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  “Holy shit. C-5,” Parker whispered in awe. There were six sheets of the flat, plasticized molecular explosive. Scott Hayes had been a chemist, and apparently wasn’t above taking his work home with him once the world had gone over the edge. Those thin sheets were, according to Parker’s long-dead father, enough to blow a hole through the earth to whatever still lived on the other side. C-5 was durable, stable, and could be molded with a touch. The simplest electrical charge could be used to set it off, and it could be hidden right under Cynthia’s nose.

  Parker laughed. He slumped against the wall and let the rage evaporate with each deep, rolling burst of laughter, and then he closed the panel, slid the sheets upward in the zippered gap of the filthy body armor he wore, and began his search anew. His mind whirled with plans. He’d met not one but two potential clients while he was in New Madrid—sure, they might eat well, but not everyone liked their little fiefdom, and that new militia leader had rubbed half the town the wrong way. Parker let it be known that he was open for business while drinking the piss poor beer they served at the town tavern, a sod house with low light and six women to thirty men. When he felt a hand on his leg and saw a rake thin woman in her fifties, he nearly pulled up for the door right there. After she bought him a drink, her story flowed easily enough; she hated her husband and wanted him dead so she could remarry. At her age, Parker thought that kind of optimism meant she’d been hit in the head more than once, but he listened and grunted at the appropriate times. Finally, she flashed him some veiny leg and told him if he found anything that could do the job, she’d make it worth his while. That woman he dismissed out of hand. She was an amateur, and there were only 3000 people to hide within. He wasn’t into the idea of giving his life up for an unhappy harpy, so he recalled the second contact he made.

  That one was much more interesting. He’d listened quietly to the slimy little worm as he spooled a story about the need to remove certain elements from the town in order to protect the people. If Parker knew anything, it was that whoever said they had your interest at heart was most likely full of shit. Since hell had come to visit, everyone was out for themselves and, according to the old timers he’d known, that wasn’t anything new. The distinction with the second potential customer was that the offered payment was far more germane to Parker’s needs. If he could find like-minded individuals who were handy with a rifle, then Parker would be put in charge of his own crew, both during fighting and afterward. There was talk of a separate location, housing, food, and his choice of women, along with weapons to go along with all of it. Warlord was the rather grand term thrown into the conversation, causing the avarice in Parker to flare like a vicious serpent. That was language he understood, so Parker simply nodded in order to affirm his interest, finished his cup of beer, and said, “I’ll keep you in mind.” It had been difficult to keep the greed and longing out of his wavering voice.

  Feeling the sheets of C-5 clinging to him, he knew that the sooner he got back to New Madrid, the faster he could make his own settlement, free from the bitching presence of Cynthia Pennyroyal. Parker began his search again with a spring in his step. It looked like this would be his last tour through the bones of a nation that no longer existed, and he was fine with that.

  15

  Dragons

  “The first dragon to die was a female named Arethusa. She was really well liked, had risen somewhere in the Finger Lakes region of New York, and was ridden by a cool customer named Daniel Brathwaite. He’d been a middle school principal before everything went nuts, so it pretty much took the end of the world to get his attention. Up until the Battle of Laurel Caverns, we didn’t even know if dragons could be killed. Some of the big ones, the huge third wavers who were near seventy and eighty meters long? They had taken wounds so severe nobody thought they would even leave the field, let alone survive, but their healing properties are beyond anything we’ve ever seen before. You remember that big red and gold dragon Pentecost? She lost an entire forearm to some sort of Tylosaur during the fight for Mobile Bay. There were three of those things attacking her; they were sixty feet long, and half of that was mouth. She killed all three, but not before one of them cut her cleanly off, like it had used a surgeon’s scalpel. The dragon’s screams were—no one wants to remember that noise. I was half a mile away, manning a deck gun and burning through ammo so fast that I thought I’d melt my weapon. The entire bay churned with every kind of swimming monster we’ve ever dug out of the rocks, but these were alive, not fossils, and they were hungry. We lost sixty vessels in less than twenty minutes. The air was pink with mist from sailors and passengers being shredded by that school of swimming death. A small dragon . . . I can’t remember his name, now—maybe it was Rainier? He was skimming the bay at eighty knots, flipping demons into the air, and gutting them with his back legs. Two of them latched onto his tail like bulldogs, but he managed to pull the, I guess, dinosaurs, or whatever, up onto a pier where his rider unloaded an automatic rifle right down the flanks of either creature. Split ‘em like melons; their blood sluiced down that tired old dock and, in seconds, Rainier—yeah, that was him, right—was back on the attack, just raging across the bay, and he still wasn’t making any breathing room for us on the boats. We had half of the Coast Guard there, I swear, but still lost over a thousand sailors and land troops; that isn’t even counting what those friggin’ creatures did to the civvies that were lined up like snacks, waiting to go to Texas. We had armored walls outside Corpus Christi, and we told everyone who wanted to evacuate from Alabama that land travel was a no-go. We led them to their deaths. Those . . . things were waiting for us. Waiting for the people. And they wanted the dragons more than anything; you could tell just by the way they attacked.

  “It took six of them to pull Arethusa into the water, then another dozen to pull her under. She fought—don’t think she made it cheap for those bastards; she took a lot of them with her. Her rider was standing in his harness, shooting into the water and just howling like an animal. One of the smaller Tylosaurs went straight through the air and took his head off. When that happened, Arethusa went batshit crazy and decided to die, I think, because she used every single part of her body for offense, and the attackers took advantage of that. It was like watching a pack of hyenas take down a male lion; there was something viscerally wrong about the entire scene. I finally went cold on ammo; most of us did, but some maniac in a fishing boat rammed the whole roiling mass of Tylosaurs and cut them to ribbons with his props. He made three passes before they rolled his boat and killed him, too, but Arethusa was done. Only the tip of one wing stayed above water. It was shivering, like she was cold, but I think it was just from those creatures ripping her apart. I still think about her screams and the clouds of blood. It makes me sick, like I, I can still smell the water of that bay. It was—I don’t understand it, not even now. She was one of us, you know?” —U.S.C.G. Gunner’s Mate Lucas Kunecki

  —Bulwark Archival Materials, Access Date 96 A.R.

  16

  Trinity Outpost, August 15, 2074 A.D.

  “You look better. More human,” Delandra said to Orontes with a smile.

  He walked alongside her as they traversed the central outpost square, a dusty affair that was ringed with every industry that the Admiralty needed to conduct twelve small wars per year. Various noises and shouts rang out through the heat of the August air, and a mildly frenetic taste clung to each of the craftsmen who darted between buildings. The killing moon would arrive in one week. Orontes looked around in wonder at the controlled chaos, and grimaced as his foot caught in a flagstone gap.

  “Still sore?” Delandra asked him as she steadied his arm. She’d been frankly shocked that he’d survived at all, let alone recovered to the point where walking was not only possible, but recommended.

  Orontes nodded, slowly, and then gave a ginger lift of his arm. “I don’t know if this will ever work properly again, but I’m glad that it remains attached to my body.” He began a laugh, but cut it short with a smal
l groan instead. “Have I thanked you, Delandra?” He seemed puzzled at the possibility of such an omission.

  She leaned into him gently. “Repeatedly. Now, you may not remember doing so, but you have. I’m just thrilled to have someone survive that damned poison. We’ve lost . . . we’ve lost too many good people. I bury more patients than I can save.” A sigh escaped her lips. She looked tired, and then brightened. “This is a victory for us, you see. We know that the venom isn’t 100% lethal, and for that, I’m thankful.”

  “Have you always been a healer? A doctor?” Orontes asked.

  “I was raised in a household with two doctors. My grandparents were physicians in Galveston, before the rising,” she said, then added, “and the fall. Of everything. They met in med school; back when we had such things, and went on to have three children, two of whom became doctors as well. I guess you could say it’s the family business.”

  “Wasn’t Galveston part of the original flood?”

  Delandra’s lips pressed into a thin line. “You would think of all the cities in Texas, Galveston would have been ready for a flood. A hurricane killed thousands of people nearly two centuries ago, and they built massive walls to protect the beaches. They didn’t plan on the water being—well, there was no way to prevent an inland sea from rising. The remains of the city are completely underwater. It’s sad, really. I would have liked to know where my family lived, but I’m sure the storms and tides have erased whatever was left after the first invasions.” Her voice was heavy with regret for something that she only knew through stories, but the impact was still the same as if she had been standing on Pelican Island on the last day the city existed.

  “What killed Galveston, Delandra?” Orontes asked. He paused to catch his breath. They were under the thin shade of a beleaguered awning, but it was better than facing the sun directly, if only just.

  “Do you not know? Where are you from, Orontes?”

  “Back east. There wasn’t much news of which to redraw the maps as the cities fell. First, the military kept communications going, or so I’m told, but the net went down, then roads were blocked and, before long, there were only pockets of people holding on for dear life,” he said. His eyes lost focus with the memory of what once had been.

  “Right, I guess you wouldn’t know, then. There was so little news for at least a decade. I think it took that long to stabilize some of the battle lines. Down here, we were trying to catch our breath when the dragons began migrating in serious numbers. Some stayed, some went east, or west. My mother told me that no less than three dozen huge dragons left on the same day. Their destination was Buenos Aires, and they were determined to purge the entire River Plate of every demonic creature that swam there.” She looked south involuntarily.

  Orontes gestured at the clean, orderly area around them. “It looks like the Commodore has solved the riddle of the attacks.”

  Delandra nodded, but slowly. “Yes, but it’s been a hard road. It isn’t just the dragons, you know. We have many assets that work together. There’s the Commodore’s leadership. There are, of course, the dragons and their riders. The salvagers. The farmers. We have an excellent navy, if you can call three boats a navy, and our engineers are wizards with the restoration and fabrication of parts and machinery. Oh, they like to complain, but the truth is there won’t be a need for manufacturing for decades, if ever.”

  “Why? Don’t things break? Don’t people need—goods?” Orontes waved vaguely.

  Delandra smiled, and there was a hint of relief. “People constantly think they need things, but as far as actual, legitimate requirements, those are few and far between. The world is a huge place, and we’ve only begun to salvage what was left behind. So much of the civilization that once was is there for the taking. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have advanced medical capabilities like my parents and grandparents, but I’m not sure it would help.”

  “Why? Don’t people get sick?” Orontes seemed nonplussed by her acceptance of such limitations.

  She shook her head firmly. “Not like we used to. Look around. What do you see?”

  “I see . . . Trinity? A rather busy place,” he said.

  Again, she shook her head. “Look at the people.”

  Orontes surveyed the crowd moving about. They were all—“Ahh! I think I understand. They’re all rather healthy, aren’t they?”

  Delandra touched the tip of her nose. “Not just healthy. Tough. Survivors. We don’t have the problems that used to kill people by the millions. Heart disease. Cancer. Obesity? That was apparently like a plague at one point. It might be ghoulish to say it, but the decades of war and starvation have taken the baby fat away from our population. Those of us that are left, anyway. It makes my job easier in some ways. Then again, my grandparents never had to pull a foot long claw out of a patient.” Her laugh was the first Orontes had heard that day, and it rippled with abandon through the square.

  “My thanks to you for that. Putting on a shirt would have been quite the challenge with the extra accoutrement.” He bowed from the waist, an archaic gesture that had gone out of style years earlier.

  Delandra beamed at his gallantry. It was a rare event in the world where necessity drove nearly every gesture. “What’s everyone so intense about? It seems like there is a deadline . . .” He looked around with renewed interest at the bustle.

  Delandra grew still. “Do you not know why? Really?”

  Orontes looked abashed. “I—I’m sorry. No. Have I offended you in some way?”

  “No, but . . . where did you say you were from again?” she asked.

  “Originally from the east coast, but I’ve moved around since the fall. I’ve been in New Madrid for nearly a year, but, I hate to ask again—have I said something improper? You seem disturbed, or offended,” Orontes insisted.

  Delandra shook her head and smiled sadly. “We’re getting ready for the killing moon. The attack.”

  Orontes hissed through his teeth and put a long hand over his face. “I feel like an idiot,” he muttered through his fingers. “I think I may have—”

  “Lost track of time. The fault is mine. I’m your doctor and I didn’t think that you would be confused as to the date.” Delandra shook her head ruefully before taking Orontes’ arm again. “I don’t want to understate the gravity of our situation here, because there is a legitimate chance that the . . . creatures, whatever it is that show up this month, will harm some citizens. They may even break through, although I doubt it.”

  “I don’t understand. You prepare for an invasion, but you don’t think that you can lose? Or, at the very least, you find that possibility unlikely?” Orontes asked.

  Delandra hesitated for a moment, clearly in conflict over discussing military issues with a stranger, albeit a weakened man who had ridden overland to ask them for help. “Before I discuss this further, let me ask you something that Moss—the Commodore, that is—will want to know before much longer, now that you’re able to walk on your own. What possessed you to ride over that murderous landscape, just to get here?” Her eyes locked on his as she released his arm, creating a wall between them that was as substantial as any physical barrier.

  He lingered in her gaze and said, “Dragons. I came for dragons.”

  Delandra whooped. “What? You came for dragons? Why?”

  Orontes gave her a searching look. “Where I am, there are no dragons. The people fight against their adversaries with guns and wile, but it’s a war of attrition. More citizens arrive each month, but many are killed. There are fewer babies being born and, eventually, New Madrid will be overrun. I know that is not something that concerns you—please don’t interrupt me; it would be rude of you to lie. I see the confidence here in Trinity. I am not being dismissive of your losses and labor through the years. But what I am here to ask for is far more than just dragons, Delandra, and I can prove that my offer to your community is something that you will not live without.” He took a deep breath to steady himself; even the act of an impassioned
moment of speech left him flagging. “I would prefer to deliver this information once. Do you think you can arrange for me to address your—what do you call them, anyway?”

  “The Admiralty. And yes, as your physician, I think that what you’re asking is not only reasonable, but medically sound. Whether they listen to you is entirely out of my hands. Can you speak this evening?” Delandra asked.

  Orontes nodded with finality. “I can. And time is, in fact, of the essence.”

  Delandra’s eyes widened at that. She took the measure of the man who had crossed a dangerous parcel of land just to appeal to the outpost of Trinity, and he’d done so with a foot of bone and claw stuck in his body. “I figured as much. I’ll pass word to Byrna. We’ll have as many riders present as can be found, too. I think they need to hear this. If I can arrange it, where would you prefer to speak?”

  A triumphant roar shattered the day’s heat, followed by rich draconic laughter. They both craned their heads to see Wendigo, or Windy, as his rider called him, slowing to a near hover twenty yards away. The medium-sized dragon was steel blue with black accents, like a wild Mustang. His paint-splashed hide moved over rippling muscles as he held an effortless position. Each of his forelegs held a huge shark weighing more than a thousand pounds. In his left, a tiger shark writhed slowly; in his right claws, he held fifteen feet of thrashing hammerhead.