Fool's Gold

by Jon Hollins

  “It isn’t?” Lette seemed to be regretting her trust in Will more and more.

  “The hard part,” said Will, “is getting off it again.” He looked at Balur and smiled. “Which is why I’m going to need you to steal the armored boat from that garrison.”

  34

  Dead Man’s Chest

  Lette had made many regrettable decisions in life. Asking a bandit prince, “You and whose army?” when she knew full well he commanded ten thousand men. That time she had dated a half-troll. Letting Balur cook. All of these she had put on her mental checklist of things-never-to-be-done-again-even-if-threatened-with-another-of-Balur’s-curries. Still, given her chosen lifestyle, she thought she had done a good job of curtailing that list. Many of the people who shared her line of work had, over the years, not been half so prudent, and were now not even half as alive as her.

  Yet even with all that experience, even with all the miles she had traveled, she was increasingly worried that this particular endeavor would be the final addition to her list.

  The treasure chest rested in the center of a broad clearing. The best word Lette could summon to describe it was considerable. A construction of oak boards and iron bands, six feet long and five feet square at the ends. Some farmer had brought it with him, had held all his life’s possessions in it. He’d stuck it in the bed of his wagon and almost broken his horse’s back making it try to pull the thing. It had an aura of age. It was not so much battered as careworn. Some beloved family possession that could not be left behind. Initials were carved into the wood, rendered unreadable by time. And yet, when Will asked, it was handed over without question. All the farmer’s belongings just emptied unceremoniously into the cart. The farmer had actually looked pleased. His wife kept on telling them what an honor it was. And both her son and daughter stood, staring up at Will with big mooncalf eyes.

  Will had looked embarrassed by it at least, though not perhaps as much as he might have been a week ago.

  Now he was bent over it, lost in his preparations.

  “If this kills me,” she told him, “I’m totally blaming you.”

  Will looked up, startled. He hadn’t heard her approach. She shook her head. She was a lion among lambs, and yet she was the only one who appeared worried.

  “It really shouldn’t,” said Will, as earnest as the day was long. “I’ve lined the chest with as thick a layer of cloth as I could get my hands on. It won’t protect us from a really long fall, but it will definitely provide some padding. And the oak is at least three inches thick. Dathrax won’t crush it when he picks it up. Not by Quirk’s calculations. And Dathrax won’t want to anyway. Balur and Quirk are going to arrange a bunch of stuff spilling around the edges. Necklaces, things like that.”

  The chest lay surrounded by their sacks of gold. A few had been opened slightly. Gold glinted in the sun. The sight of it caused Lette almost physical pain. They were going to give this up. Just give it away.

  She knew why, of course. Rationally she understood that it was an investment. A way to double their payday. But it still left a deep sting in her soul. It felt like another bad decision.

  “And what if someone else comes along?” she asked. “Someone who isn’t Dathrax.”

  “Then Balur discourages them.” Will had already turned his attention back to the chest.

  Lette arched an eyebrow. She wasn’t sure if Will realized exactly what Balur meant when he said “discourage.” Part of her—most of her, if she was honest—hoped he didn’t. She did not want to have corrupted Will so quickly. Didn’t really want to corrupt him at all.

  Abruptly she smiled. She had forced Will into the position of cult leader and criminal mastermind, but she didn’t want to corrupt him. Gods.

  Will had caught her smile. “See,” he said, misunderstanding it utterly. “That’s the spirit.”

  Her smile persisted. So adorable in his naïveté. She tried to temper the moment with rationality. “You’re sure about leaving Balur and Firkin in charge of the crowd?” she asked. “Because you know how that went last time.”

  He shrugged. “They’ll have Quirk with them this time.”

  Lette actually laughed at that. “Oh yes, because she’s proven herself to be so stable.”

  Will didn’t meet her eye. “I thought it might be best if Dathrax was unconscious before Quirk got on the island.”

  Perhaps not so naïve after all. Or at least becoming less naïve.

  She was saved from following that path of thought further by the arrival of Quirk herself, her thaumatic cart trundling after her. “I think I’ve got everything you need,” the thaumatobiologist said with a cheerful smile.

  Cheer made Lette suspicious. In general, people seemed to find that response off-putting about her. But there were only so many leering grins you could see before you started to associate the upturn of lips with the need to separate a man from his manhood.

  The thaumatic cart trundled to a stop beside Will. Quirk began to carefully unload glassware.

  “What’s that?” Lette said. Not that she didn’t know the answer. But she was about to clamber into a confined space so that a dragon could toss her through the sky. The idea of adding fragile bottles full of powerful narcotics into the tumbling, eminently breakable mix did not fill her with a happy, buoyant sensation.

  Lette followed her gaze. “Snag Weed potion,” Quirk said. Then she twigged. “Oh, the glass, yes, I know. Not ideal, but it’s what the university gave me.”

  There was so much nonchalance, Lette thought she might be able to pick it up and use it to throttle Quirk. Instead she restrained herself and said icily, “What if Dathrax drops us?”

  “The padding,” Will said. But even he didn’t sound particularly convinced.

  Lette nodded. “Wonderful. So now if I’m not smashed, crushed, or eaten, I also have the chance to be asphyxiated by potion fumes.”

  Will looked crestfallen. He turned his puppy eyes on her, but she found she just didn’t care. Instead she pointed a finger at him. “Get some of your asinine followers to give up some waterskins now.”

  Quirk bristled. “You can’t do that! These are people on the march. We can only get what we can scavenge from the streams we pass. Being able to carry water is critical to everyone’s well-being.”

  Lette found the blade in her hand before she’d even thought Quirk’s statement through. And it wasn’t the words… It was something in the other woman’s tone of voice.

  I’ve been waiting, Lette realized. Waiting for the moment when she snaps.

  And on the heels of that realization, another one. I’m going to kill her.

  But not now. Quirk was looking at Will, appealing to him. And Lette didn’t want to gut Quirk in front of Will. He still had a distance to go before he could accept that level of… practicality.

  Will shrugged, kept fiddling with his cursed padding. “I don’t really like asking them to give me anything. It feels too close to them paying some sort of homage. I think it enforces this mentality of me as champion.”

  “You mean the mentality that’s stopping them from tearing you apart as a fraud. Yes, I can completely see why you wouldn’t want to reinforce that at every possible moment.”

  “It’s taking advantage.”

  She tried to take a calming breath. “Your whole plan involves having Firkin use them to attract the attention of heavily armored guards in Athril. It’s a little late to worry about exploiting them.”

  “They’ll have Balur,” Will protested.

  Lette tried not to laugh out loud at that. “I think there’s a chance you’ve misunderstood Balur’s interest in keeping anyone but himself alive.”

  “I’ll be there too.” Quirk sounded like she couldn’t quite decide if she wanted to be offended or not.

  “You’re going to barbecue their meat for them?” Lette snapped. “Or just them.”

  Something flashed in Quirk’s eyes. Lette for a moment glimpsed real pain. The sort of look a man would give you as you
separated the muscles surrounding his lungs and let the air inside him whistle out. And she was very glad in that moment that she had the blade in her hand. Because she was about to have to do exactly the same thing to Quirk. Probably while on fire.

  Then Quirk spun on her heel and walked away. A moment later her cart trundled after her, a slightly apologetic manner to its swaying, as if it regretted the whole unfortunate confrontation.

  “That was a little cruel,” said Will, finally looking up from the chest. He was loading the glassware, she noticed. Did he know he had her on the back foot?

  “She cares for that crowd more than she does for us.” Becoming a better person or no, Lette was not at all interested in dying for the protection of any greater good.

  Will shrugged. “She’s only known us a few days longer than she’s known any of them, and we can take care of ourselves.”

  Lette regarded the chest skeptically. She was decreasingly convinced of that.

  Will followed her gaze. He grinned. “Come on,” he said, “try it out with me.” He put a hand on the lip, swung himself over to sit cross-legged.

  Lette rolled her eyes, but she followed suit, landing opposite him. The space was not tight exactly, but it was not roomy either. And she was overly aware of the fragile glassware around them, potion trapped behind only the thinnest of barriers.

  “Ah,” cooed a rumbling voice from above, “be regarding the lovebirds who are snuggling in their nest.”

  “Balur,” Lette said sweetly, “if I thought they were large enough, I would cut off your testicles to use as worry balls.”

  Balur nodded. “It is being your weird mannish hands. They make even the largest things look small.”

  Lette wouldn’t have minded that insult if she hadn’t seen Will snatch a glance at her hands.

  “Well,” she said, “if anyone is used to a man’s hands on their balls…”

  She didn’t get to finish. Balur leaned over the chest, smiled as sweetly as a jaw full of fangs would allow, and slammed the chest lid down upon them. In the confined space, the sound assaulted them like a blow. Will curled up fetally, hands over his ears.

  “It is time to be getting on,” Lette heard Balur’s muffled voice say. “Dathrax will be taking his afternoon constitutional soon.”

  The walls of the chest might be three-inch-thick bars of solid oak, but Lette was still convinced that her shout of “Arsehole!” was audible to him.

  35

  Above It All

  High in the sky above Athril’s Lake, Dathrax spread his wings and circled. Thermals played like frisking lovers beneath him, bearing him up. The rutting of the winds. Yes, even the wind was base and low in comparison to him. He subjugated it rightfully, ascended it. He rode the wind as if it were his steed, his personal beast of burden.

  A bird flapped past, insolently ignoring his superiority. He snapped it out of the air, a barely noticeable morsel. He hated birds. Pretenders to his—

  He coughed violently. Sparks danced in the air.

  Desperately he flapped higher. Up to the clouds. The clouds were nothing to him. Vapid vapor. He pissed on clouds. He pissed—

  He coughed again. The feathers from the gods-hexed bird were caught in his throat, tickling him. With the cough came another flaccid gout of sparks. He twisted his neck, gave a flatulent bark of a cough. Feathers and a small black cloud sprayed from his lips. He flapped away from it furiously, disowning it.

  He was not entirely sure when he had lost his flame. It wasn’t something he used that often. When he was younger… oh when he was younger. He set afire to everything. When he and the rest of the Consortium had set their sights on the Kondorra valley—they had swept in heralded by a cloud of fire. The world had blazed before them, and they had blazed back. Not a tree had stood. Not a field been unscorched. He had been majestic, potent, puissant. Sometimes when dignitaries came from neighboring Vinland or Batarra his fire had simply burst out of him. A great uncontrollable eruption. He had been known for it. His fire had been the subject of conversations.

  But then, somewhere along the way he had just not needed it anymore. The populace was cowed and subjugated. The gold flowed into his coffers unfettered, the path greased by fear and habit. He had sat back upon his island, tossed cows down his gullet, and enjoyed the simple pleasures of his hoard.

  And somewhere in those rolling years of plenty, his fire had fled from him. Smoke and sparks were all that were left to him. If any of the others found out…

  But they hadn’t. They wouldn’t. He was above them. Had nothing to fear from them. They were nothing to him. He was Dathrax. Flame was just a tiny facet of his armamentarium. His teeth were like razors. His claws were gilded with the gold of his enemies, and could unseam steel plate as if it were paper. A single blow from his tail could crush a house. He was impregnable, unstoppable, undefeatable. He was Dathrax.

  He coughed again. Another cloud of feathers came out. Bile burned at the back of his throat. Nothing else did.

  And so he went on, though truly all he wanted to do was to go back to his island, and bury his head beneath a thousand crowns.

  And then he saw below him…

  Could it be…?

  Surely not…

  And yet, spread out below him was… What was it? What could it be? Some merchant’s stash? The start of some robber’s hoard?

  Whatever it was, it glinted like gold.

  And whatever it was, it was his now.

  He closed his wings, plummeted down from the heavens, and went to investigate.

  36

  Liftoff

  “Sorry,” said Will for what Lette was pretty sure was the four hundredth time.

  “Look,” she said, “I understand your desire to play the gentlemanly card as much as possible, it’s a good look for you, but if you’re going to apologize every time your foot brushes the glassware, I think it could get tired pretty fast.”

  Could. Ha.

  “Erm…” said Will. “Sorry?”

  “Oh shut up.” Lette was glad it was dark inside the chest. She couldn’t quite help the irresponsible smile that crept up onto her lips.

  “You’re smiling,” Will told her.

  Bastard.

  “Only at the thought of the noises you’ll make as I feed you your fingers.”

  If eyebrows made a noise when they were raised, Lette imagined she would hear that now. But all there was was silence. Silence, darkness, and heat. And the increasing awareness of Will’s body close by.

  “I’ve got to say,” Will said then, “the angry and violent look is pretty good on you.”

  She let that lie there. Almost ignored it, because she didn’t trust herself to respond to it. He was bold in the dark, was Will. She shifted her weight, brushed a foot against something.

  “Sorry,” she blurted.

  Will laughed. Too late she realized that she had grazed the glassware.

  “Shut up,” she told him again, but couldn’t quite muster her usual bite. She cursed again, more to herself than to him. He just kept on laughing, a low, steady chuckle.

  It wasn’t helping that it was so gods-cursedly hot in this chest. She shouldn’t have put on her mail. Though the thought of lying in wait for Dathrax completely unprotected lacked any appeal whatsoever.

  She shifted her weight again, felt her foot brush against something else, managed to hold her tongue.

  “Actually,” said Will, “that was me.”

  “Well, actually,” said Lette, “I’m not sorry.”

  “I think I’d be sorry if you were.”

  Cois’s hex on his balls, he was flirting with her. She was waiting to be plucked from the earth by a fire-breathing, death-dealing lizard, and he picked now as the appropriate time to finally find his confidence and start flirting with her.

  She wasn’t sure if it was guile, luck, or some innate savant tactical genius that allowed him to pick the perfect moment when her defenses were down. She closed her eyes. It made no difference. She was
sitting in the bloody dark. She opened them again.

  This was ridiculous. She was a mercenary, for crying out loud. She was the veteran of a hundred battles. She had killed far more than a thousand men. She had left a bloody trail through three countries on her way to this gods-hexed valley. Stories were told in hushed whispers of the destruction she had wreaked. If she wanted something, she took it.

  Will made a sound, the beginning of some verbalization. He never got to finish it.

  She uncoiled out of her cramped, cross-legged pose, unfolded past the glassware, to him, on top of him. Her lips pressed against his. They were soft, and his skin was rough, his stubble pricking her cheeks. She pressed up against him harder, swallowing his gasp.

  Then, for a moment, her heart sank, as he lay there, momentarily stunned beneath. She was not worried that he wouldn’t respond, simply that this was as breath-stealing as his response would be.

  Then he rallied with force, his large, rough hands finding purchase on the back of her neck, in the small of her back. Her tongue snaked between his lips.

  She had gotten his shirt unbuttoned—feeling the rough tautness of his chest, the hard nubs of his nipples—when something heavy slammed into the chest. The whole world rocked. Glassware shuddered. Gravity clutched loosely at her, and her gut flipped.

  Will sucked in a breath.

  “If you make a single comment,” she said, “about the earth moving then this is all over.”

  He was silent as the chest rocked rhythmically. Could she hear wings flapping?

  “I wasn’t going to say that,” Will said, sounding disappointingly nervous. “Though,” and suddenly there was some life in his voice again, “I was going to introduce you to my dragon.”

  Lette decided she was going to enjoy this more if she shut him up with a kiss.

  37

  Rabble-Rousing

  It was being, Balur thought, a good day to die. It was being an even better day, though, for other people to do it.