The Fly House (The UtopYA Collection) (44 page)

CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE

Cold Season One, Year 2095

"We need to surround the opening of the Archive."  Flesh said.

"You know how guns work?" Maeve asked, reaching for one of the stream of rifles that came up from below, passed hand by hand, to the surface.

"I'm from the archaic Earth," Flesh grinned.  "Of course I know how guns work.  Wonderful things.  It's nice to see them again."

The people from the Houses began to flood in from all directions. 

"How do we know that they're all okay?" Phil asked as they swarmed from the tree line.  He aimed his gun.

"Do not shoot!" Flesh bellowed.  "Bark will flame any that are Plutians!  He can smell a Plutian, see a Plutian!  You may shoot whoever is running toward us in flames!  If a Plutian gets near us, they'll kill us, so be sure to shoot them dead."

Maeve watched Bark as he sat hunched in the sagging tree, his head sweeping from side to side, picking through the humans like berries.  His jaws were formidable although his jowls shook like loose chicken skin beneath them.  Maeve watched as the dragon's head suddenly jerked skyward. 

The massive dragon ducked and his mouth opened.  A shrieking cry suddenly blasted out of the animal. 

The Archivers tightened their guard, backing in around the tree as they jut their guns up toward the sky in all directions, confused by the sound of the dragon's alarm, but unsure of where to aim their weapons.

The Galls came like a loose knit afghan.  Staggered in the sky, six dragons soared high above the dragon grounds.  The people from the Houses scattered, screaming, in all directions.  They seeded in among the spindlings, but it was no use.  The Galls blasted streams of flame that slithered through the spindlings and exploded like bombs over the ground.  Bowls of fire jumped up, incinerating groups of people from the Houses as they scurried for their lives.

The last dragon in the formation swooped down into the opening.

Maeve's breath evaporated from her chest as the dragon roared across the training field.  The animal let loose a blanket of flame.  From around the entrance tree, the Archivers fired at the back of the dragon's head and at the dark figure riding upon the animal's neck.

Flesh shouted direction to the Archivers,  "Fire at the rider!  Shoot the alien!"

Maeve dropped her own gun to her shoulder, one eye squinted shut and the other wide in the scope.  The rifle shots cracked all around her, but she waited.  She tr
acked the Plutian as the dragons glided over the field, leading her target, until the alien was parallel with her.

She pulled the trigger.  The bullet kicked from the rifle.  Maeve scooped in a breath, everything moving in slow motion until the Plutian jerked sideways.  The rider tumbled from
the back of the Gall and landed with a thud on the ground.

Bark fumbled from his tree.  The end of the spindling sling
-shotted into the air as the Cork dragon hustled sideways, cutting into the path of the rider-less dragon.  With amazing speed and accuracy, Bark lunged.  His heavy jaws closed around the invader's neck.  The crunch and snapping of bones was horrific as the two dragons spun, head over tail in a plated dragon wheel, across the training grounds.  They slammed into the thick spindlings at the far end, the ground giving one last massive jump beneath the human's feet, as a puff of smoke rose from the pile of two dragons.

Flesh let out a cry of relief as Bark wobbled to his feet, untangling from the dead Gall. 

"It's moving!" Phil shouted, pointing out into the field.  It took Maeve a moment to retrace her way back to the fallen Plutian.  Phil struck out across the training grounds in a sprint.

"No!" Flesh shouted after him, but Phil was already too close.  He raised the butt of the gun overhead and the dying Plutian took his final opportunity. 

The thin line of venom could've been silly string.  It shot out like a single line of a net, but as it contacted Phil's skin, he let out a blood curdling cry.  Phil's entire body pulled tight as the venom soaked into him, his muscles straining against the pain as his gun fell at his feet. 

"Shoot them both!" Flesh cried. 

Dave's single gunshot jerked the last moment of life from the Plutian, but Dave didn't fire a second shot.  Flesh grabbed for the gun, but Dave twisted away.

"Help him!" Dave shouted at Flesh.

"He can't!" Maeve shouted back.  She lifted her own gun as Phil shrieked in agony again.  The scope shook.  Phil jerked as the venom dug through him to his bones.  But the crack of the rifle that fired was not Maeve's.  Phil fell in a heap on the ground as Maeve swung to see Amber lowering her gun.

The training grounds fell silent.  The sickness of death churned in every human belly.

"They will return," Flesh said, his eyes on the sky as his words echoed.  The humans from the Houses crept from the spindlings again.  "Ahanas help them."

"Help them?  The aliens?" Dave snapped. 

"Of course not.  Our Rhas!  Those fighters had to have come through the wormhole.  It wasn't sealed in time.  It is the only reason they are here.  Our Rhas may have failed already," Flesh's tone was grave.

"No," Maeve said.  She shook her head against the idea of more death.  Flesh turned away as a tear sparkled in the corner of his eye. 

The Archivers were shocked and overwhelmed, loading women and children into the Archive.  The people from the Houses came through the spindlings terrified.  Flesh watched the sky and whistled commands to Bark, readying the dragon for the next onslaught.  The battle had just begun and the grief already hung in the air so thick, it squeezed out the hopes of making it through this battle alive.

Maeve's boots turned toward the cave.  She would not go down without fireworks.  She ran, pushing through the people who came to be saved.  No one called her back.  No one knew her plans.  If they had, they may have tried to stop her from doing the most foolish thing on Earth. 

***

Maeve crept to Forge's lair, her heartbeat pounding in the back of her eyes as if it wanted to escape.  Trust had gone into the cave.  She wasn't sure if Trust had the strength to do what she had in mind, she wasn't sure she was ready herself, but she whistled the wet, grassy whistle to summon him to her.

The dragon's face emerged, snout first, from the shadows.  He moved slowly and she stayed to the wall, in case he burped a stream of flame at her.  His nostrils only trailed thin lines of smoke and there was a misery in his eyes that translated easily for Maeve.

"We gotta try," she whispered.  Words were only for her benefit, but when his head dipped, it seemed like he understood anyway.  He turned his head from her and coughed a fireball that shot up the cave wall.  The flame bursting into sparks that rained down on the ground.  He turned back to her slowly, head down, ashamed.

"We've got to try," Maeve said again, but this time, she squared her shoulders when she said it.  She spoke to the heathen again, this time assuming that he would understand and be encouraged.  "A few misfires can't stop us.  Your flame is really strong and even if you can't control it, that's got to be worth something."

The dragon muddled toward her, standing in the opening of the cave.  She walked to his side and climbed onto the spot between his body and lower trunk of his neck.  No guide rein, it would be all knees.  She took a deep breath and bent low over his neck. 

She'd only really ridden him once—

The dousing might've zapped his strength
—

He wasn't full grown yet
—

She didn't know if a Samoan Dragon instinctively knew how to fight or had to be taught
—

She couldn't remember anything Diem had told her
—

She pressed her kneecaps to his plates.  They were firmer than before.  She squeezed and Trust responded by spreading his wings.  From the mouth of the cave, he dove straight into the air.  Maeve laid flat to the dragon's neck, guiding him down to the tree tops, gliding in the direction Diem had gone, hoping to God that the Gall dragons didn't return to fuck with them.

Trust pulled through the sky as if he knew his direction.  They crossed the dividing wall toward Hold House, but no dragon came to stop them.  Maeve wasn't sure of the direction they should take, but with nothing else to guide her, she hoped Trust could scent Forge or that dragons had some kind of homing device that would help her find Diem.  She hoped that whatever seemed to be drawing Trust wouldn't just as easily send him toward the Galls.

The clouds grew dense as they crossed the Hold House lot.  Trust swept over the House, continuing on past rows of caves on the ground and past a cliff dotted with the mouths of lairs.  The clouds congealed into a suffocating fog.  Trust cut through the wet foam of it, Maeve squinting to see even her dragon's head at the end of his neck.  Her clothes were damp.

She clung to the dragon, as Trust swam through the gray fog and then, the fog suddenly dropped off, as if it were a waterfall.   Trust and Maeve soared from the cliff of moisture into the sapphire night.  It would've been beautiful, if they hadn't sailed straight into the rear of the five Gall dragons' formation.

Maeve swallowed a yelp.  She pulled her knees down and back, widening the gap between them.  The menacing dragons didn't even notice them.  Their focus was stapled to what was in front of them.

Maeve's eyes bugged as she tried to wrap her head around what she saw up ahead.  A massive, gray cloud funneled down from somewhere higher than her sight could reach.  At the center, the bottom of the funnel hovered miles over the thick carpet of fog, flaring out like the gripped mouth of a giant, rolled edge of a paper bag.  Squinting, Maeve could make out the four Rhas and their dragons, soaring and battling another six Galls away from the funnel opening.  All spotted the advancing five and sounded the cry of warning.

The attack from the five happened before Maeve could comprehend it.  The Galls in front of her surged forward, their backdraft swirling behind them, sending Trust and Maeve into a sideways spin across the sky.  Maeve clung to the dragon, the ground and sky somersaulting as if they were being churned in a bingo ball cage. 

"Mother fucker," Maeve whispered as she squeezed her eyes shut and dug in her knees, more pressure on one than the other, hoping it signaled Trust to go right side up instead of upside down.

Trust leveled out and swooped down close to the tree line as Maeve tried to get her bearings again.  She looked up at the battlefield through slitted eyes. 

The Galls had broken into three groups, surrounded the Rhas in a triangle around the funnel opening.  The Rhas hovered as if they were guarding it.

"Just go up there and blaze it!" Maeve mumbled.  The helplessness gutted her. 

She was stupid to have come here on a doused, baby dragon without a whiff of an idea about how she could help.  The most she could be was a diversion and there were too many Galls for even that to be useful.  Trust turned in a broad circle beneath the swirling ring of trouble.  Maeve could hear the Rhas whistling, directing their dragons to keep in their own formation.

One of the Galls slipped out of place.  It threaded lazily out of position, drifting behind one of the other Galls and then rising up behind the edge of the funnel.  Obscured, Maeve could see the Gall, but she wasn't sure that the Rhas could.  She was sure it was almost impossible for the Rhas to keep track of the eleven identical Galls with identically dressed riders. 

All, Shown's Cirrus dragon, quickly dipped into the opening of the funnel.  It was like ringing an alarm. 

Hell broke loose among the dragons.  The obscured Gall plunged down toward Soar, who was circling slightly below.  Soar reared, flashing his belly as All burst through the side of the funnel, screeching and throwing flame, but the Cirrus came too late.  The Gall clamped its jaws onto Soar's back leg, holding it tight.

Soar whipped in a furious circle, trying to free himself.  Maeve could make out Span clinging to his dragon's back. 

The other Galls swarmed in.  Forge reared up and struck, sending a Gall rolling, but the animal recovered quickly and flung itself at Cirque.  Impulse saw the Gall coming.  He pulled Cirque back, knocking the Gall with the bowl of the Echo dragon's tail.  The Gall rolled from the strike, but recovered again.

The Cirrus doubled back and swooped in on the Gall attacking Soar.  Maeve saw that it was Shown's brother, Mark, who rode the Cirrus to the Gall's side.  The Hold House dragon opened its mouth just as it was parallel to the Gall.  A bolt of precision flame shot the Gall straight in the eye. 

The Gall shrieked, wings flailing blindly in the air.  The beast plummeted.  The Plutian rider couldn't right the animal as it spiraled out of control.  With one hard snap of its head, the Gall dislodged the Plutian.  The rider jolted off the back of the dragon like a baseball, smacked miles away into the air, before dropping through the thick fog below.  

The spinning, partially blinded Gall crashed through the fog too.  Maeve held her breath, but the Gall did not surface again.  She looked up at the other Galls, locked in battle with the outnumbered Rhas.