Chapter 2: The Imperial Army
John smiled as he led Sam to the weapons room where he kept his old armor and weapons from the last war. His son was a few inches taller than him, but most of it would fit just fine, and the army would provide everything else that the young alpha needed. Sam carefully lifted the long, dragon-hilted jian sword, his huge hands closing surely on the black-scaled grip, the wide blade shining in the early afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows. John nodded and crossed his arms over his chest, asking his alpha son to demonstrate a few of the basic sword drills that he had shown him over the past decade.
Dean, tucked against the wall just outside the door where he wouldn't be seen, watched his brother exhibit the moves, his motions smooth and sure. The omega felt a flutter of hope in his chest that his brother had learned enough from their father to thrive in the army camp, to push back the Huns and bring honor to the family in the only way an alpha could, but that fragile faith shattered an instant later as Sam misjudged his steps and faltered, dropping the sword to the floor. He reached down to pick it up, withering under John's harsh, red-tinged glare.
"You are sixteen years old, Sam," John growled, reaching out to jerk the boy to his feet and shove him back into the correct position. "If you had been doing your sword drills for the past decade like I ordered you to, you wouldn't be so damn clumsy now!"
"I'm sorry, Dad! I just . . . other things got in the way."
"Yes, your useless scholarly adventures," the older alpha scoffed, slapping Sam's arm when he fumbled another move. "Books are for betas, Sam, and omegas. They have the time to sit back and read and think about the philosophies of the universe, but alphas are built to fight! We are fierce warriors, and we must always be ready to prove ourselves! How can you ever hope to win the hand of a noble young omega if you can't even hold a damn sword correctly?"
Sam's face pinched with pain, the hand holding his sword shaking slightly. "I don't want an omega who only cares about my physical size and fighting prowess. Dad, you know that!"
"And after you are suitably mated, he or she can learn to live with your eccentricities. By the Ancestors, how did I end up with two sons so disdainful of their natures? You must fight and be strong in order to win a mate. At least with Dean, he can learn to be quiet long enough for an alpha to accept him, but you will never find a suitable mate if you fail at this! Sam, if you can't distinguish yourself fighting the Huns, then do yourself a favor and at least die with honor so you don't have to come back and live in disgrace as the alpha no omega will have!"
Sam had his back to John as the old alpha finished, tears filling his eyes that he could not shed in front of his father. He tightened his grip on the sword and moved his leg forward, correcting his posture for the next drill. "Of course, Dad," he ground out, hoping that he had prevented any of his despair from leaking into his voice. He failed, of course, if the narrowing of John's eyes was any indication, but the older alpha just barked out the next drill and pushed him through it.
Hiding by the door, his hands trembling by his side, Dean watched tears streak down Sam's face, his own heart aching at his brother's pain. How could he have been so wrapped up in his own failings that he missed Sam's struggle? His brother had stepped forward to take the scroll in the hopes of showing John that he was a proper alpha, but he knew that he would never survive the army. He was tall and strong, but rangy and clumsy, something that would be suitable in a beta but was unacceptable in the more dominant subgender. John thought that Sam was even more beyond saving than Dean, than the omega who had been bodily removed from the Matchmaker's hut only that morning, and Sam's only hope to prove him wrong was to live long enough to die at the hands of the Huns.
Damn these stupid, archaic subgender laws that prevented an omega as big, strong, and graceful as Dean from fighting in an army that was perfectly happy to chew up his scholarly younger brother and spit him out at the Ancestors' feet. And damn the Ancestors, too, for demanding such a blood sacrifice!
Dinner was an awkward affair; Ellen, Jo, and Bobby had joined them for the evening meal. It was pretty common for the three to eat with the Winchesters, especially since Dean loved to cook with Ellen, but tonight the tension was palpable. Jo glared at her vegetables, stabbing them with her chopsticks but not eating any of them, and Dean pushed his rice around the plate in a similar sulking fashion. "What is eating you, Jo?"
Ellen growled at Mary's question, the noise so out-of-character for her that Dean looked up in shock. "She volunteered to fight, against my direct orders."
Jo snorted, resolutely refusing to look up from her food. "You can't order me around, Mom. I presented three years ago; as an alpha I technically outrank you." She muttered the words softly, without any heat, and it was clear that the two women had argued about this before. "Besides, you're going to mate Bobby before the end of the year and that makes us a family of three. If the order for conscription comes again, I'll have to go anyway and we won't get the extra land or the bump in our rank. We aren't noble enough for me to ignore this, Mom. Hell, we aren't even noble enough for me to be sent to Crystal Lake."
"What's the point of earning that nobility if you are dead, Joanna Beth?" Nobility laws were fickle things; Ellen's family had been higher ranked than her mate's, but since her subgender was the hierarchically lower of Jo's parents, the alpha pup could only inherit her father's position in society. The bump in nobility offered by Metatron would apply to her and her mother, granting them better titles, more land, and a seat on the town council.
Jo finally looked up from her food, reaching across the table to take her mother's hand as the older woman's face slowly softened. "To bring honor to my family. Mom, I have no intention of dying; I'm strong and I've been practicing with Dad's swords my whole life. I'm ready for this, and someone has to be brave enough to defend us from the Huns. If not me, then who?"
Bobby smiled through his graying beard, reaching out to clasp one hand on Ellen's shoulder and squeeze it gently. "Girl's right, Ellen. Even if she doesn't go today, she may be conscripted later, and she'll have to fight either way. It's her choice."
"I know it is, but that doesn't make this any easier." Dean watched Sam's reactions to the conversation from across the table, noting his brother's white-knuckled grip on his cup and the paleness of his normally-vibrant hazel eyes. His training session had not improved over the course of the afternoon, and John's displeasure was still acutely obvious in his stiff posture and refusal to glance at the teen sitting to his left.
Dean reached across the table and touched his brother's hand, smiling softly in an effort to calm the younger Winchester son. "Sammy, you shouldn't have to go. You're only sixteen."
"The Emperor says that an alpha or beta may fight as soon as they are presented," Sam replied quickly, clearly offering the answer that John had drilled into his head since he was old enough to hold a sword. "It's honorable to fight."
"Yeah, well, throwing a teenager against an army of trained Huns is not my idea of honor."
Sam glanced up at his brother, carefully placing his cup on the table as he felt his father turn to watch the interaction. "Dean, I have to go. I've been conscripted."
"There are plenty of young alphas to fight for China!" The omega felt his face flush as anger began to overtake his desire to behave, but he didn't want his brother to die. The implied end of that sentence, ones who can actually hold a sword, hung in the air between them.
Sam's eyes darkened to the brownest shade they could manage, the scent of his own anger joining Dean's in the dining room. Their family members just watched the confrontation in silence, knowing that the boys had to work this out on their own. "It is an honor to protect my country and my family." This time his words were stronger, surer, and it was clear that he was beginning to believe that. He spoke slowly, his measured words either an attempt to prove his own strength or contain his growing anger, but Dean couldn't tell which.
"So you'll die for honor," Dean snapped, his eyes darkening as he struggled to keep his despair from leaking into his scent.
"I will die doing what is right." Still calm, still measured, still determined.
"But if you—"
Sam snapped his teeth, the long canines that marked him as an alpha flashing in the light. The display of dominance had never bothered Dean before, especially since he was as strong as his brother and his own sharp canines were unusually long for an omega, but this time the action silenced him. "You know what, Dean, I know my place, okay? I do. Maybe . . . maybe it's time you learned yours."
Sam's words slammed into his older brother, knocking the breath out of him as Mary gasped and Adam whined softly. Dean couldn't control the dark, bitter scent of omega despair that flooded the room, swallowing audibly as he pushed himself to his feet and ran out the door, tears in his pale green eyes. His brother had never once in his sixteen years mentioned the disparity in their subgenders, their societal ranks before, but it was clear that he had meant his words.
Stumbling slightly as tears clouded his vision, Dean found himself at the great stone dragon statue that overlooked the reflecting pool in their small inner courtyard. Scrubbing at his eyes, the omega settled into the depression between the dragon's huge paws, pulling his knees up to his chest as he fought the urge to give into his sorrow again.
"Dean?"
The omega looked up as his youngest brother stood on the path at the edge of the pool, blue eyes sad as he watched his brother. Adam was only a few months younger than Sam, and Dean felt a shock of fear that this boy, too, could be conscripted if the Huns were not pushed back to their lands quickly enough. Betas didn't have any kind of physiological presentation like an alpha's rut or an omega's first heat, so he would be considered an adult on his sixteenth birthday, and he could be forced to fight as soon as that. Unable to hold back a fresh stream of tears at that thought, Dean opened his arms in an invitation, smiling as Adam crawled up into his lap. The teen was almost too big for Dean to hold him now, already almost six feet tall, but the omega would always be willing to cuddle his youngest sibling.
"Are you okay? Sam was pretty mean back there."
"He was right," Dean replied gruffly. "He's an alpha; even if he isn't trained and isn't ready, it is his place to fight when the Emperor calls him. It's my place to stay home and behave long enough to find a mate who will pup me and provide the next generation of warriors to defend China. That's just how the world works."
Adam closed his eyes, the faint souring of his natural bergamot and ginger scent Dean's warning that his words had upset the pup. "I'm going to be sixteen soon; is it going to be my place to fight the Huns, also? I've never . . . I've never held a sword before."
"I know, Adam. I don't want you to have to fight. I don't want Sammy to have to fight." He felt the flicker of an idea flash through his mind, reaching out to grab it as it struggled to slip away. It was an audacious, terrifying, and completely illegal plan, but it might work. "What if I told you that I have a way to keep both of you from going to war?"
"What do you mean?"
Dean bit his lip and glanced down into the still water, watching the last rays of the vanishing sun set fire to the small pond. "Remember last spring when Jo took me to Three Peaks Village to meet with her favorite merchant caravan?"
"Yeah, I remember. You brought me that golden elephant and Sam some silks for his mating day. I still love that elephant; I'd like to see one for real someday."
Dean nodded. "Right. Well, what we didn't tell anyone is that, on the way back, we made a detour to a secluded clearing in the mountains where a bunch of young alphas were holding a tournament. Jo really wanted to enter, but as an unmated omega I would have been in danger there. So she talked to her merchant friends and they gave her some ointments, tea, and oils that I could use to hide my subgender. I, uh, posed as an alpha and won the tournament."
Adam's light blue eyes widened in shock, his scent spiking. "Omegas are forbidden by law from hiding themselves. Posing as an alpha . . . Dean, it's punishable by death."
"Which is why I never told you. But now I can use those supplies again to hide my scent and take Sam's place in the Imperial Army."
"Dean, you can't! You'll be found out and killed."
"Or I won't be found out," the omega countered. "What choice do I have? I can't lose either one of you. If you had seen Sam practicing earlier . . . he'll be eaten alive in that camp. He's tall, but he's no match for the noble alpha sons that will be in training with him. I can hold my own against them, and I can fight the Huns in his place. If I take his conscription notice with me, he can't go and he won't die."
"Dean, you could die," Adam whispered, cuddling deeper into his brother's arms. "I don't want you to die either."
Dean nodded and closed his eyes, letting his youngest brother's scent wash over him. "Of the three of us, Adam, I'm the only one who has a chance in hell of coming back."
"But what if you don't?"
The omega took a deep, calming breath, hoping to keep any of his fears from leaking into his scent. "I might not, Adam, but what kind of future will I have if both of you die? I wouldn't survive it; I'm not strong enough for that. And my other option is to stay here and grow old as the omega that no alpha will have. At least if I die at war, I will bring some honor to our family. It the least I can do after failing so miserably at the Matchmaker's hut."
"I don't . . . I don't want to lose you, Dean. I know Sam is angry right now, but he doesn't want to lose you, either."
"I'll survive, Adam. I'll come back to you."
"What can I do to help?"
Dean packed his bag, carefully protecting the jars and bottles that contained the precious herbs, ointments, and oils he would need to perpetrate his deception. Adam had stolen their father's armor and weapons, sneaking them through the empty, midnight halls and into Dean's wing of their home. The omega slipped out of his working clothes and fastened his father's armor on, glad to find that it fit perfectly. Adam helped him adjust the straps and pack the weapons, Dean glancing at his reflection in the mirror above his makeup bench. He stared at his hair, the long, dark blonde strands struggling free from the simple ponytail, sighing as he reached for one of the knives in his bag. "Alphas don't really wear their hair long, do they?"
"No. Females might, like Jo, but males don't. Sam is kinda the exception."
Dean nodded and sliced through his hair, carefully cutting it into a short, slightly mussed style similar to his father's, turning to Adam and waving toward his new haircut. "How does it look?"
Adam rolled his eyes and dug through Dean's drawers for a pair of scissors with mother-of-pearl handles, reaching up to trim his brother's hair into something a little neater. "There, that'll work. Dean, how are you going to deal with a camp full of alphas? Aren't you worried about . . . you know . . . getting overwhelmed by that?"
Dean chuckled as he cleaned the hair off of his table and bench. "You want to know if I'm going to soak through my pants or go into a spontaneous heat as soon as I scent a bunch of dominant, horny alphas? Please. I'm way too old to lose control of myself like that. And, even if I did, I have some charcoal and oils that will cover the scent and drops for my eyes. The merchant told me that these eye drops were extracted from some foreign flower that will dull my eye color slightly and prevent any omega gold from showing. I'll be alright, Adam."
The beta nodded, silently following his brother out to the barn. The clouds that had threatened them earlier that night had begun to rain, covering the stars and making the journey across their yard more difficult than usual. Dean paused at the family shrine, swallowing sharply before slipping inside and silently lighting an incense, bowing his head as he touched the stone with his grandfather's name on it. Henry Winchester absolutely would not have approved of his plan, but he hoped that his ancestors would protect him nonetheless.
Khan didn't recognize Dean when he first approached; the combination of the omega's new haircut and his new, harsher scent frightening the poor beast. Adam calmed him down, helping his brother tack the horse and mount, pale blue eyes watching as Dean settled onto the black beast. "Take care of yourself, Dean," Adam managed, hand resting on Khan's shoulder.
Dean smiled and leaned down, kissing Adam's forehead gently. "I'll come back, I swear. Watch out for Mom and Dad and Sammy, okay?"
"I will." Adam clenched his hands against his chest as his oldest brother galloped off into the increasingly violent storm, the rain washing away his tears. He feared that he would never see Dean again.
Sam tossed and turned in his bed, his sleep disturbed by the ferocious storm and some silent, gnawing fear deep in his gut. He jerked awake as another bolt of lightning split the skies, hazel eyes glancing toward the table beside his bed and the conscription notice that had been resting there, taunting him, when he fell asleep. Except that it was gone.
The alpha pushed himself up, running one hand through his unruly, shoulder-length hair as the other closed around the golden pin sitting where his scroll had been just a few hours earlier. He stared at the intricate hair piece for a long moment, begging his brain to wake up and process what he was seeing. When it finally hit him, the alpha sagged against the table. "No."
Desperate to be proven wrong, Sam dashed out of his room, clad only in his loose sleeping pants, bare feet pounding on the polished wooden floors of the hallway as he ran toward Dean's room. As a presented omega, Sam's brother lived in a secluded wing of the house, interminably far away tonight. As the alpha had feared, Dean's room was empty and dark, wayward strands of roughly-sliced dark blonde hair on the floor near his makeup table.
Sam spun around and headed back into the main wing of the house, the pin in his hand digging into his palm as he stumbled to a stop outside his parents' room. "Mom! Dad! Dean's gone!" He pounded on the wooden door frame, his voice breaking on his brother's name as his parents slid the door aside and spilled into the hallway.
"What? Son, what are you talking about?"
"He's gone," Sam repeated, tears choking him as Adam appeared at his side, clearly having been woken by his brother's bellowing. "Dean's gone and so is my conscription notice." He held out his hand, the golden pin shining in the dim lantern light. "He left this."
"What? It can't be!" John grabbed the pin, recognizing it as one that Dean had been wearing that morning during his ill-fated meeting with the Matchmaker. Letting out an anguished growl, the alpha rushed toward the back door, slinging it open and sprinting toward the barn. Mary, Sam, and Adam reached him at Khan's stall, the war horse and his tack gone, as well as his two largest saddle bags. "Dean, no . . ."
"John, you have to go after him," Mary urged, grabbing her mate's arm. "He could be killed!"
"If I reveal him, he will be," John whispered, hands gripping the door of Khan's stall.
"He wanted to protect Sam," Adam whispered, half-hidden behind his older brother as he tried to keep from meeting his father's eyes. "He said that Sam wouldn't survive in the army, and he would rather die than lose him." He wrung his hands as all eyes turned toward him, dropping his head as he repeated Dean's words. "He said that he wouldn't survive if Sam and I die in this war, and he'd rather sacrifice himself fighting the Huns than live the rest of his life as the omega no alpha would have."
Sam dropped his eyes to the floor, clenching both hands into fists. "So Dean would sacrifice himself for the alpha no omega would have? He deserves better than that."
John stepped forward and wrapped one arm around each of his sons, sighing as Sam dropped his head on his shoulder. "We'll get him back, Sam. Somehow."
Mary clenched her hands to her chest and stepped forward so she could lean her head on her mate's back. "Ancestors, hear our prayer," she whispered, "watch over Dean."
In the family shrine behind the house, the smoke from Dean's incense still threading through the air, a whisper answered the beta female. The smoke thickened and turned pale blue, slowly forming the image of a large man with glowing eyes, the bottom of the smoke attached to a name stone so old that the carvings were unintelligible, though the first symbol in Winchester was still visible. He glanced at the golden incense burner, a wide disk with a sinuous dragon holding onto the edge, a long, golden chain attaching the dragon itself to the ceiling of the shrine. The ancestor reached out and ran his fingers along the dragon's back, a whispered word filling the small space. "Awaken."
The golden statue began to shake, smoke surrounding it as the creature shook off its torpor, gold metal fading to red and orange scales, two tiny blue horns visible atop his head as the dark smoke faded away. The small dragon, no bigger than a pet reptile though covered in fur-like scales with two long, mustache-like golden whiskers hanging from his upper lips, rose to his back feet, front legs stretched out in front of him as his pointed ears flicked toward the Great Ancestor. "I live!" His voice, though rough from disuse, still resembled the playful, animated tones he had used when he was a human over a thousand years ago, when a young beta teen named Kevin Tran pledged his service to the Winchester family in order to save his mother and regain his family's honor. His service had been . . . somewhat rocky since then.
Kevin, who still chose to use his human name, turned to the smoky apparition, rubbing his claws together in gleeful anticipation as his long, sinuous tail twitched. "So, tell me, what mortal needs my protection, Great Ancestor? You say the word, and I'm there."
"Kevin . . ." The Ancestor's tone was soft, with a dark warning underlying the dragon's name.
A dragon who clearly did not notice when someone was trying to interrupt him. "And lemme say something: anyone who's foolish enough to threaten our family, vengeance will be mine!"
"Kevin!" The diminutive dragon looked up at that, his ears twirling forward again. The Great Ancestor, who little cared that his name had been lost to time, waved one hand toward the high shelves overlooking the small shrine, a stone animal statue sitting atop all but one. "These are the family guardians. They . . ."
Kevin's ears flattened against his head as he gave the answer he knew was expected. "Protect the family."
"And you, O Demoted One," the Ancestor continued, hand waving toward the perch that Kevin himself had occupied for over eight hundred years.
"I ring the gong."
"That's right. Now, wake up the Ancestors."
Kevin, his face twisted into a mask of determination, reached for the incense holder he used as a gong, a mallet appearing in his other hand. "One family reunion coming right up." Walking closer to the name stones, he began to bang on the gong, calling out encouragement for the spirits to wake. "Okay, people, let's look alive! Let's go, come on, get up! Let's move it; rise and shine!" He dropped his mallet as the other name stones in the room began to glow, each one releasing a translucent, glowing mist that coalesced into a man or woman who had been part of the Winchester family.
Mary's Campbell ancestors were there as well, her family so noble and so well-known that the town nobles were honor-bound to ensure that her ancestors were cared for. Her only alpha sibling, her older brother, had died during the last war, leaving no one to carry on her family name when her father died a few years later. Her mother, Deanna, had begged John to take care of the Campbell ancestors only a few months before joining them herself, too broken after her mate died to continue on her own. John had agreed, combining their shrines after Sam was born and named his official heir. Now Samuel and Deanna Campbell floated above their name stones alongside Mary's brother and a few of Samuel's brother's pups, all of them having died during the war. They were silent, tense, knowing what Dean had risked by running away.
The Winchesters, however, had never really suffered loss during a war, and clearly they were angered by Dean's open defiance, even more than they had been when he was rejected by four years' worth of alpha and beta suitors. The Great Ancestor waited for one of the younger spirits to speak, needing to hear their reactions to the situation that had caused Mary's desperate plea.
The first spirit to speak was an old woman, pins in her hair holding it in a heavy bun. She had been an omega in life, a woman who bore a three alpha and a dozen omega pups, living long enough to see them all happily mated. "I knew it, I knew it! That Dean was a troublemaker from the start."
Beside her, a slender man in dark, formal robes crossed his arms over his chest. He was a direct ancestor of John's from his alpha line, whereas the woman was the great-great-grandmother of John's omega mother. "Don't look at me, he gets it from your side of the family!" Kevin, sitting silently on his gong, nodded his head in agreement. Carver Winchester, who had been the Lord of a town twenty miles to the south, had only fathered alpha pups. There were very few omegas in his line at all, so he certainly had little idea how to deal with them.
One of the first woman's nieces, a beta who had never mated and lived happily as a spinster all of her years, spoke next. She had been a small, gentle woman in life and continued to advocate for peace and harmony in death. "He's only trying to save his brother."
The next speaker was a slender, dark-haired man who had never once in his life disobeyed a rule. Henry Winchester had served as Lord of his father Carver's town before mating Millie and moving to this smaller town where he could raise his single pup in peace. He had never fought in a war, though he knew as much as any alpha who had, and he always wanted better for his pup than war and devastation. The Huns, however, had ruined that, and John had come back from the war somewhat harsher, somewhat bolder than he had been as a younger man. Henry had always considered John's prowess as a warrior his greatest failing. Only Kevin knew that Sam often came to speak to his grandfather's stone, asking for advice on how to convince John that his love lay in books and scholarly pursuits, not in bloodshed and war.
"If Dean is discovered, John Winchester will be forever shamed," Henry pointed out in his cultured, deliberate tone, every word measured and weighed for effect before he offered it. "Dishonor will come to the family. Traditional values will disintegrate." Wasn't it odd, Kevin mused, to hear Henry upholding the values that turned his only son into a warrior.
"Not to mention they'll lose the farm," an ancient, spindly man answered, still holding a tall pitchfork in one hand, the other holding his mate close. Lee had never really been altogether there, and he still didn't realize that the Winchesters had left the land that he cared for decades ago, though the new farm was bigger and much more impressive than the hardscrabble plots he had raked and weeded his entire life.
The first woman, one so disagreeable that Kevin had never bothered to learn her name, leaned forward again, haughty pride in her squinted eyes. "My children never caused such trouble; they all became acupuncturists." Her alpha children had, in any case.
Carver, who had little regard for acupuncturists in general and that disagreeable woman in particular, floated forward again and waved his arms in her face, his voice dripping with his own special brand of sarcasm. "Well we can't all be acupuncturists!"
"No," one of the oldest women ancestors snapped back as she floated forward angrily; "your great-grandson had to be a cross-dresser!"
The arguments devolved from there, Kevin and the Great Ancestor both losing track of the conversation. Kevin, who had become accustomed to the pointless commotion, thumbed through a small newspaper, something he had learned to conjure to pass the time. Kevin's utter disregard for the turmoil around him almost made the Great Ancestor speak up, but Samuel Campbell finally rose above the throng, his disciplined voice breaking through the noise.
"Let a guardian bring Dean back."
Well, at least someone finally had a useful suggestion instead of accusations. Carver leapt at the chance to agree, grabbing Kevin around his slender body and shoving him toward one of the vicious-looking stone guardians, pointing toward the gong that the dragon had managed to grab on the way up. "Yes, awaken the most cunning."
Henry snatched Kevin out of his father's hands, holding him close to a different statue, a hare with attentive-looking ears. "No, the swiftest!"
Deanna Campbell plucked the small dragon free and held him up toward the monkey guardian, the statue sitting with one arm crossed over his knee. By now, Kevin was just holding tightly to the string of his gong and the tiny mallet, having no intention of using it until the ancestors could agree on something. "No, send the wisest!"
"Silence," the Great Ancestor thundered, startling Deanna into dropping Kevin to the ground. He thanked whoever had decided to make dragons tough, because a fall from that height might have seriously injured him back when he was still human. "We will send the most powerful of all." Kevin's ears perked up at that; this was his chance!
Dropping his gong, Kevin slithered up to his old pedestal, laughing as soon as he was in position. "Okay, okay, I get the Jif. I'll go." The ancestors, hovering beneath him with their amorphous lower bodies still attached to their name stones, burst into laughter, even the leader chuckling. "What, you don't think I can do it?! Watch this!" Kevin breathed in and snorted out a tiny flame, the largest he had ever managed. He was a dragon, technically, but he had always relied on his deviousness and wits to overcome any task that was set before him. "Ah-hah! Jump back; I'm pretty hot. Don't make me singe somebody to prove my point."
"You had your chance to protect the Winchester family," the Great Ancestor rumbled.
"Your misguidance led Mark Winchester to disaster," the old woman who had yelled at Carver earlier hissed.
"Yeah," Mark agreed, the young beta soldier tossing his severed head into the air, "thanks a lot."
Kevin glared at the gathered spirits, almost sneering his anger. Mark's misfortune hadn't been his fault; the man had died over two hundred years earlier during a Hun incursion before the Great Wall had been built. How could he have known that the lines would break where the beta had been stationed? The death had been honorable. "And your point is?"
"The point is, we will be sending a real dragon to retrieve Dean," the Great Ancestor answered, gritting his teeth as he struggled not to lose his temper at the gong-ringer.
"What? What? I'm a real dragon!"
"You are not worthy of this spot," the Great Ancestor snapped, grabbing Kevin around his waist and forcibly removing him from the shelf and throwing him out the door of the shrine. "Now, awaken the Great Stone Dragon!" His gong and mallet followed a moment later.
Kevin grumbled as he grabbed the string on top of the gong, dragging it despondently behind him as he headed toward the huge statue overlooking the reflecting pool. The ancestors had been arguing all night, dawn brightening the horizon, and Dean might already be at the camp. The thought spurred the dragon a little, but he was still sulking as he reached the bottom of the hill.
"Just one chance, is that too much to ask? I mean, it's not like it'd kill you." He was talking to himself, and he knew that the Great Ancestor couldn't hear him, but he really, truly wanted to redeem himself for letting Mark die. He could find Dean and save him, he could! But he had been ordered to let the Great Stone Dragon fetch the young omega and protect the family honor.
Kevin reached the silent statue and started to climb it, a feeling of uneasiness in his gut. When he was around the other guardians, there was an energy, a presence stirring just below the stone surface, but this statue was cold, silent. The dragon perched on his larger counterpart's shoulder, holding up his gong and banging it, hard, waiting for the magic to take effect. "Yo, Rocky, wake up! You gotta go fetch Dean!"
He kept banging on his gong, feeling the strange magic in it reaching out for the huge statue but not getting any response. He climbed up to the statue's ear, growling in annoyance at the extra effort as he banged his gong again, louder, and yelled into the stone ear. Nothing happened.
The dragon slumped to the ground, dragging his gong down with him to use it as a seat. What was he going to do? The Great Stone Dragon had been asleep for a long, long time and it looked like his spirit had fled, either abandoning the family for good, or joining a human host for some reason. Either way, the statue was not going to move. He took a moment to thank the gods that the small reflecting pond was out of sight of the shrine at the top of the hill and that none of the ancestors could leave that building.
His ears perked up as the Great Ancestor's voice thundered down the hill, inaudible to human ears but far too loud to the small dragon. "Great Stone Dragon! Have you awakened?"
Panicking, Kevin dropped his gong and ran partway up the hill, catching the spirit's eyes and pointing toward the rising sun. "Uh, yeah, he just woke up! I, uh, told him what was going on and he said he would go forth and fetch Dean!" He hoped that sounded convincing enough.
Clearly, it did, because the Ancestor nodded sagely. "Good. Kevin, make sure you tell him that the fate of the Winchester Family rests in his claws."
"Uh, yeah, of course! I'll, uh, run after him right now and let him know!" Kevin watched as the Great Ancestor faded from the physical realm, returning to his slumber safe in the knowledge that the greatest of the family guardians had gone off to bring their errant omega home.
Except, he hadn't. Kevin slithered back over to the huge dragon statue, crawling up on his lower claws and dropping his head into his hands. "That's just great, now what? I'm doomed, all because an overgrown omega decided to take his drag show on the road! And why, in the name of all that is good and holy, would the Great Stone Dragon's spirit be missing?"
A small purple cricket, from a species frequently considered lucky in China, joined the dragon on his perch, chirping sagely at the larger beast. Thankfully, Kevin spoke cricket.
"What? Go get him? Me? What's the matter with you? After this Great Stone Sabbatical mess, I'd have to bring him home with a medal to get back in the Temple." The tiny cricket tilted his head in confusion, antennae pointed forward as he tried to get a read on this dragon. He had never met one before, but it seemed like a large, powerful creature that could help his new friend Dean return home safely. The omega had been kind to him, releasing him into a beautiful garden after he had lived in a cage his whole life, so he truly wanted to repay that generous gesture.
"That's it! I'll make Dean a war hero and they'll be begging me to come back to work! That's the master plan!" It didn't seem like a terrible plan, as far as the cricket was concerned, and of course he had no idea that Kevin had gotten the last Winchester he helped beheaded. So, ever helpful, he chirped again.
"And what makes you think you're coming?" Kevin, his gong and mallet forgotten, dashed off toward the front of the estate and the road, looking for the spot where the guardians had built their most recent portal system near the front gate. Dean had a huge head-start, but he had most likely ridden slowly to avoid tiring his horse. He couldn't be admitted to the camp until dawn, which was nearly upon them, and Kevin had to get to him before that. He couldn't fly, and his magic was pretty much all fire-based, but the Hare guardian had designed a tunnel system of portals that would allow all of the guardians to travel anywhere in China.
The cricket chirped again, leaping after the dragon as he sensed the buildup of energy nearby. "You're lucky? Do I look like a sucker to you?" The cricket, his antennae crossed behind his head angrily, chirped back. "What do you mean a loser? What if I pop one of your antennae off and throw it across the yard, then who's the loser, you or me?" The cricket's response faded as the pair of them jumped into a portal, vanishing in a flash of brilliant blue-white light.
Dick Roman had never considered himself an unreasonable man. His tribe, the greatest among the various Hun families, had guarded the border with China faithfully for generations. There had been many emperors in China during that time, and each had built small stone walls to protect their lands from Dick's people, though most of the deterrents had been ineffectual.
The last great skirmish between the Huns, including Dick's Leviathan tribe, and the people of China had ended over twenty years prior, and the current emperor had decided to try to make the peace permanent. Unfortunately for him, Chuck of the Qin Dynasty decided to do that by linking all of the smaller stone walls into one Great Wall of China, which infuriated the Huns to the north. It had taken him two decades to complete his project and the Huns had immediately decided to test the impenetrability of the edifice.
Some of the tribes from the west indicated that Chuck had already started to build the wall taller and thicker in certain places, a project that could take hundreds or even thousands of years to complete, but it was an affront to the power of the independent Hun tribes. They couldn't allow this insult, so Dick had been chosen to lead an army south, to invade China and topple Chuck from his throne.
The tall, deceptively slender Hun looked up from the map his Second was showing him, dark eyes flicking to a commotion at the edge of his camp. The man, Edgar, had been a member of a rival tribe before the Leviathans exterminated them, but he had proven his worth since then.
"Sir! Imperial scouts." Gaines, an older warrior who had been loyal to Dick for decades, dragged a pair of scrawny Chinese men into the clearing, both betas by their scent and neither of them armed well enough to take on even one Hun. What was the Emperor playing at?
Dick rose to his feet, the heavy fur and leather cloak he wore adding bulk to his unassuming frame. A heavy sword in an ancient scabbard hung across his back, the symbol of his tribe and power, one clearly recognized by the older of the two betas.
"Dick Roman!"
"Good work, gentleman," he mocked, the slightest hiss in his voice. "You've found the Hun army." Edgar and Gaines chuckled at that, both alphas certain that the Chinese posed them no threat. Unlike the Chinese, the Huns generally allowed all subgenders in their army, though Dick's closest advisors and the tribal leaders were all alphas.
"The Emperor will stop you," the second scout managed, his young voice breaking on the words. Why was Chuck using children in his army?
"Stop me?" Dick chuckled, reaching for the hunting knife at his side and playing with the leather-wrapped handle. "He invited me. By building his wall, he challenged my strength. Well, I'm here to play his game." He turned his back on the pair, tugging his fur-lined hood back over his head in a clear dismissal, showing the scouts that they weren't even worth his time. "Go! Tell your Emperor to send his strongest armies. I'm ready."
The two betas glanced at each other before scurrying off, the older one glancing back over his shoulder as they vanished into the fog of the swamp. Dick glanced at Edgar, rubbing his chin thoughtfully with one gloved hand. "How many men does it take to deliver a message?"
Valente, a young beta who had proven himself to be one of the finest archers in the Hun army, grinned as he raised his bow and nocked an arrow. "One."
