“Man, that bitch is cold,” he whispered so that I could hear him. “Threatening to cut off your cojones. And you just a kid.”
I closed my eyes, thought about becoming the Dragon and the instant I did think it, the net wrapped around my arm before I could even complete the change. It happened so fast that it was no more than the blink of an eye and neither he nor the horse noticed. We trotted for an hour, and then cantered, that was even worse. I kept pushing into the hollow behind the cantle, mashing my nuts and the knife wounds. I wanted the oblivion of unconsciousness but it was denied me. I knew they were running because Luke and my granddad were no doubt chasing. I just wished they would kill me and get this over with.
Finally after they crested the ridge and descended into a small valley between two narrow mountains and deep in a gorge, they stopped and set up a camp close to the river but underneath an overhang of the cliff wall. I looked up from atop the horse’s back and saw vertical cliffs of gray in red sandstone, green and yellow tinted granite, huge fir trees and cedars. A mountain of gray steel that looked familiar and my mind goggled at the thought that here was a near perfect copy of Half Dome. I looked at the river and sure enough, there were pools that steamed in the cool air. I shivered even though it wasn’t that cold out.
My captor looked up at me, dark eyes hooded. “Can you get down?” Mutely, I shook my head and he put his hands on my waist and lifted me off the horse. As soon as my feet hit the ground, I fell landing awkwardly because my hands and feet were numb. The rope on my neck jerked and started to strangle me.
“Shit,” he said and rolled me over staring at me. “Martinez?”
The Latino master sergeant came over. “Suarez.”
“He’s gonna die if we don’t do something.”
“He’s gonna die no matter what,” he said flatly. I tried to speak. Tried to tell them I could take them home. To Earth Shadow but couldn’t get the words out past the gag. Tears of frustration dripped from my eyes. The blue stone glittered like a halogen laser.
“You thirsty?” Martinez asked bending down to remove the gag. Once freed, I tried to speak but my throat was so dry that I couldn’t even talk. He put a USMC canteen to my mouth and I drained it in frantic sips.
“Thanks,” I managed and promptly threw it all up. Patiently, he waited until I was through retching before he held the other dude’s canteen to my mouth.
“Small sips. Roll it around in your mouth and then slowly swallow,” he suggested. “Suarez, bring me the med kit and a spare uniform.”
“Yes, sir,” the rider who held me trotted off and I shuddered, waiting for Jasra to turn up and begin her torture all over. “Where is she?” I whispered.
“Rode ahead. Told us to wait here. She’s laying some traps for the pursuit,” he said carelessly. “Now’s the time for you to eat, drink and let me look at your wounds.”
“Won’t she be pissed you’re helping me?” I struggled to move and couldn’t even get my legs underneath me. He pulled me up by tugging at the handcuffs and held me there until Suarez returned with two men and a stretcher. Loaded me on it and carried me towards the nearest tent. Inside was quite cozy, they had bedrolls on the floor, a long table made of aluminum poles and canvas and placed me stretcher and all on top. There was a stove going with a coffee pot perking and the place was warm inside.
In five minutes, the man named Martinez had me hooked up to an IV of fluids and morphine, knew my blood pressure, pulse, respirations and gut sounds. Gave me two units of type O blood. By then, the morphine had kicked in and I didn’t care what they did. I barely felt him poking and prodding at me.
“She must’ve hit something, his temp is 103°,” he said grimly. “His BP isn’t coming up. He’s diaphoretic, too. Shocky. We have any adrenaline?”
“Yes. Complete med kit on hand. Here’s the uni and some underwear, socks. I could only find a pair of sneakers.”
“Cut open a bag of saline and start flushing the cuts. Once we rinse them, I’ll start antibiotics and dress the wounds.”
“Can get you home,” I whispered straining to keep my eyes open. I grabbed for his hand and found somewhere at one point, he’d removed my handcuffs.
“What? What did you say?” He asked bending low near my mouth.
“Home. I can bring you home. Earth Shadow,” I strained and his eyes widened. I drifted away before I could say anything or he could ask what I’d meant.
*****
My first inkling of disaster was when I woke from a terrifying dream of falling only to discover I was – Jasra’s enraged face loomed over mine and she kicked over the flimsy cot I was lying on to crash to the ground. I barely felt myself land on the cold grass, I was still on a morphine drip. I was cold but there was something between me and the soil. Clothes. I had on a set of Army camo’s and even socks. A thin blanket lay on top of me.
“Get up, you crawling worm,” she spat and kicked me. I rolled when her foot connected with my ribs. I heard the dull thump but the pain was muted. Still, it was suddenly harder to breathe. The men came in after her and their body language was suddenly threatening. “Stop,” Martinez said and his voice was cold. She reared back in surprise, her eyes flared red and she looked every inch a witch. “Try a spell on me, Jasra and it’ll be the last thing you ever do,” he stated.
“You puny shadow man, I can crush you all in one spell,” she threatened.
“No, you can’t, Jasra. Your magic doesn’t work on us, remember?” He taunted. “That’s why you had Lieut. Secrest bring us here. You promised to send us home when we were done with your silly little war. But you can’t, can you? Not since the Lieutenant is gone and with him the wormhole he opened that brought us here.”
I struggled to stay awake, what I was hearing was important and concerned me. “I can,” I whispered struggling to get the words out again. “I can take you home.”
“He lies!” She shrieked.
“New York City. Disneyland. TCBY and Ben & Jerry’s Rainforest Crunch. Pres. Barack Obama and Seal Team Six,” I recited. “I was born in Ireland and my dad went to college in California. I was raised there. San Francisco, Boston, Washington DC and Padre Island. I’ve been there.” I choked and couldn’t seem to catch my breath. “I swear. Take you all home. If you stop her.” The air shimmered with the power of my vow and with an inarticulate cry of rage, she attacked me with the knife Martinez had given her but before it could pierce my flesh, it struck stone.
From nowhere, Murphy appeared and the blade hit his chest to shatter as he leaped between us. She fell, cursing to come up against the stacked supplies, tubes of compressed gas and 02. Grabbing one, she slammed it against Murphy and the tanks split, dispensing plumes of white vapor that froze both of them in its tracks. Liquid nitrogen covered most of Murphy and half of Jasra. She barely had time to scream before she died and as she fell, she shattered into pieces of frozen meat on the floor.
Murphy’s eyes moved and not much else. Cracks started, I could hear the faintest sound of stone splitting and tiny lines crept up his body from his feet, expanding as they reached his waist and chest.
“Master,” he said sorrowfully. “I love you. I will always love you.”
“Murphy!” I sobbed. “No!” I tried to reach him, to touch his flesh and warm him. I thought to change to my Dragon form and breathe fire to warm him but remembered I had no fire left. His eyes flared red and he smiled as he told me goodbye just before his whole body crumbled to dust before my eyes. I screamed denials and it was as if the heavens heard my sorrow for I took one last breath and remembered nothing more.
Chapter 45
I killed my best friend. I killed Murphy. The words ran through my head and in my more lucid moments I heard myself scream them and yet I couldn’t see or hear anything else. Slaps on the face brought my eyes open and a dirty, scraggly bearded Latino man was hissing at me to be quiet. “Kid, what’s your name? Shut the fuck up. What’s left of Jasra’s forces are hunting us, not to mention King Luke and
that scary looking dude with the sword.”
“That’s my grandpa,” I said lucidly. What I saw was strange. We were looking up at the ground and warm bodies were pressed close around me. Plants, leaves and things were sticking out of his cloak. I could see feet marching and running past us, a horse veered around our position almost stepping on someone’s helmet.
“We’re dug in,” he whispered seeing my confused look. “In a hole in the ground. We have no idea which way to head. North isn’t north here and we don’t fancy a trek back to the Garrison. Jasra said it would take nearly a year by normal means.”
“Do you have her red cloak?” I asked and he thought I was mad. Perhaps I was, I felt as if my head was balanced on a tray and could tip off any second. I was suddenly too hot and claustrophobic. Started panting and he took hold of me with one hand, the other still on his weapon.
“Calm down. You have a punctured lung and you’re not breathing so well. I put a chest tube in you and re-inflated your lung but you really need surgery. That ain’t gonna happen out here. Which way do we go?”
I was going to answer him but he sort of faded into a gray and green mist where I lay gently rocking. I sat up, put my hands on my knees and looked around. I recognized the beautifully landscaped grove where everything was a picture of perfection and nothing out of place. I was in the Unicorn’s Bower and it had the air of a place forgotten and unused. I called out as I stood up and wandered, searching for the Unicorn. I found the glade where she slept, a dell in the deepest grove of ancient elder trees, the grass knee-deep and covered with flame yellow daffodils and yellow and white jonquils. The grass wasn’t smashed down where she lay nor was my bed where I left it when I visited and spent the night with her. I heard birds chirping but their songs sounded sad and the sparkle that filled the place with her magical presence was gone.
“Mother?” I asked and my voice echoed back mocking me. I saw a reflection of myself in the crystal clear waters of the spring and my face scared me. I was looking at a skull with a thin veneer of gray skin pulled tight across the bones.
Before I could even think, I was torn loose from the security of the Bower and was back in the real world lying propped up against the rock near a small fire and Suarez was forcing water down my throat. I felt incredibly hot and every breath was a struggle with an alarming whistle.
“Hey man, you’re back with us?” He seemed surprised. There was snow on the ground and bare patches were even the tenacious cedars couldn’t find a crack to plant their roots. We were high up in the mountains and from their jagged peaks, I recognized what was left of the Sentinels.
“Raven,” I whispered hoarsely and coughed. Blood sprayed him in the face and he jerked back in fear.
“Oh man, oh man,” he moaned and wiped his face off with his sleeve.
I chuckled. “Don’t worry, bro. I’m a virgin.” He stared at me and his face dropped. “I mean, you won’t get AIDS or nothing like that from me. Sorry.”
He wiped my mouth off. “You hurting?”
“Where are we?”
“About 2 miles from where we left the EBM’s. Martinez humped you most of the way on his back. There’s a storage hut there with supplies. How you doing?”
“Been better. More water?” I asked and rested my head against the rock. It was warm from the fire. I was carefully keeping my thoughts away from Murphy and what I had done to him. Martinez appeared out of nowhere and dropped down to study me.
“Hey, Chico,” he greeted. “How ya doin’?”
“Not so good,” I attempted to smile.
Below us an ethereal glow lit the slopes and out of the thicket appeared the creature that cultures had dreamed of as a symbol of purity and goodness. There stood the unicorn and I gently pushed down the barrel of the rifle that Martinez had instantly brought to bear on the vision. “No,” I said gently watching her. She trotted forward a few steps, turned and beckoned us with her head. I struggled to get up and without moving his eyes from her, his arm grabbed the loose material at my throat and pulled. Really, this dude weighed no more than 150 pounds and was barely 5’8 but he handled me as if I weighed no more than a sack of dirty socks. “Follow her,” I whispered. “Follow her home.”
Suarez took one arm and Martinez the other as they both dragged me on the trail where her dainty cloven feet trod and in her steps, the trail became easier. It still wasn’t a picnic but where her cloven hooves stepped seemed to be a haven against the cold, the dark and even sightings from the rest of Jasra’s Army as they searched for us. I was warm and realized belatedly that I knew where Jasra’s red cloak was – on my shoulders. It was lined with fur and smelled of sharp spicy cinnamon and cinnabar.
She led us high onto a knifelike ridge where we could look down on the rest of this world, a ridge that hadn’t been here before I’d raised the Dragons. Below us, we could see thousands of scarlet coated troops searching and several of his men muttered about sky lining ourselves.
“Tell them, she’s shielding us,” I managed to say. “Just follow her.”
We walked and sometimes my feet moved on their own but mostly, they carried me. She led us no higher and that was good because it was already hard enough to breathe. I didn’t realize we’d stopped until both of them slid me to the ground in front of two enormous round black holes through the mountain’s wall. On the right was a metal Quonset hut with the door locked and bolted. One of the other men from behind me came up and opened it with a key hanging from his dog tags. As we entered, they started a generator sitting just inside the door and rolled it outside where it made barely any noise. Inside lights and heat came on.
Carefully Martinez got me up and carried me inside where he laid me out on the cot. Two men went back outside and walked guard duty. I raised myself up on one elbow and stared through my blue eye, raising wards around for a thousand yards. A faint blue shimmer told me we were safe from all but another wizard’s senses.
“Warded the perimeter,” I gasped and coughed violently. This time, I sprayed blood into the folds of my cloak and swallowed more. I lay back down but that was worse. I felt like I was drowning in my own fluids. “Can’t breathe,” I managed and Martinez was swift with his med kit. He found a tank of O2, tubing and a cannula, blood, IVs and a pole. Had me hooked up in minutes while the rest of his men heated MREs and made hot coffee and cocoa.
I was fiendishly thirsty but not hungry. The hot cocoa he pushed on me was so good going down and again as it hit my stomach. I tried to hold the cup but my hand shook so much I was in danger of spilling it long before it reached my mouth.
“Is she still out there?” I asked and Martinez nodded to one of his men who opened the door, slid through it so quietly I never heard it close. He was back in seconds.
“She’s still there. Waiting by the South tube. Is she for real?”
I snorted cocoa foam and remembered how Murphy used to play with the marshmallows in my cocoa. I stifled a sob and surreptitiously wiped my face. I didn’t want to be caught bawling like a baby in front of these macho Special Forces dudes. “You’ve seen dragons, wyverns, griffons, and harpies. Why not a unicorn? What are you? Seal Team? Force Recon?” I asked.
“Force Recon. We were in Afghanistan and on a long-range reconnaissance mission when Lieutenant Secrest disappeared. We got called back to search for him. He found us, told us about this chick he met and brought us here. Promised to give us a whole new world to conquer. Didn’t know our guns and explosives wouldn’t work here, though. Then, when we wanted to go home, he couldn’t find the wormhole back. Jasra would tell us she was looking for it but we needed an Amber citizen to find it for us since Luke wouldn’t. He had no interest in ruling our home Shadow.”
“There is a way I could take you if I was healthy,” I said. “It’s called a Hell Ride and it is that. Usually, we don’t do it unless something horrible and deadly is after us.” It took me a long time to get the words out and he waited patiently for me to finish. He kept trying to get me to eat and fi
nally to shut him up, I swallowed some thick meat soup that tasted really salty. It sat like a lump of tar in my throat, triggering a feeling of needing to vomit. When I did, it was to a gout of bright blood that soaked my chest and went splattering across the inside of the hut leaving droplets of blood on shelves stocked with parts, equipment, water bottles and foil packages.
I felt instantly cold as my blood pressure dropped and the edges of my vision darkened. I heard him cry out for drugs and barely felt myself fall flat on the cot.
I seemed to watch them working on me hovering above them as he stripped open my shirt exposing my chest. I saw him place the airbag over my face and squeeze while another swabbed my sides with iodine and punched a sharp tube in between my ribs. Blood splattered the floor in a steady stream as a third soldier hooked up a hastily warmed bag of blood squeezing it in as fast as it could go.
“Heart’s in V-fib,” he said tersely and took this enormous six-inch long needle and punched it through my chest wall straight into my heart. I knew what it felt like to get kicked by a mule and this was far worse – I knew why they called adrenaline re-animator juice as my heart shuddered and began galloping at the speed of light.
“BP?” Martinez snapped.
“30/15,” Suarez said calmly. “Pulse is 15.” He waited a few seconds. “Coming up, BP is 60/40, pulse 125.”
“Let’s wait 5 minutes and see if it levels off,” he returned calmly and counted my respirations. “32 and shallow. Up his 02 to 4.”
Fresh oxygen pulsed in my face, I was stuck between two worlds – one of life and the other the threshold of death. Idly, I wondered which one I was tipping towards when I felt a soft hand reach for the golden ring tied around my neck.
Mallei stood before me with Juniper, Gordy and the kids at her side. All sorts of animals lay at her feet. There was an illuminating glow to her shining through the very essence of her skin, her eyes and smile were blindingly beautiful. “Not yet, my beautiful Raitt. You have a long and wonderful life of ahead of you. Just hang on for a few more hours.” She bent forward and kissed me on the lips and peace filled me. I smiled, shuttered my eyes and sank back into a darkness where nothing harmed or touched me. Where nothing disturbed my dreams or sleep. Where I left the worries of whether I lived or died in the hands of that mystical magical presence that I knew was all around me.
Black Dragon of Amber Book Two: The Road to Amber Page 27
