Talons Of Glory Book 1: For Glory

Chapter 8

Fen'r couldn't believe his eyes.

That smoothed over, practically unadorned armor save for the emblem ebossing and crimson capelets was the garb of the standard Legion infantry, and judging from all the dings and scratches, it was some pretty old metal.

He couldn't have dreamed this would happen with a thousand years of sleep and scores of scrolls to write on. He didn't think anyone would be brave enough to wear the Legion's emblem these days. He knew some dragons still hung a flag on their wall or kept a stylized pin stashed away somewhere, but for anyone to be this open about it besides him, and as conveniently as this-

"Bandits!" Hyla shouted unexpectedly, darting behind Fen'r - after spooking him with the shout - and latching onto his shoulders. He nearly spread out his wings to guard her, then caught himself and kept them folded, craning his neck to give her an unimpressed look. "You're a cop and you're afraid of forest-dwelling thieves? Besides, they're not even that; look at their armor!" She was too busy shivering behind him like she had caught a bad cold to poke her head above his shoulder to see. He rolled his eyes, hiding a smile; she wasn't going to enjoy him bringing this up the next time she caught him sneaking into the city again.

The blue dragon nodded. "At least someone recognizes us these days." He narrowed his eyes at Hyla with clenched fists.

"Will you pipe down?" bellowed the helmet-wearing dragon at his friend, uncrossing his arms. He was clearly older than the first one, bearing a larger, more mature stature and a voice deep enough to convince a stranger that he was his grandfather. "You heard what Conkra here said; we're not here to hurt you. You can relax," he said, addressed this time to the younglings. He lifted his visor with a rusted crank, a sound reminiscent of his home's ancient gates, showing little aside from a shaded face and two astonishingly soft garnet eyes. "We're not here to cause trouble."

Conkra banged his knuckle against the helmeted dragon's shoulder. "What the hell, man? Why are you telling them our names? We were gonna start revealing that kind of shit once we trusted them!" he hissed. "You really think they'll be able to find us in a city as big as that?" the helmeted dragon replied with a thumb pointed in the direction of Wyrm's March. Fen'r glanced at that same patch of air. He didn't know any active supporters of the Legion, other than himself, of course, lived there; then again, he assumed anyone strutting the streets wearing legion colors like a preening rooster would get a lot of funny, maybe even dirty, looks, so he can see why most would stay on the down low about it.

Conkra, wide-eyed, gripped his horns and bared his teeth, clearly distressed at his friend. "What. Is. Your. PROBLEM?! You wanna tell them about our daily hunting routine? Show them our workplaces, too?" The helmet gestured to his garb and shrugged.

He planted his face deep in his palm, and, with a hardly audible grumble, shuffled his feet to look at Fen'r and Hyla. "Look, like we've been saying, we didn't mean to scare you and we're not going to attack. We were out patrolling and saw you poking around this clearing. We thought maybe you could use some help with whatever it was you were doing." Fen'r arched a brow. Patrolling? Under what orders? He opened his mouth to ask it aloud, but was cut off by the older dragon, as if he read his thoughts: "We obviously don't get.. you know, instructed to anymore, but we still take looks around to see if we can do anything outside city limits. Lost travellers, criminals hold up in the woods, stuff like that." His words were somewhat rushed, which caught Fen'r off guard even more than the interjection did.

"We don't want the legion to forever have a bad reputation," Conkra explained. "We want to uphold security, in a way that doesn't involve the committee. Out of their jurisdiction, you know?" Fen'r could get that. It was his understanding the defense committee had been ruthless in their execution ever since the Empyre fell apart and each of the states were left to fend for themselves. Still, why do it out here, where hardly anyone saw you and even fewer would remember you?