Divided (#1 Divided Destiny) (28 page)

With every step he took, he hoped it would be the last into the cave and not his last altogether.

Outside the cave, Nick watched as Leo was swallowed up by the darkness. For Leo’s part, he knew he was extremely visible; he tried to stick to the edges of the cave so he wasn’t completely silhouetted against the light from the entrance. However, there was no escaping his shape, a lump against the wall, and the fact that it was moving. In the dark, it was movement that indicated position more than anything else.

However, as he reached a new outcropping on the cave wall, he realized he need not have worried so much. The entrance to the cave was large, it was true, but the actual cave itself was much larger still. It opened up into a large cavern, spreading out on either side of the entrance.

With a jolt, Leo realized it could hold more than one dragon. A hysterical laugh echoed in his mind—he didn’t let it pass his lips—when he wondered if the cave had been built family-size.

His eyes had adjusted to the gloom, and the pitiful light from the cave entrance was enough to make out shapes, though the smell of smoke and the shifting of something alive meant he didn’t have to see to know that they were in luck, if you could call it that. The dragon was home. Leo backed away, praying that he would make it back out before the dragon sensed him.

As he was inching back, unwilling to turn around and put his back to the beast, his eyes caught a ledge at the back of the cave. The shadows wrapped around it differently; that was what had caught his attention. It looked like it opened out; if it was a second entrance, they needed to know, as that could change things.

When Leo breathed the fresh air from the mountain side, as opposed to the stale, lichen-flavored air from the cave, he felt shaky. Trained soldier though he was, this was something they hadn’t been trained for, and his fear was real. His training helped him hide it, though; there was a time to fall apart, and that time was not now. Right now they had a job to do.

Leo waved the others over. Here the path was wider as it entered into the cave. There was enough room for the three of them to huddle together without worrying about toppling off the edge.

“I think there’s a second entrance,” Leo told them. “It’s on the right side of the cave at the back, up near the top.”

Don craned his neck, but this close to the mountain it was hard to tell if there was a second entrance above them. The mountain wasn’t flat; it curved in places, with the light bouncing off the stone, further accentuating the sharp angles and contours of the uneven rock. If there was one, they couldn’t see it from their perspective.

“We keep climbing. We’ll either find it, or the entrance is just an interior cave,” Don suggested.

Leo nodded. It was as good a plan as any other. He moved ahead to lead from the front again, and the three of them made their way further up the mountain. At one point, Leo’s stomach lurched when he realized they were standing over the mouth of the cave. This would not be a good time for the dragon to decide it felt like stretching its wings. They made it over without incident, and it wasn’t much further along that they found the narrow opening Leo had hoped for.

The walls were slimy with moss, smearing dark trails across Leo’s uniform where his arm brushed the wall as he pushed forward into the cave. Nick followed him, blinking his eyes rapidly to try and adjust to the darkness. Outside, Don placed his back to the wall and scanned the sky, just waiting, watching for trouble.

Leo reached the side of the cave; it was a ledge he had seen, another entrance, this one to the back of the cave. The dragon could be seen clearer from this angle, the light illuminating more now that it was in front of them. It was still very dark, and the scales of the dragon, which had seemed crimson in the daylight, now appeared almost jet black as they moved with the dragon’s breathing. It appeared to be sleeping, but that state wouldn’t continue for long. They had caught it unawares; they now needed to make the most of that opportunity.

Nick tapped Leo on the shoulder. It was dark within the cave; they all had flashlights clipped to their assault rifles, and Nick pointed his towards the cave entrance, away from the dragon, and switched it on. The bright beam made his eyes water for a moment. He pulled a block of C4 from his vest.

“We plant it here, deeper in the mountain. Could bring the whole ceiling of the cave down,” Nick whispered.

“If it was just the entrance, the dragon could maybe bust through, but if we can collapse the whole cave, that should do it. I didn’t think we could get back this far, not without walking past the dragon. Well, we’re due some luck.” Leo smiled tightly and pulled out a block of C4 himself.

Two here, two on the entrance—it was more than he wanted to use, but he wanted as close to a guarantee was possible. With any luck, they wouldn’t have to fight the dragon at all.

Leo moved back to the ledge and planted a timer on the block. It had taken them a couple of hours to climb up; they needed to be off this mountain before it blew. However, they didn’t want to leave it too long. It would be a disaster if the dragon left the cave before the big moment. He set the timer for three hours and stuck his block on the wall, as far back as his arm could reach. They would have to hurry.

“Three hours,” Leo hissed to Nick, who was planting his on the opposing wall.

“Copy that.” Nick set his timer and they left the cave.

“We got three hours,” Leo told Don. “We’ll plant two more blocks to cover the entrance.”

“The rockslide could be huge,” Don warned. They only had horses on which to escape, and there was no clear path through the forest for some distance. They’d had to pick their way through the trees, and progress away from the mountain would be slow.

“Then let’s hustle,” Leo said.

The three marines made their way back down to the main entrance to the dragon’s lair. Once again, Leo dared to step into the cave. He tried to be quick but quiet. It was a panicked few minutes, but the dragon didn’t wake. Two blocks of explosives were planted, and on exiting he could breathe again.

Carefully but quickly, they moved down the mountain, but it wasn’t quite fast enough.

They had just reached the foot of the mountain when there was a muffled boom and the ground shook. Their three hours were up, and the first block had exploded. They had synchronized the timers, and the other three blocks exploded in turn.

Ahead by the trees, Leo saw Mathis jump to his feet in alarm. They ran over to join him. They needed to clear the area fast if there was a rockslide.

Stone started to shake, and the entrance to the cave collapsed as predicted. However, that was all that was visible from outside. What damage had occurred to the mountain internally was unknown, but hopefully enough stone had come crashing down on the dragon’s head.

The ground stopped shaking.

The rockslide they’d feared hadn’t happened. Leo breathed a sigh of relief. It looked like they’d done it. The sun was starting to set, colors becoming muted as the darkness gathered. They would have to camp and report their success to Prince Edmund tomorrow.

“Now that is how we do things on Earth,” Don crowed, grinning. He slapped Mathis on the back; his hand stung where it connected with the cold metal.

“You indeed wield magic beyond ours,” Mathis muttered, his eyes wide with awe. He turned and, to their embarrassment, bowed to them. “You honor me—”

Whatever Mathis was going to say was cut off by a loud, angry roar. The ground shook again.

“Oh, so not happening,” Don exclaimed. “How the hell could it survive that?”

“Hopefully it’s trapped; it’ll die sooner or later. Hardly humane, but given what it caused…” Leo trailed off.

Leo regretted the crack he’d made about them being due some luck. Lady Luck was fickle, and he shouldn’t have tempted fate. If they had just collapsed the entrance, then that would have been a dangerous play. However, he had been so sure that planting explosives at the back of the cave would bring the whole structure down. There was a mountain of rock on top of that cave. Sure, it was only a small block of C4, but that stuff packed a pretty big punch. It should have been enough.

It hadn’t been enough.

The roars repeated. Mathis looked terrified, and if he were being honest with himself, Leo didn’t feel much better.

“What the hell do we do now?” Nick wondered, putting voice to what they were all thinking.

“It has to be injured. Perhaps it really will fall down the mountain,” Leo joked weakly.

“Perhaps it will overlook us, as before.” Mathis hunkered down behind the nearest tree.

“Or it’ll barbeque us in one breath,” Don stated dryly.

“We need to split up to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Leo said. “Nick, stay with Mathis. Don, you are with me. If it does come down, if nothing else we can try and flank it.”

“Copy,” Nick acknowledged grimly.

“Trees burn, and it places us all in one line,” Don pointed out. “Why is there no handy cave on ground level when you want one?”

“Because they would make things too easy,” Leo offered sarcastically. They both sprinted back over towards the base of the mountain. If the dragon fell in the clearing between the forest and the mountain, then they could catch it in the crossfire.

Another roar split the air. Leo’s eyes were glued to the outcropping, to the boulders that blocked the entrance. At first, he thought it was his panicked imagination when the boulders seemed to move, but then a couple crashed down, rolling over the path and down the mountain, hitting the ground with a resonating thump.

Then with an almighty crash, the dragon smashed free of its would-be tomb. It roared its anger, flapped its wings, and rose to the sky.

“Seriously?” Leo couldn’t believe his eyes.

Although, if it wasn’t damaged, that sure as hell made him think it was technology and not alive. How could anything alive survive that much rock falling on it? How had the damn thing not been crushed? How had it moved enough to break free? What the hell was the dragon made out of, anyway?

Perhaps it had an energy shield like the alien ship to protect it from harm. Hopefully the amount of damage it had taken had weakened it, or nothing they had would be powerful enough to punch through.

“Incoming!” Don screamed as the dragon hovered in the air and then swooped down towards them.

There was no time to think. Leo raised his weapon to fire, but the dragon had greater range. Flames burst from its mouth. Leo yelled and blindly dove to the ground, rolling away. The heat was incredible, but he was singed, not hurt. He had gotten lucky; the dragon could direct the flame left and right, but its neck was limited in how far it could bend forward. Diving under the dragon was the safest place to be—from its flames, anyway. The claws and talons were another story.

Automatically, Leo rolled to his feet, brought his rifle up, and fired a burst at the dragon’s flank. It was flying away, ready to turn for another pass. The bullets connected but just bounced off, as Mathis had said blades always slid from it. It was as impenetrable as the thickest of armor.

Don had dived to the left and had also missed the burst of fire. Unusual for a dragon that never missed, but then, its targets usually stood stock still in fear.

“Draw its fire!” Leo screamed.

He staggered to his feet and withdrew another block of C4. They had wasted enough of it already, but it was the only thing that might make a difference. A grenade would just tickle the beast.

Nick stepped out of the tree line and started firing at the dragon as soon as it drew close. It changed paths and flew towards the new threat. Nick just turned and ran back into the trees. He dove to the ground. The dragon hovered over the edge.

It didn’t breathe fire.

The wings flapped, a rhythmic beating sound, like a heartbeat, but the dragon didn’t move.

Nick got to his feet. Why wasn’t the dragon crashing into the trees? If it could bull its way through half a ton of rock, a few spruces wouldn’t give it much pause. More to the point, why wasn’t it burning the forest down around them?

Leo looked at Don, then at the dragon hovering in the air. Something tickled in the back of his mind. He’d seen two villages devastated by the dragon, both of them built in clearings in the forest. The dwellings had been wooden, perhaps built from the very trees that had been cut down to form the clearing. The villages had been turned to ash, nothing had survived, but the surrounding forest had been untouched.

“It can’t burn the forest,” Leo breathed. “It can’t do it. That’s why the fire has never spread.”

“Why not?” Don asked, moving over to stand with Leo so they only had to speak quietly. The dragon was staring at Nick and Mathis, who were protected by a forest that should have been no barrier to it. In the open as Don and Leo were, they didn’t want to draw its attention.

“It’s programmed that way,” Leo stated.

It was like a great burden had been lifted. Finally, here was some proof that there was advanced technology in this world. They were looking at an amazing example right now. Earlier, they had asked Mathis for a weakness they could exploit. Well, they were now looking at a really big one. The question of who had programmed it, and why, would have to wait.

Leo reached for his radio automatically, before he remembered that it was out of battery and useless. “Nick, fire at his wings. Let’s ground it,” he yelled.

Before the dragon could turn at the noise, Nick raised his assault rifle. The wings were beating, translucent in the air. There had never been such an easy target to hit. He fired a short burst, raking it along from the end of one wing to the other.

The wings were not protected by thick scales, and the bullets punched through. The dragon roared in pain and anger. It crashed to the ground, but as it hadn’t been high up, it landed on its feet. The wings were ruined; blood dripped from dozens of holes. The dragon snorted smoke, and Nick could see into its yellow eyes.

It still didn’t charge forward, and it still didn’t breathe fire.

The dragon roared again and turned, lumbering awkwardly on its feet. It hadn’t been designed for ground travel. It was slow, ungainly, but its fire still had range. Leo and Don sprinted in opposite directions. The dragon chose Leo, but movement meant life—it meant safety. He felt the heat of the flames against his back, but only heated air hit him.