The ninja snorted. “Only in the same way there’s a prophecy that drunks will stumble out of taverns. Eventually, fools like you end up in Rune. Now you’re coming with me.”
“Can I do the pants thing first?”
“Yes.” He grabbed the gun from my hand. “What is your name?”
“Grawflefox.”
“Lie again. I dare you.”
“It’s a pseudonym, since an evil wizard wants Isaac Myers dead. How did you know I was lying?”
“Trade secret. And Dracon won’t be defeated through a change of identity. He’s clever.”
“So you know Dracon.”
“We have our quarrels.”
I struggled putting on boxers and my jeans, and took a moment to scrub off most of the dragon blood. The ninja kept an unsettling watch over me, even though he’d disarmed me. “Do you have a name?” I asked. “Or do I just call you Spooky Sword Guy?”
“Call me Ronin.”
“Seriously? That’s what you’re going with?”
He didn’t move, but his stillness seemed different—like a more violent kind of stillness. “You disapprove?”
“Were you written by Frank Miller?”
“Do you want to see how many different pieces I can make you into before you bleed to death? It’s a surprising number.”
“…that is, Ronin is a fine name, and your parents must be so proud.”
Ronin hacked fangs from the severed dragon head in front of me. He was weirdly good at it, suggesting a career in dragon slaying or—perhaps—draconic dentistry. Either one impressed me, really. Once finished, he led me from the creek, up the embankment, dragging me whenever I stumbled. My ankle protested every step. He peeled a loop of cloth from his hip and holstered my gun there. So far, I’d seen his clothing configure into a glider and create its own holster. It reminded me of memory fabrics I’d put into a science-fiction setting once.
“So your suit can change shapes,” I said. “What kinds can it make? Ropes and wires?”
“Shut up.”
“And hey, if you’re going by ‘Ronin,’ that means you think you’re some kind of samurai. I’d originally guessed ninja. But samurai have a code of honor, right?”
“Shut up.”
I limped after him and grinned. “Having a code of honor means you won’t murder me for talking.”
“Depends on the code.”
“Does yours let you murder me for talking?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He turned and I could feel his glare through the demon mask. “Because you will shut up regardless.”
This guy didn’t know me very well. “Why?”
“Because your every word is laced with unusual knowledge—you see this world from a perspective that grants you insight. Eventually, someone will ask how you prophesy. And if you answer honestly, they’re likely to kill you.”
“Oh.” I thought about what our world would do to a guy who showed up one day and said, Hey, I wrote you and all your problems into existence. “Somehow I don’t think ‘oops’ is going to cut it.” I was just thankful I’d never written any tortured protagonists with slaughtered families into this setting, or they would hunt my sorry ass.
Ronin seized my arm and dragged me on his march.
“But, wait,” I said, barely keeping up. “Does that mean you know how I know these things?”
“I do.”
“But you didn’t kill me. Why not?”
His grip tightened. “Because you’re a bargaining chip and I plan to spend you well.”
I realized he meant to sell me—perhaps even to Dracon—and squirmed in his grip.
With freakish strength, he tossed me into the flank of the dead dragon we’d been passing. With one hand firm to my sternum, he pinned me flat to its hide. “Do not worry. I take care of my bargaining chips. You’re safer in my purse than anywhere else in Rune.” He touched my hair, rubbed it between his fingers as if to confirm I was real, and muttered, “No, more than currency. I keep your heart pumping and we win the war.”
I oozed from his hold, chilled by the mercenary words coming through that scowling demon mask. What if it matched his real face? Though I shuddered, I realized his promise to keep me safe might keep me alive long enough to find a way home. “Does that make us friends?” I managed a playful grin. “The start of a long and beautiful friendship? Or an adventuring party, perhaps?”
He clamped his hand to my arm again, dragging me along. “It makes you mine. That’s all.”
“Wait, like a slave? Your prisoner?”
“Like a stupid child who will die without me.”
“Oh, okay, that’s cool I guess.”
After plucking teeth from the third dragon he’d crash-landed into the park’s wall, he removed a red twig from his suit and lit it on a patch of burning dragon. The stick produced a column of red smoke that rose into the sky. The chalky smoke was illuminated by the glow of Astor’s burning and seemed vastly out of proportion to the size of the twig.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
“You’ll see.”
I knew Ronin was dangerous. He had threatened to open my neck over an innocent mistake, after all. Then he’d suggested I was a fungible commodity. But when a guy kills dragons with a sword and promises to protect you, he’s hard to dislike. He’d saved my life once and threatened it once, so being a gracious person, I counted us even. “Can I at least confirm you’re not handing me to Dracon as part of this ‘win the war’ plan?”
“I already said—”
“The two of you quarrel. Doesn’t mean you wouldn’t trade me for world peace.”
“I threatened to turn him inside out. It was more of a promise, come to think of it.”
“Okay then.”
“Besides, you have little to fear,” Ronin said. “Our plans align.”
“Obviously, I’d rather Dracon not win any wars since he wants me dead,” I said.
“It’s more than that. You want to go home someday?”
“Of course.”
“You can’t. Not while Dracon breathes. He controls the old magic—the portals leading from this world to yours. While he breathes, you’re trapped here.”
I shook my head. “I came through a portal, though.”
“That was a one-way portal,” Ronin said. “The exit portals are all controlled by Dracon.”
“So I can’t check out until you beat this guy?”
“Correct.”
This did not strike me as good news. Wars could go on for years. I worried for the first time what my aunt and uncle were going to do when they learned I’d disappeared from campus. I wondered if Dak would think The Murph had murdered me.
In spite of those thoughts, my body slumped. With the danger mostly passed, weariness settled a familiar weight on my shoulders. I needed sleep before I was ready to tackle these other problems. I leaned back into the dead dragon’s hide to take the weight off my swollen ankle. My muscles were tight and I still felt filthy and in dire need of new clothes. But safety, no matter how transient, still counted for something. “Where are we going next?”
“To Amyss and the Queen of Korvia.”
That was good news. The Korvian queen was an elven inheritor from the Old Kingdoms, as beautiful as she was noble. I’d painted her in royal finery, modeled after a young Julia Roberts with white-gold hair. I bet she’ll know what to do.
We waited as if for the bus, I leaning into a dragon’s scales while Ronin examined the skies. When his gaze zeroed on something, I followed it to a strange sight—the bottom of a sailing ship sliced through the clouds and descended toward the trail of red smoke. Its sails puffed fat with wind, it scudded straight toward us.
Ronin took my arm.
“Wait. Is that—are we going on that sky ship?” I asked.
“Afraid?”
“More like… fully erect.”
He stared at his own hold on my arm, as if reconsidering.
“This is the single coolest thing I ma
y have ever done. And today I slew a dragon.”
But the ship did not slow down. That perplexed me. Could it stop quicker than I anticipated? How did it stop, anyway?
Someone tossed a long rope over its side and one end dangled all the way down to the city rooftops. Was it an anchor of some sort? The thing hanging on the end of the rope didn’t look particularly heavy.
“Why isn’t it slowing down?” I asked. “How does it land?”
Ronin snorted. “It doesn’t.”
The rope soared over the park’s lawn, lower and lower, until it nearly skimmed the top of the grass and I realized the wooden contraption it trailed was…
“A stirrup,” I said, not far above a whimper. “Oh no, no, no.”
“Oh yes,” Ronin said. It skated for us, traveling much too fast for a sailing ship, easily thirty miles per hour. My stomach lurched and Ronin, sure enough, hauled me with him as he snagged the rope and holstered his foot and stepped into the stirrup all in one go.
I grabbed for the rope, missed, watched it pass between my hands—and Ronin’s grip cinched firm. His arm had my middle like a lasso and all the air kicked from my lungs. My body whipped clear, feet thrashing at the receding ground. Wind tousled my hair and my stomach flipped over at our rapid ascent.
“Stop wiggling,” Ronin snarled.
I realized he was all that held me aloft, his impossibly strong right arm around my torso and beneath both armpits, hugging me firm to the jabby armor plates on his chest. “You’re a terrible cuddler.”
He sighed.
As the ship moved, the rope reeled us upward at a fast clip, which was good because if it hadn’t, we’d have bashed into the roofs at the other side of the park. As it was, slate shingles fired rapidly beneath my toes and Ronin had to swing our weight to one side to avoid a chimney. Its bricks rasped at the seat of my jeans.
The rope dragged us above deck and I saw it was fed through a winch-and-pulley at the tip of a device not unlike a giant fishing rod swung over the rail. The deck was manned by three white-robed figures, their faces obscured by hoods. Their robes were each tied with a leather belt and bronze buckle adorned with the symbol of the sun god Varus. One operated the winch-and-pulley using a series of levers. Steam burst occasionally from an exhaust on the rotating spool of rope and I realized the winch—along with other parts of the ship—was powered by a steam engine. Surely other components were made possible by rune stones. How else could it fly? Not to mention its speed was probably breaking some kind of record for sailing vessels. Its sails held a shimmer brighter than white, like the color of moonlight, and I realized they were as alchemized as the steam pipes of Astor. Enchanted to amplify the thrust from wind, somehow?
Ronin released me onto the deck, which didn’t rock like a normal sailing vessel. The only sign of our movement was the powerful breeze tugging at my whole body. The air tasted crisp and thin at this altitude. “This is great,” I said, smiling at everything. “These steam pipes do a circuit through the whole ship, don’t they? I’ll bet everything on this boat’s been alchemized for lighter weight. Oh! Did you lacquer the haul in something to cut down on wind resistance? Just how many float stones does it take to keep this thing up?” No one answered so I counted on-deck weapons. There were three. “Lightning cannons and a castor for anchor rods. Those must have cost a fortune.”
Ronin paused on his way past me. Looking at me, but speaking to one of the white-robed individuals, he said, “Find him quarters. And get him new breeches.”
I flushed hot as Ronin disappeared below deck. Then I looked over the white-robed figures and wondered why monks of Varus would help a mercenary samurai. The weaponry of this ship was very anti-dragon: lightning cannons to down them, then anchor rods to fire into their hides. Once the rods pierced dragon hide, they would operate like a whaler’s harpoon, except that instead of a rope, the harpoon was manipulated by a violet-hued, magical tractor beam called an anchor chain.
I really, really liked my colors.
The monk Ronin addressed bowed toward me. “Follow me.”
I glimpsed a tangle of long, curly hair that fell from the hood and recognized it—and realized the “monk” was a woman. “I didn’t know Ronin worked with the Queen’s guard.”
The woman pushed back her hood, revealing a familiar face that arrested me where I stood. Those sharp eyes and the wild springiness of her curls were unmistakable. It was the Akarri I’d drawn, now in full color. Her eyes narrowed in my direction. “How did you guess we were Akarri?”
I couldn’t tell her I’d drawn her into existence. Seemed rude. “Magic? That is, sometimes—and only sometimes—my magic gives me special insights.” There we go. That works.
“Is it because I’m a woman or a soldier?” she asked, fists firm to her hips.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Do you think I’m an idiot because I’m a woman,” she said, raising one hand, “or because I’m a soldier.” She raised the other hand, as if weighing the two. “It’s hard to tell with you. If you were just another lonely man, I’d assume it’s because I’m a woman. Were you an educated scholar and a weakling, I’d guess it’s because I’m a soldier—that you assume your own lack of martial prowess must be balanced in some way by a warrior’s stupidity. But you have the appearance of both: alone and possessing the physique of a frail scholar. So. Which is it that causes you to dismiss my intellect—the shape of my body, or my profession?”
“Um.”
“Um?” She stepped forward, and I realized she was my height. “ ‘Um’ is not an answer. You had best give me better than ‘um,’ or when I go scrounging for fresh breeches, perhaps I’ll find them in short supply.” She leaned in closer. “Or perhaps I can lend you one of my skirts.”
“Can I at least call it a kilt?” I asked.
She scoffed, so obviously kilts were a thing somewhere in this world. But in spite of the levity, she still held me in her stare and waited for an answer.
“The real answer is that I can’t give the real answer,” I said. I held my hands up, palms out. “It’s more information than I’m willing to share. I’m sorry.”
Her scowl deepened. But after a moment’s impasse she said, “That answer was better. And do you know why?”
“I didn’t assume you were an idiot?”
“Correct. And that is always a good assumption,” she said. “My name is Captain Tammagan and this vessel is in the service of Queen Eliandra. She does not suffer fools on her boat. Nor do I.”
“My name’s Grawflefox.” When she went to say something, I added, “It’s really Isaac, but I’m in hiding from Dracon. Speaking of hiding—why are you in disguise?”
Her brow furrowed. “Are you from another land?”
I glanced down at my blue jeans, Converse shoes, and Hawaiian shirt. “What clued you in?”
“Are women permitted to take up arms in your land?” she asked.
I blinked. “Are they not in Korvia?”
“Ah. That is the source of your confusion,” Tammagan said. “A woman who takes up arms in Korvia is jailed, unless she is personally attending a female noble’s defense. The Queen has sent us with Ronin because she trusts us—but we are in disguise since we’re not directly guarding Her Majesty.”
“That would explain why you were upset at my finding out so quickly,” I said.
“Indeed. When the royal guard is illegally and secretly dispatched on matters of state, the Council starts to throw around heavy-handed terms like ‘high treason.’ ”
“Well hey, on the bright side, we’re all committing it together!” I said cheerfully.
She frowned at me. “You’re staring.”
“I am?” It was true. Since I’d realized she matched my drawing, I’d been examining the lines of her face, surprised to see them in motion—shocked at the range of her expressions and how different it was from what I’d scratched on paper.
“And not like a man usually stares at me. Like you’re searching for things
and… finding some of them.”
Self-conscious, I glanced at my feet. “Sorry.”
“See you don’t do it again. Your eyes bother me.” She said it in a superstitious way, and I wondered what it was like to be assessed by one’s creator. Was that what she was feeling? “I am halfway to believing your story of strange ‘magic,’ Magister Grawflefox. That is what you are, isn’t it—a wizard?”
“Of a sort.”
She shuddered.
***
Tammagan took me below deck and showed me to a small cabin with two racks of bunks. She folded the bunks on the opposite side of the room into the wall, giving me a small amount of floor space. I tested the other and found the mattress to be soft, the pillow firm with goose down. Ten minutes later, Tammagan returned with a change of clothes and a narrow cart holding a washbowl with hot water, towels, and soap. “This will have to do; the showers are in use by my soldiers, and they would not enjoy your presence there.”
“Thanks,” I said sheepishly. “I must smell awful.”
“Many a brave warrior has beshat himself in the presence of dragons,” Tammagan said.
“Has an Akarri ever done that?” I asked, semi-hopefully.
She laughed good-naturedly. “Of course not. But it could be worse. You didn’t eat any.”
I blinked.
“Had a friend in the Knights of Korvia. His first engagement was a charge into enemy lines. He draws his saber, ready to trade steel, heart pounding like a war drum. What no one told him was that if you’re in the back, all the horses in front of you have soiled the earth from end to end. Just as he’s bellowing a war cry to cover up how terrified he is, the horse in front of him kicks up an enormous pile of shit.”
“No.”
“Right. In. His mouth.”
“Bet that never made it onto the recruitment posters.”
Tammagan chortled. “They sell it as excitement, travel, and chivalry, but really it’s just about riding down a hill all together in a great cloud of dust and cursing, swinging steel into the hapless enemy.”
The Accidental God (A Pygmalion Fail Book 1) Page 6
