by Matt Forbeck
I heard a series of explosions from my room and leaped up to see Cindra standing in the doorway, letting loose with both of her guns as fast as she could. When the hammers of her twinned pistols fell on empty chambers, she tapped the barrels of the two guns together, then started firing again.
Kai knelt next to her in the doorway, bringing his shotgun up low and scanning the inside of the room for any threats. He didn’t pull his trigger.
“He going to make it?”
I looked up to see Kells peering over my shoulder at Danto, and I moved out of his way. “Maybe.”
Kells reached into the large shoulder bag he carried with him everywhere, and he fished out a glass vial filled with a thick, green gas. As Cindra and Kai moved into the room, Cindra still blasting away with her guns, Kells snapped the top of the vial off, and waved the gas under Danto’s nose. I stood up and took a step back.
The wizard inhaled a large puff of the small green cloud that spilled out of the vial and collected on his neck and chest. He jerked as if someone had stabbed him in the back, then sat straight up and launched into a coughing fit.
Kells grinned up at me. “He’s going to be fine.”
“So you say!” Danto said as he fought for control over his lungs again. “That’s a horrible way to wake someone up.”
“You want me to let you die next time?” Kells stood up and put out a hand to help Danto to his feet.
The wizard took Kells up on his offer, still trying to hack out the last bits of the gas in his chest. “You might want to consider it,” Danto said. “Some things are worse than dying, you know.”
“They got away,” Cindra said as she emerged from the room, the barrels of her guns smoking.
I looked over her shoulder. “Where’s Kai?”
“He went after them.”
“Out through the window?”
“Through the hole.”
I didn’t want to ask “What hole?” but I had to know. I slipped past Cindra and into the room to examine the damage.
The lightning bolt had blasted the shutters off my window and expanded the window itself by turning the edges of it to glowing-red charcoal. It had arced through the room and split there, it seemed, blasting apart just about everything in the place, from my bed down to the book I’d been reading the night before. That forking was probably what had saved Danto. If the full bolt had speared through him, he’d have been nothing but a charred skeleton rather than that coughing wreck in the hall.
“Did you see any of them?” I called back to Cindra just as she slipped in behind me, her pistols still at the ready.
She nodded. “Three or four shapes out there on the opposite rooftop. Couldn’t see much of them in the darkness.”
“Did you get any of them?”
She frowned and shook her head. “They were ready for someone to come back at them like that. They weren’t seriously trying to kill you. Not yet. They were just testing your defenses.”
“They did a good job on Danto for not being serious.” I capped the only exposed glowglobe in the room, plunging the place into darkness.
“He opened the shutters, I think, and turned on the lights. He might as well have put his head on a chopping block for them.”
“Whose idea was it to send him up here to distract them again?” I moved back toward the window and peered out into the Dragon City night, my wand held out and ready before me. I could have brought out the shotgun, but it was made for close-in fighting, not blasting away across rooftops.
“He volunteered.”
I spotted someone appear silhouetted against the opposite rooftop, a darker shadow among shadows. Cindra came up to the window and leveled her pistols at the figure, but I blocked her with my arm.
“It’s Kai,” I said. “Checking out where the killers were standing.”
She lowered her barrels. I peered past him, keeping my wand at the ready, just in case one of them was lying in wait for one of us to wander over there looking for clues. “He find anything?” she said.
I didn’t say a word. I just kept watching, straining my eyes for any kind of threat that might emerge from the darkness. I have to admit, I wasn’t looking at the sky.
A beam of light shot down from high in the air and caught Kai in it like a frightened deer. He glared up at it and put his hands up to shade his eyes.
“This is the Imperial Dragon’s Guard!” someone behind the light shouted. “Drop your weapon!”
The Quill had patrons from all over the city, but it was an odd bar in that regard. Most of the time, people stayed in their own parts of town, and when they wandered out, they didn’t do it by way of the rooftops — not unless they had larcenous intentions or worse.
I knew just what a guard would think when spotting an orc standing on a roof here in the Village. So did Kai. He holstered his enchanted shotgun in the scabbard across his back and put his hands up in the air.
“I repeat!” the guard in the flying chariot overhead said. “Drop your weapon!”
I swore. This was not going to go well.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Another orc caught in a spotlight on a rooftop in the Village might have frozen up, and the Guard probably would have shot him dead for his hesitation. Kai, though, ducked his head and sprinted for the edge of the rooftop.
Gunfire opened up from above, and a line of bullets stitched a path along Kai’s wake, getting closer to him with each shot and every step. Cindra moved to return fire on the chariot, but I shoved into her way, the words to a spell already on my lips. Rather than cast it at the chariot, I aimed my wand straight at Kai instead, and I let loose with it.
I couldn’t tell for sure if it had worked or — more importantly — if Kai had noticed it. The way he raced for the edge of the roof without stopping, though, gave me some hope.
As Kai ran out of roof to run on, he kept going at full speed and kicked off from the edge as hard as he could. As he fell, he executed a perfect dive, the kind that would have sliced right through the surface of a lake, if there had been one below him rather than a narrow alley lined with filthy cobblestones.
“Did you get him?” Cindra turned toward me, horror splashed across her face. “Tell me you got him.”
I shrugged and headed back for the door. It wouldn’t do for the Guard to spot us standing in the window. The penalties for interfering in Guard business were stiff. Not as harsh as the trouble you’d get for actually attacking the Guard — no matter how good your intentions might be or what mistakes you meant to keep them from making — but enough that I couldn’t risk them right now.
Kells had already helped Danto down the stairs and settled him into a chair at our table. Cindra and I darted past them and went for the front door, which everyone else in the place regarded as if it might blast inward at any moment. I holstered my wand as I went, hoping that would do me more good than harm.
I stood there in the doorway, making sure that Cindra didn’t push past me. While she was fantastic to have on my side during a fight, I didn’t want to risk her getting shot by an overzealous guard. Maybe I should have been thinking the same about myself, but it was my bar. I had a right to stand in front of it.
Well, as much as I had any rights under the Imperial Dragon’s rule.
“What are you shooting at?” I shouted up at the flying chariot as it hovered over the alleyway into which Kai had disappeared, probing it with its spotlight.
The light swiveled over and stabbed down at me instead. I refused to shade my eyes against it. Instead, I pointed off in the opposite direction, upslope, toward the better parts of town. “They went that way, you trigger-happy jackasses!”
“Stay where you are!” the loudmouthed guard in the chariot said. “And put your hands in the air!”
I waved at the light as the chariot came closer and landed on the street in front of the Quill. Behind me, Cindra whispered to me. “Got your back.”
I hoped she was out of sight as she said that, but I didn’t want to ri
sk turning around to check. Instead, I scowled into the spotlight until the guard holding the rod that produced it capped it off.
Another guard leaped off the back of the chariot as I blinked into the relative darkness, still night-blinded by the spotlight. “What happened here?” He wasn’t making a request for information. He was demanding answers.
I stabbed a finger up toward the glowing hole where my bedroom window had been moments ago. “You’re stopping to ask me that when you should be chasing after the people who did that?”
“Don’t take that tone with me.” The guard moved into the light of the glowglobe that hung over the Quill’s sign. He was a tall, blond elf with a sneer that looked like it hadn’t left his lips in a human lifetime.
I lowered my voice and spoke to the guard in measured tones, carefully pronouncing every word. “Are you really going to bust my balls about my tone while you stand here and let the people who tried to kill me get away?”
“You’re lucky we’re here at all,” the second guard — the one who’d been holding the spotlight — said. “This isn’t our beat.”
“Lucky? I suppose you want me to thank you for shooting at my friends,” I said.
The first guard stepped up and got into my face, daring me to hit him, to flinch, to do anything that would give him the ghost of an excuse for him to slam me into the wall behind me and beat me to his heart’s content.
“You’re not even a decent bully,” I said, refusing to give the elf an inch.
The guard drew back his hand to smack me, but his partner grabbed his wrist before he could follow through. The thwarted guard spun on his partner, spitting mad. “How dare you?”
The partner just kept staring past me, into the bar. The first guard followed his gaze and froze. I heard the flapping of leathery wings, and a set of claws dug into my shoulder, which made me happy to be wearing a leather jacket.
Both guards backed off and returned to their chariot, staring at me the entire time. They were about to take off into the air when a second chariot came in from above and landed right next to them.
“What’s the situation here?” Yabair said as he stepped into the light. His sharp eyes took everything in, by which I mean he saw that the dragonet remained unharmed. At that point, much of the concern etched on his face faded.
“We think the Black Hand might be trying to kill us.” I pointed at both the dragonet and myself.
Yabair rubbed his forehead as if he might be able to erase the frustrations bubbling up inside him that way. “And why are you here, then, and not in the wizard’s tower where I left you?”
“I came here to gather some of my things.”
He bit back the first response that came to his mind, then spoke. “You should have informed me of this. I would have had some of my guards escort you.”
I gave the two guards who’d been trying to shoot Kai a wary eye. “I thought I could do better on my own.”
He turned to them. “Did you two see anything? Did you get a glimpse of the attackers?”
The first one who’d come on the scene nodded. “We spied an orc on the roof across the way from the hole in that wall there. We gave pursuit, but he eluded us.”
“And you gave up?”
“Gibson here hailed us at that point. We didn’t recognize him at first.”
I grunted. “Until the dragonet came along.” The little guy nuzzled my neck as I spoke,
“So you abandoned your pursuit of —” He cut himself off there and snarled out a vicious sigh.
“I remanded you into the custody of that wizard,” Yabair said to me. “Since he can’t seem to keep track of you —”
“Oh, I’m right here.” Danto appeared in the doorway. “You don’t think I’d just let those two wander off on their own, do you? What kind of a loyal subject of the Imperial Dragon would that make me?”
“But you thought bringing them here, away from the protection of your tower, was a good idea?” He stared at Danto’s scorched clothes and his hair, which stuck up like the seeds of a ripe dandelion.
Danto made a vain attempt to brush himself off and gave up after seeing how much soot he transferred to his hands. “They seem like they’re in fine shape to me.”
Yabair turned toward me. “You’re coming to the Dragon’s Spire with me.”
I set my jaw. I had things I had to do that I could not manage while stuck at the top of the mountain. Things like saving Belle’s life.
“No,” I said. “We’re not.”
Yabair put his hand on the butt of his sidearm. “I can have you thrown in the Garrett instead if you like.”
“I’m sure the Dragon would like that,” I said. “Especially when his dragonet comes to visit me there.”
Yabair’s face reddened at that. “The heir is not safe with you. Not here. At least in the Garrett, we could be certain that no one could assassinate you there.”
Kai stuck his head out of the door then and laughed. “Have you ever actually been to the Garrett?”
“That’s him!” the first guard pointed a bony finger at Kai. “The orc who was on the roof!”
“Come now,” Danto said. “Hard as it might be, try not to be such a fool. How could he have gotten past you while you’ve been standing here in front of the bar the entire time?”
The backside of the Quill overlooked a sheer drop. It didn’t have a back door, and the guards all knew it. Magic made all sorts of things possible, sure, but Kai wasn’t a wizard, and Danto had been standing in front of them the whole time.
The second guard put a hand on the shoulder of the first and pulled him back before he launched himself at Kai in front of their captain. “We must have been mistaken,” he said. “It happened fast.”
“I am not mistaken,” the first guard said, but he let his partner pull him away.
Kai had, of course, used the secret tunnel that let out behind the bar to sneak back into the Quill. It had been a risk, sure, but it helped to establish an alibi for him if the Guard decided it wanted to hunt him down later.
“You will allow me to take you back to the wizard’s tower.” Yabair’s enunciation of every syllable told me that this was his final offer before he threw aside all reason and arrested me on the spot for whatever charges he could trump up off the top of his head.
I patted the dragonet on his head. “Fair enough.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I awoke the next morning with a hangover and a terrible sense that I could hear the clock ticking and getting louder by the moment. That and the pounding on the door of the guest room in Danto’s tower got me out of bed.
The dragonet was already up and flapping about the room like he was eager to see what new adventures the day might bring. For my part, I wasn’t nearly so excited. I staggered to the door and threw it open, expecting Danto be standing there and frowning at me.
Instead it was Margrit, Danto’s chief apprentice. The dwarf stood there with her hand raised to knock again, and for a moment I thought she might rap me on my chest. She looked me up and down and scowled before she lowered her arm, unimpressed.
“I had a long night,” I said by way of explanation.
She gave me a disapproving snort. “From the way the master is snoring so loud that we can hear him all the way down in the kitchen, I have no doubt of that.” She handed me a note. “This is for you.”
I unfolded and read it. I recognized Belle’s handwriting instantly. It read, “Today is the day.”
“Can you get me something to eat?” I said to Margrit. “And some coffee? Something I can take with me? I need to go. Now.”
“I’ll bring it to you downstairs,” she said with a grimace.
“Wait,” I said. She stopped in the doorway. “Is there any way you can get Schaeffer Tolliver up here to give me a ride?”
“The halfling who picked you up yesterday? I’ll send him a message.” With that, she bustled off.
I got myself cleaned up and leaped into the elevation field and let it
carry me down to the ground floor. The dragonet followed me, gliding in circles around the field and meeting me at the bottom. As I rode down, I tried to figure out what I would do next.
I hadn’t had any luck in finding Fiera’s body, and I didn’t have any real leads either. I’d hoped that I would have a few more days to figure this out, but it looked like time had run out on me.
I wished that Belle had contacted me about this right away rather than waiting for days. I wished that I had gone to see her first rather than waiting for her to come to me. I wished we’d never gotten mixed up in this whole affair that had left all of the Gütmanns dead, cost Moira her hand, and looked like it would swallow up Belle as well.
But I was still glad Fiera was dead.
When I reached the ground floor of the tower, Margrit stood waiting there for me, along with Johan. I didn’t understand why he was there, but at that point, I didn’t much care.
“I don’t have time to chat about the Brichts and their plans for the future,” I said to Johan as I took the dwarven pastry from Margrit, along with a large beaker full of the blackest coffee I’d ever seen. It seemed to absorb the light around it.
“You need to talk with him,” Margrit said. “Now.”
I took a sip of the coffee. It widened my eyes at the first taste. “For someone who makes a brew like this, I’ll give him a minute, but only one. And while I’m on my way out to catch my ride.”
Johan and Margrit fell into step next to me, each of them taking two strides to my one but keeping up despite that.
“It’s about the Sanguignos and their troubles,” Johan said as I slammed back as much of Margrit’s coffee as I could without scalding my throat.
“You know where Fiera’s body is?”
“No, but —”
“Then you’re not helping.”
“It’s about the law that requires elves to give up a body in place of any that go missing.”
I looked down at him. “Is it legit?”
“Oh, no doubt about it,” Johan said. “It’s part of the original Imperial Pact the city’s founders signed to form Dragon City in the first place.”