Dauntless, yay!

 Hi darlins!

Never fear, Rivalries is still coming today, but I've also got a new release out--Dauntless! Dragons, their riders, the monsters they fight and the challenges they face, all packed into 130 exciting pages--and there's going to be a sequel too, probably in January, so heads-up on that ;) The prequel, Luckless, is still free on Amazon right now, so...lots going on!

***

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09CRZXD59

Evan Luck is a dragon rider who, after years of thinking he'd never bond  with another one, now has a dragon again. His empathic connection with  the powerful silver dragon Ladon, known in his human form as Lee  Caldwell, has made them the most valuable defenders of the city of Forge  against monstrous invaders. The fact that they love each other and dote  on Lee's ten-year-old son, Jason? Those are blessings Evan never saw  coming. He knows life is good...even as he realizes that the world is  becoming more dangerous by the day.

With monsters leaving the  mountains of the Front Range to roam the plains for food and the influx  of refugees to Forge increasing by the day, Evan has his hands more than  full defending the city and training new recruits to fight. When Jason,  desperate to bond with a dragon of his own but continually refused by  the dragons of Forge, begins to lose control of himself, Evan and Lee  make plans to do the unthinkable: leave Forge to fend for itself and  take their son to Chicago, the nearest human and dragon stronghold to  their own city.

But Chicago has its own terrors to deal with, and their last hope for Jason's future might be lost before they can save it.

Evergreen novella excerpt today!

Hi darlins,

I know, this isn't The Tank. But I've been in the midst of my MFA residency since Saturday, I'm revising as fast as my fingers can fly for Pitch Wars, and I'm writing another novel that I'm trying to finish by the end of the month. And whenever I'm home, it's kidlet time, because I miss her even if she seems perfectly happy with daddy.

My brain is exhausted. I needed a break from something today, so I'm giving you an excerpt of Evergreen, an m/m sci-fi novella that was previously published in an anthology with LT3, like, six years ago? And basically nobody read it? So this will be new for almost all of you! I'm republishing it early next week on Amazon, so...keep your eyes open, it'll be coming down the pipe.

The premise is near-future, preparing for a one-way mission to Mars.

***

Chapter One

The International Space Agency (ISA) welcomes you to your new position as a candidate for Project Evergreen, the next stage in humanity's cooperative exploration of our closest planetary neighbor, Mars. Congratulations on everything you have accomplished in order to make it to our advanced training program. Now that you're an official candidate, we recommend you assess your commitment to the goal of Project Evergreen, which is permanent residency for all crew members at Martian Base One (MB1). If this is incompatible with your expectations, please remove yourself from the candidate pool before we continue to invest in your training. We want only the most motivated candidates available. Remember, for every one of you who reaches this stage of training, ten thousand others are vying for your place. –ISA Project Evergreen Handbook

Cyril's first week in the space program wasn't at all what he'd expected.

He had anticipated plenty of tests, naturally; the governments and corporate sponsors in charge of the program only accepted the best of the best, and that meant you didn't stand a chance of getting in unless you knew your specialty inside and out. Competition in the private sector was stiff, but competition within the military was insane, which was why Cyril was glad he'd spent the past three years not just boning up on aerospace propulsion engineering, but going all out on his fitness as well. All those agonizing 5:00 a.m. runs felt a lot more gratifying now that he was the only person still standing after the two-mile sprint.

"You call that running?" Sergeant Malloy shouted from her place on the side of the track as she watched the last of the brand-new military recruits stagger toward the finish line. "I've seen better times out of eight-year-olds! You are supposed to be the best, the brightest, the most motherfucking capable that six different nations have to offer! And this is what you give me? China, nine minutes? Really?" She stood over one of the gasping men and glowered at him. "What's your name, soldier?"

"Commander Xiao, ma'am."

"At least you can get it out without vomiting, unlike Captain America over here." She gestured to the soldier who was bent over retching in the aftermath of his run. "Or maybe that's just because it took you nine fucking minutes to run two miles! Honest to god, I am embarrassed for your home countries, soldiers.

"And here comes Australia and India, joining the class at last," the sergeant yelled sarcastically as they stumbled in. "Ten goddamn minutes, which is two minutes too long as far as I'm concerned. No, don't lie down!" she added as both the soldiers dropped to the ground. "You don't get to lie down and take a break for getting the worst times in the group! Did you think I'd go easy on you because you're a woman, Flight-Lieutenant Brown? Both of you, take another lap."

The sergeant cast her eyes to the sky. "This is what we're manning missions to Mars with now? Sad. Just sad. You all better make the most of your ability to suck wind while you can, because breathable air's gonna be in short supply once you get to MB1. You'll have to work, you'll have to think, you'll have to fucking live with the constant threat of running out of oxygen, so remember that when you're cursing me for being a hard-ass about this. You're soldiers, not civilian scientists. You don't get to play by their rules. If there's a sacrifice to be made, you'll be the ones at the front of the line, which means you have to be ready! You have to be better! You have to be the best!" Sergeant Malloy crossed her arms. "And as of right now I see only one person who I would even marginally qualify as acceptable. Russia! Come here!"

"Yes, ma'am." Cyril stepped forward, very aware of his fellow recruits' attention. He squared his shoulders and looked straight at the sergeant. He didn't care what they thought of him. They could hate him, he could handle that. He was never going to do less than his best for anything.

"Lieutenant Commander Konstantin, correct?" Sergeant Malloy asked.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Well, whatever that stick up your ass is made of, boy, don't pull it out just yet. It might be all that's holding you up."

Stick…what? Cyril had split his time evenly between the US and Russia as a child, but he hadn't heard that particular expression before. It had to be old. He heard the man referred to as “Captain America” snicker, and forced himself not to react. "Ma'am," Cyril said evenly.

"Exactly." Sergeant Malloy cast her gaze at the two stragglers who were just now finishing their extra lap. "I think it's time for a nice, long hike. Get your packs out of the shuttle and meet me at the foot of Flagstaff Mountain in five." She waited for a second for it to sink in, then yelled, "Now, soldiers!"

The ones on the ground hauled themselves, groaning, to their feet, except for the American, who looked over at Cyril and held up a hand. "Help a mate out?" American, with a British accent? It shouldn't have been surprising, everyone here had multiple nationalities—it was one of the major requirements for every member of the fourth mission to Mars—but for some reason that accent made Cyril start. He stared blankly at the man.

"I know I'm pretty, but there's no need to stare, now," he said cheekily. "You'll get plenty of chances to ogle me later, luv. Gimme a hand before our little reprieve is up."

Cyril walked over, took his hand, and helped him to his feet. The man moved easily, despite his ostensible exhaustion and the fact that he had at least twenty pounds more muscle than Cyril. "I'm Scott Andrews. Captain Scott Andrews of the USAF, if we're being specific about it, but you can call me Scottie."

"Lieutenant Commander Cyril Konstantin, Russian Air Force," Cyril said. "Um, call me Cyril."

"Well, I would, but you don't really look like a Cyril to me," Scottie said brightly. "Bit too prissy, despite what our dear sergeant says about that stick in your ass. How d'you feel about Cy?"

"Cy?"

"No, I'm not meant to respond to it, you are," Scottie said with a wink.

"If you children are done holding hands and playing nice," Sergeant Malloy thundered at them, "may I remind you of the schedule you people are on? Get your asses up the mountain!"

"Will do, Sergeant!" Scottie called out, then gently disengaged his hand from Cyril's grip. Cyril flushed. He'd completely forgotten he'd been holding on. "Now, Cy," Scottie said. "You're a lovely sprinter, but I'll wager I can make it to the top of Flagstaff before you can." He turned around and took off toward the mountain.

After a moment, Cyril swore and ran after him.

***

We expect mission candidates to maintain high levels of physical, emotional and psychological fitness. You will be tested weekly on whether or not you adhere to the wellness guidelines listed in Section 2.A. Refusal to follow any of the guidelines, but most specifically those concerning mandatory meetings with your assigned psychologist, is grounds for removal from the program. –ISA Project Evergreen Handbook

In that first week on base, Cyril spent more time with a psychologist than he had since his mother's death ten years ago, and it wasn't going to let up anytime soon. His shrink was a forthright civilian doctor named Sabine Granger who told him, flat out, that she wasn't there to coddle him.

"After the events of Tadpole, we're not willing to risk leaving anything to chance with our recruits," she said at their first meeting. "It's my job to ensure you have the coping mechanisms you'll need to live a healthy, productive life on a world where you won't even be able to step outside without suiting up. You will have little to no fresh food, you will have to conserve water, you'll breathe recycled air and you'll see the same people over and over and over again, every day, for the rest of your life. The prospect of that is more than enough to make most people unstable."

"I think I can handle it," Cyril said confidently.

"Everyone thinks that at first," Dr. Granger replied, not unkindly. "Let's start by talking about your military service. I'm particularly interested in knowing why you chose to go into the military at all, given your family connections."

Cyril frowned without meaning to. Of course that would have to come into things. "I have nothing to do with my father's company."

"I understand that you and your family are estranged, but keep in mind that Konstantin International Corporation is one of the major funding sources of this particular mission. It's only natural that some of your colleagues are going to assume that it was your father's influence that got you your place here, not your own skill. How do you think you'll handle that?"

 "By ignoring them," Cyril said tightly.

"Is that how you handle everyone here that you have disagreements with, Cyril? By ignoring them and hoping they go away?"

"It works with most people," he replied. Then, in the interest of not having his therapist drag it out of him, he added, "Except for one."

"Ah, yes." The psychologist laced her fingers together and sat back in her chair. "I was wondering if you would mention Captain Andrews. Do you know he's the only person you've spoken more than five words to since you've been here? Apart from me, that is."

Cyril shrugged. "We've only been here a week. There are two hundred and fifty-nine more to go before our mission is scheduled to leave. I think that gives me plenty of time to get to know people."

"But you and the rest of your squad will only spend half of that time with each other," Dr. Granger pointed out. "The rest of the time you'll be learning to integrate with the civilian science teams. One would imagine a sense of camaraderie would be important, given that it's the twelve of you who'll be taking on the most difficult environmental challenges on Mars. Now is the time for you to learn to rely on each other, to trust each other. Why not make more of an effort?"

"I just… " After a moment, Cyril shrugged again. He didn't know what to say to make her feel any better about him. "I understand what you're getting at. I'm just slow to warm up to people. Captain Andrews approached me first, and that made it easier."

"He's a rather gregarious person."

"Everyone likes him," Cyril agreed.

"How do you feel about that?" Dr. Granger asked. "About sharing his attention when you get so little from anyone else?"

"I’m happy for him," Cyril replied. Dr. Granger sat in silence and looked at him for a long moment, then straightened up.

"Back to your military career, then."

Yes, fine, that was something that Cyril had no problems talking about. As soon as he'd been old enough, he'd left Moscow behind and moved to New York, where he'd promptly enlisted in the air force’s joint training program with Russia. It was one of the only ways he could think of to remove himself from his father's influence, and even then the shadow of Konstantin International Corporation followed his aspirations into the space program.

Cyril counted it a blessing that he'd been selected for Evergreen. His father's company might be bankrolling ten percent of the mission (perhaps as much as fifteen percent, if you included KIC's proprietary plasma rocket technology) but that was for purely mercenary reasons. A lot of money stood to be made from a successful mission to Mars. Two of the first three had led to major breakthroughs in space technology, and the one that had gone poorly had been bloody and salacious enough that news companies had clamored to buy rights to broadcast the videos sent back to Earth.

The first mission to Mars had led to the establishment of MB1, humanity's first Martian enclave. There had been ten astronauts, eight men and two women, from three different countries. They had been the best and brightest that the early twenty-first century had had to offer, but due to a shielding error, they'd all died of radiation sickness and cancer within five years of arriving on Mars. The technology didn't exist to send them back to Earth, not then, and so they'd drawn their experiments to a close, done the best they could with the radiation shielding so the next team would be better prepared, and then, one by one, died.

The second mission to Mars had been marred from the very beginning. It was wholly funded by corporations who had been more interested in the notoriety of having their own mission than the brutally hard work that went into making it successful. The crew of the Tadpole had been small, only six people, and halfway to Mars their pilot had quietly lost his sanity, waited for his fellow astronauts to fall asleep, and then attacked them in their bunks with the spare fire extinguisher. He'd killed three outright, wounded the other two, then holed himself up in the pilot's capsule. After a seventeen-hour standoff, he'd opened the outer hatches. The civilian-built vessel hadn't had the safety features to prevent him. Everyone on board had been sucked into space, their bodies lost forever.

After the Tadpole disaster, private corporations were banned from conducting their own missions as a clamor for government oversight resurged, and the next mission had been a joint venture between the US and China, to the exclusion of everyone else. It had been highly successful, transporting fifty-two scientists, all with military backgrounds, to the remains of MB1, where they repaired the base, set up their own new experiments and generally made their tiny claim on Mars' surface fit for living. Fifteen years later, almost all of the crewmembers were still alive, and they were more than ready to welcome some growth of their colony.

The Third Wavers, as they were called, were currently building expansions to MB1 in anticipation of the hundred and ten prospective colonists readying their own mission to Mars right now. The fourth, and most current, one was meant to be more evenhanded, with crewmember inclusions from all over the globe. Many of the scientists were backed by corporate sponsors and academic institutions that wanted a piece of their future research.

Cyril probably could have made it in as a civilian scientist with his father's backing. But he had never relied on his old man to help fulfill any of his dreams, and he wasn't about to start with something as important and all-consuming as Project Evergreen.

 

***

With regards to interpersonal relationships, candidates are very strongly discouraged from engaging in intimacy with fellow candidates. The training period you are currently undergoing is meant to prepare you for the rigors of life on another planet, and all of your attention should be dedicated to achieving this goal. If your personal relationships become a stumbling block on the path to successfully completing your training, be advised that you may be asked to leave the program. –ISA Project Evergreen Handbook

Scott Andrews was unique among the military recruits in that he had a civilian family member tapped for Project Evergreen as well. A few of the married scientists were going with their equally competent spouses, but there were no other sibling pairs. Dr. Sophie Andrews was an astrobiologist whose proposal to do an in-depth study on the tantalizing evidence for life sent back by previous expeditions had caught the interest of several pharmaceutical and gene-therapy companies. She and Scottie had worked their asses off to get accepted to the program together. They were far closer than Cyril was with any of his own siblings, and when he heard Scottie talking about Sophie, about how brilliant she was and how amazing her research, he couldn't help but feel a little jealous.

Not that he wanted to be Scottie's brother. Not with the way he was feeling.

"She's already promised to name the first organism she finds after me," Scottie boasted in the mess hall three months into training. "Cryofilis scottus."

"You'd think any bacteria named after you would require a lot of hot air to survive, not sub-zero temperatures," Cyril said dryly.

Scottie pressed a hand to his chest. "Cy, did you just make a science joke at me? I'm honored! Do tell, mate, what other funny little bits of Latin have you got stored away in that big Russian brain of yours?"

"You only get one freebie," Cyril replied.

"Mmm." Scottie's eyes glittered as his lips curled. "Then tell me what I've got to do to buy some more, because nothing gets me going like brains and brawn combined."

Cyril hid his smile. It was harder to do than he'd anticipated. "I don't think you could afford me."

"Perhaps not." Scottie sighed. "It's not like any of us can afford anything other than our bloody right hands right now. Left hand if you're Shekar."

"I like to use both for self-pleasuring," the Indian recruit said from where he was delicately peeling a tangerine.

"I can't be happy without my toys," Mona Brown put in. "Thank god for long-last batteries and solar chargers, otherwise I'm sure I'd go mad on Mars."

"Once we're done with our preliminary testing, you can have a relationship again, remember?" Scottie said. "You won't need toys on Mars."

"Oh, I figure I'll always need a little something to remind my lovers how to do it right," Mona said with a grin, and even Cyril laughed along with the others.

The alarm sounded, and all twelve of them groaned. "That's it for lunch, then," Scottie said mournfully, looking at his empty plate. "Off to the gym. I swear, I've eaten more bloody chicken here than I've had total before in my life. Whole flocks of fowl are giving up their lives so that I can build bigger muscles."

"It seems a little excessive, given the ones you’ve already got," Cyril agreed as he stood up.

"Was that another backhanded compliment out of you?" Scottie marveled as he stacked Cyril's plate on top of his own and placed them both in the autoclave. "Twice in under an hour? I didn't dare hope I'd get that twice in one lifetime when we first met." Scottie leaned in close. "Tell me what I did to warrant it, so I can do it again."

"Oh, it's not you, it's me," Cyril said, letting the obvious sarcasm overshadow his sincerity. "It's how I get over my psych sessions, I fixate on the nearest jerk and let loose."

"And whisper sweet nothings into their ear?" Scottie asked, doubt clear in his tone. "I don't think you're telling me the whole truth, Cy. Rest assured I'll get it out of you sooner or later."

"You'd have to put it into me first," Cyril deadpanned, and Scottie's laughter echoed through the empty mess.

"Did someone replace you with a new model when I wasn't looking?" Scottie wondered. "Are you an android after all, and did you get an upgrade? I must say, I like it."

They were alone, the flirtations were tantalizing and for once, Cyril felt like he might be able to hold his own. Then Sergeant Malloy came over the comm. "If the two of you aren't in the gym with the rest of your squad in the next minute, you can both look forward to wind sprints before dinner this evening."

Scottie paled. "Not on your life," he muttered, and headed quickly for the door. "Quick, Cy, before she changes her mind and halves our time!"

Moment lost. Cyril sighed and ran after Scottie toward the gym.

Luckless

Notes: We're having an excerpt blog post today instead of another chapter of Mutable because it's been quite busy chez moi, and I'd rather give you something complete than tap out something weird and call it good. This is the first chapter of a novella I was going to publish with Riptide, which--yeah, not happening now, but I love the story and am trying to figure out what to do with it. It's got monsters. And fortified cities. And people empathically connecting to dragons in order not to get eaten by everything else. Enjoy!

Title: Luckless: Chapter One

***

Chapter One

Yes, the picture is from Skyrim. But it sort of fits.

 

“Incoming, one thousand feet!”

The gunner manning the corner turret wielded his megaphone like a whip, waving toward the edge of the wall. “Archers, move forward! Pikemen, get your asses ready to back them up!” Evan stepped up to his position, close enough to the edge to shoot over it but far enough back that he wouldn’t be vulnerable to the first thing with claws to crawl up there.

He glanced down and frowned. The crix were still about eight hundred feet away, but there were a lot of them—more than he’d ever seen before during a winter attack on the city. The dragons and their riders were already battling the bigger beasts farther out in the ruins that used to be Denver, but there weren’t enough of them anymore to keep the city completely clear. That was where Evan and the people like him came in.

The man to his left—a boy, really, probably no more than sixteen—shivered as he took his own peek over the wall. His hands were shaking so badly they could barely hold on to his bow, much less nock an arrow when the crix got close enough to shoot. His fear struck a chord in Evan, who still remembered the brutal chaos of his first battle almost twenty years ago. He smiled sympathetically. “First time on the wall?”

The boy gulped and nodded. “Uh-huh.” His posture was so stiff it seemed his back might break. “I thought—I thought there would be fewer of them. That’s why my dad chose now to bring me up here, so I could—I could get used to fighting them before the big waves come in the spring. But this is . . .”

“Unusual,” Evan supplied. “Around double what we’d see during a normal winter attack. That probably means they’re being driven.”

“Driven?” The boy turned wide eyes on Evan. “By what?”

Evan shrugged. “Lack of food, a bad weather front closing in, or more likely in this case? A bigger monster. Crix are tough, but they’re too small to put up much of a fight against a really big monster, and they don’t have the temperament for swarming for long. Too prone to cannibalism.”

“Oh. Right.” His voice sounded so small, already close to defeat without even seeing battle.

Evan moved a little closer to him. “Remember, aim for their heads—if you can crack the carapace, you’ll stun them, and then the other crix will take care of them for us. If you shoot them through the eye socket, you’ll kill them fast. Don’t bother going for the legs, they’ve got too many backups. Just breathe, nock, draw, and loose.”

“Breathe, nock, draw, and loose,” the boy repeated, sounding better already. “Breathe, nock, draw, and loose. Aim for the head.”

“You’ve got it.”

“Right.”

Evan patted the boy on the shoulder, then dropped his hand when the man stationed on the kid’s other side stalked over to them, pointing an accusing finger at Evan.

“You leave my boy alone, Luckless!”

“Dad, calm down.” The kid seemed embarrassed, but whether for his dad’s words or for responding to Evan’s attempt to comfort him, Evan didn’t know. “He was just telling me about how to take down crix.”

“You take down crix like you do any other monster—you shoot it,” his father said stiffly. “That’s what the damn bow is for. You don’t need Luckless to tell you that.” He focused on Evan again. “Ollie doesn’t need advice on killing beasts from a failed rider who couldn’t even keep his own dragon alive. I’ll tell you one last time—leave my boy alone.” He grabbed Ollie by the arm and hauled him a few feet farther to the left, away from Evan.

The kid seemed confused, but Evan just looked away. He’d gone through this same encounter so many times since coming to the massive fortress that was the city of Forge that the accusations had almost stopped stinging. There wasn’t much about what the man had said that wasn’t true, after all. Evan had lost his dragon, as well as everyone else left in Marble after that hellish summer five years ago.

Evan watched as the gunner swung his .50 caliber M2 machine gun toward an incoming flock of harpies—carrion feeders who only banded together when there was bigger prey in the offing. The gunner fired a short burst and half of the monsters fell, losing feathers and blood and shrieking almost intelligibly. This machine gun was one of only four in the city, and one of the very few firearms that they still managed to produce ammunition for. Even so, its store of brass casings would wear out eventually, and then they’d have little more than muskets to fire along with their arrows.

Some of the defenders cheered, but Evan simply tuned them out and glanced over the edge again. The first wave of crix was almost within range, their leg blades singing over the whistle of the icy wind, their armored bellies nearly scraping the chunks of pitted concrete and rebar that were all that remained of southbound I-25. Their front legs were shaped for climbing, short and stubby and tipped with thick, sharp claws, while their hind legs were long and built for propulsion. When they rubbed those blades together, they made a sound almost too beautiful to possibly herald death.

They were no more than a hundred feet away now, the bigger ones starting to jump in anticipation of bounding up the wall. It was an ugly, patchwork thing, made from the bones of skyscrapers and museums, the city it surrounded packed to the brim with the survivors, their herds, and their dragons. In most places, it was too steep to jump straight over, and the crix had to climb, but sometimes a few of them got lucky—especially the bigger ones, closer to mule-sized than dog-sized.

The gunner lifted his megaphone again. “Archers, fire at will!”

Evan had an arrow nocked before the man finished speaking, and loosed it at the largest crix within range. It hit a glancing blow on the creature’s head—not quite enough to crack its shell, but it was still stunned, limbs waving dazedly as it rolled onto its side. Five or six smaller crix immediately diverted to attack it, and Evan smiled grimly. There was no better way to take out a monster than with another monster.

He fired again and again, striking true and winnowing down the oncoming horde as effectively as he could. Unfortunately, most of his fellow archers weren’t having the same success. Ollie in particular seemed to have forgotten Evan’s advice in the heat of the fight, firing almost blindly and with no thought to aiming, which meant most of his arrows skittered into the ground. Evan gritted his teeth over it until his last arrow was gone, then lowered his bow and ran to the boy’s side.

“Slow down!” he shouted.

Ollie turned to him, his expression blank with shock, hands so tight on the bow they were blanched bone white. “Wha-what?”

“You have to slow down if you’re going to have a hope of hitting anything.” Evan kept his voice loud even though they were face-to-face now, trying to break through Ollie’s fear and the rising sounds of the advancing crix. The gunner yelled something again, but Evan couldn’t make it out. “You’re just wasting arrows otherwise. Try to—”

“Luckless!” Ollie’s father marched back over, dodging around advancing pikemen with rage written in the craggy lines of his face. “What the hell did I just tell you? You leave my boy alone or I’ll—” A crix the size of a house cat leapt over the edge of the wall, dodged the pikeman who tried to impale it, and landed on Ollie’s father’s chest.

It was small, but heavy enough to knock him to the ground. He screamed as he fell back, the crix fastening its mandibles into the front of his shoulder and violently shaking its head.

“Dad!” Ollie dropped his bow and ran to his father, trying in vain to pry the crix off of him. The creature’s leg blades keened and the boy jumped back, cradling his lacerated hands to his chest with a dumbfounded expression.

“Son of a bitch,” Evan muttered. He unsheathed his bowie knife as he ran over, reversed his grip on it, and then stuck it straight down, right through the side of the crix’s neck. He put his other hand on the back of the creature’s head and drew the blade in a circle. The wound seeped dark-blue blood, staining his glove, and a second later the crix slumped over onto the parapet, its grip vanishing in death.

He glanced back at Ollie, who blinked at him uncomprehendingly. For fuck’s sake, what were they doing in training these days? “Get your father off the wall,” Evan said. “Take him to the medics.”

Ollie nodded but didn’t move.

“Now!” His volume finally mobilized the kid, who managed to get a grip on his moaning father despite his bloody hands and hoisted him to his feet. Evan plucked the rest of the arrows out of Ollie’s quiver before he could disappear, then shoved the pair of them toward the nearest stairwell. Their injuries didn’t look too bad. They’d probably both live to fight another day.

Although if this was their idea of fighting, everyone would be better off if they stayed at home.

Not nice, Evan thought as he fired a pilfered arrow at the next crix to make it past the pikemen, a larger specimen that hissed menacingly when he cracked its shell. It reeled like a drunk, though, and he was able to jam his knife into its brain with little danger. But there’s no place for nice when you’re fighting for your life. He’d offered to help train the archer corps before, but had been bluntly rebuffed. Might have to insist.

The sound of the machine gun rang in the air, ugly and beautiful all at once. Their gunner was a good shot, really good, but he was too busy taking out fliers to help with the horde coming over the wall, and over it they were. Evan fired his last arrow straight into the eye of a crix not ten feet away, partly on and partly over the wall. He ran to it and shoved the quivering carcass off the edge, diverting half a dozen others toward their next meal, but it wasn’t enough. The crix were still coming, four or five bodies deep as they crawled up the wall, mandibles clacking and leg blades singing a haunting chorus. The pikemen would be overwhelmed soon, and there weren’t enough archers left on this section of the wall to do much good. They needed a strafe.

“Hey!” he shouted at the gunner, hoping against hope that he’d be heard above the noise. “Flare!”

The man didn’t even glance his way, still focused on shooting down harpies. Their feminine faces contorted with agony as the bullets tore into their flesh, the girlish illusion ruined by the cluster of razor-like teeth framing every scream.

“Flare!” He started running toward the turret, dodging the pikemen engaged in direct combat. He could climb up there and—

Shing! Bright white pain shot through Evan’s left calf and emerged as a half-choked shout. He turned to face the raccoon-sized crix that had sliced into his leg even as he drew his right foot back. Too fast for the creature to counter, he kicked it just beneath its jaw. The beast flew onto its back, writhing and squirming, and Evan jammed his knife into its throat and twisted the blade before it could right itself. His glove was soaked with blue now, but he kept his grip—salamander skin didn’t slip. He pulled the knife free and kept running, forcing his gait to stay long and smooth. He didn’t have time to limp—they were going to be overwhelmed, and their idiot of a gunner wouldn’t even notice until a crix pulled him out of his perch.

The easiest way to get up the turret was to take the stairs, but those weren’t accessible from the outside, so Evan found purchase for his hands and began to climb.

It was only twenty feet. It felt like twenty miles, especially when a tiny crix, no bigger than the palm of his hand but no less deadly for it, jumped straight at his face. Evan saw it coming and managed to parry it with the knife, barely maintaining his hold on the wall with his other hand. The crix hit the ground, but it wasn’t hurt, and it gathered itself to jump again. This time Evan met it with his boot, and the steel in the toe impacted the beast’s head hard enough to crack the carapace. The crix fell again, twitching uncontrollably, and Evan turned back to the climb.

He hauled himself over the edge of the turret, then threw up his hands when he found the gun swinging around to point at him. “Whoa, easy, relax!”

“What the fuck are you doing up here?” the gunner demanded. His lank brown hair was held back from his face by a red kerchief, and his eyes blazed with indignation. “Get back down to your post!”

“We need a strafe! Or we’re going to lose this section of the wall and all the defenders on it.”

“I decide when we need a strafe, not you!” He swung the gun around and fired off a few shots at a distant cluster of harpies. “You’ll manage.”

“Look at our complement—it’s down by half with injured.” Injured or dead. “We don’t have the archers or the ammo to slow down the crix enough so the pikemen aren’t overwhelmed.”

“You bein’ up here isn’t helping! I can— Oh, shit.” The gunner pivoted again and continued to fire, winnowing through an incoming cluster of fliers in a spray of blood and feathers. “Yeah! Take that, you bitch-faced pigeon fuckers! Take— Hey!” He grabbed for the flare gun that Evan had just lifted from his belt, but too late—Evan aimed it into the sky and fired. A few moments later, a burst of red exploded above them. The defenders on the wall cheered.

In the distance, Evan could just make out one of Forge’s dragons—Gorot, such a dark green he was almost black—turning away from whatever he was fighting and flying ponderously toward the wall. The dragons and their riders were spread thin these days, only three of them left with the mass and strength to engage with whatever might come at them across the ruin of the old city.

Once Gorot and his rider, Susan, got close enough to flame, the gunner—still glaring at Evan—lifted his megaphone and shouted, “Cover!” Fighters all along the wall pulled back to the far edge, and eager crix followed them.

Hundreds of monsters died instantly as a dense spray of fire roasted them in place against the wall. The heat was brief but intense, the burning warmth clinging to cold concrete in the form of charred gore. The crix already on top of the wall lost their focus, scattering in panic at their confrontation with an immeasurably more powerful beast. Some leapt back down the wall; others were skewered as they scuttled about, either by defenders or their own frantic cousins. Gorot turned to make another pass, but a sudden rumbling roar sent him heading back the way he’d come, and stopped everyone else in their tracks out of pure shock.

“Oh god,” Evan breathed. “Manticore.” He hadn’t seen a manticore in the flesh since leaving Marble, but he’d never forget that roar. The sound echoed across the city, and in its wake came the creature itself. As tall as a dragon but thicker, stronger, this beast with a shockingly human face, a lion’s body, and a killing, quill-covered tail was one of the deadliest and most destructive monsters roaming what used to be the United States.

It wasn’t in and of itself so dangerous to a dragon—they were armored and could fly, after all, and enough fire would drive off even something like this. No, the greatest danger a manticore posed to a dragon was to his rider. The quills in its tail could be fired like darts, and they were poisonous on top of being wickedly sharp. If a dragon got too close, the odds of their rider escaping injury were . . . not good.

Evan and the rest of the defenders watched in anxious silence as the two dragons who were closest engaged the manticore. It leapt at them like a cat jumping for a bird, dodging their fire with the speed of a snake. Two on one should have favored the dragons, but they were already tired from the earlier battle, their flight slower than it should have been. One of them—Lyra, the oldest dragon, grizzled and gray and missing half her teeth—was glanced by a leaping paw as she banked around the beast.

The move destabilized her flight, tilting her dangerously toward the ground. That was when the manticore fired his quills. Evan couldn’t see them fly, but he saw their effects clearly enough. One second, Lyra was attempting to stabilize herself and then—

A dragon’s roar was different from a manticore’s, less of a growl and more like an instrument, a clarion trumpet. Usually clear and smooth, Lyra’s roar now was tortured, a sound of pure, animalistic grief and rage. Evan could just barely make out the silhouette of a tiny figure dangling limply from Lyra’s back. His heart spasmed in his chest, his withered empathy reaching out but still unable to connect to the dragon. He was broken, and with the loss of her rider, Bram, so was Lyra.

Lyra abandoned the skies, diving straight at the manticore and spewing flames from her maw. The manticore ducked low and darted forward, but Lyra caught his hindquarters with her claws as she crashed to the ground, and dragged the beast in tight before smashing hard into an old pile of rebar.

Evan winced as he heard a loud crack reverberate across the valley—she had likely broken a wing, and just as obviously didn’t care. The manticore bit and scratched, but Lyra wouldn’t let go, rending it as she fought to bring her fire to bear again. For a moment it seemed like she would prevail, but the manticore was more agile on the ground. It got beneath her long jaw and dug its fangs into her throat. Her scream was a death knell now, tapering off after several agonizing seconds of pain.

The manticore had no time to celebrate its victory. Gorot and Kisthe converged on it from opposite directions, fire blazing so hot it was nearly white as it poured from their throats. The beast, still tangled with Lyra’s corpse, couldn’t avoid both jets. Half its body caught fire, the long, dangerous tail shriveling and curling like a dead match. It swatted fruitlessly at the sky, enormous paws grasping greedily until the very end. When it died, it did so with an enormous shudder that even Evan could make out.

The dragons screamed with grief. The defenders watched with breathless dread. And the remaining crix reversed direction and scuttled, en masse, toward the carcasses.