Metal Dragon (Warriors of Galatea Book 2)

by Lauren Esker

  With the blanket draped around her, Meri wriggled out of her jeans underneath it. She was starting to get almost blasé about casual nudity; there simply wasn't much opportunity for privacy, living in close quarters like this.

  She let Lyr and Tamir go ahead and argue over their plans. This was way out of her depth. But one thing she did know. Anyone who tried to separate her from Lyr was going to have a problem on their hands.

  17

  ___

  M ERI WOKE AT DAWN with Lyr sleeping warm and heavy against her, roused by the sound of Tamir rustling around in the cargo hold. She waited until he was gone, then wrapped a blanket around herself and tiptoed outside. The rain had rolled onward during the night, leaving the world fresh and clean.

  Her clothes were still damp, as well as mildly smoked from the campfire, but it wasn't like she had any other options except wearing a blanket all day. Teeth clenched against the chill, she squirmed into her clammy jeans.

  "Morning," Tamir said, appearing out of the edge of the forest with an armload of firewood.

  Meri buttoned her blouse and stamped into her damp but mud-free shoes. "Good morning to you too. Any sign of, um, pirates? Or anything?"

  He dropped the firewood and shook his head. "No. If it wasn't for Lyr having spotted the other ship last night, I wouldn't know anyone was around. Still, I think hiding our tracks would be a good idea."

  "Can I do anything to help?"

  "You could give me a hand with this." He picked up a branch, and when he leaned it against the side of the ship, she realized it wasn't firewood—it was camouflage to conceal the ship in the thicket.

  "So we are trying to hide."

  "We're being cautious," he corrected her.

  They worked in silence for a little while. Tamir seemed better today, still limping but moving more easily. He paused occasionally to scratch with irritation at his fur.

  "I see that you're still shedding."

  He grinned at her. "If this keeps up, I'm going to end up bald as the rest of you."

  "Your fur looks too itchy anyway," she teased back, then sobered. "Tamir ..." She didn't really want to ask it, but after what she'd seen of their technology and ships, she had to. "Are your people planning to try to conquer my world?"

  Tamir was silent for long enough to worry her. "Not right now," he said at last. "My ship was part of a garrison keeping people like those pirates away from your planet."

  "Not right now doesn't sound as reassuring as I'd hoped for."

  "I know that. According to rumor, my people want to open diplomatic negotiations with your people, like we have with the dragons; they're just still working out the details. But ... I don't know, Meri. I'm a soldier, not a politician."

  Meri blew out a breath. It wasn't his fault. As a former military wife, she knew all too well the feeling of having the brass and politicos make decisions that moved the ordinary grunts around like pieces on a chessboard. But he was still one of them; the fact that she liked him didn't change that. "And if that ship we saw last night was your people, come to take you and Lyr back ... what will you do then?"

  "I don't know," Tamir said quietly, and went to gather more branches.

  Meri was still working on piling branches to hide the ship's silver gleam when Lyr stepped, yawning, out of the open cargo door. He gave her a quick kiss. "I could get used to this kissing thing," he remarked.

  "I'm not sure if I believe that your people don't do it. Are you sure that's not a line?"

  Lyr smiled. He looked at what she was doing, then lifted an entire small tree and casually tossed it onto the top of the ship.

  "You're not supposed to be exerting yourself!" she protested.

  "I feel much better today." He grinned at her. He did look better. She still wasn't sure what constituted a good color for people of that particular iridescent-metallic-bronze shade, but there was a bright energy to him today that suffused him from the inside out.

  It made her heart sing, too. It was almost enough to make her not care about the fact that she was wearing clothes she'd been wearing for three days and hadn't had a proper bath in that long, either.

  ... okay, she still cared about that. "We're all going to need changes of clothes before too long," she remarked, plucking at her damp sleeve. "Just getting rained on is not going to do it. I can probably make some ponchos or something out of our spare blankets that'll do for a little while, but it's not going to be comfortable."

  Lyr hefted another small tree, one of many severed in their crash landing and by his later clearing efforts around the ship, and leaned it against the hull. "If we can't resupply soon, we're going to need a lot of supplies we don't have."

  "I know," she sighed. "But there's no point in wearing our clothes until they're rags while we're waiting." She watched him fling another tree on top of the ship. "You know, I'm feeling mildly outclassed here. Why don't I start breakfast?"

  There were still a few fish left from last night, cleaned and packed in layers of leaves. Meri had stirred up the fire and was practicing her fish-spitting skills when Tamir appeared out of the woods again, his fur damp from the rain-soaked foliage.

  "You know," he remarked, "for the record, you're both at the top of my list of people I'd like to be stranded on a savage planet with."

  "That's good, since you don't have any other options." Meri stood back to survey her handiwork with the fish, and tried not to wish too desperately for coffee.

  "Well, as my contribution, I found these." Tamir held out a handful of dimpled purple-blue fruits, the color of a ripe blueberry but each as large as a grape. "I checked them out with the cuffs. They won't hurt us."

  "Which isn't exactly the same thing as being tasty," Meri murmured. She sniffed cautiously at the one he handed her. It smelled mildly citrusy. "Also, it's still possible to be allergic."

  "I'll be your test case. I've already eaten a few and I haven't dropped dead yet."

  "I'm going to remind you of that when we have to do CPR on you later."

  ***

  Lyr found it baffling how well Meri and Tamir were getting along. It was sibling-like bickering, almost, that carried to him from the campfire as he worked on hiding the ship. He was definitely not jealous. That would be ridiculous.

  "Lyr!" Meri called. "Breakfast!"

  "And fruit for dessert," Tamir added as Lyr joined them at the campfire, wiping sap off his hands with a handful of wet leaves.

  Meri made a face. "Those are awful. You talked me into eating one, but I'm not having another."

  "What about you?" Tamir asked Lyr, offering him a dark blue berry. "This one has no adventure in her soul."

  "This one doesn't want to poison herself, thanks."

  "Analysis says they're harmless."

  "Do you even know how many people I treated in the ER for eating something weird they thought was harmless?"

  Lyr tried a berry and had to agree with Meri's assessment; it didn't taste particularly edible to him. The fish was much more satisfying.

  "After this I'm going up for awhile," he said, pointing skyward. "Now that you're awake to keep an eye on Meri—"

  "Wait, what's this?" Meri said indignantly.

  "—that is to say, now that you can watch out for each other, I can do some more long-range scouting. I'll look for the module and the ship from last night."

  Meri wanted to see him off, so they left Tamir hauling more branches and walked up the hill hand in hand. Around them in the grass, tiny alien lizards sang high, piping songs.

  "I think with a nice little house with indoor plumbing, this would be a lovely place to live," Meri said. "Er ... and perhaps a high, electrified fence around the yard."

  Lyr smiled. "Is a house in the forest what you want?"

  "I don't know what I want," she said simply. "I haven't thought about the future since Aaron died ... not like that." After a pause, she asked, "What about you?"

  Strange to think about having a future—a future he got to choose, rather than having
all decisions made for him. It was a pressure like a gravity well, like the weight of all that air above him. "I don't know either. Perhaps it is best not to make plans; so many things are uncertain still."

  "That doesn't mean we can't have dreams." She looked up at him, her fingers twined in his. "Do you want to go back to your city-ship, Lyr?"

  "They would not have me."

  "But if you could?"

  His heart cried out for it. And yet ... "The Galateans say you can never go back to your childhood home. You will always see it through an adult's eyes. I think I've seen too much and been too many places to be truly happy there anymore."

  "So tell me about your dream house."

  What did he want? He had never thought in those terms before. But when he thought about it, an image came to him slowly. He opened up his mind and shared it with her.

  A house on a cliff. Somewhere high, somewhere with sky all around. A big house, rambling and full of rooms. Room for ...

  ... for what, he didn't know. Once, it would have needed to be big enough for his sept-sibs. But they were gone. Room for anyone who needed a place to go. Escaped slaves. Refugees.

  He shared it with her tentatively, shyly. Maybe she wouldn't want such a thing. Maybe her people craved privacy and distance from others. But he liked the idea of having others around, even if he didn't know exactly who, yet. He liked thinking that he might be able to create a place where the lost and the abandoned could feel safe, the way he hadn't been able to. Maybe someday, he could feel safe there too.

  Meri's hand tightened on his, and he realized he'd let that last thought slip, as clumsy as an untrained hatchling. The answer she sent him through the link was not in words. Instead it was a picture of the two of them together on a balcony outside just such a house, drinking cups of some bitter drink that he gathered was a traditional drink of her people. Just sitting together, looking down at the view together.

  *I would live in a house like that with you,* her images said.

  With the link between them singing with warmth and her fingers tangled in his, they climbed to the crest of the hill. Below them, the land dropped away steeply toward the beach. A fresh breeze off the ocean rippled the grass around their feet.

  "And you're absolutely sure you're feeling up to it?" Meri asked.

  "I'll be careful. Stretching my wing will be good for its healing. I was worried about leaving you alone before, but now that Tamir's up and about, you'll be fine with him as long as the two of you stay close to the ship."

  She kissed him quickly and then stepped back with an eager look on her face. "Go on. I want to see you as a dragon again."

  Lyr tried not to preen too obviously, and relaxed into the satisfying feeling of the shift. As always, the world altered around him, becoming smaller and simultaneously richer in sounds and smells. He blinked draconic eyes and looked down at Meri, who was gazing up at him in rapture.

  "You're so beautiful," she said, and reached out her hands. Her open wonder was charming, and before he realized he was doing it, he'd dipped his head so she could stroke the softer scales on the underside of his neck. "Are you sure I can't come with you?"

  *Maybe we'll experiment sometime soon. I might be able to carry a passenger, but I've never tried, and I don't think it would be a good idea to try it with a healing wing.*

  "Oh no, of course not." She stepped back to look at him critically. "How do you feel? Does your wing feel all right?"

  He stretched out his wings, giving them a cautious, experimental flap. *Only one way to find out for sure. Can you move back? I don't want to risk hurting you.*

  "You would never hurt me," she said decisively, but she moved back to the edge of the nearest thicket.

  Lyr ran toward the crest of the dune, wings spread. Meri's alarm flickered at the back of his mind, but he felt nothing but elation as he leaped off. There was an instant of pain and unexpected strain when his wings caught his weight, and then he was aloft, soaring higher and higher in great sweeping circles beneath the sun.

  Meri's fear had turned to joy, tickling his mind like effervescent bubbles and blending with his own delight, until he couldn't tell where his happiness left off and hers began.

  *Soon I'll be too far away to easily talk to you,* he sent to her. *So don't worry if I'm out of touch for a bit.*

  *Have fun and be careful! Don't go too far. Come back to me.*

  *I will.*

  He didn't add "I promise," but it was there, a gentle underlying assurance. He had something to come back to now. He wasn't going to leave her behind.

  *Be well,* she told him.

  *You too.*

  He flew in a wide, sweeping circle over the crash site. They'd done a decent job of hiding the crashed ship under foliage, but there was nothing to be done about the huge scar where the ship had torn a furrow down the hillside until it came to rest at the bottom of the valley. At least it wasn't immediately obvious that there was anyone living there.

  Meri, walking down the hill back to the campsite, looked up and waved. Lyr tilted to dip his wings to her, and then soared higher, looking down until even his sharp eyes could no longer pick out her tiny figure.

  From up here, the trees blurred together into a patchwork carpet of green and purple and gold following the natural rise and fall of the land. The beach was a white ribbon clinging to the shore of the wide, sparkling sea. Far out over the ocean, a few large, dark-winged shapes wheeled against the sky, too far away for him to make out anything about them except that they were very large, possibly even close to dragon-sized. He made a mental note to try to get a better look later ... but maybe not from too close.

  In the meantime, he was an object of curiosity for other flying creatures. A flock of small, bright-colored winged lizards fluttered around him for a moment, straining their little wings to keep pace and then falling back to dive and vanish under the forest canopy.

  So far, he saw no sign of any other ship. But this country would be all too easy to hide in, with all of its many hills and valleys like the one their ship had crashed into. This boded well for their ability to avoid detection, but it also meant there could be any number of other ships here, and he'd never find them.

  He flew higher, and yet higher, through thin ribbons of clouds draping the mountains' peaks. There was snow on the highest peaks, and he thought of diving into it, sliding and swimming in the frozen waves.

  He needed to bring Meri up here. He wanted to share it with her.

  And then he realized that he could.

  *Love?* he asked, only realizing after he'd already opened the connection that he had called her thus. *Can you hear me?*

  *I'm here,* her answer came back, thready and distant, but strengthening as the connection grew firmer between them. *Is something wrong?*

  *Not at all. I wanted you to be able to enjoy this view with me.*

  And he opened up to her. He still kept careful control, as he always did with non-telepaths, sending images in a trickle rather than a flood. But he could feel her joy and awe coming back down the link as he shared with her not just the glorious view but also the sensations he felt: the crisp chill of the air around him, the damp cool feeling of soaring through clouds, the thin warmth of the sunlight on his wings.

  *I had a dream, the first morning I woke on this planet,* she sent back to him. *It was just like this. Were you flying that morning?*

  *I took a short flight to look around. I didn't realize you sensed it.*

  *Neither did I.* Her mental voice was filled with wonder. *Until now.*

  Lyr circled in wide spirals above the high peaks, enjoying the shared experience almost as if she was here with him. He flew through a pass between two high, rocky peaks, and got a look at the other side of the mountains for the first time since their crash. It was less steep than the ocean side, the mountains rolling down in a series of smaller peaks to a plateau.

  *Are you still there?* Meri's mental voice was faint now, distance-attenuated.

  *
I may be out of range for a little while. I won't be gone long.*

  He flew lower, skimming the mountainside. The landscape was drier here than on the ocean side of the mountains, the forest sparser and made up of tall, spiky trees rather than the dense, leafy thickets on the other side. The open forest would be easier for hunting, he couldn't help thinking, as a small herd of dinos scattered under the shadow of his wings. It also made it harder for predators to hide and sneak up on unwary prey, such as what had happened to him and Meri at the spring.

  His wings were starting to burn from the unaccustomed strain. He'd better turn around soon, or else he'd need a rest before he tried to fly back over the mountains—

  Wait. Was that a glimmer up ahead, as of the sun glinting on metal?

  Yes. There it was. The module had come to rest at the edge of a lake on the plateau. Like their own crashing ship, it had plowed up a great furrow in the earth, now half full of water, like a long canal pointing toward the bulk of the crashed module resting in the marshy lake-edge.

  The presence of survivors was clearly evident from the air. In the few days since the crash, they had begun to build a little village on the sightly higher ground just above the module. Lyr circled to get a better look. He was impressed despite himself. They'd built a circle of crude huts, little more than branch lean-tos at this point, but he saw signs that a larger structure was starting to go up nearby. Smudges of smoke indicated the presence of campfires. A party of hunters or foragers were headed back from the woods, carrying bundles. They looked up as his shadow fell across them, and ducked under the trees with evident alarm.

  His wide-winged presence was causing general panic in the village as well. As he banked over them, they scattered for shelter, making him think they might have had some experience with the large flying creatures he'd spotted earlier. Or perhaps they were merely being cautious of large lizards on a strange planet ... something he probably should have taken to heart himself.

  The ache in his injured shoulder was growing more acute, like the point of a dull blade digging into the joint. He needed to land soon or he was going to make a spectacularly undignified entrance by belly-flopping in the lake.