Chapter 26
As Rylana ran for her bow, lamenting that tranquility ribbons bound it and the arrows in her quiver, Sylin knocked over the table at which she and the queen had been sitting.
Cookies, plates of mushrooms, and coffee cups flew as she tipped it on its side and turned it into a shield, pulling Fareesa behind it with her.
Some elven warriors were already gathering around to protect them, but another drew a dagger and ran toward Sylin.
Tassani rushed in from the side and smashed into that elf, bowling him over. As they fell to the mossy tiles, the dagger flew free.
An arrow arched out of the darkness—had that come from the rooftop Tassani had been eyeing earlier? It pierced the table, the tip almost going through.
“Get down,” Rylana barked to Brella and Tezilly.
They’d already ducked low, but Rylana pushed them all the way to the tiles, wanting them below the level of the plant-draped railing surrounding the rooftop.
At her words, the overhead branches that comprised the top of the pergola seemed to lower themselves. Was that her imagination? Or something the elven magic was doing to make it harder for archers to see the people under them?
“I’m summoning the golems,” one of the gnomes yelled.
The dog Willow was barking and almost drowned out his words.
“Cursed knots,” one of the elves nearby snarled.
Another arrow arced out of the darkness, coming from the rooftop of the tavern behind the bakery.
Crouching low, Rylana endured zaps of angry magic to string her bow and work at the knots tying her arrows into her quiver.
The hunting horn tumbled out—she’d forgotten she’d tucked it inside for safekeeping.
If only she could use it to summon peacekeeper reinforcements.
She tucked the horn behind the bar and pulled out two arrows, nocking one as she rose to her feet. Clangs, shouts, and thuds sounded all around her.
Tassani had disarmed the elf he’d bowled into, but more of his troops were fighting now. Largely with each other.
“Long live the Shaldona family!” someone cried.
“Set down your weapons, my people,” the queen called over the clamor. “There is no reason for us to fight amongst each other.”
Some remained loyally around her and Sylin, but other elves attacked them. And more arrows streaked out of the night toward the rooftop. There were multiple snipers in multiple locations. One arrow sailed just over Sylin’s head.
Rylana spun and fired in the direction that one had come from, but night’s darkness made it too hard to see targets. Theirs was the only rooftop with lights, which made them much easier targets.
“You’ll need the high ground,” came Jildarin’s voice from behind Rylana. “Come with me.”
He’d run up the stairs and pushed past the elves, pausing to knock one who was angling for Sylin off the roof.
The rest he left for Tassani and those remaining loyal to deal with, only glancing to make sure Fareesa was safe before charging to the storeroom section of the roof.
As Rylana ran after him, bow and quiver in hand, she noticed Fareesa crouching back to back with Sylin.
Somehow, both of them had found knives to grip and were poised like warriors to deal with any threats that slipped past the elven captain.
“Where are Lysireth, Mylasen, and the rest of our allies?” a warrior battling Tassani yelled. The blond-haired elf glanced toward the stairs, but only Jildarin had come up that way.
Come with me, Jildarin commanded Rylana, switching to telepathy.
We will defeat the presumptuous traitor elves who dare attack an invited guest in the lair of a dragon.
He’d found room to change into his winged form and crouched, waiting for her.
The fiery indignation in his emerald eyes promised he wouldn’t wait long.
Rylana scrambled onto his back and not a second too soon. Jildarin sprang into the air, wings beating hard enough to batter the leaves on the branches of the pergola.
The pillar in the nearest intersection started gonging, whether because elves were attacking or because Jildarin had changed, Rylana didn’t know, but she worked on loosening the ribbons around more arrows.
They could deal with the repercussions of engaging in violence in Tranquility later.
After they ensured Sylin and the queen were safe.
Jildarin started to fly toward a warehouse that archers had fired from earlier, but two elves climbed onto the rooftop of the diner from the back of the storeroom, the same way Sylin had come.
With bows on their backs and daggers clenched between their teeth, they couldn’t have anything good in mind.
Jildarin banked hard and flew toward them. Rylana flattened herself to his back and almost lost her bow as she struggled to keep her balance.
Barks and a gnomish call came from the front of the rooftop terrace, Bixtok yelling for the elven attackers to stand down.
His voice was almost lost among all the shouting—Captain Tassani was issuing similar orders even as he fought sword to sword against the treacherous elves.
Jildarin roared as he descended upon the pair who had reached the roof, and Rylana barely heard another gnomish voice warning that golems were coming.
“Watch out for the dragon!” one of the elves dropped onto his belly on the rooftop, barely avoiding being knocked over the edge as Jildarin dove low.
The other wasn’t as quick. Though he reacted with the swift athleticism of most elves, Jildarin was even faster. He flicked his head on his long neck and knocked the elf flying.
An arrow streaked out of the darkness and clinked against Jildarin’s scaled shoulder. He roared in indignation, twisting in the air, but he focused on the elf he could reach. For the moment, he couldn’t do anything about the archer.
But Rylana could. She managed to keep her balance on his tilting and twisting back and nocked an arrow.
This time, when she peered across the dark rooftops, movement allowed her to spot a target.
The archer was running toward a chimney for cover.
Rylana loosed an arrow, hoping to catch the elf before he disappeared.
It clipped him in the shoulder, spinning him around, and his bow flew from his grip.
With alarm gongs sounding from multiple intersections now, Jildarin flew around the rooftop of his diner, snatching up the enemies who were trying to reach Sylin.
She and the queen remained calm, like a pair of experienced knife fighters practiced at fighting back to back, though few enemies were getting close to them now.
Between the elves Jildarin had tossed to the ground and Tassani and his loyal troops, the traitors were outnumbered.
That didn’t keep another sniper from launching an arrow toward the rooftop. In the dark of night, Rylana wouldn’t have seen it streaking through the sky, but it glowed silver.
“Look out!” she shouted as she nocked another arrow and tried to pick out the archer. The silver arrow had been fired from the rooftop of the tavern.
The trees on the terrace rustled, and two glowing thorns shot from… Had flowers fired those projectiles?
One sped into the sky and intercepted the arrow, and it exploded with a fiery thwump of ignition.
The other glowing thorn struck the upper arm of an enemy climbing up from below.
He managed to gain the roof but rolled about, gripping his shoulder.
Willow barked, and one of the peacekeepers ran forward and tapped a baton to the rolling elf.
Sparks flew, and the climber’s back went rigid.
Another gnome threw a net, ensnaring him.
Do not shoot to kill, Jildarin warned Rylana telepathically as he flew toward the tavern.
The carriages below had stopped, most people crouching or hiding inside them as they gaped at the clamor and chaos above. Zilek had climbed out, however, and watched with mild amusement as he sipped from a cup. How had he already acquired a coffee sample?
Golems were gathering in the street, but the lumbering stone-like constructs hadn’t figured out there was now a stairway leading to the rooftop. Instead, they stomped inside the front door.
As illogical as it is to a dragon, Jildarin added, not commenting on the scene in the street, the elves and the peacekeepers may not deem the defense of the diner—and the visiting queen—reasonable cause for slaying citizens of the city. There is the sniper!
Silver wings flapping, Jildarin dove toward not one but two archers crouched in the shadows on the tavern roof. With a great roar, he opened his maw.
One of the archers aimed a bow toward him, but Rylana had freed enough of her arrows to get another nocked. The elf hesitated at the sight of a dragon. She didn’t hesitate and loosed her arrow. It took him in the arm, spinning him away from the chimney, and his bow fell to the roof.
Jildarin unleashed a barrage of orange fire at the rooftop. The second elf saw it coming and sprinted away, but the flames caught his cloak. With his clothes burning, he leaped from the building and into the alley below.
“If I can’t kill people with my arrows, then I don’t think you should incinerate them with your fire,” Rylana said.
Noted.
More silvery arrows streaked out of the night, this time targeting Jildarin. He banked hard, nearly throwing Rylana from his back, and he barely evaded one that skimmed past his horns.
With a great roar, he banked again. Wings flapping hard, he sped toward the elves who’d dared shoot at him.
His maw opened, and a great stream of fire poured forth, brightening all the rooftops and revealing the two new snipers.
One ran for the edge of the building, but the other ducked behind the entrance to a stairwell, cursing dragons and their riders.
“Don’t light buildings on fire!” Rylana warned as she took aim at one of their attackers. “They belong to our neighbors!”
The Dragon Diner would be much more than evicted from its current locale if they lit a city block on fire.
Jildarin’s flames caught the fleeing elf as the archer leaped from the rooftop. The fire didn’t hit him fully—maybe Jildarin hadn’t intended it to—but lit the elf’s cloak on fire.
The other sniper leaned into view with his bow. Rylana fired first and caught him in the hip. The elf reeled back, managing to loose an arrow of his own, but it flew harmlessly wide.
When Jildarin opened his maw again, the elf who’d lingered wisely leaped off the closest edge. It was quite a drop to the ground but probably better than being roasted alive.
Jildarin let out an irritated huff and circled the airspace around the diner. Looking for more archers?
Rylana didn’t see any, but her gaze was drawn back to their rooftop terrace—and the street in front of the diner.
Not only were the carriages of the rich parked on the cobblestones, but two steam-powered peacekeeper wagons had shown up.
And was the gnome standing on top of one wearing a captain’s rank pins, directing uniformed troops as they filed out?
Unfortunately, Rylana didn’t recognize him; he wasn’t the captain that Sylin worked with and that Rylana had spoken with while lifting the troll curse.
“This might not go well,” she murmured.
In addition to directing one of his squads into the diner and one up the stairs to the rooftop, the gnome captain was glowering ferociously at Jildarin. By now, eight golems had arrived.
We have done nothing wrong, Jildarin told her telepathically. We’ve merely defended our business and the elven queen. These are heroic acts.
“I don’t disagree, but I’m not a peacekeeper captain working in a city where violence of any kind is strictly prohibited.”
Jildarin let out a growl that might have also been a sigh.
Judging by the way he kept circling the area, even after he’d determined there weren’t any other snipers on rooftops, he wasn’t in a hurry to go down and face the peacekeepers.
Rylana imagined one of the officers tapping on a fine-issuing device, then tucking the page it distributed under Jildarin’s wing.
“At least Sylin and the queen seem to be all right.” Rylana pointed to the rooftop.
Tassani and his loyal troops had defeated or scared away all the elves who’d turned on them, and they stood in a circle with Fareesa and Sylin inside.
“Not that I think any of those elves were ever targeting the queen.”
They did not wish Fareesa to verify that Sylinesla is her daughter and the rightful heir to the scepter.
“So I’ve gathered.”
“Dragon Chef!” Someone had handed a megaphone to the gnome captain. “You will change out of that violent and deadly form and come down here to discuss your punishment for willfully disobeying the rules of Tranquility.”
Jildarin snarled. I am not the criminal or the traitor here.
“I agree,” Rylana said, though she didn’t know if the telepathic words were solely for her or if he’d directed them to everyone present. “Hopefully, Captain Tassani will speak on our behalf and plenty of other witnesses can explain what happened.”
Zilek observed the events.
As Jildarin flew over the street toward the peacekeeper wagons, Rylana eyed his brother.
Zilek was still sipping his coffee. Brella and Tezilly must have recovered from the initial surprise and distress over the attack, for they’d brought some of their carafes and cups down on trays and were distributing samples to the well-dressed visitors who’d arrived in carriages.
“I doubt he’s the kind of witness the peacekeepers are going to listen to,” Rylana said.
According to Zilek, he is respected and esteemed by all important persons in the city.
The gnome captain hopped down from his wagon, ignoring Zilek, and strode to the front door of the diner. He waved one of the fine-issuing devices in the air and pointed to indicate he expected the illegally shape-changed silver dragon to land right in front of him.
Another rumble-growl-sigh emanated from Jildarin. If not for his desire to keep his diner open and be permitted to continue to live and work in the city, Rylana suspected he might have lit the gnome on fire. Targeting more than his clothes.
“We’d better hope the queen will vouch for us,” Rylana said, trusting the peacekeepers would put much more weight into the opinion of the ruler.
But as Jildarin spread his wings to land, Rylana noticed that Tassani and the queen were gone. He must have decided to usher her back to the safety of her ship before anything else could go wrong.
Understandable, but…
“Who’s going to vouch for us?”