sound almost enough to rip open his head without the need for blade nor mace. But at least she wasn’t coming for him this time.

Because somebody else was already doing that.

Kit’s vision, which was clearly as terrified as he was, suddenly threw itself outward at what was coming down the road, so quickly that the trees all bent forward from the force of its passing. He couldn’t see much, even with vampire sight, because said trees also loosed a storm of bright yellow leaves illuminated by the light of the rising moon. But through one gap in the gale, he spied a furious, slitted orange eye.

I’m about to die, he thought blankly, and that was the last coherent thought he had for some time.

He later recalled having dropped the babe on its fat little arse and seen it tumble down the gentle hillside, laughing all the way. And then pulled back into the alehouse, looking about wildly for the third. Because he knew that two would not be enough, not even to grant him a marginally less horrible death, much less to save him.

But it wasn’t here, and it wasn’t there, so there was only one other possibility. Which was why he threw himself across the house and out the front door, bursting onto a wet, almost completely dark street. A spell, he thought, staring confusedly upward at a black miasma that hadn’t been there a few minutes ago; probably something to allow for easier domination of the mages.

It seemed to be working, as a fellow in a brown leather cloak came walking past, considerably more tentatively than usual for the breed, who favored ground eating strides. He had a magic globe that he was using for a light, which did not seem to be helping. Which was why he was almost on top of Kit before noticing him, then reared back in alarm and flung a curse.

Kit sidestepped with vampiric speed, having expected it, and skipped back a few yards, at which point the man seemed to lose him in the dark. The mage turned around several times, swinging his light, but although one of those passes came within a few feet of Kit, he didn’t notice. He abruptly moved on, probably to get away from the danger he couldn’t see, but Kit did not, despite his danger being considerably more acute.

Dragons, the one-natured type at least, had only animal intelligence to work with, but he didn’t fool himself that it would take a frightened mother long to find him. Not with Tremolina there to point the way. Which was why he poured everything he had into improving his sight. And managed somewhat better than the mage.

Everything was still dimmer than it should have been, but he found himself able to see as far as a few buildings in each direction. That included an alleyway where a good deal of the wind was coming from, having been channeled between tightly packed buildings so that it hit with a punch. And caused something to whimper in fear as a particularly hard gust came by, the sound coming from somewhere farther into the alley.

Kit ran across the street and finally spotted the missing babe, peering out of the darkness with huge orange eyes. He didn’t even blink as he rushed forward, too afraid that the creature might disappear into the fog if he took his eyes off it. But it didn’t, and its own eyes seemed to glow from within, like two holes in the side of a lantern, allowing him to easily make his way over and scoop it up.

It was the smallest of the three, so only about half as big as he was, although it weighed considerably more. And appeared completely overjoyed to see him, throwing itself into his arms and sinking claws into his flesh. Kit bit back a curse, because the claws were not small, but he didn’t think it was an attack.

The creature was shaking and probably terrified, having gone on a lark in search of sugared almonds, and instead wandered into a magical battle in another world.

For a moment, he felt bad for it—until the heat of its panting breaths almost set his hair alight. He decided to turn it around, so at least all the pointy bits were facing outward, along with any stray sparks that it might emit. Only the babe was having none of it.

It had found a protector and it wasn’t letting go.