Chapter Seventeen
“Run,” Kodran said to Rosamund. He glanced at Saran. “Take them deep into the caverns where they will be safe.”
“Kodran, no!” Rosamund protested, but the Draell-nar surrounded her and Dot-R and began hustling them through the caverns.
“Actually, my data analysis program shows that fleeing is the wisest course of action in this scenario,” Dot-R called out to her as they ran.
Fear clenched at Rosamund’s throat as they went deeper and deeper underground – fear for Kodran.
Had she finally found the love of her life…just to lose him?
She hated to leave him, but she knew she’d just be getting in the way if she stayed. Reluctantly, she let herself be herded through the tunnels, further and further away from her mate. The man she loved. The man she couldn’t live without.
* * * * *
Kodran pelted for the exit with his men at his heels. As soon as they were out of the caverns and in the open air, they shifted. Bones cracked, shifted and reformed. Skin became scales. Blasts of dragonfire arced into the sky, and Kodran roared his defiance as he took to the air. Sekari had tried to take his heart’s fire from him. That could not stand. It would not. Rosamund was down there now, in the caverns, with the Draell-nar who were under Kodran’s protection. He would not fail her, and he would not fail them.
Sekari would die for this.
Kodran soared into the sky above the jungle, wings thrashing furiously at the air. His men followed him, flying in battle formation. They were a well-disciplined team, and his men were strong and loyal. He had that on his side.
Working against him, he had six men. Sekari had two dozen. And Sekari’s warriors weren’t clanmates – they were soldiers he’d chosen for being big, and vicious, and brutal. They would fight dirty.
But a force was only as good as its commander.
As Sekari’s men ranked themselves across the sky in a ragged line, menacing the air with their teeth and talons, Kodran flung back his wings, hurtling towards them and signalling to his men to form into an arrowhead, with him as its lethal tip.
They smashed through Sekari’s defensive line, scattering the enemy Draell. That left each of Kodran’s men battling three or four vicious hired thugs, but they were disciplined and they held their own. Kodran blasted his opponent with white-hot flame, tearing an ugly gash in his wing membrane. The Draell screamed, billowing smoke, and struggled to stay aloft. At the same time, Kodran lashed out with his tail, whipping it at a Draell that was trying to attack from the flank and sending the beast spiralling toward the ground, bellowing furious gouts of flame.
Laser blasts criss-crossed the sky; shots from Kodran’s Vulfan allies in the jungle below. They were deadly marksmen, but Draell were tough. Their scales deflected the shots, and a lot of the damage was done by ricochets. One of Kodran’s men roared in agony as a shot took out his eye.
A shot from a laser pistol pierced an enemy Draell’s belly, igniting the potent mix of explosive gases brewing inside him to be ignited and released as dragonfire. The ball of flame rolled outward, the percussion knocking three of his companions from the sky. They tumbled screaming into the jungle below, branches cracking and snapping at they crashed through the canopy.
Sekari bellowed with rage and lashed the air with his wings, and his men massed around him like gathering storm clouds. Maybe twenty of them were still battle-worthy, with only four of Kodran’s men left in the fight.
There were snarls and bellows of pain from below as a grounded Draell was attacked by Vulfans in their wolf forms. Others must still be humanoid, because laser blasts still cut through the battle. A stray shot punched a cigarette-burn hole in the membrane of Kodran’s wing. As he tilted in mid-air, Sekari barrelled into him from the side, knocking the breath from him in a long, black-edged plume of flame.
As the world tilted on its axis, he saw one of his lieutenants plummeting towards the ground, body a dead weight, tail and serpentine neck trailing limply. He didn’t see if he managed to spread his wings before he hit.
His men were hurt, tired, badly outnumbered. Kodran would not surrender – no honourable Draell ever would – but he spared a moment of regret for the fact that he would never see Rosamund’s face again. Never spar with her, watch the fire spark in her eyes, then see her soften as she forgave him for his insolence and came to his arms.
Then thunder split the sky – the roars of fifty of his clan, swooping in from all sides like an oncoming storm. The air was filled with scales and talons. His people had found them.
The battle was brief and bloody. Ten of Sekari’s men were slaughtered, standing no chance against the overwhelming weight of numbers. Sekari flamed desperately, looking around for escape, but he was surrounded by ferocious Draell warriors loyal to their leader. Panicked, he plunged towards the ground, losing height too fast, crash-landing with a bone-jarring impact. His wings flapped limply.
Kodran swept down after him.
Sekari shifted back into humanoid form. The transformation was clumsy and too quick, and he gasped with pain as the last of his scales receded. “We surrender!” he gabbled. “Under Federation rules, if we surrender in good faith, you cannot harm us!”
This coward called himself Lord High Commander of the Draell,
Kodran looked contemptuously at the man’s pallid skin, his narrow chest, which rose and fell with exertion, and the slight pooch of his belly. He met his gaze for a moment, then spat on the ground between them and turned away. The ultimate insult. My back to show you are no threat. Water instead of flame.
