Page 266 of Phoenix's Fire

Sylis's head snapped over to Tobias. "You weren't caught?"

Tobias just shrugged. "I'm trying to get out."

"Bring me?"

I heard the desperation in this man's voice, so I flicked the safety on the gun and crouched, setting it beside me. "I think he's okay, Zasen. You can help the others."

Then Tobias did the last thing I would've expected. He pulled the knife from the sheath on his leg and held it up toward Sylis. "See this, Sylis? I do know how to use it."

Zasen grumbled at that. "I'm not leaving you here outnumbered."

"She's not outnumbered," Tobias promised. "He is."

Zasen clasped Tobias's shoulder. "Ayla, make sure you have a sign for the ones Tobias trusts. We don't have enough arrows to keep handing them out."

"Yellow," Tobias said. "Callah can get strips of yellow cloth for us to wear as a favor or token. Or maybe put a symbol on them?"

But Zasen looked at me again. "I'm okay," I promised. "Holly's with me. Go! They need you out there."

"And be careful of the grenades!" Tobias said. "They have a ten-foot blast. They will send out bits of metal even further. They explode in seconds, so do not be close!"

"Fuck!" Zasen growled, hurrying off with that information.

Sylis was just staring at Tobias. "What is going on?"

"She got out," he said, pointing at me. "I want to get Callah out, because she was Ayla's roommate. We already got their other friend out."

"You had nothing to do with that," I reminded him.

"I know!" he snapped. "But Meri is out, Callah needs out, and she's worried she won't get banished. It's safer for her to marry me and then try to get banished, but she can't copy what's been done, and with the new marriage rules, the elders are going to be holding on to women."

"She'll go to quarantine," Sylis insisted.

"Will she?" I asked. "Because all of the women there are from up here. Dragon women without tails, like me. Wild women. Stolen women, Sylis, carried back to breed and make more children. That's why they don't let us marry each other. That's why I'm making sure Callah has the list of relations, so she'll be able to make sure you aren't her cousin, Tobias. They aren't just taking the meat. They're taking all of our people for one reason or another!"

"No..." Sylis breathed, looking at Tobias. "How? When?"

"Twenty-eight years ago," I told them. "That's when it started. Before then, the Dragons had a few Moles stumble into Lorsa, but they were always killed. Then, anentire army hit - and kept hitting. They did their best to track when, but their calendar is different from ours. The world warmed, changed, and when that happened about six hundred years ago, some hid from it. The Moles must've been a group of those. Others adapted. The wild men now farm plants. The Dragons make tools. All people hunt, but most of us eat animals like deer or pigs!"

"But they're the Devil's minions," Sylis said, shaking his head to show he was confused.

"They are people who were changed to deal with the ruined world. Science did it, so the Righteous shunned science."

"And we're Moles," Tobias told him. "Pale creatures that burrow underground. A fitting name."

Sylis nodded. "And he spoke. The Wyvern, he can speak now?"

"He's always been able to speak," I promised. "But languages change over time. Ours went one way. Theirs went another. I had to learn it, and I showed him how to speak English like we do underground. Now we can understand your orders. We know what's being yelled." I reached over to pet Holly, making sure she was still paying attention. "And up here we are free to live as real people."

"Men too?" Tobias asked.

I nodded. "If you can prove you aren't like them, I think I can make that happen."

"How?" Sylis asked. "Why would they trust you?"

"Because I told them when you're coming. Because I explained how to defeat you. Because I might be a woman, but I'm not fuckingstupid!I just pretended to be, because being meek, submissive, and subservient was the only way to survive, and I want tolive."

"Me too," Sylis said. "So what do we need?"