Dark Age (Red Rising Saga 5)

She hurls herself from her griffin and lands on the dragon’s head, burying two climbing hooks, she is tossed sideways, almost losing her perch. The drake ignores her and bears down again on Sefi and Pax, trapping them against the valley’s side. Godeater scrambles along the sheer walls, unable to escape.

I act without thinking. I rush to a stupefied brave and demand his rifle. “The creed forbids it!” a guard growls.

“Fuck your creed.” I jerk at the rifle, but in his hardened grip, it goes nowhere.

“Give him the rifle,” Valdir orders from behind me.

Grudgingly, the guard surrenders it.

Praying I’ve not run out of time, I rush past the gawking onlookers and fall prone, steadying the barrel on a divot in the rocks. Its energy pack whines as it charges up. The targeting computer is slow to start. I go analog. Thanks to the guard’s delay, I’ve lost time. The lights from the nearby shuttles reflect against the optic. They disappear. I glance sideways to see Valdir blocking them for me with his body. Not his first time as a spotter. For a moment, I think he won’t let me take the shot. I could hit Freihild, but he nods. “Wait for it to turn its head.”

I peer back into the optic.

Godeater has gone to ground, trapped by the drake on a rocky scree as the other Valkyrie fruitlessly try to regroup and bypass its razor wings. Only Freihild protects her Queen, stabbing in vain at the thick scales of the drake’s head, but her efforts dirty my shot.

I sink into my breathing and try to forget Valdir looming over my shoulder as I settle the crosshairs on Freihild’s back. The dragon’s head is faced away. She blocks the shot. Move. MOVE. My hands shake from nerves. Her arms raise to plunge the spear into the back of the dragon’s neck. I wait for it to sink deep. It bites into the meat behind the ear slits. The drake whirs its face around, snapping at her. I aim two hands above her shoulder and squeeze.

A beam of white light divides the gloom.

* * *

—

A city forms around the downed drake on the frozen plain. It is called a drekinhaugr, a dragon mound. Tribeswomen and men of the Valkyrie Spires along with a great many of their allied tribes bring huge logs for the bonfire on sleds pulled by aurochs. Lesser shamans ferry vats of hard grog, berry liquor called azag, and sweet mead in leather gourds the size of bathtubs. Chanting and drums resound from a train of thousands as they flow into the valley to witness the last harvest of light.

They chant Freihild’s name, and mine. Protectors of the Queen. The young skuggi sways over to where I stand with Pax and Xenophon in a great bear cloak and wraps me in a hug. “They sing of us, Grarnir! They sing of the glory of our arms! No sound is sweeter.”

“Here I thought they’d pin me to a rock and splay open my ribs,” I say to Freihild.

“A poacher’s gun is not a poacher’s heart,” she says, then draws close. “But I would have killed it on my own.” She sees me eye the cooked skin of her right shoulder. “Close shot. Close shot!” She saunters away laughing and shouting encouragement to the harvesters.

“Did you know you would hit it?” Xenophon asks.

“I knew I had a chance.”

The White considers that. “And if you had killed her while Valdir stood over your shoulder?”

“I doubt we’d be having this conversation.”

“True enough. Now I believe I have had enough excitement for the day. I must return to my functions.”

“See you at the party. First drink’s on me.”

“I am not invited.” The White looks me up and down. “Your assimilation is not surprising. You display traits any martial culture would value. I, on the other hand, will always be an alien. Enjoy the sundeath. I am told its color composition can be quite moving to the warrior spirit.”

The White sways away toward a flier to be taken back to the Echo of Ragnar, which Sefi disappeared inside as soon as it set down on a mesa overlooking the valley. The destroyer, more a mobile city of war than a ship, makes even the mountains look small.

“That’s one sad human,” I say to Pax.

“They’re not sad,” Pax murmurs, more focused on the harvesting than our blathering. “If

anything, they’re sad that they’re not sad.”

I soon forget about Xenophon. The harvest is a sight.

Young braves climb the dragon’s flank, wedging climbing hooks between the slippery scales to carve the most flavorful meat from the sides of the spine. Electra races several Obsidian youths up the side, and has them beat by ten meters when a dead scale sheaves off and she plummets back down the flank, hits the elbow of the dragon’s broken wing, ricochets, and plunges into a gaping incision made by harvesters. When she emerges covered with gore, the Obsidians whoop with laughter.

Poised on the ridge of the dragon’s back, the crews use levers to dislodge the scales and long saws to butterfly the spine. Great hunks of meat are stacked in steaming piles atop a parade of sledges brought in ceremonial fashion by youths as the elders drink and call out capricious instructions.