Rescue

Downy clouds reflected the pink-orange glow of the setting sun. It would not be long before night overtook the sky and the moon made a mockery of the sun's light. The only sound around was the steady wingbeats of the dragon beneath Liara. It had been a long day of running drills with the stubborn beast, and the flight was meant to calm it. It mostly seemed to be working. The orange-crested affair was bred for shows, not practicality, and it hated the rough saddle she'd forced on it and the entire training regiment thereafter.

If her own trusted mount of twenty seven years had not succumbed to its injuries after a particularly vicious battle, she never would have dreamed of taking on this inbred roll of scales. It was twitchy and nervous, unpredictable and high strung, hard to control. She had been drilling it for over a week-- the kind of drills it should have learned as a hatchling-- and so far, it had garnered little results. It may have had to do with changing its name the day she picked it up, but Rooster seemed to fit it, and she could not take the big lizard seriously with a name like Starshine Child.

Admittedly, he had potential. He was much larger than her previous mount, and his shape and wingspan made the ride a very smooth one. If she could get him to listen, it might even turn out to be a pleasant partnership. At this point in time, he just wasn't ready for a field test.

No sooner had the thought left her mind, finalized and firm, that an emergency call went out. The other riders answered one by one. The answers were disheartening. Twenty five minutes or more. She, on the other hand was just a few minutes from the area.

In Liara's experience, there was a window of about fifteen minutes from the moment a signal was put out to the last breath of the besieged. The enemy was not particularly cunning, but they were difficult to kill and had numbers on their side. Fleeing survivors could occasionally barricade themselves in a building, but it made evacuation harder, and the horde would eventually break in, making escape impossible.

Rooster wasn't ready for a field test. He could not be trusted on the ground. If she dismounted, he would likely leave her there, as he had his previous rider. If he panicked, he could kill every last survivor along with the horde. It was risky, to be sure, but it was either the what-ifs of her unpredictable new charge, or certain death without any hope.

Liara nudged Rooster into an easy dive. She had to correct him almost immediately as he took this as a cue to perform a showy acrobatic spiral- probably something from a routine he had started to learn a long time ago. In protest, he huffed a cloud of thick dark smoke that wafted back into her face. She did not react at all. Grudgingly, he settled down.

Liara never liked looking at the city at night. There should have been a light in every window with it growing dark, but instead, everything was eerily black. The blood red glow cast by the shrinking sun threw lengthy shadows that did nothing to make up for the stillness. The streets were empty or lined with rubble, a testament to the chaotic downfall of humanity.

Rooster shuddered and let loose a warning squawk, the likes of which explained the origin of his name better even than that bright orange faux-cockscomb that the breeders had carefully sculpted for his species. He was already acting nervous and neurotic and they had not even landed. Liara patted the side of his neck and muttered something gruff and vaguely encouraging near his head. It didn't do much compared to the boot she had wedged in his flank to keep him on course, but she could pretend to be motherly at times.

The acrid smell of burning oil punched her in the nose. This was probably what had set the dragon off in the first place. Unfortunately, this was also the very signal that they were looking for. Liara pulled back on the reins and scanned the horizon while Rooster hovered impatiently. His continued squawks went ignored.

“There you are,” she muttered to the weak blaze of red-orange light in the distance. Rooster crowed unhappily as she nudged him toward the tall building.

The scene was absolute chaos when they arrived. The top of the skyscraper was littered with bodies, shotgun shells, and the remnants of a barrier that had done little to hold back a horde of ravenous zombies. Rooster screeched down at the crowd from forty feet, his powerful wing beats buffeting those below with violent air. It looked intimidating to be sure, but zombies did not put a lot of merit in fear. They massed beneath him, clawing at the air and groaning and smelling like rot. Rooster chirped fearfully and ignored the command to land.

“You great, stupid beast,” Liara smacked him in the side of his head. “Do you see that little shed right there? That's where we need to go. If there's anybody alive down here, they'll be in there.” She pointed animatedly. Rooster's stocky head turned in the direction she pointed and his eyes narrowed. She was just happy to have gotten his attention.

“Now normally, I would let you stay up here and distract them while I go down there and check for survivors, but I'm pretty damn sure that you'll strand me and that is not going to happen. Now get down there.” She punctuated the statement by punching him in the same place she had previously patted reassuringly. He continued to hover. For a moment, she thought that he was going to ignore her entirely. Then he dropped like a stone.

They neared the cement roof with alarming speed and Liara thought that this was how he planned to get back at her: throw her off and dash her against the unforgiving stone to be devoured by the undead. At the last possible moment, he flicked his wings open and jolted to an abrupt stop. The zombies that had rushed forward were blown clear off their feet, tripping up those behind them. Liara was jerked out of the saddle and onto the firm musculature of the dragon's neck. He rolled his eyes back to look up at her and puffed a cloud of smoke in her face. She didn't know whether to be insulted or impressed but wasted no time in getting back in the saddle.

“Evac is here, you have t-minus twenty seconds to get your asses out here or we're leaving without you. I repeat: any survivors in the area have t-minus sixteen seconds!” she called over the indignant roar of the ravenous cannibals. She could see figures in the service shed, but could not tell if they were friend or foe. It was always possible that they had come too late.

Rooster hissed and spat at the horde as it closed in around them. They were not incredibly intelligent, but the sheer size of dragons tended to trip them up-- like getting a burger too thick to fit in your mouth. They ambled closer with slow inevitability. Rooster retreated further from the shed and roared at the unwavering crowd.

“What happened to that great swell of bravery?” she asked, smacking him. “Get back by that shed!” But the dragon refused to listen. She had to jam her boot in the pressure point near the base of his wing just to keep him from taking off. He expelled noxious black smoke, which did nothing to the zombies, but did make it hard to see. “Rooster! Stop it.” It seemed as though the rescue was a bust. The horde was closing in and there had been no sign of survivors. She was about to lift her foot and let him flee when a voice cut through the crowd.

“We're here! We're here! Don't leave!”

Liara set her jaw and scanned the area for the voice, but the smoke made it impossible to see. She was surrounded by zombies with the visibility reduced to zero, an uncooperative dragon too afraid to even attack his enemies, and there was an unknown number of civilians in need of rescue. She had not been in a situation like this in a long time. She sighed and dug her heels in to Rooster's sides. “You have ten seconds!” She called. Survivors were few and far between, but dragons were even more so. She could not risk getting swarmed.

A gust of wind finally cleared the smoke enough to see five people crowded on the narrow roof of the shed. A cluster of the more observant undead had gathered at the base of the shed to moan and groan and prevent the tasty morsels from reaching rescue. No matter how many times she was told that the zombies had no higher brain function left, it was times like these that made Liara wonder. “Five seconds!” She called with a sinking heart. She would lie awake for days thinking about these people that had been within a rock's throw of rescue but had missed it because of Rooster's inexperience.

A huge white ball of fur and claws tore its way through the horde. Rooster jerked in its direction, nostrils flaring in alarm. She could practically hear the gears in his head turning, figuring out just how much force would be needed to throw her out of the saddle so that he could escape before the thing reached him. She dug her foot in a bit harder and watched the creature with horrified fascination. Luckily, it seemed to be on their side and it had no signs of zombism: no visible wounds, no shuffling gait. It looked a lot like a bear that had formed too much musculature in its upper body. Top heavy but powerful. It knocked back the swells of the undead like they were rag dolls.

If this thing had wings, she might have considered making it her new mount.

Rooster crowed and flinched, stepping carelessly close to the edge of the roof in the process. He aimed his broad face at his flank and Liara drew her pistol, prepared to shoot the clever zombie that had used the distraction to reach them. The terrified face of a teenage girl greeted her. “Don't shoot!” She screamed, flinging her hands in the air. Liara jerked Rooster's reins to keep him from snapping her arm off.

“It's okay, boy!” She spared the shed a quick glance and confirmed that it was empty. “Climb up. Strongest members are going to have to stand and hold on. I can take the weakest up here with me,” she said without looking back. Rooster was wearing his training saddle, which had been fitted with strong loops of leather that could be used for impromptu rescues but was nowhere near as nice as the saddle specifically designed to take on multiple passengers. Rooster shuddered and looked back with bared teeth as the survivors clamored up his side. Liara jerked him back again. “Eyes on the goddamn zombies,” she reminded him. His agitated tail was doing a good job of keeping the undead off of his exposed flank. The teenaged girl from before handed Liara a boy of six or seven with dark, matted hair, and wet tear tracks on his dirty face. She set him down roughly in front of her, called for everyone to hang on, and released her paralyzing hold on the dragon.

Rooster was in the air immediately. He hovered for a moment, trying to find a new sense of balance with extra people crowded around a single side of his body. “No! My dad, my dad!” The little boy in front of her cried, pointing fervently at the building below. Liara turned her head and counted the faces behind her. Four total. Someone was missing. The resigned expressions of the survivors said it all.

Liara peered around Rooster's broad body and took one last glance downward. The huge white beast was being torn into by the swell of zombies that had abandoned the hope of bagging themselves a dragon for the more immediate reward.

The kid's father didn't stand a chance.

“Home, Rooster,” she ordered, nudging him in the sides. Her stomach felt as though it was filled with lead. The child's cries would haunt her nightmares in the weeks to come.