Chapter 11 (Part IV): Faith and Trust

Following Jericho in the dim light of a luminous phial, Verax stepped carefully on the slick stonework that ran along the inside of the tunnel. He wasn’t thrilled to be back in the city’s underworks, but he’d decided that being prepared to destroy the dragon with Meingen's weapon was essential. Verax had very high regard for Azraea’s abilities, but her plan was audacious - a lot could go wrong. 
Still, Verax saw the bomb as a last resort, and had certainly wanted something between 'Plan A' and 'Plan Bomb'. If things went pear-shaped, he wanted some opportunity to put them back on track before blowing up the city, and if Verax did have to use the bomb, he wanted to light its proverbial fuse right under her scaly ass. Either of those points meant getting into the castle, and for that, he needed help from the locals. 

Jericho, it turned out, had known of a discrete entrance into the castle from the catacombs – likely used by Caelus IV’s knights after they infiltrated the city from the drainage culvert Verax had used to get in. The catch, however, had been that the secret entrance was more of a secret exit – it required someone inside the castle to open. When Caelus IV had made his attempt, it had been his cousin Flaedin who’d let him in. Jericho could lead Verax to the secret entrance, but he'd need the aid of one of Schroeder’s contacts to open it, and the man seemed very anxious about risking that person’s position to get anyone into the castle. Eventually, though, Verax had persuaded both men that it was necessary. 

The Gnoman agent had discretely approached both of them, cautiously disclosing his own doubts and apprehensions. With the seeds of doubt sewn, Jericho and Schroeder's protectiveness of the young woman had overridden their faith in her abilities, and the two older men had quietly agreed to Verax's plan to infiltrate the castle, despite agreeing to Azraea's plan upfront. It wasn’t the first time Verax had exploited paternal sexism, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. 
They had agreed that once their men could fulfill their duties without further direction, the three of them should infiltrate the castle and position themselves to bail Azraea out of trouble if her plan didn’t go as she hoped it would. The three of them would charge in, grab their friend, and pull her out. Verax, of course, did not mention anything about the deadly burden he carried in his overstuffed backpack, and with the two men focused on a possible damsel-in-distress scenario, it had been easy to deflect their curiosity. If the dragon didn’t leave, or if it returned without being dispatched by Azraea’s friends, Verax was prepared to sacrifice Kingstown just as Meingen had planned.

Of course, while Verax had been competent enough to follow Meingen's very well drafted blueprints to complete the weapon, he wasn't gifted the way Ochsner or even Vicki were. He'd had no way to devise a delayed firing mechanism for the device. In a late night, long distance discussion, Vicki had taught him what she could about fuses and explosives - including new things she'd learned from Ochsner - but this weapon was quite unlike the shells they were loading into the ballistic pipe. Even the 'simple' explosive used to trigger the bigger explosion was something Vicki had struggled to explain to her commander - it's malleable, clay-like composition was entirely different from the volatile explosive powder used in the most advanced Gnoman weaponry. The two of them had both realized - reluctantly - that they had no hope of inventing a tigger mechanism overnight; Verax would have to fire the weapon manually, sacrificing his life to end the dragon’s threat once and for all.

Verax couldn’t think of that as ‘unfortunate’ though. For one thing, it meant there’d be zero potential error – he’d fire it when the time was right, giving the dragon no opportunity for escape. Rationally, that was how he justified his sacrifice. Emotionally, though… even accounting for the evacuation of a large portion of the populace, Verax knew that the weapon would wreak horrific destruction if he used it. Thousands of innocent and valorous Caelians would die. That being the case, it felt right that Verax should have to pay the cost of his own life, if he were to sacrifice so many others.

Still, as selfish as it might be, Verax’s own mortality weighed more heavily on his mind than the deaths of the people living in the city above them. There’d been a time when he could put the thought out of his mind – after he’d parted ways with Thessaly and fully devoted himself to becoming one of the most dedicated Left Hand’s in the empire, he’d adjusted to the idea that his life would likely end sooner than it did for most. But before he’d even entered the formal service he’d met Lucretia, and since they’d been married, moments like this always brought her to the forefront of his mind.

He could risk his life countless ways, but when the thought of making a deliberate choice to end his own life came, it was inevitably followed by thoughts of Lucy. She’d trained to be a Left Hand, too, so it wasn’t that she didn’t understand what might be entailed. His children, Antiope and Serkemon, would be taught that their father was a great hero; Thessaly would certainly see to that. And Verax knew that Lucy wouldn’t be alone for long – he hoped she wouldn’t be, anyway – but she would grieve nonetheless. It didn’t matter what sort of honors or ceremony they memorialized him with, his wife and children would suffer. Perhaps, knowing that his existence was valued by others should have made Verax feel good, but involuntarily imagining the tears rolling down his wife’s face brought them immediately to Verax’s own eyes.

It reflected poor emotional discipline for an agent of his status, so he was thankful for the darkness hiding the warm tears as they cooled and evaporated on his cheeks. If Stone and Schroeder were at all aware of his state at the moment, Verax was sure they would attribute it to the reasonable fear of infiltrating a dragon’s lair.

The tunnel opened into a large chamber with a slick stone staircase winding around the walls. It was somewhat similar to the room Verax had emerged into when he first came into the city, but in the light of the glowing phial Jericho carried, it was impossible to see the top or bottom of the chamber.

“By Golon,” Schroeder said, “What is this place?”

“The under-dungeon,” Jericho said, “The old kings would put people down here when they were done with them.”

“Done with them?” Schroeder asked.

“Ever here the phrase, ‘lock ‘em up and throw away the key?’ There used to be steel gibbets hanging in this void. They’d lock you in one of those little birdcages and leave you hanging over this pit until you died of thirst. Even if you could get out of the cage somehow, all you could do was fall and hope you landed in water.”

“Is there water, down there?” Verax leaned over the precipice.

“Sometimes,” Jericho said, “But there’s no way to climb out, so you’d only live as long as you could tread water.” He handed Schroeder the phial, “The stairs are only wide enough for one person, so you ought to go ahead and meet your contact. The door will be pretty obvious from this side.”

Schroeder took the light source and switched places with Stone, trekking up the stairs cautiously but quickly. Verax followed, but soon realized that Stone had dropped out of the range of the light behind them. He paused for a moment, concerned that Jericho must have fallen into the pit or something. Schroeder’s continuous advance up the staircase took the light with him, though, and Verax was quickly left in the dark.

Verax was a wary, fast, and nimble fighter, but he’d allowed himself to become so preoccupied with thoughts of his family that he let his guard down. Something shot out of the darkness and grabbed him by the throat, a tight grip closing around his neck. Verax dropped the hidden blade he kept up his sleeve and plunged it into where he thought his attacker must be.

He felt it strike, but the blade didn’t sink into flesh – it hit hard leather body armor. He could take an armored opponent down easily by targeting gaps in the armor, but that was hard in the dark. Instead he sliced the blade upward, hoping to hit his attacker’s arm. There was a satisfying impact – the rending of soft flesh followed by warm blood – but the grip didn’t loosen. The attacker simply grunted with pain as a red gem stone suddenly glowed to life in the dark, illuminating Jericho’s face from underneath.

Stone swung Verax out over the void, so that the smaller man’s toes were barely keeping him on the stair case. Jericho spoke so quietly that his voice sounded more like the whisperings of Verax’s own mind than like another person in front of him.

“Azraea told me about what happened with your alchemist friend,” he said, “So I’ve got a pretty good guess that’s not lunch you’re hauling in that pack.”

Verax tried to struggle, but Jericho only loosened his grip for an instant – just enough for Verax to feel himself starting to fall backwards into the void.

“Lose the pack,” Jericho said as he grabbed Verax again, “Or we’ll do the rest of this without you.”

Verax stopped struggling. His mind was getting cloudy thanks to Jericho’s tight grip on his neck, and he couldn’t think of a way out of the situation. Reluctantly, he cut the straps on his pack with his blade, and sent the device tumbling into the abyss, with a distant splash.

Jericho grabbed Verax’s arm, pulled him back onto the stairs, and patted him on the back, “We both know you didn’t want to use it anyway.”

Jericho wasn’t wrong. The sense of relief Verax felt didn’t just come from the air flowing back into his lungs. Still, it was annoying that some highway guardsmen had so deftly bested him, “Never try that again.”

“I’m sure I won’t need to. Come-on, we’ve got to catch up now.”

Schroeder was waiting up at the top of the stairs. The door was obvious – it was a metal and wood drawbridge on the other side of a four foot gap. There was a pull-chain, but it didn’t connect to the bridge – it passed through an opening next to it. As Jericho had explained, the pull chain toggled a small plaque on the inside wall which would reverse. For those in the know and observant enough to notice, it would tell them that there was someone waiting on the other side of the concealed door.

Schroeder was clearly getting anxious, probably wondering at all the things that could have gone wrong, and as they waited in the darkness, his anxiety became more obvious. He huffed and shifted his weight with increasing frequency until there was a sudden stirring from the door across the gap, and it swung downward. The person lowering it stopped it just short of hitting the stairs, and slowly lowered it the rest of the way, muting the noise.

A woman just a bit younger than Azraea waited on the other side. Shroeder ran across the bridge and embraced her, “You had me worried baby girl.”

“I’m fine, I’m fine, but we need to hurry!” She led them quickly from the secret entrance, through the upper dungeon and up through the wine cellar and storage rooms.

“Your contact was your daughter?” Verax asked Schroeder, “What has she been doing in the castle this entire time?”

“I’m Syliva’s personal aide,” the woman answered matter-of-factly.

“What?!” Verax exclaimed in hushed tones, “How does she… why would she retain the daughter of the rebel guards’ leader as her personal aide?” That sort of gaff would be unthinkable in any court of the empire.

“No one knows who my father is,” the woman shrugged, “Medes doesn’t pay attention to women except for their aesthetic value, and Baryd is too preoccupied with playing the crowd outside the castle to take a close look at the people working inside. And Syliva doesn’t even remember my name. It’s Catherine, by the way.”

“Oh, nice to meet you, Catherine,” Verax said, “but what have you been doing this entire time?”

“Whatever I could while being discrete as possible. I talked Syliva out of destroying Mudville.”

“Well, that’s good to hear,” Jericho said, “Where are we at now?”

“Your rebellion is at the gate. I ran down here as soon as Syliva went to address the crowd – it’s the only distraction she’s had all day. Hopefully your friend is still monopolizing her attention.”

Chapter 11 (Part III): The Tick of Kingstown

Watching events unfold from atop the castle keep, Syliva had had to exercise a great deal of restraint. She had held off from attacking the guardsmen at the barracks or the gate, because she realized that directly intervening in that fight would fully turn the city against her. It was better that she be seen as overly permissive or under-attentive with respect to her troops, than to be seen actually charbroiling a cadre of law enforcement officers for a second time.

Instead she issued a formal statement that she understood why there was some confusion in the wake of recent tragedies, but she expressed regret that rogue elements of the KCG had obstructed her security force’s ongoing investigations, going so far as to aid in the escape of fugitives. However, she formally condemned any further violence (now that there wasn’t much left to do), and expressed the desire that everyone should set aside their differences and come together as one people.

That didn’t happen.

Despite Syliva’s attempts to eliminate the Neo-Monarchists, they were loud, they were violent, and they were growing. Stories like the one from Defiance and others that seemed to be popping up everywhere simply made them bolder.  At the same time, the Firebrands boiled in the streets, wanting something to attack, and occasionally clashing with the Neo-Monarchists. Medes was too preoccupied with the renegade guardsmen still holed up in their barracks to do much about it, and the unrest enhanced Syliva’s unpopularity. While The Vulpine Post reviewed her speech very favorably, the other heralds were now in open rebellion, and instead printed stories about a woman stirring up the people in the ghettos, cityguardsmen 'valiantly' defending the gutter trash that lived there, and the dramatic, last minute arrival of the highway guardsmen. (The White Rose, of course, was not mentioned in any of the reputable stories.)

Many of the rebellious heralds propagated rumors that the woman from the ghettos – the same woman who had taunted Syliva in the marketplace – had been garnering the support of the Neo-Monarchists by running about the streets of the city picking off the men Syliva had sent to hunt them down. She’d even fought alongside the guardsmen at the main gate, and that had apparently elevated her from rogue vigilante to semi-legitimate leadership.

Many of the heralds ‘speculated’ that their darling heroine would do more soon, and encouraged people to be ‘ready’ because, they were sure, when ‘it’ happened, you wouldn’t want to miss it. Syliva didn’t know what ‘it’ was and sicced Baryd and Medes on cracking some skulls trying to find out information, but ‘it’ started before any of them knew expected. One morning, in the very early hours, one of Medes few patrols was ambushed. Many of the men were killed before their mysterious assailants retreated. ‘Mysterious’ – Medes had said he was certain the attacks were Schroeder’s doing, but many of the heralds had been very sure to cover their conflict in detail, providing twice daily updates to the city, and emphasizing that the ‘rogue guardsmen’ had been pinned inside their barracks with their families, no one moving in or out.

Eventually, Medes couldn’t justify the full siege outside of the barracks, and sent his men to hunt for the rebels picking off his men. Personally investigating, it didn’t take him long to figure out that the attackers were using the catacombs to move through the city, lying in wait for his patrols and then disappearing into the tunnels. While he was occupied with that, though, action finally took place at the barracks. The rogue guardsmen opened their doors and disgorged a motley group of elves, orcs, dwarves, halflings, and immigrant humans who fled down Gate Street towards the eastern gate. By all appearances they were refugees who hadn’t made it through the gate before, and had been forced to retreat to the barracks with the rogue guardsmen.

Investigating rebel bolt-holes in the North End, Medes had been unable to respond to the sudden activity, but the restless Firebrands were quick to converge on the group, prepared to massacre them in the streets. Syliva had been happy with that – perhaps it might finally sate their appetite for blood. It didn’t work out that way, though. The guardsmen still holding the East Gate had already opened it for the refugees, and faced with the oncoming tide of Firebrands, abandoned their posts and fled through the gate with the refugees. Unsupervised, the mob of Firebrands had chased them out of the city and around the northern bank of King’s Lake to Mudville, where many of the other refugees were holed up.

Those fleeing the city, however, proved less than helpless. Almost as one, they’d turned on the Firebrands, drawing concealed weapons, and prepared to fight alongside the guardsmen and a large number of civilians coming from the refugee camp in Mudville. Although Syliva would not have foreseen it at the time, the Battle of Mudville ultimately earned its own place in the history books. A mixed force of guardsmen, civilian volunteers, and White Rose enforcers held back a growing tide of Firebrands that poured out of the city and marched around the banks of the lake to attack the refugee camp. The orc volunteers claimed that King’s Lake turned red from the blood pouring into it, but that was something of an exaggeration.

In reality, the fighting subsided soon after Marcus’s reinforcements, the enforcers of eastern Caelia’s “Starborn” family, arrived in force.  With the most zealous fanatics having run into the jaws of death early in the fight, those remaining were quickly subdued when Schroeder’s men inside the city recaptured the gate and slammed it shut. The surviving Firebrands were pushed back into a box, trapped between a closed gate, a lake, and two small armies. Staring down dozens of elves with centuries of combat experience and at least a hundred orcs ready to vent their anger, the surviving Firebrands surrendered and were taken back to Mudville as hostages. If Syliva wanted to smite the refugees sheltering there, she’d have to incinerate her most ardent followers.
She did consider it. She considered burning Mudville to the ground, but What’s-her-name convinced her that wasn’t a realistic option. As much as she hated to be ‘talked out of’ something, the little human was right. She needed love or fear to rule, and if she incinerated the imprisoned Nationalists, she’d lose what little love she had in the kingdom. Syliva had argued that it would instill a great deal of fear in its place, but What’s-her-name had pointed out that most of the people in Mudville were residents that were not directly involved in the conflict. If she slaughtered a thousand Caelians who’d done nothing to slight her, everyone would believe that acquiescence to her will did not guarantee safety. Fear would no longer motivate people to obey her, and her grip on the kingdom would loosen.

Syliva needed to free her supporters and punish the rebels, but she had to do it surgically. If she held back her fire and fought solely tooth and claw, she could rip apart the rebels while her troops evacuated the residents of Mudville and liberated the captives. Once that was done, the small city would be a free-fire zone. She’d satisfy her supporters not only by rescuing their brothers, but by burning Kingstown's gutter-trash in their refugee shelters. Then she’d simply move the displaced survivors into the largely depopulated capital and make a big to-do about rebuilding it all.

Yes, yes, it was a good plan. Except, by the time she realized what had happened, most of her men were spread out across the city pursuing the troublemakers inside the walls down into the catacombs. They were not ready to engage in what would be a rather complex operation, and when Medes reported back to her, he didn’t have good news. Of the men he’d sent into the catacombs pursuing the rebels, almost none had re-emerged. Somehow, the bowels of the city had swallowed over 250 armored men. Medes came asking her to join their men in a full out assault on the Cityguard barracks, but she knew that wasn’t a viable option. Doubtless, the Cityguard was responsible for her troubles, but they’d been low-key about it. Violently attacking the Cityguard without obvious provocation – especially without responding to the unfolding “hostage crisis” across the lake – would need a strong justification. She needed time for Baryd to construct eyewitness accounts and to finish crafting his grandiose but simple narrative which would definitively vilify the recalcitrant guardsmen.

Medes was obviously surprised when Syliva ordered him to send most of his remaining guard into a defensive posture, bringing them back to the castle, or sending them to posts at valuable business assets. Syliva knew she was on the back claw, but she was not a fool. Stopping a backward slide would mean digging her claws into the ground.

Dig in, get control, and then push back.

Chapter 11 (Part II): Fish in a Barrel

When I was young, I wanted to be a warrior more than anything. A warrior bravely and honorably confronts their enemy on even terms. They test their mettle – and their metal – against their opponent, with the stronger and more skilled surviving unvanquished. But I also learned to survive in the wild, to live on the land. I learned that, unlike a warrior, a predator does not confront its opponent head on. It stalks its prey, and when the right moment comes, runs it down and overcomes it through surprise and superior force. Different still is the hunter. The hunter is lazy; a hunter lies in wait for his prey to come to him, and dispatches his target without any surprise, without any chase, and without any fight. He strikes and kills without his target ever being aware that its fate was sealed. With time I have learned that whether you become a strategist, a tactician, or a lone operative, you should always strive to be a hunter first, and a warrior last. 

-        Kairumina Doro Asterigennithika, Commander of Arms, speaking to the new faculty of Caelia’s first officer candidacy school.

Ochsner looked out over the valley that formed eastern Caelia. Defiance sat just at the foot of the squat mountain the dwarven citadel was built inside, and far off in the distance, on the southern border of the kingdom, Ochsner imagined her parents and siblings, going about their lives in the dwarven metropolis under Emerald Mountain. She wondered why she had left, now, thinking perhaps it would have made more sense for everyone else to come join them underground.

Sure, the city of Undver had all the problems you associate with any densely populated underground mega city. There were robberies, thefts, drug problems, drinking problems; Ochsner had thought that anything you could put in front of the word “problems” they had. She had since learned about a whole range of “problems” she would never have imagined growing up in Undver. She had discovered were-dog problems, homicidal autonomous-security system problems, man-eating bug problems – well, okay, Undver had those too, but these were a different class of bugs – but most of all, the world above ground had dragon problems.

Despite their previously negative encounter, she’d been thrilled to find out that Jon and Regina survived their ordeal, and getting to relay that good news to Azraea had been a bright spot in her week, but underneath that there was still the reality that while the dragon had flushed them from their homes, it was men who’d been waiting to scoop them up and haul them away to be sex slaves for wealthy land barons, food for their freaky half-bat brides, or research subjects for this mysterious hemomancer. She could add bat-lady problems, institutional rape problems, and faceless villain problems to her list now too. Maybe the dragon provided the protection that brought the kingdom’s worst out of the woodwork and put them at the top of the social order, but it was worrying to know that all of that was out there, teeming under the surface.

But now she stood on the verge of at least solving their dragon problem. When she went through her mental checklist, she felt close to solving that problem, but when she considered their final obstacles, it seemed impossibly far away. To say the dichotomy was frustrating would be an understatement.

Having spent every free moment studying the archives, she’d found about three things she was sure packed enough power to be useful against a dragon. The most powerful weapon by far was the device Meingen had been working on, but Vinny had destroyed it, probably for the best. Another option had been a large, elaborate, and intricate machine that looked like a dragon, and was apparently, supposedly, designed to fight and kill dragons. Even if she’d had the parts to build it, though, the thing seemed wildly impractical, perhaps even implausible, and its lengthy description in the archive, which included the words, “Ultimate”, “Awesome”, “Super-Awesome”, “Anti-Dragon”, and “Mecha-Dragon” didn’t inspire confidence in the designer’s maturity level or grasp on reality.

That left the giant ballpipe, or any of the dozens of similar weapons in the archive which were all basically variations on the same thing. It wasn’t a death-metal based castle-busting super explosive, but it was without a doubt the single most powerful weapon in the kingdom. Unfortunately it was slow, not especially accurate, and they had precious little ammunition crafted for it. While the weapon did fire faster than one might have expected, it was still so slow that they would probably only have one shot at the dragon. A miss, or a misfire, and the dragon would be upon them before they could reload. To worsen matters, they were hesitant to practice with the weapon too much, lest someone hear or see the weapon firing and take word of it back to the dragon.

Ochsner had done some calculations after the Gnoman scout had located their test shot, but her math was only useful to a point. Ochsner could adjust the performance of the weapon by manipulating the weight of the rounds and the amount of powder in them, and she thought she could account for the effect of wind on the trajectory of the rounds. Unfortunately, she couldn't perform those calculations quickly - in the time it took her to figure out how to adjust the weapon, the wind whistling through the craggy peaks would have shifted. Furthermore, Ochsner thought their handmade rounds seemed to shake slightly coming out of the weapon. They didn’t bend and warp like an arrow or spear flying through the air, but they did seem to wobble, which made them fairly inaccurate, no matter how carefully one aimed. And of course, none of that considered the inherent challenge of hitting a moving target.

Right now, Kaira sat in the weapon’s seat, with her hands on the two cranks that manually controlled the weapon’s aim. Testing the controls, she’d quickly found that the weapon could not be aimed quickly. Minor adjustments were possibly, but the ballpipe would have trouble tracking a moving target that was fast or close. A dragon, unfortunately, would likely be both. It was fundamentally the same challenge she’d had fighting that bat-like woman at the Kerwyns’ estate in Gerault.

Kaira explained the problem to Ochsner and Thrakaduhl, “The shells travel a lot faster than any arrow, so that decreases the amount you need to lead a target – and that’s great – but because the rounds ‘wobble’ like you said, the further away the target is, the less accurate the weapon will be. No matter how finely I aim, the rounds’ trajectory will have a certain degree of random error and I will probably miss. Now, if we were aiming at massive columns of infantry on the ground, I’m sure the shells exploding on impact would make the error a non-issue. Bullseyeing a dragon in the air, though, will be a different matter.”

“Well, besides the impact charges and the phosphorous flares we were using for target practice, I have a shell that will detonate on a fuse,” Ochsner said, “We can set it to explode in the air so that you won’t have to hit her dead on.”

“I assume, though, that for that to work we’d have to fire when the target reaches a specific distance.”

“Yeah,” Ochsner frowned, “Otherwise the charge will blow too soon or too late.”

“And, like I said, it’ll need to be close,” Kaira said, “Really close. Even if we were willing to detonate shells over the town, that would still be too far. And the closer the target is, the stiller it needs to be, because this thing will not be able to track a moving target at close range. The thing does reload surprisingly fast for its size – I could tell that when we came up the ammunition belt, and your Gnoman crew is exemplary, especially considering the limited amount of time they’ve had to drill. But when it comes down to it, a mass of metal this size cannot be turned fast enough to track a moving airborne target.”

“Hm,” Thrakaduhl pondered, “We have a weapon with power to spare, but it’s not got the accuracy to hit our dragon while it’s on the wing.”

“Basically, yes,” Kaira said, “And from what Azraea’s reported, with the papers circulating and the king dead, the dragon could be headed our way anytime, ready and eager to burn your town to cinders.” Kaira sighed, “If we do use the shell that detonates in the air, will that be enough to kill her?” Kaira asked, “Without a direct hit?”

“The closer you get the more damage it will do,” Ochsner said, “But beyond that I can’t say; I don’t know how resilient dragons are. Still, I’m almost certain a close shot would ruin at least one of those ugly bat wings she has, and I’m just as certain she needs two to stay in the air.”

“You don’t reckon the fall would finish her off?” Thrakaduhl asked.

“That’s the sort of luck I don’t like to plan around,” Kaira sighed, “If that’s the way it’s going to go, we need to plan a follow up while we’ve got her down. Some sort of coup de gras. But that’s not easy. Supposedly, two hundred some years ago, Caelus IV and his knights actually cornered her inside Kingstown’s castle, where she couldn’t fly, and even they still weren’t able to kill her. And what do we have they didn’t? I’m flat out of ideas,” Kaira said, “Maybe I’m just tired, but I don’t see anything.”

 “I think I actually have a way to manage your finishing blow if you can ground her,” Ochsner said, “but I’ll need to go back to work on the Gnoman communication spells and see if there’s a way to amplify the noise they transmit. Are we officially done with the ballpipe?”

“Yes,” Kaira said, “Aside from loading your anti-air round, I don’t think any more can be done with this weapon… And given the upper limit of its accuracy, I’m sure you could fire it just as well as me.”

“Have you ever heard the phrase, shooting fish in a barrel?” Thrakaduhl suddenly asked.

Kaira laughed wearily, “No, why?”

“My mama taught me a fair bit about archery,” Thrakaduhl said, “Now, lots of people these days, they just learn to shoot at targets for sport but she wanted to teach me the real thing, and ultimately that means being able to hit a moving target. And a bird on the wing is just about the most challenging thing you can manage.”

“Yeah,” Kaira said, “but really there’s no amount of skill that’s going to do that for this weapon. It’s not a bow.”

Thrakaduhl held up a hand to ask her to bear with him, “When you teach a child to shoot, you can’t jump from cans on a fence to birds in the sky. You need to find things they can practice with in between; things that are slower or things that can’t move as freely.”

“Fish in a barrel?” Ochsner asked.

“Fish in a barrel,” Thrakaduhl nodded, “When my mama wanted me to learn how to shoot fast, she filled a barrel with water and fish from the river, and then she’d have me stand over the barrel with my bow, rile them up, and then have me shoot. It’s a rather fond memory for me actually. She used to cook them right on the arrow, when were done."

“Okay, dear, that’s a sweet and touching story, and I’m glad you shared it with me,” Kaira said, “But you’re going to have to bring it home for me. How does this apply to our dragon?”

“Well, the fish moved quickly, darting back and forth, but because of the confined space, they couldn’t move at full speed. More importantly, I didn’t have to adjust my aim much to track them as they swam back and forth in the barrel,” Thrakaduhl said, “Hitting a fish in a barrel is less about moving your bow, and more about learning to shoot at the right moment.” 

“Okay,” Kaira nodded, “We can’t aim the gun much, but like Ochsner said, we can fire it quick when the time is right. But where are we going to find a barrel big enough for a dragon?”

“And,” Ochsner added, “How are we going to get it to climb in?”

“I do believe I have a solution to both of those problems,” Thrakaduhl smiled as he looked at the small valley behind them, “But I’ll need one of Ochsner’s extra shells, and perhaps two or three of the Mudfangs that live down in the valley.”

Chapter 11 (Part I): Fallout Plan

Verax probably had more confidence in Azraea’s abilities than any of her co-conspirators, but Azraea’s plan risked far more than her own life – it risked the success of Verax’s operation in Caelia. If Azraea’s plan failed, the dragon would consolidate her power in Caelia, and then it wouldn’t be long before she launched a war against the Gnoman Empire. She'd already laid the groundwork for it, stirring antipathy against Verax's people, and although she couldn't possibly raise an army powerful enough to challenge the might of the empire's Dexter Legions, she herself could devastate the northern territories of the empire, killing thousands of people. Preventing that was Verax’s top priority, and he had to leave as little to chance as possible, taking drastic measures if necessary.

True, it hadn’t been Verax’s only mission in Caelia. Besides securing the dwarven citadel, putting someone cooperative and friendly to the Gnoman Empire on Caelia’s throne was also one of Verax’s objectives. The empire needed neighbors – preferably vassals – that were sharp enough to run things in their own kingdoms without being micromanaged, yet humble enough to put the welfare of a collective society ahead of their own personal ambition. Verax had overturned multiple regimes at this point, and had developed a pretty long list of things that don’t work. His main sources for new leadership had been political circles, religious organizations, major businesses, and military forces. There were a few gleaming gems in every case, but they were always the exception to the rule.

Military commanders and businessmen alike were efficient, but overly focused on the bottom-line when it came to running their states – they might have some understanding of morale, but few of them fully grasped the idea that their subjects were not intrinsically motivated to follow their orders. Politicians and religious leaders both understood the unruliness of a people, but had their own faults. Politicians were groomed to focus on getting power and maintaining it – actually accomplishing anything with that power was, by necessity, an afterthought. Religious leaders – sincere ones, anyway – always had some mercurial set of beliefs that could become a problem at the most inconvenient of times, and always had an unbridgeable gulf between themselves and at least a portion of their subjects. And in most cases, leaders under pressure would fall back on what they knew – soldiers resorted to violence, entrepreneurs resorted to eliminating ‘bad employees’, and politicians resorted to bullshit. Oddly, the religious sort could be counted on to resort to any one of those three, seemingly at random.

So in Caelia, Verax had taken an interest in academia. Scholars were highly knowledgeable, hardworking people of low status – that held some promise. Unfortunately, most of the obvious candidates, the deans, tenured professors, and such had fantastically big egos for people of such low status in society overall. It may have been compensatory, but it made them as difficult to work with as anyone else.

But Azraea was fresh out of the academic mill, with a low class, salt-of-the-earth background and no significant connections to the kingdom’s existing power-players. ‘Humble’ might not be the right word to describe her, but whatever ego she had, she had come by honestly. And from the moment she had stepped out of one world into another, ‘Vinny’ had been there, reliable, friendly, and indispensable.

Vinny had stepped in and rescued her from a sexual predator, becoming the hero-of-the-day before Azraea would have been capable of gutting and incinerating the man herself. Had Verax known what a spectacular introduction it would be for Vinny, he might have staged the altercation deliberately, but unlike most things Verax did, his initial meeting with Azraea had been a matter of blind luck. That she came as a package deal with a demographically diverse party, including a trained fighter and a genius polymath, had simply made the whole thing all the more incredible. Ochsner, especially, was a high value asset. If everything else went sideways, Vidi had orders to drop everything else and take the dwarf south to the Gnoman Empire – forcibly, if necessary.

He tried to remember that luck was all that had brought his path across theirs. It was tempting to think of it as more – to think of it as fate – but fate was something he engineered for others, not something he followed. Nevertheless, among the various assets Verax had groomed, these three would likely always stand out as special in his mind, because he hadn’t scouted them with the same methodical approach he’d used in all of his years as a Left Hand. 
Verax had overridden that sentimentality, however, when he slipped out of the city and retrieved his backup plan. There’d been no way to haul Meingen's device through the submerged southern entrance that he had used to infiltrate the city, but after learning that Schroeder’s men controlled the small northern entrance to the city, it hadn’t been too difficult to get the weapon into the city. Verax had hoped he’d never see the weapon used, but if a city had to be reduced to ash, it was better that it be Kingstown than Gnoma.