The snow sprayed away from my forepaws, the light of the morning sun turning the crystals into powdered diamonds, sparkling with a cold white fire as they fled from me. I bounded up the mountain slope, an occasional bittersweet tang that worked its way up from beneath the drifts to my sensitive nose telling me to dodge that particular spot here or to step around that bit right there.
Soon I had worked my way through the perimeter, and up ahead my hearing picked up the voices of men. I slowed then, taking the opportunity to turn and look out over the valley, see the sun rising over the far hills. I let my long tongue loll out in a wolfish smile as I lifted my gray muzzle into the wind and breathed deeply of its scents.
It was incredible. A dragon's sense of smell was actually sharper, but a wolf's ability to process what it scented was far better. Information as rich and intense as the colors my vision lacked flooded into my canine brain, intoxicating me. Winter's pitiless grip upon the land was beginning to weaken, and the wind carried with it the first faint hints of spring, as well as the resinous smell of the pines and the sour, exciting scent of a nearby rabbit's terror.
There were other scents as well; a touch of wood smoke, the smells of men and their tools, and one other, unique scent that sent a frisson of fear through my silver-furred frame. Dragon. I gave my head an annoyed shake, then continued upslope. Pasqual was right; the form did indeed influence one's thinking, and the more alien the form the stronger those influences would be, she had warned. I would do well to heed those warnings, it seemed.
The conversation of the trio lounging off to one side trailed off within a few seconds of my emergence into the clearing; Stefan the first to turn and look at me, his form difficult to pick out as his mottled scales blended into the surrounding pines. His gaze was soon followed by Fields, then Wolfman. We studied each other for a few tense, silent seconds, punctuated by Wolfman's eyes momentarily cutting over to where a G3 assault rifle leaned against a nearby tree. Rather than have things possibly turn nasty, I sat back on my haunches and concentrated for a moment. There was the usual pain, less this time as I had less distance to 'travel,' then my true form was sitting there in its usual metallic finery.
Fields blinked, jerked his head back in surprise. "Whoa! Neat trick! What's-her-name finally get around to showing you how she does that?"
Chuckling quietly I gestured assent. "Yes, she did. How's our little project coming?"
"Pretty good. We have everything settled in, and we're just finishing the hookups." Fields waved at Dithra's agent. "At first, I figured we were gonna have quite a time chopping away at this frozen dirt, but it turns out Stefan here makes one hell of a good backhoe."
We all chuckled at that, then I turned to Stefan, who was giving me an approving look. "What do you think?"
The agent hesitated for a moment, surveying the clearing before replying. "The scent of men is strong here at the moment, but it should fade fairly quickly, especially if I and another dragon or two trampled it for awhile." He turned to look at me. "I believe they will not suspect."
I nodded, then looked to Wolfman, who gave me a wicked little smile and a thumbs-up. "Good. Once you finish testing head back down to the cabin; we need to talk about some other stuff."
"No problem," Fields turned to pick up a shovel lying in the surrounding snow "give us about, oh, three more hours and we'll be there."
"Thanks, guys." I swung my head to give the clearing a hard look, finally nodding to myself in satisfaction as I turned to leave. "See everyone downstairs."
The meeting didn't go off very well. All of my troops, even normally reticent Wolfman went up in flames when I told them the bad news; that they wouldn't be backing me up the next day.
"Look," I said patiently for what was the fourth time "you can't go up there with me. Don't you see? There won't be a single dragon up in that clearing tomorrow that doesn't hate humans' guts, and if they lay eyes on you the war will start that very moment. You have to stay out of sight, or everything Dithra, Stefan, myself, all of us have worked for, what Mink died for, won't have meant a damned thing. Do you want that?"
"Mink didn't die for a bunch of dragons, Sarge, and you damned-well know it," gritted Deebs, his eyes suspiciously bright. "He died for you, Sarge. You, and the rest of us. So don't you throw that shit in our faces!"
Damn it, that hurt. I rounded upon Deebs, and whatever he saw in my face, it made him take a half-step back. "I know that," I replied, my voice surprisingly level. "I know that none of you would be here if it wasn't for me. I also know that if it wasn't for me, Mink would still be alive."
Deebs eyes widened. "Now, you just wait--"
"Mink was looking for a place to die, Max," Luce interrupted, his voice low. "It could have been a shoot-out with the cops, a fight in some bar, or a header off a bridge. It was just a matter of time before he found one. All you did was give his death some meaning."
I paused at that, my gaze dropping to gaze blindly at the wooden floor for a long moment. "Maybe," I sighed at last, then looked to Luce "but don't you see my point? We have a chance here, guys, for the first time, to stop one of these damned things before it gets off the ground. There's no way I could have gotten this far without you guys, and that's a fact. But now we need to finish it, and the only way that it will work, the only way that we can make sure this war doesn't come crawling right back out of whatever grave we throw it into, is for me to go up there alone.
"And there's another thing," I added. "There are no rules in this thing, guys; no Geneva, no Hague, no nothing. There's nothing that says this place can't be hit while I'm up that hill." I glanced back at the nest, where Ashadh and Dahiric were watching all this with wide, apprehensive eyes. "I need you here, people, to make sure we don't end up winning the battle just to lose the war."
"But we can--" Grease began, but cut himself off when Luce turned to him and made a small gesture. "No," he rumbled quietly "I think I see where Max is going with this. I don't like it," he turned back to me, gave me a measuring look "no more than anyone else here does. But all right, Sarge, we'll hold tight here." Lucifer paused, then the corner of his mouth turned upward slightly. "At least until all the screaming stops, anyway."
I gave Luce a suspicious look. "Luce, just stay--"
"And what about us, dear one?" Lady Dithra chose that moment to cut in, her eyes intent. "Will you not at least take the dragons, Stefan, myself, and possibly even Pasqual, with you?"
I looked at the ancient dragoness. Dressed simply in gray-green blouse and gray wool slacks, seated in a rickety old chair in a rude ranch house high in the northern Rockies, she still managed to radiate an aura of royalty. I sighed again. "No, my Lady, I cannot." I turned to where her agent leaned against the wall, arms folded, eyes cold. I shook my head. "Not this time, either, Stefan. I'm sorry, but I only want to do this once, and to pull that off, I have to make damned sure that the opposition has no hope. They must not be able to look back upon this and say to themselves 'we can take him, once he no longer has Lady Dithra's wing to hide beneath,' or 'if we eliminate Stefan, we may yet succeed.' They must have no hope, and the only way for us to remove all hope is for me to stand alone."
"Forgive me, my Lord, but can you stand alone?" Stefan responded quietly "You will be up against the elders of almost two-thirds of the clans, as well as the Council itself. Frankly, I find your confidence in this more than a little . . . alarming. Are you quite sure about this?"
I snorted. "Nothing is sure, Stefan. Hell, I don't even assume the sun will rise every morning. But you remember that little conversation I had with Lady Dithra awhile back? The one about time and place?" Stefan's eyes glinted; I grinned. "I thought you might. Well, what we have here is the same situation again. Interesting that Ksstha hasn't realized it." Actually, I suspected he had, which would go a long way toward explaining that assassin. What other surprises would that crafty warrior have in store for me, come tomorrow?
"Forgive me, Stefan, my Lady, but one of the things that's going to win this for us is the fact that dragons are so incredibly hidebound. You never throw anything away, not even the most ridiculous, most obsolete traditions, valuing them for nothing more than the fact that they're old. There are some human societies that have in their past traditions similar to the Challenge, but they've scrapped them long since because they're dangerous. If they continued to be honored, then any power-hungry bastard could swagger in at any time and bring everything people have built over the generations crashing to the ground." I shook my head. "I'm sorry, but the tradition of the Challenge should have been discarded centuries, if not millennia ago, and the tradition of allowing one's opponent to choose the time and place of battle? Well, that's just plain crazy, and it's going to help us win this thing.
"Final point," I held up a finger, turned to meet the eyes of each of the dragons in the room, including Pasqual, who was coiled at the base of the nest as usual, silent as usual. "Once again you'll have to forgive me, but Luce? I've described to you the battles I've been in; how would you characterize the way dragons fight as a group?"
Luce hesitated, his gaze moving to Dithra and Stefan before returning to my own. "A mob," he replied at last.
"Exactly. Every time I've seen dragons fight in a group, it was nothing more than an undisciplined mob. There was no coordination, no cooperation, no leadership beyond the barest rudiments. If this is how the dragons fought for Ksstha in the first war, I can see why we lost."
I looked at Stefan again. The gaze he returned was almost a glare, but it soon dropped, and he nodded reluctantly. "No soldier is ever outnumbered by a mob," I continued quietly. "No matter how powerful the individual members, it's still just a mob."
I fell silent for a moment, my own gaze dropping to the floor as what I said ran through my head once again. For a moment, I almost allowed myself to believe it. Finally I turned to my mate. "Pasqual, I very much wish you could stand by my side, but that isn't possible, either." Because I can't trust you. "You must stay here and watch our children, protect them, and make sure that they do not stray at the worst moment. Will you do this?"
The dragoness looked at me for a long moment; what emotions ran behind those golden eyes I could only guess at. "I will, my Lord," she finally responded.
"Thank you. Please, if things go badly, read the letter." I turned. "Lady Dithra, Luce, there are letters for you as well in Pasqual's envelope." And there were, though both said more-or-less the same thing: walk away. I straightened, looked around the room. "It's late. Try to get some sleep if you can. We'll give everything one last check tomorrow, and then tomorrow night . . . well, then we'll see."