“Dragons. You seem to have brought the proverbial cavalry, Orontes.” Watley tried to be glib, but failed. His face was still a road map to vengeance.
“More than just dragons, Colvin. These riders are combat experts, and they bring years of experience to us. They’re some of the best that Trinity had to offer, and they will absolutely turn the tide when the giants stalk from the dark.” Orontes held out and arm to Harriet, who gratefully leaned against him. Neither of them were in pristine condition.
“Mint tea? I’m sure you missed it,” Harriet asked, as Orontes screwed up his face with a tattered smile.
“Of course. If only to get out of this noise. But yes. We have much to discuss. Let’s find French, and get down to business. These beasts,” he said, thumping Spellbound’s flank as they walked past, “aren’t just for decoration.”
2
Overland Rail Spur, Mizzou Territory
Parker may have been a lousy athlete, but he had great vision. His eyes bugged at the soaring shapes that winged overhead, their enormous shadows racing along the ground at ten times the speed of the dutifully chugging train. He pointed wordlessly to the dragons, his facial expression alerting the salvagers lazing about on the bundled stash of the flat railcar.
“Dragons?” Cynthia asked, ever practical. She didn’t wonder as to their identity, or even the why of such a sight, she just shielded her eyes against the sun and watched intently, her lips moving slightly.
“What are you counting, boss?” Parker ventured, emboldened by his newfound status as a moneymaker.
Cynthia kept counting as Tessa interjected, “Pacing them. She’s getting a speed on them to try and figure where they’re heading. Although I wonder why they’re in the center of the country?” Her question trailed off in confusion. There were many things unusual about the appearance of five dragons in the middle of rolling nothing. On the shore of a lake, maybe. In the seas of grass? It made no sense, and the entire crew began to buzz with excitement.
“Well over 100 knots, and heading for New Madrid. They followed the river north from . . . somewhere,” Cynthia announced in a drawl, turning her creased face to stare southward. “Why would they leave the water?”
Croaker, a lean, taciturn man from the ashes of Georgia said, “Three of them weren’t Firsters. Way too big.” He rubbed his scalded pate in confusion, scattering wisps of blonde hair that flew away in the breeze generated by the locomotive. The train crew had noticed, too, as they pointed and shouted up and down the twelve cars to catch everyone’s attention. One of the rail guards who ran the train leapt easily to their deck from the car behind them, smiling broadly. There were nearly two dozen of the security men scattered along the length of the rolling caravan; the entire engine crew was female, including the mechanics. Several were married to each other; it was a family affair. The guard swept his rifle behind him on its strap and squatted next to the knot of salvagers.
“Did you see the lead dragon? The big one?” he asked. His name was Dandridge, and he was young but wiry from hard life. Blue eyes looked out from under a sweat-stained bush hat that left his face in shadow.
Cynthia nodded. “You know it? Him, I mean? Or her?”
He gave a nod and grin. “Jindy. She’s from Trinity. Her rider’s a big dude, carries an axe like a Viking, but he’s pure Tejano. Tough in a fight. We saw ‘em fishing a couple times. Baaaad dudes.” He grinned again and stood as a shout carried down from the engine. After pausing to listen, he gave a playful salute. “Less than an hour ‘til stop. You’re eating dinner in New Madrid.”
3
New Madrid, August 23, 2074 A.D.
It took more than an hour for the general uproar to subside so that normal conversations could be heard. The dragons were shown to the river, where they drank deeply of the clear water, shaking their great muzzles with abandon as they coughed and belched in appreciation. The flight had been hot, then cold, then hot again, and through it all, the hardworking beasts were dehydrating with each mile passing underneath them. As the sun began to dip lower, every farmer from the most distant fields had arrived at the town proper, only to renew the tumult over the arrival of their draconic saviors. It was an oscillating pattern of amazement, awe, and acceptance, repeated until the last tired souls emerged under the glare of the street lamps, their trudging steps lightened measurably by the softly-glowing eyes of dragons looming overhead.
With a gentle reprove, it was the basso rumble of Jindy that finally sent the last citizens back to their homes. “Good people, my friends and I are large, but we too need rest. Let us sleep and we will greet the day with renewed vigor and a thirst for discussion. You need not fear; we will be here when you arise.” Levelled with a dragon’s conviction, that simple promise released the unspoken tension that permeated the air of the town.
Knowing that a few ears would still be listening, Harriet Fleming gently ushered the human visitors to her home with a general admonishment for all; their curiosity would be assuaged during an all-town meeting the next morning. For tonight, she needed to debrief Orontes and connect with these people who crossed a desert to face a threat that looked insurmountable.
When all five riders were comfortable in the great room of Harriet’s home, they were fed and given unending glasses of iced mint tea until, with a nod, she sent an assistant to fetch a bottle of something with a bit more kick. When everyone had a glass of whiskey in hand, she waved at Orontes and the less formal introductions began in earnest. French sat to Harriet’s right, quiet but observant. His eyes slid from one rider to the next, never lingering long enough to be deemed offensive, but burning with a curiosity that was founded in more than the simple exotic nature of the riders’ presence. Rae took the lead, perhaps from experience and perhaps to avert an awkward silence, her hazel eyes and ready smile making her well suited to the role of liaison between the two settlements. In her late twenties, Rae was possessed of a merry disposition and confidence that fit well with nearly every social situation.
“How was the flight, Rae? And more importantly, how long does it take?” Harriet asked.
“It’s less than one day, no matter what season. We knew that it could be done; the desert isn’t impenetrable from 2000 feet of altitude. On foot, though . . .” Rae trailed off, looking at Orontes with sympathy.
Teodoro and Alvaro toasted the man who had given so much blood to the sand merely to reach Trinity. With a modest nod, Orontes bade Rae to continue.
“Prevailing winds and conditions aloft are optimal. There is no doubt that a trade route is easily feasible. Even the smallest dragons can make the flight without event. There aren’t any issues, as far as I can see, and we should open up the exchange between our towns immediately,” Rae said.
French interjected, “Shouldn’t your team rest?”
Everyone turned to him as they took note of his oddly noncommittal tone.
Alvaro shook his head while Teodoro made a slashing gesture. “After a sleep and a feed, we should start the transfer without delay. The dragons recover faster than we do and, as Rae mentioned, it was an easy flight. We fly nearly that far in a day when we salvage the coasts.”
“You salvage? Where?” Harriet asked. Her interest was palpable.
Saavin spoke up. Her red hair hung around a pretty face tanned by the desert, framing eyes that pulsed blue in contrast to the brown of her skin. “Everywhere. We’ve got old maps and, with dragons, we can get places that humans haven’t been since the fall. It’s a mixed blessing, unless you consider fighting wild animals as a sport for the dragons.”
“Wild animals? Because of the lack of human intervention?” French asked. His insight revealed a mind attuned to the realities of the natural world. Without the pressure of mankind, areas of the world reverted to a primal state that was hostile to everything with the exception of dragons.
“If there aren’t hunters, or salvagers, well, you can imagine what sixty years of unabated reclamation can do to an area. Nature doesn’t allow a vacuum, and
the things that we’ve found have been shocking. Occasionally strange, but almost always dangerous in some way," Saavin said with a grim press of her lips.
“We salvaged a golf course community, one of those planned, walled things—what was it, last spring, Teo?” Alvaro asked his cousin, who grunted with an odd smile. “It was overrun with giraffes. There must have been dozens of them, two distinct herds. I guess someone had a pair, or they got caught inside the perimeter, but it was a game reserve in all but name. No predators, no humans, just 1000 beautiful acres with trees and waterways. I thought it was like”—he hesitated—“I thought it must have been how things were before. You know, a good place.”
“The houses were untouched. We spent a week in there. Not as many tools as we would have liked, but still, we took dragonloads of materials out of there,” Bertline smiled as he recounted the pleasant memory.
“What about the giraffes?” Harriet asked.
“Left ‘em there. They don’t need us, and we weren’t about to let anything in there to hunt them. Why?” Bertline waved a meaty hand. “Let something beautiful stay that way. There’s too little left that is cool and green and covered with animals.”
Every rider nodded at that, and French closed his eyes as he accessed his own memories, finding little good within that hall of pain.
“But not everyplace was so idyllic. Correct?” French asked the group.
With a hiss of breath, the riders shifted in their seats. The remains of the world were far from Eden, and they had the scars to prove it.
“Not even close, but with the dragons, we can manage. We’ve seen absolute horrors lurking in abandoned home stores, malls, even underpasses. There’s a spider web a half mile long on the collapsed highway east of Kansas City. There are shapes in it, too big to be dogs, but too small to be cattle. We don’t go near it. There’s nothing to be done for the victims,” Rae said. Her eyes were hooded with anger.
“I only have so much room for nightmares,” Saavin stated.
“Not all of the troubled places are anything unusual, you know,” Alvaro said. His tone was practical. “There are herds of wild cattle, huge things with six feet of horn. There are wild horses that will kill you if you land, tigers under every canopy of trees, and lions roaming alongside cheetahs. We’ve seen thin-haired bears fighting giant snakes with two heads, and we’ve killed crocodiles longer than a dragon. The bottom line is, nature has gone wild in order to respond the depredations of hell and, more often than not, nature wins.”
“S’true. Unless an entire swarm of demons attack a bear, I’ve got money on the bear. Every time,” Saavin said.
They all nodded at that. There were demons, and then there were bears. The difference being that bears ate berries and fish when they weren’t rending demons from gut to neck. “There are more elephants in the middle prairies than ever lived in Africa, I would think. They’ve created a series of trails that look like highways, and anything from hell knows never get caught near a baby elephant. It’s suicide, no matter how grotesque the demon might be.”
“If nature can defend itself against hell, where does that leave us?” French asked.
“In that most dangerous of places; the middle. And on either side of humanity’s survivors are forces we cannot hope to defeat or escape, at least not without a concerted effort. We’re too thin on the ground, and there are too many pitfalls,” Rae said sourly. “We cover a lot of territory, and we learn that the dragons can only extend certain kinds of protection.”
“It is the land that kills man,” Orontes said into the brief silence.
Every eye turned to him and his stark pronouncement.
When he looked up, surprise registered on his face as if he’d not meant to speak out loud. With a shrug, he elaborated, “When riders are on a dragon, they are very hard to kill. The damage they deal out is wildly disproportionate to their actual combat presence. Dragons and humans act as force multipliers.”
“Like a rifle, or a command structure,” French said. He held up an inquisitive finger. “What about when the riders are not mounted? What then?”
Orontes held up a didactic finger, saying, “You’ve just asked the single question that thwarted every knight who was pulled from his horse during some bloody battle. It’s about negating the advantage of a superior force. In this case, it is the dragon and rider working as one. The demons know this, and they strike accordingly. When they are alive long enough to do so, that is.” He tipped his cup at the riders, who returned the gesture of respect.
“Are we in agreement that giving these creatures a running start is bad for the health of New Madrid?” Harriet asked.
There was a general murmur of assent, followed by French’s discreet cough. “I was wondering . . . what’s the protocol for riding on a dragon?”
There was a moment of silence, then Saavin spoke up as her quicksilver wit took hold. “What do you want to look for?”
French grinned at her insight. “You flew in from the south, more than the north, correct?”
Every rider nodded. It seemed elementary.
Saavin asked, “Yes, we did. Care to explain what you’re fishing for?”
Harriet turned to French, her eyes burning with curiosity and a hint of discomfort. She was hiding something from the group, but Rae and Saavin both knew a woman in pain when they saw it. “What are we looking for, French? Seriously. These dragons are too valuable to be used as tools in a failed goose chase.” Geese were presumably extinct, but the analogy still had traction.
French rubbed his chin in thought. “Geology. I’m looking for something quite specific; a possible advantage for us, but I need an aerial view,” French explained.
Before any could interject, Saavin pointed to French with a knowing smile. “Dawn. We ride at dawn. I hope you don’t get airsick, because Banshee is no old nag.” Saavin laughed.
With a salute of the last of his drink, French stood. “Dawn it is. I’ll be in the town lawn, and we can meet at first break. I’ll bring the supplies.”
The meeting tailed off after the lone important decision was made. The haze of collective excitement lost inertia naturally, and each of the attendants could be seen ruminating over the implications of what was happening, and how it would affect their lives. For the dragonriders, their consideration extended to matters of combat and the reality of dealing with giants on turf that was not their own. Alvaro’s face grew dark, despite the flush of good liquor; he was perhaps the least optimistic among the riders. Rae smiled slightly, indefatigable and capable of easy adaptation, much like Bertline, whose broad, dark face was creased with a relaxed grin. Teo loomed from his chair, neutral as he processed his observations since their arrival. Of all the riders, the enormous Teo would be most likely to fight on foot, and his eyes closed occasionally as he considered some detail of the terrain they would be defending. Of the cousins, Alvaro was the more reactionary fighter. His preparation consisted of dismounting and killing everything in range while Hert wheeled and slashed alongside him. Every rider adopted their own personal process of preparing for combat that was weeks away. Victory, they all knew, began with understanding the task at hand, and new territory, threats, and allies meant their days would be filled with absorbing every detail New Madrid could offer. In the midst of this thoughtful corona, French directed a thankful smile to the riders before moving to the door. Both Harriet and Orontes stole long glances at him, wondering what it was the curious militiaman hoped to find from just under the clouds. They would know in a few hours and, for now, that would have to do.
“Don’t look at me like I’m a child; I’m aware of the tight quarters in a cave.” Banshee’s muzzle rested amiably on his foreleg while he waved a careless claw that cut the air like a sword. He was under control, but still animated, his eyes gleaming at the thought of unlimited contact with demons in their own territory. They were speaking with the anonymity of the river erasing their voices. Banshee nestled into a grass-covered bank that overlooked the dark fiel
d of New Madrid. A single oil lamp pushed back the prairie darkness, while overhead the Milky Way blazed with cold beauty.
Saavin’s hands were on her hips, her lips thinned with disapproval. “I know that. But I want to stop your wheedling before it starts. You can’t fit. Therefore, you can’t go.”
“You don’t know French at all. For that matter, we do not know these people.” Banshee’s logic was simple, and he began what could only be called a draconic pout. “I don’t like our lack of information. We win at Trinity because we work together; we win easily because of our knowledge. I’m simply suggesting that it would be best to get the feel of this place prior to haring off on an expedition to the center of the earth.”
Saavin laughed, brushing a hand over the ridge of Banshee’s scaled nostrils; it was a comforting gesture they’d done during every serious discussion. “How do you know a cave goes to the center of the planet? I didn’t realize you were so prone to believe in fairy tales.”
“Excuse me, dear. I was too busy sitting here being a dragon. You said something about fairy tales?” Banshee rumbled with tenor laughter, his tail twitching in appreciation of his wit.
“Oh, point taken, but you know what I mean, slovenly beast.” Saavin emphasized her agreement with a hearty thump of Banshee’s neck. “I was trying to apply science to, well, our world.” She sighed and leaned against the warm scales, feeling every deep intake of breath rushing beneath her. She’d always found Banshee’s breathing to be the most soothing noise since her mother’s voice. “Although it pains me to admit this, you may be right. Or at least partially so.”
“Really? How did that admission taste?” Banshee pulled his lips back in a draconic grin.
“Like vinegar. But your point’s still worth thinking about. I mean, what if the cave—well, demons have to come from somewhere, right? And we’ve never found a source. Not yet,” Saavin said.
Banshee Page 13
