An Egg for a Sword

Regan’s chewing tobacco pinged against the spittoon. The stuff tasted awful, though not so awful as to send him back to the smokes. Gods, he wanted one though.

“Another?” asked the barman.

“Aye.”

The old fellow obliged, moustache bristling as he sloshed out another measure. Regan swished the cheap whiskey in his mouth, let it subsume one bad taste with another.

He peered about the saloon. It was a particularly dusty, particularly empty hole, even by frontier standards. Flies buzzed lazily in the midday heat and the smell of horse droppings wafted through the swinging doors. A miniature lion with a matted mane dozed atop the piano, its feet kicking in a feline dream.

Outside, the dragon roared. Again. He figured it was making another pass over the settlement proper. Flying low but not low enough for the hunt. Strange that. Stranger still that he had gotten used to it.

“You from out of town?”

Regan rolled his eyes. “Yes.”

“Is that what I think it is?” The barman nodded at Regan’s katana, his old eyes as covetous as they were wary.

“Depends what you think it is.”

“An atomic blade. A Smythe original.”

Regan rested the weapon on his lap. A white handle and matte black sheathe. A thing of loathsome beauty. A thing he could not let go. “Did you serve, old timer?”

“Second Expansion.”

“Third Suppression for me. Whiskey?”

The barman poured. “They were only just starting out with that sort of gear in my time. Never got to use it in the regulars.”

“No. Not in the regulars.”

“You were special forces? Augmented?”

Regan shot back the whiskey. It wasn’t quite so terrible now. “They de-activate the augments when you discharge.”

“But they let you keep the sword?” He raised bushy eyebrows, became more owl than man in his incredulity. “I bet that thing would cut through a steel beam.”

Regan scoffed. Who would want to cut through a beam? “Aye,” he said. “It’s sharp. A bullet’s quicker though.” He patted his revolver, smiled as the next glass was filled unbidden.

“So what brings you here?” the barman asked. “Few prospects for a veteran in these parts.”

Regan’s first inclination was to ignore the question, his second to deflect and his third to straight up lie. The whiskey, however, had other ideas. He pointed upwards. “You heard that fucker flying around?’

“No,” he said wryly. “My ears are ornamental.”

The ensuing roar was timely, if somewhat more distant than the one before. “Dragon eggs.”

The barman refilled. “Dangerous business that. Reckless.”

“Ha! More like boring and stupid. I spent two months scrabbling about that mountain. Digging through the bastard’s leftovers, through its scat.”

“You could have been eaten.”

Regan drank. “Do you know how many different roosts it has?”

“No. I do know there are easier ways to make money.”

“Like what?”

“Prospecting?”

“Nah.”

“Mercenary. Plenty of outfits looking for talent.” The barman clicked his fingers. “You’d get snapped up real quick.”

Talent. The word triggered a flashback. One filled with murder and blood and berserker lust. Oh he had talents. He would burn for them.

“Yeah, well, it’s not always about money is it?”

The barman bestowed another measure. “What then?”

“I met a warlock. Real weirdo.”

“Obviously.”

“Obviously. Reckons he can give me a fresh start.”

“How’s that?”

Regan tapped his temple. “The memories, man! All that shit, all that sin. Reckons he can wipe it clean. Just needs a dragon’s egg.”

The barman watched him finish the shot. “You want to lose your memory? How does that work? Would you even be you anymore?”

Regan wouldn’t have minded that. To be someone else. “I’ll still be me. Only without the gods damned night terrors.”

“Must be bad. Only madmen and fools deal with warlocks.”

The dragon’s roar was the faintest echo, mournful and on the very cusp of hearing. The miniature lion hissed in its sleep.

Regan stood up, swooned. He didn’t like whiskey but it sure made him feel good. “I’ve been called both, friend. What do I owe you?”

The barman slapped a cloth over his shoulder. “You leaving town?”

“Why’s that?” Regan slung his katana and satchel, wary despite his inebriation. A tongue should only get so loose after all “What’s it to you?”

The barman looked left and right as if they weren’t the only ones in the saloon. “Nothing to me. Just figured... Never mind.”

Regan took the bait. “Come on, man. Don’t do me like that.”

“The dragon egg. Someone beat you to it.”

“...”

“You heard of Wade Whitley?”

Regan leaned over the bar, his patience as stretched as his interest was piqued. “No.”

“His gang found the egg about three months back. They’ve been keeping it down low, on account of the bounty on their heads. Pretty hard to find a buyer when you’re living in the wood.”

“Outlaws. What did they do?”

The barman shrugged. “A little misunderstanding with the last sheriff. They’re veterans too.”

“Reckon they’ll sell?”

Those old eyes settled on the katana. “Reckon they might trade.”

Another trigger. Another flashback. Another village burning. Another tribe consigned to death and slavery by Regan and his fellow ‘elites.’ The ‘inhuman savages...’ Their screams been human enough.

“You alright?” asked the barman.

Regan shook himself. “How many in this gang?”

“Five.”

“Not many.”

“Like I said. Trouble with the sheriff.”

Regan mulled it over. Gangs were hardly a rarity in these parts but they never lasted long. That life tended to cull the weak and the unlucky. Five though... He doubled it for safety’s sake, figured that ten was still manageable.

“Can you set up a meeting?”

The barman nodded. “I’d need your word on the sword. You’ll trade?”

Regan caressed the sheathe. The instrument of his damnation. “Yes,” he said finally. “I’ll trade.”

The dragon roared.

*

The meeting point was an abandoned fossicker’s camp about half-a-day’s ride from town. Nestled at the foot of the mountain and the edge of the wood, right where the plains met the river, it marked the juncture of four distinct landscapes.

Regan had passed through here before, though he had spied no sign of recent habitation. The tin sheds were gutted, their wooden frames left to rot and the tanks and troughs to rust. Tufts of rope and cloth and chemical comprised the remaining detritus.

Regan let his stallion drink from the shallows before tethering him. He checked his revolver and both daggers, his bullet belt and sword. He adjusted his breast plate and leather jacket. He ate jerky and sipped water, doffing and donning his hat as he surveyed the scene.

The sky was burnt purple, its complexion warped by the rare concurrence of the red sun and the blue. The mountain was snow capped in spite of the late spring thaw, its peak a receding white atop the craggy brown. Pine trees spackled the slopes, growing in number and density and size the lower the eye went. The wood was comprised of yet more pine, though Regan spotted firs and yews and at least two kinds of cedar. It made him think of the warlock and his arcane knowledge, his unnatural connection to nature.

“Bloody warlock,” he muttered. “Bloody dragon’s eggs.”

He looked back the way he had come. The dirt road was obscured against the wend of the river’s grey, its route obscured by the plains. These were mostly green, verdant with buffalo and field raptors, unmarred save for the township’s smoke plumes.

The crunch of boots turned him about.

“Regan, is it?”

The newcomers were typical. Dirty and bearded and lean. Leather armour and leather coats. Horses festooned with pots and furs and all manner of accoutrement. They carried rifles and pistols, machetes and hatchets and at least one had the stench of possession.

They numbered eleven, twelve if one included the juggernaut at the rear. Pin eyed and crowned with a foot-high Mohawk, it was naked bar for a loin cloth and a spiked shoulder pauldron. Musclebound and nine feet tall, it carried a war hammer in one hand, a bastard sword in the other. Just how they got the thing and its control rune would have been a story in itself.

Regan picked out the leader by the quality of his coat. “Wade Whitley I presume.”

The outlaw dismounted, lit up a smoke as the others picketed their mounts. “Right you are.”

“Barman said there were five of you.”

Whitley shrugged. “Barman’s a codger.”

The gang formed up slowly, some pissing where they stood, others simply posturing before the juggernaut’s presence. Regan sized them up in turn, decided then and there who would get the bullet and who would get the blade.

He knew how this would play out, had known the moment the barman had dangled the carrot. Still, it was worth a try. Pa – curse his soul - had taught him that much. First talk nice. Then talk mean. Then fight if you have to.

“Can I see the egg?”

Whitley lifted his chin at the fellow beside him. “Show him, Nate.”

Nate pulled what looked to be a bundle of silk from his saddlebag and unravelled it, eyes agleam as he stared into the heart of the egg. It was just as the warlock had said. An inner light and glass-like shell, alive and swirling with colour. Beautiful.

Regan indulged in a moment’s pause, hypnotised even at this distance. “How’d you get it?”

“Beast whistle.” Whitley brandished the small bone tube that hung on his necklace. “Had a shaman tune it for the dragon. Distracted her with it, took the prize.”

Nate bundled the egg back up, cradled it close as a baby.

“Well,” said Regan, “wish I’d thought of that.”

“What do you want it for?”

“To forget. I’ll trade you my sword for it.”

“I considered that,” said Whitley. “Turns out you were dumb enough to come alone.”

Regan sighed. “You sure you want to die?” He gripped the weapon by the centre of the sheathe and raised it slow, held it still before spinning it in an ostentatious flourish.

Nate muttered something beneath his breath, something arcane and guttural and unclean. He was the one then. The one with the stench of a demon’s hex. That would be a problem.

“Drop the katana,” said Whitley, “get on your horse and leave. Simple.”

Well that was it then. Regan pulled the sheathe away, exalted as the length of the blade burst into life. White hot and shimmering, its edge was honed to the width of a single atom. Or so said the folks at Smythe.

A moment later and his augments were activated. Feral energy infused him, made him faster and stronger and utterly fearless. The air warped about his person, clung to him like a wet film. A red mist overlaid his vision.

The bullets flew. Two from Regan’s revolver and the rest from Whitley and his gang. The outlaw leader moved viper quick and so avoided the kill shot. The one behind died in his stead, the one to the left fell in a screaming heap.

Regan ran at an angle and emptied his revolver in the preordained order. One, two, three then four – the riflemen at the edges – dead before their comrades had let off a second round.

Molten lead pinged off coat and cuirass and skin, utterly deflected by the augments’ energy field. From toe-tip to finger those wires traced the length of his skeleton, enlivening and enraging in equal measure. He closed the gap in time for the third volley, flung a knife at the nearest man’s eye and lopped Whitley’s pistol hand at the wrist.

Then he was among them, a tempest of slashing murder amidst so much turgid mundanity. Four more perished before Nate sprouted horns and demon’s wings. With the egg clutched close he launched at Regan. A banshee’s scream and razor claws. And fast. So fast. Regan slashed and parried and countered, carved away chunks of sulphuric carapace even as those talons raked him from shoulder to navel. He kicked out and gathered energy, unleashed it in a two-handed swing. Nate’s demon-head parted from his neck. Blood and oil fountained from the stump, the body shrivelling as that infernal possessor went screaming into the ether.

Regan fingered the tear in his breast plate and spat blood. It had been a long time since someone had hurt him.

He glanced at the juggernaut. The thing stared straight ahead, impassive and unthinking. Until it wasn’t.

Whitley’s good arm rose up from the charnel heap that had been his men, a glowing rune clutched between bloody fingers. “Attack!”

Regan moved fast and aimed for the throat. The creature’s bastard sword came up, caught the strike dead. Blade bit blade, the sharper and smaller katana cutting a deep notch in the heavy alloy. Regan twisted and yanked but failed to pull it free. He let go, was booted flush in the chest. He rolled with the blow, came up in a crouch, heart leaping as the juggernaut moved with a speed that defied both logic and intuition. The war hammer smashed him in the ribs, sent him crumpling in a heap as his augments began to power down.

Dazed but not confused, Regan looked to the purple sky and reflected for the briefest of moments. The tribes had been fierce but not fierce enough. What if they had owned a juggernaut. An elite. He should never have joined the bloody army.

That wall of automaton flesh stood over him, his katana – his Smythe original atomic blade – still stuck in its ugly bastard sword, its war hammer raised for the killing blow.

It appraised him with lifeless eyes. Those eyes shifted, blinking once as a greater shadow fell over the camp. There was a roar and the rush of fetid air, a smell that was serpentine and oily and otherworldly. There was a wall of flame, a firestorm so complete that the juggernaut simply winked into ash.

Regan curled in a ball, cocooned himself in dirt and the remnants of his augments’ field. He rode out the inferno, gasping what dregs its burn had left behind.  He opened his eyes, felt them bulge as a hot wind granted another him breath. The earth quaked. The dragon walked over him, its belly white and ponderous and never ending. When finally the tail slid through the ashes and the wake he saw it in full relief.

A head the size of a wagon upon a neck five times as long. A lizard’s torso and wings that covered the span of the camp and then some. It looked somehow green and gold and red all at once. Its diamond-shaped scales scintillated and confounded.

Regan sat up on his elbows, gaped as the dragon began to snuffle about the bodies. Smoke streamed from its nostrils, flared as it hovered above Nate’s corpse. The egg... Cracked and spilled, the yolk and membrane spread about the ichor of bad men.

The dragon raised its head and unleashed its sorrow. Such a roar... It went beyond hearing, beyond sound, and yet the meaning was clear. It vibrated through Regan, through his body and his very soul.

My child, it said. My heart. My love.

Thar roar hinted at eternity, though when it stopped it left a silence as profound as any Regan had known.

The dragon gathered its bulk and whatever magical energies permitted it flight. It spread its wings and coiled, pausing to lock its serpent’s eye with Regan’s. Then it leapt for the sky.

*

Whitley was still alive. Fair play to that. An outlaw leader ought to be tough. “You want me to end it?” Regan asked. “Better that than bleeding out.”

The outlaw’s eyes widened, and he seized Regan’s collar with a surprisingly strong grip. “Barman said... augments... deactivated.”

Regan batted the hand away and snatched the beast whistle in one go. “They deactivate them when you discharge. Not when you desert.”

Whitley’s laugh became a bloody cough. “Strap my wound,” he rasped. “Save... me.”

Regan pilfered the man’s tobacco pouch, savoured that sweet aroma before rolling a smoke. “Why?”

“Trade.”

“Trade what?”

“Another... egg. Check my... saddle.”

Now that was a pleasant aside. Not one horse had been shot or burned. Even so, Whitley’s mount was skittish to the touch. Sure enough though, he found the second egg. Like the one before it was wrapped in silk and like the one before it swirled with colour and stirred the soul. It entranced.

Regan wrapped it back up and returned to Whitley. He took the man’s belt and wrapped the stump that had been his pistol hand. Pointless, but then a deal was a deal.

“Take me... with you! Take me... to town. I have... gold!”

Regan studied the man’s ashen features. He wouldn’t make it. “Here,” he said, and placed the egg on his chest. “Look at that.”

Regan took away the cloth and lingered a moment, staring first at the catatonic outlaw then the egg itself. There was life there, a sweet fragility that struck away what was left of his old convictions.

He turned away lest the egg subsume him, shuddered as he inhaled the cigarette’s mundane humours. “My Pa never did much good, Whitley, but he knew how to sound wiser than he was. He said you can’t undo old wrongs. You can’t run from them. You can’t... forget.”

Whitley gargled something unintelligible. Not long now.

“He said you can only make new rights. Does that make sense, Whitley?”

Silence.

“Ah, Whitley. You should have made the trade.”

Regan looked to the skies but saw no dragon, heard no roar, though he figured it couldn’t have gone far. He raised the whistle and blew, felt the call peel out a note that transcended human hearing and language. He felt its meaning.

Come on, girl. Come and make it right.