Blood of Dragons

by Jack Campbell

  He gave her a worried look as they kept walking. “Why would you scream?”

  Kira struggled with something inside that tried to freeze the words within her. It took all she had to force them out. “I’m dreaming that…I’m…back in Ihris. And…and…the dragon…is charging…and…I don’t pick up the club…and…when the dragon bites down…on…my arms…it…”

  “When your arms were in its mouth? You have a nightmare that it bites down?” Jason shook his head, more upset than ever. “No wonder you wake up screaming. Do your parents know?”

  That was easier to speak about. “Well, yeah, duh, they hear their daughter screaming in the middle of the night and they come really fast.” Kira inhaled convulsively. “I’ve only had that nightmare twice. I mean, where it gets to the point where it…bites. But it was starting when you woke me up tonight.” She looked into his eyes. “Do you? Have nightmares about that?”

  He nodded. “A few times. Only, I’m standing there, and I can see the dragon charging you, and I can’t move. My feet won’t move. And I try so hard but I can’t get to you.”

  Kira smiled at him even as she had to blink away tears. “You've always gotten to me when I really needed you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before about the nightmares.”

  “I don’t imagine you like thinking about it,” Jason said.

  “Not thinking about it doesn’t make it go away,” Kira said. “That’s not something I figured out. Mother told me. And she’s sort of an expert on that.”

  The slight trail they had been using became even less easy to follow as the now-faint trace bent up along another ridge, then along the side of another mountain. Somewhere along the way they had gained more height. Kira tried not to look down too much since she was finding the views dizzying. That probably had as much to do with lack of enough food and water as it did with the heights. Uncertain where the Imperials might be, they kept quiet for long stretches to avoid alerting any groups that might be nearby but out of sight.

  The deceptively peaceful mid-morning was shattered when the distant sound of gunfire echoed from the west. Kira and Jason stopped to listen, trying to guess what the rattle of shots meant and where they were located.

  The battle, if that was what it was, lasted for about twenty minutes before tailing off into a few, scattered shots whose noise faded to leave the mountains quiet again. “I think some of the Imperials ran into some Free Cities’ people,” Kira finally said.

  “Who won?” Jason asked.

  “The shots sounded like they faded toward the west, which would mean the Free Cities’ patrol retreated back toward Marida,” Kira said.

  “So they’ll call for help.”

  “They might not have a far-talker, and even if they do, getting hand-held far-talker signals through in mountains like this is nearly impossible,” Kira said.

  Jason shook his head. “The mountains shouldn’t make any difference. The uplink to the nearest sats—” He caught himself. “Oh, yeah. No satellites.”

  “Hand-held far-talkers are pretty much line-of-sight,” Kira said. “It might take a while for anyone to learn that Imperials hit that patrol. And if the Imperials wiped them out,” she began, then had to stop as she thought about those men and women dying and the words stuck in her throat.

  “It’s not your fault,” Jason said. “The Imperials are the ones driving this.”

  “Keep reminding me of that,” Kira whispered. “Let’s keep going. We have to find a good path west or even northwest so we’re not having to crawl through this awful terrain.”

  They’d just reached the end of a route along a succession of stony ridges when Kira heard the sound of a shot, followed a moment later by the crack of the bullet impacting a boulder behind Jason. The shot broke off fragments of rock that pelted Jason as he and Kira threw themselves to the ground.

  Rifles crashed, and more projectiles slammed into the rocks near them. Kira stared upward, seeing figures silhouetted against the sky along high ground to the west. “They’ve got this way west blocked! Back the way we came!”

  Jason, ducking under the barrage aimed at them, didn’t need any encouragement to do as Kira said. They ran back along the slope, Kira risking a quick glance back to see figures pelting down the mountain toward her and Jason.

  They hit the next ridge and ran full out along the top, gaining ground on the Imperials. But as they rounded another height Jason gave a cry of despair. “They’re coming from this direction, too! At least a dozen!”

  Kira skidded to a halt, looking frantically around. Exposed on the ridge, they could neither run nor fight. Trying to make a stand here was hopeless.

  “Any ideas?” Jason asked urgently, looking ahead and then behind.

  “We can’t stay here,” Kira said, looking around again. “We can’t go back. We can’t go ahead. That way is…south. Shallow ravine that leads into another bare mountainside. We’d be sitting ducks on that exposed mountain. That leaves north.”

  “North?” Jason looked down that side of the ridge. “That’s a cliff.”

  “It’s a slope,” Kira said. “We can slide down a slope.”

  “What about the vertical parts of that slope?” Jason demanded, looking frantically ahead and behind. “We’re trapped.”

  “We’re not trapped. Mother says there’s always an option. It’s just a matter of being willing to take that option.” She holstered her pistol and closed her jacket. “Sheath your knife. We’re going down.”

  Jason put away the knife, closing his coat. then followed Kira’s gaze down the cliff. “You’re serious?”

  “It’s our only option that doesn’t guarantee death, Jason,” Kira replied, sitting down on the edge of the cliff, her feet dangling over.

  “You know, all of the sudden being shoved off of trains doesn’t seem so bad,” Jason said as he sat down next to her, his words quick and tense.

  “We’re making this jump together. Try not to fall too fast,” Kira ordered.

  “Huh?” Jason gave her a disbelieving look.

  “Try to stay upright and check your fall by grabbing at anything in reach!”

  “Oh, right.”

  She smiled at him despite the fear filling her. “I love you. See you at the bottom.” Kira pushed off as gently as she could, fearful of losing contact with the surface of the slope/cliff that was her only hope of slowing her fall. As she went off the edge, a brief glimpse of the distance to the bottom almost froze her with fear as gravity grabbed her and pulled her down with voracious force.

  Kira hoped Jason had pushed off as well, hadn’t been paralyzed with terror as she almost had, but didn’t dare turn to look as she dropped, trying to check her fall with her heels without catching them and flipping herself into what could well be a fatal tumble down the cliff. Her hands caught at bushes and tufts of grass as she dropped, scrabbling at rocks and projections, getting bruised and slashed and cut as she fell. Her back slammed and skittered over the rough surface of the cliff, picking up a new assortment of bruises.

  Kira could feel sharp projections ripping through her trousers. Abrupt jerks told her of rock edges snagging on the back of her jacket and tearing short gashes before breaking free. She didn’t mind, in fact felt grateful in the midst of her fear that each snag and rip slowed her fall a bit.

  A projection of stone punched her left leg, drawing a cry from Kira. Her right arm jerked painfully as her hand gained a momentary hold on a sturdy bush growing out the cliff, only to have the bush slide through her grip with agonizing friction and a few more lacerations of her palm.

  She couldn’t afford to look down to see how close she was to the bottom for fear of overbalancing. She couldn’t look over to see how Jason was doing. She couldn’t look up to see if the Imperials had reached the point from which Kira and Jason had pushed off. All Kira could do was keep trying to slow her fall down the steep slope and wonder how many pieces she would be in when she reached the bottom.

  Her right boot caught on something and s
he let the leg collapse to keep it from breaking. That tossed Kira into a sideways roll down the cliff. She desperately hoped she was almost to the bottom.

  She bounced off another rock, then through a daze of confusion felt her fall being checked rapidly as she slid out onto a sloping pile of dirt, pebbles and rocks which had accumulated at the base of the cliff. Kira glided to a halt, coughing in the dust raised by her descent, more gravel and dirt dislodged by her fall showering down on her, trying to gather her scattered thoughts and wondering just how badly she’d been banged up in the plummet down the cliff.

  A moment later Jason came down nearby, spinning on his back as he slid past her a little ways in his own cloud of dust.

  Kira pressed her hands to her head as if physically forcing her thoughts into place and staggered to her feet, limping as what felt like a nasty bruise on one hip made her leg protest, then came to her knees next to Jason. “Are you okay?”

  He looked up at her, plainly dazed as well, then grinned. “You said okay.”

  “Are you?”

  “No bones are sticking out.” Jason struggled to his feet, himself favoring one leg. “We really survived that?”

  A shot followed his words, the bullet slamming into the dirt between them.

  “Not yet,” Kira said. “I think we’ve got two good legs between us.” She put her arm over Jason’s shoulder as he did the same with her, and supporting each other they ran as fast as they could manage down the slope before them.

  More shots followed them, bullets sending up puffs of dirt or sprays of rock as they hit to either side and ahead. “In vids, bullets are always just behind running people,” Jason gasped.

  “They’re shooting downhill,” Kira replied between her own ragged breaths. “People have to remember to aim low when they do that or their shot will go high, but they usually forget.”

  “Alli told you that?”

  “Yeah. Good thing she didn't teach these guys to shoot.”

  Kira stole a glance back, seeing Imperials clustered near the place where she and Jason had pushed off. Most were aiming and firing rifles at them, but a few were looking down the cliff. None had tried to follow them down, though.

  “They’re all bigger and heavier than us,” Jason gasped again. “They wouldn’t actually fall any faster. Because physics. But they’d have a harder time braking their falls enough to keep from being badly hurt when they reach the bottom.”

  “They’re also probably not as desperate as we were,” Kira said.

  A ravine opened up ahead, bending to the right so that they passed out of sight of the Imperials and the rifle fire stopped. But they were heading east again. Kira let go of Jason, cautiously testing her muscles and wincing as various pains told of bruises and other minor injuries. “I think I can walk now. How about you?”

  Jason nodded, grimacing. “Yeah. I’d say we should take it easy for a while but I can look around me and tell that’s not going to happen.”

  The ravine they were in led to a series of ravines and passes between mountains now rising high enough to boast white caps of snow that shone and glittered in the sunlight. “Uphill all the way,” Jason grumbled as they climbed, their route leading steadily higher.

  As they gained altitude the air kept thinning and kept getting colder as well, the icy breezes coming off the snow-laden slopes above them lashing their exposed skin and penetrating the rips in their clothing. They finished the last of their water, their insides aching from the lack of any other food since the wild onions. Kira knew her body was a mass of bruises from the way most movement hurt, and her hands were stiff from cuts and scrapes on the fingers, backs and palms.

  Jason moved as stiffly as she did, but they both kept going, determined not to be trapped again.

  As they climbed to the top of yet another ridge, Kira came to a sudden stop, the spectacular view momentarily driving away thoughts of their peril. They’d been climbing a broad mountain with a shallowly sloping side, and now they stood on a flattened peak that offered awe-inspiring views for a considerable distance in all directions before being blocked by the higher mountains hemming them in.

  Jason stopped beside her, looking around, breathing deeply from the climb and the thin air. “Cool. If I wasn’t exhausted, half-starved, hurting all over, and freezing to death I could really enjoy this. Do you think we finally outran the Imperials?”

  “I think there’s a chance, yeah,” Kira agreed.

  “Maybe there’s also a chance we can get to Marida or another Free City.”

  “Maybe. We have to be a good ways north. We may be getting closer to Alexdria by now.” Kira looked around again, spotting what she thought might be movement to the south. The Imperials chasing them, no doubt. If that was them, they were way behind Kira and Jason.

  Kira let her eyes sweep across the mountains and passes to the east, where the rays of the late-afternoon sun were slanting down into the canyons and other low areas as well as lighting up the mountain slopes facing them.

  She stopped moving, feeling a vast pit opening inside her, a pit that threatened to swallow every trace of hope. Light moved in the passes and along the slopes of the mountains to the east, reflections off of metal. Columns of people, moving into the Northern Ramparts from the east, filling every road and path and trail. People with metal weapons and metal armor. Nothing else could be producing those kinds of reflections. “Oh, blazes. That’s all we needed.” Weariness and hunger suddenly weighed more heavily on her than ever.

  “What?” Jason came to stand beside her, looking in the same direction. “What is it?”

  “Imperial legionaries.” Kira shaded her eyes with a flat palm and scanned slowly across the vista before them. “It has to be. Look there. They seem to be spreading out onto every trail and possible route through the mountains. What I’m seeing is at least a legion. An entire legion, Jason. Chasing us. Do you feel important?”

  Jason followed her gestures, rubbing the back of his hand across his mouth. “You’re certain that it’s a legion coming into the mountains after us? They can’t be Free Cities soldiers?”

  “They’re coming from the east, Jason. The Free Cities never keep many troops on the border. Just scouts whose orders are to report any Imperial incursions and fall back.” Kira sighed. Tired, cold, hungry, thirsty, already being pursued by Imperials from the ships, and now this. “At least once this is over I’ll be able to trade stories with Mother about dealing with Imperial legions. They never caught her, you know.”

  “And you’re definitely your mother’s daughter,” Jason said.

  “Am I?” Kira asked, gazing at the oncoming legions. “I thought maybe I could be in some ways. But this… Mother started a war, Jason. The War of the Great Guilds. She didn’t want to, but if not for her it wouldn’t have happened. And she knows if not for that war, the Storm would have come and civilization would have fallen and nearly every person on Dematr would have died, but she still feels the guilt of it. Why am I starting a war, Jason? Because some conceited, idiotic, foolhardy Imperial prince wanted me in his bed? Could there possibly be a stupider reason for a war?”

  “Kira,” Jason said, his tone as harsh as Kira had ever heard it when he spoke to her. “Stop it. You’re not the reason. Maxim is one of those idiots who wants a war because he thinks it’ll be easy. Because he thinks he’s so smart he’ll out-think everybody else. Because he likes playing with soldiers and sailors because he’s not going to risk getting hurt himself. Because he thinks the lives entrusted to him are less important than his pride. Because he wants to strut around and call himself a hero because of the sacrifices of others. It’s not about you, Kira. You just happen to be what’s making him move now. It’s about him. This is his war, not yours. There have been people like him all through history. But there have also been people like you, people who fought and stopped people like him.”

  She looked at Jason, feeling a smile on her lips. “Have there also been people like you? To keep people like me fighting when
it seems hopeless?”

  “I guess,” Jason said. “I shouldn’t have given a stupid speech—”

  “Oh, shut up.” Kira grabbed Jason and kissed him with all the fervor of love, hope, and despair mingled. Then she looked him in the eyes. “It was a great speech. If you won’t let me give up or blame myself, we’ll just have to keep fighting until we win.”

  He grinned. “And you’re a Lancer, right?”

  “I’m a Lancer,” Kira agreed. “But even Lancers don’t take on a legion without a lot of help.”

  “Won’t the Free Cities help? This is an invasion, right?”

  “Yeah,” Kira said. “It’s definitely an invasion. But the Free Cities will have to mobilize their forces. The standing armies of the individual cities can’t handle at least a legion on their own. I don’t know exactly how long mobilization takes but we’re talking maybe a week. That’s just to get the Free Cities soldiers gathered and ready to go. Then they have to get from their cities to where the legions are.”

  “There’s no chance the Free Cities had any kind of advance warning the legions were going to invade?” Jason asked.

  “Before they saw the legions coming?” Kira shook her head. “It’s possible, but we can’t count on it. We have to assume we’re still on our own for a while, Jason.”

  Jason shrugged. “At least we have a head start on them.”

  “The legions make the sailors we’ve dealt with look like amateurs,” Kira said. “The legionaries are going to be rested, with food and water, and they’re coming into the mountains along passes and paths while we’re still moving overland. They’ll travel a lot faster than we can. We can’t afford to go north or east any more or they’ll overrun us.” She pivoted to look south. “And the Imperials chasing us from the shore are all somewhere in that area and we know they’re trying to push west to block our way to Marida. We’ll have to aim north of west to try to thread the needle between the advancing forces, go as fast as we can, and hope.” She shivered as another gust of cold wind howled past them.