The Summer Dragon

by Todd Lockwood

  The onslaught paused again, though we heard combat on the roof and in the paddock. Logs tumbling, masonry breaking. We all looked at each other—fear and grim determination on each face.

  “Eggs,” I said.

  Four soldiers stood ready. I passed eggs to them from Athys’s nest as quickly as I could, and they hurried down the stair.

  I started after them with my arms full, when the paddock-side door next to Coluver’s nest shook from a heavy blow. She roared in terror. The door shattered and two burnt dragon Horrors lunged through. Before we could react they grappled Coluver, tearing and biting. I put Athys’s eggs back in her nest. Fren and Tauman shot without effect as the soldiers tried to reload their crossbows. The Horrors pushed Coluver off the precipice and out of sight.

  “No no!” I cried, and Keirr moaned in fear.

  Man-Horrors followed them in from the paddock, five or more bearing curved swords.

  Soldiers lined up on either side of us. “Lead crispy,” shouted one of them. “Loose!” They all released at the Horror in the front. I added two arrows of my own, as did Tauman and Fren. Only when the ninth and tenth arrows pierced torso and skull did it finally collapse. We reloaded, retreating toward the stair, as two soldiers closed on the monsters with swords drawn. One swung at a neck, but failed to penetrate the armor. The Horror chopped the man’s arm off with a downward stroke. The soldier shrieked, but the man-thing grabbed him by the throat and silenced him with a crushing grip. The second soldier hacked at the creature, lopping off its arm in turn. Green glowing pieces fell from the wound.

  I’d seen this once before, in the caves; wounds that would fell an ordinary man didn’t faze the Horrors at all.

  The monster turned to the man without pause and struck, one-armed, at his shield, parried another strike at its neck with the stump of its arm. The next Horror in line pushed past the reach of the soldier’s sword in a rush and grappled him. He screamed at the icy burning touch as the things bore him down.

  From the paddock, a Dragonry team charged through the creatures, the mount sweeping them up in its forelimbs, roaring at the freezing pain of contact. It pushed them through the broodhouse and off the precipice on the other side.

  The team turned to face the paddock again. Cairek! My heart lifted. Then a pair of dragon Horrors charged. Taben sat up on his haunches, cocking Cairek’s topbow with his elbows, and Cairek cut loose. Taben danced a rhythm that kept the topbow fed while nimbly sidestepping the creatures’ attacks. He lured them sideways, then around. They followed him when he took off again. We had time for a few deep breaths.

  Fires burned everywhere. Some of the palisades still stood, but were under assault. Bodies and pieces of bodies littered the paddock, dragon and human alike. Among them one of the Torchbearers lay crumpled face down with only half a rider in the saddle.

  The door to the paddock beside me boomed and rattled. Claws reached around the edge and ripped it out of its tracks. As the Horror steadied its momentum to attack, a Torchbearer dropped on it from above and broke the Horror’s wings efficiently before ripping the rider apart. With the monster pinned beneath, the Torchbearer bit down and snapped its neck behind the skull.

  Addai again. He turned, spotted me. Galloped to my side and turned to face the paddock. “There are too many of them, and they double up on the Juza. Their burning touch makes melee dangerous, but arrows are ineffectual. We can’t hold out. Get your eggs moved, and we’ll follow you in.”

  I nodded, but suddenly the cliffside door before Grus rolled violently aside. A Horror filled the space beyond, screeching. Grus spread her wings to guard her nest, roaring defiance. The monster landed, lunged at her. She met it with claws and teeth.

  Addai charged on his Torchbearer, but another creature burst in, blocking his path. They broke into furious battle, obstructing my view of Grus. I dashed to my right to see her in full grapple with the monster. I targeted its body, afraid to aim for a more critical spot for fear of hitting our dam. They wrestled in huge sweeps and lunges. I ducked under Grus’s wing, made for her nest to use it as cover and guard her eggs.

  It took that little time for the Horror to drag Grus off the platform into darkness. The beast battling with Addai broke away from him and leapt into the darkness as well. Only Keirr’s whimpers kept me from falling to my knees in grief. I took her head in my arms. “Oh gods, baby.”

  Bellua directed Zell down the stair, following beside her with an egg under each arm. I didn’t see Cairek. Fren and the soldiers sent arrow after arrow into the paddock.

  Horrors everywhere—on the storehouse roof, dismantling war machines in search of flesh. Fighting over scraps by the water trough. Men in the palisades between broodhouse and tack house battled still. Dragonry yet flew; I spotted Rov once, and Marad. And others. But we lost ground even inside the broodhouse. A soldier ran up to me with two eggs in his arms. “We’ll never get them all,” he said, and dashed down the steps. Behind him, Coluver’s nest and her remaining eggs vanished under a swarm of man-Horrors.

  “I’m out of arrows!” shouted Fren, lowering his bow and pulling his long knife. He backed toward the stair as man-things charged across the paddock.

  Two Horrors landed on the broodhouse platform. Addai directed his mount into a defensive retreat, dismounted and collected two eggs from Grus’s nest. He passed them to me. “Everybody downstairs!” he called.

  Keirr tailed me into the stairwell. A short string of soldiers followed, then Fren. Addai backed down, his Torchbearer trading swipes with something out of sight above. Fren cranked on the windlass for the trapdoors above, but a dragon Horror crawled down the stairs, its face slashed to glowing green tatters. Bows snapped and arrows sprouted from its head, neck, shoulders. Vulnerable in the stairwell, unable to bring its foreclaws into play, Staelan’s men stabbed it with spears. Finally the Torchbearer locked its teeth on the monster’s face and shook. The thing collapsed, blocking the stairwell. On its back the stump of a rider crumbled into cinders.

  Shrieks sounded from above. Five or six of Staelan’s men were up there yet. A heavy boom. A hiss. Scrabbling. Steel clashed. A war machine shook the aeries with its heavy release. Roars and screeches opposed each other. Shouts bled into screams. The thud of the big machines dwindled. A few moments’ silence. A topbow cranking. A roar.

  The screams ended.

  FORTY-NINE

  TAUMAN MET FREN with two quivers of arrows. Athys stayed close by him, keening with fear and concern.

  “Rannu?” I said.

  Tauman shook his head. “I don’t know. Grus or Coluver either.” He wouldn’t let his eyes linger on mine. He handed me a quiver. “This is all we have, the entire cache in the ice vault. There’s two more like it in the winter stable and the Manor, but they might as well be in Avigal.”

  Then he turned to Addai. Hesitated for a moment, and finally held the last quiver out to him. He didn’t take it immediately, and when he did, Tauman didn’t let go until their eyes had met. “You still have a full quiver. I give this to you for one reason: You are Juza, and your duty is to defend us.”

  Father wouldn’t have made the offer, I thought to myself.

  Tauman turned away before Addai could respond. “Bellua, and the rest of you—I’m sorry. I have no crossbow ammunition.”

  Bellua nodded, touching his quiver. He had three quarrels left. Staelan’s men checked their count.

  Addai scowled at Tauman for a moment before he turned to Staelan’s men, pointing. “All the crossbow ammunition to you four. Divide it evenly. You’ll alternate shooting and reloading by pairs at my command until you’re out. You three on spear.”

  “Yessir.”

  Addai pointed at the big rolling doors at the north end of the vaults. “The original brood platform. This is where we’re most vulnerable.”

  “They’ve not been opened in decades,” said Tauman. “And the space between the insid
e and outside doors is filled with straw. They’re nailed shut. It will slow them down, at least—we’ll get that much warning.”

  The sound of a repeating topbow rang down the stairs, then faded. Something shook the broodhouse. Pebbles chattered down onto the dead thing in the stairwell.

  I felt Addai’s burning gaze before I turned. He stared at me for several seconds, his face unreadable. Then he glanced at Tauman. My brother watched him. So did Fren and Bellua. With expectant faces, Staelan’s soldiers looked back and forth between the lot of us.

  “Now’s not the time, Addai,” I said.

  “Now is always the time.”

  Bellua started toward us.

  From the direction of the old brood platform came a muffled thud, then scratching and splintering, hushed by the barricade of straw.

  “Gods,” said Tauman. “There go the outer doors.”

  A pair of topbows chattered. Voices rang out. Crushing noises. Roars.

  “We have some friends out there yet,” said Fren.

  Addai finally turned away from me. “Be ready to target all shots on the first breach of the inner doors,” he said. “If we have to retreat, use the ice shelves as cover. If we’re lucky, they’ll stop for the easy meal of frozen meat.”

  We lined up, arrows nocked. Arms and legs drawn as tight as crossbows. Athys, Keirr, Zell, and Addai’s Torchbearer spaced themselves evenly along the expanse of doors—wings tucked tight, teeth bared, each by his or her bonded rider. Staelan’s archers watched the stair. Fren stood at my side.

  The sounds grew clearer, closer. Ripping. Fighting. The inner doors shook once. Scraping and clawing. Keirr growled low, a menacing threat I’d never heard from her before.

  Crossbows snapped. “The stair!” shouted one of the soldiers. A man-thing pinioned with crossbow quarrels fought its way past the dead dragon Horror in the stairwell.

  “Don’t let them close,” said Addai. “Aim!” Two bowmen stepped back to reload as their counterparts stepped forward. “Release!” he shouted, and they shot in turn. The Horror jerked at the impacts but came on.

  “Aim! Release!” A soldier with a spear stabbed the thing in the chest and pushed, held it at bay long enough for Addai to repeat the rotation again. Aim! Release! Two more arrows struck it, but it chopped at the spear with its sword. I didn’t have an angle for a shot. Aim! Release! Another man-thing crawled down the stairwell behind it.

  A thunderous boom rattled the inner door to my left. Splinters pelted me. The door split vertically, bolts flying. A dragon-Horror’s face and forearm started to push through, but the straps on the door held it in place. A soldier dashed up to hack ineffectually at its armored neck. Arrows bloomed on cheek and snout, and it shook its head, screeching in anger. The wheels ripped out of their track and the heavy door became a trap for the monster, dragging it face-first to the floor, crushing the soldier beneath it. It struggled to free itself while the rider slid down from the saddle, drawing a black sword. An extra skirmisher dropped down from behind him.

  Addai’s Torchbearer leapt to the attack. It crushed the rider like an insect, assailed the exposed neck of the creature. Addai shot the skirmisher, dropped his bow, then met the thing with sword and dagger.

  The next door to the ancient broodhouse shook and cracked.

  Aim! Release! from my right—one of Staelan’s soldiers had taken up the litany. Fren’s bow sang. A howl. Addai fought in slow retreat. His sword and dagger flashed with terrifying efficiency. I kept my attention on the broodhouse door, bow drawn, waiting for a target of opportunity. The charred head of a dragon came around the edge. I pinned it. Tauman and Bellua loosed as well. The door shattered, and the monster charged in.

  Athys met it, slashing and biting. Cried out in pain at the Horror’s icy touch. Zell joined her. Bellua’s crossbow snapped. Tauman’s bow sang. A staccato rhythm punctuated the noise from somewhere behind the monsters—a topbow. Could it be Cairek?

  Aim! Release! I wouldn’t risk a look at the stair, but the repetition of the order lifted me—Staelan’s men still fought.

  Addai dropped his opponent at last only when, armless, legs mangled, it stumbled to its knees and presented its neck. Bellua released his final quarrel, dropped his crossbow, drew his sword. Addai’s Torchbearer ripped through the neck of the trapped Horror, and it ceased struggling.

  Another dragon-beast loomed out of the shadows behind it, but stopped in its tracks, dragged backward. It freed itself, turned, and backed into the ice vault to face Cairek and Taben before it. Cairek aimed for the monster’s head with his topbow as Taben slashed and grappled. Addai’s Torchbearer attacked it from the rear. Addai released arrows into it at incredible speed.

  Tauman and Fren targeted the monster facing Athys and Zell. Chunks of cinder fell away from its chest, but it battled on as yet another Horror pushed past it into the vault.

  The Torchbearer redirected his attack to face it. The rider, already free of harness, jumped down to the platform and charged Addai. A skirmisher slid down as well, and came at me.

  I shot, and shot again. Torso, neck—but it came on, raising a dark curved sword over its head. With the impossible inferno glowing out of the chasms in its flesh, it seemed that it ought to burst into flames. I put an arrow through its forehead. On it came. I ran into the shelves and fell over a fallen package. The man-thing opened its horrid, lipless mouth in a rasping scream, and drew back to hack me in two.

  But Keirr chomped down on its hands, the sword flew aside, and she shook it until both arms ripped free. She struck at its head, crunching down on the helmet and shaking the thing again. She screamed in agony, but refused to let go until the head separated and the thing finally dropped lifeless to the floor. She positioned herself over me and roared defiance, anger, pain, fear—all at once.

  I crawled to my feet in time to see Addai’s Torchbearer crush the skull of the dragon Horror in its jaws. Cairek and Taben took down the last, crushing the fallen door to splinters in the process. Addai, covered in his own blood, dispatched the rider.

  Silence followed briefly, then two more Dragonry teams landed on the ancient platform and made their way in: Rov and one of his men, then Marad and a pair of Juza. All of them, man and beast alike, bled from multiple gashes.

  “How many are left?” asked Addai.

  “We’re it,” said Rov. “In even numbers we’re overmatched. They’ve slaughtered us. We’re out of lances and down to the last of the topbow ammunition. This is where we make our stand.”

  I paused only long enough for a single deep breath, then started pulling arrows from dead things to be reused. The Horrors’ burnt flesh gave up the arrows more easily than I expected. Fren and Staelan’s men did likewise, while Tauman and Bellua looked to their dragons’ wounds.

  Zell bled profusely from chest and shoulders, neck and face. She lowered her cheek to Bellua’s, and he held her head close. “I’m so sorry, my poor faithful girl,” he said quietly. She licked his face.

  Taben stepped in front of me, and Cairek leaned down. “Are you hurt, Mai—my lady?” His eyes were wide.

  I shook my head no, and put my arm around Keirr’s neck.

  “Thank the Avar. Stay behind me.” He turned Taben around to face the shattered doors.

  Enough twilight remained to reveal the far side of the old broodhouse, opened through to the outside for the first time in generations. The awakening stars struck me like they never had before. This might be the last time I ever saw them. I smelled the ancient straw and dust, sweat and blood, the carrion char of the Horrors. Felt the air in my lungs and the beat of my heart.

  Silhouettes obscured the view almost immediately, overlapping each other. Cold light burning in deep hollows of corrupted flesh made it hard to tell each creature from the next. Hisses and growls rang off the stone.

  Rov, his man, and the Juza dismounted and took up positions behind their
mounts. They faced the Horrors with nocked arrows or leveled spears. Marad and Cairek stayed mounted to use their topbows.

  I made a quick count—I had eight arrows. “Get behind me, Keirr.”

  The monsters advanced, and we pelted them with arrows until Addai shouted, “Hai!” The military dragons—Juza and Dragonry alike—leapt to the attack. A display of power and ferocity erupted before us. Dragons met Horrors with teeth and claws. Cheien was a fury, seemingly immune to the monsters’ icy touch. Cairek shot the last of his ammunition, unholstered a spear to fend off a creature as Taben slashed in measured retreat. A pair of screeching Horrors overpowered Marad and his mount. They vanished with a cry behind a curtain of torn wings. One of the Juza Torchbearers attempted to spit fire as it grappled, but it was spent. Two Horrors bore it down.

  We were all nearly finished. I had three arrows left. Addai turned to me, glancing at Tauman and Fren and Bellua. His eyes were wide, his mouth hardened with resolve. He seized his sword and dagger—a wicked, serpentine thing—and turned his back on the battle. His lips parted as his breath quickened. He started toward me.

  I nocked an arrow and drew. “Don’t do it, Addai.” He didn’t slow.

  Bellua stepped between us with his sword drawn. “Don’t do it, brother. You’re wrong.”

  Addai halted, looked up at him. “She’s seduced you, Bellua. Don’t try to stop me.”

  I sensed the Edimmu, on the outskirts of awareness.

  Bellua kept his sword lowered, but his shoulders were squared. “There’s more going on than you comprehend. Don’t—”

  “Stand aside,” Addai said. “This ends now. Can’t you see what’s happening right before your eyes?”

  Fren ran to my side, an arrow nocked in his bow. One of Addai’s Juza warriors drew on Bellua. Fren aimed at the Juza. I targeted Addai.

  The Edimmu intruded on the edge of thought. How interesting, it said.