The Seven Markets (35 page)

The ground soldiers were next. She disabled their weapons systems and ordered them to start marching. They’d double-time it right out of the Market.

And finally, the mechanical beasts. She minimized them down to a more manageable size, and had them fall in at the rear of their marching comrades.

Computer time is different from real time. Ellie’s perceptions were used to real time, however, and it was dangerous for her and for Cutter, who must be scared witless right now, to remain here any longer than necessary. Still, she spared a processor cycle to scan the system and confirm that every instance of armor running at that moment was pointed toward the Market gate. Then she pulled herself together and logged out, mentally crossing her fingers that there would be a body for her to return to.

Cutter was screaming and pounding the scales on her back with his right hand, holding on for dear life with his left. Confined back in her body, it took Ellie a couple of seconds to remember where everything was. Claws, tail, head, legs. And wings. Oh yes, can’t forget about the wings.

She spread them wide, letting them fill with air perhaps as little as fifteen feet from the ground. A gust of wind nudged her with its breath. She let it take her and savored the momentary pleasure of gliding along without a care in the world.

“Ellie! Ellie!”

“It’s okay, Captain, I’m here.” She banked softly, hoping for a view of the fliers as they vacated the meadow. It was a glorious sight to behold; there must have been a hundred of them flying in four orderly lines. From above they looked like worker ants returning to the anthill.

Cutter collapsed against her back. She selected a likely spot and let herself drift to a gentle, lazy landing.

“Can you get down on your own?”

“Kicking me off?”

She nodded at the fliers. “Fight’s over. We won. Thought you might like to stand on your own two feet, stretch your legs.”

He removed his feet from between her scales one at a time. Then he leapt down, making a show of kneeling and kissing the ground. He brushed off, retrieving his boots from where he’d tied them to his back. They were scorched in a hundred places but otherwise quite wearable.

“Want to tell me what just happened?”

Ellie examined herself as she explained. “The ironlight tech is powered remotely. The system lets you do some interesting things if you’re the system admin.”

“And you are?”

She raised the dragon equivalent of an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t have guessed you’d know much about modern human technology.”

“I don’t. But I’ve been around enough different kinds of magic that I can fake my way through just about anything. I assume a ‘system admin’ is the person running the show, no?”

“Sort of. There actually isn’t an admin, not in Hart’s system. But he’s using my old system, where I used to live back when . . . well, before I solved certain problems with my situation. He had it closed off against outside intruders, so we had to connect a hardline before I could take it over.”

“I see.” He jerked a thumb in the direction the fliers had gone. “And where are they going?”

“Out. They’ll circle until we catch up. I told you, they’re soldiers just following orders.
My
orders mainly.”

“And the rest?”

“Going with them only on foot. They won’t be any trouble.” She saw disbelief on his face. “Trust me, Captain. It’s all over. They can’t lift a finger without my say-so, and the only thing I’m going to let them do is leave. The Market’s been through enough today, don’t you think?”

“What about their leader?”

“Hart?” She frowned. “I shut down everything there was to shut down. He should be walking home with the rest of them. Hold on, I’ll check.” She activated her mic and asked Mama what was going on back at the center of the Market.

“We’re working with your friends to free everyone from these cages,” Mama said, sounding frustrated.

“How’s Joshua?”

“Uncomfortable. He says he’s ticked at you.”

“Any sign of Hart?”

“The commander? No, he left with the rest of the soldiers. Why? Is everything all right?”

“Just Cutter being paranoid. We’ll be back soon, Mama.”

“Tara.”

“Right, sure. See you in a few.” She met Cutter’s attentive gaze. “She says we’re all clear. They’re just wrestling with the cages. We should get back. They could probably use my help.”

They returned to the center of the Market in relative silence. Cutter had questions, but Ellie was in such tremendous pain, her scales leaking golden smoke in at least a dozen places, that she didn’t have the strength for more than terse, single-word responses.

“Please,” she said at last. “Let’s get back and make sure everyone’s safe. I’ll answer all your questions then.”

She could have removed the glamour, and with it a dragon’s natural vulnerability to iron. Her wounds might not have vanished, but at least they wouldn’t burn any longer. What a relief that would be.

But flying was quicker, even with the pain. So long as her wings could catch air, she decided to let it do the lion’s share of the work. Walking from the distant meadow would have taken forever, and bad as the pain in her back was, she suspected her legs bore more than their fair share of damage from the battle. Best to get the unpleasantness over with as quickly as possible.

There was still so much to do. Freeing the travelers was the first order of business. Moreso than anyone, they were the innocent victims in this whole mess. What was their crime, apart from trying to defend their home from the invading humans? She owed each of them the deepest of apologies. That she’d ultimately saved them did not excuse her having put them in harm’s way in the first place.

And then there was Hart and his soldiers, marching for home. She’d ordered them away from the Market, but beyond the gate she’d need to deal with seeing them all safely home. Dismantling their armor once they were away from the Market required but the press of a button. Sending them back to the lives they’d left behind to fight her personal war, that was an entirely different matter.

Most daunting of all, she found, was the prospect of her own freedom. The Prince’s necklace had been shattered long ago, but it was only now, as she was able to step back into her life, that she felt its weight had truly been lifted. How many times since passing through the nexus had she found herself unable to act, unable to be seen or heard? Bo could explain the peculiarities of time travel to her, but there was one thing Ellie felt in her heart to be true: she was, at long, long last, her own woman.

She leaned back to speak to Cutter. “Do you have a home, Captain?”

“A home? Once, long ago. Why do you ask?”

“I saw you during the battle. You are no longer bound into the Prince’s service.”

Cutter sneered. “I never served that brat. It was the King into whose service I entered.”

“Oh,” she said, abashed. “I had no idea.”

“How could you?” He dug into a pocket and removed the ring the King had presented to him, long ago. Its body was shot through with cracks. Of the gem once mounted on its face, there was no sign apart from four scorch marks where it had been held in place.

“Did you enter into his service willingly?”

“He was my King. I thought that meant I owed my life and service to him. Part of me, as I imagine you might understand, still does.” When she did not answer, he continued. “I bent my knee to him in the name of war. My bodyguarding duties came later. In retrospect, I suspect it was a way for him to extend my service without facing undue criticism.”

“Critics of the King? I think I would like to meet them.”

Cutter laughed. It was a sad sound, filled with regret. “They would bore you, I believe. But who could argue with the King tasking his most decorated captain with the care and protection of the Wayward Prince?”

She cocked an ear at the word. “Wayward?”

“It’s a long story, and much meaning would be lost without a proper telling, but suffice it to say your . . . the Prince has not been welcome home for quite some time. Honestly, I’m not sure what’s to be done with him after the removal of his glamour. That is what your trick did, no? It’s gone for good, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

“Ah, pity. He’ll have to be returned home to obtain a new one. That won’t please his brothers one whit, I can tell you.”

In spite of herself, she said, “Brothers?”

The surprise on Cutter’s face was genuine. “No? He never said?”

“He never said much at all, and don’t pretend you don’t know that. Your brat was never so interested in anything as much as the sound of his own voice. For all that, of course, the majority of his blather was self-serving garbage. Did he ever mention brothers? Cutter, he never mentioned anything to me apart from how handsome he looked and how pleased I must be to be seen with him. The kid’s a real charmer.”

She beat her wings several times, increasing their altitude, banking wide around a tower they had no chance at all of hitting. Was she angry with Cutter? How many times had he been accomplice to the Prince as he seduced and stole innocent girls as his brides? How deep had his loyalty to his King gone? How much responsibility for what had happened to her could she lay at his feet?

“A person could go crazy,” she said at last. “Portioning out blame. The Prince seduces me and you stand by while he does it. Rossi too—funny how I never think of the time he spent in the Prince’s service, only about when he looked after me. If Hart did all this damage today, am I not to blame? I brought him into this mess all those years ago. And when he died, did I let him rest or did I keep bringing him back and bringing him back? He was the assassin all those years ago, so in a way, he’s the one who started all this. Would the Prince have sent me away to dispose of his weapons and armor, or would he have held on to me for another century or two? Where does the guilt start and where does it end? Cutter, it’s just too much. I can’t blame everyone.”

They were turning broad, lazy circles over the center of the Market. How long ago had they arrived?

“Ellie?”

“I know, I know. I’ll sleep it off and I’ll feel—”

“No! Ellie, turn! Turn!”

The blast caught her completely by surprise. She was hit dead center in her underbelly, where her scales were thinnest. It was unlike anything she’d felt before either as human or dragon. There was iron in the blast, but it was more than that. So much worse than mere iron. Past the heat was a cold so severe it seemed she must have been frozen solid. She would topple out of the sky and shatter when she hit the ground. Her remains would be nothing but shards of ice scattered across the streets and rooftops of the Market.

“Ellie!”

Cutter rolled from her back. The loss of him snapped her back to herself. Could she still move? Yes. Then she had to try and save him. Whatever had hit her, she would deal with it once he was safely on the ground.

“Captain!”

Another blast, but this one she saw coming. It moved slowly, like a tight wave rolling up onto a narrow shore. She had plenty of time to swing around it, to dive and catch up with Cutter. Only her wings protested. Her tail was caught by the blast and reduced to dead weight. The loss of her tail affected her maneuverability in a terrible way. Even if she managed to catch him, she’d never be able to pull out of her dive in time.

It didn’t matter. She’d find a way to save him if only she could catch up. She drew herself long and thin, a javelin hurtling through the air. Her wings tucked themselves in at her sides, peeking up only the slightest bit, using the rushing air to propel her faster, faster.

He was right below her, close enough to grab, but she forced herself to wait until she drew alongside. Then she snatched him out of the sky and cradled him to her chest. If she couldn’t pull up, at least she could protect him from the impact.

“Ellie, no!”

She popped her wings and braced herself. Whether they hit or not, it was going to be a violent stop. Her limp, heavy tail was an anchor dragging her down. She ignored it, focusing on holding her screaming wings out. It wasn’t enough. They were going too fast. There was nothing she could do to—

Ellie gasped aloud as she felt a familiar pair of arms wrapping around her body. Great, wide wings added their power to her own, slowing her descent, guiding her into a controlled spiral that ended with them tumbling free onto the rubble-strewn street.

“Ellie!”

She’d known him from the first touch. Even like this, there was no mistaking him for anyone else in creation.

“Joshua!”

The great blue dragon, who’d be making fun of her forever for not recognizing him in New York, knelt over her amid turned-up chunks of street, shattered glass, and the bodies of the fallen.

“Are you all right? I was watching you circling but then—”

“I’m fine. I’m fine
now
. Nice catch, hon. That was one in a million.”

She pushed up to her feet, shaking off the dust and debris.

“Did anyone see who was shooting at us?”

“I was too busy catching you before you splatted on the street.”

“I only saw the blast coming for us,” Cutter said.

Ellie swore. “It has to be Hart. There’s no one else. Some weapon he had saved up that I missed. Dammit!”

Cutter seized her claw. “We’ll worry about him in a minute. Let’s get under cover before he gets a bead on us, shall we?”

“No.” She rose to her full height. If she was in pain, if she’d been injured, it was impossible to see it in that moment. “It’s enough already. No more blood on my hands. Joshua?”

“Right behind you, love.”

“Cutter?”

He was bent over. “Let me just get my boots off.”

Ellie couldn’t help smiling at the puzzled expression on Joshua’s face. He was bigger than her, his scales gleaming under the Market’s three suns. When Cutter climbed up onto her back, slinging his line around her neck, the understanding that dawned on Joshua was beyond priceless.

“He’s been riding you?”

“Jealous? I’d have died more than once without his help.”

“Then I am jealous. Captain, any suggestions?”

“Yes,” Cutter said, a devilish grin on his face. “Learn to breathe fire. Quickly.”