“Oops.” I poked the unconscious woman at my feet. “Maybe we just don’t mention it?”

  “Tracker in the armour. It’ll report if she’s alive and where she is. All the rich bastards use them. Makes arranging ransoms easier.”

  “Shit. Well, Tim, what do you think we should do?”

  The orlic in a lab coat glanced at Jardin, who shrugged with a clank of armour.

  “I could—”

  “No, you can’t turn her into a zombie. In fact, why don’t you go and follow the wannabe war criminals? You can mass-zombify the bodies, right?”

  “Can I? I mean, I can, but am I allowed?”

  “Go wild. We’re still hugely outnumbered.”

  “Excellent.” It wasn’t quite Mr Burns, but it wasn’t far off. He turned and bolted away as though he was scared I’d change my mind. I caught sight of him adjusting the settings on his pistols before he leapt from the top of the wall, firing with both guns at the same time.

  “You needed me?”

  “Nim! Any chance you can fix this woman up?” I poked my prisoner with a claw, eliciting a groan of pain.

  “Bob! Bulb’s mercy, did you change your mind about eating her halfway through and decide to prolong her agony?”

  “No! Bumbanger was having a go at her when I got him to withdraw so the ground troops could move in.”

  “So, likely infected. What spells were used to heal her?” I gave her the list. “I didn’t think you had any healing spells. It always struck me as a stupid decision not to learn.”

  Visions of Esme’s bleeding body, pierced through with a cruel steel barb, flashed before my eyes, and I growled. Purple sparks fell from my eyes to mix with the golden ones I excreted from, well, everywhere.

  “I realised that a while ago.”

  “Plena Sanitatem! Plena Sanitatem! Plena Sanitatem!” Nim chanted, silvery lights drifting from the sigil that looked remarkably like the red cross symbol surrounded by a grey circle. I moved my head in close to get a better look.

  New Synteticus acquired!

  Plena Sanitatem

  “How long will it take?” I asked, just before an armoured foot came up to smack my snout away. Eleanor was on her feet in a second and had grabbed Nim by her hair. A dagger appeared from somewhere and was pressed against Nim’s throat.

  “Nothing's ever bloody easy, and no one has any gratitude any more. The lady you’re holding hostage just saved your life… lady.” My banter skill must have decreased.

  “I demand the rights due to my rank and birth,” Eleanor snapped.

  “Like breathing?”

  “Is that a threat? Threatening a high-born hostage is against the conduct of a gentleman.”

  “Do I look like a gentleman to you?”

  Her eyes panned down the scaled length of my body, then back to my equine head. Nim’s eyes never left mine. She looked terrified, her cheeks drained of colour, but weirdly calm. Some plan was forming in her head, I was sure of it. The problem was that the knife looked pretty sharp, and Eleanor looked half-crazed.

  “Breathing is not only my right, but it’s your duty to ensure I continue to do so.”

  “I didn’t mean breathing wasn’t a right, but like, what other rights do you get when you’re born? Food maybe? And if you get food, then definitely the right to poop. But lots of babies starve.”

  Both of them looked briefly sad at the thought.

  “They do,” Nim whispered, a tear trickling down her cheek.

  “What is wrong with you people? Either return me to my father or find me suitable accommodation and a maid servant until you negotiate a ransom,” Eleanor declared as rage replaced sorrow.

  “You need to stop menacing my healer before we do anything, Miss de Fallade.”

  “Not until I have your assurances as a peer of the realm that I will be treated appropriately.”

  “I liked her a lot more when she was unconscious.” Nim moved to nod and agree, but then thought better of it as the edge of the knife bit into her skin and a trickle of blood began to flow.

  “How dare you! I am a delight!” The muscles on her forearm tensed as though she were about to cut, but a blade erupted through her shoulder, slicing through her armour.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  It looked nasty. I mean, the arm was still attached, kind of, but I didn’t think my new healing spell was going to do much to help. Floppy.

  Nim spun and pulled back her foot.

  “Does that work on women as well?” I asked in shock after a vicious kick to the groin had been administered.

  “Yes! Take the rest of the arm, Lockso, it will have to be regrown later.”

  The shadows that had shifted slightly with the attack on my prisoner resolved into the captain of the Fighting Dolphins wiping the woman’s blood from his dagger. He stooped down and sliced through the rest of the flesh, severing the limb.

  “Plena Sanitatem! Plena Sanitatem! Plena Sanitatem!” Nim chanted once again. Then, for good measure, she administered another kick between the legs, just as Eleanor’s eyes snapped open.

  “You ok?” Lockso muttered in his low voice.

  Nim nodded and wiped at the line of blood on her neck. “That’s the last heal she’s getting from me.” The cleric stalked off towards the wall to join the battle, a simple wooden staff appearing in her right hand that she spun menacingly.

  Lockso began to dissolve into shadows again.

  “Hang on, did you really need to maim her like that?”

  “Different world, Bob. Here, if you don’t acknowledge their rights, they’re allowed to fight back. Now she can’t fight.”

  He vanished as Eleanor sat up awkwardly around the pain in her middle from the kicking Nim had administered, trying to use an arm that was no longer attached for leverage. She looked down at it lying next to her, looked up at me, looked back down, then screamed.

  It wasn’t pain or fear. It was the sound of a toddler having their favourite toy taken away.

  “You utter shit! Do you know how expensive it is to regrow a fucking arm? I had so many enchanted tattoos! They aren’t cheap either. That’s going to come out of my ransom; there was no need to maim me.”

  “You took Nim hostage!”

  “She’s just a peasant. They don’t matter.”

  “I can tell I’m not going to like you.” I lunged forward and snatched her up, wrapping a set of claws around her torso and scooping her to my chest. This usually put people in their place; a quick trip into the air, dangling from a paw, was a remarkable way to change someone's attitude.

  As we cleared the buildings, her scream rang out, high and clear, and this time, very much afraid. I smiled as I rose upwards, wings pounding the air. I aimed for the shadowy shapes of dragons far above and took Eleanor for a little ride.

  The battle was going well. We’d done a hell of a lot of damage, but this Comte de Fallade had brought a lot of troops. Actinic flashes shot across from our lines to the enemies as the bunnyborgs opened fire with their mana-cannons, slicing into the enemy ranks that had formed up and rushed to reinforce the units we had torn apart at the beginning.

  The faint cry of a love for genocide reached my ears as the orlics and dwarves charged on opposite flanks. I should probably promote whoever had been bright enough to keep them apart in the fighting. The dwarves stomped forward steadily, mechs and flamethrower-armed ranged units in the lead, followed by tight squads of stunties armed with maces and axes.

  The orlics just screamed and charged. A variety of makeshift weapons were held above their heads, or they just brandished bare fists. They didn’t care. Interspersed among the bad kind of horde were the spidery robo-arms of mod docs, shooting darts at the enemy that made men scream and melt, or jabbing needles into their allies that made them move faster, their muscles swelling.

  At the front of the green wave, Geeku in his final form barreled into the enemy and the humans were brushed aside. He ignored the spears that poked him, occasionally taking a break from using his enemies as improvised clubs or punching them into clouds of red mist to yank a few crossbow bolts or arrows that had lodged in his swollen flesh.

  Soon, the bunnies would get in close and start making people-sculptures. This whole day had been a wash for me, karmically speaking.

  “Chi, the rest of you, you see the rear lines? Where the mages are flinging spells at our guys?”

  “Your guys,” sniffed Bargleblaster.

  “Shut it, Beetlebooper. You see them?”

  I received grunts of acknowledgement. Satisfied, I took a breath. This was going to be yet another ethical fuck up, but that town was mine, kind of.

  “Whose the meat?” asked Jace. “If you’re not hungry…”

  “She’s a hostage.”

  “So why’s she up here?

  “She pissed me off.”

  “I think she pissed herself.”

  “It might be blood.” They all swung their heads to look at me like I was a monster. “Nim kicked her in the goolies after this one tried to take her prisoner! I didn’t do it.” The scream from Eleanor increased in volume as I wafted her about to make my point. “Back to the issue at claw! Back rows, go bomb kill, feast, douse them in poop! Fly my pretties!”

  I think I needed a break from all the battles. As three dragons stooped towards the enemy rear lines and one flapped over at altitude to spit balls of red fire down at them, Chi gave me a disapproving look. I gave her the finger, nearly dropping Eleanor in the process and began to circle down towards the battle.

  I just wanted to get rich. Stupid civil war. Not my fault, I didn’t know that I’d start it by taking over Longbottom. All this killing, while it was good for biomass and shinies, I’d rather just… Ah shit. Next time I got a minute, Esme was going to want to go fetch the egg. Maybe war wasn’t so bad after all?

  I circled, drawing a lot of magical and ranged fire due to the trail of sparkle I left like Tinkerbell on an acid trip. I tried to keep as much of Eleanor covered as I could, and my evasive manoeuvres didn’t sit well with her stomach. My scales could ignore arrows and crossbow bolts, even a glancing hit from a ballista, which happened more than once, but getting puke out of the little gaps between each scale was going to be a pain in the ass.

  I passed low over the centre of the battle, where the bunnies were just getting started on their macabre art.

  “Missa Vivica!”

  The bodies, and parts thereof, that were scattered between the surviving humans suddenly lurched and moved.

  “Kill the humans!” I screamed, and the corpses all turned on their former allies.

  “You monster!” Eleanor yelled up at me. I skimmed low and dangled her close to the ground before I cupped my wings and traded speed for altitude.

  “I’m not the shadow lover here, lady. You guys were going to sack the town, a town that I own a little part of.”

  “We just wanted access to the portal network, you ass!”

  “So you were going to steal my brain child and use it for evil! Well, at least you admit it.” I snorted in triumph, then a thought hit me.

  I had portals in Longbottom, Fiddler’s Mill, and Ankmapak, all of which led back to my dungeon and my precious hoard. I needed to finish this up fast and get my army back on the defensive.

  “I challenge you to single combat, you foul, disgusting, degenerate beast! Come die on my blades, you cowardly reptile! None of your minions can stand before me!” That was ruder than it needed to be, in my opinion. Wrath and Vanity both agreed.

  “Oh, Dad. This is going to be so embarrassing,” Eleanor muttered.