Stack the deck with Wisdom

It didn't take me long to find our crew. That was perhaps a lucky thing, for even as we taxied onto the runway, I spotted several cars pulling up at the edge of the ramp. Coincidence, or pursuit? Healthy paranoia dictated that I assume the latter. It was too late for it to matter, however, as our plane was already hurling itself down the strip and into the lowering skies.

After several tries at bringing Dithra out of her black funk failed, I gave up and allowed the remainder of the trip to pass in a deadly silence. Finally I shook myself out of my own fugue, forced myself to stop wondering how it had all spun out of control so quickly and start thinking of a way out of this mess. A little rummaging about the cabin produced an old steno pad that had seen better days, and with both that and a pen I mooched from the pilot I used the quiet time to begin doodling some thoughts on the subject.

The plane touched-down at last. As we began the slow taxi back to the terminal I closed the steno pad and carefully scanned the ramp, searching for trouble but finding only Stefan and Luce standing at the terminal fence, waiting for us. I breathed a small sigh of relief, then turned to Dithra. "My Lady, enough of this. I need more information. Is the ranch threatened?"

Dithra remained silent for a few moments more, then finally spoke, her eyes studying her folded hands. "No. The clans' agreements are with me, not you. Were it otherwise, everything there would already be lost."

"So it's still safe for me there?" I pressed.

Dithra's eyes rose to meet mine, but her gaze was cold, cold. "Until the dark of the moon. After that, should you lose your Challenge, or fail to appear, there is no place in all the world where you will be able to find sanctuary."

As certain of her words sunk in, I felt my own gaze grow chill. "I have been called many things in my life, my Lady, many of them accurate," I rumbled. "But no one has ever made the mistake of calling me a coward."

Dithra continued to meet my eyes for several long moments, but finally her gaze dropped. "You are correct," she sighed at last "that was uncalled for." The Eldest lifted a hand, used it to cradle her forehead, and for the very first time since the night I first met her, Dithra looked old. "Hasai, what are we going to do? You cannot possibly--"

"My Lady, please refresh my memory," I interrupted before Dithra could relapse into her funk. "What are the rules of the Challenge?"

"Rules?" There was a pause, then something that sounded almost like a strangled chuckle. "There is only one rule, dear one. The victor takes all. Even life, if he so desires. The vanquished either yields or dies, and quite possibly dies anyway."

I nodded, my sight drifting past Dithra's face to rest on the richly upholstered cabin wall, thinking. Finally I smiled, and from the feel of it, the smile was not a pleasant one. "My kind of rules," I purred.

Dithra paused, then looked up at me with the sort of look one usually reserves for the mentally unbalanced. "Dear one, what are you--"

"Going to do?" I finished for her, that smile still in place. "I'm going to do what any good soldier does, my Lady. I'm going to stack the deck."

It took all of about two seconds for Luce and Stefan to read our expressions when the little jet's door popped open and we stepped out at last; read our expressions, and immediately go to DEFCON-1. Without a word, both immediately scanned our surroundings, then quickly began hustling us toward our waiting car.

"No, can't go that way." Both warriors paused, looked at me as I shook my head. "It's open-season on my ass, and we'll probably get jumped on the way through the clan areas."

"My Lord?" began Stefan, "Should we then take--"

"No, we're still going to the ranch; it itself is still safe. But we're going there the quick way." I looked about us, ignoring the uneasy glance Stefan shared with Luce. "First we need some privacy. . . . There." I pointed to a nearby hangar, began to quickly walk toward it. The others quickly caught up, Stefan silently taking point.

As luck would have it, there was someone in the hangar. An elderly aircraft mechanic paused in his work on the right nacelle of a twin-engine Beech to give us a puzzled look as we strode past, but said nothing at first as Stefan quickly located an office door at the rear of the hangar and headed for it. There was a slight pause at the door, then Stefan's shoulders hunched slightly and I heard the sound of tearing metal as the door's lock failed.

"Hey! You can't go in there!" I looked back to see the mechanic stepping around the nacelle and walking toward us, an alarmed expression on his weathered face. Quickly we stepped into the thankfully deserted office and shoved the damaged door shut behind us, and I immediately closed my eyes and reached for my true form. A long moment's worth of pain, and then my forelegs hit the floor with their usual thump. Seconds later the sphere of the Lung snapped into existence before me, and I seized it in my jaws while the others got a good grip on my armored form. Then there was a rattle from the door, and even as I thought of a distant ranch house lost in the mountains, I saw the door's knob turn, the door begin to open. . . .

Snap.

All three of my passengers staggered, Stefan once again going down to one knee when we popped back into existence in front of our battered little cabin. I didn't have time to wait for them to recover, however, as I quickly scanned the tree lines, then the cabin for trouble. Seeing none, I quickly headed for the cabin, my paws kicking up little white clouds from the dry, powdery snow as I hurried.

I barged through the door so abruptly that Pasqual instantly bounced to her feet from her usual spot in front of our children's nest, her muscles bunched and her wings half-unfurled as she braced for an attack. She blinked when she saw it was me, relaxing slightly. "My Lord? Is there something wrong?"

I gave my head a shake, then replaced it with the proper draconic gesture. "Not immediately," I rumbled, much to her dismay. "No; neither you nor the children are in immediate danger. I need to speak with Deebs. He around?"

"Deebs," Pasqual echoed blankly, then her head lifted with understanding. "Ah; the noisy one. He is in the, ah, the place where prey was kept."

Place where. . .? Oh; the barn. "Thank you." I turned myself around and headed out the door, but paused when Pasqual gestured. "Yes?"

"My lord--" she hesitated, then continued "is there something with which I may assist?"

I eyed her for several long seconds, felt a twinge of surprise when I realized she meant it. "Yes," I replied at last "a little later, I may need you to show me some things."

She looked at me for a moment, her thoughts unreadable, then gestured acknowledgement. I hesitated, but then yanked my thoughts back to the task at hand and went out the door.

Deebs was indeed in the barn, where both he and Grease were busy assembling some metal components with the help of a TIG welder the two of them had scrounged from somewhere. I had a word with them, and they in turn gathered the balance of our people for a council of war in the cabin. Once there, I told them the long, sad story.

Fields, as was often the case, summed up the entire situation with a single word. "Shit."

"Yeah," I responded, shaking my head. "I just didn't know what else to do. So, I just . . . declared war. I don't know. Maybe there was something else I could have done, but I don't know what, short of tossing Anna to the wolves, and from the feel of things in that place, that wouldn't have worked either." I rubbed my hands together, a far corner of my mind noting how strange it seemed not to feel the rasp of metallic scales. I looked at our former Stasi agent. "What else could I have done, Stefan? Was there any other way out?"

Stefan looked at me for a moment, his eyes holding a silent message of sympathy for my predicament. Then those eyes dropped as his expression became pensive. "No, my Lord," he responded at last "none that I can think of. Not, and still retain your honor." Immediately he turned and raised a placating hand to Dithra, who was rousing herself to the issue. "My Lady, please, hear me out. I know you spent much time, effort, and political capital to assemble the greater strength that was needed to oust Ahnkar, but that strength was based upon that of the clans, and we all know how fickle the clans can be, do we not? My Lady, what was the feel of the gathering? Was our strength firm, or was it shifting, as so-often happens with the clans?"

The agent paused, studying the play of emotions across Dithra's face. "I see. My Lady, what else could Lord Hasai have done, short of declaring Blood Feud? The Ancestors themselves would acknowledge he had ample grounds for it if he had, and yet he stopped short of that. Why do you think he did so?" Stefan looked at me for a moment, and that glance held far more respect than I could ever hope to earn. "Because, I believe, he knew that Blood Feud ends in nothing but destruction and death, no matter how satisfying revenge might seem at the moment.

"What Lord Hasai did was something that was far more important than a brief satisfaction. He bought us time. With enough time, one can surmount any obstacle, even this one, and that is something I learned from the humans." He paused, then added as an afterthought "Curious, isn't it, the places where one can find wisdom?" he asked wryly.

There was a long moment after Stefan had finished that I just sat there and looked at him, a smile slowly working its way across my face. "There have been times," I said at last "when I've wondered what the world would be like if it were run by spooks and soldiers, rather than by diplomats and politicians. Stefan, you make me believe it just might be a nicer place to live. Or," I added "at least far more honest."

A small, wry smile came to Stefan's own face, and he bowed slightly. "If that was a compliment, my Lord, then I thank you."

I gave him my own small smile, then turned back to the others. "Now let's make use of the time we have. Deebs, do you think that contraption you've been messing with has any hope of working?"

Deebs blinked. "Well, um. . . ." He paused, one hand going to scratch at his hedgehog-like hair as he glanced uneasily at Grease. "We, um, really didn't think we'd need the stuff so soon," he temporized. "Maybe in a couple--"

"Stefan, how long?"

"Seventeen days, my Lord."

"That's as long as we have, Deebs. Now; up or down? I need to know right now."

Deebs licked his lips, glanced once again at Grease, who tilted his head, one shoulder lifting in a slight shrug, then nodded. Deebs looked back to me, his expression firming. "It'll be ready. It won't be pretty, and I don't know how long it'll hold together, but it'll be ready."

"If it holds together for twenty minutes, that'll be good enough." I looked around the table. "What else can we do?"

A pause, then Fields spoke up. "We know exactly when and where?"

I glanced at Stefan for verification, and he nodded. "Yes," I responded.

The Special Ops man stared at me, then slowly leaned back in his chair, his lips pursed into a silent whistle of astonishment. "What kind of moron would hand us that kind of advantage?" he asked at last.

Stefan gave Fields a cool look. "It would indeed seem odd," he began with more than a trace of sarcasm "until one understands that the moron can bring whomever that wishes to stand with him."

Fields thought about that for a bit, then nodded. "Just wishes to, huh? That just might actually work; the less-popular a leader is, the lonelier he is on the battlefield. I like it." He smiled then, and the smile wasn't pleasant. "Anyway, maybe we should have a few surprises waiting for your friends when they show up?"

My answering smile was equally nasty. "Yeah, maybe we should at that. Why don't you work up a few things and get back to me?"

Still smiling, Fields sketched a scout's salute to me. "Will do, Sarge."

"Good." I turned to Lucifer. "Luce, I know Lady Dithra thinks we're safe here for now, but I think we should take out a little insurance on that. Have yourself a look at our perimeter defenses, and in addition to the alarms let's add some stuff that's just a little more . . . lethal."

Once again wearing that little Buddha-like smile of his, Luce nodded slightly. "Consider it done," he replied simply.

I nodded back, then turned my attention to Dithra's agent. "Lastly, Stefan, I need you to go check on some things for me."