Mary Herbert: Dragon's Bluff

Kethril merely shook his fingers and pulled out another map. “The advantages of living in a town full of forgers.”

“It has come to our attention,” Lucy said before the dragon could respond, “that you have hiked up Flotsam’s taxes without Malys’s knowledge so you could steal some of it for yourself. We want you to stop.”

“I am lord of this region. I will do as I please,” Fyremantle replied. He tugged fiercely at the net around him then sank back, panting.

“Indubitably. However, we believe Malys will not appreciate your efforts at self-enrichment. She does tend to be rather jealous and unreasonable.”

The dragon stilled, his glittering eyes fastened on Lucy and Kethril. “I am loyal to my overlord,” he protested.

“So she must think, too,” Lucy said. “It would be a shame to tell her otherwise.”

“You will never tell her!” bellowed the dragon. “You cannot prove it!”

“Of course we can,” Kethril said, his tones cool, “and we will unless you leave Flotsam alone.”

“I will burn it first. No one will escape to tell my queen.”

“Too late,” Lucy said. “We already have a messenger on the way, and if she does not receive a message from us, she is instructed to deliver our letter and proof to Malys.”

Fyremantle bellowed and threw himself against the constricting net. Lucy and Kethril scrambled back and watched breathlessly as the huge dragon struggled and thrashed until his scales were scored and his head hung in exhaustion. Still the ensorcelled net held.

When he had been still for a moment or two, Lucy and Kethril eased forward to continue the conversation.

Lucy went on. “The only way you can stop the messenger is to agree to our proposal. You will continue to collect the taxes from the town, but we will only pay the original six hundred pieces of steel. And you must give your word to leave the town alone. It cannot make its contributions to Malys’s treasury if you burn it.”

Kethril waved the copy of the map. “Just to ensure your good behavior, we also included one of these maps.”

“Why?” hissed the dragon. “Malys already knows the site of my lair.”

“Lairs,” corrected Kethril. “We found your lairs.” He drew Lucy to the freight wagon with him and pulled back the tarp to show the contents to the dragon. “When the Flotsam city taxes were stolen, the people had to look elsewhere for the money. One of your lairs is now empty. You can pay Malys Flotsam’s taxes this year to make up for all the years you were stealing from the towns around here.”

“No!” Fyremantle growled. “You’re bluffing!”

Kethril reached into the wagon and pulled out a large doublehandled king’s cup cast in gold and encrusted with garnets. “Remember this? And how about this?” He pulled out an elegant cutlass and waved it in the dragon’s face.

Dragons can remember every item of their hoards down to the last coin, and Fyremantle was no exception. He was so angry he sputtered sparks.

“If you try anything against these people,” Lucy warned him. “We will tell Malys about your other lairs.”

“I will hide them again,” he steamed.

The gambler tossed the sword back in the wagon. “We found them once, we can find them again.”

Fyremantle raised his head and stared to the southeast as if fearing to see some sign of Malys. “All right. I agree.”

“You agree to what? I want to hear you say it loudly so the whole town can hear.” Lucy insisted.

Fyremantle hissed, but after a moment, he bellowed in a voice heard all the way to the Rock, “I agree to leave Flotsam alone and collect only the taxes due to Malys!”

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” she said sweetly.

“Release me!” he roared. The powders were slowly wearing off, and Fyremantle felt his full strength returning.

Lucy realized it, too, and she knew it would be far better to have the dragon trap remain a dangerous and mysterious thing in Fyremantle’s mind than to allow him to break loose himself. Swiftly, she reached out, touched the net, and nullified her spell.

The strands returned to normal. Behind the wall of the building next to the dragon, Challie drew her axe and swiftly sliced through the ropes holding down the net.

Fyremantle shrugged and felt the net slide off his shoulders. He bounded out of the trap and halted long enough to shake out his wings. “I will find a way to make you pay for this,” he snarled to Lucy and Kethril.

In that instant of silence, they all heard the faint sound of pony’s hooves and the rattle of a small cart coming along the road. Lucy turned cold. From a side-street several blocks down she and Kethril saw Saorsha’s pony cart turn onto the street and abruptly stop. Its two occupants gaped at the loose dragon crouched in the middle of the road.

“Saorsha, back up!” Lucy heard Ulin yell.

The ex-legionnaire pulled frantically on her reins, but the pony, already terrified by the smoke and strange smells, panicked and reared.

Fyremantle roared a great thundering bellow of rage. “You!” he howled at Saorsha and Mayor Efrim. “You have been a stone in my claw long enough. Flotsam! Find yourselves a new mayor!” He blew a long blast of yellow fire at the cart and the two people. Neither had time to scream.

The dragon snorted at his small satisfaction, then he snatched the freight wagon in his front claws and leaped into the air. His wings swept downward, pushing him high into the warm air. He roared once and turned away to fly south and east toward the ruined lands of Malys’s lair.

A hideous hush followed the departure of the dragon. Every person in the smoke-filled block stared horror-stricken at the blackened remains of the mayor and the woman who had cared for Flotsam. The corpses were blackened and burned almost to the bone, yet everyone walked slowly into the street and gathered around the bodies.

“Why did she do that?” Lucy mourned. “Why didn’t she look first?”

“Blasted dragon. I thought for a few minutes we might actually get away with it freely,” Ulin said.

Lysandros squatted down by the old mayor, gently touched a burned hand, and offered a eulogy Efrim would have appreciated. “He did his best for this town.” He looked up at Lucy. “Do I send the hawk after Venturin?”

“Yes,” she replied. “They worked too hard for this for us to fail them now.”

Beside her, Kethril stared at the two bodies and said nothing.

Someone brought two blankets from the Game Cock and covered the bodies. Later they could be buried with proper respect in the hillside cemetery where Saorsha’s family already rested.

For now though, a new concern demanded their attention. Several fires had started from the dragonfire and the remains of Notwen’s rockets. They were spreading rapidly around several buildings. Fed by the dry grass and pushed by a steady wind, the fire could be almost as dangerous to the town as the dragon. Fortunately, fires were a familiar danger in Flotsam, and the populace was used to fighting them. Instead of panicking, men and women grabbed buckets and shovels and went to work to stifle the fires before they could get completely out of control. Mule-drawn wagons soon arrived with barrels of water to douse the ground and buildings, and a firebreak was quickly dug.

The flames consumed most of the old, ruinous buildings, and a few still in use, like the Game Cock, were scorched around the edges. To everyone’s relief, the wind shifted to the north in the late afternoon, and a damp seabreeze prevented the fire from spreading any farther.

The townsfolk were so busy fighting the last of the fires and dousing hot spots that they did not hear the signal horn sound a third time. The first warning Lucy had was from Lysandros who poked her in the ribs and pointed down the road. Just cresting a hill cantered the black horse of a Knight of Neraka.