Dragon Warrior

by Shéa MacLeod

  “Jackpot!” Sutter crowed, his brown eyes sparkling with glee. Such a boy, Sutter.

  Rain’s mind had already turned to other things. They had what they’d come for and they’d found the bodies of two of Caine’s people. They’d seen the remains of the dragon he’d killed. The stories were true. And while stories were just stories, a story like this, proven fact, could give hope and strength to people who were quickly losing both.

  If she could find the body of Lieutenant Micah Caine, it would give them more than hope. It would give them a talisman: A relic behind which to rally. Rain had read enough to know that relics held powers beyond that of any weapon. The Church, though now a distant memory, had held power for thousands of years due in part to such relics.

  Besides which, she wanted to see him.

  Oh, she’d seen his likeness in old articles from newspapers saved at the beginning of the war, but she wanted to see the real Micah Caine. Even if all that was left were bones.

  Rain left Sutter to examine their find while she began shifting through more of the rubble. In her experience, a true leader didn’t hide in the back out of harm’s way. He, or she, stood at the front, right in the line of fire, urging on the troops. If the stories were right, Micah Caine had been such a leader.

  She headed toward the front of the bunker and the broken wall framing the jagged hulk of dragon bones. After a few minutes of searching, she saw a glint of silver buried under some crumbled concrete and debris. Dog tags.

  She scooped up the tags. The chain was broken as though it had been caught on something and snapped. She turned the tags over. The metal was partially corroded by time and the elements, but the stamping was still clearly legible: Caine, Micah. U.S. Army.

  Rain wrapped her hand around the tags. The tags of a dead hero. Exaltation warred with disappointment. She’d found the legendary bunker. She’d found his tags and his weapons cache. She’d found the remains of his fellow warriors and of the great beast they’d killed. But where were the remains of Lieutenant Micah Caine?

  Two

  “WHAT’S THAT?”

  Rain glanced at Sutter then followed his pointing finger. She frowned as she swiped sweat off her brow. It was hot and getting hotter. “Don’t see anything.”

  “At the base of the cliff over there.” His voice was insistent.

  Rain pulled out the binoculars and trained them on the cliff base. She’d radioed in their find before she and Sutter left the site of Caine’s Last Stand. By now the scavenge team would be loading up the ordinance on hand carts and hauling it to the compound. That left her and Sutter to make their way home by a different route in the hopes of finding something else worth scavenging.

  She scanned the bottom of the cliff looking for whatever it was that was getting Sutter all worked up. She frowned when she saw a lump the size of a human huddled in the shade. Who would be out this far from any known compound?

  “Could be a Wanderer.” She handed the binocs to Sutter. Wanderers were odd ones. They eschewed the company of others, preferring to roam the wastelands alone instead of settling on a compound.

  “Whoever it is, he isn’t moving. We should go see if he’s okay.”

  Rain frowned at that. “Could be a trap.”

  “Or it could be someone needs our help.”

  She sighed. “Fine. I’ll check it. You hang back. If he so much as twitches wrong, shoot him. You got that?”

  “When have I ever let you down?”

  She smiled at that. Sutter was Rain’s right arm. Without him she’d have been dead a thousand times over.

  Leaving Sutter to watch her back, she slowly picked her way over the rocky terrain. The sun beat down, making the back of her neck itch with heat.

  The lump at the base of the cliff was definitely a person. A man, and a badly injured one at that. As she drew closer, she saw his body was twisted at an odd angle, a broken bone in his arm protruding through skin. She fought back the urge to vomit. Food was precious and throwing it up was a waste. Padre Pedro had drilled that into her.

  She scanned the man’s body and then glanced up at the top of the cliff. It was pretty obvious he’d either fallen or jumped from the top. Poor bastard. He was buzzard food now.

  And then she heard it. So soft she thought for a moment she was imagining things.

  “Help me.”

  “Shit. He’s still alive. Sutter!”

  Sutter came running, worry etched across his dark face. “What is it?”

  “He’s alive, Sut. He’s frigging alive.”

  Sutter frowned and leaned over the fallen man, checking over injuries with the ease of years of practice. He glanced up at her, face grim. “Not for long.”

  Sutter had been trained as a field medic. Or at least as much of one as anyone could be these days. If he said the man would die, it was fact.

  She tugged at her dark-blond ponytail. Crap. She hated shit like this. There was nothing they could do for the man short of putting him out of his misery. From the looks of things, it’d be a mercy.

  Rain knelt beside Sutter. “What do you think?” She could tell by the look in his eyes he knew exactly what she was asking.

  “Nothing else to do. We can’t leave him. Not like this.”

  He was right. Leaving the man to die a slow painful death was cruel in the extreme. Better to end it quick. Her hand drifted toward her knife.

  Sutter stopped her. “Let me.” Darkness was in his eyes.

  “Damn.”

  He shrugged. “It’s what I was trained for.” These days field medics did more than just treat injuries.

  Sutter slid his own knife out of its sheath. Gently holding the man’s head still, he laid the blade against bare throat and quietly mumbled a few words under his breath.

  Rain crossed herself like she’d seen Padre Pedro do. It meant nothing to her. It was another thing they’d had drilled into them. They honored the dead. Ensured safe passage into the afterlife. Rain hoped that whatever was there waiting in the afterlife, it was better than the here and now.

  Sutter’s arm tensed for the killing blow.

  “Please ...” It was a mere whisper of breath.

  “Wait, Sutter.” Rain crawled in close to the man. “I’m sorry, mister. There’s nothing we can do.”

  His hand groped weakly for hers. She grabbed it and held on as he struggled to get the next words out. “Don’t let them ... My body ... don’t ...”

  “I’m sorry, mister. Don’t let who do what?” She frowned, trying to make sense of his words.

  “Don’t ... let ... Marines take my body. You don’t ...“ The man coughed and gasped for breath. “You don’t know ... what they do to bodies.” His voice trailed off. “Please,” he whispered, “please don’t ...”

  Rain glanced at Sutter. His face was grim. “I’ve heard rumors about the Marines taking dead bodies.”

  “Why?”

  “No idea. Some say they experiment on the bodies. Desecrate them. Who knows?”

  Her face turned grim as she leaned back to the dying man. “Don’t worry, mister. We won’t let the Marines take you. I promise.”

  The man nodded ever so slightly. “Thank ... “His voice trailed off into a death rattle. Rain felt relief Sutter hadn’t had to end things.

  “How we gonna make sure the Marines don’t get his body?”

  “Burn it,” Rain said.

  “The drags ...”

  “It’s daylight. By the time the dragons wake we’ll be long gone.”

  “Marines then.”

  “Screw the fucking Marines,” she snapped. “We’re the best Trackers in the compound. By the time they see the smoke, we’ll be gone, and this poor man’s body will be burned to a crisp.” And hopefully useless to anyone wanting to experiment with it.

  Sutter nodded.

  They were quiet as they built a funeral pyre from the surrounding dry scrub and a small amount of precious alcohol from their packs. But as they watched the body burn Sutter finally spoke. “I d
on’t care if it’s just rumor. I don’t want to get turned into a fucking zombie. Promise me you’ll never let the Marines take my body either.”

  “I promise.”

  Rain hoped it was a promise she’d never have to keep.

  “GONE? WHAT DO YOU MEAN gone? Dead bodies don’t get up and walk around in the general scheme of things.” Elan’s voice practically dripped with sarcasm. “Maybe the dragons ate him.”

  “Don’t be an idiot, El,” Rain snapped back. “You know as well as I do dragons won’t go near their own dead, and that mother was sitting feet from where Caine died. Obviously, somebody took his remains. It’s just a question of who and why. You’ve heard the rumors about the Marines taking dead bodies?”

  They were sitting in one of the many tiny rooms which made up the warren that was the underground civilian compound of Sanctuary. This particular room was Elan’s own personal lair of sorts. He kept it Spartan, furnished with only a table and chairs, a cupboard where he kept his brew, and a single hurricane lantern. Rain had no idea how El saw anything with only the one candle for light. Frankly, it was sort of depressing.

  El rolled his eyes. “That’s ridiculous. What would the Marines want with dead bodies? Somebody probably buried him.” He took a gulp from the cracked mug in his hand. Elan was fond of his home brew. He had his own still hidden deep within the compound. No one knew where and he wasn’t sharing.

  “And left his dog tags behind? Don’t be ridiculous. Besides, why wouldn’t they bury the other bodies?”

  El laughed at that. “Oh, well. We got what we wanted, right? Guns, ammunition. Something to really fight with.”

  Rain felt like growling. She crossed her arms under her breasts and leaned back in her chair. She seriously needed a new bra, but those were hard to come by these days. “You know as well as I do that those guns are useless. Have you seen the armor plating on those damn drags? And the grenades? Maybe if we lob one down a dragon’s throat, but otherwise they’ll do us more damage than they will the drags.”

  Her mind stopped there. A grenade down the throat? That would explain the damage to the dragon back at the bunker. But why hadn’t the humans survived? It wasn’t dragon fire that killed Audrey or Foster.

  “It’s like you said before, Rain, hope. You and I know the weapons are hardly better than sticks and stones against those monsters, but for everyone else, this is hope.” El took another sip from his mug. “I know you think that finding the body of Micah Caine would accomplish that, and maybe you’re right. Weirder things have happened, but we ain’t got his body. We’ve got guns, and people like guns. Makes them feel safe, even if it’s false safety. And dammit, people need to feel safe.” His face wore a haunted look as he stared at the bottom of his mug.

  Rain sighed. He had a point. Guns did make people feel safe, but that would only last until the first time they went up against a dragon and they realized the weapons wouldn’t save them. Then where would their hope be?

  “How’s Sutter?” Elan’s voice was soft, his eyes avoiding her face.

  “He’s good. Fearless out there. I couldn’t ask for a better partner.”

  “Good. That’s good.” He continued to stare at the scarred wooden table that sat between them, fingers toying with the empty mug.

  “Come on, El.” Her voice was soft. “You two have got to get over this feud, make things right between you. Life is way too short. You’re brothers, for god’s sake.”

  Elan closed his eyes, eyes that were the exact same shade of black coffee as his brother’s and shook his head slightly. “You know it’s not that easy. He still blames me.”

  “It wasn’t your fault, El. Everyone knows that.”

  “And yet, she’s still dead.” His voice was bleak.

  “Lots of people are dead, El. Blaming each other is a waste of time.” She was tired of this argument. She was tired of stupid people and their stupid anger and hate. Didn’t they have enough going on? The world was overrun with fire-breathing dragons, for crying out loud. Family feuds they did not need.

  “He loved her.” Elan got up to pour himself another drink from his stash in the cupboard. “He loved her, and I couldn’t save her.”

  “You loved her, too,” Rain pointed out. She didn’t mention the fact that the woman in question had played both the brothers. He didn’t need the reminder.

  El’s grin was anything but happy. “Yeah, and there lies the problem. She was his wife.” He finished pouring his drink and ambled back to the table. He looked so much like his brother that if it weren’t for the full head of dreadlocks and the ever-present mug in his hand, Rain doubted even she’d be able to tell the difference.

  They were handsome devils, she’d give them that. They’d made the hearts of more than one woman flutter. They were also the most miserable bastards on the planet. El with his functional alcoholism, that’s what they’d called it back in the old days, and Sutter with his burning rage hidden under a layer of humor.

  Where was Dr. Phil when you needed him?

  She shook her head at her own whimsical thought. Dr. Phil and his ilk had more than likely been dragon food a long time ago. All that remained were a few tattered paperbacks by the self-help guru which Padre Pedro horded like gold and quoted more often than he quoted the Bible.

  “You think it’s important? That his body is missing?” Elan changed back to their original topic.

  “I think it’s suspicious. Like I said, his is the only one missing.” Rain leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. She noticed a jagged tear in her sleeve. She wondered if the Padre could repair it. He was good with leather and it was her favorite jacket.

  “Scavengers could have dragged the bones off somewhere. Scattered them,” El suggested.

  Rain shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I doubt they’d have messed with one body and left the others.”

  Elan frowned. “But why would anyone want a bunch of bones?”

  She shrugged. “Don’t know. Might not have been bones. Depends when he was taken.”

  “Why would anyone want a dead body, then?” Elan got up to fill his mug again. Rain decided that was her cue to get out before he passed out.

  “No idea,” she told him as she rose to leave. “But I’m going to find out.”

  “Yeah,” he saluted her, “you do that.”

  She strode to the door, then turned and gave him a look. “I will.” She closed the door firmly behind her.

  RAIN SHRUGGED OUT OF her jacket and flung it across the bed before sinking down onto the old club chair. On reflection, her own room was nearly as Spartan as El’s.

  Oh, she’d tried to make the place comfortable, warm it up a bit, but it still had the hallmarks of a typical room in the compound: Cement walls, steel door, no windows, zero natural light. Even covering one wall with scenic pictures from an old calendar and hiding the ugly gray floor with what Padre Pedro called a “Persian rug” still couldn’t hide the reality that Sanctuary wasn’t really a home, but a fortress.

  Rain liked to pick up things on her missions to decorate her quarters, things that spoke of a world she couldn’t remember. She’d only been three years old when the dragons came.

  She’d found the calendar still hanging on the wall of an abandoned office building, flipped to the final page: December 2012. The picture had been a gorgeous scene of a giant tree decorated in colored lights surrounded by a sheet of ice where people dressed in bright clothes and happy smiles skated back and forth. Rain envied the simple joy of that picture.

  She’d never been happy like that. Never skated before. Hell, she’d never even seen ice before.

  Her pride and joy was a small bookshelf leaning haphazardly against the wall next to her chair. The bookshelf was crammed with every book and magazine she’d been able to salvage during her missions. Few had survived the fires that had raged across the world, so those she’d found were more precious than gold. At least to her. And Padre Pedro.

  Rain smiled to herself a littl
e as she pulled a small hardback off the shelves. There was a little black scorching along the spine, but the dark green cover was otherwise in pristine condition. She could still read the gold letters spelling out the title Complete Works of John Greenleaf Whittier. The most amazing thing of all was the date listed on the inside page: 1884. Imagine that. A book published over one hundred and fifty years ago.

  It wasn’t the book she wanted, it was what lay hidden between its brittle pages. She carefully leafed through until she came to a page marked with a photograph. She tilted the photo to the light, a wistful smile hovering at the corners of her mouth.

  She’d found the photo in another bunker hidden in a box under another pile of rubble. This one had held files. Files of long-dead heroes who’d fought in countless other wars. Wars that seemed so trivial and useless, such a waste of human life now that the dragons had come.

  Stumbling across his file had been a minor miracle. A sign, Padre Pedro would say, though a sign of what exactly, she had no idea. All she really cared about was the photograph.

  It was an official one, with him in his dress uniform against the background of the flag of the old United States of America. His eyes stared straight at the camera, not even a trace of a smile. Still, lack of smile couldn’t hide the delicious fullness of his mouth, the almost too-sharp cheekbones, the blue eyes rimmed in ink-black lashes, or the strong jaw line that barely saved him from being too pretty. Micah Caine had been one hell of a stunning man. Breathtaking, actually.

  Rain heaved a sigh. She knew it was incredibly stupid mooning over a dead man. Heck, even if he would have survived the Wars, he’d have been over sixty years old. An old man. These days you were lucky if you made it to forty without turning into drag food.

  She tucked the photo carefully between the pages of the book and slid it back on the shelf. Stupid. Stupid. She had wasted so many years of her life mooning over a man who’d been dead nearly as long as she’d been alive, but she couldn’t seem to help herself.