by James Maxey
Bitterwood frowned.
“The widow? What did you do to the widow?”
“We… we know we didn’t steal the goat like we promised,” the dragon said.
“Promised?” said Bitterwood. “What promise?”
“D-did Priter send you?” the dragon asked, sounding hesitant.
“Priter? What does Priter have to do with this?”
“He’s been paying us to steal from farms across the river,” said the dragon. “I don’t know why.”
Bitterwood knew why. On their own, the dragons had been too scared of the guns to cross to the human side of the river, which couldn’t have helped with Priter’s business model of demanding bribes in exchange for protection.
“Has he paid earth-dragons, too? Did he send them after the hog you saw when you stole those chickens?”
“What hog?” the dragon asked. “Which chickens?”
“The night you were wounded. You saw a hog.”
“The big one? Yes. I recall it.”
“Did you tell any earth-dragon about it?”
“N-not that I can think of. Why would I?”
Bitterwood’s heart sank. The dragon wasn’t lying. There was something in his tone Bitterwood recognized. Something he’d heard before. Not fear. Resignation.
“You know I’m going to kill you,” said Bitterwood.
“I know,” said the dragon, wearily, lifting up his tattered wings. “And it will be mercy.”
Bitterwood drew his bow and placed an arrow against the string. He was almost tempted to let the dragon live. The tatterwing couldn’t fly, and now he couldn’t walk without pain. His closest companions were dead, and a lone tatterwing stood little chance of surviving for long. The fact the dragon didn’t fear death robbed the moment of any satisfaction.
He loosed the arrow all the same. He stood for several minutes, listening to the dragon’s rasping breath as he bled out. That sound, the wet, gurgling sob, was a noise he was intimately familiar with. To the dark thing that lived inside him it was a kind of music.
But his quiet reverie was disturbed by the weight of his newfound knowledge. Humans and dragons, working together to enrich themselves. He’d seen such things before. Burke might have turned a blind eye toward his rangers lining their pockets with bribes, but he couldn’t believe Burke knew the rangers had actually partnered with dragons. Priter and his crew were just three men. Certainly all the rangers weren’t so corrupt.
But few or many, it mattered little. He’d come hunting the monsters who’d caused tears to well in Zeeky’s eyes. The ghost of vengeance whispering in his ear demanded blood, and human blood and dragon blood would look the same when coating the shaft of one of his arrows. The job wasn’t yet finished.
As he stood lost in thought, awareness slowly crept in. The roaring flames of the saloon, the chaotic shouts and screams in the distance, gave way to the nearby baying of ox-dogs drawing closer. They were right outside the barn, from the sound of it.
He stood still as a tombstone as something pushed against the barn door. The fallen body of the dragon he’d speared blocked the door, but the earth-dragon on the other side put his shoulder to the task and pushed the door open with a grunt.
The light of the burning tavern spilled through the door and lit Bitterwood, his brown cloak red in the firelight.
The earth-dragon looked at him dully. Behind the dragon were a pair of ox-dogs and at least twenty earth-dragons. They all grew quiet as they looked at him, his bow, and the dying tatterwing at his feet, still gurgling out his dying breaths.
The earth-dragon in the doorway broke the silence, saying, in despair, “You.”
“I,” said Bitterwood. “The shadow in the forest. The relentless river, and the rock, unmoving. I am the Death of All Dragons. It would be wise of you to run.”
“We’ll not run!” a large earth-dragon shouted from behind the ox-dogs. Then, there was a flash and a loud BANG, and the dragon in the doorway fell forward, the back of his head turned to pulp. Bitterwood didn’t waste time contemplating exactly what had happened before he was in motion, diving toward the stalls, away from the light of the doorway as more explosions flashed and the wood of the barn wall splintered and tore. A tiny ball of hot lead tore through his boot cuff and lodged in his shin and he gasped.
Shotguns! Some of the dragons had Burke’s weapons!
It made them bold as they charged through the door. But he was in shadows and they were in light. His bow sang sweetly and arrows whistled through the air and dragons fell. After the initial rush of five or six, the remaining dragons realized that entering the barn was suicide. Someone shouted, “Burn him out!”
Bitterwood put his fingers into his mouth and whistled. There was a clattering on the roof and the rafters creaked as the great weight of the long-wyrm launched into motion. Bitterwood jumped up, grabbing the edge of the hayloft, and ran toward the upper door overlooking the crowd.
He arrived in time to watch Skitter charge into the crowd, snarling and snapping, a tornado of claws and teeth. Bitterwood saw one of the earth-dragons armed with a shotgun take aim at the long-wyrm and put an arrow into the dragon’s wrist before he could pull the trigger. The wounded dragon dropped his gun and it went off as it hit the ground, blasting a hole in the side of the nearest ox-dog.
For ten seconds, perhaps twelve, the earth-dragons stood their ground in the face of the strange beast tearing at their brothers, while the hail of arrows dropped fellow dragons left and right. Then they routed, and Bitterwood took out a few with arrows to the back, but decided against killing them all. He’d heard before the rumor that he’d been killed by Shandrazel and had been content to let the rumor spread. He’d thought it was time for the Ghost Who Kills to be laid to rest. Now, he wanted every dragon in the kingdom to know that Bitterwood had returned. For this purpose alone, a living dragon was more valuable than a dead one.
BITTERWOOD CAME TO DRAGON FORGE late at night, leaving Skitter a good distance away. The ground around the fort was barren and there was little cover for a beast of Skitter’s size. Even an ordinary man would have been plainly visible on the open ground, but, Bitterwood knew how to move unseen. He scaled the walls effortlessly, even with the heavy burden he carried on his back.
Despite the late hour, there was revelry going on in the alleys where the liquor was sold. Burke insisted on operating the foundries all day and night, with the unintended consequence that he’d created a city where, since honest men had reason to be on the streets at night, less honorable men could move about freely as well. Bitterwood sniffed the air and frowned. Beneath the stench of the foundry was the unmistakable smell of pork fat dripping over hot coals.
He dropped down from the wall onto the cobblestone streets and walk without any effort to hide himself toward the establishment where the smell of the pork smoke was strongest. He walked past the door, his face concealed under his cloak, and glanced inside, confirming that several of Burke’s rangers were there, drinking, smoking, and enjoying the company of women. He walked on, finding the nearest stable. As expected, he found a cart outside the door and an ox-dog sleeping beside it. He walked past the dog silently.
Inside the stable were thirty horses. He soon found the ones Priter, Bo, and Wessing had been riding. In a room attached to the stable he found saddles and saddle bags, and beside the saddle bags he found a pair of battle-axes. He went through the bags nearest the axes, wanting to be sure. After less than a minute of searching, he found what he was looking for. Muddy boots. Riveted to the soles of the boots were the wooden outlines of an earth-dragons print, crudely carved, but fixed with actual claws on the toes. In fine sand, he would have noticed they were fake at a glance, but in the trampled muck of a pig pen? He shook his head. That was no excuse. If he’d taken any time at all to study the prints, he would have noticed something was off. If he’d spent more time pondering how the dragons could have ridden along the road, or why they left behind the bodies of the dogs, the truth would have been
plain. He hadn’t wasted even a moment building a case against the dragons. He’d judged them guilty and declared himself executioner. He felt no remorse for the pile of corpses he’d left in Multon. The dragons had been guilty of life itself, an unpardonable sin.
Now that he knew which men had committed the crime, the proper thing to do would be to report the evidence to Burke. Especially given what he carried in the bundle strapped to his back, Burke would have no choice but to take action. But, would Burke hang a man for stealing a pig? Probably not. Would they be hanged for dealing with dragons? Perhaps. But it was the first crime that had made Zeeky cry. The dark ghost within Bitterwood had never demanded human blood before this night, and some small, feeble voice within him whispered it wasn’t too late to turn back.
“It’s been too late for a long time,” the dark ghost answered.
Bitterwood walked from the stables back to the house where the rangers had been drinking. He’d counted nine men and seven women. All of the men had shotguns near them. If these had been dragons, he’d enter with his bow drawn and kill the lot of them before they could even register what was happening. But, while all the men and women were feasting on stolen meat, how many knew its origins?
He stepped into the door and stood there, motionless, staring across the crowd at Priter. One by one, the men and woman took notice of him, and one by one they stopped talking as they saw his face. The silence spread like a wave until the only one left talking was Priter, who said to the woman on his lap, “Let’s take the bottle up to your room and…” Then he noticed the silence, noticed the turned heads of his brethren, and turned toward Bitterwood. For half a moment, his face went pale. Then, he rallied with a smile and rose, rudely pushing the woman from his lap. With his hand on his belt next to the sheath of his dagger, Priter said, with a forced friendliness, “Well, looky here. It’s our friend the farmer come to join the party.”
“No,” said Bitterwood. “You are mistaken.”
“Not here for the party?” said Priter, with a soft chuckle. “Too bad. We got some mighty fine barbeque.”
“You’re mistaken in believing I’m a farmer.”
Priter’s fingers closed around the hilt of his dagger. “You think I haven’t heard the rumors? That you used to be some kind of badass dragon fighter? But how tough can you be if you came crying to Burke about losing a few chickens?”
Bitterwood said nothing.
“And, even if you were a fighter, once, you’re old now, worn out. Join the party, farmer, or go home. What you choose matters nothing to me.”
“Very well,” said Bitterwood, drawing his bow and placing an arrow to the string.
All around him, men reached for their guns.
Bitterwood glanced around the room. “Consider your actions carefully. What you choose matters a great deal to me. I’ve come for Wessing, Bo, and Priter. There’s no need for the rest of you to die as well. You may leave. Stay and defend these villains and I will show no mercy.”
None of the rangers moved toward the door. All took aim with their shotguns, though some were so drunk that the barrels weren’t quite pointed where he stood.
“You’ve all made your choice,” said Bitterwood, taking aim at Priter. “You will not live to regret it.”
“There are nine of us!” said Priter, sounding incredulous. “Put down your bow! Are you out of my mind?”
Bitterwood released his arrow. He’d aimed at Priter’s right ear and neatly took off the top inch. Burke’s shotguns had a delay of half a second once the trigger was pulled and the fuse ignited. He waited just long enough to assure everyone had braced for the kick of the gunpowder, then dove forward as thunder filled the room. Tiny stray balls of lead ripped through his cloak and a few peppered his ribs but did no real damage. However, he hadn’t counted on the ringing in his ears deafening him. Ordinarily, when he fought multiple opponents, he could map their location in his mind by the sound of their panting even if he didn’t have eyes on them.
He sprang up and delivered a vicious kick to Priter’s face, using it as a springboard to spin in the air, to face the chaos of the greater room. One of the whores was dead on the floor, with little left of her face, a victim of a poorly aimed shot. The other women were rushing the door in a flurry of petticoats, with shrill shrieks he heard even above the ringing in his ears.
A few of the rangers to his right were reloading, an act that took several seconds, while it took him a fraction of a second to nock an arrow and release it. In the span of three seconds, four men were dead with arrows jutting from their hearts, including Bo.
To his left, three of the rangers, including Wessing were also wounded, victims of stray shot, but the fourth had tossed aside his gun and charged at Bitterwood with a short sword. Bitterwood dropped his bow, deftly dodging the blade then dropped the man with a punch to the throat, tearing his blade from his grasp, thrusting the tip into the man’s back as he fell, targeting his right kidney.
Yanking the sword free he ran at the three wounded men. They threw up their hands to plead mercy, but Bitterwood was beyond mercy. With three swift hacks, the men fell to his feet, bleeding profusely from wounds to their necks.
Bitterwood spun back around to Priter, who’d seen none of this, since he was clutching his broken nose with both hands, his eyes clenched shut with pain.
Bitterwood grabbed Priter by his collar.
“No,” said Bitterwood, his voice sounding hollow and distant through the ringing in his ears. “No, I am not out of my mind. Killing you is the most rational thing I’ll do this night. Let a thief get away without consequences and all other thieves will only grow bolder.”
Priter forced his eyes open. By now, he had to have noticed the unnatural silence of the room. His eyes went wide as he saw the dead bodies of his companions, alive not even twenty seconds ago.
“I’ll confess it all!” Priter cried. “I’ll tell Burke all I’ve done!”
“You think I came to let another man kill you?” Bitterwood said through clenched teeth. “You’ll not die swiftly, Priter.”
“He’ll not die at all,” said a woman’s voice behind him.
Bitterwood froze. He knew the voice.
“Put him down,” said Anza.
“You got here fast,” Bitterwood grumbled.
“So many guns going off at once wakes one swiftly,” said Anza. “And from my bedroom window, this place is only three rooftops away.”
Bitterwood grimaced. He didn’t want to fight Anza. First, as a rule, he didn’t like fighting women, and second, if there was anyone in Dragon Forge who might actually harm him, it was Anza.
Bitterwood turned his head and found Anza in the doorway wearing only a cotton slip. In one hand she carried a tomahawk, in the other a longsword. The muscles in her arms and shoulders were tight, ready for action. It would not be easy to get past her if he was dragging Priter.
Anza kept her eyes fixed on him, but he could see in her face that she was making an account of all the dead bodies.
“What have you done?” she asked, her voice filled with confusion.
“I’ve rid your father of thieves and traitors living under his nose,” said Bitterwood.
Anza’s back straightened and her eyes grew hard. “I can’t let you walk away from this.”
“Tell her what you took from me,” Bitterwood said to Priter.
“He’s crazy!” Priter screamed. “He just came in and started killing people! I never did anything to him!”
Bitterwood used his short sword to cut off the tip of Priter’s other ear, then spun, his hand outstretched, and caught the tomahawk Anza hurled before it could bury itself in his skull.
“I don’t want to fight you,” said Bitterwood, as Anza grasped her longsword with both hands.
“I enjoy a challenge,” Anza said, coolly, though she didn’t follow her words with an attack. She’d witnessed his reflexes, and had to know any attack she made would be parried. She would wait for Bitterwood to make the first mo
ve, since he would be at his most vulnerable when he was thrusting his own blade or retrieving his bow. Bitterwood pushed Priter in front of him and held a sword to his throat. “Tell her!”
“It was just a pig!” Priter screamed. “It was just a damned pig!”
“Poocher?” said Anza, her face growing slack.
Bitterwood nodded.
Anza’s face hardened again. “I liked Poocher. He helped me defeat Vulpine. But I can’t turn a blind eye to these bodies. You’ll go to the gallows for what you’ve done.”
“Perhaps you value the lives of pig thieves,” said Bitterwood. “But your rangers have betrayed you, trading with the dragons at Multon.”
“What are you talking about?”
Bitterwood lowered his sword, moving cautiously as he reached for the bundle on his back. He’d wrapped the items in a burlap sack in the barn in Multon, and now held the edge of the sack as he tossed it forward, unfurling it. A pair of shotguns clattered to the floor.
“Dragons used these against me in Multon. I’m sure there are more to be found. Someone among the rangers has been trading guns for whiskey or women or something else. I didn’t have much of an opportunity to ask questions. But if the earth-dragons have guns, it won’t be long before the College of Spires figures out how to make their own weapons.”
Anza frowned as she stared at the guns.
“What do you know of this?” she asked, her eyes fixed on Priter.
“Nothing!” Priter cried. “I swear, I wasn’t trading guns! There are lots of humans going to Multon! It could have been anyone!”
“Truly?” Bitterwood said, placing his blade across the man’s throat. “You have nothing of further value to tell us?”
“I swear I had nothing to do with trading guns!”
Bitterwood slit the man’s throat and pushed him away.
He stared at Anza. “If Burke wishes to hang me, it may as well be for nine dead men instead of eight. Now stand aside, girl.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said, tightening her grip on her blade, moving lightly on her feet as she stepped back from the pool of blood spreading from Priter’s body.