Chuck, chuck, chuck, it sounded like they were grinding up charcoal into powder. I leaned near the door to see who was inside.
“You smell like shit, by the by,” Cynthia said, as she sprinkled in the saltpetre.
“W-wha– how–” I pictured the fight with the guy in my mind. Cynthia sniped at him, but then didn’t do much, and she didn’t follow us on horseback either, so…
“Fur that hides in the black of night, huh?” I asked.
“Or, you know, if they aren’t looking you can’t be spotted,” she said.
“Uh, I don’t suppose you have any good camouflage for the outside area,” I said, looking down at the slowly drying mud.
“Nope, but I don’t expect to be out of here so do whatever you want,” Cynthia said, fiddling with the powder and a few bullet casings.
“What do you mean, you don’t expect to be out of here?” I asked, crossing my arms.
“There’s a bedroom and fridge, my leader’s been taken out, and all that’s left is your group, I’m a soldier, from here I have no orders so I’m going back to what I was doing previously.”
“That’s it, you’re going to leave your group and sibling to die because you don’t have orders?” I waved my hand and raised the pitch of my voice involuntarily.
“What do you want me to do? That guy isn’t going down to a bullet, his followers don’t seem to be talking down, much less questioning, his leadership.”
“Did you at least go through the door and see how everyone was doing? What happened to your friends?”
“If I did that, I’d be having this same conversation but with pipsqueaks,” Cynthia said.
Her eyes had been focused on the powder the entire time and for not a moment did she look over at me like I was someone she had to deal with properly.
“Well, fine then,” I said, grabbing the first gun I could get my hands on, before walking over to the ammo crate still left in the room. “If you’re not going to help, I’ll just take what I need and leave.” She grunted, which almost sounded to me like she was laughing.
“I knew there was no way we’d manage to keep the balance between the various worlds. The fact that we did it for so long was astonishing, but it’s over, people are going to pour in and conquer us. The best thing to do is figure out how to survive and then head out into their wildernesses and just do it.”
“Have you forgotten that missiles and tanks exist? No one’s conquering us, we’re protecting them!” I said, filling what I could with ammo.
“Oh, even better, people who actively try to hunt us down, perfect people to save.”
“Not all the creatures inside the plane are going to be hunting us. I bet there are numerous different societies that have never heard of us and while they may have been part of the consumers that made dragon hunting possible, are nonetheless innocent in this conflict.”
“Whether it be them conquering us, or us conquering them, you can’t keep the peace. Just look at the world today, politics are corrupt, not because bad people got elected, but because that’s all there is to politics. Superficially agree with people’s positions on the most useless of things, and the oversimplified nature of their assertions, and get paid massive bucks and get all your buddies some tax breaks. Until there’s a war that weeds out the cowards using the weak to spearhead their advances, there’s nothing to do but be by yourself, and hope no asshole steals a dragon and brings it right to your vacation spot.”
Cynthia was seething, and I raised an eyebrow at the sudden explanation of politics.
“You think a war would be preferable to what we have now?” I asked.
“War is necessary. That’s why, before the nuclear missile was invented, we had them all the damn time. People die, but those who survive had better living conditions, and expansion didn’t require as much. Those people through the portals have it easy, no ballistics, mostly bows, swords and armour… nearly zero impact on the environment from their wars, and all of them get super cool stuff and tons of resources.”
“Well, they won’t have that war if we start coming in with guns and nukes, so help me protect that and you can run off and join it once it’s safe,” I said, standing up again.
“A-are you serious? Not only did you just switch the side of your argument, but you’re also trying to get me to fight that guy so I can be in a war? What are you, an idiot?”
“No, just talking to one.” I walked out into the tunnel hall and peered towards the door, as I heard Cynthia growling.
She had a messed-up view of things, but I didn’t have time to dwell on David’s problem. There was a big problem to be dealt with.
I opened the door into the basement of the manor; thankfully enough, there weren’t any elves or dragon riders there.
There were, however, a few werewolves – pint-sized werewolves, but werewolves, nonetheless. One of which was familiar.
“Uh, hi there, E-lis,” Bridget said, blushing and looking down.
“Oh, wow, weren’t you cute?” I said while avoiding eye contact.
“W-where’s little Silvia, is she okay?”
I snorted. “She isn’t little Silvia to you anymore, now, is she?” I asked smugly.
“Is this really the time for that?” Another werewolf, who I don’t think I’d met, asked. Who knows, he could have been a mage?
“Look, I just need a little bit of scouting and intel to help us come up with a plan,” I said, waving a hand dismissively to the guy.
“We’re all being held captive as kids. They took away all crystal balls, grimoires, etc.”
“You’re getting fed, right?” I asked, letting a little emotion shift over my features.
“Yeah, rations mostly. I hate it. They are all spicy, and when you ask for something with a little less spice, they’re bland!”
“Okay.” Useful information for someone working on anthropology but for battle intel it was less than ideal.
“Where’s Genki?”
“Who?” Bridget raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, you must remember Lorenz though, right?”
“Haven’t seen him. Valkyrie said to go get him, but we only found the weird guy with the blue tails.”
“You saw a weird guy with blue tails and hear the unfamiliar name of Genki, and you don’t even ask if they are related?” I folded my arms.
A squeak came from above the stairs. “Ah, the elves, quick hide!” Bridget said as she turned to try and look like she wasn’t just talking to an intruder.
The blue-skinned person walked down slowly, methodically, holding the railing tightly and establishing their grip at every step. I quickly hid behind the shelves, hoping that in the dark my muddy look would seem like part of the back wall, and not someone incredibly dirty trying to hide in a place that was mostly full of wine racks.
The elf put down three trays of food, one for each werewolf that was there; the third had been sleeping while I entered.
I gulped as the elf looked down, no doubt at some of the mud I’d traced into the basement. His knife-like ear twitched as he looked into the darkness of the area, then he turned around and started up the stairs.
I was starting to think we should have gone with Cynthia’s plan of sneaking around in darkness; unless, of course, dragons had great night vision, it might have worked.
I crept forwards. Either the man knew that I was there and wanted to silently inform his master, or he didn’t see me.
“I need to contact more people. Do you know where the blue-tailed guy is, and maybe Miriam – it’s her job to be good.”
“I think both of them are upstairs, like the third or fourth floor. They don’t enter much after feeding time’s over, I don’t think,” Bridget said.
The way they had to eat was kinda barbaric; with both arms and legs bound they had to mash their face into the slightly reddish-brown rice in front of themselves.
“Okay,” I said, creeping up the stairs.
Stairs incidentally are the hardest things to stea
lth on, they creak and bend and there’s little to no way around that. I looked through the hole under the door, to see what I could make out. It seemed like elves were exiting the building, and that none were really going back in.
“Okay, upstairs,” I said.
I creaked open the door and looked around. The grand entrance was to the left with way too many windows for my liking, and the staircase was forwards, kinda. The door faced the side of the stairs, which formed pretty much a small hallway-like area.
I’d have to get closer to the door to get onto them properly. I could also attempt to climb up, leaving a lot of the mud that’d kept me hidden on the escape attempt on the stairs.
No doubt the elves would notice a large amount of dirt on the stairs, and go through the building following the trail. Past the tunnel, though, they wouldn’t be able to get me, and hopefully, I wouldn’t have to make this trip multiple times.
I just needed a bit of information, and possibly Genki. Even if they found him bound like I’d been told he was, I wasn’t sure ageing affected kitsunes like it did people.
I hosed myself up as best I could and looked around the upstairs. It seemed like they didn’t like a lot of people in one room, whether it was for space or for other reasons. None of them could get very far so I assumed it was so they couldn’t get much information.
Looking through keyholes there was no one I recognized. I assumed that Bridget must have been right and the elves placed my friends above this stair level. I moved up to right around where my room was, checking to see if there was a potted plant with tails.
Just my luck there wasn’t, and the door that I’d hidden was visible, meaning he wasn’t keeping it private. I looked through the keyhole: inside was clearly little Miriam, a blue fox – and the third looked familiar, but I wasn’t sure if it was someone I knew. There was no hair dying that made her easy to guess.
I opened the door slowly and all heads turned to me.
“Elizabeth!” little Miriam said.
“Oh wow, you’re high pitched,” I said, holding my ears.
“Why thank you for the reminder that my vocal cords now inhabit a space half the size, I don’t think I’d notice if you didn’t spell it out for me,” Miriam said, glaring at me.
“Awww, you look so cute when you’re mad!” I reached a hand around to pinch her cheeks and she slapped my hand away.
Slapped it best she could with the cuffs around her arms. “Tell me you’ve come here to do more than just gawk at all the regressed people?”
“Right, so we’re trying to come up with a plan. The problem is the guy’s just so powerful…”
“Well, it’d help if we knew where that dragon was. Perhaps you could use it to lure him out, but the unfortunate part of all this is that even if we had the dragon he’s looking for, the driving initiative of the magical community Earthside is to stop people like this from doing this, and keeping that world secret. So we have to kill him or die trying.”
It was absolutely adorable to hear such a tiny Miriam say such dire things.
“Lure him with the dragon, huh? That could work… The only question is what kind of trap could we possibly put him in?”
“If we had military tech, I might suggest an ambush of Gatling and machine guns, but I’m afraid we’ve neglected that for too long,” Miriam admitted.
“Do you know what his plans are with you guys?” I said, pointing to the three.
“He hasn’t mentioned anything, but he has split us up. My guess is that we’re a bargaining chip; the lives of so many people must be worth more than a dragon’s hide and meat, and it’s not like he’s in constant contact and is going to start executing people.”
“Let’s hope it stays that way. If the whole ‘lure and trap him’ thing doesn’t work out, we’ll be pretty boned.”
“I-is there anything we could do?” the cutie that I didn’t recognize piped up.
“Who are you again?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“She looks practically the same, Elizabeth, it’s Melisa!” Miriam groaned.
I blinked, and the image in my mind started to resolve itself, and I noticed that she did indeed look exactly the same, at least in terms of the general shape of the face, as she did as an adult.
“No wonder you look so cute as an adult,” I said.
I then got an idea. Melisa was pretty much invisible to me, perhaps that could be useful.
“Here, take this, if ever you’re in a position to get the guy in the head, shoot him!” I said, handing her one of the flintlock pistols that’d been downstairs, and a couple of the makeshift cartridges they’d made.
“W-where am I supposed to hide it?” she whimpered.
“Under your shirt, or something. This plan is basically going off of the fact that you blend into the background,” I said, sighing.
She did her best to move it under her shirt, wary that the thing might go off at any moment.
“I might also try and sneak Genki out of here,” I said, looking at the kitsune in his vulpine form, a bit smaller than he had been back at the community center after he exhausted himself, but otherwise an adult fox.
“Wasn’t he immune to Fae magic?” Miriam asked.
“Yokai magic, and while yes, he was, I’m not sure his dragon hunters will be so lucky. Speaking of which… Genki, please forgive me, but he broke the cartridge you gave me.”
Genki jumped out of his restraints, as though he was only pretending to be inside them. “Ehhhh?!” he responded, which was what Lorenz informed me meant ‘what’ in Japanese.
“He’ll break more if you continue to resist,” came a gruff voice from behind us.
18
Chapter 18
I was flung out the window by a tremendous force, and as I flailed around, I landed on something and was sent in a completely different direction.
The man who’d come up behind me had a short sword in his right hand and a dragon hunter tonfa in his left hand. The dragon I had landed on, the green one, circled around and he jumped on as if it was an elevator platform.
The dragon got us into the air, and I had to hold onto a spine for dear life.
“Father needs that dragon, and someone snooping around like that ought to know where it is.”
This guy must have taken a lot of genes from his mother since he didn’t look like the guy down at the portal. He was skinnier, and while his skin was the same his face was totally different. Having been talking to Kid Miriam and Melisa, he kinda reminded me of a baby-faced person.
Having the angle and leverage on my side, I kicked him off the dragon, only to watch as he barely fell, and the dragon swooped around and caught him.
“You really thought I wouldn’t have a defence against falling so far?” he asked as if he’d finally gotten to use that fact about himself.
This was a difficult challenge. He had weapons that gave him reach and defence that I couldn’t get past, and knocking him over wouldn’t work.
No doubt the sword and weapon gave him a shield to use to break through, possibly inactive during my sucker punch.
“Look, you’re all dead one way or another, so I’m not telling you shit!” I said defiantly.
“Up!” he shouted, and the dragon started to beat its wings fast and climbed higher and higher into the sky.
Unsure how high he was going to try and push this I quickly sucked in a huge breath, to try to stay conscious.
“What are you doing?” he asked quizzically as I did it a few more times, feeling the air thin as I did so.
If they came from a world with much higher air pressure, or a world where the air was the same density all around the places they flew, that’d mean he’d have no way of knowing what was next. The only problem was, how long could I hold my breath for?
I exhaled and sucked in one last breath, feeling the thinness of the air make it more like a normal breath down on the surface. The dragon kept climbing and the man looked at me with a raised eyebrow.
T
hen both he and the dragon fell unconscious. Or perhaps they didn’t know how to deal with the lightheadedness they felt. The wings of the dragon came up and just stopped, and all the momentum was slowly draining out from us. The guy started to float down, no doubt safe. It was possible that he might asphyxiate with how slow he fell but I had bigger problems as the weight of the dragon under me started to fall downwards.
I waited till we’d fallen a bit and the air was getting thicker before shouting my expletives to the outside world. The air rushed by me and my mind blanked on what I could do to save myself.
The other dragon rider was just a tiny speck, but I could tell she and possibly all the dragon riders’ father was looking intently at us.
The dragon roared back to consciousness and looked around quickly, trying to pull itself out of its tailspin.
Seizing the moment, and hoping it wasn’t going to crash I put myself as vertical as I could and raced towards the dragon.
Grabbing hold of one of those spines was difficult, but in the end, I managed to do so. The dragon struggled, flapping its wings to no avail as it fell further and further down. Then it spread them out and moved a bit forwards and caught some air, swooping right before we hit the ground.
It was as low as it could go really with its belly just barely off the ground.
We were heading down the road to the firing range, just slightly off the actual road where the shoulder turned into a ditch. The dragon’s wings were in full air sock mode and it was trying to slow down and orient itself.
Speaking of the ditch, now with the lower speed and height, I rolled off the dragon and into the soft bush.
Now my mind was wrapped around two possibilities: hide and hope the camouflage job didn’t rush away in the wind or go to where I knew two very impressive weapons were going to be falling.
Seeing the man and another woman on a dragon rush towards the road into town, I went with option two.
The weapons were embedded into the ground a bit, having much less wind resistance than any of the falling objects. The sword was nearly down into the hilt, while the tonfa was only a few inches in.
The Stray Dragon : (A collage age urban fantasy with werewolves werewolf community center book 3) Page 15
