Dragon (A Histories of Purga Novel)

Darvian slept fitfully. He wasn’t used to the bare ground and he could’ve sworn that every rock buried in the earth was burrowing itself to the surface so they’d be able to dig themselves into his unprotected back. He’d tried using his nanos to create some sort of mattress, but he had never mastered the ability to modulate their hardness or softness, even with the help of a blueprint. So, in essence, it was either the somewhat softer ground or a sheet of metal. He’d gone with the somewhat softer ground.

That wasn’t the only reason he couldn’t sleep. In a matter of hours, his entire world had been flipped upside down. The King had fallen and no one knew where Rone was. The Blak Soldiers had killed hundreds of thousands of his people and taken Roanoke. They had driven him from his home. They had killed his friends. His brain couldn’t shut off the rising torrent of emotions sweeping through him. He wanted revenge. He wanted to take back his city.

He’d been lucky, he knew that. If the Imperial Guards hadn’t found him during the chaos and taken him with them, he probably would’ve been killed with so many of the others.

“Darvian,” someone said. He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. He opened his eyes, looked up to see who it was, and found his father, Quent, staring back at him. He was still in his Infantry uniform, the pale green cloth and golden threads were highlighted in the light of the moon. He wasn’t wearing his standard issue hat, but Darvian didn’t miss the fact that he had his blaster out and pointed at the ground.

“Huh?” he asked, his voice slightly slurred. “Where’s mother and Aeri?” Aeri was his younger sister. “What’s going on?”

“They’re coming again,” his father replied, voice stern but unafraid. “I want you to take your mother and your sister and get them out of here. I don’t want you guys hurt or killed in the fighting.”

“Where are we supposed to go?” Darvian asked, scared.

They were currently in the Duanti Forest to the north of Roanoke near the foothills of the Ceonti Mountains. There were better than a hundred thousand combined Infantrymen and Guards, plus whatever civilians they’d managed to get out of the city. It was an impressive number, but not enough to take back the city. They were hopelessly outnumbered, but Darvian felt a growing sense of pride that they had managed to hold the rebel soldiers off so far.

“Take them as far away as you can,” he replied, his voice urgent. “Take them to the Qarri Forest. Just make sure they’re safe.”

He reached behind him and gave his son an overflowing pack.

Darvian opened it and found nearly two weeks’ worth of rations for the three of them. He felt a sense of fear at the prospect of trekking through the desert to the Qarri forest. He was even more afraid of the savage Terraquois that lurked there.

“What about th-them?” he asked, unable to even say their name. “I can’t bring mother and sis there. The savages will kill us.”

“It’s the farthest place away from this mess. Stay near the edge of the forest and if you see any Terraquois make sure to hide,” his father said.

Explosions suddenly rang out and plumes of smoke could be seen rising through the air some distance away through the canopy of the forest.

Quent shoved the pack at his son, who stumbled with it and awkwardly put it on.

“And remember, keep going. Never look back. Do you understand?” he instructed. “Don’t. Look. Back.”

Darvian nodded his head shakily.

Gunfire erupted now. Red pulses of light flashed rapidly as blaster fire lit up the night.

They were far enough inside the forest to where he couldn’t make out any soldiers, but he knew they were getting closer. Infantrymen and Guards hustled about, each one wearing battle armor and armed to the teeth.

He got up on trembling legs, his father rising with him, and they headed through the camp to where the civilians had taken shelter. Hundreds of weary, frightened faces appeared out of the gloom and it only took a minute to find his mother and sister. They were near the center of people, clustered around a growing fire. Aeri was asleep with her little head leaning on his mother’s lap. A black, conical wall with narrow, rectangular vents near its middle served to both conceal the flames and redirect the heat to the people sitting around it. There were about twenty such campfires and every single one had people huddled around it.

Another explosion rocked the night and every face glanced in the direction where it came from. Their eyes looked scared and haunted and only served to fuel Darvian’s anger more. He ran to his mother and sister, grabbed them both by the arm, and brought them back to his father.

Quent quietly led them all through the forest and into a small clearing. He abruptly stopped there and gave each of his children a hug and a kiss and whispered to them that he loved them. Then he grabbed his wife, Zoie, hugged her fiercely and gave her a passionate (and long) kiss. Tears sprang in her eyes and fell down her cheeks, pooling along the line of her jaw for a moment before spilling onto the ground.

Quent, however, didn’t cry, but he felt like his heart was ripping in two.

Another explosion rocked the silence, this one noticeably closer.

Quent pulled away from his wife and without another word, ran back to the camp, leaving the three of them in the dark forest alone.

Darvian took a deep breath and tried to fill his mind and body with the strength his father had. It was marginally successful. Some of his fears and worries slipped away, but most stayed.

“Let’s go,” he said. “We need to leave.”

“Where are we supposed to go?” his mother asked, her voice shaky.

“Father wants us to go to the Qarri Forest. He said that would be far enough away.”

“What about the scary people?” Aeri piped in. She sounded like she was going to cry at any moment.

Darvian looked at her, a small, blonde-headed girl with clear green eyes. She was only seven and the shock of what was going on was clearly threatening to overwhelm her.

Their mother saw her and took her up, holding her close. She rocked her daughter back and forth for a while and slowly, very slowly, Aeri started to look a little calmer.

“Don’t worry about the scary people,” she whispered to her. “We won’t let them get us, okay?”

“Okay,” Aeri responded. She went quiet for a long time and then finally whispered, “I want daddy.”

“I know, sweetheart,” Zoie replied, her green eyes looking straight into Darvian’s. “We all do.”

“Let’s go,” he said again.

They went maybe twenty yards. Then they stopped abruptly. All three of them heard something incredibly huge pound its way through the trees and woods.

Its passage was shockingly loud and Darvian suddenly froze in fear. Some primal section of his brain quivered in response to that noise. And he wasn’t the only one. Both his mother and sister stood as still as stones next to him. Zoie’s eyes were wide with fear while Aeri kept hers tightly closed, her little hands clenching and digging into the back of their mother’s shoulders.

All the while the noises were getting closer to them. It was definitely some kind of creature, although Darvian couldn’t think of any that would be that loud. Suddenly, the part in his brain that quivered in fear shouted at him to get down. To hide. To crawl in a hole until whatever monster was out there was gone. He followed his instinct’s advice.

He grabbed his mother and sister and threw them to the ground, not really caring if he hurt them. Next, he dropped beside them, found the blueprint he needed and pressed it. The vents on his mechpaks quietly opened and spewed thousands of the microscopic robots into the air. They quickly created a dome around the three of them. When it was complete, Darvian focused on its surface. It warped and shimmered until it matched the exact background around it and became completely invisible. Darvian turned the inside of the dome’s surface semi-translucent, enough so that they could dimly make out the forest around them.

He smiled. He might not have mastered hardness or softness, but there was no one else he could think of that was his equal or better at cloaking. It had been a useful tactic when playing hide and seek with a very resourceful and intelligent Crown Prince as kids. He couldn’t even count the number of times he’d eluded Rone’s capture by hiding in plain sight. He had even tested himself on several occasions by walking directly in front of Rone and still the Prince had been unable to see him.

He was glad he had the skill and hoped that it was enough to save them.

“Quiet,” he whispered to them both. “Absolute quiet. Whatever is out there might be able to hear us.”

Zoie and Aeri slowed their breathing and concentrated hard on making the least amount of noise as possible while Darvian did the same. Pretty soon, the lumbering, noisy creature they heard burst through some trees.

Darvian’s entire body seemed to grow cold and he wished he had left the dome opaque so that they never would’ve seen that hideous, nightmare-inducing creature.

The thing was massive. And full of slab-like, deformed muscle that gave it an off kilter, unbalanced look. Its left arm ended in what looked like an enormous blaster with a sword-like protuberance coming off one side. It was human, but only in a vague sense. The thing looked like a child’s sculpture made real. Its brutish head turned in every direction as it took in the landscape, its ropy hair swinging back and forth. Beady, black eyes glared here and there. Then it sniffed, its nostrils opening impossibly wide. Its lips pulled back to show blocky, white teeth and it threw back its head to roar into the sky.

The sound was loud.

The three of them plugged their ears simultaneously.

Aeri let out a tiny, inconsequential squeak of fear.

The roar abruptly cut off, creating an eerie silence. No animal or bird made a noise. Not even an insect. It was just…empty.

Its beady, black eyes locked on the position where the three of them hid. Darvian could almost feel them boring through the dome and right into his own. Despite the fact that his brain was telling him, incessantly, that it couldn’t see them, he couldn’t help but think it did.

Because it does! his brain shouted back. It can see us…or sense us.

He closed his eyes and hoped that his death and the deaths of his mother and sister would be quick. He waited like that for a good ten minutes, too scared to open them. When death didn’t come, however, he cautiously took a peak.

There was nothing out there. The area around them was empty.

****

Captain Quent Tims, 3rd Battalion of the Royal Infantry, ran back to camp, a disquieting feeling rising from the pit of his stomach. And it had nothing to do with sending his family away, although he’d really hated to do that. This feeling, it was something else entirely. He stopped at the outskirts of the huge camp and turned around, peering into the darkness of the forest.

Something’s out there, a voice whispered in his mind. It was odd to hear that voice, but it was comforting too. He’d heard it off and on for his entire life and it had never failed him. He had no name for the feelings he got, but they were damn useful. Something’s out there. Something’s coming! And it’s not soldiers. It’s something else. Something big.

The voice was insistent. It was urgent. And with it came a rising flood of panic and fear. He turned to the camp, directing his voice to the Infantrymen and the Guards present.

“TO ARMS!” he shouted, projecting his voice as loudly as he could and putting all of the command and authority he had into it as well. The effect was immediate. His fellow Infantrymen and all of the Guards immediately armed themselves. Blasters and long range assault rifles suddenly pointed in every direction.

A hand fell on his shoulder and he turned and saw Weasel looking up at him. He was a scrawny guy with a narrow face and an ugly, hooked nose. His wispy brown hair floated in the soft breeze. His real name was Oscar Fulnia, but everyone called him Weasel.

“Lieutenant,” Quent said, keeping his voice calm and collected even though that voice inside his head was frantically shouting at him now. “Gather the men and position them right here, facing out. I want all weapons focused on that area.” He pointed to a particularly large and gnarled tree, an easy landmark to see in the darkness.

Weasel didn’t object, he simply nodded and raced back.

Quent looked around and found other Captains marshaling their men. Most of them were already positioned in the woods about a hundred yards away, facing the area where the explosions and laser fire were coming from. The rest were positioned in a wide ring around the civilians. They took up their weapons and came over to his position. All of them pointed their various guns on the spot Quent had indicated without question.

The tension in every soldier was palpable. Their bodies were as tightly strung as wires as they narrowed the focus of their senses to fine points, as they’ve been taught. Each one stared at the dark trees ahead of them, waiting.

And waiting.

The inner voice inside Quent snapped and broke.

And then their world was flooded with a brightness so intense, it blocked out everything.

The last thing he heard was a cacophony of screams.