Chapter 39 #2
“But I said I would rather die,” Junior protested.
“Shut up,” Dirk and Scally Cap shouted.
Scally Cap wet his lips and cautiously approached.
“Hold out your hands.”
Scally Cap obeyed, trembling, and Dirk dumped out all the ruby pebbles he’d collected from his satchel. There were dozens upon dozens of them, maybe even a hundred.
“Those will be easier to fence, won’t they?” the dragon asked.
“Y-yes.” The man could hardly believe his luck. “We’ll have to use multiple fences, and over a long period time, but . . .” He glanced over his shoulder at Junior. “We could get sausages for the soup tonight!”
His nephew brightened.
“Why are you doing this?” Scally Cap asked, pocketing the gems.
“Because I want that.” Dirk pointed a yellow claw at the packed wagon.
“But the prince will kill us!”
“Not my problem.” He launched into the air, landed beside the wagon, and cut the harnesses from the unflappable mules. One brayed at him. “You have enough rubies to find a new life. I suggest you do so. There is nothing left for you here, you said so yourself.”
“I’ve always wanted to see the sea,” Junior said.
“See? Win-win. Now one of you get over here and finish securing the tarpaulin. I don’t want to lose any of these crates midflight. Quick march now,” he barked, imitating Millie. His princess sure knew how to get others to hop to.
Junior scuttled over and obeyed.
“But the prince,” Scally Cap began.
“I suggest you avoid him entirely. Forget adding sausages to the cabbage soup and leave tonight. And if you’re stopped, tell them the truth—Dirk the Dangerous robbed you. In fact, don’t wait. Tell everybody how awesome and fearsome I am. My reputation could use a boost.”
“They’d never believe us.”
“They will if I maimed one of you.” Dirk lowered his head until he was eye-level with the humans so they could receive the full effect of his toothsome grin. “How ’bout it? Who wants a scar? I hear the ladies love them.”
Junior gulped. “Couldn’t you just eat one of the mules? How ’bout that one with the nocked ear? She’s an absolute bitch even with a fully belly.”
Mules are incredibly intelligent creatures, and even though these four had seemingly nothing left to live for, not even their own self-preservation, they still refused to be insulted. The bitchy mule whipped its head around for a vicious bite.
Junior yelped and fell flat on his ass. “Sorry!”
The bitchy mule’s friends chortled and congratulated her on a job well done.
“I’m a pescatarian,” Dirk answered when the mules had quieted down. “Nope, one of you humans is getting mauled. Who’s it gonna be?”
Scally Cap and Junior shared a look, then they pointed to Bourbon Bill where he sprawled in the dirt. “Do him,” Scally Cap said. “He’s so snockered he won’t feel a thing. We can trade a ruby for a healing potion.”
“Excellent choice.”
A few minutes later, Bourbon Bill had half the hair burned off his head and a collection of second-degree blisters across his scalp that were already plump with pus.
Nothing a healing potion couldn’t fix in a jiffy.
And Bourbon Bill was so drunk he hadn’t even flinched, so there would be time yet before his screaming nerve endings woke him.
The mules refused to endure another moment of captivity, bucking and biting when the men tried to mount them, so Junior and Scally Cap slung Bourbon Bill between them and carried him off themselves.
When they were out of sight, Dirk used his magic and refilled the water trough to the brim.
To the sound of happy slurping, Dirk took hold of the wagon and headed for home.
When he returned, it was well past sunset and Bradley and Millie were waiting for him on the balcony.
They’d called for a momentary truce in their own war to team up and berate him for flying off without telling anyone and demanding an explanation for the rubies.
Bradley stood with his arms folded over his chest, the scroll he’d been studying rolled in his fist; Millie had one hand on her hip, the other tapping her cinquedea letter opener against her thigh.
“I thought you two were intelligent,” Dirk answered with a snort. “Isn’t it obvious I was working on my treasure hoard?”
Dirk hadn’t shed a scale on his little adventure, but he had shed a tail feather.
Felt it pop free and mess with his flight pattern.
He’d had to land and search for a white feather across three acres of parched, bone-colored earth before he found it.
Not because he was afraid of someone else discovering it and realizing a luck dragon was beyond the misty mountains of Tianzi, though that should have definitely made him worry, but because it was his. And he shouldn’t be shedding at all!
That shed feather had put a damper on his afternoon, deflating the ego that had been inflated by all the villagers screaming as they witnessed him and the pilfered wagon flying overhead.
Not only would such a sight cement the miners’ story, it served to convince the residents of the Strip that Dirk the Dangerous would not be deterred by Heroes or a little sandstorm.
And then the blasted feather. To make matters worse, he’d become overwhelming itchy.
Twice across the desert he’d had to stop and exfoliate by rolling down a sand dune.
Each stop whittled away the day, which was already slipping by at a decent clip because flying a wagon chock full of rubies was tiresome work, even with an indurus spell.
Suddenly the sun was setting and the sky darkening from cornflower to violet and revealing the stars.