Lurvy, the small, lush woman riding him called out, “Windy, put him out of his misery.”
Wendigo’s claws flexed once and the shark shuddered with the cavitation of death. “Fish tonight! Fire up the pits!” She shouted with the exultant ring of a hunter.
Dozens of people cheered in response as they rushed to relieve the dragon of the enormous predators, which were now going to be just another dinner. The unyielding reality of the food chain was never more evident than that moment, and Delandra caught the odd look that Orontes gave her as he strained to see the sharks.
Orontes smiled weakly. “Let’s meet wherever they butcher those fish, and tell them not to dispose of the offal. I promise you, the news I bring will end your days as you know it.”
Delandra nodded slightly, her desire for dinner quelled by the frigidity of Orontes’ tone.
17
Dragons
“The first thing to dissolve was the military. We were the point of the spear, you know? We were . . . wherever there was an attack, reactionary forces moved in, but that went to hell in six months. These were animals, you understand? Not men, not aircraft, or tanks. Just creatures, things that wanted to rip us apart. I’ll tell you how fast everything went to shit. There was this nothing little cave system in Washington State; it was barely on any topo map, but sure enough, half of an entire film crew goes missing one night of the killing moon. Everyone thought it was some public relations trick, but when thirty people just vanish, it gets noticed. The local sheriffs found all of their gear; they’d been shooting some zombie flick and nothing had been touched. Think about that—like a $100,000 worth of high-end cameras and film equipment left in the rain. The cops brought their K-9 units out, and those dogs went insane as soon as they reached the site. One of the locals who’d hunted the area for thirty years tracked blood to a stone cleft that was under a huge blowdown; the tree’s root ball covered the opening up unless you were right on top of it. That guy went in with a light and a .45; even we thought he had balls of steel. When he came out, he waved everyone back, turned, and puked.
“That’s when they called us in. I thought—we all thought it was going to be a drill; that the locals were just spooked. We were half pissed, thinking someone was jerking our chains. My squad leader told us he was going to personally hogtie the network executive who thought that calling in the United States Marines was something you did for ratings, or whatever. When we got onsite, I watched him listen to that same hunter; he’d been brought there by the cops to tell us whatever it was he’d seen. That local wasn’t a kid. He was cagey, you know? Looked like he knew his way around the woods, maybe had served, even. I watched their body language and I just knew that we were stepping into the shit. That was at dawn. In less than an hour, there would be exactly three marines left alive.
“We scouted four more openings within a 200-yard radius. They were all hidden, and if we hadn’t been in active search, there was no way anybody would’ve seen them. I mean, they were camouflaged. Intentionally. I think that was the first thing that made me realize it wasn’t some bear or wolves or whatever. It was designed, you know? Hell, I’m from New Mexico, I don’t know if we have bears, and I sure enough wouldn’t know what to look for.
“Kirkendall bought it first. He slid forward like he was falling, never made a sound. I saw his boots twitching and thought he was . . . I don’t know, snagged, or something. At first, I thought some psycho with a sword had stabbed him; the blade burst through his leg and shot arterial blood straight up like a fountain. I saw lots of guys die in the Sandbox. I even saw guys die in the Med during my first float, but that second right there made my blood damn near freeze. Kirkendall was a badass, and he was skewered without as much as a noise. I heard something then, like a chittering, and then everybody opened up. I knew we were fucked. It all clicked for me at that moment. I recognized what I was seeing with the pattern of all the openings, it was like a hive. It was cloudy and there wasn’t any sun on the forest floor anyway, so the, the demons, or whatever, could come out a little bit, just enough to grab us and dive back into those holes. God, the smell. I wish I could get rid of that smell.
“They were like ground crickets, but the size of pigs. They were strong, and they had two long pincers or fangs, I don’t know what you would call them, but they shot forward and just punched through our body armor like tissue. Everyone was screaming and shooting. Our fire discipline was good, but there was just something about the creatures that made us break. Who can explain a six-foot-long bug that’s laughing at you and plunging those fucking fangs through your buddy, and you’re dumping an entire clip into the side of it and it just keeps coming. Clear fluid that stank like hell would leak out of them, but they didn’t die and they wouldn’t shut the fuck up; the laughing was echoing off the trees, and then they started calling out the names of our buddies as they dragged them under. They could understand us and repeat it back. Won’t you come for Marquez? He wants you to help. Oh, won’t you help a brother? Kirkendall, too? He’s hurting so, it’s dark down here. Bring a light for a brother, you know you should. Oh please, please, come down for Pula, he’s begging to see the sun again! You won’t leave them, will you? They’re all right here. So close. Can you hear them? Just a few steps. Save your brothers, it’s so close. They’re so close.
“I dragged Puryear behind me, telling him to haul his black ass up and run. I didn’t stop, and I thought I was a superhero; I felt like I was flying while dragging another Marine behind me at full speed. There was no communication, then the gunfire trickled off, then silence. I turned to ask Puryear what the fuck happened, and saw I was only dragging half of him. His skin was purple, like a horrible bruise, and he smelled like the shit that came out of those demons. He’d been cut clean in two, just under his navel, and the wound didn’t bleed at all, like it was cauterized. His face was startled. I didn’t want to leave him, so I pulled him up onto my shoulder and started running again once I found a trail. An hour later, there were three of us, and nothing else. We were all clocked on ammo, and Clark’s knife was bent at a near right angle. He said it had deflected one of those fangs, and then he collapsed with a punctured lung. The strike from the demon drove pieces of his ribs into his chest cavity. He died minutes later, choking on his own blood, and there wasn’t shit to be done about it. The only other survivor was Vessey, a blonde beach rat from the Carolinas who, as far I knew, never spoke another word.
“I still think about them taunting us from just inside the dark. I know . . . I mean, those men, those Marines? They were already dead. We were the baddest men on the dirt, as far as we were concerned, and those things took us without a single loss. I don’t know if there was anything that could be done, but it kept me fucked up forever. We weren’t ready. We just didn’t know. There was no way to, to predict what would be there, waiting for us. In the dark.
“I know that now, but I wonder if I wasn’t spared just so I could spread the gospel of hell, like a saint who brings news of the poison that waits underneath for all of us. Abandon all hope, ye who go under there, or some shit like that.” – LCpl Mark Chennault, U.S. Marines
—Bulwark Archival Materials, Access Date 96 A.R.
18
Trinity Outpost, August 15, 2074 A.D.
As it turned out, fresh shark was excellent. Orontes politely waited until the riders had gathered alongside the officers from the Admiralty, along with other key personnel. The circle of listeners grew to more than fifty, many of whom squinted into the early evening sun. Delandra and Saavin stood next to each other; both were patient enough to hold their questions while Orontes directed two squeakers of no more than twelve years to bring him all of the innards from the sharks. With wrinkled noses, the boy and girl deposited a voluminous woven basket filled with guts that were well on their way to unbearable fragrancy, given the relentless heat. Orontes tipped the basket over onto the hard-packed earth, and asked if anyone had a knife. Moss Eilert stood next to Orontes, an expression of studied
curiosity on his face. Byrna handed a knife to the crouching Orontes, who expertly slit the hammerhead’s stomach open with a single cut.
“I know that telling you about a threat isn’t enough. You’ve successfully learned how to defend your home against everything that has boiled up from the shallow seas, but this is something entirely different. Look at these,” Orontes began, after rummaging in the stinking contents of the stomach. He held something aloft. “This is why I am here.”
“We’ve seen something like that before. What is it?” Moss commented, leaning in to look at the creature Orontes held. “Hand it around, hell, hand several around. Let everyone see this before you explain what we’re looking at.”
The riders were hard people, but there was some degree of apprehension at handling what Orontes passed out to the encircled warriors. More than one rider looked less than enthusiastic as their turn came to handle the bizarre, semi-digested creature.
“Before anyone asks, I don’t know what it is. It looks something like a sea louse, on a much larger scale, but it has human eyes on those stalks, and the tongue is rather . . . feline. The fact that they have mouths at all declares these little beauties to be magical in nature,” Orontes said.
Rae, who rode Spellbound, quipped, “Are you their mother? Because that’s the only way you could love that face. God, they’re disgusting.”
Laughter rolled through the gathered circle.
Orontes smiled and bowed slightly from his crouching position, then rose to his full height and held two of the tiny monsters up in his hands. “Agreed, perhaps I was too charitable in their description. The problem is not that they exist, it is the fact that they are here, and further, that they are this small.” He gestured to the dead thing he held.
“You call this small?” Saavin asked. The insects, or cat-lice, or whatever they were, weighed nearly a pound each. They were the size of modest lobsters. There was a murmur or agreement at her assessment. Someone made a gagging noise, and more laughter peppered the group. Even brave people could be frightened, and there was something fundamentally wrong about the clawed beasties. Instincts within each rider were being plucked like a piano wire.
Orontes curled his lips in distaste, and his dark eyes narrowed as he examined one of the creatures again. “Yes, small. As in immature. Unfinished.”
Byrna stated flatly, “It’s a baby. What does it grow into?” The question made perfect sense, given what they all knew would arrive in a few nights when the moon was hidden in shadow.
“It merely grows larger. Up to, but not more than four times this size. Comparable to a rather robust cat, I should think,” Orontes said. His tone was professorial, and he lifted his voice to carry to everyone who was listening.
Moss Eilert was a born leader and a proven tactician. He held up a hand for quiet and asked, “Are these things a threat?”
Orontes shook his head. “Their gifts as a predator are remarkably limited. They latch on to fish, or carrion, but as far as actual hunting, I don’t know that they do such a thing.”
Bertline, who rode Dauntless, asked with suspicion, “How do you know this?”
Orontes nodded graciously to the big man. “A fair question. I’ve seen them on three occasions. I won’t waste your time with guessing games; I know you have no need of coy discourse. Let me tell you this: Trinity will, in three, or perhaps four months, be attacked by an enemy that will require more defense than you can currently muster. You will be overrun and destroyed completely. Your life’s work and the possibility of your children seeing another dawn will be rendered into dust. The people you love will be under the feet of great beasts, or in the gullet of those same monsters, which will feast upon each and every one of you.”
Thick silence hung as Orontes fell quiet. After a long moment of simmering anger, Moss Eilert spoke. “You pronounce our demise based on these . . . insects? May I point out that there are multiple squadrons of dragons sworn to defend the Admiralty? Along with armed militia and a significant defensive wall?”
Orontes waved at the structure of the outermost bailey, a log and stone fort that was thick, strong, and formidable. From this angle, Trinity looked likely to survive nearly anything, including a storm from the inland ocean spur. It wasn’t close to enough. “How tall are the walls?”
Moss spoke up instantly. “A minimum of eight meters, with the parapets at ten. There are shooting platforms that can be moved as needed; those are an additional three meters higher than the gate itself.” He pointed at the heavy, reinforced doors. They were rarely opened; with dragons around, it simply wasn’t necessary.
Orontes drew in his shoulders as he thought. “I agree that you’ve created incredible defenses, but I tell you, friends, these”—he lifted the cat-lice upward again—“are harbingers of monstrosities that will step over that wall or pass through it without slowing down. I have seen it before, and there is nothing that can be done to stop them from coming.”
Silence grew at his pronouncement of Trinity’s death. Every face grew harder, and several of the riders spat into the dust. His words were not welcome.
Byrna stilled her husband with a hand, and asked, “What do you propose, then? I can’t imagine you would risk such a trip without some sort of plan, Orontes. So tell us, unvarnished and clear. Tell us what message you bring to Trinity.”
Orontes said, “My settlement is larger, but has no dragons. I rode here from the Mizzou territory, a place that has retained a great deal of its agricultural value. A leader has emerged there who I feel is capable of taking the fight to the enemy, but he cannot do it with the tools he has at his disposal. He needs dragons.”
The uproar was instant, and took several moments to die down. Despite being a paramilitary organization, the raw nerve Orontes touched was too much for the riders, whose displeasure was loud and heated. It was also legitimate.
The next words spoken by the stranger who had lain in a sick bed for days were softer, and his eyes burned with the passion of someone lobbying for a cause. “It started with a river choked by the bloodless corpses of a thousand cattle. Then came the horses, and sows, and mules and donkeys, and every other beast that served man. They tumbled like jackstraws down the cool waters, and they crawled with the, the lice. . .” Orontes went on at length, describing the fall of Asheville; the blood and screams. The fires he related in excruciating detail; it was always fire that seemed to travel with war of any kind. Unholy monsters that pounded the light of civilization into dust were described with the dispassionate tone of a doctor examining a corpse. He spoke of the booming rifle reports, the raging paths of the beasts, and the streams of people caught on the roads as they tried to flee. He pronounced the people brave and the city dead, and his voice never wavered or quaked in the slightest. “Eleven,” he said, and then shook his head with a slow, sad grimace. “Eleven souls spared from the rapacious attack of beings that look upon you as a thing to taste, not a thing to fear. But this is not so of the dragons. They fear the dragons, because they are stupid creatures who listen only to their base instincts. Those primordial orders cause them to avoid the place where noble wings are overhead, and that is why I have been sent. I come to ask you to defend New Madrid, because soon, the giants will belch upward from the Underneath, and the burgeoning city of farms will be no more.”
Moss Eilert opened his mouth to speak, but Orontes made a placatory gesture, causing the Commodore to remain silent. “I do not come without a plan of reciprocity in hand. Part of my mission here was not merely to ask for help, but to offer it.”
“Are you saying we need help killing demons? I sure as hell don’t need any.” The biggest man in Trinity shouted from the back. He was easily 6’8”, and 300 pounds of solid muscle. A custom fire ax was slung across his back, and he carried not one but two shotguns that had been cut down to be wielded simultaneously. His dark eyes flashed at Orontes, who summed him up as a highly-dangerous fighter. Next to Teodoro—that was the name that came to Orontes, who had heard mention of him
—stood his cousin and fighting partner, Alvaro Cantu. Alvaro was short, muscular, and stood incredibly still as he regarded Orontes with a gaze that was invasive and borderline rude. Teodoro rode Jindabyne, a sixty-meter female dragon of blue-black scales and soft gray wings. Jindy was known to be goofy and curious, but relentlessly vicious when it came time to fight. If the dragon matched the man, then Orontes concluded that Teodoro was angered by the suggestion of a mutual exchange of assistance. Alvaro’s own dragon, Hert, was a fifty-meter male with a broad muzzle and forest green coloration. Hert had obvious muscles and tended to be broody, hungry, and shy. The two cousins had fought as a matched pair, and they took the defense of Trinity as their sacred duty. Their dragons felt the same way, and their wings rustled constantly
Orontes looked out among the faces encircling him, and frowned. He would have to proceed with the utmost caution to be informative without giving offense. “Commodore, what is your population here at Trinity?”
Moss Eilert narrowed his eyes, but answered begrudgingly, “Around three to four thousand. It changes as the fishing boats come and go.”
He nodded, and Orontes asked quickly, “And how many of them are militia? Trained fighters, that is?”
That verged into sensitive matters, but the Commodore answered, “About 400.”
“How many of those are long rifles? People who you consider expert marksmen?”
Again, he paused, but then answered, although realization was dawning on Moss’ handsome face. “Two squads of fifty caliber. One squad of mixed rifles, and up to another fifty random shooters who participate as an associated power of sorts. Their lineup changes each moon, but they definitely help. The bulk of the fighting is done by the dragons and their riders, and the support staff. The support is what you would call regular marines, a light company.”
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