Dragon Horse

They called the steed Aithon. He had wings at his sides, so he could walk upon water without sinking. Then, all his comrades were taken from him. He left the sky to search for them, soaring under the surface, the swim stripping away his feathers.

(Anonymous, "One," Aithon Anguis)

The rain slices down from the sky, every drop an icy bullet that becomes blood as it soaks through Nikolaos’ coat. The same scarlet spreads from the sirens around him and stains the melted snow that splatters the streets. Foam sprays out from the broken pipes under the cracked concrete, knocking him off his feet. Saltwater crawls over his numbed feet, through the legs of his pants, and stabs into his shivering knees. Static swamps the headlines scrolling along the inside of his skull.

0600. MONO-27, TRIAKOSIA. ATTENTION ALL CITIZENS IN NORTHWEST SECTOR. THIS IS AN EMERGENCY EVACUATION ORDER FROM THE ARCTOLEAN ALLIANCE. INSTRUCTIONS WILL FOLLOW–

Then a name cuts through the cold.

“Nikos!”

Not only a name, but the first voice he ever heard.

“Nikos!” Cadmus calls, his cry fading as the flood carries it further away and towards the silhouette of their half-sunken home.

Nikolaos sprints between the sinking buildings. Froth slithers over the sidewalk behind him, snapping at his heels. He slams his searing shoulder into the door until the hinges snap off and he collapses inside, saline droplets stinging his lips, swimming through the submerged living room.

“Nikos.”

He throws himself into Cadmus’ dilapidated door. His brother’s breath filters out in frosty clouds, the salt tearing and peeling at his jaw until the skin flakes away. He seizes Nikolaos’ wrist with blackened fingers.

“Run, I’m dead either way.”

Nikolaos doesn’t listen. When the saltwater seeps into his collar, he kicks out harder, but he doesn’t know how to swim, so the tide sweeps over his chest, and then his mouth. But if his brother is dead either way, he will drown with him.

He slips beneath the surface. Cadmus’s frosted fingers fracture off his wrist, then the sea pulls him down, and Nikolaos can only watch the bubbling scapulars pouring out from between his little brother’s teeth as he screams silently, his small skeleton becoming one with the shadowed waters.

A hand hooks onto his furred hood, dragging him out of his sub-zero, subconscious vortex and over to a stretcher as he hacks up liquid from his lungs.

"Ammi,” he mouths. “Baba…”

A figure wearing a crested horsehair helmet looks down on him.

A soldier?

He presses his gloved fingers under Nikolaos’ jaw to check for a pulse. His prosthetic leg shines in the illumination of the flares flying over him.

A god of war.

General Chiyou takes out a radio. The words from the books Nikolaos read about the Kheima stab into his marrow. For a moment, Cadmus’s warm breath billows on the side of his neck as he reads over his shoulder.

Life on earth ended the way it began. With water.

The soccer ball.

He’s forgotten his brother’s soccer ball.

Then his vision, and his home, drowns in the darkness.

Nikolaos advances down the corridor and climbs the stairs to the kitchen, but then, his feet fall lifelessly to the ground like the landing gear of an aircraft that hasn't been cleared for takeoff. He’s woken up especially early to gather wood for the stove, hoping he would climb out of unconsciousness in time to eat breakfast with Cadmus, but his younger brother has already left for the turbojet train station, his chair empty.

Nikolaos detaches his hearing aid from the Y-shaped charger in his insulated pants' right pocket, turns it on, secures the plastic piece onto the shell of his ear, and anchors the transmitter above and behind his squamous suture. The Arctolean Alliance’s hemispherical health care system can only cover the cost of one. He can’t help but think about Baba’s weathered face and Ammi's calloused hands. All they have are their code names and their medals, and code names and medals don't fill their stomachs.

Ammi sits in front of the box television bolted to the wall by a metal bracket, taking her sleeping pills with a swig of water and staring through the words scrolling along the bottom of the screen with dark brown eyes submerged in dark circles.

0600. DODECA-31, TRIAKOSIA. MEMORIAL SERVICE AT 0900. HIGH OF NEGATIVE THIRTY-DEGREES CELSIUS.

“This thirty-first of the twelfth month marks three hundred years after the sixth mass extinction,” General Chiyou recites calmly as he marches through an exhibition inside the Air Force Station. “Arctic ice contained carbon. When it melted, it released the gas into the atmosphere, worsening the pollution. Warmer air meant more collection of moisture, causing greater precipitation and increasing the frequency of natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods.” He lowers the bayonet of his rifle from the diagram to a monochromatic map. “Saltwater swept over them, and freshwater rained down on them. And the world drowned.” He taps the area below the equator, his voice no longer calm, but cutting. “This selfishness, this insistence on individual need rather than the common good is why the southern hemisphere still drowns…”

Baba places a paper plate before him, his skin leathery and roughened with stubble. Nikolaos counts his chews of the leftover flatbread and warmed vegetables, savoring his only meal for the day. Cold weather, no crops. Second Cold War, so all of the rations go to the front.

Nikolaos checks the clock, reluctantly forces the food down, and shrugs into a vest and a government-issued winter coat. He buckles some ice picks onto his boots and tightens the straps of his gloves around his wrists. He puts on a pair of slitted goggles that deflect UV rays reflecting off the ice and snow, so he won’t go blind. But they press painfully against the plastic piece on his ear. Then he takes a steel respirator out of the closet, and fastens the straps around his jaw. He does so slowly so he won't accidentally snag it onto one of his aid’s wires. If he isn’t wearing one, every breath will scar his lungs.

He almost flies out of the front door before Baba taps him on the shoulder.

“Rail pass?”

Nikolaos nods, taking an aluminum rail travel pass card out of his right pocket.

“Water, textbooks, and ID?”

Nikolaos opens up his backpack and shows it to him to save them both the time and so he won’t miss the memorial. He can’t help thinking that if his father weren’t a pilot, he would be an excellent sentry.

“Don’t eat these too fast.” Ammi pushes a paper bag full of flatbread into his back pocket before he can even sign in protest.

“Don’t walk too fast, either.” Baba juts his stubbled chin towards the weather forecast. “Now that it's warming up, there could be enough ice on the sidewalk to fix the water crisis in the south.”

Nikolaos shoots a double thumbs-up at them, ducking out of the door a split second before his father can even think about ruffling his hair. His parents often forget that he isn’t six years old anymore, too.

He steps out onto the sidewalk, the sky still pitch black above him. Smoke from the chimney of his house mixes with the thick clouds. Like every other house in the sector, it’s built with wooden planks filled in with snow and oakum. It’s square and stout. Tall buildings don’t survive polar vortexes.

The wind whips through the fur on his hood while he walks, watching for patches of black ice. Aeriform shadows streak over the snow. Fighter jets. He could – should be flying one of them. Heavily armored tanks line the sides of the street. He trudges through them and towards the train station.

Nikolaos won’t be late. Navigation is no problem. After his mother retired from the army, she began to work for Helike’s irrigation system, which siphoned and redistributed water from the glacial field in the outskirts of the city into the collectivized farms. As a child, when he and Cadmus would sneak into the kitchen in the middle of the night for snacks, they would see his mother hunched over the table, drawing and redrawing the maps. She would let them sit beside her, too tired to scold them, and they would gawk at the sketches from behind her back until they had practically memorized them themselves.

It takes about thirty minutes to walk to the train station, but today, time seems to pass slower. Nikolaos slips into his row with the rest of his peers, staying in silence to let the fallen sleep. This isn’t a rally, where Nikolaos stands awkwardly in his row as the rest of his peers shout their battle cry to the sky. Thank the sky.

Several patrol officers supervise them, their cloaks billowing like the clouds, their dog tags gleaming against their tarnished armor. Once, Nikolaos thought he would get a dog tag of his own. Nature thought otherwise.

Nikolaos heads down the cement staircase and stops at the security gate. He takes his travel pass out of his pocket and scans it, passing through just in time to see the first turbojet train arrive at the platform.

The station has three different lines, each with its own individual branches corresponding to the different sectors. Only military personnel take the titanium route, which will bring Cadmus to neutral territory in the southwest if he passes his final examination. Blue is the route Cadmus takes to Colchis Academy, and the one that Nikolaos takes to Argos Academy. On Dodeca-31, and only Dodeca-31, Nikolaos takes the white line to the memorial site with the other Argos students. The Colchis students still have to train.

A sentry blocks Nikolaos when he tries to get into the first compartment. Most of them are former soldiers, or soldiers-in-training who didn’t do well enough on the final examination to get sent to the battlefield.

“I’m going to need your identification.”

Nikolaos digs through the front pocket of his backpack and passes another card – this one is plastic – to him.

“Nikolaos, son of Galen, codename Pegasus, and Inaya, codename Vayu. Sixteen years old…”

Nikolaos doesn’t need to look at the card to know which part the sentry has seen.

“Hearing impairment. Polaris policy, dicrips enter last,” the sentry says as he passes the card back to him.

Another sentry at the other end of the platform mutters to the one next to him, as if Nikolaos can’t read her lips. In fact, he doesn’t even have to read her lips to know what she’s saying. Thank the sky I didn’t end up like him, unable to fight for my family and my nation.

“I’m sorry, can you hear me?” The first sentry points to his ear, his tone cautious and clipped, now looking down on him.

“What you think aid for?” Nikolaos signs sharply, fingers tense with irritation.

The sentry stares blankly at him.

Nikolaos moves aside, looking on as the compartments are filled up one by one. The sentry takes his hand away once the first train has left and motions towards the waiting area.

The seat is as hard and as cold as the ice that Nikolaos drags out of the lake with his picks in what seems to be seconds after he gets out of his cot.

The mountains shield the memorial site, a stark contrast against the snowy glacial field they surround. Here, the Arctolean soldiers who fought for their family and nation lie under the frozen lake, their best weapons buried at their side.

A concrete statue of a younger General Chiyou towers over Nikolaos. He slings his best weapon, a rifle with a bayonet, over his shoulder. He is the only pilot better than Baba, and his father had the codename Pegasus for a reason.

Thirty years ago, General Chiyou directed his aerial squadron against an air strike from Cetus. His engine ran on the end of their reserves. Half of his comrades had been shot down. The others retreated, but he didn’t.

He took out their lead fighter with one of the most difficult and complex aerial techniques: the High Yo-Yo. He reduced the angle at which his Eurofighter Typhoon banked during a turn, then he pulled back on the stick, bringing it to a new level. He rolled into a steeper pitch turn and climbed above the enemy, the trade-off of airspeed and altitude giving him a burst of increased maneuverability. In one highly effective move against which the Cetus pilots had no chance of countering, he restored his lost speed while maintaining the last of his energy. He made an even smaller turn, closed in, and fired with the last of his ammunition. The defenders crashed into these very mountains, and his Eurofighter finally ran out of fuel and fell into the lake.

Not only did he survive, but he won. He lost a leg, but he led Polaris to its first victory. Some say the sky itself saved him. Those who were born weak were unlucky. Those who lost a limb in service to their nation, however, were worthy of their own myths.

Nikolaos’ stare shoots up when the man who brought the north the dawn in its darkest hour limps across the field, flanked by two other Polaris soldiers: Sergeant Wotan and Lieutenant Sekhet. General Chiyou’s hair has grayed, his brow is creased, and his prosthetic is stiff, but the horsehair crest of his helmet is held high. He is still the god of war.

He crosses his rifle over his chest and sweeps his arm out to the side, spreading it like a wing. The Arctolean salute. He doesn’t even have to speak for Nikolaos to follow his lead.

General Chiyou raises his rifle, the bayonet clean enough for Nikolaos to see his reflection in the steel. He fires the gun into the air for those lost to the Kheima. Seven times for Asia. Six times for Africa. Five times for Europe. Four for South America. Three for North America. Twice for Australia. Once for Antarctica.

The other students and even some of the soldiers flinch with each shot. Nikolaos just pulls out the microphone that goes into his ear canal.

Again, General Chiyou raises his rifle, firing it three times. Once for Polaris. Once for Cepheus. Once for Triangulum.

Again, Nikolaos pushes the microphone in, straining to hear the slivers of the general’s voice that aren’t swept away in the wind. If only he weren’t wearing a respirator, it would be easier to read his lips. If only Cadmus were here to sign what the general said.

During the march back to the train station, a backpack from a taller classmate collides with the side of Nikolaos’ head. The tail end of the respirator’s adjustable straps tangles with the wires attached to the external magnetic disk tethered to his implants. In an instant, the pressure on his scalp that is as constant as the crackling cacophony around him tears off.

A white wing flashes in his periphery as the plastic piece, wire, and transmitter dislodge from his ear and disappear beneath the sea of ice-picked boots.

No drone, no low hum, no static. Just the silence sinking its talons into him, and then he’s sinking into his boots. The label that links him to his fellow Arctoleans, and is the link in the barbed-wire fence barring him from them leaves him to languish on an ice floe of his internal Arctic Circle.

In the corner of his right eye, a squadron of sentries throw their arms around each other, reeling at a joke he can't hear. That Cadmus isn't here to translate.

One sentry turns to Nikolaos and repeats the story to him before doubling over with laughter. He nods numbly like he always did before he got his implant, slumped in his chair at the dinner table as his mother and father bombarded him with questions about sky knows what. Like he’ll have to for the sky knows how long if he doesn't find that aid.

The aid. He can’t lose his hearing aid. His parents can’t ask Polaris for another when the north is under enough financial strain from the recent slew of snowstorms.

Nikolaos leaps out of his place in his row, weaves through the crowd, drops to his knees, and scoops at the snow, his breathing harsh and shallow.

He can’t lose his ability to hear, the only reason why Polaris let him go to Argos instead of sending him straight to one of their farms.

In the corner of his left eye, a storm of new soldiers race over to pay their respects to General Chiyou while his lieutenants try to shove them back. He can tell that they’re shouting the war cry from the clench in their teeth between sentences, but the cry itself is swept under the stillness that sickens as much as it stabilizes.

The sentry from earlier grabs him by the elbow and drags him into the train station and towards the platform. Nikolaos tries to sign, but he shoves him into the last compartment.

Nikolaos braces a fist against the glass of the automatic doors, ignoring the frost-biting glares of his classmates that burn into his back.

He can’t lose his hearing aid. He can’t lose his brother’s voice. Even if it’s just the device drilled into his bludgeoned brain filling in for the hollow nature has whittled out.

The train jolts forward, and Nikolaos slumps into his seat. He can’t lose his hearing aid. He can’t lose his hearing aid. He can’t lose his hearing aid.

He has a steed stuck in his sternum, beating its broken wings and hammering its hooves against his lungs.

Then the doors to the second-last compartment slide apart.

A dark-skinned boy with black, coiled hair slips in and shuffles over to him. He mumbles a bit, tugging at his scarf. He digs around in the pocket of his cargo pants and pulls out a familiar device, lowering his respirator so Nikolaos can see his mouth.

“Uh, I think this is yours.”

Nikolaos hooks the hearing aid back into place. The magnets meld to his scalp, and the silence melts away with it. The steady tug under his temples returns. The piece of plastic constricts around his ear. Solid, yet suffocating him in the sharp, stabbing screams of the train engine as it hurtles through the tunnel.

He wills himself not to wince while he presses the fingers of his right hand to his lips, bringing them out towards the scarfed boy.

“Thank you!”

The boy blinks, then salutes him stiffly, slipping back into the second-last compartment as suddenly as he had slipped out.

The time displayed on the screen above the train’s automatic doors reads 1600. The library will be the next stop. Nikolaos smiles slightly at that. When the train skids to an abrupt halt, he lets the current of classmates shuffling past him sweep him out of the sliding doors, though he holds onto his hearing aid this time.

“Where were you?” Ammi asks sharply as soon as Nikolaos finishes chipping through the iced hinges and kicks the door open. He makes an L with his fingers and moves it in a circle.

“Library.” He sets his backpack down on the floor and pulls out an old, worn book. Ammi’s shoulders stiffen when he shows her the cover.

“The Aithon Anguis?” she asks hoarsely.

“It’s about time you read it,” Baba says brightly, but he won’t look at the cover.

The floor rumbles when the tanks drive through the sector, their shadows rippling across the wind-battered shutters.

Cadmus dodges, shifting his hand to the end of his spear, his hood slipping off. Bruises blotch the skin exposed above his respirator. He swings. Ammi counters and cracks him across the chin. Cadmus instinctively wipes the blood away from his nose, smearing it on the back of his gloves.

Ammi strikes Cadmus in the ribs, sweeping his boots out from under him. He rolls over in the snow, shuddering as he clutches his side. He grips his wrist, which bent the wrong way as he fell.

Brown water sputters from the sink as Nikolaos can no longer stand to watch them from the window. He throws on his respirator, winter coat, and boots. His ice picks scrape against the sidewalk as he sprints out the front door and circles behind the house. He reaches out to open the gate to the backyard, but Baba yanks him back by his hood.

“Nikolaos, listen to me!”

Nikolaos tugs free and makes both of his hands into an L shape, bringing his right down to his left at chest level. He points his index fingers at each other and twists them.

“I know he’s hurt, but if your brother doesn’t toughen up, he won’t survive on the battlefield.”

Nikolaos turns away from him and peers through one of the squares in the barbed wire fence.

Cadmus switches his spear to his other hand, blocking attack after attack. Ammi slams her heel into his gut, the metal gate rattling as he flies into it. He crawls onto his knees and stabs the spear into the snow, dragging himself to his feet. Ammi smacks him down again.

Nikolaos opens the gate and marches between Cadmus and Ammi, signing sharply, but Baba yanks him away.

Cadmus kicks up a spray of snow into Ammi’s respirator. She stumbles back, coughing and shaking her head. When the clouds clear, Cadmus holds the end of his spear to her throat, standing tall.

“We named him after he-who-excels for a reason.” The filter in Baba’s respirator distorts his voice, his words even more mechanical and detached than before. “Now let’s go inside before you catch a cold.”

Cadmus lowers his spear and waves to Nikolaos.

He wouldn’t have to draft if– Nikolaos raises his hands to sign again, but they tremble and he lets them fall to his sides. Baba grips his shoulder gently, but firmly, marching him into the house.

Nikolaos traces his fingertips over the cover of the Aithon Anguis, his touch lingering for a little longer on the steed’s silvery wings.

Cadmus kicks the door open and dumps his coat on Nikolaos’ backpack, stomping most of the snow off his boots but tracking some sludge onto the floor. He slings his wooden spear over his shoulder and snatches the book out of Nikolaos’ hands.

Nikolaos chases Cadmus around the house and to his room, knocking Cadmus’ backpack off the bed. It looks identical to Nikolaos’, except it has a triangular keychain with the symbol of Colchis on it.

“Catch, loser!” Cadmus mouths, throwing the book at Nikolaos’ head. Nikolaos catches it, flops down on Cadmus’ blanket, and cracks it open, snickering at his little brother as he scowls at him.

As he reads, Cadmus goes through the different stances that Ammi has taught him. Nikolaos glances up from the book, distracted not by Cadmus’ movements, but by the swelling around his eye, the fact that he holds the spear with one hand, and his breathing, sharp and strained because of his bruised rib. Then Cadmus pokes him in the jaw and he pretends to read.

“Hey Nikos.”

Nikolaos whacks the spear away.

Cadmus pokes him in the arm.

“Nikos.”

Nikolaos whacks the spear away again.

Cadmus pokes him in the knee

“Nikos–”

Nikolaos pulls the spear away and throws it out of the door. Cadmus shrieks and scrambles to retrieve it, then he flops onto the bed beside him, kicking his legs up on the frame and staring up at the ceiling as if it’s full of constellations.

“Did you know that senior officers aren’t allowed to take their helmets and armor off? They have to be ready to attack the enemy or to defend civilians against a threat at any given moment. They only wear a cap and uniform when they inform a soldier’s family of a serious event. My first lesson at Colchis. Seems like ages ago…”

This must have been written before the Kheima. Nikolaos sits up and flips through the tattered, yellowed pages.

“Soldiers who die in combat are buried with their best weapons…Nikos, are you listening to me?”

It’s missing the last sentence.

“Lemme see.” Cadmus sits up and peers over his shoulder. Nikolaos flips back to the beginning. For a few minutes, they sit there in familiar silence. As always, Cadmus breaks it. “Man, why does the required reading have to be this boring?”

Nikolaos elbows him in his good ribs. Cadmus elbows him back. Then Cadmus signs to him, and this time, the silence is strange.

“Do you think I’ll pass the exam?”

“What mom says?” Nikolaos signs back.

“She says–”

Nikolaos traps Cadmus’ head in the crook of his arm and ruffles his scruffy hair. Cadmus yelps and yanks against his hold. Nikolaos unlocks his arms and lightly punches him in the chest.

“You not soldier, can’t E-V-E-N fight D-I-C-R-I-P!”

Cadmus scoffs at that, flattening out the pages of the Aithon Anguis and throwing it at Nikolaos again. This time, it hits him in the face.

“Return it,” Cadmus says quietly. “We can read a less boring one when the war ends.”

Nikolaos nods, swallowing down the shiver shooting through his skeleton.

“Can you play soccer with me tomorrow?” Cadmus signs.

“Why?” Nikolaos signs back.

“Why not?” Cadmus grins obnoxiously. “Scared you’ll lose again?”

Nikolaos stifles a snort. He never loses. He lets Cadmus win because he’ll wake up with snow stuffed into his pillow if he doesn’t. Nikolaos puts his middle and index fingers together and taps them with his thumbs.

“No.”

“Loser.” Cadmus pokes Nikolaos in the nose with his spear. If irritating his older brother is a battle form, he’s a four-star general.

“Stupid,” Nikolaos signs sharply, snatching the spear away and poking Cadmus in the forehead. Then he tosses it out the door again.

Cadmus dashes after it, his laughter brighter than the northern lights themselves, bringing a big, begrudging grin to Nikolaos just as easily.

His stupid, annoying little brother.

My little brother.

The grin shivers.

Not a soldier.