Never Deal with Dragons

by Christensen, Lorenda

  I quickly ran through a mental list of our senior staff, and came up empty-handed.

  “No, I can’t say that we do. We have plenty of people experienced in human and dragon mediation, and there are a few—myself included—who’ve familiarized ourselves with the Chinese dialect, but no one who has participated in sessions where both sides have been dragons. I can, however, send over a list of DRACIM employees who I believe would be up to the task. Would the job be based in China?”

  “The location of the assignment remains to be seen.”

  I itched to tell Richard I would love the opportunity, but as Emory was sitting right beside me, and he’d made it clear on many occasions that he didn’t approve of his “secretary” trying to take on assignments above her pay grade, I kept silent and made a mental note to include my resume when the time came. And if Richard chose me from the stack, I’d handle things with Emory. DRACIM wouldn’t turn down a potential new market, especially when our first customer was Relobu himself. I’d put money on it.

  A beep sounded from Richard’s jacket, and he pulled a phone from his inner pocket. My brows rose in surprise. And no small share of jealousy.

  In addition to the expense of EMP-R cell phones, there wasn’t a network to use them with. The vast majority of cell towers had been disabled during the war. The phone companies had long since lost hope of putting new ones up—something about the signal irritated the dragons, and they knocked them down faster than the towers could be built. Plus, mobile phones—even the EMP-R models—didn’t last for long. Their tiny circuit boards had major issues with the electromagnetic pulses still floating around the atmosphere. They’d last maybe a week before they fried.

  But I guess Lord Relobu could afford it. There were definite perks when working for a dragon lord.

  Richard answered the phone, and whatever he heard must have been important, because he gave me an apologetic look before excusing himself from the table.

  Minutes later, Emory was so caught up in sampling his potato casserole that he didn’t notice the two small dragons—one a pale green with light white markings and the other a bright royal blue—that entered with covered dining platters.

  They’d come in through the doors on the opposite end of the dining hall, so I had a moment to study their faces. I see dragons in the offices at DRACIM all the time, but they were still interesting to look at. Each one was different. The shape of their scales, the length of their snouts, even the number of sharp claws. Some had stripes, some freckles, and their scales came in every color of the rainbow.

  A delicious smell emanated from the covered platters, and I silently urged them to hurry. Dessert was my favorite part of the meal, and this smelled like one of my favorites.

  Candied bacon. Probably with ice cream. It had been one of Trian’s favorites as well, so I didn’t doubt he’d added to the menu.

  Emory however, was not pleased. “That smells like meat. I can’t have meat. Amy’s got me on a vegetarian diet.”

  He raised a hand to get the dragons’ attention. “Excuse me? Is it possible for me to get a vegetarian option? Myrna was supposed to send Lord Relobu’s staff my request when we responded to the invitation, but I didn’t—” He broke off when the dragons continued toward us, with no impression that they’d even heard him. Emory made me repeat the request in dragonspeak. The dragons continued rolling the cart along the marble flooring as if we weren’t even in the room.

  Interesting.

  The squeak of the serving cart drew my attention. One of the wheels was slightly dented, causing the cart to wobble slightly with every push. I watched as the green dragon struggled to keep it on a straight path, her muscles flexing with the effort. The blue dragon, a young male, I thought, based on the short fleshy beard forming on the underside of his chin, did nothing to help the female. He simply walked, silent and purposeful, at her side, oblivious—or uncaring—of her struggles.

  When the cart stopped alongside our chairs, I attempted to make eye contact with the female. I smiled, quietly thanking her for the food. Her eyes twitched frantically, and a small shudder rippled beneath her skin. She was terrified.

  Had it not made matters worse, I would have laughed. For the past week, I’d been listening to Carol make dire predictions about the outcome of this party. Most had ended with me being eaten or dropped from a high altitude. She wouldn’t have believed that the opposite was true, that some dragons were afraid of us. I smiled again, this time cocking my head slightly to avoid a direct gaze—a challenge among the more dominant dragons.

  I also avoided showing my teeth, just in case it would be mistakenly interpreted as a form of aggression. Based on the fact that the top of her head would probably reach to just under my chin, I guessed this dragon was still a fledgling. Most adult dragons at least tripled me in height, and I’d seen a few that had to duck in order to walk through DRACIM’s twenty-five-foot ceilings.

  Even though her girth more than doubled mine, this poor female wouldn’t inspire fear in anyone. When she didn’t make a move toward the dessert plates, the male shoved her roughly out of the way, picked up the platters, and slammed them onto the table.

  “You may eat,” the blue dragon announced in a gravelly roar. His accent was thick and guttural; it took me several seconds to understand the statement. Careful not to stare, I thanked him in his native tongue, determined to adhere to all proprieties. Despite his rather surly attitude, for all I knew this could be Lord Relobu’s son.

  Emory must have decided the fight for a vegetarian meal wasn’t worth irritating the dragon further, because he hurriedly murmured his thanks and scooted the plate closer.

  Given his all-around bad mood, I hadn’t expected the male dragon to be pleased with my words; his companion was still twitching nervously, and the protective instinct among non-mated males was only slightly less fierce than their mated counterparts. Nevertheless, I was startled to receive a glare so filled with hate that it caused me to suck in a breath. The female might be afraid, but he was angry. Wondering how I had managed to offend him with my words—I couldn’t be that terrifying—I quickly ducked my head and busied myself with removing the lid of my platter.

  The dragons turned to leave, and that’s when I noticed the limp. The female walked slowly to the exit, her right hindquarter twisting slightly as she moved, as if the limb was numbed and she couldn’t feel its contact with the floor. The action I’d originally attributed to fighting to keep the cart straight was actually caused by her leaning her weight against the vehicle in an effort to remain upright. I watched her hand as she took another step, and saw her claw tighten at her side. I didn’t believe the limp was a birth defect. She was in pain.

  “Hey—she’s—”

  I started to stand up, to see if there was something I could do to help, but the blue dragon turned to face me, placing his body between me and the female. I held my hands up to show they were empty and spoke in his language.

  “I mean you no harm. It’s just,” I pointed at the female dragon, “she’s injured—hurt. I just wanted to see if she needed some medical attention.”

  The female whined slightly in alarm, and the male pushed me back down in my seat. “It is none of your concern. Finish your meal.” He stood over me, waiting until I obediently picked up my fork. I met his eyes and waved the utensil in a conciliatory motion. His eyes never left the food.

  Okay then. Ol’ Blue really didn’t appreciate humans. Odd that Lord Relobu would choose him to serve us. Maybe he was being punished. Lord knows Emory did stuff like that to me all the time.

  “As you wish.” I scooped up a bit of the ice cream and held it to my mouth. His eyes gleamed again, but this time they weren’t filled with hate. Triumph flared briefly in his gaze.

  He really wanted this food in my mouth. Alarm prickled at the back of my neck. I lowered the fork.

  Ol’ Blue snarled at the delay. He approached my seat and leaned across the table until his nose was inches from mine. “Eat! Now!”
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  The prickle turned into an all-out shudder. There was something really wrong with this situation.

  “Emory.” I didn’t look away from the male dragon. “Don’t touch the food. I think it’s been poisoned.” It sounded crazy even to my ears, but I couldn’t ignore the way the dragon was pushing us to the food, when it shouldn’t have mattered whether we’d eaten any of it at all.

  I heard the clatter of Emory’s silverware as it dropped to his plate and the scrape of his chair as he hastily pushed himself away from the table. Ol’ Blue whipped his head toward the sound, snarling. The female dragon was weeping openly now, and I could see a small trickle of blood running down her leg.

  Slowly, without drawing Blue’s attention from Emory, I palmed the steak knife and slipped my hands under the table. As a weapon it was practically useless, but I didn’t have much of an option. I could only pray that if the time came I could blind him or distract him long enough for Emory and me to escape. I slipped my feet from my heels. If I needed to run, I wanted to do it without stilts.

  Poor Carol. She really loved those shoes.

  Blue dropped all pretense of servitude and started toward Emory with a deafening roar, his front claws extended and aimed at my boss’s head. I heard Emory squeal in terror as the back of Blue’s arm knocked him to the floor. I jumped up and kicked my chair toward the crazed dragon, hoping it would buy Emory some time to get out of the way. The sturdy wooden seat crashed into the dragon’s side. Unfortunately for me, this turned his attention away from Emory and back in my direction. I ducked and rolled under the table, hoping the dragon’s size would prevent him from crawling under after me.

  Emory’s heavy weight slammed into me from behind as he attempted to join me under my makeshift shield. I shook his hands off my arm and ignored his unintelligible moans in my ear while I adjusted my legs into a crouch. If Emory wasn’t screaming, he wasn’t seriously injured. Not that he’d be much help either way.

  The table above our heads shuddered once, then twice as the dragon attempted to reach us. My arms went over my head for protection. After the third hit, our attacker wised up and changed tactics. He simply picked up the enormous table and flipped it on its side, leaving Emory and I once again exposed to his sharp claws and teeth.

  There was nowhere left to hide. I grabbed the majority of my broken chair and used it as a shield, knowing the wood might as well have been cardboard. Judging by the glimmer of success in his eyes, Ol’ Blue knew it too. I backed away slowly, keeping my pathetic shield in front. The dragon followed, obviously enjoying his status at the top of the food chain. We circled each other, me because I wanted to stay alive, and him because he actually seemed to think this was fun.

  He took a swipe at my chair shield and shattered it with the first hit. So much for that. I grabbed a splintered piece off the floor and kept it in my left hand with the steak knife in the right. But Blue’s attention flickered when Emory let loose another groan. His gaze whipped back to my boss, and predatory instincts or downright enjoyment of the kill made him turn for the prey that wasn’t holding two sharp pointy objects.

  “Trian! Richard! We could use some help in here!” I wasn’t sure where they’d disappeared to, but it must have been miles away for them not to hear the commotion. I might as well have whispered for help for all the good it would do. Our odds of surviving this weren’t looking too shiny.

  While Blue was otherwise engaged, I scooted closer as quietly as I could and stabbed the dull steak knife just behind the dragon’s first leg joint, distracting him from swiping at Emory, who’d closed his eyes and assumed the fetal position in typical Emory fashion. The dragon howled in rage and turned his sharpened talons in my direction. A brush from his tail sent me skidding across the floor and slamming my head against the wall. In my skid, I lost the knife and most of my clarity of thought. My vision was swimming, but I could see well enough to know a large amount of angry dragon was barreling toward me and I had nowhere to go.

  So sue me. I tensed my body, closed my eyes, and waited for the pain. When I heard a clatter, and realized my body was still fully intact, I took a tentative peek at the situation. Help had come from an unlikely location. Just as Blue had reached his arm back to strike again, the female must have picked up the cart and tossed it at his head. Unfortunately, her aim was as bad as mine, and the metal frame bounced on the floor between Blue and me.

  Still, the noise had provided a momentary distraction. The blue dragon turned instinctively toward the attack, and I used the opportunity to shove myself to my feet and head for the door for help. I would have made it too, were it not for Emory grabbing the bottom of my dress. You could always count on him to be alert and aware at the worst possible times.

  He must have sat up when the cart hit the floor. Now, he pulled hard, using me as leverage to heave himself closer to the door. The motion knocked me off balance, and my bare feet slid out from under me. The breath left my lungs as my back and head hit the floor, and I spent several critical seconds trying to get my bearings through the spots of light dancing in my vision.

  By the time I’d regained my senses, Ol’ Blue had the female dangling from his grip with her feet off the floor. And though she was conscious, her body remained limp. She looked at me, her gaze full of apology and resignation. The male was going to kill her. And she knew it.

  I didn’t think. I picked up the knife where it had landed during my fall and ran full tilt toward the blue dragon. His back was to me, so he didn’t see me coming. He likely didn’t expect a human to be stupid enough to attack a dragon—not just once, but twice—with nothing but dinnerware. I swung at his side, stabbing as hard as I could into the muscles of his ribs, hoping to cause enough damage to force his hold on the female to loosen.

  The knife barely penetrated his thick leathery skin. I tried again, aiming for his neck. He threw me off him with a flick of his shoulder. I sailed across the room and crashed into the table. The impact knocked me off my feet. I rolled to my stomach, trying to get my knees under my body. I stifled a scream as a sharp pain stabbed at my lungs.

  At least I’d helped the female. From my spot on the floor, I couldn’t see their heads, but both of her hind feet were firmly on the floor, and based on the movement of his feet and angry roars, she was putting up a decent fight. I once more tried to get back on my feet, but dizziness forced me to put my hand on the floor for support. The hand I put to the base of my head came back red and sticky, and nausea had my stomach threatening to come out my mouth.

  I’d managed, with lots of leaning on a nearby chair, to get to my feet just as the cavalry arrived, led by none other than Trian. At his back were dozens of dragons, armed to the teeth with chain mail, blades, and various items of claw-enhancing finger jewelry. I expected him to stand back and direct the battle from the entrance, allowing the dragons to fight their own. If it wasn’t already obvious, the last few moments had proven that humans didn’t stand a chance without heavy artillery. Or at least something more substantial than a steak knife.

  I watched, shocked, as he gracefully pulled a thin blade from the scabbard at his side and ran toward the blue male.

  “Halt!” He yelled as his blade touched the dragon’s throat.

  Halt? What the heck was going on? I must have hit my head harder than I’d thought and fallen into one of the medieval, sword-wielding fantasy sequences I usually only indulged in private.

  Even more shocking was the male’s reaction. He didn’t even attempt to defend himself. Breathing heavily, he released the female and fell to all fours on the floor, touching his forehead to the ground. The female scrambled back and was helped to her feet by two of Trian’s guards.

  Trian spoke. “Who is your lord?”

  The dragon murmured something that I didn’t manage to hear over the ringing in my ears. “And your mission?”

  The blue dragon was silent. He raised his head from the ground and stared into Trian’s eyes. “To cleanse the world!”

  “Oh,
brother.” I tried to roll my eyes, but it only made my headache worse. “Someone should have told me this wasn’t dinner, but dinner theater. You couldn’t come up with something better than ‘to cleanse the world’?”

  The dragon turned his head in my direction and spat, his venomous saliva hissing on the marble floor. I hated the venom spitters. That stuff was hard to clean up. “Be silent, human.”

  Trian’s face remained passive, but his blade pressed deeper into the male’s flesh. Purple liquid trickled from the wound, spilling onto the dragon’s breastbone. “Your master Hian-puo shares this view?”

  The male looked again in my direction. “I have no master.”

  Trian stood, his gaze on the male as unnervingly direct as it had been on me on DRACIM’s property. The male stared back, un-cowed by his regard. But whatever Trian saw in this beast’s eyes, he didn’t like it. “So be it,” he said as he pulled the tip of his blade away from the male’s throat. Just when I expected Relobu’s guards to take the dragon into custody, Trian swung his blade in a wide arc, cleanly detaching the dragon’s head from his body. The male fell to the floor, dead.

  “Clean up the mess,” he ordered the guards as he walked toward the female dragon. I watched, still reeling from Trian’s bloody and decisive killing of the attacker, as he approached the injured female.

  Trian bent his head to touch the dragon’s. “Fabob, are you okay? Do you require assistance to reach the medic?”

  “No, liege, I am well.”

  Liege? Ignoring the pain, I rubbed at the bump on the back of my head. La-la-land wasn’t as cool as the flyers made it sound.