by Wesley King
As they flew, images of her family in the school raced through Dree’s mind. She thought back to when Abi was seven, walking with Dree through the south end of the docks. It was already evening—Dree had picked Abi up from rehearsal for a play at school and walked her back, as she had just started at Master Wilhelm’s and was working until evening herself. They had to pass a seedy tavern on the way, perched at the edge of the docks. It was a rickety old structure of rotting beams, filled with drunks lurching through the darkness, slurring and vomiting on the street. Dree and Abi stayed on the far side of the road, but as they passed a dark alley, a hand suddenly reached out and grabbed Abi’s shoulder.
“Ain’t you a pretty thing,” the foul man slurred, stepping out of the shadows.
Dree reacted instantly. She turned around and punched the grizzled older man right in the mouth, dropping him in a splatter of hot blood. As soon as he hit the cobblestone she kicked him hard in the arm, hearing a snap as she broke a bone.
Dree looked down at him in disgust. “Touch her again and I’ll kill you,” she spat.
She left him there, a groaning pile of rags. As they quickly walked away from the scene, Abi looked up at her big sister, her eyes betraying a mixture of surprise and fear.
“What was that about?” she asked.
Dree stopped and looked at her. “There are a lot of bad people out there,” she said, taking Abi’s hand in hers. “Trust me. But I promise, I will never let anything happen to you. If that means knocking out a few wretched drunks, all the better.” She grinned. “Remind me to teach you how to punch.”
Abi laughed and hugged her tightly, and Dree remembered being afraid even then that she couldn’t keep her promise forever. As much as she tried to shield her sister, there was just so much darkness and evil in the world. Now, just two years later, she had already failed her.
It wasn’t long before Dree saw black smoke on the horizon, spewing out of the wrecks that now littered the south end of the city. It seemed the drones were mostly attacking the poorer outskirts. That part of the city was a war zone.
“Faster!” she shouted, fighting off an image of her little sister in the flames. If anything happened to Abi, she didn’t know what she would do.
Lourdvang tightened his body into an arrow point and dove toward the ground, faster than he’d ever gone before. Dree and Marcus leaned forward as well, lest they risk being blown right off his back by the raging wind. Dree spotted the school near the shore and saw flames shooting out from the roof like flickering candles. Fire raged all across the area. There were no soldiers to be seen—obviously they had fallen back to the palace.
Above the neighborhood, drones raced across the sky, leveling everything. They made one undiscerning pass after another, destroying homes and shops and carts with equal ferocity. And in the middle of it all, the school was burning, already half-destroyed.
“What should we do?” Lourdvang growled over the wind.
“Drop us and get out of there!” Dree said, preparing to jump off as soon as they touched the ground. She felt her skin burning, but she didn’t care. She had to save them.
“I won’t leave you—” Lourdvang objected.
“Lead the drones away,” she shouted. “Buy us some time.”
Lourdvang seemed to think about that. “Be careful,” he said.
Dree glanced back at Marcus, who was watching the scene in horror. His hands were trembling on Dree’s waist, but he had to leave them there or risk flying off of Lourdvang’s back. He wondered if she thought he was a coward—if she did, she was probably right. Either way, he was going to help her.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
Marcus nodded, trying to act brave. “Let’s do it.”
Dree turned back and tightened her grip, her eyes on the raging battle.
“Take us in!”
Chapter
15
Lourdvang swept onto the chewed-up road in front of the school, landing right amid the smoking ruins. Marcus and Dree leapt off his back and darted for the school, and in a moment Lourdvang was gone again, spraying fire at a passing drone and then climbing rapidly toward the skies, hoping to draw them away. Dree watched him go, concerned.
They stopped in front of the main entrance, which was completely engulfed in flames. They looked at each other, uncertain of what to do.
“I’m going for it,” Dree said firmly. “The fire doesn’t hurt me.”
She didn’t know that for sure, of course—she’d never been completely immersed in flames. Neither had Marcus, but he wasn’t about to stand there and watch. The drones were momentarily distracted by Lourdvang, but that wouldn’t last long. Marcus saw two of them hovering over the city even now, silently watching the events.
At any moment they could unleash missiles and turn the school into a crater.
“Me either,” he said, wincing as the fire crackled.
“Suit yourself,” Dree muttered, and then ran straight into the flames, grabbing the steel door handle with her bare hands. As she had thought, it was warm—hot, actually—but it didn’t burn her skin. Whatever magic was in her blood, it blocked her from the fire.
Marcus chased after her, expecting to roast like a ham. But he too made it through the fire unscathed, and he looked around in utter disbelief as the flames rolled over him but didn’t burn. Sweat dripped down his face almost instantly, but that was all.
What am I? he wondered.
Dree threw the door open and they raced inside, where the main hallway was thick with smoke. Fire was raging everywhere, shooting out of classroom doorways and racing along the ceiling. It was like the fire was alive, enjoying its deadly work.
Dree froze. She had seen this before. She remembered a hallway wrapped in fire, pictures of people she knew melting on the walls. There was smoke everywhere, but she could see. She could see past the wall of fire, where another door was waiting . . . closed.
“Gavri,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
Marcus watched as her eyes glazed over, and he heard the quiet name on her lips. He grabbed her arm and shook her. “Dree? Are you all right?”
Dree snapped back to reality and remembered that this was a different fire.
“Yes,” she said. “Let’s go.”
The blaze seemed less frenzied farther down the hall, and that was where Dree led them, ducking low beneath the heavy smoke that hung over them like brooding clouds.
They may have been safe from the flames, but she knew the smoke could still kill them both if they didn’t move quickly. Dree guessed the families would be sheltered in the mess hall—it was a huge, reinforced concrete room and would be the best option to escape the barrage. Dree had gone to this school as a child, but she left to get her job at the forge. She had bad memories of this place—fellow students calling her dragon lover and traitor and saying her dad was a cripple.
She remembered returning home one day, finding her father alone.
“What’s wrong, princess?” he asked, perched in his chair.
He’d been injured only a few months earlier, but the exhaustion was already settling into his face. People still came by—revolutionaries from the underground searching for their leader—but they found only a suddenly old man in a chair. They left disappointed.
“Nothing,” Dree murmured, trying to hurry to her room.
“Dree,” he said sternly.
She stopped, wringing her hands together.
“The kids at school.”
“What did they do?” he asked.
She looked up at him. “They called you a cripple. The older boys. They said you got what you deserved.”
Her father was silent for a moment. “Come here.”
Dree shuffled into his arms, and he met her eyes.
“People will always say things, princess. It doesn’t matter. All that matters
are our choices, Dree. Not about what you feel or fear. About what you believe.”
Dree’s eyes watered. “So get up. Help the people at the door—”
“Maybe one day,” he said softly. “For now, I have to rest.”
And just like that he was gone again, and Dree was back in the fire, racing down the hallway to save her family.
Marcus stayed right on her tail, terrified and exhilarated all at once that he could be in here, surrounded by flames. He did feel the smoke hitting him hard, though, and he suspected he’d succumb to it soon enough. A wooden door collapsed next to him, spewing fire as it did. He saw hand-drawn pictures on the wall, burning. Ahead, Dree looked manic.
“Hurry!” she shouted, sprinting down the hall.
They reached the mess hall and Dree wrenched the double doors open, revealing at least a hundred terrified people huddling in the center of the huge room. She spotted her parents with Abi and the boys and ran over to them, wrapping Abi in a fierce hug. Her father overlapped them both, tears of relief streaming down his face. Dree had never seen him cry before.
“We thought you were gone,” he whispered.
“I thought the same about you,” Dree replied hoarsely, pulling away from them. “What are you still doing in here? The school is on fire.”
“What can we do?” he said, looking around. “It hasn’t spread in here yet, and the machines are still attacking out there. We could hear the screams. If we leave we might be gunned down.”
“If you stay you’ll burn,” Dree replied. “It’s spreading fast.”
“Who’s that?” Abi asked, looking at Marcus.
They all turned to Marcus, who was standing awkwardly behind Dree, trying not to intrude on the tearful reunion. He managed a wan smile and a wave.
“A friend,” Dree said shortly, as her mom wrapped her in a hug as well. Her eyes were puffy and red from crying, and as she stroked Dree’s cheek, the tears started again.
“We thought—”
“I know,” Dree cut in. “But we can do this later. We have to leave.”
“How?” Abi asked, terrified.
Marcus looked back and saw that the fire was now raging across the doorway they had entered. He spotted another door on the far side of the mess hall and hurried over to check it. Gingerly pulling it open, he saw that the fire was already spreading there too, but that it was not nearly as fierce as the other side. It was the only way out of the gym.
“Here!” he called. “Hurry!”
Dree and her family started herding everyone toward the door, and Marcus cringed when he saw all the small children huddled against their parents. There were even babies cradled in their mothers’ arms. He couldn’t let anything happen to these people.
Marcus quickly led the crowd out into the hallway, where the flames were already creeping along the walls and floors like vines. Screams suddenly erupted from the mess hall, and he looked back to see that the far wall had just collapsed beneath the fire.
They didn’t have much time.
Waving his hand and shouting for the crowd to follow, he turned left down the hallway, heading for what looked like daylight some fifty feet away. Dree was still at the back of the group, trying to get everyone out, so it was up to Marcus to lead the way.
He was halfway there when the school was rocked by a powerful explosion. The force of it almost knocked him right off his feet, as up ahead another wall collapsed.
“Hurry!” he shouted, and the crowd of screaming Draconians broke into a run.
One harried young woman pulling a child beside her was just passing Marcus when the ceiling started to give out. A wooden beam fell right through, bursting with flames and heading straight for the woman and her child. Marcus didn’t even think.
He reached up and caught the beam, almost buckling under the weight but just managing to keep his footing. The fire was racing over his hands, but as before, it didn’t burn him. The weight was incredible though, and he felt his arms straining terribly.
“Go!” he screamed.
The woman stared at him, wide-eyed, and then ran out with her boy. The rest of the group rushed past, gasping when they saw Marcus holding the burning beam over his head, the fire seemingly having no effect on him. Dree and her family came last, and she helped him push the beam aside, looking at him with a strange expression.
There was no time to talk. The school was rocked by another explosion, and Marcus and Dree ran down the hallway as the ceiling started to cave in. Her family burst out of the back door, and Dree and Marcus followed, racing into the brilliant daylight as the hallway collapsed behind them. Their hearts sank immediately. The crowd was huddled together in a circle, right in the middle of a field outside the school. There, hovering right in front of them, were three drones.
The drones weren’t firing—they just floated there, red eyes locked on the crowd. Machine gun turrets were exposed below each of their wings. The silence was heavy.
“What are they waiting for?” Dree whispered.
“I don’t know,” Marcus said. “Orders, maybe.”
A man suddenly broke away from the crowd, sprinting for cover. He never made it—one drone casually gunned him down, not even moving from its position. The screams and weeping echoed across the field.
Marcus felt sick. Were resources really worth all this?
He stepped forward, walking toward the drones.
“Hey!” he said. “My name is Marcus Brimley from Arlington, Virginia. Please stand down. These people are not your enemies!”
He stopped in front of the drones, pleading.
“Please . . . stop these attacks. You’re murdering children—”
The drones suddenly shot upward, about fifty feet overhead. For just a moment, Marcus thought that he had persuaded them to stop. Then he saw a white drone waiting beneath the clouds, almost invisible, missiles emerging from its stark wings. The red eyes of the black drones flared as they locked on their target: the crowd.
“Take cover!” Marcus screamed, already knowing they would never make it.
But just as the drones prepared to fire, black shapes swooped from the sky. Marcus looked up in wonder as the dragons descended like a flock of ravens, spewing fire and converging on the three drones.
Erdath landed directly on top of one of the black drones, tearing at the heavy metal with his teeth and claws in an absolutely terrifying fervor. He ripped a wing clean off with his teeth, sending sparks shooting everywhere. Erdath released it, letting it smash into the ground, a ruined hulk.
The dragons turned after the two remaining drones, but the drones didn’t fight back. They simply took off to the south, leaving the attacking dragons far behind them.
Marcus and Dree watched as the drones vanished into the distance. Lourdvang and Erdath landed in front of the crowd.
“Thank you,” Dree said, hurrying forward to hug Lourdvang.
The other Draconians looked afraid, but many echoed her sentiment.
Erdath looked around the crowd. “You should leave the city. Make for the mountains. There are old dragon caves there—bring food and water and go.”
The crowd quickly dispersed, many of them stopping to thank Marcus and Dree before they took off into the burning streets. The young mother Marcus had saved stopped in front of him, her young son huddled against her leg.
“Thank you,” she said hoarsely. “Are you all right?”
Marcus blushed. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
She glanced at her son, then back to Marcus and lowered her voice. “How did you do that?”
“Luck,” Marcus said, shifting awkwardly and feeling Erdath’s curious eyes on him. “Take your son and get to the mountains. It will be safer there.”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
She took off with her son, and Marcus turned back to Dree, who was giving her family instr
uctions on how to get to Lourdvang’s hidden cave in the nearby mountain. They looked scared but determined, especially Abi. Dree took her father’s arm.
“We’ll fly overhead to keep the skies clear,” she said. “Get some supplies and go right away. It will take you an hour or two to get there. Don’t go back to the docks.”
“Maybe we should try the bunkers?” Dree’s mother suggested.
Dree shook her head. “They won’t protect you. Get to the mountains.”
She hugged her family and then hopped onto Lourdvang’s back. The other dragons were circling ahead, black shapes against the sky. There were at least fifty dragons there, and Dree knew the rest of the city was probably in a panic. Marcus followed Dree onto Lourdvang’s back and watched as her family hurried into the city.
Lourdvang leapt into the air, and Marcus took a last look behind them, where the school was now a flaming heap of metal and concrete. If he didn’t think of something soon, there would be nothing left of Dracone to save. He wondered again who was controlling the drones. Could it really be the U.S. government? Would they really murder all these people just for resources?
As they circled over the city, he spotted a black speck flitting over the tilled farm fields to the south. It must have been one of the smaller drones that Ralar had described, not much bigger than Lightning Bug. It looked like it was surveying the landscape. The drone flew in a carefully organized grid, moving slowly as it swept over one acre at a time, just like Bug in a storm. In fact, they looked almost identical.
Marcus turned away, adjusting his grip on Dree’s waist and watching as her family hurried to grab their supplies, as small as ants below. The city was crumbling around them, the entire block nothing but rubble.
Whoever it was controlling the drones, they were winning.
Chapter
16
Marcus, Dree, and Lourdvang stood together on the exposed ledge outside the Nightwings’ lair, staring at the lush green valley far below them. Multicolored birds were circling over the forest canopy, their shrill voices echoing through the mountains.