The Mark of the Dragonfly

by Jaleigh Johnson

  Suddenly, something slammed into them from behind, sending Piper lurching forward. She bit her tongue, tasting blood, and tightened her grip on Gee, but it didn’t matter. They were falling out of the sky. Piper looked up as a glider soared over their heads—it must have struck them from behind.

  Gee grunted in pain and beat his wings desperately, but his left wing was crooked. Piper choked back a sob at the sight. The pain must have been excruciating, yet Gee tried to use his wings to slow their descent.

  But they were still going to hit the ground hard, Piper realized, her heart in her throat—very hard. She braced herself as the ground surged up to meet them. The last thing she saw before sand and dirt sprayed her in the eyes was the glider that had hit them landing a few feet away.

  Piper rolled on the ground, tucking into a ball, trying to protect her injured hand. Breathless, terrified, her body roaring in pain as she tumbled over rocks and scraped her skin raw, she finally came to a stop. Gee fetched up next to her, his wings caught beneath him in a twisted mess. For a few seconds, Piper could do nothing but lie there, panting. Her whole body felt like it was on fire, but at least she was alive. Wiping the grit from her eyes, Piper sat up and bent over Gee to see how badly he was hurt. His wing had to be broken, she thought, tears stinging her eyes.

  A sudden noise made Piper look up. Several yards away, the raiders jumped off their glider with crossbows pointed at her and Gee.

  To Piper’s shock, despite his injuries, Gee sat up, crawling forward to put his body in front of hers. He got halfway to his feet and straightened his wings before Piper noticed two other gliders coming up behind them.

  “No!” she cried, but it was too late. The raiders dropped their thick net over Gee. The added weight, combined with the wounds to his wing, was too much. Gee collapsed in the dirt, panting.

  Fury exploded in Piper. She crawled to her feet and ran to Gee, clawing at the net. How dare they, she thought as her tears blinded her. How dare they hurt him!

  “Stand up!” one of the raiders shouted at Piper in the Trader’s Speech. “Step away from the chamelin!”

  Piper knew that stepping away from Gee was a bad idea. Even trapped in the net, he towered over the raiders and their gliders, and none of the raiders seemed too eager to venture any closer to him. She glanced over her shoulder and saw the other pilots jump from their craft, clutching their crossbows. In the sky, there was one glider left—which made four gliders, not counting the ones that might still be attached to the train or that had crashed.

  In the distance, Piper heard the 401 blow its whistle, but the sound was faint, not echoing off the canyon walls anymore. The train was out of Cutting Gap and getting farther and farther away from them. She and Gee were in a world of trouble.

  “Are you deaf?” a raider yelled. “I said step away!”

  Piper tamped down the panic inside her and put her hand on Gee’s shoulder. His body was rigid with tension. “Not a chance,” she said.

  As if to drive the point home, the man walked forward until he stood directly in front of them. He laid the tip of his crossbow against the hollow of Piper’s throat. Beside her, Gee growled, a rumble like a small earthquake, but the raider shot him a quieting look. He wore a tattered shirt and trousers that molded perfectly to his body, as if he hadn’t taken them off in years. Sunlight reflected off his bald head, and he had a flat, smashed-in look to his face, as if he’d come out on the wrong end of more than a few fights. Still, his heavily muscled arms and the comfortable way he held his crossbow told Piper he’d collected enough victories to earn the respect of the others.

  “I hope your pet understands that if he makes a move on me or any of mine, he’ll be digging this bolt out of your neck,” the man said.

  Piper swallowed hard and the bolt’s sharp tip scraped along her throat. Clenching her jaw, she concentrated on keeping her face expressionless. “I think my pet’s trying to tell you the same thing about his claws,” she said calmly.

  Muffled titters of laughter came from the gathered raiders. Even the man with the crossbow seemed to regard her with grudging approval. Then he glanced at Gee, and his expression hardened. “We’ll let you go,” he told him. “You fly on back to the train and tell them to stop. Tell them to give up the cargo without a fight, or I’ll kill this girl.”

  “No.” The word came out before Piper had time to think. The raider glanced at her and nudged the bolt. The barbed tip scratched her throat again and she felt a small dot of blood run down her chest. Piper forced aside the panic rising inside her. “What I mean is, you don’t actually think they’ll stop the train, give up all that cargo, just for one scrapper?” Piper forced a laugh. “I might be the only thing on the 401 worth less than you are.”

  Some of the raiders exchanged glances, but the man with the crossbow didn’t waver. “I think he’ll make them stop,” he said, nodding at Gee. “Won’t you, chamelin?”

  Gee was utterly still inside the net. Piper didn’t look at him. She knew he would never give up the train or its cargo, not for her, not for anything. Protecting the train was his duty.

  “You’re wasting your time,” Piper said.

  The raider’s eyes narrowed. He curled his finger around the crossbow’s trigger, and suddenly, Gee stirred. To Piper’s horror, he bent and put his claws down on the ground and bowed his head in acquiescence.

  “That’s what I thought.” The raider lowered his weapon.

  “No, you can’t!” Piper shrieked as two of the other men came forward and lifted the net off Gee. The chamelin ignored her and spread his wings, stretching them out and testing them gingerly, checking to see if they were too badly damaged to carry him. His left wing still didn’t seem as strong as the other, but it didn’t look like that was going to hold Gee back. He was going to fly to the train so he could deliver it into the hands of the raiders.

  Piper’s heart sank at the realization of what was happening.

  “Hurry up,” the raider said, turning from Piper to Gee and nudging him with the butt of his crossbow. “Don’t keep your friend waiting.”

  Furious, Piper grabbed Gee’s arm before he could take off. “Don’t do this,” she begged.

  Gee growled at her, but his eyes weren’t angry. If anything, he looked resigned and scared. He stepped away from her and, in a powerful flash of wings, soared away.

  “No,” Piper called weakly. She watched Gee’s shrinking form disappear behind the ring of men surrounding her, their weapons gleaming in the hot sun. She thought of Doloman hunting them, and the slavers, always someone, threatening with their crossbows and their guns and their dust. Anger took hold in Piper’s gut and began to seep into her veins. It poured out of her in waves that she could almost see like a heat mirage in the air. She felt dizzy and strange—and then she heard a sharp cry.

  “Goddess!” The bald raider dropped his crossbow. The trigger mechanism had exploded, showering parts across the dusty ground.

  But it wasn’t just his. All around Piper, raiders dropped their ruined crossbows. It looked like they’d been hit by one of Anna’s whirlwind dismantling sessions. The bald man stepped back and surveyed the scattered pieces, cursing violently—some of the words he used Piper had never even heard of.

  Then he turned his fury on her. “What are you?” he screamed.

  At that moment, Piper swayed on her feet. She’d never used her power on such an enormous scale before, and her body was letting her know it. Her knees wobbled, threatening to give out. Darkness danced at the edges of her vision. Please don’t let me pass out, she begged the universe. And from the edge of her consciousness, she could hear all the raiders yelling now.

  Piper fell, gravel and dirt digging through her trousers into the skin of her knees, her shoulder, and her cheek. The sun beat down on her neck. She smelled raider sweat and her own blood from her injured hand. The pain was a distant throbbing, and the raiders’ voices narrowed to a hollow echo.

  She was going to pass out. She couldn’t help i
t. Maybe it was even for the best.

  Then, in the distance, she saw a large shadow, like another mirage, descending into the canyon. A dark shape with leathery wings. And the men were too preoccupied shouting to see it.

  Gee came at two of the raiders from behind, knocking them flat with his outstretched wings. He kept flying, aiming straight at Piper. Never slowing, he reached out for her, and Piper raised shaking arms to meet him. He lifted her off her knees, and Piper was flying again, the raiders and their weapons receding to small dots on the ground.

  Weakness finally overcame Piper while they were in the air. She had no strength left in her body. She closed her eyes and gave in to it, hanging limp in her friend’s grasp. The world spun into blackness, and when she came to, she was lying on granite boulders again, cradled in Gee’s arms, her head supported against his shoulder. Distantly, she heard the 401’s whistle, the most welcoming sound in the world. It had to have been what woke her.

  She looked down and saw the train appear on the horizon, a dot that steadily grew larger, though from this height it still looked like a toy. Piper searched for the raiders that had latched on to the train earlier, but there was nothing. Everything looked normal. Even the spikes that had been jutting from the roofs of the cars had been retracted.

  As they approached the 401, Gee dipped low and Piper realized he intended to land on the observation deck at the rear of the train. It was actually where he always landed when he finished his scouting forays, she decided.

  As they neared the deck, Gee growled with the effort of keeping them steady. His injured wing trembled. “Almost there,” Piper encouraged, squeezing his shoulder. “Look, there’s Anna.”

  Her friend stood in the doorway waiting for them, waving her arms frantically. Piper waved back to let Anna know they were fine, but the girl didn’t stop, and then she was pointing too, at something in the sky. Piper turned to look over Gee’s shoulder and saw it: a lone glider that had followed them from the canyon.

  “Behind us!” Piper yelled.

  Gee was too close to the train to pull up—suddenly Piper was flying through the air as Gee tossed her straight toward Anna and the observation deck. A scream welled up inside Piper. If she landed wrong, this could be very bad. Anna reached out her arms as if to catch Piper, but the girl was too small to do anything but slow her momentum. Piper slammed into her, and both girls went down in a heap on the platform. Piper closed her eyes and breathed a quick sigh of relief. She was bruised and dizzy, but the landing could have been much worse. She pushed herself up to her knees and looked back for Gee and the glider. Her breath caught in her chest when she saw the pilot—it was the bald raider who’d threatened her with the crossbow.

  One raider against the whole train seemed like suicide. Unless he wasn’t planning on attacking the train. Then Piper realized, What if he just wants to kill Gee?

  Piper stood up, blood pounding in her ears as she fought back her terror. They’d been so close to escaping.

  In the distance, Gee made a tight circle and flew back toward the train, soaring over the glider. He came in fast and landed hard on the observation deck a few feet in front of Piper and Anna. Turning, he leaped up to perch on the railing while the girls huddled behind him on the platform. Gee let out a roar and swiped out at the approaching glider with his claws. The craft swerved at the last moment, pulling beside the train, and the raider leaned out the side of the glider, slashing at Gee with a long-bladed dagger. Gee jerked back, but not in time. The blade left a thin cut across his chest. Gee snarled and lashed out, digging his claws into the glider’s wing. He yanked upward and tore the wing off the craft.

  The tension in Piper’s body receded; there was no coming back from damage that bad. Then, to her shock, the raider stood up and jumped, grabbing the iron railing of the observation deck as his craft hit the dirt and broke apart. Using his momentum, he swung into Gee’s body with a loud thud. The impact pushed Gee off balance and allowed the raider to swing his dagger at the chamelin’s throat. Gee managed to dodge, but the raider pulled back for another strike.

  “No!” Piper screamed. She ran to the end of the platform and grabbed the raider’s arm, wrenching backward, anything to keep the dagger from slicing into Gee. Anna ran up and attached herself to his other arm, yanking as hard as she could.

  The raider threw Piper off, sending her flying across the platform so that she struck her head on the iron railing. For a moment, her vision darkened, stars blinking in her sight line, and when they cleared, she saw that Gee had regained his balance. He reached for the raider, who was trying to retreat, but Anna still clung to his other arm.

  Piper saw what was going to happen next. She tried to get up, but her head swam. She couldn’t seem to move fast enough and her tongue lay thick and heavy in her mouth. Helpless, Piper watched as the raider turned and slashed at Anna with his dagger. By some miracle, the girl saw the strike coming and leaped backward, half falling through the doorway behind her to avoid the blade.

  As she fell, Piper saw that her friend hadn’t been fast enough. The dagger had sliced open her left arm; there was a long gash from shoulder to elbow. Piper found her voice then, and screamed. She jumped up, head pounding, throat raw, and tried to reach for Anna. A wave of nausea and dizziness washed over her, and this time Piper couldn’t shake it off. Her body had had enough. She slipped into darkness, her screams turning to whimpers in her ears. The last thing she heard was Gee’s bestial roar.

  When she awoke, for a minute Piper thought she was flying again, carried in Gee’s strong arms. No, that wasn’t right. The surface she lay upon was softer. Puzzled, she opened her eyes.

  Slowly, Piper recognized her surroundings. She was back on the 401. She was in Gee’s room, lying on his bed, and her arm was stiff and sore. When she looked down at it, she saw there were white bandages wrapped around her hand. And someone had removed her blood-soaked shirt and replaced it with one of her clean ones. She tried to sit up, but her head felt as if it weighed a ton, and she was dizzy and a little queasy.

  How had she gotten here? Piper tried to remember the last thing that happened before she’d lost consciousness. She remembered the canyon, Gee coming back to rescue her from the raiders, and then … something felt wrong. A spasm of fear went through Piper’s body. Something bad had happened. Why didn’t she remember? She tried to sit up again, slower this time.

  “Don’t try to move,” said a voice.

  Startled, Piper rolled onto her side and saw Gee sitting in the chair at his little table. He was back in his human form, and he looked terrible. His left arm was tied close to his body in a sling, and his shirt collar was pulled back, revealing bandages wrapped around his shoulder.

  “What happened?” Piper croaked. Her throat burned for a drink of water, but she needed to know that everything was all right first. “How bad are you hurt?”

  Gee smiled wanly. “It’s not as bad as it looks. Nothing’s broken, but it made Trimble feel better to truss me up with bandages. I’ll have them off by tomorrow.”

  Piper breathed a sigh of relief. Gee would be fine. If he’d been hurt badly, she’d never have forgiven herself. She opened her mouth to ask why he’d risked his neck for her like that, when her memory flooded back in a horrible rush, and she blurted out, “Anna!”

  Gee’s face clouded. “She’s up front in Jeyne’s room. Trimble looked after her too. She’ll be fine.”

  “Then why do you look like that?” Piper heard her voice, high and frightened like a child’s. “I want to see her!”

  “You should rest for a while longer,” Gee said. He stood up and came to sit on the edge of the bed. “Trimble thinks you might have a concussion. You hit your head pretty hard on the railing.”

  “You saw that?”

  “I saw everything,” he said with a sad smile.

  The memories were still fragmented, but Piper vaguely recalled the raider throwing her off, and then hitting her head, then Anna, falling through the doorway as the dagger
cut into her arm.…

  “I want to see Anna,” Piper repeated. “I have to know she’s all right.” Gee ducked his head and muttered something. Piper raised an eyebrow. “What was that?”

  “Nothing, it’s just—I thought hitting your head might have knocked the stubbornness out of you, but I guess it was too much to hope for,” he said. “I’ll get you some water, and then, if you can prove to me you can get up without fainting, I’ll take you to Jeyne. She’ll explain about Anna.”

  “Explain what?” Now Piper was really scared. “You said she was all right!”

  “She is,” Gee said sharply. “It’s complicated. Just be patient, and I’ll take you to her.”

  “I—Sorry,” Piper said, ashamed that she’d snapped at him. Gee was hurt too, and he’d obviously been sitting up with her. The last thing he needed was for her to badger him. She tried to be patient while Gee filled a glass of water from his washstand and brought it to her. He waited while she drank it.

  “Do you feel like eating?” Gee asked. “I brought some fruit from the kitchen.” He held out a small plate of sliced apples. Piper took one and bit into it. The fruit was crisp and juicy and tasted delicious. “That’s good,” he said. “Food will help you get your strength back. After what you did to those crossbows, you must be starving.”

  Piper stopped chewing as she remembered. “I was angry and so scared,” she said, “and the next thing I knew, everything was in pieces.”

  Gee nodded. “Once there was a fire in the engine cab, and Trimble brought it under control all by himself. He said he didn’t plan it—he just reacted, like you did, and it was over just like that. It took a lot of energy, though. Afterward, I watched him wolf down a whole chicken and three baked potatoes, skins and all.” Gee whistled in admiration. “I’ve never seen anyone eat so much.”