Dragons of Mars Box Set

by Leslie Chase

  Markath nodded. "That makes sense, and it narrows the search down considerably. The high towers will have chambers in them where hunters could stop and rest. Hannah will probably be in one of them, near the entrance."

  He stretched and winced, looking down at his wounds. Amanda looked too, worried that their strenuous activity of the night before might have damaged the bindings. To her relief, they seemed to have held, but Markath looked at them unhappily.

  "This would go much faster if I could shift," he said. "But I doubt this stuff will hold through the change."

  "I've never tested that, and I don't plan on trying it now," Amanda said. "You've lost too much blood already, and we're days away from your nanotech healing pools. Unless there's one in here?"

  "Who knows, there might be," Markath said, frowning. "But I don't know if it would still work, even if we found it. So, for now, we stay on foot. I couldn't carry you far through the air in this form, and I am not risking leaving you again."

  With that he was off, and Amanda had to hurry to keep up. Markath's long stride devoured the distance, and now that they had a direction to head in they both moved with more confidence. As they went, they took turns calling out for Hannah and listening for any answer.

  The first tower they reached was a crumbled ruin, and clearly empty. The second they quietly skirted around, seeing a large nest of some kind emerging from a window high on it. Amanda had no desire to see what kind of animal had its lair up there and she knew that Hannah would have avoided it too.

  As they approached the third tower, though, they heard noises from ahead. The fog muffled them, but the sound of stone hitting stone was loud enough to carry. Amanda was about to shout again when they heard something else. A low, angry growl. It was enough to chill Amanda's blood and make her grab Markath's arm.

  Her mate didn't seem intimidated, though. He stalked forward into the fog, towards the noises. Something scrabbled against stone and Amanda thought she could see movement at the base of the tower they were approaching. Familiar movement — she recognized the gait of the six-legged predators that had menaced her the night before. It would be a long time before she'd forget them.

  With a dull thud, something smacked into one of the animals, and it leaped away from the tower with a whine. Another stone hit the space it had been standing with a loud crack. But other monsters circled the tower, and while that one scampered away to lick its wounds the rest were undeterred.

  Amanda looked to Markath, and she didn't have to say anything. With a loud roar, he spread his wings wide and charged. The creatures took one look at the dragon warrior bearing down on them and turned to run into the fog. Markath followed, shouting and waving his arms to frighten them away.

  Suddenly, the square around the tower was silent and empty apart from Amanda. Looking up at the tower, she could make out openings half way up, large enough for a dragon to land on. Or for a human to climb up to?

  Her heart racing, Amanda called out Hannah's name again at the top of her lungs.

  For a moment there was silence, and then from high above came an answer.

  "Amanda? What the hell are you doing here?" Hannah sounded incredulous, and Amanda laughed with relief. A moment later Hannah was laughing too.

  "How did you get all the way up there?" She asked, staring up the tower as Hannah's head emerged from one of the windows. The stonework had crumbled, leaving handholds for a climber, but she wouldn't have wanted to try it.

  "Wasn't easy," Hannah called down. "But you'd be amazed how fast I can climb when I'm being chased by some kind of demon tiger."

  Amanda remembered her sister's ability to get up a seemingly sheer surface when they were children on Earth. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that Hannah kept the knack, she thought. Putting her hands on her hips, she shook her head and grinned with relief.

  "Okay, but now you can come back down here," she said. "We're getting out of here."

  "Ah," Hannah looked a little abashed at that. "It turns out that getting up here is a lot easier than getting down. I'm not sure I can make it safely."

  "Wait there," Markath rumbled, sounding amused as he walked back into the square. "I will come and get you."

  Before either of the humans had a chance to respond, he launched himself into the air. With a few beats of his wings, he flew up in a spiral around the tower until he reached Hannah's window. Catching her under the arms, he dove back to the ground. Hannah shrieked, though Amanda wasn't sure if her sister was afraid or enjoying the flight.

  As soon as Hannah's feet touched the earth, Amanda threw her arms around her sister and hugged her tight.

  "I was so scared," Amanda said. "We thought you might be dead."

  "How did you even know where to find me?" Hannah asked, hugging back hard. "I mean, God, I've been stuck here for a few days but that's barely enough time for you to get here."

  Markath growled something under his breath in his own language, and both looked at him. His serious face didn't match their joy, and Amanda felt her own smile fade a little.

  "I do not wish to break up your reunion," he said slowly, "but we have some bad news about your friends."

  Hannah's face twisted and then she shook her head. "Some friends. They left me trapped in here with those things."

  Blinking, Amanda realized that her sister didn't know what had happened above ground. If she'd been stuck in here since the cave in, without any radio contact...

  "What happened?" she asked.

  "I'm not sure, honestly. We found the cave entrance, and inside there was air. That was when we knew we'd struck it rich and Dieter got real excited about it. A working airmaker, that's enough to make us a small fortune on its own and what are the odds of that being all that's down here?"

  Markath's frown deepened as they began retracing their steps towards the cave's exit. Amanda could see he wasn't happy with the story Hannah was telling, but she was too caught up in seeing her sister alive and well to care. For now, all she wanted to do was hug her sister and look after her. The rest could wait.

  17

  Markath

  The journey back to the cave mouth was safer and easier than the trip into the hunting ground had been. That left Markath time to think about what had happened here, which wasn't altogether a good thing. He felt himself start to brood over the problems they'd face when they returned to the surface. An enemy he could fight was easier.

  He kept his eyes out for the predators, in case they made another attempt on the three of them. But even after a thousand years they still seemed to have kept an inborn fear of a dragon warrior. While they'd been willing to fight him when he interrupted their attack on Amanda, now they kept their distance as Hannah told her story.

  "We came in and saw the city, and that was when Dieter got really excited," she said. With an apologetic glance at Markath, she continued. "He started to talk about how much more this place would be worth to one of the Earth corporations, and how we could cut the empire out."

  Markath nodded gloomily. That made sense, even though the humans would likely be disappointed with their prize. This place was far enough away from anywhere else that a human spaceship might be able to slip in and out unnoticed. The technology of a dragon settlement this size must have looked like it would be worth taking the risk.

  "There's not as much here as he probably thought," he said. "The airmaker, of course, and the light source. Maybe some foodmakers for the animals, though they seem awfully hungry."

  "Well I know that now," Hannah said, shaking her head. "But when we arrived, it seemed like a treasure trove. We went in to survey the place, get some idea of what's here. And, you know, because none of us had ever seen an alien city before. No one wanted to stay behind and watch the camp. Dieter made Jim stay back and finish setting up, but everyone else came down."

  Markath didn't think much of the humans' discipline if they abandoned their base camp that easily. But then, this wasn't a military expedition, and the humans were a loosely or
ganized force at best.

  A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and he glanced at Amanda. Before he'd met his mate, he wouldn't have made the effort to be fair to them. Is she making me soft? If so, it was a softness he welcomed, and one that he was going to have to embrace. Humans and dragons were going to have to cooperate in the future, and now he found himself cautiously welcoming the idea. He could no longer claim that humans were unworthy of a place in the empire, not now that he knew Amanda.

  Hannah carried on her story, apparently oblivious to his distraction.

  "At first it was fine. We went slow, and the fact that we couldn't find a way into the buildings, well, we had no idea what to expect them to look like. Maybe all the doors were on the top? You guys can fly, after all. The only problem was that the radios didn't work down here, and that was a good sign. It meant there was plenty of your tech around.

  "We split up to cover more ground. Then the light dimmed, and that was when it all went to hell."

  "Let me guess," Amanda said. "Six-legged demon tigers?"

  "Yep." Hannah shuddered at the memory, and Markath tried to imagine what it would have been like from her point of view. Unarmed humans, spreading out into the city and stepping into the pack's territory. The animals were big and fast, and the painful gashes one had left in his side were a reminder that they were a threat even to a dragon warrior. Humans were smaller, weaker, more fragile — and couldn't fly away if the fight went against them.

  A few days ago, he wouldn't have been able to grasp the horror of that, but if he thought about Amanda in that position... "It must have been terrible."

  Hannah looked into the distance, and Amanda put her arms around her sister, holding her tight. After a moment, Hannah nodded. "Yeah. Connor was the first, I think — I didn't see what happened, but I heard it. Then it was chaos, and everyone ran for the exit. I'd gotten deeper into the city than the rest of the crew, so I was at the back."

  It didn't surprise Markath to find out that his mate's sister had gone ahead into danger. It was what he'd expect of her family; for humans, they were both brave. And now that he looked at her face, he could see it darkening with anger rather than going pale with fear at the memories.

  "It must have been Jim who mined the tunnel," she said quietly. "Dieter left him on the surface to set up defenses. We had the explosives to dig out blockages, but he was ready to bring the roof down. I guess he set them up so that we could collapse the cave and hide it if someone like you came looking. All I know for sure is that it went up before we were all through.

  "Dieter was in the lead going into the tunnel. I don't know, but if I had to guess Jim hit the detonator as soon as Dieter was clear. The tunnel came down ahead of me, and I don't know who else got out in time."

  Amanda stared at her sister, horror written across her face, and Markath felt his own anger burn hot at the sight of it. Amanda was his mate, and her sister was his kin too now. This would not go unanswered, he promised himself.

  He wasn't surprised that Dieter had been the first out. That man struck him as the kind of leader who would always put his own safety first.

  "The blast caught the crew," he told her. "Most survived, but were injured. Some did not. And the blast collapsed the cave onto the Outrider, wrecking it."

  Hannah squeezed her eyes shut, taking a deep breath and then letting it out. "Fucking Dieter, Jim's the only one he trusts. And Jim's not even trained with the explosives, that's Yuri and Svetlana's job. No wonder he fucked it up."

  Amanda put her arms around Hannah's shoulders, offering her sister support. For a moment both women were silent, and then Hannah had her emotions under control enough to continue the story.

  "I guess the explosion frightened the demon tigers off," Hannah said, forcing a smile back onto her face. "So that was one good thing. Let me get back into the city and find somewhere to hide out until they came back down for me. And I guess you know the rest; I've been stuck up that tower since then."

  She looked between the two of them, and shook her head. "What I don't get is how come it's you two who came to rescue me. Don't get me wrong, there's no one I'd rather see, but how the hell did you manage it?"

  While Amanda filled her sister in, Markath led the way through the hunting ground, keeping an eye out for the predators. They were clearly hungry enough to be tempted by human flesh. If they'd gotten a taste for it with the other humans they'd caught, they might still be dangerous. But there was no sign of them as they approached the ramp and made their way up towards the blocked tunnel.

  However tasty they found humans, a dragon warrior was still enough to keep them away.

  "Don't be too hard on the other humans," he said as Amanda's story came to a close. "They were in no fit state to try to rescue you."

  "The rest of them did try and stop us coming down to find her," Amanda said angrily. "They all own that."

  He nodded. "True, though they probably didn't think Hannah could have survived. But it's Jim and Dieter who were responsible."

  And they will pay for it, he promised himself. Amanda nodded reluctantly, and Hannah said nothing, looking thoughtful. At the mouth of the tunnel, she turned back and looked at the ruins with a shake of her head.

  "I'm not going to miss being trapped in here," she said. "But damn, it looks spectacular. I hope that I can have a proper look sometime when we're better prepared."

  Markath and Amanda looked at one another, and Markath could see the mix of amusement and annoyance in his mate's eyes. Hannah had faced death here, and her first thought was that she should come back?

  "Maybe you picked the wrong sister," Amanda said quietly, a teasing smile on her face. "Hannah wants to stick around on Mars, after all."

  "Do not jest about that, my mate," Markath replied, feeling a twinge at the impact of her words. "You are the one that I want, that I need, and that I love. That is final. I will only be happy with you, and you with me."

  As he said it, he knew that while it was true, that didn't make it simple. His mate wanted to go home to the Earth she came from, and much as he wanted to object, he knew it was unfair. If he could travel back to Draconis, the imperial homeworld, he would — so long as Amanda came with him. How could he deny her the chance to go to the planet of her birth?

  Going with her was an option, but it would mean abandoning his people to live amongst hers. And he had responsibilities amongst his people. He was still the Guardian, the eldest and most knowledgeable in the old ways. His duty to his empire and to his mate tore him in different directions.

  One problem at a time, he told himself. They were still trapped in the cave for now, and then there was the journey back to Marsport before they could make any decisions. And here and now wasn't the time for the conversation anyway.

  Amanda's smile faded, and she reached out a hand to touch his arm. The simple contact was enough to soothe the pain he felt at the thought of their separation, and in her eyes he saw an emotion he couldn't quite understand. An uncertainty, perhaps. Was she thinking the same thoughts of the future he was? Putting his hand on hers, Markath squeezed gently and smiled at her.

  Whatever happened, he would not allow them to be separated. There would be a way for them to be together, and he would find it. He allowed himself not a moment of doubt that he would find a solution.

  "Come, Amanda," he said firmly. "We must leave this place and get your sister to safety."

  The tunnel was as they had left it, tumbled rocks near-filling the passageway. Looking at the crack he had forced his way through, Markath winced. It looked far too narrow for his frame, even though he knew he could make it. This time, with his still-healing wounds, getting out would be even more uncomfortable than getting in had been.

  "You fit through that?" Hannah asked, amazed, and Amanda laughed.

  "He's full of surprises," she assured her sister. Markath saw her dubious look at the gap, and knew that she too doubted the evidence of her eyes. Then she shook it off, looking at her sister. "Come on,
let's get out of here."

  18

  Amanda

  The gap was tight even for Amanda, and she wondered how Markath had managed to make his way through the first time. It hardly seemed possible, but he'd managed somehow. I guess when he says he won't let anything come between us, he means it, she thought. That made her heart race, and she felt a smile on her face before she could stop it.

  Once she was through that narrow crack she could at least get up on her hands and knees and crawl, but the oppressive weight of the rock around them made her uneasy. The props that Markath and the others had left supporting the roof were bowing and creaking already, not meant for this kind of strain. It was clear that this tunnel wouldn't be stable for long.

  It just has to last a few more minutes, she told herself. That's all, and then I never have to see it again.

  "So," Hannah said from behind her, "you and Markath, huh? Told you."

  Amanda's cheeks heated and she was glad that her sister couldn't see her face. "Don't make me sorry I came and rescued you, sis."

  Hannah laughed. "Oh, don't be like that, Amanda. I'm happy for you, that's all. He seems..."

  She trailed off, and Amanda found herself chuckling as she tried to complete the sentence for her sister. 'Nice' didn't cut it, 'frighteningly intense' was closer but hardly sounded like a compliment. After an awkward moment, she broke the silence.

  "Yeah, it's not easy to describe him, is it?" she shook her head, pushing her way around a tight corner between the fallen stones. Was it her imagination or was the passage getting narrower? It had to be in her mind, she told herself. But still she had to duck lower, and fitting through some of the smaller spaces was slow going. She was sure that getting in had been easier.

  Behind them, she heard a distant annoyed growl. Markath, bringing up the rear to keep the two of them safe, had started following them into the gap. I wonder if he can hear our conversation, Amanda thought. Probably.