by Deck Davis
“I’m going to help them,” he said.
“The pirates?” asked Longtooth.
“Of course not. The dragons.”
“But how?” asked Flink.
“I don’t know yet. Not fully. But I think we can do something. This is going to be dangerous, so if you want to go back to the village, I understand.”
Flink shook her head. “I’m with you,” she said.
Longtooth looked at the pirates, and then he said something Charlie hadn’t expected. “I’m going to go back,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
For a second, Charlie flinched with anger, but he bit it down. How could he expect Longtooth to risk himself?
He nodded. “I understand. Go back the way we came, but be careful. Just-”
And then pain exploded in the back of Charlie’s head, a burst of agony that ripped through his skull and made his ears ring, and his consciousness began to leave him.
He tried to balance himself, but his strength left him, and his skull ached and buzzed and fogged his thoughts. He tried to warn Flink but his words came out slurred, and he tasted the iron of blood on his lips.
His vision faded, and the sound drowned out, but just before they died completely, he heard a voice.
“Well,” a man said. “Mia’s going to be happy with me.”
Chapter Twelve
Water splashed against his face. He blinked, and light crept into his eyes. The second awareness stirred in him, his skull throbbed so violently he wanted to be sick. Instinct made him want to cast Heal but he stopped when the room came into full view, and he saw Mia sitting on a chair in front of him.
The chair was deep and had a velvet lining, and when Mia reclined, she sunk into it. Her black ponytail snaked around her neck and drooped to her feet. She held a metal flask in her hand, and when she lifted it to her mouth her face screwed up, and Charlie saw dozens of freckles around her nose. The stench of alcohol hit him, and it mixed with the throbbing of his skull and made his stomach lurch.
He turned his head to the side. Pain flared in his skull, but he fought through it. He lifted his hands, almost expecting them to be bound, but found he could touch his skull. When he pulled his fingers away, the tips were stained with blood.
Flink and Longtooth were on each side of him, both slumped in chairs. Flink’s nose was a bloody mess, while Longtooth’s left eye was swollen.
They were still outside, in the forest, next to the giant galleon where pirates went to and fro in a throng of activity, some hoisting boxes down to the ground using a pulley system of ropes. Nearby, there was a pile of four charred bodies, and some pirates kneeled among them, seeming to search the corpses for something.
Mia nodded at them. “Capturing dragons is a tricky business,” she said. “But you can’t make an omelette without charring the hell out of a few eggs.”
Charlie tried to speak, but words caught in his throat, and the pain in his skull fogged his brain. Mia handed the flask to him. “Drink,” she said.
He wasn’t much of a drinker, but if there was ever a time he needed a shot of something, it was now. He didn’t know if it would clear his mind or make it foggier, but he needed to numb the pain. He drank back a gulp and then felt fire burn down his throat. He wanted to gasp but he didn’t want to look weak, not in front of the pirate, so he fought to hold it in, but then the fire flared in his throat again, and he couldn’t help it. He choked liked a kid getting his first sip of beer.
Mia laughed. “I like a man I can drink under the table,” she said.
The alcohol worked quickly, taking the edge off the screaming on the back of his head. “What the hell do you want?” he said.
“You’re keeping some dangerous company, mortal,” said Mia.
Charlie glanced at Flink, at her smashed nose, and the blood caked on her gnomish cheeks.
“Not her,” said Mia. “Crosseyes.”
“And now you’re bringing me into your feud. Leave me out of it.”
“Do you trust him?” she said.
“I hardly know him…but between you and him, then yeah. He’s never beat the shit out of me. Not much, anyway.”
“You’re caught in a risky game, my mortal friend. He’s a traitor. He betrayed me and took the treasure I’d rightfully plundered, and he’ll do the same to you. In fact, I’m surprised he hasn’t left you already. But then, we did see his ship go down. He must not have fixed it yet. Am I right?”
“You couldn’t be more wrong. We’re here on vacation, actually.”
She laughed, and Charlie found himself transfixed by her freckles, and then her pony tail, and then the shape of her body under her armor. He scolded himself. Even now, sitting with a throbbing head surrounding by dragon-capturing pirates, a woman was his weakness.
“Crosseyes is a leech,” said Mia. “He searches for weaknesses, and he exploits them. I bet he hasn’t told you about P’lorin, has he?”
“Is that a kind of face cream?” said Charlie, and almost laughed at his own poor joke. Man, even a gulp of alcohol was flooring him.
“P’lorin was his maker. The god he served for half a century, the one stupid enough to cut his mortal shackles and make him a demi-god. As soon as he did, our metal friend crossed him. He learned what P’lorin’s Alter was, and he sold that information to a rather unscrupulous god, in exchange for his ship.”
“I must be behind on my god stories, because I never heard that one before,” said Charlie. “Why are you telling me this?”
Mia leaned forward. She seemed to realize the conflicting effects she was having on him, because the way she moved emphasized her figure. She twirled her long pony tail, then whipped it back so it was behind her.
“I bet he told you about his change of heart, didn’t he? About karma, and balance…and bullshit. Never trust a man who hides behind metal skin, Charlie. Never trust a demi-god. Instead, trust me.”
“Trust you with what? Why?”
“I might not be the gentlest of people – sorry about the head, by the way- but at least I don’t hide my intentions.”
“What do you want?”
“The same as everyone else; to live. I won’t lie to you – I serve the demi-gods. In return for completing their tasks, they extend my life. I work to live, and that is a motivation you can trust.”
“Don’t listen to her, Charlie,” said Flink.
Mia smiled at her. It was the smile of someone who knew she had absolutely nothing to fear. And as goddamn beautiful as it was, he hated it. He just wanted to get out of there.
He looked around. His hands were free, and she hadn’t even taken his bladeswitcher from him, but so what? There was a reason she was so lax – Mia looked like she could kill him by herself, but she wouldn’t need to. She had dozens of pirates ready to kill for her. Brute force wouldn’t get him out of this, so what would? He needed to think. He needed to keep her talking while he did.
“Let’s say I don’t trust Crosseyes. But I don’t trust you, either. Like you, Mia, I’m interested in myself. What do you want, and what can you give me?”
“It’s simple, Charlie. I can get you home. To Earth.”
This floored him. He’d expected a deal for him to leave here alive, but not to get home. With his chest aching from where the wolf had hit him and his throbbing skull, he yearned for his bed. He wanted to go home, back to his apartment, to lock the doors and turn on the tv and just drink beer and hide from everything.
She seemed to be promising him that. But what did she want? A part of him wanted to snatch the chance. No. She’s lying. Just keep her talking.
“What do you need?” he said.
“Simple. Bring Crosseyes to me. Whatever excuse you have to make, I don’t care, just lead him into the forest, and I will set up an ambush. Once he is mine, you’ll get your reward. You can go home.”
He glanced at Flink. She glared at him, seemingly angry he was even thinking about it.
“What about my friends?” he said.
“My
deal is with you. This is a lesson, mortal. Waste not, want not. Why should I extend by deal to them, when you can get me what I need? Getting you home is no small task; I’ll have to call in every godly favour I have.”
“What will happen to them?”
“A gnome like her…a giant rat…some planets will pay a fortune in gold for that kind of oddity.”
“You’d sell them?”
“Does that surprise you?”
In a way, it did. Because if Mia would only deal with him alone, he would have guessed she’d just kill Flink and Longtooth.
His conflicting desires wrenched inside him, mixing with the pain in his skull and chest. She was offering a way home. If he said yes, all this was gone. No more cracked skulls, no more killing, no more hunger pains. He’d never appreciated how easy his life back home was until he’d left it, and at the same time, he didn’t think he’d ever get it back. Larynk certainly had no interest in sending him home; the god needed Charlie for whatever his scheme was against the demi-gods, and he treated him like a toy.
But Charlie could change it. Just one word: yes. Just one action: trick Crosseyes into coming here. The only price he’d pay would be the knowledge that he’d screwed over his friends and allowed them to be sold into slavery.
Yeah, that was really a choice he was going to make. What kind of person would that make him? He shook his memories of his old life away. They would have to wait.
“Well?” said Mia.
“Just let me think about it. This isn’t an easy choice.”
“Are you serious?” said Flink.
No, he wasn’t serious. The question was, could he escape without giving Crosseyes up? If he said no to Mia, was she going to let him go? Ha -fat chance of that.
Things couldn’t have been worse. He was weak, hurting, and outnumbered. If he so much as raised his hands to cast a spell, they’d kill him. How could he get out of it? He was as trapped as the dragons, the hulking beasts beaten to submission, wrapped under lengths of pirate rope.
Wait.
As he glanced at the dragons, echoes of a solution stirred in him. Faint at first, but the more he thought about it, the stronger they got.
These dragons were smaller than the ones in the sky, even if they were still bigger than anything he’d ever seen back home. They were weaker than their sky brethren, and right now they’d been beaten into submission by the pirates. They looked weak and pathetic, despite their size.
Empathy stirred in him. This time, he recognized its patterns. It turned out that emotions had a pattern too, just like actions, and this one cast him back in time. It took his thoughts to months ago, back when he’d first met Apollo. He was smaller than the rest of the chimera, and he was injured, and pity had overwhelmed Charlie.
It was only when he resolved to help him that he learned his taming ability. It was his empathy. Patterns.
“You’re beginning to annoy me, Charlie. Decide, or I’ll make the decision for you, no matter how much it ruins my plans.”
He ignored her, and instead focussed on a dragon at the end of the row of six. This was smaller than the rest, and its scales were less rough. It must have been the youngest of them, and it looked the most pathetic, with its giant, crocodile-like eyes cast down at the ground, steam rising from its nostrils as it took short, panicked breaths.
Such a great creature didn’t deserve to be tied up. It didn’t deserve to have dozens of pirates watching over it, just looking for an excuse to beat it with mana-charged sticks.
It stirred in him again. Empathy. Stronger this time, twisting in his gut. He welcomed it, embracing the sadness it filled in him.
And then he stood up.
Mia leapt out of her seat and reached for her sword. Charlie channelled mana through him, grunting at the effort. Summoning it so fast send a shuddering pain through his temple but he fought through it, and his arms trembled, and the magic tingled across his fingers tips until he unleashed it.
A mind met his own. Something monstrous and powerful, a consciousness endlessly larger than his. He heard the dragon in his mind, heard it grunt. It spoke to him not in English but in a language he understood all the same, one of images and feelings.
And he knew it was his.
Leave, he told it.
The dragon looked his way. It was working! A thunderbolt of adrenaline shocked his chest.
Mia advanced on him. Before he could react, she smashed the hilt of her sword on his nose, sending fresh agony through him. He toppled back over the chair, and the wood splintered, and his chest spasmed in agony.
He backed away from her. He didn’t even look at her; he couldn’t break the bond with the dragon, not when it was so weak. He just had to fight through the fear and the pain.
You can leave. You’re stronger than the ropes, he told the dragon.
A pirate shouted, and Mia sapped her attention toward the sound. Across from them, the dragon struggled against its bonds, straining with its muscled wings, the sunlight reflecting on its scales and in its lizard eyes. Steam rose from it, but no fire came.
Pirates got each other’s attention and ran at it, swords raised, but the ropes around the dragon broke. They snapped one by one, before dropping to the ground. And then the flap of monstrous wings drowned everything out; great mountainous cracks as the dragon rose into the air, its wing flaps so strong that the gust knocked one pirate onto his back.
“For god’s sake, I told them about the ropes!” said Mia, and she ran toward the dragon.
Charlie wasted no time. He grabbed Flink and Longtooth and pulled them to their feet. “Let’s go,” he said.
They slipped away from the pirate camp, their footsteps disguised by the monstrous cacophony of the dragon, of its wings and its roars. Behind them, pirates cursed and shouted, their voices tinted by anger and panic.
As he reached the boundary of the camp, he felt something snap in his mind. His bond with the dragon had gone now; it had been too weak, and the monster was too strong, but it didn’t matter. They were free.
As he looked at the beast flapping in the air, he caught Mia looking at him from across the camp, her face a picture of fury. He knew that she had another enemy now, not just Crosseyes, but Charlie; the hate was plain on her face.
And his buddies used to say he didn’t have a way with women.
Chapter Thirteen
He held it together long enough to reach the village, but his vision started to blur, and his legs weakened beneath him. He collapsed to the ground. He couldn’t even put his hand out, and the rocky floor smashed into his face. He pushed himself up, coughed and spluttered at the dust in his throat. Then his stomach gurgled, and nausea ripped through him. He vomited, spraying the ground with a mix of water and undigested stew.
He didn’t see anything after that. When he next opened his eyes, he found that he was staring at the roof of the guest dwelling, at a tiny hole in the thatching where sunlight snuck in.
Water streamed over his face. He realized Flink was next to him, and she was dabbing him with a wet cloth. The water was cold but it felt great, because it cut through the pounding inside his head.
“Are you okay?” he said.
Flink’s gnomish face was twisted in concern. “You’ve been out for a day and a half,” she told him.
He looked down, and he realized with embarrassment that he was wearing new trousers and a cloth shirt, and his collared coat was folded neatly on the table. Someone must have undressed him and then put new clothes on him.
His mouth felt dry. He grabbed the jug next to Flink and drank, but she took it off him.
“That’s dirty,” she told him. “I was washing the blood off your face.”
“What happened?” he said.
“You collapsed when we got to the village.”
He groaned. “I must have gotten concussion. Your nose looks okay though.”
“Gully healed me. He healed your skull, too, but I was scared, Newchie. We couldn’t wake you.”
&n
bsp; Images flooded back to him; Mia, the pirates, the dragons. The dragons! He’d tamed one. Even if it was only for seconds, with a bond weaker than tissue, he’d tamed one!
He remembered the empathy flowing through him, his sadness at seeing the dragons being mistreated. That must have been why his taming hadn’t worked before; with the orx on the island, and then with the owl – he hadn’t tried to tame them through a sense of empathy, or to help them. He’d wanted to kill them.