Dragon Fate

by J. D. Hallowell

  They were indeed feline in appearance. They were covered in brown fur everywhere except on their palms and the pads of their feet. The curious gait came from their legs being more like a cat’s. At first, they appeared to have their knees bent the wrong way, but that was because the feet were greatly elongated and the actual knees were much higher up near the hips, like a four-legged animal. The strong thigh muscles and overall shape of the leg explained why the creatures could jump so far. Their arms were fairly man-like, but they had retractable claws in their fingers. Though their ears were set on the side of their heads, they were up higher than a man’s ears and they were pointed. Nat couldn’t be sure now that they were dead because the pupils had totally relaxed, but he guessed that they had elongated pupils, also. They certainly had the mouth configuration. The upper lip was split up to the nose, and they had pointed canines. The jaws were slightly protruding so that they would be able to use the teeth effectively as weapons. The rest of the dentition was also similar to a feline and obviously made for a meat diet.

  “This is quite interesting,” Nat remarked. He pulled something out of the mouth of the creature he was examining and held it up in the light. It was a leaf of some kind.

  “What is it?” Winston asked.

  “I can’t be completely certain because it’s been chewed, but if it is what I think, it explains much.”

  He took the leaf closer to the fire and examined it more closely. He washed it off carefully and finally, to the amazement of all, he put it in his own mouth. He quickly spit it out and rinsed his mouth with water.

  Then he said, “Yes, that explains it.” At the confused looks around him, he said, “Oh, I’m sorry, I tend to get lost in my own thoughts and forget to explain myself. This leaf, and I have found evidence of it in the mouths of all of the creatures, is an anesthetic. It can be crushed and used topically to relieve local pain. However, if chewed, it causes a system-wide deadening of pain and gives the user a great deal of endurance and a sense of invulnerability. It isn’t widely used for two reasons. One; it tends to make the user ignore wounds that should incapacitate him; it makes him hard to kill, but more prone to suicidal headlong charges.”

  Brock said, “That would explain why both Rita and I had to hack and stab that creature we killed so many times. I was beginning to think that if we cut it to pieces the pieces would get up and attack us again.”

  Delno added, “I gutted the first one that attacked me, and it just got up and came back for more.”

  Winston looked at the healer and said, “You said there were two reasons the herb isn’t more widely used.”

  “Oh, yes,” Nat replied, “it’s rare in these parts, especially in leaf form like this. The leaves lose a lot of their effectiveness if dried. It is grown in the extreme south of Horne and then processed, so that the extract, which still isn’t as effective as the fresh whole leaves, can be kept for later use. In its processed form, it’s hideously expensive. I keep a small amount, but I use it only sparingly.” He paused, looking at the creatures, lost in his thoughts for a moment. Then he said, “These creatures had enough fresh leaf in their mouths and stomachs to kill a human being; it’s a wonder they could even function.”

  “Even so,” Jason asked, “how did they expect to complete their mission and get out of camp?”

  “Obviously, they didn’t expect to get out,” Delno said. “They had to expect to be killed by the dragons once they had finished murdering me and Rita. It was a suicide mission.”

  “If it was a suicide mission,” Winston replied, “then whoever sent those creatures will most likely be watching to see if they succeeded.” He turned to Delno and said, “If they see Geneva and Fahwn in the air, then they will know that they failed.”

  Chapter 44

  The pass loomed ahead of them. The sun was low on the horizon, so the canyon was completely dark and forbidding. The Troop had halted about two hundred yards shy of the mouth of the passage. Leera and Gina spiraled down and landed about fifty yards from the front of the column. The Riders quickly dismounted and joined the two officers sitting on horseback. There were no other dragons in evidence.

  The officers dismounted, and Brock spoke to the lieutenant, “I hope you know what you are doing, Delno.”

  “Well, if not, I won’t have long to regret it,” he said, using a little gallows humor to relieve his own tension.

  “I’d feel a lot better if you were in the air on Geneva rather than getting ready to climb that damn pass and scout around on foot,” Brock replied.

  “We’ve already discussed this, my friend,” Delno responded. “They expect that Rita and I are dead, so we have to keep our dragons out of sight. We need to scout the pass from the top and can’t do it from the air because they will be watching for that. Even in Corice, where almost everyone is a mountaineer, I am considered better than most when it comes to climbing. Also, I have been involved in quite a few battles in terrain just like this. I’m the logical choice to go.”

  “I know all of that,” Brock retorted, “and I agree in principle, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  Delno slapped the smaller man on the shoulder affectionately and said, “None of us like it, Brock. Did you spot anyone watching us as you flew up?”

  “Aye, I saw two on the left ridge and Jason spotted two on the right. I don’t think there are any more; there just isn’t enough cover up there.

  Delno turned and nodded to Winston before turning to Sergeant Winslow and “ordering” him to have the men take a quick break and then make camp for the night.

  The men, including Delno and Sergeant Smith, headed pell-mell for the rocks as if they hadn’t had a chance to relieve themselves all day. After a few moments, the men began to return to the wagons, while the two dragons took off to scout the pass ahead.

  By the time all of the confusion had settled down and the dragons were more than two hundred feet off the ground, Sergeant Smith and Delno had reached a small trail that led some ways up the toward the top of the canyon wall. They knew perfectly well that the men waiting in ambush would expect the dragons to scout the canyon and conceal themselves when Brock and Jason flew overhead. However, not doing so would probably alert them to the fact that the Troop knew about the ambush. The whole disorganized scene of men running off to relieve themselves then returning by ones and twos while the dragons were taking to the air was just to hide the fact that two of them didn’t return to the camp site.

  Delno stopped the sergeant before he could put his foot on the trail and said quietly, “Before we take another step, there is one thing I need to know.”

  The sergeant asked, “What’s that?”

  “What the devil is your first name? I’ve never heard anyone refer to you as anything other than Sergeant Smith.”

  The man both laughed and said, “It’s Ambrose.”

  Delno said, “Ambrose?”

  “Now you know why I don’t go by my first name, and why I can fight so damn well.” After a slight pause, he added with a smile, “My friends call me Smitty.”

  “Well, Smitty, let’s go see what we can see.”

  They took the path as far as it went, which was about three quarters of the way up and half way along the pass, but on the outside of the ridge. After that, they had to climb for real. Smitty was impressed with Delno’s climbing skills. Even though Delno frequently stopped to wait for the man, he was hard pressed to keep up. Delno was careful to keep track of where they were and where the hand and foot holds could be found, since they would have to climb back down in the dark, and Smitty didn’t have the advantage of his enhanced night vision. Fortunately, Delno had also brought rope which he’d carried, even on horseback, coiled around his waist; it was now looped over his shoulder.

  There was about an hour of daylight left when they reached the ridge. They found a rock outcropping, about the only place to hide on the ridge, and hunkered down there, since they would need to wait for darkness because cover on the ridge was so spa
rse.

  Delno spoke to Geneva, who was hiding along with Fahwn and Rita about three miles back from the rest of the company. “Tell Rita that I am on the ridge.”

  “She says to be careful; she doesn’t like this, and neither do I, for that matter.”

  “I know, Dear Heart, but we need to know what to expect before we place the other men in danger. Did Brock see anything?”

  “No, but Leera did. There are about thirty men on each side of the canyon. They tried to hide their presence by huddling under tarps the color of the ground. Leera could see their heat and reported them to Brock. He flew a little lower and could just make out the edges of the camouflage.”

  He was thoughtful for a moment and then asked, “What kind of weaponry do they have?”

  “Dear One,” she sounded annoyed, “you know that heat vision doesn’t work that way. All she could see was the heat of their bodies. That’s why she couldn’t get a more accurate count. The weapons are the same temperature as the surrounding objects and aren’t distinguishable from them.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry, Love, you’ve explained this to me before; I was just hoping that she might have seen something else.”

  “Be thankful it was late afternoon and the ground had cooled, or you might not have any information at all.”

  He sat silently waiting for darkness. When the sun finally set and night fell, he and Smitty went in search of their enemies. They crept from their hiding place and someone off to their right said, “Whew, it’s good to be out from under that damned cover.”

  He and the sergeant both froze. They weren’t more than ten yards from the man who had spoken. Someone else said in whisper, “Quiet, you idiot, sound carries off of these rocks, and that canyon acts just like a megaphone; if the men in the camp don’t hear you, the dragons will!”

  Delno and Smitty continued to lay perfectly still, waiting for the men to move away. After half an hour, two more men arrived. These two relieved the first pair on watch. The voice that had originally whispered for quiet said, “You’ll be relieved at dawn; if you see anything, one of you hightail it to the main camp and let us know, but keep it quiet.”

  Another voice answered in an annoyed whisper, “You don’t have to tell us our job; we know what we’re doing.”

  Two of the men walked away, but the two who remained sat down to watch the pass.

  Delno realized that they would either have to sneak away right under the men’s noses, or deal with them. If they dealt with them, the fact that he and Smitty had been there would be obvious when their relief showed up at dawn. He silently signaled Smitty to crawl away. They were nearly a hundred feet from the guards before they stood and moved more quickly towards the ambush point.

  They reached the center of the canyon, and Delno could see the enemy camp. Many of the men were sleeping on the open ground. He signaled Smitty to wait while he lay down and inched forward on his belly. There was a slight gully that ran almost to the center of the camp. It wasn’t much, but if he stayed low and moved slowly, he could get quite a ways without being seen. As he got close, he found that several men were filling one gallon jars with oil from larger vessels. Once a jar was full, they stuffed a rag in the opening and then set it down and repeated the process. He slid forward several more feet until he could see the edge of the canyon. The men were stacking the filled jars at the precipice. He had seen enough; he began backing up in the direction he had come.

  Once he had rejoined Smitty, they began stealthily heading back to the point where they could climb to the trail. They avoided the sentries and made their way down the rocks. It was hard going, and often Delno had to actually take Smitty’s foot and place it in a hole in the rock, so the man could find the footholds, but they eventually reached the path and trotted back to camp.

  “Yes, light the rags and drop them over the edge on us,” Winston replied to the information that Delno and Smitty had brought back. “Especially since the road through the canyon is just gravel covered with tar. The oil itself will splash and burn some men, and those who aren’t hit directly will be burned when the oil lights the tarred surface.”

  “The thing I don’t understand is; how do they expect to deal with the dragons?” Jason asked. “They know we’re here, and they have to know that we won’t sit idly by and watch our comrades get burned alive.”

  “I’ve a feeling that they have something they think will be effective against the dragons.” Delno replied.

  “We still have the advantage of surprise on our side,” Brock replied. “They think we have only two dragons; they are assuming that Rita and Delno are dead.”

  “So, Handsome, what’s the plan then?” Rita asked.

  “The only one that makes sense,” he answered.

  Chapter 45

  All four Riders were mounted on their dragons. The sun would be up soon: already they could see the light on the horizon. Delno carried his bow and a large quiver of arrows; he’d had more arrows made before leaving Orlean, but he’d hoped they wouldn’t be needed. The dragons crouched and spread their wings, ready to take off. Winston signaled them that the men were ready, and Delno gave the signal to take flight.

  The plan was quite simple; because of the devastating ambush the enemy had devised, Delno and Winston had decided that they simply would not enter the canyon, but would engage on their own terms and in their own time. They would attack the ridges just before dawn’s light. The dragons would make their first pass using their heat vision to aim. After that, there should be enough fire on the ridge to see quite clearly.

  Delno was certain that the enemy had something to fight against the dragons with, probably some magic user, so he would stay aloft and watch for anyone gathering power, while using his bow to cover the other dragons.

  As a final fall back plan, the troopers had spent the night entrenching themselves in case any of the enemy got off the ridge and attacked the camp.

  The dragons got the altitude they needed, and Brock signaled that they were ready. None of them liked the idea of flaming the enemy this way, but they had been left with no other choice: the enemy had chosen the rules of engagement, and the Riders were simply playing by them.

  Brock, since he and Leera were more experienced, took the left ridge himself, and Jason took the right; Rita would fly in after Jason had made his first pass, so that the two dragons wouldn’t get in each other’s way. Delno watched as Brock and Jason began their run. The dragons angled their flight so they would pass over the largest number of heat signatures they could, and then they swooped down to about twenty feet off the deck. Flame erupted from their mouths as they passed over. The first men were caught mostly unaware and they died quickly, but as the dragons got farther along, many men, alerted by the dying screams of their comrades, tried to get out of the way; most were unsuccessful.

  Then Delno noticed a powerful energy source on the left ridge. He had Geneva angle towards it while he nocked an arrow. There was fire everywhere, and some of the containers of oil began to explode from the intense heat. The mage on the ground was momentarily distracted while he moved to a safer place; Delno followed and began taking aim as the man began conjuring. Instinct told him to put a shield in front of the mage, so he held his fire while he did so. Energy shot out from the mage and hit the shield. The shield stopped whatever the mage was throwing at Brock, but that alerted the man to the presence of another magic user, and he began to look around. Delno was so close now that he could feel the heat of the fire. Brock had done well at the terrible task. Nearly every other man on the ridge was dead or dying and most of the oil that they had was now pouring all over their own position, increasing the amount of flame in the area.

  On the other ridge, Jason hadn’t done quite so well, but he’d still done a lot of damage. A few men were standing unharmed, and much of the oil had not been set ablaze. Just when the men still alive and unhurt on the right hand ridge thought they had gotten off lightly, Rita and Fahwn made their pass. The men scrambled for what cover
they could find as the dragon spewed death at them. As Fahwn finished and began to pull up, more oil casks began to explode.

  Delno could actually see the magic user’s face now, and he watched as the man became enraged and began raising energy while following Fahwn’s flight path. Delno drew the bow and fired. The arrow hit him right in the chest and went completely through. He crumpled and the energy he had been gathering went awry, hitting the last cask of oil, which exploded engulfing his body in flames. Delno looked to the opposite ridge and saw only fire. The battle was over.

  He called a halt just as Brock got into position to make another pass.

  ”Leera wants to know why we are not attacking again,” Geneva relayed.

  “Because there is nothing left to attack. I’m not even sure there is anyone left alive to interrogate.”

  As if to punctuate his words, another cask of oil exploded on the right ridge.

  Fahwn relayed that she and Gina had each found and captured a survivor; they were the sentries on the right ridge. Their dawn relief had never gotten the chance to change places with them. They were the only men from the enemy camp left alive.

  The stench of burning oil and flesh was making Delno nauseous. He said to Geneva, “Let’s find some cleaner air, Dear Heart. Head back to camp.”

  Geneva said nothing as she complied.

  Winston came running up as they landed. The fires on the ridge were clearly visible. The Captain saw the look in Delno’s eyes, the same look that was reflected in the eyes of the other three riders, and said, “It is done then.” It wasn’t a question.

  One of the men who had accompanied his commander said, “But, they haven’t been gone more than half an hour!”

  Sergeant Smith rounded on him and snapped at the man, “Close your yap and secure those prisoners.”