Blood of Dragons

by Jack Campbell

  Should she wake Jason and get them moving right now? Kira looked upward at the stars, judging that it was barely past midnight. Jason had hardly slept at all. He needed some rest or he wouldn’t be able to keep going. But if the legions caught up with them…

  Maybe it was foolish guilt at the idea of denying Jason the rest that she had already taken, but she decided to let Jason sleep a while longer.

  Kira closed her eyes, letting loose the bonds she used to suppress her Mage powers. She quested silently, without moving, those Mage senses reaching across distances in search of any sign of other Mages. Mages in the hire of the Empire who would be accompanying the legions searching for Kira and Jason, or Mages aiding her mother and father, trying to locate Kira before the Imperials could seize her again. But she felt nothing and drew back her senses, locking them behind the strongest barriers she could create within herself.

  She wished her lack of contact meant that no other Mages were close. But the same methods she used to hide herself could by used by any Mage. They could be close but still undetectable by her Mage powers.

  Her Mage powers.

  Kira shivered, but it had nothing to do with the cold breeze that swept among the rocks. She kept remembering the moment that wasn’t there. The moment between the time when she had been staring at the lock of her prison’s door, and when she was standing over the unconscious bodies of the guards outside that prison. The outcome had been what she had wanted, but what if it hadn’t been? She couldn’t recall anything of the fight. The idea that she had been doing something so complicated without being aware of it was deeply disturbing. So disturbing that she had made light of Jason's worries so that he wouldn't press her on it. What might she do next time, if there was a next time?

  The only thing she could be fairly sure of was that the blackout was tied in with the use of her Mage powers. Which meant she had to reserve them for the worst emergencies. And keep them as tightly under control as possible the rest of the time. Jason was already worried about her Mage powers. So was everyone else who knew of them, but Jason was more concerned than others. Maybe that was because his knowledge from Urth, so useful when it came to the Mechanic arts, offered him no guidance when it came to the Mage arts he often called “magic.” But what Jason called magic had no rules, allowing whatever anyone wanted, whereas the Mage arts had very restrictive rules.

  Including the apparently ironclad rule that anyone capable of viewing the world from the perspective of a Mage could not also work as a Mechanic. A rule that had never been broken until Kira had displayed both abilities.

  Had the blackout been somehow related to that?

  Kira stood, looking out across the Northern Ramparts. The mountains loomed dark and featureless against the night sky. The moon was sinking toward them, chased by the Twins which most people of Kira’s world had long believed to be tiny versions of the moon. Instead, they were two parts of the great ship that had brought people to this world along with animals and fish and birds and every kind of vegetation. Jason had told her that he had yet to see anything on Dematr that didn’t appear to have originated on Urth.

  But he also said that the coal used to fuel boilers had come from vast amounts of ancient vegetation, buried and compressed over ages of time. Which meant Dematr had once been a thriving world. What had happened? And had anything more than plants existed before that disaster? Had there been people of some kind? “The clues are here,” Jason had told her. “Buried in ancient sediments. When you develop the right technology, you’ll be able to figure out what happened.”

  And then he had paused, and smiled at her, and said, “I mean, when we develop the right technology, we’ll be able to figure out what happened.”

  Kira looked down at Jason where he slept, brushing errant strands of hair from her eyes to see him clearly. He was here, he was part of Dematr now, in great part because of her. There were times when she felt guilty about that, especially times like this when Jason’s life was in danger. But he had never expressed a single word of regret for not returning to Urth on the ship that had brought him here. Once she worked her way through all of Jason’s odd references and sayings, they all came down to a sense of wonder that he had been given the opportunity to be here.

  With her.

  Kira knelt beside Jason. “Don’t worry,” she barely whispered, not wanting to disturb his sleep, “we’ll get out of this.”

  * * *

  Kira finally woke Jason when she thought he had slept as long as she had. She still had not detected any sign of Imperial presence nearby, but a feeling that danger was getting closer and closer had grown in her as the night wore on.

  They set off down the path once more, drinking the dregs of water and brandy from their canteens and chewing on the last pieces of iron rations. “Maybe we should try to ambush a couple more Imperial scouts,” Kira commented after swallowing her last bite.

  “Was that a serious suggestion?” Jason asked.

  “Yes. That seems to be our only chance to get our hands on high-energy food,” Kira said. “Though if I never have to drink watered brandy again it will still be too soon.” She studied the landscape as pre-dawn twilight began to brighten the sky. “But it would be a bad idea. The scouts could be using other paths to get ahead of us. Some might already be ahead of us. Some Imperial columns might be moving a lot faster than others and trap us while we’re waiting to hit the scouts ahead of another column. It’s just too risky.”

  Kira paused, staring to the northwest, where some of the highest peaks were already catching the first light of the rising sun. “I saw a glint. I’m sure I did.”

  Jason followed her gaze, anxious. “A glint? Like, off armor?”

  “Maybe. But it looked more like glass reflecting light. Someone with a far-seer on that peak, looking this way.” She rubbed her eyes, thinking. “They won’t be able to see us yet. Not at this distance with us still in the dark. The morning sun will make it hard to look this way for a while. But who are they? If they are Free Cities scouts we want them to see us. If they’re Imperials, we want to hide.”

  “How could the Imperials have gotten so far ahead of us?” Jason protested.

  “A flying column, sent forward as fast as possible along the best routes with spare horses for each rider,” Kira explained. “Leave the horses at the base of the height and send a scout team up with far-seers and a far-talker. It’s the sort of thing I might have been ordered to do as a Lancer.”

  “Do we keep trying to head northwest?” Jason asked.

  Kira shook her head, feeling tired. “I don’t know. What do you think?”

  “If there’s a chance the Imperials are already northwest of us, why not head as close to straight west as the terrain allows?”

  She thought about that, then nodded. “Why not? Let’s see how close to west we can stick to. Keep an eye out for ambushes, Jason.”

  It was probably inevitable that soon after reaching that decision they ran into a series of knife-edged ridges running almost north to south, forcing Kira and Jason to climb up one side of each ridge, then down the other. By the time they cleared the last of those the sun was high overhead, they were both once more exhausted, and Kira’s throat felt like the desert wastes around Ringhmon. “We need to climb,” she rasped to Jason.

  “Huh? I thought—”

  “We have to be able to see where we’re going! And that means getting high enough to have a decent view of the terrain ahead!” Kira pointed to a nearby slope. They struggled up it until able to see a decent distance to the southwest, west, and northwest.

  “There,” Kira said, trying to catch her breath. “See? Over that high area and beyond is a valley that looks like it leads into another valley.” She stopped to look toward the peak where she had caught the flash of light, wondering if whoever was up there was looking at her and Jason at this moment. “All right?”

  “Sure,” Jason said, bent over, hands on his upper legs as he rested. “Whatever you say. It’s downhill.�
�

  The valley proved to be the largest open, and sort of flat, area they had encountered. Kira paused where it began, her pistol in her hand, scanning the valley and the heights around it. “See that big patch of green? There may be water. We’re going to approach it slowly and carefully.” Kira had to stop speaking for a moment, trying to generate enough saliva to wet her throat so she could speak again. “Watch for ambushes.”

  “And don’t fall,” Jason muttered, his face haggard.

  “If you have a better idea-!”

  “Just trying to make a joke.”

  “Sorry,” Kira mumbled.

  “S’okay.”

  As they neared the area where green grass and a few trees grew, the sound of water trickling along rock made their slow pace agonizing, but Kira held herself to a cautious walk, her pistol ready. Jason did the same, his eyes studying everything around them, one hand holding his knife ready for use.

  Finally they reached the first of the trees. Kira stopped them there, carefully looking up into the branches of the small trees for anyone hiding among them. “Go ahead through the grass,” she breathed to Jason. “I’ll cover you.”

  “I’m bait again?” he said, nodding.

  “You’re our scout,” Kira corrected him.

  Jason grinned. “That sounds a lot better.”

  He moved through the grass, looking ahead and from side to side. Kira held her pistol in both hands, aiming to one side of Jason and then the other.

  Jason paused, looking to one side.

  The hand holding his knife came around just before two Imperial scouts who had been concealed in the grass leaped to their feet on either side of Jason. Kira saw Jason continuing to turn to his right and swung her sights onto the scout to his left, firing, lining up her sights again, firing, then swinging her aim back to the right as the scout she had targeted fell.

  Jason was grappling with the second scout, making it too dangerous to fire. Kira ran forward as the echoes from her two shots reverberated off the sides of the heights around the valley. She pulled out her dagger while the second scout tried to break free of Jason to face her. But Jason hung on until Kira got behind the scout and rammed the dagger into the scout’s back, the lightweight leather armor offering little protection against a powerful thrust.

  As the scout jerked with pain, Jason got his hand free and plunged his knife into the scout’s chest.

  Kira paused only for a moment to ensure the scout was falling, then ran to the one she had shot, slowing to take the last couple of steps slowly, her pistol ready.

  That scout was already dead, though. One of Kira’s shots had caught her in the side of the head.

  Kira’s hand shook as she holstered her pistol, then cleaned her dagger blade on the grass.

  “Their canteens are empty,” Jason said. He was kneeling beside the scout who had been stabbed. “There’s just one piece of iron ration in this backpack.”

  “They must have been expecting to be relieved by another set of scouts soon,” Kira said, checking the pack on the scout she had shot. “No food here at all. Get to the water. We have to fill our bottles and canteens fast and get out of here. The sound of my shots will draw every Imperial who heard them.”

  She led the way through mud to where water welled from a cliff face, running down the rock to form a decent-sized pool. She hesitated before burying her face in the water, not knowing exactly what was bothering her.

  Jason stopped beside her, looking down at the water. “Why didn’t they have full canteens?” he wondered.

  Kira frowned as his question crystallized her own concerns. “Yeah. Why not?”

  “Maybe they poisoned the water. That’s what would happen in a game.”

  “Maybe they did,” Kira agreed. “Imperials love poison. Let’s fill our stuff using what’s coming down the cliff.”

  She discovered that her bottle had cracked at some point, as had one of Jason’s. They filled their one remaining bottle and all four canteens, taking drinks from the canteens as they filled at what felt like a far too slow rate. “Why didn’t they have guns?” Jason asked Kira. “The scouts, I mean. The other two also only had knives.”

  “Because their job is to remain unseen,” Kira said. “The Imperials only issue knives to their scouts because they’re afraid that if the scouts had guns, they’d use them when they didn’t have to and tip off anyone within earshot that a legion was near.”

  “How do the scouts feel about that?”

  “From what I’ve heard, they’re proud of it,” Kira said. “Silent death or something like that. There, our last canteen is full. Let’s go, Jason. As fast as we dare.”

  “Along the low ground or up higher?” Jason asked.

  “With more scouts likely close by we’d be too exposed on that high ground. We stay low.” As they trotted through the grass, Kira looked over at Jason. “Good job spotting them.”

  “I only spotted one of them,” Jason said.

  “That was enough. They were hoping both of us would pass by so they could get me and then hit you from behind.”

  “I wish they’d had more food. How close do you think the two scouts coming to relieve them are?”

  “Too close,” Kira said.

  After a while she dropped their pace to a walk, afterwards alternating one hundred steps trotting with one hundred steps walking. The valley they were in gave way to another, then a third, linked like pearls on a string, the land tending downward, wild grass growing higher. Kira looked back and saw their path through the grass marked by trampled stalks, the route as clear as if it had been painted with bright colors.

  At the end of the third valley, Kira began leading them through a tangle of gullies between two mountains. As they were working their way through one gully, out of the corner of her eye Kira saw Jason drop to his knees, then to all fours, his breathing heavy, his head down.

  Kira stumbled to a halt, her legs shaking with tiredness, and collapsed to a sitting position beside Jason. “You should have said something.”

  “Just give me a minute,” Jason got out.

  She pulled the cork from their remaining bottle, took a long drink, then passed it to Jason. “We need food, but at least we’ve got water.”

  He raised his head enough to drink. “We can’t keep this up unless we find food.”

  “I know. Can you walk over this way? See? I want to get us behind those rocks in case someone comes along.” Kira helped Jason get to his feet. They supported each other off to one side, where Jason fell to lie on his back. She retraced their steps, looking for any signs that had left. The terrain in the gully was mostly rocks and hard dirt which didn’t pick up many footprints or scuffs, but Kira tried to rub out a couple of places that might have offered clues to their passage before she went back behind the rocks to fall down next to Jason.

  Her mind kept telling her that they needed to get moving again, but her body kept saying that rest was a necessity. Jason was clearly exhausted, so even if she had been able to get to her feet again, he probably wouldn’t be able to move for a while. And there was no way she would leave him.

  Neither one of them talked, too worn out to fashion thoughts or words.

  Kira wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she heard the soft tread of a foot and brought out her pistol, aiming back toward the main route through the gulley. It wasn’t much more than a lance away from where Kira and Jason lay, but invisible to them behind the tumbled rocks.

  She put her finger to her lips to warn Jason to silence.

  More slight sounds could be heard on the other side of the rocks. Kira eased her finger to rest just above her trigger.

  “They came through here,” someone whispered. It sounded like the accent of someone from the northern Empire, perhaps from around Pandin or Fornadin. “See that mark?”

  “Yeah,” another replied in the same accent. “Heading west. They must not have drunk from that pool. If they had, they wouldn’t have made it this far.”

&nb
sp; “Somebody fell here. The boy, I’m thinking.”

  “Yeah,” the second Imperial scout repeated. “He’s getting tired.”

  “How much farther do you think she’ll drag him?”

  “Until he gives out or she gets hungry enough. I wonder if he even knows he’s just emergency rations for her?”

  “Probably not. They say she can take control of a man, make him happy while she drains him. I’d bet that’s why he fell. She’s likely been taking a drink now and then from him.”

  “My dagger has a silvered blade. If she comes at me, she’ll get it in the heart.”

  “Char had a dagger with a silvered blade. Didn’t do him much good back in that vale.”

  “We’ll come up behind them. She’ll never see me. Let’s go. We should catch them soon.”

  Kira heard the faint sounds of the scouts rising to their feet and heading on up the gulley. She finally looked down at Jason again, surprised to see him smiling crookedly at her.

  He mouthed words without sound. “Emergency rations?”

  She curled her upper lip to bare her canines at him.

  Nothing should have been funny at the moment, but it was in a darkly humorous way.

  Kira felt her head and body slump as she considered their situation. Imperial scouts were ahead of them. The legions would be coming on behind. And when a legion column went through this gully on a search mission, they would check behind every rock, because that was what legionaries did. Thorough, methodical, and relentless. Hiding wouldn’t be an option.

  She raised herself up carefully, ensuring that the scouts had indeed moved on, then lowered herself next to Jason again. Putting her mouth near his ear, she spoke as quietly as she could. “How long until you can move?”

  “I can move now,” Jason whispered in reply.

  “For how long?”

  “I don’t know.” He turned his head to look into her eyes. “As long as you need me to.”

  “Next time you’re approaching your limit, you tell me,” Kira ordered. “Don’t keep going until you drop. I don’t need hero-Jason. I need smart-Jason.”