Resurrection Dawn

by Marc Secchia

  Perfect. With a wicked laugh, Alodeé melted away into the late afternoon.

  The terrifying roars and snarls of wild beasts locked in battle chased her for many a klom.

  She napped for a few hours in a tree bivouac before the hunters found her again. Fire crashing through the treetops warmed her up, flushing her and her decidedly flammable hide out of hiding. She sprinted out of a flaming coniferous wood, almost falling prey to a line of ambushers waiting ahead. Only her extreme speed and agility saw her through, dodging the sweep of a bright yellow paw as one Dragon, at last, vented a bellow of frustration.

  Oh, too slow, you fat lumoslug? she laughed to herself.

  Not kind. Fear spoke for her.

  Dawn found her drifting downstream in a small river, breathing through a short reed, while the frustrated Dragons searched for her higher upstream. Later, she spied on the hunt. It was frightening to observe these creatures working with teamwork and precision, cutting down the options, making decisions that made her escape considerably harder. Trackers on the ground. Spotters high up. Lines of Dragons swept the river undergrowth to her left hand.

  She hid out in a small riverside cave for a few hours, only to be flushed out by a low growl and a huff of breath that reminded her vividly of how hot and effective Dragon flame could be. Shooting between the openly startled white female’s forepaws, she dodged a tail-swipe and absconded into a nearby forest. The sounds of crashing and cracking wood soon abated. Alodeé took to the treetops to try to mask her trail another way. After covering several hundred mets through the tight-packed burgundy trees, while trying to avoid their horribly spiky fruit, she dropped to the ground and worked on outdistancing the pursuit, following a river toward the first tower, a golden behemoth. Nobody could climb such a monument, surely?

  Yep. This idea, to leap off a height and drift away on her chute during the night, must be classed a fail – but to her surprise, as if anticipating the light this particular evening, the Dragons retired en masse from the chase. Probably making plans for the order in which to pull her limbs off her torso, or discussing which temperature was best for roasting Humanoid meat to delicate perfection.

  She ran right through the night, putting many kloms between herself and the Dragons from the golden tower.

  This mouse will live. Watch me.

  The following afternoon, she awoke tired and hungry. Peeking out of her cave, she saw no pursuit. Hmm. Very, very unlikely. Dragons were supposed to be vengeful and implacable. That red must be mate to the emerald Dragoness she had disturbed. He had smelled her Humanoid stench in the grotto. Still, her wide-eyed dragonets had been awfully cute and friendly.

  Super-cautious, Alodeé hunted and managed to ambush one of the small antelope-like creatures she had spotted on the grasslands the previous day. She bolted the meat as quickly as she could, stealing suspicious glances all about her in the meantime. Nothing.

  More meat. Grief, she could eat! The red meat made her stomach throb.

  A foreign stomach’s gurgling snapped her out of her carnivorous bliss. Must have needed the iron in her diet. That sounded … acting casual, she cut off a rump steak and held it out to no-one in particular. No-one she could see. “Come on out. It’s alright.”

  She knew the sound of a hungry stomach. Must be Humanoid! At last, people like me.

  After a breathless pause, a child slipped out from behind a nearby tree. No. Not a child. She was tiny, barely a met in height, but her body shape proclaimed this mite a teenager, perhaps close to Alodeé’s own age. She noted white skin and hair, like the frosted snow the Social Hub faked for ‘winter’ games. Ice-blue eyes, large and slanted in a pixie face. A simple blue, sleeveless dress hung to mid-thigh. The girl wore an unfamiliar, serrated dagger at her belt and intricate, incredible silver-engraved azure jewellery that covered her arms from wrist to elbow and her legs from ankle to knee – might be armour, actually?

  Alodeé offered the meat. “Would you like to share?”

  The girl’s eyes fixed upon her dagger.

  She laid that down, then took the swords off her back and laid those down too. Birdlike bobs of the head greeted these actions. She placed the bow on that small pile and held out the meat with a smile. Her visitor shrank back with a frightened hiss, baring a decent set of fangs. Huh? Guess she must look like an overstretched reed. Or, aggressive? Squatting on her haunches, she smiled again. No teeth this time. Much better reception.

  “Meat?”

  Prrr-chhirr … whrr-brit?

  Alright. That was about as far from any language Alodeé knew as the three moons up in the sky. However, this offering was met with an answering smile – and no fangs. Drawing a white powder from a pouch at her belt with a show of ‘nothing dangerous here,’ she sprinkled some kind of seasoning on the meat, perhaps salt and other herbs and … kerzap!

  Alodeé fell backward in fright, her hands tingling madly. Somehow, the girl snaffled up the smoking, newly-chargrilled portion before it hit the ground. Wow. Speedy. With an apologetic trill, she proceeded to cook the meat with lightning sourced from her own hands! Wonderful aromas accompanied the sizzling sounds.

  No Class I know of can do that! No pain reflex either? Wow.

  Drawing her own dagger with another show of non-aggression, Miss Tiny sliced the portion deftly in half and offered it back. Crispy on the outside, slightly pink inside. Perfect!

  “Thanks!”

  They ate hungrily, meat juices running down their chins.

  After that, the girl wanted to see Alodeé’s weapons. Curious little thing. Sliced a thumb on the nanodagger, of course. She wanted to draw the bow, but grimaced at the strength required and handed it over for a demonstration. The eyes widened as her green fingers drew the string back to her ear. She showed her how far an arrow could fly. This earned a birdcall that must signify amazement. A hand gesture conversation communicated that yep, this was how she had brought down the antelope thing.

  Neck prickle. Dragon song!

  She stood, gathering her weapons. “I have to go.” At a querying chirrup, she pointed to the sky. “The Dragons are coming. Got to run, stat. You’ll be in danger if you stay here.”

  Incomprehension.

  Alodeé pointed at the sky and mimed Dragon wings, then drew a finger across her throat. Well, that caused utter consternation! Smiles, flying hands, whistles and trills … was she saying that the Dragons would not harm her? She knew nothing.

  “Look, I don’t want them to hurt you, that’s all. Bye, now. Have a nice life.”

  Turning, she ran away.

  Skiss! In a flash of lightning, the girl flashed and appeared in front of her.

  Heck, she could move! Narrowing her eyes, she repeated the warning. “They’re coming for me. You’ll get hurt. Please understand, alright?”

  Alodeé made to go around her.

  Skiss!

  Freaking lumoslugs, that was a trick! The song swelled in the distance as the hunt gathered pace. Heart hammering, she gathered her legs and leaped over the living lightning bolt in a massive standing leap. She bolted at top speed.

  Skiss … skiss! They crashed together. Oh alright, the long-legged brute absolutely flattened the little one. Bully. “Sorry – freak it! Look, Dragons!” Pointing at the incoming flight of Dragons, led by the gorgeous ruby male – had to be male, with that ‘look at me’ strut to his manner – she made a terrified face. “They’re after me. This is bad. Get under cover and leave me alone!”

  The girl clutched her ribs, looking very unhappy.

  “I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

  Alodeé sprang for a tree branch 7 mets above. Skiss! Her new friend arrived there before she did. Jerking backward in alarm, she missed her handhold and clobbered her head on the branch. Rude words! Enough of this!

  Drawing her dagger, she waved it at the girl. “No!”

  Fright sent the girl flashing off a ways. That 1-met mite moved like a lightning bolt. Flash-bang speed. However, this friendship was not bound to
be a long one, Alodeé sensed. This time when she ran, she jinked several times, avoiding repeated attempts to stop her in her tracks. Pinning back her ears and stretching her long legs, she fled from the only Humanoid creature she had seen in several months. What if she brought Dragons down on their village? The red-headed foreigner who destroyed our civilisation. Yep, that was exactly how she wished to be remembered around these parts.

  * * * *

  Hunted by living, fire-breathing creatures ripped straight out of myth. Nothing could have prepared her for this experience. A dragnet closed in around her that day. They knew every hole and cranny in their landscape, every wood, every river cave. The hunted girl kept turning corners to find Dragons ahead of her, cutting off routes, sniffing the ground or the air, winging silently overhead. Seen in the full light of day, their colours were extraordinary, like luminous flying gemstones that caught every drop of sunshine and radiated back prismatic beauty.

  Could she help but respect and admire this enemy?

  Crystal inclusions broke through the ground in many places, lending the landscape a fantastical aspect. A dell in a wood might hold a sapphire column 55 mets tall; some of the crystals grew in warm magenta fractal forests, creating extraordinarily complex patterns impenetrable to a person until she learned that with her speed, she could skip lightly over the top without cracking the delicate structures.

  The Dragons must tire of the chase soon. She worked her way eastward, passing a sapphire tower the following day, but the ruby-red proved more dogged than she had imagined. Hiding out at the fringe of a crystal forest the next morning, she watched his wings flicking in the sun over a sharp hilltop a couple of kloms away. Ruby radiance spangled from his body. In the zoological classification of Resurrection Dawn, she puzzled, how would Dragons be represented? Could there be whole major divisions of flora and fauna related to crystalline variants of molecular structures – or even, differences at the atomic or quantum particle and field levels? Gravity misbehaved. Multi-tonne creatures soared more gracefully than birds. Real fire raged inside a Dragoness’ eyeballs.

  Shiver. How did it all work?

  No wonder Giantixx reveres your kind. You’re incredible.

  At that instant, the red muzzle swivelled to gaze directly at her hiding place. Impossible. Yet her scalp prickled with awareness not unlike the recognition of eyes meeting across a room, that moment a person knew they were being watched.

  Odd. He had two wings. Did she recall that emerald Dragoness having four? With additional fin-like structures at the end of her tail that must act like rudders?

  Alodeé frowned as she melted back under cover. Size-wise, the ruby-red must also be considerably larger, although her memory of the battle in the grotto did rather serve up the Dragoness as filling the space – perhaps enlarged in her memory’s eye? He was stolid and chunky; the Dragoness was wirier in frame, a bit like the difference between Tomaxx and her, she supposed. A draconic Class difference?

  She ran for several hours through a forest before pausing to cut down a few branches. Hastily, she whittled arrows. This hunt had disturbed a great deal of local wildlife. The carnoraptors were not happy, gathering in larger groups than she had ever seen before, eyeing the Dragons balefully from their eyries and cave porches without daring to take them on. 40 or more Dragons swept slowly toward her, scanning the terrain with senses on the alert. Alodeé leaped down into a ravine, changing direction as she switched back toward the north. Odd. Carnoraptors circling up ahead …

  Skiss! Oh no, the girl! They had her pinned at the end of this ravine.

  Why had she followed?

  Nocking an arrow to the string, she skewered one carnoraptor with a head shot – not the creature she had aimed at, mind, but she’d take that result. Freak, her shoulder hurt from pulling the bow. She must have done some real damage. Taking aim again, she saw the predators falling upon their erstwhile friend, allowing the tiny – ah, Pygmy Lightning girl – to sneak past and toward her.

  The girl smiled as she dashed up to Alodeé. Chrr-irrit bik-a-trrr!

  “Sure, no problem.”

  Suddenly, she was a blinding white blur skittering around the taller girl.

  “Hold on!” Skisss – zap! “Ouch, you … oh, freak!”

  She had seen this hunting technique before. Encircled by living lightning, she had no direction in which to escape – she tried, but the sheer velocity of the phenomenon defeated her. Zap. Zap! Steadily, her captor forced her to move a hundred mets back down the ravine, yelling and complaining and threatening to stick a knife where it would hurt and then drove her into a cave.

  She reached for her swords. “Alright, you – ouch! You little pest!”

  Zapping her in the butt, the nose, the shoulders, the trickster forced her to jog down a long stone tunnel which twisted several times before she saw daylight ahead. More of these creatures? Remembering the tiny, sharp fangs, she skidded to a halt. Could this be a cannibal tribe?

  The Lightning Pygmy was having none of her resistance. Sweeping the yelling girl off her feet, the whizzing white lightning bolt whisked her captive out onto a spectacular ledge on the edge of a canyon. Tiny golden crystal block houses teetered on the edge of a klom’s drop. The ledge was perhaps 120 mets wide. A klom or so off, she saw another similar village. Sweet location. Thump. Alodeé landed on her backside in the dirt.

  Her pestiferous so-called friend turned back into her tiny girl form and made a small bow. She indicated the village.

  “Sure. Where’s the communal pot?” she growled suspiciously.

  None in sight, but she was fairly certain that they would bring out the spit roast and spices any min. Jade crystal columns lined the canyon, dropping precipitously into a lake with water the colour of gold ingots. She saw huge water serpents sporting down in the golden ripples and sunning themselves luxuriously upon the shore. One fate could be as a sacrifice to their gods, she supposed. Children played at the edge of the canyon. The game involved leaping over the edge and then zapping back on the ledge again, to the accompaniment of gales of laughter.

  Carefully, Alodeé picked herself up and dusted off her abused behind.

  Was she mistaken? Was this the moment when Little Lightning Britches showed off her exotic giant friend to the locals? Stuck her in a cage and fed her fruit for the rest of her life?

  For that matter, how was it that their clothing or jewellery did not instantly disintegrate when they turned into lightning, or even that it travelled with them in the first instance? That was a trick worthy of the name. Aha, here came the crowd to gawk at the gangly giant. Her titian hair was an object of great wonder, her height even more so. She knelt in order to speak with the curious children, remembering not to show her teeth. They stroked her hands and pinched her cheeks, only to be told off with hoots and whistles by the adults, not one of whom topped a met in height.

  Her fear faded during a delightful, lazy afternoon. The villagers acted carefree and fearless of the stranger in their midst. They did not try to gnaw upon her thigh bones. Family members peaceably went about their business, tending to neat vegetable gardens, stirring pots of piquant, peppery food, repairing houses and sharpening weapons. Soon, they invited her to walk up to a pond fed by a golden waterfall a 15-min walk from the village, where everyone promptly stripped down and leaped in. Her armour proved amazing, while her combat skin made them giggle. Miss Lightning mimed moulting, causing her friends to fold up laughing.

  Yep. Suppose it did look a little odd.

  When one of the boys pinched her backside, however, she whirled and slapped him off into his lightning form. Oops. The males gaped. The females cheered, whistled and stamped their feet! Huh. Some things did communicate across cultures, she supposed. He swaggered back, licking his lips and miming to his friends that her breasts were very sizeable and attractive indeed. Blushing a hotter shade of green than usual, Alodeé pointed to his male parts and mimed ‘oh, that’s so small – I’m struggling to find it – kerpoof! Where did that va
nish?’ He laughed so hard, he started hiccoughing and flashing into lightning with each helpless gasp, before recovering to give her a sign that she assumed meant respect.

  Clearly not a young man lacking a positive self-image, she reflected, as she pulled her combat skin back on again. She could copy a few lines off his holo readout. Could she ever be that unselfconscious?

  On the way back to the village, she walked with a young mother and her newborn. So dinky! The babe could barely be a kilo, if that. Certainly, if she held her hands next to one another, the tiny boy would not have filled her palms. Amazing.

  Signing and chuckling as she walked up a short slope into the village, Alodeé glanced up and froze.

  The enormous ruby-red Dragon waited amidst the houses, his fangs glinting evilly in a perfect Dragon smile. ‘Hello, dinner.’

  Gasp! Turning to her previously friendly Lightning Pygmy in horror, she was even more shocked to see the girl smile and bow, indicating the Dragon. ‘There you go. He came to meet you.’

  No! This can’t be happening – you betrayed me! While we were swimming, enjoying ourselves …

  She streaked away in a blind panic, but only made a few steps before a lightweight but large golden net fell over her head and shoulders. Tangled up, she fell hard on her sore shoulder. “Ahh!”

  A great white paw slapped her down before she could fight free. Fangs flashed in dreadful grins as ten or more Dragons swirled about overhead in rapid flight. The Pygmies acted completely unconcerned by the arrival of a powerful flight of Dragons. Her heart burned like acid in her throat. They must have been in cahoots all along. What a fool she had been.

  The red stalked over, his every footstep causing the ground to tremble. Looming above her, fire curling from his nostrils and between his fangs, he snapped, GNARR!!

  No getting out of this mess in a hurry, was there? Alodeé fought back tears of frustration. “Alright. You’ve got me. What now?”