Dragon Lord's Hope

by Leslie Chase

  His voice was quiet, strained. Gillian turned to look up at him and he shrugged.

  "If it does work," he continued, "or if your human scientists can work out how to build their own, then I could go home. Find out what happened to my people, my family."

  The aching longing he hid under the gruff tone of his voice stabbed at Gillian's heart. She could hear the pain in his voice, the hope he brutally suppressed. A lump formed in her throat at the thought. Of course he'll go if he has the chance, she thought. It's his home, his family! And it's not as if I want him to stay around forever.

  That last thought didn't feel entirely honest, though. Especially not when she saw the hint of vulnerability in his eyes, behind the wall of strength. Zardan felt like part of her life now, even if she hated to admit it to herself.

  Cautiously, she put her arm around his waist and hugged him tight, leaning in against his hard muscular body as he held her. For a moment they were still, drawing strength from one another.

  Then he withdrew, his face hardening as he pulled back behind his emotional shields. Gillian stepped back too, and for a moment both of them were silent.

  "How did the bank know the ship was here, though?" she asked eventually, trying to focus on their situation. The future could wait.

  Zardan frowned, and Gillian realized he hadn't thought of that either. He looked out of the room into the ice corridor beyond, and the tension in his muscles gave away the fury that welled up as he thought about it.

  "It's got to be Karaos," he and the anger in his voice eclipsed everything else. "That snake was the Dragon Guard liaison with the space defenses, he'd have known if there was a starship in the system. He must have kept it quiet while he tracked it down with his friends. Hidden a chance to rediscover the Empire and see what happened there, so that he could profit from it!"

  He strode to the inner door, and gestured at it angrily. The heavy metal slid aside impossibly quietly, revealing a dark corridor that led deeper into the ship. Lights flickered for a second and then went dark again, leaving Gillian oddly relieved. As creepy as she found the dark, long-dead ship, it was nice to know that dragon technology had some limits.

  She shone her flashlight into the darkness and gasped as the light flashed across a dark red stain on the floor. A blood trail, long-dry, crossing the corridor at a junction. Shining the light in both directions, Gillian saw that the trail continued out of sight.

  Whoever had left it had lost a lot of blood, too much. Gillian knew that dragon shifters were tough, and that their medical technology was incredible, but she had a hard time imagining someone losing that much blood and surviving the experience.

  Beside her, Zardan lowered himself into a crouch and examined the stain. Choosing the left fork of the junction he moved forward slowly, carefully, following the trail deeper into the ship. As he stepped into the beam of Gillian's flashlight, his shadow filled the hall.

  This is silly, whoever's here has been dead for a thousand years. Knowing that didn't make Gillian any more confident, though, and she followed Zardan cautiously. The blood trail ended at a door, and this one didn't open at Zardan's command. He growled, frustrated, repeating the gesture with more emphasis. Nothing happened.

  "What's wrong?" Gillian asked quietly. It felt like speaking in a tomb.

  "The door isn't responding to my implants," Zardan answered, trying to get a grip on the smooth metal surface. "This ship belonged to my family, the doors should open to me. Unless someone inside told them not to."

  His face hardened before he turned away from her and focused on the door. Gillian waited for him to say more but he stayed silent, and she realized that he would be expecting to find someone he knew in here. The death here might have happened a thousand years ago for her, but for him it was practically yesterday.

  Carefully, she put her hand on his back, trying not to startle him. His pain had been bad enough before he came face to face with his family's death, and she couldn't imagine what he must be going through now.

  Through the thick glove of her suit she felt him tense and then relax as he accepted her touch. With a frustrated growl he let go of the door, giving up on pulling it open with brute strength.

  "I've got a prybar," Gillian offered quietly. "But... if you don't want to look in there, we don't have to look?"

  "I need to know whose blood this is," Zardan said. Then he growled again. "If they're even recognizable. It's hard to remember how long they'll have been in this tomb of a ship."

  Gillian nodded. Pulling the pry bar from her belt she inserted it between the door and its frame. Zardan moved to take it from her, but she waved him back. If I'm going to be here, I ought to pull my weight, she thought as she threw herself into the work. Slowly, ever so slowly, the door shifted and creaked open a crack.

  As soon as there was a handhold for him, Zardan joined her and together they strained against the force holding the door shut. A sharp snap announced the locking mechanism failing completely, and they tumbled to the floor as it slid wide.

  Gillian landed against Zardan's hard muscular bulk, catching her breath as she felt him against her. Every time they touched, even through the suit, it took her breath away. For a moment she lay still, and then she pulled herself away from him, blushing as she scrambled to her feet.

  He stood more slowly, and together they looked into the room beyond the door. It was a bedroom, large by Gillian's standards but then a dragon shifter would need that space for their wings. And lying against the vast bed was a body.

  Gillian gasped and covered her mouth, swallowing. But she made herself step closer. It was a dragon shifter, that much was clear, but the long wait in vacuum had almost mummified the body. Red scales sat on a body that looked as though it had shrunk, and the dead man's wings had shriveled against him.

  The cause of death was obvious, despite the time that had passed. His stomach had been open, and the body's hands were folded across it as though to hold in his guts. The trail of blood ended in a dark pool around him, and stained the green-blue robes that still wrapped his corpse. It was hard to tell if the expression on his face was caused by pain or the shrinking of the skin, but it didn't look like a good death either way.

  Zardan's hand landed on Gillian's shoulder, pulling her out of her thoughts with a jump. She looked up at him, seeing a new darkness in his eyes.

  "Do you know him?" she asked, quietly.

  "I don't think so," he answered. "I can't be sure, not when he's in this condition, but it isn't someone I knew well. He's wearing the Herendar house colors, though, so he must be a distant cousin or something."

  For a long second they were quiet, and Gillian tried to think of something to say. 'I'm sorry' seemed so inadequate, and anyway whatever happened here happened centuries ago.

  But what exactly had happened? What had killed a dragon shifter and left this ship stranded on the land her family would one day claim? Gillian couldn't help wondering if whatever had done this was still loose on the ship somewhere.

  Don't be stupid, she told herself. Whoever the killer is, they're long-dead too. But a lifetime of watching horror movies late at night had taught her that the killer would still be aboard somewhere, sleeping and waiting for its prey to wake it.

  The fact that it was impossible didn't make it any less frightening, and she shivered, glad of Zardan's presence.

  "Why was the ship sealed when we found it?" she asked the question more to be distracted from her fears than anything else. Zardan seemed to understand, turning her away from the corpse as he answered.

  "I don't know," he told her. "I've got a guess, though. If whoever killed this man was still alive, he might have ordered the ship to empty itself of air to get his revenge. But then, why did the airmakers start up again as soon as I was inside? Let's see if we can find more clues."

  Turning Gillian away from the gruesome sight of the body, he led her back into the hallway and deeper into the ship, following the trail of blood. The dragon had made it a fair dis
tance, Gillian realized — he must have been pretty tough to drag himself so far bleeding that badly. At the far end of the corridor, the blood trail vanished through another door. This time it was a larger door, and Gillian guessed it lead somewhere important. The ship's bridge, maybe? Gillian hesitated with her prybar in hand.

  Zardan took it from her, giving her a look that quelled her protest. Though she wanted to fight him, she also didn't want to see another mutilated corpse without warning, so she let him do the work on his own.

  The doors gave quickly under Zardan's assault, and he pulled them wide. Beyond them was darkness, but this time Gillian could feel that it was a bigger space. Cautiously, bracing herself for horror, she shone her light inside.

  A chaotic scene greeted her, a huge chamber easily large enough to hold a shifter in dragon form. And it did. The huge body coiled in a pit at the room's center, surrounded by humanoid corpses. Dozens of bodies were strewn around the room like discarded toys, and Gillian felt sick at the sight. Even mummified by the centuries they were a disturbing sight.

  It took her a moment to register that only a few of the bodies were dragon shifters, though none of them were human. The others' skins were a deep blue, unlike the red scales of a dragon, and they lacked wings. Gillian stared as she realized what that meant. These were another alien species. And that meant that she was the first human to see them. The weight of that discovery made her shiver again.

  Beside her, Zardan made an angry noise as he stepped forward into the room. The rage that radiated from him was almost palpable.

  14

  Zardan

  Zardan couldn't believe what he was seeing, but the signs were clear. This was the scene of a battle, a mutiny, aboard his family's ship. The dragon in warform had died of her wounds, and whoever had inflicted them had known exactly what they were doing — the fine scales under her jaw had been sliced open, and under them was the main artery leading to her brain.

  Rest easy, sister, he thought, and fly home to the halls of our ancestors.

  It was a futile prayer, of course. Her soul was long gone, and if the halls of the ancestors were a real place, her soul had either found its way there or not. But it was all he could offer her. He didn't even know her name, only that she must be his kin. Just like the other two shifters on the bridge, who'd died in their humanoid forms,

  He became aware of Gillian behind him, her presence all that kept his dragon rage in check. Without her, he knew he'd be tearing the place apart, taking vengeance on the bodies of the long-dead enemies. And that would be both pointless and dishonorable.

  "What happened here? Who are those, those aliens?" Gillian's voice sounded half sick, half full of wonder at the sight, and he had to remember that she'd never seen any place like this. No human had, not for a thousand years.

  "They are Carnids," he said, voice tight with the rage he fought to keep in check. "They were supposed to be loyal servitors, huntsmen for our people. Bred to be loyal to the death."

  "But they, I mean..." Gillian's voice trailed off as she shone the light over the bodies. One of the Carnids still had his hands wrapped around the neck of a dead dragon, and the dragon held a blade that stabbed into the Carnid's chest. They'd died fighting each other, that much was clear.

  Zardan felt an urge to separate the bodies, to lay his kinsman to rest. But he knew that if he tried to move them, they'd fall apart. The bodies had only remained intact so long because of the vacuum and if they were to be moved it would have to be done more carefully than he could manage on his own. He settled for muttering another prayer over his kin before he answered Gillian.

  "They must have been turned, somehow. By a rival house, perhaps?" He shook his head. "I don't know. No one on Mars knows what caused the Dragon Empire to fall. It's one of the reasons the Emperor is so keen to get back to the stars, so we can find out what happened."

  "So he'll want to have this," Gillian mused. "Not just as a ship, I mean. There might be clues to what happened."

  "Yes," Zardan said, turning to look her in the eyes. "And perhaps that's what Karaos wants it for. He could name his price, and the little schemer has always wanted to be a duke. Or maybe he just wants to sell it to a human corporation and live off the fortune that would make him. Either way, that's not the point. This is a tomb to my kin, and I will not let it be sold for a profit."

  His voice rose uncontrollably as he said that, and he finished at a roar that made Gillian flinch back. Immediately he was sorry, the anger dampening. His mate didn't deserve that anger, it was for those who wanted to use his dead family as a commodity.

  "I'm sorry," he said, stepping back to give her space. "I didn't mean you to frighten you."

  Gillian glared up at him, a fiery look of rebellion in her eyes.

  "Don't shout at me, then," she told him. "I'm not one of your enemies, Zardan. But the ship's on my family's lands, and that means that I'm involved whether I want to be or not. Danforth and his bank aren't going to give up if they know this is here, and I don't think they'll care about respecting the dead. If you want to keep this place safe, you need to get them off my back."

  He glared back, not expecting an ultimatum from her. It didn't help that she was right — if the human bank ended up owning this land, they'd raise the ship and he doubted they'd be gentle. But he didn't like being told what to do, even if it was the right thing.

  Before he could sort out his emotions, Gillian spoke again. "Can you get this ship out of here? If it's off my lands, then you can sort out what you want to do with it yourself."

  "Not likely," he answered, glad to be on practical matters. Arguing with her about Imperial law was futile and pointless. "It must have taken Karaos and his friends days of work to melt that tunnel through the ice, and they still weren't done. Getting the ship free will take a lot longer, and that's if the ship can fly on its own."

  He shook his head, turning away from her, and looked at the bloody mess on the control stations. "I suppose I should check, though."

  Carefully, trying not to disturb the corpses, he made his way to one of the stations. His implants couldn't interface with anything, and that was a bad sign. A few tries at activating the controls confirmed it, the ship's systems were long dead. The great ships of the Dragon Empire had been designed to operate for thousands of years, but that was with maintenance and careful use. Not being abandoned on a planet while a glacier grew over them.

  While he worked, Gillian looked around the room, trying to keep her flashlight on him so he could see what he was doing. Zardan moved from station to station, trying to find one with any systems he could activate, but they were all dead. He couldn't even be sure that they were getting any power, though there was energy available — otherwise the airmaker wouldn't be working.

  That thought made him straighten up.

  "This isn't where we should be looking," he told Gillian, turning away from the controls. "The engine room! If anything's still functioning, it'll be down there."

  Gillian nodded quickly, and he could see that she was happy to leave the scene of carnage. Truth be told, Zardan was as well. It wasn't pleasant, looking at the bodies of his kin and their slayers. At least all the mutineers had died here, as far as he could tell. Most had wounds from the battle, but a few showed no sign of violence. Those were clustered around the controls, looking as though they'd died while desperately trying to achieve some goal.

  Whatever it had been, they'd failed and they'd died.

  Good. Just the fact that the Carnids had turned on his people made him furious, and he felt helpless that he could do nothing about this long-ago battle. Even if there were mutineers who'd survived the battle they were long dead by now.

  The engine room was easy to find, and Zardan led the way with purpose. He hefted the prybar in his hands as though it was a weapon and he hoped to find his kin’s slayers still alive in there, but when he heaved the heavy doors open, it was just as dead as the bridge.

  Here, though, there was only one co
rpse. A Carnid, sitting cross-legged at the control station, mummified like the rest but seeming somehow serene. Power still hummed from the crystal batteries, and while most of the systems were dead a few lights still flickered on the boards.

  "What the hell happened here?" Gillian asked, stepping up next to him. "Is it just me or does he look happy?"

  She shivered beside Zardan, who put his arm around her instinctively. He could understand her reaction — finding a body like this was somehow creepier than the battle scene on the bridge had been.

  "Something went very wrong on this ship," he told her. "Let me see if any of the systems here respond."

  As soon as he let his implanted computers try to connect, the engine room came to life. A shimmering holographic screen lit above the head of the Carnid's corpse, illuminating him with an eerie glow. The image that appeared was even creepier, in a way. It was clearly the same man, recorded when he was alive. Though only barely: the wound on his chest would no doubt prove fatal soon, and the resigned look in his eyes told Zardan that he'd known it.

  "Whoever sees this," the image said, speaking in the Imperial tongue, "I, Tollvan, greet you. By now, I am certainly dead, but I hope that I have done my duty and avenged my mate. Charida captained the Grace of Herendar with grace and honor, and the mutiny against her has surely taken her life along with the other Dragon lords."

  Charida. The name hit Zardan like a physical blow. That had to be the dragon on the bridge, and he remembered her. Not well, he'd never been close to his aunt, but they were family. He remembered her mate, too, vaguely. Tollvan had been there the last time he'd met his aunt, though they hadn't spoken.

  The first family he'd seen since waking, and they were dead in a mutiny.

  The pain in Tollvan's voice was terrible to hear, and Zardan could only imagine what he had felt as he recorded this message. Not the physical pain of his injuries, though those must have hurt, but the anguish of having failed to protect the woman he loved. Zardan looked aside at Gillian and shivered. Just the thought of failing her like that was enough to wake his rage.