Refuge: The Arrival: Book 2

by Doug Dandridge

  “You,” he called, looking at the officer who had first spotted the jets. “Go get a com tech to work on getting in contact with those birds. I want to let them know what is going on here. And how they can help.”

  The officer nodded, saluted, and ran into the bunker, while Taylor brought his glasses back up to his eyes and tracked on the jets. The most beautiful sight he had seen in quite some time.

  * * *

  General Jossianli Melisardra shielded his eyes from the spattering of rain that was falling on him and Death Bringer. The storm and the lightning bolts to the north had worried him for a moment. He had thought that maybe a powerful mage was setting up a weather event to knock his force from the sky. But the bad weather was remaining over that region of the valley, and seemed to be doing a very good job of ripping up the area without his having to commit his dragons to the danger zone.

  The enormous red’s head whipped around, tracking something in the distance. The Ellala strained his ears, picking up the high pitch whine of something he had never heard before. He concentrated, and found that there were a series of sounds, coming from the south. He looked in that direction and noted that there was a pair of dots in the sky that seemed to be moving slightly. They were getting larger, very quickly if he judged the distance properly, which, because of a lack of scale, he wasn’t sure he was.

  The dots grew and the sound rose to a roar, until the blue objects seemed to explode in size and blew by at several hundred meters away, the wind of their passage pulling the great bulk of Death Bringer about twenty meters after them.

  “What in the name of Bothar were those?” exclaimed the General, wondering if he were hallucinating. They had moved by at many times the speed of a dragon in full flight. Much faster than the other flying machines the strangers had brought with them. Why had they kept them hidden until this moment? To trick him into committing his force while he did not know of their existence? It did not bode well for his force that they shared the sky with such fast moving things, given the other capabilities the strangers had already revealed.

  Jossianli attempted to slow his heart down from where it was beating swiftly in his chest, so he could concentrate on making contact mentally with his other subcommanders, getting the message out that there was something new in the sky that they needed to look out for. He heard the roar coming back, and the pair of flying machines flew back across his front, their speed again causing a rush of fear to run up his spine. What can we do about them, he thought, as the machines flew swiftly away. Was there anything, when his swiftest juvenile would look like it was standing still compared to those monstrosities?

  * * *

  “That was a damned dragon,” called out Major Franklin on the squadron circuit.

  “And there are a lot more of them over there,” agreed Alexander, looking over to the left side of the aircraft.

  “So where in the hell are we?” asked the Major, his voice quivering.

  The net erupted as the other seven pilots tried to break in and find out what was going on. The Colonel hushed the circuit. He needed a few moments to think about this mess they found themselves dropped into. The terrain below did not look like anything he was familiar with in Central Germany, where even the mountains were low rolling hills. And the jagged peaks did not look like the Alps. And he had never heard of anyone actually seeing a flying monster like the ones he had just eyeballed over this valley. He banked his Raptor over to the left and looked down, watching a trio of the dragons attack what looked like an armored vehicle on the ground. A trac that looked suspiciously like a Bradley fighting vehicle. It wasn’t too hard to figure out which side he should be on in this struggle, wherever it happened to be going on.

  His radio hissed with static for a moment, then hissed again. He looked at his radio panel and saw that someone was trying to get through on his frequency, maybe after hearing him and his wing talk. They weren’t coming through worth anything.

  “OK, everyone,” he said over the squadron circuit, hoping that maybe whomever was trying to contact him might also hear his intentions. He didn’t think it was the dragons, so it was probably the humans with United States Army equipment who the dragons were attacking. “We’re going back to the north and take a large bite out of those dragons you heard us talking about. Anything that looks like a big flying lizard is a target.”

  Alexander pulled his jet into a turn while he throttled down. The rest of the squadron formed up on him, pairing off into teams except for two birds that slotted into each side of his fighter. He made sure all of his weapons were hot, radar systems active.

  “Keep them subsonic and try to make every shot count,” said the Colonel over the circuit. “I don’t think we will be able to land and rearm here, so whatever we accomplish up here will be all we accomplish here. Only go to superglide if you need to put some distance between yourselves and danger.”

  The acknowledgements came over the circuit. The aircraft flared out into an attack formation that would allow them to cover ten kilometers of linear space when they contacted the flying monsters. Colonel Alexander looked ahead, his 20/10 vision giving him the first sight of the dragons, not knowing that the beasts and their riders had vision that was better than his by a magnitude. The monsters had all started to turn his way. They knew something was up, and were presenting their most menacing aspects to the fighters.

  Let’s see how you handle this, he thought as he locked a missile onto one of the biggest monsters. The missile bay door opened, making his plane once more a radar target, on a world which didn’t possess any radar not brought here within the last couple of weeks. He heard the tone of lock and toggled the firing switch on the joystick. The missile dropped below his fighter, then ignited its motors, accelerating toward the target and reaching mach six within seconds.

  The target spit out a ball of fire, which truly surprised the Colonel. I should have realized it would have something like that in its repertoire, he thought, recovering immediately. It was a dragon after all. The missile, which was radar guided, dropped below the fireball and pulled back up. The dragon didn’t have time to react as the heavy warhead slammed into its chest and exploded, blasting a great hole into the internal organs of the creature, which fell from the sky with screaming riders still aboard.

  “That’s the first I noticed people riding on them,” said Major Franklin over the com. “Yeah,” he yelled out next, as his first missile found a target. In fact all of the first missiles fired found a target, and the squadron computer link system made sure that they were nine separate beasts that took the full brunt of the missiles.

  Alexander juked his fighter upwards, avoiding the slow moving fireball that was coming in, then banked slightly to avoid another one. His mind worked on another level of speed than these creatures he was fighting. He was used to reacting to multi-mach weapons coming at him, and the fireballs were just plain slow.

  He pulled the fighter over just a bit and rocketed through the swirling confusion of dragons, setting his gun pip on one that was trying to fly the other way. A quick pull of the trigger sent several hundred 20mm rounds into the beast. Pieces of scale flew into the air, followed by a mist of blood, and the not so large dragon stopped flapping its wings and fell from the sky.

  Alexander pushed his bird into superglide, even though he had told his squadron mates not to do such a thing. But he thought of the effect it would have on the monsters, seeing his craft flying away from them at faster than the speed of sound. Plus the effect that would have on them when they saw him coming back.

  * * *

  General Jossianli Melisardra stared at the flying machine as it roared past at unbelievable speed, maybe ten times faster than a dragon, maybe more. Two dragons fell out of the sky behind the machine. He looked around and saw more of his precious beasts falling to the earth, and several flying machines, not moving as fast as the one that almost pulled his huge monster from the sky, but still much faster than anything he had ever seen, flew along, following
the superfast machine.

  In his mind’s eye he could see all of his force blasted from the sky by these improbable machines. It would gain the Empire nothing to have most of its dragon force turned to fertilizer here in this remote valley. Unless he could get some of his battlemages to strike at the machines, taking them out of the equation. Maybe he could use a spell to do something to the infernal things before they came back.

  * * *

  Kurt forced his limbs to move as twenty-five tons of angry dragon came up the hill at him. He had frozen in place for a moment while the shock of Levine’s death filtered through his mind. The rumbling steps of the monster walking toward him had awakened him from that shock, to the new shock of the beast roaring its way up the hill.

  The German Immortal moved back, his hands gripping the hilt of his two handed sword over his shoulder and drawing it out into the darkening day. The blade glowed with its internal light, and its sentience greeted the wielder. Kurt looked from the great blade, to the monster, and back to the sword, suddenly doubting if it would be enough in this fight. The image of a World War Two Tiger tank came to mind as a much better weapon to be fighting this battle. Instead he had a one and three quarters meter long blade, and the monster had thick scales, all of which ended in hard spikes. He could wish for one of the spears they had brought along, but he had seen those flying from the hummer with Jackie when the vehicle overturned.

  The beast opened its mouth and belched fire at the German. Kurt dodged to the side, wishing he had a large shield to cover himself. The ball flew past, heating his armor for a moment until it passed away into the distance. The dragon stomped on, stepping on the burning remains of the hummer, crushing it into the ground, and with it the body of the ancient Immortal. Kurt’s mind screamed at the injustice of it all. That a man who had lived over two thousand years on Earth, and survived all that could be thrown at him, had perished here on a new world, less than two weeks after arrival. He felt the anger growing in him, dispelling the shock of Ismael’s death and the fear of facing the monstrous beast on foot.

  Kurt looked up into the eyes of the monster. Its red eyes looked down on him, promising a death that was not to be welcomed. The head reared back for an instant, then thrust downward at the German, jaws gapping wide, spear like fangs aiming for the small morsel on the ground.

  Kurt leapt forward, moving at faster than human speed, landing on his feet as he swung the sword at chest level into one of the monster’s legs. He could hear the snap of the jaws behind him just before his blade hit the right foreleg of the creature. The sword glowed with power, slicing into the scale with the combination of wielder's strength and magical sharpness. The dragon roared, and it brought its head back into the air and jerked its leg. Kurt was flung away by the force of the gigantic beast, keeping a grip on his sword hilt by will power alone. He flew through the air and came down on his back, starting a roll of clanking armor down the hill, to land dazed at the bottom.

  The monster roared again, sending wisps of fire into the air. The head came down and flame blasted from the mouth. Kurt rolled away as the flames engulfed the right side of his armor, a scream growing in his throat while his skin burned underneath the heating suit of plate. He released the scream as he came to his feet. It turned into a roar while he ran up the hill, by force of will keeping his burned right hand on the hilt of the sword alongside his left hand. He swung at the monster’s neck at the end of his reach, the last few inches of the blade slicing through thin scales and coming out the other side with a spray of blood. The head reared back again, the red eyes beating down on the human.

  It’s going to take a lot more than this to kill this thing, he thought, tensing for the beast’s next move. He had cut through scale and barely nicked the muscle underneath in his best effort. He wondered how the merely human knights of legend had handled such a creature, and wished for at least the fifty caliber machine gun he had used earlier against it.

  The mouth opened and the head rushed forward. Kurt watched the scene as if in slow motion, as the first licks of flame came around the fangs, the precursor of the gout that would soon follow. He tensed, waiting to throw himself in the direction that would best escape that flame, still feeling the pain from the burned flesh under his armor.

  The flame spewed out and the dragon raised its head to the sky, a roar accompanying the fire that went up into the air. Kurt looked up, then down, seeing the movement at the side of the beast. Where Jackie stood, pushing on the spear that she had thrust into the belly scales of the monster. It looked like at least a half meter of weapon had been pushed in, and thick blood was flowing around the shaft.

  The beast jerked away, pulling back from the spear and sending Jackie flying through the air as the shaft moved with the dragon. She landed hard on her back with an oof of out rushing air, motionless otherwise, while the dragon turned back toward her as quick as a cat. It took a step her way, and the next step threatened to crush her, the foot going high into the air while the beast made ready to put all of its weight into the paw.

  Kurt ran forward, feet pumping over the ground in desperation, bringing his sword back behind him and swinging it forward with his hips as he stepped into the blow. The blade struck the left front leg of the dragon, the one still supporting its weight, slicing in at his head level, where the limb was jointed. The sword glowed with power as it sliced into the thinner scales of the joint, cutting deep into the muscle and tendons underneath.

  The dragon roared, its leading foot coming down clumsily when its joint buckled on the trailing front limb. The foot missed the human it had meant to crush, except for one claw that landed on the foot of the human. Jackie screamed as her own ankle was crushed under the claw, her eyes widening when the claw moved slightly, the monster trying to regain its balance. As the dragon’s foot shifted again Jackie rolled away, her hands clutching her ankle and the foot that projected at an unnatural angle from it.

  The dragon turned on Kurt, bringing its injured claw from the ground while it stumbled onto its good leg. The damaged paw came around in a backhanded swipe. Kurt ducked under the blow, thrusting his sword up into the palm of the monster. The creature jerked its paw away, and Kurt was lifted partly off the ground before his blade slid out, dropping him to land softly on his feet. He spun away when the paw came back down, running for the back of the beast, swinging his blade into the left rear leg of the monster.

  The dragon hobbled back his way as the German continued to run around it, jumping over the tail that then swung after him. He ducked under it, running between the rear legs of the monster while taking an overhand swing at its belly. Sword sliced scales and then he was taking another swing at the beast’s injured right foreleg, taking a cut out of its wrist as he ran out from under the creature. He dodged quickly as a paw came down where he had just stood, then swerved in to take another slice out of the injured leg.

  The creature roared and stomped, infuriated that it could not strike the fast moving midget that was stinging it over and over. It started a strike, then swerved away as Jackie hit it in the side, her two swords striking in blurs, cutting through scales and into flesh with each swing. Several scales broke in half when hit by the cold sword, while the fire sword acted mostly like a normal but super sharp blade when it landed on the monster.

  The tail swished around as the monster turned on Jackie. Kurt jumped over the tail, landing on the other side and bringing his sword down with all his force on the appendage, cutting deep into it. The dragon pulled the tail back, then swung it like an alligator, striking the human in the chest and sending him flying through the air. The German hit his back against a tree, feeling the air exploding from his lungs as his vision went black. He was thinking of Jackie, and what the monster would do to her if he wasn’t in the fight, while his consciousness fled. His last memory was the roar of the monster as it continued its attack on Jackie.

  * * *

  James Drake’s limbs shivered as feeling began to reenter them. She sure gave me
a jolt, he thought, wondering how he had survived the full strike of a lightning bolt. He thought it might have something to do with him being a mage, in control of one of the elements, though a different element than she controlled. But the real answer was he didn’t really know.

  He was overjoyed when he opened his eyes and they still worked. The landscape was still dark, and the freight train rushing of multiple tornadoes filled his ears. But he still worked, and that gave him a chance to do something about this mad sorceress in their midst.

  Her booming voice filled the air while she called out to the powers to fill her with energy. She thinks herself a Goddess, he thought, a different kind of insanity than they both displayed on Earth, based as it was on too much power rather than lack ofpower. But it was still madness, no matter the cause, and it threatened to destroy the people of this valley.

  I have to stop her, thought the scientist. Even if it kills both of us. There was a lot more at stake here than just the two of them. There was a whole people at stake.

  Drake began to quest with his mind, tapping into the power he would need to combat the Weathermage. There was little of the energies he had used before in the air about him, and the heavy cloud cover cut off the rays of the sun. Still a bit, enough to give him the strength to continue, and shrug off the last remnants of the shock. He could, though, feel another source of energy, great or greater than the sun, at least for his purposes, coming through the ground beneath him. The stored heat of the planet, which he could tap into, using his innate abilities to channel that force for his own use.

  It came slowly at first, a trickle of energy that warmed his body, healing all of his hurts. It soon became a steady stream of power, flowing upwards into his body, and he contained it behind a wall of will. The stream then became a flood. His body could not contain all of the heat, his clothing bursting into flame, his hair becoming the flame that did not burn him. The rush of power was awesome, thought Drake, feeling his muscles surge with power, like a young Hercules.