End Times in Dragon City (16 page)

Belle stepped forward. “We are all citizens of Dragon City now, no matter what factions we may have belonged to before. If we cannot forge an alliance among our own people —”

“The Guard is already doomed,” Benno said. “They as much as admitted so when they destroyed Goblintown. The Ruler’s army will overrun them soon. To stand with them is nothing less than suicide, and I cannot ask my people to take part in that.” 

“You have the weapons,” I said. “You’ve been stockpiling them for centuries. What you lack is the will. Your people were once proud warriors. Now you’re saddled with sacks of shit like that.” I jerked a thumb at Henrik, and he yelped in protest. 

“What?” I said to him. “You want to challenge me to an honor duel? You don’t have any to fight over.” 

Henrik went for his pistol, which I’d been expecting. I had mine out and pointed at the center of his skull before he managed to clear leather. He froze, his hand still half inside of his jacket. 

“Stop it!” Benno said at the top of his capacious lungs. The walls of the Core echoed with the reverberations of his voice. “Put your weapons away. Now!” 

I complied, keeping a wary eyes on Henrik, who didn’t move his hand from his coat. 

“I said now, you imbecile,” Benno said to his nephew in a tone so menacing I almost felt sorry for the little bastard. 

Henrik withdrew his hand and put it on the table in front of him. 

“I’m not going to argue your point,” Benno said, returning his attention to me. “Nor am I going to change my mind. Excellent arguments aside, my people feel safe here. They will not follow me or anyone else into battle.” 

“Even if the Ruler of the Dead revives the Dragon under her control?” 

Benno and the other dwarves at the table blanched at this thought, all except for Henrik, who was still red-faced about how I’d treated him. “That can’t happen,” Benno said. “It’s impossible.” 

“I assure you that it is not,” Danto said. “If the Ruler’s army retakes Goblintown — I’m sorry: when — the Ruler will have access to the Dragon’s corpse. It’s not hard to guess what she will do with it.” 

Benno went even paler than before. Even Henrik’s outraged color faded a bit. 

Benno stroked his beard. I half expected him to call some kind of closed-door meeting and kick me and the others out while he discussed all of this with his compatriots. He knew, though, that we didn’t have the time for that kind of talk. Decisions had to be made now, or they would be made for us by default. 

He started to shake his head from side to side, and I thought that we’d lost him. “All right,” he said with a weary sigh. “You have our support, but I don’t know what good that will do you. We don’t have enough able-bodied dwarves in the Stronghold to make much of a difference. We couldn’t use even half the weapons we have stored here.” 

“You get them ready, and I’ll find people to use them,” I said. 

Benno allowed himself one last dark smirk. “At least we’ll die on our feet,” he said. “If there’s any honor in that.” 

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-T
HREE

The reception we received in the Dragon’s Spire was even colder than the one we’d gotten in the Stronghold. I tried to tell myself that part of that had to do with the altitude, but I knew the real reason. 

“We do not truck with assassins,” an elf said to me when we landed on the front shelf of the Dragon’s Spire. He wore a plain robe and had shaved his head clean, both of which were unusual choices for an elf, but I ignored that for the moment. 

“Greetings to you too, Paolo,” Belle said as she led Moira, Danto, and me off the carpet. “I see you’ve finally found your own voice.” 

The elf spun on Belle, and Spark — who still sat perched on my shoulder — dug his talons in as he braced for an attack. “That’s not nearly as amusing as you seem to think it might be, Bellezza,” Paolo said. “My father died only two days ago, and you dare to come here to mock his fate.” 

“His father was the Dragon?” Moira said to Belle.

“He was the Voice of the Dragon!” Paolo said. “He served the Emperor faithfully for centuries and without fail — right up until this human killed him.” 

“I had nothing to do with your father’s death,” I said. Technically, that was correct. It had been Kells who’d killed him with a barrage of bullets from his palanquin-mounted machine-gun. “I had nothing against him.” 

Paolo snorted at me and turned to stride back into the Dragon’s den. We followed after him, not bothering to wait for permission we knew would never come. The place was colder without the Emperor’s internal furnace warming it to a sweltering heat, but the pool of lava sitting at the far end of the massive mountaintop chamber kept the temperature balmy enough. Only a dozen or so elves stood in the cavern, each of them staring at us with glassy eyes rimmed with red. 

“Where is everyone?” Belle asked. 

“They’ve returned to their homes to be with their families and prepare for the end,” Paolo said. “Some of them have decided to petition the Wizards Council for passage from here, but most have decided they will simply wait to die instead.” 

Spark leaped off my shoulder at that moment and rose into the air, circling around the top of the chamber. For much of his short life, this had been his home. He had spent that time here with his father, resting next to him in the middle of the chamber on the half-melted horde of precious coins and gems that had once served as the Dragon’s bed. 

I miss him
. 

I didn’t know how to respond to that. I turned to Paolo instead. “You destroyed Goblintown.” 

“You assassinated the Emperor.” He walked toward the lava. The other elves moved to join him, gathering near the heat. The glow from the molten stone colored them a hideous red. 

An elf lay sprawled there on the floor, staked down by hand and foot. He was dead, a knife in his chest. I recognized him as Oscuro Selvaggio, the last scion of one of the most powerful families in the Elven Reaches. Moira recognized him and gasped. 

Moira had been involved with Oscuro’s sister once, right until she’d turned up dead at his hand. He’d been a thorough ass for every moment I’d known him, and I didn’t think anyone would mourn his loss, his mother included. I had to resist the temptation to kick him in the ribs for good measure, as pointless as it seemed. Then I had to put a hand on Moira’s shoulder to keep her from doing the same — or worse. 

“With the Dragon gone, we must dispose of our own dead,” Paolo said, glaring at me. 

“You going to eat him yourself?” I said. 

“We will immerse him in the lava to remove him from the influence of the Ruler of the Dead. Then we will each do the same for ourselves.” 

“Wait.” I held up a hand. “What?” 

“You set up a suicide pact?” Danto said. Belle’s jaw dropped in horror, and she recoiled from the lava. 

“Call it what you will,” Paolo said. “We are resigned to our imminent deaths, and we prefer to exit this life on our own terms.”

“The first time someone comes to town to challenge you, and you don’t even make them kill you?” I said. “You just roll over and take care of that little detail for them instead? What a bunch of cowards.” 

Paolo pointed at Oscuro’s body. “Every one of us has lived for centuries. We’ve anticipated all possible outcomes, and our choices in this scenario are clear. We can preemptively remove ourselves from play, or we can wind up like the horror laid out at your feet.” 

Moira stepped forward and pulled the knife from Oscuro’s chest. The elf lurched toward her, gnashing at her with his teeth. Only the bonds holding him by his arms and legs kept him from grabbing her and tearing her to pieces. 

Moira let out a squeal and leaped back, the knife still in her hands. She goggled at Oscuro’s corpse as he opened his eyes and glared up at her. Then the dead elf threw back his head at an impossible angle — I heard his neck snap as he did it — and laughed. 

I recognized the voice. It belonged to the Ruler of the Dead. 

“So good to see you all again,” she said through Oscuro’s mouth. “I don’t think I’ve had the chance to properly thank you for paving the way for my victory here. I couldn’t have done this without you.” 

“We’ll stop you,” I said, not sure I was even convinced of that myself. 

“You’re welcome to try,” she said. “I don’t expect it to make any difference in the long run. I mean, in the end all things die, and then they become mine. You’re no exception to the rule.” 

“We will escape you.” Paolo didn’t seem disturbed by this at all. I suspected the Ruler had been speaking to them through Oscuro for a long while now. “You will have none of us for your repulsive army.” 

“But you won’t have yourselves either, will you?” she said with a wicked grin. “I will concede that hollow victory to you — if you insist.” 

Paolo gazed at his compatriots. “You as little choice in the matter as do we.” 

“Before you incinerate this shell, I wish to tell you something, son of Gib.” She leered at me through Oscuro’s dead face. “In exchange for the service you have done me, I will spare you. You and you alone will be permitted to live and to bear witness to my triumph. It is the least I can do.” 

I pulled my pistol and put two bullets straight through Oscuro’s head. They blew out the back of his skull, and he slumped flat in a useless heap not even the Ruler of the Dead could do anything with. An instant later, Spark dove down from the roof of the chamber and incinerated the body in a flash of fire that sent everyone — even the suicidal elves — flinching at the scorching heat. 

Once Oscuro had been reduced to a heap of ash, I gestured at Paolo and the rest of the elves with my pistol. “I’d offer to kill you idiots myself, but you’re not worth the bullets. If you’re that eager to leave Dragon City, get on your way and good riddance.” 

I spun on my heel and trotted back toward the carpet. “Those of us interested in living have a battle to fight.” 

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-F
OUR

“That was dramatic, Max,” Moira said as we raced downslope on Schaef’s carpet, “but what are we going to do now? Weren’t you depending on the elves to join the fight?” 

I shook my head. “I figured they were useless from the start. I had hoped they’d prove me wrong, but I’m not surprised they didn’t.” 

“Not all elves are like that you know,” said Belle. I noticed she hadn’t mentioned her parents once all night. They wouldn’t have been any help to us anyhow, and I suspected they might already be dead. 

“Of course not,” I said. “But most of the ones that are worth anything are either part of the Guard or are already out there fighting alongside them. The rest are as good as dead, but I suppose that’s been true for decades anyhow.” 

“Centuries,” Belle said. 

“So the dwarves are dug in, and the elves are already headed for the door,” Moira said. 

Danto nodded. “The wizards are wasting their time talking, and Goblintown’s been destroyed.” 

“What about the humans, halflings, and gnomes?” Belle asked. 

“The best of them are already in the Auxiliary Guard,” I said. “The rest of them may defend their homes as well as they can, but that’s not going to give us the fighting force we need to make a difference.” 

“So we’re doomed?” Moira said. 

“I’m not giving up yet.” I reached up and gave Spark a scratch behind the ears. “I know one more place we can try.”

We flew on in silence for a moment, everyone waiting for me to explain my plan to them. I wondered which one of them would break first. 

Are you sure about this? 

I smiled and nodded. “Trust me,” I said to him. 

The others just glared at me, none of them wanting to be the first to crack. As I suspected would happen, Moira gave up before the others and opened her mouth to ask what I was going on about. It was then that she finally spotted where we were headed. 

Whatever she’d been about to say, she swallowed it and switched to something else instead. “Are you insane?” 

“Probably,” I said as I brought the carpet in over the Garrett, “but I think we’re out of sane choices.” 

I circled around the prison fortress once, peering into the guard towers and the cells. Despite the late hour, every room in the place seemed to be blazing with light. Dazzling spotglows scissored through the sky, most focused downslope at the battle still being fought on the wall below. One of them picked the carpet out of the night and held us in its beam as a cry went up from inside. 

I took the carpet in low and fast, skimming a pair of the prison’s towers. I didn’t know if they had the jailers’ rifles still on hand in there, but I didn’t care to find out the hard way. 

“I need you to get to the Stronghold,” I said to the others. “Get Johan.” 

“What about you?” Moira said, her brow wrinkling in concern as the wind whipped her hair around her face. 

“Take over!” I said to Belle as I drew my wand. 

Without a moment’s hesitation, she slipped into the controller’s spot. As she did, I gave her a kiss and said, “Wish me luck.” 

“For what?” 

I leaped off the side of the carpet, chanting the words to a fast and familiar spell as I went. “Max!” Belle shouted after me as I fell, her tone filled more with frustration and surprise than terror. 

I tapped myself in the chest with my wand, and the air rushing past me as I plummeted toward the Garrett felt like it started to life me upward. In fact, I was still falling, although more like a leaf than a rock. 

I spread my arms and aimed for the prison’s front gate, which stood closed and locked, reinforced with several layers of steel and countless spells. It had been years since I’d practiced this kind of move, but the basics of it came back to me right away. Or so I thought. 

“Dammit.” As I got closer to the gate, I realized I was going to overshoot it. That gave me the choice of either zipping straight past it or slamming bodily into the front of the place. Neither option excited me.