by Peter Fane
53
LATE MORNING OF the next day. A Fel scout squadron in dark green livery came in from the west and landed on the ridge line with a crunch of claw. Neither Anna nor Dagger moved, their eyes mere slits. The scouts looked around for a moment, hands and riding scarves over their mouths, their dragons hissing, then launched eastward, along the Gorge, checking every crag, corner, tree, and shadow. It was three bells after dawn.
Dagger growled.
Lord Fel comes.
No sooner had she had the thought than a vanguard appeared in the Gorge, gliding around the far bend of the Hook, some two dozen middleweights of various colors, dark green pennants streaming from spears and mounts. They were well below her, far to her northwest, the sun in their faces. Carefully, she eased her telescope from her side to examine them more carefully.
Meticulous formation. Perfect gear. The dragons' motion clean, strong, and well-rested. The green of the Gorge lush around their glimmering war gear. A pair of lightweight reds flew at the very front of the vanguard. Their riders wore leather scouting gear and tackle. The majority of the column behind them wore full battle panoply. The sun gleamed off plate and helm. After the vanguard came three flights of mixed heavy and middleweights. At least forty dragons. Green war banners streamed from their chests. Their riders' lances and carbines and helmets shone like mirrors. The column was like a floating river of men and dragons, bristling with spear and steel, soaring silently through the mountain pass.
And then the great Irondusk came around the bend.
Anna trained her telescope on him.
He was massive. Well over fifty paces long. His scales rust-red, like burning bronze, his wings casting a mighty shadow over the streambed below. At least a dozen lightweights flew beneath him, wary for any movement on the ground. On his huge back, Lord Oskor Fel sat in an elaborate commander's war saddle. His posture was perfect, his dark green livery fluttering in the wind. Three pennants of dark green streamed behind him, each marked by the golden, two-headed dragon of House Fel. His helmet was of high silver, a golden plume coursing from its top. A battlesword was sheathed before his saddle. Opposite the sword was a round shield of high silver. He wore a revolver slung beneath his left arm. An ancient, high silver carbine was scabbarded behind his shield, within easy reach. Directly behind him, on his saddle's signal deck, a pair of young signal hands flashed test flags to a flight of lightweights that followed in Irondusk's wake.
Anna lowered her telescope and shot a quick look at the surrounding peaks, crags, and trees.
No other sign of the enemy.
It is time.
Dagger hissed, his tail thrashing.
Moving carefully, she stowed her telescope and slid her lance from its scabbard. She took the point from its sheath in her saddle bag, kissed it, and screwed its socket down over the lance's end. It was razor sharp. She smoothly mounted Moondagger, clipped on, and patted his side.
Her hands were warm. She felt no fear. She pushed her forehead into the back of Dagger's neck, feeling the coiled muscle beneath his warm white scales. He grunted and arched his head against hers. She kissed him on the top of his head, and he growled impatiently.
Anna looked over the plateau's edge. Lord Fel was almost in position. She pulled her goggles down over her eyes.
And then he was exactly where she wanted him. It was happening so fast. But there was no time to think or question or doubt. It was this moment or never.
They launched.
54
SILENCE. THE TOTAL silence of the first moments of free fall.
Then the wind came as they gathered speed, hissing in her ears. Lance tucked tight to her side, snug in her saddle, feet locked firmly in her stirrups, her target below her, utterly unaware, Moondagger's power warm beneath her chest.
Time slowed.
Dagger's wings were furled to his sides, his form perfect as they dropped from the sun. Her lance was steady and weightless in her hands. Her breath was even. Her vision absolutely clear. No reaction from the enemy. None at all. It was as if the convoy flew in slow motion, the occasional flap of dragon wings slow, ponderous, and completely silent, the streaming green pennants frozen in time. She was halfway down the Gorge now.
And still they didn't see her.
55
MOONDAGGER SAW THEM dive, at last.
But he saw it as if he watched from outside himself, as if he watched at a great distance.
They were a spear of pure, silent energy, plummeting from the sun. A glowing meteor, white-hot, unstoppable, a silver star falling against the verdant green of the canyon's towering walls. Utterly united in purpose, strength, and will.
One mind. One being. One force.
Brilliant. Shining. Speed.
56
AT THAT MOMENT, Anna realized that they'd succeed.
It was done. And they would do it.
They were still dropping at Irondusk with unbelievable velocity. And still, there was no reaction from Lord Fel, from his dragon, or from the rest of his entourage. The wind cut Anna's face, hissing like a hurricane. Dagger's form was so clean, their position and angle against the sun so perfect, that none of the enemy riders could see them. And because of their speed, even those who might have noticed them at a distance were too far away to defend their master.
Mere moments now.
57
AND THEN, FROM somewhere deep inside him, Moondagger saw a fierce cry beginning to form, a tangible thing, a shimmering, silver shape of pure energy.
Hold it.
But no. It was wrong to hold it in. Wrong to hide it. Wrong to hold it back.
58
SO SHE UNLEASHED it, all of it. And the cry peeled from her throat and she was roaring.
No words.
Nothing that made sense.
The clean, primal shriek of a knife raptor falling on its prey.
Long and high and utterly pure.
And she was not alone.
Moondagger roared with her, his throat bellowing fury and justice and rage, their voices blending in a savage harmony as they plummeted towards death and triumph.
A warning horn sounded from somewhere, a low moaning through the canyon.
At last Lord Fel looked up. Saw them dropping towards him. Pulled at Irondusk's reins. Too late. They were too close. Irondusk veered slowly away from the green cliffs, towards the center of the chasm. Fel's eyes widened with certain knowledge.
"For the Kingdom!" Anna roared.
Her voice was huge. And in the strange slow time of her attack, she looked into Fel's eyes and saw in them a timeless acknowledgement as old as war itself.
"For the Remain!" she screamed at him.
Impact!
Her lance hit her target perfectly, on his breastplate, just to the left of center.
But it didn't penetrate.
Instead it slid away, tearing his dark green livery to reveal the shimmering shine of indestructible high silver.
No!
But they were already past him. Then Dagger hooked Fel with his rear claws—the force incredible, speed barely checked, clasps and buckles ripping, springing, blasting loose—the snap of bone, a grunt from the enemy as Dagger tore him from his saddle. Irondusk roared his rage. But the big dragon was too slow to do anything but roll his giant black eyes and watch his rider dangle behind the flashing knife of their passing, the white hot blade that had speared his master from the sun.
"Finish him!" Anna cried.
Already Lord Fel's weight was pulling them down.
Dagger banked hard against the Gorge's forested walls, leaves and branches whipping past, bringing his snout skyward, against the flow of the enemy convoy.
Now!
Dagger released Lord Fel from his claws, rising immediately against the Gorge's wind.
A strange silence as the man arced into the sky, the fluttering gold plume of his helmet the only real movement, a small, golden bird against the immense green of the Gorge as he plummeted to his doom,
a silent, bloody burst popping from his helmet as he smashed bonelessly to the river bed's hungry rocks.
"A thousand deaths to traitors!" Anna roared, her fist in the air.
She dropped her lance to the Gorge.
Dagger banked just as a pair of gunshots rang out.
Bullets whickered over her head.
They were racing below the convoy now, flying west back around the bend from which Fel had come, fast below the enemy. But now the Fel gunners had them in their sights, and they were wasting no time.
"Go!" Anna pushed her chest hard into Dagger's neck.
He leapt forward in the air, gaining speed with each thrust of wing.
Anna glanced over her shoulder.
The enemy convoy was wheeling now, turning as a unit, understanding, at last, the unusual nature of the attack, smaller scout dragons peeling off fast and mean, dozens of them arcing around into new trajectories, a low roar rising up from the Tevéss riders and dragons, followed by sharp, professional commands, the rip-snap of signal flags.
Dagger dipped a wing. A bullet hissed over Anna's head like an angry wasp. Irondusk had purposefully crash landed into the trunk of a massive, recently felled tree, turned, roared, and now launched himself directly at them. He was too far away, of course, but there was no question as to his murderous intent. The massive pulse of his wings shuddered the thrashing trees in his wake. The Gorge's walls were tidal seas of violent green. A volley of bullets snapped through the leaves around her, cracking and thunking into branches and tree trunks. Moondagger flapped with all his strength. Through her legs, Anna could feel his heart pounding, steady and strong.
There were at least thirty enemy scout dragons diving at them now. They had superior altitude, dropping at them like well-aimed stones. Dagger tried to gain more speed and elevation. The first bola spun above them, its low humming like a weird bird. Another volley of gun fire. A bullet tore the tip off Dagger's right nostril and hot blood sprayed, spattering her face. Another bullet punched through his neck, below Anna's knee. Blood bubbled but did not flow. Instead of slowing him down, the wounds seemed to give Dagger new strength. He tried to dive, to roll, to gain speed, flapping harder, and then harder still, as he tried to save them. The next bola hit Dagger's right wing, the splinter of hollow bone as the weighted cords spun, cinched the wing joint against itself, the force of Dagger's own muscle ripping his shoulder ball from its socket. He tried to keep them aloft with one wing. Insane careening and spinning as they hurtled towards the Gorge's tree-clumped cliffs. Leaves whipped Anna's face, scratched her goggles, cut her cheeks. And then they crashed nose-first into a jagged tree stump, into the eggshell crunch of bone and darkness.
59
MOONDAGGER SAW A factory. A factory filled with little girls and silver machines. It reminded him of the factory where Anna's family made the sacred dye of their war cloth. But it was different. They did not make color here. They made something else.
The silver machines hissed and moaned and rumbled as they opened and closed. Silver-white steam shot from silver vents. Great silver cogs turned eternally on silver tubes—opened and closed, opened and closed, opened and closed—the machines' noise a low, perpetual clumping. The pipes, the gears, the floors, the walls, the machines themselves, all shone with a soft, silver glow.
The machines looked powerful. And they were. But they were fragile, too, Moondagger understood.
Dozens of little girls worked the silver machines. They wore silver booties on their tiny feet. They stepped with little steps. They were several years younger than Anna, Moondagger saw, about Wendi's age. They wore silver gloves on their little hands, silver nets over their hair, and silver masks over their mouths. The masks protected the work.
The work must be protected. The promise must be kept.
A girl placed something into a machine. She pulled a silver lever. The machine whispered and clumped shut. When it hissed open, a glowing, silver tear sat in the machine's center. The tear was hot and perfectly smooth, about the size of a small apple. The girl took the tear from the machine and turned to Moondagger, holding it up to him with both hands, a silent offering. The glowing tear steamed with power.
Dagger stared into it. And for a moment, he imagined something dark turned inside—.
Then she dropped it and the tear shattered like a broken mirror. A black, segmented thing jittered amidst the glowing shards, its black feathers crystalline, obsidian casings splitting and ticking against the silver floor as the dark thing quivered and shook, finally sliding its way to a silver drain, dropping into darkness.
Somewhere below, a massive door thundered open and a terrible sound echoed up from the deep. The sound of a hundred rotten hooves pounding on rusty iron. The sound of the men that worked the other machines, the machines deep below. The tear's creature had set them free.
The silver doors crashed open and a gang of filthy men shamble-swarmed into the factory. Their uniforms were oily shrouds. Black slime dripped from their robes and sleeves. Their hands were crusty raptor talons, ancient and cruel. But the worst was their faces: like fleshy, black eggs. Their mouths were gummy slits. They did not have eyes. The egg faces reflected no light.
An egg-faced man grabbed the girl in front of Dagger, drove a shard of black iron into her chest, and dropped her to the silver floor, his weapon coated with molten silver. Dagger tried to roar, to protect, to do his duty, but he could not move. He could turn his head, but the rest of his body was frozen, as if shackled by invisible chains.
All around him, the egg-faced men killed. In pairs and in groups, they held the little workers down, ripped the silver masks from their faces, and cut into their throats, their legs, their arms. But there was no blood. The girls did not bleed. Instead, brilliant, liquid silver poured from their wounds, flowed silver, while the egg-faced men hacked and stabbed and howled. There was another sound, also. A constant, weeping cry as the voices of the little workers blended together to become a single, tremulous wail.
More tears shattered. More black things scuttled chitinous and feathered into the darkness below. More iron hooves pounded up from the dark. More egg-faced men, their smooth, plump egg heads bobbing and nodding as they crashed through the silver doors, toothless mouths gaping, black tongues flitting at edges of lipless mouths.
But the egg-faced men did not touch Moondagger. Indeed, while the massacre raged, every so often an egg-faced man would stop in front of him, bow deferentially, and pass him by.
The work must be protected. The promise must be kept.
Another tear shattered to the floor. But this time, instead of a skittering, dark creature, a large crow shook its feathers, leapt from the shards, and landed on the silver machine near Moondagger's head. When they saw the crow, the egg-faced men looked up from their killing and followed it, their heads tracking the crow as a single group, as if their eyeless faces could see. They pushed around Moondagger, gathering and shuffling around the silver machine where the crow had landed, shambling and murmuring. They were tall. Their oily clothes stank of fire and charred bone. They did not touch Moondagger but gathered close, encircling him until they enclosed him entirely, their eyeless egg faces black and nodding, their slit mouths muttering.
The crow cocked its head at Moondagger.
"You may choose," it cawed in its weird crow voice, a voice blended from a hundred mouths.
Choose what?
"Who lives, of course." The crow cocked its head, its dark eyes beady and intelligent. "And, who dies."
An egg-faced man threw something to the floor at Dagger's feet.
It was a body, mangled and crushed, a bloody mess, tattered and stringy, as if gnawed by beasts and left to rot in some culvert. The sky blue livery it wore was shredded and gore-stained, the leather armor blown wide. Moondagger could see the silver floor through the holes that were its wounds.
Dagger roared, flared his wings, suddenly free, and took a massive breath, blasting the circle of egg-faced men with a thundering funne
l of silver-white fire. They melted away, black fog coiling into night—but then returned, exactly as they had been before—ropes of dark vapor twisting into being.
An egg-faced man toed the body over.
It was Anna. It was her. His rider. Her face was bloodless and horrible, her mouth open, lips peeled back, gums red, a silent nightmare's gape. But the worst was her eyes. Her eye sockets were burnt-out holes, the skin around them scorched and black.
Dagger snarled blind fury. He would kill them all!
Every last one.
He roared, blasting silver-white fire, turning his head slowly, making sure he got them all.
And this time, they did not flee.
Oh, no.
This time, they burned.
He took another breath and blasted them again.
Oh, how they burned!
Howling weirdly, their oily robes caught fire, blazing up like dried kindling, their weird egg faces pulp hissing atop jittering columns of raging white flame. Then they went still. The white fire still raged through their bodies, they still howled their toothless howl, but they did not move. They just stood there, straight—and burned.
The black egg heads began to split and crack. There were other things, darker things, inside. And now these things clawed through splintering black shells. A wicked flash of scale and feather, the dark edges of black swords.
"And so you have chosen," the crow cawed, its strange voice ringing from a hundred different throats.
Moondagger lunged at the crow, biting, but his fangs snapped down on wisps of black smoke.
And then there was nothing but a deeper sinking, a slow fade into nothing.
60
ANNA ROSE TO pain. Dizzying, bone-deep pain and darkness.