---

“See, robbin’ a dragon isn’t much different than robbin’ a bank. You plan it out just the same way. You start with glassin’ the lay of the land, work out your entrances and exits. Work out where the fat lizard is sleeping, where he’s like to come crawling out into the sun. Then you need two distractions to get his attention, and at least half an idea of how you’re gettin’ away once you’ve bagged up the hoard. But you, Koori, you’re the most important piece in this whole operation.” 

Koori fidgeted in her seat on the cave rock. “I am?” 

“Yes, oh yes.” Juncle lifted a index finger, so thick and knobby it was almost like a sausage that could be roasted over the campfire crackling between them. “You, girlie, will be the mouse.”

Koori blinked, glanced down into her lap where she cradled her double-barreled shotgun. She couldn’t tell if she was being mocked. “That’s what the gang needs me for? To be a mouse?”

“You told us you knew these mountains,” Juncle said. “That you’ve been in the caves, too. Just like the one the dragon’s shacked up in now.” 

“Yeah. Ever since I was a little girl.” 

The big man nodded, his jowls quivering at the motion. “That makes you the best lady for the job. See, the mouse sneaks into the lair, puts eyes on the lizard, gives the all clear for everything to start. Everything hinges on it.”

Skittering around a dragon was a bit different to how Juncle had made her job sound when he’d hired her back in town. But if this was how she got in front of the Fox Queen, so be it. “Alright,” she said. “What do you need me to do?” 

“Simple, really. Here, I’ll show you.” 

Koori followed Juncle as he rose to his feet. He led her through the gang’s camp: a maze of tents, campfires, and supplies scattered within a shallow cliffside cave. Nobody paid them much mind, each gang member focusing on their own piece of the job. Some checked guns and equipment. Others shook red dust out of cracked leather sacks or patched up their holes. For a reason Koori couldn’t understand, a handful of gang members sat in a circle polishing mirrors the shape and size of dinner plates. 

Koori winced as they stepped out from the cave and onto a rock shelf, baking in the harsh white sun. Ten paces further was an edge that tumbled sheer and sharp down to the canyon floor. Juncle brought her close enough to feel the wind, clawing and wailing up from below like ghosts of the desert desperate to escape. 

“See that little opening in the rock across the way?” Juncle asked.

The opposite canyon wall towered above them, a craggy mountain crowned with spires of red rock and—she could tell by the bulbous shapes of the stone—the outer shell of deep caverns. A few natural bridges of arched rock spanned the gap. Juncle drew his pointing finger across one of the bridges and up the side of the cliff to a small pocket in the rock, about halfway up from where they stood. 

“I see it now,” Koori said. 

“That’s the mouse hole. Think you can get up there?”

“Oh, blindfolded.” 

“Good. Scout says that leads right in to the dragon. One massive cavern in there, lots of ways in and out.” Juncle scratched his chin, waved a hand towards a bigger opening a bit further up. “Now, see that bigger mouth further up? Your job is to sneak into the mouse hole and get up to there. Tie a flag.” 

Koori pulled at her black braided tail of hair. “A flag?” 

“Aye. Where the dragon can see it, so he comes out that way.”

Koori squinted. “But if I’m there—”

“You won’t be. We don’t start the operation until you come back to the mouse hole and signal the lookout down here.” This didn’t clear the look on her face, so he placed a hand on her shoulder. “If you’re worried about gettin’ set up, don’t. Dragon robbin’ is a team sport. Wouldn’t make it far by backstabbing each other.”

Unease wormed through her gut. Half of her wasn’t reassured. The other half pointed out she really had no choice if she wanted to prove herself to the Fox Queen. “So that’s all I do?”

“That’s the meat of it. We’ll go over the finer details in the morning.” He spit over the side of the edge. “Now if there’s no other questions, I’ll take you over to Val to go over your cut.” 

Val. The Fox Queen. Already? Koori stumbled for how to respond. It was all happening so quickly. Juncle whisked her over to a group of people perched on an outcropping of rocks, gesturing at the canyon beyond as they talked. Standing on the tallest boulder, chewing something as she scoped out the terrain with a spyglass, was the Fox Queen herself. Koori knew by the infamous wide-brimmed hat, adorned with dragon teeth and colorful feathers of rainforest birds. 

Two men stood beneath her. One, a big goat of a man, with wiry brown hair and a matching beard, turned to Koori and Juncle as they approached. “Who the hell is she?” he asked, his brow bunching up and making his beady eyes even smaller.

“Easy now, Garnu,” Juncle said. “This one’s our mouse.” 

“Mouse or no, I don’t like outsiders.” 

“Aw, just shut up,” said the other man, who held a great cracked horn in his hand. “You don’t like most people.”

Garnu scoffed. “Yeah, and especially little village girls we got no idea we can trust. She don’t look more than twenty.”

Juncle gripped Koori’s shoulder tightly, as if to warn her against retorting. She hadn’t been planning to. 

“That’s my job, not yours,” Juncle snapped at Garnu. “She’s not a little village girl, she’s our mouse. Now lay off.” 

Garnu puffed his chest out and stepped up to Juncle. “You’re just a big camp hen. You don’t get to tell me what to do.” He waved a dry, dusty hand at Koori. “Just look at her. And I reckon she’s going to want a cut, make the pot smaller, too.” 

“She just wants her fair share, same as everyone else. Right, girlie?”

“I don’t want a cut,” Koori said, directing her words past Garnu to the Fox Queen, who had continued her chewing and glassing throughout all of this. “I want to join the Blacktails.”

Juncle gaped at her. Garnu grumbled something, the man with the horn cleared his throat. And the Fox Queen finally lowered her spyglass and turned to Koori. 

The woman’s eyes were bluer than any water Koori had ever seen. Her face was tan, with bits of red dirt gathered in the corners of her nose and faint wrinkles from countless days of squinting. Long pale flaxen hair, tossed and dried and tangled by wind. She leapt down from her perch, the long rifle on her back clicking, and strode up to Koori, who fought every instinct to squirm. The Fox Queen scanned her up and down. She stopped her chewing. 

“All I can promise is a cut,” she finally said. 

It was like she’d planted one of her crocodile leather boots in Koori’s stomach. Koori blinked, swallowed, white-knuckled her shotgun. What had the woman been measuring? What had fallen short? Were her clothes too simple? Her tawny skin lacking too few scars? 

“But, I—”

“Sorry, kid,” the Fox Queen said. “Mice don’t join the Blacktails.”

Then she walked past Koori, off into the camp with a calm, cool stride—as if she hadn’t just stomped all over Koori’s childhood dreams. Garnu snorted, adjusting his ten gallon hat, and nodded curtly, a told-you-so to the other men. Juncle grumbled something under his breath and pulled Koori aside. 

“Don’t take it personally, girlie,” he said. “You’re not the first to ask. Or the last. You still want the job, right?” 

Koori nodded, turning the Fox Queen’s words over in her head. She might be the mouse, but she wouldn’t be scared off so easily. 

—

Juncle brought Koori back to his campfire and found her a spare bedroll. Since the operation began well before first light, she’d sleep here this evening. While she found a place nearby and made herself comfortable, Juncle wandered over to the cast-iron pot bubbling over his fire. The chunky stew within, Koori saw, was a dark green color. He stirred it with a soggy wooden ladle, tasted it, added a few leaves from his pocket.

“You’re lucky,” he grinned at Koori. “I only make my special dragon stew the night before an operation.” 

Then he banged his spoon against the side of the pot. Moments after clanging filled the camp, people dropped what they were doing and hurried over, carrying crusty tin bowls. Soon a line had formed. As as they stepped up to get their ladleful from Juncle, they noticed Koori. Some frowned. Others smiled. A few asked who she was. The mouse, Juncle explained, not even using her name. 

Even blacktail foxes showed up for dinner. Koori had noticed them earlier, skulking and sleeping around camp. The foxes had sleek fur the color of a desert sunset, with a black-tipped tail and matching streaks on their faces, like warpaint. They hovered around the pot, yellow eyes twinkling and licking their chops until Juncle tossed them pieces of leftover meat or bread.

He served Koori last, then went to go check up on the others. The stew was a hearty mix of ruby tubers, kurra fruit, and buttery goat meat, tinged with strange hot and sweet spices she’d never tasted before. Nobody came over to speak with her—they seemed too focused on the coming day—but that was fine. She was the mouse, after all. Both now and while the gang had been lined up, she’d been listening to the plans.

It was mainly all of the ways to keep the dragon distracted while the others were looting the hoard. There would be horns that mimicked the sound of a mating call. Horns that sounded like a rival dragon. Raw goat meat put out as bait. And the mirrors were meant to throw light at the dragon, disorient him, grab his attention. 

Eventually the talking lulled and people went back to their preparations, or to sleep. Koori could do neither, so she wandered back outside the cave mouth. Moonlight poured down from the clear night sky, shading the rock spires around her a warm, silvery color. A still, silent, unearthly feeling had settled on them. On nights like these, it seemed the mountains belonged up with moon and stars rather that down here. 

Koori looked over and found who she was looking for. The Fox Queen, squatting on the same outcropping of rocks as before. Chewing, watching the canyon. She didn’t so much as look at Koori as as she approached. That made getting the words up all the more difficult. 

“Look, I know I’m just a mouse,” Koori said. “But I want to be a Blacktail. What’s it take?”  

No response. 

“Don’t you trust me? I thought my job was the most important!”

The Fox Queen slowed her chewing, regarded her with a single hard eye. “The mouse goes first, before anyone else is out of cover,” she said. “It’s important, sure. But it’s no skin off our back if the mouse wakes the dragon and gets eaten.”

Koori opened her mouth, but found no words on her tongue. Now the way the Blacktails treated mice was making more sense. She rubbed her mouth, tried a different approach. 

“I can be more than a mouse,” she said. “Whatever you need. Whatever the gang needs. I learn quick, I swear. And I know how to shoot.” 

“We ain’t a charity, kid,” she said. “And trying to butter me up ain’t going to change my mind on you.”

“Then what will?” 

“Nothing. Just the way things are.” 

“But how’d the others get in?” 

“Because they’re tough.” The woman glanced over her shoulder, into the camp. “Because they got grit. Every last one of them.”

“I’m tough.”

“Words ain’t enough. Each Blacktail in there is proven, and the rest of us know it. Wouldn’t have made it as far as we have otherwise.” 

“Well then, how do I prove myself?”

“That ain’t how it—”

“I killed a man.”

She surprised the Fox Queen as much as herself. The woman stopped her chewing, shifted so she could get a better look at Koori. For a moment the only sound was the wind, whipping and wailing through the canyon.  

“It was, uh, a few years ago,” Koori said, stumbling for words but not wanting to squander the interest she’d won. “I work in the tavern in Ruby Springs. So there was this man. Hickan. A regular. Foul mouth, grabby hands. Took a liking to me. Told him off a few times, but he wouldn’t listen.”

The Fox Queen spat out whatever she was chewing, reached for a flask at her hip. Took a swig and said nothing.

“Hickan figured out I like to take walks in the desert under the stars, after we close up,” Koori continued. “Followed me out one night. He… well…” she trailed off.

“The shotgun?” the Fox Queen said. 

Koori nodded. “Went back to the springs, washed up, and got in bed like nothing happened.” She still remembered the dreams she’d had that night. “They didn’t find Hickan’s body for a few days. By then the desert had chewed up a lot of it. He had a lot of enemies, too, you know. Made things hard to prove. They got the sheriff and elders involved, but even then they couldn’t figure it out.” The more she spoke, the more difficult it was to stand. She settled on a small rock nearby. “Nobody ever thought it was me, though.” 

“Your family know?” 

“I don’t have a family,” Koori said. “Tocka raised me. The tavern keep. But I wouldn’t exactly call him a father.” She scratched at her chin. “Nobody knows I killed Hickan. Even if I fessed up, nobody would believe it. Or if they did, they’d stake me out in the desert.”  

The Fox Queen’s face hadn’t changed, but something seemed different now. Like there was now an effort to keep it that way. An effort to stay calm, focused, stoic.

“You ain’t much of a mouse, are you,” she said. 

“But I’ll be a mouse tomorrow,” Koori said. “Whatever you need, if you’ll just let me join the Blacktails…” She trailed off, her heart sinking, for the Fox Queen was already shaking her head. 

“You’re going to have the same problem,” the woman said. “Some just won’t believe your story. All they’ll see is the mouse.”

“Doesn’t matter to me.” 

“It matters,” the Fox Queen said, drawing from her flask again. “Kid, I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Whole gangs falling apart, once they started thinking the big hat was getting all soft and sentimental. That don’t fly.”  

“But you’re the Fox Queen. This is your gang, and you get to decide—”

“Now just cut that shit out.” 

Koori recoiled, as if the woman had slapped her. She feared a flood of insults and curses would follow, like Tocka often dealt out when she said something out of line. Instead, the Fox Queen plucked a clump of something dark and sweet-smelling from a waist pouch and started chewing on it. Seemed that was all there was. 

After a few moments of silence, Koori dared to speak. “I’ve heard stories about the Blacktails for years,” she said. “And I think—”

“Every kid with a gun wants to join a gang,” the Fox Queen said. “Get that idea out of your head before you hurt yourself.” 

“Didn’t stop you.” 

The woman narrowed her eyes. “I ain’t a good example to follow.” 

“Still better than the other options,” Koori said. “I want out.” 

Val looked up, her face still hard—but brighter, warmer, like the sunrise creeping up the Moonchildren’s spires, changing the color from cold silver to a vibrant red. Then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone.

“No matter your real story, nobody thinks mice are tough,” the Fox Queen said. “You’re better off making your name for yourself another way. Take my advice. Take it don’t look back.” 

“You have to understand,” Koori said. “What happened with Hickan, it’ll happen again one day. But next time I might not be so lucky. Please, Fox Queen—”

“It’s just Val.” 

“Val,” Koori said, feeling a bit strange to use her name. “Please. Tomorrow can be a trial. And if you think I’m good, better, take me with you.” 

The woman looked Koori up and down again, as she had earlier today. There was a new light in her eyes. Something was bleeding through her rocky expression. She worked her lips, seeming to wrestle with words. For a moment it looked like she really would agree. 

And then it vanished, like water disappearing beneath desert soil, leaving behind only a dry and barren surface. 

“No,” she said. “Look, kid, I’m sorry, but it’s just how gangs work. Toughness is king. Double-time for me, given who I am, where I come from.” 

“Val—”

“I said I don’t need you, kid.” She turned away from Koori, waved a hand dismissively. “Your cut will be enough to get you out of Ruby Springs, at least. So I’d recommend getting some sleep. At first light, we rob a dragon.” 

—

Nobody really knew why dragons hoarded shiny things.

Some said dragons were greedy, lusty for wealth and power. Others said they were vain and, like humans, coveted beauty, seeking things that sparkled like their scales. Koori had even overheard a theory that they used their hoards as bait, luring in would-be heroes and thieves for easy eating—though she chose not to think too much on that one, given what she was about to do. 

Her people had their own beliefs. That dragons were creatures of the underworld—a place not of darkness, but of fire and rivers of gold, of gemstone mountains and crystalline cities. The dragons had been banished from that realm, it was said, crawling up from deep places and bringing the fire of the earth with them. Their glittering lairs on the surface were echoes of their lost lives and lands, ones they guarded with bitterness and desperation. 

Whatever the truth was, a dragon’s hoard inspired nothing short of sheer wonder—as Koori felt, when she dropped down into the great cavern and beheld it all. 

A space as large as a small mountain yawned open before her. Like Juncle had said, holes of all shapes and sizes honeycombed the high walls and ceiling, letting in beams of light that criss-crossed through the air. The cavern glowed with this scattered light—or rather, the gemstones and gold did. All up and down the walls were chunks of jewels, greens and blues and purples, embedded in the red rock like the world’s most expensive fruit bread. Weaving through it all were great spiderwebs of gold veins. 

On the second look, she saw the dragon. 

It slept atop a mound of rubble and rock in the center of the cavern. At least twice the size of a camel, maybe three. A beam of light landed on its spined backside, causing the sunset-red scales there to glitter like fire. Four legs, a tail, and wings, all tucked up against its body, curled in rest. 

Koori took a deep breath, then began to sneak across the cavern. 

She was heading for the large, sunlit mouth in the cavern wall directly across from her, following along the rightmost side of the chamber. Thankfully, all the holes meant wind moaned and wailed through this cave, masking her steps. It also carried the smells of the dragon. Ash, of course, but also pungent sulfur and a wet, metallic odor. To hide her own scent, Juncle had made her rub charcoal all over herself. As long as she didn’t try anything stupid, he’d said, the dragon would never know she was there. As quiet as a mouse. 

The dragon slept deeply, smoke puffing out its nostrils with each breath, but its handiwork in this cavern was apparent. For one, there were carcasses galore, stripped of flesh and crumbling to ash. Mountain goats, spire cats, and other creatures too scorched to tell. Then she saw the burn and claw marks on the walls, the huge hunks of rock that lay scattered and shattered where the wall met the cavern floor. The more she saw, the less it seemed the gems and gold had been exposed naturally, and the more it looked like the dragon had revealed them with tooth and nail and fire. 

She reached the cave mouth with no issue. Even with its jagged stalagmites, it was wide and tall enough for the dragon to fly through, out onto the side of the mountain and the brightening dawn sky. Koori clambered up to the opening, then unfolded the cloth banner, reddish orange like the waters of the springs. She chose a tall, slender rock tooth in plain sight of the dragon and tied the banner to it. Once secure, it flapped almost provocatively in the cave wind. 

That was it. 

That was her job as mouse. 

She stepped out into the sun, squinting and covering her eyes with a hand. To her right, the rocky slope slanted down the side of the mountain before tumbling sheer into the canyon; the opposite side from the Blacktail camp. To her left, the slope spilled out onto a wide ledge that curved around the side of the Moonchild. At the corner she spotted Garnu, crouched amongst some bushes. She raised her arms straight over her head, which was the Blacktail signal for all good. 

Garnu did not return the signal, as she was told should happen. She couldn’t make out his face, but she could see the grumpiness in his posture, in the way he rose and lumbered around the corner to the others. It felt a bit like she’d tried to shake his hand and he’d just walked away. 

When he didn’t return after a few minutes, she turned and made her way back into the cave. Now it was back to the mouse hole where she’d first entered, where she could signal down to Juncle on the other side of the canyon, kicking off the operation. 

But as she slipped back down in the dragon’s chamber, a hot, bubbly feeling began to well in her chest. Sure, her cut of the hoard could get her out of Ruby Springs, but eventually the money would run out. She’d fall into the same pit again, just in a different town. Because that’s all people thought she was. A mouse. A stupid little girl with no real family or home or even a name worth mentioning. 

And maybe she’d had a hand in that, too. Maybe she shouldn’t have let people talk like that. Maybe she should have demanded more, or less. Maybe she should have swallowed her fears and set out on her own years ago, damn the money and the danger, instead of stewing and brooding and doing whatever people told her to do in Ruby Springs. 

And now here she was again. The perfect little mouse, selling her time and energy and respect in exchange for a sliver of hope and half-hearted approvals?

No. 

She turned and headed straight for the dragon. 

Years of living near the Moonchildren had taught her how to navigate across rocks with speed and silence. The wind and charcoal did the rest. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a voice was screaming at her to turn around. That she was breaking orders. Risking the whole operation. Her rising fury smothered that voice. That dismissal from Garnu, she’d seen it a thousand times. But today, well, today it was one time too many. She would wipe that leer right off his damn face. She would show him. She would show the Fox Queen. She would show them all. 

Tales of dragonslayers were a tavern favorite, right up there with ghost stories. Koori had heard them all ten times. Even her own people spoke of legends, of great warriors driving the spiteful creatures back into the dark. Well, she didn’t have a heart-seeking arrow or a spear blessed by the desert gods, but she did have a shotgun, and it would have to do. As she crept up the mound of rubble and rock, she slung her the weapon off her back. It was loaded, ready to go. 

The top of the mound had been crushed into a softer mix of gravel. Slabs of gem-studded rock were interspersed here, as if the dragon had specifically chosen them to decorate its mound. Like the pillows on the tavern’s most expensive bed. She crept around them, boots kissing the ground ever so gently. Even so, her heart hammered faster and faster in her chest. Would the dragon hear it? If not that, then it would smell her sweat soon enough. It beaded on her forehead, mixed with the charcoal under her arms, sliding down her ribs. 

At last she stood before the dragon’s head, as big as a mountainside boulder, with wavy white-yellow horns protruding from its skull. Its snout was tucked up against its body, so it was hard to tell exactly where its eyes were.

She had found her shotgun on an old, puckered corpse out in the desert years ago. Dirke, the gunsmith in Ruby Springs, had fixed it up for her in exchange for all of her savings at the time. She still remembered that day she’d got it back, what Dirke had said as he’d handed it over. 

Everyone dies when they take a shotgun to the face.

Koori lifted the barrel to the dragon’s head and pulled the trigger. 

It seemed to happen in slow motion. At the click of the trigger, the dragon’s eyes shot open, bright yellow snakish orbs amongst folds of scales. Then came the blast of the shotgun. Koori cringed at the kick. Scales and flesh and dark blood exploded everywhere. Before she could do anything else, the red mass before her suddenly became a blur. The dragon lurched with a high-pitched, shrieking roar. Something in the whirlwind slammed her right in the chest, throwing her back down the mound. 

She gasped as she landed heavy on the rocks, scraping and tearing at her legs and arms. The first thought that went through her mind was the dragon isn’t dead. Why wasn’t the dragon dead? The next thought was the shotgun. It had clattered onto some rocks further down the mound. She scrambled to her feet, dashed over and retrieved the shotgun, then looked back. 

The dragon was very much not dead. It had lashed out in all directions at first. Now it had pulled itself onto its four claws, its tail uncoiling and wings unfurling. It swiveled its neck, turned its head right at Koori. She saw the wound she’d given it: a crown of bullet holes on its temple, streaming dark blood down its reptilian visage. A stray round had caught part of its left eye, too, leaking blood and other fluids. 

It leveled its good eye on her, so full of pain and hate and rage she could practically feel it, like the radiant heat of bonfire embers. Lifting its head, the dragon filled the cavern with a roar that shook the very rock of the mountain. 

Mouse. She was a mouse again. 

Slinging her shotgun over her back, she bolted towards the red banner. The dragon was between her and the mouse hole tunnel, so the large cave mouth was the closest escape. As she bounded across the rocks, she flung a look over her shoulder. The dragon was rearing up its neck, opening its maw, the gullet within glowing brighter and brighter and brighter until—

Fire. 

With a roary, retching sound, the dragon spewed a stream of flames from its maw. The fiery death barreled right at her, whooshing and crackling and filling the whole chamber with an orange glow. Her only saving grace was that the dragon’s aim was a little off on account of its wounded eye. Even still she dove hard onto her stomach to escape the blast. She winced at the radiant heat, but scrabbled to her feet and kept running. 

She dashed up past the red banner and towards the outside world. She emerged heaving breaths and dripping gray charcoaly sweat. Garnu and a few others were down in the same spot as before, their faces pale, their eyes wide. 

She bolted towards them down the slope. Not a second later, there was an explosion of wind and sound and heat behind her. She stumbled, turned back. The dragon erupted from the cave mouth, wings wide in flight, spewing flame and smoke and roars as it ascended into the sky. 

Koori kept dashing towards Garnu. Murder painted his expression, and he swore left and right as he issued orders to the Blacktails around him. He raised his arms in an X, signaling to someone down across the canyon. A few moments later, the call of a horn echoed out over the Moonchildren. High-pitched, scratchy. It had come from further down the canyon.

They all looked to the dragon. It wheeled around one of the spires of rock high above, banking towards the noise. For one brief moment, it seemed like it’d be lured away, giving them all time to regroup and escape. But as it turned its good eye spotted Koori, like a desert hawk spying a hare.

The dragon veered sharply and swooped right at her. 

Garnu and his men shouted and scrambled for cover. She followed behind them, around the corner of the mountain and onto a wide ledge. Piled in the center was a mound of butchered goat meat. Past this were small cave openings that served as shelter or escape routes.

They wouldn’t make it there in time. Ahead, Garnu and the others threw themselves behind some nearby boulders. Koori followed in suit, slipping into a space between two rocks. A heartbeat later the dragon swooped by overhead, searing the mountainside with its fiery breath. The rocks shielded her from direct flame, but the radiant heat licked around the side, practically burned her. She hissed in pain. 

She couldn’t stay here. Not when the dragon knew where she was hiding. Not when it was hunting for her specifically.

She looked around the rock, praying to the gods above and below that the dragon would take the bait. It had arced up, swooped around, noticing the butchered goat meat. It circled like a vulture over carrion once, then twice… but no. It angled around, pointed itself right at her hiding space, and started to dive.   

Koori swore and ducked behind cover. The horns had failed. The bait had failed. What else could she do? 

The mirrors. There were still the mirrors, down on the other side of the canyon. It was her last hope. 

She burst out from cover, scrambling over the rocks as fast as her boots would carry her. Down the slope, towards the rim of the canyon, where an arching land bridge spanned the gap. Across the chasm was a dry, grassy meadow, interspersed with clusters of boulders hiding little caves going deep down into the rock. The Blacktails here poked their heads out from these hiding spaces, watching Koori flee towards them. 

She waved her hands at them as she sprinted across the land bridge. In response, the Blacktails brought out their mirrors, angling them to catch the light from the rising sun. Almost a dozen mirrors, throwing harsh light up at the dragon. Across the land bridge, Koori hurled herself into the closest cover and looked skyward. Pleading this would be enough. 

It took a few moments, but one of the reflected lights glanced across the dragon’s body, its scales glinting. The dragon banked left, as if it had been shot at, but otherwise kept its trajectory. Which was another dive towards Koori’s hiding spot. 

She crouched beneath cover, tucking herself into a ball as the dragon swooped by with fire and wind. She gritted her teeth as the radiant heat baked her exposed skin. Even if the mirrors were partially blinding it, the dragon didn’t need to be all that accurate.

Gunfire cracked around her. She rose to see the mirror team poking back out of cover with their pistols out, shooting at the dragon after it had swooped by. But the dragon was simply too fast, their shots missing by miles. Even if one had landed, Koori doubted it would do much more than give it a scrape. It seemed only a cannon could bring down the creature. 

She slid back down into cover. Everything up the Blacktails’ collective sleeve had failed. Her own plan had failed. She had failed even as a mouse. All she could do now was make sure her incompetence didn’t get anyone else killed. Maybe she could lure it down the canyon, buy time for everyone else to escape. 

She dashed out of cover, running along the rim of the canyon. For a few long breathless moments it was just her, the Moonchildren, the howling wind of the canyon. Then she heard the roar thundering down from above. The dragon, she saw, piercing down out of a cloud where it had waiting.

Koori’s heart sprung into her throat. There was no good cover around her. The closest was some boulders, across another land bridge on the other side of the canyon. She wasn’t sure she could make it. But she had to try. 

She scampered across the arch, but this passage was more narrow, twisted, crumbly than the first. The uneven terrain slowed her down. She simply wasn’t fast enough. She was dead center of the chasm as the dragon made its dive. 

There was no escaping this time. No gods damned point. She turned and looked up towards the creature, at its open maw, at the glow in the bottom of its fiery gullet…

A sharp boom echoed through the canyon. The dragon jerked suddenly, struck by something. It veered off to the side, halting its attack and sweeping back upward. 

Koori turned and beheld the Fox Queen, standing up on a mountainside ledge, smoke streaming from her long hunting rifle. Val lowered the barrel and beckoned. Koori, not wanting to spoil her second chance at life, scrambled across the rest of the bridge and up into the cover Val had found. 

“You okay, kid?” Val asked.  

Koori nodded. “For now.” 

“What happened in there?” 

“I messed up.” She couldn’t bring herself to say more. 

“You messed up big time, apparently. Dragon’s got it out for you.”

Val seemed to be waiting for more of an explanation. Koori ignored this, instead taking the time to reload her shotgun. Fessing up on her mistake to Val was a problem for another time. Assuming they survived. Maybe Koori would die and be spared the shame. 

“What do we do?” Koori asked. “How do we kill it?” 

“Kill it?” Val shook her head. “Kid, you don’t kill dragons. You don’t even fight dragons. They’ll swoop over you all day, burn you alive or smoke you out long before you’ll ever hit something vital.” She reloaded a bullet into the rifle chamber. “It’s not like the fairy tales, where they stick to the ground just so the knight can walk up and slay it with a sword. You ever heard of an old dragon hunter before?” 

Koori said nothing and looked away. Val raised an eyebrow. 

“They got armor. They got fire. They got wings. They’re damn near untouchable in the sky and they know it, so that’s where they stay,” Val said. “They got no reason to come down to our level.” 

An idea came to Koori then. It was just about as hare-brained as her first one. But it was all she had left. Maybe other dragons had no reason to come down to their level, but this one did.

“Can you distract the dragon again?” she asked.   

Val frowned at her. “Depends on how long for.” 

Koori pointed up the slope above their heads. Up and over a bit, across fully exposed mountainside, was the mouse hole where she’d originally entered. “Long enough for me to get up there.”

“Maybe, but why?” 

“I’ll play a game of cat and mouse with it. The rest of you get out of here.”

Val just stared at her. “You’re gonna lose that game, kid.” 

“Let me try.” 

“This ain’t the time to play hero and try and impress me.” 

“This is all my fault. Fixing it’s the least I can do.” 

Something passed over the Fox Queen’s face. Hard to be sure what. It was gone in a blink. 

“Alright, Koori,” she said. “I’ll keep him looking my way long as I can. Sure hope you know what you’re doing.”

And with that, Val leapt over the boulder, rifle in hands. She slid down the slope, boots skidding across the red dirt and gravely rock, bounding towards the land bridge where Koori had crossed a minute ago. 

Koori went the other direction. Scrabbling up over the rocks, following the same path up the slope she’d taken earlier to get to the mouse hole. A roar thundered from high above. The dragon had spotted her, banking and diving towards the mountain. There was no place for Koori to hide here. No place to shelter from flame. 

But as the dragon closed in, the crack of Val’s rifle echoed through the canyon. At the sound, the dragon lurched to the right. A miss. It veered hard away from Koori, back up to the sky, seeming to make up its mind that the Fox Queen needed to be dealt with first. Val, who stood wide and open in the center of the land bridge, took another shot at the dragon. Another miss.

Meanwhile, Koori pressed up the side of the mountain. Her lungs burned. Sweat dribbled down her forehead and arms. Her exposed and burned skin throbbed in the morning sun. But she scrambled onwards, leaping and shimmying and crawling on all fours. The mouse hole wasn’t much further. 

Val took another shot at the dragon. Koori turned to see the dragon swoop down from above, launching a stream of fire right at Val. At the last second, the Fox Queen vaulted over the edge of the land bridge, down onto a skinny side shelf and into cover. Then the wave of fire scoured the top of the land bridge, leaving it smoking and glowing as hot as embers. There was no way back up for Val, at least not until the rock cooled off. She was out of the dragon’s sight, true, but it also meant she couldn’t shoot at it anymore. 

Koori was out of time. 

She swore. Swore between each shuddering breath. The dragon was wheeling around to face her. She ignored the sight, hurled herself up the slope. She was getting desperate, careless. Slipping and stumbling and banging ankles and elbows and shins. She focused on the mouse hole, just a stone’s throw away now. But she could feel the dragon closing in. Its shadow flickered across the slope like a specter of imminent death. 

The mouse hole. The mouse hole! It was right there. Through the blood pumping in her ears, she heard the whoosh of the wings, the roar, the crackling of its gullet… 

With a yelp, she scrabbled over a boulder and dove into the hole. Midair, the flames hit. Singed the air behind her. With it came a blast of wind like a storm wall, flinging her hard into the cave. One moment she was rolling, burned skin cutting on the rock in too many places to feel. The next moment, an unbearable hot pain had seized her left side. 

Fire. Fire on her clothes, in her hair, on her skin, all on her left side. She screamed and swatted at the flames. Putting them out didn’t stop the pain, it only revealed the true wounds. Huge patches of smoking bubbly bleeding skin across her shoulder and arm and leg. She could feel it on the side of her face too.  

Somehow during all of this she had managed to scoot up against the wall of the mouse hole. It was hardly big enough to stand inside the tunnel. Little fires and smoke filled the small space. She gritted her teeth between coughs, clutching at her scoured, stinging body. Even her tears seemed to burn.

And then the dragon slammed into the mountainside. 

The impact rattled her every bone. Suddenly the dragon’s head appeared outside the cave mouth. It had landed on mountainside, talons hooking into boulders for purchase on the steep slope. Its burning eyes found Koori curled inside the mouse hole. Then it opened its maw, positioning it in front of the cave mouth. It would send flames barreling down the tunnel, filling every crack and crevice and turning Koori to ash. 

It was exactly what she had wanted.

She wasn’t sure it would work. But she would try. One thing was for certain, though. She wasn’t returning to Ruby Springs. She would not. Go. Back. 

With a roar of her own, she sprung to her feet, pulling her shotgun off her back. Pain blossoming, seared skin splitting, she aimed the barrel right down the dragon’s glowing gullet and pulled the trigger. 

The boom echoed through the mouse hole, rang in her ears. The dragon jolted backwards. The glow remained in its gullet, but fire never came out. Only blood. Streams of blood. Rivers of blood. A wet, choking sound gurgled out of its throat. Hissing sounds, too, like water on coals, as its gullet filled with its own blood.

It lost its strength and balance all at once, and in one great motion it fell backwards. Down the slope, its body smashing and rolling across the rocks, sending other boulders rolling too, shaking all of the Moonchildren in an avalanche of scale and smoke and stone. 

Koori staggered out of the cave just in time to see the body of the dragon tumble over the canyon rim. The crash as it landed at the bottom echoed out over the mountains, over all the desert. 

And then all was silent. 

Koori could no longer stand. She sat, scooting herself up against the cave mouth, and then gave herself over to the hellish pain. 

—

“This stuff isn’t magic,” Juncle said. “It’ll help, especially with the pain. But you’re gonna wear these burns the rest of your life.” 

He wrapped the last bandage around Koori’s arm and patted it gently. The rest of her wounds were similarly wrapped, around her leg, ribs, shoulders, even a patch on her face. Under each wrapping Juncle had smeared a purplish, earthy-smelling paste, blessedly cool against her seared skin. He stepped back from where she sat on the boulder, wiping his hands together. 

“Don’t feel bad,” he said. “Everyone gets a burn or three in this business.” 

Koori took a swig from the flask he’d given her. Dragon tears, he’d called it. A sweet, crisp spirit that went down cold, lowered her body temperature, like the snowmelt you could sometimes find high up on the Moonchildren in dry season. Dulled the pain too, as sure as snowy wind numbed your skin. Combined with the paste, it was enough to make being conscious bearable. 

“Now, I’d say your chances of marrying a rich Ranger sea prince is a bit lower now,” he said. “But I got a feeling that don’t matter too much to you.” 

Koori just smiled at him. The first in a while. 

With the dragon dead at the bottom of the canyon, the Blacktails had moved their camp into its lair. Now, no longer limited by time, they mined as much gold and gems as they could carry, the chamber echoing with the clinging and clanging of picks on stone. A few people had even considered salvaging scales and horns and such from the dragon, but there was no safe way down to the corpse. But even without dragon parts, their take from the hoard was triple their initial plan.

Juncle turned and beckoned to Val, who stood atop the dragon’s mound with her right and left hand men, discussing the take and their next plans. As they came down, they lowered their voices a bit, but Koori could still hear some words, read their lips. 

“…wager the dragon caught her sneaking her own private take…” 

That had come from Garnu.

“…first time mice are always nervous…”

And that was from the man with the great cracked horn. 

The Fox Queen remained silent, seeming to only half-listen to the men speculate. The two men shut up as they approached, while she came over and squatted next to Koori.  

“How are you feeling, kid?” she asked. 

“I’ve felt better.” Koori took another draw of the dragon tears. “Thanks. For keeping the dragon busy.”  

Val shook her head. “It was all you. Ain’t nobody killed a dragon in years.” 

“Word’s gonna spread all over,” Juncle grinned.

Val squatted down so that she was eye level with Koori. “What happened, kid? Garnu says he saw you put up the banner. Next thing he heard a gunshot, and you came running out with the dragon right behind.” She put a hand on Koori’s good shoulder, brought her voice down. “Look, it’s alright if you slipped up and woke the dragon. You made up for it.” 

Koori felt the eyes of the other men on her. Garnu’s leer especially. It didn’t scare her. Neither did Val. Not after all she’d faced today. She could let them all believe she’d made a mistake. Maybe they’d even forgive her, let her join the Blacktails. 

But that their story. The mouse’s story. 

Not hers.

“I snuck up and shot the dragon in the skull,” she said. 

The other men shut up. Stared at her as if she’d become possessed by a desert ghost and let out a demonic scream. 

“No you goddamn didn’t,” Garnu said. 

“Sure as hell I did,” Koori snapped back. “Go look in the spyglass down the canyon. Bet you can see the holes in its skull.”

Juncle was the next to recover, putting a hand over his face and covering a shaky smile. “Girlie, dragon skull is tougher than steel.”

“Yeah I know that now.” She fought to keep herself from quivering. “I made a mistake. But I fixed it, didn’t I?”

Another moment of silence. Hard to tell whether they were impressed, or pissed, or both. 

The man with the horn chuckled. “That’s one way of puttin’ it.” 

“What the hell is wrong with you all?” Garnu said. He tore off his ten-gallon hat and threw it to the ground. “Either she’s lying and the dragon caught her. Or she’s telling the truth, and she disobeyed orders.”

“I don’t have to follow orders,” Koori said. “Cause I’m not a Blacktail. You made that clear yesterday.” 

“You little bitch!” he growled. “That stunt of yours threw the whole operation off! It could have gotten us all killed!” 

“But it didn’t.” 

Garnu started to storm at her. “Why you—”

“Back off, Garnu,” the Fox Queen said. 

The big goat of a man glanced at her, saw the look on her face, and took one step back. He wasn’t letting up, he was making room for the Fox Queen. For her stormy scowl was not directed at him, but at Koori. Behind her, the other men’s faces had fallen into similar expressions. No matter how big their take was, no matter if the dragon lay dead, there was no getting around what she’d done. 

“You’re tellin’ the truth?” Val asked her.  

Koori swallowed dryly, and nodded. 

“Why’d you do it, kid?”

“I took your advice.” 

Val’s face contorted as if Koori had thrown a pail of water on her. That look dripped down her face, distant eyes, flared nostrils, twitching cheek. Seemed she forgot to breathe for all of about half a minute. 

The look was gone by the time she turned back to her men. 

“Juncle, help her get her things together. She rides with us tomorrow.” 

“What?” Garnu exploded. “You’re letting her join us?” 

“Don’t need or want your opinion.”

“But—”

“Shut the hell up,” she said, jabbing a finger at him. “Last I checked, this is my gang, not yours.”

Veins pulsed on Garnu’s neck and head. He took a few more steps back. All the anger and hate he’d been focusing on Koori shifted to Val. 

“Don’t fool yourself,” she said to him, to all of them. “She ain’t forgiven. She messed up big time as a mouse.” She shot a grin at Koori. “And that’s because she ain’t one. She’s a scorpion.”