Where’s the dragon? and there it was, arrowing down out of the sun. Daniel’s impeller was still in his left hand. He sat up, ignoring the pain, and threw the gun to his shoulder. He didn’t aim after all because what looked like a pound of mud was clumped over the muzzle. It filled the bore just as sure as that dragon was going to eat them all if somebody didn’t have a bright idea fast.
The aircar’s front fan howled and bucked, shoving its intakes down into the soggy soil. Each time it stalled and unclamped, then repeated the cycle as soon as it sucked in another gulp of air. Hogg was caught underneath, only his head and torso free. From the curses he was shouting he hadn’t even had the breath knocked out of him, but he’d lost his gun.
Valentina was on the ground behind the aircar, unconscious or at least unmoving. She’d had the yoke to cling to so she hadn’t come loose when Daniel did. Instead she’d been flung a good twenty yards in the opposite direction when the vehicle flipped. Where the Count himself was remained beyond immediate conjecture, but Daniel hadn’t had much hope there anyway.
Which left Daniel Leary without a bright idea to his name. He stepped forward holding his impeller by the barrel and wheezing, “Come here and let me bash your head in, snake!” Creatures with compound eyes saw motion more easily than shapes, so the dragon ought to ignore the remainder of the aircar’s passengers.
The dragon had been stooping on the overturned vehicle. Sure enough it twisted in the air, supple as an earthworm, and kicked out with its powerful hind legs to clutch its victim. It overshot Daniel, unused to its prey coming toward it.
The dragon’s feet had three toes, two forward and one back, each armed with a glittering black talon as long as a man’s hand.The left dew-claw caught the back of Daniel’s tunic as he lunged into the club he was swinging. The hook jerked him into a backward somersault before the tough fabric parted.
Daniel rolled to his feet. The dragon tore great divots as it hit the ground and twisted with the supple grace of a strangler’s noose. It’d folded the wings on its neck and torso, but the back portion remained fully spread; it was using its tail as an oar to brace the striking beak. Adele was right: they’re individual feathers. . . .
Daniel swung the gun at the creature’s head. It was too quick for him: the beak, a foot long and sharp as a meathook, clamped on the receiver.
The dragon gave a quick jerk, probably intended to break what it thought was the neck of the creature it’d grabbed. Daniel didn’t lose his grip on the weapon’s barrel, but the dragon’s strength whipped his feet off the ground before slamming him down again. He continued to hold the gun, but only by instinct. The last impact had knocked all conscious will out of him.
Still with the gun in its beak, the dragon took a deliberate step forward. Its breath had the enveloping stench of anaerobic decay. Its fist-sized, multi-lensed, eyes glittered like jewels a few inches from Daniel’s face as it prepared to place its other foot in the middle of his back and pull him apart.
Steel flashed in the air. The hilt of Hogg’s folding knife stood out from the center of the dragon’s left compound eye. The five-inch blade was buried in the bundled optic nerves.
The dragon launched itself skyward. The wing on the creature’s left side flared stiffly, but feathers on the right half fluttered without strength. The dragon curved in the air and smashed down, splashing the wet soil. Its left leg was kicking and its beak gnashed the air.
The whack!whop! of a powerful impeller firing into a nearby target startled Daniel more than he’d thought he had the energy for right at the moment. The dragon’s skull deformed; half the upper beak and a splash of brains flew off in the humid air.
Daniel turned his head. Count Klimov held his gun to his shoulder. He fired three more times, the recoil of each round rocking him back. He was walking the slugs down the dragon’s spine, breaking it into segments which trembled in separate rhythms. The creature was no longer a danger, even by accident.