Dragon Sacrifice (The First Realm Book 3) (10 page)

The water mage swung his whip overhead, keeping the dwarf brothers away.

“Ow!” Jodo said. Or maybe Lodo.

“Ow!” Kodo said. “Ow!” Lodo said.

Jodo rolled forward and came up punching. He distracted the water mage while Kodo closed in.

The elf dissolved his whip and lashed out with his hands but the middle brother deflected each attack with his hands and elbows. Jodo slid forward and tried to sweep the mage’s legs. The elf leaped but Lodo sprang over Kodo and delivered a flying head butt to the mage’s chest.

“Dwarf bros for the win!”

The air mage came at me with another kick but I caught her foot and threw her away. She twisted and landed on her feet. Surfing the wind, she leaped off her rolling air ball and side-kicked me in the nose. I saw stars.

Sandahl and the earth mage were evenly matched. She had the skill, he had the strength. They massed about the same, but he drew upon his magic to add power to his movements. They fought on the ground, a tangle of limbs.

The water mage had the advantage now. Pushing and pulling at a distance, he knocked the dwarves off their feet with a watery serpent.

“Aaaugh!” Lodo said. “Oh!” Kodo said. “Oof!” Jodo said.

The air mage had abandoned her high kicks and now aimed for my knees and thighs. She lashed out with a vicious front kick and would have bent my leg wrong if I hadn’t dodged. I sidestepped and jabbed. She caught it on the ear and snarled.

“Foreign freak!” she said. “I’ll teach you to strike an elf’s ear!”

She clapped her hands in front of my face. The shockwave travelled in all directions, pushing the rain aside and shattering every window in sight. The sound was incredible. I felt it in my entire body.

It started pouring sheets. My chest hurt. My ears bled. The others had suffered as well—everyone except the air mage had been floored by the sonic attack. The dwarves reeled to their feet. The water mage stepped forward and punched Kodo but the blow was feeble and glanced off his shoulder. Cruix and the fire mage staggered in a clinch, supporting each other even as they fought. Only Sandahl and the earth mage still grappled with any energy. It was as if most of us remembered that we were drunk, and fighting in an icy downpour. Burst eardrums can do that.

Only the air mage seemed fresh. I couldn’t hear, so it was a surprise when she planted a knee in my gut. You’d think a girl that small couldn’t hit hard, but she leaped as she did and flew up on a blast of air. Blood spilled from my mouth. The blood was bright and frothy. My vision narrowed. Time to end this.

I may not be as good as Sandahl, but no human grows up without learning to wrestle. When children can recover from almost any injury their games get very rough.

The air mage lunged. It was easy to pluck her off the ground and lift her over my head. “What’re you—” she said, and then I threw her to the cobbles. Too late I remembered that the earth mage had thrown a paving stone. The elf girl landed on it. There was a crack.

“My legs. I can’t move my legs!”

Chapter 9

“This is bullshit,” Cruix said. “These bars won’t hold me. The cage has not been made that can hold a dragon!”

“Don’t you think we’re in enough trouble already?” I asked.

He turned away from the bars. “Why aren’t the other guys in a cell of their own?”

“Well, they were all elves, so…”

It was just me, Cruix, and the dwarves. Sandahl ran away before the watchmen could get her.

“Do you have a sponsor?” I had asked. A human without an elf protector risked being expelled from Alfheim, our name for Brandish.

“No!” she had said.

“Then get out of here. We’ll say it was just the five of us.”

It was pretty boring in the holding area. The dwarves were at the far end practising their dance moves.

“Step to the right—one, two, three, four,” Jodo said. “Step to the left—one, two, three, four…”

I was about to join in when I heard footsteps coming down the stairs. It was Angrod and Mina, wearing long winter coats. A quick glance told me I was the only one who’d noticed.

Angrod grinned. Then he put on a serious face, or tried to. Mina was frowning. I love that woman, but she sure knows how to scowl. She stood in front of the bars and sighed.

“Heronimo.”

“Step back—one, two, three, and four,” Jodo said. “Step forward and back. Step and kick, turn to the left!”

Angrod coughed. “Looks like I missed a hell of a party,” he said.

“Be serious,” Mina snapped. “This is not good for your political career.”

He yawned. “Sorry. Been a long night. You guys want to visit the Winter Fair afterward?”

“I’d like to,” I said.

“That’s not possible,” Mina said. “I’ve spent the last four hours cleaning up your mess. You almost killed an elf—can you imagine if she’d died?”

“You broke her back, but fixing that was easy enough,” Angrod said. “The others had scrapes, cuts, and bruises. You gave better than you got.”

Jodo, Kodo, and Lodo high-fived. “Dwarf bros for the win!”

“Ironore dwarves should know better,” Mina said.

“Well
excuuuse
me, princess.” Kodo crossed his arms. “Defending one’s honour isn’t something to be ashamed of.”

“You assaulted elves in an
elven
city. This is exactly the sort of thing that gets our people hanged.

I recommend laying low for a while.”

“Lower than usual for a dwarf, anyway,” Cruix said.

I frowned. There was the faintest hint of Dagonet’s perfume in the air. I reached for my sword before I remembered it wasn’t there. Angrod’s aide always put me on edge. There! A flicker of movement in the corner. Had to be her under a cloak of invisibility.

“Heronimo?” Mina said. “Listen. How do you feel about a trip to the Northlands.”

“Eh?”

She crossed her arms. “Angrod will be taking a year off to attend to some personal matters. The plan was for us to continue touring without him, but this brawl of yours makes that unlikely.”

“It’s not so bad,” Angrod said. “The kids decided not to press charges. Turns out their masters hadn’t given permission for their little excursion. The kids weren’t going to tell me, but I know slackers when I see them.”

He coughed. “It’s because I was such a good student.”

“What were their names?” Jodo asked.

“Let’s see,” Angrod produced a roll of parchment. “The leader was Rava Nagata and her boyfriend was Kame Arata. The big guy was Sipho Jest and the cutie was Kunda Zeto.” He frowned at Cruix. “Did you have to scratch up her face? It was a work of art!”

“It’s what she deserved for attacking me,” Cruix said. “Never fight a dragon unless you’re prepared to kill him.”

“There won’t be any scandal,” Mina told him. “But that won’t stop the rumours. And you and Heronimo are too well-known to lie low. You need to be elsewhere for a while.”

“I am not a coward,” I said. “If any swordsman craves battle with me, I shall meet him on the field of honour.”

“We don’t need more blood on our hands. You will be Angrod’s representatives. You will establish a relationship with the king of the Northlands. The more recognition Angrod gets, the stronger his position as prince.”

“What about us?” Lodo asked.

“You’re free to go. Your regular jobs keep you hidden well enough, but no dance classes for a while. I’ll trust you not to discuss what we’ve talked about here. It’s a secret to everybody.”

“Urggh.”
Cruix leaned over the side.

“I didn’t know dragons got seasick,” I said.

He wiped his mouth. “It’s this damnable elf body. How would I know it would vomit after losing sight of land?”

We stood on the deck of a
knarr
, a human trading vessel. Shorter and wider than the longship, it was good for hauling cargo but not so good for carrying passengers, who had to deal with a ship that warped and flexed with every wave.

Cruix looked at my wide, confident stance. “Why must the sea be so vast?” he a snarled. “Why must this tub dance so much?
And why does everything smell like beef broth?
”

“That’s probably the self-heating soup. The captain buys it from a capran supplier. They can’t use open flames at sea, so it’s hard to get a hot meal.”

Cruix’s eyes rolled, and then he retched over the side again.

“Try to vomit away from the wind,” I said.

I got him a ginger beer. We stood there while he sipped and stared at the horizon. It was a good idea to stay in one place. It was a small ship and the crew were constantly adjusting the sails and bailing out the hold. There was always someone on bucket duty.

“The boy is Angrod’s, isn’t he?” Cruix asked.

“No one is certain. And the mother would rather not let anyone know.”

He nodded. “They were fighting duels over it, even before I was turned to stone. A son is a precious thing.”

“Was it the same for dragons?”

Cruix drank some more ginger beer and frowned at the horizon. He looked at me. “Can I trust you?”

“Are we not battle brothers? Have we not bled for each other?”

“In truth, I was the only dragon of my generation. My fledgeling days were desolate days. I had a sister, but she was old when I was born. We do not coddle our young, you know. I was pushed out of the nest as soon as I could hunt.”

“Wasn’t that cruel?”

“It wouldn’t have been a problem when there were more younglings. They’d run around in gangs, or as much as dragons can. We do love our personal space.”

This was how most juveniles learned to talk and to name things. The younger ones were taught by the older ones and the older ones were taught by the adults that tolerated them.

“There is less to learn when you’re a dragon,” Cruix said. “Our instincts serve well in most situations. We like shiny things, but we don’t need civilization. A dragon is perfectly happy with a cave, a hoard, and a hunting ground.”

The way he described it, dragons were a lot like cats. They certainly slept a lot.

“But if you were the only one of your generation...”

“Loneliness was my singular companion. For years I lived no better than a wyvern.”

He scowled.

“Dragons live much longer than any of the humanoid races,” Cruix said. “We live ten times longer than elves, who live ten times longer than halflings. But we are less fertile than elves, who are less fertile than halflings. It seems a race becomes less fruitful as its members become longer-lived. The mechanism escapes me.”

I shrugged. It escaped me too.

“The effect, of course, is that elf and dragon populations either remain stable or decline,” he said.

“Losses are not easily replaced, and it is painful to consider increasing one’s numbers. Do you have the same problem in the Northlands?”

“I had noticed that more and more men had taken mistresses from the halfling slaves.”

“If only dragons had that option.”

He had finished his ginger beer. I gripped him firmly in the arm. “You’re not alone, my friend.”

He looked at my hand, then at me. “I’m glad,” he said.

Suddenly, flute music.

One of the crewmen had started playing the flute. Another stood nearby, doing loopy things with his hands and elbows.

“What.” Cruix said.

The flautist looked up. “We are merely providing accompaniment to your touching scene.”

“And what are you doing?” I asked the other sailor.

“Interpretative dance, fool!”

“Don’t you have some bailing to do?” Cruix asked.

“Hah!” the flautist said. “Borghild, this elf is trying to tell us how to do our job.”