Chapter 39
RUBIES, SAUSAGES, AND ONE BITCHY MULE
Dirk was bored.
He never thought he’d be bored again, what with a princess and a hedge knight joining them in the tower, yet here he was on the southern balcony, languishing.
He could evade Sir Roger’s cane easily now, and there were only so many loop-de-loops and sidewinders and corkscrews he could perform before the repetition sucked the joy out of flying.
After Ivar the Bane, he never thought he’d want to battle another Hero again, but Lord Frederick B.
Smith had been just the one to restore his confidence.
It hadn’t been easy, but it hadn’t been a near-catastrophe either.
Now Dirk had a shiny new spear to add to his collection, and while he’d never admit it aloud to his friends, he was relieved it wasn’t enchanted.
If all enchanted weapons were like that warhammer, glowing and whispering and making his feathers stick out on end, then Raegon the Rabid had clearly lied about how awesome they were.
Dirk would have to update the Great Reds Fan Club newsletter to reflect this when he returned to the College.
In the meantime . . .
His ears twitched, catching snippets of conversation drifting up from lower in the tower.
Ugh, Millie and Bradley were fighting again.
Their squabbles were just as repetitive as Sir Roger’s training, and they usually revolved around the same three things: who crowded who in the one bed, Millie’s ever-growing pile of dirty laundry, and the disruptions of Bradley’s cherished routine.
If there was a slight to be had, one of them would find it faster than a bloodhound, then they would bicker, then they would seek him out to bitch at (though never take his advice), and the cycle would repeat the next day.
No wonder Duchess spent her days in Sir Eustace’s tent.
There were tinned fish, plump pillows, and peace and quiet in there.
He could endure it, as he always did, and spend his afternoon hunting through the bookshelves for an atlas or anything dragonlore that could provide insight to his shedding scale problem.
Something crashed.
“Tula!” Bradley bellowed.
Dirk had to get out of here. Just for a few hours—they’d never miss him. He could be back before supper with no one the wiser, yet his sanity would be restored, as well as his boredom relieved (in theory).
The baby dragon selected a short-term transfiguration spell from his satchel, swallowed the wafer, and launched into the air. “Dirk the Dangerous has become Dirk the Emotional Regulator,” he grumbled. “Not today, bucko!”
Who bucko was, the little dragon didn’t know, but it was cathartic to direct his rebellious statement towards somebody.
To avoid Sir Eustace, for surely the ministry official would dock him points if he saw the dragon abandoning his post, Dirk kept out of sight by keeping to the dunes’ troughs.
With each trough he put behind him, his excitement grew.
It’d been too long since he’d extorted anyone, and terrorizing the citizens of the Strip would keep his skills sharp and his reputation intact.
With his afternoon free and his satchel full of spells, he looked forward to a profitable venture.
The villages were covered in sand.
The little luck dragon had never left the tower so soon after a sandstorm, so he couldn’t have known that his time would be wasted here. People were too busy digging themselves out, rebuilding, and collecting scattered herds to be intimidated by him.
With a disgruntled snort, he turned inland.
It was dangerous to travel deeper into the Cursed Lands that were Leighton and the surrounding unincorporated territories, but he could risk it with confidence this time.
Not only was he disguised as a red dragon (a pint-sized Mini Red, since he hadn’t used an amplio spell) but he had fighting skills now.
No longer was his bread-and-butter evade and escape.
He could whoop a fanny or two now, and that made him bold.
So bold, that he flew level with the surface of a dry creek bed instead of below its banks and out of sight.
And what a difference! The whole of the land unfolded before him, not that it was exceptionally stimulating with its cracked clay soil, shriveled vegetation, and cloudless skies.
Deciduous trees that had once been lush had leaves curled up so tight from dehydration they resembled conifers.
The few animals that managed to exist out here were lean and hard-eyed. Dirk gave them a wide berth.
After an hour of flight, the little dragon was beginning to think he’d chosen the wrong creek bed. There was nothing out here. No hint of woodsmoke, no whiff of animal dung, no faraway voices on the wind. In short, no one he could intimidate out of their hard-earned money.
“Skin my scales,” the dragon grumped. “What a waste of an aftern—”
A glimmer of red in the creek bed caught his eye.
He dipped low, wiggled the red dot free of the crumbling clay with a claw.
A ruby!
A ruby the size of a pea, so quite a find. What was it doing all the way out here?
But there was another one! Caught by that tree root just a few feet away.
Little swirls of dust tickled his belly scales as he flicked his tail and flew over to the second ruby. This one was about half the size of the first, but he still scraped it loose and tucked it away into his satchel.
As it turned out, there might not be any villagers, farmers, or shepherds to extort out here, but there were plenty of jewels to be had.
Rubies, mostly the size of sunflower seeds, peppered the creek bed.
Their frequency increased the further inland he flew, and the little luck dragon eagerly collected them all.
Sure, he would’ve preferred them to be the size of melons, but this was still a marvelous way to salvage his afternoon.
Then he heard them, bells on the wind.
Dirk dug a few rice paper wafers out of his satchel, just in case, and slithered closer. He shored up against the trunk of a dead tree and snuck a glance.
A bend in the creek bed revealed the mouth of a mine.
The bells he’d heard was actually the jingling of a harness.
A team of dusty mules were looking surlier by the minute as a handful of men added crates to the back of a wagon.
One mule licked the damp wood at the bottom of a nearby tough, another shook its head as black flies descended upon its eyes to satisfy their own desperate needs for moisture.
From the decrepit state of the nearby equipment, it was evident the miners had once rinsed their rubies in the nearby creek when it had held water. Dirt and debris, and the tiniest of gems, would be washed away, and the mules would’ve only been burdened with worthwhile weight.
“That’s the last of it.” The man in the scally cap shoved the final crate into position and wiped his sweaty forehead with a handkerchief. “Get that tarp lashed, would ya, Junior?”
The younger man tugging the canvas tarpaulin over the crates paused halfway to heft a ruby the size of a chicken egg. “Just think, one of these would set me up for over a year.”
Scally Cap smacked the ruby out of Junior’s hand then cuffed his head. “You have any idea what the prince would do to you if he caught you stealing?”
“Who’s gonna catch me?” Junior spread his hands wide and made a show of looking around the sun-scorched land. “You ain’t gonna say nothing ’cause we family, and ol’ Bourbon Bill up there ain’t no rat.”
From the driver’s box, ol’ Bourbon Bill pulled a flask out of his vest pocket and took a swig. “I ain’t seen nothin’,” he slurred.
“Of course we’d say nothing,” Scally Cap said, “but you’d have to exchange that rock for coin, and we’ve got no control over what that fence might say. Might even go to the magistrates and sing the tune himself for a reward.”
“He wouldn’t if he knew what’s good for him.” Junior drew his finger across his throat.
This time Scally Cap seized Junior’s ear and gave it a twist. “Your father would be rolling in his grave if he could hear you talking like that. Ain’t no rock worth your life.”
Junior shoved Scally Cap away. “What life do we have? Even those mules eat better than us! We’ve had nothing but Aunt Bessie’s cabbage soup for days.”
“We’ll get by, we always do. Now help me with this tarp.”
“‘We’ll get by?’ The mines are all dried up! Our prince is a pauper. He’s got nothing to offer anyone, same as us. Except at the end of the day, he gets to keep his job!”
“We’ll have less than nothing if we don’t deliver this on time. We get our coin today, and we’ll figure out what to do tomorrow.”
“I ’ear there’s a lady in a tower needs savin’.” Bourbon Bill hiccuped, took another swig. “Fancy a fight with a dragon instead of Bessie’s soup?”
“I have a better solution,” a loud voice boomed.
Dirk the Dangerous rose from behind the dead tree, all five hundred hulking pounds.
The mules merely flicked their ears at his appearance, but the men shouted in alarm. Bourbon Bill fell out of the driver’s box, knocked his head, and promptly passed out. Scally Cap grabbed Junior’s arm and pulled him towards the mine.
“Excuse me.” Dirk landed in front of them, cutting them off from the mine. “I said I had a better sol— Hey!”
Junior had snatched up the rocks at his feet and was hurling them at the dragon. The young man had a good arm and a better eye for directing the rocks at all of Dirk’s most tender bits, like his eyes and toes. “Go, Uncle! I’d rather die here than have another bowl of Auntie’s cabbage soup.”
“Desist, meat sack!” Dirk roared. “I said I had a better solution, but if you continue to assault me, I’m going to stomp on your head and turn your brains into jelly!”
“Junior.” Scally Cap caught his nephew’s arm. “Stop it. Let’s hear what the, uh, nice dragon has to say.”
“I’m not nice,” Dirk snapped.
“Of course not. Apologies.”
“Thank you.” Dirk rolled his shoulders and adjusted the fold of his faux wings. “Now, you in the scally cap, come forward.”