by Paul Cude
Earth's surface. Coari, Amazon River, Brazil.
With the sound of the thick, brown river water gurgling and wriggling only a matter of yards away, the three men and two women slipped silently through the rickety door, closing it as tightly as possible behind them. Flicking the switch, bringing the room's solitary light bulb to life, all five of them formed a circle on the hole-ridden, partially rotted floorboards. Instinctively they joined hands, something necessary for the magic to work, at least on the level they were looking for. One of the women, dressed head to toe in green, her dark skin looking rich and magnificent against the different shades, started to chant, softly at first, rising with every second that passed. One by one each of them joined in, all in tune, sounding very much like an award winning choir by the end. As their song continued, a barely noticeable drumbeat started up on the metal roof above their heads. Lost in the words and rhythm of what they were doing, one by one the individuals opened themselves up, exposing their true selves, letting their magic and power be harnessed by the chant itself. Wisps of supernatural power in every different colour imaginable arced across the room, bouncing off walls, ricocheting off the ceiling, clashing with one another, exploding in tiny clouds of multicoloured madness. Drizzle turned to teeming rain, the thump of the drops hitting the roof sounding like a military beat, so loud now that it almost drowned out the chanting, which itself had reached fever pitch. Amongst those gathered, eyes rolled, extremities shook uncontrollably, heads flopped, madness reigned in their eyes, briefly anyway. By now the din had become almost deafening. How the surrounding townsfolk couldn't hear was yet another mystery, but magic had a way of doing its master's bidding, even on a subconscious level at times. Wisps turned to multilayered explosions, every possible combination of colours running riot inside the small shack, the roof now being battered from the torrential downpour on the outside, and the violence of the magic on the inside popped up and down nervously on the flimsy wooden supports that held it in place.
Hearts raced, ears burned, eyes were nearly overloaded by the sensation of bright, brilliant, bold colours. And then, almost as suddenly as it had all started... there was nothing. No noise, no colour, just the dull, white light of the bulb, casting long, thin shadows in the corners, barely showing up the treacherous holes in the floorboards. As the five of them returned to the here and now, each wiping sweat from across their faces, the woman who'd started it all spoke up.
"That should be enough to keep the rain flowing for weeks. We'd best leave this place and quickly. The Amazon is already high, and it won't take much for the flooding to start. We do not want to be anywhere near here when this gets out of hand. I suggest taking the first boat upriver out of here in the morning."
The other four all nodded in unison.
"Where do we go?" asked one of the men.
"We'll just head upriver, and away from here. Pucallpa might be our best bet, but that's at least a week away. Let's just get on the move. I'm sure any orders they have for us will reach us just like the last lot did."
As they boarded the well travelled boat, all of them thought back to the scruffy, dark skinned boy, wearing nothing but a tattered pair of shorts, if that's what they could be described as. Perhaps that's what they'd once been, but now looked like a gathering of holes, off on their family holidays. During one of their trips for supplies, the boy had approached them, and despite them all trying to shoo him away, he remained very persistent, claiming that they should follow him as he had something of great value for them. Sure that it was a scam, and knowing that many a foreigner was lured away to a rather untimely demise in this very manner, eventually the child did something that captured all of their attention. He uttered the word, "propositum," something they all knew to mean 'objective'. Needing no more convincing, they followed the boy to a secluded riverside about two miles out of town. There he recovered a hand written letter that he'd hidden beneath the roots of a huge overhanging tree. Gathered round, the group eagerly read their orders. They were to use their abilities to create as much mischief as they could up and down the waterway they were on. If lives were lost... so be it. After reading the letter, they all knew there were two immediate priorities. So one of the men retrieved his lighter from the side pocket of his dark blue backpack and immediately set fire to the paper, letting the charred remnants of it drift out over the meandering river, while the other four took care of the boy. There could be no witnesses. Now was not the time for any mistakes.
16 Cold As Steel
They watched, stony faced and cold hearted as one of their number was killed right before their eyes. The murder was not only unexpected, but something of a feat given the identity of his attacker, a dragon now slumped against the wall in the narrow corridor on the monitor they were watching in the control centre. He looked scrawny, weak... almost kind of new. But there was no mistaking the strength of will that he carried. Any enemy with that much endeavour and courage would be hard to take out, but take him out they would. Their instructions were to leave no being alive, and raze everything to the ground. As the shattered dragon on the screen crawled to his feet and limped back down the corridor, the two of them started to hatch their plan.
Deep within the barricaded store room, the rather awkward discussion had turned into a full on argument, the nurse with the conscience having finally had enough, telling the specialist medics, and the acerbic doctor whose idea it had been to hide away in the first place, exactly what she thought, in no uncertain terms. She figured it would cost her the job that she loved, but there were more important things at stake currently, and she knew there was a very real possibility of not making it through the next few hours alive. Most of the medics had come round to her way of thinking, wanting to go out into the facility and back up Steel in whatever way possible. It was only really the doctor in charge, a research scientist, and two of the other nurses, that were all for staying hidden.
"I really think we need to be going out and supporting our patient," pleaded one of the junior medics.
"Don't you understand?" argued one of the nurses. "It just isn't safe. How can it possibly be with all of those beings out there? There's no easy way to say it, but our patient is almost certainly lying dead in a corridor somewhere. We need to stay here until help arrives."
"Well said," stated the doctor in charge. "It's not what any of us wanted to hear, but she is almost certainly right, I'm afraid."
It was just then that the squabbling reignited, with everyone talking over each other, shouting, shoving, with things getting more than a little heated. It made her mad. It really did. Those words... 'Lying dead in a corridor.' Not one of them knew him like she did. He was a fighter, a winner, a dragon who would never quit. And now he needed them more than ever and here they were, fighting like love struck teenagers, while all the time cowering in fear. Enough was enough. It was time to act.
He ached all over. Worse still, his head was spinning like a forgotten coin in a tumble dryer. But, picking up the lethal sword, he soldiered on, carefully, afraid but glad to be alive, ready for whatever else life would throw at him today.
It hadn't taken them long to find what they were looking for. The dragon computer systems were almost as easy to hack as the human ones that they so often had to infiltrate. There on the computer screen before them, lay a schematic of the facility and the access to the environmental controls they'd been looking for. They'd guessed right. A medical compound such as this one did indeed have the ability to rigorously change the temperature within, just in case a dangerous pathogen needed containing. Struggling to contain their laughter as they dialled the setting down to its coldest, the nagas looked forward to the short taste of winter they'd missed so much during the preceding weeks, knowing full well just what it would do to any dragons left alive inside the place.
"YOU NEED TO LET ME OUT!" she all but screamed at the doctor in charge and his cohorts, who stood between her and the exit.
"No can do, I'm afraid," he replied smugly. "I was
put in charge here for a reason, nurse, and that reason is that my judgement and experience makes me the best dragon to run this facility, and look after all the dragons in it."
The last couple of words came out laboured, a cross between a pant and an asthmatic trying to catch their breath. Odd, everyone seemed to think. That is until they all started to feel it... in their chests and throats at first. An icy chill, much in the same way as drinking the coldest drink possible leaves a biting sensation when it's gone... refreshing on a hot day, not so much at any other time. One of the medics spoke up first.
"They've adjusted the temperature. What are we going to do?"
Everyone looked to the doctor for some guidance. He just stood there, clueless and gormless fighting to see which one would win.
"If we stay here, we'll all be too cold to do anything. I say we find Steel and fight."
The nurse who'd suggested he was already dead opened her mouth to speak, but 'Nurse Conscience' cut her short.
"You're right, he might already be dead. But I'll fight with my dying breath without him if I have to. Much better that way than hunched over, locked in a store cupboard, frozen to death, like the cowards they take us for. I'm done hiding from these cockwombles. I say it's time to take the fight to them."
A rousing cheer reverberated around the small room from everyone but the doctor and his followers. Reluctantly realising he had little choice, he removed the magic in the form of shields, mantras and supernatural locks from the door, and let the others slink out into the corridor. With the last one through, the four of them closed the door, once again applied the defences and wondered if they had indeed done the right thing.
It was only when he started to shiver, that he had any idea that something might be wrong. He'd felt terrible since the encounter with the naga. His head hadn't stopped spinning, and at first he'd thought that whatever was going on was a result of that. Plainly now he could see that it wasn't. The temperature was dropping fast, causing his muscles to burn, legs and arms to shake, and the mother of all headaches to form behind his face. It felt like the worst brain freeze in the world. Staggering on with much more urgency now, almost sprinting into unknown rooms, whereas only a matter of moments ago caution had been the watchword, he knew he needed to find wherever the temperature was being controlled from. And he needed to do it fast. On his way out of his room when this had all first started, he'd gotten a sense that a lot of dragons were holed up in the furthest reaches of the compound, barricaded in from what he could make out. He couldn't blame them. He was as afraid as they were. Only he was used to channelling his fear, something he'd already used to his advantage, and was doing so now to power himself on. If he didn't get that temperature back up, those dragons, the ones that had nursed him back to health, would all die in the most excruciating agony. Determined to prevent that at any cost, he raced around the next corner.
There were eight of them altogether, all being led by 'Nurse Conscience', all heading towards the control centre, where they knew the temperature was being regulated. It was a struggle. Dragons hate cold more than pretty much anything else. As well as the physical pain it causes to them, it can have some other rather disturbing effects. It stops them using their natural gases to produce a flame, or flames in some cases. While not life threatening, it does cause inflammation of the stomach lining and what can only be described as the world's worst case of indigestion, not something a dragon needs. Cold can also make a dragon far less bendable than normal. Most dragon scales when warm are supple, lithe and flexible. But once the temperature changes, they become susceptible to not only a build up of ice in the minuscule gaps between the scales, but the scales themselves can become brittle and easily broken. In the early stages this can slow a dragon down considerably, while in much colder conditions it can lead to an agonising death. A dragon's wings can also be affected by a drop in temperature. The receptors that sense air currents and the warmth of the air can become numb, make the appendages all but useless, flight impossible and cause difficulty in walking because they won't stay tucked in behind a dragon's back where they are supposed to be. The entire group of staff were all suffering from the early stages of this but, to their credit, they were all managing it really well, given just how dire things looked. Creeping towards the end of the corridor, which itself was just along from the control room, 'Nurse Conscience' carefully poked her head around the corner, before swiftly darting it back out of sight. She held up one finger to her lips for all the others to see. None of them moved a muscle. With their attuned dragon hearing, a kind of slip-sliding motion echoed from around the corner somewhere. At first it got louder, seemingly heading in their direction, before tailing off completely. Counting to thirty in her head, she turned to the others and began whispering.
"That naga came out of the control room. It looks like now's our chance. I don't know if there are any more in there. It might be empty, or there might be fifty of his friends all waiting for us. But the longer we wait, the colder we get, and the less chance we have of surviving. I say we go in, guns blazing for everything we're worth. What do you think?"
Each and every one of them nodded eagerly in response. That settled it. Magic at the ready, they moved with all the speed they could muster.
Unusually for dragons, they huddled together to keep warm. Currently though, it was doing little good. It hadn't occurred to them that the storeroom they'd hidden in was dedicated to strange medicines, and had any number of abnormal pathogens been in the building, this was one of the most likely places for them to be stored. With that in mind, the air temperature and recycling system had not one, not two, but three vents into this pokey little room, which as it stood, was one of the coldest parts of the entire building. Still though, they all refused to come out.
Catching his breath in a relatively small cubby hole beside a three metre high stack of drawers that contained all sorts of medical supplies and one off mantras, he rested the deadly, and now because of the cold, rather heavy sword against the wall. His courage had started to wane. He'd searched high and low for something that would lead him to the control room, without any luck. And without finding that, he knew there was little chance of surviving for more than a matter of minutes at most. The tiniest fraction of a fraction of a fraction within him screamed that he should find a way out, but that wasn't him. He wasn't leaving. Not without the others. If nothing else, he knew that. But things were now desperate. His head had gone from spinning to a kind of fuzzy, muzzy feeling. His limbs, wings and tail all tingled. Pins and needles if you like, with an added dash of pain. The only way he could possibly conceive of getting out of here was if the control room was right around the next corner. If it wasn't, they were pretty much all doomed.
Extending his magical senses as far as they would go, while all the time on the lookout for the one dragon that they'd seen on the security cam, he slithered down another identical corridor, taking in the bracing and refreshing chill the air had to offer. It was a faint reminder of what he thought of as home. Smiling at having won the bet to be the one out here on the hunt for the cold, weak and defenceless dragon, he knew that under different circumstances he'd have thought it unsporting. But everything they'd been doing was to get their king back. Without him they had nothing. He'd been away too long. He could almost taste his monarch's freedom, and after that... retribution.
They hit the door at speed. Two of the medics had insisted on going first, something 'Nurse Conscience' had little problem with, fully aware that there would only be a few seconds in it. She knew she'd get her chance. As the door crashed off its hinges, twisting and writhing up in the air as it did so, the singular naga, its body swaying from side to side in front of a computer console, was the picture of surprise as eight enraged dragons tore through the opening and headed straight for him. If he'd managed to erect his shield he might have had an outside chance. But he was surprised, and slow to react. In his panic, he chose the wrong option and decided to go on the offensive. Lashing out with
sickly green bolts of magic, the naga gave himself over to his power, one hundred percent.
They were, of course, much slower than they should have been, the cold, even now, taking its effect. But they were dragons. Born to fight, born to win. It was ingrained in their very DNA. Odds didn't matter. Not now. Not ever. In truth, the naga never really had a chance. His poisonous bolts tore through the wings of one of the leading medics, sending him spinning off to one side, before crashing into a bank of servers. One of the nurses had a bolt pierce her thigh, causing her to slump clumsily to the floor mid run. But by now they were on him and had already showered him with a whole host of brutal dragon magic. One had used a medical mantra designed to cut through scales during dragon surgery. It superheated the air into a fine beam strong enough to penetrate almost anything, tearing through the naga's chest, clean through to the other side, hitting the far wall. The next two dragons both had the same idea, now that they lacked their flame. Part of their jobs involved cutting, sometimes organs, sometimes bone, scale, muscle or tendon. You name a body part, they've probably cut it at some point. As they'd charged in, not knowing what to expect, the thought that had come to the fore in both of them was that it was easy enough to cast if you'd had the practice (which they had). The mantra in question could produce one, two, or many more, tiny, metallic circular spinning blades, with edges so sharp you could almost slice the air itself. Presently, eight or so of these blades were flying through the air, all at different angles, all headed for the stunned looking naga. 'Nurse Conscience', fifth through the gap where the now battered and smoking door had stood, readied the power within her. She was angry about everything that had happened today, and was more than happy to help destroy the cause of things. Unfortunately for her, she never got the chance. Stunned from the hole that now traversed his torso, the naga could do nothing against the spinning blades heading his way. Instantly, they all found their mark, all piercing his slippery, grey flesh. It was over before it had started. As a group they stood still, not exactly admiring their handiwork, more... taking stock. A split second later they realised they hadn't finished. While three of them tended to the injured, the other three tossed the naga's remains into a corner, and started to check out the computer, with a view to making things much more toasty.
