Blood of Dragons

by Jack Campbell

  “I'll try to be both. How are you?”

  “Pretty tired. Hungry.”

  Jason twisted his head away, exposing his neck to her. “Do you need a drink?”

  She wondered if the intensity of her glare would actually burn him. “You are going to pay for that when we get home, Sir Demon of Urth. But for now, we can’t lie around making very bad attempts at jokes. We can’t keep going up this gully or we might run into those scouts ahead of us. We’ll climb up that north side and see what we can of what’s ahead.” Kira rolled to her feet, using her grip on the nearest rock to help her up. She held out one hand. “Come on, Sir Demon. The fight isn’t over.”

  Jason grasped the offered hand as he pulled himself to his feet. “Lead on, Lady Lancer.”

  “Everyone thought it would be impossible to hold that last wall at Dorcastle,” her mother had said during a rare sharing of memories about that battle. “But sometimes, Kira, you have to ignore the odds and just keep fighting. Even when it seems hopeless. Just keep fighting.”

  Kira started up the north side of the gully, determined to keep fighting.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The north side of the gully offered a view of a labyrinth of gulches and ravines and gorges filling the area between jagged peaks rising to the south and west.

  “No,” Jason said.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Kira said. “We have to head for that gap to the north.”

  They made their way along the top of a ridge that meandered between steep-sided gullies. Jason squinted at the sun, which had settled close to the tops of the peaks to the west. “At least it’ll be dark again in another few hours. You know, Kira, no matter what else happens, we can be sure we threw a monkey wrench into Maxim’s plans.”

  “You mean a manki wrench?” Kira asked.

  “No, monkey.” Jason laughed quietly. “On Earth they’re called monkey wrenches. I don’t know why. Monkeys are primates, sort of like little people,” he explained. “Only with long arms, and little heads, and big feet and hands, and sometimes a tail, and they’re completely covered with hair.”

  “That sounds revolting.”

  “Not really. They’re sort of cute,” Jason said.

  “So manki wrenches are named for no known reason after what must be the strangest creature on Urth,” Kira said.

  “Some creatures on Earth are a lot stranger than monkeys,” Jason said. “Like platypuses. They’re sort of like ducks, and also like beavers, and they have poison spurs on their feet and they lay eggs but they’re mammals.”

  Kira frowned at him, sure that Jason had to be making this up. “Paddlepuses.”

  “Platypuses.”

  “I suppose the Greek gods have pet paddlepuses.”

  “No,” Jason said. “Platypuses don’t come from Greece. They come from Australia, down south.”

  “Down south. Is Austraya near that Oz place?”

  “It’s funny you should ask that, because Australia is also called Oz,” Jason said.

  “So you get to Austraya by going to Kansas first, like that Dorothy of Gale you told me about?”

  “Uh…”

  “Jason, you told me that Oz is imaginary,” Kira said.

  “It is, but, uh, look, Australia is a real place with a lot of weird animals. Like kangaroos.”

  “Congaroos?”

  “Yes,” Jason said. “Kangaroos are big animals that always walk on their hind legs, but they have really big feet and big tails, so they don’t actually walk or run because they jump all the time instead.”

  Kira shook her head as she carefully made her way down a steep drop. “Jason, stop it.”

  “Stop what?”

  “Making up imaginary places and animals to distract me from the situation we’re in. I really appreciate the effort and your intent, but stop.”

  “I’m not making them up!” Jason protested. “They’re real!”

  “Like Kansas.”

  “Yes! Kansas is real!”

  “And Dorothy of Gale?”

  “No, she’s not real.”

  “And Oz.”

  Jason shook his head. “Oz is also not real.”

  “So Austraya isn’t real,” Kira said.

  “Yes, it is!”

  “You said Austraya is Oz, and you said Oz is imaginary. That’s not a hard logic trail to follow,” Kira pointed out. “That means those weird paddlepuses and congaroos are also imaginary.”

  He stared at her, then back down at the ground they were walking over. “You know what? You’re right.”

  “What are you upset about?”

  “I’m not upset!” Jason insisted.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t want to play your imaginary animals game.”

  “It wasn’t an imaginary animals game!”

  She studied him, surprised. “Why are you angry?”

  He looked at her, his posture slumping with something more than weariness. “Myself, I guess. I just realized how alone I was and it made me unhappy and when I tried to pretend I wasn’t unhappy I got angry.”

  “Alone?” Kira wrapped her arms about Jason, holding him tightly. “I’m here. Tell me.”

  Jason shrugged, uncomfortable. “It’s really dumb.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what it is, and we talk about it, and we decide together whether it’s dumb?” Kira said. “If we’re going to hopefully be married someday, maybe it’d be a good idea to practice doing that kind of thing.”

  He shrugged again, but this time as if he was uncertain of his own emotions. “I realized…I’m the only one on this planet who knows a lot of things. I don’t mean science stuff. I mean, like what a platypus looks like. Or how someone from Australia talks. Or how the moon looks from Earth. I can’t share that with anyone. I’m the only one.”

  “Sort of like Mother and being the daughter of Jules?” Kira asked.

  “Not the same, but sort of.”

  “Or like the people who left Urth on the great ship? Knowing they’d never again see that world or the people they had left behind? I’ve thought about that. I’ve wondered why it didn’t bother you more.”

  Jason spread his hands in the age old gesture of helplessness. “I guess I’ve been too caught up in how wonderful it is here. And it is! I mean…you!”

  “Me!” Kira said with exaggerated drama, then laughed.

  “And all the bad stuff I left behind!” Jason added. “But, still…”

  “What about Doctor Sino? Can’t you share those things with her?”

  “She’s busy with important stuff!”

  “Sometimes she probably feels just like you do,” Kira said. “When this is over, I’m going to make sure you travel to Tiaesun and have some time to just talk with Doctor Sino about Urth stuff like paddlepuses and congaroos and Kansas.”

  “What if Queen Sien has Doctor Sino doing something more important?”

  “Then I will have a talk with the queen and make sure she understands how important this is for you, and she will listen to me and you will have time to talk to Doctor Sino.”

  “You can do that, huh?” Jason asked, smiling without a trace of sadness this time.

  “Yeah, I can do that! I’m Lady Kira of Dematr! The daughter of the daughter! Dragon slayer! I’m not going to let my demon love from Urth be unhappy!” She grasped his hand. “Come on. We have to find a place to hide for the night. I don’t like being up on this ridge. The Imperials can spot us too easily on the high parts.”

  “Maybe we should keep walking through the night,” Jason said.

  “We should, but we need to rest a while. If we walk all night we’ll be completely exhausted by morning.”

  They walked until well after sunset before finding a spot where they could rest, huddled in a small side-canyon whose narrow entrance was almost invisible in the dark. The odds of being spotted by legionaries moving in the night were as low as they could manage, but they were far from comfortable. Their stomachs were painfully empty, their water supplies
were once again dwindling, and the heat the rocks had absorbed during the day dissipated too quickly, leaving cold in its wake. Kira opened her jacket and Jason his coat so they could huddle close together, the outer garments draped over them.

  “Sorry,” Jason muttered as his hand brushed Kira’s pistol in the holster under her arm.

  “You’ve been very nice not to complain about that,” Kira said, her head nestled against Jason’s shoulder.

  “Complain about what?”

  “Me wearing my holster. It must really put you off.”

  He didn’t answer for a moment. “Put me off?”

  “Yeah,” Kira said. “Like, it must look intimidating, right? So seeing me wearing it must make you want to stay at arm’s length.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What are you not saying?” Kira asked. “It sounds like there’s something about me wearing this that bothers you. That’s all right. I understand.”

  “It doesn’t bother me. I, uh, like it.”

  She looked more closely at him. “What does that…? Wait. Are you saying that when you see me wearing my holster you like it? Or are you saying that you like it like it?”

  “What?”

  “You know what I’m asking, Jason. Oh, stars above! You do! You think it’s exciting to see me wearing my holster!”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Jason asked.

  “It’s weird, Jason! What is wrong with guys?”

  “It just makes you look…even more interesting! Don’t you think you look good when you’re wearing it?”

  “I… This not about me!”

  “You also look good in your uniform,” Jason said. “With your sword and boots and all.”

  “Well…yeah,” Kira admitted. “I do kind of like how I look in that. But you said you really liked how I looked in that Greek goddess dress.”

  “You look good in everything,” Jason said.

  “Did my father tell you to say that?” Kira asked, smiling despite the cold as she huddled against him again. “Because that was absolutely the right thing to say. Hey. What’s with the hand?”

  “That really was an accident!”

  “That's all right. I'm just not…in the mood. We're cold, lying on rocks, neither one of us has had a bath in too long…” She held him, thinking. With the legionaries closing in, their chances at this point were extremely slim. This might literally be their last night together. Why keep waiting and deny herself and him something they both wanted?

  Because that felt too much like giving up. Like acting out of despair instead of desire. But she had earlier told Jason of the need to share things. Kira sighed, feeling his heart beating where her head rested. “Jason,” she whispered. “I’m thinking this might be our last night. So maybe we should not put off doing something. But…aside from the cold and the rocks and everything else, it'd make noise. If any Imperials came through and heard us…”

  “Yeah,” Jason agreed in a tentative way.

  “And…that's not my real reason. It's…if we do that, it will feel to me like I’m accepting that we’re doomed. Like tomorrow will be the end for certain.”

  “It’s your decision, Kira. Are you asking me to talk you into it?”

  “No. I don’t want to be talked into it. I feel like talking me into it would be talking me into giving up on the idea that there would be other chances. Under much, much better circumstances. Where we could really enjoy being with each other.”

  “What exactly are you asking me?”

  “If we die tomorrow, will you be angry with me in the next dream? Because tonight I denied you something that we both wanted?”

  “If you really wanted it tonight,” Jason whispered in reply, “you wouldn’t be asking me that. I mean, your other reasons are good ones, but…yeah. It'd feel like okay, we're gonna die, let's get it over with. I don't want that, either. I mean, I want you,” he said, fumbling with the words. “I want you so much it hurts, Kira, but I don’t want you to do it because you feel guilty or scared or hopeless or like you owe me something. I’d hate to, uh, go into the next dream feeling guilty for having made you go through with something you weren’t ready for.”

  “I love you,” Kira whispered, feeling immensely safe in his arms as she fell into exhausted slumber.

  She woke to a sense that something was wrong. “Jason? How long have I been asleep?”

  “Most of the night.”

  “You were supposed to wake me for my watch!” Kira sat up, shivering in the pre-dawn cold and closing her jacket. “Did you stay up all night?”

  “I catnapped,” Jason said. “I really did get some good rest, and you needed as much sleep as I could give you.”

  “You shouldn’t have.” She kissed him. “Thank you. Are you going to be okay?”

  “You said okay.”

  “Yeah. Great. I said okay. Did you get enough rest?”

  “Yes,” Jason said, and he did seem to be doing all right to Kira’s eyes.

  Breakfast was another mouthful of water for each of them. Kira’s stomach only growled slightly, as if no longer believing that its protests would produce any food to fill it.

  Once out of the canyon, Kira gazed around from their slightly elevated perch, watching for any signs of movement. “Did you hear anything last night?” she asked Jason.

  “Yeah. Thunder. Way off in the distance.”

  “Thunder? Which way?”

  Jason hesitated, then swung his arm through an arc from south through west and on to north. “With all the echoes from the mountains it could have come from anywhere along there.”

  She squinted up at the sky, where clouds gathered about the highest peaks. “Maybe it was thunder. It could have been gunfire, though. Or artillery fire. Maybe the Imperials are hitting stiffer resistance from the forces of the Free Cities.”

  By the time the sun rose they had reached the gap beyond the riven valley, finding that it connected to a sort of broken plateau, extending off to the west like a slanted table with a surface filled with cracks and slabs of rock jutting upwards. The obstacles were so frequent and so close together that Kira and Jason had to walk single file, Kira leading in hopes that her unreliable foresight would provide warning if any ambushes threatened.

  Aside from the lonely rush of wind about the rocks, the only sound that came to them was that of an occasional distant bird mocking them with a cheery song. Still, that was something, a sign that they were drawing closer to the high valleys where the people of the Free Cities planted crops and pastured their herds.

  “If we find a cow, can we eat it?” Jason asked when Kira told him.

  “We’ll need two cows,” Kira said. “I could eat one all by myself. How are you doing?”

  “Okay. And I’m following you, so the view is great.”

  “Try to pay attention to something besides my rear end. Legionaries could be anywhere around us.”

  As the sun neared its highest they drew close to where the broken plateau ended in a low ridge. Kira paused, opening the only canteen that still had water in it. “Lunch,” she told Jason, before taking a swig that filled her mouth and left an equal amount for Jason.

  He drank his share, gazing morosely into the nearly empty canteen. “Do you know what these mountains need?”

  “What do these mountains need?” Kira asked, her eyes on the ridge ahead of them.

  “Taco trucks.”

  “I’ll talk to Mother about that,” Kira said, wondering what taco trucks were. She felt her Mage powers stirring restlessly inside of her. What was causing that? Kira blinked, trying to clear a haze from her eyes as she swung her gaze across the plateau.

  The haze was only there when she looked over the ridge before them.

  It was dark and getting darker.

  “Blazes!” Kira yanked out her pistol and scrambled toward the crest of the ridge, Jason following after a moment of surprise.

  “What is it?”

  “My foresight! Don't make any more noise!” When ne
arly at the crest, Kira dropped down and cautiously advanced a little farther until she could see down the opposite side.

  Legionaries. Coming this way, their dark red uniforms standing out clearly against the landscape, armored breastplates and helms polished so they shone. Walking about a lance-length apart, perfectly spaced, their eyes sweeping the ground ahead of them, grasping rifles that looked somehow even deadlier for the skilled way they were being handled. Kira stared, taking in the details. She knew how military units moved. She had been part of the Queen’s Own Lancers, the elite of Tiae’s cavalry. That made it all too easy for her to assess the deadly competence with which the legionaries handled themselves, and in the way they responded quickly and surely to the hand gestures that silently conveyed orders from their centurions and officers.

  They were moving so quietly that if Kira hadn’t been warned by her foresight they would have come over the ridge almost face to face with her before she knew legionaries were close by. As it was, she had only a couple of minutes to act.

  Her mother and father had defeated soldiers like this. Could she?

  “They look tough,” Jason breathed in her ear.

  “They are,” she barely whispered back, “and there’s at least half a cohort out there.” Kira studied the path of the legionaries and how fast they were approaching, then slid back a little to hide herself completely and view the terrain around her and Jason. It didn’t take a military genius to see that the nearest rocks capable of hiding her and Jason were so far off that they’d never reach cover before the legionaries crested that ridge and spotted them.

  “What can we do?” Jason asked, looking around frantically. He had his knife in his hand, a pathetic weapon to face the legionaries with in the open.

  “We have to hide right here,” Kira said. “If that doesn’t work, we’re dead.”

  “How do we hide right here?”

  “There’s a spell,” Kira said. “Just about every Mage can do it. It makes you invisible.”

  “Like that guy who hit me in Kelsi?” Jason asked. “You can do that?”

  “I hope so,” Kira said. “Another Mage can tell where you are, but no one without Mage powers can, and I didn't see any Mages with those legionaries. I should have practiced this!”