As it turned, the dragon gave Blade a perfect shot at its left eye. One could not kill a dragon with a bullet in the eye. The brain was too deep inside the skull. But one could hurt it.
This time Blade aimed as carefully as if he were shooting in competition on a range. He saw the great yellow eye suddenly disintegrate into pulp. The dragon roared without letting out any flame and twisted around, trying to get a sight of its tormentor with its remaining eye.
It did, but it also gave Blade the chance to fire another good shot. The dragon's remaining eye vanished as it surged forward. Blade sprang away from the tree as the blind dragon crashed head-first into it. The tree snapped as if it had been a sapling and crashed down, just missing Blade but not missing the inn's garage.
Now, in theory, Blade could get directly in front of the dragon and fire a shot into its mouth that would penetrate the brain. Blade hoped Rilla's theory would hold up in practice.
The dragon seemed partly stunned by the collision with the tree. It lurched back to its feet, turned its maimed head in the general direction of the smashed garage, and let out its flaming breath again. A gasoline tank erupted in one of the cars, sending flame spurting up through the holes in the roof. The dragon lurched toward the garage, drawn by the heat and the sound of the flames crackling among the dry timber.
Blade saw his chance. He chambered another round and ran as if he wanted to set a record for the hundred-yard dash. He rounded the garage, skidded to a stop, raised his rifle, and aimed at the monstrous head looming over the flaming garage. The mouth opened to spurt out more flame, Blade's finger squeezed the trigger, the rifle butt jarred his shoulder. The dragon's head jerked back as if someone had tightened a noose around its neck. The creature reared, as if trying to pluck something down from the swirling smoke overhead. Then it toppled over backward and fell with a thud that jarred Blade from top to bottom and knocked out what was left of the windows in the greenhouse.
Blade sank to his knees, bracing himself with the rifle, for a moment not sure that he could stand. He could with ease have dealt with a human opponent at the inn, or a monster like the dragon in a wilderness of mountain or jungle. To have it come out of nightmare into the sane and normal world that was Englor left him confused. And he had known about the dragons, and expected them! What would it be like for people to whom the dragons would be a total, deadly surprise? What would they do? How many of them would die or go mad tonight?
By the time he'd run these questions through his mind, Blade found that he could stand again. He rose to his feet and walked toward the dragon. He chambered another round in his rifle and held it ready. He didn't see how the dragon could still be alive, but Rilla had told him how they'd been designed to be enormously tough, almost indestructible.
As if his thoughts had brought her out, Rilla came trotting toward him, holding her overcoat around her with one hand and carrying his pants in the other. Blade looked at the pants, then looked down at himself and laughed. In his haste he'd leaped out the window and fought the dragon without putting on a stitch of clothing!
Blade put down the rifle, took the pants, and managed to pull them on just before people started swarming out of the inn to crowd around him in hysterical joy and relief.
Chapter 20
Thanks to Blade's quick action, nobody at the inn except the unfortunate gardener was dead. A dozen or so people had minor burns or doses of smoke. One man had broken a leg falling down the stairs. The landlord was a sensible man who promptly brought out a barrel of beer and a case of good whiskey. Both vanished in record time, and after that even the injured felt a good deal better.
The only people who weren't feeling better were Blade and Rilla. They were alive, the dragon was dead, the inn was safe for the moment. But how many other dragons had come down on Englor this night? How many people had died from the fury of the dragons of the Red Flames? How much destruction had they left behind them?
The telephone lines were down, Blade's car was a burned-out wreck in the garage, and there were no buses or trains for miles around. Blade and Rilla had chosen an isolated country inn for their vacation-too isolated, it seemed now.
Eventually Blade borrowed the landlord's bicycle and set off in search of some way to get back in touch with the world. He was barely out of the inn yard when an Imperial Air Force helicopter came swooping in low overhead. It hovered as it passed over the inn and caught sight of the dead dragon, then landed. Blade dashed back, just in time to greet the pilot as he climbed down from the helicopter, camera in hand.
Blade identified himself and gave the pilot an account of the night's events. The pilot congratulated Blade on killing the dragon, noted down Rilla's comments, but could tell them little about the night's events.
It was certain that an enormous number of dragons had swooped down on Englor. The pilot was on a mission to search the countryside for them, alive or dead. He'd already found several live ones in the area. People were advised to stay put until further notice. No, he couldn't take Blade and Rilla back to his base. His helicopter couldn't handle the load. But he would radio his base and see if they would help.
As the helicopter vanished into the sunrise, three Imperial Air Force jet fighters flew overhead a thousand feet up. Blade noticed they all carried pods of air-to-ground rockets slung under their wings.
The landlord grinned. «That'll fix those damned monsters if they get a sight of them. You can bet on that.»
Blade nodded, wishing he could share the landlord's optimism. In the open countryside, a rocket salvo from the air could indeed blow a dragon to bits. But most of the dragons should have landed in heavily populated areas. They would be far deadlier there, also less vulnerable to heavy weapons.
Just before noon a larger helicopter landed near the inn. This one had not only room but orders to take Blade and Rilla aboard. As it carried them across the countryside toward its base, Blade was finally able to get from its crew a rough account of what had happened last night.
An enormous force of dragons had swarmed down on Englor-many hundreds, perhaps a thousand. Many of them were already dead and only a few would survive more than another day or two. The armed forces of Englor were hard at work.
Meanwhile, however, thousands of people were dead, and tens of thousands made homeless or driven into panic-stricken flight. Hundreds of buildings and even whole villages lay in ruin. Power and telephone lines, railroads, bridges were cut or blocked all up and down the whole eastern half of Englor. It was impossible to say more, for reports from areas heavily attacked by the dragons were few and seldom accurate.
Blade saw there was no point in pressing matters. The helicopter crew were able to do their duty, but they were obviously badly shaken by the night's events. The coming of the dragons seemed to have spread panic across the land. In the long run, that panic could be more deadly to Englor and to her war effort than the mere physical damage.
Blade's mind was filled with these thoughts and even grimmer ones all the way to the base.
At Special Operations Headquarters things were comparatively quiet. The area hadn't yet been attacked by any dragons. A number of the Independent Operations people and other combat-trained personnel were out reinforcing the local garrisons. No orders of any kind had come through.