Heresy of Dragons

by Erik Reid

  “Can we talk?” I asked.

  “Nothing to talk about,” Dani said. “The horses should be good to go.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Then let’s ride. Dani, you’re with me.”

  “I’d rather ride with Clara,” she said.

  “I didn’t ask what you’d rather.” I jumped onto our horse and glanced down at Dani. She took a deep breath and then climbed up behind me.

  This village was a different place in the daytime. Doors and windows were open; people walked freely in the streets. The bodies of last night’s drunken assailants were gone, so either they found their way home or someone woke up very early to drag them out of public view.

  No one stopped us as we rode out of the city together, through the wooden entry gates, and into the world beyond. Kaylee and Clara’s horse drifted a bit from ours as we trotted along a northward path, leaving Dani and me to talk in peace.

  “I care about you, you know?” I said. “If it weren’t for Kaylee’s curse, it would have been you and me together last night.”

  “Do you care about her too?” Dani asked. “Or do you only sleep with people you don’t care about?”

  “I care about her too, sure,” I said. “She’s growing on me fast, and she clearly needs people with level heads to keep her focused. But you and I have been together longer. We have a connection, and I don’t want to wreck it.”

  “You’re allowed to choose her over me,” Dani said. “I won’t get in a huff or run away on you. I owe you my life. But I’d really prefer not to talk about you and Kaylee. Can we just enjoy a nice, quiet ride?”

  She wrapped her arms around my waist, a subtle sign that all was not lost. I put one arm across hers and worked the reins with the other.

  The horses were still tired out from yesterday, so we let them reserve their strength for now and trot along at a slow pace. We rode toward the highest of the mountain peaks, the one with a diagonal shard of ice-covered rock that jutted toward the sky, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling that we were trotting along aimlessly toward a mountain range that never seemed to get an inch closer.

  Oscar, buddy, I said in my mind. I need help, and I need it now. Tell me where the fuck Benoch is.

  Point of Information: OSCAR-Host synchronization transpires at the rate of biologic rhythmic wave crests and peaks when host systems run at biologic capacity

  Enough. I don’t particularly care if you’re fucking with me, but I’ve got three girls here who are counting on me to get them someplace safe, and fast. I will not let what happened to Gretna happen again. Now tell me you piece of shit, which direction?

  Point of Information: OSCAR-Host synchronization—

  Okay, asshole. You want biologic capacity? I’ll give you biologic capacity!

  “Dani?” I asked. “Can you take the reins for a bit?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Why—”

  I passed Dani the horse’s reins and hopped off the horse while it was still trotting down the dirt path. I jogged into that inertia and didn’t stop, picking up my pace with each footfall. At first, I fell behind Dani and the others, but soon I caught up. They weren’t rushing ahead at full effort anyway. Why would they, with no clue whether we’d have to double back later?

  My mind slowed down as my body sped up. I was tired to start with, and now all of my energy drained from my mind and flooded my muscles. My legs pumped as hard as they could, warming up slowly and straining to keep up with my intentions.

  Those first few moments were rough, but they were still the easiest part of the sprint. As my body struggled to supply calories and oxygen to my thighs and calves, my breath came in quick bursts and the back of my throat dried out. My feet throbbed, and my vision seemed to narrow at the edges.

  I flared my nostrils, grit my teeth, and forced myself to keep running. Even when my legs felt like lead and my pace started to slow, I reminded myself what was at stake here, and that riding at a slow trot toward ice-capped mountains was not really an option.

  I told the girls it was our plan because I had nothing else to tell them. There was no plan.

  A short hill sat in the distance, and I knew the uphill slope would push my body even harder, so that’s what I aimed for. My calves revolted against the incline, burning with each step, threatening to give out and cramp up.

  They could rest when this was over.

  The back of my mind kept begging for me to stop. Then the bargaining began. One more minute, then you rest, right? You should stop before you dehydrate yourself. The girls might be worried, you should stop and check on them. That’s the right thing to do.

  Tempting, but no. Onward I ran. It was a race with a finish line I couldn’t see, but Oscar could. And at long last, he rewarded me big time.

  Sync Progress: 6%

  Thermographic Overlay: Enabled

  Usage Cost: 0.1% of Energy Reserves Per Second

  Activate Thermographic Overlay? Y/N

  I slowed to a stop at the peak of that minor hill and rested my hands on my knees, gasping for breath as my heart kept pounding a mile a minute. Dani and the others slowed down when they caught up, dismounting the horses and taking the slope toward me on foot.

  As my diaphragm calmed enough to regain speech, I said, “Yes.”

  Suddenly everything in my field of vision changed.

  Energy Reserves Down: 4.0%

  The sky turned a cold magenta, with the snowcapped mountains along the northern horizon a darker, colder purple that lightened toward the range’s base. To the east, the sun was a ball of white light with an aura of yellow that faded into red further from its center.

  Energy Reserves Down: 3.9%

  The ground was a patchwork of blues and greens upon which stood three women in reds, oranges, and yellows. They were outlines of color, their extremities a little cooler according to the infrared thermal imaging my eyes had shifted into.

  Energy Reserves Down: 3.8%

  The horses stood at the hill’s base. Beyond that, the world was nearly featureless. A few short buildings and the retaining wall around Tiny Town were visible, the outlines of trees in every direction, the gentle slopes of hills that got larger toward the mountains.

  Energy Reserves Down: 3.7%

  Then I caught sight of one specific hill. It wasn’t much higher than the rest but it was hotter. A warm dome of yellows and greens sat there, surrounded by darker green and blue terrain. Like a small — or distant — bunker.

  “Off,” I said. No sense in wasting the rest of Oscar’s juice.

  The world reverted to its natural state, all green grasses and blue sky. Kaylee’s head tilted to the side, watching curiously with her arms held behind her back. Clara stared into the distance while Dani held an arm around her shoulder and waited for me to speak.

  “Northwest,” I said. “I think I just found Benoch’s compound.”

  CHAPTER 17

  The route ahead was long, but at least it was flat. The horses kept a steady pace, thanks to occasional breaks and the hearty rations Gretna had packed for our trip.

  I wanted to sneak some synappers into the horses’ food to speed things along, but Dani wasn’t sure it was safe. Instead, we approached the slow and steady way, watching the sun travel across the sky and drag the shadows cast by the mountains from one side to the other.

  We approached the hill’s base as evening fell. I flipped on Oscar’s Thermographic Overlay for one quick second to double check we had the right hill, and we did. It glowed a warm yellow beneath the surface, the only hill for miles that radiated anything other than the cold blues and greens of solid dirt and rock.

  I flicked it off right away. This feature cost energy, and so far the only way to boost Oscar’s battery power was to manually absorb the impact of A’zarkin’s demonic attacks. Those opportunities didn’t come along every day.

  We dismounted our horses and I started to hike up the hill’s face. It was steeper than the other hills we had passed by, which wasn’t a surprise. Our whole tr
ek had taken us further north, nearer to the snow-capped mountains that stretched as far as we could see and into the rolling foothills of those mighty peaks.

  “Now,” I said. “How do we get in?”

  Clara surprised me by climbing up the hill, her slender pink legs taking long strides up the slope ahead. She crouched low and ran her fingers against the ground, digging beneath the shallow layer of dirt and revealing a firm layer of bedrock beneath.

  “The topsoil is shallow and the rock layer is firm,” she said. “This would be good ground for making tunnels.”

  She stood and tapped the ground with her foot. “It’s not solid in the center though. Someone has tunneled here already.”

  I watched and marveled as she searched out the perimeter of the hill, jogging down slopes, tapping the ground with her feet, putting her ear against it and humming while she listened back in her own kobold way.

  “Not a tunnel,” she said. “This hill is surrounded by dense stone. Whatever they dug, it was straight down. That means there must be a way in, from above.”

  “That narrows things down,” I said. “What do you think that entrance will look like?”

  Clara pinched her lips together and squinted for a moment, then her shoulders relaxed and she pointed.

  “That stone,” Clara said, gesturing toward a large rock that jutted out from the otherwise smooth surface of the hill.

  “What about it?” I asked. It rose one foot high — just enough to be noticeable, but not so large it was overly conspicuous. It was wide though. I would say “as wide as my wingspan,” but in Silura that seemed like a poor choice of words.

  “It doesn’t belong there,” she said. “These foothills are granite through and through, but that stone is made of something else. Shale, perhaps.”

  “Sharp eye,” I said. “And swift analysis. I’m glad we have a bright mind like you on our side.”

  She smiled, for the first time in a full day.

  I hiked toward the large rock Clara had highlighted and rested Oscar against it, giving it a slight push. That’s all it took, thanks to Somatic Boost Level 2. That chunk of shale tilted away from me and landed flat against the hill’s slope behind it.

  The stone wasn’t loose though. It was hinged. As it lifted away from its position, it opened a hatch door right there in the side of the hill, with a pair of polished metal handles extending from a flat metal disc. A tunnel led further down with ladder rungs built into its wall, ending at a wooden platform barely visible in the scant light that reached the hole’s bottom.

  “Well look at our good fortune,” I said.

  That, however, was the moment a pair of armed draykin guards rushed into the space below. One reached for the built-in ladder and the other followed behind.

  I jumped back, positioning myself between the oncoming guards and Clara. Dani and Kaylee stood further down the hill’s slope, holding the horses by the reins.

  “This is a restricted location,” one guard said, climbing to the surface and quickly glancing at the girls behind me. “Take your picnic elsewhere.”

  “We’re here to see Benoch,” I said, looking to the second guard in the hope that he was a little friendlier. “Queen Zolocki sent us.”

  The second guard stared at me skeptically while the first sized up each member of our small group. His gaze lingered on our horses, each still wearing their royal garb with the fist-and-crown insignia emblazoned on them.

  “It’s true,” Dani said. She spread her wings a little wider, making clear to the guards that she was one of their kind.

  One guard crossed his arms and stood blocking the entrance to Benoch’s underground lair. The other moved down the hill, stomping his leather boots with every step. He paused only a few inches in front of Dani.

  “Queen Zolocki gave you directions here?” the guard asked, hands on his hips. “This place is a military secret.”

  “Well, no,” Dani said. “Gretna was leading us here, but we were attacked by bloodhounds.”

  “Ambushed,” I hastened to add. “It was no one’s fault.”

  “What was?” he asked. “What happened that you’re so quick to avoid blame for?”

  Dani lowered her eyes. “Gretna died in battle, protecting us. We did everything we could to save her.”

  “That’s one version,” the guard said. “Now tell us the full story.” He poked Dani in the shoulder, which ignited something deep inside me.

  “Don’t you touch her,” I said.

  The second guard stepped forward and grabbed my arm. “You let us do our work or you’re next.”

  “I don’t understand,” Dani said.

  “You got the drop on the captain, forced this location out of her, and killed her before she could get help,” the guard said.

  “Gretna would have died before giving up a secret like this,” I said. “If you think she would cave to whatever amateur torture we’d be capable of, you have no idea who she really was.”

  The guard standing inches from Dani took a step forward, forcing her to back up. I yanked my arm but the guard at my back had a tight grip. I could probably punch a hole through his gut with Oscar’s help, but killing royal guards wasn’t a good introduction to the wise man we presumed was still hiding underground.

  “It’s mighty suspicious,” the guard at the hill’s base said. “A single draykin showing up here, no royal guard to accompany her, with a monkey, a kobold, and some kind of furless hamster man.”

  “That’s uncalled for,” I said.

  “She’s a country draykin, no less,” my guard said. The two laughed at that and I yanked on my arm again while Dani’s guard stepped forward, chasing her another step further back.

  To Dani’s side, Kaylee stood with her fists balled up. Her face was growing flush.

  I let my arm relax and tried to speak with a soft, lenient tone. “Everyone’s just gotta stay calm. Sir? Mr. Guard? What would you like us to do to prove our good intentions? We’re all friends here.”

  “You give us back those horses you stole from the royal stable and we’ll let you walk your way home,” Dani’s guard said. He poked her in the shoulder, hard. As Dani took another step back, she lost her footing on the uneven ground and fell backward, pinching her wings beneath her back and letting out a soft cry of pain.

  That was Kaylee’s breaking point.

  Kaylee stepped forward, between Dani and the guard harassing her. Her face was bright now, the same scarlet hue that emanated from deep within her pupils. She mumbled something that I couldn’t hear, then swung her arms in a wild frenzy.

  The guard wasn’t prepared for such a slender, unassuming simki to turn violent so quickly. He raised his arms to block her, but she pinwheeled, whirling her fists in a wild arc and slamming into him as he tried in vain to regain his balance.

  Dani lay on the ground, clutching an injured wing.

  Footsteps behind me drew my attention briefly. A handful of other guards climbed toward the bunker’s hatch opening now, thick leather armor covering their bodies and swords hanging by their sides. They assembled in a growing group, assessing the threat below.

  “Ernie’s getting his ass kicked,” one said, laughing.

  “By a sissy little monkey chick,” another said.

  “She doesn’t know what she’s doing,” I said. “She’ll kill him.”

  “She does that,” my guard said, “and she doesn’t live to see morning. None of you do.”

  “Let me talk her down,” I said.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Then you haven’t left me a choice,” I said. I reached up with Oscar and pinched the wrist this guard used to hold my other arm down. He grunted as I twisted, snapping something between his forearm and his hand, then his hold released and I ran down the hill toward Kaylee and the guard she fought with.

  Clara raced after me, leaving the corps of draykin guards to stand watch at the bunker’s door or follow us into the skirmish ahead.

  God, I hoped they would stay
out of it.

  I skidded to a stop at the base of the hill as the guard reached for his sword. “Stop!” I yelled.

  Kaylee didn’t seem to register my voice, but the guard shot me a nasty look. He brandished his blade at Kaylee, and she only backed away far enough to avoid getting sliced open.

  “Stay back,” the guard said.

  “You stay back,” I said. “She’s only vicious when twat-heads like you start swinging blades around.”

  I turned toward Kaylee, taking slow steps. “He’s not worth getting all upset over.”

  “He hurt Dani,” Kaylee said.

  “He didn’t hurt me,” Dani said, back on her feet. “See? Everything is fine.” She stretched her wings, but then winced. Everything was not fine.

  Kaylee growled again and leapt at the guard. He swung his sword and sliced a gash up her arm, but she seemed immune to pain or self-preservation now. Her hands found the man’s shoulders and she toppled him over, rolling him onto the ground and knocking the weapon from his hands.

  He screamed as she brought her face close to his, baring her teeth and pinning him down. Then she started punching, over and over in rapid succession. Her knuckles, already red under the power of whatever curse had triggered, were now wet with his blood as she split open his lips.

  I approached carefully as she pummeled this awful man into a swollen, bloody mess.

  “Kaylee,” I said, touching a hand to her shoulder. “I know you’re in there. Where’s my sweet girl that just wants to play games? You don’t want to hurt anyone.”