The Prophecy Con (Rogues of the Republic) (46 page)

“I believe we had a wager,” she said.

Mister Dragon smiled, showing clean white teeth.

“I would appreciate a moment of privacy with our winner,” he said to no one in particular, and though he did not raise his voice in any perceptible way, the words seemed to hum in the floorboards and the wood of the table.

The blade at Loch’s throat slid away. Irrethelathlialann slid from his seat and left without a word, and Mister Dragon sat down, still smiling at Loch.

“In celebration of a successful tournament,” Captain Thelenea called out to the room, “we are pleased to serve drinks on the outside deck. We welcome your immediate presence.”

The room cleared out immediately. The elves and fairy creatures left as though the place was on fire, while the humans trailed out when it became clear that the captain was serious.

The captain herself was the last to leave. “You messed with my ship, Isafesira de Lochenville. I will not forget that.”

“Sincere apologies, Captain,” Loch said without breaking eye contact with Mister Dragon.

Mister Dragon shook his head, the corners of his eyes crinkling from the smile. “People and their toys. So much anger over . . .” He broke off and looked over Loch’s shoulder, and in a mild voice that this time made the very air tremble, said, “I
did
request a moment of privacy.”

“I appreciate that, sir,” said Dairy from behind Loch, “but I answer to Captain Loch, not you.”

Mister Dragon blinked.

Loch started counting in her mind, with the apology to come at five.

At a bit past four, Mister Dragon pursed his lips and said, “And what is it you do
for Captain Loch, young man, that is so important that you would stand against my wishes?”

Dairy coughed. “Right now, sir, I mainly fetch drinks.”

Mister Dragon looked at Loch curiously, his lips twitching as though hiding a smile, and then slid his gaze over to Dairy again. “I see that the man at the bar has gone and left us. Tell me, young man . . . if I asked very nicely, would you fetch
me
something to drink?”

“I . . .” It was actually possible to
feel
Dairy blushing. “That would depend on what you were in the mood for, sir.”

“Hmm.” Mister Dragon actually
did
smile now.

“So,” Loch said, and managed not to flinch as the weight of Mister Dragon’s stare settled back on her like red-hot lead, “I won the tournament.”

Mister Dragon’s gaze did not lighten. “You cheated, Lochenville.”

“More effectively than your elf, Veiled Lightning, or the rest, yes. Hence me winning. But,” Loch added as the table creaked beneath Mister Dragon’s fingers, “that’s a very negative way of thinking about it.”

Mister Dragon raised a hand and stroked his beard. “And the positive way of thinking about it would be?”

“Now that I’ve won the tournament,” Loch said, “I’d very much like to get to the Temple of Butterflies before it explodes and takes half the Republic with it. Anyone who could get us there quickly would enjoy the pleasure of my company . . . along with my associate, Rybindaris, former Champion of Dawn.”

Mister Dragon’s eyes widened, and he leaned forward a little and smiled over Loch’s shoulder in delight. “
Really
.”

Loch looked over and saw Dairy blushing and trying to figure out what to do with his hands. Since she’d just spent several hours playing cards, she had a pretty good sense of when to play a good hand.

“Dairy, would you mind getting Mister Dragon a drink? I suspect he’d enjoy something strong and virgin.”

When a lock needed picking or someone needed to be distracted with fast words and a good, solid line about their mothers, Kail knew it was his time to shine.

A heavily armored Imperial guy with a magical ax who subsequently turned out to be a severely defaced corpse being controlled
by
the magical ax, along with a dozen or so crystal golems? Not one of those times.

“Diz! Ghyl! You’re the muscle!” he shouted, bringing his mace up in a two-handed grip and smashing the nearest golem, which crumbled into ruby-red fragments . . . that immediately started to pull themselves back together. “Pyvic and I have your back!”

“We do?” Pyvic yelled, taking a golem’s head off with a backhanded swing.

“Ideally!”

Desidora lunged forward, Ghylspwr raised. “I bear a weapon that carries the soul of your king!” she yelled.

“
Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is!”

For one moment, Kail thought it might work, even as he smashed another golem back into crystals.

Then Arikayurichi said, “Good for you, priestess,” and slashed forward with a lightning-fast blow that knocked Desidora back even as Ghylspwr flipped up to block it. “I shall kill you most
respectfully.
”

A golem behind Desidora reached out with jagged black arms, and Pyvic lopped them off, then chopped the creature down the middle, just as Desidora lunged back at the dead man and the ax with a blow that connected hard enough to make every crystal in the chamber ring like a bell.

Kail smashed another golem, ducked, drove a mace through the kneecap of one that was coming in on Desidora’s flank, and danced away, eyes flicking across the room for something,
anything
, that could be useful.

For all the damage they were dealing, the golems had them surrounded, while Desidora and the dead man traded blows that echoed around the whole chamber. Off by the control console, Archvoyant Bertram was still frozen in place. By the chasm, Kail saw a fallen form he hadn’t noticed before: Urujar skin and voyant robes.

“Pyvic, you hold! I’m going scouting!” Kail blocked a black blade with the head of his mace, shattering the crystal, then dove through the enemy lines.

“Expect anything useful to come out of that?” Pyvic yelled behind him.

“Ideally!” Kail rolled, came up with an uppercut that would have hurt a lot more if the golem in question had been anatomically correct, and body-checked the golem off the edge of the chasm.

He spun, saw that he was free for a moment, and turned to the man on the ground. “Voyant Cevirt? Cevirt!”

The little man blinked, groaning. “Man made of crystals . . .”

“Yeah, we’re a ways past that.” Kail looked over his shoulder, saw a golem coming at him, turned, and smashed the thing’s blade.

It barreled into him heedlessly, caught him with a shoulder, and put him on the ground.

Kail came up with an awkward swing that the already-reforming blade knocked aside. The golem lashed out with a kick that caught Kail in the ribs, and as the room went dark and the air left his lungs, Kail saw the golem raise its black blade.

Then, with a snapping hiss that made Kail’s ears pop, the golem fell apart into a pile of dark cracked crystal.

Voyant Cevirt grinned weakly and sank back to the floor. A wand of pale-blue crystal tinkled as it rolled from his hand. “Lightning. Thought it might work. You should . . .”

He went limp.

Kail grabbed the wand, rolled to his feet, pointed at an oncoming golem, and activated it. The wand flashed, lightning arced in a sizzle of blue light between him and the golem, and another pile of dull and broken crystal sank to the floor.

“Hey, You-really-are-itchy, or whatever your name is!” he yelled, striding back into battle with mace in one hand and wand in the other. “Anybody ever tell you it’s rude to hit a lady?” He blasted another golem, spun, and smashed one away, just on the off chance that the wand had a limited number of charges. “See, when your mother and I do it, we have safe words! Hers is
fuller
, but let me tell you, she is a full-tang kind of lady, if you know what I mean!”

Arikayurichi actually shifted in the dead man’s grip, turning toward Kail just a fraction.

It was enough for Desidora to sidestep one blow, and she got Ghylspwr up to knock a fast reverse-swing high. Then she slammed Ghylspwr hilt-first against the dead man’s ribs.

The dead man stumbled, then spun into a backhanded blow that Desidora caught at the last second, staggering backward against the shock.

Her back foot came down on empty air as she slipped at the edge of the chasm, and with a short cry, she dropped to her knees.

It gave Kail the shot he needed. “Diz, I’ve got it!”

The dead man lunged in, Arikayurichi raised for a massive overhand blow.

Kail fired.

Lightning snapped, hissed, and sizzled around the dead man and the weapon of the ancients.

It did nothing.

The blow fell.

Ghylspwr rose.

The noise shattered every golem in the room and sent Kail to his knees, fumbling blindly, yelling with a voice he couldn’t even hear for a few seconds. The floor beneath him showed cracks, and that seemed important to him somehow as he scrambled for purchase.

When he could see again clearly, he saw that the cracks led to the edge of the chasm.

The chasm had grown a few feet wider, the last little bit shattered off. Near the edge, Ghylspwr lay alone on the floor.

The dead man and his ax turned to Kail. “Have you, little Urujar? Have you got it?”

“Ideally.” Kail got back to his feet, mace and wand still in hand, and ran forward to his death.

Loch had flown on airships, on treeships, and once on a magical crystal that had been in a state of freefall until the sun’s rays had activated its levitation magic.

The Dragon trumped all of them.

She clung to shimmering rainbow spines atop a great muscled back of red scales that flickered gold with each flap of the dragon’s blazing wings. The wind whipped around them in a constant dull roar, and Loch could see the mountains pass by below them as they blazed a comet’s trail across the night sky.

“I was worried you had turned evil!” Hessler was yelling, hanging from one of the spines tighter than was necessary.

You worry too much,
Ululenia said into all of their minds. She soared in the Dragon’s wake, a ghostly pale shape in the night. She had chosen what looked to Loch like a white raven, although she had a spot on her flank she hadn’t had before.

“She told me what happened with the elf’s creature, and she agreed to let him think that he’d killed her and taken his place,” Loch said, and met Hessler’s aggrieved stare. “Did I forget to mention that?”

“You did, yes.”

“So, what happened to overriding the treeship’s navigation with a magical pulse of energy?” she asked.

Hessler coughed. “Well, I saw no need to use a hammer when a scalpel would suffice.”

“Just to be clear,” Tern said, “he could
absolutely
have used a hammer if it had been necessary. I was very impressed.”

Veiled Lightning, standing with perfect balance while the rest of them clung to the spines, shook her head with disdain. “I respected you as a master criminal, a worthy adversary,” she called over the wind. “It is
greatly
disappointing to find out how much of it was just luck!”

“Why is she even here?” Tern asked, and then followed it immediately with, “Not that I’m complaining, Princess—still a
huge
fan.”

“She needed a ride.” Loch grinned. “Hopefully she helps us end this war.”

Technically,
came a voice from all around them,
Skoreinis was my creature, not the elf’s
.

Hessler visibly winced.

Do you deny me right of self-protection as a free-willed individual?
Ululenia asked.

I do not
. The muscles of the great blazing wings seemed to strain for a moment, a tiny hitch in the rhythm.
Nor do I envy you the price
.

“Price?” Hessler asked.

“So is this like a normal outfit for you, Princess, or is this something you’d wear specially for traveling?” Tern asked.