No, I won’t. Her strange words rattled in his head, her thoughts connecting with his. When she raised her palm to caress his cheek, he wanted to lean into her and drink in the comfort so freely offered. An affirmation that she would not betray him? He chose to believe that. What option did he have?
Don’t move, Tharius. They’re watching, filming this and sending it out to viewers all over the galaxy. Oh, it’s all my fault. They wanted a dragon, and I gave them one.
Your words make no sense to me, he said, beset by a rising frustration that made him want to roar such that he’d tear down the chamber walls. Yet, the female Claudia seemed to understand him with perfect clarity. Were her species so far advanced of the Draegon? Or did she have benefit of the hardware that rendered alien speech intelligible to other races? Had he not argued long and hard for such hardware to be stolen and made available to the Draegon? A matter of pride, the elders argued back. All should learn the Draegon tongue. We do not stoop to shaping our tongues to other beings’ words.
I wish you understood me. Do you even realise your war is over?
He had benefit only of the frustration in her tone. The urgency she needed to convey.
Female, Claudia, the eyes watch for attacks from the Draegon army. It’s me they want, not you.
Tharius. It’s a whole new world out there. You, me, we’re only so much entertainment for the masses.
I do not understand. Time has passed, yes, but the Draegon would never cry surrender. Not until every last one lay dead.
There is no war, Tharius. Only the Corporation. They buy up the lives of murderers and the worst the galaxy has to offer and dump them here to film for reality TV.
One blow from his tail would shatter the small eye. If only he had the ability to move.
Female, Claudia. If you have anything left in you, continue your magic. I will destroy the eye. We will go to my lair. There, we will be safe.
If they realise you’re alive, they’ll never leave us alone. You’ll be taken and made to fight in their sick games. Or hounded and hunted. The end result will be the same. The wyverns have vowed that no dragon will ever fly these skies again. If I bring you back, they’ll kill you.
Wyvern. Though her pronunciation, the accents differed, that one word stood out from the stream of sound, hitting him like a hammer blow. Wyvern. A word any Draegon knew in any tongue. So the traitors to this day held ascendance in his home world? Still harboured delusions of being the superior race?
He would live again if only to prove them wrong.
Female, Claudia. You understand my words even if I cannot interpret yours. Know that I endured the Chatra trials to the point of Exultion. The highest level of attainment. The marks etched on my shifted male form reflect the measure of the warrior residing in this awakening skin. When they asked me if I would sacrifice my life to protect the weak, I did not hesitate. When the time came, I gave my life to save the female Draegon, and again, I did not hesitate in the offering. Continue what you started. I have wyverns to kill.
And that’s exactly what they want to see.
That’s an order, female. Do it, or cross me at your peril.
Did she truly not understand? The gods decreed he lived to continue, or restart, the war. She was merely their instrument.
I’ve never been good at taking orders. Claudia scooted around to sit in front of him, giving him the first clear view of her since he believed her dead. Very much alive, give thanks to the gods. But pale and weak in body and spirit. Yet, he must ask it of her. Take her energy and smash the eye, regenerate enough to move and escape from here.
The tilt of her lips, the irony in her smile did not bode well.
Not even when the warlord broke my arm for my insolence.
Female, Claudia. I will do it. Give me the power to move, and I will destroy the eye.
We need time to get away. To keep them guessing. She was rising, he realised with considerable alarm. Staggering to stand, using his snout for leverage. What foolish bravado was this? A female deciding her own path when a stronger male stood in attendance? Seeking to take on the might of the invaders all by herself?
You are but a mere female. How would you ever hope to destroy the might of the eye?
We’ll discuss your male pride later, Tharius. I have an orb to kill.
No means to stop this female ducking under the orb and moving with too much speed for one who lay helpless only moments before. Claudia made for the stone steps, mounting them with swift exhalations of breath. The eye turned sharply, lingering on her escape, and then it swung after her, leaving him alone.
Foolish, insubordinate female. Disobeying a direct order from a male with no thought to the blow delivered to his pride. Risking her precious life. Was he not the supreme protector of the weak? Were not females weak and dependent on their males for all?
Was her species so different that the females defied their males with such impunity?
Claudia’s footsteps rang on the stone, moving away, becoming quieter with each breath he took. Tharius pushed at the bonds holding him to the unyielding ground. A small loosening, yet too little for release. The female’s footsteps faded to a distant tapping on the stone slabs of the connecting chambers. And then only silence.
In the agony of waiting for her to return, his raging mind shaped her defiance to something that made sense to him.
A new trial set by the gods, he decided. A lesson in humility, which the holy seers assured him was every bit as important an attribute as pride and courage. Perhaps another necessary trial before the gods allowed her to release him to fight again.
Too quiet. He no longer heard Claudia’s shallow breath, or the steady beat of her small, alien heart. The surrounding air hummed only with the movement of water, and the stirring of the lightwing bugs snoozing in a swarm under the chamber roof.
In the relative silence, Tharius relived the fatal last charge that blew him from the skies. Only now did he hear the supreme commander’s voice ordering him to hold. Whatever they did, none would reach the female enclave ahead of the invaders.
The protectors require backup. There are not enough of them. We have been betrayed and the females are in danger. Every hope of our race will die.
He ignored the voice of command, evaded those sent to intercept his troop’s suicidal dash. His mate was in that compound. One—if he could save even one female, he would die with honour.
What were the Draegon to do against stronger, less-honourable foe but show their courage and fight to the last?
A curse on humility. Honour was all, and if given the choice, he would do exactly the same again.
Chapter Eight
For once, Claudia thanked the Corporation’s all-seeing eyes. It had been agony lying beside the dragon, having pushed him back into the land of the living, yet failing to free him completely. Her pulse had faltered and stuttered while his pumped more strongly with each thumping beat.
And the sacrifice might have condemned him to another death. This time, fully conscious of hunger and thirst.
Claudia staggered to the steps with no more of a plan than to lead the camera away before Tharius did something foolish like speaking or moving and giving the Corporation a good reason to linger and exploit this new discovery.
She might have enough left in her to reach the courtyard. Like trying to run through thick treacle, her legs moved agonisingly slowly after her near-death experience down in the chamber.
Reanimating a full-grown dragon? What had she been thinking? Claudia paused to lean on a wall covered in mystical symbols, sucking air into her lungs. The orb waited, keeping her firmly in sight. Obviously curious as to her next move, otherwise it would have herded her back into the Dragon’s chamber and blocked her escape, until they spotted something worthy of running a prime time special.
Surely the controllers discerned that mighty dragon heart beating? Felt the push and pull of his breath on the air? They must have sensed something big happening. Throw in a furious warl
ord ready to kill rather than leave her at large, and a humiliated wyvern, and this scenario pushed all the Corporation buttons.
This fed right into their creed—ratings are our only concern.
Far from earning a punishment, it seemed her stunt in smashing the last orb out of the sky had only increased her popularity with the viewers. Hooked on the exploits of those trapped on this moon, the slightest hint of action had viewers sliding to the edge of their seats, thumbs hovering over voting buttons.
Claudia staggered on spongy legs through the opening onto the flat courtyard, limbs tangled in the flapping cloak, her chest burning. She rasped air into her lungs, and choked on a long, hacking cough.
Tharius had literally sucked her life force into his, with no thought to whether she lived or died. She gave, he took, and it nearly killed her.
Well out of her reach, the orb, the viewers, missed that part of the show, but she and Tharius were on the radar now, and she had to give the viewers something to put them off the scent. That’s how this place worked.
Oh, Claudia, what have you done?
That elusive fire was always going to have a dragon at the end of it. And now, she’d unlocked a secret they might have overlooked, or perhaps given up on.
Blowing tangled hair from her face, she took in the length and breadth of the courtyard, planning her next move. She didn’t bring Tharius back only to throw him to the Corporation wolves.
The boundary wall marked a steep drop to the far side of the mountain. A pile of stones by a smaller, tumbledown outbuilding hid a spring frothing between the stones. She sensed a thaper colony safe inside their winding tunnels burrowing deep into the rock.
Clear skies for now, with clouds blowing in from the west, and another thundering storm on the way. Down at the forest edge, the bellowing roars of two creatures battling for dominance lifted on the thermals and drifted away. Another beast slavered over a broken corpse, its mouth smeared a slimy green with the victim’s blood.
A barrage of images and sensations hit her. After a year on this moon, it was becoming as familiar, as easy to read, as planet Earth.
“What are you going to do with me?”
Keep the orb talking while she worked out how to get her and Tharius out of his mess. Run and hope the camera followed? Too risky if the orb stopped her coming back. But return to the chamber now, and she handed the Corporation their coveted dragon.
If it kept him alive that might be the only viable option.
“Othrid wants you back.” The whiny camera voice crackled out on a blast of static.
“I bet he does.” Her game plan with the cameras had always been to give them just enough to pique their interest, even when escaping her warlord and facing down his wyvern. Perhaps that trick with the wyvern had been a mistake. Given away secrets she’d been so careful to hide from the real masters here.
Once they realised her true power, she’d have no peace until this moon killed her.
“The viewers see no entertainment in that.”
Oh, Dio. Thank you. She waited for more, pulling the cloak around her shoulders.
“What were you doing to the statue? Why were you so weak?”
“Hiding behind it. I haven’t eaten for a whole day. I must have fainted from hunger.”
“We have been watching these stone dragons closely for many years. The wyverns tell us they do not always pass over to death. Some remain in stasis, others come back. Is that what’s happening here?”
Stone dragons, plural? So more like Tharius existed? For one crazy moment, Claudia wanted to free them all. Then she remembered how Tharius, unwittingly, almost killed her.
She shrugged. “After I smashed the orb, I panicked and ran.” She fixed her gaze, no longer addressing the talking controller but the viewing public beyond. “Wouldn’t you run, if you had Othrid and his tame wyvern on the warpath?”
The controller let out a short, grating laugh.
“This is why we reward you, Claudia.”
“You might throw a few rewards my way, in future. I hear a lot of talk, but with Othrid in between, when do I ever see them?” The rewards went straight into the warlord’s pocket. No time to argue that point, now. Others chose defiance, or to fight. Refusing to take a single step to endear themselves to the viewing public. With her experience as a social media star behind her, she’d worked hard on this public persona of hers, the face Claudia showed to this world.
Bowing, she threw in a mocking flourish with a raised hand and thought of Tharius, frantic, glued in place and wondering if she’d ever return.
“Were you trying to bring him back, Claudia?” The voice turned cold, accusing. Theatrically menacing, because that made good viewing. “We detected a heartbeat, when before it was so faint he was almost ready to pass. Now he breathes with noticeable breath. Why does he breathe, Claudia?”
She locked her knees to stop her legs from shaking. She had a good game face, or so she’d been told, but even then, her fixed smile wavered, and it took all her effort of will not to glance over at the gaping temple entrance. Down there was her fire. A fire raging with anger so deep her bones trembled. The dragon’s panic at finding himself trapped rose up from the depths of the chamber on a great, rolling wave.
“He doesn’t breathe. Neither does his heart beat. It’s a trick. An echo of the chamber amplifying my own heartbeat, my own breath.”
“With you so close to death and hardly breathing when we found you?”
“Like I said, the echo chamber must have picked it up, no matter how faint, and amplified it.” Still weak and shaky from that encounter, she’d come so close to dying down there.
“And you do not yearn to return to the dragon to test this theory?”
Madonna. She almost turned her head to the energy building like an unstoppable force at the temple opening.
“I’m leaving. The wyvern will surely come after me, or Othrid’s men will catch me, eventually. It will make good viewing, I promise. Throw me a few rewards I can use, before Othrid gets his dirty paws on them, and I’ll make sure you get your ratings.”
She took a step towards the broken wall, and another path leading down to a forested copse. Leaving all hopes of dragons behind might seal her fate and have the Corporation decide they’d played out her little drama.
Leaving opened Tharius to capture or slow death while viewers revelled in his agony. From what she’d seen inside his head, he’d hovered at death’s door, comatose and unaware when they laid him to rest there. The slow petrifying happened without the trauma of hunger and thirst before he fell into his dreaming.
This time, he’d suffer every agonised breath.
“I want a metal comb and a toothbrush. Oh, and some good, sharp scissors to cut my hair. And I want them where Othrid can’t find them.” Let them think her vain enough to be more worried about appearance than her safety.
The short bob she sported on the day of her abduction now fell to the middle of her back. The crafted wooden combs worked as well as the plastic and metal she’d used on Earth, but the tangled mess hadn’t seen a comb since she ran. She flicked at a knotted lock, a sulky pout on her lips. “Look at the state of my hair. I could thatch a roof with it.”
“The viewers want you kept here on this courtyard. They are voting even now on how long before you beg us to let you back into that temple to check on your dragon.”
No, go with the vanity angle, then. “I haven’t eaten in a whole day. At least let me forage for something to eat before you hold me here.” She’d left the bundle with the meagre supplies in the chamber where poor Tharius could smell the berries and dried flesh, but do nothing about breaking his fast.
The orb spun around, zipping over to hang in the temple entrance. She’d learned them all. The tiny ones broke free like plagues of flies from a master camera to fly at victims and record them from multiple angles. They were designed to be expendable, the simplest and easiest to destroy. This box was larger; more powerful, if it held the power t
o restart her heart. And after her stunt in bringing down the last one, it would be ready for her.
Claudia shot the orb a withering glare. “Do I look bothered? There’s nothing to see down there but an old stone statue of a sleeping dragon. How many times must I say it?”
Dio, another camera moved in at her back. A square box, and much more difficult to fell.
“Okay, play it your way.” She made it as far as the broken wall before the square box dropped into her path, lights flashing. Don’t mess with that. She’d seen them lift huge warriors and throw them hundreds of metres for the amusement of the viewing public.
Feeling behind for the stone ledge, Claudia lowered herself to the wall and folded her arms. More likely she’d die of hunger and thirst before Tharius. But what did she really know of dragon physiology, compared to that of the wyvern? The dragon’s ugly kin consumed vast quantities of food and drink, their appetites voracious and at times unquenchable. Were dragons the same?
A fat raindrop landed on her cloak. Another joined it, then another. A sudden blast of wind rattled around the courtyard, the air alive now with tense energy. Storms broke with alarming ferocity on this moon, often with no warning to those not versed in reading the atmosphere, the changes in humidity and pressure. A blinder of a storm brewing that would beat her down, threaten to drown the mountain. They rattled across the plain, uncaring of the devastation left behind.
What was he doing down there? Did Tharius think she’d abandoned him by choice?
Don’t…me here.
She heard him. From all the way up there those were definitely scratchy patches of his voice in her head, the panic tempered by anger and a slowly simmering rage.
She would leave him to starve? Was she so indifferent to his plight?
It’s not like that.
She returned the thought with no idea how developed the dragon’s clairaudience might be. Did Tharius call out into the void, hoping she’d hear him? Or had he truly connected with her mind as she had with his? She sensed he did not understand her tongue. Had no benefit of a chip in his head to translate for him.
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