Shrike’s journey was proving to be a precarious one.

While she viewed the shenlong’s appearance as a beacon of hope, the Fringe’s non-zeraph residents saw his arrival as a cataclysmic event. Hundreds of dobuwana and neanderthals that lived near his city were fleeing west.

Shrike had practically bumped shoulders with some of the refugees. Thankfully, most had been so concerned with their own safety that they passed her by unawares. A few of the smaller groups with more hate in their hearts than sense in their heads tried hunting her. Outrunning the bloodthirsty fools had been easy, but an entire day without sleep was taking its toll.

Shrike went prone when several winged creatures passed over her. Wyverns rarely visited the Fringe, but even the most sheltered bumpkin knew to fear them. She risked a glance upwards and gasped.

The flyers were staring right at her. Their leathery wing membranes were highly reminiscent of a wyvern’s, but that’s where the similarities ended. They were much smaller, for one thing. The wyverns that Shrike had seen in her father’s memories were large enough to carry off a deer in each foot. These creatures, while impressive in their own right, would have been hard-pressed to hoist her off the ground, at least by themselves. Instead of scales, the leatherwings were covered in fur-like filament and possessed huge keel-tipped beaks in lieu of snouts. More eye-catching than their strange anatomy was what they wore.

Thick silk gilets had been fitted to their torsos, clear indications they weren’t mere animals.

Even if they had been unrobed, the sharp purpose lurking in their eyes would have clued her in on their intelligence. They circled over her, observing her just as intently as she was watching them. Amidst their staredown, it occurred to Shrike that these creatures might be servants of the shenlong that she hoped to meet.

She dropped her spear to assure the flyers of her peaceful intentions. This gesture didn’t completely win the leatherwings over, but they appeared to relax their guard. They exchanged a series of rapid fire shrieks and then soared off. Most of the group continued their flight west. A single member of the flock headed back in the direction they had come from.

Shrike jogged after the isolated leatherwing, but it was impossible to keep pace with the flyers. Its form quickly receded into the horizon. She sighed, disappointed that she didn’t receive the escort she was hoping for. At least she hadn’t been driven off.

The rest of her trek proved uneventful. By now, most of the dobuwanas and neanderthals had evacuated the surrounding area. It wasn’t until she reached her destination that she saw another living being.

The first ones she came across left quite the impression. Her heart nearly leaped out of her chest when a knot of trees across from her violently toppled over. Thrice the height of a man, the lumberjacks were easily the tallest creatures she had ever encountered. Almost immediately after she spotted them, an even larger saurian plodded into view.

Like the long-necked laborers and the leatherwings, the newcomer was dressed in a thick layer of textile armor but its quadrupedal build, dull eyes, and the saddle strapped to its back indicated that it was just an animal, albeit a very large and powerful one.

The longnecks themselves did not appear all that intelligent either. They idly scratched their heads once they uprooted the trees, apparently having forgotten why they did it in the first place. Shrieking avian taskmasters got the giants to start stacking timber on the duck-billed beast’s back.

Shrike wouldn’t describe the fierce birds as huge, not after seeing the longnecks and the duckbills, but she could tell from a glance that they were much larger than her. She swiftly learned exactly how much bigger they were when one of them sprinted up to her.

An arm’s length taller than her, the bird was in the perfect position to peck her over the head. Shrike didn’t doubt that the monstrous bird could dash her skull open with a downward flick of its metal-encased bill. Its hostile glare promised that it would do so at the slightest provocation.

Besides its fearsome bill, the towering bird carried a weapon in each hand. Her father’s memories enabled her to identify the one in her right hand as a sword. The other, however, eluded even her father’s vast wealth of knowledge. The object was a short hollow pipe fitted with a series of complex and delicate levers that ended in a curved handle. She could not fathom how such an innocuous thing could be a weapon. Yet the hook beak treated the strange devices as its primary weapon, so she gave it the same respect its wielder did.

Shrike slowly set her spear down. Her voluntary disarmament barely mollified the hook beak. It kept the strange tubular device pointed at her head and circled behind her. Shrike remained still, keeping her hands up until another hook beak ran over and bound them together.

The first hook beak used its foot to shove her forward. Keeping her cool, Shrike allowed the temperamental birds to bully her toward the city’s gates.

For the fifth time that day, her jaw dropped. In some ways, the city was a letdown. Its drab structures were a far cry from the elegant and vivid edifices constructed across Koshuka. What the city lacked in beauty, however, it more than made up for it in scale and menace. Its star-shaped walls were ludicrously thick and plated in steel. Solid steel gates covered the entrance. Over six inches thick, they could have easily withstood a century long dobuwana assault. Not that there would be many dobuwanas deranged enough to slam their skulls against the rows of spike jutting out of it.

Any would-be invader that somehow bypassed the preliminary gate would then have to deal with three stolid portcullises. If anything, penetrating the fortress’ first layer of defense would have been the easy part. When Shrike glanced upwards, she noticed the ceiling was covered in holes and slits. She instinctively flinched when she spotted those fiendish traps.

An unbidden memory sprung into Shrike’s mind. She saw a group of zonoids rush past a gate that the enemy had “forgotten” to close. Lammergeier called them back, but his warning came too late. The portcullis closed behind them, trapping them between another that stood in their path. Boiling water poured from the murder holes above them while arrows whizzed through the slits in the walls. Shrike’s face grew pale when their wails of agony flitted through her head.

A pained cry from the present broke her out of her horrible reverie.

An outlandish-looking reptile stood over a pale-skinned neanderthal with a whip in hand. The thing's robust upper body was at odds with its rather stumpy legs, and its oversized head propelled that visual discrepancy to an almost surreal level. It was as if some quirky god had removed a young dragon’s head and grafted it onto a roughly man-sized lizard’s body. Shrike would have laughed at the whipper’s preposterous appearance if it weren't for its wanton cruelty or its vast array of serrated finger-length teeth.

She gave the neanderthal a pitying look. Having spent her entire life in the brutal and unforgiving Fringe, Shrike was desensitized to the harsh realities of life. When her father tried undermining her devotion to the longs by informing her they made extensive use of slaves, she had simply shrugged, assuming they had good reason to do so.

It was more difficult to brush off the brutality now that she was seeing it firsthand. Whatever lesson the fat head wished to impart had already long since sunken in.

The hook beaks walked past the scene without so much as a glance in their direction. Their callous indifference numbed shrike. These “civilized” beings behaved no better than the savages that lived in the Fringe. Her desire to meet the shenlong diminished by the second, but it was too late to change course now.

Her avian captors took her to the metallic ziggurat that stood at the center of the city. As soon as they approached, a gentle warmth washed over her. Sighing in pleasure, Shrike glanced at a tall humming machine. When she squinted her eyes, she could just narrowly make out the pocket of heated air it was projecting.

A regiment of reptilian soldiers guarded the ziggurat’s entrance. Heavily armored fatheads wielding pronged spears made up the first two ranks. Behind them stood three rows of taller crocodilian halberdiers. Two lines of serpentine pike fighters stood at the back of the formation. Out of all the shenlong’s minions Shrike had seen so far, the serpents were the least peculiar to her. They bore a great resemblance to the imoogis, the seventh zonoid race Kanghui created, though these serpents lacked the imoogis’ distinctive hoods and were considerably larger than an unmutated one.

In their default stance, the serpents were already three heads taller than the halberdiers in front of them. When the hook beaks forced Shrike closer, they reared up, rapidly gaining height until they towered over the crocodilians. In this position the serpents could have easily thrust their hooked pikes over the shorter allies’ heads and skewered an enemy over twenty-five feet away.

Sneering, the leader of the book beaks marched up to the impregnable phalanx. It singled out a fat head positioned in the middle of the first rank. Squawked demands clashed with guttural growls. This exchange went on for some time, with neither side making the slightest concession. The spat would have likely gone on ad nauseam if weren’t for the intervention of another party.

Drawn by the raucous argument, a hulking knuckle-walking brute emerged from the ziggurat’s entrance. The hook beaks and reptiles immediately stood at attention. The brute returned their salutes and then gestured to the hook beak that had been screaming its head off. It nodded along as the hook beak made its report. Once the avian soldier finished speaking, the brute titled its head skywards in thought. When it reopened its eyes, they developed an eerie glow.

Shrike instinctively backed away, expecting the brute to unleash some sort of arcane attack. A hook beak seized her tail and twisted it. Wincing, Shrike stilled. To her relief, nothing happened. For several minutes, they stood in place, waiting for something. Loud steady wing beats dispelled the silence.

For a heartbeat, Shrike thought the wyvern’s approach spelled doom for them all. Some of her fear went away when she spotted the strange saddle fastened to the animal and the shenlong coiled around it.

He was far smaller than she thought he’d be. The fiery phantasm that announced his arrival had dwarfed Kaaslithe. Though he wasn’t the colossus she envisioned, he was still an imposing figure. Even when he hunched over, he was nearly twice Shrike’s height. She instinctively flinched when his enormous jaws inched towards her. When the shenlong spoke, her horror magnified a thousandfold.

Instead of words, a cacophony of appalling noises spewed from his mouth. His voice was a nightmarish blend of a boar’s scream and a thousand blades scraping against one another. Nothing in this world should have been able to decipher what the reptile was saying, but somehow his eldritch notes implanted words and images in her head.

“So this is the intruder that’s got you guys in a tizzy? Good to know that there are humans here.”

His broad grin developed a lascivious quality as he looked her up and down.

“Oh, ho ho! Is that a tail I spot? Looks like we got a lizard lady on our hands! She’d be quite the looker if she bothered shaving and bathing.”

Shrike blanched.

The monster noticed her unease. “Quite the face you’re making. Do you know what I am saying, or did you just guess?”

She should have never come here. Many longs had strange bodies and abilities, but none had ever possessed such an unnatural voice. Her eyes flicked towards the “shenlong’s” hornless head and cursed herself for a fool. Regardless of how malleable their kinds’ physiology was, every long possessed at least one horn. She remained silent, hoping that her interrogator wouldn’t realize she could understand him.

The false long stroked his barbels as he peered down at her. “Maybe my breath just smells. What do you think, Dirge?” Unfortunately for her, the false long’s brutish subordinate clued his master in on Shrike’s attempted deception.

“What? What do you mean by that?…..Wait, wait, wait, lemme get this straight. You’re saying that everyone can understand what I am saying, even if I don’t get what they’re saying?...... How is that a thing? Do I come with a translator app installed in my throat? Why didn’t anyone tell me that?....You assumed I already knew? Well, I guess I can’t blame you for thinking that and that explains a lot of things in hindsight, but now I look like a dumb jackass. Great way to begin an interrogation. Whatever. Alright, I am onto you now, little red, cut the bullshit. What’s your name?”

The noblest part of Shrike’s soul compelled her to hold her tongue. No good could come out of feeding this twisted parody any information.

“I am Shrike, lord,” she muttered. She lowered her head, ashamed by how quickly she had capitulated. She liked to believe that she was brave, but Lammergeier’s memories showed her that no amount of determination could endure the punishment a determined torturer could inflict. Unless he asked her for information that could harm her people, she would cooperate.

When she spoke, the false long tilted his head and then slowly rotated it back in Dirge’s direction.

“That sounded Asiany to me. What do you think Dirge?....Edanese? The hell is that? Is that the language you're jabbering in now? No? Then what are you speaking?…Oh. Standardized Lunarian, huh? Cool okay. I’ll make sure to remember that. By the way, when I am talking to you, what exactly do you hear?....Oh really? That’s weird. Really weird. Good to know that I apparently sound like some sort of abomination to y'all. Now, back to the interrogation. What are you doing here, little red? You spying?”

Before Shrike could shake her head, the false long stopped her.

“Wait, why did I even ask you that? You’re obviously going to say 'no' to that. Lemme think of a better question.” He started snapping his fingers as he pondered over what he should ask next. “Alright, I got one. Are there other lizard-human people like you, or are you some sort of mutant freak?”

Shrike nodded, which only confused the false long.

“Is that a yes to there being more of you out there? Or was that a yes to being a freak?”

Shrike held out a single finger to show that she had answered the first inquiry.

“I see. A freak then. Sorry, your chromosomes got scrambled.”

Shrike was tempted to allow that misunderstanding to pass uncorrected, but thought better of it and shook her head vigorously.

“Hah, settle down there bobblehead. I am just fucking with you. So there are more of you out there. Interesting. How many are we talking about? Tens of thousands? Thousands? Hundreds?”

Shrike shrugged. She genuinely didn’t know. There were less than a thousand zeraphs living in the Fringe, though there had to be tens of thousands still on Koshuka.

“Come on. You gotta have a rough idea.” He clicked his teeth when Shrike shrugged again. “Do you at least know if there are more than fifty of you?”

Shrike reluctantly nodded.

“Huh, a lot more than I expected. Were you guys born naturally or did something make you?”

Shrike frowned, unsure of how to answer the false long’s question. She, of course, emerged from her mother’s womb as any other ordinary being, but the zonoids originally were created through artificial means. Deciding that not answering the question would have been more perilous than providing misleading information, Shrike held up one finger.

Her answer surprised the false long. “Really? You don’t look all that natural to me,” he said as he stared at her scaled tail skeptically. “You’re not lying to me, are you?”

Shrike shook her head, but the false long still appeared doubtful.

“What weapons did she have on her?” he suddenly asked.

The bird that had confiscated her weapon quickly presented the requested item to its master. The false long chuckled upon seeing the weapon.

“Alright, I’m convinced. Nobody would be dumb enough to arm a synth with this garbage.” His eyes lit up as something occurred to him. “You ever meet anyone with a voice like mine?”

Shrike shook her head again.

This time, he immediately believed her.

“You looked pretty freaked out when I started jabbering. Safe to say there aren’t any other play-uh I mean devourers around. Or at least, none should have come before us. That’s good to know. Well, that was a pretty productive interrogation, but I am out of questions and my stomach is making the rumblies. Stick her in one of the nicer cells for now. I’ll have another chat with her soon. Oh, and do me a solid; treat her well and make sure you don’t hurt her unless she does something really rude. Like, stab someone. Kay? Kay.”