Home at Last

by Alex Sapegin

  The Dragon Inside

  Book 5. Home at Last

  Alex Sapegin

  Translated by Elizabeth Kulikov

  Copyright © 2017 Litworld Ltd. (http://litworld.com)

  All rights reserved.

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  Contents:

  Part 1.

  The Celestial Empire. The emperor’s southern high command…

  T-minus one hour and counting…

  Principality of Ora. Turgar’s ancestral lands. Blast off….

  Ilanta. North-western kingdom of Rimm. Duke Lere’s lands

  The Marble Mountains. Former lands of the green orcs. The White Pass…

  Russia. N-ville.

  Somewhere on the outskirts of N-ville. Secret scientific research center…

  Somewhere on the outskirts of N-ville. Secret scientific research center…

  Ilanta. The Kingdom of Tantre. Orten

  Earth. Russia. Secret scientific research center. The night shift…

  Ilanta. Orten. Timur…

  Ilanta. Orten. Timur. Three days later…

  Ilanta. Orten. Three days ago…

  Tantre. Southern Rocky Ridge.

  The abandoned monastery of Hel…

  Tantre. Southern provinces. Marshal Olmar…

  Tantre. Kion. Palace complex. Twelve hours later…

  Tantre. Orten. Andy…

  Ilanta. Tantre. The outskirts of Kion. A day later…

  Ilanta. Tantre. The outskirts of Kion. Infantryman Duch…

  Earth. Russia. N-ville. Operators’ room of the third group….

  Russia. N-ville. Secret scientific center.

  Third floor below ground. One hour earlier…

  May 19, 20XX. Russia. N-ville. Elementary school № 3. Olga…

  An hour later... Secret scientific research center

  Ilanta. Karegar’s Valley. Andy...

  Earth. Russia. Not far from N-ville...

  Russia. N-ville. Secret scientific research center. A month later…

  Russia. N-ville. Secret Scientific Research Center. Two hours later…

  Ilanta. A valley of thousand streams…

  EPILOGUE

  GLOSSARY

  Book Recommendations:

  About us

  About the Author

  Part 1.

  The Celestial Empire. The emperor’s southern high command…

  T-minus one hour and counting…

  “Your Majesty, wake up. Your Majesty!”

  “What happened?” Hazgar’s eyes flew open, and he tore his head from the couch. Something important must have happened for them to wake him up so early. “Katgar, you better have a very serious reason for disturbing me.”

  The dragon who awakened the emperor opened his wings and pressed himself to the floor.

  “Sire, intelligence reports that there has been activity in the impostor’s camp.”

  “Go on!”

  “They are packing up the camp! Your son, on your behalf, announced an alarm on all portals.”

  “So, we should expect an attack on the portals. Which one has the puppy chosen as the target, have you found out yet?”

  “No, Your Majesty.”

  “Katgar, you disappoint me.”

  “Sire, my agents have done their best. I lost half of them this past fiver…”

  “Do not shake,” the emperor said in disgust. “What else?”

  “The mages on border posts have observed incomprehensible changes in the magical field and the astral. We assume that this is due to the preparation for the attack. Jagirra’s puppy is coordinating his actions with the Great Mother.”

  “That is to be expected.”

  The palace trembled noticeably; after a couple of seconds, there was another quaking.

  “What is that? An earthquake?” Hazgar stared at the courtier.

  “I do not know, Your Majesty, but I beg you to leave the building.”

  There was a third trembling, which made plaster fall from the ceiling and several cracks appear along the huge wooden arching beams that supported it.

  The emperor ran towards the door.

  “Faster, faster, sire!” Katgar ran behind him.

  Hazgar dashed outside and took off flying. Hundreds of dragons rose to the sky around him. Above the emperor was a box of bodyguards. A blood-chilling roar resounded over the area; the earthquakes followed one after another. The trees swayed; ancient buildings collapsed, creating clouds of dust and burying hundreds of people under the wreckage. Hazgar looked at the human figures running around below and grit his teeth.

  Suddenly, the surface of the earth cracked; a scarlet flame and a red-hot rock burst out from the depths. Stirring up huge billows of dust, the vaults of the palace crashed down; the walls collapsed.

  “We leave!” shouted Katgar.

  “We fly!” the emperor shouted, and practically plummeted downward.

  The sky in the direction of the border with the miur [SJ(S1]glowed red from thousands of huge red balls flying toward the imperial command and military camps. Then the fireballs reached the magical dome and began to explode; the scorching flames swept in waves along the surface of the shield. It grew hot inside, like in a Russian sauna. The megaliths feeding the cupola could not cope with the load. Thousands of giant fireballs, with the inexorability of rock, beat and beat on the luminous surface. At some point, one of the megaliths exploded and the dome disappeared. The fireballs fell to the ground, giving birth to a colossal fiery shaft. The flames rushed to the defenseless camp with a roar. Thousands of people were burned up in an instant.

  Three hundred leagues into the depths of the imperial lands from the border with the miur, most of the army units underwent a simultaneous attack. Caused by the magicians of the Great Mother and fueled by two hundred megaliths, an earthquake erased dozens of settlements from the face of the earth and forever changed the familiar terrain. Several volcanoes awoke from the earthquakes; the border area was soon covered with volcanic ash clouds. The same blow was inflicted on the southern principalities that entered an alliance with the emperor. The Great Mother decided to use her weapon of retribution. In an hour, a thousand megaliths hidden in underground lakes gave up the energy accumulated over the centuries, which, guided by the will of her mages, sowing death and destruction, fell upon the enemies of the foothill people. A good third of the Imperial legions ceased to exist. The emperor’s return blow promised to be cruel, but the Great Mother had even more than a thousand charged megaliths in reserve; she could provide a worthy meeting.

  Principality of Ora. Turgar’s ancestral lands. Blast off….

  “It has begun!” Ruigar waved his right forepaw. The mages had simultaneously launched the portals. As soon as the silvery haze appeared between the stele, dozens of fortress chuckers entered the action, firing into the portal opening at the enemy on the other side. The mages were not afraid that the portals would collapse. They were standing a ways from the portal gates, and the impact on the portal itself was minimal.

  The valley was covered by a shadow from a large cloud of dragons flying in several tiers, many of which carried gunners or barrels of boiled earth oil in their front paws.

  “Hold your fire!” Ruigar commanded. Andy felt himself shiver. Ania stood beside him, sparkling with anthracite scales, with a beautiful silver pattern on the sides and chest, shifting anxiously from paw to paw. He was not a
llowed into the assault hundreds, which is understandable, but he felt no less trepidation than those in the front ranks, and he did not let Ania into battle either… An hour before the attack, they had had a conversation…

  He woke up from someone touching his hair gently. Andy rolled over on his stomach, raised himself on his elbows and made eye contact with the sida, who was sitting at the edge of his couch. The girl looked dejected.

  “What is the matter with you, my sun?” Andy asked her, stretching out his hands and grabbing Ania in an armful.

  “I am afraid.”

  “I am, too. There is nothing to worry about; only a fool is not afraid of anything.”

  “I mean I am afraid to change hypostasis. Perhaps, it is too early…” The elf bit her lower lip.

  Only at then did Andy recall that he had never yet seen her in dragon form. For some reason, she preferred laying on her tribesmen’s necks and backs.

  “My friend, what is it you are trying to tell me?” he said, turning her back to face him and kissing her hand. Ania looked away. “Listen, you will not get anywhere by being quiet. You started a conversation for some reason, did you not? Now you are making me drag it out of you? What is it?”

  “The life mages,” Ania went pale and then immediately blushed. Apparently, she had something very serious on her mind. “The life mages… do not recommend changing hypostasis in the first month of pregnancy.”

  “What? WHAT? You are pregnant? By who?” he blurted, leaving her embrace and realizing that he had said total foolishness. He jumped to his feet. Ania curled up into a ball. “My God, why did you remain silent?”

  “I was afraid, at first, I thought that you would take it as an attempt to tie you to me. Then again, I was afraid that the war and your plans for resettlement, that you are not a simple dragon and do not want to deal with me… I deceived you and did not tell you immediately that I got pregnant after our night in the tent. Dragons do not get pregnant immediately after the first time. They cannot acquire offspring for a long time. I was afraid I made a mistake, even to admit it to myself I was afraid. You are the heir of the Empress, born a dragon; what is a clan-less girl who has undergone the ritual to you?”

  “What nonsense,” he interrupted.

  “Am I a fool? I do not know how to love. I was brought up as a soulless tool.”

  “You are a fool alright,” Andy said, taking her by the hands. “The silliest dumb fool I have ever heard of, and I fell in love with you. I will tell you a secret.”

  “What?”

  “I was born a human.”

  “But you said yourself that Jagirra is your mother.”

  “I did, and I will continue to say so.”

  “But how then?”

  “How do people become dragons? My parents gave their blood, and I was the result. The Ritual—well, that is just a detail.”

  “But you are a true blood! Only dragons who were born dragons can be true bloods!”

  “That rule went to the wayside when it met me. I am a true blood, but I was not born a dragon. I became a dragon at sixteen years old.”

  “Impossible!” Ania punched him in the shoulder and suddenly burst into tears. It was the first time he’d seen her cry.

  “Honey…” he didn’t know how to comfort her.

  “I… underwent the Ritual at ten years old.”

  “What are you doing?” Lilly entered the room. When she saw Ania crying, she put her hands on her hips, narrowed her eye and furrowed her brows at Andy. “You baddy! What did you hurt Ania for?”

  Andy and Ania exchanged glances; there was a moment’s pause, and then they both burst out laughing.

  “What did I say?” Lilly asked.

  As became clear five minutes later, the sida was wrong to worry. Certain rules of dragon gynecology did not apply to humans and elves who became were-dragons. Changing hypostasis could not harm the fetus. The child inherited its parents’ ability to change form. In any case, the mother should constantly occupy her winged form starting from the second month. The growing fetus did not leave her any choice. The youngster would be born a dragon, who could turn human at about ten or twelve-years-old.

  Ania decided to move with her wings on her back. For the safety of his bride, well, already de-facto wife, Andy hung a bunch of defensive amulets around her neck and assigned her two dozen bodyguards. He was not going to lose the dragon-sida.

  Three V-formations of a hundred fighters each sharply descended and within half a minute crossed the borders of the spacial transitions. Hundreds of humans and elves followed the dragons in the assault, reinforced by levitating platforms with fortress gunners. Andy was the one who insisted on the use of such carts. After testing them, the army commanders seized the invention with both hands.

  “Second echelon!” Half a dozen dragons rushed into the silvery veil.

  “Third echelon!” Andy looked at Ania and pushed himself off the ground. The dragoness was attributed to the fifth echelon and would fly with the last group.

  “Let us go!” Within the V-formation, he flew to the second portal. Bodyguards with gunners in their paws flapped their wings behind and beside him, with miurs from Irran’s detachments sitting in the saddles on their backs.

  A moment of turbidity and nausea when crossing the amorphous, silvery barrier—and before his eyes was a burning plain. Andy saw flashes in the sky, the bloody bodies of dragons on the ground, and hundreds of platforms with iron-clad miur, emerging from dozens of open portals. The battle was raging about a league away…

  * * *

  Armageddon. End of the world. Judgment Day. Andy did not know what the last day of humankind would look like, but the scene before him could only be described by these words. Hundreds of dragons fighting in the sky, the colorful multicolored magical shields and the glittering power lines, bright flashes from the shells exploding on the Imperial troops, which were being fired from the fortress gunners installed on the platforms. The rainbow glow of the huge soapy foam of the magical shields collected over the hill of the cargo portal. Caustic black smoke covering the ground. Dozens of bloodied, convulsive dragons on the ground and columns of attacking miur. Figures falling to the ground, plumes of fire, and the bright strokes of arrows with magical tips. The ripples of multi-layered shields over humans and elves. The trembling of the earth and the roar of a huge swarm of angry bees. Bacchanalia and chaos.

  Looking at the picture of the battle unfolding on the ground and in the air from the height of flight, Andy realized that he understood absolutely nothing and was glad that he did not have to command the army of many thousands. He had no idea what kind of mentality and thought process should be used by the commander to collect the odd kaleidoscope into a complete picture of the battle and move the figures of the regiments. What willpower and restraint they must possess to send soldiers by a short command to their deaths and exchange hundreds and thousands of lives for success on the battlefield. If politicians and he himself were thinking about something hypothetical, then generals and commanders put their hands to the plow and dealt with a concrete bloody mess.

  ...Oh Twins omnipotent, Hel-death, bypass me…

  The attack on the portal was sudden. None of the defending commanders took the alarm seriously. The cargo portal was located far from the border and was perfectly protected; attacking it would be insanity. The downpour of shells pummeling the site was a complete surprise. The haze of dozens of opened portals let forth a deadly rain, behind which assaulting hundreds appeared, clinging to the ground. But the emperor’s officers did not earn their bread in vain—they quickly recovered from the shock and managed to organize their defense. Cutting the first shock wave off from the portals, they activated protective fields and the surprises prepared ahead of time: ground and air traps and mine obstacles. Hundreds of attacking modules rushed to intercept the attackers. The second and third waves were met by an active barrage and dozens of dragons, who flew into the air. The fortress chuckers and gunners had something to say about
it, too…

  A bright flash to his right caused blindness in his right eye. Andy folded his wings back and dove downwards—intuition told him of danger up ahead. The dragon behind him, whom he did not know, apparently did not possess an increased sensitivity; he preferred not to change course.

  “Descend!” Andy yelled, but it was too late. The clap of a power trap turned the careless dragon into a bloody piece of flesh, showering his comrades with red spray. “Targ!” Andy roared, spitting someone else’s blood.

  A scattering of large fireballs and incomprehensible attack interweaves launched from the ground against the attacking dragons almost caught him off guard, but a sharp turn to the left made it possible to avoid getting acquainted with the treat of the imperial anti-aircraft gunners. A dozen storm troopers immediately rushed to the Imperials, who had given away their position by firing. They opened uninterrupted shooting from the gunners. Dozens of activated “hammer” interweaves plowed the enemy’s ground positions. In the local analogue of hell that reigned on the small scrap of land, it was impossible to survive. The “hammers” broke through the magic shields; the exploding charges of the dragons’ gunners left craters in the earth three feet deep.

  “Minesweepers! Everyone hover in place and put up shields!” a voice said from the communicator amulet. “Do not go forward. You have another job.”

  “Thank you, we could have forgotten that,” Andy cursed mentally[S2], trembling, with adrenaline pumping.

  He beat his wings extremely quickly and shook his head. A wedge of three dozen dragon mages was quickly approaching his small detachment. The mages, showing their excellent training, instantly re-arranged themselves in flight and formed a complex net interweave, designed, like a mine trawl, to capture power traps that were not visible to magical vision until you were only twenty yards away, when it was too late to turn off.

  Behind the net came a “comb.” The deafening claps of air mines and flashes of traps showed where the path had become clear; the mages again rearranged themselves and engaged in sweeping the upper hemisphere. Into the vacant space, supported by levitation spells, flew hundreds of barrels of boiled earth oil and alchemical potions. Having successfully overcome all the obstacles, the barrels simultaneously exploded over the central positions of the defenders, forming a cloud of finely dispersed suspended matter.