End Times in Dragon City (5 page)

Not the Dragon? 

I sighed. “Not anymore, for sure.” 

Give me a name. 

“I don’t know if I should. I don’t know if that’s my place.” 

The Dragon is dead. You are all I have. 

I couldn’t help but grimace at that. I’d killed the little guy’s only parent. I suppose if I hadn’t felt responsible for him before, I’d earned every damn bit of it now. His imprinting on me had been an accident, after all, a case of serendipitous timing, but with the death of the Dragon he had no one else left in his life. No one he could trust. 

No one but me. 

“All right.” 

I stepped back and looked at him in full. He was a handsome creature in his own way, a tiny version of his father, a creature of ineffable power. Although he wasn’t the Dragon, he held that potential within him. He was not the great conflagration, the unstoppable fire. Not yet. 

“You’re the spark,” I said. “Not the fire but the fire starter.” 

Spark.
The dragonet moved his long head from side to side as he contemplated that, as if he was rolling the thought around inside his brain.
I like that. I am Spark. 

Through the bars of my cell, I leaned forward and put my head up against his and held it there for a moment, smiling the entire time. “Hello, Spark,” I said. “I can’t tell you how good it is to know you.” 

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

After the dragonet — Spark, I mean — left, I finally managed to grab some shut-eye. I stuffed the crystal ball into my jacket pocket, curled up on my warmed-up spot on the floor, and did my best to ignore the sounds wafting through my window from the battle slowly being met below. 

By the time morning came filtering in through my window, the stone slab below me had cooled, and the chill from it had crept into my bones. I rose shivering to the sound of another bowl of cold gruel being shoved through a slot at the bottom of my cell door. I ignored the pasty slop but got to my feet and began pacing my cell in an effort to restore some circulation to my limbs. 

I could have cast another spell on the floor to warm it, but I wanted to save whatever mojo I had. I was stuck inside that cell, but with the Ruler of the Dead knocking on the Great Circle, I had no idea how long that would last. If a rallying call came that I could answer, I needed to be sure I was ready for it. 

Barring that, I was determined to go down fighting, whether that meant struggling against my jailers or battling until my last breath against the walking dead as they tore down the door to my cell. Yabair had taken my dragonfire flask along with my wand and gun when he’d arrested me. I only had myself to rely on, and that meant conserving my energies for when I might need them most. 

While Alcina had brought me the crystal ball, I wasn’t convinced my actual jailers were in on that fact, so I kept it hidden in case they wandered by to check in on me. It seemed prudent. When I was sure they weren’t around, I went to the window and pulled it out of my pocket to gaze into it again, keeping my body between it and the door to my cell. 

The sight of the city hauled me up short before I could look into the globe though. While Dragon City had seemed almost peaceful under the blanket of night, the harsh light of day conspired to expose all of its troubles. 

Smoke curled into the sky from at least a dozen different fires scattered throughout the city. No neighborhood seemed untouched, from Goblintown all the way up to the Elven Reaches. I couldn’t see the Dragon’s Spire above me, but I wondered if the Ruler of the Dead’s reach had managed to reach even that high. 

I suspected that the Ruler’s army of the dead wasn’t behind every bit of destruction I could see. The panic that the approach of her forces inspired would be enough to set people against each other. Tenuous peaces would be shattered. Old grudges would reawaken. Long-buried suspicions would be dug up again.

It almost made me glad to be trapped in that cell. 

At least the Great Circle seemed to have held through the night. From my vantage point, I could see bursts of magic and flashes of gunfire lancing along it, but they were all still pointed outward. The walkway along the top of the wall held only the living, as far as I could tell, and the wall remained unbreached. 

Then my gaze wandered past the Great Circle, and my heart stopped cold in my chest. 

The Guard had long ago cleared the forest away from the Great Circle to give themselves plenty of time to spy any walking dead shambling our way. That bare land between the wall and the woods beyond now teemed with creatures shuffling toward Dragon City. Past them, the woods shivered and trembled as untold numbers of the dead crept through the undergrowth there, answering the Ruler of the Dead’s silent rallying cry. 

From as high up as my cell stood in the Garrett and on the mountain, I could see for miles. Beyond that patch of forest, lines of the dead snaked at the city, marching toward us from distant lands long unknown. They grew thicker as they came closer, and there seemed to be no end to them. 

I was still staring out at the death-packed plains beyond Dragon City when I heard someone at the door to my cell. I spun about and stuffed the crystal ball into my pocket. A moment later, a dwarf jailer with a short-cropped beard opened the door and let in the last person I wanted to see. 

My father. 

He looked haggard and disheveled, as if he hadn’t slept for days. He’d aged overnight, the wrinkles on his face now deeper and more desperate, carving his disapproving frown so deep into his face that I wondered if his jaw cave under the pressure. He seemed so much like he might fall over at any moment that I wanted to offer him a hand, even though I was the one who’d spent the night in the Garrett. 

“Hello, Max,” he said, his voice rough and worn, his eyes watery. “How are they treating you?” 

“I’ve slept in worse places,” I said. “But not by much.” 

He nodded at me, then averted his eyes. “That’s good, I suppose.” 

“Are you here to bail me out?” 

It was a joke and a bad one, and I knew it. You didn’t get bailed out of the Garrett. You stayed here until you were brought before the Dragon — at his leisure — and then you were sentenced. With the Dragon dead, I might wind up in there for the rest of my life, no matter how short that might be. 

He recoiled at the idea, goggling at me. “What? No. No!” The vehemence of his denial seemed to shock even him, and he took a moment to collect himself. “I just came here to — well, to talk.” 

I folded my arms across my chest, all the better to hide the bulge of the crystal ball in my pocket. Behind my father, the jailer closed the door with a firm slam. The noise made my father jump

“What about?” I asked. 

He’d turned to give the door a longing look, and he came back to me as if I’d interrupted him in the middle of a deep thought. “What’s that?” 

“What did you want to talk about?” 

He steeled himself before he tried to open his mouth, and then he failed to follow through. His lips parted, but no sound emerged from between them. He bowed his head, his cheeks flushing red, and then tried again. 

“Do you realize what you’ve done?” 

He said it as if it was an honest question, so I decided to treat it as such. “I’ve been appraised of the consequences of my actions.” 

“So you’ve seen the Ruler’s army massing outside the wall? You’ve seen the fires burning throughout the city? You know —” He had to stop to swallow, fear shimmering in his eyes. “You know that we’re all doomed?” 

Too many responses leaped to mind. I didn’t know how to choose among them. I went with the one that shouted loudest in my head. 

“Did you know that the Dragon ate Mom?” 

He froze, and I could see by the way his gaze darted toward the door that he understood exactly what I meant. 

“You knew, and you didn’t do anything about it. You never said a word in protest, did you?” 

“Now, hold on. This isn’t about me.” 

“What’s wrong with you?” I found my voice rising as I spoke to him. “The Dragon ate my mother — your wife. He ate your parents and hers too. And theirs too. All the way back to the founding of the city.
And you’re all right with that?
” 

He frowned even deeper at me. If you’d asked me beforehand, I would have sworn that wasn’t possible. “They were already dead, Max. They would have been incinerated anyway.” 

“Respectfully. Not served up on silver platters so that bastard could pick his teeth with their bones.” 

“And for that
you killed him
?” My father’s voice cracked as he spoke. “For that, you took your petty little revenge on him?”

“Of course not. He was trying to eat me too. While I was
still breathing!
” 

My father’s eyes grew wide with horror, and his reply caught in his throat. I pressed on. 

“He was going to kill Belle and eat her too, because her parents couldn’t produce her sister’s corpse. Do you get how insane that is?” 

“An undead elf is a mortal threat,” he said, his voice much softer now. 

“You don’t have to tell me that. But how does killing an innocent elf change that? All it did is fill that fat lizard’s belly with what he cared about most: people meat.” 

My father threw up his hands. “But without the Dragon, we’re all dead. Of course it was a bad deal — an awful, horrible deal — but now instead of the Dragon eating our dead, the Ruler will eat us all!”

“We’ve had hundreds of years to prepare for this. We built the Great Circle since then, right?” 

My father put his hands over his face. “At least your mother wasn’t here to see —” 

I stabbed a finger straight into his chest. “Stop it, Dad. Stop it right damn there.” 

He opened his mouth to protest, and I stuck my finger in his face instead. 

“You say one more word about how fortunate it is that my mother isn’t here to be as ashamed of me as you are, and I’ll shove you through the bars in that window over there before the guards can stop me.” 

He glanced over my shoulder at the window and took note of how close together the bars sat, then met my glare again. “Fine,” he said. “Let me just say I wish I’d died with her than witness this day myself!” 

I felt like he’d kicked me in the stomach. Rather than stagger back a step, though, I snarled at him. “I can put you out of your misery right now if you like. It’s not like they’re going to punish me any worse at this point.” 

He slapped me then, for real this time, and I took it. I let the impression of his fingers sting where they’d crossed my cheek, and I spent the next moment struggling with an almost overwhelming desire to return the favor to him a hundredfold. Instead, I just said two words to him: “Get out.” 

“I’m not done with you yet.” 

I turned my back on him. “Yes, you are.” 

He put a hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged it off and strode over to the window, still not turning to face him again. 

“The council sent me here,” he said. “I wouldn’t have come on my own.” 

I knew he was telling the truth about that, and it felt like the most hurtful thing he’d said to me yet. He wanted me to ask what the council wanted, but I wasn’t going to make it easy for him now. It didn’t take him long to crack. 

“They want to know what you did with the dragonet.” 

That did get me to spin back around to gape at him. “He’s just fine,” I said. “Now that the Dragon’s dead, that is.” 

My father snorted at that. “Sure. I suppose he can always fly away once we’re overrun, can’t he?” 

“He can’t take on all those zombies, Dad. He’s too small. Not by himself.” 

“You don’t get it, do you?” he said. “Of course you don’t. You’ve always been that way. Your sense of righteousness makes you blind.” 

“Justice.” 

“Whatever you care to call it.” 

“Explain it to me like I’m five,” I said. “It’ll be just like back when I was in the Academy.” 

He shuddered at me in his frustration, holding his hands up as if he wanted to shake some sense into me. “He’s the heir to the empire, Max. Where he winds up matters. Even if Dragon City is doomed, there’s still a chance the line can continue on.” 

My jaw dropped. “You want to rescue him? You’ve already given up on the city, and you want to see if you can get him to join you on some kind of escape plan you cowards have stuffed up your robes?” 

“The council is only exploring contingencies,” my father said. “At this point, I’d think even you would see how that might be prudent.” 

“Guard!” I walked over to the door to my cell and shouted again. “Guard! Come get this man out of here. Now!” 

The dwarf ambled up a moment later. I spotted two more dwarves in their dark blue uniforms behind him, pistols stuffed in their meaty hands and pointed at the door. “Your little family reunion gone sour?” he said as he pushed open the door. 

My father grabbed me by the shoulder and forced me to face him as he stood in the opening doorway. “If you see the dragonet, Max, send him to us. We’ll take care of him. He’ll be safe in our hands.” 

I grabbed my father by his collar and shoved him out of my cell. “I love you too, Dad.” 

The lead jailer pulled the door closed behind my father. The old man turned around to look at me one last time through the grate in the oaken slab. He licked his lips as he struggled to find something to say to me. 

Finally he spoke. “Good luck, Max.” 

And with that, he was gone. 

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

I spent the rest of my day sitting in my cell and doing my best not to feel sorry for myself. I’d never been one for self-pity — I didn’t see the point of it — but I had to admit it was hard not to indulge myself a little bit. I’d been jailed for the assassination of the Emperor of my homeland, after all, and chances were good the entire place would be torn apart by zombies long before a proper punishment could be meted out for it. 

I peeked out at the world for a bit through the crystal ball, but I didn’t much like what I saw. A few random zombies roamed through the streets, and that was enough for most people to keep inside with their doors and windows shut and barred — except when they absolutely had to go outside. I guessed that the walking dead had sprung up from people who’d died inside the city, but I had no way to tell for sure.