by Angie Fox
He returned to me, dropping the boot at my feet. “Remember my three-story walk-up near Snug Harbor?”
It was a dump, and the air-conditioning hardly worked. “It’s one of my favorite places on Earth.”
We’d sneak up to the roof on steamy summer nights and listen to the sound of jazz in the distance while we made out like bunnies in heat.
But that was a different time, and we were different people back then.
I was just about to tell him that when he stiffened. “Petra.” He stepped in front of me as rocks tumbled across the ground at our feet. “Stay back,” he said as we faced one of the largest men I’d seen in my life.
His eyes were fiery, wild. He was at least seven feet tall if he was an inch, with leather armor studded with animal teeth. His mustache was long and curled at the ends, and he wore mounds of colorful beaded jewelry. He looked like he’d been out riding with Genghis Khan.
“Oghul,” Marc said. He drew an arm around me while staying half a step in front of me. “This is the man who’s going to get us across the divide.”
I wasn’t so sure about the man part. Marc refused to budge, so I reached around him, holding out a hand. “I’m—”
“No names,” Oghul said, whipping up an enormous curved sword.
Marc seized the barbarian’s wrist. “Point it down,” he ordered.
The Mongolian’s eyes were crazy, wild.
“Oghul,” Marc said, a clear warning in his tone.
The brute grunted and lowered his weapon.
Sure. This was just the guy we wanted to sneak us through an enemy camp.
Marc must have read my mind. “You don’t want to startle a berserker,” he said low in his throat.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, noticing Marc hadn’t taken his eyes off the wild man since he’d gotten here.
Oghul shrugged off his pack and began tossing uniform clothes at me. A tan medical officer’s shirt landed at my feet, a pair of pants sailed over my head, and Marc caught both my socks.
He’d also brought a spare uniform for Marc, which proved the Mongolian was way better at this spy business than I was.
Marc was dressed in no time. I tried to convince myself I was glad for him.
What was I saying? I was glad. I drew a shuddering breath. As far as I was concerned, I’d dodged a bullet.
“Are you ready for this?” he asked. I still held the enemy uniform in my arms.
“Yes.” We’d come this far. There was no backing down now. “I’m just not one for the uniform. That’s all.” I was a doctor, not a soldier, and I avoided combat fatigues whenever I could.
“Stay in front of me,” I told Marc, although it didn’t look like Oghul was paying much attention. He stood at the edge of the rock, sniffing the air.
“Don’t look,” I said as I slipped my shirt off.
Oghul didn’t seem to have heard, but Marc took me at my word. He stood facing the Great Divide as I lost my scrubs and slipped on the old army tan.
My throat tightened, and I told myself it was just me getting used to the stiff, thick material of the pants and flak jacket. And not that I could be shot for wearing them.
“All set,” I said.
At least, I was as ready as I could be to head out into the superheated wasteland.
“Let’s do this,” Marc said, turning to me. His uniform fit to his wide shoulders and trim hips, and he was barefoot.
“You still need boots,” I said as his gaze followed mine to his feet.
Oghul grunted, shucking off his. He had the widest, hairiest feet I’d ever seen.
“Thanks, buddy.” Marc patted him on the arm and slid his feet into the boots.
“Now your friend is going to stand out,” I said, as if the pointy-tooth jacket and wild jewelry weren’t enough. He even had hoops in his ears.
“He’s fine.” Marc said, tying the laces tight. “Nobody likes to question the berserkers. Besides, it’s obvious he belongs here.”
Wait. “We don’t have any berserkers in the new army?”
“No,” Oghul barked.
The barbarian was going to have to chill out. He was giving me heart palpitations and we hadn’t even gotten off this rock.
I straightened my Old God Army uniform and faced the burning fires of the enemy line. “Do you really think we have a shot at sneaking through?”
Oghul snarled at me, showing sharpened yellow teeth.
“No offense,” I added. The guy needed to stop growling.
Marc ignored him. “I made it once before,” he said, hoisting my duffel over his shoulder.
“When you were flying,” I said, following him to the edge. “And crossing your own lines.”
Oghul had driven a spike into the rock. A rope hung from it down to the lava fields. The barbarian took the cord in both hands, turned his back to the desert, and rappelled down the rock like he was born to it.
I stared down. It had to be at least a ten-foot drop. Not awful, but enough to break my neck.
“Hey, we’ll get through this,” Marc said. “Think whatever else you want about me, but know I’ll do anything to keep you safe.”
“I trust you.” I did. “Now let me go first,” I said, getting into position. No way was I going to be the last one off that rock.
“Do you know how to rappel?” he asked, his hands closing over mine, readjusting my uncertain grip on the rope.
“Sure,” I said. “Why not? Basic training prepared me for this kind of thing.”
He raised his brows. “You had basic?”
“No. I was making a bad joke,” I said, teetering on the edge of the rock. I’d been dropped straight into the medical corps, same as Marc. “I haven’t even read the handbook.”
“Yeah, me neither,” he said as I stepped off the edge.
It wasn’t quick and it wasn’t pretty, but I made it down the rock.
Marc brought up the rear, with more athletic skill than I’d managed. But hey, all three of us were down.
It was even hotter on the ground, the energy more intense.
We walked the last hundred yards through the fire spurts, dodging the lava that only seemed to follow me. Or maybe I just took those little buggers personally.
Still, it was the most bizarre feeling in the world, like walking through the gates of hell.
Marc stayed close. “Oghul is going to escort us through.” He shot the berserker a cool, confident grin. “Right, buddy?”
Oghul eyed me as we neared the sentries at the edge of the enemy lines. “You look straight ahead. You don’t speak. You follow me.”
The or else was implied.
He didn’t need to worry, though. I was too shocked to speak when I saw what waited inside the gate.
The Old God Army had cornered the market on nightmares.
There was no fence, no minefield, no line of troops to defend the enemy camp. Every fifty feet, for as far as I could see, battered guard stations held soulless, merciless Shrouds.
Chapter Seven
The Shrouds rustled behind dingy glass, watching, waiting.
A burly-looking sentry stood outside each outpost, no doubt bearing an amulet that controlled the monsters. I sucked in a breath, my throat tight from apprehension. I wasn’t one for mass executions, but if the army put it in their minds to annihilate those creatures, I’d applaud it.
I felt my muscles stiffen with disgust as we approached. “What is it with your side and the Shrouds?” I muttered.
Marc eyed me, the light from the fires casting his face in shadows. “Your side uses them, too.”
That was a fine accusation. “And you know?”
“Personally.”
Dang it. “That’s right,” I said, the fight draining out of me. He’d lost a patient to those soul suckers. I knew that. I should have remembered. What was this place doing to me?
I opened my mouth to apologize when Marc shot me a tense look. “Keep quiet.”
Of course. We had to blend. This was not the time to screw
up.
We approached a pair of demigods outside the main guardhouse. They wore the red scythe on their sleeves, which I found eerily appropriate. The guard on the left wore an amulet. He held a sword at the ready, watching us. The other held a clipboard. “State your business.”
Oghul shook out his long hair, the beads at the ends clacking together. “Medical personnel transfer,” he grunted. “I take them to MASH-19X.”
The man’s brows furrowed. “On foot?” He looked us over. He knew. “Where’s your transport?”
Uh-oh.
“I do not have one,” Oghul shot back, blocking the guard’s view.
I kept my face and my emotions in check. Still, my mind raced. There had to be something about me, something in the way I looked, talked, moved, breathed.
“Regulations say—” the soldier began.
“I do not care,” Oghul snapped.
The guard raised his voice to be heard over the stomping Mongol. “—that you must have approved transportation in order to transfer—”
“I do not have a Jeep,” Oghul said. “I will not have a Jeep. I crashed it into a hell vent because this one pissed me off.” He pointed a thick, knobby finger directly at my nose. I stared at it, shocked.
The guard looked from me to the berserker and back again. “Well, why didn’t you say so?”
“Humans,” Oghul muttered, rolling his eyes.
Not technically.
“Tell me about it,” the guard said as the berserker dug papers out from under his body armor. They were crumpled and folded too many times to count.
“Please. We can’t even carry our own orders?” I muttered to Marc.
He gave me a look like you’ve got to be kidding me, which was appropriate, I supposed, given the fact that I’d momentarily forgotten I didn’t have any kind of orders, not from the Old God Army at least.
The guard narrowed his eyes at me. “I can see why you drove into the hell vent,” he said to Oghul.
The berserker grunted. “Too bad I had to drag them out, eh?”
They shared a chuckle at the completely unfunny joke while I harbored a particularly graphic fantasy about those orders and the Mongol’s rather large nostrils.
“Everything’s in order,” the guard said, returning the paperwork to Oghul, who shoved it back into his sweaty breastplate. “You can continue the transport.”
Oghul nodded and started walking. Marc nudged me and I followed. He didn’t have to tell me twice.
We moved swiftly past the Shrouds and made our way into camp.
Jeeps bounced over the uneven ground. Low-slung hutches rose on either side of us, with MPs posted at their battered wooden doors.
The energy was even thicker here. It crackled along my skin and made my head pound.
“She’s half human, Oghul,” Marc said, stopping us to check my pupils.
“This is the easiest way.” The berserker’s stale breath blasted against me as he tilted his head sideways and made his own inspection. “The quickest way.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Marc leaned closer, resting a hand on my shoulder. “Can you hear me?”
I swallowed and nodded.
The berserker stood fuming, shifting from one foot to the other as Marc wrapped an arm around me. “Come on. We’ll get you farther back from the front.”
I stumbled along next to him, unable to speak.
“Sure, sure.” I could practically feel the ground vibrating behind us as the berserker followed. “Let’s let her walk all over camp. We never said we’d take her into camp.”
Marc gave a sharp glance back. “And I never thought I’d be holding your intestines together at Kamar Ridge.”
The Mongolian fell in behind us, mumbling. It was just as well, because I was about to fall over. Marc braced me against his shoulder as I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.
Marc pressed me close, as if I could somehow draw on his strength. “She’s not a spy.”
Oghul harrumphed. “So you say.”
The road was heavily pitted and filled every so often with sanded-over holes. It almost looked like they’d dug out the fire tubes. I tried to avoid them, but it was impossible in my current state. My feet twisted, my ankles ached. Wherever there wasn’t a sinkhole, crystalline rocks dug into the soles of my boots.
I cleared my throat, about to try to ask if we could sit down for a minute, when a terrified shriek cut the night air. Some creature was injured, dying. A plume of black smoke jetted from around the corner ahead.
We had to try to help. Head swimming, I braced a hand against Marc’s chest. I coughed. “Sounds like a—”
“Dragon,” he finished, jaw tight.
Both sides used dragon conscripts for aerial battles as well as scouts. They were seen as tools of war—expendable. This one bellowed in pain.
We turned the corner and saw a black dragon the size of an SUV. It moaned and growled as half a dozen animal wranglers held it with iron chains around its neck, legs, and tail.
The poor thing was frightened and in pain.
“Do not be rash,” Oghul ground out.
Marc didn’t speak for a moment. I watched as outrage warred with determination.
I pulled away from him, feeling steadier on my feet since we’d moved farther from the Great Divide. “I’m okay.” I swallowed. “If you need to do something…”
“No,” Marc said. “Oghul’s right.”
“Yes, I am,” the berserker said, taking my arm and trying to lead me back the way we came.
Marc shoved the berserker away and took my hand. “This way,” he said, leading me into a maze of closely spaced tents.
We were in a housing unit now, not unlike the one at the MASH 3063rd. I could hear the sounds of camp life behind the canvas walls.
Marc glanced behind us. “They never let them shift back. It’s like they aren’t even human anymore.”
“Are they all humans?” I asked, remembering the ancient Norse dragon I’d helped at the clinic. Some dragons really were just dragons.
“These are,” he said, his face grim. “There are no pure black dragons in nature. Those are shifters.”
My heart clenched for him, and for every person forced to fight this unholy war.
When would it end?
And how many of us would have to die before that happened?
“Have you seen any silver dragons?” I asked, almost afraid to know. Marc’s clan came from the southern United States—Louisiana and Florida mostly. But most silver dragons still lived in northern Canada, Iceland, and the Scandinavian countries.
“Not in this camp. Yet,” he said. “But yes. They have my people, too.”
His eyes hardened, and I knew what he was thinking. He’d been spared. He’d kept his humanity simply because he happened to have a skill that the army needed more than they needed his ability to fight.
Marc could heal the injured and send them back to the front.
“Hold up,” he said as we came to the end of the path. It opened into what looked to be an archaeological excavation or maybe a mining operation. Strange. A few moments ago, we were waist-deep in troop housing.
“What are they digging for?” We should be passing more tents or maybe the supply depots.
Not this.
Oghul’s eyes darted around. “We go back,” he ordered. “We take our original route near the Great Divide.”
I balked. “Over my dead body.” No way was I ready for that kind of head-clanging experience. “I’ll stop asking questions.” We’d make it through camp. “I don’t even care what you have going on,” I added.
It wasn’t necessarily true, but I’d tell the Mongolian anything at this point.
“We are helping you.” Oghul shoved a meaty finger into my shoulder. “You don’t spy.”
“First of all, ow,” I said, slapping his finger away. “Second, Marc brought me here. I’m not snooping. I’m trying to make it through this place alive and relatively”—I ducked anoth
er poke—”unharmed.”
“Stop it.” Marc stepped in between us. “Both of you,” he said, that last comment aimed at me. As if I’d started it.
Marc turned his back to argue with Oghul, and I took the opportunity to get a decent look at what was happening. In all fairness, I couldn’t see much, just a covered tent with lots of workers underneath. They were dressed in white and shoveling out some kind of crystal.
It appeared to be a large version of the crystals that littered the ground. I reached down and pocketed one.
It was clear the old army was using the cease-fire to find something. Exactly what was anyone’s guess.
I picked up another rock and examined it closely. It reminded me of clear quartz.
“Don’t look at that,” Marc said, plucking it out of my hand.
“Hey,” I protested as he tossed it onto the ground. Jerk. “I wasn’t going to take it.”
I’d already taken one.
Good thing Marc hadn’t noticed, or I doubted I’d get to keep the one I had.
“You need to listen to me,” he ground out. “I’m trying to get you through here in one piece.”
That was beside the point. “Does your side need to stay here?” I asked under my breath. “Is that why they stopped fighting?”
He knew something. Or at least he suspected. I could see it in his face. “You’re here to find out what happened to Dr. Keller,” he reminded me, “nothing else.”
Since when had I ever been able to keep my nose in my own business? When had Marc, for that matter?
“You have to admit,” I said, baiting him, “it makes you curious.”
His mouth twisted into a wry grimace, and I knew at that moment that I had him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, leading me away from the dig. “Now wipe that grin off your face. You’re in the old army now.”
Chapter Eight
“We just need to hitch a ride,” Marc said when we’d made it as far as the motor pool.
“You have paperwork?” I asked, surprised he’d want to go on record as being here.
“That’s the catch, isn’t it?” he asked.
Indeed.
We walked several yards behind Oghul, who was in animated negotiations with a supply clerk. The suns rose over the rows of dusty Jeeps, troop trucks, and bronze cannons on elaborate artillery carts.