by P. R. Adams
Or…
The eyes. It couldn’t see clearly enough to know exactly what was going on. Something was digging into its scales. Something was moving along its underbelly. It couldn’t see exactly what. Its eyes were damaged.
That meant the gunfire had been even more effective than she’d thought.
She would have to tell Riyun about that. After she got back to the ground.
When she found him. He had to be alive. There were no other possibilities.
Once again, the dragon banked and twisted, but now she was beside the leaking wound.
Hanging from one well-anchored hand, she drew her sword.
There was no good angle, no way to put all of her power behind a blow, so she drove the tip into the wound and leaned against the hilt.
A shudder ran through the injured creature. A second later, it screeched and beat its wings with a frightening intensity. She needed it to descend, not climb.
Perhaps a signal…
Javika twisted the blade, working it around like a mixing spoon in a bowl.
That drew another screech, and the unimaginably terrible stench leaking from the wound actually grew worse. More shudders ran through the body, and its legs curled forward and backward as if trying to run. Then the talon with nothing in it twitched twice before reaching for her.
But the strike was imprecise, and the beast gouged a furrow in its gut.
More dark blood sprayed and was carried away by the wind.
The rapid beating of the wings slowed, and the creature seemed to bank again. This time, the maneuver was completely uncontrolled. Its head slumped, the legs went limp…
And the talons began to open.
“Naru! Grab hold!”
Instead of responding, the hacker started to slide.
Javika dug her metal-tipped glove deeper into the scale crease, then tugged her sword out of the wound. She tried to get a sense of how she would be pulled by the wind, to see if there was some way she could maneuver…
Then she let go.
Her training had included recovering from falls and throws. Her military training had included parachuting, paragliding, and wing suits. That helped a little, but none of them had involved maneuvering along the belly of a multi-ton creature of legend.
So she settled for using her sword as an anchor when she reached the leg still holding Naru, letting the blade drive into the monster’s flesh. Another few feet, another few seconds picking up momentum, and coming to an abrupt stop would have torn Javika’s shoulders apart. Instead, it felt as if they had been over-exerted.
But she had come to a stop a few feet above Naru.
“Naru! You must grab the talon!”
“What—?” The hacker’s eyes flickered open as she slid farther down the talon, which was now almost completely open. Her weight wasn’t fully balanced on the thumb that curled beneath her.
The talon opened a little more, and the hacker started to slip free. She swung wildly with one arm and let out a helpless moan.
Her arms were injured, possibly just numb from being squeezed.
Javika curled her legs around the dragon leg, then stretched down, arms extended. It was imperfect and uncertain, but she got fingers around the hacker’s back armor plate.
That was enough.
Naru managed a little squeal as she slipped the rest of the way out of the talon. “Oh! Oh! Don’t let go!”
“I have you.”
Where before, everything had been limited to Javika’s own weight—her armor and backpack—now she had another person’s weight. And not someone trivial. And they were held in place unsteadily.
Then the hacker looked below and realized they were on a steep descent toward the ground. “Oh! Oh, no! Javika! We’re falling!”
Javika fought against the younger woman’s panic. “Stop! You will kill both of us!”
“Crashing into the ground’s going to do that!”
The Biwali warrior pulled the hacker up to the monster’s leg joint. “Grab on.”
The younger woman wrapped one arm around the leg, barely managing to pull herself tight against it. Her hair whipped all around, the neon blue and deep purple still dazzling. “Is it dead? I thought I saw the eyes open?”
“Dying. It would seem the wound was worse than it appeared.”
Nose wrinkled, Naru nodded. “Smells horrible. Like that sewer, only worse.”
“I have opened the wound a little more. Some sort of nerve must have been in the area.”
“Well, if it doesn’t wake up soon, we’re toast.”
They were descending at a frightening speed. The monster’s wings were still out wide, but there was no control to the flight, and the glide was little more than a graceful plunge. “We have to climb to the top.”
“Climb? How is that going to change anything? If we hit the ground at this speed, the only thing being on top is going to do is buy us nanoseconds before the energy from the impact hits us. This body isn’t going to cushion our fall.”
Javika reached behind her and uncoiled her backpack cable. “Tie this around your waist.”
“Didn’t you hear me? Getting onto its back won’t—”
“Tie the line.”
The young woman grimaced, but she managed to get the cable around her. “My arms went to sleep, but now they’re coming awake. It hurts.”
“Pain means you are alive.”
“Good grief! What kind of childhood did you have?”
“My childhood.”
Javika climbed up enough to retrieve her sword. It took some hard twists to wrench it free, but she wasn’t leaving it in the beast. She sheathed the weapon after wiping the blade, then tied the cable around her waist as well.
The ground below was taking on details now. They wouldn’t have long. “Come. Fight against the pain.”
It was easier said than done, but Javika was impressed by the way the young woman pushed herself.
They were almost to the back, when Naru groaned. “What’s the point? We’re going to hit any second now.”
Although everything was black below, there were clear details. Patches of dirt had been seared by flame. Areas of vegetation had been blasted into ash. The depths of the quarry were a dark scar on the charred earth. They were closer to the pit than she had any right to hope for. Some distance out, the surviving huge dragon spread wide its wings.
“You must listen to me, Naru. You understand?”
“I…” Tears streamed down the young woman’s face. “I understand.”
“Good. Hold tight to the cable. No matter the pain, hold tight.”
“Wh-what are you going to do?”
“You must trust me.”
Javika reached into her backpack and pulled out a smaller pack. Ideally, she would have it strapped over her back instead of the backpack. Ideally, she wouldn’t be wearing armor but something lightweight. Ideally, she wouldn’t have another two hundred pounds dragging her down.
Nothing meaningful was ever ideal.
She slid the small pack down her right arm until the straps were over her shoulder and the pack itself was pressed against her chest.
The old quarry loomed not far off from their position. A faint shudder ran through the giant beast’s body.
It was time.
“Naru, jump!”
Without the slightest hesitation, the Biwali warrior did exactly as she had told the hacker to do, kicking off from the reptile’s back.
The line went taut, and Naru had either jumped free or been pulled.
They plunged toward the open pit.
The hacker squealed. “Oh! Oh, my!”
Javika locked her arms over the pack.
And waited.
Eighty. Seventy. Sixty feet.
She activated the pack. The small anti-gravity core hummed to life, slamming against her and knocking the wind from her.
She slowed, then stopped and hovered.
Then the rope went taut again.
The anti-gravit
y core shut down.
And Javika plunged toward the pit below.
37
When falling from a great height, the only thing you could do to control your landing was to change how you hit. Javika straightened so that her boots would hit first. She flung out her arms to provide as much drag as possible. And she stiffened into an arrow.
Because they were falling into the pit, and more importantly, they were falling toward a black pool of water.
When she had scouted the area earlier, the pools had seemed deep.
It had been pure luck that the dragon had angled back toward the place where it had attacked them. The luck of it gliding into the quarry was beyond her ability to comprehend. Riyun might not believe in fate, but how else could their situation be explained?
The plunging dragon corpse, the smell and heat of dragon fire rising from below, and even the terrible roar they made—their presence filled her awareness.
Such terrors deserved death. They threatened humans for no reason.
Below her, Naru screamed. “No! No!”
Javika pulled her helmet off. “Feet down! Rigid! It is water!”
The hacker shook her head. “No!”
And then she hit the water, and an instant later Javika did, too, and everything else ceased to matter.
Cold and hard like rock, that was how the water felt. It tore the helmet from her hands. The impact shot up from her feet to her ankles to her knees to her hips, then her spine. She knew what to expect with the impact, yet she still emptied her lungs with a scream. She also immediately began to swim for the surface, gritting her teeth against the ache in her joints as she followed the air bubbles up.
That stopped when the cable around her waist went taut.
Naru!
Javika pulled on the line with one arm as she swam up with the other. The hacker had failed to prepare herself for the impact; she could be unconscious or in shock.
The cable was a dead weight, dragging Javika down even worse than her armor. Something had turned the water dark—ash, perhaps—so there was no way to see what little light had been in the sky. Without some way to see the surface and no oxygen in her lungs, panic set in.
Panic was the destroyer. Panic made the mind weak.
Panic killed.
There was no room for panic, not in the dark depths, and not in Javika’s mind.
She redoubled her efforts, kicking and pulling with more effort, bumping into something hard—her helmet! Slowly sinking.
A moment to grab it and hook it to her belt, all the while sinking.
They couldn’t have gone too deep. Their fall was from maybe sixty feet up, certainly no more than eighty. She had been sure. The water had saved them. Now it was up to her to finish the job.
Her hand broke the surface, and she kicked like she had never kicked before. When her head broke the surface, she sucked in the warm air.
Naru was still below.
Javika swam for the nearest shore, pulling the cable and fighting the drag. It seemed to take forever, but she finally had a glove scratching across rock. The metal fingertips caught, and she hauled herself up.
No one was there to see her lying on her back, gasping. Even if there were observers, anyone would understand the need to catch her breath. Maybe simply cutting the cable made sense, too.
But that was surrender, and surrender was no part of who she was.
So she sat up, dug her boot heels in, and hauled on the line.
A head broke from the black water. Naru. The hacker’s eyes were closed. Dark water drained from her nose and mouth.
Drowning wasn’t permanent. If her neck wasn’t broken and her brain wasn’t mush, she could be saved.
There was no indication of broken bones or cracked skull. Javika checked for a pulse, then went to work resuscitating the younger woman. Years of experience made it all natural and mechanical. Her brain turned to other problems: the dragons.
So much could have happened while she was in the air. There had been fire, and the biggest dragon had still been in the area.
Naru coughed, then turned her head and coughed again, then vomited water. She gasped and coughed and repeated the cycle all the while looking terrified. That was what it was like to drown, to have fluid in the lungs and to struggle just to breathe.
Javika patted the other woman on the back hard. “You will survive.”
When the hacker nodded, there was less fear in her eyes.
At the south end of the quarry, the body of the dragon that had taken them for a ride lay in a mangled heap where it had crashed against the wall. Behind them, on the closest wall, a ramp led up. That would take Javika to the upper area and the battle.
It was quiet up there now.
She leaned down to eye level with the gasping hacker, who was now on her belly. “I must head up, to see how the battle ended.”
“Go.” It was coughed out between gulps.
No obvious injuries, breathing slowly coming around, a clear mind—the young woman would be fine.
That was all Javika needed to know.
Her soles and ankles were tender, her knees sore. Each step was a challenge made worse when she tried to jog. The ramp seemed to go on forever, and as she approached the top, she had to slow her modest pace in case the big dragon was still up there. After a few seconds of straining for any hint of breathing or movement from the giant beast, she poked her head up.
The team lay in smoking heaps—melted armor and weapons, limbs curled tight from the fire. Sizzling pops hissed from their blasted bodies.
And high above, the giant dragon circled.
Javika was used to loss. It was part of the job, part of living. Mercenaries were a means to an end for Onaths and their corporations. She understood that at a fundamental level, as anyone would understand gravity.
But to lose them all at once…
Except, they weren’t all dead. Riyun was nowhere to be seen. She would know his armor—his body—anywhere and in any shape. It was resilient enough that she didn’t think it would fully melt like the others’. When the flying lizards had attacked, she had lost track of him.
He had shoved her down, then there had been a loud crash.
She glanced back into the pit. If he had been struck at the start—
A piercing screech brought her head up: The dragon descended toward the pit.
Her blade would be no use against something so huge, and she doubted her gun would do any better. Naru might be a credible lure…
No. It was the other dragon’s corpse. The giant beast was angry.
It screeched again, circled, then began to climb.
The creatures had connections. They had feelings. It appeared that only two of Riyun’s team had lived, but they’d managed to kill two of the dragons. After being told that the monsters could not be slain, only destroyed, Javika wasn’t sure what to make of the moment.
Where were the wizard and the prophet?
Antagonizing the giant dragon served no purpose, so Javika held her position until it was out of sight. After counting to ten, she straightened. There was work to be done, bodies to be buried. Returning home was out of the question now. She would have to spend her life hunting the dragons down for revenge.
And Meriscoya?
The wizard was dead. One way or another, she would find him and kill him.
“Javika!”
She froze. It was Hirvok’s voice, but his body—
The smoldering corpses disappeared and were instantly replaced by those of her teammates. They squatted or were flat on their backs, but they were alive.
Hirvok got to his feet. “What in the Hollow Hills—?”
Wizardry! Only at that moment did Javika see the emerald glow of Tarlayn’s magic, which now seemed to coil back into her staff. The old woman slumped against that staff as if it were a wall of stone that held her upright.
The Biwali warrior blinked. “Impossible.”
“My thoughts exactly.” The sergeant cast an
angry scowl at the sky.
“Where is Riyun?”
“You didn’t see it? That big bastard hit him.”
Once again, the word impossible came to her. “Where is his body?”
“He fell into the pit you came out of.”
Lonar scowled. “Never thought anything but a high-caliber round could get through that Juggernaut armor…until now.”
Javika had her bearings. She knew where she had been and where Riyun had been. If the dragon had hit him, the body would have fallen somewhere near…the closest mine opening. “I will retrieve him.”
Hirvok squatted and began collecting shell casings. “Leave it.”
She froze mid-stride. “You order me to leave one of ours behind?”
“He’s dead. Finding his body doesn’t change anything.”
“We can bury it with honor.”
“The dead don’t know honor. We need to get moving.” He dug a pouch from his backpack. “Tarlayn, how long do you think what you did will last?”
The old woman’s head rose slowly, and she brushed back frizzy hair. “If the illusion truly fooled the dragon, it shouldn’t return.”
“Yeah? Well, we still need to go. This Meriscoya isn’t going to be fooled, is he?”
Tarlayn slowly shook her head. “He’s connected to the magic I use. He knows I’m alive.”
“There you go.” Hirvok went back to gathering shell casings. “He’s going to send those ugly things back to finish the job.”
Javika took a step down the ramp. “Go on, then.”
“Whoa! What do you think you’re doing?”
“I will find his body and bury it with honor. When I am done, I will find you.”
The sergeant dumped the brass casings into the pouch, then stood. “Maybe you missed it, but I’m in charge now.”
“That remains to be seen. At the moment, you are not ready.”
“Not ready? Says who?”
“I say so.” She glanced at the others—the big heavy weapons expert who still scowled, the pseudo who tended to the young Onath’s wounds. “It is for the others to decide whether or not they follow you.”
Hirvok snorted. “That’s not how it works, and you know it. The old guy made me his second. He’s dead, that makes me the boss. It’s in the contract!”
