by G. A. Aiken
Kachka ran until she reached what she knew every dwarf city had access to . . . a mine.
There were signs that gave directions to each of the mines—gold, steel, iron, silver—but they were written in dwarvish and she had no idea how to read that.
So Kachka headed for the first functioning mine she saw. But someone grabbed her arm and pulled her toward a separate set of stairs.
“Gold is your friend, luv,” the woman said, pushing Kachka up the stairs. As Kachka ran, she glanced back at the woman. She wasn’t one of the dwarves. She was tall, lean, and brown-skinned. Like Izzy or her mother Talaith. She was also dressed as a warrior or soldier of fortune. She was even more out of place in the dwarf mines than . . . well, than Kachka was.
But without any other options, she had to take her chances this woman wasn’t trying to destroy her.
So she took the steps three at a time until she reached the top.
Kachka pulled the leather bag out of the top of her boot where she’d stashed it for her mad dash to the mines and pulled her arm back to toss it into the molten gold. That’s when she heard, “Down!”
She did as ordered, dropping down to the ground, and the dragon who had been about to grab her, sailed right over her. The dragon turned in midair, wings out, claws reaching for her.
Two arrows slammed into the dragon’s face and neck. A short spear hit it right in the chest, through the heart, killing it as its body fell from sight.
Hands grabbed Kachka again, only this time it was her comrades Zoya and Marina hauling her to her feet.
“Kachka—” Marina began, but then the dragon was back. It hadn’t been killed. Nor did its wings seem to work, hanging limply from its back, so that it floated to the ledge instead of flying.
The three of them scrambled back, watching the dragon carefully land. It pulled the arrows from its face and the spear from its chest and that’s when Kachka knew it was Vateria.
“Those of us,” Vateria said, “who have been truly blessed by our god, need more than these weak weapons to kill us.” She held out her claw. “Give it to me, barbarian, before I stomp you into the ground like the worthless trash you are.”
Kachka began to tell her to fuck off, but she and her comrades were forced farther back when there was suddenly a large dragon ass landing right in front of them.
Gaius snarled. “Get away from them, cunt.”
“Cousin. You should have let my father finish the job,” the bitch teased. “My god would like you better with both eyes missing.”
“You expect me to believe you worship anyone but yourself?”
“Chramnesind understands me as no one else ever has. Accepts me just as I am. The others give up so much . . . and yet I give up nothing but receive so many rewards. He loves me the way my father always did. Unconditionally.”
“Gods, you really haven’t changed.”
“Why should I? I’m so perfect.”
“You have tentacles.”
“And I love them. Just look what they can do.”
With that, Vateria sent Gaius, Marina, and Zoya flying, leaving Kachka alone.
“Now . . . give it to me, human.”
“I am Daughter of Steppe, She-dragon. I will not yield. To you or anyone.”
Vateria smiled. “I’ve heard of you, actually. My god told me about you. What was that nickname again? Oh, yes. The Scourge of the Gods.” She laughed. “What idiot gave you that?”
The brown-skinned warrior suddenly appeared again, leaning from behind the She-dragon. “This idiot,” she said, before she grabbed Vateria’s dragon form and tossed her into the molten gold beneath.
“And,” she went on, “if I do say so myself, it’s a brilliant name for you to have, Kachka Shestakova. One you’ve rightfully earned.”
“Who—?”
“Kachka!”
Marina leaned over the other side of the stairs. She was on her belly, slowly slipping toward the abyss.
“I can’t hold her!”
Kachka scrambled to her comrade’s side, reaching down to grab Zoya Kolesova’s other arm. Together, they hauled the Mountain Mover up. It took all their strength. She was very heavy.
They pulled until they had all of her on the stairs, letting out a breath and collapsing on top of her once they were done.
Beneath them, Zoya snorted. “I knew you heartless bitches loved me. All heartless bitches love Zoya!”
Gaius heard laughter and woke up. He was on the ground by the furnaces where all the different metals for the dwarves’ weapons and jewelry were melted in giant crucibles. Yet the laughter wasn’t Vateria’s so he knew Kachka and her comrades were safe.
Relieved, he sat up, bending and stretching his neck, which now hurt from the impact of the fall.
He had his head down, eye closed, when he heard . . . something.
Gaius lifted his head and saw gold-covered talons easing out of the crucible.
Snarling, he got to his claws just as Vateria launched herself at him, melted gold covering her from head to back claws.
She tackled Gaius to the ground, the pair rolling across the mine floor, slamming into furnaces and knocking over other crucibles.
They were Iron dragons. Born of fire. They felt nothing as they battled each other through the dwarf mines.
But Vateria was no longer the Vateria Gaius once knew. Emotionally, of course, she was still the same evil bitch she’d always been. Her god had not changed that. Yet he had changed the rest of her, made her stronger. Although she seemed to have no skill with weapons, she had her tentacles and claws, and her talons tore at Gaius, her tentacles wrapped around his throat, choking him.
Gaius, however, still had his rage. He grabbed his cousin by her hair, the gold starting to harden, and yanked her back. Off him. Gaius stood, dragging the bitch with him. Still gripping her by the hair, he turned and flung her into a wall.
He yanked out his blade and started to walk over there, ready to cut her into pieces that he would bring back to his twin.
“No!” the child’s voice screamed as he dashed over to Vateria, throwing himself in front of her, arms wide. As if he could protect her with his tiny human body. “You get away from her!”
Gaius studied the boy, then looked at Vateria. It dawned on him, as bright as the two suns now coming up in the skies outside these mountains.
“Your son.” It swept through him. Cold. Brutal. The rage that had made his name for him. The rage that allowed him not to care. About anyone. Anything. Growling now, he said again, “Your son.”
Vateria’s forearm wrapped around her offspring’s body. For the first time ever, he saw fear in her eyes. True, absolute fear. Because for once, she cared about something other than herself.
“You wouldn’t dare,” Vateria told him.
But this Gaius would dare. This Gaius, who remembered his sister, trapped with Vateria, would dare many things to right that wrong.
Gaius raised his blade over his head, his entire body shaking, his gaze locked with his cousin’s, enjoying the pain he knew he’d cause her.
Even knowing this was wrong, nothing would stop him. Nothing.
Gaius yanked his forearms back a bit more to get the most power behind his attack when he heard Kachka scream from above, “Gaius, no!”
He fought against her voice. Fought against how right it sounded.
“Do not! He is just child!”
“Vateria’s child,” he reminded her.
“Would this make your sister proud? Or are you finally becoming Thracius himself? Do not do this.”
Gaius’s will began to wane. Kachka was right. Harming a child to get at its mother? That’s what his uncle not only would do but had done.
And now he was about to do the same.
Don’t, Gaius.
Aggie—
Please. Don’t.
He’d let his sister in and hadn’t even realized it. So, if he did this, she would do it too. It would be her memory as well as his.
Th
at he couldn’t do. She had enough bad memories to last her a lifetime. He wouldn’t add the guilt of this sin.
Gaius lowered his weapon and, gripping her offspring tight, Vateria reached back and opened a mystical doorway. She was in it and gone in seconds.
Dropping to his knees, Gaius let the pain of what he’d almost done flow through him. He needed to feel this so that he never did it again. So he never came that close to the edge again.
He didn’t know how long he stayed there, kneeling in the dirt. But he felt Kachka’s hand press against his leg.
“It is all right, Dragon King.”
“It’s not all right. I almost—”
“But you did not. Because if you had, I would have come for you. For your great sin, I would have been your punishment. For I am the Scourge of the Gods. But I am not here to punish. Because you made right choice.”
Gaius finally found the strength to laugh. “You are really loving that name.”
“I am.”
“It fits her,” said another voice.
Gaius looked up, rearing back a bit. “You.” He watched the soldier for hire he’d met on the road a few days ago walk around him.
“Me.”
“You sent me to gold mines,” Kachka said.
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Just being helpful.”
“Who are you?” Gaius asked.
“Just call me Eir. Oh! I have something for you.” She removed a sword from the scabbards strapped to her back and handed it him.
It was a gladius. Rather plain. But a very sweet gesture.
“Thank you, but you don’t—”
“Please. Take it. Make good use of it.” She walked over to Kachka, held out her hand. “Give me the eyes.”
Kachka stared at the soldier, eyes narrowing. “No.”
“It’s all right, Kachka,” Gaius told her.
“How can it be all right?”
He gave a small smile, now fully understanding who this friendly neighborhood soldier-for-hire truly was. “It just is. Trust me.”
“All this trouble . . .” She pulled the leather bag from her boot and handed it over to the woman.
“Thank you,” she said. “And good luck to you both.”
She walked off and they watched her until Gaius asked Kachka, “How did you get down here so fast?”
Frowning, she shrugged. “I have no idea.” Kachka studied the ground at her feet. “And this,” she said, gesturing with her hands, “was hot and covered in flame.”
“Right. To melt the gold.”
“But now it is cool. And eyes are gone with brown woman.”
“Yes.”
“Because she is a god, is she not?” Kachka finally asked.
“Yes. I believe she is.”
“She looks like Izzy and Talaith. Are they gods too?”
“No.”
“But she was?”
“Yes.”
“I think you are right. There is something about her . . . But why did she give you sword?”
“Because I gave her one when I thought she was a poor soldier for hire.”
“You made an offering to a god and she gave you a plain boring sword you could get at any blacksmith?”
Gaius opened his claw and studied the sword. “Apparently.”
“That is disappointing.”
“It is.” Gaius got to his back claws, stretched his sore neck again. “We should get back to Brannie and Aidan.”
“Doubt they need us but . . . sure.” She gestured to Gaius. “Did you know you were covered in pieces of gold?”
“Oh.” He glanced at the gold that had hardened on his scales. “Go over there,” he told her, gesturing to a large crucible about fifty feet away.
Kachka did and Gaius dropped to all fours, covered himself in flames, and did a good dog-shake to get all the gold off.
Once done, he lowered himself to the ground. “Get on.”
“You will let me ride your back like horse?”
“No. I am not a horse. I am a dragon and king. So shut up and get on my back.”
And using his hair to climb onto him, Kachka teased, “And such a moody king.”
The battle was still raging in the cavern when Kachka returned with a now-human Gaius, plus Marina and Zoya.
“There,” Kachka told Gaius. “Many of your kind to kill with your new gods-given sword.”
He lifted the blade, studied it. “Yeah. I guess.”
“Maybe it is magickal sword,” Marina suggested. “One with great power.”
Gaius slashed the blade through the air a few times before shaking his head and admitting, “It’s not a magickal sword.”
“No,” Kachka and her comrades agreed.
Brannie slammed a dragon down on the ground and rammed her sword into his neck. Once he stopped moving, she stood, searching for another victim. But she saw Gaius and Kachka first.
“You made it!” she said.
Gaius nodded at two dragons. “See those two over there?”
Brannie nodded. “Aye.”
“They’re my cousins and loyal to Vateria. Kill them both.”
“Okay,” Brannie said, rather happily.
“She likes her job,” Marina noted.
Gaius agreed. “She really does.”
The suns were high in the sky by the time they made it out of the mountain on the Southland side. Gaius expected a great battle to still be raging. Instead, he found a massacre.
He faced a sheepish Brannie. “They didn’t wait twenty-four hours.”
“I see that.”
“It worked in our favor, though,” Aidan pointed out.
“I thought Brannie told you to shut up,” Gaius reminded Aidan.
“Yes, sir.”
“You see I’m trying to make a point here.”
“Which I do understand, King Gaius. But it might be more effective if it wasn’t a bunch of Cadwaladrs slaughtering the fanatics that aren’t already dead.”
“They’re not all Cadwaladrs,” Brannie noted. “It’s my Uncle Rhys’s battalion.”
Aidan cringed and Gaius gawked.
“Your uncle Rhys? Rhys the Hammer?”
She cleared her throat. “Yeah. I see him over there . . . ripping that dragon into two distinct pieces.”
“So in future . . .” Gaius prompted.
“I’ll think before I contact me mum.”
“That’s all I ask. This works in our favor today, but next time it could be an entire village of uninvolved humans that your Uncle Rhys goes after. And that would just make us look bad. So . . . keep that in mind. Yes?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you.”
Brannie and Aidan walked away to help the Dragon Queen’s battalion finish off the rest of the fanatics, and Gaius smiled down at Kachka.
“As a king,” he explained to her, “you’re always teaching the young.”
“You are full of much shit, dragon.”
Gaius laughed. “I know!”
Chapter Thirty
Queen Annwyl sat beside Queen Rhiannon on the stairs that led to the Great Hall. Together they silently watched the day-to-day goings-on of Garbhán Isle. Annwyl didn’t know how long they’d been there.
Finally, Rhiannon said, “So it’s begun.”
“Yes. They attacked the Stone Castle in the Western Mountains. We’ll know more when Gaius gets back with Brannie and the others. They should be here soon.”
“I see.”
“And, right now, Fearghus is meeting with Bercelak, his generals, and Brastias, of course.”
“Good. What about Brigida?”
“Talan will handle the Armies of the Abominations. Which, by the way, is what they named themselves. They think it sounds terrifying.”
“Well, it kind of does.”
“True.”
“And Talwyn?”
“She’ll be with me.”
“Good. Excellent.” Rhiannon brushed her hair from her fac
e. “We have training on our side.”
“We do. But they have fanatics willing to die for their cause. And they have a lot of them. More and more coming every day to join their ranks. We can’t underestimate them.”
“No. No. We can’t.”
Taking Rhiannon’s hand with both of her own, Annwyl said, “Don’t worry, Rhiannon. You just have to remember one important thing.”
“And what’s that?”
“I am crazier than any of them.”
Laughing, Rhiannon put her arm around Annwyl’s shoulders. “Excellent point, dear Annwyl. Excellent point.”
Fearghus stood with Briec and Éibhear. The three brothers were trying to figure out how they were going to handle a dilemma.
“We have to come up with something,” Briec finally said, annoyed. “We can’t just stand here.”
“It’ll be ugly,” Éibhear reminded them. “Remember last time?”
“Then we should have someone else do it.”
“Who?”
Fearghus looked around and immediately saw them. They were perfect.
“Got it.”
Dagmar walked quickly down the hall toward her study. She had so much on her mind, she barely noticed the screams.
“No! You can’t! Please! No!”
Dagmar froze, her dogs stopping with her. She ran back to the library she’d just passed, and shoved the door open.
They had him pinned to the big table. Two holding him down, another holding the axe.
“Dagmar! Save me!”
They paused, looking at her, waiting for her to stop them.
But . . . she couldn’t. Cringing, knowing this was just the beginning of the nightmare, Dagmar . . . nodded.
“Nooooooooooooooooooo!”
The axe fell and the Rider, Nika, grabbed the golden hair she’d just cut from the head of Gwenvael the Handsome.
“See?” she said. “That was not so bad, was it, beautiful dragon?”
“Vipers!” Gwenvael accused the women, yanking his arms free. “Horrible, vicious vipers!”
He stalked to the door, stopping beside Dagmar. “And you!”
“I know you’re angry, but Bercelak will never allow you to lead one of his legions with all that hair.”
Gwenvael pointed a damning finger. “This betrayal will never be forgotten.”
