by Jack Conner
Roche slid down from the dragon’s neck in time to help Ladrido dismount from Damara, then led the bat-man away from the two lovers, over to the shelter of Montalvo’s carcass.
As Roche watched, Gethraul flattened himself as much as he could, making it easier for the wounded Damara to climb onto his back. Once she was secured, both dragons bid Roche and Ladrido adieu. With a mighty heave, Gethraul lifted into the air, flapping his massive wings for all he was worth, and flew his beloved over the Castle walls and away. Damara helped as much as she could, flapping her one functional wing.
“Damn,” said Ladrido.
From the mountaintop, ten flaming helicopters plummeted towards the northern courtyard, straight toward where Sarnova and Ladrido were standing.
Even as Roche moved, it began to rain helicopters.
* * *
All in all, despite the unexpected ambush, Raulf was pleased. At least, pleased in how his men and women responded to the crisis. True, a few cowards had darted back inside the Castle, but the majority reacted to the emergency just as he’d trained them to.
Recognizing the danger that the missiles represented, the platoons formed loose groups, knelt close to the charred ground and returned fire. When a missile lanced toward them, they scattered. Nearly twenty were killed, but most of these casualties occurred during the first seconds of the ambush.
Raulf gathered up six of his fellow jandrows and ordered them to fly up to the level (or higher, if circumstances required) of their attackers and return heavy fire. He watched them ascend through the night air dodging rockets and bullets and smiled as they began discharging their weapons.
Off to the side, the lone Collage climbed one of the ruined but occupied battlements, looking nothing so much like King Kong mounting the Empire State Building. She thrust her arms into one of the blasted windows, shrugging off missiles and bullets, crushed a group of ambushers in her mighty paw, scooped their remains into her mouth and kept climbing toward the top, where another group of assailants waited. The ten zombies, acting as a unit, charged into another tower and disappeared from sight, though Raulf could hear the reports of their weapons as they dealt with the enemy.
Raulf himself, while firing up at the battlements and ducking rockets, made his way toward Maleasoel and her portion of the army, all the while making a mental checklist of the positions of the enemy’s firing squads.
When he reached her, he found her litter a smoking pile of rubble. Malie had taken to the ground the moment the firing began and was, even now, issuing orders to her soldiers. Raulf appreciated her poise. He’d half expected her to order the army back into the Castle to escape the ambush, but no, she was a fighter. Despite himself, he found his feelings toward her thawing. A bit.
“Hail, good Captain!” she shouted as she dove to avoid an explosion. Standing again, she glanced briefly at him, then turned her attention (and that of her gun) back to the enemy. “How goes things?” she said over her shoulder.
“Well. But unless we get out of this courtyard, the Castle soldiers are going to kill us. We’re sitting ducks.”
While she continued to fire up at the west wall and the ruined battlements there, he turned his back to hers and began firing up their eastern counterparts.
“I agree,” she said, “though I must point out that we’re holding our own for the moment.”
“Only for the moment.”
“You’re suggesting we charge those battlements?” she said.
“It would be better than staying down here, but I’ve been thinking.”
“Yes?”
“First,” he said, dodging a missile, “I hope you’ve noticed the dragon activity to the north.”
“They don’t seem to be bothering us any.”
“No. They, and the others still flying up near the mountain, seem to be attacking Subaire and her army.”
Bullets stitched into her leg, and she twisted away. “I would never have believed I’d live to see dragons, but by god, I’m glad I did. They’re making my job much easier. I wish them good hunting. Maybe they’ll kill that bitch. Anyway, continue.”
“Second, I’ve noticed several things about the position of our attackers. Most notably, their force seems to be concentrated in the western wall and towers, the ones embedded in the mountain. Only a token few occupy the east towers, all of which are badly damaged and seem on the verge of sliding into the chasm.”
She grunted as she ducked another fusillade. “I hadn’t noticed that, Captain, but you’re right. So you’re suggesting ...”
“I say we charge the western side and deal with the east afterwards. But we’ve one thing to keep in mind.”
“Yes?”
He reloaded. “If Junger and Jagoda’s spies are correct and if the bastards themselves weren’t lying to us, it seems that Francois Mauchlery, the new Dark Lord, is a kavasari. If he survived the nuclear blast, he’s probably the one orchestrating the ambush. In other words, let’s not underestimate them.”
“That’s what the Collage is for: to kill the kavasari if any are encountered. Mauchlery and that order of his. So you advise an attack against the west?”
“Yes.”
She hissed as a bullet grazed her cheek. “Sounds like a plan to me. Get your men ready and let’s do some damage.”
As he ran back down the clusters of soldiers, he stopped at each group to give new orders, then raced on to the next one. At the far northern end of the Courtyards, he saw that the two living dragons had disappeared from sight.
A storm of disintegrating helicopters began falling, and Raulf saw two shapes weaving through the terrible precipitation. One was a demon-thing and the other was of more human shape—compact frame, dark hair and eyes, copper-toned skin ...
No, thought Raulf. Surely that’s not Blackie himself ...
As the helicopters fell, the two figures dashed into—Raulf blinked—the bulk of the decapitated red dragon for cover. The burning debris of the helicopters pummeled the northern courtyards, some large fragments striking the great red corpse itself but doing little more than denting the thick hide.
Once Raulf had given orders to all the platoons, he gave a shout to Maleasoel, signaling her half of the army. Turning to his soldiers, he said, “In the name of Ludwig, let’s do this thing.”
With him in the lead, they charged at the nearest battlement. That’s about the time that Raulf’s clothes—and the garments of many other Libertarians—burst into flame. Their own guns began firing, seemingly of their own volition, at each other.
The Captain growled, tearing the burning fabric from his body, and glanced across the courtyard at the southeastern battlement ... atop which stood a broadly-smiling Ambassador, it could be no other, moonlight gleaming on his flaxen hair.
“Goddamn kavasari,” Raulf snarled, and proceeded to strip naked.
* * *
Subaire caught sight of the approaching scouts as she oversaw the troops digging deeper into the mountaintop. Shifting her attention to the circling dragons, she narrowed her eyes on the rainbow-striped wyrm that bore two riders.
She’d seen the one, the tall dark one, flying through the air, and knew beyond a doubt that he had to be a kavasari, which in part explained how the riders were controlling these beasts. He must be their leader. She promised to herself, then and there, that if she survived the next few hours and actually became Queen, that her next mission would be to rid the world of the fucking kavasari parasites, even those who’d deigned to help her. Especially them.
“Grand General,” said one of the scouts.
“Report,” she said, not taking her eyes from the dragons.
“The Libertarians are under fire, my lord. An ambush.”
She nodded absently. “Good. That’ll save me some time in finishing them off.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Anything else?”
“Several of the Libbies’ uniforms caught fire, and their guns began firing at each other ... much like what happened to
us not long ago.”
“So there’s another kavasari down there.”
“Apparently, Grand General.”
“Let’s just hope that the Libbies kill it before we go down. Speaking of which, one of you round up the kavasari-gifted shades and bring them to me. I’ve got a plan.”
* * *
Danielle held on to Ruegger’s hand, letting the beautiful bulk of Majestica carry them along in the circle of dragons. She watched the glory of clouds and moon and stars spinning away in the night and tried to calm her frantic mind. Things had gone terribly wrong, and she expected things to get even worse before they got better.
“What’s the plan?” she asked Ruegger.
“No more multiple assaults,” he said. “Only one dragon will pass over the mountain at a time. That way the other four can deflect whatever gets hurled at the attacker. Sending any more than one across would thin our abilities too much.”
“Okay, but what about when we pass over? Then there’ll only be three others to protect us. Kharker, Sophe, and Jean-Pierre.”
He kissed the back of her neck. “Sorry, but when Majestica makes her pass, you’re staying behind. Levitate until I return. That way you can guard my rear—or Maji’s belly.”
“But—”
“No buts. I’m not going to steer you into harm’s way if at all possible, and this way you can protect me while I protect you. No argument. Okay?”
Inwardly, she railed against this edict, but she nodded. “Okay.”
Via Majestica, he issued the new orders. No one objected, not even Kharker, who was the oldest shade among them, the closest to Roche Sarnova and by most rights should have been the leader.
“Hop off and cover my rear,” Ruegger told Danielle when he was done.
“You’re not going first?”
“If I’m to be the leader, then I’m going to lead from the front.”
Suddenly panicked, she gripped his forearm. “I don’t want to lose you, baby.”
“You won’t.”
“Rueg ...”
“That was an order, soldier.”
Reluctantly, she levitated off Majestica. She floated for a moment, stunned and scared, as the colorful wings passed below her, bearing dragon and rider toward the mountain. Choking back tears, Danielle blew Ruegger a kiss he couldn’t see and drifted to the crest of the ridge, where she set her mind to guarding Majestica’s belly—and the life of her beloved.
* * *
“Damn,” said Subaire, as the dragon swept down. “God damn it!”
She was livid because the kavasari-gifted shades (only seven of them now) had just arrived and she hadn’t had time to give them her plan, a foolproof strategy to bring down and kill the kavasari leader. But now he was bearing down on her and she hadn’t given the necessary instructions. Snarling, she yelled to her soldiers, “Quickly, all of you, get to cover. Fire no rockets at the dragon on penalty of death!”
Immediately, the sixty soldiers still living burrowed into the new entrenchments. She followed, but not before casting a withering glare at the dragon and its hell-spawned master. Her clothes burst into flame and she cursed, loud and long, as she jumped into the tunnels and hid with the others.
From overhead, Majestica scorched the already blackened mountain, finally curdling the river of blood until it coagulated completely, not that this did any good, as the river had been evacuated after the last strafing run. Subaire had recognized that it would be useless by the time of the next pass and so had ordered the tunnels enlarged and deepened.
As she descended into them, shedding her flaming garments, she stomped into the small cubby in which the seven kavasari-gifted shades huddled. Mute, they stared up at her naked and lightly burned body.
She sat down and said, “Here’s the plan. So far you’ve succeeded in bringing down one dragon. One. I won’t tolerate that sort of failure again. I understand your lack of success was due in large part because you were acting separately, guiding individual missiles by yourselves. No more. Especially now that we’re running low on the things, rockets must be conserved. Consolidate your power. All seven of you must guide a single missile—or one missile at a time. That way we can defeat the mindthrust of the kavasari. Got it?”
They nodded.
“Meanwhile,” she continued, “the other troops will throw up as many rockets as we can spare to camouflage the ones you’ll be guiding. I suppose that the rainbow dragon won’t be attacking for awhile, so that leaves the other four. Logically, our greatest threat is the largest, that big brown one. If I remember correctly, its name is Shalung. That’s your mission. Bring down the brown, then we’ll deal with its rider.”
* * *
Lord Kharker had caught and captured Shalung well over eight hundred years ago, but the dragon still harbored a fierce resentment toward him, even if being captured had saved the wyrm’s life. That ornery streak had only ensured that Kharker would choose Shalung to ride, though. He liked a challenge.
Slowly, lost in the battle and tormented by the loss of his fellows, Shalung grew easier to manage, his rage at Kharker channeled toward those that had killed Nakara and Montalvo. Good, thought Kharker. Hate them, not me. Hate could accomplish a lot.
So he thought as he watched Ruegger and Majestica streak over the mountaintop, laying waste to the barren ground, all that was visible of Subaire’s encampment. It surprised Kharker when no missiles sought to intercept the two. Kharker chalked it up to Subaire’s fading arsenal. Just the same, something wasn’t quite right.
Which is why it was almost reassuring that, after Majestica and Ruegger completed their pass, a flurry of missiles sought to bring down Sophia and Yazback, that striking flaming pink dragon just a little smaller than Shalung himself. Of course, due to the coven’s skills, none of the missiles reached the dragon and its dark-haired rider.
At first, the Hunter had been reluctant to concede command to Ruegger, but the old werewolf’s curiosity had overridden his pride. He wanted to see what the Darkling could do.
All the while, he reminded himself of his vow to Jean-Pierre, that from now on he would no longer be an indiscriminate predator, but would only prey on those that were of dark hearts. Oddly, Kharker felt that this new way of life would be pleasing, that perhaps the albino and the Darkling had been right about evil and right also about living a good and moral life. Inwardly, he allowed himself a sigh, because it was a moot point now: Kharker had given his word to Jean-Pierre, and Kharker would not go back on such a promise.
After Sophia and Yazback completed their semi-successful strafing run (successful because neither had been killed, semi because they’d only killed three or four of Subaire’s troops), it was Kharker’s turn at bat.
Grinning, he patted Shalung’s tough neck. “Ready, my friend?”
“Ready to flay Nakara’s murderers alive,” growled Shalung. “Not to be your friend. Get your stinking hand off my neck and let’s incinerate these fucks!”
Kharker laughed. He hadn’t known how contemporary the dragons’ speech had grown but was delighted by it nonetheless.
“Then let’s be off,” he said.
The great brown dragon carried Kharker over the crest of the mountain and down to Subaire’s earthen encampment, which instantly sprang to life. Bullets and missiles flared up at the duo, while Shalung blew flame, scattering them, and Kharker used his new gifts to light the clothes of Subaire’s Half on fire.
Kharker grinned. Yes, he reflected, Ruegger and Jean-Pierre had been correct; it did feel good to be on the side of the righteous. And it had only taken him a millennium to—
A missile slammed into Shalung’ guts, guided there, Kharker assumed when he was capable of rational thought, by Subaire’s seven kavasari-gifted shades.
They then sank three more rockets, one at a time, into Shalung’s golden-brown paunch. Shaken by the concussions, Kharker gripped Shalung’s spinal horns, momentarily forgetting that he could levitate at will. How had missiles reached Shalung? Ruegger and
the others should’ve been strong enough—
Screaming, Shalung plummeted to the ground. Kharker shouted to him to keep flying but Shalung gasped, “The bastards have killed me, Kharker. Get off while you can.”
Despite everything, Kharker almost smiled. In his last moments, Shalung had ceased to hate him.
The dragon drove into the ground at an angle, too weak to use his wings or legs to slow the impact. He skidded nearly a hundred yards and stopped, clouds of dust boiling around him.
The impact threw Kharker off his back. The Hunter landed on the blackened earth, spitting dirt and flakes of blood. He stood, slowly, and glanced all around.
Subaire’s troops closed in, guns and rockets at the ready. Kharker leaped into the air. The guns roared. Thousands of bullets lanced into him. He cried out but continued to fly. Another volley of bullets pounded him.
Pain. Excruciating. His strength ebbed, and he fell back to earth.
The enemy troops advanced. Several raised rocket launchers.
Shalung, in his final moments of life, swung his great head around and caught half a dozen soldiers in his mouth. With satisfying crunching sounds, he began to chew, and the soldiers that had been aiming their instruments of death at Kharker fired on the dragon instead.
Shalung rocked from these explosions, then let out a last torrent of fire that incinerated the six shades still in his mouth. Even as sorely wounded as he was, Kharker was touched.
Struggling to keep his feet under him, the Hunter swept his great machete out of its leather scabbard and turned to the advancing horde. He was now too weak to fly.
Bleeding from a thousand places, he smiled. “Come hither,” he bid them, swinging his blade so it caught the light of the moon. “Come and do your worst.”
They came.
* * *
By the time Raulf finally led his platoon into the battlement, most of his troops were naked and only half still carried guns. Thankfully, they’d all kept presence of mind enough to bring their swords. As soon as they disappeared into the cracked and tilted tower, the Ambassador’s assault abated, just as Raulf had hoped. The guns ceased firing erratically and nothing else burst into flame. As soon the kavasari couldn’t see them, he wouldn’t risk firing the Libertarians’ weapons for fear of hitting his own people.