Kal Moonheart Trilogy: Dragon Killer, Roll the Bones & Sirensbane (6 page)

They had to wait a few minutes while the Croc’s owner was called over. He looked at the note for a time, then at Kal, then finally nodded slowly. ‘If Zeb Zing at the Snake Pit says you’re good for it, then that’s fine by me. She’s an old friend. In fact, she often tells me about you, Kalina Moonheart.’

Kal enjoyed the expression on Rafe’s face as the cashier pushed over two-thousand-crowns-worth of green and black clay chips.

* * *

There were six players at the top table. A dark-skinned girl with long black hair looked up as Kal and Rafe approached. She was either the world’s most conspicuous pirate, or just simply enjoyed dressing like one: she was sporting a red headscarf and a fitted white shirt with a wide black belt. ‘Hi, Kal,’ she said. ‘Take a seat.’

The man next to her—a little fat man in a shabby merchant’s coat—sighed. ‘Oh no, Dragon Killer’s here!’

‘Hello, Lula. Hi, Vanrar,’ Kal said.

The big man named Gron Darklaw looked up from his cards and stared suspiciously as Kal and Rafe took their seats. He had a massive build—muscular, not fat—and Kal reckoned he would be almost eight feet tall if he stood up. Shaggy black hair tumbled around his shoulders, and his eyes were pools of darkness.

‘Why do they call you Dragon Killer?’ he growled in a low, flat voice.

III.v

High Stakes

‘Why do they call me Dragon Killer? Maybe you’ll find out tonight.’ Kal had sat down on Gron Darklaw’s left, between him and the fat merchant Vanrar. Opposite her, across the red baize of the round table, Rafe had found a place between the pirate Lula and another fellow. Under Darklaw’s implacable gaze, Kal silently arranged her chips into neat piles.

When she had finished, Darklaw passed Kal the deck. She accepted it with a polite nod and then proceeded to riffle and cut the cards with practiced skill. She dealt out two cards to each player and the game resumed.

Kal’s own cards were the Three of Swords and the Seven of Pentacles. She folded them without a second thought, and settled down to watch the game and the players. Kal’s approach was to sit quietly and let the action, and the conversation, come to her.

Rafe had no such restraint, and was already making moves and making friends. After winning a handful of small pots, he turned to his neighbour, Lula. ‘Is it true that Balibu is being terrorised by a dragon?’ he asked her.

‘It
is
true,’ Lula said. ‘I’ve seen it myself. I was out in my skiff a few nights back and I saw a flash of dragonfire on one of the small uninhabited islands out to sea. I sailed in to see what I could see, and all of a sudden it came right at me: an enormous black winged beast! It scraped the top of my mast, I swear. I couldn’t get back to shore fast enough!’ Lula emphasised the end of her story by firmly placing a stack of ten chips in front of her with a thud. It was a strong bet.

Gron Darklaw had been listening silently. Now he took a long sip from his goblet of red wine and spoke. ‘Dragons will fight tooth and claw to defend their nests. You were right to back down.’ With both hands, Darklaw pushed forward three tall towers of twenty chips each. It was a massive bet of three hundred crowns.

Lula swallowed hard and threw her cards away. Darklaw dragged down the pot with a cruel smile.

* * *

The game continued, and an hour later Darklaw finally broke one of the other players completely in a hand that played out right down to the last chip. Darklaw’s clutch of wands beat his opponent’s three knaves and, as the poor man staggered away from the table, Darklaw was stacking up a pile of chips worth almost three thousand crowns.

Kal was doing well, and with careful play had almost doubled her own stack. But she was losing chips rapidly to Darklaw, who would often jump in to punish her bets with massive raises that she could never justify calling. He was staring at her now in a predatory way, his large tongue licking the rim of his goblet. Kal turned away and looked over at Rafe, whose fortunes had risen and fallen several times over the evening.

‘A long-enough lance would bring a dragon down,’ he was telling Vanrar the merchant, ‘but even better would be if you could lay your hands on one of the weapons of the gods. A dragon would happily lay down and present its neck to you if you wielded, say, the Blade of Banos.’

Vanrar smiled as he glanced at his cards and made a small bet. ‘Oh yes, the Blade of Banos. The last time I was in Amaranthium and made Senator Godsword a reasonable offer for that old thing, he claimed to have lost it! But as far as killing dragons goes, the gods didn’t have access to half the exciting war machinery that we do now. A ballista could put a bolt through that dragon’s neck before it could cough up even a puff of smoke.’

Gron Darklaw made a raise, which Vanrar called without much thought. Lula, who had the deck, dealt out three cards on top of the table, the highest of which was the Queen of Cups. ‘Are you not afraid,’ Darklaw asked the merchant, ‘that killing one dragon will prompt an attack on humanity by all the other dragons in the world, as well as all the terrible beasts—goblins, trolls and the like—that dragons have dominion over?’

‘You mean like what the Dragonites are always banging on about?’ Vanrar said as he made another bet. ‘Oh no, of course not! That’s all just foolish superstition, if you ask me. The Dragonites would have us burn humans alive in the streets as sacrifices to appease
the Great Big Dragon in the Sky
, or whatever they call him. When I think of a dragon, I don’t think of some divine beast that we must all tip-toe around and be in awe of; I think of the holds of my trading ships stuffed with gleaming claws, shiny scales and succulent dragon hearts that will sell for millions!’

Darklaw had called the bet, and Lula dealt another card onto the table. Vanrar took one more look at his own cards then pushed the remainder of his chips forward. ‘So no, Mister Darklaw,’ he said, ‘I am not afraid of dragons.’ When Darklaw called the bet, Vanrar proudly turned his cards face-up: a queen to match the one on the table, and a king. ‘I have a pair of beautiful queens. What do you have?’

Darklaw turned over his cards, one by one. The first showed a picture of a blue and gold creature, talons raised and tail coiled around a sword blade. The second showed a similar creature in red and silver, this one holding a pentacle in its claws.

‘I have a pair of beautiful dragons,’ he said with a wicked grin.

* * *

By five in the morning, the Croc was almost deserted, but still the big game went on. There were now only four players left, Darklaw having cleaned out one more player, and Kal having won such a large pot off another that he had picked up what remaining chips he had left and fled the table.

Darklaw now had around four-thousand-crowns-worth of chips piled in front of him. Kal wasn’t far behind, but Rafe and Lula’s best efforts had left them with slightly less chips than they had started out with. Vanrar had gone broke hours ago, but still hung around to watch the game. He had taken the job of dealing for them, as a way of still being part of the action.

Kal was drinking water; Darklaw was still supping from his goblet of wine that he must have had refilled tens of times throughout the night. Yet he was still the same immobile looming presence, and hardly any more communicative. His bets became larger and more frequent, and although he was losing as many hands as he was winning, he was still stacking up the chips through sheer aggression.

He made another strong bet: four hundred crowns—an amount that would feed a local fisherman and his family for a year. The cards on the table showed two kings and a three. Kal had nothing in her own hand—just two random high cards—but she had to pick a spot to make a stand, and this could be it. She pushed forward a stack of twenty high denomination chips. ‘Two thousand,’ she announced, then sat back and fixed Darklaw with an inscrutable gaze.

He stared back at her for a good minute, a pained expression on his face. His long fingernails clacked a rhythm on the edge of the table, until finally he scowled and threw his cards forward, relinquishing the pot to Kal. The hand had tipped the balance, and Kal now had the most chips on the table. Darklaw was finally pushed to make a stab at conversation.

‘Where did you learn to play cards, Moonheart?’

Kal avoided his eyes. ‘My mother used to play a great deal when she was pregnant,’ she replied without further explanation.

Rafe laughed. Vanrar dealt everyone new cards and the game went on. Kal made an opening bet, Lula and Rafe folded—they had been playing it very safe for the past hour or two—but Darklaw made his usual big raise.

‘I have been playing for most of my life,’ Darklaw told Kal, ‘but only recently for such high stakes. It is my desire to prove myself at every aspect of life in this town, now that I have made my home here. I have built my own sailboat too, with my own hands.’

Kal smiled to herself.
Was he trying to impress her now?
She called his raise, and Vanrar dealt out three cards on the table: the Four of Wands, the Six of Swords, and finally the Dragon of Cups. The picture showed a green beast curled around a golden goblet amid a pile of coins and treasure.

‘You’ll be running this town next,’ Kal joked as Darklaw counted out a new bet. Could she push him into opening up any more?

‘Where I come from,’ he said, ‘—far from here—I did indeed hold a position of authority: over fighting men, and also over the economy, such as it was, of my village. It would indeed be an interesting challenge to rule over a town such as this one. The soldiers and the fishermen here have for too long had an easy life in this peaceful place. Perhaps I will put myself forward as the new governor.’ Darklaw made his bet: two hundred crowns.

Kal thought for a bit, then called the bet. Vanrar dealt out the next card: the King of Wands. ‘Where is your village?’ Kal asked Darklaw. ‘Would I know it?’

Darklaw treated her to a slow smile. ‘No,’ he said simply, and pushed out a bet of six hundred crowns. Rafe and Lula were watching with interest. The pot was over a thousand crowns by now; larger than the amount of money that they had each started out playing with.

‘If I call, will you tell me?’ Kal teased. Darklaw remained impassive. Kal called anyway, and Vanrar dealt the final card: the Eight of Pentacles.

Darklaw barely glanced at the card. He wasted no time in making another punishing bet: a thousand crowns. Kal sat deep in thought, weighing up Darklaw for a long time. ‘What have you got?’ she asked him. ‘
Three
dragons this time? Two in your hand to match the one on the table?’

Darklaw sat as still as a statue, his dark eyes staring back at Kal threateningly. Did he want her to call or fold? Kal couldn’t tell, but it really didn’t matter: she knew what cards
she
had, and Darklaw had come too far now to back down. Kal pushed her entire stack of chips forward—a wall of coloured clay worth more than three thousand crowns.

‘I bet the lot,’ she said. ‘You don’t have the dragons.’

But Darklaw also shoved all of his chips forward with one massive forearm, and with his other hand slapped his cards down face-up: the Dragon of Swords and the Dragon of Wands. Then he drained his goblet of wine in triumph.

Kal sat still for a second. ‘Oh, you do have them,’ she said calmly. She turned over her own cards: the Five and Seven of Swords. ‘Well I have a chain.’

Darklaw’s eyes widened in shock. His fist clenched around his goblet as if he would crush it. Rafe laughed in relief and Lula stood up and clapped. Vanrar confirmed the win: ‘Four, five, six, seven and eight: Kal wins … a pot of over eight thousand crowns!’

The fat merchant gave Darklaw a mocking grin. ‘Dragon Killer strikes again!’ he said.

III.vi

Hot Water

Kal woke up with her mouth tasting like a troll’s toilet. Where the hell was she? The bed she was lying in was large, soft and luxurious, and a warm orange glow filled the room. She was still dressed, though. Kal turned her neck stiffly and found herself looking at the slim, brown bare back of the girl lying next to her. Lula? She groaned. Turning the other way, she could see Rafe sprawled out on the sheepskin rug at the side of the bed. The Captain of the Senate Guard was clad only in his smallclothes, with a garland of flowers around his neck.

The orange glow was the twilight filtering through the mottled glass windows of the Discovery Inn; they had slept all day. Memories of the night before started to return: after Kal’s big win they had stayed at the Croc downing glasses of rum mixed with coconut milk and pineapple juice. At dawn, the owner had kicked them out and so Kal, Rafe, Lula and the merchant Vanrar had taken their party to the streets. They had banged on the doors of several dockside bars and taverns demanding more rum. Then there had been the street dancing …

Lula was getting dressed, pulling on her pantaloons and boots. She tied her long black hair back in a ponytail and hitched her cutlass to her belt. Kal rose too and padded over to the door to show her friend out. ‘See you at the docks after dark then,’ the pirate girl said. ‘And make sure you get a good breakfast; you’ve got a twenty mile row ahead of you!’

Kal made a face, and shut the door of the suite as Lula bounded off downstairs. Kal turned and started picking up Rafe’s clothes off the floor, kicking him in the ribs as she did so. ‘Hey, sleepyhead. Time to get up!’

* * *

Kal stuffed her mouth with a forkful of bacon and eggs. ‘Darklaw pays for everything in lumps of gold,’ she mumbled as she ate. ‘If there’s a mine on that island, and he’s got access to it, then that means he has an almost unlimited flow of money. That has to be why all last night he was talking up the dangers of disturbing the terrible dragon that’s supposedly nesting there. Rumours like that keep curious people away. I’ll bet that it was him who got those hobgoblin freaks to burn down the governor’s mansion.’ She paused to take another mouthful. ‘I wonder if paying or bribing his way into a position of power here in Balibu is his ultimate goal, or just the first part of some deranged plan?’