by Matt Forbeck
An undead hand stabbed through the rubble below me and grabbed my ankle. I kicked at it hard with my free foot, but it held on like a vise. Another bony hand reached up and snagged my other foot. I smacked my pistol against it, but it refused to come loose.
That did reload my pistol for me, though, and I fired at the wrist attached to that hand. The hand snapped free from its arm, although it continued to hang on. I did the same with the other hand, pumping two shots into it before I broke loose.
I brought my gun back up, thinking the Ruler would be right there in front of me, ready to suck the life out of me with her sunken eyes. Instead, I saw her gazing up toward the moon, and I head Spark’s voice echoing inside my head.
Incoming!
“What?” I scanned the sky, thinking I’d spot Spark barreling down at me, but it turned out to be the Dragon instead, diving in low, his sword-long talons reaching for me.
I dove to the side and made myself as flat as I could. The Dragon’s claws raked across my back, tearing through my jacket and laying open my skin. Only the jagged rubble I’d fallen into kept the creature from snatching me up and carrying me into the sky.
As the Dragon skittered past me and rose into the sky once more, Schaef’s carpet came swinging in low toward me too, chasing the beast now instead of playing its prey. I wondered if I could jump up and grab onto it as it passed, but before I could finish the thought, another bony set of hands reached up from the ground and grabbed my shoulders good.
I tried to shove myself away from the rubble, but the arms held me tight, and a face attached to them emerged from the ground. It belonged to Wint, the orc I’d been playing cards with down here in Goblintown not so long ago, right up until the Guard slit his throat for trying to kill me. Now it looked like he might get his chance to finish the job.
Wint opened his mouth and spoke with the Ruler’s raspy voice. “You cannot escape me. No one in Dragon City can. I rule your Dragon Emperor, and soon I will rule you all.”
Then Wint hauled me down toward him, his hungry teeth snapping at me, ready to devour me alive, one vicious bite at a time.
I jabbed my wand into Wint’s ear and let loose with the spell I’d prepared for the Ruler of the Dead. It was too much, and I was too close to it, but I didn’t have a choice. It was cast it or die.
Wint’s body exploded. The only thing that saved me was that most of him still lay buried beneath the rubble of Goblintown. Still, the force of the blast was enough to punch me free from his grip and knock me flying backward, tumbling about like a leaf in a storm.
I came to a rest at the feet of the Ruler of the Dead. I actually landed on the toes of one of her shoes and crushed it flat. It gave way beneath me like ash.
She screamed and staggered backward, favoring her damaged foot. I rolled over onto my stomach and pushed myself up on wobbly legs. I’d just let loose every bit of mojo I had to save my life, and it had left me feeling as hollow as a shotgun’s barrel.
“Surrender to me,” the Ruler of the Dead said. “You must be so tired. Just think how easy it would be.”
I glanced around. Zombies now surrounded me on all sides and were closing ranks around us, between us. In the distance, I could still hear Kai firing his shotgun over and over again. “Come and get it, you bastards!” he said. “Buckshot is served!”
“They will take him down,” the Ruler said. “It is inevitable. Death comes to everyone. And then they come to me.”
“Not to you,” I said, “and not today.”
I stood there all alone against her, beaten and bleeding and drained. I wanted nothing more than a belt of dragonfire to knock some life into me, but I knew the time for that had run out. Anyhow, if this was the end, I didn’t want any hint of the damn Dragon in me.
I whacked my pistol against a collapsed wall nearby to reload it. Not that I thought it would do me much good, but if I was going to die here, I was going down shooting, right till the very end. I steeled myself for one final charge.
Heads up!
I glanced toward the sky behind me and saw Spark coming in fast, aiming for the zombies right beyond me. I tried to wave him off, but he had too much momentum behind him. He let loose with a gout of flame as he roared over my head, and it scorched through everything in its path.
The zombies between the Ruler of the Dead and me turned to ash as the flames enveloped them, and the blaze continued on to engulf her too. I raised my arm to shield my face from the blinding heat. It felt like I’d flown too close to the sun.
When the air cooled enough I could open my eyes again, I saw the Ruler of the Dead standing there at the end of a column of ash. The flames had destroyed everything between us, but she remained unscathed. She opened her papery mouth and laughed.
“If the Dragon couldn’t destroy me, what makes you think his hatchling can?”
The ground between us still burned. I knew what I had to do. I just wondered if I could survive it.
You have company. The good kind.
I felt Belle’s hand on my shoulder. She’d dived off Schaef’s carpet and come to my side.
I wanted nothing more than to collapse into her arms right then and let her take over for me, but I couldn’t risk that yet. I still had a job to do.
“My magic is holding the zombies at bay,” Belle said in a tender voice. “But there are too many of them. It won’t last long.”
While she might have come down here to try to save me, I could see in her eyes she was also prepared to die with me. I kissed her hard, knowing it might be the last time.
Then I turned to the Ruler of the Dead and spoke to her.
“There’s only one thing that can harm you,” I said. “Not bullets. Not magic. Not fire. It’s life, isn’t it? Life.”
Her triumphant grin became a grim frown.
“That’s why you want to kill everything. Once we’re all dead, we can’t hurt you. You’ll be safe forever.”
“I am death,” she said, glaring at me. “I am patient. Struggle all you wish. You cannot escape. No one can.”
“I’m not trying to escape you,” I said. “Not anymore.”
I put down my head and charged straight at her then, right down the path that Spark had blazed for me. I shouldered aside the ashen columns of zombies, and I dove straight at her backpedaling frame.
I could feel the heat from the near-molten ground burning through my shoes. It felt like I had leaped from an oven straight into a fire. My skin started to blister, but I couldn’t stop. Not now.
I reached the Ruler of the Dead, and she screeched at me in protest, raising her arms to protect herself. I swung my fist straight at her, my jacket sleeve bursting into flames, and I connected with her jaw, hard.
My knuckles went right through her as if she was nothing more than dust held together with agonizing memories. She collapsed backward, her face already gone, and I reached out to gather her in my arms and clutch her to me.
Everywhere I touched her, she disintegrated, crumbling to a fine powder that swirled around me in the roasting updraft and then blew away, disappearing on the midnight breeze. I stumbled forward, falling on top of her, crushing her into nothingness, and she was gone.
The last thing I heard was the beating of leathery wings, and as everything went black, I shivered in the chill.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
I came to in a big white bed in the hospital up near Wizards Way, which I recognized by way of having been in it far too many times. The evening sun shone in through my window, and I could hear birds chirping outside. I felt like I’d been run over with a red-hot roller and then tossed into a freezer for storage, but those sensations seemed more like memories than facts.
I looked down at my hands, which I’d felt blister and crack the last I knew, and the skin on them was fresh and whole. In fact, they looked better than I remembered them. I stretched my arms out too, and my back no longer felt like it might come apart at any wrong move.
Awake?
I glanced up
and spotted Spark perched atop my high brass headboard. He stretched his wings wide and gaped down at me.
Awake! Awake! Awake!
He dove down at me and landed on my belly. I let out a loud, “Oof!” and laughed as he flipped around and nuzzled up hard against my neck.
“Ah, you’re back.” Belle stood up from where she’d been sitting in a high chair in the corner of the room and came over to brush the hair back from my face. Her smile lit up the place. I just wanted to bask in it until it gave me a tan.
“I’m not dead,” I said. “I was pretty sure I was dead.”
A hint of sadness passed across Belle’s face, like a cloud moving over the sun. “It was a close thing. You probably would have been burned to death if Kai hadn’t shot you right there at the end.”
That widened my eyes. “He shot me?”
“With one of those freezing shells that Kells made. It cooled you and the ground around you off enough that it snuffed out the flames.”
“What happened to him?” I stroked the top of Spark’s head as I looked up at her.
“Kai was a bit chewed up, but nothing the healers here couldn’t handle. I think he’s down at the Quill, telling Thumper how much you owe him.”
I laughed. “He’ll drink me dry.”
“He and everyone else down there celebrating. You’re the toast of the town.”
I sat straight up in the bed, and Spark climbed up my chest to drape over my shoulders once more. “How’s that? They don’t blame me for killing the Dragon anymore?”
“After you destroyed the Ruler of the Dead, the fight went out of all the zombies, the Dragon included. They all just fell over where they were. The threats are over, and Dragon City is free — for the first time ever, really.”
I took a moment to absorb that. I had a hard enough time imagining the city without the Dragon ruling over it. The thought that the lands around it might be safe to travel now stunned me silent.
Then I asked the question I’d been dreading since I awakened. “What about the others?”
Belle frowned hard enough to bring tears welling up in my eyes. “We didn’t all make it. The Dragon’s breath aged Kells and Cindra to death. Moira and Danto died in the palanquin’s crash.”
My heart sank. Sure, I’d survived, as had Belle and Spark, but so many of my friends were gone forever. “What about their kids? Kells and Cindra, I mean?”
“They’re in good hands. Kells and Cindra left them with Johan’s family when they joined us in the fight.”
“And Johan?” I winced. Everyone else on the palanquin had died.
“He’s in the next room over. He was thrown clear of the crash and broke both his arms, but he’s going to live. Wait until you see him. His beard is white as a sheet.”
I wanted to laugh at that but couldn’t quite muster it.
“Thumper made it, but it was a close thing,” Belle said. “Zombies broke into the bar, and he fought them off until the very end. He was about to take a leap out of that high window in the main room — the one that overlooks that long drop — when they all fell over instead.
“And Yabair survived, of course. After the Dragon fell out of the sky, he flew down and scooped you up and brought you and me and Kai straight here. Without his help, you probably would have died.”
I reached out and held her hand. “It seems like I owe a lot of people my life.”
“Too true,” she said. “But we all owe you a lot too. There’s one other person I haven’t mentioned yet, someone who’s been here since you arrived, working hard to make sure you got the absolute best care.”
“You?”
She gave me a modest smile. “Believe it or not, I wasn’t in the best shape myself.”
“Then who?”
She turned toward the door. “You can come in,” she said, raising her voice. “He’d love to see you.”
The door swung open on well-oiled hinges, and my father crept in. He walked over to me as if any vibration on the floor might hurt me, then reached out and grasped my hand. “It’s so good to see you,” he said with a hesitant smile. “You don’t know how worried you had me.”
“I’m fine.” As I said the words to comfort him, I realized they were true. The healers had done an excellent job with me. I felt like I could walk out of the place as soon as I could find my clothes.
I decided I would do just that. As I stood up, Spark fluttered up to perch back on the headboard, right where I’d found him.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Earnest concern colored my father’s voice. “Earlier today, you were almost dead. I think you deserve to take it easy for a while.”
“I might deserve a break, sure. I might even need one. But I’m not sure I can take one quite yet.”
I walked over to the wardrobe on the far side of the room and found my clothes, which had been shredded and scorched in that final battle. The Dragon had torn long slits in the back of my jacket and shirt, and every bit of them were covered with blood and ash. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to touch them.
A fresh set of clothes hung next to my ruined ones, though, and I took those out and held them up. They were of elven make, much finer than the rough-cut rags I usually wore. I raised an eyebrow at Belle, who made a grand gesture presenting them to me.
“My gift to you,” she said. “I didn’t think you could leave here in the rags in which you arrived.”
“Where do you intend to go?” my father asked as I slipped behind a screen and started to change. The clothes fit me as if they’d been tailored for me while I slept. Knowing Belle, they probably had been.
“Yabair wants to see you before too long,” Belle said. “He claims the two of you have a great deal to discuss.”
“I think he can find me when he wants me,” I said. “He’s never had a hard time at that.”
“You’re welcome to stay with me,” my father said. “Until you’re back on your feet, that is. Or as long as you like.”
The idea warmed my heart. I hadn’t lived in my old home for decades, though, and I wasn’t about to go back if I could help it. “Thanks,” I said, “but I think I’d be more comfortable at the Quill.”
“Not at Danto’s place?”
I stuck my head around the screen as I pulled on my pants. “Why would I stay there?”
My father glanced at Belle and then back at me. “I thought she might have told you. He left it to you in his will.”
I stepped out from behind the screen, gaping as I buttoned up my shirt. “His tower? I can’t —”
“Everything,” my father said. “He left you everything.”
I walked over to the bed to slip on the new shoes Belle had bought for me, and I found that I needed a moment. Belle sat down next to me to put her arms around me, and I leaned my head on her shoulder. My father reached out to take my hand, and Spark slinked over to perch on one of my shoulders and nuzzle my cheek.
Are you okay?
“I’ll be fine.” I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “Thanks.”
I stood up then, and offered my elbow to Belle, who took it and leaned into me. I took a deep breath and strode out of the room.
“So where are we going?” my father asked as he scrambled to catch up with us.
“To the Quill, of course,” I said. “We have a victory to celebrate and lost friends to remember, and I can’t think of a better place to toast them both.”
THE END
Special Thanks
This book — this entire series — would not have been possible without the support of the many people who backed the Kickstarter drive for the trilogy of Shotguns & Sorcery novels. Each and every one of you has my gratitude for your faith in this project.
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