Flip. Flip. Flip. Flip. Flip.
"Hmm. . . . I bid five."
"Five."
"Five, and two more."
". . . .I'll see you, and raise you another five."
Sniff. . . . ". . . .I'm out."
"Out."
"Out."
"Out."
Grease lifted his head to glare at the rest of us, his dark eyes icy as he threw his cards down in disgust. "Damn it, I ain't playing anymore; not 'til I find out how come every time I get a good hand, everybody else bails out. Just what in the hell's going on here?"
I gave my buddy Grease the most innocent look I could muster, draconic features notwithstanding. Across from me, Stefan turned away politely, trying to conceal the amused smile battling its way across his face. Fields and Luce, however, weren't as discreet and began to laugh at Grease's expression. "It's easy, man," chuckled Fields, "you're upwind of Max." Grease blinked at the Special Ops man, his confusion obvious, so Fields continued. "Take a look at that schnozz he has on him; think he just might have a pretty good sense of smell?"
"You sweat, Grease; every time you get a good hand, you begin to sweat," I finished patiently. "Just a little, but enough to tell me when it's time to fold."
"And we're just following his lead," smirked Fields. "Don't feel bad, he nailed all of us until we wised up. You're just the last one to catch on."
Grease blinked at Fields, then blinked again. Finally he turned to stare at me, his eyes hard as anthracite. He lifted an index finger and pointed it at me. "You . . . you. . . ." The finger waggled a bit, and a small smile started tugging at the corners of his mouth. "You . . .you son of a . . . son of a. . . ." That small smile began to spread out into a rueful grin. "You son of a . . . something, you mangy, dirty, low-down. . . ."
Everybody was laughing by now, Grease included. Chuckling, I began to shove the chips I'd won from him back across the table, but he waved me off. "No, don't, don't," he laughed "ain't nothing in the rules that says you can't smell a guy's hand out. But . . ." that finger went up again ". . . we are switching seats!"
The poker game continued for another couple of hours, long enough for the time to come for Luce to relieve Wolfman outside on sentry duty, then we broke up the game by unspoken consent and everyone drifted off to do other things. I myself padded over to one of the windows, stared out at the ice crystals battering themselves against the glass. It was only late afternoon, but already the oncoming winter storm had dimmed the sky to twilight. It was going to be a rough evening up in these mountains.
Commando weather, whispered the dark wraith that coiled at the bottom of my soul. When they come, it will be a night like this, if not this very night. . . .
My mane jangled discordantly as I shook my head impatiently. If they come. If. I glanced over to the pile of straw and old clothing over in the far corner of the main room, where three young dragonets slept, their bodies coiled about one another. I had my children back, and Pasqual had vanished. Deprived of its power base, support for Ahnkar and his rubber-stamp Council was eroding like a sand castle in the rain, and already agents for the various dragon clans had begun discreetly contacting Dithra, carefully fishing about for some sort of accommodation.
The thought of those ambassadors made the corner of my hard mouth curl downward in disgust. Opportunists and fence-sitters; they were nowhere to be found when Dithra had her position on the Council usurped, but now that it seemed we held all the aces they were suddenly showing up with their rosy offers of alliance and support. How very human. I'd made it clear to Dithra just how much I'd like to send those representatives back to their clans, one piece at a time, but the ancient dragon insisted on tolerating them for now, correctly pointing out that although the Council was beginning to fail, it still far outstripped us in terms of resources and sheer muscle. That didn't stop her from having me present at each meeting, however, looming just behind her, eyeing the representative with undisguised loathing. It tended to screw up their concentration a bit-- they'd all learned of Niata's fate, and it had shaken them badly-- and I had watched with growing respect as the Eldest skillfully wrung more than a few extra concessions from them as a result of that distraction.
I chuckled softly to myself as I recalled the latest meeting. The dragon-diplomat had become quite rattled as I stared at him, and Dithra had sliced and diced him as a result. In any case, the end result of all those meetings was that our little ranch up in the northern Rockies was now quite possibly one of the most thoroughly protected pieces of real estate on the planet.
. . . .Not that we didn't have our own stuff out, of course. None of us, human or dragon, had bothered to say a word about how far we trusted these new allies. Hell, even the Council trusted the clans just about as far as you could drop-kick a mountain, preferring to rely upon hirelings and mercenaries rather than upon the clans' ephemeral assurances. An elaborate web of electronic sentries were now in place around the clustered buildings of the ranch, woven by Deebs, Fields and myself, and thoroughly tested by both Luce and Stefan. In addition, we always had at least one live sentry out at any given time, roving the perimeter in a random pattern. Inside the house, Stefan and I had the task of never letting the kids out of our sight.
Still, I had a bad feeling my human side was right; weakened and falling apart, the Council had to do something, and soon. An assault was most likely; Dithra's agents informed us the Council now knew our location, but whether such an assault would succeed was far more doubtful. Meanwhile, time was on our side for once. The longer the Council dithered, the stronger we became, and the closer came the day when Lady Dithra would wrest back her position as Eldest, and I would have my final reckoning with both Ksstha and Ahnkar.
Something nudged my flank, breaking into my ruminations, and I looked down to see Ashadh bumping against me, purring quietly. I felt a smile curving my lips as I gently ran my hand along the gunmetal-colored scales of his neck, then glanced at the makeshift nest where the other two children still dozed. Ashadh was the only male of the nest, and closely resembled myself in build except for his darker coloration. The two females' color was closer to that of quicksilver, their long, sinuous bodies strongly hinting of their Lung heritage save for their wings. One was a little larger than the other, but otherwise my two daughters could have been twins. Unlike Ashadh, they acted a little less at-ease with me and their surroundings, and one of them, the larger, seemed to actually be a little afraid of me and tried to avoid me. That hurt, and I was constantly going out of my way to make friends with her, or at least ease her fears a little, but so far nothing had worked.
Kids. Can't live with them, can't sell them into slavery, the wraith whispered. I chuckled quietly to myself, then played Ashadh's favorite game with him, batting forepaws back and forth in a draconic version of patty-cake. All three dragonets had grown increasingly restless as of late. I suspected they were beginning to miss their mother, but for now there was little I could do about that.
A short while later Wolfman came in from the cold, stomping the snow from his boots. Ashadh looked at him, but the glance only held annoyance, not the hatred and fear that had filled it only a few weeks earlier. "It is going to be a terrible night," the German soldier noted unnecessarily as he peeled off his gear and over-garments, hanging them on the wall next to the door to drip-dry. "Another five or ten centimeters of snow, and much colder, I think." Wolfman paused, eyeing the supply of wood piled next to the stove. "Perhaps I should go out and get more?" he mused, half to me and half to himself.
"Maybe a little later," I replied. "Why don't you thaw-out and get yourself a bite to eat first?"
Wolfman nodded silently, then paused, looking at Ashadh. For a horrible moment I thought he was going to try to pat the dragonet on the head. That suicidal notion was apparently nixed, however, when a low, warning growl began to issue from my son. Wolfman recoiled slightly, a flicker of disappointment crossing his features, then retreated to the kitchen.
I breathed a quiet sigh of relief as Ashadh relaxed, and we went back to playing patty-cake and my thoughts began to wander again. Not everything had gone well, of course. That total screw-up of a rescue operation resulted in a conflagration that, by the time it finally burned itself out, had demolished the huge old warehouse we'd snatched my kids from. But no fire destroys everything, and I had no doubt there had been more than enough evidence left in the ashes to make the local police and even the Feds become quite interested. Indeed, at first the police had been ominously silent on the subject, but then after several days had suddenly written the fire off as an act of arson by vagrants. There was talk of finding the building's owner and having a word with him about illegal chemical storage, but for the most part everyone just seemed to be going through the motions.
This worried me far more than a full-blown public inquiry would have. Who had quashed the investigation, and why? I'd voiced my concerns to Stefan and then Dithra, and had received in return a thoroughly unsatisfactory reply. We do not know, dear one, Dithra had answered, but rest assured that both sides in this affair have concealed their tracks most carefully. The humans may wonder as to what occurred, but that is all they shall be able to do.
With most things, I trusted Dithra's judgment. This time, however, I knew that she was wrong. Somewhere out there dangerous forces were stirring, seeking information, beginning to sniff for our trail. They might not find it immediately, or for months, or for years, but they would never stop searching. With all the implacable patience of an elder dragon they would stalk their prey, never stopping until they had their answers. This I knew, for I had once been part of those forces.
Those tracks had better be damned-well covered, my Lady; otherwise. . . .
Scant minutes later, as if to echo my bleak thoughts, the tactical commo station perched on a corner table suddenly bleeped to life. "SD One to SD Six, over."
The sudden sound had startled both me and my son, and for a moment we simply stared bemusedly at the military radio. Over in the corner, both my daughters' heads had lifted, eyes blinking quizzically at the unusual sound.
"SD One to SD Six, over."
Wolfman came striding quickly out of the kitchen and went to answer the call. A couple of the others, Stefan and Grease, came in from the adjoining room. "SD One, SD Four. Go."
"SD Four, SD One. We have incoming; a truck on the access road," came Luce's deep voice, all inflection crushed out of it by heavy encryption. "One occupant. Instructions? Over."
The former GSG-9 trooper gave me a questioning look, and Stefan and I exchanged glances. Anybody who managed to get this far would have had to pass through the clan forces lurking about us in the surrounding forests. An innocent human stupid enough to be out in these mountains at this time of the year would have met with an 'unfortunate accident' long before he got to us. Therefore. . . . "Tell him to check it out," I said at last.
"SD One, SD Six says to go check it out. Over."
"SD One, roger. Out."
The commo unit went silent, and we were left to stand and stare at each other for awhile. It didn't take me long to get antsy. "I'll go back him up," I rumbled, getting to my feet. Immediately Stefan's mouth flattened out into a hard, thin line, so I addressed him next. "Watch the kids, Stefan."
Dithra's agent relaxed slightly, finally nodded. "Yes, my Lord," he said at last.
Ashadh tried to follow me out the door, but I stopped him with a touch on his armored snout. "No, Ashadh; not this time," I explained gently. "I know you want to go out and romp in the snow, but we may have a problem, and I want you to stay here, where it's safe." And it's less likely the agent of some enterprising clan might snatch you up. "Pay attention to Stefan, and do what he tells you, all right?"
I don't think Ashadh understood my words as yet; Ancestors, he'd been out of his shell for barely a year, but I know he understood my tone, for he gave a brief whine, and then reluctantly stepped back into the ranch house. I closed the door behind him, turned, and launched myself out into the snow, my steel-gray wings swinging out and snagging the gusty wind. Within seconds I was airborne, flying low to the ground and further reducing my size to better weave between the dark pines that surrounded our tiny base.
Within minutes I had caught up with Luce, found him standing by the driver's-side door of the now-stopped truck, talking to the driver. My eyes shifted focus, zooming in on the driver's face, and I felt the corners of my hard mouth curving down in anger. You bloody idiot. . . . I backed my wings, braking hard, my form already beginning to twist and flow. A tiny, complex pattern etched into one of my scales flared briefly before following my scales into nothingness, and winter battle-dress far colder than the bitter mountain weather settled around me as my feet, now clad in insulated combat boots, slammed into the powdery snow. Scarcely slowing, I strode forward, nudged a surprised Luce aside as I yanked the truck's door open and climbed right up into the driver's startled face. "Deebs, do you just happen to remember how our security is supposed to work?" I hissed.