Dragon Dodgers (Wounds in the Sky Prequels Book 1) (8 page)

Night had fallen hours ago and the
moon shone through a slit. Targon had chosen Anweh and Enrig to
stand watch with him, making the boy feel useful for the first time
since he had stupidly broken his arm.

“
Yes?” Targon
said.

“
Do people in
Samehria
also pray to the goddess Fyr?”

“
Kid, there’s only one thing Samehrians enjoy more than a
god – Several gods. We have gods for everything. The air, the sun,
the moon. Cyrinians, like her,” He pointed at Anweh. “even have a
fart god.”

Enrig laughed.

“
I’m serious.” Targon chuckled.

“
Don’t listen to him.” Anweh said. “Cyrinians are just like
all other
Samehrians, we pray
to the same gods.”

“
No, you’re not.” Targon replied. “You’re weird. Even your
accent is funny” He turned to Enrig. “Noticed how she talks like
she’s chewing on a stick?”

“
I can’t tell the
difference, you all sound the same to me.”

“
You mean elegant?
Classy?”

Enrig chuckled.

“
I was going to say
,
not very polite, actually.”

Targon dismissed him with a hand
wave.

“
That’s because your
people are so uptight. Like Carn, for instance. What a bigheaded
idiot! Are all Akhamis like that or just the ones from
Saggad?”

Enrig shrugged.

“
I wouldn’t know. Never
been to any city besides Saggad. But all Akhami Runners I’ve met
are pretty similar to Saggadis.”

“
Then I’m glad we skipped
Sandahar.”

“
Would have been nice to
resupply, though.” Anweh said. “Cause if we don’t find any water
soon, we’ll be in trouble.”

“
Don’t worry.” Targon told
her. “This isn’t a real desert, just a dry plain. As we get close
to those mountains, the terrain will become friendlier.”

The sky, on the other
hand…

* * *

A luscious
forest greeted them on the sixth day, so they had their bellies
full by the time they arrived at the Shamissai, two days later. The
problem was, anywhere there was life on the ground, there was death
on the sky, and if the forest had provided them with decent cover
down below, now that they had begun to climb, they were extremely
exposed.

“
This reminds me
why
we’re Surface Runners…” Serak gasped as he raised himself onto a
rock ledge. “…and not Surface Climbers.”

“
Your man is right,
Captain.” Carn said.

“
You mean the one that had a knife to your throat over a
week ago?” Targon asked.

“
That bears no relevance
to the point.”

“
Which is?” Targon jumped
over a small crevice.

“
We are critically unprepared for climbing a mountain of
this size.”

“
Well, on a mountain, you either climb or you fall.” Targon
said. “Feel free to choose.”

“
So what do you intend to
do if a Dragon sees us?” Carn demanded to know.

“
Sacrifice Serak as bait
and run the other way.”

Carn was right, of course. Targon knew
the only reason a Dragon hadn’t attacked them yet was luck. Their
cloaks mixed in well with the mountain rock, but he had already
spotted five Dragons that day, and the morning wasn’t even over. It
was only a matter of time until one of the monsters noticed
them.

They kept on
pushing up, doing their best to make themselves small, hiding
behind every available rock, ledge or crevice, but the number of
Dragons just seemed to be growing with every foot they climbed. The
beasts flew over the mountain tops like flies circling a forgotten
plate of food.

“
Captain!”

Targon heard Balcazar approaching,
brushing past the entire Company with his silly smile.

“
Are we on the wrong
track?” Targon asked.

“
No, but I think we should
go that way instead.” His arm indicated a ridge to their
right.

Targon’s eyebrow slid up.

“
Why?”

“
Because it seems much
closer.”

“
Are you sure? Earlier you
said we should go over that peak.”

“
Well, what we’re looking
for isn’t a precise location.”

Targon frowned.

“
How do I say this?”
Balcazar wondered. “What we’re looking for can be found in a… wide
area.” He smiled.

“
Alright, everyone.” Targon yelled at the Company. “We’re
going that way. The good news is, we might be closer than we think.
Bad news is, I’m no longer sure Mr. Balcazar knows where he’s
going.”

Balcazar laughed, amused.

Targon was actually glad he didn’t have
to climb any further. His arms were aching and
the palms of his hands were burning, not to mention his feet felt
like they had been beaten to a pulp.

Then, someone whistled. An urgent, spine chilling whistle
repe
ated four times. He
looked back and saw Liora pointing towards the sky. Targon followed
her stretched arm and saw the shape of a Dragon diving towards
them. As if on cue, the monster roared, turning Targon’s stomach
into water.

“
Find cover!” He yelled, then sprung forward, running
towards the ridge.

He almost
slipped and fell, but Balcazar grabbed his arm.

“
Go Captain, go!” He
said. “That ridge is our best shot.”

Targon saw six or seven of his people
following him, but the others had ran backwards, looking for any
hole where they could hide.

“
Get to the ridge.” He told the ones following him, then ran
the other way.

He saw the
Dragon shoot a jet of fire that spread over the mountain’s face
like a waterfall. Two of his men almost got caught by the blaze,
but ducked behind a boulder just in time. He took a blind bomb from
his backpack and twirled it over his head on his slingshot. The
bomb exploded right on the Dragon’s nose, making it shriek in
agony.

“
This way!” He screamed.
“Everybody run this way! We have to get over that ridge,
quickly.”

The Runners
obeyed. Targon watched them racing towards and past him, making
sure everyone was accounted for. The Dragon had already circled
back, shaking its head, trying to get rid of the painful powder.
Then Targon heard a faint whimper.

“
Help! Help
me!”

“
Oh, Dragon’s hairy ballsack.” Targon said.

It was Carn’s voice. The man was
panicking, frozen behind a rock.

“
Come
on, Counsellor.”
Targon screamed at him. “We have to get out of here.” He knelt
besides Carn. “We have to go, now!”

He was shaking. Crying out of his
mind.

“
We should stay here.” He
sobbed. “Wait until it’s gone.”

“
No, we have to go now.”
Targon tried to push him, but he refused to move. “You’re gonna get
us both killed!”

“
Oh please, goddess, no!”
Tears and snot dripped all over his face.

“
Right.” Targon sighed. “Let’s do this.” He grabbed the
Counsellor by his collar and waist, then hurled him away from the
rock.

The man
screamed out of his lungs and tried getting back, but Targon
clenched his arms around him and dragged him forward.

“
Whether you like it or not, Carn, we’re going that way.
Might as well not fight it.”

The rest of his men were already safe
behind the ridge, so when the Dragon flew back around, Targon and
Carn were the only available targets.

A screech told them it was approaching
, getting ready for another attack. Targon
looked sideways and cursed. The Dragon was coming in too fast, he
wouldn’t have time to reach the nearest cover. He considered
turning back, but was sure hesitating now would get them killed for
sure. What else could he do? He ran faster, as fast as he possibly
could, ignoring the slippery and sloping ground. Then, the
inevitable happened. Carn tripped. He tried holding on to
something, but grasped only air, his own weight betrayed him and
the Counsellor slipped off the ledge, falling over it. Targon
squeezed his arm as tight as he could and pushed backwards, falling
hard on his back, but holding on to Carn.

The
Counsellor screamed, wriggling and trying to climb up Targon’s arm.
The Captain felt like his shoulder was about to snap, then
suddenly, he saw a shadow over him. It wasn’t the Dragon, it was
Nasur, swinging a rotten meat bait over his head. He shot it
through the air and the Dragon bit it. Swallowing the bait, the
giant creature turned around at the last moment. It flew so close,
Targon could almost touch it. So close, that his tail whipped over
the mountain, but also the dangling Counsellor. Targon felt the
weight pushing his arm down suddenly disappear, and Carn fell
off.

* * *

“
What now?” Nasur
asked.

Targon was
squatting, his hands desperately clenching his hair. The rest of
the Company stared at him in silence.

They had crossed to the other side of the ridge as Balcazar
had told him to, and were now on a different side of the mountain,
facing south instead of north. The Dragon had been left behind, but
they knew
it wasn’t far, and
there were many others nearby.

“
We keep going.” Targon
said.

“
What’s the point?” Serak
demanded. “The king is not going to pay us now.”

“
You don’t know that.”
Targon said. His eyes bolting at Serak.

“
No. But you always know everything don’t you, Captain?” His
arms opened wide. “Look at where you’ve brought us?” He said in a
mix of disgust and disbelief. “I shouldn’t have agreed to
this…”

“
We all agreed to this.”

“
Look at where we are!” Serak screamed. “There’s a reason
Surface Runners never climb mountains.”

“
If what we’re here for was easy to find, everyone would
have it, you idiot.”

“
Wake up, Captain. We can’t Run, can’t make a proper
formation, have no food, no water… Not to mention we’ve never seen
so many Dragons in the same place.” His eyes were wide. “And now,
what faint hope we had of getting paid for all this, if we
survived, is squashed some five hundred feet below us.”

“
We have gotten this far, we can’t turn back now.”
Targon replied. He looked around for
help. “Balcazar, the crystals… They can’t be far,
right?”

“
They’re not far at all,
they’re…”

“
Fuck the crystals!” Serak interrupted. “Who will be the
next one to fall off a cliff, Captain?

There was a silence.

“
We’re done chasing your fantasies.” Serak glanced back at
the crowd. “Come on, guys, let’s get out of this place.”

Serak spat
on the
ground and walked away. Yarek, Marek, Thaeus, Daviel and even
Thamet followed in his steps. The others were exchanging glances
and Targon could see in their eyes, they were about to do the same.
He clenched a fist, feeling his stomach turn upside down. He spun
around, ran towards Serak and grabbed him by the collar.

“
I’m not gonna let you
take my men!”

“
They don’t belong to
you.” Serak said, then punched him in the nose.

Anweh
squeaked, but quickly covered her mouth. Targon stumbled back a
little, but used the space between them to kick Serak on his knee,
forcing him down.

“
Stop that, you two!”
Barked Nasur.

“
Let them sort this out,
Lieutenant.” Said Thamet.

Targon had
put himself above his mutinous Runner, punching him, but Serak
wrapped an arm around his neck and dragged him down to the ground.
The two began rolling over each other, kicking and
punching.

“
With all those Dragons out there? Are you insane?” Nasur
told Thamet.

Somehow, Targon untangled himself and g
ot back on his feet.

“
Right, I’m ending this.” Nasur said. He stomped towards
them, but Thamet knocked him out cold with a thud.

“
Thamet?!” Anweh
yelled.

“
It’s their
fight.”

Targon
was stepping
back, trying to catch his breath, while Serak got on his
knees.

“
You want a Dragon, Captain?” He asked, panting. “I’ll give
you one.” He jumped up and rammed Targon.

The Captain
turned
his head a little, to look back, and saw the ledge coming closer
and closer, as if Serak wanted to throw them both off the cliff. At
the last instant, Serak stopped, tripped Targon and pinned him to
the ground.

“
YOU WANT A DRAGON?” Serak’s eyes were gleaming with rage.
“Here’s a Dragon.”

Targon
struggled, trying to get away from Serak’s hold, but
failed.