by David Weber
“As I believe we were saying earlier, I can’t get away with traveling as lightly as I did back when I was a mere heir to the throne. That whole thundering herd can’t be more than fifteen, twenty minutes behind us. It won’t hurt me to cool my heels until they catch up. For that matter,” he patted Gray Wind’s shoulder again, “the wait might help me remember to be a little more attentive next time around. I should’ve realized he was pulling up lame before it ever got to this point.”
“As you say, Your Majesty,” Deep Valley said after a moment and climbed down from his own saddle.
Merlin nodded unobtrusively to Corporal Boyke Cohlmyn, the senior of the Guardsmen currently attached to Cayleb, and Cohlmyn nodded in response, then turned his horse and trotted back the way they’d come to fetch the support party following along behind. They could have been closer, but Cayleb had deliberately ridden on ahead, putting a little space between him and the healer, the secretaries, the additional Guardsmen, the extra horses, and all the other impedimenta which accompanied him wherever he went. The entire collection—except, possibly, for the secretaries—was a colossal waste of time, in his opinion. By now, all the world knew that someone under Merlin Athrawes’ protection didn’t need anyone else’s. He’d said as much, on more than one occasion and more than a little petulantly, but Sharleyan only looked at him that way whenever he did.
“It makes them feel better,” she’d say … and that would be that.
“And while we’re waiting,” he said now, “did anyone brin—”
It was fortunate, he thought later, that no one realized he’d broken off in mid-word a fraction of a second before Merlin whirled, dropped his horse’s reins, and hurled himself up the trail.
* * *
It wasn’t Lieutenant Bynyt’s fault.
He and his detachment had done everything right, and the entire excursion had been blessedly uneventful. Until he heard the hideous scream, at any rate.
He knew what it was the instant he heard it. He was a lieutenant, but like many Marine officers, he’d started as a noncom, and a very youthful Corporal Bynyt had served under an equally youthful emperor in Cayleb’s Corisande campaign.
He’d heard the shriek of dying horses before.
His head came up as the same sound ripped around the bend in the trail towards him again. He couldn’t be certain, but it sounded like a second horse this time, and his hand dropped automatically to the revolver at his side.
“What the—?” the guide riding just ahead of him began.
“Adkok!” Bynyt bellowed over the other man, booting his own suddenly panicky horse as he forced it back under control and turned it broadside across the trail. “Get her out of here now!”
* * *
Alahnah Ahrmahk’s head snapped up as the unearthly sound interrupted her conversation with Gladys Frymyn. She’d just started turning towards it when Bynyt shouted, and Jyrohm Adkok responded instantly.
“Go, Your Highness!” the sergeant snapped. “Back to your Father—now!”
His horse crowded suddenly up beside hers even as he spoke. No, not beside hers, she realized; between hers and whatever had made that dreadful sound. And his revolver was in his hand.
“What—?” she began, then closed her mouth with a snap. She was her parents’ daughter and she’d been ruthlessly drilled in what to do when bodyguards started snapping orders. So instead of arguing, she nodded once, reined her horse around, and drove in her heels.
The mare tossed her head in surprise, then gathered herself and launched back down the trail.
Frahnk Strathmohr’s gelding was half a length ahead of the mare as the corporal responded automatically to his training and his standing orders. He was Alahnah’s close cover, the bodyguard assigned to stick to her whatever happened … and to always be between her and the threat. He had no idea what was coming down the trail towards them, except that it was a threat. It might be assassins, it might be kidnappers, it might be anything. He didn’t know, but the drill for this situation was clear. Whatever was behind them, it was behind them, and that made it the rest of the detachment’s responsibility. His job was to clear the trail before her, and anything waiting ahead of them would have to go through him to reach her.
Lywys Whytmyn was a heartbeat behind the Marines in recognizing the threat—or that there was a threat, at any rate—because he lacked their trained and honed hyper-awareness. When he did, he wheeled his own horse around, but he held the gelding back long enough for Gladys and Stefyny to follow on Corporal Strathmohr’s heels. He waited to be sure they’d turned back, then darted a look over his shoulder at Adkok.
“Go, My Lord!” the sergeant snapped, not even looking in his direction. He’d holstered his revolver … but he’d also dismounted, and now he pulled the M987 rifle from his saddle scabbard.
“But—”
“Get the fuck out of here!” Adkok snarled. “This is my job—you get your ass down that trail and help watch her back!”
Whytmyn stared at him for one more second, then swore vilely, clapped in his heels, and went thundering after Strathmohr and the women.
* * *
“Oh, shit!” the guide gasped as the equine scream ended abruptly and they heard another sound: a deep, whistling bellow that ripped through the woodland like an avalanche.
“Dragon!” the man shouted, turning his horse to flee. “It’s not a slash lizard! It’s a Shan-wei–damned drag—!”
He never finished the sentence.
Corporal Draifys was closest to the bend in the trail. He was still drawing his revolver when twenty feet of gray-green, scaly hide exploded around it behind a gaping maw of foot-long bloody fangs. A taloned paw, bigger than a grown man’s chest, slashed out, and it flung the Marine from the saddle like a broken, bloodied puppet.
The guide was closer than Bynyt, and the hideous jaws closed on him with a wet, dreadful crunch even before Draifys hit the ground. His scream of fear died stillborn as the great dragon reared up, tossed its head and hurled his mutilated body aside, and the same foot that had killed Draifys slashed out at the man’s rearing, panicked horse.
The talons raked once, ripping the horse’s belly open, and it shrieked as it was disemboweled. It went to its knees, then collapsed completely, and the great dragon whirled towards Bynyt.
The Marine had thrown himself from the saddle of his rearing horse, his revolver was up in a two-handed shooting stance, and thunder rolled as the dragon turned.
The first bullet smashed into the dreadful predator’s shoulder while it was still turning. The second took it in the chest. The third hit the base of its neck, the fourth hit it just above its right eye and bounced off the inches-thick bone of its skull.
There was no fifth shot.
A fully mature great dragon was two and a half tons of ravening fury. Lieutenant Ahlbyrt Bynyt knew he couldn’t stop it with a revolver, but he was a Marine, and his crown princess—and his emperor—were somewhere down that trail behind him. His revolver was still up, his finger squeezing the trigger, when the dreadful jaws closed yet again.
* * *
Sir Braiys Sohmyrsyt was still staring at the spot where Merlin Athrawes had vanished when he heard the first shot, faint with distance.
“Alahnah!” Cayleb shouted, then whirled back to Hairahm Fyrnahndyz as three more rapid shots rolled toward them. “Horse—now!” he barked.
The huntsman stared at him for one stunned instant, then threw him the reins and held the stirrup for his emperor.
“No, Your Majesty!” Deep Valley shouted, crowding his horse up beside Fyrnahndyz’ mount as Cayleb vaulted into the saddle. “We can’t risk you! Not when we don’t even know—!”
Cayleb only reached past him, yanked the heavy rifle from Gray Wind’s saddle, and drove in his heels. The baron looked after him for a moment, then swore and went thundering after him with every Imperial Guardsman at his heels.
* * *
Great dragons were the apex hunters of Safehold. Despi
te their name, they were carnivores, more closely related to the slash lizard Cayleb and his party had expected to be hunting than to the herbivore hill or jungle dragons. In fact, they looked very much like overgrown slash lizards, although they were very nearly twice as large and covered in thick, well-insulated hide rather than fur. They were little more than a third the size of a jungle dragon … but jungle dragons could reach fifteen or sixteen tons. Great dragons were the most dreadful and feared predators in the entire world, better than twice the size of the largest Old Earth polar bear ever measured. Their mere presence was enough to drive any other predator from any range they claimed—not even a slash lizard would challenge them—and not just because of their size or their ferocity. Huge as they were, they were also blindingly fast, agile, savagely territorial, and smart.
And mated pairs hunted as a team.
* * *
Alahnah Ahrmahk heard the great dragon’s bellow, and then the sound of shots, behind her. She’d never heard a hunting great dragon before, never heard its challenge scream when its territory was invaded. She didn’t know what she’d heard even now, what her bodyguards were firing at, but her heart froze as she realized only one of them was shooting at all.
Her eyes stung and she blinked furiously, trying to clear them of tears. Her Marines had protected her since she could walk. They were family, uncles she’d always known were there to keep her safe from any harm. Now she was running away, fleeing without even knowing what she fled from, and they were dying behind her. She knew those men—she knew they would stand together in the face of Hell itself, so if only one of them was shooting, it was because only one of them was still alive.
And she was running away. Abandoning them. She knew the story of how her mother’s Guardsmen had died almost to the man, saving her from assassination at the Convent of Saint Agtha. She’d always known it could happen to her Marines. But her mother had stood and fought beside her protectors, and she … she was running away.
Not even knowing that was her duty, her overriding responsibility, could make it hurt a single bit less.
Her mare shied suddenly. Its head came up, it stumbled, and Alahnah Ahrmahk’s eyes widened in horror as the great dragon’s mate exploded into the trail ahead of her.
Something a great dragon’s size didn’t have to be an ambush hunter, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be one, and Frahnk Strathmohr never saw it coming. It erupted from his left, out of that restricted visibility he hadn’t liked, and it was five times the size of the horse under him. It bowled the gelding over effortlessly, Strathmohr flew from the saddle and smashed headlong into a tree. His neck snapped, his body bounced back, thudded limply to the trail, and the great dragon hissed like a steam automotive as it twisted around toward Alahnah.
Old Charisians were seamen, not horsemen, but Chisholmians were another matter, and Alahnah Ahrmahk had been thrown up onto her first pony almost before she could walk. Once she was in the saddle, she was a centaur, yet not even she could hold the mare when they found themselves face-to-face with a six-limbed horror from Hell. The horse screamed in panic, twisted impossibly around on its haunches.
It bolted back the way it had come, and Alahnah cried out as her head struck a low-hanging branch. It was only a glancing blow, but it was more than enough to stun her, and she lost the reins as she reeled in the saddle.
It was all she could do to stay with the mare; she didn’t have a prayer of controlling it.
* * *
Fresh thunder rolled behind him, and Lywys Whytmyn twisted his head around, daring to look back, away from the trail ahead of him.
Jyrohm Adkok’s job was to cover his crown princess’ escape, and he’d dropped behind a downed tree to one side of the trail, rifle ready, to do just that. The Mahndrayn-97 was a powerful weapon, firing a 350-grain bullet at over twenty-four hundred feet per second. It was a superb mankiller, famous for its lethality and accuracy, and Adkok was an expert shot.
But for all its virtues, the M897 had never been intended to take down a two-and-a-half-ton monster.
Sergeant Adkok knew how little hope of stopping a great dragon with it he had. He recognized that in the instant he saw the nightmare flowing down the trail towards him like a tsunami.
He was off the trail, out of the great dragon’s immediate path, and its attention was obviously on the horses fleeing before it. It probably didn’t even realize he was there … and if it did, it clearly didn’t care. All it wanted was to storm past him, destroy the impudent pygmies who’d invaded its newly claimed range.
He knew that, too, but his princess was ahead of the monster, not safely to one side, and a tiny corner of his mind noted the blood welling from the wounds Bynyt’s revolver had left, knew his lieutenant had at least marked his killer.
Now it was his turn.
The enormous predator drew level with him at less than fifty yards’ range, and he squeezed the trigger.
The great dragon’s head twitched sideways under the impact of the next best thing to five thousand foot/pounds of energy. The spitzer-pointed bullet smashed home less than an inch from the base of its triangular left ear, where the bone was thinner. But it was swinging its head as he fired, changing the angle, and not even that mighty round could penetrate its skull, despite the skill with which it had been placed. It could only hurt the monster, not kill it, and it shook itself and slid sideways, squalling in pain and fury, as it braked and pivoted towards whatever had attacked it.
Adkok worked the bolt.
The Imperial Charisian Army—and the Imperial Charisian Marines—routinely practiced the “mad minute drill,” an exercise which required marksmen to fire as many aimed shots as possible in one minute. The ICA record was thirty-five aimed shots and thirty-five hits. Adkok’s best personal record was thirty-two, just over one round every two seconds.
Today, his second shot was barely a second behind the first.
The great dragon was still turning when the second bullet hammered its forehead, the only part of its head presented to the sergeant as it turned. It was a direct, no-deflection hit, but the forehead was also the thickest part of the creature’s skull. Bone broke as the bullet blasted a divot out of it, but it didn’t penetrate, and then the dragon had turned, faced Adkok fully.
It launched itself straight at him.
Sergeant Jyrohm Adkok, Imperial Charisian Marines, fired his last round with the muzzle of his rifle twenty-three inches from the great dragon’s gaping jaws. The bullet ripped into the creature’s mouth, penetrated its palate, slammed up into its skull … but it missed the brain.
The dragon shrieked as its left eye socket exploded in blood, instead. It twisted with the sudden agony, but it hit Adkok’s fallen tree like a two-and-a-half-ton battering ram. The log flew aside and the hideous jaws yawned wide, but the impact had already crushed the sergeant’s ribs, shattered his spine.
He was dead before they closed upon him.
* * *
This part of the trail was straighter than the rest of it, and Lywys Whytmyn’s gorge rose as he looked back. He would never forget the glimpse he had of the great dragon mauling Jyrohm Adkok’s body, but the sergeant had hurt it, hurt it badly enough to divert it at least momentarily from its other prey. Its rage was obvious as it rent and tore its tormentor, and the young Dohlaran felt the hot burn of shame as he galloped down the trail, abandoning the Guardsman. But he also remembered the last thing Adkok had said to him. He wasn’t going to waste the respite, however fleeting, the sergeant had purchased with his life, and he urged his horse to even greater speed as he galloped after Alahnah and the other women.
He thundered around a bend in the trail, and his head came up as someone screamed. He caught a glimpse of a horse stumbling, going down. A small, long-haired body flew through the air as Gladys Frymyn was thrown from its saddle. She hurtled headfirst into the trees beside the trail and cried out again as her shoulder slammed into the bole of a massive nearoak and shattered. She bounced back only to hit a he
aved-up slab of rock, then slithered limply to the ground, and terror filled Lywys Whytmyn.
He’d never imagined feeling so frightened in his entire life. All he wanted to do was to run, to go on running, just as hard and as fast as he could. But instead he started to rein in, already preparing to dismount.
And that was when Alahnah’s mare came bolting back up the trail.
The princess reeled in the saddle, blood streaming from a gash on her forehead, and Whytmyn’s heart froze as he realized she was barely able to cling her mount … and that it was galloping straight back towards the great dragon which had killed Adkok.
“Go!” someone screamed.
His eyes darted towards the voice, and he saw Stefyny Athrawes standing in the trail. He hadn’t even seen her dismount, but she’d sprinted to Gladys’ side, and somehow she’d snatched the rifle from her own saddle scabbard. It was identical to the one Taigys Mahldyn had built for Cayleb Ahrmahk.
“Go!” she screamed again, pointing after Alahnah with her free hand, then went down on one knee beside the unconscious girl. Whytmyn had one more glimpse of her, calmly breaking the rifle open, checking the loads, and then he’d whirled his own mount around and gone galloping after Alahnah.
* * *
Alahnah’s mare rounded the bend.
The princess was barely conscious, staying in the saddle more by instinct than by intent. But good as those instincts and her training were, she almost lost her seat as the mare came face-to-face with the wounded great dragon.
Alahnah never realized, then or later, how merciful her semi-consciousness actually was. It kept her from seeing the tattered, brutally mauled, half-eaten remnant of Jyrohm Adkok’s body. But it also precluded her exerting any sort of control over the mare as the terrified horse swerved yet again and went galloping headlong into the woods beside the trail.
