“It means that the only flaw with the Volstovic dragons was their volatile nature. Only certain men could ride them, and it had to be men of their choosing. A very quaint arrangement, to be sure, but I cannot afford such a capricious nature. I require a vessel, in crude terms. If we activate the dragon’s soul within a person, however, then all I need to control is you.”
“Sounds like you’ve got that all worked out,” I said, talking now because if I thought about what he’d just said, I’d lose my mind. I hadn’t come this far and fought this hard just to sign up to be a slave.
I’d die first. And I was damn well going to take him with me.
“Come on, then,” he snapped, and tried to grab me by the arm, which wasn’t his first fucking mistake. His first mistake was getting me involved in the first place. All the rest was plum sauce on the shaved ice. I lunged at him—no weapon but my bare hands, or one bare hand, anyway, but that’d be enough once I got at him—and he was gonna be a split second too late to block me, when something rocked the foundations of sand beneath us. He went down to his knees. I didn’t.
“The hell was that?” I demanded.
“That idiot,” the magician howled. “He can’t have started without me!”
It seemed like he wasn’t in the mood for all his plans to be going to shit. Too bad, because that’s what I had in mind. I ducked away from him, but my reaction time wasn’t what it should’ve been. Maybe if I’d trained more as the blind warrior, I might’ve been better at this. As it was, my magician friend grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me up. He was using me, same as ever, trying to get that compass to tell him where the remains of the dragon were.
I brought my knee up, right into his balls.
That sure as hell stopped him and he shouted in pain, letting go of me like I was on fire. Funny I should think that—seeing as how I was—but I didn’t let the humor of the situation stop me from taking control. I grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head up, then punched him good and hard across the face with my bad hand.
Fucking mistake, I realized right after. The pain was so awful that suddenly it was me who was screaming, and the only pleasure I could get out of the situation was noticing that the face of the compass had left a mark on his cheek before he flipped the tables and was over me, one hand at my throat.
“Don’t try me, gutter pig,” he said.
He was an idiot because he’d left himself open, and I got him in the balls a second time.
There was no grace to it whatsoever: just me kicking and scratching and screaming, and him maybe realizing that he’d fucked with me one time too many. Adding insult on top of all the other insults—not to mention all the injuries—was just enough to make me act without regard to my own life, without thinking about what he could and would do to me.
That was when he pulled out his magic.
Wind blasted like a solid wall into my chest and threw me back against another solid wall of wind and sand. I was bleeding from one corner of my mouth and my eyes were full of tears—pain and the sand smarting underneath the lids—but I forced myself to keep my eyes open and my gaze on him, even when I fell. He was coming toward me, and grabbing my arm again, and when I tried to kick out at his ankles wind pinned me down and kept me there.
“Don’t think I’ll let you do that again,” the magician said.
“Guess two times were enough for you,” I replied.
He brought his face down close to mine. I could see him a little too well—the mole on his chin and his sharp, dark eyes, his nose pressed up against mine. Hell, I could probably smell what he’d had for breakfast.
He sure had me. Stubborn as I was, I’d’ve even been the first to admit that. He had power over me that my gutter-pig brain couldn’t even imagine, and now I’d forced him to use it. I’d shown him I was a real threat and he’d taken me up on that. All my actions to that point were just scratching at the bars of my cage. I wished briefly, violently, that I’d known the rat bastard’s name, so that when I came back as a ghost I could cry it out in the middle of the night and get the haunting done proper. I’d do a damn good job of it too, until he was nothing but screaming and pissing and crying in a corner of his fine house—the kind of place I imagined where all rich bastards lived, with quiet sliding doors and fine carving on the lintels, eating full meals every night they didn’t even have the decency to finish every last scrap of. Didn’t they know how hungry some people were?
Probably never crossed their minds. And that was what made us different.
But what also made us different was that I was down below and he was up above, the weight of magic pressing me down, my body telling me there was no reason to struggle anymore.
Then the ground shook again, like something enormous was thrashing around. A dragon flashed through my head, weak and struggling, making a halfhearted attempt at life. The magician’s concentration wavered—whatever was about to happen, he was scared of it—and that was another difference between us. Because I wasn’t scared enough to do anything but take the opportunity for what it was. I balled my bad hand up into a screaming fist and I punched him with everything I had.
He stumbled back, his eyes wide. He looked shocked too, and for the first time our eyes met. In fact, I might’ve been able to say that he really saw me. I dragged myself to my feet and I lunged for him, closing both hands tight around his neck quicker than he could blink, the compass digging into the soft hollow of his throat. He struggled like a drowning rat, but I was bigger than him, and used to the pain now shooting through my palm, up through my arm. Just his bad luck this whole trip had made me tougher, but that was how poor people survived. You either grew calluses or you gave up young, and I’d crossed giving up out of my own personal vocabulary.
Hell, I didn’t even know how to write it.
His face was turning red, eyes bulging, the ghosts over them flitting back and forth faster and faster. He made a choked sound and I pushed all my weight down, squeezing harder than I’d ever done doing the laundry. This motherfucker had wanted to turn me into a dragon. He’d tried to take my life away from me and now I was gonna do him the same favor. It was only fair.
I felt his body go limp underneath my hands and I drew them away slow, just in case he was pulling a fast one on me.
His eyes were glossy, the ghosts in them still, and his arms lay flat at his sides, spread out like a kid making a sand angel. I wanted to close my eyes, but I forced myself to look at him. It was no good killing someone—even someone who’d really deserved it—and showing your yellow belly afterward. I started to stand up, but before I could the air bubble above us collapsed and sand came roaring down on top of me.
“Madoka!” someone shouted. I knew it wasn’t the magician. I wanted to reply, but I was buried—buried like the voices said I would be—and all I could do was fight or be lost.
So I fought, of course. But I was pretty sure I was already dead.
ROOK
I didn’t know where the fuck I was.
In the desert, sure; that much’d always been obvious. Except I wasn’t with my brother, and I wasn’t fighting fair, and the sand was so thick around me by then that I didn’t even know if I was hitting the dunes or hitting Fan when I struck out. I could’ve stumbled right into that thing Fan was calling my girl and not even known it until I tore myself open on one of her claws. Simply put, we were tussling like two mad fucking dogs, and at one point I was pretty damn sure he’d bit me, so I bit him back, and both of us were spitting sand for our efforts in the end. All we were doing was swinging at shadows, and only occasionally were we hitting the man behind ’em.
Fan probably knew right now that I didn’t want answers like someone else would’ve if they were in my boots. Revenge was the only thing I was looking for now, and it was wearing a Fan suit. He was probably regretting having shown us the dragon too, since in case he couldn’t tell, that was what’d gone and pushed me over the edge once and for all. The only problem was getting my revenge pinned down.
I didn’t even care I couldn’t see him; you could kill a man without seeing him. I’d had enough of beating around the bush and wasting my time, so I wanted to get this over with even if the circumstances weren’t fucking “ideal.” I was gonna show him what happened to someone who so much as suggested breaking the bond between me and my girl. He needed blood? I’d give him blood all right.
Sure, it was possible that just maybe, what with all the magic flying everywhere right now, I was in over my head. The last time I’d fought magicians I’d been way up high and I’d had my own kind of magic to work with. As always, it wasn’t the same fighting solo on the ground as it was in a team up in the air. But as long as Thom stayed put—real fucking likely, except not—then I could deal with this bastard Fan, find my brother again, and deal with the whole dragon mess. But those were a lot of ifs, and the sand was starting to move so fast that it was hurting me more than anything Fan managed to land.
We were in the middle of a fucking shitstorm. Literally.
I’d’ve laughed out loud if I hadn’t been busy.
This man’d fucked with us one time too many; he’d gone and made something that was already personal even more fucking personal still, and he didn’t know when to give it up and beg forgiveness from the merciless fucking god that was me. I was bigger than he was and I damn well had more fighting experience than he did—it showed in his technique—but even if he was a slippery little snake, there was still no way he could turn this fight against me.
I landed a punch somewhere square on his nose and he grabbed my arm, so I grabbed his. It was a damn foolish mistake because now we each knew exactly where the other one of us was. I brought my knee up against him where it counted and I could hear him grunt. I wanted to let him know how happy I was we were finally seeing things the way they were supposed to be but I couldn’t even do that—no chance to get chatty when the sand could’ve finished me off better than Fan could—so I started raining blows down on his body with everything I had left. I was saving using Kalim’s knife, which was my knife now, for the very end.
Everybody could be a little prideful sometimes.
Maybe I should’ve used it first, before anything else—or maybe I’d been lying to myself saying I didn’t want answers. Maybe I just wanted the bastard to suffer a little, like he’d’ve made my girl suffer, and something told me if we were in each other’s boots, that’s what she would’ve wanted for me too. Fair was fair and all that horseshit.
But I’d lost track of where everything was, and when he yanked me forward hard, my face smashed right into a big metal bone. There she was, my girl and not my girl, and I was going to get him good for fucking using her against me like that, only he’d used the distraction to peel away from me. I could hear him scrabbling along her body in the sand, and I lunged after him, quick enough to see that damned vial in his hand. Part of Have’s soul, the part he’d wanted to mix with my blood, except I guess I’d pressed him into a corner. He pried open something on my girl with his bare hands and I went for his throat, getting him a split second after he’d smashed the contents of the vial inside.
Fan screamed a word I didn’t even fucking understand, but I was through with listening to his trash. He started coughing like an old woman for all his troubles—served him right for opening his mouth in the sand—and that was all the opening I needed.
My fingers brushed the handle of my knife and a sudden flash of light burst wide across my vision—bright enough that I could see it against my eyelids. I had just enough time to wonder what the shit before the screech of metal filled my ears, groaning through the sand. Something heavy hit the ground and it quaked under me, knocking me clean off my feet and sending me sprawling backward into the sand. I had to hand it to Fan, that rat bastard. He sure knew how to make it difficult for a man to kill him. All that sand stung my back like hitting a brick wall, only worse, because all the hard gritty bits of the wall were moving like they wanted to tear my skin off my bones. Fan’d slipped away from me in the mess, probably exactly like he’d planned.
I was gonna do a lot worse than cut him up when I finally got to him. I was gonna tear every limb from his body and that was only gonna be the opening act.
I’d’ve cursed his name, but breathing was suddenly a lot more difficult than it’d been a minute ago, and so was everything else. Because I could see what’d caused the quake now—a long metal tail swished sharply though the sandstorm—and I could see the outline of her head before I had to close my eyes or risk going blind.
There was no mistaking what I’d seen, though. Have was moving.
I couldn’t let that shit fuck me up now. Now if ever was the time to be just a little like my brother and look at all the fucking facts. Fan hadn’t done anything with the dragonsoul or my blood. He’d just panicked and shot his load too early, sprayed Well water or whatever all over her insides.
Maybe he’d brought a dragon to life, but she wouldn’t be Have. At least, that was what I was telling myself now just to make sure I made it through the rest of the day alive.
I was gonna need all my concentration to make sure that other people didn’t.
There was blood in my mouth and I spat it out, the wind whistling all around me like it thought this was real funny, and sending the blood right back into my face; I was just lucky my eyes were closed. Something was trickling warm down my cheek too, and I could only guess that was more blood. My gift to the desert, and I guess it was pretty much the only gift I had to give, by this point. Meanwhile, my chest hurt like Have’d stepped on it, and maybe that was how I was supposed to feel, considering the blast’d been from a part of the lady herself. Maybe if I’d been able to talk right about then, I’d’ve had some real pointed questions for Fan about that fancy little maneuver he’d just pulled. He’d answer ’em—he was that kind of blathering moron who couldn’t keep his mouth shut even when it was in his best fucking interest—and then I’d be able to pin him down like a roach under my boot. I wouldn’t even stoop so low as to pull the same trick on him he’d pulled on me, because my girl was better than that. If you killed scum, you were scum. It was good enough for me but she was too good for it—too good for me—and always had been.
I pulled my sorry ass to my feet, still fighting mad, but warier now. Getting blasted across the desert could do that to you, and I had no idea where Fan’d landed, or where my girl was, though I could hear the sounds she was making over the howl of the storm, clicking and groaning and metal scraping up against metal like whoever’d put her together had done a real shit-poor job.
Wherever Fan was, I hoped he wasn’t hurt too bad, because he was giving me all sorts of reasons to take my sweet time with killing him.
I heard a shout, quickly swallowed up by the wind, and I whirled around blindly, forcing myself in the direction it’d come from. I hoped the blast from the dragon waking up’d knocked him off his feet at least. Doing what he’d done—waking up a dragon halfway, as far as I could tell—was either stupid or desperate, and as much as I hated Fan, I wasn’t about to call him stupid considering how quick he’d outwitted us the first time. At least it meant he was finally wising up to exactly the kind of pain and suffering he’d called down upon himself—first by trying to use me to his advantage, then by trying to get between me and my girl.
There’d always been an understanding between Havemercy and me: that we’d kill any man who came between us. I was just holding up my end of the bargain now that she couldn’t uphold hers.
The wind changed on my right side—the airflow interrupted, compensating for something in its space—and I had just enough time to whirl and face it before Fan threw himself at me.
He’d probably been scouting me out after the blast, and I was too fucking stunned to do the same in return.
For the second time in too fucking short a space of minutes, we went down hard. I hadn’t been expecting the sudden force of Fan’s attack but I should’ve known better. I’d backed him into a corner, and now he was fighting mea
n and hard, snarling like a rabid animal that’d been hunted within an inch of its life. He bit my fucking ear, and that was another mistake since it told me exactly where his face was. I hit him hard and square in the jaw and he howled, the sound cut off sharp when I got him again good in the stomach.
“Pathetic,” he gasped, part of a longer phrase that got lost in the sand. I rolled to get up and he kicked me right behind the knee, sending me flat on my back again. Apparently I wasn’t the only dirty fucking fighter around. “…you really so blinded by sentiment?”
I rolled quickly onto my side, lunging for him before he could get to his feet. He made a choked noise when I plowed straight into his chest, and we really were fighting like animals now, on four legs instead of two and no speech between us. I couldn’t get my knife out without it being turned against me with all this blind flapping and I was pissed about that, but bastion, at least it resembled some kind of even fight. Fan grasped blindly at whatever he could reach, yanking hard at my braids and scratching at my face. He smashed my nose with his own fucking forehead and it made a real good crack. Lucky for me, my nose knew the score, since it’d been through this and worse. It hurt like all bastion fuck, but I didn’t let go of my good friend Fan, even when he got me a lucky one right in the damned throat, and I had to hope that the crack’d hurt his head just as much as it’d hurt mine. Fact was, I was hurting all over, but none of that mattered in light of the unshakable truth. This time I had him, and we both knew it. He wriggled and twisted and nearly threw me off him more than once, but the simple fact of the matter was I’d stayed on top of fickler mounts than some skinny little magician’s dog, and I wasn’t about to let him go that easy. I managed to get my hands around his neck and could feel the vulnerable pulse—flickering wildly like an out-of-control flame—right under my thumbs. Fan coughed and I could feel that too—the involuntary spasms of his lungs trying to pump sand out and air in, and not quite able to do a full job of it.
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