StoneDragon

by Adrian Cross

The street was too quiet and empty, and a haze wavered near a gap in the buildings, right where the office should be. A low crackle of flames caught the edge of his hearing.

  Ice slid down his spine. He leaped forward, pounding down the street.

  “Hey!” Jonathan yelled. “What are you doing?”

  Footsteps pounded behind Clay, suggesting the others chased him, but he didn’t slow. He flew around the final corner, his worst fears confirmed. Fire raced up the sides of the office, licking in and out of the second-floor window. Heat brushed his face even from that distance.

  “JP!” He bolted forward.

  Silhouetted in front of the blaze, a dozen or so shapes waited, blocking his way. They were big and cat-shaped. Not as big as Latine but heavier than a normal human and nearly as tall, standing on furred back legs. They all carried sabers. The center cat stepped toward Clay, mouth opening to speak.

  Clay lunged forward, taking out the cat’s throat with the dagger. A blue trail lit the air behind the blade. The cat’s body fell.

  Before it landed, the other cats erupted. One flew through the air, sword swinging. Clay ducked and drove his shoulder into its stomach, sinking the blue blade deep, even as powerful claws scrabbled against the back of his coat. He heaved the blade up, gutting the cat.

  JP was in the office. He could be burning.

  Clay spun, blood drops curving from the dagger. He sank its tip into another cat’s eye.

  “I’m coming!”

  The flames coughed and roared in contemptuous response, painting the battle in stark red and black.

  Another cat drove at Clay. He rolled under the assault, slicing as he did, and rose as the cat crashed down. It tried to get up but fell again, blood pouring out of its back leg, where Clay had severed an artery.

  They had set a trap for Clay, using JP as bait. Clay’s heart was iron. He took another step toward the office, two, then the rest of the pack hit, snarling and frenzied—too close for swords to be effective, but ripping at Clay with claws and fangs, just as deadly at close range.

  The scales of Clay’s coat saved him. They soaked up terrible punishment, even as Clay stabbed and twisted, dagger trailing lines of blood, like a ghoulish paintbrush.

  Pain sliced his thigh. A shoulder slammed his jaw. His vision blurred as he stumbled sideways.

  He banged into a furred body, reflexively drove his blade in deep, then rolled over its back and landed clumsily on the other side, as the cat collapsed.

  Clay shook blood from his eyes, spreading his legs wide. A snarl escaped his chest, bubbling with rage and fury. He was ready to make a stand, but the cats were no longer interested in him. A distraction had hit them from behind.

  Bern’s axe swung in elegant arcs, furred bodies crumpling with each swing. Her face remained calm even as she battled creatures twice her mass, moving with liquid grace.

  Jonathan was gone, but he hadn’t deserted them this time. A cat that tried to get behind Bern crumpled, then another. Jonathan moved like a ghost of death, leaving bodies behind.

  The cats broke and ran, those who still could, and left a tangle of red-stained corpses behind. If Horan had planned this ambush, he was going to be disappointed.

  Clay dropped the dagger and ran at the blazing doorway.

  Jonathan yelled. Clay didn’t hear the words, didn’t wait to find out.

  He plunged into the building, into flame.

  Smoke and fire surrounded him, heat distorting the air. The walls crawled with flame, and the mahogany desk was a solid sheet of fire. Bursts of flame shot up from holes in the floor, only to be sucked back down again as quickly.

  Clay felt the skin of his face crack and stiffen. The heat was like a train’s furnace, baking the moisture from his skin and clothes. His coat hissed and snapped, as the blood covering it evaporated. He smelled burned hair and ducked his face into the crook of his arm, squeezing his eyes to slits. It was a struggle to breathe.

  He didn’t have much time. But he refused to turn back.

  He pushed forward against the heat, found the stairs, and leaped up them in reckless bounds. Speed was his only hope. Flames curled around his legs, shielded somewhat by the boots and coat, but pain still wrapped his shins. His hands and face felt worse. His lungs burned.

  He paused at the top of the stairs, swaying, gasping. “JP.”

  Everything burned. It was hell.

  The guest room door was gone, its frame black and split. Inside, he saw a maelstrom, fire raging and swirling like the end of the world. Nothing could survive that.

  The wood under Clay’s feet split and disappeared. He fell into empty space, surrounded by a cascade of red sparks, black wood, and searing pain.

  Debris rushed down after him. It felt like the entire building caved on top of him, bringing blackness with it.

  The relief from pain was bliss.

  16

  Rhino’s Cage

  JP woke slowly. Cold stone leached the heat from his chest, through the thin cotton shirt. He groaned and pushed himself up, flakes of straw crackling under his palms. The outer edge of his left hand stung, pink and swollen, and his throat ached. That seemed to be the extent of his damage. A minor burn and smoke inhalation. Snake and Rhino must have dragged JP out of the building shortly after they started the fire, or his injuries would be a lot worse. The question was why.

  A single torch on the wall cast an uneasy light across heavy bars and large dusty crates. It looked like he was in some kind of dungeon, one used more for storage than prisoners. He couldn’t make out the printing on the side of the crates but caught a glimmer of stainless steel nail heads along an edge. So from a reasonably modern era.

  His arms shivered and he jammed his teeth together. It wasn’t entirely from the cold. The iron bars reminded him of the Bird Cage, the crudely welded prison in which the General would lock JP—sometimes for no discernable reason—then lower him until he dangled in midair, underneath the cliff overhang of the Eyrie.

  More often than not, as he hung there a battle would rage below. Snaking lines of crystal warriors assaulting the lower battlements. Flames spiking up from the fire bombs dropped from the drifting dirigibles above. Battle swirling and scouring the mountain base until it was scarred and broken. The only vegetation that survived in the battle’s aftermath were Jack Pines, small crooked trees that seeded themselves from the flames and clung to inhospitable slopes. They were thin and twisted, but they survived. JP regarded them with grudging admiration and eventually chose them for his name.

  Damaged or not, he was more than a pale copy of someone else. More than a tool. He had his own name, even if he’d had to find it himself.

  He heard a low creak outside the bars of his cell and noticed a shape sitting on one of the crates. Torchlight painted a milky curve starting at the man’s forehead.

  Rhino.

  “You’re Clay’s old boss,” JP stated.

  Pale grey eyes met JP’s, cold as the bars between them. “And you are interesting.”

  Rhino rose. He was an enormous man, his shoulders seeming to block the light. His frame was heavier than human. Somewhere in his past he’d been genetically blended into something else.

  “Clay was hiding you,” Rhino rumbled. “Why?”

  JP’s fingers touched the iron bars. Memories swamped him, fire, blood, pain. He forced them back.

  “Clay’s a friend. He wasn’t hiding me. I simply prefer not to be disturbed.”

  “You’re what, sixteen?”

  JP stared at the bars. How old was he? He didn’t know. The drugs had slowed his physical maturation though. Older than sixteen.

  “What’s your name?”

  “JP.” That piece of information shouldn’t matter.

  Rhino tilted his head. “I assume Clay has told you about me? I was not always a soldier, you know. Do you know when I’m from?”

  “The End of the World.”

  “Indeed.” Rhino’s lips curved, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “The L
ast Great War. After the Enemy’s attacks, and a lot of waffling, the military seized power. They took control of scientific research and took it to a dark place. A lot of experimentation happened. But I didn’t know much about that, early on. When the Enemy first crawled out of the cracks, I was a criminal.” A glimmer of teeth. “I know, hard to imagine.”

  Rhino moved closer. JP could see something at his side: a heavy metal tube, with a grip and backswept wings, traced with muddy green wiring. Rhino lifted the weapon and casually pointed it at JP.

  His body went cold. A Raker. It was one of the nastier and less predictable handheld weapons in the Great War. It was a bunker cracker, a fire spinner. If Rhino used it, nothing would be left of the building but redly glowing stones.

  Rhino’s finger slid around the trigger, taking up the slack. “You know what this is,” he said conversationally.

  JP’s abdominal muscles locked. This was StoneDragon. The weapon wouldn’t work. Surely Rhino knew what he held. He was simply playing games.

  Click.

  JP felt like throwing up.

  Rhino dropped the Raker into the box behind him, carelessly as if it were a chunk of firewood.

  “I ran a gang. I didn’t know much different. My father was a special services veteran, and he taught me to be the toughest one in an alley. One thing led to another, after he was gone. I found myself on the wrong side of the law.

  “But anything I do, I like to do right. So I got people almost as tough as me and treated them right. Set them up to be on the winning team. People like to be on a winning team, you know? I expanded.

  “And then the Creepers came and messed things up. One of their big warriors tunneled up under our warehouse, and I lost half my best guys putting it down. Turns out Earth’s basement has some shiny white cockroaches that kill.

  “We tried to stay out of it, but I was getting madder and madder. Even after we learned some of the tricks, to not use metal and armor, we were still fighting a losing battle. And I hate to lose.

  “The army was doing a bit better because they had scientists and no scruples. They wanted nightmares, anything that had a hope of evening the odds. They asked for volunteers for their experiments.”

  He paused. “Maybe it was ’cause my father was a soldier. To this day, I don’t know. But I volunteered. And they turned me into this.” He gestured up and down.

  “Was it worth it?” JP couldn’t help asking.

  Rhino’s eyes went bleak. JP stepped back.

  “I killed a lot of Creepers,” Rhino said. “They made me into something way more than I started out, and I killed an awful lot of Creepers. The other nightmares too. For years. But nightmares can die, and they almost all did. The big Creepers too, I suppose. By the end, I thought the entire world was dead. Everyone except the big Creeper hunting me.” His eyes burned; the muscles along his neck bunched. “I will go back and finish what those generals started. This city will Shift there one day, and I’ll have everything I need to exterminate the cockroaches and return our world to what it was.” He gritted his teeth. “Then it’ll be worth it. All of it.”

  JP’s chest was tight. He remembered those battles, although not the devastation Rhino described at the end. It made fear churn in JP’s stomach. He didn’t want to go back.

  “But you knew most of this already, didn’t you, JP? You’ve seen a Raker before. And you know what? I’ve seen you before. In my Change chamber, where my first life ended. What were you doing there?”

  Rhino’s voice rumbled with suppressed rage. He was still, but it was a dangerous stillness. JP looked at those big hands and debated. What was riskier, lies or the truth?

  “I do not know you,” he said. All else equal, the truth was usually safer. Usually.

  Coiled violence throbbed in the room. Rhino’s cheek twitched. “Are you calling me a liar?”

  “I’m not the only one of my kind. I’m a clone.” JP couldn’t help the pain in his voice.

  Surprise, suspicion, rage warred on Rhino’s face. His eyes burned with intensity. JP sensed his life hung on a knife edge. What kind of person outlived most of the human race, survived some of the most terrible violence of the greatest war ever fought? Not someone who was predictable or safe.

  “I’ve never seen you,” he said steadily. “I was not the cause of your pain. That is not the direction my research took.”

  “Where did your research take you?”

  JP wished he hadn’t said the last few words. He stayed quiet.

  Rhino leaned back. “Let’s say your story is true. You came through the time tunnel, right?”

  JP nodded reluctantly.

  “Clay was supposed to close it.”

  “He did.”

  “I told him not to leave anyone alive.”

  “Oh.” JP’s stomach churned. He had guessed that, but it was still disconcerting to hear the words from the man who’d ordered it.

  A curl of mist rose from one of Rhino’s nostrils, dissipating in the darkness. “He disobeyed me and then hid his betrayal. But that’s between Clay and me.” He leaned forward. “The question for you now is the important one. When the War returns, what are you going to do?”

  Rhino was still obsessed.

  “The war is gone,” JP said. “It’s the future, even if it’s in your past. We could be dead by the time StoneDragon shows up there again.”

  “No.” Rhino’s voice held absolute certainty. “It will happen. Soon. I know it. And this time, humanity will win.” He looked at the crate where the Raker rested. “Just because something doesn’t work in StoneDragon doesn’t mean it won’t on the other side of the Wall. I have been preparing. You could be helpful when the time comes. Consider it.”

  JP remembered the General, as evil a man as JP had ever known. He remembered how Clay had killed the General’s bodyguards, with fluid grace and a sullen red pistol. Clay had looked at JP, hung on a metal cross, tubes of fluids sunk into his arms, then the General, cowering in the corner. Clay had left the General there, trapped in a collapsing time tunnel. The General had screamed as they left. Clay ignored the screams. He’d done it for JP.

  His body clenched. He’d protect Clay. He would never be a prisoner again.

  “No.”

  Rhino rose, unlocking the door. He entered the cell and approached JP, eyes cold and paralyzing as a cobra’s. Rhino stopped in front of JP.

  “I misjudged Clay. I thought he would be hard, after what he went through. I thought he’d be just like me. But I was wrong. He let you live; he hid you and deserted me. I gave him every chance. But he rejected me.”

  Rhino settled a stubby hand on JP’s head, fingers wide. “Will you serve me, when the Great War comes again?”

  Ice flowed through JP’s limbs. He couldn’t move, could barely speak. His heart hammered. He would not be a prisoner, not again.

  “I’d die first,” he whispered.

  Rhino sighed in disappointment. The pressure of his hand tightened and then released. His eyes gleamed. After several long seconds staring at JP, Rhino turned and walked away. The lock clicked behind him.

  “We’ll see,” he said.

  JP sagged, strength draining from his limbs. He felt dizzy. He’d like to think he was safe at this point, but his gut told him it was only a matter of time before the huge Fist killed him. Or used torture to make him a tool, as the General had done. Breaking him if necessary.

  JP sank to the floor, cold and frightened.

  Clay, where are you?

  17

  Out of the Fire

  When Clay opened his eyes, he saw rippling red and was seized by panic, thinking he was still in the midst of that terrible fire. But the awful heat and crackle were gone. The air he desperately sucked was cool and clear, despite an ache in his chest and a cough that rattled through him.

  The red in front of him was the Wall, he realized. He lay on the cobblestones of the street, a cool breeze washing over him.

  Blue-grey steel swam into focus above his fa
ce. A dagger hovered over his eye.

  He tried to jerk his head sideways, but a hand held his forehead in place.

  The dagger lowered.

  “Wait,” he croaked.

  A hand was holding his forehead, preventing any movement.

  “Hush,” Bern said, and the blade touched the skin of his cheek, just below his eye. It was like ice, cold spreading out and numbing the skin. An ache he’d barely been aware of diminished at the same time, as if the fire’s damage was being absorbed by the blade.

  His skin tightened and tingled as Bern drew the blade away. It shone blue, burning in the darkness. Her face appeared graceful and soft in the light, eyes liquid as the subterranean pool she’d surfaced from. Something stirred in his chest.

  “How?” he rasped. The effort hurt his throat, and he coughed again. How had the dagger done that? How was he still alive? Not that he was complaining.

  “You’re an idiot,” Jonathan said contemptuously. He stood behind Bern, his arms crossed and lips twisted as he looked down. “You were given a token from Resh, and you cast it into the dirt like some garden tool.”

  Clay got the idea Jonathan wasn’t impressed with the rescue attempt or Clay’s overall intelligence. Luckily he didn’t care too much what Jonathan thought.

  “Resh’s tokens absorb some of his power,” Jonathan said, “including the quenching coolness of the sea. You’re lucky your friend thought to pick it up and carry it in there to rescue you. Of course, she may not be much smarter than you since she didn’t actually know what would happen when she tried it.” He shook his head slowly. “You’re both lucky you’re alive.”

  Bern had saved Clay—again. And he’d apparently severely underestimated Resh’s gift. Perhaps Jonathan was right in his estimation of Clay’s intelligence.

  Bern touched the dagger to Clay’s neck. He tensed, but the effect was the same: a splash of coolness and the trickle of pain being drawn away.

  “I saw the stairs collapse and … I had to try.” She pulled the blade away but kept her gaze on it, not looking at him. “The fire died near the dagger. We wouldn’t have made it out otherwise. As for the healing…” She shrugged. “There didn’t seem much to lose, at that point.”