hands. “Poof! Instant H-bomb.”
“Jesus Christ,” Craig said. Then he looked out over the dust-filled
valley. “Jesus H. Fucking Christ on a goddamn rubber crutch!”
“Hey, that was nothing. The castle’s shields took most of the blast so we
only got a little of it. And the best part is that the spell to compress
that water is so simple I can make my H-bombs any size I want. A hundred
megatons, two hundred, even a thousand megatons, no problem.”
Craig leaned against the battlement to ease his shaky knees. “That’s some
water balloon. You ought to put one of those things in the nose of an
ICBM.”
“ICBMs? We don’ need no steenkin’ ICBMs. Combine that with the
teleportation spell. What do you think would happen if you shoved a mother
big bomb down into the planet’s crust?”
“Jesus,” Craig breathed. “You could sink half a continent!”
Mikey’s smile grew wider. “If you do it right you should smash the world.”
He looked out past Craig, past the fortress and past the dissipating
cloud.
“The whole fucking world,” he repeated dreamily.
Thirty-three: A FRIGHTENED DRAGON
In spite of the night’s activities, Karin and Mick got an early start.
Mick caught a quick bath in the freezing stream at first light while Karin
spent time with Stigi. Then they set out on the hunt as dawn turned the
sky red.
The pickings weren’t as easy as they had been. The dinosaurs had learned
to be wary of the humans and keeping Stigi fed now involved more stalking.
Fortunately Karin was adept at hunting with a bow.
Still it was nearly noon before they found a likely looking herd and moved
into position downwind for the stalk.
Karin was just sizing up the situation when a second sun blossomed in the
northern sky. In an instant the world turned overexposed blue-white with
stark black shadows, as if a gigantic flashbulb had gone off behind them.
“Get down!” Mick yelled and pulled Karin down beside him.
“What . . .” The dragonrider tried to look back toward the source of the
flash, but Gilligan reached out and forced her head down.
“Don’t look! Keep your head down and close your eyes.”
“I . . .” Karin begin, but her voice was drowned out when the shock wave
hit.
Gilligan pressed his face into the dirt and screamed at the top of his
lungs as the wall of dust and flying debris passed over them. The wind
yanked at his flight suit and the wind-driven sand stung his exposed skin.
He kept his head down and his eyes screwed shut until the gale ceased.
When he opened his eyes Karin was staring at him in shock. She tried to
get up but at that instant the ground shock wave hit them and she was
knocked first to her knees and then flat as the earth trembled beneath
her. She lay on her stomach and clutched at the ground with clawed fingers
as if she was afraid the shaking would throw her off.
Gilligan waited until everything was still and probably quiet-his ears
were ringing so he couldn’t tell-before he climbed shakily to his knees
and looked around.
Dust stained the sky an ugly mustard yellow and dimmed the sun to a
reddish disk. One of the nearby trees had been blown down and limbs had
broken off several others. In the distance a herd of reptiles stampeded
blindly, bellowing their panic across the plain.
“Okay, you can get up now.”
Karin’s face was white where it was not smudged with dirt and her freckles
stood out starkly.
“Mick, what was that?” She clung to his forearms to hold herself erect.
“Let’s get out of here,” Gilligan said grimly.
“But Stigi needs to eat.”
“He’ll have to hunt for himself if we both die of radiation poisoning. Now
let’s get the hell out of the open!”
She bent and retrieved her bow. “He will be frightened,” she said by way
of agreement.
He’s not the only one, Gilligan thought.
Karin was right. Stigi was blundering around roaring in fear and pain. The
campsite was a wreck where the dragon had lumbered through it, flattening
shelters and mashing things into the dirt.