I climbed out of the fortification and started down the eastern slope, away from the camps on the other side, moving as fast as I dared.

  Behind me, someone shouted. There were more shouts. Then a sound that made my blood run cold: the distinctive crack of a dart rifle.

  I looked back. In the torchlight, I could see riflemen running up the slope. They must have been in the camp. And now they were shooting at me.

  A dart whistled past my head.

  I ran, no longer caring about stealth. The slope was treacherous, the darkness nearly complete, but I ran anyway because the alternative was dying on this cursed ridge.

  I heard a roar behind me: hundreds of Ophidians climbing up the paths to give chase.

  I hit the desert floor and kept running, the rifle clutched in one hand the deactivated baan in the other.

  If the riflemen were lining up shots…

  I activated the shield, maybe having waited too long. I knew my charge wouldn’t last very long, though.

  The shimmer appeared around me, and nothing happened. Was I wasting energy? Then darts arrived. They hit the energy field and scattered, their kinetic energy dissipating. I felt the generator heating up against my belt as I kept running.

  There was another volley. The shield held but flickered. The power indicator was dropping fast.

  A moment later, I dropped behind a fold in the ground. I flicked off the shield and ran, and ran.

  After a time, I could see the pterodactyls. Forkbeard was already mounted, his beast’s wings spreading. My own mount was beside him.

  I’d outrun the pack, no surprise there.

  Soon, I slammed against my pterodactyl. It screeched in complaint.

  Forkbeard was shouting at me.

  I hardly remember climbing up, but I do remember pulling back on the one-strap.

  Wings beat the cold night air, and we climbed and climbed.

  “You did it!” Forkbeard shouted.

  I was still panting, and grinning like a maniac. I’d slain five more Saddoth advisors. That was good, very good. The question was, would it be enough?

  -53-

  The morning after my night raid, we flew a sortie against the enemy. But this wasn’t the devastating assault we’d launched two days ago.

  “Make every one count,” I told them. “Hit outlying positions not under rifle protection.”

  We found scattered groups of Draconians who’d camped too far from the main force. The fire-sacks fell, but it was a pale shadow of our earlier work. Fifteen sacks didn’t create an inferno. They created a reminder. We’d gained them by taking everyone’s last bottle of spirits.

  Now we flew back to Tsargol with empty saddlebags and I knew that was the last of our offensive capability until Sky Island arrived. Now we could only watch and wait.

  Three days passed.

  On the first day after the limited raid, I stood on the eastern wall with Commander Zavor, watching the ridge through his telescope.

  “The red-robed priests are moving everywhere,” Zavor said. “They’re going between the Draconian groups, maybe trying to maintain order.”

  That evening, fights broke out in the camps below the ridge. We could hear the shrieking even from the walls. Were those Draconians turning on each other over food, over water, or maybe over nothing?

  On the second day, there were fewer campfires. The organized work parties we’d seen earlier—groups gathering stones, maintaining fortifications, organizing supplies—had stopped. The camps below the ridge looked less like a military force and more like a refugee gathering.

  “They’re breaking down,” Zavor said, lowering the telescope. “The discipline is shattering.”

  That afternoon, a pterodactyl from one of our scouting pairs flew too close to the ridge. I watched through the telescope as one of the remaining riflemen tracked it, fired a single shot that missed by twenty feet, then didn’t bother to reload.

  “Those last five riflemen aren’t even trying anymore,” I said to Forkbeard, who’d joined me on the wall. “It looks like they’re going through the motions, possibly waiting for permission to quit.”

  On the third day, the Draconian camps were almost silent. Equipment lay scattered—spears, shields, cooking pots—just left where they’d been dropped. The latrines weren’t being maintained; we could smell the results even from Tsargol’s walls.

  “I’ve seen this before,” I said to Zavor. “When insurgents knew they’d lost. They stopped planning and fighting. They just waited for an excuse to leave.”

  “How long before they do?” Zavor asked.

  That was the question. It had better be soon; we were all very hungry in Tsargol. Everyone was down to quarter rations. The supply train from my three cities was still days away, if it was even still coming. For all I knew, the cities had given up on us and written off the expedition as a disaster.

  And Sky Island… Suvorov had sent word three days ago that they were moving, but the ancient technology was slow. Painfully slow. Would it arrive in time?

  Both sides were spent and starving. Both sides had lost too many warriors.

  The only question was: who would break first?

  I was on the eastern wall at dawn when someone shouted and pointed west.

  I turned and felt my heart lift for the first time in days.

  Sky Island was still miles away, but there it was, unmistakable: a massive disc of rock floating impossibly in the air, backlit by the rising sun. Even from this distance, I could see the ancient buildings on its surface, could imagine Suvorov up there coordinating everything.

  Around me, Tsargol’s defenders were cheering, pointing and embracing each other. King Embris appeared beside me, his face showing naked relief.

  “They came,” he said. “They actually came.”

  “Suvorov always delivers.” I raised Zavor’s telescope and trained it on Sky Island. I could see pterodactyls circling it—my remaining riders who’d stayed behind to help move it. And on the island’s edge, I could make out what looked like enormous piles of fire-sacks, ready for use. I wondered if Suvorov had lined them up there to show the enemy what we had.

  Whatever the case, those fire-sacks would be nearly unlimited ammunition and striking power. The siege was over; the enemy just didn’t know it yet.

  I swung the telescope toward the ridge.

  The red-robed Ophidian priests were emerging from their tents. They looked west at Sky Island. Even from this distance, I could read their body language: shoulders slumped, heads down.

  They huddled together, a short conference that maybe took thirty seconds.

  Then they started moving through the camps, and I could tell from how the Draconians reacted—jumping up, grabbing equipment, forming into marching columns—what orders they were giving.

  “They’re leaving,” I said.

  Embris grabbed the telescope, looked for himself. Soon, he lowered it with a disbelieving smile. “Just like that? They see Sky Island and retreat?”

  “They know when they’re beaten,” I said. “They came with thirty or more riflemen and superior tactics. Now they have five riflemen left, little supplies, few raptors and a demoralized army, and we have a flying fortress with seeming thousands of fire-sacks.” I shrugged. “The math is simple. Stay and die, or leave and live.”

  It wasn’t the cathartic big battle and a win. It was a cumulative effect of many fights and seesaw decisions. It was real, and it was worth it. Despite everything, we’d beaten them. I’d saved the survivors from the disastrous first battle. I could build on this. Maybe the next big fight would be us marching into the Old Forsaken Lands. That might take time and more building, but the hope and possibility would be there.

  By mid-morning, the reptilian horde was on the move. They were marching in loose columns toward the east, back toward the Old Forsaken Lands they’d come from.

  I watched them go from Sky Island, having flown up to meet Suvorov. The Russian stood beside me on the island’s edge.

  “Should we pursue?” he asked. “Hit them while they’re exposed?”

  I thought about it. The Marine in me wanted to finish them, to rain fire until the last Ophidians and Draconians fell. But I was too tired. My riders were too tired, as were their near-starving beasts. Those in Tsargol were too tired and weak from malnutrition.

  “No,” I said. “Let them go. We’ve all had enough.”

  “They’ll be back someday,” Suvorov warned. “Maybe not this year or next, but they’ll come again.”

  “Or we’ll invade their lands and finish it for good.”

  Suvorov looked at me.

  “This is just the start,” I said. “We’re going to rebuild and get even stronger. You watch.”

  He nodded. “Maybe you’re right.”

  I watched the retreating columns, thousands of Draconians and Ophidians disappearing into the desert haze.

  “Today, we won,” I said. “We beat them back, absorbing their great blow.”

  Forkbeard approached.

  “The riders want to know if we’re pursuing,” he said.

  “No pursuit. Tell them to rest and tend to their mounts.” I turned to face my two most trusted allies. “How long until the supplies get here?”

  “Two more days,” Suvorov said. “I received word this morning via pterodactyl messenger. One hundred twenty rickshaws, fully loaded.”

  We stood in silence, watching the enemy. The siege that had threatened to break us, to destroy Tsargol and end my dream of uniting humanity on Mu was over.

  It hadn’t ended the way it started, with a climactic battle. It hadn’t ended with fire, blood, and glory. It had ended with exhausted warriors on both sides choosing survival over pride, with us having beaten them back.

  “What now?” Forkbeard asked.

  I looked at Tsargol below, at the empty ridge where riflemen had killed so many of my riders, at the desert where three cities’ worth of soldiers had died because I’d led them into a trap.

  “Now we recover,” I said. “We learn from what went wrong. And we make sure it never happens again.”

  “The Institute,” Suvorov said quietly. “Philip A-3. The portal in the Dark Citadel. That’s what went wrong.”

  I felt the weight of that knowledge. The Institute had orchestrated the Tsargol massacre. Philip had admitted it, boasted about it before I killed him. They’d brought Saddoth advisors to Mu through some portal system, had trained the Ophidians, and had set the trap that killed thousands of my spearmen.

  And somewhere out there, more of the Institute’s schemes were unfolding on Earth and on other worlds. Plots within plots, manipulation and observation and calculated genocide.

  But that was a problem for tomorrow, for next week or next month.

  Today, the siege was broken. Tsargol would survive. My riders had survived. I had survived. It wasn’t the victory I’d wanted. It was smaller, costlier, and harder-won than I’d imagined. But it was a victory nonetheless.

  “Come on,” I said, turning away from the view.

  As we walked across the ancient stone of Sky Island, I felt something I hadn’t felt in weeks: hope. It wasn’t the desperate, grasping hope of a drowning man. But the solid, earned hope of someone who’d been tested and survived.

  The war wasn’t over. The Institute was still out there. The Dark Citadel still held secrets and threats.

  But today, we’d won. Today, Tsargol stood. And tomorrow, we’d start building something even greater.

  The End

  From the Author: Thanks Reader! I hope you’ve enjoyed BATTLE PLANET. If you liked the book and would like to see the story continue, please put up some stars and a review.

 

 

  Vaughn Heppner, Battle Planet (The Traveler Book 9)

 

 

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