Czytaj książkę: «The Talon Saga»

RILEY

Whoa, getting light-headed here.

I swayed, gritting my teeth, as a wave of dizziness washed over me, making me stagger back a step. Thankfully, Ember and St. Anthony, still bent over the soldier, didn’t seem to notice. They’d patched up his many wounds, either by wrapping them in gauze or sewing them shut, and he now lay between them on the salt flats, still as death and nearly as white as the ground beneath him. I looked at Ember, at the tear tracks staining her cheeks, and wondered if she would cry for me if I ever bit the dust.

“He still alive?” I asked gruffly.

The other soldier of St. George felt his wrist, then nodded once and sat back on his heels with a sigh. “Yeah,” he answered in an equally brusque voice. “For now.”

“Well, that’s good. I’d hate to be getting this nauseous for nothing.” I watched him carefully remove the tube from the soldier’s arm and tape the final wound shut. The end of the tube dropped to the ground and leaked my blood all over the salt.

“You should go,” St. Anthony said in a low voice, not looking at me. “Get him out of here. Before the rest of the Order shows up.”

I nodded wearily. “I’ll call Wes,” I told Ember. My human hacker friend waited on standby, ready to speed to our side if anything went wrong. I’d say this classified as very, very wrong. “He should be here in a few minutes.”

She nodded without looking up, her attention riveted to the soldier, and I stifled the growl rumbling in my throat. Instead, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and pressed a familiar button.

“Tell me you’re not dead, Riley,” said the terse English voice on the other end.

I sighed. “No, Wes, I got my head blown off, and this is just my ghost speaking to you from the afterlife. What the hell do you think?”

“Well, since you’re calling me, I take it things did not go as planned. Did St. George manage to get himself killed?”

I looked down at Ember and the soldier. “Maybe.”

“Maybe? What kind of bloody answer is that? Either he’s dead or he isn’t.”

“It’s complicated.” I explained the situation, and what led up to it, as briefly as I could. Wes already knew that Garret had been challenged by the Patriarch, the leader of St. George, to a duel to the death. The soldier had defeated the man, barely, and forced him to yield, ending the fight. But then he made a mistake. He’d spared his life. And while the soldier was walking away, the Patriarch had pulled a gun and shot him in the back. That move had ended his life, as one of his own seconds responded immediately by putting several bullets through his former Patriarch, but it came too late to help the soldier, who now lay like the dead on the salt flats outside the city.

“So much for the famed honor of St. George,” I muttered into the shocked silence on the other end. “So now we need to get him, and us, out of here pronto. Think you can manage that?”

“Bloody hell, Riley.” Wes sighed. “Can you not, just once, go into a situation without one of you nearly dying?” There was a pause, and I heard the growl of an engine as it rumbled to life. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Try not to let anyone else get shot, okay?”

“One more thing,” I said, lowering my voice to a near whisper and turning my back on the trio kneeling in the salt. “I’m initiating Emergency Go to Ground protocol now. Send the signal through the network, to all the safe houses.”

“Shit, Riley,” Wes breathed. “Is it that bad?”

“The leader of St. George, their Grand Poobah himself, was just killed. Even if they don’t blame us—which they will, you can be sure of that—things are going to get crazy from here on. I don’t want any of us out in the open when the shit starts to hit the fan. No one moves or pokes a scale out the door until I say otherwise.”

“Bugger all,” Wes muttered, and the faint tapping of keys drifted through the phone. Even when he was on standby, Wes’s laptop never left his side. “Initiating protocol...now.” He sighed again, sounding weary. “Right, that’s done. So now I suppose we’re heading to the bugout spot to wait for the Order to flip the hell out when they hear the news.”

“Get here as soon as you can, Wes.”

“Joy. On my way.”

I lowered the phone and glanced at St. Anthony, forcing a smirk. “I don’t suppose you people brought a stretcher.”

“Actually, we did.” The other soldier still knelt in the salt beside Sebastian’s body. His voice was grave, but a tremor went through him, barely noticeable. “The Order always comes prepared. Though we thought it would just be...one body.”

A chill went through me, joining the dizziness. I lifted my gaze and looked over the huddle of people in front of me to where a still form in white lay crumpled in the salt a few yards away. Like the soldier, he was covered in blood, the back of his once-pristine uniform spattered with red from where the series of bullets had torn through his body. The Patriarch of the Order of St. George lay dead where he had fallen, the final look on his face one of disbelief and rage.

I guessed I’d be surprised, too, if I’d been shot several times in the back by one of my own soldiers. And not the one I had challenged in a fight to the death.

“Tristan St. Anthony.” The new voice echoed behind us, low and frigid. I saw the human briefly close his eyes before raising his head.

“Sir.”

“Get up. Step away from the dragons, now.”

St. Anthony complied immediately, though his movements were stiff as he rose and stepped away from Ember and myself. His face was carefully neutral as he turned to face the man standing behind us. Martin, I remembered the Patriarch had called him—Lieutenant Martin. He wasn’t a large man, or tall; he was older and had that commanding presence I’d seen in unit leaders and veteran slayers. St. Anthony stood rigid at attention, his gaze fixed straight ahead as the other regarded him with stony black eyes.

I watched intently, wondering if he was going to shoot the younger soldier right here. Execute him for killing the Patriarch, perhaps. Even though, in my mind, St. Anthony had done exactly what he was supposed to. The seconds were there to ensure the duel was fair, that no one interfered, cheated or swayed the fight in any way. Sebastian had won; the Patriarch had yielded and the duel was clearly over. Shooting Sebastian in the back wasn’t just extreme cowardice; it marked the Patriarch, beyond any doubt, as guilty, and St. Anthony had responded as he should have. Maybe it was a knee-jerk reaction, and the realization of what he’d done was just now hitting home, but his response had probably saved both their lives from two vengeful dragons blasting them to cinders.

But I didn’t know St. George policies or politics, only that they were severe to the point of being fanatical. Maybe it didn’t matter what the Patriarch had done. Maybe killing the revered leader of St. George was an immediate death sentence, no matter the intent behind it. It wouldn’t surprise me.

By the look on St. Anthony’s face, it wouldn’t surprise him, either.

The officer regarded the younger man in silence for a moment, then sighed. “You did what you had to do, St. Anthony,” he said in a stiff voice, making the other look up sharply. “In accordance with the rules of St. George. The Patriarch was guilty, and his actions called for immediate reprisal.” His voice didn’t quite match the look on his face, as if he would give anything to believe that it wasn’t true. “You did your duty, though the council might not see it that way,” he added, making St. Anthony wince. “But I will speak on your behalf and do my best to ensure you are not punished for it.”

“Sir,” St. Anthony breathed as, with the crunching of salt, the other officer walked up. He was older than either of them, with a white beard and a patch across one eye, and his face was twisted into an expression of hate as he glared at us.

“Know this, dragons,” he snapped, his voice shaking with rage. “You might have won the day, but you have not broken us. The Order will recover, and when we do, we will not stop until Talon is destroyed This war isn’t over. Far from it. It has barely begun.”

I smirked, ready to say something suitably defiant and insolent, but Ember lifted her gaze from where it had been glued to the soldier’s body and glanced up at the humans.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” she said in a soft, controlled voice. “Some of us want nothing to do with Talon, or the war. Some of us are just trying to survive.” She looked at St. Anthony, holding his gaze. “Garret realized that. Which is why he went to you in the first place, why he risked everything to expose the Patriarch. Talon was using the Order to kill dragons that didn’t fall in with the organization. St. George thinks we’re all the same, but that’s not true.” Her voice grew a little desperate on that last word, and she dropped her gaze, staring at the soldier’s body once more.

“We don’t want this war,” she murmured. “There’s been too much killing and death already. There has to be a way for it to end.”

“There is.” The human’s tone was flat. “It will end with the extinction of every dragon on the planet. Nothing less. Even if what you say is true, St. George will not yield. The Order will never abandon their mission to purge the threat your kind represents. If anything, this has only proved how treacherous you dragons really are. Perhaps this was Talon’s plan all along—to strike a critical blow against the Order by removing the Patriarch.”

“Are you really that stupid?” I asked, and all three humans glanced at me sharply. “Is the Order so blind and rigid that it won’t even consider another way of thinking? Open your damn eyes, St. George. You have two dragons in front of you that hate Talon just as much as the Order. And if you believe this was some elaborate plan by the organization to off the Patriarch, you’re not thinking that through. Why would Talon want to kill the Patriarch when they were pulling all the strings and had the Order right where they wanted? We—” I gestured to myself, Ember and the motionless soldier “—had to expose this alliance, or Talon would have just kept using you to wipe us off the map. Maybe you should think hard about what that means.”

St. Anthony, I noted, was still watching Ember, who was kneeling by the soldier with his hand clasped tightly in her own. His eyes were conflicted, a tiny furrow creasing his brow. But then the man spoke again, his voice as hard and cold as ever.

“Take Sebastian and leave this place,” he said, stepping back. “The Order will not pursue, at least not today. But there will be a reckoning, dragon. And when that happens, I suggest you stay far away, or be consumed with the rest of your kind. Martin, St. Anthony,” he said, and walked toward the body of the Patriarch lying in the bloody salt a few yards away. The one called Martin followed immediately, but Tristan paused a moment, still staring at Ember before he, too, turned on a heel and marched off with his shoulders straight. Neither of them looked back.

I knelt, putting a hand on Ember’s arm and leaning close. “Wes is on his way,” I told her. “We’ll be out of here soon.”

She nodded without looking up. “Do you...do you think he’ll make it?” she whispered.

I didn’t want to upset her, but I didn’t want to lie, either. To give her false hope. “I don’t know, Firebrand,” I muttered. “He’s lost a lot of blood. I don’t know if that bullet hit anything vital, but...he’s not in a good place right now. I think you have to prepare yourself for the worst.” She closed her eyes, a tear slipping down her cheek as she bowed her head. My dragon stirred, and a bitter lump caught in my throat. I remembered her words as the soldier lay dying in her arms, the whispered confession as the human slipped into unconsciousness. And I knew she would never say those words to me.

Unless he was gone.

Sickened with myself and the dark, ugly thoughts of my inner dragon, I rose and walked away to scan the barren horizon.

So. The Patriarch was dead. We’d accomplished what we’d set out to do—not kill the man exactly, but expose him to the rest of the Order and break up the alliance between him and Talon. The organization could no longer pull the Order’s strings, because their prize puppet was out of the picture. This would throw St. George into chaos, and they would want retribution for the death of their leader, but at least they would be distracted for a while. And while they were figuring out what to do, I could move my network even deeper underground so we’d be well hidden for the inevitable retaliation.

But that still left Talon to deal with.

A chill went through me as I watched the sun creep slowly over the flats, staining the horizon red. Something was coming; I could feel it. Talon was out there, and killing the Patriarch would cause them to react, as well. Maybe that had been their plan all along. I felt like a pawn in a chess match—one who had just taken out the bishop, but then looked up and there was the queen, smiling at me from across the board.

I shook myself, frowning. I was getting paranoid. Even if Talon had expected this, our plans wouldn’t have changed. We would’ve had to expose the Patriarch regardless, and everything would still have led to this, with the leader of the Order dead, and the soldier who’d exposed him hovering between life and death in the bloodstained salt.

I looked back at Ember and the human, huddled together on the bleak, unforgiving flats. The soldier’s face was as white as the salt beneath him, half his blood, and probably a little of mine, already drying in the sun. Try not to die, St. George, I thought, startling myself. Things are going to get even crazier from here, and you’re not bad to have around when everything implodes. If Talon decides to come after us full scale, we’ll need all the help we can get. Plus, if you die now, Ember will never be able to forget you.

And I don’t want to compete with a damned ghost for the rest of my life.