"Roar!" said a third head, peeking out of the sh.e.l.l with the other two."Sis?" the two heads exclaimed excitedly.
"What?" said Aella, confused.
"Don"t you know we grow an extra head every time we are reborn in a new egg?" asked one of the heads.
"The first king named us, so you get to name our new sister," said the other head.
"Wait, so this is the third time you"ve hatched?" she asked, trying to keep up with what they were telling her.
"Yep. Frank was the first one, and I was the second," said Louie.
"I get to name her?" asked Aella, leaning in to examine the newest head.
It was identical to the first two. How was she ever going to keep them apart? Getting Louie and Frank mixed up was bad enough, but now a girl was added to the mix! Maybe she could color the tops of their heads or something.
"How about Emma? Or Isabella? Oh! I know, Ruth! I like that name," said Aella.
"You"re not very good at this, are you?" asked Frank.
"No, apparently not," said Aella, hanging her head. "I need to come up with a name for the new city, too."
"So, we"re in the new city now?" asked Louie in excitement.
"Hungry," muttered Ruth, looking around the room.
"This palace doesn"t have holes and tunnels for us to travel through, does it?" asked Louie with a sigh.
"No, sorry," said Aella with a shake to her head. "Let me find you guys something to eat. Joseph said he would move the extra food over into one of the other chests."
"Wait, Joseph was involved?" exclaimed Frank in horror. "What did he take in payment?"
"What do you mean?" asked Aella, glancing back at them from the chest on the first ledge.
"He always does something that benefits himself. I know the last time he was here; it wasn"t pretty afterwards. Though, that is how Jozef got his name, so I guess it wasn"t all bad."
"Hey, that"s how I came about, too," said Louie.
"I know," said Frank.
"Wait, what did Joseph do last time?" asked Aella, again.
"Hungry!" cried Ruth, hissing at Aella.
With a sigh, she stepped into the first chest and looked around. It was the magical weapons. Leaving it and heading to the next chest, she felt Ruth"s eyes following her. There wasn"t any food in this chest either. Rushing back and forth between chests, Aella finally found the food stashed in the last chest, at the very top of her room. When she stepped inside, there was the room from the chicken world, complete with kitchen, bathing room, and bedroom. When she opened the new door, that she found next to the kitchen, and saw it led to a ma.s.sive warehouse where bins of grains were sorted out. Knowing that the baby Ruth probably wouldn"t be very impressed with corn or beans, she teleported out onto the dark plains of the land surrounding her new city. In the predawn light, she could see creatures grazing on the gra.s.ses, poking their tiny heads up from the tall gra.s.s to look around before going back to eating. These must be more of those "dinosaurs" Bridgette had told her about.
It was time to see if Ruth ate dinosaur, she decided, forming a black blade and teleporting right on top of one of the creatures and slitting its throat before it could jump away. The others disappeared into the tall gra.s.s so fast, she was impressed. It would be fun to hunt them, but other duties called. Teleporting back as soon as the blood stopped pumping out of its wound, Aella dropped it on the floor at the foot of her bed.
"Hungry!" cried Ruth, scrambling out of the egg with Louie and Frank in tow.
As the three heads snapped up the dinosaur in quick rapid bites, Aella had a view of their full body for the first time. They all shared the same body, with four legs supporting the weight. She wasn"t sure where their body had been before, but it had to have been ma.s.sive! Their necks seemed to be able to stretch out to an impossible length, as they snapped and gulped the chunks of meat.
With half the dinosaur still laying on the floor, the three drowsily crawled over to a corner and curled their heads over their body and fell asleep. Shaking her head at the added responsibility of the baby hydra, Aella teleported back to where she had left Rupert. He had moved off, to return to building houses and whatever was needed but Frederik was there, as was General Brimsey and three other demons with wings she didn"t recognize. Alfred appeared beside them after only a few moments.
"Ready?" she asked.
"First, could you explain exactly what we are doing?" asked one of the new demons.
"Aella, these are demons from my squad who I thought would be able to follow directions and stay on task. This is Horace, Liam, and Jack. Jack, I told you, we are going searching for any stragglers that didn"t report to the city to be moved," said General Brimsey.
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"But other than flying around, how are we going to make sure we don"t miss anyone?" asked Jack.
Aella smiled. "As the Hero of Air, I"m going to listen for them. I"ve been wanting to do this for a while."
"Wait, what?" asked the new guys, but Aella grabbed them all and teleported everyone to just outside the old city.
Leaving them there, she flew high above the city and listened to what the wind had to tell her. She could hear Jozef"s brother pacing, and Jozef muttering. There didn"t seem to be anyone else left in the place.
Flying back down, she said, "The city is clear. Should we head north or south?"
"Most of the damage from the flood was to the north, and we scoured that area pretty well on our way back from the mountains. I suggest we head south," said General Brimsey.
"Alright, we"re going to fly until I hear someone, or you see someone. Then I will take them over, and we will move on. I don"t intend to stop until everyone is too exhausted to move on, at which point I will take us all to the other room to rest, and then I will bring us all back to keep going."
"Sounds brutal," said Alfred with a sigh. "Let"s get going though. I don"t want to leave anyone to die, even if they don"t think they will."
"What do you mean they will die?" asked Liam.
"The palace has a ton of magic contained within it, and Aella"s going to blow it up to keep the human church from gaining control of the magic. When she does, though, it"s going to make this area too dangerous to live in. The magic will poison us and kill anyone who remains," explained Alfred.
"Ah, that makes more sense," said Horace, with a nod. "Shall we get going?"
Aella led them south, flying just far enough ahead of them, so she could hear anything below that might be someone hiding. The sun was just starting to rise over the horizon here, so anyone hiding would be starting to move about. This was very tedious work, flying over barren ground. Teleporting the random abandoned animals they found, back to the new city for someone else to deal with, and searching for people. Alfred kept up with them, but by the second day, Aella was starting to doubt there were any people left.
Using the wind to push them along even faster, to cover the ground more quickly, Aella spied the first signs that someone might be out there. Far to the west of the city, but not all the way to the coast, there was a town that appeared abandoned from the outside. As they drew closer, the wisps of smoke from one of the chimneys gave the people hiding away.
Aella paused above the town, and listened to the sounds of people murmuring below. There were several in this town, in different buildings. Pointing out each building that had people in it, she headed for the last one, which seemed to also have children.
"h.e.l.lo?" called Aella, landing at the door and knocking.
"One moment!" came a reply, before the door was opened a crack, showing a thin demoness with a bundled babe on her hip. "What is it?"
"I"ve come to move you and your family to the new city, as ordered by the King," said Aella, pushing the door open and looking around. Other than the demoness and her baby, there were also two demons in the back of the room.
The moment she pushed open the door, one of them charged at her, with murder in his eyes, and the other grabbed the demoness and pulled her and the child even further into the house.
Aella casually flipped him over onto his back, ignoring the grunt of pain as his breath was knocked out of him, and followed them deeper into the building.