“You bastard! You cough her back up right now or I’m going to cut you into dragon salami!” Ishe shouted at Yaz’noth, who had landed in the market square, crushing a large portion of it with his bulk. He had not moved since landing, sitting on his haunches, his neck drooped so that his nose was touching the ground, wings sagging as hissing hot blood dribbled from the wound in his shoulder. His eyes were closed as if he were contemplating his very existence. Perhaps he was.
“Do you hear me?” Ishe cupped her hands and shouted as she stood at the hole that Dancing Fly had made. The scent of charred liftwood filled her nose. The lance had passed through mostly the cargo hold and empty crew quarters, but it had sheared the drive shaft of the portside propeller. It forced Emperor’s Sword to rely on thrust alone, but she’d be able to drive the ship well enough to slice off Yaz’noth’s head.
“Yes.” Yaz’noth’s eyes opened and he lifted his head toward her before his gaze drifted toward the fires on the hill. “Yaki will stay with me until I finish my task.”
“Not inside there! You cough her up and your shield crystal,” Ishe shouted back.
“So little trust.” He bent his neck downward and with a silent retch produced the small figure of Yaki along with a green crystal globe.
Ishe breathed a sigh of relief when her sister emerged. “Oh, thank all the gods.”
And? a now-familiar voice said from inside her.
“I give thanks to Coyote, who gave me the cleverness to get me here and guided me when I was blind. Although he’s still an asshole.” Ishe spoke loud enough for everyone in the bridge to hear the prayer. Drosa gave her a sharp look.
“There. Fresh, smoky air,” Yaz’noth said as Yaki staggered up to her feet after being pushed out of his mouth. “Let’s get this humiliation over with.”
Yaki looked around, feeling her body pierced by hundreds of eyes. She found people clustering around the opening of every window, every building that opened into the market square. What was everyone doing there? They were right in the path of the flames! Up the road stood an inferno, a pyre on which the city’s wealthiest were burning. People were wailing. Above it stood the rubble of the palace itself.
Above them floated Emperor’s Sword, its red elemental lance fired up, as if the ship were wielding a sword.
Next to her Yaz’noth deposited a shield crystal; the perfectly spherical crystal began to roll downhill, prompting the dragon to snatch it back up and place it in the bowl of the market fountain. “I’m going want this crystal back. Nobody touch it.”
He paused, casting a long look at Sword as if half-expecting it to swoop down onto him. Ishe’s form filled a hole in the upper deck. “There is no need for her to hover,” Yaz’noth grumbled. “I keep my deals.”
Yaki snorted but decided against arguing.
He extended his neck toward her. “Get on. Let them see that I am under control.”
“And use me as a hostage against my sister?” Yaki huffed. The adrenaline was ebbing, her arm had started to realize it wasn’t there anymore, and the stump throbbed. It hurt far less than it should, in her opinion.
He sighed, his belly heaving. “You’d have to be much bigger to serve as a shield, and we have no time to waste.”
With a discontented rumble in her own throat, Yaki pulled herself atop Yaz’noth’s head. The splintered remnants of his antlers provided the only handhold as she rose into the air.
Yaz’noth walked up the street, the ship looming behind him in a halting fashion, propelled by its thruster in short, controlled bursts. The barrel of one of its elemental lances always pointed at the dragon.
A stream of onlookers trailed behind them, well back from the severed tip of Yaz’noth’s tail. The entire district smoldered or burned. He stopped at the outer ring, where roofs were beginning to smolder. “Please evacuate for your own safety,” Yaz’noth’s voice boomed out. “Fire control is here!”
Yaki looked down from her perch. The houses in this district were not as opulent as those up the hill, but they were still three- or four-story mansions or apartment buildings. The tallest of them didn’t reach the top of Yaz’noth’s shoulders. He swatted the first one down like a cat felling a house of cards. After that, he stopped bothering; instead, he simply walked, pushing his body against the wooden structures, and they yielded to his chest at the merest effort, collapsing in a cacophony of cracking timber and clattering stone. No screams; the entire neighborhood had evacuated. At first, Yaki’s heart quavered as immaculate gardens and beautifully designed buildings crumpled one after the other, but soon, each became a mere bump in the road. Yaz’noth cut a swath through the city all the way to the wall in less than a half hour. The crowd behind grew. Buckets appeared among them as the citizens race to stamp out bits of burning debris. Once he reached the wall, he turned and did it again.
Before the sun had begun to dip toward the evening, Yaz’noth had created a fire barrier two lots wide. He gave instructions for people to get out of his way but otherwise had been silent. Yaki found herself staring up more at the ruined palace than at the burning city. On their second pass through, Yaz’noth had casually trampled her own childhood home.
Task done, Yaz’noth did not collapse as Yaki though he might; fatigue had become evident in the way his head had drifted closer to the ground, in the limp of his back leg grew more pronounced, and in his occasional deep sighs. Instead, he steered toward the foot of the palace.
“Where are you going?” Yaki asked him.
“Nowhere,” Yaz’noth said with a trace of mischief. “I did what you asked. At least, I think the firebreak I made will be sufficient. Job’s not quite done. Ah, there it is.”
Yaki looked at the ground and saw a large metal disk. Heavy chains snaked out from its edges, looking like a spider that had fallen from a great height. He picked the disk up, snapped off one of the chains, and slurped it up like a large, clanking noodle. “One cannot live on quicksilver alone,” he said as he bit off another chain. “It…doesn’t last. It’s almost melting away inside me. I need to replace it. You do too.” The metal screeched in protest as he bit into the disk itself.
“Don’t talk to me as if you care.” Yaki stamped on his head, with enough force that his scales rang briefly. “I’m not one of your slaves or your whelps.”
“Yaki…” Yaz’noth’s voice was drawn out in that patronizing way. “I don’t know you nearly as well as I know your sister, but there is no need for us to be enemies.”
“Let me down and leave if you’re done helping.” Yaki breathed out smoke from her nose and forced herself to take a calming breath. “You wheedling snake, Yaz’noth. You need to leave before Ishe loses patience and pulls that trigger.”
“Yes. And then everyone knows where I lair. That I exist. More ships like that one will be built. There is a conversation that I am waiting for and it is coming this way.”
Chapter Thirty-One
If it works out the way you expect, then you’ve gone about it the wrong way.
A Coyote passing by
Ishe’s own stomach rumbled as she watched Yaz’noth rip into a meal of armor plate. The bastard was waiting for something. He started his wrecking maneuver slumping, defeated. Yet as he worked, she had watched that feline-like confidence creep back into his step, although he was clearly still tired, perhaps even exhausted; his severed tail shook slightly, maybe twitching the tip that she had severed.
While the city would be smoldering for days, the center of the fire had burned itself out. The two halves of the broken Behemoth had landed on the manors of the Hara and Nishamura. A message from the kami, certainly. From those two halves, a ragged-looking formation of soldiers picked its way toward Yaz’noth. In the middle of it was one of the imperial litters, being carried on the shoulders of dozen solders. The Steward or at least someone authorized to speak for him was approaching the dragon.
She needed to get down there right now. “Raiju, you have the helm!”
“Captain?” The man bl
inked with surprise.
“If he opens his mouth to flame, you are to cut off his head and then make his chest look like fancy, smoked New Year’s meats,” Ishe said.
“Heavy on the smoke. You’re going down. then?” he asked.
“Tell me we have a skiff.”
Raiju looked at the wreckage of Dancing Fly. “Uh, yes?”
Ishe rolled her eyes. “Ask Simon if we have one that will fly!”
“Yes, Captain.”
A few minutes and a short glide down from the Emperor’s Sword later, and Ishe found herself with a grand view down a bewildering number of hand cannons. Every soldier in the caravan was armed with them. Ishe had landed in the middle of the formation, right beside the Steward’s litter. If the majority of them pulled their triggers, it would probably take out the remainder of the navy.
“Uh, last time I checked I was on your side.” Ishe held up her hands.
“Servants of the Coyote do not serve the Emperor.” Shuri parted the curtains of the litter; she wore a different mask than she had started with. “They serve themselves and bring misery in their wake. As you have done.”
“I’m no servant.” Ishe bristled.
“Exactly.” Shuri managed to look down over her mask’s long nose.
“The dragon’s defeated, as requested.” Ishe put on a grin and bowed.
“Then why isn’t he dead?” Shuri’s mask snarled.
“He put out the fire like a good massive terror and gets to live.” Ishe crossed her arms. “It wasn’t my idea.
“And have him come back? Kill him now,” Shuri said. “We have enough to deal with already. We have no time for a prisoner dragon.”
Ishe licked her lips and looked at the dragon out of the corner of her eye. Yaz’noth had about half his armor-plate meal devoured. He’d enslaved hundreds of people and killed thousands today. Back on that mountain, she wouldn’t have hesitated. But now, bearing the weight of Coyote’s mantle, she found herself hesitating. Yaz’noth’s continued existence would cause further suffering. No doubt there. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to obey this woman’s order. Coyote would betray her for fun. To simply watch her rage and froth.
“We made peace with Yaz’noth,” Ishe said instead. “We did it to save the city. Where is the Steward?”
“Indisposed.” Shuri’s mask bared its paper teeth. “Now execute that dragon or you will find yourself in the next life!”
“Oh, please do that!” Yaz’noth’s baritone seem to fall from the heaven itself. “I’m sure that will make her crew so inclined to cut off my head.” He stood up and a gasp ran through the soldiers. “This sounds like a conversation I’d to have a say in.”
“Kill it! Kill it now!” Shuri hissed.
“That’s enough Shuri,” a quiet voice mumbled from inside the litter. “If the monster is talkative, then let us talk.”
Shuri wilted as the Steward parted the curtains with a sniffle, his eyes wet and red. He climbed down from the litter; his knee shook as he leaned on the offered hand of a nearby soldier. Yaz’noth picked his way over through the smoldering rumble, limping with his back leg, playing up the injury. On his shoulder rode Yaki, shoulders hunched in a way that telegraphed her own pain. The dragon lay down in front of the soldiers. “Since you were coming to see me, I will make this easy for you.” He crossed his front legs and waited regally as the Steward made the unsteady walk up to him.
“You know,” the Steward said.
“I do. I have a ship filled with troops hidden in the east. They saw what happened to your fleet.” Yaz’noth nodded.
Yaki slid off the dragon’s shoulder; Ishe’s heart skipped as she jumped down nearly two stories and landed in a deep squat. Then she saw the arm or, more accurately, the lack of it. Ishe moved before her brain realized it. Nobody bothered to fire at her. A slight smile appeared on Yaki’s face right before Ishe’s arms closed around her sister and squeezed her too-hot body to her own.
“Damn it, Yaki! Stop losing pieces of yourself, please!” Ishe accented the sentence with a happy yip.
Yaki jerked her head up in surprise. Her eyes narrowed, but then she sighed and leaned into her sister. “Costs we pay.” Pausing, she pulled away from her sister and looked back up to the dragon. “Lyndon trap?”
They turned back to the dragon and the Steward.
“…Two Behemoths have survived and they are on their way back. Lyndon’s fleet is regrouping,” Yaz’noth was saying. “I came here to do two things. To regain the memories that were hanging on your wall and to conquer your city as the start of something new. Unfortunately, I went mad instead. I apologize for the…excessive collateral damage. That was never my intention.”
“I know your point, dragon.” said the Steward. “You were beaten by a single ship. Lyndon will have such ships.” He pointed up at Sword.
“Lyndon has no such ship with five power crystals.” Yaz’noth chuckled with confidence. “I will be the Golden Hills’ protector; I’m worth at least six of your Behemoths. With additional crystals, I can become even more powerful. I come with my own servants, who wait outside the city. My services can save your city. Keep it independent. Otherwise, you’ll be Lyndon’s territory inside of a week. How do you think the Crystal Queen will rule?”
Ishe crossed her arms and shouted at him, “You’re a mugger who’s stabbed someone and then offered to sell them a medical crystal!”
“If it had gone my way, I wouldn’t be making this offer,” Yaz’noth said in a flat tone. “I would be demanding bowing and scraping.”
“And if I say no?” the Steward asked.
“I am bound to leave, but I cannot go where I have been hiding for the last three hundred years. My iron is running out, and my own kind are not an option. Depending on events, I could either return here to ‘liberate’ the city from Lyndon or make them a similar offer. I am done hiding. What will it be? Rule with me or face Lyndon with a shattered navy?”
The Steward steepled his fingers and bowed his head. He mumbled a prayer and looked back.
“Sir!” Shuri’s voice wavered. “This…”
“Is a way forward that prevents us from living under Lyndon’s decrees,” the old man said before giving the dragon a small bow. “We accept your…gracious offer, Yaz’noth.”
“Let me…” Yaz’noth trailed off, surprise on his inhuman face before a smile sneaked in at the corners of his mouth. “I will signal to my underlings.”
Ishe swallowed, her hand entwining with her sister’s. He’d gotten what he wanted. He’d simply decided to be more patient about it. He’d start as a protector and adviser, but within a generation or two, he’d be sitting in the empty throne.
“We saved the city,” Yaki whispered.
“Did we?” Ishe whispered back as she turned to look up at Emperor’s Sword. The ship listed slightly, tired as the dragon; a scorched hole beneath the bridge had a cluster faces staring down, the long profile of Simon’s nose, and behind him stood thin and monstrous Grim. She didn’t need to see through the glare on the glass cockpit to know the sensation of Drosa’s eyes on her. What would she decide? Ishe wondered. What would they all decide? They couldn’t stay there. To fight such a battle for it to end like this? A peace accord? An alliance?
“We did.” Yaki squeezed her hand until it hurt, forcing Ishe to look down into her mismatched eyes. Gold and brown, both fierce; gone was her sister’s constant calculation replaced with something that burned far hotter. Her beauty had not been destroyed but reforged from that of a flower to that of a blade that shone forth even with the chips and stresses of the battle.
A laugh burst out of Ishe. And who am I to talk?! “I am the Coyote of the storm.” The mantle of the god swathed her; the world sharpened. From over the mountains, the howls of Coyote’s children erupted from the growing dusk.
The Steward and Yaz’noth stopped their parlay as she answered the chorus in their own language before smiling at the pair. Yaz’noth regarded her with curiosity as while the S
teward shrank back, casting a glance at the sun, no doubt begging Daylight to linger a while longer. “Before the deal is struck, let all of us stand at the table,” Ishe declared.
“You and your sister are pardoned for your services, Ishe of Madria. And I suggest you leave before the sun rises again and the priests come hunting.” The Steward’s voice wavered at first, but his face found his mask of imperial authority soon enough.
“Our ship needs resupply and repair.” Ishe grinned as anger narrowed the old man’s eyes. He opened his mouth to protest, but Ishe raised a finger to ward it off. “Yaz’noth is not a trustworthy bargainer. You’d be better served to keep the Emperor’s Sword where he can’t rend it to pieces accidentally. Besides, you need the trade routes reopened.”
“You are suggesting I employ you as privateer?! A worshiper of the Destroyer? My priests will string me up and hang me from the Emperor’s throne!” His hands clenched and his long nails broke with tiny cracking sounds.
“Is this worse than working with a dragon?” Yaz’noth asked, looking between the two humans and chuckling. “This is agreeable to me at least. Although I have a condition of my own.” His eyes looked to Yaki.
“No,” Yaki said.
“It would be a quick examination. Nothing invasive, I swear.”
Yaki growled threateningly. Yet it wasn’t a no, Ishe noted.
As the sun slipped down the mountains, Ishe watched yet another figure approach. A white skull mask bearing bleach-white antlers adorned her head as joined the Dragon, the Coyote, and the Human at the circle. The Peace of Ashes, they would call it., The agreement heralded the dawn of a new age for the Golden Hills and the world beyond.
Thank You to My Patreons
Thank you for all the encouragement and support you give me every month.
AC Cobble
Baylong Feuer
Dragon's Siege Page 18
