“Keep firing,” yelled the officer into the com. “All vehicles, keep firing.”
The dragon roared and let out another stream of flame, catching the tank assigned to that scout platoon. The tank brewed up in a catastrophic explosion, the turret blowing off and flying into the air, the entire thing engulfed in fire. The road wheels and treads melted, and the body of the vehicle sagged to the ground.
A second Bradley went up, then a third, as the creature destroyed the scout platoon, the only remaining vehicle the mortar track which was hauling ass away from the fight, continuing to fire 120mm rounds at the creature.
Several mortar rounds hit the monster, large bursts of fire that didn’t seem to penetrate the thick scales. More and more fire came in from the tanks, while long range streams of auto cannon fire fell into the area. The monster continued down the slope, its eyes focused on the tanks that were coming toward it.
The dragon staggered for a moment, rearing back and roaring at the sky. A discarding sabot round had struck it in the outer left chest, blasting through the scales and into the flesh underneath. The dragon shook itself and kept coming. A second discarding sabot round hit the right forward leg, penetrating deep into the muscle. The monster roared again, lifting the leg and gingerly placing its weight on it. Another round hit on the lower neck, near where it joined the torso, and blood fountained into the air.
The monster let loose a blast of flame at the nearest tank, still six hundred meters away. The fire fell to the ground twenty meters in front of the tank, which stopped dead in its tracks and brought its gun back to bear. That was when the dragon rippled in the air for a moment and disappeared.
* * *
Glandarang had battled entire armies in the past. His hide was invulnerable to their weapons. His magic was powerful enough to withstand the strongest spells. He had crushed thousands of soldiers, panicked their horses, melted their armor as he incinerated their bodies down to the bone.
This opponent was different. His glamour of fear still seemed to work on them, but they carried powerful weapons of great range. The smaller ones had only aggravated him, bouncing from his thick scales. Some had caused pain, such as the large arrow that trailed flame and exploded on his scales. And then had come the superfast projectiles, the ones he could not even see heading in. They had hit his scales and bored through, into the tender skin and muscle underneath. He had never run into anything like them. Nothing in the past had ever penetrated his hard outer scales, at least not since he passed his first five thousand years.
The dragon smiled in his mind as he activated the spell that he always had memorized. The spell that would make him a target impossible to see. But one that could still strike at his enemies.
* * *
“Switch to infrared sighting,” yelled McGurk over the circuit, even as he flipped the switch on his own commander’s sighting mechanism. The hot reddish form of the dragon stood out clearly on his sights. He looked away for a moment to eyeball the monster, and saw absolutely nothing, even though the ground still shook to the monster’s tread. But it was clear in the heat sensitive sight, and was still advancing on the tanks, though with a pronounced favoring of its right forward leg.
McGurk looked down at his hands for a moment as the tanks aimed at the target. His hands weren’t shaking any longer. Almost as if no longer seeing the creature in regular light didn’t allow the terrible fear to take hold. A spell alright, he thought. Then his tank fired, followed within a second by the three other tanks in the platoon. How quickly are we all getting used to the idea of this world, was his next thought.
One shell hit the side of the mountain, obviously a miss, sending up a small cloud of rock dust. The other three were probably hits, and the monster roared in pain and anger. The Captain felt some of the fear washing over him again, carried by the sound of the dragon’s voice. A couple of mortar shells came in at that moment, exploding in seeming midair as they hit the invisible monster, and the roar redoubled.
The dragon faded back into sight, blood running down wounds to its neck and chest. Its red eyes glared angrily at the Captain, looking right at him, as if it knew he was the commander of its tormentors. It looked truly monstrous, unstoppable, and McGurk felt his will again being beaten down. The dragon brought its neck back for a moment, mouth opening, and the Captain knew that when that head came forward the fire would follow, and he and his crew would die.
“Fire,” he yelled, just as the head started forward. His tank bucked from the recoil, and the bangs of the other tanks following close behind.
All of the shots were hits. Two hit in the center of the dragon’s chest, bursting through the scales. One hit the cartilage of the sternum and broke through, plowing into the tender tissue of the left lung. The other hit the steel hard bone of a rib, shattering it, and pushing splinters into the massive heart, while the tungsten carbide penetrator nicked the heart muscle on the lower right and sent the organ into spasms.
The remaining two shots went through the flame and into the mouth of the monster on an upward trajectory. Both silver bullets were rendered almost molten by the heat of the flame, hitting the top of the mouth at three thousand meters per second. The superheated metal blew through the roof of the mouth and into the brain above, spraying out in a shotgun blast of searing liquid. The dragon’s brain was pureed and then vaporized.
Glandarang didn’t even register the hits as consciousness fled his body. The slack neck let the head drop to the ground, shutting the mouth as it hit. The legs gave out a second later and the monster fell onto his belly, sliding down the mountain on a hundred meters of incline.
McGurk kept his men at their stations, guns pointed at the dragon, for a good fifteen minutes before he gave the all clear. Men checked the burned out vehicles. There were no survivors. At least I won’t have to write letters home, thought the Captain with a grimace when that was reported to him. He didn’t know if there were any surviving kin for any of them, and again the sense of loss for his wife and children hit him. And even if they were OK, he couldn’t do anything to get correspondence to them.
After a half hour of observing the entrance to the cave and seeing nothing the Captain ordered two scout teams, eight men, to enter the cave and cautiously recon. Fifteen minutes into the cave came the call that changed everything.
“You gots to see this, Captain,” radioed the Senior Sergeant of the patrol.
“What did you find?” asked the Captain, worrying about what might be coming out next.
“You won’t believe it sir,” said the Sergeant. “That’s why you gots to see it with your own eyes.”
* * *
“You found what, Captain?” asked General Taylor again as he listened to the call over the speaker in the com hut. The signal had been going in and out, and was firming up now. But the General still wasn’t sure he had heard what he thought.
“Literally tons of gold, silver and gems, sir,” repeated the Captain. The other officers and men gathered around the com system looked at each other wide eyed as the officer continued on the other end. “Biggest damned dragon I ever saw guarding it. I mean bigger than any dragons I’ve seen since I got here. Not that I saw any at home or anything.”
“I understand, Captain,” said Taylor, nodding, stopping a chuckle in progress. “And I understand that you took casualties. I’m sorry about that, but I want to hear about this treasure you found. This may be a resource we can’t do without.”
“It’s unreal, General,” said the Captain. “Like something out of a book. Or a Dungeons and Dragons game. A huge cavern, filled with treasure. It had to be a hundred yards by fifty yards. There was a large depression in the room, where I guess the dragon had been lying.”
“And it’s full of gold and gems you said?” asked Taylor, a smile widening on his face.
“Gold, gems, silver, coins, vases, plates, you name it,” said the Captain. “And we can see the jeweled sheaths of sword, hilts protruding from the pile, pieces of armor, shield
s. It’s unbelievable. I’m sending a couple of tracks and a tank back to base to lead our men to it. I’d recommend that you send a bunch of trucks, with a strong escort, at least thirty or forty of them. And a couple of hundred men to carry all of this stuff out of the cave and into the open.”
“You stay where you are, Captain,” said the General, nodding to his logistics officer who ran to a table and started looking through his notes to see what he had available. “I want that treasure guarded until we can get it catalogued. And good job, son. You may have just given us the tools we need to survive here. Taylor out.”
The General turned away as the operator continued to talk with the cavalry leader, and the G4 men started getting things rolling. Harrison came up with a smile on his face.
“You heard?” said Taylor, grinning.
“Enough treasure for an Empire,” said the G2. “We’ll be able to buy food, tools, weapons and armor. Maybe even the services of mercenaries. This changes everything.”
“We still have to train and organize an army,” said the General, “before we get stomped into the mud by that damned Elf empire.”
“Be a lot easier now, sir,” said Harrison as they walked from the tent. “Who knows what kind of magical artifacts we’ll find there. Weapons and armor and who knows what else. Maybe the magic whosit of world domination. But whatever it is, we’re on better footing now than before. And our other assault parties should be hitting targets soon, and bringing back loot from their victories.”
“Never thought I’d be fighting a campaign like an ancient warlord,” said the General. “Taking loot and forage from the land to sustain my effort. But that’s what this world calls for. And the men seem willing.”
“Yes sir. They do,” agreed the Colonel. “There’s something about taking it to the other guy, then taking what the other guy has, which seems to fire us up. Good old barbaric warfare at its best. And here come our first rank of barbarians.”
Up the road marched a couple of hundred United States Army paratroopers. Part of the reserve for the army and the guardians of the valley.
“Not barbarians, Colonel,” said the General. “Legionnaires. And here come our first two centuries.”
Epilogue
“They did what?” yelled the Emperor, his eyes boring into those of the Ellala messenger who had been chosen to deliver the bad news.
That Elf cringed, and the Emperor could feel the delicious fear radiating from the man. He was tempted to feed on the messenger, to kill the man. It would make him feel much better, but would curb the enthusiasm of future bringers of bad news. And the poor fool had been chosen so that whomever had received the original transmission would not have to face the angry leader of the Empire.
“They attacked the column of strangers and were totally annihilated,” stammered the messenger. “Almost a thousand Ellala dead, as well as three thousand fodder and several score of gilli'groth.”
“By the gods I will have the head of that stupid Archduke,” yelled the Emperor, knocking everything from the surface of his desk with the back of his hand.
The messenger seemed to cringe even more into himself, if that were possible. The Emperor flashed him a cruel smile and relished some more of his fear. He calmed himself and it was time for business.
“Tell my commanders to meet me in the conference room, now,” he told the messenger. The man started to leave, feelings of relief radiating from his aura. “Wait,” said the Emperor, and the messenger turned with a terrified look on his face. “Tell the fool in the message center that sent you that I would have the pleasure of his company in this office. Without delay.”
The messenger nodded, a smile stretching his face, and hurried to do the bidding of his master.
I can at least dispense some justice where it is due, thought the Emperor with a smile, then started thinking about what he would do with that fool when he got here.
“It is not just their machines we have to concern ourselves with,” said Prince Jakarinas Lanardais, the chief of Imperial Intelligence, sitting at the meeting table an hour later. “We have it on good authority that there were several exceptional warriors among the Germans. Fully armored men who fought like demons and defeated many mighty fighters. And there was a woman with them who also fought as they did, though without the armor.”
“And just what did your sources mean by exceptional?” asked the Emperor. “The humans have been known to produce great warriors at times. They have proven no obstacle to our people, as they grow old in the flicker of a candle and die.”
“They were said to be stronger than many men, faster than anything we have ever seen, and with the grace of Ellala.”
“Much is said of things that do not turn out to be,” said another of the advisors.
The Emperor glared at the man for speaking out of turn, but did nothing else. He still had the positive feelings of feeding on the com controller less than an hour before, and his anger dissipated quickly.
“And the humans are saying that these other humans, demigods they call them, are immortal,” said the chief of intelligence.
“Preposterous,” said Queen of the Undead Kilesandra Lishana, her eyes glowing from the shadows in which she sat. “There is no such thing as an immortal corporal being. Only the Gods are immortal, and they do not dwell on this plain of existence.”
“Are you not immortal, my dear?” said the Emperor, watching as her head came up and her eyes flashed. He enjoyed having her at conferences, as she was the one advisor who would show no fear and say what she meant.
“I am dead,” said the ancient Vampire, her fangs prevalent in her predator’s smile. “Spiritual forces keep my corpse animated. And that is all.”
Ellandra gave her a head shift of agreement as he thought about his own ascension into the ranks of the undead. But he would be much more powerful, and so much harder to destroy than a mere Vampire.
The Emperor looked over at his oldest advisor, the scholar and historian Militanis Morisana. “Is such a thing possible? Could there really be an immortal human?”
“It is not unheard of,” said the man, giving a head flick of accent. “In ages past there was a human immortal, also called a demigod, who came from the home of the humans. His name was, Heracles, I believe. And he was said to have the strength of thirty men, never grew old, and had the ability to regenerate any injury. The ancestors were able to destroy him before he could lead the humans of the Eastern continent to victory over the Ellala.”
“And how did they defeat him?” asked the Emperor, a frown on his face.
“It is said that they burned him to ash,” said the scholar. “He was not able to regenerate from that.”
“Then we will have the mages hit him with fireballs,” said the first advisor to speak. “Or have him burned by a dragon.”
“The dragon fire may work,” said Militanis with a head flick. “Mages will have no effect.”
“And why is that?” asked the ruler of the Empire.
“They are said to be immune to magic,” said the scholar. “No magical force can harm them. At least that was true of this Heracles.”
“They are said. They are said,” growled one of the advisors. “Myths and legends, and nothing else.”
“And myths and legends have landed square in the middle of my lands,” said Ellandra, slapping his hand on the table. He sat there a moment, looking around the table and making sure he had everyone’s attention. If I could feed from one of these creatures how many years would I gain? he thought. Thousands of years? Tens of thousands? He contemplated the possibilities for a moment, then spoke his command. “We will concentrate on destroying this army of the invaders first, then rounding up their people. Then we will worry about these demigods, if they really exist.”
“Come talk to me in my chambers, Militanis,” said the Emperor after he adjourned the meeting. “I would speak more of these, immortals. And what may be done about them.”
THE END
Except from Refuge
: The Arrival: Book 2.
There were only about a hundred dragons left on her side of the ridge as Jessica Stuart brought her Comanche up off the deck. She climbed into the sky, up to the level of the monsters, keeping station on the lead chopper. Her weapons officer painted one of the bigger dragons with the laser, made sure none of the other gunships were targeting it, then attached a hellfire to the reflective dot on his control screen.
“You’re up,” he said, and the light blinked green on her console.
Jessica checked to make sure the proper missile was up on her trigger, then waited for the command.
“Fire,” called the squadron commander, a second before Jessica pulled the joystick trigger. Her missile joined the fifteen others that were heading toward the dragons at over a thousand knots.
Hellfires and the German equivalent were not made for shooting at aerial targets. They had been designed with ground targets in mind. But they could prove to be effective against slow movers, as helicopters were called on Earth. And the dragons of Refuge were the original large slow movers.
Fifty huge heads whipped around as the missiles were launched, followed by the smaller heads of the riders and crews. The hellfires didn’t leave a lot of smoke in the air, having been designed to not generate that telltale pointing back to the launch platform. Still the sharp eyes of the dragons could pick up the slightly less than man sized objects moving through the air with bright haloes surrounding them.
The natural instinct of the dragons and the riders were to attack objects in the air that were heading for them. Over forty of the beasts did so, wheeling in the air and flapping out toward the missiles that were coming their way. Having excellent depth perception, the dragons spit out fireballs at the edge of their range. Slow moving fireballs and faster missiles came within proximity a thousand yards from the leading monsters. Seven missiles went into fireballs. The tremendous heat set them off, blasting the fireballs out of existence in the process. Weapons officers kept the remaining missiles moving toward the monsters, while the copters that lost missiles reacquired targets and sent off a second missile.
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