Orion in the Dying Time o-3 Read online

  I could sense the questions he wanted to ask, but there was no time for explanations or discussion. Without another word, I reached up for handholds on the steep cliff face and began climbing straight up.

  The rock was crumbly, and more than once I thought I would plunge back to the bottom and break my neck. But after many sweaty minutes I found a ledge that ran roughly parallel to the ground. It was narrow, barely enough for me to edge along, one bare foot after the other. Flattened along the cliff, the rock still warm from the day’s sunlight, I made my way slowly, stealthily, to a spot just above the dragon.

  The soft hoot of an owl floated through the darkness. Crickets played their eternal scratchy melody while frogs from the riverbank peeped higher notes. Nothing in the forest realized that death was about to strike.

  I nearly lost my footing and tumbled off as I turned myself around and pressed my back against the bare rock. Silently I drew my dagger from its sheath on my thigh. I would have one chance and one chance only to kill this monster. If I missed, I would be its next meal.

  Taking only enough time to draw in a deep breath and gauge the distance to the dragon’s back, I stepped off the ledge and into the empty air.

  I dropped onto the monster’s back with a thud that almost knocked the wind out of me. Before the dragon realized what had happened I rammed my dagger’s blade into the base of his skull. I felt bone, or thick cartilage.

  With every ounce of strength in me I pushed the blade in deeper.

  I felt the beast die. One instant it was tense, vital, its monstrous head turning, jaws agape. The next it was collapsing like a pricked balloon, as inert as a stone. It fell face-first into the dirt, landing with a jarring crash that sounded to me like the result of an elephant falling off a cliff.

  I lay clinging to the dragon’s dead hide. For a few heartbeats the noises of the night ceased. Then the crickets and frogs took up their harmony again. Something canine bayed at the rising moon. And none of the other dragons seemed to stir.

  I made my way back to the waiting men. Even in the darkness I could see their wide grins. Without wasting a moment, we began piling up our brushwood across the mouth of the canyon.

  The sky was beginning to turn gray as we finished the last piece of it. The barrier we had erected looked pitifully thin. Still, it was the best we could do.

  Chron and I crawled the length of the brushwood barrier. Through the tangle dry branches I could see the dragons sitting as stolid as huge statues near the cliff wall, tall enough for their snouts to reach the lowest of the caves in the rock face. Their eyes seemed to be open, but they were not moving at all, except for the slow rhythmic pulsing of their flanks as they breathed the deep, regular breath of sleep.

  It took several moments for Chron to start a fire from a pair of dry sticks. But at last a tendril of smoke rose from his busy hands and then a flicker of flame broke out. I touched a stick to the flame as Chron plunged his burning brand into the brush. Then we scrambled to our feet and raced back along the length of the barrier, starting new fires every few yards.

  The others had their own fire going nicely by the time we reached them. The whole barrier was in flames, the dry brush crackling nicely, bright tongues of hot fire leaping into the air.

  Still the dragons did not stir. I feared that our fire would go out before it could ignite the bushes and trees of the canyon, so I got up and grabbed a burning branch. With this improvised torch I lit several clumps of bush and started a small batch of trees alight. Then the grass caught. Smoke and flames rose high and the wind carried them both deeper into the canyon.

  The dragons began to stir. First one of them awoke and seemed to shake itself. It rose on its hind legs, tail held straight out above the ground, head tilting high, nose in the air. A second dragon came to life and hissed loudly enough for us to hear it over the crackle of the flames. Then all the others seemed to awaken at once, shaking and bobbing up and down on their two legs, hissing wildly.

  I had thought that they would be sluggish, torpid, in the cool of early dawn. I was wrong. They were quickly alert, pacing nervously along the hollow bowl of the rock wall as the flames rose before them and the wind carried the fire toward them.

  For several minutes they merely milled around, hissing, snarling, their hides turning livid red with fear and anger. They were too big to climb the curving wall of rock and escape the way a man would have. They were trapped against the rocky bowl, the trees and grass and bushes in front of them turning into a sea of flame and thickly billowing smoke. I could feel the heat curling the hair on my arms, singeing my face.

  We backed away. The dragons, as if in mental contact with one another, all seemed to make the same decision at the same instant. They charged into the crackling flames.

  In a ragged column of twos the dragons plunged into the holocaust we had made for them. Hissing and whistling like giant steam engines, they waded into the sea of fire, tossing their immense heads to keep them above the flames and smoke. Those in front crashed through the fiery brush and stands of trees, flattening them out for those behind. One of them went down, screaming terribly. Then another. But the others came rushing forward, trampling over the roasting carcasses of their brethren.

  Six of them died in the flames, deliberately giving their lives so that the others could get through. I watched stunned, astounded at this display of intelligence and sacrifice. Reptiles, dinosaurs, could not have that level of intelligence. Their brains were too small; their heads were mostly bone.

  Something intelligent was directing them. I had no time to puzzle out the mystery, though, because the five remaining monsters were breaking through our fiery barrier.

  And bearing down on us.

  I could see steaming swaths of raw meat where they had been burned on their legs and flanks. And they could see the five of us, huddled against the cliff face with our copper-tipped spears in our hands.

  “Run!” someone screamed.

  “No,” I yelled. “Face them…”

  But it was too late. They broke and ran from the fearsome hissing monsters. All but young Chron. He stayed at my side as three of the giant beasts bore down on us and the remaining pair chased after my fleeing men.

  I cursed myself for not having thought to prepare an avenue of retreat. Now we were trapped with the enraged monsters pinning Chron and me against the cliff wall.

  The dragons were terribly burned, screeching furiously. We planted our backs against the rock wall and gripped our spears with both hands.

  The world slowed down as my body went into hyperdrive. I saw the first of the dragons looming before me, jaws wide, arms reaching for me. Those taloned claws could have ripped a rhinoceros apart.

  I ducked beneath its outstretched arms and jammed my spear into its belly, tearing the lizard open from breastbone to crotch. It screamed like all the devils of hell and tottered a few steps sideways, then went down. Turning, I saw Chron with his spear butted against the rock, desperately trying to stave off the dragon that was clawing at him.

  Pulling my bloody spear from the beast’s gut, I clambered over its whitening body and rammed the metal spear point into the dragon’s thigh. It stumbled, turned toward me. Again I rammed my spear into the undefended belly of the beast while Chron stabbed higher, nearer the heart.

  Before the dragon could fall, the third of the monsters was on me. My spear was jammed inside the second beast. As I tried to work it loose, to the screams and shrieks of the dying monster, its partner slashed at me with a three-taloned hand. I saw it coming in slow motion and started to duck beneath the blow, but my foot slipped in the thick stream of blood covering the ground and I fell sideways.

  I felt the dragon’s sharp claws slice through the flesh of my left arm and side. Before the pain could reach my conscious mind I clamped down on the blood vessels and shut off the nerve signals that would carry their message of agony to my brain.

  Looking up, I saw Chron ramming his spear into the dragon’s throat. It reared up
with a screaming roar, tearing the spear out of the teenager’s hands. I got to one knee and reached with my good arm for the spear still embedded in the second dragon’s hide.

  Chron was flattened against the face of the rock, his eyes wide with terror, ducking and dodging as the wounded dragon slashed at him with pain-driven fury. It ignored the spear hanging from its throat in its fury to kill its tormentor. Its claws scored screeching gouges in the solid rock. It bent over to snap at Chron with its frightening teeth, and even I felt its breath, hot and stinking of half-digested flesh.

  I reached the spear and worked it free of the dying carcass as Chron desperately twisted away from the dragon’s furious slashing and snapping. The lad was faster than the lizard, but not by much. It was merely a question of who would tire first, the defenseless human or the wounded, burned reptile.

  Getting shakily to my feet, I rammed the spear into the dragon’s flank with all of my remaining strength, felt the copper point scrape against a rib and then penetrate upward, into the lungs.

  The dragon shrieked like a thousand demons and swung its thick, blunt tail at me. I couldn’t get completely out of the way, and it knocked me sprawling.

  The next thing I knew Chron was kneeling over me, tears in his eyes.

  “You’re alive!” he gasped.

  “Almost,” I croaked back at him. My back felt numb, there were deep slashes in my left arm and side.

  With Chron’s help I got to my feet once more. He was unwounded except for a few scrapes and bruises. The three huge dragons lay around us, enormous mounds of deathly gray scaly flesh. Even flat on the ground, their carcasses were taller than my height.

  “We killed all three of them.” Chron’s voice was awed, astonished.

  “The others,” I said. My throat felt raw, my voice rasped.

  Chron picked up our spears and we staggered off in the direction our three comrades had fled. We did not have to go far. Their bloody bodies, sliced to shreds, lay sprawled only a few minutes’ walk away.

  Chron leaned on the spears, breathing heavily, trying to control his emotions. The dead men were a gruesome sight. Already ants and flies were crawling over their bone-deep wounds.

  Then the youngster looked up, his eyes narrowing. “Where are the dragons? Do you think—”

  “They’ve run away,” I told him.

  “They could come back.”

  I shook my woozy head. “I don’t think so. Look at their tracks. Look at the distance between the prints. They were running. They stopped long enough to slaughter our friends, then headed northward again. They won’t be back. Not today, at least.”

  We started back toward the south. Chron caught our dinner that evening, and with food and a night’s rest I felt considerably better.

  “Your wounds are healing,” he told me in the morning’s light. “Even the bruise on your back is smaller than it was last night.”

  “I heal quickly,” I said. Thanks to the Creator who made me.

  By the time we returned to the village deep in the forest of Paradise where we had left Anya and Kraal and the others, my strength was almost back to normal. The slashes in my arm were little more than fading scars.

  I was eager to see Anya again. And Chron was bubbling with the anticipation of telling the villagers all our news.

  “We killed ten dragons, Orion. Ten of them! Wait until they hear about that!”

  I gave him a grin, but I wondered how Kraal and his people would take the news of their village being massacred.

  Before I could tell him, though, Kraal had his own heavy news to tell me.

  “Your woman is gone,” he said. “The dragons took her.”

  Chapter 11

  “Anya gone?” I was staggered. “The dragons took her?”

  The village was nothing but mud huts beneath spreading oaks and elms. We stood on the bare ground of the central meeting area, the warm sunlight of midday shining through the trees. All the villagers were grouped around Chron and me, staring at us with troubled, frightened eyes.

  “We killed dragons!” Chron blurted. “Ten of them!”

  I looked straight into Kraal’s shaggy-browed shifting eyes. He avoided my gaze, uneasily shuffling from one foot to the other like a guilty little boy. Reeva stood behind him, strangely decked with necklaces of animals’ teeth.

  There was no sign of a battle in this village. No sign even of a struggle. None of the men were wounded. As far as I could tell, all the people who had been there when I had left were still there.

  “Tell me what happened,” I said to Kraal.

  His face twisted into a miserably unhappy grimace.

  “It was her or us,” Reeva snapped. “If we did not give her to them, they would kill us all.”

  “Tell me what happened,” I repeated, anger simmering in my blood.

  “The dragons came,” Kraal said, almost mumbling in his shame and regret. “And their masters. They said they wanted you and the woman. If we gave the two of you to them, they would leave us alone.”

  “And you did what they asked?”

  “Anya did not fight against it,” Reeva said, her tone almost angry. “She saw the wisdom of it.”

  “And you let them take her without a fight?”

  “They were dragons, Orion,” Kraal whined. “Big ones. Six of them. And masters riding them.”

  Reeva pushed past him to confront me. “I am the priestess now. Anya’s power has passed to me.”

  I wanted to grab her by her scrawny throat and crush her. This was the reward for all that Anya had taught her. My suspicions about little Reeva had been right. She had not been seeking protection; she had sought power.

  Looking past her to Kraal, I said, “And you think the dragons will leave you alone now?”

  He nodded dumbly.

  “Of course they will,” Reeva said triumphantly. “Because we will provide them slaves. We will not be harmed. The masters will reward us!”

  My anger collapsed into a sense of total defeat. All that Anya and I had taught these people would be used against other humans. Instead of building up an alliance against Set, they had caved in at the first sign of danger and agreed to collaborate with the devils.

  “Where did they take Anya?”

  “To the north,” Kraal answered.

  The bitterness I felt was like acid burning inside me. “Then I’ll head north. You won’t see me again.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Chron said.

  Reeva’s dark eyes flashed. “You will go north, Orion. That is certain.”

  From behind the row of mud huts strode two reptilian masters. The crowd parted silently to let them advance toward me.

  They looked like smaller replicas of Set. Almost human in form. Almost. Clawed feet. Three-fingered taloned hands. Their naked bodies were covered with light red scales that glittered in the mottled sunlight filtering through the tall trees. Slim tails that almost reached the ground, twitching constantly. Reptile faces with narrow slashes for mouths and red eyes with vertical black slits for pupils. No discernable ears and only a pair of breathing holes below the eyes instead of noses.

  I whipped the dagger from its sheath on my thigh and Chron leveled his spear at the two reptiles.

  “No,” I said to the youngster. “Stay out of this.”

  Then I saw two dozen spear points leveled at me. Most of the men in the village were staring at me grimly, their weapons in their hands.

  “Please, Orion,” said Kraal in a strangled, agonized voice. “If you fight, they will destroy us all.”

  The treachery was complete. I realized that Reeva had convinced Kraal to go along with the enemy. He was the tribe’s leader, but she was now its priestess and she could twist Kraal to her whims.

  Then I heard the crunching sound of heavy footsteps through foliage. From beyond the miserable little huts reared the heads of two dragons, meat-eaters, fighters.

  The pair of masters stepped past Kraal and Reeva to confront me. They were my own height, which p
ut them a full head above the tallest villager. Their scaly reptilian faces showed no emotion whatever, yet their glittering serpent’s eyes stirred deep hatred within me.

  Silently the one on my right extended a three-fingered hand. Reluctantly I handed him my dagger. I had won it on the plain of Ilios, before the beetling walls of Troy, a gift from Odysseus himself for battle prowess. It was useless to me now, in this time and place. Still, parting with it was painful.

  The master made a hissing noise, almost a sigh, and handed my dagger to Kraal. He took it, shamefaced.

  The other master turned toward the approaching dragons and raised one hand. They stopped short of the huts, their breath whooshing in and out like spurts of flame in a furnace. The monsters would have wrecked several huts if they had tried to come all the way to this meeting ground in the center of the village. Their masters were keeping their word: no harm would come to the village as long as Kraal’s people cooperated.

  “You can’t let them take him!” Chron shouted at the villagers. There were tears in his eyes and his voice cracked with frustrated rage.

  I made myself smile at him. “There’s nothing you can do, Chron. Accept the unavoidable.” Then I swung my gaze to Kraal and Reeva. “I’ll be back.”

  Kraal looked down at his bare crusted feet but Reeva glared defiantly at me.

  “I’ll be back,” I repeated.

  The masters walked me past the huts. With soft whistles they got the big dragons to crouch down and we climbed up on their backs, me behind the one who had taken my dagger. If he—or she, I had no way of telling—was worried that I would grab him around the throat and strangle him, he gave no sign of it.

  The dragons lumbered off past the village. I turned for one last look at it, over my shoulder. The villagers were still clustered in the central meeting ground, standing stock still, as if frozen. Chron raised his spear above his head in defiance. It was a pretty gesture, the only thing he could do.