“I’m out,” I said. “Need to reload my magazines. I’ll need cover.”
Meuhlnir stared at me, and Yowrnsaxa’s mouth hung open a little as she looked at the bodies, which were now starting to steam for some unexplainable reason, and shook her head. Mothi and Sif walked toward us as I started reloading the magazines for the Kimber. He was bleeding from a multitude of small cuts, and Sif was limping, her face screwed up with pain.
“That was…” started Mothi. “To be honest, I was impressed the other night. Now, I’m a little bit frightened.” Even so, he winked and smiled.
I grinned at him. “Yeah, but I didn’t shoot you, did I?”
That made him laugh, and the weird mood seemed to break for all of them.
“Impressive, Aylootr,” said Meuhlnir, but now the nickname sounded like it was less of a joke to him.
“Indeed,” said Sif, coming to stand next to me.
Yowrnsaxa was staring at the Svartalfar, and I glanced in that direction. The elves were as still as statues, staring in our direction. They didn’t speak, they didn’t cajole or taunt the demons as they ran past them toward the hill. They just stared at us, arms hanging limp.
“Why do they wait?” I asked.
“They are unpredictable. Craven,” said Mothi. “But dangerous nonetheless. The most dangerous of the three.”
“By far,” whispered Yowrnsaxa.
“They just watched you kill almost all of the karls and enough demons to make the others run. Single-handedly, for the most part. They are trying to understand how, and decide if they have enough numbers to guarantee victory,” said Meuhlnir. He turned to look at me. “I don’t think they do.”
I shoved reloaded magazines into my pockets. “Why don’t they run then? Why are they just standing there?”
“There is no understanding the Svartalfar,” muttered Yowrnsaxa. “To say they are strange is to call the sea wet.”
As I slid the last of the reloaded magazines into the pistols and released the slides, the air split with a terrifying shriek, and the ground shook and rumbled with violence. The Svartalfar squatted but continued to stare at us like we were some interesting kind of bugs. The demons had reached the last hill and were running up toward the top with no sign of slowing.
“Looks like the demons have packed it in for the day,” I said.
Meuhlnir grunted.
As the demons disappeared over the top of the hill, a rumbling, basso roar sundered the air. The demons reappeared, running back to the crown of the hill and then running around in a panic. Another roar ruptured the air, closer this time. The demons began to shriek and run away toward the east. The black elves stood and looked toward us with hateful smiles.
“Uh, what is that?” I asked.
“That is an indication that the Dark Queen is taking a more active role in this fight,” said Sif.
“Looks like you might get to meet a dragon, after all,” said Meuhlnir.
“What? A dragon? I thought you were kidding about that.”
He looked at me from under his shaggy eyebrows, the worry evident on his face. “No. We may be in serious peril.”
“A dragon,” I said. “I hope its reality doesn’t live up to the myth on my klith.
“If it’s small enough, we might be able to face it,” said Mothi in uncertain tones.
“How do you fight a dragon?”
“Usually, with an army of karls and a large number of vefari,” said Sif.
The basso roar rent the air again, and the dragon moved to the top of the hill. It was an immense, pearly-white beast that looked to be as long as a football field from the tip of its bifurcated tail to the tip of its snout. It walked on four thick legs that had more in common with ancient Grecian pillars than any animal legs I had ever seen. The legs ended in paws equipped with two sets of opposed digits. Each of the digits was tipped with a long, tapering, black talon that dug deep into the dirt as it walked, turning the ground into a churned-up mess. Huge, leathery wings sprouted from its back, just behind its front shoulders, that were a silvery-white color and winked with reflected sunlight—like polished chrome on a hotrod. Its scales looked like the blade of a Roman pugio. The edges of the scales swept toward the tip with shallow S-shaped curves which looked sharp enough to provide a wicked laceration. The curves narrowed to a sharp point at the scale’s tip. A triple line of ridge scales ran from the base of its skull, down the back of its torso, and out to the spade-shaped tips of its tail.
“So much for it being a small dragon,” grunted Yowrnsaxa.
Meuhlnir looked grim. “It’s just another thing to drive us in the direction the Black Queen wants us to go.”
“Let us hope,” said Sif.
“Lucky for us, it’s the direction we want to go,” said Mothi.
“That’s what worries me,” said Meuhlnir. “The horses, Mothi. Be quick!”
A look of intense concentration settled on Mothi’s face. Power shimmered in the air around him as he pursed his lips and whistled at an ear-piercing pitch. The dragon shook its triangular head as if in irritation and then bellowed loud enough to make the ground beneath my feet thrum. Far to the west, I heard a series of shrieking whinnies as if in answer to the dragon’s challenge, and then the thundering rumble of galloping horses.
“Will they get here in time?” I asked.
No one answered me.
We all stared as the dragon squatted with all four of its huge legs, muscles bunching and twitching like a bag full of fighting badgers, and then leapt high into the air, mighty wings stretching to catch the air before sweeping downwards. The graceful, sinuous flying beast looked like a completely different lizard than the plodding thing that had wallowed up the hill. On the ground, it had dragged its long tail behind it like a prisoner drags his chains, but in the air, its tail whipped left and right and up and down, providing a steadying counterbalance and a kind of crude rudder.
“My God,” I muttered, half-entranced by its lissome flight and half-buffaloed by its venomous demeanor.
“Indeed,” said Meuhlnir as he glanced to the west, looking for signs of the horses. “This plain offers us nothing but maximum exposure to the dragon’s airborne weapons.”
“Will the horses even help?” I asked.
“They should,” he said. He sounded far from confident, however.
The dragon flew toward us without apparent effort, its wings slicing through the air in indolent beats. Its ebullient eyes seemed to stare into mine, and I began to feel lethargic and apathetic. As it flew over the clump of Svartalfar, it dipped its tail and let the two wide, shovel-shaped scales at the tips of its tail trail through the elves, slapping at them and knocking them to the ground.
My eyes burned, and I longed to blink, but my eyelids no longer responded to my desires. I could not tear my gaze away from the creature’s magnificent eyes. The horses thundered toward us from out of the west, but still I stood, arms hanging limp at my sides, mouth slack, eyes riveted on the dragon’s as if they were magnets and my eyes were iron filings.
“Get ready to mount,” said Meuhlnir in a crisp voice. “We will ride hard, zigging and zagging across the plain. Our only hope is to either irritate the beast until it gives up or it tires out.”
I felt a hand on my shoulder, but couldn’t turn or even look in that direction. I wanted to cry for help, but my mouth seemed like it was cast from iron.
“Aylootr?” asked Mothi, shaking me by the shoulder. “Hank?” Alarm rang in his voice.
“He’s mesmerized!” shouted Sif.
Mothi slammed me to the ground from behind, and I could no longer see the dragon’s eyes. With agonizing slowness, the lethargy began to leave my limbs.
“What fool looks at a dragon’s eyes?” muttered Mothi.
“One who doesn’t know anything about dragons,” snapped Sif. She shoved Mothi away from me. “We mustn’t assume he knows the dangers of Osgarthr.”
“Of course,” said Mothi in a contrite voice.
“Are you recovered enough to ride?” asked Sif.
“I’ll…I’ll have to be,” I said. “I don’t think the dragon is inclined to wait for me to feel better. What else do I need to know about that big lizard? Does it breathe fire.”
The horses swept up to us, shrieking their defiance at the dragon, which was flying in wide circles as if it were waiting for us to mount so the chase would be more sporting. I stumbled toward Slaypnir and fought my way into the saddle, keeping my eyes on the ground or the back of the horse’s neck. I never wanted to feel the way I had looking into the dragon’s eyes again.
“Not this kind,” said Meuhlnir. “It’s a white.”
“And?” I snapped. “We have no dragons on my side, white or otherwise.”
“Frost,” said Sif, “and ice.”
“Oh, joy,” I said, through lips twisted and sour.
“Ride!” shouted Meuhlnir. “Zig and zag, but try to stay heading north. Keep each other in sight!”
We gave the horses the spurs and sped across the plain. We each twitched our reins from side to side without pattern, sometimes getting in each other’s way, but avoiding any outright collisions.
The dragon roared in rage as it saw what we were doing, the oscillating sound sending shivers of fear across my shoulders. It veered back and forth, trying to keep me in front of it, but I kept pulling Slaypnir into tighter and tighter turns. As lithe as the dragon was in the air, the steed could turn much faster than it was able to follow. Slaypnir seemed to be enjoying the contest.
The dragon hissed and spit its anger down at us. There was a peculiar sound—something like a cheap Styrofoam cooler rubbing against something made from leather—and then a torrent of white shot past us and splashed across the plains in front of us. Where the white stream hit, the grass froze and then shattered, tinkling like broken glass. Swatches of ice appeared as the beam of cold twitched across the plain.
“Jump them!” screamed Meuhlnir, kicking Sinir in the flanks.
“Don’t touch the frozen ground,” shouted Mothi. “It is death!”
I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to communicate the need to jump to Slaypnir, but lucky for me, he seemed to know what to do. One moment, I was being jarred around like a bobble-head in a monster truck, and the next we were sliding through the air as if horses flew rather than ran. The impact of the landing rattled every joint in my body, and I lost my grip on the reins.
Slaypnir screamed a challenge at the dragon and tossed his head. I grabbed the leading edge of the saddle and held on for dear life. Slaypnir put on a burst of speed as the dragon veered toward us roaring and hissing.
The strange Styrofoam on leather sound came again, and Slaypnir darted to the left, hard and fast. I slid in the saddle, panic rubbing its cold, greasy hands across my insides. Slaypnir shrieked again as he leapt another patch of frost and ice and then bolted back to the right.
The temperature of the air around me dropped precipitously, and the dragon passed close over my head—close enough that I could feel the downdraft from its wings. I leaned close to Slaypnir’s neck and stretched a hand back to my hip, pulling the Kimber out of my holster. Staying low, as close to the heaving neck of Slaypnir as I could, I raised my hand and snapped off two quick shots at the dragon.
Sparks flew from the scales on the dragon’s side, just behind its shoulders, and the sound of bullets ricocheting away added to the din. Slaypnir shied a bit at the booming thunder of the large caliber gun, but otherwise took it all in stride. The dragon arched its neck and turned its head back to look at me from under its wing, its mouth open as if it were panting. I avoided its eyes by burying my face in Slaypnir’s mane. The flying beast roared at me, and the subharmonics seemed to be boring holes into my guts.
“That won’t do any good, Hank!” shrieked Yowrnsaxa over the buffeting wind of our flight across the plain. “The scales are too hard!”
The scales could deflect lead, and there was no way I was going to risk being frozen inside my own body by trying for a shot to the eyes, but the wings looked like skin rather than scales. I held my arm close to my side for support, bent at the elbow, gun raised above Slaypnir’s neck. The horse grunted deep in his chest as if to say he didn’t like the noise but understood the need for it.
I pointed the pistol at the huge wings and squeezed off a round. The dragon shrieked and veered away to the side and then landed heavily, holding its injured wing out away from its body. I pulled the trigger until the slide snapped back, each report followed closely by a shriek from the dragon. With the gun empty, I slapped it into the holster and made sure the strap was secure. I leaned forward and stretched my hand down to grab the reins, but there was no way I could retrieve them at this pace. I settled for lying against the horse’s neck and holding on.
The dragon was shrieking and roaring in pain and with rage, it stomped after us in a clumsy, lurching sort of run. Slaypnir didn’t slow, however, and neither did any of the others. After a short distance the white dragon gave up the chase.
We raced across the plain, leaving the screaming dragon behind us.
Thirty-two
We cantered the horses all that afternoon, letting the horses rest when they needed to and urging them on when they were able. As dusk fell, the monotonous flatness of the prairie began to morph into small hills and gullies, slowing the pace. After dark, we slowed the horses to a walk out of necessity but rode late into the night. When we stopped to camp, we were all exhausted, and our nerves were jangled. Meuhlnir wouldn’t risk a fire, so we had a cold supper.
“You said the dragon was the Black Queen’s way of taking a more active role?” I asked, cringing at how loud my voice sounded after the silence of the meal.
Meuhlnir turned toward me, his eyes glinting in the light of the full moon. “Yes,” he said.
“Was she… Was that her? Can she change into a dragon the way she and Luka changed into animals on my klith?”
“We call her the Dragon Queen because she has some kind of hold on the dragons of the air. Maybe the sea dragons, as well, I don’t know.”
He hadn’t answered my question, but I was content to let it pass for now. “So that was an ordinary dragon? A natural dragon, I mean.”
Meuhlnir nodded in the darkness.
I grunted and pulled out my guns and began to clean and oil them, which is difficult to do in the dark unless you’ve done it about eight billion times with the lights on. The smell of solvent and gun oil wafted through the air.
Mothi barked a sour laugh. “Is there anything those things can’t do?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Let’s see, they can kill men with the speed of the Old Fart’s lightning bolts, kill entire groups of demons, drive off attacking dragons… Did I miss anything?”
I shrugged in the gloom. “Guns don’t kill people, people do.”
“What?” he asked, bewildered.
I sighed. “Nothing. It’s something that was said on my klith. It’s meaningless here.”
“I meant no offense,” said Mothi.
“None taken,” I said. “I’m just worn to the bone.”
Mothi grinned, but his dominant expression was also one of exhaustion.
“Let’s all get some sleep,” said Sif in a voice that was raspy and hoarse.
I finished cleaning the two pistols and put the cleaning kit back in my pack. I laid back on my bedroll with a contented sigh, happy that it wasn’t snowing in my face for once. I let my eyes drift shut, suffering through the aching, burning pains of my joints settling in silence.
Thirty-three
I was running across a bleak plain. Something in the air, something flying with a sound like creaking leather, chased me. I wanted to turn and see what it was, but I couldn’t do that, or everything would be lost.
Ahead of me, there was a walled city where I could find help, maybe, except nothing moved in the town.
I ran through the splintered and rent front gates. Dead men-at-arms lay scat
tered like broken, forgotten toys on a child’s bedroom floor. Small fires burned, sprinkled hither and yon, and the smell of burning bodies was pervasive.
I was alone, except for the huge flying thing that was following me, and I knew I shouldn’t be. I had friends somewhere. A family. People who cared about me and who were sworn to protect me with their lives if need be.
Maybe they were there, but just invisible.
I ran on, heedless of where I was going. Not caring about the burning houses I passed. Not even seeing the vast pools of blood gleaming in the late afternoon sun. I couldn’t look around, or the flying thing would freeze me in midstride, and then, and then, everything would be for nothing. Everything would end in a flash of pearly white.
All of a sudden, howls, snarls and deep-throated growls erupted from the streets surrounding me. I could smell something now, something animal, something wild. Underneath the smell of wild animals, there was something else, an insidious odor, sickly-sweet and foul at the same time. The smell of corruption, but not the smell of death. It was the smell of suppurating sores, like those found on someone suffering from wet gangrene.
I knew what that meant. It was important. It was important, but I couldn’t look around. No. I couldn’t look for what was making that smell. If I did, I would be lost. What does it mean?
I knew what that meant, but I couldn’t remember. I had to find out, to remember, but all I could think about was the damn flying thing chasing me and its creaky, leathery wings.
It was important. What does it mean?
I ran on, fear becoming terror, terror becoming panic, panic becoming hysteria. I knew better than to let the fear get the better of me, but that smell…that smell drove me like a cowboy drives cattle. Turning me left, then right, then left again. It was herding me, driving me where it wanted me to go, and behind me, ever behind me, the massive thing with creaking leather wings.
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