by Dante King
Or two giant bumblebees.
I was the first to look up, but only by a second or two. The four other women raised their heads and began scanning the sky. The dragons, who had been at the far end of the lake drinking and sunning themselves, also turned their attention upward.
“And what the hell do you suppose that is?” I asked no one in particular.
The familiar spiking tingle of adrenaline diffused its way through my bloodstream, heightening my already heightened senses and causing my heart to pick up its pace. My nostrils dilated so that I could suck in more of their oxygen-rich air, along with any scents that might tell me who, or what, was approaching. Likewise, my pupils dilated too, scanning the low clouds for possible danger.
There were only a few people who knew that we were out here. All of them were high-ranking Mystocean Empire military figures.
“Can anyone see anything?” Tamsin hissed through her pointed predator’s teeth. Her eyes were gazing unblinkingly up into the sky, heedless of the occasional fingers of bright sunlight that filtered through the clouds.
“Not yet,” Renji said calmly.
“There!” I said. I raised my arm to point at two approaching specks that had just risen into view.
After what we had just been discussing, I had to laugh.
“Talk about freakin’ timing, eh?” Tamsin said. Her yellow eyes did not leave the two specks as they approached us. “That is Ashrin and Jazmyn unless my eyes are mistaken.”
I snorted at that turn of phrase. The eyes of dragonmancers were never mistaken.
“It certainly appears to be,” said Elenari, shading her emerald eyes with a pale hand.
“It is,” I said.
Ashrin and Jazmyn, two of the most decorated and infamously ruthless and proficient dragonmancers to be found anywhere in the Mystocean Empire, zipped over the rugged mountain country toward us.
Even at a distance, the flash and sparkle of their wings was plain to see. They were not the kind of wings that I might have expected dragonmancers to sprout. There was very little reptilian about them. Instead, they more closely resembled the wings of a bird.
“I thought they would have had dragonwings,” I said.
“Why?” Penelope asked me. “Magic can be just as powerful as flesh sometimes, and comes with none of its weaknesses. Using a dragon’s mana to craft wings actually makes a lot more sense when you come to think about it. It is a lot harder for an enemy to shoot you out of the sky if your wings are made from magic, rather than blood and bone.”
The droning sounds grew louder as Ashrin and Jazmyn drew nearer. They were skimming at a fair rate of knots. Not as fast as a dragon could fly—not even close—but still quick enough to make them damned hard targets to hit with a bow and arrow.
Clearly, having your own wings gave you more dexterity and movement in the air, if not as much speed as I might have liked. Jazmyn and Ashrin sped in low, the toes of their boots brushing the clumps of tussock and sending clouds of midges exploding into the air.
As they drew nearer, I realized that their mana-powered wings corresponded with the colors of their respective dragons. Ashrin’s wings had a faint poisonous green sheen to them, while Jazmyn’s shimmered with a clear blue tint.
Braking suddenly, the two women stopped dead in mid-air, still some fifteen feet above the earth, and then dropped nimbly to the ground. They landed like a pair of hunting cats, without any sign of a stumble or weariness.
The two women looked somewhat alike. Both walked with the cocksure self-assertiveness of those who were accustomed to being the biggest badasses in any room they walked into.
The moment that these two members of the Twelve had touched back down onto terra firma, their wings had dissolved back into the ether, their dragons no doubt having been restored to their crystal homes.
Jazmyn, the more outspoken of the pair, strode forward and slapped me on the shoulder as I got to my feet.
“How fare you, Mike Noctis?” she said. “You been stayin’ out of trouble?”
“Trying to,” I said.
Jazmyn threw back her head and laughed. Her ash-colored hair was cut short, and she wore the black burnished armor of the qualified dragonmancer. The bright red sash around her waist added a splash of color, reminding me of the markings of a black widow spider.
“Fat fucking chance of that!” she said good-naturedly and slapped me on the arm once more.
Ashrin stepped forward, shooting her companion a glance that said there was a time and place for grab-assing and tomfoolery and this was not it. Ashrin had feline features, sensuous and cunning. She also had cat-like ears poking through her spiky black hair.
“Ashrin,” I said, “thanks for demonstrating your Wing slot. We were just talking about that.”
Ashrin looked around the group of five and nodded curtly to each woman in turn.
“What can I do for you, ladies?” I asked. “I assume that you didn’t come out here just to pay us a visit and share a little fish with us?”
Ashrin shook her head. Her expression was unreadable.
“You’re required to head back to the Galipolas encampment,” was all she said.
“Back to the Galipolas camp?” I asked. “Why?”
I made a show of peering up at the sky, even though the sun was not visible. “It’s not even past our curfew yet.”
Ashrin was clearly in no mood for jesting.
“Mount up,” she said, “and get back there as soon as you can. That’s an order from General Shiloh herself.”
I frowned slightly.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Honestly, Mike, we can’t tell you,” Jazmyn butted in. “We were out on patrol—we’ve been running with some of the Storm Riders as of late and making sure that the kobolds or ratfolk haven’t been popping out anywhere in the surrounding lands. A message got passed along to us, instructing us to find you and tell you to get your ass back to the encampment ASAP.”
“You're not coming with us?” I asked.
“Nah, we have to continue on with what we were doing,” Jazmyn said. “We might see you back there shortly though, after we’re done with our little bit of reconnaissance.”
Jazmyn tipped me a wink and summoned her supernatural wings back into existence once more. Ashrin did the same. Together, the two infamous warriors leapt up twenty feet into the air, making use of their dragon-augmented muscles, and quickly headed off westward.
“Hm,” Tamsin said, with her characteristic dryness, “that wasn’t at all ominous, was it?”
“What do you think they need us for back at the camp?” Penelope asked. Her azure-on-sapphire eyes were filled with a slight trepidation.
“Your guess is as good as mine, Pen,” I said.
“Probably a bit better I’d say,” said Elenari teasingly.
“Ouch,” I said, laughing.
I turned back to the Knowledge Sprite. “I’m not sure what it’s about, but we shouldn’t worry too much about it being an attack or anything like that.”
“How can you be so sure?” Penelope asked.
I called out to Noctis through our telepathic link, but the Onyx Dragon had quite literally read my mind and was already loping over from where he had been lying lakeside. The other dragons, whether because they were being summoned by my fellow riders or simply following Noctis’s lead, were following behind the sable dragon.
“How can I be sure?” I asked. “I can’t be. Not one hundred percent. But, it’s safe to say that if our outpost was being attacked, two of our most experienced and proficient fighters would not be being used as carrier pigeons to summon us to the fray.”
I looked around at the four women. The easygoing looks that had suffused their faces for the majority of the morning had been replaced. Now, they had their fighting faces on. Their eyes were killing eyes—soldiers’ eyes. From the set of their jaws, these were four women who would go above and beyond to protect any man and women who fought beside them.
; “Yeah,” I said. “Enough talk. Let’s ride.”
Chapter 3
When we landed back at the encampment, we found the place had not been razed to the ground as Penelope might have feared.
Still standing were the buildings clustered at the knees of Galipolas Mountain like chicks huddling around a hen. The air was devoid of the smoke and cinders and fire that would have accompanied a rout by wild dragons. No bodies littered the streets, neither of ratfolk, kobolds or, thankfully, our own soldiers. As scant regard as the ratfolk and the kobolds had for the lives of their own twisted folk, I doubted any raid they mounted would have been devoid of casualties.
Our coterie met us near our tents. These were a dragonmancer’s choice pick of three leading fighters from amongst the regular troopers and acted as their personal bodyguards,
I was as pleased to see my lads as I ever was. My coterie and I had formed an unorthodox relationship. Where dragonmancers and their personal bodyguards were usually divided by a strictly observed hierarchy, my three stalwart men and I shared a far less stuffy bond.
“Lads, it’s good to see you!” I said as Noctis disappeared back into the black crystal hanging from a golden chain around my neck. “Have you motherfuckers been keeping your heads down during the week that I’ve been letting my eyes have a rest from seeing you.”
“Oh yes, Dragonmancer sir,” Bjorn growled, stepping forward and clasping hands with me. “We’ve been behaving oh so nicely in our well-deserved rest and recuperation period, haven’t we lads? We’ve been, um, knitting and talking about… books and… stuff.”
He dropped me a stage wink of such lasciviousness that it wouldn’t have been missed by the most innocent of nuns. Not even if she was suffering with cataracts.
I looked the seven-foot tall half-Jotunn over. Gleaming red eyes. Near-white skin crisscrossed with pink and red scars. Pale blonde warrior’s tail and beard. Numerous tattoos crawling over the shaved sides of his scalp.
Bjorn looked like a bear fresh out of prison and strategically shaved.
As far as marauding tank soldiers went, Bjorn was in a league of his own.
“That’s good to hear,” I said. “It’s good that you haven’t been neglecting your... book... studies.”
“What? Studies? Books? Bjorn?” said Rupert Dyer, our squad’s apothecary and all-round genius. “Oh c-c-come, sir, I really must protest at that brazen lying! The closest that this man ever gets to a book is the newspaper that he wipes his—”
A sharp and judiciously administered elbow from Gabby cut Rupert off before he could put his foot all the way into his mouth.
I clapped Rupert on the shoulder. “Good to see you too, Mr. Dyer.” Then I gave Gabby a genial nod.
Gabby rolled his eyes and presented me with a commiserating look. The man was the most enigmatic of my three unlikely coterie members. He was a mute and very little was known about his past. One thing that we did know, however, was that he was a hit with the ladies. This always puzzled Bjorn because he could never figure out just how a man with no tongue could provide adequate entertainment for a female companion.
I had tried on numerous occasions to convince Bjorn that it was precisely because Gabby couldn't talk that he was so popular with the opposite sex. In the eyes of many women, a good listener was worth his weight in gold. Bjorn had yet to respond with anything other than a dubious snort.
“Did you miss me, boys?” I asked my men. “I know how you three fret when you’re devoid of your fearless leader.”
Gabby rolled his eyes once more and gave me a pitying look. It always amazed me how much the mute archer could convey through a simple look through his hawk-yellow eyes.
Bjorn simply guffawed, as if I had said something incredibly stupid.
“Well, I missed you, sir,” Rupert said with frank honesty. “I do enjoy carousing from tavern to tavern with these two, b-b-but even when Gabby doesn’t have his tongue stuck down some random barmaid’s throat, he doesn’t say much, and Bjorn well…”
“What do you mean?” Bjorn said, in a mock wounded voice. “I’ll have you know that I’ve been trying to raise my game with the whores of this shithole ever since news started circulating that the Overseer was here. Many of them now regard me, I reckon, as a man who’s up-to-date with international affairs.”
Rupert waved a hand. “Pfft, you think that international affairs means buggering a girl from out of town.”
Bjorn reddened a shade and growled something, but then Gabby made a few gestures in the air with his hands and grunted a handful of syllables. The two friends turned to face him.
“What was that?” Rupert asked the mute.
“I think he was trying to tell Bjorn something, Rupert,” I said, barely managing to keep a straight face. This sort of banter was why I believed that my coterie, unlike any of the others, held a secret something.
“What was he trying t-t-to tell him, Dragonmancer?” Rupert asked, turning on a bit of extra respect as Saya walked past him.
“I think,” I said in a studious voice, “Gabby said that, just because you sometimes look like a jackass and sound like a jackass, you shouldn’t be fooled. Because you really are a jackass.”
Bjorn snorted and punched me neighborly on the arm. It was only my dragonmancer strength that stopped me staggering a dozen paces to the side.
As the boys and I were trading these brainless insults, which so often count as wit and repartee amongst males ranging from eight to eighty, there came a rattling jangle. Old Sleazy rolled up with his hand barrow grill.
“Oi oi, look what the saber-toothed cat dragged in, eh?” the green-skinned gnoll said, his hideously thin and lanky mustache fluttering about his mouth like a couple of white sea snakes.
“Old Sleazy,” I said. “I’d like to say it’s good to see you, but—”
“You wouldn’t want to lie to me?” Old Sleazy cut in. “Come on, Dragonmancer, you’re going to have to do better than that. Think outside the square a little, eh? Is your lack of originality due to you being tired? You look a little tired, boyo.”
“Ah, Old Sleazy, I might look tired now, but when I wake up tomorrow, I’ll be fresh as a daisy, whereas you will still look like an avocado that’s been run over by a cart,” I replied sweetly.
The gnoll nodded his round head appreciatively. He was dressed, as always, in a chef’s toque and apron with ‘Sex, Drugs & Sausage Rolls’ stitched across it.
“That’s a better effort, dragonmancer,” he said. “Skewer of pickled marsh shrew anyone?”
There was a chorus of affirmative noises from all those gathered around the cart.
“On the house?” Bjorn asked, jerking his hand back from the loaded tray at the last second.
“For you, big fella, of course there’s no monetary charge,” Old Sleazy said in a syrupy voice.
Bjorn dived in and began stuffing pickled shrew into his mouth..
“But I might require paying in the future. Maybe in the form of some friendly little favor. But we shall see, aye,” Old Sleazy finished.
Bjorn’s face fell, and I chuckled. Old Sleazy, with his mannerisms, connections, and the respect he garnered from all and sundry, always reminded me of some Dickensian Don Vito Corleone.
“How did news of our arrival reach your shell-like ear so quickly?” I asked, licking grease off my fingers. The shrew was damned good, as was expected when it came to Old Sleazy’s barbecue.
“You know me, Mike,” said the self-proclaimed and generally acknowledged culinary genius, “I’ve always got my ear pressed to the ground. Gold ain’t always the best currency. Gossip and rumor hold their value almost as well.”
“Speaking of rumors and gossip,” I said. “What have you heard about the Overseer? Is it true, is she here? And what about the bearmancers?”
Old Sleazy’s eyes glittered, but before he could answer, another gnoll arrived on the scene.
It was Diggens Azee. Attired in his usual broad-brimmed hat of faded leather, pair of stout crocod
ile skin boots, and a matching canvas safari suit, he looked like Steve Irwin’s prospecting cousin. Prospecting, it turned out, was just what he had been doing. And behind him was Will, the will-o’-the-wisp, trailing the gnoll like a stray pup.
“G’day, Mike,” he said, before I was able to greet him properly. “Best be getting your arse over to General Shiloh’s tent. She’s hollering all over for you.”
“Is that right?” I said.
“Yeah, it is,” the dust-covered gnoll said.
“Diggens, are you going to let me market those damned six-packs of tinned beer that you’ve been making in that shed of yours yet, or what?” Old Sleazy asked, with an avaricious gleam in his eye.
“Yeah right, mate,” Diggens said. “I’ll tell you what I always tell you: you’re bloody dreaming. Now Mike, I’d be off sharpish if I was you. I think the Overseer is in there with the General. If that’s true, then it’s going to be bloody important.”
I wolfed down the last of my skewer.
“It’s about time,” I said. “I was wondering when the brass was going to fill me in on whatever is, and has been, happening. I’ll see you all later.”
And with that, I stalked off toward General Shiloh’s command tent.
Chapter 4
I pushed back the heavy canvas flap of General Shiloh’s tent. Immediately, the rumors about the Overseer’s presence at the encampment were confirmed. The Overseer was waiting inside the tent with the bear-like general of the Mystocean Army.
Whereas General Shiloh looked vaguely ruffled and irritable this morning, the Overseer appeared just as serene and in control as she usually did.
The Overseer was dressed in a simple flowing gown of sapphire silk, with a shawl of silver-gray fur cast casually around her shapely shoulders. The cinnamon-colored skin of her face, unblemished by age or by sun, was mostly obscured by a deep traveling hood, covering her cascade of tight black curls. On her hands she wore a collection of silver rings, a few of which had stones set into, though most were of plain silver or platinum and carved with crude runes.
