Revolution from Above: A Cat Among Dragons Novella Read online

  Revolution from Above:

  A Cat Among Dragons Novella

  Alma T.C. Boykin

  © 2014 All Rights Reserved

  Cover Art © Mack2happy/Dreamstime

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: Ghosts Walk

  Chapter 2: A Rendezvous with Death

  Chapter 3. Noble Sentiments

  Chapter 4: Complex Matters

  Epilogue: Twelve Years Later

  Chapter 1: Ghosts Walk

  Commander Rada Lord Ni Drako woke reluctantly. She wanted a few more years of sleep, but a rock digging into her back, a cold breeze tickling her face, and the disappearance of her blanket conspired against her. She stretched and found that the scratchy wool-like cover had been appropriated by two of the juniors. She smothered a laugh at seeing nothing but muzzle tips protruding from under the blanket. Well, I’m not going to get any more rest, so I might as well start moving. She didn’t groan, but her stiff joints warned that she’d better not make any sudden moves unless she wanted to stick in that position. The one-eyed mammal quietly slipped out of the cave-like shelter and took care of her over-full bladder, then stretched some more and looked around after slinging on her swordbelt and blaster around her waist and buckling them. Rada swished her tail and considered her situation. In short, it sucked.

  She, the four Defenders currently assigned as her personal guards, six villagers and three juniors from Burnt Mountain and Singing Pines had taken refuge in a half-cave at the edge of the Wildlands, the border between the settled areas and the lands claimed by Drakon IV’s True-dragons. The rugged terrain provided them with cover and the abundant game and wild plants kept them decently fed, or would at least for the next two moons or so if necessary. Rada had almost no information about the situation on the rest of the planet, and she desperately needed to get back to the fortress-manor of Singing Pines, to her fighter aircraft and communications equipment. She didn’t even know if the King-Emperor still lived, or if the invasion had been completely successful. If the bastards have won, my days are going to be long, rough and not very numerous, she sighed.

  Sergeant Biss, his neck spines half-flared, grumped over to where his commander stood. “I want to kill someone,” he announced, tapping the cave floor with his tail tip.

  “Good, Sergeant. That makes two of us. Any word from the scouts?” Rada didn’t expect anything, and smiled with pleasant surprise when he nodded.

  “Yes, Lord Mammal. The invaders seem to be concentrating on the easier terrain to the south, closer to Burnt Mountain. Teerki reports that they are not trying very hard to find us.” He rumpled his tail in a shrug. “Apparently the fools think you’re a female and that we’ve captured you. Or that some noble captured you and is holding you as his trophy slave.”

  Rada and her second-in-command both laughed at the thought. “Sounds like they can’t do math, as well as not listening. Although . . .” Her remaining eye narrowed in speculation. “Hmmm. We may be able to use that to our advantage, Biss.” She changed topics before he could get worried. “Any luck with the communications set up?”

  The blotchy green reptile perked up. “Yes, my lord. Corporal Schriik cobbled together a solar array and we can receive both Royal and Standard at least.”

  Rada could have cheered with relief, but limited herself to “Very good! Have him and Bala make use of the oldest juniors as runners and monitors. It may help keep them out from under foot.”

  Sergeant Biss snorted in mild disbelief but didn’t say anything because one of the juniors appeared at his shoulder bearing a large mug of hot broth. “Thanks,” he muttered, taking the mug. The smaller reptile trotted off and returned with a second bowl for his lord. She smiled as she accepted it and the junior gave her a faintly worshipful look before returning to the warmer air of the shelter. After they had warmed their bellies, the quadrupedal noncom’s tail thumped the ground and he ventured to ask, “Lord Mammal, have you heard anything from your spy?”

  “No, and at this point I don’t expect to. She’s probably been neutralized, so we’ll just have to work with what we have.” Rada stared into her mug, then drank some more. The sergeant didn’t say anything. He finished his breakfast, bowed and took himself off to rouse the rest of his men.

  Rada glanced over her shoulder at the waking reptiles, then stared back out, considering the beautiful scene before her. How in the name of the Azdhagi gods was she supposed to defeat a mercenary invasion force and the traitors who let them in? She had only fourteen supporters and no transports, artillery, communications, or air support. Her new deity hadn’t sent her any inspiration, although she did offer prayers of thanks that she and the others had gotten away with what they had. Please may none of the people at Singing Pines or Burnt Mountain have done anything stupid she prayed yet again. Rada drank her hot broth and tried to plan.

  Biss came trotting back once everyone had roused, followed by one of the scouts. “Lord Mammal, there’s a group of humans and traitors heading this direction,” the scout warned. “About eight total: three humans, five others. Well armed but not careful and moving slowly. I left Sirti watching them,” he finished.

  “Which way are they coming?” Rada demanded, even as she stepped back into the half-cave to get her packs and rifle. The others were already slinging their gear and putting out the fire, and double-checking their weapons.

  “Up the Deadwater, north bank.” Both the scout and Sgt. Biss looked eager and Rada shared the males’ excitement.

  “Time to start evening up the odds, don’t you think Sergeant?” Rada’s bared canine teeth drew echoing “smiles” from the soldiers and village hunters. “Let’s see about giving them a little surprise at the reed pit,” the bog ground near the Deadwater’s head stream. “Huntmaster Bala, take point, since you know the back ways better. I’ll be tail.” The Azdhagi finished loading their packs and began filing out as Rada made one last sweep, confirming that the fire was out and the waste scattered or buried. Then she picked up her heavy walking cane and followed the others.

  About two hours later by sun the Lord Defender and “his” troops reached the marsh. Scout Sirti met them and Bala vanished to go watch the interlopers. Sergeant Biss started spreading people around, and after caching their gear the soldiers and hunters buried themselves in the brush and mud, much like the crocodiles of Earth. Rada watched with approval as she shed her own pack and stashed it out of the way before looking for a place to hide.

  “My lord, I have an idea,” Biss started cautiously.

  The human mercenaries couldn’t believe their luck. One of the lizards assigned to their patrol had come back in a hurry. “Sir, I think we’ve found that human you were looking for,” it said, a bit breathless with its haste.

  Corporal Caetlin grinned. “It’s about time we found something! Guess Lord Ni Drako or whoever got tired of hauling his trophy around with him.”

  One of the other humans snickered, “You think she’s going to be glad to see real men?”

  Caetlin clapped him on the shoulder, “I bet she will, Zilker.” They pushed ahead, following their guide. Behind them, one of the Azdhagi at the rear of the group slipped away into the underbrush. The humans never noticed: all the big lizards looked alike to them.

  Just as the humans’ scout had indicated, they came around a bend in the stream and saw a small, pale-skinned human woman slumped under a tree at the edge of a meadow, hands tied and apparently asleep or unconscious. The men noticed the marks of trampling in the grass around her and tracks heading away through the meadow east of the tree, but no sign of more lizards. Caetlin and Zilker walked up to the dark-haired figure
, but she didn’t move. “What the fuck happened to her?” the private wanted to know as he came up and joined the two corporals, pointing at the woman’s face.

  Before anyone could answer, something fired a shot over the humans’ head, then took off through the tall meadow grass. “Get it!” Caetlin yelled. The private dropped the bag he was carrying and charged off with one of the Azdhagi close behind. The human yelped and swore as the “meadow” revealed its secret: he sank up to his waist in the muck. When the other humans fired toward their unseen attacker, then started after the foundering private, turning their backs on her, Rada shook the rope off her wrists, scrambled to her feet and caught her rifle as one of juniors dropped it to her from his hiding place in the branches. The marsh exploded with gunfire and yells as the Lord Defender and “his” males made quick work of the traitors and two of the humans. Corporal Schriik caught a grazing shot to the shoulder but otherwise the Defenders escaped unharmed.

  “My lord, what do you want us to do with the human?” Biss inquired. Rada studied the struggling Corporal Zilker, trying to decide if it was worth keeping him around for information or as a bargaining chip. Probably not, she concluded, and walked up to him, lowering her mental shields.

  “Hold him still,” she ordered, then reached out and laid her hand on him, establishing physical contact. She touched her mind to his, pulling out the most recent feelings and memories, then withdrew. The man stared at her dumbfounded.

  “Who, what are you?” he stuttered.

  Rada bared her fangs. “You might as well know. I’m Lord Ni Drako, the Lord Defender.”

  Zilker looked even more confused, if that were possible. “But, you’re a girl!”

  “More or less. It’s a long story.” Then she shot him, saying “Strip him and leave him for the scavengers.” As the troopers and hunters collected their enemies’ gear, Rada walked over to the private’s dropped bag. It had started wiggling and she nodded to one of the hunters, who carefully opened the sack.

  Out rolled a muzzled and bound Azdhag junior, a small, grey female. Rada knelt, using a little of her talent to calm the junior before she cut off the ropes. As soon as the creature caught one glimpse of Rada, she shrieked and bolted, burrowing under the hunter’s belly and cowering. “I don’t blame her,” Rada sighed, standing again. Damn, but what to do with the little junior?

  Rada deferred the decision by walking downstream of the marsh to get a drink, staying upstream of where her men splashed around in a small pool, washing off the mud. The water tasted metallic and felt slightly warm. If you drank it daily for a year or so, the arsenic and other things would eventually kill you, thus the name Deadwater. But it was wet, clean and free of bugs, so she drank and filled her water bag. Scoutmaster Teerki shook himself dry, finished putting his field jacket and carry harness back on and came over to where his lord stood. Rada looked down at the hip-high quadruped, then tipped her head back towards where the little junior crouched. “She won’t make it on her own, will she?”

  The dull brown reptile peered over his shoulder, then looked back the Lord Defender. “No, my lord. And I don’t want to silence her if we don’t have to.”

  “Well then, Scoutmaster, she comes along, and we leave her with the first family that will take her in if we can’t locate her elders.”

  The hunter walked up, trailed by the junior in question. “Lord Mammal, we’re not going to find her elders, unless the scavengers missed something.” As he spoke the female wailed, a thin little sound that wrung Rada’s heart. “She can’t tell me much, but it sounds like her parents were gathering plants and brought her along. They stumbled onto the humans and their allies and the bastards killed the elders.” The junior shook as he recounted the story and one of the other males draped his tail over her back to comfort her.

  “Why leave her alive?” Biss wondered aloud. Everyone’s eyes turned to the Wanderer, who shrugged.

  “I have no idea, unless it was to use her as bait later on, perhaps.” Actually, Rada did have an idea but she was not going to mention it aloud. They might need prisoners alive and capable of communicating!

  She fastened her water bag to her utility belt and pointed downstream. “Let’s get moving and put some kliqs between us and the remains. Biss, what did we get for our efforts?”

  The green blotch noncom smiled as he fastened his carry harness. “Five guns with extra gas packs, a crossbow and quarrels, some odds and ends, and three days of rations, my lord. Oh, and one of the humans had a radio.”

  Rada smiled. “Very good. I’ll take that.” They distributed the supplies and everyone took a load, including the little female, who had a small, makeshift pack strapped to her when they started moving farther downstream toward Burnt Mountain. The juniors’ efforts impressed the soldiers, especially those of the newest addition to the group. But she just couldn’t keep up and finally Bala called a halt. As soon as he did, the little one flopped over onto her side and fell asleep. After some discussion they strapped her to Rada’s pack and set off again. She never stirred. Glad she’s so small, Rada thought. With her bad leg she had a hard enough time keeping up, even without the extra fifteen kilos. But she couldn’t really ask the others to carry more weight.

  They stopped an hour or so before sundown. Unlike their lord, the Azdhagi couldn’t see well in the dark and even though they were on familiar terrain, Rada didn’t want to risk injuries if they didn’t have to. This way they could also get camp set up, the main radios located and a bit of charge put onto the batteries. Corporal Schriik and two of the juniors established their listening post on a small rise while the others organized themselves just inside the edge of a copse of platter-leaf trees. The third male junior helped gather firewood. The Azdhagi trusted the hot springs in the area to confuse thermal imagers while the tree-cover broke up any smoke and the night wind dispersed what little trickled out of the canopy, making an open fire less of a detection risk than usual.

  Rada found a spot out of the way and let her leg rest while tinkering with the smaller captured radio. She ran the antenna up after a bit of work and listened carefully for anything. She caught a few snatches of transmission but nothing especially useful and turned it back off. As the others continued with camp work she closed her eye and sorted through the emotions and images she’d stolen from the human. He’d not been a saint but she’d certainly riffed through nastier minds by far. She found some most rewarding information indeed and she smiled as she opened her eye.

  One of the hunters had put the grey junior to work stirring supper and the female watched Rada carefully. She seemed to be settling down as much as could be expected and the men had assured her that Lord Mammal was not like the humans. The little one, too young to have been named yet, didn’t know her sire title, so Rada called her Greykin and wondered how to find the poor thing a family.

  Rada ate some of the stew-like concoction, part fresh meat and part rations, and planned. Biss and those not on first watch gathered around the fire. Up at these elevations nights got a little chilly even in late summer, and the Azdhagi didn’t care for cold. “You’ll find this amusing,” the Wanderer said after she and the others finished supper. “According to the humans, I’m dead.”

  A round of hissing laughter met her announcement. Mud-colored Teerki thumped his tail, “My lord, if you’re dead, the Judges of Hell must have been so scared to see you that they turned you back!” Even Rada laughed at the sally, but Bala raised a cautioning talon when Teerki continued, “Are we going to see Death’s Gate Guardian next?”

  “Be very careful when you speak of the dead, Scoutmaster,” the reddish-tan Huntmaster warned. Rada felt a bit of her neck fur rise as Teerki’s words conjured a picture of Shi-Dan as a ghost. He’d been terrifying enough alive and she shivered a little and crossed herself as Bala got up and left for the last perimeter patrol.

  Time to bring us back to the here and now, she decided. “Apparently I was killed trying to escape the attack at Singing Pines. The human corporal h
ad been told that the Lord Defender died early in the fighting and that no successor has been appointed.” Rada told her men. “And, because the Lord Defender is no more, and there’s been no active resistance at either of his estates, most of the human forces and their Azdhag supporters have been pulled to where people are fighting back, Sunblast and a few other places.”

  That raised growls of assent and satisfaction and the hunters and soldiers speculated who might be leading the resistance. The talk died down as the fire burned low and Rada went over to where someone had piled some branches and brush and put her ground sheet over it. She’d be on second watch and she curled up on top of the pile, pulling her blanket over her head and falling asleep almost as soon as she shut her eyes.

  Not long after the others gone quiet, someone nudged the Lord-Defender awake. “Lord Mammal?” a hesitant little voice asked.

  “Yes? What is it?” Rada tried not to bite Greykin’s head off.

  “I’m cold,” the junior whispered.

  Rada sighed, then reached down and hauled the young reptile onto the makeshift sleeping platform. The junior snuggled against the Wanderer’s chest and stomach and they drifted to sleep. When Huntsman Bala eased past on his way in from patrol, he shook his head at the sight of a commoner’s junior draping herself over the Lord Defender of Drakon IV, both lost in dreams.

  When her watch came, Rada gently removed the grey female from her chest, tucking the blanket around the sleeping junior and leaving her on the platform. I am such a sucker for children she thought as she took up her post. I just hope it doesn’t get us all killed. A pair of ts’tali trotted past on their way to water and Rada let herself relax a little. If the shy nocturnal browsers felt comfortable then there little chance existed that the enemy lurked nearby. No scents besides Azdhag and the normal forest smell drifted on the night wind and Rada heard nothing apart from the usual night sounds and the screech of a garbala claiming her prey.