Dragon Queen (Avery Rome Book 3) Read online

  Still, one of the things started to blink, showing what to do. It nearly made sense, actually. Not everyone in the space inside had a shield on, however. In fact, only three of them did. Of the relaxed ones, only two of them had that set up.

  Waving them back, moving slowly and trying to calm her own breathing, she waved for the others to follow along. Going away from where they needed to go.

  When they were far enough to stop a Bat Shifter from easily working out what they were saying, she leaned in and whispered to the men.

  “A three-pronged attack. Can you dive through the roof, wearing shields? It will hurt the people inside, but so will going through the stone wall. I think, if you can dive from high enough and just drop, you might do it. The speed didn’t look fast enough…”

  “We can do that. These can go a few thousand miles per hour, in the atmosphere. We need to hit going about a hundred and seventy, I think.” Will looked at the other man. “I have a healing amulet on me. We can do this, then start repairing the injured. We might lose some.” There was a coldness to him that hadn’t been there the entire time they’d known each other. Almost as if his emotions had just turned off.

  A thing that she needed to emulate.

  “I’ll go in, pretending to be a student. I’ll try to get them to shoot me. When they do, that will be your sign to move.” It would hurt and a head shot could kill her. It was still more likely that she’d live through it than a sitting Human.

  Rolling his eyes a bit, Will dug under his shirt.

  “I carry five of the things on me, just in case something like this comes up. Forgive me, but I forgot, earlier. I should have… Really, I should have outfitted everyone last night. I’ll grovel later?”

  She didn’t need that, nodding just to get him to shut up faster, while putting the thing on. Then she put it to her lips and kissed it, so it would activate. It was clear that flying would be out, and that she could push past it in the right circumstance. The magic would dance form her skin. The thing there was that, like the clothing she had on, it didn’t try to touch her, just hovering over her gently. It might or might not help, given all of that.

  “We need to move, quickly. I don’t know what the plan is on the other side. I bet waiting won’t help though.”

  The Elder looked at her, but didn’t claim it wasn’t her fight, or anything stupid like that.

  “Go. We’ll await your signal. Then move in instantly, as one.”

  She nodded, getting them both to fly upward, hovering at about three hundred feet above the roof to the place. Then, jogging, she worked her way toward the door, stopping when she got there. She tried the door, which was hinged to open inward. It was blocked, or possibly locked, which didn’t really stop her. Giving it the palm of her hand knocked it in a bit too firmly. That created a loud sound of splintering wood and a few gasps from the students inside.

  What it didn’t do was have her shot.

  Instead there were just two men, looking the same as the other attackers, standing there with military grade weapons. Staring at her. Instead of shooting, which they should have done out of fright if nothing else. She could actually feel the impact of their regard, which was eerie.

  The one near the front spoke first, his words odd in tone. Like they were hollow and slightly tinny.

  Also, and helpfully, they were in English.

  “Get in here! Hands up, or I’ll shoot!”

  She held her hands up, then shouted in Standard, just in case the men didn’t speak that. After all, they hadn’t started out in that language with her.

  “Dive!”

  It was better than yelling go, since that was the same word in both languages. Dive was different however. Deera, in Standard. She managed to sound scared and pretended to shy away while she screamed the word, but wasn’t hit with bullets at all. Not even when the ceiling exploded and the real fight started. Rushing in she moved to help Count Lairdgren first, in case he lacked superior strength or speed. If that was the case, then everyone there was incredibly strong and fast. She should have realized that when the man had kept up with her as she ran. Nearly.

  He fought like a younger man, but a smart one, using the weapon he had. That killed his Larval before the debris from the ceiling hit the ground. The other attacker managed to work out something and instead of targeting Will, who was to his left by about fifteen feet, he aimed at the crowd of students.

  That had one of them, who looked like an old woman, springing up as she moved toward the Larval. It was incredibly smooth. Not as fast as Avery could have done it, but the man had to look over for a second, seeing the movement. Getting the idea, Avery ran and then jumped over the sitting people, which got her hit with a stream of bullets. Except they didn’t smash into her, they just stopped, even as she flew through the air. Her body crashing firmly into the man on the far side.

  The air rippled and distorted around him then, space and probably time, bending in a weird manner. The man tried to move at her, still firing as she closed with him. A dozen hands reached out, at the same time, the world screaming in pain as it happened.

  Avery wasn’t the cleverest person in the world. She also wasn’t stupid and had been drilled for years on what to do if she encountered something she couldn’t explain. It was always the same thing, if you were in a fight. Being a Shifter Mercenary meant that, at times, you might have to go up against things you simply weren’t ready for. That meant they’d learned a clever trick, which could defeat almost anything.

  “Run! Everyone out, away from the threat. I don’t know what he’s doing!”

  Interestingly, it was the older lady who repeated what she was saying. All of it was in Standard.

  “Go! Move away. He can’t follow easily in this state.”

  What he could do was fire bullets at them, which had Avery and Will both moving in. The old woman did as well, her skin warping as it happened. As the man moved toward them, there were a hundred grunts. At least it sounded like that. Not screams of pain though. Just the sound of snapping bones and a small reaction to it. No more than a tightening of the stomach muscles would cause. They each moved back, while the Count stood in the doorway, after getting the last of the students out of the room.

  “Make him come to us. I think he’s out of rounds. His legs are breaking when he moves. We can wear him down, I think. The distortion is growing still.” Which caused a strange thing to happen. All of the limbs were black covered at first, but then a few of them started to work out into other shades. Charcoal, then blue. Finally, a few of them looked to belong to women.

  Still, with every single step, there was more grunting and finally screams as things shattered. The blur that was the attacker left the shadow of fallen people behind him. Trying to move forward, in order to kill them all. It didn’t work.

  Finally the effect stopped and the assassin fell to the ground, then evaporated into a cloud of smoke. It was black, but shimmered as it rose, then vanished into nothingness. Or, she realized following it with her mind, into another world. A specific one, she thought.

  “There… Will, can you track that? It’s going… I don’t have it.”

  He stared, the world actually warping around him as he focused, trying to follow along with his mind. The odd part there was that the others, the Count and the very white woman, who had pearl colored skin now, instead of just being pale, both seemed to be looking at the effect.

  No one moved for a long time, but finally there was a soft sigh, and the bending was released.

  “I have them. I can follow that to their world. We need to get to the students, and treat them, if they’re injured. You too, Doris. Here, healing amulet.”

  He passed that over, the woman seeming composed, but also clearly injured. Some of her limbs were bending the wrong direction, and she had several deep bullet wounds, even though they weren’t bleeding very much.

  Taking the device she tapped it on, not making any noise at all as things inside of her clicked back together. There
was a strange smell in the room, like burning meat. No complaints came however. Not even as the wounds closed up, doing so inside a few moments.

  The Count had moved outside, which Doris did as well, just as soon as she was mainly healed.

  There were students still there, waiting. One of them, a rather plain looking boy, who was probably about fourteen, had gotten a stick from somewhere and was standing next to the door, ready to strike if either of the Larval tried to come out. He had a large wooden shard through his right shoulder. It was broken on the front side, showing that it was the other portion of the weapon he held.

  “They’re dead. One vanished after he died. The other lost his head. We should check on the body.” That, it turned out, was also gone. She just hadn’t noticed it before.

  Looking at her the boy tried to take a deep breath.

  “I was so scared. I couldn’t understand them, but Instructor Doris said they were killers from the past?”

  Avery didn't say anything. She just didn’t know.

  The older woman spoke then, her voice relaxed and calm, even as she healed.

  “That’s right, Negant. These are Larval Assassins, but using weapons that I haven’t seen the like of in over two thousand years. Given what’s been going on, I’d have to guess that they’re actually from a different reality. One similar to ours, but not the same. Thank you all, for coming. I wasn’t able to raise the alarm. They followed the sign, from the transport system. Luckily it was daytime.”

  She didn’t get that, but Will did.

  “Right. At night it would have taken them to Diana. I need to find her, she’s probably in class. I know where her room is, though.”

  The students who were injured were all getting help, except the one that held the stick in his bleeding hands. The others all stood back from him, which didn’t make much sense. Surely there were others there who had injuries that looked pretty bad as well.

  When she moved toward him, the boy tried to hit her with the stick. It stopped in the air, so she batted it away, trying to be gentle about it.

  “It’s all right. We need to get you healed up. Here… Do we have one of those devices ready?”

  Doris came over then and nodded, even as the boy tried to hit Avery in the head with his fist. Again, the move hovered in the air, stopped by her magical shield. That was kind of useful, she decided.

  The older woman bowed slightly, and spoke with a perfectly calm voice.

  “Combat rage. He still needs to heal. I don’t suppose you could knock him out? He’ll probably keep fighting, otherwise. Don’t use the shield though. It will hit like stone, if you do.”

  That made sense. Avery stepped back, then had to work carefully to take the amulet and kiss it, in order to turn it off. Moving in and hitting the boy softly on the jaw ended the current issue well enough. Magic danced over her skin as it happened. From the feeling that was coming from the boy himself. It felt like pushing through the wall of one of the red huts. That probably meant the kid was generating a shield of his own.

  Negant, the boy, dropped to the floor then, unconscious.

  “Good. Now, I’ll set him up to heal, and you pull the splinter out? On three. One, two, three.” The last word wasn’t yelled. In fact the whole thing was done in a perfectly calm tone of voice.

  She got the piece of wood out of the way in time though, thankfully.

  The healing magic they had really worked well, after all. Nearly as well as changing form would have. If anything had been left inside of him, it might have been trapped in place. It was better to avoid doing that, if they could.

  Chapter thirteen

  Avery had kind of figured that her vacation would be over, after the attacks. That, at the very least, Willum would be called away to help search out those that had sought to harm innocent school students. That didn’t happen at all. Instead several people came to them from the transport pod. Each dressed in slick looking black armor. That reminded her a little of an insect’s shell, but a few of them were clearly ladies, given that they had a different body shape than the men.

  One of those moved forward, raising a hand that held a strange looking long tile in it. He was one of the men, clearly. Which one, Avery had no clue, until the voice came out.

  It was the man from earlier, Timon. At least the voice sounded right to her for that.

  “We got here as soon as possible. I didn’t… Crud, there was another attack?” The face plate had eye coverings, making that part invisible. There was a mesh in front of the mouth, so that air could get in. Also, so that they could speak, clearly.

  She went first, speaking in Standard, since that was the language there for everyone but her.

  “Probably part of the same attack. We have guards doing a search for the attackers. They left in a space craft, moving upward in…” She had to focus to remember it, but pointed at what she thought was the correct portion of the blue sky. “That direction. Will thinks that it wasn’t a jump ship. That probably means there are at least four people who escaped. The three we saw and the pilot. Then there were two in here. They vanished into smoke. That…” She didn’t know how to explain that part of things. It was a lack of vocabulary, more than anything else.

  Her new friend, Willum, took a slow, but deep breath.

  “They vanished into a different reality. I was able to trace the second one, so we can go there. That probably isn’t the best idea yet, but it’s an option, if it comes up.” There was a strange sense to his words. It tasted like eagerness, but that didn’t come across in his body language at all.

  The very tall man looked around, only to have another man who was about the same size close with them.

  “So, if they follow the Larval pattern, then there should be seven of them in an attack pod. How many they have over all are an unknown. The problem with the ones here was twofold, driving them to madness. Having too many of them linked at one time can do that. They’d also been sabotaged, having a different personality placed inside of all of them as well. King Cordes, the first.” It was informative, even if it didn't make total sense.

  Thinking for a bit, she, slowly, formed an information grid inside her mind. It was part of her lessons, even if it didn’t always help immediately. Sometimes just knowing that she didn't have enough information to form an opinion was a good thing. Otherwise she, and probably everyone, tended to jump to conclusions, which could be wrong.

  It would have been simple enough to do that in this case, for instance.

  “We can’t count on any of that, really. We… What’s needed here?”

  She looked over at Willum, since he was her fellow line walker and contact for the area.

  After a moment, in which he was clearly thinking, there was a smile.

  “We need Lady Sin in here. I can go and get her now, I think? I was coming to get some English-speaking guides for our guests…” That had him looking at a few of the people, one of whom stepped forward. This one was a woman, from the shape of her body.

  “I can do that. Tim, if you aren’t needed for this other thing? I know that you work with Ambassador Mableton a lot. Tor, you have that language as well. Then, well, we have the kids, Dumas and Clemance. I don’t know how dangerous things are at the moment. Should we send these others home? I don’t wish to ruin their fun.”

  Since the words were close to what Avery had been considering herself, she didn’t feel put out by the idea. It was, strangely enough, the Count who moved over, shaking his head a bit.

  “I don’t think it will be needed? This was a real attack effort, but notice, it wasn’t meant to be instantly lethal. Nearly like a test, or perhaps a goad. Those running it fled, once they saw that their techniques weren’t going to work, in the first case. The others died, but we didn’t give them a chance to do anything but that. The last one was… Well, to be honest, Avery Rome set the pace there. She had us back away from him, as he… Did something? I can’t really recall that part.”

  She could, so covered the who
le thing, with Will and Doris, the old woman, making minor corrections at times. It seemed that they were, more or less, on the same page that way.

  After they stopped, one of the men, who had been standing back, dropped the armor, letting it turn to smoke. That left him naked for a moment, until magical clothing appeared. It was just the same brown trousers and loose top that Avery had on, with matching boots.

  “I see. That was fast thinking then. The Adversaries can’t fight using their best tricks and move at the same time. From the sound of things you burnt through hundreds of them, before the original simply died, probably killing himself in his eagerness to fight. That proves that one at least as being strong and mentally tough, if ultimately foolish. Trapped there though, so he probably had to take the chance. Otherwise you would have killed him anyway.”

  The man, who was good looking and not very old, got waved at by Will.

  “Avery, this is Dareg Canton. Prince of Harmony and the secret king of Mars, though he won’t admit to it. Also a wizard and actually not a horrible person, if you can believe that? Dare, this is Avery Rome. Line walker, like we are. Dragon Shifter. Also, an incredible seamstress. Her last outfit, a thing of her own making, was destroyed in the first fight. So far she hasn’t spoken of us repaying her for it, which is good, since we’d be out thousands of golds for it.”

  That was being too generous about her work, which had been decent, but not of that quality. She didn’t get him to take it back though, given that he probably had a reason for what he was going on about.

  Dareg moved forward, stopping about six feet from her, and bowed, going about halfway down. She did it back, which had most of the others doing the same basic thing.

  Then, almost as one, they all changed from the matching armor into a variety of clothes. All in different styles. That meant there were more introductions to be had. Will waved at his cousin then.

  “Dare, can you do this? I need to go and see if I can get Cindy in, if at all possible. Checking things like this is her power, more or less. I might be a bit, given the time differences, so, I can meet you back at the camp site? Avery knows the way. Just go to Pine Creek first.”