Sutter let out a low whistle. “Big mother, huh? Wonder what happened to the head.”
Rain nodded. The stories hadn’t exaggerated the size of the monster. Lieutenant Caine had fought one of the biggest dragons on record. He’d fought and he’d won, he and Audrey Harrison and a young solider known only as Foster. But the cost had been high. They’d died along with the thirteen others who’d fled to the abandoned bunker after the nearby military base had fallen, razed by dragon fire.
Rain turned from the window. “Let’s do what we came to do and get out of here.” The place gave her chills with its fire-scarred walls and the hulking ruins of the mighty beast outside.
Sutter gave the rusted hulk of the big gun a frown. “I can’t imagine we’ll find much left, Rain. After all these years ...”
“The Lieutenant was rumored to have brought an arsenal with him from the Base. I doubt he left them lying about to rust.” Every Marine she’d met had been meticulous about his guns and armor. It was unlikely the military back then had been any different.
“Unless he used them,” Sutter pointed out.
Which was always a possibility, of course, especially given the state of the dragon’s skull, or lack of skull. Dragon skulls didn’t have a habit of spontaneously combusting. It was highly likely Micah had used some sort of ordinance to cause the damage, which meant there might not be any left. Rain was holding out hope, however. These days there wasn’t much left to the human race but hope.
She and Sutter began shifting through the rubble, no easy task since neither one of them was exactly muscle-bound. Rain herself was of medium height, just over five foot five, but slightly built while Sutter was short and wiry, like most civilian men. Any man that showed promise of being big and muscular was taken by the Marines to fill out their ranks which were constantly decimated by skirmishes with the dragons.
By the time they uncovered the second skeleton, they were both sweaty and covered in dust, a few new rips added to their well-patched clothes. The uniform was nearly rotted away, but the dog tags still circled the cervical spine. Rain carefully lifted one. “Foster.”
Sutter frowned. “Can’t be. He’s not big enough.”
True, the skeletal remains weren’t those of a large man, but of someone well under six feet. And while Rain was no judge, the bones appeared slight. “I guess a man’s size didn’t matter to the Army. After all, things were different back then. They had machines and guns. No dragons, either.” At least, not until the end.
Sutter gave her a wry look. “Brains were more important than muscles?”
She grinned back, “Maybe. Stranger things have happened.”
It was hard to imagine a world where intelligence ruled over brute strength. It was hard to believe. After all, the old military with their guns and bombs had done nearly as much damage to the planet as the enemy they fought. Not exactly a sign of intellect.
“Over here,” Sutter beckoned. In the corner behind more rubble were two green metal boxes. “I think this is it.”
After a bit more digging, they had the boxes out. Each of them was big enough to hold a man Sutter’s size and each of them was locked. “Dammit,” Rain snarled.
Sutter grinned. “Not to worry, Rain. I’ve got skills.”
She laughed as he fished a small hand-stitched leather wallet out of the inner pocket of his worn overcoat and began pulling out tools. Within minutes he had the boxes open and they were both staring in awe at the contents.
Rows of gleaming black automatic rifles shone in the sunlight streaming through the broken bunker wall. At either end of the trunk were egg-shaped grenades carefully tucked into foam cradles, and under it all were boxes ammunition sheathed in shining brass.
“Jackpot!” Sutter crowed, his brown eyes sparkling with glee. Such a boy, Sutter.
Rain’s mind had already turned to other things. They had what they’d come for and they’d found the bodies of two of Caine’s people. They’d seen the remains of the dragon he’d killed. The stories were true. And while stories were just stories, a story like this, proven fact, could give hope and strength to people who were quickly losing both.
If she could find the body of Lieutenant Micah Caine, it would give them more than hope. It would give them a talisman: A relic behind which to rally. Rain had read enough to know that relics held powers beyond that of any weapon. The Church, though now a distant memory, had held power for thousands of years due in part to such relics.
Besides which, she wanted to see him.
Oh, she’d seen his likeness in old articles from newspapers saved at the beginning of the war, but she wanted to see the real Micah Caine. Even if all that was left were bones.
Rain left Sutter to examine their find while she began shifting through more of the rubble. In her experience, a true leader didn’t hide in the back out of harm’s way. He, or she, stood at the front, right in the line of fire, urging on the troops. If the stories were right, Micah Caine had been such a leader.
She headed toward the front of the bunker and the broken wall framing the jagged hulk of dragon bones. After a few minutes of searching, she saw a glint of silver buried under some crumbled concrete and debris. Dog tags.
She scooped up the tags. The chain was broken as though it had been caught on something and snapped. She turned the tags over. The metal was partially corroded by time and the elements, but the stamping was still clearly legible: Caine, Micah. U.S. Army.
Rain wrapped her hand around the tags. The
