BURKE GRIPPED THE edge of the saddle so hard his knuckles turned white. The long-wyrm flew across the landscape at a breakneck speed. They avoided the main road, splashing along the twisting beds of a stream as they raced eastward toward the Free City. The creature veered up a steep river bank, running perpendicular to the water below. Given the speed with which they traveled and the ruggedness of the terrain, Burke couldn't believe he hadn't been thrown off the beast. His butt stayed planted firmly on the smooth saddle, as if it were a powerful magnet and the seat of his pants were steel.
As strange as the circumstance of his ride were, there were stranger things still on his mind. Bitterwood rode on the saddle before him carrying Jeremiah in his arms. The boy's face was corpse white, glistening with sweat. The boy somehow slept through the convolutions of the long-wyrm, his mouth hanging open. His gums were puss yellow. Bitterwood risked his life by carrying the boy. Yet, not only did he hold him, he cradled him. He stroked the boy's brow and whispered encouragements.
"This is a side of you I've never seen, Bant," said Burke. "I didn't know you had such fatherly instincts."
"I wasn't always the Ghost Who Kills. I had a family once, long ago. I would rather have lived my life as a father than as an avenger."
Burke shook his head as his own regrets welled up. "I've had the opportunity to live as both and I've failed at both. I have no idea where Anza is. You tell me she's gone off to try to recapture the shotgun Vulpine stole, but that could be anywhere, and it will be heavily guarded. It's a terrible risk to chase after it. She'll keep trying to retrieve it until she succeeds, or she's killed. Why didn't I tell her that her life means more to me than the gun does? What if I never learn of her fate?"
"Anza struck me as a woman who could take care of herself," said Bitterwood.
"Maybe. But then what? She'll return to Dragon Forge looking for me, and Ragnar's men will ambush her. Ragnar has a whole army to throw against her, all armed with the guns I designed. Anza's fast, but not faster than a shotgun blast. I can't believe how badly I've let things spin out of control."
Bitterwood narrowed his eyes. "This has always been your great flaw. You treat the world as if it's a giant machine, and if you can only find the right screws to tighten, you can make the whole thing hum."
"Someone's hand needs to be on the controls," said Burke.
"There are no controls," said Bitterwood. "There is no mainspring. Your pride blinds you to this simple truth."
"What have I done to piss you off?"
"You started another revolution you couldn't finish," said Bitterwood.
"Technically, Ragnar started it," said Burke. "One might even argue that you started it by killing Albekizan."
Bitterwood turned his back on Burke.
Burke reached out with his crutch and poked him on the shoulder. "I'm not done talking."
"I am," said Bitterwood.
"I've listened to your criticism. You're going to listen to mine. I'm not angry that you killed Albekizan. Your guerilla warfare tactics of the last twenty years have been far more effective than I would have guessed. But I've never figured out what it was you were hoping to accomplish. Ridding the planet of one dragon at a time isn't going to save humanity."
Bitterwood looked back. His face was in shadows beneath is hood. "I care nothing for the fate of humanity. I only want to make certain that dragons suffer at least a fraction of the pain they've caused me."
"That's where we differ. All I've ever wanted was to give humans an equal footing-or better still, an upper hand-when dealing with the dragons. That's never going to happen while men choose to follow fanatics like Ragnar. Mysticism and charisma have a way of trumping logic."
"'Choose' is an interesting word," said Bitterwood. "Did you ever offer the men of Dragon Forge a choice? Did you ever say to them, 'I lead, or Ragnar leads, decide?'"
Burke shook his head. "Ragnar gathered the army. They were loyal to him. They cheered his firebrand speeches. What did I have to offer anyone other than gadgets and advice on sanitation?"
Vance, on the saddle behind Burke, spoke up. "I would have chosen you as the leader in a heartbeat. So would any of the sky-wall team."
Burke shook his head, rejecting Vance's words. "The members of the sky-wall team cheered Ragnar on during his little fire-sermon before the invasion. They lift up their hands in rapture whenever he preaches of war."
"That's because he's making a stand," said Vance. "We're all tired of living under the shadow of dragons. We'll cheer any man who fights them. Ragnar has been willing to get out in front of us. You haven't. You've worked behind the scenes, a plotter, a planner, but never a leader."
Burke grit his teeth as the long-wyrm splashed across a narrow ford in the stream. Vance was right. He was a planner at heart. He'd never thought of this as a character flaw. Nor had he thought that wanting to remain in control of events was a negative trait. This was why he liked machines. He could control all the variables. If one part of the machine failed, he could toss out that part and design a replacement. But the mob Ragnar had gathered… how could he control such a motley collection of variables? They were people with unknown abilities fighting and acting with unknown motivations.
With a shiver, he sat bolt upright in his saddle. This is why he'd raised Anza in such a mechanistic fashion. He'd programmed her to behave the way he thought a rational being should behave. She was his ultimate exercise in controlling all the variables in a human life.
He'd taught her that maintaining control by tracking down and recovering the stolen shotgun was more important than her own safety.
Even Bitterwood was a better father.
SHAY RODE THE wind high above Dragon Forge. Far below, the fortress was a small gray diamond set in a broad circle of red clay. He was so far up that he could hold out his hand and cover the whole town. It was midday, with a clear blue sky above him; the air was clean enough that he could see Talon Lake and the Nest thirty miles to the west. The distant waters gleamed like a mirror.
The blue sky filled him with despair. All three of the smokestacks in Dragon Forge were lifeless. The fires of the revolution had gone out.
Shay shivered and pulled his collar higher. The air up here was frightfully cold. He wasn't sure how high he was flying. He was certain it was over a mile, perhaps even two miles. The few guards moving along the walls of Dragon Forge were nothing more than specks. He doubted anyone below could see him. He suspected the wings would fly even higher, though his lungs kept him from testing the notion. Beyond this height, he grew lightheaded due to the thinness of the air.
Sky-dragons circled far below, patrolling in a rough circle around Dragon Forge. Shay could also see dragon troops encamped along the roads leading to the city. It looked like a blockade, a fairly obvious tactic for dealing with an entrenched enemy. Surprisingly, none of the sky-dragons appeared to have seen him. He was high enough that they were the size of flies. No doubt he was only a speck to them as well. Or perhaps dragons simply didn't bother with looking up. They had no predators in the sky; all their threats were on the ground.
Shay wasn't happy about the events that had caused him to be the world's only winged human. He'd rather have Jandra than the wings. But perhaps there was some good that would come from his sorrow. With his wings, he could fly higher, faster, and further than any dragon. He was still firmly committed to the cause of human liberty, despite Ragnar's rather chilly reception. Burke would definitely understand the tactical importance of humans having control of their own wings. He hoped Jandra was right about the technological origins of the wings; if they were nothing but machines, then perhaps Burke could reproduce them. If they were magic, then they would be beyond even the Machinist's understanding.
Getting down into the fort was no easy task, given that the sky-wall archers were likely to fill the sky with arrows the second he approached. The dragons might not be looking up, but the humans almost certainly were. Could he dive fast enough to avoid the arrows, and then pull from the dive quickly enough to survive the drop? If only there was some way of doing this… invisibly.
He looked at Jandra's bracelet on his wrist. When she'd used it before, she'd simply struck it hard against the stone. She said a strong jolt would activate the tiny machines that could produce invisibility.
Shay pulled the angel's blade from beneath his coat. He'd learned that he could control the heat of the weapon with but a thought. Right now, the blade was merely warm. The broad side of the sword provided a flat, hard surface. He banged Jandra's bracelet against it and the light around him dimmed.
HEX'S NOSTRILS TWITCHED as he caught the distinctive smell of a long-wyrm. As quickly as he'd detected it, the odor vanished. He circled back, searching for the tendril of breeze that had carried the aroma. Long-wyrm scents were an intriguing mix-snake mixed with sulfur mixed with crushed beetles. Ten minutes of searching the air proved fruitless. Had it only been his imagination? He hadn't eaten anything in over a day-his tongue was sore and swollen. Even sipping water was painful. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him.
Fortunately, Hex was almost at his destination. Off in the distance was the Dragon Palace. His eyes were instantly drawn to the black jagged spire that had once been the Grand Library, now gutted by fire. His heart ached as he thought of all the history and wisdom within its walls, forever lost. Yet, perhaps it was for the best. The books within that tower told of a history of conquest and oppression. It was an age he was happy to see at its end. The era of kings was truly past.
As he studied the burnt tower, he noticed the wooden fortress a few miles beyond. This was the Free City-a clever death-trap designed by his uncle Blasphet and built using the wealth and armies of his father, Albekizan. When last he'd visited the structure, it had been abandoned. Now, it was bustling. Thousands of tents dotted the fields around the city. Within the walls, countless bodies swarmed over the dozens of large buildings under construction.
His mouth went dry. He'd chosen the Free City to hide the genie because he was certain no one would search there. He hadn't expected it to grow overnight into one of the largest human cities he'd ever seen. Or was it a human city? He strained to make sense of the moving figures. There were definitely earth-dragons side-by-side with the men. Here and there, the bright blue form of a sky-dragon flitted from one side of the city to the other.
He squinted harder. Always in the past, when he'd seen the various races gathered like this at construction sites, the division of labor had been clear. Sky-dragons were architects, earth-dragons were bosses, and humans did the actual work. Here, everyone was working. None of the earth-dragons wore armor or carried weapons. Most were dressed in simple white tunics, as were the humans. There were no glowering slavecatchers watching over the scene. What was going on?
His nose once more picked up a few stray molecules of long-wyrm stink. He flared his nostrils, seeking the trail, his head snaking from side to side as he tested the relative strength of the aroma.
It was unmistakable now. He dropped lower in the sky, his eyes darting across the landscape, seeking the flash of copper that would reveal a long-wyrm's presence. There! The bright scales of a long-wyrm shimmered through the leafless thickets by the river. The beast raced along with sinuous grace, seeming to fly as its many limbs worked in perfect harmony. Hex tilted in the sky, the cool wind soothing his aching muscles as he fixed his wings to glide on an intercepting pass.
The long-wyrm was absolutely studded with riders. At the rear-most saddle sat a young girl with flowing blonde hair-Zeeky, no doubt, though at this distance, with her back to him, he supposed there was a tiny chance he could be wrong, and that this could be some other girl riding a long-wyrm with a pig seated in front of her.
In front of the pig were three men Hex had never seen before, and, in the forward saddle sat a man in a familiar cloak. Bitterwood! He carried someone in his lap, a sleeping girl with similar blond hair. Or was it a girl? More logically, this was Zeeky's brother, Jeremiah.
Hex was almost at the level of the tree tops and only a few hundred yards behind the long-wyrm. He beat his wing to accelerate. The sound caught the ears of one of the humans-the young man sitting two saddles back from Bitterwood. The man turned, revealing a face covered with wispy facial hair. His eyes bulged somewhat comically as they fixed on Hex's approaching form.
It was much less comical when the man leapt up to stand on his saddle and produced a sky-wall bow, placing an arrow against the string with lightning reflexes. Hex was too close to climb out of the bow's range, but not close enough to charge the man and reach him before he fired. At this distance, the man would have to be a horrible marksman not to place an arrow somewhere within Hex's forty foot wingspan. He braced himself for the impact.
Before the man could release his arrow, however, Zeeky jumped up in her own saddle and shouted, "Stop! He's a friend!"
The long-wyrm undulated to a graceful halt. The bowman leapt from his saddle to the ground, arrow still against the string, wary as Hex swung his legs forward to land. Hex hit the gravel of the riverbank with a lopsided stance. He flapped his wings to keep his torso from smashing into the rocks. His huge wings snapped the branches of the bushes lining the banks as he skidded to a halt. It wasn't graceful, but in his present condition anything that brought him to the ground in one piece was a good landing.
"Thank you, Zeeky," said Hex. His tongue felt swollen and stiff. "I'm happy you consider me a friend."
Bitterwood carefully dismounted, cradling Jeremiah in his arms. The boy's pale face glistened with sweat. Hex instantly recognized the scent of yellow-mouth.
Bitterwood said, "This boy is dying. We need Jandra's genie now. Go to the Free City and bring it to us."
"I… how did you know it was at the Free City?"
"You sun-dragons never really accept that people are as smart as you. You practically told me where it was buried, thinking I wouldn't be clever enough to figure it out."
Hex pressed his damaged tongue against the roof of his mouth, sucking to soothe the pain as he thought about how much he should reveal to Bitterwood. "You're right," he said. "I buried the genie in the Free City. It was a foolish choice of hiding places. Have you seen what's happening there?"
The one-legged man who was still seated on the long-wyrm spoke up. "Let me guess. A couple of hundred women are running around in white robes." The man was about Bitterwood's age. His skin was darker than Bitterwood's, and his gray-streaked black hair was pulled into a braid decorated with bright red sun-dragon feather-scales. His face had the balance of a sculpture-a square jaw, and a sharp, angular nose-though the symmetry was broken by three parallel scars that graced his right cheek. "Apparently, they've gathered there to worship some sort of healer. We had one of their disciples visit Dragon Forge."
"There are more than a few hundred," said Hex. "I saw thousands. And not only women. Men, as well, plus earth-dragons and sky-dragons. They're working together to expand the Free City. I'll dig up the genie if it's undisturbed, but if a mob tries to stop me, I'm not certain what I can do. My encounter with the goddess has left me weakened."
"The goddess?" Bitterwood said.
"My suspicion that she survived inside Jandra has proven accurate," said Hex. "Her mind controls Jandra's body. It's lucky I've found you; we think our one hope of capturing Jazz will be if she tries to kidnap Zeeky again, or take revenge on you."
"We?" asked Bitterwood.
"Shay also survived the encounter with the goddess. He's gone to Dragon Forge to find you, in fact."
The dark-haired man frowned. "The goddess will go to Dragon Forge once she learns about the guns. Once she's done there, she'll no doubt come looking for me. She's had a thousand year agenda to keep the world free of guns. I doubt she'll give up now."
Hex furrowed his brow. This human was curiously well-informed about the goddess. "Who are you?"
The man crossed his arms. "You can call me Burke," he said. "I think it's time we found a good hiding place and stopped to compare notes. I'm pretty sure Jandra's genie has already been found. Jandra said it gave her healing powers. Not that long ago, our friend Vance"-he nodded toward the young man with the sky-wall bow-"was blind."
"He's been healed?"
"He ate a seed left behind by a woman who said she was a disciple of a healer in the Free City."
Vance lowered his bow, apparently content that Hex wasn't a threat. He said, "It wasn't only my eyes that got better. All my scars healed up. I used to have a doozy on my left foot from a bad swing chopping wood. It's gone now."
"We don't have hours to sit around and talk," said Bitterwood. "Jeremiah is growing weaker by the minute."
Hex nodded. "We'll talk as we travel. If the denizens of the Free City are offering healing, it looks as if several of you can make use of them."
Burke raised his hand to his cheek and traced the scars there as Bitterwood and Vance climbed back onto the long-wyrm.
The last man on the copper serpent nodded toward Hex. He was older than Burke or Bitterwood; snaggle-toothed, with a wild mane of gray hair and hands knotted with arthritis. "If no one else is going to bother to introduce me, I'll do it myself. Thor Nightingale. Most folks call me Thorny."
"Hexilizan. My friends call me Hex."
Thorny grinned. "What do your enemies call you?"
"I call him Hex, too," said Bitterwood.
"It's probably best if I approach on foot. They'll quickly spot me if I'm airborne." In truth, Hex wasn't certain he had the energy to get airborne. Flying was demanding work. Sun-dragons normally ate voraciously to fuel the muscles that allowed them to lift their massive bodies into the sky. With his damaged tongue thwarting his appetite, he was quickly exhausting the last of his strength. It was probably best that Bitterwood not suspect this.
Hex noticed as Bitterwood settled onto his saddle that the living bow strung with the goddess's hair was intact once more, and Bitterwood's quiver was full. Hex wasn't certain he could successfully fend off an attack if Bitterwood's bloodlust returned. Yet, the hatred that normally burned in Bitterwood's eyes was missing. Instead, all that remained was worry. The aging dragon-hunter wiped the sweat from Jeremiah's brow with the edge of his cloak. The boy murmured softly in his feverish slumber.
"It's going to be all right," Bitterwood whispered.
SHAY FLOATED DOWN to a landing in the middle of the main street, near the foundry that housed Burke's loft. His landing stirred up the sooty dust that covered the road. The bacon and egg smoke that had hung thick in the atmosphere was gone, replaced with the stench of raw sewage. He'd noticed while in the sky that the dragons had built a dam on the canal that emptied the city's sewers.
The town was eerily silent, absent the sounds of hammers and foremen shouting. The handful of people left on the streets wore handkerchiefs over their mouths. It was as if most of the town had left and only a few bandits remained behind.
Shay folded his wings and wondered what it would take to turn off the invisibility that had allowed him safe passage into the town without attracting the attention of the sky-wall. Glancing toward the nearest wall, he saw only three bowmen. When he'd left, the walls had been thick with guards. As he pondered the control of his invisibly, he noticed a slight shift in the light. He once more had a shadow.
He bowed his head as he headed into the building that housed Burke's loft. Perhaps no one would recognize him; he'd certainly not been in town long enough to leave much of an impression.
Within the foundry, it was cold and dim, with only the occasional lantern piercing the gloom. The building wasn't completely uninhabited. A handful of workers were gathered at various stations along the work flow, tinkering with machinery. Had the production line encountered some mechanical failure?
He didn't dare risk speaking to anyone until he talked to Burke. He didn't know who might be loyal to Ragnar. His eyes searched the dim light for the elevator cage. Spotting it, he strode briskly toward it.
He was brought to a halt by a big, calloused hand that fell on his shoulder, and a voice that said, "Shay? What are you doing back?"
Shay looked behind him and found, to his relief, that the hand belonged to Burke's friend Biscuit. He recognized the rotund, bald man even though Biscuit had apparently suffered misfortune in his absence. He now wore a leather patch over his right eye. "I'm glad it's you. I need to see Burke."
Biscuit's jaw tightened. "Burke isn't here any more."
"What?" Shay said, louder than he should have. All the other workers were staring at him now. He lowered his voice as he asked, "Where is he?"
Biscuit frowned. "Burke was disloyal to the cause. He fled town when confronted. We think the dragons killed him at the southern bridge."
"Disloyal to the… Burke was the cause! He was the whole reason this rebellion stood a chance!"
Biscuit shook his head, looking sad. Before he could say anything, a new voice interrupted: "Boy, this rebellion succeeded because of Ragnar and his faith."
Shay turned to find the white-bearded blacksmith called Frost behind him. The ear Jandra had shot off was a mass of white scar tissue clinging to the side of his head, dotted with brown, peeling scabs. Frost approached until he was inches from Shay's face and said, "Burke was trying to sabotage us. He killed a dozen men. If he's dead, good riddance."
Shay wanted to back away from Frost. His eyes were bloodshot and his breath stank of goom. He was looking for an excuse for a fight. Shay clenched his fists and held his ground. He was taller than Frost. He straightened to his full height and looked down into Frost's eyes. "How about Bitterwood? Would he be welcome here? Because that's who I'm really looking for." Frost's left cheek twitched at the mention of the name.
Biscuit said, "A man claiming to be Bitterwood was here a few days ago. He took the boy with yellow-mouth and left."
"Yellow-mouth?" said Shay. "Is that why the streets are so empty?"
Biscuit nodded. "The men are all staying indoors."
"To avoid those with the disease?"
Biscuit stared at Frost. He looked afraid. Frost carried a weapon resembling a short shotgun tucked into his belt. The barrel was less than half the length; it looked as if it could be held in one hand. Frost's palm rested on the butt of the gun. Shay noticed the bloody bandage on his wrist.
Biscuit chose his words carefully. "Avoiding the disease is one theory."
"You've let the foundries stop running because of this?" Shay asked, incredulous. "The disease is dangerous, yes, but with proper sanitation and a little-"
Frost yelled, "The disease is under control!" His spittle flecked Shay's cheeks. "The furnaces have stopped 'cause we don't wanna run out of coal. We can't get any more."
"I see," said Shay, wiping his cheeks as he backed away. Standing his ground wasn't as important as not getting goom-spat. He knew there was still a sizable mound of coal out back; he'd seen it from the air. Of course, there had also been hundreds of coal wagons backed up along the Western Road.
"How did you get in?" Biscuit asked. "The only people the dragons have let slip past have been the sick and the disabled. You're the first halfway healthy man I've seen get past the blockade."
Shay decided that mentioning the wings-or Jandra's bracelet-would be unwise. If Bitterwood had already been here and left, and Burke was dead, his immediate reason for staying was gone. On the other hand, with or without Burke, Dragon Forge was too important to the human cause to fail. Jandra was his top priority, but he had recovered items in the long-wyrm barracks that could give humans the upper hand in this war.
He closed his eyes. The vision of The Origin of Species crumbling to ash flickered before him. The last person he wanted to talk to was Ragnar. Yet, like it or not, Ragnar was the power in Dragon Forge. It was Shay's responsibility to mankind to see that he did not fall.
"I can help break the blockade. I need to speak to Ragnar."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: