Free Phoenix by Finley Aaron Page B

to go down fighting. And if I’m going to fight, I need my sleep. “We’ve got to find somewhere to rest.” I study the skyline. No sign of the yagi yet, but we know they’re not far away.
    “I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Nia continues. “I can’t think how we’ll get any rest, more than an hour or two here and there, as we stay ahead of them. Eventually they’ll wear us down and catch up to us. There’s no real escape.”
    “Isn’t there?” Ram questions. He got his elk butchered and a leg roasted, which he started eating while Nia explained about the water yagi. Now he has a glint in his eye that tells me he’s got a plan—and that he fully expects Nia to be impressed by it. He directs a question at me. “How did Mom and Dad stay ahead of the yagi that hunted them when Dad was bringing Mom home to Azerbaijan?”
    I correct my brother. “They didn’t. They yagi kept catching up to them, and they had to fight them off.”
    “But before that—they hid out in Prague.” Ram tilts his chin upward in that superior, lecturesome way he has. “Yagi are bred from cockroaches. They avoid people, crowds, bright lights, loud noises. They avoid cities.”
    While I’m pretty sure cockroaches actually love cities, I understand Ram’s point. The yagi can’t bother us—not obviously, at least—as long as there are people around. I continue scanning the horizon with my dragon vision. In addition to no yagi, I also note a shortage of cities. Or villages. Or any people at all. “Great—where’s the nearest city?”
    “Beijing,” Nia offers, “but we’re at least a thousand miles from there, and none of us is in any condition to fly a thousand miles without rest.”
    “It doesn’t have to be a city.” Ram slams his sword down, severing another leg from his elk. “A fishing village or port town will do—we should be able to find one of those on the coast. All we have to do is surround ourselves with people. Find a hotel in the middle of town. Get a room. And sleep.” He blasts a torrent of fire onto the elk leg.
    I thoughtfully chew the bite in my mouth. I’m so tired I could fall asleep on this freezing cold mountain. The thought of a hotel room with a bed and blankets and pillows sounds beyond blissful. And the walls would block the wailing sound of the yagi, protecting us from paralysis even if they crept up on our hotel while we slept. It’s a tantalizing idea.
    But there are obvious holes in my brother’s plan. “We don’t speak Russian. How are we going to get a room?”
    “It’s a port town. Somebody’s bound to know—” Ram starts.
    But Nia cuts him off. “I speak fluent Russian.”
    If I look surprised, I can’t help it. “You do?”
    “I learned it from a computer course in the white witch’s library. I’ve had a lot of time on my hands. There wasn’t much else to do for entertainment. I finished the Russian course and I’m halfway through Chinese.”
    Ram looks pleased—both with Nia, and the possibility that his plan will prove successful. “Nia can help us find a room. And money talks. Do we have any credit cards with us?”
    “In the wallet pocket of my scabbard belt.” I would put more emphasis on the fact that I’ve got a credit card and Ram doesn’t, but that’s not my only concern. “So, we’re just going to walk into town barefoot, two Middle Eastern guys and their African supermodel friend, in boxer shorts and a bikini, covered in swords? I’m sure Siberian fishing villages see that kind of thing all the time.”
    I inherited my gift of sarcasm from my mother.
    Ram scowls. He did not inherit a gift for sarcasm, and I think he resents it. “We have our cloaks. Once we get to town, we can go shopping. We just have to get there.”
    But even as he’s talking, Nia unfurls one of the elk skins and flicks her right hand so that her talons sprout independently of the rest of her dragon-ness. She slashes the length of the elk skin with her razor-sharp