"All we can do is our best, Abe," Professor Bruttenholm said, laying a paternal hand on his shoulder. "It is always hardest to save people from themselves."
A dusting of rock and loose soil slid down the hill behind them. Abe glanced up to see Neil Pinborough clambering toward them. The agent dropped the last seven or eight feet and landed in a crouch. In the dark, he seemed made of the night. Across his back were slung a long bow of simple design and a leather quiver containing perhaps half a dozen arrows of similar rustic quality.
"You spoke to them?" Professor Bruttenholm asked.
Pinborough nodded. "If the worm comes back, they're not going to sit about and wait to die with Kyichu. They'll be right along."
The old man sighed. "Foolish, even so. They ought not to wait. They should come now."
Abe cocked his head again and stared at the professor in admiration. He'd had Pinborough talking to Corriveau and Gibson behind Professor Kyichu's back and didn't even think to mention it.
"They're being careful," Abe said. "If Kyichu's gamble pays off without getting them killed, they'll be able to take credit for helping him save the dig."
"Silly sods," Pinborough muttered.
"Agreed," Professor Bruttenholm replied.
Abe studied Pinborough's bow. "What do you plan to do with that? If the guns aren't going to help--"
"One of the little treasures we brought along at the start of this whole mess," Pinborough replied, glancing at Professor Bruttenholm before looking back to Abe. "The brief indicated something to do with dragons, but really, we had no idea what we'd be up against, so we threw a few things into our kit. Ancient Chinese alchemist named Gui Xian--said he was immortal, but time proved him wrong--made a compound that would turn anything it touched to silver. One of his enemies took his spells and put them to new use, made these arrows, tipped with the compound, and killed him with one."
Abe stared at him. "You did see the size of the Dragon King?"
Pinborough shrugged. "We use what's on hand."
"True enough," Abe replied. He'd grown to like Neil Pinborough. The man had been trained to be brutal, but it didn't seem to have gotten into his psyche as much as it had with Meaney.
"Abe," Professor Bruttenholm said. His voice had gone cold.
Filled with dread, Abe followed the professor's gaze to the lake. The water had begun to churn, perhaps even to boil. In places, the surface seemed to be on fire.
"Choppers!" Pinborough shouted.
"Watch yourselves," Professor Bruttenholm said.
Abe called to him to do the same, already in motion. He and Pinborough ran side by side. Abe shouted to Redfield and Lao's pilot, whipping his arm in the air in a signal for them to get the rotors turning. He could only imagine how exhausted both pilots must have been given the flights they'd made back and forth to Lhasa in the past day and a half. But both men were alert.
The rotors came to life, whipping the air.
Abe and Pinborough ducked low and rushed to the helicopters. Each had the electrified nets attached to their undercarriages. Pinborough reached the black chopper and jumped into the back. Each chopper had only a pilot and a single one of Lao's commandos, plus one BPRD agent. Abe hauled himself into the back of Redfield's helicopter. The bearded pilot didn't even wait for him to slide the door closed before bringing them aloft.
The black-clad commando beside Abe muttered something in Chinese and gripped his assault rifle in both hands like a security blanket. Abe wanted to tell him it wouldn't provide any security, but he didn't speak Chinese. Plus, he'd been touching his own pistol like a lucky charm, so he couldn't really talk.
As they rose into the air--the other chopper taking flight beside them--the lake erupted with fire and water in a replay of the previous night's explosion. Yellow scales glowed in the firelight. The lake water mixed with the falling rain and showered back down again.
The Dragon King slithered into the sky.
Lao's commandos attacked immediately. Surface-to-air missiles whisked from their ground positions and seared across the sky. Two struck the huge worm in quick succession, one striking its long, whipping tail and glancing harmlessly away. The second embedded itself into the red scales of the dragon's belly and exploded in a small burst of flesh and scale and blood.
The Dragon King screamed, not in pain, but in fury. It thrashed in the air, throwing its antlered head back as though trying to buck a rider. Flames erupted from its gullet and sprayed the dark, cloudy night sky.
"Redfield, move it!" Abe cried. "This may be our only shot!"
"I'm on it!" the pilot barked.
The commando chopper rose to the west. Redfield navigated east, riding an updraft. In seconds, both of the helicopters were above the Dragon King. It twisted in the air, barely paying any attention to them. The great serpent seemed to be searching for something. Another missile hit its ridged back, but it exploded without doing any real damage. That was when Abe understood that Professor Bruttenholm's wards were working. The dragon couldn't see the professor, Lao, or his commandos on the ground.
A fresh gout of fire bursting from its nostrils, the Dragon King whipped its head around to glare at the ridge where the excavation had been. Abe cursed aloud. It had sensed, smelled, or seen someone up there on the ridge. Kyichu would still be hiding, but now Abe realized that it had been a huge mistake for Pinborough to ask Corriveau and Gibson to run for the professor's help when the dragon appeared.
"Hurry! It's seen them!" Abe shouted.
Redfield gritted his teeth but didn't reply. The Chinese commando said nothing. The pilot pulled the stick, and the chopper rose higher.
"Get ready!" Redfield called.
Abe took a breath, grabbed the door on his side, and glanced over to see his commando partner do the same. The commando nodded and simultaneously they slid open the doors. Abe could barely breathe. The altitude of the plateau itself was high enough to thin the air, but they were much higher now. He worried how high the chopper could go before it ran out of airspace, before the air wouldn't hold them aloft anymore, and then he chided himself for worrying about things he couldn't control.
"Set?" Redfield called back.
"Wait!" Abe replied, dropping to the floor of the chopper. He reached an arm out, searched with his hand and found the release that'd been jury-rigged to the undercarriage. Halfway down would release the first net. All the way would release the second.
Abe glanced back at the commando and saw that he was in position as well. The two levers had to be released at precisely the same time if they wanted to be on target with the net. The thing would electrify the second that something pulled against it, trying to break free.
"Set!" Abe called.
As he glanced back out into the rainy night above Lake Tashi, he saw the other chopper release its first net. He thought he could see Pinborough and a commando in the back, lying down just like him. The net seemed almost to float on the air, like a man-o'-war on the water. But it caught the lower half of the Dragon King's body and tangled around the beast instantly. The worm tried to rake it off with the eagle talons of its rear legs, and the moment it did so, the entire net sizzled and smoked.
Again, the dragon bucked at the air and screamed. The fire that gouted from its maw burned past the helicopter. Redfield shouted and jerked the stick to the left. Seconds later, they were hovering just above the Dragon King in the air.
"Now!" Redfield shouted.
Abe pressed the lever halfway with a loud clank, and the first net dropped away. It landed on the Dragon King's head, strung like cobwebs in its antlers. The sizzling and smoking began again, and the Dragon King kept screaming and bucking.
The other chopper started to maneuver to get back into place. Abe saw Neil Pinborough kneeling just inside the open side door of the combat helicopter. He was shouting something, probably telling the pilot to hold her steady, and he had the bow in his hands. Quickly, he drew from the quiver one of the arrows that had killed Gui Xian and nocked it.
Even a
s the two helicopters danced away from one another, Abe caught one last glimpse of Pinborough loosing the arrow. He could barely track its flight, but then saw a black streak across one of the dragon's eyes. The arrow struck the gigantic, writhing sky serpent, and it squealed with a pain Abe had not heard from it before.
The dragon's left eye turned to silver.
It thrashed in pain and fury, tearing the electrified nets, reaching up to claw at its dead, silver eye. With a roar, it opened its jaws and spewed fire in a wide arc that caught the other helicopter in a tidal wave of flames.
Abe shouted some denial of what his eyes had seen. In the open rear compartment of the chopper, Pinborough and the commando were ablaze like some wicker effigies of men.
Then the chopper's fuel tank exploded. A conflagration of flame and metal careened from the sky and crashed into the steep mountain slope to the south of the lake.
Abe stared in horror. The dragon tore free of the net that covered the lower half of its body, and the entire length of the serpent whipped the air. It struck the tail of the chopper, dashing it from the sky.
Metal tore. Redfield swore as he tried to get the helicopter under control, but it hurtled toward the lake.
Abe fell.
The chopper spun away from him, and he tumbled end over end, down into the steaming, searing, sulfurous waters of Lake Tashi. He plunged into the water. The heat embraced him, and Abe cried out soundlessly as it rushed through his gills.
The impact had dulled his thoughts. He hung there, swaying in the water like a dead man, sure that the dragon's fire would boil him alive.
His vision blurred. Darkness encroached at the corners of his eyes. Then he saw something moving in the water. Small and gray-blue, translucent and swift. This was no dragon.
Barely conscious, he tried to focus his eyes...and saw the ghost of a child staring back at him. The girl smiled sweetly and waved at him as though they'd passed one another on the street. The spirit reached out and touched him, and Abe felt an electric jolt that brought him fully awake.
The little girl's ghost wasn't alone. Behind her were two boys, gray-blue shades of death, perfect and beautiful and innocent. Farther back in the water that still glowed with dragon fire from the depths of the lake, he saw so many others. Dozens. Perhaps hundreds. The children of the Nyenchen Tanghla mountain range.
And he knew.
These were the ghosts of all of those children who had been sacrificed to the Dragon King. Lost souls, lingering, waiting in this world for someone to release them at last, to destroy the worm.
Their presence soothed Abe. The heat of the water did not burn so terribly. The sulfurous taint in the lake did not choke him. They were lending him the strength of their spirits. The ghosts of those children had saved him.
He reached out, and his fingers passed through the little girl's hand, but the covenant was made. Abe would do whatever he could to aid them in return.
Chapter 13
Hellboy couldn't understand a word Dwenjue said, but he liked the grim little warrior. The dwarf monk had a deadly serious disposition, a disdain for everything but getting his job done, and yellow eyes that glowed in the dark. He carried his long, mystical sword over his shoulder because if he'd put it into a scabbard, it would have dragged on the ground. Dwenjue wouldn't have been any fun at a pub, but on a mission to kill a monster that burned and ate people and demanded the sacrifice of small children in exchange for mercy, he was just the kind of guy Hellboy wanted along.
They'd gone back to the monastery to find only ten people remaining, including Sarah and Meaney. Apparently evacuating the rest at night had been deemed too dangerous. A helicopter would return for the last group at first light. Meanwhile, they had to hunker down for the night in the monastery. Hellboy had suggested that Tenzin and Stasia stay there, but neither of them would hear of it. The suggestion pissed Stasia off. The guide, on the other hand, just knew he was needed and had a job to do.
The five of them had trekked down from the monastery and turned west. Now they could see Lake Tashi ahead. Not a single light gave away the presence of BPRD agents or Chinese government forces on the northern shore. Hellboy picked up his pace. He knew worrying made little sense. Professor Bruttenholm would have insisted they move in darkness to avoid drawing the dragon's attention if it came up after dark. The only illumination came from the lake itself, which seemed to have caught fire far below the surface.
"It's beautiful," Stasia said.
"That's one way to look at it," Hellboy replied.
"It's terrible, too."
He only nodded. Both descriptions were correct. Whatever happened in the next twenty-four hours or so, there was a kind of breathtaking magic to it, and a brutal ugliness as well.
Koh marched on his left and Dwenjue on his right, that sword over his shoulder. Tenzin and Stasia followed close behind them. Hellboy felt like he was trudging with cement blocks around his legs. He could endure just about anything, but that didn't stop him from getting tired. How Stasia and the guide were managing to keep walking was a mystery to him.
They followed the lakeshore to the right. Hellboy figured they had three-quarters of a mile or so before they'd get to the location of the original camp, just below the dig on the ridge.
Dwenjue muttered something.
"What'd he say?" Hellboy asked, glancing back at Tenzin.
"He smells dragon. And it isn't Koh."
From the look of the water, with that firelit mist swirling on the surface, Hellboy wasn't surprised.
"Something's going on down there," Stasia said, and he could hear uncharacteristic fear in her voice.
Koh picked up the pace, nearly breaking into a run. As he moved, his body changed again, his dragon features coming out, the fire starting in his eyes again. Hellboy made to shout after him, but then he saw the way the water had begun to churn.
"Stasia," he said.
"Run!" she shouted.
They sprinted along the shore toward the place where they knew the remainder of the camp lay. Hellboy heard shouting, then the roar of helicopters whirring to life.
The lake exploded with fire and a fountain of scalding water. The Dragon King snaked into the sky, and the helicopters were in pursuit. As he ran, leaving Stasia and Tenzin behind, only Koh and--amazingly--Dwenjue able to keep pace with him, he watched as the choppers flanked the dragon in the sky, watched them drop their nets.
When the dragon shrieked its pain, Koh cried out as well, though whether in triumph or sympathy, Hellboy could not tell. Gunfire and rocket fire came from the darkness ahead, and Hellboy followed the tracers back to their launch point. They trampled the spot where the original camp had been burned.
The dragon shrieked again. It writhed in the air, beginning to tear free of the nets, which crackled with electricity and smoked as it struggled against them. Shouts came from the ridge to the right, and Hellboy looked up to see the archaeologists who'd been stupid enough to stick around with Han Kyichu sliding and practically crashing down the rocky slope of the hill toward them.
"Go!" Stasia snapped. "I'll deal with them."
"Keep them quiet!" Hellboy barked at her.
He ran on, though he felt part of him tethered to Stasia as he left her behind, wondering if those were the last words they'd ever exchange. Dwenjue barreled along beside him, somehow fleet of foot in spite of his size and the massive sword. The yellow eyes weren't the only magic in the little monk. Koh had bent low to the ground and ran with a strange, reptilian smoothness.
Ahead, the commandos Lao had brought in were using both shoulder-launched rockets and others on portable stands. As Hellboy watched, one struck the red underbelly of the Dragon King and exploded, blowing a bloody wound in the thing's scaly hide. Another wound showed a previous strike. A second missile went off right at the serpent's neck as it thrashed in those electrified nets, the helicopters buzzing around it. That explosion didn't harm it at all.
"The red stripe!" Hellboy shouted as he thund
ered toward the commandos, forgetting that they could not understand him. As with so many other armored creatures, the dragon's belly was vulnerable.
Assault weapons fire punctured the night in staccato bursts. Hellboy ran, now leaving even Koh and Dwenjue behind. Up ahead, behind the commandos, exhorting them on, he saw his father and Lao. Professor Bruttenholm had some kind of war paint on his face. It took Hellboy a second to realize that Lao and the commandos had it as well, then another second to figure out that these were wards.
"Crap," he snarled. If the wards were working, keeping the dragon from seeing them, then his arrival and that of his companions would draw the big worm's attention right here.
Professor Bruttenholm shouted at Lao over the weapons fire. He gestured toward the helicopters, then to the commandos. Hellboy felt a spark of pride seeing the old man taking command in the field. Whatever danger they were in, Trevor Bruttenholm had it under control.
The dragon screamed.
Hellboy spun around just in time to see dragon fire strafe one of the helicopters. Men were set ablaze as the chopper was engulfed in flames. The fuel tank exploded, and Hellboy slid to a halt, staring in horror as the helicopter careened into the southern cliff face, leaving nothing but burning metal shrapnel to fall into the lake.
He sensed rather than saw Stasia, Tenzin, and the two expedition members who'd been with the absent Kyichu come up behind him, staggered by the sight. Koh hissed low in his throat. Dwenjue took a step toward the shore, those yellow eyes gleaming.
Professor Bruttenholm called to him, but Hellboy could not tear his gaze from the Dragon King. The serpent thrashed hard enough to tear itself loose from the nets. Its body whipped in the air, and Hellboy shouted in fury and anguish as it struck the second chopper.
The helicopter's engine whined as it spun through the air. Redfield might have been the best pilot Hellboy had ever seen. He'd be struggling to get the thing under control. But even as the chopper twisted away at a dangerous angle from the Dragon King, a lone figure tumbled out of the chopper's open side door, dropping like a stone into the lake.
The Dragon Pool: The Dragon Pool Page 21
