Refuge: The Arrival: Book 2

by Doug Dandridge

  [I thought they were just clever beasts,] said the mind of Fenris, looking from wolf to wolf. [But they are more than that, aren’t they.]

  As he sent, the healer had cut away the human’s shirt with a sharp knife, then pulled the clothing away.

  Kreigel nodded, then focused his attention on the healer, who had removed some container of liquid and was rubbing it on his hands. He was chanting something in a rhythmic voice as he worked the liquid into the flesh of his hands, then onto the side of his patient. Kreigel felt a wonderful warmth spread from the liquid, and the pain in his side left him. A glow suffused the ribs, working its way into the inner muscle and the lung beyond. The healer continued the chant, raising his voice as he looked to the sky. His hand penetrated the wound, and the glow moved inward, until the human’s entire chest cavity was encompassed in the wonderful warmth. The hand then pulled back, and the arrow came with it, moving outward without pain, without causing further harm, though the head that appeared was the barbed sort intended to cause maximum damage while coming out of the wound.

  The healer threw aside the arrow and spoke to his leader, while he reached in his bag and pulled out clean material to wrap the wound.

  [He says that the goddess granted you healing,] thought the Ellala leader, gesturing toward the healer. [Your lung is whole, and the muscle and bone will knit within the day. It may sting for a while when you move, but you will recover completely.]

  [How did he do that?] asked the amazed human, watching as the healer wrapped his side and made sure that the bandages were secure. He took in a deep breath and felt no pain, only a bit of stiffness in his ribs. [Was it magic?]

  [Not really magic as you would think it,] thought the leader with a smile. [Mages can heal right enough, but many times their healing is a temporary solution. No, my good Ferrison called upon his God, Yanon, he of the healing arts, to heal you. And since you were not too corrupt or evil a creature, he sent him the power to heal. Not enough to completely heal as if nothing had happened, for he must conserve his powers for the days ahead, as must we all. But enough to heal the major damage and start you on your way. Now, can you rise?]

  [I’ll try,] thought the man, gathering his feet underneath and pushing himself up. He felt a little bit wobbly, but the Ellala lent him a mailed arm to steady himself. The wolves went wild, moving around the group with canine smiles on their faces. A couple rubbed up against Kreigel until White Paws barked them away. Obviously they were out of their link. It was something new to them as well, and they would probably need time to work it around their emotional states.

  [Can you ride,] said the Ellala, pointing back to where a saddled unicorn was being led forward. [Kensala is a gentle mount, and intelligent. I think she might even allow someone with round ears to ride her.]

  [I’m not sure,] said the man. [She might not like my kind after all and throw me off. But, if you can communicate with her maybe you could tell her something.]

  [And what is that?]

  [That I think my wolves would find her tasty, if she were to buck me off.]

  The Ellala leader brought his head back and laughed at the sky. Putting his arm around the human, he led him to the patiently waiting mount. In minutes the column was moving along, scouts out in front and to the flanks. The wolves of the Earth human out as well, not having been given the opportunity to feast on unicorn flesh.

  Chapter Ten

  The sun was rising toward the midpoint in the sky before dragons were ready to fly. General Jossianli Melisardra, Commander of the Dragon Corps, watched as his big red swallowed the first of the cattle that had been brought up for his breakfast, while other cattle, tied to stakes, struggled to get away before their turn came. But there was no escape for those cattle, or the thousands of others that crowded the valley that had been chosen as the gathering place for the assault force.

  The General looked up the valley, where hundreds of the big reds, most smaller than his own but all weighing over ten tons, crunched on the bovines that were their morning meal, while the terrified lowing of cattle drowned out almost all other sounds. The reptilian reek of the creatures overwhelmed the fear smell of the cattle.

  Two more stops, he thought, and we will be within striking distance to the valley where the strangers are thinking of setting up Empire.

  This was the largest gathering of dragons in well over a century, and he had planned to use them like an iron fist to shatter the resistance of the new comers. While young dragons could go for months without a meal, and the ancients for actual years between, these beasts were being pushed to their energy limits by this mission, and required large quantities of meat to fuel them.

  As the newcomers from Earth had surmised, it was physically impossible for such massive beasts to lift themselves from the ground by muscle powered wings alone. Dragons were able to generate a field of magical energy that negated much of their weight, while retaining their mass. They were only able to generate this field for several hours each day, four or five at most, less for the true giants of the species. Otherwise the monsters would have been able to fly from the capital to the valley stronghold of the strangers in a little over a day. They also needed energy to generate their breath weapon. Some of the energy could be gathered from the magical sources of nature, in the wind, the sun and the earth they flew over. But a critical component came from tapping their own metabolism, and that required massive amounts of protein be given to the creatures on a daily basis. Hence the beef herds that had been driven to the valley before the arrival of the monsters. It would have quite frankly been impossible to move the cattle on their own feet into the proximity of the hot blooded reptilians, so they had to be gathered ahead of time.

  The General returned the salute of an officer who ran up to him while he was watching the ground crew check out the large, grouchy red for injuries or infirmities. The men were very careful where they moved around the dragon, keeping close attention to his demeanor, as the reds were an evilly violent lot. Only such would serve the cause of the Death or Chaos Gods, so they were what the Empire had to work with. A big red like Death Bringer had about the same intelligence as a Grogatha, though younger dragons had less intellect. But all possessed some magic to go along with their strength and breath weapons, making them doubly dangerous to the unwary.

  “High Commander,” said the General to his ground commander, the one who had organized this feed lot.

  “Sir,” said the younger, lowering his fist from his breast. “Have you found all to be in order, sir?”

  “Very,” said the General with a laugh, looking up the other end of the valley where several other flights of reds sat and ate. “I’m afraid the beasts will have trouble gaining the air because of the weight in their bellies. Any trouble gathering this provender.”

  “The Ellala ranchers were not happy to part with so much of their stock, even at the high prices we paid,” said the officer with a laugh. “They will get over it. We levied some of the dairy cattle from the Kashana’liya villages here abouts. They were just as unhappy as the Ellala. Some of them will not get over it.”

  The officer gestured to a nearby red, which was reaching his head on his long neck to grab a small humanoid body. The dragon sank his teeth into the dead Halfling, raised his head into the air, and allowed gravity to slide the small man down his throat.

  “The village headman, at least the new one, saw reason after we slaughtered the old headman and his family,” said the smiling High Commander. “Then he could see reason, that a hundred cattle were not too high a price to pay for the lives of his family and the other villagers.”

  “Good job, High Commander,” said the General with a smile. “I only hope that the commanders of the next two landing sites do as well. I hope to be within striking range of the valley within a couple of days.”

  “You will loiter around for the two additional days it takes the ground forces to get into position?” asked the High Commander, confusion on his face. The great beasts would be hard to
keep from fighting each other if in close proximity on the ground for days at a time. Doctrine called for the monsters to be gathered at their launch point no more than twenty-four hours before an attack. The beasts hissed and bellowed in the background while the General framed his response.

  “I would rather have the animals within range of the strike before the ground forces are on scene,” he explained to the High Commander, hoping the man would buy the explanation, as he was not in the General’s inner circle. “It would not look good if we were delayed for some reason and they had to go in without our overwhelming cover and support.”

  The other officer raised his head in acknowledgement, as the reasoning seemed sound. There might be some injuries or even a death or two among the fighting reptilians. But the cost would be higher if the ground troops went into battle without their support.

  “Now I must be off,” said the General, watching Death Bringer polish off the last of the steers that had been brought for his feeding. “Hopefully the next landing zone will be as well provisioned. I again praise you for your good work.”

  The officer saluted once again, clashing hand to breast. The General returned the salute and walked to his dragon, making sure that the beast saw and recognized him before he got within striking range of the head. The dragon gave a comfortable snort of recognition. Jossianli grasped the first rung of the ladder and climbed upwards, getting high above the ground on the huge beast. He could feel the ladder rock slightly when his crew chief climbed up behind him. The General got into his saddle and belted himself in, while the enlisted crewman climbed into the saddle behind him. Several more followed, including a couple of archers and a battlemage. They all belted in, then the crew chief pulled the ladder up, rolling it as it went, then buckling it to the dragon’s harness. The man tapped the General on the shoulder, giving him the all clear.

  The General pulled back on the reins of the huge dragon, signaling that he wanted to go up, while at the same time transmitting a telepathic signal to the monster. By necessity all dragon riders and their mounts had to have good telepathic ability, and the General’s and Death Bringer were both in the upper range for their species. The great wings went out and the dragon cast the innate spell that negated a great deal of its weight. Wings came down and the monster rose onto his great hind limbs, starting to run along the ground, moving toward the open area in the center of the valley that had been cleared of beasts.

  The dragon flapped down again, his hind legs moving him along the grassy strip. The wings beat again and again, until the dragon gave a great push with his legs and sprung into the air. A couple of more flaps and he was rising, higher and higher into the air. Setting his wings out the dragon went into a glide, and a command from his rider sent him on a circling path over the field. Below other dragons were running down the strip and rising into the air, mostly the smaller scouts that would precede the main body. Soon there were dozens of those scouts in the air, heading to the East as the riders used their magical guides to find the path.

  The General sent another command to his mount, who straightened into a heading directly behind the scouts. The other large dragons took off behind them. Fifteen minutes later the last had left the ground, and a flying column over ten kilometers long headed across the sky to the next waypoint of the mission.

  * * *

  The Half Lich Emperor Ellandra Mashara cursed under his breath again. It was bad enough that these damned strangers did not think like people of his world. That they had marvelous machines that simulated the powers of great mages was just as bad. But that some of them seemed to have some sort of divine protection against the powers of this world was too much.

  He looked over to the altar, where one of his priests had been incinerated by the power unleashed by the sacrifice he was performing with one of the captured French. The woman had died from bleeding to death soon after the Priest had opened her chest cavity and started to cut the heart out of her. But when he had muttered the incantation that would take her life force, her binding energy, and her soul, something had blocked the transfer of that energy to the soul globes that were arrayed around the altar to capture them. Instead, a tremendous burst of energy had run up the knife blade, into the body of the Priest, and turned his flesh and clothing into a fine ash. The bones had not been totally dissolved by the intense heat, but the fragments that were left scattered over the floor were blackened.

  A voice had spoken in the heads of all present in the room at the moment of immolation. This is one of my own, and not for such as you had said the voice. It had rung with God power of a type unknown to any of the mages or priests present. Unknown or not it was very powerful. More powerful than anything the Emperor had felt in his over four thousand years of existence.

  So we have a new deity at work here, thought the Half Lich, grimacing, thankful that he had not been performing the sacrifice himself, or his bones might be scattered near the altar. A deity that cares for some of these people, but not for others.

  Twenty other of the captured French had been sacrificed before this one. In another section of the temple five more had gone under the knife, before something similar had occurred there.

  “Curse the Gods of Life,” screamed the Emperor, his voice echoing off the high dome above the altar. “Curse them to the hells of despair.”

  He turned on one of his Sub-priests and grabbed the man by the shirt, pulling him close and almost ripping the fabric with his claw like nails.

  “Get more sacrifices in here,” he yelled in the Priest’s face. “Get them in here now. And none of the Earth people, until we figure out how to mark these unnatural ones to protect ourselves.”

  The Priest blanched under his already pale complexion, eyes wide, and he lifted his head in acknowledgement. The emperor pushed him away, turning to glare at another gaggle of clerics who stood behind him. Two gripped prisoners who were to be next in the row of sacrifices. All of the humans looked terrified, not sure what was happening or what was going to occur next.

  “And get them out of here,” he yelled to the priests with the other sacrifices. “They’re no good to me until we figure out what makes some of them so deadly to us.”

  “My liege,” said one of the priests, an Ellala in ornate black robes trimmed with silver, the grinning skull symbol of the Gods of Death on his breast. “Why is it so important to wield magic this day? I thought your army was on the march to take care of this problem to the East.”

  “And problems to the West, and here,” said the Emperor in a whining, sarcastic voice. “I must destroy these people before they receive aid. If they are the fulfillment of the prophecy that the Conyastaya preach, then they must be destroyed before they become the nucleus of our defeat. So I must do all within my power to bring them to ruin.”

  “And what do you wish to put upon them?” said the Bishop of Bothar, the chief of the Gods of Death, looking expectantly at his Lord. “Remember, you did not tell of your purpose this day. Only that you wished to harvest the soul energies that are rightly the food of our God.”

  “A plague on these people,” growled the Emperor with a flourish of his hands. “I wished to bring down a plague upon them. Let the humans puzzle the where and why for of their people dying of a dread disease, the likes of which they had never before seen. And when we gather such useless Grogatha, humans, Conyastaya, and even those Ellala that oppose me, I will gather the power needed to set a plague upon them.”

  The Emperor smiled a deadly grin. To the Bishop, who could see through the illusion of the Half Lich, it was a grin of terror and fright. Even the illusion was enough to terrify those in the room with the ruler of the land.

  “And when we find out how to separate these strangers,” he said in a hissing voice, looking around the room at his priests, “I will sacrifice those not protected by their deity to our Gods, that they may feast on their souls and reward us for their sustenance. And the children of that protector I will flay alive, and allow them to die in agonies they can
not imagine. Their God may have their souls, but their memories of life will not be pleasant ones.”

  The Emperor roared with laughter, a mocking sound that filled the chamber and spilled out to the chambers beyond. A sound to frighten both friend and foe, for all realized that madness lay behind the laugh, and the owner was a threat to all the world.

  Chapter Eleven

  Major Antwoine McGurk looked through his glasses at the fortress on the mountainside and cursed under his breath once again. They had hit the fortress with everything they had since the sun came up on this seventh day. The heavy hitters in the fortress had hit back, and they had done more damage to his command than the Earth humans had done to the fort.

  On the plain of the valley, between two and three kilometers from the gatehouse of the mountain stronghold, two of his tanks burned, victims of those deadly fireballs the wizards threw. He hadn’t known they had that kind of range, so he had confidently sent the vehicles to that distance to hit the gatehouse. And the crews had paid with their lives. He had known that his decisions might lead to the deaths of his men, but it didn’t sit easy with the young officer.

  “Here comes another salvo,” said the voice of his executive officer and Company C Commander over the radio.

  McGurk looked up as the sound of artillery rounds traversing the sky overhead came to his ears. Then the nine rounds impacted on the energy field over the mountain fort, and exploded, a hundred meters from the wall. Shrapnel whistled away from the bursts, hitting the ground of the valley, and deflected away from the fort.

  “Same effect as the last ten salvoes,” he muttered under his breath, looking to see if the energy field looked any different. To his eyes it had changed not one bit.

  “Cease bombardment,” he ordered over the com link to the artillery, swearing again under his breath and slamming his hand hard on the turret top in front of his hatch.