by Adams, P R
“The path seems to have been altered.”
“When they breathe, the fire isn’t just heat. There’s force to it. Concussive. Have you ever seen an airburst explosion? A bomb that first sprays fuel out before flashing the area with a spark of heat.”
“Once. It was beautiful but terrifying.”
“That’s one way to describe it.” He squatted and scooped a handful of the blackened dirt. Farmers had worked the soil once. Now their ash would feed it. On the hilltop, the earth felt like fine sand. “No moisture. Probably no nutrients now.” He tossed the material into the air, where the gentle breeze carried it away like a powder.
“Should we even bother going into the ruins?”
“I don’t think we have much choice. Tarlayn’s going to need closure.”
Javika scanned the valley floor. “I will scout.”
Riyun returned to the others and waited for them to gather around. “Looks like the dragons have been here.”
Hirvok snorted. “Don’t say.”
Tarlayn winced but otherwise seemed to handle the news well. Alush’s light flickered for an instant. If the prophet intended to reinforce broken confidence, it was choosing an odd way of doing so. Lonar still seemed to consider the drone some sort of good luck charm or maybe a spiritual guide, but the others barely paid it any attention since it had gone silent.
Hirvok stepped closer. “We planning to stay there for the night?”
One thing Riyun could always count on his second to provide was practicality. A touch of decency and empathy seemed beyond the younger man’s capacity. “We need to see the condition of the place. It looks like the stream has been redirected by the intensity of the attack.”
The old woman’s head came up, and tears trickled down her wrinkled cheeks. “There are legends about the greatest of these creatures. It is said they could shatter mountaintops with their fire. Niyalki is capable of that.”
Niyalki. The big one. “A month ago, I would’ve laughed at that.”
Riyun led them to the hilltop, giving them a moment to absorb what they saw before heading down to reconnect with Javika. Tarlayn stayed close, and she seemed to struggle keeping her head up. He drifted toward her, ready to give her support should she lose her strength.
What would it be like to discover the place where you were born had been obliterated? He had no real connection to his birthplace, not since the death of Monisa, but the pain of loss—he could understand that.
Shattered stone marked where there had been streets. There were similar areas where stone foundations or walls remained, although nothing stood higher than a few feet. Some of the stone cracked at the slightest touch. Serious pressure easily turned other pieces to powder. Everything was black, and in places, skeletal forms merged with what must have been molten materials.
Javika stood near the far end of the town, still as the remaining stones.
There would be no survivors here, and there would be no shelter.
It was too much for Tarlayn. The old woman swooned before gripping her staff tight and striking one of the ruined flagstones with the bottom. “The destruction of innocence must end.” Her voice trembled.
Riyun wanted to reassure her, but how? “This was done days ago.”
Lonar plucked a section of stone from the ground and squeezed, leaving only fine powder in his palm. “Don’t these things have some sort of limit? They can just fly around forever and spit this fire?”
The old woman strode deeper into the blasted town. “More than a wizard, these are magic.”
“But they have to have limits. Even machines have limits.”
“These are greater than…” She glanced at his machine gun. “…machines.”
The big man pivoted toward Riyun. “The Golgar Portals—they have to recharge, don’t they?”
Quil stared at the sky. “I cannot help but agree with Lonar. These creatures must have some sort of capacity beyond which they cannot go. It is the design of anything—organic or machine.”
The pseudo was dabbling in faith. Riyun couldn’t risk breaking the spirit of the team, but he also couldn’t risk the team allowing itself to be drawn into unfounded optimism. That got people killed. “Tarlayn, these dragons draw from the same source of magic as wizards?”
That brought the old woman’s attention back to the mercenaries. “They were born in the abyss.”
“You mean, they come out of there like those things that got Tawod?”
“Long ago, yes. Now they revisit when they are ready to spawn, and what they take from there fertilizes the eggs within. Now they are born from the magic.”
The dragon bones… “The big ones—they couldn’t fit down there.”
“They are long past laying eggs. At their age, the only focus is on…” She pointed to the ruins with her staff.
“But these big ones, like Niyalki, they aren’t from the beginning of time, are they? Dragons die, right?”
“They can be destroyed. They destroy each other. But you cannot destroy them.”
That didn’t seem likely. These things didn’t follow normal biological concepts—some became large, some never grew as big as a human; they spat fire; they flew even when they weighed far too much to be able to do so simply by flapping wings.
But the team had killed smaller ones. They could kill the big ones.
What was needed was a plan, so that when the first one showed its ugly head, the team was ready.
Explosives. Specialized rounds. It was all about the right gear for the right task.
Riyun pulled Hirvok aside. “Our allies are falling apart on us.”
The sergeant grunted, then nodded toward Lonar. “It’s not just the locals. The big guy’s going native, buying into all the nonsense.”
“We need him in this. Clear heads prevail, and I think a good plan will clear a lot of fear out.”
“Easy to say.” Hirvok’s cynical words didn’t match the look of hope in his eyes. “You have an idea?”
“Hear me out. Let’s assume that the next threat we run into is going to be something big. You heard everyone talk about this being some sort of plot, some sort of game. We’ve already faced these dragons. They’ll come at us again. I think they’re more vulnerable than Tarlayn is letting on.”
“Oh, if we had a nuclear warhead—”
“Let’s stick to what we have, okay? We need to conserve our specialized ammo: armor-piercing rounds, explosive tips. But we have to have it ready for when they show.”
“All right. A little discipline. A change in how we pack our gear. Some training.”
Riyun nodded. “Exactly. And I want Quil and Naru focused on finding any other solutions. Tawod was working on some improvised explosives ideas. This place has the same kind of chemicals as any other place. If we have to put together sacks of gunpowder and shove those down these lizards’ throats, then I want us sewing sacks together and stuffing them full of gunpowder now.”
“Shoving a sack of gunpowder down their throat.” The sergeant grinned. “I’ll get right on that.”
“Keep them busy, but make it productive—no make-work. They can sense that.”
“Sure. Hey.” For just a second, Hirvok seemed…vulnerable.
“Yeah?”
“You don’t think this is make-work? You really believe we can kill them.”
Did he? Riyun was almost afraid to answer that, even just to himself. “We have to try, Hirvok. If we just give up, like that drone has…what’s the point?”
The sergeant shot a look at the magical aircraft. “Reprogrammed like it is, maybe we should dump it.”
“I’ve been thinking the same thing for a while. We’ll see.”
Once Riyun was comfortable with how the team reacted to their taskings, he headed over to where Javika still stood. The wizard had taken position not far away, although she had her back to the Biwali warrior.
Riyun stopped when he realized the old woman stood before a circular mound of crumpled stone that must ha
ve been something meaningful before the attack. “Was this some sort of prayer site?”
A bittersweet smile stretched Tarlayn’s mouth wide. “In a way.”
The mound didn’t seem big enough to have held more than three people at a time, maybe twice that if they didn’t mind being pressed against each other. “Was it a place from your childhood? I mean, something you valued?”
“I valued every inch of my home and none of it.”
“I’m sorry. I thought maybe…”
“I know.” She stirred the stones with the butt of her staff. “This was a fountain carved from marble by the husband of the woman who settled Ulonz long ago.”
With a little effort, Riyun could imagine the stones as a single piece of rock carved into something meaningful. “People worshiped it?”
“We acknowledged where we came from and the works of our ancestors.”
The only work Riyun’s ancestors had ever done was to break their backs fighting against the soil of a world that hated them. Was that something worth worshiping? Gaining a short reprieve from the Inner Sphere by rushing to an inhospitable world? Even before Monisa’s death, he had wondered what the point of such labor was. It was the lack of connection to his ancestors, but was it a problem with him, or was it a problem with the decisions of those who had come before him?
He squatted beside the ruined fountain and tried to make a connection to it. “How did your family react to you becoming a wizard? Did they resent you leaving them behind?”
“They accepted my fate, same as I did.”
“Is that what it all boils down to—fate?”
“Wizardry is a gift, but it is also an obligation. You do not turn away from this path.”
“What would you have done if it hadn’t happened to you, this obligation?”
Her lips shook until she licked them and sucked in a breath. “I would have married Doalyn and given him a child, perhaps even two.”
Riyun’s heart skipped a beat. Monisa had spoken many times of giving a child, perhaps even two. “What would you have done with your life?”
“Doalyn was the descendent of the original settlers, so I would have become mayor.”
“Do you regret leaving?”
Wind stirred the fine powder of the mound, and the gem glowed emerald. The loosened powder swirled around her, then climbed up into the sky before blossoming and riding the air currents away. “I did what I had to do.”
He stood. “If you could do it again, if you could stay here with the one you loved and live a different life, would you?”
“Do you mean that I would never have trained Meriscoya?”
“Just consider that a side benefit. If you could do it over, would you seek out happiness in a place like this rather than serve as you have?”
Her eyes closed, and she breathed in the ash-laden air of her home. “You ask me to question my calling.”
Riyun turned at Javika’s soft steps. “I’m asking whether you would choose happiness over obligation.”
Tarlayn blinked. “There are times where I wonder if I might have made the wrong decision in my youth.” She considered Javika, head tilted as a bird might when looking upon a flower dancing in the wind to a strange sound. “It feels as if Danang is doomed despite all that I have done to prevent that.”
Danang? “That’s the name of your world?”
“Yes.”
Javika pointed back the way she had come. “There is a cracked foundation there, at the edge of the town. Steps lead down to a stone basement.”
A basement? Could there have been survivors? “Are there any…?”
“Fire must have broken through the crack. More remains than the skeletons in the street.”
But no survivors.
The wizard’s jaw clenched tight. “It would have been the old inn. People fled to there during the worst of the storms. They probably prayed to our ancestors for deliverance.”
It didn’t seem to Riyun like any ancestor was going to stand up to a dragon. “We’ll gather the dead and—”
“No. Leave them all where they fell.”
“We can give them a proper burial.”
“They lived their lives to the fullest. What happens after death is irrelevant.” Tarlayn’s voice broke, but she stood straight. “You asked about obligation and service. Each citizen—each mother and child and father—fulfilled their obligation here. They did what they could do in life. Do not disturb them in death.”
In that moment, Riyun couldn’t meet the woman’s gaze. He caught the flash of confusion on Javika’s face and shook his head. They were living in a different world, dealing with people who were nothing like them while simultaneously being very similar. Sometimes exactly like them. “We’ll search for shelter farther downstream.”
That seemed to energize the Biwali warrior again. “The stream bed is dry. The fire created a dam.”
What could they have melted to seal off the current? “Can we break it?”
“It is just glass.”
“Then we’ll shatter it.”
Tarlayn sucked on her teeth. “To what end? The town has been destroyed. That will not bring them back.”
Riyun thrust out his chin. “I know, but the dragons created that dam for a reason. Breaking it is a poke in the eye. That’s not much, but I’ll take it.”
That seemed to satisfy the wizard, who bowed, then shuffled away to look into the storm shelter.
Javika toed what remained of the fountain. “This place and these people puzzle me.”
“Me, too. But there’s a positive in that.”
“There is?”
Gentle singing caught Riyun’s attention, and he realized that Tarlayn now knelt at the top of the stairs that led down to the place where many of her townsfolk had been roasted alive by the dragon fire. It was a horrible fate, almost certainly worse than having flesh melted from bone in one quick burst of heat.
What positive could there be in a world like this? It was the question in Javika’s voice. What positive could there be in being puzzled by an alien world?
Riyun almost chuckled when he remembered the answer to Javika’s question. “The same applies to them.”
Creases lined the warrior’s brow. “The same applies to them? What does this mean?”
“We’re a puzzle to them as well. The dragons and Meriscoya—they don’t understand us any better than we understand them. I said we had an advantage, and that’s it. We need to exploit it. If we don’t, we’re surrendering victory to them. That’s something I won’t do.”
He jogged to the place where the flow of the stream had been disrupted. Water pooled in the lower areas nearby. Maybe it was pointless to return the flow to what had been, but it felt like the right thing to do.
And maybe that was the start of turning the situation around.
34
Late the next day, Riyun noticed a subtle change on the horizon. Gentle, rolling hillocks were being replaced by more pronounced and frequent hills. There were fewer stretches where the distant road ran straight and level. A more welcome change was the discovery of grass and trees—things that had been spared the dragons’ rage.
With afternoon heading to evening, he found Javika kneeling beside a small rise. The sides were covered in a colorful velvet: flowers. Pink and red and violet, with wide petals and prominent gold stamens.
She plucked a violet one and tentatively sniffed it, then offered it to him. “Sweet.”
It seemed incongruous for her, but they were all going through…challenges. And the flower did have a pleasant fragrance. He scampered up the rise, noting the soft crunch of soil beneath his boots and the nimbleness in his legs once again. Where the bug’s stinger had pierced his spine, the irritation and swelling were finally gone.
At that moment, he would have given anything for a place to wash away the clinging ash and grime. And maybe to sleep in a bed that didn’t smell like mold and mildew.
He dropped the flower and pulled his helmet from h
is belt, setting the armored device over his head and activating its optics.
With the magnification turned to maximum, he slowly spun around to take in everything.
Smoke. On the horizon. Columns of gray rising to the sky.
Garelan. Was it completely destroyed, like all the other settlements?
When he scanned the road between him and the smoke, he froze. “Javika!”
The Biwali warrior rushed to his side, once more focused. She put her helmet on and tracked to where he pointed. “What is it? Another ravine?”
“Something big. Something Tarlayn should’ve mentioned, that’s for certain.” He pulled his helmet off. The rest of the team straggled some distance back. “We could all use a good rest.”
“I will scout it out.”
“Be careful.”
She headed away at a reasonable jog, and Riyun descended to meet with Hirvok and Lonar, who were at the front of the extended line. “We’ve got something between us and the city. A big pit or ravine or something.”
The sergeant considered the rest of the squad some distance back. “So the city’s still there?”
“Maybe. There’s smoke.”
Lonar’s shoulders sagged. “I’m really getting pissed at these dragons.”
Riyun patted his weapon. “They seem every bit as bad as Meriscoya.”
“Yeah. People used to tell me I was wrong for hating the engineers who put me through all the changes to survive working on Magilar. I was supposed to hate the company that bought me and sold me like property, not the engineers. But they weren’t just doing someone else’s bidding. They were making a choice.”
“I know.”
Hirvok sniffled; he wasn’t good at dealing with other people’s problems. “What’s the plan?”
“I sent Javika to scout the hole. You two back her up. I’ll get the others to pick up the pace.”
“C’mon, big guy. Let’s see if those modifications the engineers made are still working.”
Lonar glared at the smaller man’s back when he jogged away. “One day…”
Riyun patted the big man on the shoulder. “He can’t help himself.”
“Doesn’t mean he won’t spit teeth when he pushes me too far.”