Dragon Joined (2 page)

Dean placed his hands over her ears. She wanted to object.
People didn’t simply touch her whenever they felt like it. But the heavy
pressure of his strong hands blocked more of the noise than her own, smaller
fingers had.

He shouted right next to her ear. “I’m half-deaf anyway.”

She smiled before she pointed off into the distance at the
dragons leaving. “You know, when I was terrified, hidden in the safe spots for the
children of the township, I had no idea you were all out here so unconcerned
about the violence.”

“I’m concerned. Sort of.”

She bit down on her lip. One way or another, she needed
help. The kids couldn’t be left to starve. Someone had to teach them things,
since she wasn’t exactly educated. They had to have a chance, even if it made
her stomach ache with despair that by asking for help she’d be breaking every
promise she’d ever made her mama.
Don’t go back to New Strauss
. What in the
seven halls of hell should she do?

“The kids are hidden in a barn that way. About two miles
away. They won’t come out—not willingly—for anyone but me.”

Dean nodded. “I’ll come with you. You’ll introduce us. Kids
like me. All the children do.”

This strange man, whom she didn’t quite trust but whom she
needed if she was to survive, had no shortage of confidence. It almost made her
believe she could survive a dragon attack just by hanging out in the woods.

He removed his hands from her ears, and they were heated
from where his fingers had touched her. She rubbed them. “So it’s over, then?”

Dean glanced up at the sky. “Appears to be.”

“And they did all that without you there?”

“The guardians of New Strauss are like a well-made machine. They
know how to work together whether I am there or not.”

He took her hand and tugged her out of the woods. “I think
you’re going to like being back. There are so many people your age. Maybe
you’ll be able to pick up some old friendships.”

Making friends? The idea seemed so foreign, so completely
out of the realm of the possible. “I don’t know. I want the kids to have
friends.”

“You don’t want to?”

Did she? Could she? After all that time on her own, she
might be too weird to get along with anyone.

A boom exploded above her head. She startled backward,
losing her footing and nearly hitting the ground. Dean shouted her name but it was
all too late. One second she had her feet beneath her and the next she was
tearing upward into the sky, with no dirt beneath her feet.

Her stomach lurched and she screamed at the top of her
lungs. Dean ran forward toward New Strauss shouting at the men with the cannons
below her, but the higher she got, the more she knew his actions were fruitless.
She hoped he was going to tell them not to shoot the dragon down. Crashing back
to the ground would be a horrific way to die.

Amanda’s shoulders burned where the evil creature’s claws
dug into her skin. She struggled for a moment, then stopped. The only way she could
go would involve falling to her death. She might not be smart but she’d never
thought herself to be dumb either.

Hopefully there’d be time to figure out how to kill herself
if she was going to become dragon food. Until then, she could keep trying to
escape, to get back to the kids.

Thank the fortunes I thought to tell Dean where they were
hidden. He’ll find them now. Even if they hide
.

The dragon made a sudden jerk to the left, screeching as it
flew. She shuddered at the sound. Panic must have caught up with her, because
all of a sudden she couldn’t breathe. Tightness tugged at her chest. With one
more look she realized they were so far up in the clouds that the ground was no
longer visible at all.

Tears swam from her eyes and, like the dragon, which
screeched, she let out a wail she thought might bring down the sun and the
stars. When she felt spent from her worthless yelling and her general
ineptitude, she closed her eyes. They were traveling too far up for her to see
anything. If she didn’t look down, perhaps she could pretend she wasn’t about
to become dragon feed.

Six Years Later

Dean Andrews brushed a branch out of his face as he stomped
through the godforsaken jungle behind Jane Dickerson. Pinpricks from the
branches bit at his skin. He’d long since stopped trying to avoid the plant
attacks. If cuts and scrapes were the worst thing to happen to him on this trek
to find the dragons, he’d be lucky.

Jane cursed eloquently, wiping her dirty hand on the back of
her white khakis. A part-bloody, part-muddy handprint covered her rear end. He
snickered into his hand both at the mark, which in his current state of mind
seemed really amusing, and at her choice of language. He’d known the
fifty-year-old Enforcer for his whole life. She’d babysat for him when he’d
been a kid. In all that time, he had never, ever heard her swear.

She whirled around, her face roughly the same color as the
marking on her behind. “This is amusing to you?”

He shrugged, trying to keep his face neutral. “It’s not
unamusing.”

She pointed a finger at him, her gray hair swaying over her
shoulders. He hated to tell her, so he probably wouldn’t, that she had some
really disgusting-looking spider-webs attached to the top of her scalp.

“Don’t laugh at me, Dean, you’re going to be my age before
you know it. Then you see how you like tromping through jungles in this
humidity, looking for flying beasts we should be slaughtering, not searching
for.”

He nodded. On the age part, at least, she spoke the truth. Nine
years from now he’d be fifty years old. How had that happened? Forty-one years had
passed by in the blink of an eye, and the last six years the fastest of them
all.

“It’s not your meandering through the jungle that I find
funny. It’s your colorful choice of language.”

“I hate this place.”

He pushed her shoulder, moving her forward. She’d taught him
how to fight, how to endure. No way would he let her be weak now. She whacked
at his hand and continued in the straight line they’d formed before leaving
their campsite that morning. Three people in front of her, four behind him. Eight
fighters and a guide to take out an entire dragons’ nest. A long shot, for
sure, but the only chance they’d get. He couldn’t risk taking more guardians
from New Strausson a mission they probably shouldn’t be undertaking at
all.

“Me too. But if we have to be a little uncomfortable to kill
the beasts, it’ll all be worth it.”

She yelled over her shoulder. “I’ve heard that speech before.”

It had been six short years since Dean had decided he
couldn’t take the dragon assaults anymore. Watching that green beast fly off
with sixteen-year-old Amanda Sugar in its talons had been more than he could
handle. He’d failed her family for the last time.

The moment he’d pulled Lily and Steven out of their hiding
place in the barn where Amanda had left them, he’d promised the two starving
six-year-olds that Amanda’s death would not be in vain. One day he’d kill the
monsters and now that day rapidly approached. Every step he took in the cursed
jungle and up the mountain where the winged creatures made their nest led him
to fulfilling his promise.

No more would they run from monsters that should be dead,
that never should have existed on the planet to begin with.

“Dean,” Robert, his second in command, called from the front
of the line. The other man spoke with a hoarse voice, having damaged his vocal
cords years earlier in a fight with another township. Now he sounded
perpetually gruff, which suited Robert’s personality perfectly.

Speeding up, Dean passed his comrades in arms until he
reached the front of the line. “What’s going on?”

“Minriki says he won’t take us any farther.”

Dean looked at their guide. Shorter than the average citizen
of New Strauss, Minriki barely reached Dean’s shoulder. Blond-haired and blue-eyed
like all his tribe, Minriki had been willing to take them this far and no farther.
Even then, they’d had to pay out fifty gold pieces for the trip, ten times more
than Dean had expected to dish out.

Minriki said something Dean couldn’t understand, gesturing
wildly with his hands. Rob nodded before turning back to Dean.

He swatted away a large insect. “He’s serious. No farther. Any
closer and he will have broken some kind of treaty his people have with the dragons.
But he says if we just keep going straight, we’ll get there. Two days more.
Maybe less.”

“A treaty with the dragons.” Dean rubbed at his face. Would
wonders never cease? “How can they have a treaty with the monsters?”

Rob answered Minriki in the tribe member’s language. They
spoke back and forth for a moment before Rob turned back to Dean. “His
ancestors made an agreement with the dragons when they first came to the
planet. They don’t bring people past this point and the dragons seek their food
elsewhere.”

“Yes, they come to us. They take us to eat, instead.” His
blood pounded at the thought and a headache formed between his eyes. “Fine. Thank
him for his help. We’ll find our way from here.”

Rob spoke a few more words and their guide nodded at him
before taking off in the opposite direction. Dean ran his hands through his
hair. Every single inch of him felt sticky, down to the follicles at the top of
his scalp.

“Thank God you could speak with him.”

Rob shrugged. “It’s not that hard. Kind of reminded me of
the way the people in Paling spoke that time. Do you remember that, Dean?”

He did. All the years he’d run New Strauss had led to an
amazing number of adventures, an incredible plethora of memories he could call
upon if he wanted to. The problem lately was that he didn’t care to think about
any of it. When he went home, he’d be Dean, the leader who could take care of
everybody’s problems, and no one there would care for one minute about how he’d
done it.

Hell
.

He shook his head. When had he gotten so soft? He had no one
waiting for him at home because he didn’t want to put up with nonsense. Sure,
it would be nice to have a woman care about him—he just wasn’t sure he could
care one bit about her needs when he had to worry about the requirements of
every single person living in New Strauss. He didn’t like emotional
entanglements—he never had.

“I remember all the times your trick of learning languages
instantly has saved our asses, Rob.” He patted his second in command on the
back.

“It’s weird. I’m glad I could help, that’s all.”

“Right.” Dean nodded. “So I guess we’re all on our own now. That’s
okay. I wouldn’t want anyone else with us to do what we have to do.”

He stared into the eyes of his seven remaining colleagues. “If
this works, we’ll never have to fight these dragons again and it will put the
other nests on notice. If you fuck with us, we will take you out.”

“And you still want to poison them?” Jane flicked a bug off
her arm.

“Seems the best way. We know they eat meat from the humans
they take. But they have a supply of greens too. Our doctors have seen the
remains of the vegetation in the stomachs of the ones we’ve dissected. We’ll
get in, poison the fuckers and get out. Then we’ll sit back and watch them
die.”

Dougal, one of his best warriors even though he was decades
younger than some of the others at only twenty years old, shrugged. His long
black hair moved with the action. The kid looked really dumb. Dougal needed to
trim his locks in the worst possible way. The long hair got in the way when he
fought battles. But Dean would never tell him. He preferred to keep his
internal organs inside his body instead of laid out on a table in front of him,
which was what would happen if he tried to give the hothead a piece of advice.

“You have something to say, Dougal?”

“Yeah.” The other man didn’t seem to notice that there were
tiny mosquito-like creatures sucking at his arms. “I think it would be much
more fun to blow them away.”

“I agree.” Dean looked at the sky. The clouds were getting
the heavy, low look they took on whenever rain was imminent. “But we take what
we can get. Eight of us. We’d be slaughtered. Poison isn’t glamorous but it
will get the job done.”

“Right.”

Dean’s head hurt—it had for days. He probably hadn’t drunk
enough water but he had no time to figure it out, not when they needed to keep
walking.

“Everyone ready or do you need a few minutes before we get
going? It looks like rain, so it’ll be slow for a while.”

It would also be sticky and soul-sucking, and the downpour
would certainly bring out even more bugs than the ones currently looming around
them.

I really miss the desert
.

He jumped when the first clap of thunder filled the air
around them. He’d never thought of weather as being particularly ominous
before. Not that they got many strong meteoric events where he came from. Still,
he couldn’t help feeling that with every dark cloud that moved through the air,
a certain amount of dark dread filled his soul.

Come on, Dean. You’ve fought many battles before. No need
to get so worked up now. This isn’t any different than the time you invaded
Copeland
.

“Everybody move out. Nothing good is going to come of
standing still. We’ll just get wetter.”

“Thanks for the pep talk,” Jane called over her shoulder. He
didn’t need to see her face to know she rolled her eyes. He smiled at the image
in his mind even as he pulled the hood of his windbreaker closer around his
head. Almost everything in his life changed regularly but Jane’s eye rolling
could be counted on to occur on a regular basis.

Another roar of thunder sounded and shivers traveled up his
spine.

“You okay, boss?”

Dean gave Dougal a thumbs-up as he trudged forward, the
ground turning to mud around his feet. How did anyone live here? Why would
anyone choose this? And how the hell had the local people managed to make a
deal with monsters?

He should slaughter the whole tribe. Their deal meant the dragons
moved elsewhere to feed, to his people. Humans shouldn’t be dealing with the
flying beasts. They should be united in destroying the creatures.

Traitors
.

“Dean!” Jane whirled around, pointing to the sky as she
screamed his name.

He jolted as he followed the direction of her arm. Dragons. They
whirled in a circle above his head. Three of them staring down at them over the
trees. The eight of them must look like fish in a bowl. Easy pickings, and he’d
bet gold that their so-called guide had used his alliance with the winged
vermin to tell the green death bringers where they could be found.

Slaughtering the village sounded better and better.

“Everybody scatter.”

They couldn’t be more vulnerable than they were, lined up
like some sort of trapped animals. At home, they’d take shelter and fire back
with cannons. In the jungle, they had fewer choices for weapons.

Just the ones they carried on their backs.

As his people ran for cover, Dean stood, still staring
upward. His vision narrowed. He’d get those sons of bitches if he had to claw
their green scaly skin from their bodies.

Dean pulled the bow and arrow off his back. The arrows would
pierce the beast’s skin but not cause much pain on their own. Fortunately, he
didn’t intend to use only the point of his arrows to defend himself.

“Boss, are you crazy?” Dougal screamed at him from across
the path. Why hadn’t the idiot run like the others? Jane and Robert knew enough
to heed his warning and get their butts hidden.

“I’ve got it. Don’t let them get you, kid.”

Dougal shouted something else but Dean couldn’t make out
what he’d said over the claps of thunder and the pounding of the dragon wings
above their heads. Brilliant of the dragons to try to hide the sounds of their
comings and goings behind the claps of the rainstorm.

Wetness pounding down on his head, Dean pulled matches out
his pocket. Using his coat to block the matches from getting drenched, he
struck a small fire. In two seconds, he’d transferred the flame to the oil-soaked
tip of his trusty arrow.

Fire would hurt the dragons. Dean smiled. They deserved
whatever pain he inflicted. Hundreds dead. More than that in the first
invasion.

With a rapid jerk of his arm, he used the move he’d
practiced a million times and used in battle more than once. The flaming arrow
ripped from the bow and zoomed skyward, toward the moving target.

The weapon pierced the beast’s wing. It roared, darting left
and right in the air before falling toward the ground. In its descent, it hit
the top of a tree, groaning loudly before tangling up in branches. The tree
swayed under the creature’s weight.

Dean grinned, watching the green beast. Sometimes getting
out his aggression just felt really damn good.

Claws dug into his back, wrenching him skyward.

“Shit.” He struggled against the restraint of the creature’s
nails pressing into his skin.

No. No. No
. He had no intention of going out like
this.

“Fuck.” He swung his leg upward, kicking at the dragon. If
he could make the son of a bitch drop him, he’d be thrilled. Plummeting to his
death seemed preferable to being chowed down on.

The dragon growled loudly, not a noise he’d heard the
creatures make before. Good. If they could make so-called treaties with local
tribes, then they could think logically. Maybe he’d upset his captor when he’d
shot its buddy with the damn arrow.

“Drop me, you green beast. I’m not coming willingly. If you
eat me, I won’t digest well. I promise, I will make you sick.”

He could have sworn the dragon laughed. Or maybe it was more
of a snort. But in any case, the fucker understood him perfectly.

“I said, put me down.”

No
.

Dean jolted. He’d heard the “no” perfectly well and he’d heard
it inside his own head. The dragon had…spoken to him. Goose bumps appeared all
over his body, coming out like sharp pinpricks exploding on his skin.