by David Weber
She was aware enough to lean forward, lying flat, wrapping her arms as far around the horse’s neck as she could. Branches whipped over her, slammed her from either side, battered her black and blue, but they couldn’t sweep her from the saddle. She managed to stay with the horse, yet a corner of her wavering, half-stunned brain realized it was only a matter of time before the mare went down over a fallen trunk or smashed headfirst into one of the towering nearoaks. And when that happened—
She managed to turn her head partway, and her heart rose in her throat as she saw the great dragon charging after her.
It was far, far larger than the mare. It couldn’t fit through the eye-of-the-needle spaces the horse could thread, but it didn’t have to, either. It tore through the dense, low-growing tangles of the needle trees which looped through the nearoaks like one of Duke Delthak’s steam-powered bulldozers, splintering the undergrowth aside. The obstacles slowed it, but they couldn’t stop it, and even hindered as it was, it was gaining.
* * *
Stefyny Athrawes watched through the SNARC’s remotes as the smaller of the great dragons, the one which had killed Corporal Strathmohr, rampaged up the trail in the wake of Alahnah’s mare. It had lingered to finish killing Strathmohr’s horse, which was the only reason Alahnah had escaped it, and Stefyny knew she and Gladys wouldn’t. Just as she knew what had happened to Sergeant Adkok.
But unlike Adkok, she also knew exactly what—and where—the great dragon was … and her rifle was no M897.
She settled into a kneeling position behind the upthrust of rock Gladys had hit and leveled the heavy double rifle across the stone. That rifle weighed over fifteen pounds—it had a lot of recoil to absorb—and she wanted all the support for it she could get. She normally preferred the prone position for precision shooting, but the recoil of the massive .625 round would almost certainly have broken her collarbone, despite the rifle’s weight. Besides, she couldn’t be positive the predator would come straight in. If it swerved at the last moment, came around her flank, she needed to be able to adjust quickly and—
The great dragon charged around the bend. Fast as it came, it wasn’t at full speed. Its head was up, tracking from side to side, and great dragons hunted as much by sight as by smell. Stefyny’s horse had fled into the woods, but Gladys’ struggled to get up, squealing with the agony of a badly broken leg. Its struggles attracted the great dragon’s attention, and it slowed, then flowed through dappled shadow and shade towards the crippled horse like a huge, dark shadow of death.
The gelding saw it coming. It lunged one last time, fighting to rise and run, then screamed in terror just before the dragon hit it, and Stefyny felt her mind try to crawl into a hole and hide as the monster ripped into the hapless mount. At least the screaming stopped quickly, but the ghastly, wet, rending sounds seemed to go on much longer. A part of her hoped they’d go on still longer, keep the great dragon distracted. But then its gore-dripping muzzle came up. Its head swiveled in Stefyny’s direction, she heard the boiler-steam hiss of its territorial fury, and it launched itself straight at her and the unconscious Gladys.
She drew a deep breath, exhaled half of it, and wrapped the hours she’d spent on rifle and pistol ranges with her mother and father around her like a cloak. Her entire world focused down to the sight picture, and the sudden thunderbolt bellow as the trigger broke, and the brutal recoil that hammered her shoulder, surprised her, exactly the way they were supposed to.
The great dragon’s enormous head flew up as the thousand-grain bullet smashed into its forehead. It struck almost exactly where Adkok’s bullet had hit its mate, but Adkok’s bullet had carried 4,665 foot/pounds of energy; Stefyny’s carried 9,800, more than twice as much.
It slammed through the massive bone like an awl, and the great dragon’s whistling shriek died in mid-breath. It stumbled, feet going out from under it, and drove forward like an out-of-control cruiser. Its snout plowed a furrow through the leaf mold, careering toward Stefyny as if determined to complete its charge even in death.
It slithered to a halt, ten feet from her, and quivered, legs still thrashing. She watched it for a moment, then stood, astounded to discover that her own knees didn’t even tremble. She stepped a few feet closer to the enormous carcass, then put the muzzle of the rifle two feet from its skull, an inch in front of its right ear, and squeezed the trigger again.
* * *
Lywys Whytmyn bent as low in the saddle as he could, whipping the gelding’s flank with the ends of his reins to urge it to even greater speed.
The horse was willing enough, he reflected in the jagged bursts of thought burning through his desperation. Or perhaps it just hadn’t realized what they were pursuing as they charged along the path the great dragon had ripped through the forest. The footing was treacherous even there, and the chance of the horse going down was terrifyingly high at his furious pace, but it was the only way he could possibly catch up. He didn’t know what he was going to do if he did catch up. He’d never hunted slash lizards before, and Emperor Cayleb and his friends had been exquisitely tactful about his choice of weapons. The custom-made rifle—it had been his grandfather’s, made to his exact measure by the great Delthak gunmaker Mahldyn, and it was one of Lywys Whytmyn’s most prized possessions—was superbly accurate and more than capable of dropping any prong buck ever born. But it would have been out of its class even against the slash lizard they’d thought they were going to hunt, far less the great dragons which had decided to hunt them.
It was all he had, though, and he could never go home, face his family, without at least trying. Worse, he could never have faced his grandfather’s ghost … or himself.
On the flat, the great dragon would have been faster, at least in a sprint, than his horse. Thanks to its need to batter its way through the needle trees, he was able to gain on it, but he knew it was gaining on Alahnah even more quickly. He could catch only glimpses of the fleeing mare between the tree trunks, but despite its terror, its strength was clearly beginning to fail. He had no idea how Alahnah had stayed with it this far. He’d ridden all his life, and he knew he couldn’t have done it. But how much longer could—
The mare gathered itself to leap across a fallen tree.
It didn’t make it.
Its knees hit an upthrust limb, it somersaulted in midair, and Alahnah flew out of the saddle, curling instinctively into a ball as she arced upward. The tree had torn a hole in the canopy when it went down, and scrub trees and underbrush had taken advantage of the sunlight, growing thick and luxuriant in the clearing it had made, denser and taller than the needle trees. She smashed into a young nearoak sapling, crying out as ribs broke, then thudded to the ground.
The great dragon paused to finish off her thrashing, crying horse.
She pushed herself to her knees in the underbrush, breathing around the knife-blade pain in her chest, and the great dragon’s head rose, blood dripping from its jaws. It turned, craning its neck, looking for her with its single functional eye.
It found her, and she watched it settle, crouch on all six limbs, prepare to pounce, and knew she was about to die.
CRAAACK!
Her head snapped around as she heard the rifle shot, and her eyes widened as she saw Lywys Whytmyn, standing on the ground, his prong buck rifle at his shoulder.
“Run, Alahnah!” he shouted, and squeezed the trigger again.
CRAAACK!
The bullet smashed into the side of the dragon’s already wounded head. It was too light to inflict significant damage, but it was heavy enough to hurt, and the predator screamed in fresh, goaded rage. It turned towards him, and Alahnah realized what he was doing.
He couldn’t kill it. He knew he couldn’t. All he was trying to do was distract it, draw its attention. To goad it into chasing and killing him to give her a few more minutes to run.
“Run, Goddamn it! Run!”
CRAAACK!
Somehow, she clawed to her feet, unable to see through her tears, knowing wha
t had to happen. Knowing she wouldn’t escape in the end, anyway. It would kill him, and then it would kill her, and he would have died for nothing. But if he was going to try, then she had to try, too.
CRAAACK!
The great dragon shrieked, and then it was hurtling through the trees straight at Lywys Whytmyn. He stood his ground, watching it come, and squeezed the trigger yet again.
CRAAACK!
It was close enough he saw the bullet hit, saw the hide ripple and the blood splash away from the impact, and it didn’t even slow. It only kept coming, and he drew what he knew would be his final breath and—
“Down, Lywys!”
The deep, resonant bass shout came from behind him. He had one fleeting instant to begin to recognize it, and then Merlin Athrawes flew over his head in a running broad jumper’s leap which had to be impossible even for a seijin. He traveled over forty-five feet through the air, hurtling through the leaves and scrub branches in his path like a boulder.
Whytmyn staggered back a stride as Merlin hit the ground perfectly, impossibly balanced, directly between him and the charging great dragon, and the seijin’s curved blade was suddenly in his hands.
The predator’s head came up, its forefeet digging into the soft earth and leaves. Not in panic, but in surprise as the insignificant, puny mite appeared so abruptly in front of it.
And then it got another surprise as the battle-steel katana came down in a two-handed overhand stroke and the enormous skull which had laughed at Jyrohm Adkok’s and Lywys Whytmyn’s rifle bullets split in a steaming explosion of gray and red.
* * *
“Merlin! Oh, Merlin!”
Alahnah stumbled out of the undergrowth, hobbling, arched forward around the stabbing hurt of broken ribs but holding out her arms. And then Merlin was there, his arms around her, one hand gentle on the back of her head as she pressed her cheek against his breastplate and sobbed. In that instant, she was six years old again, safe in the arms of her godfather, who would never—ever—let anything hurt her.
But she wasn’t six anymore, and she knew what had happened to her Marines, and nothing would ever be the same again.
“I’m here, Bug,” his deep voice rumbled in her ear, using the childhood nickname only he had ever bestowed upon her. “I’m here.”
She wept even harder, but then, suddenly, she stiffened.
“Stefyny!” she gasped. “Gladys!”
“Stefyny is fine,” he told her. “Gladys is hurt, banged up quite a bit worse than you are, but I think she’s going to be fine, eventually, too.”
Alahnah sagged in relief, but then she pulled back, raising her head to stare up at him through the hazy veil of her tears. He’d never lied to her, but how could he—?
“How do you know that?” she asked, desperate to believe he wasn’t just saying it to soothe her incipient hysteria.
“I’m a seijin,” he told her with a crooked smile. This was not the time to be telling her about com links and wetware. “We seijins know these things.”
“I’m sure you do,” another voice said from behind him, and he and Alahnah turned. Lywys Whytmyn stood beside the downed great dragon, looking down at a split skull almost as long as Alahnah was tall.
“I’m sure you do,” he repeated, looking up at Merlin. “But how did you get here so quickly? And how—?”
He gestured at that riven skull, and his eyes were dark.
“I know seijins can do wondrous things, Merlin, but there are limits in everything. How do you know Stefyny and Gladys are safe? And how did you get here in time to save our lives?”
Merlin considered the young man whose unwavering eyes looked more like Lywys Gardynyr’s than ever. He’d always suspected there was a lot of his grandfather in young Lywys; now he knew.
Merlin Athrawes would be a long time forgiving himself for letting any of this happen. Intellectually, he knew his bitter self-condemnation was unreasonable. For that matter, he was no longer the only one with SNARC access and he wasn’t the only one who’d been blindsided, but that didn’t help his heart and emotions one bit. The SNARCs had swept the foothills for possible human threats, but it had never occurred to him to check for nonhuman dangers. He’d fully intended to keep a remote hovering overhead when they eventually set out after the slash lizard Baron Deep Valley had invited them to hunt. Not even slash lizards would attack a party the size of the hunting expedition without severe provocation, however, so he’d seen no rush to start looking for them yet. But great dragons weren’t slash lizards, and they would attack anything that even looked like infringing upon their range.
This pair must have moved in only in the last five-day or so, or Deep Valley’s huntsmen and foresters would have known about them. Great dragons were seldom shy about keeping their presence a secret. He didn’t know—they’d probably never know—what had attracted these two to this stretch of foothills. The hunting was more than adequate for a slash lizard or two, but feeding a pair of great dragons would have stripped it of prey fairly quickly, although they might well have expected the nearby flocks of sheep to help keep them fed. He wondered if they’d located a likely spot for a lair. It was early in the year for them to be thinking about breeding, but not too early, and breeding great dragons split the child-rearing duties. The dam stayed home, nursing their young, guarding the den, while the sire ranged broadly, finding prey, killing it, and dragging it home. In fact, they usually limited their hunting in proximity to the den, because they needed to leave prey for their young to practice hunting as they became more venturesome. And if that was what had drawn them here, that might explain why they’d been hyper-territorial even for great dragons.
But whatever their reasons, he was the one who hadn’t spotted them. Who’d let them get close enough to kill Bynyt and all of his Marines … and come within an eyelash of killing Whytmyn and Alahnah.
And they would have killed Alahnah, before even Merlin could have reached them, if Lywys Whytmyn hadn’t deliberately drawn the attack down upon himself, knowing it would kill him.
Yet he couldn’t dwell on that now, because Whytmyn’s questions demanded answers, and there were likely to be other questions, as well. Like how he’d known what was happening and exactly where to go. How he’d gotten here so quickly on two feet, when the mounted rescue party was still ten minutes away. How he’d downed a great dragon with only a sword.
It’s the krakens all over again, he thought, remembering a hot, sunny afternoon on Helen Island. And Cayleb and the damned slash lizard, too, for that matter! But with a lot more witnesses this time. Thank God none of the others saw me moving after I killed the governors, but Lywys and Alahnah sure as hell did!
“Those are very good questions, Lywys,” he said after a moment. “I could say this is all seijin’s business, but I owe you more than that. We all do. Without you, none of this would matter because not even I could’ve gotten here in time to save Alahnah. And I know exactly what you did … and why. Trust me, this afternoon, you’ve repaid any debt you or your family may ever have thought they owed Cleddyf or Gwyliwr. Or me.”
“I—”
The young man broke off, looking at the rifle still in his hands, then raised his head again.
“I tried,” he said. “But without you.…”
“A team effort, then.”
Merlin unwrapped his right arm from Alahnah and extended his hand. Whytmyn glanced at it for a moment, then clasped forearms with him, still looking steadily into his eyes.
“And because it was a team effort,” Merlin continued, “you—both of you—are going to have to learn a secret. A secret men and women have died to keep. The most important secret in the entire world.” He gripped Whytmyn’s arm firmly, holding those steady eyes with his own. “You’ve earned the truth, and I promise that’s what you’ll be told, but I can’t tell you right now. Cayleb will be here in just a few more minutes, and Baron Deep Valley and everyone else with him. This is something that needs to be discussed in privacy, and I badly wa
nt Archbishop Maikel and Bishop Paityr to be part of that discussion.”
Something like relief flickered in the backs of Whytmyn’s eyes as he heard those two names, and he nodded.
“And in the meantime,” Merlin said in a much more resigned tone, looking down at the mountain of dead great dragon, “I see the legend of Seijin Merlin is about to get a fresh infusion.” He shook his head and looked back up, smiling wryly at both of them. “I suppose it was inevitable. I haven’t done anything this … splashy in years now.”
“‘Splashy,’” Whytmyn repeated, and startled himself with a laugh. “I guess that’s one way to describe it.”
“Just do me one favor, both of you,” Merlin continued as they heard the sounds of horses forcing their way through the woods towards them.
“What?” Alahnah asked, looking up at him.
“Please don’t get carried away oohing and ahing about this.” He shook his head. “In fact, if both of you could just tell everyone you’re in such a state of shock you don’t remember exactly what happened, that would be wonderful.”
They stared at him, and he shook his head again.
“I’ve spent the last dozen years living down the ‘sinister, supernatural, demonic Seijin Merlin’ narrative. I really, really don’t want to start that whole thing up again!”
.II.
Archbishop’s Palace, City of Tellesberg, Kingdom of Old Charis, Empire of Charis.
Sharleyan Ahrmahk stood as Lywys Whytmyn followed Alys Vraidahn into Maikel Staynair’s study. Mistress Vraidahn, who’d been Staynair’s housekeeper for almost thirty years and had become an official house mother for all of the Dohlaran nobles attending the Royal College, had greeted him with a huge embrace, kissed his cheek, and then insisted on personally escorting him, rather than letting him find his own way to the study he’d visited so many times.
He stepped through the door, past Major Athrawes, then paused as Sharleyan walked straight to him and wrapped her arms around him. He stood for a moment, frozen, as she laid her head on his shoulder. Then his own arms went around her.