Sai knew that the raptor could see him. It stood at the center of the chamber, watching Sai through the open arch. It crouched on its hind legs, standing just over a meter tall. The dark brown of its scaled back lightened to tan along its underbelly. The two curved claws on its taloned feet surpassed the serrated fangs protruding from its closed maw in intimidating lethality. But even more frightening were its dark eyes. The raptors were not intelligent in the way their fellow bipeds, the lizards, were intelligent, but they were crafty and vicious, and Sai always felt he could almost see their reptilian brains working out the best way to eviscerate him through the fathomless shadows of their eyes.

  Behind the raptor was another staircase leading down, the only one Sai had found during his exploration of the floor below the tower with his cell. The orc leaned side to side. The raptor tracked his movement without making a sound. "Why aren't you attacking me?" Sai asked it, rapping the makeshift cudgel he'd made from his flint and a rotting spear shaft against his thigh. "And why would Syn use wyrmkin as guards? I thought it was trying to kill me, not give me pets."

  With a sigh, Sai stepped through the arch and into the raptor's room. It began to growl. Sai tightened his grip on his cudgel. That the draconic blood flowing through his veins let him shackle the minds of lesser wyrmkin did not mean that they would accept enslavement without a fight. Sai raised his scaled arm and pointed a golden talon at the wyrmkin sentinel. "Obey," he said, casting out the psychic shackles the dragons used to command their pets. To his surprise, he felt the simple command almost find its purchase on the raptor's mind before, at the very last moment, slipping free.

  The raptor did not wait for Sai to overcome his surprise. With a tooth-shaking screech, it leapt at him, preparing a taloned kick that would rip the orc's stomach clean open. But this was not Sai's first fight with a raptor. The orc spun by reflex, catching the kick with his fleshy right arm. He roared as the raptor's claws tore through his skin, but like the raptor had before him, he did not wait for his opponent to recover. He jabbed the claws of his left hand into the side of the raptor's face, sending psychic knives through his arm and into its brain. It screeched again and tried to break free, but Sai held it fast. "Obey," he commanded again, and this time felt the shackles latch cleanly into place.

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  Sai jerked his claws free from the raptor's face, and she took her place by his right side. Sai could feel the empty calm of the raptor's mind through the shackles. The feeling was comforting and familiar. "Ahh, that's better," he said. "I always feel better when I have a scaly death beast at my side." He reached out to pat her on the head and winced. The gash on his arm bled freely and painfully. With a grimace, Sai covered the wound with his taloned hand, closed his eyes, and tried to steady his breathing. He had never excelled at harnessing the dragons' regenerative abilities, but he knew enough to knit a wound.

  By the time the bleeding had stopped, Sai's head felt ready to split open from the exertion. He rubbed at his temple with his claw while he inspected his mended arm. It would be nearly impossible to pick out the scar from the new wound from the countless others already there. He went to wipe away the blood and realized his scaled hand was already coated in the stuff. Which meant it was also all over his face. He sighed and looked down at the raptor. He made her look back up at him. "This is your fault," he told her.

  She chirped back at him, a sound as cheerful as it was unexpected.

  Sai blinked at her. He hadn't made her do that. He tried to search her mind for an actual response through the shackles, but all he felt was the familiar emptiness. His head began to throb even more painfully. "Okay," he said. "As much as I'd like to see what's down those stairs, we should probably head back to my cell so I can get some rest." He rubbed his bloody claws on his bare thigh. "And maybe find somewhere to clean up." He sent the raptor out before him and followed along behind her.