Dragonseers and Bloodlines: The Steampunk Fantasy Adventure Continues (Secicao Blight Book 2)

by Chris Behrsin

  The panther tossed again, and it managed to throw me off the front of it and get itself free of my grip. It darted away and then turned in a sharp circle towards me. As it leapt, it revealed two sharp claws that could have easily torn me apart. I rolled out of the way, and then turned to face it. I caught sight of a hatch on its derrière. If I could only open that, I could disable the thing. But the thing was so fast to turn around, I doubted I’d have the remotest of chances to do so.

  “Hoooooiiieee,” the call came from the tribal chief. The mask had been shaken off his face and so for the first time I caught sight of his pockmarked skin, dry lips, and a huge smile. He threw his spear towards me. Presumably an accomplished hunter, his aim was true. I caught the spear in mid-air and brandished it at the beast.

  But the panther automaton had already launched itself off the ground towards me. This time, forward rolling underneath it would have sent me tumbling off the cliff. So instead, I ducked to the side. As the ground rocked, the panther stumbled when it landed, but it didn’t fall over this time.

  Before the beast could recover, I swung the haft of the spear, hoping to at least stun the thing. I hit it in the mouth hard enough to snap the spire protruding out the thing. Meanwhile, it caught the spear in its mouth and wrenched it away from me. But surprisingly, instead of discarding the spear, it kept it clenched in its teeth. As I looked behind me, I realised why. I was right against the edge, and the spear shaft would readily knock me off it.

  The beast scuffed its back paws into the ground and charged. Time dilated in my mind’s eye — an effect of the secicao. As I watched the panther sprinting towards me in slow motion, I considered my options. I could try rolling under the haft or vaulting over it. But the panther had wisely kept the spear at an angle making both moves risky. Because the spear now gave the spear width, I wouldn’t be fast enough to run around it. I had no option but to let it knock me off the edge. Perhaps I could catch myself on the way down.

  As the thing ran, it hugged the cliff face with cat-like balance, not once stumbling, even as the ground shook. In just moments I would fall to my fate and I’d never see Taka again.

  A loud bang came from my right, something like the sound of a crashing boulder hitting the floor. All of a sudden, the panther tumbled to the right and started to slide down the rock. The shaft rose up as the panther fell and just missed my head by mere inches. Then, the panther plummeted down the side into the abyss.

  Without even thinking, I made towards Wiggea and the rest of the party on the plateau. It took me a moment to notice that Wiggea was holding the Pattersoni rifle in his hands that the tribal chief had been carrying on his back, smoke trailing up from the barrel. The green outline in my vision was fading now, the effects of the secicao wearing off. As the sensation faded, my eyes started to sting a little too, as well as the parts of my skin that had been grazed by the sharp rocks. I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hands and looked up at Wiggea.

  The ground bucked again and Wiggea stumbled to the ground. I teetered backwards and I almost went over the edge myself. I crouched down and planted the palm of my hand into the earth to stop myself falling over. Then, I pulled myself up towards Wiggea and the rest of the party. Another quake rocked the ground, and I stumbled forwards. Wiggea caught me in his arms and held me there a moment. I found myself staring into his soft hazel eyes.

  “Lieutenant Wiggea,” I said.

  “Maam?” He cocked his head and a smile spread across his face. The rifle lay on the ground beside us now and slid across the ground as the earth shook some more. Wiggea and I crouched down together, and I buried my head in his shoulder and let the emotions come out. I don’t know if I cried tears or I cried pain, but so much flooded back to me. King Cini sending soldiers to destroy my farmhouse. My father taking a bullet in the Five Hamlets to protect me. Sukina dying in her sickbed from a poison dart, all because she stayed in the palace to battle King Cini so Faso, Taka and I could make our escape. All the lives of dragons and men so I could live. So many sacrifices made, and I almost threw it all away by falling off a precipice.

  “We did it,” I said to Wiggea. “That panther hopefully won’t bother us any longer.”

  “I hope so, Maam,” Wiggea said. He hesitated for a moment. “I almost thought you were Sukina then, the way you moved.”

  I nodded and fought back a smile. “Thank you, Lieutenant.” I guess all that training hadn’t been for nothing.

  The quakes were now dying down, and I was confident the earthquake would soon pass. Faso had lifted himself off the ground, no longer cowering in a foetal position. I noticed an expression of scorn on his face when he saw Wiggea holding me in his arms. Wiggea turned his head a little and then remembered himself. He let go of me, and he tugged at the collar of his robe. “I think the danger has passed now.”

  “I think so,” I said.

  But Faso looked livid. “Pontopa, there was no way of you knowing you could have defeated that thing. If it wasn’t for the chief throwing the rifle to Wiggea it would have killed you and then turned on us. What were you thinking?”

  I clenched my teeth and tried to not to let this buffoon get under my skin. “I saw an opportunity and I took it, Faso,” I said, keeping my voice as calm as I could, even though I was seething underneath. “We need to take some risks if we’re going to survive this.”

  “Well, you’re going to need to start making more sensible decisions, Pontopa Wells. From now on, I think you need a stronger leader.”

  I shook my head and put my hands on my hips. “Faso, I’m still in charge of this operation. Your advice is noted, and your temper isn’t appreciated right now. Pull yourself together.”

  A crackle came again from no determinate direction. Wellies knows how many of those speakers Colas had installed here. But now the earth had stopped growling, the old man had decided to speak in his robotic, modified voice. “What the dragonheats did you do to my panther, Dragonseer? I saw you augment, and I saw you lunge in. And now… Dragonheats, if you think you’re going to climb the mountain without an escort, you’re wrong. I have plenty more automatons where that came from.”

  The fact that he didn’t seem so happy caused me to smirk a little. It also seemed to cause a little elation in the tribal chief, who had lifted himself off the ground, and began cartwheeling around while he let out waves of hysterical laughter. Colas started to speak in the tribe’s own language, but the chief raised his fist to the sky and screeched out what I presumed to be an expletive with all the power of his lungs.

  The realisation suddenly dawned on me that Colas could no longer hear us. Perhaps he couldn’t see us either. Maybe he only had cameras within the panthers after all. And I’d also shown the tribespeople that the panther automatons could be defeated. That, if anything, had to give them hope.

  “I’m sending another panther up to punish you,” Colas said. “And this time, if you try anything, I’ll kill one of your own.”

  I looked at Wiggea then Faso. “You better listen to him,” Faso said. “He’s a madman.”

  But the tribal chief was also behaving like a madman, clutching his belly while lying on the ground and kicking at the air as Colas continued to say something in the tribal language.

  Once Colas had finished speaking, the leader turned to the guides who now stood with their backpacks on their shoulders. He looked up the mountain and then he motioned them along the edge of it. He started to traverse the terrain and then beckoned us onwards.

  I decided it best to follow him, and as we moved, I kept an eye out for any sign of panther automatons bounding up the rockface from below. We were pretty exposed, so it might the automatons able to see us if we didn’t find a place to remain concealed. But the earthquake had kicked up a lot of volcanic ash from the ground, limiting visibility. It seemed that this time, nature had looked upon us favourably.

  And so I hiked onwards with a feeling of renewed hope.

  CHAPTER 16

  WE TRAVERSED THE MOUNTAIN FOR
a while as the dust lifted up from the earthquake settled on the ground, and the sky went from grey to red to twilight blue. Then, just before it plunged into a moonless pitch-black night, the tribal chief motioned for us to halt. He and all the tribespeople with us had now discarded their masks. Clearly, now they’d seen the mortality of the panther automaton, it was no longer a deity in their minds.

  The chief pointed to a cave mouth that opened up into the rock face. From it came a roaring sound and a warm draft carrying a sulphuric smell upon it, almost as if a dragon lived within.

  The tribal chief and tribespeople led us down a long almost cylindrical cavern with slimy floors which got darker as we progressed inside. I found it difficult not to slip as I walked, and I half wanted to augment so at least I’d be able

  to see my way through here, but I resisted. I only had a small amount of secicao oil left in my flask after spilling it during the earthquake. I figured I might need this for another occasion, like if I had to fight any more panther automatons, or whatever else Colas might have in store for us at the top of the mountain.

  Soon enough the darkness transgressed into a natural red light that bounced off the walls. And as we pushed on, the heat intensified, and the roars became even louder, occurring intermittently. I expected to see a huge bonfire at the end of this, the amount of energy it was letting out. But instead the passageway opened up into a brilliant display of red coming from a massive lava lake, deep enough below us fortunately that it didn’t pose any obvious threat. Every so often, fire would flare out of the lake, sending out a huge boom with it and letting off a significant amount of heat.

  Faso was the first to say something. “Amazing. We’ve just passed through a veritable lava tube into the source of the volcano itself. You know, up until now, we only knew about two accessible lava lakes in the world.”

  “I thought you said that this volcano was dormant?” I asked.

  “So I thought,” Faso replied. “So I thought…”

  “Colas… Could he possibly?”

  “I doubt it,” Faso said. “No, this place for some reason has remained largely unexplored. Or if not, at least undocumented in the scientific journals.”

  “You didn’t come here.”

  “No…” Faso looked down at the magma lake and I could see it glowing in the reflection in his eyes. “I conducted my studies much further north.”

  The tribal chief smiled and nodded, as if he understood. I doubted he did, but he was probably instead acknowledging the expression of awe on our faces.

  And I could only describe it as awesome myself, as I watched the blackened rocks bubble and melt on the lava lake’s surface. Outside, the temperature had dropped quite significantly as the coolness of the evening approached. But now, I was starting to sweat again.

  We traversed further along the narrow passageway that looked down over the lava pit, until we reached an alcove. There, three old men stood around a fire pit, and these men didn’t have the dark skin of the tribespeople, but fairer skin like many of the natives of Slaro. Except they also each had hardened natural tan to them, clearly after being exposed to hours of sunshine down here. They also looked remarkably similar, like identical twins, or I guess triplets.

  The fireplace had a pot in the centre, but the fire wasn’t lit and probably not necessary for anything but cooking due to the heat given off by the lava lake. Some tree stump stools had been arranged around the firepit, and around the walls of the alcove, a dozen or so feathered mattresses had been laid out on the floor. Above these mattresses, strange symbols had been etched into the wall. As I looked closer, I noticed them to be lit by some kind of magmatic light, almost as if they were on fire.

  One of the old men turned to me as we approached. This man, unlike his brothers, had a mole that stuck out of the beard at his chin. He stepped forward and offered me his hand. “Dragonseer,” he said. “Welcome to our temporary abode.”

  “Hooooooieeee,” the tribal chief said. “Elders speak.”

  I looked at them in astonishment. “You speak Towese?” I asked.

  The first man turned to the second of the men who’d now placed himself by the firepit and was bending down to strike a match. He threw it onto the firewood, watching it erupt into flames. He poured some oats into the pot from a sack, followed by some water from a gourd.

  Then he turned to me. This man had a birthmark that ran diagonally across his left cheek and disappeared into the beard. “We speak many languages Dragonseer Wells, for we are students of old with much knowledge of the world. My brother here is an anthropologist.” He indicated the man standing next to me. “I’m a biologist. And our third, is a linguist.”

  I regarded them in curiosity. “The three of you look the same,” I pointed out.

  The third man’s grey beard had now gained a red tint, due to the light of the fire. This man’s distinguishing feature was a very slightly cleft top lip. He took hold of ladle from besides the firepit and used it to stir the porridge in the pot. “We’re identical triplets of the Dragonseer line,” he said. “Much like you.”

  I opened my mouth in shock. No, this wasn’t possible. “All dragonseers are female and they can only birth a single female offspring.” Gerhaun had taught me that.

  “Are you so sure about that?” the question came again from the first of them, the anthropologist with the mole on his chin. “Can you trust your sources.”

  I tried to recall Gerhaun’s words. It had been so long ago, but I’d relived the moment I first met her many times in my head. “A dragonseer will always have one child, no more, no less, always female,” she’d said. I repeated the words exactly as I remembered them.

  That caused the three elder triplets to look at each other and erupt into laughter.

  “That sounds exactly like Gerhaun Forsi.” This time the biologist spoke. “She was always very careful about her words. Yes, we heard she’d taken you under her wing. But notice she said will, not was. She spoke about the future not the past. Because she plans never to let it happen again.”

  Faso had just joined us by the firepit. He sat down and looked at the three men in turn and then at the porridge now bubbling on the firepit. “I thought I’d heard enough baloney for one day,” he said. “Given the three of you are men of learning, I expected to hear something worthwhile rather than myths and nonsense, as I always hear from Pontopa here.”

  The linguist then turned to Faso and a sly smile stretched upon his face. He spoke with a little bit of a lisp, presumably because of his cleft lip. “I’d listen to us Mr Gordoni. For like us you are a male component of the dragonseer line. You are more special than you might think.”

  That caused Faso to laugh. “Special? Of course I’m bloody special. I’m the best scientist to have ever graced this earth.”

  “But you don’t truly believe it.” The elder said.

  Faso paused a moment. “What the dragonheats do you mean?”

  “You say those things to mask the fact that you don’t understand your true destiny. You pretend you’re the best, while deep inside there’s a nagging voice telling you there people much better than you. And now you’re in the realm of another scientist whose inventions are much more superior than anything you’ve ever dreamed of yourself.”

  “What nonsense,” Faso said.

  “Is it, Faso Gordoni?” the anthropologist said. Really, I found it kind of endearing how these three men played off each other as if they were one person. “You’re the youngest male of the dragonseer line alive today and you don’t even know yourself.”

  “The youngest male of the dragonseer line,” for a second Faso’s mouth opened in shock. Then he looked between the men and he erupted into laughter himself. “That’s a good one. I’ve heard a lot of mumbo jumbo from Pontopa here, but this one has to be the best one yet.”

  The biologist stood up and he looked at Faso, the firelight dancing in his eyes. “And how do you know it’s not true, Faso Gordoni? Did you know your grandfather on your mothe
r’s side?”

  Faso shook his head. Then he added, “but just because I don’t know someone doesn’t mean they’re part of some magical, mystical heritage.”

  “You’ve seen dragons and men and women turn into dragons, and yet you have problems accepting the existence of myth.”

  “We all came from apes, not the dust of the earth shaped by The Gods Themselves and the wars between Finase and Honore. These myths are just nice stories we tell kids to get them to behave in school.”

  “So how do you explain this?” the anthropologist asked. And he turned around to indicate the writing on the wall. Now I was closer to it, I realised that the writing was writing itself out slowly as time passed in pictorial representations. And my mouth and eyes opened wide in astonishment. It was as an invisible man was sitting there and writing each new symbol in the lava of the lake.

  Faso looked over at it and his eyes went wide for a moment. Then, he shook his head hard. “I’m sure there’s a scientific explanation for it,” he said. “I just haven’t had time to study it yet.”

  “Well let me tell you,” the linguist said and walked over it. “This is the wall of prophecies. A cave that writes out the destinies of people as it unfolds. Within this ancient language are prophecies and the futures of the men and women who will change the world.” The linguist glanced over at me. “We believe this wall to chronicle the collective unconscious in written form.”

  “And I guess you’re going to just tell me what will happen in my future,” Faso said. “And then you’ll tell me that Pontopa and I are great agents of good in this world who will defeat King Cini and turn the Southlands into absolute paradise.”

  “No,” the linguist replied. “We’re still learning to decipher it. But making progress.”