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From
Laflit Pignon’s bestselling self-help book,
True Grift
Azraea
looked at her mud-stained and tattered pale green dress and, deciding it was
unsalvageable, tossed it aside. Ygritte had given her a clean dress to wear,
one she’d loved when she was younger, and that suited Azraea fine. A new look
for a new day. She put it on and looked at herself in the mirror. The orcish style
was undeniable; the purple dress was sleeveless and so low-cut in the front that
the new scar on her chest was visible. The shoulder straps, however, came
together over her collar bones and formed a high collar with a single gem
fastening it like a choker. It was both sexual, attention-getting, and…
powerful? Yes, it made her feel powerful.
Azraea never imagined she could wear something like that, and she had to wonder
about Ygritte’s youth, but she really did like the way she looked in it.
It
was also purple, though. She wasn’t sure it suited her mahogany skin tone, but she
decided her reservation was primarily that the purple projected a very
different image of her than she was used to. For orcs purple was a common color
but for humans purple was the color of royalty, and, she realized, it felt more
mature than the pastels she normally wore. The spring tones she wore had suited
her as a naïve child but now a darker, more serious palette was starting to feel
right. Kaira came back in to the room with a pastry for her and gave her a
wide-eyed look.
“Still
straight?” Azraea asked.
“Yeah,”
Kaira said, “But I’m beginning to feel a little intimidated.”
Azraea
smiled, “Don’t. But… if you want to look that way in front of everyone else
that might help.”
“What?”
Kaira asked.
“Last,
night, I said I wanted to change, to become more than the person I’ve been
content being my entire life, and to start making a difference in the world.”
“I
remember. And I remember saying you could count on me to help you with that.”
“You
also said you wanted a mission,” Azraea said, “Do you still want that?”
Kaira
took a moment to reflect, but affirmed she did, “I meant every word,” she said.
“Okay,
well, the thing is, I’m used to people seeing me a certain way, and I don’t know
if I can really change who I am until I change what other people see. I know
that in itself is weak, but I know who I am, and that's what I have to work
with.”
“So
if you’re going to be who you want to be,” Kaira said, “You need to convince
other people before you convince yourself? I think we’re all faking it most of
the time, or at least until the person we pretend to be becomes habit.”
“Okay,
so… you’re my accomplice then, like my stage assistant,” Azraea said, “When I
do this I need you to pretend that’s how you see me and not think of me like
this… all anxious and girly. I need you to play along and do not laugh.”
“Is
this a forever thing?” Kaira asked.
“Just
when we’re with other people,” Azraea said, “Though I’ll explain the situation
to Ochsner when I get a chance. When we’re alone, you can treat me the same as
you always do, but when we’re in front of other people, from now on, you have
to follow my lead.”
“I
will say, I have complete faith in you to do whatever it is we’re doing well, but
what if you do something I really think is stupid?”
“I
get it,” Azraea nodded, “That’s fair. Maybe a safe-word? Or a hand sign if that
would be too obvious. You don’t have allergies, so how about you scratch your
nose? I’ll know something’s wrong if you do that.”
“Okay,
we’ll go with that for now,” Kaira said with a smirk. She looked at Azraea’s
discarded clothes and saw her leather jacket. Azraea had mended its tear while
traveling, but she’d had limited success cleaning the mud and blood from it after their
fight with the scolopendrae. The thick cyan blood of the scolopendra Azraea had killed had permanently discolored the right cuff of the jacket, and although the mud stains were no longer visible, the leather had a
dusty, weathered look to it now. Kaira picked it up and handed it to Azraea,
suggesting she wear it with the dress.
“It’s
ruined, though,” Azraea said.
“Not
ruined,” Kaira said, “It still does what it’s supposed to. It’s just weathered.
And you need something to tie you together, past and present. You’ve had this
for years and you’ve worn this for our entire trip, despite the season. Keep it for now as a
reminder that the part you’re playing isn’t pretend, that you did some
crazy-ass shit and survived. When you don’t need that reminder anymore, we’ll
get you a new one.”
“Is
this an orcish thing?” Azraea asked.
“Animal
hide with blood stains? Definitely orc chic.”
Azraea
pulled it on, and despite the fatigue, the black jacket did look a lot better
with the new dress than with the old one. She picked up the hidden blade Vinny
had given her. She’d grown quite fond of it. Studying necromancy had afforded
her only a little time to learn self-defense – mostly from Kaira – and she had
found that the staff she’d planned to use when they'd started the trip wasn't an especially practical weapon for an amateur. What
studying necromancy did entail, though, was a fair bit of time learning to
deftly and efficiently manipulate a scalpel. The gnoman blade was longer than a
scalpel blade and thicker on its dull edge, but it was as razor sharp as the
finest surgical steel she had handled at the university. It was small but
incredibly lethal if you knew where to cut someone, and she quite liked the
convenience of being able to drop the deadly weapon into her hand at a moment’s
notice – once she’d gotten over her fear of cutting herself, anyway. She strapped
the weapon to her wrist under her jacket and wondered if wearing gloves would
make the blade easier or harder to catch when it dropped into her hand.
“You
know, if you keep wearing that you will probably have to use it again,” Kaira
commented, “Weapons do work that way.”
“I
know,” Azraea said gravely, “Okay, let’s do this,” she stood as straight as
ever but drew her shoulders up and marched out, Kaira in tow, trying to rapidly
finish the unclaimed pastry.
“Where
are we going?” Kaira asked.
“Back
to the citadel, to meet with Ochsner and collect our reward, like we said we would. And
to discuss some business with Vinny.”
“We’re
officially doing business with the spy, then?” Kaira asked.
“I
always was,” Azraea said, “But I have a new proposition for him.”
They
stopped for coffee with Thrakaduhl, but Azraea kept her order short – black. It
wasn’t that she didn’t like milk, sugar, and – if she could get it – ice, but
right now she wanted something bitter to sharpen her edge. She let Kaira and
her potential mate chat playfully while she strolled down the street and looked
at the town in the early morning light. The cracking stucco was peeling away on
some of the buildings, revealing the brick underneath. Several windows had been
broken, and were covered with boards or blankets. The shingled roofs looked in
bad shape. The cobblestone streets were in pretty good condition, though, and at the
moment they were filled with children and adults who were congregating outside
for the first time after years of oppression by the orc chieftain Kaira had
killed a few days prior. It was run
down, but it was fixable. It just needed a strong leader like Thrakaduhl to
make people believe they could make the world better.
It
was unfortunate that the rest of Caelia wasn’t like this little town where
everyone knew each other. Thrakaduhl could win over his fellow townsfolk with
his folksy charm, but Azraea thought that if one wanted to fix a kingdom they would need a firm
hand more often than a pleasant smile.
Kaira
and Thrakaduhl brought horses around and the three of them rode up to the
citadel together. The gate was still opened, but Vinny had two of his gnoman
troops on guard. They didn’t say anything as they road past, but Azraea knew
they weren’t for show. Even if they weren’t stopping anyone, they were keeping
track of everyone. Vinny had too few of his Gnomans present to expend on
unimportant things.
“Vinny!” Azraea shouted as they rode in, “We
need to talk!”
Ochsner
came running out of the keep, with Vinny close behind, “We might have a problem!”
she shouted.
“Well,
this meeting went south quickly,” Azraea muttered. “Are you okay Ochsner?”
“I’m
fine,” Ochsner said, “Tired, you know, from research-hangover, but Kingstown
might not be fine.”
Azraea
swung off her horse, “What’s wrong?”
“Meingen,
our professor friend that we didn’t trust?” Ochsner said, “We think he’s gotta
device he’s going to use to kill the dragon.”
“Oh
no. The horror,” Kaira commented sarcastically.
“Ordinarily
I’d agree,” Vinny explained, “but it’s going to kill a lot of your people in
the process.”
“How
is that even possible?” Azraea asked.
“The
deathmetal,” Ochsner explained, “I found instructions in the archive for how to
make something awful. It’s like a small ballpipe in a box, except you plug
ingots of the deathmetal in either end, so that when you fire the ballpipe, one
of the ingots slams into the other and boom, BOOM.” Ochsner waved her short arms in emphasis, “The deathmetal turns
a little bang into a really, really big boom.”
“Big
enough to destroy the castle?” Kaira imagined the castle walls raining down on
the surrounding homes, “The collateral damage from a blast that big could be
massive.”
“No,”
Ochsner said, “I mean a really, really
big boom.”
“How
big, exactly?” Azraea asked.
“Well,
hypothetically…” Ochsner paused to recall the math she had done in the early
hours of the morning, “if Meingen set it off in the castle, the dragon would be
vaporized in an instant, and the gold hoard would literally become a molten
river. The heat released would flash boil the lake outside the city, and
instantly ignite anything in or around Kingstown that burns – wood, thatch,
even people. And just for good measure, anything that doesn’t burn? The castle,
the stone buildings, the city walls would be blasted into a cloud of toxic
dust.”
“You
have to be exaggerating,” Kaira said.
“If
Meingen builds this, and sets it off,” Ochsner said, “The capital city will be
replaced with a crater filled with broken glass and a pillar of poisonous ash.”
“Well,
that’s unacceptable,” Azraea said flatly, “Meingen’s only got a one day head
start on us. We can track him down, right?”
“I’ve
got two of my best scouts on it already,” Vinny said, “But this big a thing, I
don’t like leaving anything to chance. Meingen might not head to the capital
right away. He and his friends have established connections all around, and the
capital’s been hot with anti-intellectual hatred for a while now. He might not
be planning to build the device at the college.”
“Meingen
wouldn’t do this if it seemed likely he wouldn’t get the dragon in the process,
right?” Azraea asked.
“Destroy
the city without killing her?” Vinny asked, “I think he’d be tempted to wipe
out her lair to spite her, but no, I’m almost certain he won’t use it if she’s
not at the middle of it.”
“Good,
then if we can’t stop Meingen, we can still stall him by denying his reason for
using the weapon. We just have to get the dragon out of the city.”
“How?
She never leaves,” Ochsner said.
“Oh,
I think she does. Remember Jon and Regina? And all of those farms around
Rosebud that burned down?” Azraea asked, “The guard attributed it to a badly
executed attempt at insurance fraud, but I keep thinking over all of those
events, and it doesn’t add up. It hasn’t been a dry year, fire wouldn’t spread
that way. Vinny? You traveled through there.”
“I’ll
admit to having some doubts myself,” Vinny nodded.
“The
dragon takes everything she can because she can,” Azraea said, “And for those farmers,
their land and their lives were all they had left to take.”
“So
the reptile actually does do some of her own dirty work, then,” Thrakaduhl
said, “But how can we guess where she will go next? Or when?”
“Here,”
Azraea said, “She’ll be here soon.”
“Pardon?”
Thrakaduhl almost seemed to pale, “What would make you say something so
terrible?”
“The
villagers,” Azraea explained, “I talked to some of your older neighbors last
night, and got a good idea of just how badly your father had been squeezing
their town. He was just as greedy as the dragon, but when we took this place,
where was it all? Where was their wealth? Vinny’s money was already gone,
right? So aside from what was in our wagon when they took it, what did your
father’s men have up here?”
“There
were a few valuables,” Thrakaduhl said, “Which we returned to the people below before
the gnomans began settling in up here.”
“As
much as you’d expect from years of leaning on the town?” Azraea asked, “They
didn’t keep it, and they didn’t use it to turn this into some fantasy dream
home.”
“They
did all of their drinking in the same town they were exploiting,” Kaira added,
“So it’s not like they pissed their money away.”
“So
that’s why the kingdom’s guard never did anything in all of those years to
reign my father in,” Thrakaduhl said, “That old bastard was paying the damned
dragon to keep the law off his back.”
“He
was renting the city as a playground for his thugs,” Azraea agreed, “So, when’s
the next payment due? When will the dragon come looking?”
“Well,
there wasn’t much here,” Thrakaduhl said, “So I reckon they must have sent off
their blood money back to the big city just recently; probably just after they robbed you.”
“Good,
then we can still chase them down and stop them,” Azraea said.
“Why
the hell would we do that?” Thrakaduhl asked, “All that’ll accomplish is to bring
that cantankerous wretch of a creature down on us sooner than later.”
“We
need sooner; we need to get her away from the city before Meingen can finish
his device.”
Thrakaduhl
sighed, “I can see how sacrificing a small town like ours might be worth it to
save a city the size of Kingstown,” Thrakaduhl said, “But I can’t accept that’s
come to be our only course of action.”
“Oh,
I have no intention of sacrificing your town,” Azraea put a hand on his arm,
“Because I intend to kill the damn dragon.”
“You
do?” Kaira tried to hide her worrying, but began scratching her nose.
“How?”
Thrakaduhl asked, less disbelief and more interest.
“With
that,” Azraea pointed to the ballpipe on top of the tower, “And whatever else
we can throw at it once we’ve knocked it out of the air.”
“We
don’t know if it still works,” Vinny pointed out.
“I
think I can restore it,” Ochsner said. It was a definite departure from the
self-doubting pessimist that had left Kingstown, but Ochsner thrived on
tangible problems, “With help. But I may have to make new rounds for it. The
chemical explosives in the magazine have probably gone bad and some of the canisters
were simply tarnished to the point they might not work.”
“If
you think you can get the place under this citadel secured and can get that
thing firing, I’ll give you free reign to order my men to do whatever you
need,” Vinny said.
“I
appreciate the idea of a dead dragon as much as any man or woman in this
kingdom,” Thrakaduhl said, “But this plan still puts a lot of good people in
harm’s way.”
“I
know,” Azraea nodded, “But one thing I learned last night is people don’t
necessarily want a leader that keeps them safe, they want a leader that makes
them strong. They loved you for inspiring them to stand up to your father even
when they failed to follow your example.”
“Well,
I did stand up to my father, and that just landed me in his dungeon. And a
dragon is quite different from an orc chieftain,” Thrakaduhl said, “They’re
bigger, fly, and got a good sight many more teeth. Plus, I imagine they’re
smarter; though, I do base that assumption chiefly on my father’s stupidity...”
“She’s
big, and scary, but she’s still just a bully,” Azraea said, “That’s what it
comes down to in the end.”
Thrakaduhl
set his jaw like someone who’d made up his mind, but glanced at Kaira. He
didn’t have to say anything to ask her what she thought, and she gave her tacit
support.
“Well
I reckon I never was one to suffer a bully any longer than I had to,”
Thrakaduhl said, “What do you need done?”
“We
need your help putting that dragon in front of that weapon. Evacuate your
people first, if need be, just help us bring that dragon out where we can blow
its head off.”
“So,
you want me to pick a fight with it then?” Thrakaduhl asked.
“In
essence, yes,” Azraea nodded.
“Well
then,” he said, “Let’s go be heroic.”
What
followed was a stage of rapid planning that was only one step short of
improvisation, and a very quick introduction to cutting edge gnoman
communication. The gnomans had an alchemically applied spell that could link
any two objects and pass sound from one to the other, regardless of distance. The
potions were horrendously expensive to create, apparently, and would eventually
wear off, but the enchantment left no marks, and for the weeks the potion
lasted, they would have a discrete means of contacting the citadel no matter
where they were.
Thrakaduhl
decided to leave two of his most trusted friends to begin making plans
regarding the safety of the people, and immediately rode after Thurk and Roac,
the two orcs that the townspeople said they’d seen riding away from the town
with Vinny’s strong-boxes the morning after he’d been robbed.
Thrakaduhl
had suggested that Vinny might wish to go with him to retrieve his assets, but
Vinny was disinterested in the money. He was far more concerned with tracking
down Meingen, whom he said he felt personally responsible for.
Vicki,
Vinny’s second in command, was left in charge of the other gnomans, but given
orders to provide Ochsner with anything required to establish control over the
citadel and get the weapon operating quickly. That left Azraea, who had her own
plans for her and Kaira.
“Are
you sure about this, kid?” Vinny asked her as they rounded up their horses,
“You’ll be walking into the lion’s den, and I don’t know how far behind you
I’ll be.”
“I
know,” Azraea said, “But I don’t have faith in those two thugs to deliver
Thrakaduhl’s challenge in a timely fashion, if at all. And if his legend
precedes him to Kingstown then all the better.”
“Behind
every great man, a woman, eh?” Vinny asked.
“Any
good army is led from the back,” Kaira corrected him coolly.
Vinny
eyed the elf; for the most part, she’d been acting differently all morning,
both of the women had. They were rigid, commanding, and aggressive. If Kaira
hadn’t stopped after their meeting to give Thrakaduhl a very sincere kiss with
sweet-nothings whispered in his ear, Vinny might have thought they’d replaced
her blood with ice water.
“Someone
also needs to get to Kingstown sooner than later, in case you’re wrong about
Meingen going to ground somewhere else,” Azraea restated her reasoning, “He’s
too dangerous to leave anything to chance.”
“I
don’t question the need,” Vinny said, “I’m just worried about whether you’re
ready for this.”
Azraea
turned abruptly, her eyes flashing green as she snapped her hands out to her
sides. The hidden razorblade dropped into one hand, and a green fireball
ignited in the other.
“Well,
I see you’ve been practicing,” Vinny said.
Azraea
closed her fist to extinguish the fireball, and tucked the blade back up her
sleeve, “I assume you can deal with Meingen alone if you find him?”
“Ah,
I can deal with Meingen even if he’s not alone,” Vinny winked as he climbed
onto one of the ponies the gnomans had brought, and took off at a quick gallop.
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