Return to Dragon Planet: Book one of the Dragon Planet Trilogy

by S A Robertson

  “Oh, he knows you’re here alright. He's probably been tracking you since you set down your RV. Sent a couple of eagle riders to the crash site. Seems they took a member of your party hostage, too.”

  Nyara stiffened. “What?”

  Gemini went to reach for one of her pockets, but Nyara snapped her sword up.

  Gemini stopped her hand and said, “It’s okay. I just want to show you something, alright?”

  Nyara watched warily as Gemini slipped a thumb and finger into the pocket and produced the leaf-shaped dart she had salvaged from the RV.

  “I found this where your pilot was doing repairs.” The dart glimmered in the dull light. “It was your pilot you left behind, right? Or at least a mechanic. Goblin by the look of that blood on the tip of the dart. There was no sign of him when I turned up, which means he was probably taken away. Most likely back to the World Tree for questioning.”

  Staring at the dart between Gemini’s fingers—so familiar in its design—Nyara swore under her breath. If Zerian had taken Skreet to the World Tree, their only means of escaping Terevell now lay in the ranger outpost—which was a week’s hike from where she now stood at best. That was even if there was any means of space transport in the hanger. And with the goblin captured, how long would it be before he confessed to exactly who made up the party?

  “You still don’t have to go through with this, you know,” Gemini murmured, and Nyara refocused her attention.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The hunt. We can stop it. The two of us.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. There is no stopping it now.”

  “That’s not true. We still have time. And if the dragon is left alive, maybe you can cut a deal with the High King.”

  Nyara snorted. “There will be no deals with Zerian. My life is forfeit. I suppose it always was.”

  “And yet if we don’t prevent the hunt from going ahead, the implications could be far worse than you can possibly imagine.”

  “Oh?” Nyara smirked. “And how is that?”

  “Surely you can’t be so naive? Your king will likely use the death of the dragon as a pretext to tearing up the Kharg-Rillion Covenants entirely, something he’s been itching to do since he ascended the throne. It’ll allow him to close his borders. He’ll shun any further access by any outsiders. And do you really want someone like Zerian to have no scrutiny from the outside?”

  “Which is why I returned to kill the dragon in the first place. If Zerian had his way, the whole of the southlands would burn. Unless it is slain. I cannot attend to what might happen, Ranger, but what is. Right now, my people are dying. The dragon must be destroyed. It is the only way.”

  “Well, I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”

  “Oh really? I hardly think you’re in a position to protest, do you?”

  “Then what do you intend to do with me?”

  At this, Nyara hesitated. She knew what she should do. There was no place in the party for captives. The ranger would be nothing but a liability if they had to try and make for the outpost—or return to the RV in the hope that Skreet had fixed the ship before he was captured. Yet Nyara wondered if she was capable of an act considered by most elves as the greatest sin. To take a life.

  “Look,” Gemini went on quickly, perhaps sensing the kind of dilemma Nyara was wrestling with. “Maybe if Zerian won’t cut you a deal, I can.”

  “And what possible deal could you offer me?”

  “Well, my interest is only in stopping the dragon from being slain. I wondered why an elf was here, guiding the party, but now I can I see why. So, perhaps there’s a way I can help you through the Patrol.”

  “And how will you do that?”

  “I have a ship at Garia’s Point. That RV looked pretty banged up, and without your pilot you’re not going anywhere. I could help you get off Terevell before you’re intercepted by Zerian’s people. A life in exile is better than in a prison here on Terevell. Or worse.”

  “And what would you know about a life in exile, Ranger?”

  “I know enough.”

  “Is that so? Well, it sounds like you’re a very influential person if you can spare me life imprisonment in a stasis tank. Have you got that power, I wonder…” Nyara flicked her eyes to Gemini’s badge again, “…Ranger Sohn, First Class?”

  “You have a legitimate grievance against your king. Maybe there’s a way of getting you diplomatic immunity?”

  “Then what of the rest of my party?”

  “That might not be so easy, I’m afraid. I expect they’re not here for such noble reasons as you.”

  “These people risked their lives for my cause.”

  “They risked their lives for money. That’s not the same thing.”

  “Even so, I believe I could not, in all good conscience, leave them to any fate I would not be prepared to shoulder myself.”

  Gemini sighed. “Jeez, lady. You’re not making this easy.”

  “Well, ‘Sometimes the hard road is the best road,’ Ranger,” Nyara uttered, and Gemini looked up in surprise.

  “Where did you hear that?” she asked.

  “Oh, it’s an old elven saying,” Nyara murmured wearily. “And appropriate given the circumstances, don’t you think?”

  Gemini frowned. Then she collected herself and said, “So, if you won’t come with me, where does that leave us?”

  Nyara studied her captive for moment. It was curious that she was alone, she thought, despite her status as a Sweeper. If the Patrol had wind of a dragon hunt, they would almost certainly have sent greater numbers. Still, it was quickly dawning on Nyara that, given the mounting obstacles, this ranger might prove much more useful to her alive than dead. Lifting her chin, she said, “So I expect, as a ranger, you’ll have a general permit to and from Terevell? With impunity?”

  Gemini narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

  “And you say you have a ship at Garia’s Point?”

  Gemini wavered. Instantly, she understood Nyara’s line of thinking.

  “Look, if you think I’m going to smuggle a bunch of fugitives through the Border Gate…”

  “Do you have much of a choice? Or perhaps you would rather die here?”

  “You don’t look like a murderer to me.”

  “You’d be surprised of what I am capable, Ranger. Given the circumstances.”

  Gemini paused. There was something in the elf's piercing eyes that suggested she was telling the truth.

  “Okay, then what’s to say if I somehow manage to get us across the border you won’t kill me when you’re done with me?”

  “If you can help us, murdering you once we’re safe makes little sense.”

  “You’ll never be safe. Not if you kill the dragon. Your only chance is if we prevent the hunt and I take you in as my prisoner. You let the beast die, and you and all your friends’ lives will be forfeit. To begin with, you really think you’ll make it back to Garia’s Point? That’s at least a three-day march and we’ll likely be intercepted by Zerian’s eagle riders as soon as word reaches the World Tree that there’s no aerial threat. And what about your goblin friend? You’re prepared to leave him behind?”

  “We all have to make sacrifices, Ranger. As you will learn.” Nyara lifted the Spirit Blade again. “Now, you will help me strike camp. If all goes well, the dragon will be slain soon, and we must be ready for the return of the hunting party.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  1

  The Undul Canyon was a breach in the walls of the Black River Canyon now long since flushed of any water. But that didn’t mean the party wasn’t going to get wet. The first raindrops began to fall almost as soon as they spied the opening, a few feet higher than the shore, a gawking mouth wide enough to fly a small frigate through. By now the fog that had plagued their progress since early morning had almost entirely dissipated so that the thin, creeping layer of haze dribbling out of the canyon suggested an entirely different source. Blake was glad of the goggles. While he’d led hunt
s without such aids, he knew from experience that he was looking at the residue of dragon-breath pooling on the floor of the Undul Canyon. That could make his eyes water. It could also have a corrosive effect on breathing, and he was sure he’d need all his lungs’ capacity with what was to come.

  The rain was beginning to fall more heavily now. Blake briefly glanced back the way they had come. Heavy grey clouds were above them against a blacker backdrop, blocking out sunlight to the north. Another deep boom of thunder reverberated through the canyon amplified by its walls. Lightning flickered.

  Cursing his ill fortune, Blake threw off his pack and placed it against the wall. From here, they all would have to travel with only the essentials to the hunt. Blake kept his rifle on his shoulder, pulling free the beacon. The others were also silently mustering their defences. All, that was, save Cid who stood impassively, the net launcher still in his huge hands, his burning eye levelled on the entrance to the canyon, for all the world looking like the gates of Hell.

  When all was gathered, Blake pulled a waterproof hood over his head to shield him from the rain. Then he showed the way by climbing up a series of flat, river-washed boulders, and stepping across the threshold. Behind him came Uldo and Maddox with Cid at the rear. The rain was falling steadily now, blurring their goggles, making visibility poor. The air was oddly close, too, after the chilly progress of the day. Blake put this down to the creature they were hunting. Fumes clung to their ankles as they headed deeper.

  2

  They saw the first concrete evidence that a monstrous predator was close by when Blake kicked through the first of the bones. The noise was unexpectedly loud, and everyone came to an abrupt stop, weapons at the ready, eyes wide with tension. Blake looked through the smoke and saw pieces of skeleton, pitted and yellowed. Gawking skulls leered, and twisted limbs reached up to him in the falling rain. Most of them were the remains of the large the peculiar one-horned, equine-like abath, the dragon’s staple diet. But there was also other disconcerting evidence of the dragon’s rampage across Ilmaris. Blake saw the delicate skulls of elves amongst the carnage, some of them blackened by fire. Hardly much of a morsel for a dragon as big as a crimson wyrm, Blake thought, and confirming to him once again that such beasts didn’t always kill for food. Sometimes they perpetrated acts merely out of revenge or idle destruction. Blake had even heard of elves being used as playthings, drawn down by dragons into their lairs to be hobbled just enough so that escape was little more than a desperate hope before being killed when the dragon became bored with the game.

  Blake lifted his eyes into the narrowing canyon. His clumsiness hadn’t seemed to have stirred any reaction from its depths. This told him that the rain could very well be interfering with the dragon’s usually acute hearing as he had predicted. An advantage for now, at least. They might well be able to approach the lair unhindered. He set off again with more confidence that their progress would go undetected.

  The canyon was deeper than Blake expected. This made him even more anxious as it was a long way back to open ground. It also curved away, its end out of sight. He lifted his head into the rain as another rumble of thunder sounded, even louder than before, and the wind tugged at his hood. Wiping his goggles, he lifted his rifle and splashed through a few pools of acidic water forming in the natural depressions, approaching the beginning of the dogleg.

  Behind him, the others slowed and stopped. Blake held up a hand to keep them back, before quietly and carefully stepping around the corner, into open view. Another flicker of blue lightning lit up the sky and the bone-laden entrance to the lair.

  Smoke roiled and writhed across its sheltered brink. It was a stygian shallow rent in the side of the canyon wall, sloping down sharply and out of sight. The caustic reek of dragon breath was even enough to penetrate Blake’s mask and he wrinkled his eyes as they stung behind his goggles. It proved the combustible nature of that most famous of dragon defences and that aggressions were based on powerful chemical processes. Glands in the dragon’s throat produced a highly combustible chemical soup, laced with caustic sulphuric acids that were ejected by means of an exothermic gas into an oxygen rich atmosphere. At least, that was the theory. All Blake knew for sure was that the result was much the same as rocket fuel: as hot as magma at over a thousand degrees centigrade. And it was relentless, too. He had seen dragons spew their breath more than half a dozen times in quick succession—until the chemicals that drove the flames needed replenishing and signalled when the dragon was at its most vulnerable. That was why Blake had his power shield. It had been calibrated to withstand two or three direct hits of anything up to thirteen hundred degrees before its circuits would overload. Such shields had served him well in the past. At least, they had done with the dragons he had encountered before. He had no idea whether the breath of Rygorath would be any greater in ferocity than others of its species.

  Well, I guess you’re going to find out, Blake thought as he scanned the area over his rifle sight, squinting against the rain.

  The canyon was hemmed in by walls as high as sixty feet in places dotted by islands of smooth boulders. These rocks might serve as a decent platform for Cid and his net launcher, Blake realised. There was even one particularly large grouping that was easily scalable and overlooked the entrance to the lair. Blake lowered his rifle and peeked over his shoulder. He motioned toward the golem who stepped out of cover, face expressionless, eye pulsing. Blake gestured to the boulders. Cid’s eye swivelled to appraise their suitability before he looked back to Blake and nodded. Then the metal man set out at a deliberate pace, leaving the shelter of the dogleg to cross the gulf. Blake could feel his heart pumping urgently as he trained his weapon on the lair’s entrance again, listening keenly for any untoward sounds of movement. If the dragon decided to make an appearance now, Cid would be entirely exposed and vulnerable. Yeah, and without Cid our plan would also be shot to pieces. It was a good job, then, that Cid reached the boulders without incident and was soon using the smaller rocks as steps to surmount the makeshift platform.

  When Cid was in place, having dropped to one knee to ready the net launcher, Blake swung his rifle on its strap behind his back. He unclipped the sonic beacon from his belt and placed it on the ground, the tripod snapping open. Rain was falling so heavily now that his hearing was distracted by droplets popping against his hood. It forced him to throw the covering aside, craning his ears for a few moments. Nothing. No sound came from within the lair, and he saw no movement either. He flicked the beacon on, and its yellow light instantly wheeled back and forth as it emitted its sonic scream. Once this was done, Blake quickly pushed to his feet and stepped back.

  Raising his rifle again, he waited and listened.

  In times past—all those years ago, and in similar situations—he had felt the dragons coming before he even saw them. For such large creatures they could move quickly, their huge, scaled bodies heavy enough to send shudders through the earth. Then came their piercing roars, loud enough to threaten a man’s eardrums. It was at this point most inexperienced hunters fled, driven to panic by the realisation that something from the Pit had been disturbed. Those who had a respect for life that was. For Blake, it had always been like waiting to confront Death; a chance to tussle with the Infinite, as he had sometimes waxed poetical in whatever bar he found himself in when the hunt had concluded. Except, that was long ago. He wasn’t sure he had the same stomach as once he had.

  The beacon continued to pulse.

  Blake waited for what seemed like an age in the rain and the gloom, breathing the sweet, sickly oxygen from his mask, staring at the lair. Lightning flashed and thunder shuddered through the canyon. The storm was clearly set on hanging around. The dragon did not emerge.

  Blake gritted his teeth. He looked up to where Cid was still hunched and pulled up his hood again, making his way back to the rest of the party.

  “It’s no good,” Blake said, touching the PTT comms link and hearing his own tinny voice echo in his ear. “It eithe
r can’t hear the beacon, or it won’t come out into the storm.”

  “How do you even know it’s in there?” Maddox said. Blake noticed he was shivering from the cold, although he might have been trembling out of fear.

  “We don’t,” Blake admitted. “It could be out hunting. The storm came in pretty quick and might have caught it off guard. In which case, it might have just gone to ground and found somewhere to hide to wait it out.”

  “So, what are you saying?” Uldo said. “You want us to stop out here until the storm has passed?”

  Blake shook his head. “No. We have no idea how long that would be. And even if the dragon is outside the lair, it could be leagues away from here, and take hours to return.” He glanced over his shoulder again to where the beacon was still flashing. Then he turned to his companions. “But I have a feeling the dragon is here.”

  “How can you tell?” Maddox asked.

  “A hunch. Experience. I don’t know. I just think it’s in there.”

  “But what do we do about that?” Uldo said.

  “Well, there’s only one thing we can do,” said Blake. “If it won’t come to us, I’ll need to go to the dragon.”

  3

  “You’re crazy!” Uldo exclaimed causing Blake to wince at the feedback in his ear. “You seriously want to go in there alone?”

  Blake glanced to the lair. The answer to that question was ‘not really’, but he turned back to the dwarf and said, “I don’t think we have much of a choice. If it’s in there, maybe I can provoke it, entice it into the open.”

  “Or maybe you’ll wind up dead and what then? Where does that leave us?”

  Maddox nodded. “Uldo is right, Blake. We won’t be able to kill the dragon without you.”

  “Except if it doesn’t come out into the open none of that matters,” said Blake. “The hunt will fail.”