Ruegger stared into the eyes of Sarnova’s
reflection. “Why did you bring me here? So that I could look at our reflections
and have greater faith in the future of our partnership?”
“Partly.
I just wanted to get
away from the castle for awhile. I wanted to talk to you one-on-one to see if
I’m making the right decision in choosing you to go up against Kiernevar.”
“You could’ve gotten Kharker to do it. He can
play a mean game of chess, if you didn’t know that already.”
“True. I even talked to him about that, but he
tells me that when you’re focused you’re a much better player than he is. Also,
he wouldn’t have agreed to the terms. He has no reason to stake his life on the
game, whereas you do.”
“I have the feeling there’s something you’re not
telling me.”
“There is, of course.”
“What?”
“You’ll see for yourself. But ...well, Ruegger,
I’ve got a question for you first.”
“Yes?”
“You know about my plan to win immortals our own
country?”
“You know I do.”
“Well, what do you think? I ask you this because
I respect your opinion.
Also, because I would have you as my
heir.”
Ruegger considered. “I’ll tell you the truth,
Roche. I like the idea. In fact, I think it’s about time we stopped creeping
around in the shadows, but I think you could have set your plan in motion with
far less drama and risk. By announcing your plan to the Dark Council first and
asking for their approval, I’m afraid you damned your vision to failure.”
“I don’t agree.”
The Dark Lord rose to his full height and shut
the visor on his helmet.
As if on cue, the waters of the lake began to
move. Waves smacked the shore, bursting and drenching Ruegger’s pants. He found
the water surprisingly warm. Something big—enormous—was rising from the depths,
and fast. Ruegger leapt back, wishing he had a suitable weapon, not simply
guns. What the hell was going on?
The water in the center of the lake exploded. Some
great beast leapt into the air, flapping massive reptilian wings.
For a moment, water vapor obscured the creature,
but then its big leathery wings blew the mist away to reveal a being that
Ruegger recognized instantly, despite the fact that he’d never actually seen
one.
“Jesus Fucking Christ,” he said. “It’s a
dragon.”
Chapter 20
And
a dragon it
was,
mottled green, golden scales running
the length of its underside and smoke shooting out of its nostrils and from
between the teeth of its great mouth. Beating its great wings to dry itself
off, it roared once—a big primal roar—then rose higher in the air.
From the other side of the lake, behind a little
ridge, Jean-Pierre watched it, but his expression did not show the same
surprise that Ruegger’s did. He had always suspected that such creatures
existed—Kharker had often hinted that they did, even if he never gave a full
accounting of where he gathered such knowledge.
What the creature was doing here, however,
Jean-Pierre could only guess at. Of almost as much concern were the forty
armored knights. Obviously, they were from the Castle, and the albino wasn’t
sure whether he should approach them or not. His plan had been to enter through
the Sabo, which knew him, and enter the Castle in secrecy. He did not fear
Roche Sarnova, but he did fear the reaction of the king’s men. Might they think
him a Libertarian spy and kill him, or toss him into the dungeons?
Best to avoid them.
And
the dragon.
That was most certainly to be avoided as well.
Confused, cold, hungry and weary, Jean-Pierre
couldn’t process all the information he saw before him. With a curse, he
dropped below the ridge and out of sight.
*
*
*
Ruegger
stared, uncomprehending. On some level, he could accept the existence of the
Sabo because he knew that there were supernatural things in this world of which
he had no knowledge. He had always been proud of the fact that his mind was
open to new ideas—to new ways of thinking and being—but there was no way in
hell he was prepared to accept the existence of
dragons.
Yet there before him …
In that moment, all his years of skepticism eroded
in one colossal landslide, leaving him breathless and disoriented. All thoughts
emptied from his head to make room for one big fact:
Dragons existed. MAGIC
existed.
He prepared for battle.
From behind his visor, as if reading Ruegger’s
mind, Sarnova said, “Do you believe me now?”
Ruegger dropped his mug, unbuttoned three of the
buttons on his shirt and, reaching both hands inside, withdrew two
nine-millimeter Berettas. They were big pistols, but somehow he doubted that
they’d be very effective against a dragon. Nevertheless, they were better than
nothing.
As he watched, the green-scaled leviathan flew
toward the far side of the lake, and for a moment Ruegger feared it would leave
before he got a chance to observe it a little longer, but then the dragon
angled along the curve of the shore. If it continued along the perimeter of the
lake, it would arrive above Ruegger’s location in about a minute.
The Dark Lord, still as a glacier, stood planted
on the rocky shore, a large sword gripped in both hands.
Behind his king, Colonel De Soto issued orders
to his men. Several of the knights dismounted and dug equipment out of their
satchels. As if they’d been preparing for this event, they started assembling
various weapons, probably brought along in case of an attack by the
Libertarians. There were
RPGs
, big machine guns,
disposable missile launchers,
shotguns ...
Ruegger squinted and took aim with both pistols.
As of now, the dragon wasn’t much more than a dark blot against the stars, but
even at a distance its sparkling green shone magnificently. The golden glare
off its underside was just discernable. Part of the Darkling hoped that this
creature would live up to its legend, that it was bloodthirsty and savage, but
another part wanted a more peaceful confrontation—or better yet, no confrontation
at all.
The creature was certainly beautiful to look at.
Over the barrels of his weapons, Ruegger saw the sleek winged serpent follow
the curvature of the lake until it was aimed straight at the party of
immortals.
“Come on,” he whispered. “Don’t make me shoot
you.”
Behind him, he heard De Soto ask Sarnova, “Well, my lord?
Should we fire on it or not?”
“No,” said Sarnova. “Let’s see what it does
first.”
The creature angled itself so that it bore
directly down on the knights and their lord. When it was about a hundred feet
away, it started breathing fire. Having no protection against flame, Ruegger
leapt into the lake, firing his guns up at the dragon as he fell.
Enveloping the war party in an orange blaze, the
blast left the monster’s mouth with such power that it knocked the knights off
their mounts. For their part, the knights were protected by their armor, but
their horses were not so lucky. By the time the cloud of flame had disappeared,
half of the beasts lay smoldering on the ground. Mewling and crying out in
pain, the rest of the animals ran about aimlessly, their bodies on fire even
though their hearts still beat. The sound of their misery caused Ruegger to
adjust the aim of his weapons. Within seconds, all the horses were dead, even
Sarnova’s. Ruegger reloaded.
The dragon did not capitalize on the weakness of
its prey; rather, it began circling the lake once more. As he watched it go,
Ruegger climbed out of the water and shook himself off while the knights picked
themselves up and began assessing the situation.
“Goddamn you,” De Soto said to his king. “We should have
fired.”
The Dark Lord, his once-shiny armor now slightly
charred, regarded his colonel for a moment. “Next time we will.”
During the respite, the knights, whose armor was
now as blackened as their lord’s, gathered the surviving weapons and prepared
them for the monster’s next
pass.
They didn’t have
long to wait. When the dragon was two hundred feet away, five missiles struck
out toward it. Although it was an easy shot, every single one went off course
at the last second, swerving around the creature.
“Shit,” said De Soto. “It’s fucking telekinetic. Come on,
men, goddamn you! Keep firing!”
Ruegger knew what was coming next, so he leapt
back into the water—just in time. The dragon unleashed another barrage of
flame, again knocking the knights to the ground. The fire actually cooked
several of them inside their suits of
armor,
Ruegger
saw when he stuck his head back up.
This time the dragon wasn’t going to simply pass
over. It barreled down on the armored soldiers, who broke rank and started to
scatter. The only one left was De Soto,
tall and black in the middle of the carnage, issuing orders to the very end.
The dragon seized the colonel in its rear talons
and wrenched him off the ground. As he receded into the night, his screams grew
fainter and fainter.
Ruegger dragged himself out of the water and
plunged himself into a blackened pile of weapons, searching for one that still
worked. He found a disposable missile launcher that looked like it ought to
function, but by the time he had it to his shoulder, the dragon was gone.
No …
not
gone. It was circling the lake once more.
“Sorry, Colonel,” he said. “Too bad you won’t be
missed.”
“Indeed,” agreed Sarnova, just a few feet away.
The king turned to his surviving men and said, “Spread out. The last thing we
need is to bunch up. Get ready. This will be the final round.”
The knights, dazed and bleeding and weary, obeyed.
For his part, Ruegger lay down the missile launcher and just stood there by
Roche Sarnova, silent, checking his pistols, which he placed back in their
holsters before picking up the launcher once more.
“By the way, thanks for killing my horse,”
Sarnova said.
Ruegger didn’t waste energy replying.
The dragon had almost completed its third circle
of the lake, and it had transferred the still-struggling body of Col. De Soto
from its rear talons to its fore talons. Before Ruegger could question this
action, the dragon brought De Soto
up to its mouth, inserted the whole body of the colonel inside, armor and all,
and swallowed.
Another volley of missiles arced through the
clear night sky toward the monster. Again, every single rocket went wide. This
time, though, Ruegger had let his mind follow the missiles and had ascertained
that the party responsible for the telekinesis was not the dragon but an
immortal somewhere nearby.
So it has an accomplice
.
The beast unleashed another rain of fire. This
time, instead of jumping in the water for protection, Ruegger ducked behind a boulder.
As the dragon passed overhead, he fired his missile and used his mindthrust to
ward off the telekinetic powers of the beast’s accomplice. The accomplice’s
powers were very strong, but whoever it was wasn’t prepared for the Darkling’s
interference. The missile drove straight through the golden scales of the
dragon’s belly and exploded.
For several lengthy seconds, the dragon kept
flying despite the fact that the area below its ribcage was now vacant of the
guts that at that moment were spilling down on the rocky shore of the lake.
Finally, its wings stopped beating and the creature began a long slow dive
toward a thickly wooded area bordering the body of water.
Ruegger ran after it.
“Wait!” Sarnova called out. “What are you
doing?”
Ruegger didn’t know how to answer the king’s
question. There were probably many reasons why he was chasing the falling
dragon. Sure, curiosity was a factor, a large factor, but what he found himself
shouting back at the Dark Lord was: “Dragon blood!”
*
*
*
Hot
on the trail of the leviathan, Ruegger ran, the wind drying his clothes.
The exercise felt good, even though his body was
weary, but, more to the point the fresh flow of blood to his brain forced him
to reevaluate the situation. Sarnova had hinted that he “rescued” endangered
immortal things from the destructive hands of humanity. Surely a dragon fit
this profile. Also, the Dark Lord had brought Ruegger to the lake for a
purpose. At the time, Ruegger’s arrogance had allowed him to assume that this
purpose was related to him, but now he suspected otherwise. Sarnova had known
about the dragon, which had appeared immediately after he’d lowered his visor.
That had been its cue—or rather the cue of Sarnova’s accomplice, who maybe
wasn’t so much of an accomplice as a psychic controller of the dragon. If that
was so, then the controller and Sarnova were partners—which meant that the
death of Colonel De Soto had been very deliberate.
Ruegger saw a cloaked figure disappear into the
underbrush ahead of him, trying to beat him to the body of the dragon.
The controller
.
It had to be.
Pushing himself on, Ruegger entered the woods
and wove in and out of the knotted and snow-laden trees, his nostrils alive
with the alien scent of dragon, like a blend of gold and honey and peaches and
bronze and salt and power.
Behind him, he could hear the metallic
crashings
of knights that had heard his call to dragon
blood. He imagined Sarnova was somewhere close by.
There, up ahead! He saw the cloaked figure
again. It was a tall man, but with the hood concealing his face Ruegger could
make no guess as to his identity. A clearing appeared through the trees, created
only a minute ago by the plummet of the dragon. The large carcass
lay
belly up, steam from its enormous wound spilling into
the air.
The cloaked figure leapt onto one the creature’s
legs and scrambled to its chest. The tall man put one of his own wrists to his
mouth and tore into the big vein there. Blood welled up out of him, dropping
onto the dragon. The fellow moved closer to the point where the cavity began
and rained his blood into the wound, then he bit into his other wrist and let
blood from it too fall into the place where the dragon’s guts used to be. After
a moment, Ruegger thought he saw one of the monster’s talons twitch. The man
couldn’t
be trying to bring it back to
life. Surely that was impossible; even though the creature was mighty, such a
wound was bound to be
mortal ...
Just as Ruegger entered the clearing, the man
leapt into the cavity and disappeared from sight. What was he doing in there—trying
to hot-wire the dragon back to life?
Ruegger jumped onto one of the forelegs and
climbed onto the creature’s chest, where the cloaked man had been just moments
before. He stepped to the edge of the hole and peered down. What he saw was
bizarre. The man, whoever he was, had immersed himself in what was left of the
monster’s entrails and was so completely embedded that Ruegger couldn’t make
out his face. But he could see a lot of blood, and not all of it was from the
dragon.
The dragon shifted beneath Ruegger. He spun to
see the head of the great being lift off the ground by its strong neck muscles.
The terrible head approached Ruegger and gave the Darkling a tired snarl. It
seemed as if it was trying to work up
a gout
of flame
but was too weak.