A helicopter rescue team arrived at the dragoman's bedside. She certainly had broken ribs and one wing was at an abnormal angle. A Kobold priestess accompanied the humans, but the Kobold dragoons had been sedated to remove the pups under their supervision.
Sarah held Kate by the mouth. "Hold on, Kate. It's not us...forgive us...it's the Ummites...Don't be discouraged...we'll get them back... As long as I'm alive, I'll do anything...
Kate's eyes were open and she moaned more with sadness than with pain...
Sarah: "You have to fight and set an example... that you are a nice creature and that your children will be as nice as you are...I am sure they will listen to you. You didn't do anything to the elves...you just stood up for yourself... We will all plead for you but you have to hang in there...you have to show the Ummite Empire that you have a right to your place among us too."
Kate sighed... "This is so hard... Poor Hans... he was so nice... What have I done? Sarah? tell me???"
Sarah sighed.. "Yes, we all owe him our lives...but you have to survive, your children too and us too... It's the nature of things...Let's respect his sacrifice... If the elves hate him, we don't!..."
Kate: "I betrayed him...I should never have agreed..Yuri is a monster.... "
Sarah:" Yes, I know.."
She continued to caress and draw attention to herself as the doctors readjusted the bones of the battered dragoness and the Kobold priestess gave her the first magical treatment.
But the latter said to her discreetly in draconian: "I will remain faithful to you, mistress dragon, but you have betrayed us all. We will continue to pledge our allegiance to you if you honor our former master, but our hearts are no longer with you. We will all leave the village and find the faithful dwarves. Warn the humans and elves that from now on, when we have prayed to our God Hans, we will be gone forever. And don't try to find us... you are enemies now and we will hunt you as such. The mountain, the mausoleum and the underground kingdom of Cranedur are off limits to you! "
Kate let out a squeak ... she didn't know how, but the priestess had treated her minimally but had omitted any painkiller part. The bones were repairing themselves but painfully.
Suddenly, the one meter high Kobold grew to the size of a carnotaurus. Almost 4 meters high and, with a claw, left a gash in Kate's face "For HANS!", just before she ran off towards the mountain, the humans and soldiers, having seen nothing coming.
Immediately, bandages and biological glue were applied to save the dragoness' face.
She looked terrible.
Doctor: "Tomorrow she will be better and her regeneration will have to take over but she should stay under sedation but with the little red monsters...it is dangerous. What a waste..."
Sarah: "We would have ended a day like that. The elves, we could have held on with Hans but the Ummites...this is the result. He went too far and paid the price. We could have negotiated a truce, started diplomatic and commercial relations and lived all in peace but he wanted to give us back the old world... "
A few days passed and Kate slept, recuperating at the edge of the volcano, in a military tent that looked more like an airplane shelter.
She had long drops of sweat and was shivering.
She was flying over the sea of storms again... and... still the same dark, shifting, impassive landscape. The storm was permanent.
With aching wings, she finally arrived at the foot of the ruins of the "forgotten castle".
