Lazarus

Plague dragons, Lazarus reminded himself as he swooped towards the Serthis, are the most savage in all of Sornieth. We are survivors. This is in your bones. You can do this, you can do this, you can-

He'd hesitated a moment too long; the Serthis had see him coming and was standing ready, bracing itself against the earth.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Too late to change it now; the wind was against him. Instead, he reached out with his claws, twisted his body to the side as much as he could, and focused on the enemy. Focus was your friend. Distractions can kill.

The wind changed. His wings snapped open and lifted him up just as his claws sank into the creature’s tail and held fast.

It screeched in agony, then in shock as he lifted it into the air.

It probably wasn’t the best decision he’d ever made, but the edge was so close. If he could just carry it a few metres, he could drop it over the edge and be done with it; Serthis weren’t harpies, after all. Gravity could do them as much damage as he could, and considerably faster.

---

As the eldest of his siblings, Lazarus had always been expected to set an example. He was born, his mother said, to be a leader, to stand strong against the Beastclans and rally others to his cause. Whenever she said it, he would puff out his chest, grin, flex his claws against the soft earth of the Wandering Contagion, exactly as he was expected to do. But he’d never felt it.

He was to be a fighter. A protector, his father said. Someone to be relied upon, to be trusted with the safety of the clan. That felt about right. He threw himself into his training, tussling and snapping happily with his clanmates until, one by one, fate or the deities called them away.

And left him waiting.

After a few months, he began to settle into his birthclan. Perhaps this was what fate had chosen for him, that he remain here. Perhaps this was his place in life. The wrongness of it sang in his bones, but he ignored it as best he could. He ignored his parents, too, as he spent hours and days gazing at the outside world, but unwilling to set so much as a claw beyond it. This, he thought to himself, is not home. But if I do not see it, I cannot know that. I can be happy here. So he remained inside, wrestling with the new hatchlings and fetching and carrying to make himself useful.

Time passed, hatchlings came and went, and all the while he ignored the world around him. But the world wasn’t ignoring him.

Fate, it seemed, did not intend for him to stay in the Wandering Contagion forever.

The winter months, when illness was high and clans of other flights were the most miserable, was when Plague flights flourished. They were at their strongest, buoyed both by the savage brutality of life, and the inevitable challenges that waited for them.

So when a stranger flitted through their defences without drawing so much as a ripple of attention, it was, of course, the talk of the clan. Lazarus didn’t hear about it, at first. He was in the clan armoury, thinking about destiny and staring about him at the weapons and armour his mother insisted were his by right.

He emerged from the small side-cavern, head down to avoid attention, and walked straight into another dragon. He heard his clan leader puff himself up, clearly about to take his head off, when he was interrupted by the stranger.

“What were you doing in there?”

Later, Lazarus would think on this meeting as the moment when his life truly began. Zacharias had come to the clan looking for new recruits; fresh blood for his own clan, and a new protector, a slot having opened up in their clan guard, leaving them vulnerable. He was curiously measured for a nocturne: he spoke softly, laughed little but smiled often, and was constantly wary, despite his carefully projected image of being as relaxed as they were in the Contagion.

Lazarus found himself spending days at a time in Zacharias’s company, talking about the Shifting Expanse, his adventures, his clan. They even began to spar together in the early mornings, when the clan was still stirring in the sleeping den. He constantly felt the other nocturne’s gaze on him, assessing and intense, and had to will himself not to blush or duck his head. He would not be seen as weak.

Where time had dragged before, now it ran. He could hardly take a day in his claws before it was gone again, inching ever closer to Zacharias’s departure; he could hardly stay with them forever. Oddly, he seemed unconcerned with his quest.

“I think I’ve found someone”, he said, and though curiosity scorched at his mind, Lazarus didn’t ask.

The day came, and time stopped again.

He slept late, missing the final practice session he’d promised himself with Zacharias, and he berated himself as he ran to the mouth of the lair. The whole clan seemed to have gathered, though few enough of them had treated their guest with anything but suspicion. They all seemed focused on the clan leader, who was making a farewell speech in Zacharias’s honour. But as Lazarus arrived - his tail twitching with embarrassment - they turned, with one accord, to look at him.

He shuffled, uncomfortably, beneath their gaze, until Zacharias fluttered down beside him.

“You never asked me,” he said, just loud enough for Lazarus to hear.

“Never asked what?”

“Who I’d found to guard my clan.”

Lazarus shuffled again. Was he saying what he thought he was saying? Surely not. But perhaps…

“Who?”

Zacharias grinned, eyes dancing and tail twitching with amusement.

“How do you feel about teamwork?”

---

The Serthis dropped from his claws like a stone and fell, screeching, into the canyon.

Lazarus fluttered back down to earth and collapsed into the dust, rubbing it into his aching shoulders as best he could.

Elsewhere, he could see, the battle was mostly won. Prometheus was writhing with another Serthis, snapping and scraping and tearing as only he could; attacking with abandon but no finesse. Phantom stood atop the lair itself, his expression haughty, wiping the blood off his sword. He looked torn between pride and disgust, and Lazarus fervently shared the feeling.

Zacharias fluttered down next to him, breathing heavily. A Serthis had caught him, too; blood ran down his wings and there was a long tear down the length of his tail, and Lazarus felt the familiar ache of worry begin in his chest.

Zach nudged him with his shoulder and nodded at the canyon.

“Good work. Maybe we should start teaching that trick to the youngsters.”

“Absolutely!” Prometheus sang, collapsing next to them and spraying dust everywhere. “‘Here’s what to do when you run out of ideas, kids.’”

He was breathing heavily, too, but seemed unharmed.

Zach rolled his eyes at him.

“Better than your method. What exactly is your tactic, Prometheus?”

“Flailing,” Lazarus said, with a grin of his own. “He flails around with his eyes closed and hopes he hits the enemy instead of himself.”

“Slander! Lies! Traitor to kith and kin!”

Their victory still buoying his heart, Lazarus stuck his tongue out as he'd seen Pastel do and hissed in as snake-like a manner as he could, and Prometheus fell on him willingly, knocking him back and flailing dramatically.

They fought for a few moments, playfully biting and kicking at each other, until Zacharias's soft voice interrupted them.

"Koda's waiting for us."

They fell apart. The clan leader was standing in the lair mouth, head tipped back and gazing at the darkening sky. Lazarus followed his gaze. Up to the heavens, and then down to the horizon, where the sun was about to disappear behind the distant mountains.

Somewhere beyond them was the Sea, and beyond that, the Scarred Wasteland. Some small part of him wondered about his birthclan, still. Were they happy? Had they moved on? Once or twice he had started a letter to them, but he'd never actually sent one.

"Coming?" Zacharias asked, standing beside him.

Perhaps it was just as well; his life was here, now. He had no wish to return. He watched Prometheus bouncing on ahead of them, leaping into the air every now and again and flapping ineffectually for a moment before coming heavily back down to earth. Apparently he had been injured.

"Yes."