Chapter 64
A FRANTIC CHASE, NAUGHTY DRAGONS, AND THERE’S A PROBLEM IN THE TOWER
Bradley yanked the birdcage from the window to get an unobstructed view just as the owner of the spyglass leapt upright and slung a bola straight at the princess.
“Dirk,” he shouted, but the wind of the approaching sandstorm threw his voice away.
The weighted cord struck Millie like she was a bird, tangling around her arms. She tumbled off the skiff and slid halfway down the dune before the sand arrested her momentum by burying her up to her knees.
Three men popped up from where they had laid hidden on the other side of the dune, all in the muted beiges common to the desert guides they’d seen escorting the Heroes across the waste. They ran down the slope as nimbly as gazelles, converging upon the princess.
Millie shouted and kicked, wormed herself free, and threw herself into a sideways roll down the dune. The plume of orange dust that rose in her wake choked her pursuers; they scattered like minnows to get clear of it.
And still the dragon snoozed, the wind pulling all noise away from his ears.
Bradley whipped a frantic look behind him, searching for something to grab the dragon’s attention—a signal flare, a trumpet, even a soup pot he could bang on like a drum—and found nothing immediately handy.
He couldn’t throw himself from this height either, not when his magic was as unreliable as a rake’s promise of fidelity.
When the sorcerer apprentice turned back around, Millie was up and sprinting for the dragon.
Her arms were still bound to her sides by the bola, but there was nothing wrong with her legs.
They were strong and lean now from their countless treks up and down the tower stairs, and her bare feet were used to uneven surfaces from Sir Roger’s training, so she didn’t falter.
There was nothing wrong with her voice, either, and she hollered at the top of her lungs.
Dirk farted in his sleep and rolled over.
Millie yelped when the first of her attackers grabbed her, but she didn’t dissolve into a terrified mess. She slammed down on his instep, whirled, and kneed him in the groin.
“Try breeding another generation of assholes now, asshole,” she snarled before she was off running again.
Millie had only gained another yard or two before the second man caught her. This one kept his feet wide apart so she couldn’t stomp them, so she slammed the back of her head into his nose.
“Aw, you look so good in red,” she complimented as blood gushed down his face.
The third man yanked a knife out of his belt, the sunlight lancing across it like molten silver. Clearly he was done trying to capture her. Maybe when he was done with the princess, he’d turn that knife on the sleeping dragon, too.
A tether inside Bradley’s chest snapped. Gripping the windowsill, he heaved the upper half of his body out into the desert air and bellowed, “Dirk!”
A blast wave rippled across the desert and shot Sir Eustace’s tent straight into the air.
The little man had been napping on his cot with Duchess on his chest, but neither were asleep now, and all of Duchess’s claws stabbed through his thin linen shirt right into his skin.
The blast wave bowled over the dragon, and Dirk came up snorting sand and cursing.
Until he saw the knife.
The Great Red leapt into the air with a roar.
Every fang was on full display as a feral green light consumed his yellow eyes.
Millie staggered, then threw herself out of the way as the claws descended.
The dragon snapped and slashed and spun with his barbed tail.
He was a terrifying sight to behold, and Bradley realized with a start that this wasn’t the usual show Dirk put on for the Heroes.
The one where they got to walk away from the fight with only a headache and maybe some missing weapons.
Dirk the Dangerous was going to taste blood.
“Dirk,” Bradley shouted, waving frantically. “Don’t do it! Stop!”
Millie realized the danger almost at the same time, and she bolted for Sir Eustace’s exposed camp. Her arms now free of the bola, she snatched up the little man’s coatrack and ran back to the dragon.
The desert guides were sprawled on the sand, dazed, and Dirk had the knife man pinned under his paw. Just as the dragon was about to strike, Millie walloped him across the snout with a resounding crack!
“Let him up,” she shouted. “Bad dragon!”
The dragon shook his head with a whine, but he didn’t back up. Millie jabbed the coatrack into his toe. Dirk howled and staggered away, rearing back and cradling his wounded paw to his chest.
The desert guides collected themselves and scrambled a hasty retreat back up the dune.
“No,” Dirk snarled. He sprang after them, his wings casting a terrifying shadow large enough to block out the sun. “You do not get to harm my princess and just walk away, meat sacks!”
“If you hurt them, Dirk, I will never speak to you again,” Millie shrilled, giving chase though she had no way of catching up to them in time.
The men screamed as Dirk plucked them off the dune like June bugs off a rose’s petals.
Bradley’s fingernails dug into the stone windowsill and threatened to snap when Dirk disappeared over the crest of the dune. His heart beat with the frenzy of a storm-whipped sea. What was happening to his friend?
Then there was a crack, a jettison of orange dust against the blue sky, and Bradley saw a large dune skiff flying eastward. Propelled by the magical wind of a luck dragon, the skiff barely touched the ground and shot out of sight.
By now, Millie had reached her dune skiff.
After freeing it of sand, she maneuvered it into the wind and skipped up to the crest as easily as if she were riding a feather.
The princess pirate tacked the sail, turning the bow of her skiff into the wind, and the moment the sail fluttered, luffing and losing speed, she jumped off onto the dune’s crest.
The apprentice couldn’t hear the princess and the dragon’s conversation, but she was clearly displeased and just as clearly giving him orders.
The Great Red heaved himself into the sky, turned a circle, descended, then returned with Sir Eustace’s tent.
Millie helped the irate ministry official reattach it to the enchanted tent stakes in preparation for the approaching storm as the dragon sat and held the fluffy white cat up to his nose for a calming whiff or twelve.
“ . . . sneak attack . . . the nerve . . . no honor these days,” Bradley heard Sir Eustace grouse.
When the tent was secure and the little man turned to the task of sweeping the rugs free of sand, Millie pulled Duchess from the dragon’s grasp, gave her a quick cuddle so she knew she wasn’t the one in trouble, and thrust her finger at the tower. “Home.”
Grumbling like a scolded dog, Dirk lifted his princess and flew the both of them up to the balcony. Bradley pushed away from the window, grabbed the frog’s birdcage, and vaulted over the mountains of stuff to the door.
Pocket met him on the landing. “We have a problem.”
“I know.” He tried skirting around her, but she wouldn’t budge. “Dirk—”
“It’s not Dirk.” Pocket pointed down the stairs. “It’s the spring. It’s boiling.”