Dragonseed

by James Maxey

  “What?” asked Burke.

  “I swallowed it five minutes after you gave it to me. What did I have to lose?”

  “Your life, if it had been poison. Your mind, if it had been a hallucinogen.” Burke frowned. “How do you know you can really see? Maybe you’re just imagining it.”

  Vance reached out and put his finger on the tip of Burke’s nose.

  “The dragonseed worked. My sight’s been getting a little better since I took it. First I could just detect light from dark, then shapes started coming back, then colors.”

  Burke grimaced. He lived in a world that followed certain rules. Magic seeds were the stuff of fairy tale. They didn’t belong in a world of gears and guns. Vance had lost his sight due to a head injury. Sometimes these things got better on their own. The timing must be a coincidence.

  The hull shuddered violently.

  “I’m guessing they found the sledgehammer,” said Burke as the ringing in his ears abated. “Here’s the ten-second guide to running this thing. This is the boiler.” He opened the iron door next to Vance. A small red flame still flickered inside. “Shovel coal. There’s a foot operated bellows. Pump as if your life depends on it. We need a lot of heat to build up steam.”

  Burke checked the gauges. There was still a little pressure left over from this morning, but nothing like what they’d need to escape.

  The hull rang out again from another blow of a sledgehammer. He wondered how long it would be before one of the Mighty Men was clever enough to wheel a big cannon out of the foundry and use the Angry Beetle for target practice.

  “Thorny, the Beetle can only roll backwards. I designed all the controls to sit up front. You need to look out that little hatch in the back and tell me what you see.”

  “Got it,” said Thorny.

  “Don’t open the hatch until we’re moving,” said Burke. “The Mighty Men might be smart enough to poke a shotgun inside.”

  Burke looked around at the mention of a shotgun. He had one shotgun inside, which he’d been using to test the visual span of the various gun slots. He had plenty of shot, and two barrels of gunpowder. The Beetle also had fixed cannons at the front and back, and there was the goom-powered flamethrower, with maybe thirty gallons in the reserve. He also had a sky-wall bow and a quiver of arrows. He’d wanted to test if there was enough space to actually use a bow at one of the slots. There wasn’t.

  Burke wiggled his way past Vance to reach the driver’s seat. Burke calculated the odds of escaping and frowned. Sometimes it was a curse to be good at math. He was certain he hadn’t killed Ragnar. Stonewall probably wasn’t permanently blinded. Was it too late to find some reasonable way out of this? Or was he going to have to kill a lot of people?

  All this time, he’d been worried about what Ragnar might do to his fellow men once he had guns and cannons. Now he was in a situation where he was going to be turning his weapons against humans, and for what? So that they might die a mile away instead of here in the warehouse?

  He realized that nothing had hit the hull for at least a minute. He cracked open the sighting hatch at the forward cannon. He was facing the open doors leading to the street. The Mighty Men were now milling about outside. Ragnar and Stonewall were nowhere to be seen. Burke watched through a slit only an inch high and six inches long. It was hard to say what he might be missing. Why had they stopped trying to get in? The Mighty Men stood back as a new group came onto the scene, straining as they pushed one of the newly forged wheeled cannons into place and turned it toward the warehouse.

  Burke looked at the pressure gauge. They needed more time.

  People were going to have to die.

  “I’m going to fire the cannon,” he said, reaching into one of the many pouches on his leather tool belt. He pulled out a clump of cotton wads and leaned back in his seat, stretching out to Vance and Thorny.

  “Stuff these in your ears and cover your ears with your hands. Keep them covered until I’ve taken my shot.”

  “With cotton in our ears, how will we know?” asked Thorny, as Vance helped him jam cotton into his ears.

  Burke smirked. “You’ll know.”

  He stuffed cotton into his own ears as he looked back out into the street. They were still ramming gunpowder down the shaft of the cannon. A five pound keg of black powder sat on the street. He couldn’t have asked for a better target.

  Burke spun the sighting wheels for the forward gun. The Angry Beetle’s cannons weren’t as big as the one in the street, but it would get the job done. Unlike the Mighty Men, he’d loaded his cannon in advance.

  “Hands over your ears!” Burke shouted, as he pulled the flint trigger.

  He squeezed his hands over his ears and closed his eyes, his jaw clenched as tightly as possible. The seconds passed with unbearable slowness.

  The noise hit him in the chest like a hammer. The Angry Beetle lurched as the five pound charge in the street exploded.

  Burke pulled his hands away, yanking out the cotton. His teeth felt loose.

  “Everyone all right?” he asked. There was no answer. He could barely hear his own voice over the ringing. He tried again, shouting, “Vance? Thorny?”

  “You’re right that we’d know,” said Thorny.

  “I should’ve used more cotton,” said Vance.

  “Keep pumping the bellows,” Burke said. “The pressure is almost in the zone.”

  He slid the sighting hatch open once more. The front wall of the warehouse was gone. There was a crater where the cannon had been a moment before. Unidentifiable lumps of meat were scattered in all directions. He slid the hatch shut before he had a chance to identify any of the chunks.

  “Gentlemen,” he said. “It’s safe to say we’ve worn out our welcome. I’m sorry you got swept up in this.”

  “You apologize too much,” said Thorny. “Let’s roll.”

  “What’s it look like behind us?”

  Thorny pushed the rear sighting hatch open with the back of his twisted hands. He shook his head. “The doors are closed.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to matter,” said Burke as he let out the clutch and engaged the gear. The Angry Beetle shuddered as it crept backward. It took a surprising length of time to cover the short distance to the rear door. Fortunately, when it finally reached the barrier, the war-machine pushed through the wood as if it were a paper curtain.

  “Since we can only move in one direction, it’s important we don’t hit anything the Angry Beetle can’t push over. I’m going to follow the southern boulevard to the city gate. Let me know if I’m getting close to any buildings.”

  Burke leaned over to watch out the sighting hatch as they rolled away from the warehouse. He knew the layout of Dragon Forge as well as anyone. He just might pull this off.

  “We’re getting close to a big building on the left,” said Thorny.

  Burke turned the wheel.

  “No!” said Thorny. “My left!”

  Burke hastily steered the other way.

  “We should be coming up on a big broad avenue now,” he said. “See it?”

  “Yeah,” said Thorny. “People are moving fast to get out of our way. A lot faster than they need to, honestly. Pokey Turtle might be a better name for this contraption.”

  “Duly noted,” said Burke. “Keep shoveling, Vance. We need to build up more pressure if we want to get up any kind of speed.”

  “We’re at the avenue,” said Thorny.

  Burke turned the wheel sharply. The treads churned beneath the Angry Beetle with a satisfying rumble. The steering mechanism worked like a dream. If he had any real power getting to the treads, this might turn into an interesting ride. He disengaged the clutch.

  “We’re slowing down,” said Thorny.

  Burke was surprised that they were still rolling at all. But, the southern avenue did slope down slightly. He’d take whatever help from gravity he could get.

  “We took off before the pressure was in the zone,” Burke said. “Let’s give the
boiler another minute. I’m worried about the southern gate. You see it?”

  “Yeah,” said Thorny. “We’re maybe two hundred feet away.”

  “Can you see down the shaft of the rear cannon? Does it look like we’d hit the gate if we fired on it?”

  Thorny was quiet for a moment. “I guess,” he said.

  Vance said, “Burke, we worked hard to get that gate closed. Forget Ragnar. Do you really want to open that gate to the dragons?”

  “It’s not the gate keeping the dragons out,” said Burke. “It’s the sky-wall bows. No winged dragon wants to fly within a mile of the walls. Thorny, I know you don’t have much grip, but triggering the flintlock fuse only takes a nudge. Think you can do it?”

  “I’ll try,” said Thorny.

  “Okay then. Cotton in ears, everyone. Thorny, on the count of ten, do it.”

  Burke shoved cotton in his ears. Thorny’s countdown went by in silence.

  The Angry Beetle trembled as the cannon fired. Burke’s brain felt like goom sloshing around in a jug.

  He pulled the cotton from his ears. Thorny’s distant voice sounded panicked. “The gate’s still there!”

  “Did we miss it?” Burke asked, incredulous.

  “No. We punched a hole in it. The left half looks tilted back a little.”

  “That’s the part we’ll ram, then.”

  Burke looked back out his own sighting window. The street was mostly empty. It was good this was happening at night. Here and there, faces peeked around the corners of buildings to watch the progress of the Angry Beetle as it rolled at its leisurely pace toward the gate.

  What now? The cannons could be loaded from the inside, but it was a pain. Thorny definitely couldn’t manage with his hands. He looked at the barrel of gunpowder beside him. He had a small spool of gunpowder-infused cotton to cut fuses from. Getting out of the Beetle to hop up to the gate and fashion a quick bomb didn’t seem wise, however.

  Did the Beetle have the speed and mass necessary to push open the gate?

  He peered at the gauge. The needle hovered at the bottom edge of the green zone.

  “We only live once, gentlemen,” he said, and engaged the clutch.

  The Angry Beetle’s treads rumbled beneath the floor. On the incline, they quickly reached a speed that surprised even Burke. They might well be rolling at almost fifteen miles per hour. With a horrible crunch, they crashed into the gate. The Beetle felt as if it were going to tip over as the damaged gate fell from its hinges and one tread rode up onto it while the other stayed on the ground. Seconds later, the Angry Beetle shook violently as it dropped back to level and rolled on. Stunned guards looked down from the walls as the Angry Beetle roared away from the fort. The road sloped sharply downward toward the river. Burke disengaged the gears, allowing gravity alone to propel them so that they could build up enough pressure to climb the hill on the other side of the river.

  “There’s a bridge ahead,” said Thorny.

  “I know,” said Burke. “It’s going to be like threading a needle to cross it.”

  “Can the bridge even hold us?” Vance asked nervously.

  “It’s stone,” said Burke. “The earth-dragons moved wagons loaded with armor and weapons across it. It’ll hold.”

  He peeked back out the rear sighting hatch. His heart sank. There were a dozen men walking along behind the Angry Beetle, all bearing shotguns. They were spread out so that the rear cannon would never hit all of them. If they followed the war machine long enough, they’d be able to peel it open once it ran out of steam.

  “Uh-oh,” said Thorny.

  These were quite likely the worst two syllables anyone could have uttered, given the circumstance. “What?” Burke asked.

  “Earth-dragons,” said Thorny. “They’re climbing up from under the bridge. I guess they’ve heard the racket we’re making. There might be fifty of them.”

  Burke barely had time to contemplate this news before a shotgun blast rang out. Then another, then another. No balls clanged off the Angry Beetle’s armor. How could they possibly miss?

  “That’s about five fewer earth-dragons,” said Thorny.

  As the angry war-cries of earth-dragons at full charge filled the air, a faint hope suddenly sparked within Burke’s chest. Sometimes, two problems were better than one. In the best case scenario, the men and the dragons would fight one another and ignore the Angry Beetle.

  In the worst case scenario, the dragons would kill the men, capture their guns and the Beetle, and suddenly have over a dozen shotguns, two cannons, and a barrel of gunpowder for the biologians to reverse engineer.

  The Angry Beetle lurched as Burke contemplated their situation.

  “We just ran over a fallen dragon,” said Thorny.

  Shotgun blasts continued to ring out.

  “The humans have to win this battle,” said Burke, grabbing the shotgun. “Even if Ragnar’s men kill us, we can’t let the dragons get their hands on the gunpowder.”

  “Burke,” said Thorny. “You might want to concentrate on steering. We’re only fifty feet from that bridge.”

  Burke handed the gun to Vance. “Open the rear gun slit. Fire at will.”

  “I don’t know if my eyes are good enough for me to target anything,” said Vance.

  “Let’s find out,” said Burke.

  Vance nodded. He moved swiftly to slide the small hatches open. Burke craned his head over his shoulder, trying to see as much as possible through the tiny holes. He could see the edges of the bridge. It looked like he was on track. There were a half-dozen earth-dragons on the bridge. Vance fired the shotgun.

  When the smoke cleared, most of the earth-dragons were running. There was now a huge shadow on the bridge. What was it? Burke squinted, trying to make sense. It was moving…

  With a start, he realized that the biggest earth-dragon he’d ever seen was charging straight toward the Angry Beetle. He brandished a war-hammer that no human could ever lift. His jagged beak was open in a war cry louder than the rumbling treads on the stonework of the bridge.

  With a horrifying grunt, the huge dragon swung his hammer. Burke’s end of the Angry Beetle suddenly shot into the air. Shrill whistles rang out as jets of steam shot from the seams of the boiler. With a gut-wrenching chewing sound, Burke heard the left tread seize up.

  “Reload,” Burke shouted.

  The Angry Beetle jumped as the war-hammer once more slammed into its leading edge. One of the exterior spikes suddenly punched down into the belly of the war machine, missing the back of Thorny’s head by a fraction of an inch. Vance was thrown against the boiler.

  “Aaaah!” he cried out, pulling back. The chamber suddenly smelled like burning hair. Vance’s wispy beard was gone from the left side of his face, now a bright beet red.

  The rear gun slot Burke had been looking through was crushed completely shut. He could barely see out one of the remaining holes. A wall of reptilian flesh rippled as the dragon lifted the hammer for another blow.

  There was a rumble beneath the Angry Beetle. The dragon attacking them jumped backward. Dust shot into the air.

  “Uh-oh,” Thorny said again.

  In a symphony of pops and cracks and groans, the bridge beneath them crumbled and they dropped twenty feet, landing sideways. The entry hatch snapped open, showing the river water rushing past only inches below. The Angry Beetle was precariously perched on the rubble of the bridge. The air was hot with steam.

  Vance had his hands pressed against the roof, straining to keep from falling against the boiler again. “Y’all okay?” he asked.

  “I think so,” said Burke.

  Thorny’s voice was feeble. “I don’t suppose you brought that jug of goom, did you? I could drink a gallon right about now.”

  “There’s thirty gallons on board,” said Burke, looking down at the water. He glanced over at the spool of fuse. “We’re not drinking it though. It’s going to be part of the explosion.”

  “Have we moved on to some part of the pl
an I was unaware of?” Thorny asked.

  “There was a plan?” asked Vance.

  “Get into the water,” said Burke. “We can’t let the dragons capture the Angry Beetle. I’m going to blow it up. Between the gunpowder and the goom, we might destroy the cannons.”

  Vance nodded. “Works for me.” He let go of his handhold, grabbed the sky-wall bow and quiver, and dropped into the water. The boy really was fast with his hands. He popped back to the surface a second later. The water was up to his neck. He reached up. “Let me help you, Thorny.”

  Thorny did his best to navigate the cramped space without hitting the boiler. He didn’t succeed. His face scrunched up in pain when his shin hit the hot metal, but he never made a sound of complaint. He slipped down into Vance’s hands and fell into the water.

  “Take my crutch,” Burke said, handing it down to Vance. He pulled several feet of chord off the spool and shoved it into the top of the nearest barrel. “We’ll have less than a minute to get out of here. I don’t move fast these days, so I might not make it.”

  Thorny’s head popped back into the hatch. He was shivering violently.

  “T-that’s why y-you should get a head start. I’ll light the f-fuse.”

  “I got us into this,” said Burke. “Both of you go on.”

  “Burke,” said Thorny, sounding grave. “For the last f-fifteen years, I’ve been s-spying on you for Bazanel. If I die, I d-deserve it.”

  “I knew,” said Burke. “It was too big a coincidence that you’d been the slave of the only dragon I’d ever thought of as a kindred spirit.”

  “I’ll light the fuse,” said Vance.

  “But…”

  “I’m faster than both of you. I can hold my breath underwater a long time. Now get out of there and let me blow this thing up.”

  Burke grabbed the fallen shotgun and slipped down into the icy water. He lost his footing almost instantly. He reached out and grabbed Thorny’s arm to steady himself.

  “What’s h-he going to l-light it with?” Thorny asked through chattering teeth.

  “There’s still fire under the boiler,” Vance grumbled. “Get out of here!”

  It was the closest thing to anger Burke had ever heard in Vance’s voice. Grabbing his crutch, he took a deep breath and dropped beneath the water. The current pulled him away. He popped back to the surface several yards downstream. The water was unbelievably cold. Each winter his father used to throw him into the river and make him swim a mile. Supposedly, it was meant to make him tougher. In practice, it left him hating swimming. It was one aspect of his childhood training he’d never had the heart to inflict on Anza. He was suddenly grateful for it.