Kingdom Come

by James Osiris Baldwin

“You are in danger for the rest of your days until he is dead.” The sly humor left the monk’s face. "But even more than Ashur, you must be careful to monitor your own behavior. You may have escaped un-life, but you are a predator now. You will start thinking like a predator without even realizing it, losing your humanity one convenient lapse of empathy at a time. That is something to remember... to meditate on and think about during the times when you are tempted by the easy way out."

  Is that why it had been so easy to stab Violetta when she was beginning for mercy? That line of thinking led to some dark places. I eased up off the chair, grimacing as my knees creaked. "I can’t really tell from the inside of my head. I'd be grateful if you'll be there to help remind me."

  The monk sniffed, closing his eyes. "Of course. Istvan is still hopelessly attached to this place, and damned if I'm going to leave him here by himself. He’s in the mood to nest, I think. Now... I assume you're going to find Suri, yes?"

  "Yeah," I said. "As soon as I figure out how to find her."

  He cocked an eyebrow. "Try Cutthroat."

  "Cutthroat?" I frowned, puzzled, and then punched my palm with my other fist. "Wait - you're right! She's her Bonded Mount. She might know where Suri is. Not that she can tell us."

  "Of course she can." The corner of Vash's mouth quirked. “Loudly, I’m sure.”

  "Maybe we can make some adjustments to Karalti's saddle and carry her around somehow." I rubbed my face, thinking. "I'll go talk to Rin."

  "You do that. I must sleep and heal, then relearn how to fight with this arm." He heaved a deep, tired sigh. His HP was less than half its usual total, sitting in the weird greenish-orange part of the meter. "What did you do with Soma?"

  "Tried to repair the relationship and make good," I said. "He's on the way back to Litvy."

  Vash's expression darkened. "If he ever finds out you are a Dhampir, that could be enough for him to urge for civil war. You should have held him hostage for a while. Put him to work here."

  "I thought about it. But there are other things he doesn't know about me that grant me an advantage."

  "Hurrm." He shook his head. "We shall see. Now go back to your dragon, dog - I must rest."

  "Alright. Rest well." I turned, but before I was out of earshot, I looked back over my shoulder at him. "You going to call me a dog forever?"

  "It’s a compliment. The dog is the noblest of animals, second only to the common house fly." He scrunched his face up and farted. "Dogs are honest. Loyal. Eager to learn. We should all be better off if we were more like them."

  "Count Dogula it is, then." I winked at him, and his dry chuckle followed me outside.

  Karalti was sunbathing, lying flat on her back in a big patch of sunlight so intense that it made my eyes sting. I reequipped my helmet and went to stand over her. "Okay, Tidbit. Let's go get some rest. We've got a big night ahead of us."

  "Sounds good to me." She rolled over and pushed herself up on hands and knees, letting out a happy sigh. "Snuggling?"

  “Yeah. Maybe even extra snuggling.”

  “I like that.” Karalti caught my hand, and before I could lead her off, she gently pulled me to a stop. Her brilliant eyes caught my gaze and held them. "And hey… about Suri. We're gonna find her, alright? She’ll be fine. But no more dying for you."

  “Not if I can help it.” I reached up to smooth a lock of hair back from her cheek. "I know. Thanks."

  "It’s okay." Karalti lay her head against my palm for a moment, then tugged me forward. "But hey - before we sleep, you know what we're gonna do?"

  "What?"

  “It’s your favorite!”

  I sighed. “What?”

  "Pushups!" She punched the air with her free hand. "We’re gonna train! Muscles! Stamina! Flexibility! Before we go to Dakhdir, you’ll be able to tie a knot behind your head with your ankles! How far away are you from Level 23?”

  “Let me check.” I opened my HUD, checked my character sheet, and groaned. “Oh, you have to be fucking kidding me.”

  “What?” Karalti tilted her head.

  “I am ten fucking points off Level 23.” I sighed, shooing the window away like a fly. “This game. I swear to God.”

  “I guess we’re gonna go kill a Stingcrab, too!” Karalti broke off into a run, a blur of laughter and speed. "Come on! I’ll race you to the Grand Hall!"

  I smiled, and as I took off after her, I peered up at the blazing blue sky. The sun had risen, and as the darkness had done, the light was urging me to sleep. But I couldn’t. We had to get ready to fly to Dakhdir.

  We were going to bring Suri home.

  Editorial Note

  The editor who was to work on this book had to abandon the project for health reasons. Many amazing people stepped up at the last minute to help, but we may have missed some errors.

  If you see any remaining errata in Kingdom Come and would like to help improve it, I will gladly fix any spelling, grammar or punctuation that you can spot and point out to me. Email me at author@jamesosiris.com with any corrections.

  A huge thanks to everyone who chipped in:

  Canth Decided-Baldwin

  Riley M.

  Kirri

  Krysil

  James Caplan

  John Ashmore

  Michaela Cocker and others

  Author’s Note

  2018 was, without question, the worst year of my adult life.

  Those who have been following my journey on my Facebook group or Patreon probably have a rough idea of what happened: in June of 2018, me and my wife lost her home of 25 years because of a sharp and sudden personal betrayal. I had just finished Trial by Fire and we were both mentally and economically precarious at the time – and then, suddenly, homeless. Some wonderful friends took us and our animals in, but the loss of this home and the people associated with it was truly devastating, requiring the better part of a year for us to even begin to come to terms with what had happened.

  We ended up living in depressing sub-par accommodations for that year: a 500 sq.ft house with a lot of mold. It was on the grounds of the stable where we kept my wife’s therapy horse, Kai, which was the sole good thing about it – until Kai became ill and suffered a protracted period of ill health. We had to euthanize her in May of 2019, to our great sorrow. Things were difficult for our friends, too. We lost several friends and relatives of friends to suicide, cancer and accidents. All in all, 2018 can go DIAF.

  2019 has been better – but stressful. Spring shoots are starting to come up through the bitter frost of the last 12 months. We moved cities and now have a very nice apartment in a quiet neighborhood. I learned to drive (finally: I’d only ever ridden motorcycles). One of our deceased friends bequeathed us her sphynx cat, so as I write this, a naked kitten is playing around my keyboard and swatting at the edge of my monitor. It is quiet, and we are safe.

  The whole time all that was going on, I was writing this book – a story that is fundamentally about characters trying to find a sense of place in their new reality, not entirely sure yet where they fit in. Even Rin, who is so certain of her path as an Artificer, is called on to extend herself beyond her comfortable role. The book tapped into my own fears of not having a home, of desperately craving one, but also of being afraid to try again after being so badly wounded by the last attempt.

  I know that we survived through the grace of our friends and chosen family. So many people rallied to help us when we lost the house, and if it wasn’t for them, we’d probably have ended up in a cardbox box or a hotel room (but given the number of pets we have, probably the box). When Hector says that chosen family is worth everything, that is a reflection of my own experience. For every person who was shitty to us, three stepped in to help. We owe them our lives.

  Hopefully you enjoyed this story as much as I enjoyed writing it – I’m sorry you had to wait so long for it. If you did enjoy the book, please consider leaving a review on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QLBF516

  Read on for an ArchemiWiki
entry on Archemi’s dragons and a link to secret chapters of Kingdom Come. I’m taking a short break, then moving onto Archemi Book #4: Warsinger.

  While you’re waiting for Warsinger…

  An arcane assassin. A billion year war. An evil greater than death, greater than anything…

  If any of you have a twitchy Kindle Unlimited trigger finger and want a week's reading between now and the release of Kingdom Come, the Hound of Eden omnibus is available: 3 full-length books for $8 or included for FREE with your Kindle Unlimited subscription.

  This is an LGBT series, but romance is not the focus of the story. It is action-driven Urban Fantasy, and if you ever wanted to read the kind of action hero who wrestles a sub-machine gun off a Man in Black and mows him down with it, I got you fam.

  There's moderate adult content in Book 3.

  Get it here: http://jamesosiris.com/getbook/95252

  Dev Notes

  Archemipedia Entry: Solonkratsu (Dragons) [Grade-A Knowledge]

  Introduction

  No creature inspires so much terror and awe in humankind as the mighty Solonkratsu – the dragons of Archemi. The dragons once ruled a sophisticated, bustling empire that spanned all continents and islands of the world, but their reign came to an abrupt end with the Drachan War. In the modern day, dragons are rare, inhabiting isolated outposts or, like the Dragons of the Eyrie, working in partnership with human or Lys dragon knights.

  Body structure and type

  The Solonkratsu are magically-enhanced theropods, and bear more similarity to the bird-like dinosaurs of the Late Cretaceous period than anything reptilian. They are hollow boned and warm-blooded, with metabolisms comparable to modern birds. They are able to regulate their body temperature through panting and shivering.

  The body-plan of Solonkratsu is functionally bipedal. Like a T-rex, they walk on powerful hind legs, balancing the weight of their hindquarters with their tails and wings. Their heads are wedge-shaped, with a slightly rounded muzzle and powerful jaws capable of opening as wide as a snake’s. Top and bottom rows of curved slashing teeth are concealed by a rim of scales, and the teeth do not extrude past these stiff ‘lips’. They have special flat scales just forward of their nostrils which cover bundles of special sensory nerves. They can judge windspeed, temperature, and many other things through these sensory patches.

  The nasal bone is fused and tough, the maxilla (the primary tooth-bearing bone of the upper jaw) very rigid and strongly fortified. This allows dragons to deliver bone-crushing bites to downed prey, but also to open their jaws wide and slash with the upper teeth – their main method of combat with other dragons. The skull is crested, with ridges that protect the eyes and partly shield them from wind. The shape of the Solonkratsu skull is highly aerodynamic, with the scales patterned in such a way as to allow air to smoothly pass over and around their heads.

  Most dragons have horns, with horn patterning varying somewhat from region to region and clan to clan. In all instances, horns are smooth and sweep backwards from the skull. They are not embedded in the bones of the skull: horns in dragon-kind are purely for display, not combat, and they are set into cartilage and supported by muscle and membrane. This means that dragons can flare, drop, fold and lift their horns expressively.

  Queen dragons will typically be born with a horn pattern that characterizes their bloodline. Horn length and health, and the ability to display with the horns is one of the considerations all dragons, male and female, use when selecting mates.

  Archemi’s dragons are six-limbed, with the arms and wings set on a strongly fortified ‘butterfly’ shaped pair of fused shoulder blades. The forelimbs are weak compared to the jaws, wings and hindquarters – however, the dragons have flexible wrists and four fingered ‘hands’ – three fingers and a thumb – that are dexterous enough to use tools with if the claw is shaved down. Dragons who cut or shave their foreclaws can hold everything from paintbrushes to lutes and wrenches with their hands, allowing them to perform activities such as building and crafting. Dedicated Solonkratsu craftsdragons will often dock and cauterize their foreclaws to be more effective tool-users: to be ‘blunt-fingered’ is known to be the mark of a dedicated artisan, and is one of the few forms of body modification considered to be acceptable.

  Solonkratsu are quite gracile (lightly-built) for their size, with medium-length, graceful necks, very long tails, deep chests reinforced by furcula (a boomerang shaped ‘wishbone’ set above fused clavicles) and cross-hatched gastralia (belly ribs) which protect and support their high, arched, sinewy abdomens. Their backs are very straight and powerfully muscled, especially around the shoulders and at the base of the tail. The chest is narrow and their body streamlined for speed, giving them a narrow, lean, greyhound-like appearance.

  Flight

  Flight for Solonkratsu is partly magical, partly physiological. Archemi has slightly less gravity and more oxygen in its atmosphere than Earth; in addition, the mana in dragon blood and the Words encoded into their flesh relieves them of approximately 50-75% of their terrestrial bodyweight while in the air, making even fully-grown Solonkratsu highly maneuverable, swift flyers. However, they still have many physical adaptations: massive, four lobed lungs capable of functioning at great altitudes; the ability to control their blood pressure; extremely efficient, short gastro-intestinal tracts that remove and expel moisture from food; and most notably, two hearts.

  The Prime Heart in dragons is a massive organ that takes up a great deal of the chest cavity, pumping blood through five major arteries to the head, limbs, wings and tail. When a dragon spreads and flexes its wings, they activate a second auxiliary heart, the Drive Heart, which only serves the front-end of the dragon’s body: the wings, lungs and brain. The auxiliary heart falls into sync with the primary organ, working alongside it to pump mana into the wing membranes, sharply increase blood pressure, and provide support for the hydraulic system of tendons, muscles and cartilage that support the dragon in the air. In autopsy, the auxiliary heart is quite visually different to the primary heart, having white flesh and a much denser structure.

  There are also many external features which help to stabilize dragons in the air: fins, horns, the shape of the skull, dorsal ridges along the back, powerful muscles at the base of the tail and a fan of specially-shaped scales along the tail assist with maneuverability.

  Because of their physical and magical adaptations, hatchlings are born with proportionate wings and already know how to fly – a characteristic vital to their survival in the wild. They are usually hopping and gliding within hours of leaving the shell, flying short distances by the end of their first week, and are fully flighted within a month.

  The Solonkratsu have exceptional endurance for flight and spend a great deal of time on the wing, as they cannot truly run as a human or a dog would. Like the large theropod dinosaurs, they must always have one foot on the ground. Their terrestrial bodyweight – combined with the limitations of their hollow bones – makes anything over a quick lumbering walk impossible. They can only reach top speeds of 45 mph on the ground, compared with up to 100 mph when flying and up to 350 mph when diving.

  The challenges of flight can sometimes limit a dragon’s senses. While their forward vision is excellent – better than that of hawks – dragons have poor peripheral vision while in flight, as they cannot move their eyes or turn their heads while moving at high speeds. Wing extension ‘locks’ the neck in place while in flight, a safeguard against whiplash and fractures while the dragon is potentially diving on prey and slashing at large animals with their upper jaw.

  Another issue is hypoxia. At high altitudes, a dragon’s body must function on reduced oxygen, inducing a euphoric, trance-like state which tunnels their vision even further. For this reason, specially-adapted human riders serve as a value set of eyes and ears during high and/or long-distance flights. Dragons cannot fly higher than 12,000 feet – their typical ceiling is 5000-7000 feet.

  Breath weapons

  A dragon’s brea
th weapon is mostly magical in nature, and is inherited through their Queen’s bloodline. To express a breath weapon, the dragon ‘breathes’ a Word of Power as they expel magically charged blood-plasma through three glands (one in the throat just behind the soft palate, two beside the salivary glands on either side of the tongue). The spell consumes the plasma, manifesting as a projected breath weapon in a fashion similar to the way human fire-eaters will spit a flaming plume of alcohol during the course of a stunt.

  The most common breath weapons are variations of fire, but lightning, acid, ice, sonic and plasma weapons are possible.

  A Queen dragon is born with Words of Power and a breath weapon unique to her and distinct from that of her mother’s. She will pass that breath weapon to all her progeny until she has a Queen daughter of her own. Even if a Queen mother and daughter pair both breathe fire, the Words of Power that trigger the effect will be different in the daughter, meaning that countermagic that works on the mother’s breath weapon would not affect the daughter’s even if they are visually similar.

  Reproduction and Life Cycle

  Solonkratsu, unlike many species of dragon, are not greedy individualists lairing in solitude. They are in fact a eusocial (hive) species, forming strong social connections and hierarchies with each other based on a complex of physical, magical, and social cues that lead dragons to take on specialized reproductive and non-reproductive roles. The reproductive role in all dragon clans is the sole responsibility of the Queen.

  Every single queen dragon is a mutant. Each Queen has a unique genetic profile from that of her mother, which is most obvious in the color of her scales. It is traditional that a Queen’s first title be signified by her coloration – such as Karalti the Black Opal Queen.