Dragon (A Histories of Purga Novel)

Blak Soldiers dropped from the ceiling of the tunnel where they had been clinging to the rock with nano-weapons that looked like clawed gloves. They were silent and didn’t make any noise.

The rebels crashed into their seemingly infallible phalanx and destroyed it. They used those clawed hands with deadly fury. Fiona watched as one of the Pillar’s Infantrymen was stabbed in the stomach and then slashed across the throat. He collapsed to the ground in a gurgling heap. Another woman lost four fingers on one hand before she was able to ram her blaster into her attacker’s chest and pull the trigger. A bolt from the mini-ballista speared one of the rebels in the thigh. Fiona watched in horror as the man let out a harsh cry and pulled the arrow out of his leg. Then he attacked Pillar with it. The Lieutenant saw him coming, though, and managed to avoid death but not a minor gash to his shoulder. He grunted and then ripped the arrow out of the rebel’s hand. He reversed his grip, laid his other hand on the bolt’s shaft, and rammed forward. He speared the rebel in the belly and then lifted him up and over his head. The guy hit the ground with a loud thud and stayed down.

Screams and cries filled the air as men and women grappled and fought for their lives.

As soon as Fiona felt the formation break apart, she dove forward and turned it into a roll. Her shoulders and arms burst into pain as her tender limbs rolled over rocks or were scraped by small pebbles. She willed the shield to burst apart and tapped a blueprint a second later. The nanos switched direction and formed her long spear, which she then started twirling. She gutted one rebel, yanked the spear free, and twirled again. Her gauntlet came up and she took quick aim. Twin pulses of harsh violet light filled the air and smashed into a Blak Soldier’s head. The rebel hit the floor, smoke curling up from the blasted ruin of te woman’s face.

Fiona smiled and silently thanked Garina Jernin (a soldier under her father’s command that had sneaked her the blueprint for the gauntlets when he went missing, even overriding the civilian block on weapons to do it).

“For your protection,” was what she had told Fiona then, by way of explanation. Her eyes had been deadly serious at the time. Now she was glad that Garina’s foresight paid off. The gauntlets were deadly in their accuracy and intensity.

She aimed again and fired three shots. A Blak soldier crumpled to the ground right behind Pillar. He looked at Fiona for a moment and gave her a slight nod of gratitude. She nodded back.

Pretty soon, Pillar’s soldiers (exhausted and worn out) finished up with the rebels. Fiona started counting bodies.

“Ten,” she finished. Her hands trembled slightly and her racing heart was still pounding close to what felt like two hundred beats a minute. She forced herself to control her breathing and calm herself down. She had trained to fight at an early age, true, but she had never really tested herself in a real battle before. Upstairs in the prison and here in the tunnel were the extent of it. Her nerves were starting to go haywire. After several more deep breaths, she was finally able to get control over herself. Her heart slowed down and that uncomfortable, trembling feeling slowly faded from her body. She turned back to the others.

“There was also the one that we nailed down there. That makes eleven. Didn’t they say there were twelve rebels down here?” she asked.

“Where’s the last one?” the woman with the dark skin added.

“Be on your guard,” Pillar commanded. “Mera?”

A blonde woman came up with a thick bandage wrapped around her left hand. Blood soaked through it and dripped onto the dirt floor, creating a muddy little puddle. Fiona realized she was the woman that had lost four of her fingers. She saluted with her right hand.

“Sir?” she asked.

“Casualty report,” Pillar replied, his voice stiff as he took in the carnage. “How bad is it?”

Mera had already assessed the damage, going to each soldier still standing and to the ones no longer able to.

“Eight are down,” she replied. “Six of those are dead and two are incapacitated with crippling injuries. Unger and Isla sustained blows to their spines. Unger has two fractured vertebrae and Isla has five. The armor we stole from the Blak Army helped protect them from further injury. Injuries to the others, myself included, are minimal and no immediate threat.”

“Sparks.” Pillar addressed a wire thin man that looked only about a year older than Fiona, despite the fact that she was seventeen. “Create two hover lifts. We need to evac Unger and Isla and get them medical attention.”

The man quickly scanned his databank of blueprints, chose one, and pressed the screen. Fiona watched the vents on his mechpaks open. The nanos hovered in one big cloud for a moment and then broke off into two slightly smaller ones. The separate clouds coalesced, becoming denser while elongating at the same time. In a few moments, two hover sleds floated about three feet off the ground. There was a stiff neck brace at one end and straps along their lengths about every foot.

“Jord,” Sparks said. An average built man with deeply tanned skin and black hair looked to Sparks. “Give me a hand here?”

He didn’t say a word. He just followed Sparks over to one of the downed soldiers. She was a slim girl with red hair that fell in wild curls. Her eyes were closed, but as soon as the two men tried to lift her, they snapped open wide and she screamed in pain. Her eyes were brown but blood shot. Her already pale skin drained of all color and gave her a ghost-like appearance.

Fiona couldn’t handle watching her anymore. She turned her head to the side and watched the dirt wall instead. Every few yards or so, braces of pure metal reinforced the tunnel’s structure. She wondered, idly, what would happen if they were damaged.

Almost like some kind of sick premonition, she tracked one of the braces to the ceiling and her heart nearly dropped to her stomach.

Along the crossbar of one of the metal tresses, in the exact center, were four long cuts. And they were deep too. She looked at the others. All the braces holding the tunnel up that she could easily see had the same gashes in the crossbeams. And hanging from the tunnel ceiling was a Blak Soldier still wearing those wicked claws. She watched as he held up his free hand and the nanos suddenly rearranged themselves into a sinister looking weapon. It’s large, wide-mouthed barrel was a black abyss.

“RUN!” Fiona screamed.

Without any other thought, she dashed forward, pushing anyone she came across ahead of her.

They all stumbled forward as the Blak Soldier fired his weapon. The blast hit the first crossbeam at its weakened point but just kept going. It went from one gashed beam to the next.

The noise was tremendously loud.

Fiona screamed but it was lost in the sudden roar. Tons of dirt and rock threatened to crush her, but she was moving faster than it for the moment. She watched, sickened, as a boulder the size of a small house crushed the life out of Unger, who was still waiting for help. Sparks, Jord and the injured woman Isla, were soon swallowed by debris as well. One of Pillar’s other soldiers, a big and heavily muscled one, proved too slow. A good-sized. Fiona had seen him furiously scanning his blueprints, but he couldn’t find anything that would save him in time. Two other soldiers were lost in the collapse. The rest all dived forward and rolled into the hole leading into the underground chamber.

As soon as they were clear, Pillar stood and threw both arms up. Clouds and clouds of nanos swirled with him and merged to create a massive disc that plugged the hole and stopped the debris from coming in with them.

“I need help stabilizing this,” he said, looking to his soldiers. There were only three survivors. Mera, the blonde soldier, the dark-skinned woman and a man who’s right arm hung uselessly. There was a grimace of pain on his face. His hazel eyes were obscured by sweaty clumps of his graying hair.

“This should help, Lieutenant.” Mera opened her mechpaks and the nanos arranged into a thick metal column underneath the disc’s center. Then she arranged several narrower columns along its edges to reinforce those.

When it was all said and done, they backed away from the construction carefully, as if the slightest movement would dislodge everything and bury them in dirt and rock.

“Thanks,” Pillar nodded. He looked around at their new surroundings. His face was grim and his eyes were filled with anger, shame, guilt and what looked to Fiona like a thousand other emotions. She couldn’t imagine the turmoil he was in.

She walked up to him and laid a hand on his forearm.

He looked at her.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said, trying to help.

“It was. I should’ve secured the last rebel. Instead, I let my assumption that he fled into this chamber get nearly my entire squad killed.” His voice was hard and filled with self-disgust.

“You had wounded,” Fiona replied. She was being gentle, which wasn’t the norm for her, but for some reason she couldn’t stand to see Pillar like this. She knew he had done the right thing. The survivors of his team knew it too.

He, however, didn’t want to do anything but blame himself.

“Your priority was to them. To try and save them,” she continued. “You did what you had to. What happened afterward was out of your control.”

Pillar didn’t talk for a long time, but she could tell that her words weren’t sinking in. He was determined to blame himself for their deaths no matter what.

“Let’s secure the area,” he responded in a flat voice. “I don’t want any more surprises.”

With that, he stormed away from Fiona. She saw him walk around the chamber they were in, looking everywhere. He created a regulation blaster and was holding it up to the side of his face, sighting down its length as he scanned the area.

Fiona turned to the others.

“Are you all okay?” she asked.

“Fine,” Mera replied. She patted Fiona on the shoulder. “Thanks for trying to help him.”

She went down to the other end of the room with her blaster.

“Thanks for the warning back there,” the dark skinned woman said. “We would’ve been toast if it weren’t for you.” She held out a hand. “I’m Yvette Lafalle. Pleasure having you save my neck.”

“You’re welcome,” she told her with a small smile. “I’m Fiona Rosburg.”

“Oh. Lord Rosburg’s daughter?”

Fiona just nodded weakly, trying not to lose it at the mention of him.

Yvette’s eyes lifted, clearly impressed. “I heard he’s the best. They used to call him the Phantom because you never saw or heard him coming. I hope he can help us.”

She said that last as an afterthought, but Fiona’s heart still seemed to shatter. Tears welled up and slowly spilled down her dirty cheeks.

“H-he disappeared,” she explained. “I think they took him.”

“I’m so sorry,” Yvette responded quickly, her eyes slightly wide. “I’m sure he’s okay. He’s tough, your father.”

Fiona swallowed her emotions and just nodded. Uncomfortable, Yvette walked off, following Pillar down to the other end of the chamber. She kept her blaster pointed in front of her, her movements slow and cautious.

Fiona turned to the last soldier. He was sitting on the ground with his back to the wall, holding onto his arm and staring at her. He was an older guy, with grey hair next to his temples and mixed into the rest of his light brown hair. Deep lines were etched into the corners of both eyes and around his mouth, like he laughed a lot.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry to hear about your father too,” he said. His eyes were closed against the pain, but he still seemed to know that she was looking at him. “Hell of a good man and a great fighter. He worked with our company awhile back. He led our group against a roving band of Terras. Took most of them out by himself. They never saw him coming.”

Fiona felt a fierce sense of pride overwhelm her.

“I’m Konor Welling.” He put out his uninjured hand. “And, as Yvette said, it is a pleasure to have you save my neck. You’re every bit your father’s daughter.”

“T-thank you,” she replied, sitting next to him. She wiped the tears off her face with the sleeve of her shirt.

Neither of them got much of a respite.

“Everyone, come here!” Pillar shouted. He was at the far end of the chamber and waving his arm for them to join him.

Everyone walked over there except for Konor.

“Go,” he said. “I need to rest up. Help the Lieutenant with whatever he needs.”

She nodded and walked down to the other end of the room, joining Mera and Yvette there.

Pillar stood next to a big vault door with a sophisticated lock.

“Let’s get this open. We need to see what’s behind it.” Pillar looked to Mera. “You’re up.”

She nodded once and stepped forward. She examined the door for a minute. It was solid metal, through and through. About nine inches thick. She laid her hand on it.

“Simple iron. That’s good,” she spoke, mostly to herself.

She scanned her blueprints and in a minute had a set of tools in her hands. She had to hold them awkwardly because of her missing fingers. She went about picking the lock. It took her all of five minutes. The door clicked, the lock slid away, and then she had it open.

Inside was a long hallway ending at another door. Pillar went in first, followed by Yvette, then Fiona and Mera bringing up the rear.

When Pillar reached the far end, he suddenly stopped.

“I don’t believe it,” he said, turning back to them with a smile.

Above the door was a screen embedded into the wall with a large crack running through the middle. But it still worked. Fiona’s eyes widened as she saw who was pictured there.

“Thank goodness,” she breathed.

The monitor showed a man in a metal chair facing a wall.

Despite the crack, they could all tell who it was.

King Rowan.