A Cat Among Dragons

by Alma Boykin

  Shi-dan removed his forefoot from her head and Rada told her neck muscles to relax as he lapsed into silence. She’d felt the spasm and agony of his misfiring nervous system through his touch and had reacted without thinking, as she had been trained. How could he have not known? she wondered. Surely his people looked into all of my background and training at some point. Would he be upset with her? Should she have told him? The professional in her tried to decide how far advanced his problem was, what sort of pharmaceuticals could reduce the symptoms, and if there were any Healers or physicians that she knew of who could help him.

  At last he chuckled, the first real laughter she’d heard from him since his son’s death. “Congratulations, Lord Ni Drako. You are the first person to have hidden anything this major from Us in decades. And no, by the time the problem was diagnosed We could no longer be Healed.”

  She bowed her head again, this time with sorrow. “It hurts me to hear that, Imperial Majesty,” she whispered. And she meant it. To her surprise she realized that she would miss him greatly.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw him make that dismissive gesture she knew so well and he changed the topic slightly. “What will Our Court’s reaction to Our demise be, Lord Defender?”

  She thought hard before answering, trying to balance honesty with self-preservation. “Relief for some, uncertainty for many.” The reclining King-Emperor snorted as she continued, “followed by bitter disappointment among those who assume that your heir’s policies and personality will be greatly different from your own, Imperial Majesty. The Prince Imperial is not the gentle, forgiving fool some hope him to be,” the Lord Defender added, thinking of her meetings with Shi-dan’s nephew after he finished his service in the Imperial Forces. He lacked Shi-dan’s cruelty and brutal streak, but came from the same tempered steel as his sire’s brother.

  Shi-dan nodded, pleased with her assessment. “And your reaction, Lord Defender?” Now she turned to look at him face to face, and he wondered what was wrong with her eyes. They seemed to be watering for some reason.

  “Truth, Imperial Majesty. I never thought I’d say this.” She gave him a wry smile. “But even after what you’ve done to me, I’ll regret losing you to death. Although I suspect your ghost will come back and haunt me if I ever even come close to failing to achieve what Your Imperial Majesty has desired.” She looked away again, then turned her body to face him and shifted until she was on her knees. “Thank you for all you’ve given me, Imperial Majesty King-Emperor Shi-dan,” and she bowed until her head brushed the ground, hair concealing her face from him.

  “Return to your earlier seat,” he told her and she did so. He studied the changing light and shadows in the garden. “Even Our consorts and Our mate have not been as honest as you, Rada. But then Our mate has forgiven neither Us nor you, so We are not surprised at her behavior.” Rada raised her eyebrows but didn’t say anything. She knew all too well what he was remembering.

  Rada had liked it almost as little as he had. Shi-dan would never admit it but he sometimes regretted using Ni Drako as his sword on that occasion. He should have dealt with the matter with his own talons instead, and ever since he had wondered: if he had seen to it earlier, could the final outcome have been avoided completely? Well, it had been done and looking back, it had proven even more necessary than he had thought at the time.

  She seemed to read his mind, because she sighed. “Duty can be a vicious and bitter thing, Imperial Majesty.” Then she lapsed back into silence.

  “You will abide by your vows after We are gone, Ni Drako?” he had to ask, even though he knew the answer. She stiffened oh so slightly.

  “I gave my word to the Empire and the people of Drakon IV, Imperial Majesty. I stand by my vows and my honor,” and Shi-dan thought he detected the faintest bit of heat in her tone. Nothing overt, or obvious, but a touch of something and he nodded to himself. Her fire still burned, no matter how hard she tried to bank and control it.

  “Good,” and he allowed himself to relax completely, dropping his head onto his crossed forefeet, dignity be damned. “Very good, Rada. You have met or exceeded Our hopes thus far and We trust you to continue as you began, should you survive so long.” Her face turned pink for some reason and he tried to remember what that meant. Oh, yes. She was embarrassed, a response Azdhagi did not have. Shi-dan wondered if all humanoids were like that. She seemed to want to speak, but hesitated. “Speak freely, Ni Drako.”

  “Forgive my forwardness, Imperial Majesty, but may I touch your person? I believe I can ease your pain for a while longer, if you will permit the familiarity,” she offered almost timidly.

  He considered and then agreed. She stood and unfastened the cuffs of her uniform and rolled up her sleeves, revealing thick black fur that began halfway between her forefoot joint and elbow. The Wanderer considered him, then very carefully reached out and laid her hands on his back, feeling through his heavily embroidered robe for his backbone. She closed her eyes and began making a quiet musical sound, and Shi-dan felt warmth like the soft afternoon sun flowing down his back and into his muscles. Despite himself he closed his eyes and lowered his guard, tension leaving his battered muscles and nerves.

  When he at last looked up, Rada had returned to her earlier seat on the ground. His body felt as if he were years younger and he got up from the bench, stretched, and reveled in pain-free motion. Stiffness remained, yes, but not the constant dull ache. “How long do I have, Ni Drako?”

  Her eyes remained closed. “Perhaps two days, Imperial Majesty, before the disease undoes the Healing. I dare not try anything more radical for fear of causing more damage.” He looked closely at her and saw the fatigue tremors shaking her forefeet. The palace Healers could only ease the pain for a few hours at a time and yet she gave him two days? Knowing she would not see it, Shi-dan smiled at her, impressed despite himself. Then the King-Emperor returned and he ordered, “Follow Us.”

  She rose to her feet and stumbled slightly before falling in behind him. They walked the paths in silence. Shi-dan slowed his steps once, beside the place where his only son had been executed, but didn’t stop. As the sun disappeared behind the Palace walls, Shi-dan led the way out of his private gardens, trailed by “his” mammal. “You are dismissed, Lord Defender,” he told the air in front of him. She bowed low from where she stood, backed, and left him to his thoughts.

  * * *

  Just after Breakdark, Lord Defender Ni Drako watched the last embers of Shi-dan’s funeral pyre as they darkened and burned out. She stood in the shadows, hiding out of sight of King-Emperor Ku-shkii as tears ran down her face, staining her pale pink mourning scarf before dripping to the icy flagstones. Somehow she knew there would never be another like Shi-dan, for good or for ill. Well, now I just have to spend the next centuries trying to make good on our bargain, Shi-dan. I hope I’m as strong as you were.

  For a moment she envied the dead Azdhag. You cruel bastards, I hate what you’ve made me, she prayed at no one deity in particular. But I’ll manage somehow, no thanks to you. Wherever he had gone, she saluted him. Godspeed, Shi-dan. I hope you are at peace. Only when the fire had died and cooled did the Wanderer give Shi-dan one last salute before leaving the place of burning.

  Trial by Ice

  Lord Defender Rada Ni Drako spent an hour rechecking her weapons and making certain she knew how everything built into her new body armor worked, and how to bypass it when something failed. Well Shi-dan, she thought to the late King-Emperor’s ghost, now we find out if you pinned your hopes on the right creature, or if your experiment is a failure. Ku-shkii was King-Emperor of the Azdhag Empire now and Rada shook her head, marveling that nearly forty years had passed since she first accepted Shi-dan’s challenge.

  She finished supper and debated going and checking on her personal troops, then decided against it. Instead she reread the plan of attack she had devised, trying to find holes, compared it to the latest intelligence on the Cygnids’ positions, and couldn’t find anything that
needed a last-minute change. She lay down on her cot, thinking back over the past sixt of days and trying to get warm as imaginary threads of cold air seeped through non-existent leaks in her shelter’s walls. It couldn’t be nerves, no, not on the eve of her first major battle as joint-forces commander of the Drakon IV’s Defenders.

  * * *

  Lord Ni Drako, her concubine, and the rest of the Imperial Court and the planetary Defenders had anticipated nothing more than the usual celebrations around Drakon IV’s northern winter solstice, known as Breakdark. The arrival of over 30,000 Cygnid soldiers on the northern continent changed a lot of Azdhagi plans.

  «What’s going on, Pet?» Zabet demanded as she entered their shared quarters, taking in the pile of body armor, helmet, and weapons with worried eyes.

  Rada didn’t look up from her computer console as she answered her True-dragon friend and business partner. “Invasion. Two hundred fifty kliqs north of the capital. The first group of Defenders have already established contact with the Cygnids and are trying to contain them within the Blackwater Forest,” she explained tersely, typing command codes as she spoke. “I’m going out with the main force tomorrow.”

  Zabet pulled back slightly. «How did they get through the frontier and lunar defenses? I thought that’s what the Imperial Forces are there to prevent.»

  “They are, and that’s a question the Minister of War should be answering as we speak. However, it’s my job to eject the invaders now.” She studied the data rolling down the screen and snarled to herself, “Maybe now the Planetary and Imperial Councils will grant my request for Defense Force outposts on the moons, or at the very least access to Imperial intelligence!” It would have been better to check the Cygnids before they entered the star system. Or even to have checked them before they got in the atmosphere, especially now that Night’s Claw had finished its last proving flight and she could lead the trans-atmospheric Squadrons herself if necessary. But no—Defender meant just that, in the eyes of the Councils.

  Zabet had known her associate for long enough to see the problems even though the small True-dragon possessed little interest in military matters. «Perhaps they should change your title to ‘Lord Ejector,’ or ‘Lord Bouncer’ if they keep you so limited,» the reptile sniffed, her tone nasty. Rada gave Zabet a mild look but the noble’s “concubine” just flipped her tail, knowing that she was right. The Wanderer returned to the matter at hand, seemingly forgetting the other presence in the room as she scrutinized maps, lists of available troops and supplies, and possible extra-atmospheric defensive measures. Zabet sniffed again, then went over and looked at the pile of weapons and such.

  She sat back and picked up a section of the body armor. Oh, this is nice she thought to herself, I wonder if Rada knows how much it’s worth? Probably not. For a Trader-born the woman had precious little sense of monetary value some times, the True-dragon sighed, whiskers twirling at the long-standing problem. The armor felt lighter weight than Zabet remembered her partner wearing in the past, with more wires and things in it than Rada’s last set. It also had traces of the Commander’s dark blue-green House color on the shoulders, forearm guards, and helmet. As if there were more than one mammal in the entire Azdhag military Zabet snorted.

  “Don’t pull anything loose, please. You’re holding about four years worth of estate revenue in your talons,” the Lord Defender observed as Zabet’s small, round ears tipped back towards her. “And I’ve just started getting used to all the sensors and signals built into the set, so I won’t be able to tell if a wire or circuit fails until I try to use it.” The True-dragon set the armor down with exaggerated care, then backed away from the pile as Rada rolled her eyes at the act.

  Claws tapped on the partly-open door and the Commander called “Enter!” An Azdhag soldier stuck his head around the wood and brass panel, but didn’t come in. “Lord-Mammal, the King-Emperor wants to see you in the Council chamber,” he said in a snide tone.

  The woman got to her feet. “Thank you, Corporal. I will be there presently.” Her tone remained polite, even as he looked at her weapons and all but sneered. «There was a time you would never have even contemplated using that tone in this building,» she thought at him, «and especially not to me». Well, then respect had been given because of what she was. Now it would be earned as she proved herself. And this time it would last.

  Commander Lord Ni Drako presented herself to the full Imperial Council and knelt before the King-Emperor. Ku-Shkii’s brown-green eyes regarded her steadily. “Lord-Defender, what is the status of Our Forces?”

  “The first units are in place and appear to have contained the initial invasion force for the moment, Imperial Majesty. I will be taking the main bulk of the forces north tomorrow. The other Defender outposts have been put on alert and four more provincial units are on stand-by, as are the Defense Scouts,” she reported. As she spoke, a sergeant poked his muzzle into the chamber and she stuck her hand out. He hesitated, then bowed, eased forward, and slid her a message before retreating. At Ku-shkii’s nod of permission Rada read the note and frowned slightly.

  “Problem, Lord-Defender?” a nasty voice inquired. She looked over at Lord Chee, the Minister of War, and managed to keep her manner calm and respectful despite her overwhelming desire to cut out the incompetent fool’s balls to prevent him from further polluting the Azdhag gene pool. “Only the possible arrival of a secondary invasion force thirty kliqs from the Palace! If your Imperial Majesty will excuse me?”

  Ku-Shkii’s eyes bulged slightly as he waved her off. “Go, Lord-Defender. We will prepare the Palace Ourselves.” The light-brown King-Emperor turned to his Minister of War as Rada left the room. “What do you have to say for yourself, Chee?” he inquired, voice cold as ice. The Minister of War tried to stutter something as Ku-Shkii rose from his seat and advanced on the noble, then slashed him across the face with steel-tipped talons before the minister could react. Chee shrieked as the blades ripped his eyes apart. The King-Emperor slapped the moaning reptile’s muzzle with an iron war fan before returning to his own seat.

  Ku-shkii snarled, “Your estates and possessions are forfeit. Leave Our sight and do not return, Chee, and be glad of Our mercy.” The other Azdhagi showed no evidence of sympathy for the now blind former War Minister, who whimpered as he staggered out of the Council Chamber.

  Rada didn’t bother with her new armor. She grabbed her heavy weapons and a winter coat and charged for the Guard barracks. “To the transports, now. Possible enemy presence thirty kliqs east.” Half the Palace Guard boiled out after her, the rest scrambling to get into heavy armor and take their positions in the Palace. They shouldn’t have been waiting for my command she groused to herself as she and her men clambered into vehicles. I’ve got to get more initiative from my officers and NCOs! Even so, Rada and her troops were in motion less than a quarter-hour after getting the first report and she monitored the Scouts’ frequencies along with her own command radios. She got the aerial image of the Cygnid forces and smothered a sigh of relief. They seemed to be a probe only, not a heavy attack force like waited to the north. And where the hell is my air defense?

  “All right Captain Sheer,” she told her local second-in-command, “I want you to hit them hard and fast. Prisoners if possible, but first priority is stopping this batch,” and she passed on her data to the Azdhag officer.

  He read through the material and nodded. “Plan bravo 2, surround and terminate, Lord-Defender?”

  “Affirmative, just don’t shoot your own men in the process.” It was an old and unfunny joke and he bared his fangs. She did the same. Maybe that’s why Shi-dan and I got along. I can be just as bloodthirsty as he was and I’ve been at it longer. The transports took the first incoming fire two kliqs from the reported Cygnid position, and the Lord Defender and her men bailed out of the large moving targets. Sheer had already passed the word to the rest of the Guard and the heavy reptiles fanned out, some starting around to encircle the Cygnid probe force as the preliminary airs
trike took out the invaders’ few heavy weapons.

  The ground had frozen a moon month before and the old, packed snow let the Azdhagi run easily. Commander Ni Drako resisted the urge to take point. That was no longer her job. Hers was to stay back and direct, unless the fewmets hit the impeller conclusively. She trotted along with her bodyguards, rifle in hand, blaster on her hip, and ready. The Cygnids had taken up a position on top of a rise, their landing ship in the depression below. This gave them the high ground, but also exposed them to fire from all directions.

  Whatever the Cygnid commander had hoped to accomplish by dropping scouts here, unless he wanted to test the Palace’s reaction time, his experiment failed. The insects only had light armor and weapons, and even their personal energy shields couldn’t hold up against Azdhagi fire. A few small bombs dropped by a half-hover aircraft didn’t do much for their ship’s usefulness, either. After a one or two attempts at taking prisoners ended badly, the Azdhagi killed all the invaders. Rada observed but stayed out of the way. She also listened very carefully to the comm traffic, trying to keep everything straight in her mind. The Palace had basic anti-air defenses as well as the palace Guard, and two Ground Defense Squadrons were now airborne and watching for any more visitors.

  The Palace Guard made fairly short work of the intruders, although not without a few casualties of their own, mostly from hesitation or carelessness. Well, what do you expect when troopers see combat for the first time in over a generation? The Lord Defender watched as her men did their job and did it well. She felt a little better about the situation, but only a little. Once the battlefield had been secured, Rada examined the remains of a Cygnid trooper.