David Weber - Hell's Gate

She jerked back, breaking contact with Olderhan to clutch at her temples and bending forward on the stretcher, hunched over with the torment in her head. And then she felt large, capable hands cradle her face. Fingers rubbed gently above her pounding temples, then moved down to her neck, where her muscles had knotted painfully. They massaged with surprising gentleness and skill, and she could sense Olderhan's genuine horror at the sudden onslaught of her pain, as well as his anxiousness to alleviate it.

That helped, as well, but her strength abruptly faded away to nothing. One moment, she was sitting up with Olderhan's fingers rubbing her neck; the next, she lay draped bonelessly against a broad chest once more, cheek pillowed against his shoulder yet again. She hated her own weakness. Hated the injuries that left her reeling in confusion, helpless to do anything.

She felt a tentative touch on her hair. The effort to use her Voice had scrambled her ability to sample his emotions once more, but he spoke to her, the words low and soothing, and it felt as if he were making vows of some sort. Promises to protect, or perhaps to defend; she couldn't grasp the nuances with no words or shared concepts, and with her Talent so crippled. Still, it was sufficiently reassuring to leave her limp against his shoulder, at least for the moment.

She'd rested against him for quite some time. She was actually drifting back towards sleep once more, when they were abruptly interrupted. A strange sound penetrated her awareness?a rhythmic flapping, like someone shaking out the largest carpet ever woven. Then someone shouted, and Olderhan responded with what sounded and felt like intense relief. He eased her back down onto the stretcher and hurried to the edge of the broad stream their camp had been pitched beside.

He stood there, peering out into the stream. But, no, she realized, that wasn't quite right. He was peering above the stream, with his head tipped back. He stared up at the stars, and the sound of shaken cloth was louder, much louder. Within moments, it had changed from rhythmic flapping to equally rhythmic thunder. A huge, black shadow swooped suddenly between Olderhan and the stars, then an overpressure of air blasted across the camp. The bonfires flared wildly as sparks, ash, and scattered autumn leaves flew before the whirlwind, and she jerked her gaze upward.

Scales, like a crocodile's armored hide in glowing, iridescent colors like shoaling fish. Immense wings, so thin the firelight glowed through them. Bats' wings the size of the sails on a ninety-foot twin-masted schooner. Claws, a foot-long and razor-sharp, glittering bronze as they reached down to grasp boulders in the stream when it landed. A long, sinuous neck, like a serpent twenty feet long, still as thick as her own torso where it met the triangular, adder-shaped head. Spikes, immense spikes, jutting out over eyes of crimson flame, and an eagle's beak of metallic bronze, sparkling in the wildly flaring firelight.

Its mouth opened, revealing rows of sickle-bladed teeth, and it was looking directly at her. Shaylar's wounded mind shrieked at her to run, even as she sensed an alien, inhuman presence behind those fiery eyes, malevolent and barely under control.

The nightmare apparition hissed. The sound was an angry steam-engine shriek, and Shaylar flinched back, drew breath to scream?

?and the man strapped to its neck spoke sharply. He emphasized his words with a jab from an implement that looked part-cattle prod and part-harpoon. It would have to be sharp, she realized through waves of unreasoning terror, to make itself?and its owner's displeasure?felt through hide that tough.

Wings rattled angrily, like agitated snakes, and the prod came down again, sharper and harder than before. The beast reared skyward and let out a shriek of rage that battered Shaylar's bleeding senses. She did scream, this time, and cowered down with both arms over her head?not to keep the creature's teeth off her neck, but to keep its fury out of her mind.

She heard men's voices raised in angry shouts and what sounded like bafflement. Someone touched her shoulder, and she flinched, then realized it was Gadrial. The other woman seemed as baffled as the men?baffled, surprised, still half-asleep. But she also seemed determined to interpose her own body between Shaylar and the enraged beast in the streambed if that was what it took to protect her.

Gadrial cradled Shaylar in a protective embrace, blinking in still-sleepy confusion and utterly perplexed. She'd never personally seen an angry dragon, but that was the only way to describe this one, and it was glaring unnervingly straight at her. Or, rather, she amended, at Shaylar. The injured young woman was trembling, and Gadrial spoke quietly, soothingly, stroking her hair while she felt the tremors rippling through that slender body. Fear had stiffened Shaylar's muscles so tightly the tremors were like an earthquake shaking solid stone.

She's been through too much in too little time, Gadrial thought grimly. No wonder she's all but hysterical!

Despite the distance to streambed's edge, Gadrial could hear Sir Jasak speaking with the dragon's pilot. They could probably hear him back at the base camp, she thought, and the pilot didn't look too happy at being on the receiving end of the … discussion. But then Jasak paused, hands on hips, head cocked, and the pilot shook his head.

"I've never seen Windclaw react like that, Sir," Muthok Salmeer said. "Never! He's an old fellow, smart as a transport dragon gets, with plenty of lessons in good manners. He's no war dragon, to be hissing at everyone but his pilot. He's spent his entire life in Transport and Search and Rescue work. It beats hell out of me, Hundred, and that's no lie. It's like he took one look at the girl there, and went berserk."

The squire's tone sounded as confused and upset as Jasak felt. It was obvious Salmeer was completely and totally perplexed, but the pilot had reacted quickly and decisively to his dragon's impossible-to-predict rage. That fact, coupled with his obvious concern, disarmed much of Jasak's initial fury.

The hundred made himself step back mentally and draw a deep breath. He glanced back at his prisoner, who sat huddled against Gadrial. Shaylar looked up, her face ashen as she risked a glance at Windclaw, then instantly pressed her face back against the magister, and he frowned as he got past his immediate reaction and started considering the implications of the dragon's behavior.

"That's … interesting, Muthok," he said after a moment, turning back to the pilot. "Damned interesting."

"You don't have any idea who they are, Sir?" Salmeer asked. "You could've knocked me down with a puff of air when that hummer message arrived, and that's a fact."

"No, we don't know who they are. But I intend to find out, and we won't do that if we lose them. The girl's hurt?I don't know how badly?but the man's critical. He won't last the night if we don't get him to a true healer, and some of my own men are almost as bad."

"Then it's a good thing I brought you one, Sir," Salmeer said with a smile. He gestured to the passengers still strapped to the saddles on the Windclaw's back, and Jasak's eyes followed the gesture. The dragon's reaction to Shaylar had kept him from paying much attention to Windclaw's other riders, but now his face lit with delight as he recognized Sword Morikan.

"Naf!"

"Good to see you on your feet, Sir," the healer replied. "And Muthok brought more than just me. I've got Vormak and two good herbalists riding the evacuation deck, and Traith and two more herbalists are waiting back at the base camp. Muthok needed to lighten Windclaw, and I figured it would be better to avoid doing any surgery we don't absolutely have to do out here. It's a hell of a lot warmer on that side of the portal, and we'll have tents to work in, as well."