“That’s a bit of a stretch.”
“Is it? Pete ever tell you the story about that thing attacking his buddy’s Apache? These dragons don’t discriminate, bro. They’re a threat to the coalition’s interests, which means they need to be eliminated. And that’s what we do.”
“You haven’t seen them in action,” I said. “Their scales are like iron plating. They can flatten buildings with a flick of their tails, freeze men solid with their breath. And we’re going to be fighting them on their turf—a mountain fortress at over fourteen-thousand feet.”
Segundo turned toward the team. “Yo, Dean!” he called to the senior weapons sergeant. “Can you bring that container over here?” As Dean lugged the big plastic container over, Segundo said, “Parker gave us the mission details, and we packed appropriately. Insulated suits in snow camouflage and…”
Dean arrived and pried off the container’s lid. When I looked inside, I could only shake my head.
“Ta-da! Flamethrowers,” Segundo announced, pulling out one of the sleek black weapons. “That’s how you fight an ice blast, baby.”
By now the rest of the team had gathered behind Segundo, all of them watching me, awaiting my decision. I could see their determination to stand with their captain, to go to battle as a team. Nothing I said was going to dissuade them. It reminded me of my devotion to my own captain when I was a weapons sergeant before OCS. I would have done anything for him.
“All right,” I said. As the team began to shout and pump their fists, I added, “But we’re splitting. Half the team will come with me. The other half will stay and defend the compound.” I turned to Segundo. “Pick the teams. I’ll update the mission plan, then hold a briefing. This is going to be a nighttime raid, and we’ve got a long hike ahead of us. We need to leave within an hour.”
“You got it, Wolfe.” Segundo paused mid salute and cocked his head. “Wolfe … Hey, that really suits you now.”
17
The night wind whipped against my face as I pushed back the hood of my camo suit and peered over the snow-encrusted boulder. I didn’t need night-vision goggles or binoculars to make out our target. The stone fortress was set in the crags against a mountain top, its defensive walls rising forty feet—almost as tall as the half-frozen waterfall that crashed down higher up and whose waters eventually ran through the fortress itself.
In the guard towers, I spotted mercenaries in winter gear manning heavy guns, while others patrolled the tops of the walls. Their numbers didn’t appear especially robust. I raised a handheld radio to my mouth. “Quiet here,” I said. “How’s it looking from your positions?”
“Same,” Segundo answered. “I don’t think we were spotted coming up.”
Segundo had placed himself on my split team, putting Mick, our intelligence officer and third in command, in charge of the group that had stayed behind. In addition to me and Segundo were our two weapons sergeants, our senior engineer, and Hotwire, our senior commo sergeant.
“And no new chatter,” added Hotwire, who was tapped into the enemy’s radio frequency.
That didn’t seem right, not for a creature as risk-averse as the White Dragon. Only a day earlier he had been injured and on the run.
I squinted up into the clouds that had blown in around midnight, the lowest layers brushing us with mist. Nafid had warned me a second time about the White Dragon’s sadistic nephew, Ozari, the shifter who patrolled the skies, but I hadn’t seen or heard him during our climb. We had taken the route the scouts had once used. It had kept us on the blind side of the mountain until about twelve-thousand feet, where we’d donned our snow camo suits and made our way over an icy pass, then up through a boulder field. The six of us were now concealed around the south side of the fortress where we’d be concentrating our attack.
“Still not seeing anything overhead,” Segundo said. “You?”
“Nothing,” I confirmed. “Let’s go ahead and get into position.”
I looked back to make sure my senior engineer was coming, then grabbed the cases beside me and crept forward. I’d carried the bulk of our weaponry—almost five-hundred pounds worth—up the mountain with an ease that had both impressed and troubled me, distributing the loads before we’d split up.
After a couple hundred yards, I found a good spot and signaled my engineer over. While I set up the MK19 grenade launcher and M240 machine gun, he primed a set of explosive charges.
“We’re in position,” I radioed.
A minute later Segundo and then Dean, the senior weapons sergeant, answered that they were in position as well.
“You have your assigned sectors. We’ll start laying heat in thirty seconds.”
“Good,” Segundo said, “’cause it’s colder than a witch’s tit up here.”
I stuffed in my ear plugs, gripped the handles of the MK19, and sighted in on the near tower where the mercenaries at the large machine gun still appeared clueless that they were about to be lit up. According to Nafid, no one had ever attacked the White Dragon’s domicile, including the wolves. Maybe that particular danger had diminished in the White Dragon’s mind.
Not that I was complaining.
“Now,” I said, thumbing the trigger. A stream of 40mm grenades thundered from the barrel and detonated around the tower’s heavy machine gun. Mercenaries flew every which way, while their heavy gun canted to one side in a burst of smoke.
My teammates opened up on their targets with 203 launchers mounted to the undersides of their M4s, and the attack became a booming storm.
I switched my aim to the wall adjacent to the tower and sent more of the tennis ball-sized grenades exploding over the heads of the scrambling mercenaries. Hot shrapnel ripped into them and dropped them from sight.
Air support would have been nice, but we had no planes, and the attack helos that had dropped Team 5 couldn’t navigate in the powerful wind currents and vortices at this altitude. As I paused to check my weapon’s feed, I made sure the enemy’s heavy guns with an angle on us were now disabled. They were. But the surviving mercenaries were organizing themselves along the wall, with more arriving. They popped up and down, automatic weapons flashing from their shoulders. Shots began pinging off the boulders around us.
“Keep a steady stream going off above them,” I ordered.
“Eat death, lizard men,” Segundo shouted prior to a fresh hail of grenade fire.
I fired in bursts of four to six grenades, scattering more mercenaries, until my belt was spent. While the others continued firing grenades, I ducked behind cover, stripped off my camo suit, slung a flamethrower and the heavy machine gun over my shoulder, and grabbed the bag of duty my engineer had primed.
“Switch to your guns and pin them as best you can,” I radioed. “I’m heading up.”
“We’ve got you covered,” Segundo said.
I eyed my target, a grate low in the wall through which the river from the waterfall exited. Nafid had told us about it—the one potential weakness in the fortification. I waited for my teammates to begin laying cover fire before setting out.
My legs propelled me nimbly through the boulder field as the intelligence in my animal muscles took over. The occasional bullet snapped past, but they were few and far between. My team was doing its job of keeping the enemy down.
Within a half minute, I was beside the river of frozen-over water that gushed through the grate. Unshouldering everything, I removed the shaped charges from their pack and began mashing them into where the poles of metal disappeared into the wall’s thick stone. When they were all in place, I lined the detonation cord out along the wall. The firing from the mercenaries and my men chattered back and forth, but no rounds were impacting around me.
I waited for the next sustained burst from above before squeezing the detonator. Bang. I returned and ripped the half-dislodged grate the rest of the way from the stone and ice, then slid into the opening on my back.
The tunnel proceeded for ten feet under the wall before ending at another grate.
Removing blocks of primed C-4 from the pack, I pressed the explosives against the ceiling at one foot intervals, starting in the back. When I finished, I measured off the time fuse. With thirty seconds to detonation, I gathered my weapons and hustled a couple hundred feet from the wall. Automatic fire continued to clamor from my teammates’ positions as I took cover behind a boulder.
“Three … two … one,” I whispered.
Red-hot flashes burst from the opening followed by a violent geyser of dust as the lower wall collapsed. With no support, the wall above followed, the vertical section dropping like a demolished building. A handful of mercenaries plummeted too, becoming buried in the cracked and pulverized stone.
Victorious whoops went up from the radio.
“I need you to soften up the inside,” I said into my handheld.
A series of rapid thump-thump-thumps sounded as two of my men switched back to their launchers, lobbing grenades past the collapse and into what I’d identified from the satellite image as a courtyard. I picked up a few screams among the explosions—mercenaries who had arrived to defend the breach. The rest of my team continued to place automatic fire on the walls.
“Wind down the grenades, but keep up the suppressive fire,” I ordered. “We’re going in.”
I stood and raised my fist. The giant wolves that had been crouching in wait burst from their hiding places in fits of barking and charged toward the collapse. The approaching pack—wolves that had journeyed up with us, wolves I now commanded—was awesome to watch. Within moments, the thirty-two of them, including the former Alpha, were storming past me. They clambered up the pile of smoking stones and into the fortress.
I arrived at the top of the collapse to find them already ripping into the surviving mercenaries. I experienced a burning urge to join my pack, to crash into the enemy and sink my teeth and talons into them. But with a trembling effort, I resisted.
Have to stay in control…
I brought the M240 to my shoulder—something I couldn’t have managed for any length of time as Jason Wolfe—and used the high ground to mow down the mercenaries who were taking aim at the wolves. The armor-piercing rounds blew holes through their body armor and flung them back, hot casings cascading down my flexed thighs, clattering to the stones.
More mercenaries poured from a palatial-looking building that took up the far side of the compound, ending at the sheer stone of the mountainside. The fighters were mostly men with wild hair and sun-blackened faces, while the rest were reptilian with scaled snouts and slanted red eyes. Grotesque tails flicked at their backs. These were the kobolds Nafid had told me about.
Though the kobolds put up a more ferocious fight than the men, they were still no match for the wolves plowing into them. Black blood spouted from a pinned kobold’s throat where one of my pack bit down and shook.
Once more I was tempted to join in, but Segundo and Dean hustled up beside me, M4s coughing rounds. The newly arriving mercenaries were so fixated on the rampaging wolves that by the time they noticed us, it was too late. Our firing tapered as the numbers of arriving mercenaries petered out. The wolves circled the corpse-littered courtyard, stopping occasionally to thrash the dying. Two wolves had fallen, I saw. Shot through the sides.
“No more movement on the walls,” Hotwire radioed.
“We’ve cleared the courtyard, but there could be more inside.” I said. “And still no sign of the dragons. Hold your positions in case we need to break contact and retreat. And keep one eye overhead.”
“Yes, sir,” Hotwire replied.
The heavy machine gun still to my shoulder, I descended the collapse and entered the courtyard. Segundo and Dean followed, covering my sides and back. With no one left to maul, the wolves returned to us, their faces blood-drenched and excited. Segundo hadn’t been thrilled about their coming, but now he patted one on the head and told it “Good boy.”
I checked the two fallen wolves, both dead, then signaled my teammates and the rest of the pack to follow me to the palace. I lined us up beside the open door and listened. No sounds from inside, not even breathing. Segundo and Dean filed in behind me, and we covered each third of the room with our weapons.
My eyes absorbed everything at a glance: tall stone pillars, white marble tiles inset with diamonds, a pair of ornate stairways with banisters curving up to a second level, an arrangement of what looked like ice statues. Segundo, slower to process the visual info through his night-vision, gave a grunt of alarm, and a shot echoed from his M4. The head of the nearest statue exploded.
“Damn,” he chuckled, realizing his mistake. “I thought those were people.”
“They are people,” I said, picking up the scent of blood and brain matter. I looked at the other statues: soldiers from various epochs frozen in ice, dozens of them. “Or were. Trophies of the White Dragon, I’m assuming.”
“You think he’s in here?” Segundo asked in a whisper.
I picked up a distinct reptilian smell when I sniffed the air. The kobolds’ scent was similar, but this was warm and living. And where else would the White Dragon have fled to heal?
“We need to assume he is,” I said. “And if he’s still recovering, he’ll probably be in his human form.” I turned to the wolves who had stalked in behind us. “Search the palace,” I said, the command propagating through our unique connection. “Kill any more mercenaries, but no women or children. Come get me if you find Orzu. I don’t want you engaging him.”
The wolves yipped in affirmation and took off, some sprinting up the stairs, others disappearing into rooms farther back in the palace. As they skittered off, a foul current of air streamed past me. I narrowed my gaze into a corridor that appeared to plunge into the mountainside itself.
I swapped my big gun for my flamethrower, signaled Segundo and Dean to do the same, and jerked my head for them to follow. I’d perceived correctly. The corridor ended at a high archway and became a cave.
“He’s back here,” I whispered in the growing stink. “And I was wrong—he’s in his dragon form.”
Segundo thumped his chest. “Let’s Team 5 this mofo and get you home.”
18
The cave tunnel opened into a series of caverns dominated by stalactites and stalagmites and shallow pools of ice. To our left and right were what must have been the mercenaries’ barracks: deep spaces with fire pits, storage lockers, and tossed bedding.
“Place smells like shit,” Segundo muttered.
Grunting in agreement, I filtered out those particular odors to focus on the dragon stench. We proceeded past the barracks. Several wolves joined us, which told me the palace was clear. I ordered them back to act as rear guards in case anyone or anything arrived from the outside.
After another hundred or so yards we stepped into an especially large cavern. I could hear the river running off to our left—but I was honing in on another sound. Beyond a pair of icy stalagmites stretching toward the high ceiling, the rumblings of deep breathing issued from a side cavern.
That was where the dragon stench was originating.
Giving hand signals, I took a position behind one of the pillar-like stalagmites beside the opening, while Segundo and Dean did the same behind the other. I motioned for them to stay put as I slipped around my pillar.
The cavern I peered into was high and deep. Cold wind gusted down through an opening far above, batting my hair. On the cavern’s far side, I could make out what looked like a giant drift of snow and ice. But as my lupine eyes focused, I realized they were treasures: diamonds, ingots of white gold, and other precious metals. I was in some sort of vault.
The rumbling sounded again, this time interspersed by sleepy mutters. The treasure mound rattled and shifted. At the far end of the mound lay a dragon’s head, the glittering scales blending in so well with the white gold and diamonds that I’d missed it at first glance. I examined the head for another moment then, making sure his eyes were closed, moved my gaze down the mound to the creature’s tail. He was curled around the b
ackside of the treasure heap.
“Is it the White Dragon?” Segundo asked when I returned to fill them in.
“Looks and smells like him,” I whispered, taking off my pack. “And he’s damn sure big enough. Might be our lucky day too. He’s asleep. Got himself wrapped around the treasure like it’s a body pillow.”
“He didn’t hear the explosions and all that shooting?” Dean asked.
“Either he’s insulated from the sound back here, or he’s a really deep sleeper.” I opened the pack and removed a coiled steel hawser cable that I’d borrowed from one of the Apaches, each end featuring a reinforced loop. I threaded the cable through one of the loops to create a noose and held it up. “Just need to slip this around his neck and draw it tight.”
“You’ve got cover,” Segundo said, flipping on his flamethrower.
I took the lead as we all stole into the treasure room. I signaled for the men to hang back as we neared a mushroom-shaped stalagmite. It would make a good anchor. Wrapping the end of the cable around the stalagmite’s stem, I forced the noose through the other reinforced loop and drew out the cable until it was taut. I then made my way toward the dragon’s head, tugging on the cable to ensure it wouldn’t slip from its mooring.
I was almost to the dragon when he shifted, creating a small avalanche down the near side of the treasure mound. His eyelids slid open, revealing the translucent plates that covered the black orbs of his eyes. Deep black pupils shifted and narrowed as though focusing in on me. I froze. I could feel Segundo and Dean tensing behind me, fingers on their triggers.
Long seconds passed before the dragon smacked his lips and exhaled in a weary mutter, his body settling back into place. I waited for his eyelid to close completely before resuming my approach.
Within moments I was beside his head, standing in the cold fog that issued from his nostrils. Extending a steady arm, I moved the noose around his snout, then canted the top of the noose back until it cleared the thick ridge of his brow. The dragon’s deep breaths scraped in and out. The challenge would be working the noose beneath his throat, which was pressed flat to the stone floor. That was where I was counting on my animal strength and quickness.
Blue Curse (Blue Wolf Book 1) Page 13