Dragon Horse War

by D. Jackson Leigh

  She frowned against the glare of the sun. “Like what? I don’t see anything.”

  “Like a target painted on my back or a hole burned between my shoulder blades where your father keeps staring at me.”

  She shoved him playfully. Will was the only part of this deception that was bearable. “At least you don’t have to wear stupid dresses and wait on stupid-ass men every minute of the day. I swear, if that guy with a week’s worth of food in his beard looks at me one more time like he can see through my clothes, I’m going to knock those bad teeth of his out of his head so he can go ahead and get dentures.”

  Will shuddered. “Ew. I’d hit him for you, but I don’t think I could stand touching him. We’ve been on this train two weeks, and I don’t think he’s bathed the entire time.”

  Ruth’s glare silenced them and they turned their attention back to where Cyrus stood on top of the solar train and stared out at the gathering crowd of villagers. His amplified voice boomed over them as he paced atop the train car.

  “And in my bleakest hour—my mate and beloved son lost under the tons of mud that swallowed our home—He came to me. I was blinded by his light, and yet I was not afraid. ‘Who are you?’ I asked.” Cyrus deepened his voice. “‘I am The Creator of all that lives,’ he replied. ‘I breathed life into the sky and the earth and all that is between. I control the wind and the seas and the skies. You are nothing except what I made you to be.’”

  Cyrus paused for dramatic effect. “My grief turned to anger.” He raised his fists to shake them at his unseen deity. “‘Then you are responsible for taking my family, for killing millions with wind and fire and flood,’ I cried. ‘No,’ The One said. ‘Your own actions have brought these consequences. I was silent while you appointed yourselves as a collective deity and denied your destiny of Elysium or eternal damnation. I did not interfere when you subverted The Natural Order I had created. But I have been patient long enough. And you, Cyrus, will warn the world. As my prophet, you will show your kind back to their true path.’”

  He raised his eyes to the sky and opened his arms in an imploring gesture. “‘What message am I to give them?’ I asked.” He returned his gaze to the crowd and deepened his voice again. “‘Hear me speak and heed the truth or perish to an eternal void. All are not created equal, and this is the only life I have granted you.’”

  A murmur ran through the crowd, and Cyrus waited for it to quiet.

  “The ingenious will lead, and the strong will find their reward in hard labor. We have weakened our species with marriages that have diluted pure bloodlines. We have crippled our society by rewarding the productive and the non-productive equally. We have subverted The Natural Order by forcing our women from their intended purpose—to bear and nurture our children.”

  The crowd began to shift as people dismissed his message and moved to leave. They stilled when Cyrus’s disciples slid open the doors of several train cars and began to unload food and medical supplies. He had their full attention now.

  “The Advocates who pretend to represent a nonexistent collective conscious have filled you with lies, promising you other lives if you waste this one. For them, The One will show no mercy.” He gestured to the crates being unloaded before the crowd. “But those who will join our mission to restore The Natural Order will reap the rewards of this earth. For its soil and everything it yields to us rightfully belongs to The One and his army of righteous soldiers. Swear your allegiance and you will share in our reward.”

  “You are the one who speaks lies.” The man who made his way to the front of the crowd appeared to be just like the other brown-skinned, dark-haired villagers dressed in loose cotton clothing stained with sweat and dust. But there was something—

  Kyle grabbed Will’s arm. “That man.” He appeared to be a villager, but some instinct told Kyle that he wasn’t.

  Will squinted in the sun. “Do you know him?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know him.” She closed her eyes. An image of fire and the sky filled with great birds appeared. No, not birds. Then it was gone. She opened her eyes. “I can’t explain, but see if you can get close. We need to talk to him.”

  Will didn’t hesitate. He slipped into the crowd.

  Cyrus stared down at the man. “Who are you to let your defiance deprive your neighbors of their reward?” Below him, Simon signaled one of the believers, who also began to move through the crowd toward the dissident. Kyle tensed. Will already had disappeared into the crowd. It was too late to signal him to come back.

  “I am Diego, and those crates bear the stamp of the central distribution. It would seem to me that you, sir, have already deprived them of the supplies intended for this and other villages.” Diego gestured for several villagers to help him confiscate the crates. “I think we’ll simply gather up what is already theirs, and you can take your misguided imagination elsewhere.”

  The people, angry now, shouted and pressed forward. Kyle stood, trying to keep her eyes on the stranger. Her hands heated and itched to hurl a fireball at her father’s henchman. He was throwing people out of his way to get to Diego. But her poor position and the jostling mob made accuracy impossible. Will was edging his way through the throng, but the believer was a step ahead. Diego’s hand was on the first crate when a sharp zap cut through the shouts and his body bowed with the surge of electricity that coursed through him. The rest of Cyrus’s disciples drew stun sticks from their pockets and attacked men and women alike as they scrambled to break open the crates and gather up all the food and medicine they could carry.

  Kyle was stunned. The mob seethed with violence. Zaps and screams sounded as stun sticks connected with flesh. Women wailed and babies cried. Stones flung by the villagers pelted the train and anyone standing near it. The sharp sting of a jagged rock piercing her brow shook her into action. She pushed Ruth toward the train car, using her body to shelter the older woman from a hail of rocks. Several more nailed her in the back, but she kept her head low.

  They were barely inside when the train began to move slowly. Her father’s men abandoned the unloaded crates and scrambled to jump aboard before the train picked up speed. The car filled with moans and curses, with the pungent odor of adrenaline-laced sweat and the stench of vomit as one man held his bloody head and retched.

  She stumbled to the rear of the car, sank into a cushioned seat, and closed her eyes. Even the throbbing in her head couldn’t stop the constant play of images swirling in her mind. She’d never witnessed violence before. Ever. It had dazed her. People attacking people. Yet every fiber of her being sang with it. She’d wanted to wade into the fray. She’d wanted to fight at Will’s side. Dung. She hadn’t been able to talk to that man. Who was he? Diego? More than a villager, she was sure.

  Gentle hands pressed on the source of her pain and held her firmly when she tried to pull away.

  “Hold still. I have to staunch the bleeding,” Ruth said quietly. The cloth she held against Kyle’s head smelled of antiseptic, and she swallowed against the impulse to gag. After a few minutes, Ruth let up the pressure. “I believe it’s stopped.” She patted the wound with a dry cloth, squeezed some medi-glue in the cut, and held the skin together for the few seconds it required to bond. “I’m afraid it’s going to scar, though. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

  Kyle paused to take stock of her aching body. “Maybe a few bruises on my back, but I think I’m okay.”

  “Turn around and let me see.”

  “I need to find Will. He was out there, trying to help. I don’t know if he made it to the train.” She started to stand, but a wave of dizziness stopped her.

  “I’m sure he’s fine, but I’ll see what I can find out about your young man. Now, turn around.”

  Kyle was very tired and felt like the contents of her stomach were trying to crawl up her throat, so she dutifully turned in her seat.

  Ruth hissed when she lifted Kyle’s shirt. “No cuts, but a couple of very bad bruises.” She plucked a four-by-four thermal cloth from th
e first-aid kit Kyle hadn’t noticed before and twisted it to activate the cold crystals embedded in the fabric. Then she gently applied it just below Kyle’s shoulder blade. “Recline that seat as much as you can and rest for a bit. I need to see to the men who are wounded.” She activated a smaller thermal cloth and placed it on Kyle’s injured brow, then taped a pain patch against the vein in her arm. “Thank you, Kylie.”

  “For what?” Kyle closed her eyes and covered them with her hand. The light was sharp shards striking her bruised brain.

  “I was paralyzed by fear, just standing there.” Ruth pushed the switch to darken the window against the sunlight. “If you hadn’t pushed me toward the train—” Ruth shook her head as if she couldn’t think of what might have happened. “If you hadn’t sheltered me with your body, those bruises on your back would’ve been mine. You’re very brave.”

  Drowsiness enveloped her as the pain medication seeped into her bloodstream. “I’m not brave. My mother was brave.”

  “Then she would be very proud of you today.” Ruth patted Kyle’s knee. “You rest. I’ll check on you later.”

  Ruth was wrong. If her mother were alive, she’d have stood up to Cyrus no matter how long he starved her. She would have waded into that crowd and fought for the villagers. Blazes, Laine wouldn’t even be on this train. And Kyle wouldn’t be either as soon as they hit the next stop. They were close enough. She could sense it. That stranger in the crowd was part of whatever was calling her. And she would answer that call or die trying.

  *

  “Bero has returned without Diego.”

  Jael was instantly awake, fully cognizant with the first whispered word from Second. She slipped out from under Alyssa’s cool body and couldn’t help smiling down at her. Alyssa slept the comatose sleep of a child that doesn’t wake even when picked up, moved, and resettled. She pulled a blanket up to cover her. Not because they were both nude. Shared showers and baths were the norm in this life to conserve water, a precious resource. Nakedness hadn’t been taboo in decades. But Alyssa was cold-natured, and the one thing sure to wake her was the absence of Jael’s unnaturally warm body. She pulled on a T-shirt and cargo pants, then motioned Second into the hallway.

  “What were you able to learn from Bero?”

  “Nothing useful. The best I could determine was that Diego left him in a wooded area at sunrise yesterday but didn’t return at dusk as usual. Bero waited until it was nearly dawn, then flew back to rejoin the others.”

  While the dragon horses would only communicate with their bonded warrior, they did share rudimentary images between themselves, and a warrior could glean some secondary images via their bonded steed. The end result, however, could be jumbled. Dragon horses didn’t think in the clear linear patterns of humans. Their minds often jumped to a totally unrelated image before the first was fully focused, like a butterfly flitting among a meadow full of inviting flowers. Information filtering through two of those brains was, well, often unreliable.

  “Gather the Guard in my office a half hour from now.”

  Second’s reply was a fist-to-shoulder salute, and then she was gone.

  “What is it?”

  Jael turned at the soft voice behind her. Her hair stuck up in spectacular disarray, and a tiny drop of mouth-cleaning foam still clung to Alyssa’s lip, but the very sight of her filled Jael with something she couldn’t put words to—an anchor to her restlessness, wings to her heart, flame to her passion. Since that first night they made love two weeks ago, Second had discreetly moved her things to bunk with Raven and Tan, and Jael’s quarters were refurnished to accommodate her and Alyssa. She pulled her close and licked the foam from Alyssa’s lip. “I haven’t had a chance to clean up yet.”

  Alyssa’s lips brushed against hers. “I think I used more than my share of mouth foam this morning, so I’m perfectly willing to share.”

  Mouth warm and minty, her body fit perfectly against Jael’s. She sighed. The road ahead would be rife with pitfalls. She believed Alyssa’s commitment to their mission, to the bond growing between them. She also knew that accepting the concept of battle was nothing like witnessing the reality. If only she could shield Alyssa from it. But she couldn’t.

  “Whatever it is, we’ll face it together.” Alyssa’s arms tightened around her.

  “Souls. You make me forget to shield because being with you drowns out thoughts from any others.”

  “You worry so loud, I doubt even your shields could keep it from me.”

  She released Alyssa and stepped back. “I need to finish dressing. I have a meeting in a few minutes.”

  Alyssa grabbed the front of Jael’s shirt and raised an eyebrow.

  “I mean, we’ve got a meeting.”

  Alyssa released her shirt and pushed her playfully. “Slow, but you’re making progress.”

  *

  “We leave at dawn tomorrow.” Jael drew three paths with her finger on the small screen projected by her IC, and it, in turn, displayed them for the others on a much-larger holomap that hovered over the conference table. “We have a hundred and twenty bond candidates, plus support troops. I don’t want to draw attention by moving that many people in one group, so we’ll split into three units.”

  A pair of peaks stood at the end of their valley and between them and the mountain where the nest of wild dragon horses was located. She traced a path around the outside of the mountain on the left. “Second and Raven will take one unit along this route.” She drew a path outside the mountain on the right. “Furcho and Tan will take another unit along here.” She indicated the shortest and most direct path between the mountains. “I will lead the third unit. We’ll leave last since we have the most direct route.”

  She looked up from her IC. They were waiting for an explanation. “Diego is missing.” She was stating the obvious. They all knew Bero had returned without his warrior.

  “Are we sure he’s not just gone off for a jump before we head for the nest?” Tan’s tone was light, but her finger tapping lightly against the tabletop gave a clue to her very real concern.

  “He was searching for supplies,” Second said. “We’ve been avoiding the major distribution centers in the larger cities so we wouldn’t draw attention to ourselves. Diego has instead been coordinating a large number of shipments from a series of smaller warehouses. Those warehouses have emptied in the past week because their shipments from the central supply stopped coming. He might have stumbled onto whoever is diverting those shipments.”

  Furcho stood. “I’ll ride down to the nearest village and see if I can gather any information. Then I’ll fly out tonight to find him.”

  “No. I need you and Second here today to oversee preparation for the mobilization.” Jael turned to Michael. “Go to the village. Ask questions.”

  Furcho frowned. “He won’t exactly blend with the general population. His pale skin, not to mention those mismatched eyes, wouldn’t go without notice even in the cities, much less the villages.”

  “That’s precisely why I’m sending him. I want people to remember him. We want them on our side.” She turned back to Michael. “Tell them you’re trying to find out why their shipments have stopped and that you think Diego is being held by the people who have hijacked the food they need to feed their families. Tell them The Collective is preparing to stop these misguided souls who are hoarding. We’re ready for word to get back to Cyrus. I want him to know we’re coming for him.”

  Michael gave a curt nod. “It will be my pleasure.”

  “Tonight, Bero will be drawn to find his bonded. Follow him and see if you can discover what’s become of Diego.” Jael stood. “One last thing. Alyssa will be with my unit. I want her two assistants to each accompany one of the other units. They’ll be able to sense the reaction of anyone you might run across on the way to the nest.”

  “Nicole can go with my unit,” Furcho said. “Uri with Second.”

  “No surprise there,” Tan muttered. “I guess I’ll have to play chaperone.”


  Jael would have smiled at Tan’s tease, but there was work to be done.

  “Guard.” They stood in unison at Jael’s stern call to attention. “You have your assignments. You’re dismissed.”

  Michael, a word.

  Michael hung back as the others filed out, and Jael touched Alyssa’s shoulder in silent permission for her to also remain. He looked at her expectantly.

  “If there is time, report back to me about what you hear in the village…before you follow Bero tonight.”

  “I will.”

  Jael eyed her young warrior with respect and true affection. The First People celebrated their homosexual members as one person having two spirits. But Michael was literally two genders in one person. Even in this enlightened age of acceptance, the rarity of his kind made most people uncomfortable. Diego was one of those who shied away from him, yet Michael didn’t hesitate at his assignment to track him down. “I don’t want to reveal our special abilities yet. If Diego is in a situation that you cannot remedy quietly, report back for further orders.”

  “Understood.”

  She clasped his lean shoulder, her voice gentle. “Take care. I need all of my Guard with me. Do not risk yourself unnecessarily.”

  The burn scar on his neck reddened at her unusual show of concern, and he straightened as he thumped his fist against his shoulder. “As you command, First Warrior.”

  She dismissed him with a nod, then sat on the edge of the conference table to stare at the doorway for a minute, remembering the very young teen Han had sent to her for training. He’d been shy and spoken only to answer her questions.

  “How do you prefer to be referred to?”

  He had submitted to her mandatory mind probe but had yet to meet her gaze. “My name is Michael.”

  “You know that’s not what I’m asking.” She had examined his thoughts, seen his memories. The wound she’d found was much too great for one so young.