Dragonseed (30 page)

Thorny’s head popped back into the hatch. He was shivering violently.

“T-that’s why y-you should get a head start. I’ll light the f-fuse.”

“I got us into this,” said Burke. “Both of you go on.”

“Burke,” said Thorny, sounding grave. “For the last f-fifteen years, I’ve been s-spying on you for Bazanel. If I die, I d-deserve it.”

“I knew,” said Burke. “It was too big a coincidence that you’d been the slave of the only dragon I’d ever thought of as a kindred spirit.”

“I’ll light the fuse,” said Vance.

“But…”

“I’m faster than both of you. I can hold my breath underwater a long time. Now get out of there and let me blow this thing up.”

Burke grabbed the fallen shotgun and slipped down into the icy water. He lost his footing almost instantly. He reached out and grabbed Thorny’s arm to steady himself.

“What’s h-he going to l-light it with?” Thorny asked through chattering teeth.

“There’s still fire under the boiler,” Vance grumbled. “Get out of here!”

It was the closest thing to anger Burke had ever heard in Vance’s voice. Grabbing his crutch, he took a deep breath and dropped beneath the water. The current pulled him away. He popped back to the surface several yards downstream. The water was unbelievably cold. Each winter his father used to throw him into the river and make him swim a mile. Supposedly, it was meant to make him tougher. In practice, it left him hating swimming. It was one aspect of his childhood training he’d never had the heart to inflict on Anza. He was suddenly grateful for it.

On the bank above him he saw a flash and heard thunder. A bloodied dragon toppled down the bank, limp and lifeless.

Thorny popped to the surface beside him. His lips were dark blue.

“Keep moving,” Burke said, grabbing his friend by the collar.

“If y-you knew,” Thorny asked, “why d-didn’t you k-kill me?”

“You were the only halfway decent chess player in town.”

“Anza’s b-better,” said Thorny.

“Anza beats me,” said Burke.

They hopped, floated, and scrambled downstream a hundred yards, seldom bringing anything more than their heads above water. In the darkness, the fallen bridge and the upended war machine were nothing but shadows. On the far bank, Burke saw movement. Vance?

The shadow he saw was too large and had a tail. The shadow brandished a large hammer and shouted incompressible words of rage at the fallen bridge. So much for the hope the brute had been crushed in the collapse.

“It’s been too long,” said Burke. “The fuse should have—”

The night went white. The shockwave knocked them beneath the water. Hot shards of metal rained down, sizzling as they punched into the river. Burke lost all sense of up and down as the water roughed him up. Finally, he surfaced. Thorny popped up too, gasping. Burke spun around, trying to get his bearings, until he spotted the pillar of bluish flame on the water where the Angry Beetle had once been. The burning goom, no doubt. Black smoke hung heavy in the air. All around, little
plips
sounded in the water as shrapnel continued to fall.

Burke wanted to call out Vance’s name, but didn’t dare. He didn’t know how many men or dragons had survived. No matter who was still up on the banks, it wouldn’t be long before sky-dragons swarmed the area. Their only chance was to stay quiet, stay low, and keep moving.

“Do you th-think he…?” whispered Thorny.

“Shh,” said Burke. “Keep moving. He’ll find us.”

As the minutes dragged on, Vance didn’t find them. Burke helped Thorny crawl from the water after a mile had passed. They were both freezing, drenched to the bone. Their only hope was to keep moving. They raced not only against the sky-dragons who no doubt searched the area, but against hypothermia and frost-bite as well.

They limped along with Burke’s arm wrapped around Thorny’s shoulder for balance. Burke had the shotgun and his crutch pressed against his chest with his free arm.  Any time Thorny slowed, Burke pushed him on, ever eastward. Stopping even a minute to catch their breath could prove fatal.

They’d traveled a few miles when Burke smelled smoke. At first, he thought it might be his imagination, until Thorny whispered hoarsely, “S-smells like a f-fire.”

They limped on, rounding a bend in the river. Like some dream, a windowless log cabin sat high up on the bank, with smoke curling from the stone chimney. Burke hobbled toward it, not caring who might be inside. The cabin was tiny, barely ten feet by five. He let his crutch drop from his numb hands as he fell against the door.

The door opened. Vance looked down on them. His hair was sopping wet. He was wrapped in a thick wool blanket. The redness of his burned cheek had faded. Behind him, a fire roared.

“This place used to belong to my uncle Jig,” Vance said. “He’s back at Dragon Forge. He won’t mind us passing the night.”

“How did you…”

Vance shrugged. “I must have passed y’all in the darkness. Get inside before you let the heat out. We need to put out the fire before dawn. Don’t want the dragons seeing the smoke.”

Thorny stumbled into the cabin. He fell before the fireplace, rolling toward it, until he was practically in it. Steam rose from his clothes.

“Don’t cook yourself,” said Burke, dropping to the floor next to him.

Vance shut the door.

Burke closed his eyes and instantly plunged into sleep.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:

WE SHALL ALL BE HEALED

ANZA PRESSED HER
back against a stone dragon atop the roof of the palace. The night sky was full of aerial guard and valkyries. Within the palace a dozen ox-dogs bayed. They were all searching for her. She’d spent most of the day skulking around the palace, trying to establish who’d seen the scroll containing the secret of gunpowder. Tonight, she’d acted. Two dozen sky-dragons were dead in her wake. The only important target she’d missed was Chapelion himself. She hoped he hadn’t committed the formula to memory. She’d recovered Bazanel’s original scroll and two copies and burned them.

Unfortunately, it had proven impossible to execute her plan in complete secrecy. The first bodies had been discovered long before she was finished with her targets. She’d been increasingly on the defensive as news spread through the palace that an assassin was present. With the ox-dogs now on her trail, she’d spent the last hour retreating to ever higher ground.

She pressed her cheek against the cold marble scales of the carved sun-dragon she hid beside. The wind whipped around the peaks of the palace. She looked toward the southwest. Somewhere in that direction lay Dragon Forge. She imagined how her father would stand when he heard the news of her death. She could feel the sag of his shoulders.

The wound on her chest throbbed with each heartbeat. It felt as hot now as the night the fire had actually touched it. Not a quarter mile distant was the river where she’d swum with Skitter little more than a week ago. It would feel good to dip back into that water.

The door to the rooftop terrace burst open and an ox-dog emerged, dragging an earth-dragon handler behind it, followed by a squad of nine earth-dragons and a second dog. Anza could handle the guards. The ox-dogs were another matter. Standing six feet tall at the shoulder, ox-dogs had a bite that even sun-dragons envied. Pound for pound, there were few creatures on the planet who matched them for sheer muscle. Like all dogs, they were fiercely protective of their pack, and would fight to the death once combat began. Worst of all, their sense of hearing and smell made them nearly impossible to elude.

If there was ever a moment in her life when it would have been useful to sprout wings, it was now. Given the improbability of that development, she improvised.

She pursed her lips and let out a long, loud whistle. As all heads turned toward her, she scrambled onto the stone dragon, climbed its long neck, and stood on its head. The statue looked out over the edge of the roof. Below her was a five-hundred-foot drop into darkness. To her right, in the distance, she could see the lights of Richmond, gleaming. If she could make it there, she could disappear among the crowds. To her left, there were other lights. She cocked her head, trying to make sense of what she saw. It looked like a second city, but her study of maps of the area hadn’t revealed a city there before. Was this the Free City? She’d heard that was abandoned.

The earth-dragons and ox-dogs surrounded the base of the statue. The ox-dogs were too bulky to climb up the statue’s neck to reach her. One of the bolder earth-dragons looked ready to make the attempt. She loosed a throwing knife. It shot like an arrow to the exact spot on the stone that the dragon’s thick claw was about to grasp, throwing up bright sparks. The earth-dragon pulled back and cast a wary eye toward her.

Anza looked up. Her true target wasn’t the earth-dragons or the ox-dogs. A sky-dragon dove at her, a valkyrie judging from the armor. In her hind-talons she carried a spear nearly twenty feet long, with the point on a path that would stab right into Anza’s heart.

Anza counted the seconds, her legs tensing until the last possible instant.

She leapt up, slapping the tip of the spear down and to the side. The shaft painlessly slid along her rib cage and hips. At the apex of her leap, she closed her fingers, clamping onto the sky-dragon’s leg.

Her feet jerked from the statue. The sudden weight sent the valkyrie into a spin. Anza held on with all her might as the world whirled around her. The dragon fell at a sharp angle, beating her wings furiously to regain control. Anza tucked her legs up as they dashed past the tips of the trees that lined the river. The dragon carried her out over the dark water and she let go. She tumbled through the air and smacked into the water with the full surface of her back, her arms and legs outstretched. It was the most painful landing possible, but it wasn’t fatal. She sank beneath the icy water, breathless from the impact.

She kicked, driving herself further downriver, struggling to stay below the surface. Her lungs were burning. White stars danced before her eyes. At last, she could take no more. She rose to the surface, turning to her back, floating gently upward so that only the tip of her face broke the water. She drew in a long silent breath as she scanned the sky. Dragons were everywhere. She plunged below the surface again, kicking hard to get as close to the bottom as possible. She wanted to leave no ripples that they might follow.

The current was strong, lending her speed, but she was swimming blind. She had no way of knowing how far she’d come. She swam until she couldn’t help herself. She had to surface again. This time, she rose with much less grace and control. She’d pressed too far. Her heart felt full of needles. She splashed to the surface, gasping loudly. She fumbled to free a knife from her belt, but it fell from her trembling fingers. She tried to catch it but the sudden motion plunged her face underwater.

She inhaled a chilling lungful of icy liquid. She grew still, trying to calm herself, letting the buoyancy of her body carry her upward. She lay immobile at the surface, drifting, her nose barely above water. She wanted to swim for shore, but anytime she tried to turn her head she sank back beneath the river.

She closed her eyes, feeling numb. Water washed into her throat. She coughed violently, her limbs flailing uselessly in an attempt to find something solid to grab.

She forgot where she was or why she was so cold and closed her eyes again.

A HAND WRAPPED
around her wrist. Her eyes fluttered open as she was dragged through shallow water across smooth river rocks. Her rescuer was a woman about her own age, dressed in a long white robe that was wet from the knees down. Anza coughed again, so violently that she pulled her arm free of her rescuer. She rolled over onto her belly on the stony bank and coughed up water. Her coughing triggered something deeper inside her and she started to vomit, bringing up teaspoons of clear, pale, bitter fluid. In the aftermath, she lay on the uneven stones, completely empty. All her life her father had trained her to treat her body as a machine. She knew how to push it the limits of its engineering. Her muscles and bones composed a finely-tuned master clockwork. Now her gears were stripped. She couldn’t even lift a finger.

“Poor thing,” the girl who had pulled her from the river said as she squatted next to her. She placed a hand under Anza’s shoulder and rolled her to her back. “We have to get you back on your feet. If you don’t keep moving, you’ll freeze. You’ll go to sleep and never wake up.”

Anza found this thought acceptable. Her eyes closed. It would feel good to drift off peacefully, never to—

SLAP!

For a half-second, Anza wondered about the source of the sound. Her ice-cold skin was numb. She dimly felt the pressure of the blow on her cheek but no actual pain. Slowly, a tingling set in, as if her cheek were being stung by a thousand bees.

She lifted her hand to her cheek, rubbing it.

This small motion wore her out. She noticed fingers lingering near her face. The fingertips were pale white and puckered. Were they hers? She dropped her arm back to her side, and released a long, shuddering breath as her eyes closed once more.

SMACK!

Anza's eyes snapped open. The girl had her hand raised, preparing to strike a third blow. Instinctively, Anza caught the girl’s hand as it raced toward her face.

She sat up, giving the girl a stern glower.

“Sorry,” the girl said. “Can you stay awake now? Do you think you can stand?”

Anza shook her head. She was surprised she was even sitting. The white-robed woman moved behind her and wrapped her arms around her torso, lifting her. Anza found her footing and was soon standing on wobbling legs. The girl draped Anza’s arm across her shoulders to support her.

“My goodness,” her rescuer said, looking down at Anza’s buckskin clad body. “You certainly have a lot of knives.”

Anza shrugged.

“I’m Colobi,” the girl said. Anza looked more closely at her rescuer. She was shorter than Anza and a bit heavier, with large breasts and plump shoulders. Her hair hung loosely around her face, so blonde it was almost white. Colobi’s face was flawless as porcelain, without a scar or blemish. Her eyes were a bright, crisp blue.