CORAM

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CORAM Page 8

by Bonnie Burrows


  weapon. She half-ran and half-leaped around the creatures’ fire. It would take only a couple of seconds. I can make it, she determined and kept moving.

  Leanne only wished she could see what was happening behind her. She could hear the fire bolts striking Coram on his armored legs and chest and gauntlets. She could hear his weapon whooshing and searing through the air, and the sound of grass dragons screeching when the crackling blade struck or slashed them.

  Amid that, she heard Coram roaring at them, challenging them to do their worst, and imagined the rooftop around him littered with dying little scaly bodies. All of that galloped through her mind even as she herself bound step by step towards that hatch and shot down as many of their little assailants as she could…

  …And then all at once, her body erupted in a sudden, shocking rudeness of pain. She went into a spasm and crumpled onto all-fours, still clutching her own weapon, stifling a scream from the searing, smoking spot on her left thigh where a jet of flame had hit her. She crouched, trembling, perspiring with the effort of suppressing her pain. Everything began to spin around her, and she gasped at her injury. Leanne refused to fall. Not now…not now…

  Then, just as abruptly, she was swept up in two strong reptilian arms and slung over a broad reptilian shoulder. She found her head tucked between the shoulder and a wing and one of the arms that had hoisted her up now grasping her just under her bottom. Leanne groaned a bit at the feeling of Coram carrying her the rest of the way across the rooftop and felt the flex and strain of his muscles as he slashed his weapon through the air with his free hand.

  A second later, she felt herself being unceremoniously dumped onto the passenger’s seat of the transport, and she allowed herself just that much opportunity to catch her breath. She was in pain, but she felt an obligation to resist it. Now that she was inside the transport and momentarily out of the line of fire, there was something she had to do.

  Outside, Coram’s task was now even more daunting than getting Leanne into the transport. Now, he had to get himself to the pilot’s side and through the other hatch, and he had to do it with the air over him thick with dragons and fire. Giving out a roar that sounded like a curse, he flapped his wings and launched himself into the air right into the midst of the swarm of little flying, fire-spitting beasts. He needed only fly a few meters—but they would be among the most dangerous meters he had ever flown.

  Once in the air, Coram was surrounded even worse than he’d been on the rooftop. He saw some of the little bastards swooping around the central gargoyle with which he and Leanne had just fitted the Chimerian Protocol mechanism. They shot their fire onto it, scarring the surface of the sculpture with burns. If they penetrated the gargoyle, a portion of Silverwing’s

  defense would be compromised.

  A more immediate danger faced Coram himself. A dragon came soaring in directly at him, mouth agape and glowing. In an instant, the creature would discharge its fire right in Coram’s face—but Coram slashed the air in front of him with his power blade and connected with the animal’s jaws, sending it spiraling and smoking away.

  Coram’s situation was now dire. Soaring above the roof of the transport, he had dragons all around him, hemming him in with fire bolts from every direction. He spun in the air, deflecting some but not all of their fire. Multiple jets of fire punctured his wings and struck his tail, making hot and agonizing welts. He went into a dive for the other side of the transport, knowing Leanne would have the hatch open for him. All he had to do was leap through it—as long as he could concentrate through the pain…

  And a second later, Leanne watched the open hatch, and Coram’s body spinning and falling down past it, disappearing from view.

  Eyes wide, Leanne cried out his name even as she moved, wincing, her senses reeling from her burned leg. She could see the eruptions of fire against the forward viewport and hear the bursts against the roof of the vessel and was grateful that the hover van, the property of the Knighthood, was built to withstand direct strikes from power blades and, thus, able to hold off such fire as she and Coram were now facing.

  But she and Coram themselves were not fortified quite so well. Fighting the pain, Leanne got herself across the forward seating from the passenger’s side to the pilot’s side and engaged the engines. She set the craft on a downward course and clenched her teeth.

  Outside, the wounded Coram used what presence of mind he still had to set himself on a spiraling path to the street, using the spread of his injured wings and the guidance of his injured tail to brake his speed downwards. If luck were with him, he would find a comparatively soft grassy spot in which to crash, or perhaps…

  Visions of his childhood flooded his mind at the sight of the treetop that rushed up to greet him. In a second, his world became a blur of snapping tree limbs, violently churning, rustling leaves, and the impacts of his own limbs against branches and boughs. He came to rest hard against a limb just strong enough to stop him, and lay there, dazed and pained, nestled and crumpled in the foliage. Somewhere in his mind, he could hear his parent’s mortified voices, reacting to his having “done it again.”

  The sound of his memory gave way to a whirring of engines. He managed to lift his head up and see the transport coming in for a hover and the passenger’s hatch opening for him. Leanne’s voice called out, “Coram, how badly are you hurt? Can you get in?”

  Coram struggled both against the tangle of tree limbs and leaves in which he lay and the pain in which the little devils overhead had put him. “I can manage,” he called back. “Just stay there.” And with a hiss of defiance against the indignity of how he’d been saved, he lurched himself free and carefully negotiated the branches until, with a leap, he managed to clear the tree and latch onto the bottom of the hatch with one gauntleted hand. He pulled himself laboriously into the transport, morphed back to human, and got himself into the passenger’s seat, leaning his head back against it and muttering very human curses.

  “I dropped my blade,” he grunted between obscenities. “I’ll have to retrieve it.”

  “There’s more we have to worry about,” Leanne said. “I’m going to find a spot to land, then I’m linking the Fleet Headquarters. There’s something we need from them.”

  Leanne got their craft down to the ground and landed on the front lawn of the Ullery Tower. Outside the viewport, she and Coram could see that the calamity and conflagration they had left overhead was reaching down to ground level. Bolts of fire were hitting the grass and the ground everywhere, and people were screaming, shouting, and running—or, in dragon form,

  taking off into the air—in every direction. Here and there, a jet of fire would strike someone, cutting a weredragon out of the air or cutting down a fleeing human.

  For just an instant, Leanne and Coram felt helpless dread closing in around them. But it didn’t last. Just as quickly, from around a corner came three silver-white flying cars, the vehicles of the Lacertan Dragon Corps, and with them at least a dozen armored members of the Corps flying in dragon form on their own.

  They watched the Corps vessels get struck by fire from above and watched their flying dragon compatriots return the attack with laser rifles trained towards the rooftops. They saw grass dragons falling out of the air onto pavement and grass, while Corps personnel leaned out of the flying cars’ windows to join in shooting at the beasts. Some of the Corps members landed and started to help the wounded and assist people in taking cover.

  “Willem and Tarik and Kesta—they must all be going through this same thing too,” Coram realized aloud.

  “And we’re going to do something about that right now,” said Leanne. Tapping her wrist comm, she said, “This is Lieutenant Commander Leanne Shire to Fleet Headquarters. Mobilize reinforcements armed with anti-Chimerian retrovirus; recommend Retroviral Protocol Beta, maximum coverage. Implement at once. And bring a couple of extra jet guns; we’re going to need them.”

  A voice from the tech on her sleeve responded instantly, “Acknowledge
d, Commander. Reinforcements scrambling, Retroviral Protocol Beta. Bringing additional material. Headquarters out.”

  Once Leanne was finished, Coram said to her, “Morphing back to human has started healing me up. I’m getting back out there. I still have to find my blade.”

  “I’m going too,” Leanne said.

  “You can’t,” Coram said sharply. “Not with that leg. Not without First Aid. Stay here in the transport and patch yourself up. Then, get back out if you really feel you must.”

  “Do I need to remind you who’s in command here?” asked Leanne.

  “Do I need to remind you who your liaison and advisor is and what the procedures are for wounded personnel? Do as I say…Commander.”

  Leanne flared her nostrils and narrowed her eyes at him for that. He had actually given her an order. She would be furious with him—if he weren’t correct.

  Her mood abruptly changed when he reached over and took her by the hand. She was startled, caught completely unprepared for the gesture. He gave her hand a squeeze, and she felt the strength and softness of his human flesh, which felt better than it had any business feeling at a moment like this. Coram said, “And by the way, now that I have the chance to say it: thank you for the save up there.”

  “Falling back into your old habits, I see,” said Leanne, “getting yourself into trouble and flying into trees. What would your parents say?”

  “They’d give me a proper reading out,” he replied.

  There was a beat of silence that under other circumstances might have been filled with more banter. Instead, they sat there quietly, and the exchange of banter was understood. Then, Coram said, “Let me get the First Aid kit for you before I go back out.”

  “All right,” said Leanne, nodding.

  Coram climbed into the compartment behind the seats in which they had brought in the gargoyle. Leanne watched the madness continuing to unspool outside the front viewport. A group of humans ran down the street with a pair of Corps members flying over them, escorting them to safety as fire streaked down around them.

  Other Corps members stood or crouched beside fallen civilians, protecting them from the rain of fiery bolts, taking fire on their armor or their skin and fending off attacks with swings of their power blades. Grass dragons swooped low for a closer attack and were struck down as soon as they appeared. Leanne frowned at the way these creatures, who normally were so small and innocuous, had become such dangerous living weapons. The more she saw, the more anxious she was to get back out there.

  In a couple of seconds, Coram returned with the sealed hard-case of emergency medical supplies. He sat himself back down and handed it to her. “This should hold you until your Fleet reinforcements get here, which I know won’t be long,” he said. “Now, I’m on my way.”

  “I’ll be right out once they get here and get us what we need,” replied Leanne. “Take care of yourself out there.”

  With a cocky smile, not entirely appropriate to their situation, Coram gave her a quick, brisk nod, then opened the passenger’s side hatch and bounded out onto the street, sealing the hatch behind him.

  “Come on, Fleet,” whispered Leanne once he was gone.

  Outside, Coram took in the surreal scene of battle against the small, swooping creatures until one came diving in and shot forth a jet of fire right at him. He moved instantly, ducking and rolling from the pavement onto the grass, then leaped up just as quickly and broke into a run. With a few long, fast strides, he was across the lawn of the Ullery Tower and under a tree. The branches and boughs strewn on the grass told him that it was the selfsame tree in which he had broken his fall; now, he was sheltering himself under it.

  Taking no time to ponder that any further, he tapped his badge and said, “Locate my power blade.” In an instant, the badge produced a holographic map of the surrounding street and buildings with a flashpoint of light on what appeared to be a ledge directly across the way. Coram peered out from under the tree, spotted the building, and identified the ledge as being a roof garden three stories off the walkway, part of a larger tower. All right then, he thought. Across the street and up to the roof, collect your weapon, and get back into play.

  Coram released his human body into his dragon form, bolted out from under the tree, and leaped into the air with wings spread wide and tail thrashing. With luck, the little devils would be too occupied with the personnel of the Corps protecting civilians to have at one lone Knight—until he rejoined the battle and had at them.

  And luck was with him. He soared safely across the distance separating the tree where he’d ducked from the roof garden where he needed to be, and came in for a landing amid potted trees, hedges, and beds of flowers. Folding his wings, he again touched his badge: “Ping on the exact coordinates of my power blade.” At once, a sharp and persistent pinging sound issued from one of the hedgerows. Coram made for there and crouched between two shrubs, reached into the soil beneath them, and drew back the hilt of his weapon, none the worse for the fall it had taken. “All right, my friend,” he whispered to it, inspecting it to make doubly sure it was undamaged, “we’ve more work to do now.”

  The Knight bounded back out into the middle of the roof garden, and as soon as he was a fully exposed target again, several opponents came in from above. They flew in circles and arcs around him, shooting fire as they came, and Coram was ready for them. He projected the glowing blade of his weapon and flashed it through the air as fast as his foes could fly, blocking and parrying their attacks, sending blazing arcs in every direction. The deflected attacks started fires in the bushes and flowers, and some part of Coram, deep down inside, took offense at such

  destruction occurring in such beauty.

  As quickly as the thought had crossed his mind, safety systems in the rooftop reacted, and the arcs of fire were met with arcs of sprinkling water that, under normal circumstances, would be for watering the garden. They served just as well to inhibit and quench the fires and filled the garden with hissing sounds and curls of smoke and plumes of water vapor in which the attacking dragons flew about, confused.

  “Very good,” Coram quietly said with a wicked grin. The sprinkler system could not affect his blade as it did the fires, giving him all the advantage he needed. With blade held high, Coram advanced on the nearest swooping dragon and slashed the creature from the air with a single stroke, sending it to sprawl lifelessly atop a bed of flowers.

  Coram moved quickly through the garden with the water sprinkling against him, slashing his tail and swinging his blade in every direction, attracting the small dragons to him. He kept himself in the arcs of water to hold them at bay, leaping from sprinkler to sprinkler, swooshing his blade and cutting down a dragon or two everywhere he went. The hissing sounds of extinguished fire were replaced with the death shrieks of falling grass dragons until Coram was alone on the roof again.

  He let out a satisfied dragon hiss of his own as he swiveled his dragon neck from side to side, surveying the scene of his triumph and the litter of dead, scaly green bodies in the garden. Then, he returned his attention to the street, where he had left Leanne.

  He leaped from the roof and flew down into the main part of the carnage. Just a few meters

  beyond the transport in which he knew Leanne would be busily patching up her leg, a Dragon Corps member came tumbling out of the air and onto the grass of the Ullery Tower. Coram was horrified to see that five grass dragons had jumped onto the Corpsman’s back and were both burning and clawing at the exposed scaly skin of his shoulders, between his wings, and his lower back and the base of his tail.

  The Corpsman thrashed about on the grass, flailing his tail, but admirably not emitting any more sound than a furious reptile hiss. Coram touched down on the grass and said, though whether the Corpsman could hear him was anyone’s guess, “Steady on, friend, I’ve got your tail.” He lifted his blade at the dragons on the Corpsman’s back and shouted, “Ha, there! Ha, you lot! Fresh meat, come and get me!”

  The dragons atta
cking the Corpsman at once abandoned him and leapt at Coram. With a slash of his blade, Coram took down two of them, while two more circled around him—and the third came right for him. Somehow dodging Coram’s blade, the little dragon leaped onto the Knight’s chest. Startled, Coram fell back onto the grass, and now he was in trouble; his little assailant, holding on tight, was leaning in at Coram’s throat and opening a mouth full of flames. At the same time, its remaining two companions were also coming in for the kill. Brandishing his blade, Coram thought, this one is going to be tricky…

  Coram wielded his blade like a dagger. At the second that the dragon on his chest was ready to exhale fire onto the Knight’s throat, he plunged his dagger into the little beast’s side and impaled it with a noisome hissing sound. The dying animal screeched in protest as Coram regained his footing and swung his blade in the air with the dragon still impaled on it to fend off the other two. It would take expert timing to disencumber his weapon of the animal he had impaled and still deal with its fellows. Coram braced himself for yet another dangerous moment.

  Even as he did, there came a whooshing of engines down the street, and two Interfleet transport vessels, each one twice the size of the ones in which Coram and Leanne and the Corps members arrived, came hovering in. Their hatches slid open, and two dozen helmeted human members of the Interstar Fleet came flying out, taking to the air with jet harnesses on their backs. Each of them was armed with what appeared to be a long silver rifle with a large, bulbous stock—but it wasn’t blaster fire they discharged.

 

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