Chapter 60 #3
“He will when you excavate the tunnel.” Leighton lifted his tankard for a long swallow, set it down with a disgruntled thump. “Quit your grousing, Merle, and put that rock away. Unless you want every pickpocket in here to know you’ve got goodies for the taking.”
Merle pocketed the diamond and returned to his soup. “I still don’t think you’re worried enough. That dragon isn’t merely her captor, he’s her friend. My spies have also told me she’s amassing her own forces.”
“Your spies? You mean those desert guides?” Leighton gave a derisive scoff. “They’ll spin any tale for a coin.”
“If she gets out, she’ll ruin everything.”
He swallowed more of his ale. “She won’t get out.”
“You don’t know that. You—”
“Yes, I do.” Leighton leaned back in the booth, shielding Dirk fully from view. “Because I have someone inside that tower. And that someone won’t let her leave it alive.”
Dirk’s heart slammed against his ribs.
“That’s a death sentence,” Merle whispered. “The dragon will take his revenge.”
“Only if he fails to kill the dragon, too. He has a lot of incentive—he can’t go home, needs a new life, whatever. You should’ve seen the look in his eyes. There’s nothing that man won’t do.”
Duncan. Getting away from his abusive father was the exact reason the bookish gnome had volunteered.
Leighton chuckled. “And with the dragon known to leave the tower from time to time, that means there will be plenty of opportunities for. . .” He drew his finger across his throat.
With that, Dirk’s claws flicked. The cloak brushed aside with the breeze from the window, and a tendril wind of Dirk’s magic popped the clasp of the gold-and-coral bracelet.
It floated into his paw, and before the man could wrench around and complain about cheap window latches and drafts, Dirk and the pickpocket were already deep in the forest.
Pocket leaned against a desiccated tree and fought to catch her breath. A magical wind had shoved her from behind with the force of a charging elephant, and it had only been sheer luck that she hadn’t tripped over any of the myriad exposed roots during her run.
“What was that?” she gasped. “And where’s my bracelet?”
Dirk practically threw it at her, and she caught in cupped palms. Then he riffled through his satchel, lifting wafer after wafer into the moonlight, looking for the right spells.
“That was amazing.” She tucked the bracelet into the little pouch that housed the hag stone and stuffed it down beneath her blouse into her brassiere. “What kind of dragon are you, Dirk?”
He swallowed an amplio spell, followed by an indurus, and smothered Pocket’s surprised cry at his sudden transformation with a magical wind. Dirk hunched down and said in a thunderous voice, “You will either get on my back willingly, or I will carry you by force.”
“No need for threats, Big Red. I’ll take the job.” She hiked up her patchwork skirt, grabbed one of his horns, and hauled herself up across his shoulders. “Now let’s go save your princess so I can teach her the right honorable trade of relieving folks of their valuables.”
Dirk shot into the air. Pocket screeched, a combination of delight and terror, but he felt her thighs clamp around his back and her hands tighten around his horns. Secure. He flew like his tail feathers were on fire, trading the blighted land of Leighton for the barren desert of Ashburnum.
Rage boiled in his gut and spread like a poisonous vine along every vein.
Someone had come into his tower, his home, and threatened his princess.
His friend. The girl who loved him, blue scales and missing scales all, and whom he loved back with a ferocity that hurt.
She saw him. She supported his dreams, assuaged his fears.
Like Bradley. He had two friends in this entire world, and he was not willing to give up either of them to this someone.
This perfidious infiltrator who had cozied up to them, pretended to be nice and helpful, and played them all for fools.
Duncan.
Luck dragons were peaceful creatures by nature, but if Duncan hurt Millie, Dirk would rip him apart and sacrifice whatever was leftover to his warhammer Alfalas.
Not soon enough, the tower loomed in the distance. A dark spire against orange dunes bleached to cream by the moonlight. Its many window glowed the faintest purple from the crystals, a few yellow from candles or lamps. Sir Eustace’s tent was dark, the Komodo already asleep.
Hurry, hurry, hurry drummed Dirk’s frantic heart. It nearly exploded when he heard a terrified voice plead, “Please! Stop—”
Dirk heard his princess’s blood-curdling scream, but he was still too far away from the tower.
A few wretched seconds more, and he finally arrowed out of the sky.
His amplio spell burned out just as he shot over the western balcony, spilling Pocket off his back and into the sorcerous clutter of the workroom.
She careened into the arms of the suit of armor with a cry as Dirk shot through the trapdoor and into the stairwell.
“Millie!” he bellowed, voice cracking. There was no sign of her. “Millie!”
Caelus, please, he begged. Don’t tell me I’m too late.