Dragon (A Histories of Purga Novel)

“NO!” Darvian yelled and Rone had to forcefully hold onto his friend to keep him from getting killed.

Everyone was staring at the tunnel as it collapsed in a roar of sound. The reinforced concrete floor above it, mercifully, stayed intact.

“Fiona!” Darvian shouted again.

“Stop, Darv!” Rone shouted. “Just stop. You’ll kill yourself.”

Darvian wasn’t listening. He kept struggling, trying to get free. He needed to get free. He had to save her. He had to get to Fiona.

“Dying won’t help her,” Rone said. His voice was soft. Soothing.

The words finally sank in and Darvian stopped struggling. Tears stood out on his face. He looked at Rone, his eyes pleading.

“Help her,” he said. “We have to help her.”

“I know.” Rone turned to Quel. The big man edged forward, surveying the collapsed tunnel. “What can you do?”

“The tunnel supports that we put in had to have been damaged by those blasted Blak Soldiers. It’s the only explanation. They’re too sturdy to just fall apart.” He paused, taking a deep breath. “We can tunnel again. The gear we use is very effective on collapsed tunnels, but I don’t know if it would be in time to save them.”

“What about underneath? To that chamber you and your men broke into?” Rone asked. “If they managed to get in there and stop it from collapsing, will that keep them safe?”

“It will for the moment, if they made it there in time, but breathable air is the issue. I don’t know how much oxygen they have left in there,” he explained.

“Then start digging, and go as fast as you can,” Rone ordered.

Quel barked orders to his men and they got moving without hesitation. Everyone backed away from the hole to give them room to work, but they kept their eyes glued to the engineers. Including Rone and Darvian. They watched as first Quel and then his men scanned their blueprints. After selecting what was needed, the nanos quickly created car-sized drills. The massive bits on the ends were sharp and deadly and behind them were compartments where the operator controlled the vehicle. Underneath were a set of treads that were at least two inches deep in the gaps.

Each of the engineers started up their machines and they all rumbled to life together. Then they moved forward, toward the collapsed tunnel.

Quel came to the two-foot deep depression and charged forward, heedless of the drop. The bit tipped forward and chewed through the dirt and rocks. In minutes, he was gone. The rest of the drillers repeated Quel’s procedure and plummeted forward. The only thing left was the hole they had recreated. All that loose rock from the collapsed tunnel had been super-compressed by the advanced tech Quel used and the walls looked pretty stable.

Rone wasn’t sure how much time went by. Mostly, it just lost all meaning. He thought it might’ve been a couple of hours, but he couldn’t say for sure. He never thought to ask Bastion and, truthfully, he didn’t much care. The only thing he cared about was getting his people out safely. He’d never forgive himself if they died, especially Fiona. They had grown up together and had been friends for a long time. He looked at Darvian, who seemed sick with worry and knew that if she died, his best friend wouldn’t forgive him either. Then he would lose both of them, which was something he wasn’t prepared to do. He put his faith in Quel and in Quel’s abilities.

He glanced at the recreated tunnel. It stretched on, but he wasn’t able to guess what its true depth was. The shadows obscured everything only a couple of feet into it. The only real thing he had to judge Quel and his team’s progress was by the noise their machines made as they tunneled. They had been loud, but their sounds were growing fainter. He hoped that was a good sign.

****

The progress was slow at first. The farther they went in, the harder it was for all the loose rock and dirt from the collapsed tunnel to stay intact, even with the tech in his driller compressing it all into fairly solid walls. Quel had to stop several times and make sure to reinforce them. It was hard work, and at times not very quick, but he was the best engineer in Roanoke, and progress started picking up. It cost his crew quite a bit of their nanos, but to get everyone out of that forsaken prison and save some lives, it was worth it.

They drilled and reinforced. Drilled and reinforced. It went on like that for a seemingly endless parade of hours, but finally, they got to bodies. They dug out the bodies of Pillar’s men that they could get to. Quel ordered one of his own to bring the bodies out of the tunnel and into the prison. The Blak Soldiers that he found, he left there, cursing them to Damnation under his breath.

A few feet farther on, he got a shock. His bit grated against metal, the loud screeching pierced his ears and drove straight into his brain. He shut down his machine as quick as he could, got out, and then looked at what was blocking him. Most of it was covered in dirt, but he was able to make out some type of box-like structure. He went up to it and pounded experimentally on it. It rang with a clear, hollow thump.

Faintly, he heard voices coming from inside.

“Arm yourselves!” Quel yelled, just in case they were enemy soldiers holed up in there. He picked a blueprint for a standard, military blaster. He was getting really low on nanos, but he had enough left to at least make that. It was smaller than what it should’ve been, but it would function.

He glanced at his men and found them with blasters as well, of varying sizes. They all had them pointed at the seamless metal box.

“Whoever’s in there, we’re armed!” Quel shouted, as loudly as he could. “Come out of there and we won’t shoot you!”

A circular door suddenly opened in the center of what they could see of the box.

“Don’t shoot,” someone yelled, his hands coming out first. “We have wounded in here! I repeat, don’t shoot.”

A man came out, followed by another one who was pulling a red-haired woman behind him. She looked pale and near death.

“Take her up. The tunnel is secure, for now,” Quel told them, recognizing them as some of the soldiers that had been sent down to deal with the rebels.

“All right,” one replied.

In the harsh lights from their drillers, the man looked almost wraith-like. He was wiry, thin but dangerous. He opened up his nanos and created a free-floating sled complete with straps. He loaded the woman onto it very gingerly, with the help of the other man. He turned to Quel and held out his hand.

“My name is Sparks,” the man said.

Quel could see the grateful look in the young man’s eyes.

“Thank you for saving our lives,” he went on.

Sparks didn’t wait for a response and Quel didn’t give him one.

He touched a finger to the metal box that saved their lives and it burst apart in a cloud of nanos. They were sucked back into the mechpaks on his forearms.

Everyone stepped back as rocks and dirt filled in the suddenly vacant area left by the box.

Quel waved a hand in front of him to clear the cloud of dust away from his face, along with almost everyone else there. He watched as Sparks turned, and with the other man by his side, brake into a slow jog that quickly changed into a rapid lope full of long strides. The hover-sled was between them and they both guided it along with one hand. They were lost in the deep shadows of the tunnel a couple seconds later.

“Back to work,” Quel said.

He got into his driller, along with his team, and drove straight into the rest of the wall blocking their progress, digging and digging. The work was enormous. They had to re-widen the entire structure to its original size and then reinforce the whole thing with nanos once again. By the time they got to the end of the tunnel, his whole band was nearly out, a situation that someone didn’t ordinarily find themselves in but was known to happen on occasion.

He gestured for everyone to stop and then he got out. All around him was dirt, rock, more dirt, and more rock. It all looked pretty much the same as the rest of the tunnel behind them, but he knew, for a fact, that this was where they had breached into the chamber below. He had an excellent memory and internal measurement that never led him astray. Although the hole to the underground chamber was gone now, there was no question they were in the right area.

“This is the place. Set up quadrants and start poking around,” he instructed. “Find the chamber.”

They broke apart and started poking into the ground. The tunnel’s slope went down at a very sharp angle, making the footing that much more treacherous. They had to constantly make sure that their feet didn’t land on any loose rocks. One bad twist, and it could break their ankles and send them out of commission. After what seemed like an endless amount of time looking, one of the engineers found the hole. He had fashioned a long pole with a sharp point on one end and was jamming it directly into the ground. The loose soil made it easy for the pole to sink into it. Every time the pointed end was jammed into the ground, a hollow metallic clang would sound. Quel and the others raced over, clearing the area as quick as they could. Half an hour later, they uncovered a fairly large, silver disk effectively plugging the chamber underneath.

They all started banging away on it, unable to do anything else. The metal was obviously constructed with nanos, which meant that they couldn’t be removed until they were recalled by the person controlling them. They banged and banged and banged.

Fear blossomed in all their hearts.

What if they were too late?

****

Rone couldn’t hear anything in the tunnel anymore. Quel and his men were probably too far away now. He hoped they would be able to reach the others quickly and pull them to safety. He felt a growing sense of guilt for having sent people in there without knowing the situation better. He couldn’t have known the Blak Soldiers would be so dedicated to their cause that they would be willing to sacrifice themselves, but they had, and his men (even Fiona), could have paid the price for his ignorance.

Why did I let them go in there? He tortured himself with that question, over and over again. He wished he could do something, anything, to help but there was nothing to do but watch and wait.

It went on like that for so long. Watching. Waiting. Watching. Waiting. Several times his nerve seemed to break and he started toward the tunnel. He would catch himself and slowly force himself to stop and restart the waiting game.

After what seemed like forever, something glittered far back in the tunnel, where the shadows were deepest. It was insignificant at first, but slowly got brighter.

It was a light.

“Someone’s coming!” Rone exclaimed and Darvian-who’d been pacing back and forth with worry-jumped forward.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“I can’t tell,” Rone replied. “Form a half circle around the entrance. I want all weapons pointed into the tunnel in case they aren’t friendly.”

Ten soldiers hastened to obey their Prince’s command. They stood in battle-ready positions. Knees were slightly bent with the right leg somewhat ahead of the left. Their blasters were held up to their cheeks so they could use the telescopic sight to lock onto their targets.

It became apparent, shortly after, that it wasn’t just one person, but three. Two were on foot and the third was being lifted by a hover-sled in between them. It was a woman with bright red hair, and both Darvian’s and Rone’s hearts skipped a couple of beats. Fiona, after all, was a vibrant redhead like the woman on the sled. But as she drew nearer, they could see that the injured woman’s hair was thick with curls and long where Fiona’s was short and straight.

Shamefully, they both breathed a little sigh of relief.

“Doctors!” Rone yelled.

Two older men, both with slate-grey hair and wrinkled faces, came forward. One was clean shaven with black-brown eyes and the other had a full beard as white as snow and pale green eyes. They went to the tunnel’s entrance and waited for the sled to come to them.

They took the woman without a word as soon as she came into view and then carried her out of sight to a makeshift hospital room that Rone had them set up soon after Fiona, Pillar, and the other soldiers entered the tunnel.

The two men, Dr. Arin Ser and Dr. Urvil Larkin, had seen a number of patients already. Most were treated for minor injuries, but there were a few that had more severe wounds and had to be dealt with immediately. Thankfully, they hadn’t lost anyone and the injured were resting so they would be healed up as much as possible for the trek they were about to undertake.

Rone watched the two doctors disappear around a corner and then turned back to the tunnel. He recognized the two soldiers that had come out with the wounded woman as Pillar’s men.

“What happened down there?” he asked, gesturing them to come over.

“They took out the supports for the tunnel,” he said, his words precise. “If it hadn’t been for Lady Rosburg, we would’ve been dead. She warned us in time to throw up a nano-shield.”

“Do you know if they made it to safety?”

“No, Your Highness. I’m sorry. We barely had time to erect the shield and after we did, we couldn’t see what happened to them,” the other soldier responded.

“What are your names?” Rone asked.

“Sgt. Kal Varsparkian,” one responded. He was thin and wiry. “Everyone just calls me Sparks though.”

“Sgt First Class Mic Jord,” the other said.

“Thank you both for your bravery.” Rone saluted them, trying to make it look crisp and official. He’d never had much experience dealing with the military or its soldiers. He vowed to change that.

Both men returned his salute.

“Get some food, drink, and rest. We’ll need your expertise and strength when we complete the tunnel and start the evacuations.”

With that, they both left and headed for the prison cafeteria, which had food and drink to last the refugees at least two months, possibly longer with strict rations. He felt sure that would be enough to get them all where they needed to go.

“Do you think she’s okay?” Darvian asked. The tears were gone from his eyes, but they were still filled with worry. Darvian loved Fiona fiercely and would’ve done anything for her. Including breaking off their relationship because she was Upper Tier and he wasn’t. He didn’t want to bring her down.

Rone tried to talk him out of it. He tried to tell him that Fiona wasn’t like that, but he wouldn’t listen. He’d ended the relationship anyway and now she hated him for it.

“I don’t know,” was all he could think to say.

Just then, several vid-screens around the prison sprang to life. Most of them were in the guardhouses on each floor, but some were affixed to the center columns in the middle of the ground floor compound.

Everyone turned to look at them.

A man was prominently featured, a hood obscuring most of his features. From what they could see, his face was horribly scarred.

“Our Prince, Rone Varlamagne, has cavorted with this woman.”

Everyone in the prison heard the outraged yells from the people on the vid-screens. The camera swung to show a young woman tied to a wooden pole and standing on a platform. She was regal and beautiful, even in the hands of the enemy.

Rone stared at the vid-screen in shock.

“Keiara,” he whispered, feeling dread and rage well up inside him. He remembered the last time he’d seen her and the kiss they’d shared. He remembered lying with her on the floor of the forest and watching as the cadaris lit up like hundreds of multi-colored stars in Vitari. He remembered entwining his hand with hers and reveling at how natural it felt. But now, she was here. She was in Roanoke and worse, the Blak Army had captured her.

Rage filled him and blocked out everything else. He didn’t hear Darvian trying to reason with him. He didn’t see the looks of shock from the people he was trying to save. None of it. The only thing he could see was her. Keiara.

And it made him furious.

“He has forsaken our history. He has forsaken our people. He has turned against us in favor of these savages. I know you are watching Rone,” the man spat. His anger and disgust were a tangible object. “Prove me wrong! Let her die and we will all know that what I have said is nothing more than a lie. Let her burn and you will win back the loyalty of your people.” He smiled and it looked hideous. “You have two hours to climb out of the hole you buried yourself in. After that, I will set her aflame myself.”

Rone turned to Darvian.

“Make sure you get everyone out safely. Take them to the harbor and steal a ship. One of the cargo ships should be big enough to hold everyone. When you get onboard, don’t come back. Find somewhere safe and stay there. I’ll make sure to send word if or when this is all finished.”

“I can’t do that,” Darvian replied. “And you can’t leave. You can’t make that guy right. Look at them.”

He forced Rone to look at the people around them. He could see their questioning glances and the hope that the man on the vid-screen was lying to them. That their Prince had nothing to do with that woman. An enemy.

“If you walk out of here to save her, you lose them,” Darvian said. “All of them. Are you prepared to turn your back on your people to save one girl.”

Rone could feel the war inside him. It raged at full strength and threatened to tear him apart. In the end, however, he knew what he had to do.

“I love her,” Rone said. “I have to try and save her.”

Without looking at the people he was leaving behind or listening to anymore of Darvian’s objections, Rone ran to the damaged elevator that had brought them to the underground prison. He managed to pry the warped doors open, quickly tapped his flightpack blueprint, and stepped into the dark and hollow shaft. His burners fired immediately and he soared up to the ground floor. He hovered there while he pried open those doors as well.

He was met with a group of soldiers that looked like they’d been waiting for him, but he didn’t give them much thought. He bowled into them, sending them crashing to the floor or careening into the walls. No one was able to touch him with blaster fire or any other weapon. In moments he made his way out of Judicial Hall and into the sky.

Far off in the distance he could see the Citadel.