Blood of Dragons

by Jack Campbell

  She paused, staring at her ammunition supply. Each magazine for her pistol held fourteen rounds. There were a little more than fifty loose cartridges left in the boxes. Far, far too few for the situation they were stuck in.

  A rifle shot hit the cliff face close behind her, spraying fragments of stone and dust.

  She took a second to look around, seeing the rock she had leaned against was big and tall enough to protect their right side. To the left, where Jason rested, a smaller cluster of rocks provided obstacles and cover, but could be climbed over with considerable difficulty. Directly in front of her and Jason was a tilted slab of stone that rose to a bit more than waist height at the highest. The cliff face at their backs was close to vertical, a wall of rock rising behind them. It wasn’t a perfect defensive position, but it could have been a lot worse.

  The rifle fire had stopped. Kira raised herself up enough to look. She could see legionaries gathering out of pistol range, obviously not ready to attack immediately. For the moment, the only nearby motion was that of the closest legionaries wriggling backwards out of range.

  She could finally spare some time for Jason's wound, but there hadn't been any large bandages in the packs of the Imperial scouts. Crouching down with only her eyes and the top of her head exposed so she could keep an eye out for approaching Imperials, Kira pulled off her jacket, then unstrapped her holster and yanked it free. Unbuttoning her shirt as fast as she could, Kira tugged it off, keeping her eyes on the open ground beyond the rocks sheltering her and Jason. She brought out her sailor knife, starting a cut a hand’s-width above the bottom hem of the shirt, and then ripping and cutting all the way around until she had a wide strip of cloth.

  “Wow,” Jason said.

  She spared a moment to look at him. Jason lay partially braced against the rock face behind them, his face drawn with pain, his trouser leg soaked in blood. “What?”

  “You’ve got your shirt off. You look great.”

  Kira stared, frozen in disbelief for a second. Focused totally on the need for fabric for a bandage for Jason, it hadn't even occurred to her to think about what he would see. How could he care about that when he'd been shot? “Are all males insane or is it just you?”

  His smile was tight with pain. “I'm just…welcoming the wonderful distraction.”

  “Oh. If it takes your mind off the hurt even a little, then you're welcome to it.” She shrugged back into her shirt but didn’t take the time to button it again. “Enjoy yourself looking. This is going to hurt worse.”

  Using her knife again, Kira cut away at Jason’s trousers until she could access the wound, trying not to hear his grunts of pain as she worked.

  The bullet’s entry point looked ugly, a hole in the flesh from which blood still sluggishly welled despite the tourniquet. Kira felt around on the other side of Jason’s leg, finding no matching injury. “There isn’t any exit wound. The bullet’s still inside you.”

  “Is that good?” Jason gasped.

  “One less hole to bleed out of,” Kira said. “I didn't see any blood spurting before I tightened the tourniquet, so I don't think the bullet nicked an artery, which is lucky, but there's enough blood that it probably got a vein. I'll need your belt,” she added as she was folding the strip torn from her shirt over and over again until she had a pad of cloth. She had barely finished when Jason offered her the belt he had removed from his trousers. “Thanks. More pain coming, my love. Sorry.”

  Pressing the cloth pad onto the wound, Kira wrapped Jason’s belt around his leg, tightening it over the pad as Jason made noises of pain again. “I'm sorry. There has to be pressure on the bandage.” Pausing only for a moment to catch her breath, she carefully loosened the tourniquet higher up on his leg. “Watch the bandage,” Kira told Jason as she buttoned up her shirt, then strapped the shoulder holster on over it. “We have to let blood into your leg, but if it flows heavily out of the bandage I’ll have to tighten the belt and maybe the tourniquet again. Take one blue pill. Use that little bit of water we have left to wash it down.”

  “A blue pill? Will it knock me out?”

  “It won’t knock you out. It'll make you…happy, and it’ll help with the pain,” Kira told him. Her shirt felt weird, the tattered end fluttering around her waist when she moved. She sat back against the rock protecting their right, looking outward where the legionaries were still gathering. Hot and tired, she left her battered jacket off for the moment. “I keep ruining my clothes.”

  “Your pants are in better shape than mine,” Jason said. He popped a single blue pill into his mouth. “This is the last of the water, Kira. I should let you—”

  “I haven't been shot. Swallow the blasted pill, Jason.”

  Wise enough not to argue further, Jason tilted up the canteen and swallowed. “What are they doing? Are they coming at us again?”

  Kira shook her head. “No. Not yet. How's the bandage doing?”

  “A little blood seeping out. Not a lot. I wish I had a weapon.”

  “You’ve got that survival knife, Jason, and the daggers we took off the scouts. If they come at us in a big rush, it’ll probably come down to hand-to-hand. Anyone who comes over the rocks on our left will be off-balance and having to focus on not falling, so you'll have a good chance to hit them before they can defend themselves. Bev taught you how to use a knife against people wearing steel armor, right?”

  “Yeah,” Jason said. “Unprotected spots, chinks in armor, that stuff. She made me practice.” He tried to smile at her again. “It’s a good thing you looked back when you did.”

  Kira shook her head once more, too tired to feel angry with herself. “I should have been looking back at intervals the whole way. I let myself get too worn out, forgot basic self-protection tactics. If somebody hadn’t called my name, those legionaries would have probably been on us before I knew they were even nearby.”

  He frowned at her. “Somebody called your name?”

  “You didn’t hear? It was a woman. She said ‘Kira’ plain as day. It sounded like she was right behind us.”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Jason said, grimacing as a wave of pain hit. “There wasn’t anybody right behind us.”

  “I know,” Kira said. “Maybe that was how my foresight manifested that time.”

  “It can make voices?”

  “I guess. I’ll have to ask Father when we get home.” The odds of that happening seemed too small to measure, but Kira was determined to keep talking and acting as if it was a real probability.

  She looked down at her hands, realizing that they were covered with Jason’s blood. Kira blinked back tears, which changed to anger.

  Raising both hands, Kira ran them down her cheekbones and chin, painting her face with Jason’s blood.

  “Why’d you do that?” Jason asked, his breathing still too shallow and too quick.

  “So those Imperials will know who they’re dealing with,” Kira said. “They want blood? I’ll give them blood.”

  “You’re scary again, Kira,” Jason said.

  “That’s the idea.” She studied what she could see of the landscape. “I’ve trapped us.”

  “I thought the legionaries had trapped us,” Jason said, his voice lower but steadier as the blue pill’s effects kicked in. His eyes went a little out of focus, then centered on her. “Wow. You really are so beautiful.”

  Knowing that last was the effects of the blue pill talking, Kira just shook her head. “If I'd spotted the legionaries when they were farther off, I might've been able to get us to a better spot to hold them off.” She also might have been able to get them into cover before Jason was hit, but she didn't say that. “I screwed up.”

  “You’re not perfect?”

  She stole a glance his way, seeing that Jason was smiling through his pain. “That’s right. I’m not perfect. You’ve learned my awful secret. You can call off the engagement now if you want,” Kira added as she returned her gaze to the field outside their shelter.

  “Nah. You�
�re still mostly perfect.”

  “Mostly perfect?” Kira heard herself laugh once. “How can you make jokes right now?”

  Jason's face contorted with pain again as he tried to shrug. “It beats screaming in terror, doesn’t it? Which is what I’d be doing if I wasn’t trying to joke about this.”

  “You’ve got a good point.” Kira leaned her head against the rock wall behind her, keeping her eyes on the ground between them and the legionaries. “The Kira you first met couldn’t have done this. I had the physical skills, but I couldn’t have handled the pressure.”

  “The Jason you first met didn’t have the physical skills or the ability to handle the pressure,” he said. “I guess we’ve been good for each other.”

  Kira shook her head. “Says the guy with a bullet in his leg. Hold it. Somebody’s coming.”

  Jason tensed, grasping the survival knife from the boat in one hand and an Imperial dagger in the other. “How many?”

  “Just one.” Kira studied the approaching figure. “Looks like they want to talk.”

  As was sometimes done for a parley, the legionary approaching them didn’t wear a helmet, so there was no plume to help identify rank. But he had a sidearm, a pistol holstered at his belt, as well as a longer sword that identified him as an officer. He walked at a steady, unthreatening pace toward Kira, one arm extended to show an open, empty hand, and the other hand grasping a short pole bearing the traditional parley flag, white with a wide blue band around the edge. Kira watched him approach until she could make out the insignia of a major. “That’s close enough!” she called, raising her pistol to emphasize her words.

  The major stopped. “Your position is hopeless. If you surrender, mercy will be shown.”

  Worried about snipers, Kira leaned out just enough for her face to be seen as she shouted her reply so that the legionaries farther off would hear it. “This isn’t the first time a woman in my family has been told her situation is hopeless! I don’t have my mother’s banner with me but I do have her blood in me!”

  “It is senseless to throw away your life,” the major called.

  “The only lives being thrown away will be those of your legion,” Kira yelled. “I will fight to the death, and then my mother will avenge my death! Palandur will become a crumbling, lifeless ruin just as Marandur is! The Empire will never again threaten others! Am I worth that, Major?”

  The major paused before replying. “We know the boy was wounded. If you surrender, I give my word that he will be treated by healers and set free.”

  Kira laughed, trying not to let her fear and tension be heard in the sound. “Do you think I know nothing about the Empire? Maxim can revoke your word on a whim! Your prince is a coward and a liar! I’ll make you a deal, Major. Send Maxim out here to meet me. Your brave prince against a seventeen-year-old girl. No one else has to die.”

  The major shouted his reply. “I'm trying to save your life, Lady Kira! As well as the life of the boy! As you said, no one else has to die!”

  “I will not live a slave to the Empire!” Kira yelled. “If you want me, you’ll have to take me the hard way!” She felt scared, and angry, and that inspired more words to hurl at the Imperials, because she wanted them to be scared, too. “But even if you kill me, that won’t be the end of this. Once night falls I’ll be coming for you, and for all of your legionaries! Are you ready for that, Major? Is your legion ready for that? Because I’m really, really hungry!”

  Kira stood up so the legionary could see her face clearly, blood smeared on both cheeks and her chin. She imagined her eyes looked maleficent within that blood mask, and she drew back her lips in a snarl that promised more than any mere mortal threat.

  The major took a step back, just as if she had struck at him with a sword.

  No shots rang out before Kira dropped into cover again. Imperials could never be trusted to abide by the rules of parley, but apparently this time they were.

  “Yeah,” Jason said. “Scary. What’s your mom going to do when she hears you did that?”

  Kira shrugged, watching as the major hastened back toward the rest of the legionaries. “I’ve resigned myself to the fact that if the Imperials don’t kill me out here, my mother will kill me when I get home.”

  “If I was one of those legionaries, I’d be really reluctant to attack you.”

  “Our lives are on the line,” Kira said. “I’ll use any weapon I can.” She saw movement and let out a slow, calming breath. “Here they come. I’ll take out as many as I can with my pistol.”

  “I’ll take any who come over these rocks,” Jason said, grimacing again as he shifted position, readying himself, his knives ready.

  Kira put her jacket back on, readying for the fight. She made sure her spare magazine was close by, the boxes of extra cartridges within easy reach, as well as an imperial dagger and her sailor knife. She knelt behind the rock, steadying her pistol on it with both hands as she aimed, waiting until the Imperials came into range.

  They were spread out in a line centered on her position, walking toward her, rifles at ready. About forty of them, aiming to overrun her and Jason in a mass assault that would result in casualties for the Imperials but could also end the fight quickly. “Amateurs would be running already and tired when they got to us,” she said to Jason, talking to calm her nerves. “These guys won’t start running until they’re within pistol range.”

  She smiled, feeling the tightness and stress behind the grin. “But Aunt Alli personally made this pistol for me. It’s like a piece of jewelry. They’re going to be surprised by how far out it can hit a target.”

  The legionaries were in full combat uniform, which meant helmet plumes for the officers and senior enlisted. Kira could see the major at the center of the line, leading the attack. Partway to the right was a captain, and partway to the left a centurion. Master Mechanic Alli had been urging the army of the Bakre Confederation to modernize their uniforms, to reflect the changes in a world where every soldier carried a rifle, but no army in all the world had yet made such changes. Finally free to change since the fall of the Great Guilds, the militaries of the world still clung as much as possible to what had always been.

  Kira aimed carefully at the major. He wasn’t dodging yet, just walking forward at an even pace, an example of steadiness and courage to the legionaries following him into the attack. She hated having to shoot such a man, she hated having to shoot anyone, but he and the other Imperials had left her no choice.

  She had practiced a lot, and knew how far she could hit a target, especially such an easy target.

  Exhaling slowly, Kira squeezed the trigger.

  The pistol bucked as it fired, the brass from the cartridge ejecting and flying off to one side of Kira.

  A moment later, the major staggered, stumbled, and fell forward.

  Kira was already aiming at the centurion, her second shot going off as the Imperials were still absorbing the hit on their leader.

  Her pistol crashed again, and Kira shifted her aim to the captain.

  The centurion spun around, falling to one side.

  “If you want them to keep charging,” Sergeant Bete had told her, “take down the ones in back first. If you want to stop them, hit the ones in the lead first.”

  “You got it, Sergeant,” Kira breathed as her third shot fired.

  The captain had just gestured for the legionaries to begin running when Kira’s bullet knocked him backwards.

  If she had just panicked and begun firing randomly and wildly, the Imperials would easily have swamped her. But Kira had been through drills like this a hundred times, had faced a dragon charging straight at her, so she kept aiming carefully at anyone who seemed to be a leader, anyone who was charging ahead of the others, taking them down one by one, the fall of those in the front hindering the movements of those coming on behind. The legionaries fired back as they ran, their barely aimed shots striking the rocks or the cliff face behind Kira.

  Protected from the attackers' fire by
the rock before her, Kira tracked her shots across the front of the assault, hitting the foremost legionaries from one end of the line to the other, then began swinging her aim back again, her mind focused totally on her targets and her task.

  The slide on her pistol stayed back, the charging legionaries only a few lances away. Kira ejected the empty magazine, loaded her spare in a single movement, flipped the slide forward to load another round and fired twice, dropping two legionaries directly before her, others getting tangled in the fall of the leaders. The legionary line had tightened down into a single mass aimed at Kira’s and Jason’s position, making them a concentrated target impossible for Kira to miss as she stood, backing against the cliff face, firing again and again.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw a legionary clamber over the rocks on the left side and catch Jason's dagger in the throat. Another legionary followed, grappling with Jason as Jason slid his knife along one side of the legionary’s breastplate until the blade slipped into the gap between the front and back armor and then into the side of the Imperial soldier. Jason yelled angrily as he stabbed the soldier again and again.

  They were swarming over the rock in front as Kira switched to a one-handed grip, shooting the nearest legionary in the face as she swept up the Imperial dagger she had left ready for use and swung it at the eyes of another soldier, who flinched back. Screaming with rage and defiance, she fired again, following up with a stab that left her dagger in an Imperial neck.

  Jason stabbed a third legionary in the gap under the arm, driving his blade deep into the soldier’s upper body.

  Their leaders gone, the legionaries before Kira reeled back. No longer thinking, just fighting for her life, she lunged after them, picking up her sailor knife, but they scrambled over the rock and ran, pausing only to grab the rifles of the fallen and carry them away. Kira fired at one of the retreating legionaries, seeing the soldier fall, then tried to shoot another.

  Her pistol was empty.

  Kira turned to see that Jason’s opponent was being pulled to safety by two other legionaries, the pair carrying their comrade and an extra rifle each as they joined in the retreat.