“Fuck that, dragonlover!” came a voice from the crowd. “I sure as hell ain’t letting a bunch of lizards share space with me. I see a dragon, any dragon, I’ll do what I’ve always done—put a bullet through its skull.”
“No, you will not.” Lieutenant Martin stepped forward again, his expression dangerous. “If Sebastian speaks the truth,” he said into the stunned silence, “and an attack from Talon is imminent, then we must do whatever it takes to ensure we survive. Including ally with the dragons.”
“Sir.” A soldier stepped from the crowd, gazing up at Martin with an almost-pleading expression. “That’s...that’s against the Code. The Order doesn’t accept help from lizards, for any reason. If the rest of St. George finds out about this, you...all of us...” He gestured to the crowd behind him. “We could be tried for treason, sir. They might execute the lot of us for consorting with the enemy.”
“I know, Roberts,” Martin said in a quieter voice. “And under normal circumstances, I would never question protocol. But in this, I feel we have no choice. The Order of St. George is dangerously unstable. If an army attacks and cripples the Order or, worse, shatters it entirely, think of what that will mean for the rest of the world. Talon would have no opposition. There would be no one left to stand against the dragons. Besides...” His gaze rose, sweeping over the crowd. “It is my duty to protect this base and the soldiers under my command, no matter the cost. I will not let this chapterhouse fall, even if I must consort with demons. Afterward, if the Order demands punishment, I will accept full responsibility for accepting help from dragons. But we must survive whatever is coming first.
“We will be forming a temporary truce with a group of outside dragons,” Martin went on, his tone becoming hard and matter-of-fact again. “Any who cannot accept that may leave. You can pack your things right now and go, and there will be no repercussions.” He paused, as if giving the soldiers a chance to take the offer, to leave the Order of St. George and not look back. Surprisingly, no one moved. “But if you choose to stay,” Martin went on, “know that for the first time in history, we will be letting dragons onto the premises. These dragons will be under the full protection of St. George, and no one is allowed to harm, insult, hassle or cause them grief of any kind. You will all be the polite, well-trained soldiers I know you are capable of being, and you will represent the Order to the best of your ability.”
“And if the lizards attack us, sir?” a soldier asked, almost defiantly.
“They won’t,” I answered. “They’re not monsters. They’re going to be just as scared and nervous and wary of you as you are of them. But they know what’s at stake. They have just as much reason to hate Talon, and they’ll want to make this alliance work.” If any of them even decide to come.
“One more thing, sir.” Another soldier stepped up, deliberately addressing Martin and not myself. “If Sebastian’s dragons show up, how will we tell them apart from the dragons that will be attacking the base? I mean...” He shot a sneer at me. “One lizard is pretty much like another. How will I know what dragon I’m supposed to shoot?”
“You’ll know,” I replied, addressing them all. “There will be a difference. The dragons arriving to help us will look like every other dragon you’ve faced—bright scales, different colors, all hatchlings. Talon’s dragons are metallic gray with white horns and eyes. They’ll all look the same, so you should be able to tell the difference between them and the rogue dragons.”
“What do you mean, they all look the same?” the soldier wanted to know. “What, like they’re the same color?”
“I mean they’re clones,” I said flatly. “Exact replicas of each other. Talon has been cloning dragons for several years, and now they have an army of them. These dragons have no fear and no self-preservation instinct. They will keep coming at you until they’re dead.”
“Mother of God,” someone muttered, though I couldn’t tell who, and a soldier near the front of the stage crossed himself.
Martin nodded briskly, addressing the soldiers. “We only have a few hours,” he said, making several of them jerk up. “Forty-eight at the most, and probably less than that. This attack is happening—we need to prepare so that when this dragon army does come for us, we’ll be waiting for them. We are St. George,” he added in a louder voice. “Killing dragons is our specialty. Let Talon send their army after us. The Order will not submit. We will not break. If this dragon army shows up on our doorstep, we will do what we’ve always done and send them back to hell where they belong.”
I hoped he was right.
RILEY
I didn’t have a word for what I was feeling.
Angry didn’t quite cover it. Horrified seemed a bit too tame. Appalled and incredulous sort of fit, but even they didn’t compare.
“So let me get this straight,” I rasped at Ember. The five of us—me, Ember, Mist, Jade and a very disgruntled Wes—were standing in the kitchen around a long wooden table. The rest of the hatchlings had assembled in the living room and were sitting or lounging in loose groups, watching sleepily. Ember had insisted on waking up the entire house, saying that everyone needed to hear what she had to say, that it was important.
Absolutely hysterical was more like it.
“You want us—” I gestured to the dragons surrounding me “—and the hatchlings, who have never seen a battle before in their lives, to go help the Order of St. George fight an army of soulless killer dragons? Are you insane? That’s...” I shook my head, unable to think of a proper word for it. “No, Firebrand. Absolutely not. I’m not risking this underground to go and die for the Order, that’s out of the question.”
“Um, yeah, I’m going to go with Riley on this one and say that you’re off your rocker,” Wes added. “Completely, utterly, barking mad.”
Ember’s eyes flashed green, but she answered in a calm, far too reasonable voice. “We can’t hide forever, Riley.”
“We sure as hell can,” I snapped back. “We stay here, keep our heads down and stay the fuck out of the way. That’s how it has always worked. That’s how we’ve been able to survive.”
“And what happens when there are no more hiding places? What happens when Talon destroys the Order and comes after us full scale?” Ember shook her head. “If we keep running from Talon, eventually they’re going to catch up.”
“So your plan is to charge at them head-on.”
“My plan is that we stop running,” Ember said firmly. “And start fighting back.”