The Golden Shield of IBF (34 page)

“I thought your mother’s magic was probably pretty much depleted,” Garrison volunteered to Swan.

“Remember, Al’An? Magic which merely accelerates that which is natural requires little magical energy at all. The ice dragons are real, not a magical creation. Ice cracks and melts and falls away. Sleeping beasts awaken. These are all natural occurrences, Al’An, in our realm or in yours I should think. She won’t even need to send them against us, because it is their natural instinct to hunt and devour flesh, wherever they may find it. In ancient times, they hunted over the Land. Upon awakening, they will go there in search of prey. They will spy our ships along the way and they will attack. That is the natural order of things, Al’An.”

Garrison asked a question which he considered at once logical and extremely pertinent. “How many ice dragons are we talking about, guys?”

Almost dismissively, Bre’Gaa responded, “It is doubtful that more than a hundred or so of their kind still exist in all of Creath.”

“Would that mean we’ll be facing a pack of a hundred or so, Captain?”

Bre’Gaa shrugged his shoulders. “Hard to say, Al’An. Have you fought a dragon before?”

“You have?”

Bre’Gaa nodded gravely. “Yes, on three occasions. Loss of life was heavy. I have fought them, yes. And it appears that I shall do so anon. I take it that you have not.”

“We don’t have dragons where I come from, so they didn’t hit on it at the FBI academy.”

“If you someday return to your realm, you might suggest that knowledge of dragon fighting can prove worthwhile.”

“What sort of knowledge?” Gar’Ath asked. “An ice dragon destroyed the place where I was born, but I have never fought one, either.”

“There is a saying among the Gle’Ur’Gya, young swordsman, that an amateur at ice dragon fighting can be the ice dragon’s greatest weapon.”

Garrison had always been fond of aphorisms and made a mental note to write that one down in case he needed it sometime. “What sort of special information might be useful to us if we’re to have any hope of becoming more professionally competent at dragon slaying?”

“They are not mere brutes,” Bre’Gaa explained. “Ice dragons have considerable cunning, even what might be called a degree of intelligence and sophistication. They are wholly capable of fighting independently of one another, or fighting as a group toward a common goal. You’ll all find it most illuminating, an experience never to be forgotten, if survived.”

Garrison had been hoping Bre’Gaa would tell them about some special spot on the dragons’ bodies where they were inordinately vulnerable. That Bre’Gaa evidently didn’t know of such a spot was most disquieting.

The typical ice dragon, Garrison learned, was the equivalent in Earth measurement of twenty-five to thirty feet in length, with a wingspan—when fully extended for soaring—of fifty feet or better. Like the terrestrial dragons of myth, they spewed fire (no one explained how that was possible) and their bodies were covered in razor-edged scales, the scales like pieces of interlocking plate armor. Even their genitalia was armored (nor did anyone explain how that allowed the conception of little ice dragons). The males had a great horn at the center of their foreheads. Color ranged from a sickly grey to jade green. Their sound or call, from what Garrison was able to put together from Bre’Gaa’s descriptions of dragon combat and Gar’Ath s recollection of tales told to him during childhood, had no parallel with anything of Earth.

Erg’Ran, while most others aboard the flagship honed their blades or saw to their bows, sat on the steps of the bow pulpit and painstakingly studied an old scroll, the intensity with which he poured over it prompting Garrison’s curiosity, “What is that?”

“It is a scroll, Champion.”

“I know that, Erg’Ran! I mean, what is the subject? What are you reading about?”

“I predicted violent confrontation, with ice dragons particularly, as you may recall. In preparation for that,” Erg’Ran went on, “I brought along certain scrolls and books of notes I have taken over the years in anticipation of the day that my niece, the Enchantress, would engage in battle against the forces of my sister, Eran. That is why I study this scroll, Champion. My axe is sharp enough. It is my mind which I must keen if we are to survive this encounter and go on.”

“So, I should get lost and let you continue your reading?”

“As you say, Champion.”

Garrison quit the bow pulpit and busied himself helping whomever he could about the deck. The armada still made good time toward Edge Land, and the icebergs, although closer, were still sufficiently distant that he really didn’t worry about an imminent collision with one of them. However, this would not have been the time to sit on deck and casually regale his companions with graphic tales of the
Titanic
disaster.

Garrison saw Swan very little. She, too, was studying, not a scroll but one of her recopied spellbooks. She seemed thoroughly preoccupied and to have time for little else. Feeling somewhat like a child at a grown-up party, Garrison continued to busy himself helping wherever he could. But his thoughts were elsewhere, on the encounter which he considered inevitable.

Would the ice dragons be visible at a great distance? Would their cries boom like thunder?

Would his pistols work at all against the beasts?

Mitan sounded the alarm. “Ice dragons off the starboard bow!” All of Garrison’s misgivings were about to be addressed.

Swan put away the spellbook and stood. Her body shook, the cold radiating from the water and the air only the smallest contributor to the chill which seized her body. She used the second-sight in order to view the ice dragons in better detail.

They moved in a wedge formation, twelve of them. The apex was a male larger by far than any of the others, its great horn more than the length of the dagger strapped to her leg, half the length at least of a sword blade.

Swan had never been a good hand with longbow or crossbow. She pushed back the hood of her greatcape and drew her sword. Swan was uncertain if she knew the right magic to aid in defeating the ice dragons, and steel might be her only weapon against them if she did not.

Swan moved toward the bow pulpit, Erg’Ran already there, axe in hand. “What do you think, Erg’Ran?”

“I take it, Enchantress, that you are as uncertain as I concerning the use of magic against these winged beasts?”

“Yes, uncle. More uncertain than I would like. Our people have had so few encounters with them, and all of the spells are from so long ago. There’s no way I can tell if they even worked.”

“I considered that, Enchantress,” Erg’Ran told her. “We could endeavor to use natural forces against them. What about lightning?”

“If it can be done. In order to summon lightning, I must summon a storm. I worry, out here, that we might then find ourselves forced to contend with high seas, wind gusts and heavy rains as well as ice dragons. And that will require a great deal of magical energy. If I deplete my energy too severely before we reach Edge Land, we may have even worse difficulties.”

Erg’Ran nodded gravely. “Perhaps Mitan, if you taught her the summoning, could—”

“I don’t believe that she currently has the capability,” Swan told him. “Mitan has always had the potential, but she’s expended little effort in the development of her magic, choosing the warrior way instead. And many’s the time all of us have found ourselves grateful for her skills with blade and bow.”

“Indeed. So, we must wait and see how well we fare against the beasts and then you will make the decision.”

Swan nodded, looked past her uncle and out to sea. No second-sight was needed now to see the ice dragons in all of their grisly detail.

Alan Garrison crouched by the starboard rail, beside an oarsman named Lii’Ku, a wiry fellow and shorter than the average woman, yet with muscles any bodybuilder would have envied. Like the other men in the wells, he rowed furiously, despite the wind.

Garrison warned him, “My firespitters are loud. Be ready for a very loud noise and ringing in the ears. When I use my firespitters, small pieces of brass are ejected after each shot. They can feel very hot against your skin. Just want you to know.”

“I will be alert to this, Champion.”

“Good.” Garrison tightened position, on his right knee, his left elbow resting on his left knee. Because his “firespitters” were only handguns, and he wasn’t an Olympic-quality marksman, and his targets would be moving, as was his firing platform—the flagship—Garrison had decided to abide by the old rejoinder, “Don’t shoot until you can see the whites of their eyes.” And, too, the eyes of the ice dragons would be his targets.

A dozen of the giant winged dragons were coming in at eleven o’clock, holding formation as if they were aircraft coming in for saturation bombing runs and their pilots had no fear of antiaircraft fire.

Indeed, what passed for antiaircraft fire was ready all around him. Gar’Ath had command of the fighters, and Garrison heard Gar’Ath’s voice, calmly reassuring, saying, “All right, lads! When I give the command, we fire. If any one of us finds a vulnerable spot, all of us will concentrate on that spot on each of the other ice dragons.” Because there were no ship-to-ship communications, all the vessels in the Armada, including that of the Gle’Ur’Gya, would await the flagship’s opening salvo before commencing their own.

“Do they really breathe fire, you think, Champion?” Lii’Ku panted as he rowed.

“Beats me, pal. That’s what everyone tells me.”

“If one of ’em starts breathin’ our way, can I hide behind that beautiful Golden Shield of yours?”

Garrison grinned, but didn’t take his eyes off his target, the biggest of the ice dragons, a male with an enormous horn. “You can hide behind my shield only if you don’t mind me hiding there with you.”

Almost to himself, Garrison found himself humming. “What’s that tune, Champion?” Lii’Ku got out between breaths.

“Richard Wagner’s ‘Flight of The Valkyries.’ Great composer, shitty outlook on life. Terrific music, though.”

“It seems to me... that a dirge might... might be better suited Champion.”

“You might be right.” The big, horned male was a good seventy-five yards out and closing fast. The hum of ice dragon wings beating the frosty air was growing to a roar. Garrison decided to ignore his own self-imposed range limits. “Gar’Ath!” Garrison shouted.

“Yes, Champion?”

“Permission to open fire with my firespitters.”

“Aye, Champion! Whenever you feel that you should.”

“Thank you!” Garrison sucked in a deep breath, let part of it out and locked the rest in his throat. He thumb-cocked the hammer of his pistol. Garrison held over high, settling his front sight just left of the horn’s root and where, if ice dragons had eyebrows, its right eyebrow would have been. He took up the slack in the trigger, then squeezed.

“G’urg! That’s loud!” Lii’Ku shouted.

A lot of people made a big deal out of .45 ACP recoil. Garrison thought they were silly. He knew slightly built women and comparatively young children who could fire a .45 without complaint. Garrison held, the pistol’s muzzle barely rising. In the next instant, he knew the cry, the call, the ghastly sound of the ice dragons. He heard it.

His shot had no visible effect, but that it had caused pain or startlement was unquestionable.

A cheer went up from the people on deck. Gar’Ath shouted over it, “Open fire, lads!”

Garrison commenced firing in earnest, emptying the remaining seven rounds from the pistol toward the lead dragon’s right eye. There were more hideous screams from the beast, but it kept coming.

A wave of arrows and crossbow bolts filled the air between the flagship and the ice dragons, more projectiles launched from each of the other ships. As Garrison changed magazines in the pistol, he glanced toward the Gle’Ur’Gya vessel. If any conventional weapons of Creath had a chance of inflicting serious damage on the ice dragons, it would be the huge deck-mounted crossbows of the Gle’Ur’Gya, their harpoon-sized bolts already whistling through the air toward the dragons.

Garrison made to fire again, but as he settled his sights, he heard Swan shouting, “The fire breath is coming!”

Garrison saw a tiny wisp of smoke coming from between what would have been lips if the lead male ice dragon had lips. “Holy shit! Lii’Ku! The shield!” Garrison wrenched the Golden Shield of IBF up from the deck beside him, interposing it between himself and the ice dragons. Lii’Ku dove behind it, too.

Garrison had ventured into a burning building once, many years before, having heard crying from inside. He had nearly been burned himself when he failed to feel a door for excessive heat, opened it and a tongue of flame leaped toward him. The tongue of flame from the ice dragon sounded the same. As it had been years before, he escaped the fire, only feeling the searing heat as it washed around and over him, nearly suffocating him.

He’d survived the burning building, helping a policeman to rescue what turned out to be a housecat instead of a baby.

Despite the deck behind him being on fire, Garrison survived the first fiery blast from the ice dragons.

Lii’Ku whipped off his cloak, attacking the flames.

The nearest ice dragon—not the one Garrison had fired at—was under twenty-five yards away, swooping over the water, wings fully outstretched. It would loose its fiery breath in seconds, Garrison knew.

Garrison pushed his shield away, crouched and took aim with his pistol. The underside of the wing—, what would have been the wing stem had the dragon been an aircraft—didn’t look to be armored with scales. Garrison fired two shots, then two more. He threw himself left, the ice dragon’s wing spewing blood or bile under such pressure that Garrison knew he must have struck the equivalent of a main artery.

Peering out from behind his shield again, Garrison watched as the ice dragon tried desperately to beat the air with the one undamaged wing, skipping over the white caps like a stone flicked across the water by some gigantic child.

There was a shriek, horrible beyond anything Garrison had ever heard, clearly the sound of a mortally wounded creature, yet almost supernatural, like he imagined the screeching wail of a banshee.