Dragon Royale 2: An Urban Fantasy Adventure Page 4

  “My cat says there are two of you. Is that true?”

  The gruff man laughed. “No one here but me and Raven.”

  “Your wolf is named after a bird?” I said with surprise.

  “Nay, young friend. The birds are named after him.”

  I took a risk and glanced around the bulge of the tree to get a look at the guy. Gray hair tumbled in bunches from a military-looking cap, but his unruly silver ZZ Top beard didn’t seem up to code in any military outfit. The man sat among some weeds and saplings up against the trunk, so it was hard to see the rest of him.

  His wolf watched me from his side like an obedient dog.

  “We’re coming out.” I motioned for Tex to go around the tree the other way. If this was some elaborate ruse, I didn’t want to make it easy for him.

  The man chuckled. “I’ll wait right here, if you don’t mind.”

  I was almost next to the sitting figure when I caught sight of gleaming metal in the weeds. The huge double-bladed axe seemed dull and unpolished, and the wooden shaft was poorly wrapped with leather hide like the adhesive had come loose on a tennis racket handle. The weapon looked as old and tired as the man.

  There were several empty glass bottles yards behind the guy, as if he’d tossed them over his shoulder. One was a big frosted vodka bottle with yellow lettering I recognized from one of my shit-ass foster parents, but there were also a couple green soda bottles. If he had a shopping cart with a busted wheel, he would fit in back home with the bums behind the gas station.

  “Come over where I can see you.” The man pointed to a spot near his wolf friend.

  When I didn’t move, he seemed to know why. “He won’t bite unless I tell him.”

  “Did you kill those players?” I asked.

  “Wasn’t me. Come round and talk to me like a man.”

  The implication pissed me off. “You’ll regret fucking with us if this is a trap.” I stepped out in the open with my gun pointed at the ground between me and him.

  “There, that’s better.” He gave me a once-over. “Oh, my.”

  “What?” I asked as if insulted.

  “At least I know it wasn’t you that did this to me.” He pointed to his nose and forehead. I’d missed his injuries walking up from behind him, but it was clear he’d been attacked in the face. I also missed his non-human qualities. His skin was gray almost to the point of being blue. It was hard to describe his nose, other than broken and covered in black-red blood, but his frog-like green eyes sat in their sockets like a couple of shiny marbles. He was large like Lord Bart, but not nearly as ugly.

  “You and your companion both smell, but her odor is much sweeter.” The gray-haired man nodded toward Tex. She was still around the bend in the tree, so I could see her, but the man could not.

  “You must be Leftovers,” he said matter-of-factly, “from before this place came to be.

  “We are here with the game,” I replied as I waved Tex to come closer. “And we’ll kill you if you try to harm us.”

  The man guffawed for several seconds then started coughing like it was too much activity for him. When he settled down, he spit out some blood as if angry at his condition. “It’s been a long time since I was threatened like that. What are your names, so we may be properly met in this damned forest?”

  I was going to reply, but he kept talking.

  “I am General Anton Rashevski of the Endless Imperium. Forgive me for not rising to accept your salute, but as you can see, I am not well.”

  “No problem,” I replied. “This is my friend Andi, Tex, Texford of the Ohio region of the American, uh, empire. I am Matt Radogain, also of the Ohio region of the American Empire.” It was evident the man wasn’t from America, so he couldn’t possibly know America was pretty much a wasteland now.

  “Forgive me, Lady Tex, for not standing in the presence of such beauty.”

  She tipped her cowboy hat and smiled, exposing her missing canine. “Howdy, general.”

  “And a warrior, too. It looks like you’ve been in some fights.” He pointed to her mouth.

  “I’ve survived a world war,” she said dryly.

  “Of course. I only meant it as a compliment. War has come to us all. It always does.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” she finally said.

  “And you have one other?” he asked. “I heard you three talking long before you found me.”

  I didn’t see any point in arguing what he already knew. “Jo Pak is my other squire. She hails from the Korean Empire.” As long as I was making shit up, why not add some flavor. Jo was just as American as I, but it might keep the old general from figuring us out right away.

  Standing there looking at him, I didn’t believe he could possibly have cut up those three players, but when I noticed the bloody knife next to his leg I had second thoughts.

  “You better tell us what you’re doing here. What happened to those people?”

  I pointed my gun at him to get some answers.

  His wolf snarled to protect its master.

  ***

  “Down, Raven. They mean no harm.” The general used a soothing voice on his wolf that was much nicer than the one he used with me.

  “Dammit, I just want to know who killed those players, so I can avoid the same fate. Do you know anything, or not?”

  Anton tapped his head against the tree trunk behind him. “I know but little. I will tell you what I can.”

  “Thank you,” I replied.

  “I’ve fought in countless battles, my young friend. You have no idea. When the dragon cracked out of its shell, I had already won my first campaign as part of my father’s army. We conquered the Aleusids, or perhaps it was the Amortans. I can’t keep them all straight.”

  Anton stared out into the woodlands for a few moments.

  “After my father died, I conquered the Swix Empire in five months. He tried a dozen different times and failed. I was in the sky over the Trubian’s last fortress city when we ended the Fifteenth Elf War. Our mages crafted the mother of all fireballs to wipe it off the map! I helped—”

  “With all due respect, general, we’re in a hurry.” I didn’t need a history lesson.

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m old, as you can tell. I’ve seen war from every angle, for my whole life. My point was to explain that just when you think you are on top of the world, some youngster comes in and ruins it for you.”

  “Me?” I said with surprise.

  “No, knight, I do not think it was you, but it was a young man who did this to me.” He pointed to his ruined face.

  “How did it happen, fine sir?” Tex pleaded in a polite voice.

  Anton pointed a thick, dirty finger at my cowgirl. “I like her. Very polite.”

  She smirked at me with pride as sure as if she’d been awarded a medal.

  “I walked Raven along the banks of this creek, heading home, as you see it now. Calm. Peaceful. Nothing stirring in this hidden forest. But someone waited for us to pass by. Then—bam!” He clapped his meaty hands together, which made a loud echo in the quiet forest.

  “What was it?” I pressed.

  “I was struck down by a man’s head,” he replied with incredulity. “The no-good attacker got behind me, swung a dead man’s severed head by its hair, and hit me in the face with such force I was knocked out cold.” He sounded beaten.

  “For me, a death like this has about the same honor as falling down a well. I shall starve and be hunted by the denizens of this forest until I am taken down a final time. No one will care about all my medals, campaigns, and heroics. If I am remembered at all, it will only be this sad death.”

  “The wound doesn’t seem that bad,” I said to be encouraging. “Maybe we can fix you up.”

  “Nay, I am not the one who caught the brunt of the attack. When I fell, Raven continued to defend me. We’ve been through many campaigns together, and we would each die to protect the other, but our fighting days are over.”

  “He’s alive, too,” I sai
d as if he’d missed the wolf sitting nearby. “You both made it, right?”

  “Show ‘em your leg, Raven.”

  The giant wolf held up his right leg, as if Anton had asked him for a handshake.

  “Oh, fuck,” I exclaimed.

  “Fuck, indeed,” Anton quickly replied.

  The wolf’s leg was cleanly severed not far above the ankle. If he healed completely it might be possible to hobble on the shorter leg, but he would never be combat-capable. That seemed to be the standard Anton sought.

  “I’m sorry he’s hurt,” I added. “If it means anything, I have a cat friend. I’d be sad if something ever happened to him.”

  Anton pointed to the creek. “Raven warned me about your feline friend. That thing is very good, I might add. In our old age we didn’t notice him until it was too late to secure a better hiding spot.”

  “How long have you been here?” I asked. “When did these people die?”

  “I’m a general, not a mortician, friend. My attack happened after sunrise today, and right down there by the creek. I woke up and carried Raven to this hidden spot to decide what to do next.”

  He picked up the bloody knife. “I used this to lop off his ruined foot. I think he fought the urge to howl to keep me from turning this knife on myself. I could not bear to see my companion in such torment.”

  The old general was an emotional wreck. His pained and wrinkled face looked like it was set up to cry, but his ancient tear ducts were unable to drain out the sadness.

  “And now even Leftovers can get the drop on me.” He tossed the knife into the dirt, but it hit at an odd angle and fell flat on the ground. Anton shook his head and sneered at the impotent knife. “That’s why.”

  “We’re not Leftovers,” I said.

  “You dress like them, but who am I to judge, anymore? This world is unraveling at speeds we never dreamed of when we were campaigning for the crown. Now, we campaign for the dragon. Everything changes, right? The young bucks coming up want to prove they can deliver to their new master.”

  Jo jumped on the link. “Two airborne targets.”

  I looked above and confirmed the shapes passed over our heads way above the trees. It reminded me of two search helicopters.

  The general saw me and noticed the shapes, too.

  “You better go,” Anton advised. “They are probably looking for me. I have one last battle that must be fought…”

  ***

  “No, they are more likely looking for us,” I replied. “We don’t exactly play by the rules.” It wasn’t our fault Ivona came looking for a fight, but we’d pay the price for killing her if anyone discovered what we’d done.

  One of his blood-soaked eyebrows rose up. “Really? Is that why you dress in the garb of civilians?”

  “Uh, yeah,” I said. I wasn’t going to tell a general how unprepared I was at the start.

  “Still. You should go. They will catch one of us this day. Of that, I am willing to bet my last ribbon.” He pointed to a brilliant orange scrap of cloth affixed to his grimy canvas shirt. At one time, it might have been a uniform.

  “Tex, will you come here for a second?” I motioned for my friend to come around the tree.

  “Will you excuse us?” I added for the general.

  “Good luck,” he said with a casual wave.

  “We aren’t leaving,” I said in a low voice.

  “We aren’t?” Tex said with surprise.

  “Just come here,” I told her.

  When we got around to the far side of the giant tree trunk, I crouched down with my phone.

  “I need you to cover me while I do something here.”

  She looked at my phone, then out into the woods. “I’ll do what I can. Jo’s doing the real work.”

  “You both do real work, Tex. Now watch.”

  I dug into the drawing program and tried my best to draw Raven. I made sure to highlight the severed foot with red blotches. Ever since I changed Banger from a robot into a hybrid of a real cat and a metal one, I’d been thinking about how useful it would be if I could modify physical features of living flesh. This seemed like the perfect time to test the theory.

  I was going to give the wolf a new foot.

  First, I tried drawing the foot right onto the severed stump, figuring the magic would know that I envisioned the wolf had never lost its foot in the first place. As soon as I completed the image, a flash appeared on my screen. However, it was just a new message in my text inbox.

  On a hunch, I checked what the message said. ‘Unable to complete: Flesh Medicine required.’

  “Well, fuck balls. It says I need a different magic for this.”

  Tex glanced at me for a second, but returned to her watch.

  I tried again, not willing to give up so easily. This time I blotted out all the art I’d drawn by his foot, then carefully extended the existing leg down until a foot formed below it. The impression I gave it was that the leg was extending itself downward. It spoke to the conservation of mass and all those magical problems I ran into back in the day when I played with my tabletop friends.

  Another message appeared in my inbox: ‘Unable to complete: Flesh Medicine required.’

  “Fff,” I said as I bit my lip. To ensure the texts were legit, I leaned around the tree and confirmed there were no changes to the wolf. I figured it would be hopping like a pup if it suddenly grew a new leg.

  It gave me another idea. I tried to erase the whole leg, then put a new one back in the same spot.

  Same message.

  “Tex, what the fuck am I doing wrong here? The app keeps telling me my magic isn’t right, but I did more than a small foot when I changed Banger.”

  “Banger was on your team. This wolf has no attachment to you, me, or Jo. Why are you even trying to do this?”

  I clicked my teeth as I thought about why I wanted to help a lame wolf and his old master. I’d spent my whole life bouncing around the foster system. Sometimes I’d spend time with a family I wished I could stay at, and others I ended up in families that had no business being around kids. This guy seemed OK, because he took care of his pet.

  “If we help him get back on his feet, maybe he’ll give us a big reward. That’s how these character interactions always work in the games.”

  “But Matt—”

  “I know. This isn’t a video game. If we leave him, maybe he’ll turn us in later.”

  Jo hit me on the link. “I hear the witches, Matt. They found Ivona because of some kind of magic that releases when they, uh, we die. We should have buried her.”

  “Crap!” I didn’t have a mind cut out for criminal endeavors like hiding bodies. “Well, we couldn’t have known that.”

  “I guess,” she replied distantly.

  “Thanks, Jo. And they’ll probably follow the severed bodies right to us. Rally at this tree when you can. We’re moving out.” I logged off the link, suddenly sure the old man could help us.

  To Tex, I went on. “I don’t control the wolf, or Anton, nor do I want to. However, I do have an idea for what I can do for Raven even without any relationship.

  I walked around in a small circle until I found what I wanted, then I got to drawing. After I was done, I was stoked as hell to see it worked. When I showed Tex, she gave me a thumbs-up sign. When I showed Anton, his face filled with confusion.

  “It’s a wooden leg, sized for a wolf,” I said as I held it sideways so he had a better view.

  “I’ll be damned. You made that just now? I’m impressed, boy.”

  “Can you help me put it on your wolf?” I asked.

  “Why do you want to do this thing? Even with his foot, we will slow you young folk down to a crawl. You say you are with the Dragon Royale, and I’ll take you at your word, but it means you are killing and fighting and running. As much as I would love to be a part of something like that one last time, my bones have had enough.”

  “What are you going to do? Stay here until he dies? Let me get this thing on Raven and we c
an see what happens, OK?”

  “Oh, what the hell.” He whistled and Raven hobbled on three legs over to his master. “Lay down, boy.” Anton pointed to a patch of weeds where he had the room to spread.

  “This may hurt,” I said to the general.

  “We are used to pain,” he said sadly.

  I reached down with the apparatus and held it next to the panting wolf. I had no idea how to judge the age of wolves, but tufts of hair were missing from its bristly coat of fur like they’d fallen out or were lost in battle a long time ago.

  “I’m sorry.” I slung the wooden leg’s brace over the intact part of Raven’s leg, then tied off the straps to keep it there. The big wolf tensed up as if the pain was bad, but I was impressed with its discipline.

  Anton grunted from time to time and sweated like a mofo as if he suffered his friend’s pain.

  “Please hurry, young knight. He is nearing his limit.” The tired general spoke like he was exhausted.

  I got the last latch secure and hopped back.

  The general looked at me with a question on his face.

  “Give it a try,” I suggested.

  “Up, boy,” he said to the old wolf.

  Raven had no trouble getting to a sitting position, but it hesitated before putting any weight on its bad leg.

  “It’s OK,” I said. “Give it a try.”

  Raven looked at me and then slowly turned to its master as if to confirm I wasn’t crazy. Anton backed me up and nodded his head.

  The wolf put the wooden leg to the ground and put his weight on it. At first, I thought the wolf was going to yelp in pain, but it took a few guarded steps instead.

  “I can’t believe it,” the old man finally said as he, too, got to his feet. “He’s a fair way to being whole.”

  I was proud as shit with my solution. The straps were designed to take all the weight of the leg and keep it off the bottom part where the nerves and bone stuck out. When I really thought about it, there was no other way to make a suitable leg brace for this application. If we could find a veterinarian, or whatever this area called them, we could try to remove the pain from the cut forever.

  Jo came running around the tree to the surprise of us all.

  She spoke a little out of breath. “There are witches everywhere behind us as well as some winged creatures I do not recognize. We should move.”