Chapter 73 Ravel
RAVEL
"The first wave breaks not on stone, but on preparedness. To know the enemy is coming is to defeat them before they arrive."
—From the training manual of the Dragon Force Academy
The ground beneath my feet trembled and split.
A massive, segmented creature burst through, its ugly face punctuated with rows of grinding teeth.
It writhed upward, stretching toward the sky, and behind it poured out Shedun monsters, their faces painted with black tar and the red symbol of Elusitor stamped over the black paint on their foreheads.
They moved with unnatural stealth and speed, slithering toward the outskirts of Podana like a plague.
Where were the defenders?
Why weren't the watchtowers sounding the alarm?
Each household had at least one rifle for self-protection. If they knew there was danger, they would take precautions.
I tried to shout orders, to call for my squadron, but nothing came out.
I was mute, weaponless, and powerless. My gaze swept over the wall surrounding Podana, searching for the sentries who were supposed to patrol it, but there was no one there.
Had commando Shedun units eliminated them ahead of the invasion?
A lone figure hovered over the wall, not atop a dragon but just suspended in midair.
Kailin.
How was she doing that?
She turned toward me, her eyes reflecting her panic. Her lips moved, forming words I couldn't hear. I tried to get closer, straining to understand, when a massive tremor shook the ground. The earth split right outside the wall, toppling a large portion of it, and she disappeared.
Little Warrior...
"No!" I lunged forward, but the scene started to dissolve around me, and I realized it had been a nightmare.
I released a relieved breath.
"Ravel, wake up!" Onyx roared in my head, anchoring me further in the waking world.
I sat up with a gasp, my heart hammering against my ribs and sweat drenching my bedsheets, the lingering images of destruction clinging to me like smoke.
“It was just a nightmare,” I said to Onyx. “It felt so real, though.”
"You were sharing the dream with Kailin," Onyx said. "She is broadcasting it to me and every other dragon in this sector."
Before I could respond, the alarm blared, the high-pitched, unrelenting wail of the emergency system, and a moment later, General Lesten Zorian's voice echoed through the comm system in my room.
"This is General Zorian. All present wing commanders report to Mission Control immediately. All present riders of Fury Wing, prepare for an immediate deployment to Podana. You will receive instructions en route. This is not a drill. Elu's speed to all!"
My blood ran cold. Podana. Just like in my dream.
The Wrath Wing was deployed to the southern border with Sitoria this month, and the Sentinel Wing was always the backup, safeguarding the Citadel but ready to deploy if needed. The same was true for the Storm Wing.
A known Shedun tactic was to stage a diversionary attack in one spot while a larger force was sent to a different one. We could never send all our riders to one location, even if the breach was massive.
Besides, Podana had a large base of ground forces, who should be able to handle the Shedun or at least hold them back until we arrived.
As I bolted out of bed, what Onyx had said right before the General's announcement finally registered. “You and the other dragons were dream-sharing with Kailin.” Did she have a prophetic dream?
"Yes, except it isn't prophetic," Onyx said. "At least I don't think it is. Kailin is broadcasting events as they are happening in real time. It seems like she's touching the consciousness of a variety of animals, both on the ground and in the air, from within and around Podana."
I shook my head. “That shouldn't be possible. She will go mad from the sensory overload.”
I felt Onyx tense through our bond. "I hope our Little Warrior will survive this. She even reached Nyxath, who woke Saphir up. He told her to follow Kailin's projections and inform all the dragons to wake their riders, but you were already awake."
"I must have shared her dream somehow." I finished buttoning my uniform and grabbed my leather flight jacket.
"Yes. That's most unusual. I wonder if other riders shared it too."
If she was connecting with animals and birds, humans should be easy for her.
The implications were staggering, but there was no time to dwell on them. I zipped up my flight jacket and rushed out of my quarters, sprinting down the corridor. Other riders were already streaming toward the platforms, their grim expressions communicating what we all felt.
Commander Nyla Kestrel fell into step beside me. Her short, curly black hair was wild from sleep, but she was fully alert. "Any idea what's happening?" she asked.
Her dragon must have skimped on details when he'd woken her up. "Shedun," I said. "They're attacking Podana. I don't know what happened to all the sentries and patrols, but worms are breaching the surface all around the city. One made a big hole in the perimeter wall."
Nyla paled. "They must have overpowered the perimeter defense, taking them all out."
"We'll know more when we get there," I tried to reassure her, even though I feared her assessment was correct.
She narrowed her eyes at me. "We haven't been briefed yet. How do you know the details of the breach?"
"Kailin. Somehow, I must have tuned into what she was broadcasting to the dragons."
Her eyes widened. "She can do that?"
All members of the high command knew about Kailin's ability to communicate with dragons because of the tests we'd run, but no one could have anticipated her gift to be so powerful that it matched Nyxath's.
I nodded. "Apparently."
"I don't think any shaman in all of Elucia's history has been able to do anything like that," Nyla said. "Not even close."
"Evidently, Kailin can." I pushed open the doors into the Mission Control room.
The briefing was terse and confirmed what I already knew.
We were each assigned a quadrant of the city's perimeter and were dismissed with instructions to stand by for further updates.
It was clear that Saphir had communicated the scale and scope of the attack and the urgent need to stop it before it would become impossible to do so without massive civilian losses.
In all the decades I attended these pre-mission briefings, I never saw such worry-bordering-on-panic as the commanding officers present tried, and failed, to hide.
Dragons were landing on all platforms, while others hovered in the air, awaiting their turn.
We'd practiced emergency deployment protocols hundreds of times, so everyone knew what to do—dragons, riders, and the ground crews who were fitting harnesses, loading weapons, and preparing the dragons for battle.
Once the dragons collected their riders, they launched back into the air, and others landed immediately to get fitted and loaded. It was well-coordinated chaos.
I wondered if Kailin was still broadcasting a live viewing of the situation. "She is, and it doesn't look good," Onyx replied.
There was barely enough space between the incoming and outgoing air traffic to avoid collisions.
Onyx was already being fitted with his combat harness, the lightweight armor covering his most vulnerable areas. His golden eyes locked with mine as I walked over.
"General Zorian personally called General Bardaky, who is now overseeing the mobilization of all the ground forces stationed in the city," Onyx informed me. "They received no warning of the worms' approach."
The fact that General Zorian opted to personally call the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Elucian Forces in the middle of the night, based solely on a dream broadcasted by a first-year cadet, was a clear indication of Saphir's conviction that Kailin was broadcasting actual events.
In turn, the Chairman could call General Zorian from a landline in his office to inform him about the situation in the capital, but riders were dependent on their dragons, who got their updates from Nyxath.
Our atmospheric conditions made wireless communications impossible, so in the air, telepathic communication was the only way for the Dragon Force to get updates and coordinate missions.
Nyxath kept the channel to Saphir open so she could transmit information from Mission Control to our dragons and through them, to us.
"The squadron awaits your lead," Onyx said.
I had fifteen riders and dragons under my command, divided into three units of five.
All together, the Fury Wing had one hundred and forty-eight riders.
It was a formidable force, but dragons were not well suited for urban warfare, and on foot, riders were just like any other infantry soldiers.
In fact, we were probably not as good because we did most of our training in the air.
With a powerful thrust of his massive wings, Onyx launched from the platform, the cold night air rushing past as we climbed, joining the other dragons now getting in formation.
Major Lisha Merrick's position at the front of Alpha Section indicated our role as the vanguard of the response force. She gave the signal, and we proceeded with maximum speed.
Onyx's powerful wings beat hard, propelling us forward with such force that I had to brace against the harness. The rest of my squadron followed suit, and we were all streaking through the sky, a deadly arrow pointing toward Podana.
I hoped Kailin was seeing into the future and not what was happening right now, so we would have time to stave off the Shedun attack.
Dragons were devastating weapons in open terrain, but nearly useless in densely populated areas.
We couldn't use dragfire without civilians getting caught in it.
If the Shedun made it past the outskirts and into residential neighborhoods, we would have to dismount and fight alongside the ground troops, losing our greatest advantage.