Just buy a pub and begin to expand your business empire, Bob. Everything is in place, and all you need to do is avoid starting the civil war early. It’ll be easy, Bob.

  It seemed simple when phrased like that. In practice, I had managed to fuck up. I spread my feathery wings of midnight and took to the skies. No guard could chase me down, and unless the nearby town was hiding a particularly powerful mage, I was in the clear. Time to get the hell out of dodge and think about what I’d done. Visions of the dressing down I was going to get from Kat ran through my mind, and I resolved to have Tim make me one of those dick-defenders urgently.

  The House of Pratnip has declared for House Bob.

  The House von Kolbens has declared for House Bob.

  The House of Foreverknot has declared against House Bob.

  The House of Nardshire has declared for House Bob.

  The House of Gigglesworth has declared against House Bob.

  The House of Sparrowfeet has declared against House Bob.

  The list went on and on. Names I didn’t know, representing territories I couldn’t find on a map, all picking a side in the Bob versus… I assumed Hateskale must have an heir, and he or she was now out for my blood. Or more importantly, out for my land.

  The human urge to run away and pretend it was all a misunderstanding or an accident vanished. Wrath and greed shook hands with each other in my head and united against the puny-mammal version of Bob. These bastards were going to come and take what was mine. Nobody steals from a dragon.

  I had gained some height, the town falling away on the other side of the river, and I sipped a wing into a steep turn as I began to descend, aiming to pay my old friends Mike and Vargo another visit.

  I slammed down into the ground outside the city gate, scattering the traders and farmers, sending them running for their lives. Stupid mammals. I wasn’t planning on eating them.

  “Gentlemen,” I growled. The pair of bruised and bloody guards pressed themselves against their gatehouse and shot terrified looks at me as my serpentine neck curled down to bring the dentistry to bear. “You recognise my voice, yes?” My tongue flickered in and out, and the taste of fear in the air was a heady scent that filled something primal inside me with a sense of glee.

  “Yes!” Vargo squeaked. “Look, I’m sorry about before. How about I split the day's takings with you? Dragons like shiny things, right?”

  Mike stood frozen, sweat dripping down his pale face.

  “I do like gold. A lot.”

  “Ok, ok! Hang on!” Vargo leaned over the windowsill into the guardhouse and pulled out a lockbox. He flipped the lid open and started shuffling the coins inside into two piles. I reached over with a single tail and pushed the lid closed as I wrapped the tin with suckers and tugged it out of his hands. It vanished into my belly pouch.

  “Oh, that’s fair. I mean, half was probably a bit low, right? Makes sense that a magnificent, beautiful dragon like you should have the lot,” Vargo babbled. He smiled tentatively at me and backed up to join Mike against the wall.

  “Consider this a change of management, and I have a very different concept of how a gatehouse should be run. From now on, there will be no entrance fees; your job is simply to guard the gate and check for illegal goods. You’re here to keep the peace, and you're paid a salary. No more grift.” My head snaked forward, and my tongue flickered out, close to their faces. “I’ve got your tastes now. There is no place on Helstat you can run to where I cannot find you, and you can’t run faster than I can fly. Am I making myself clear?” The lie probably sounded plausible to the terrified guards. And why would they want to take the risk?

  The pair looked at each other for a moment, then brought shaking hands to their foreheads in awkward salutes. “Yes, sir!” they said at the same time.

  “Good. Now, where the fuck is your soon-to-be ex-boss? I need to kick out the guard or force them to surrender.” They gave me hurried instructions, and I left them with a firm reminder not to fuck with me. If they ran, I wouldn’t bother chasing them, and I’d be replacing the bastards with bunnyborgs soon enough anyway.

  I rose ponderously into the air, beating my wings hard to fly low and slow. The citizens scurried for cover as I drifted over them like a scaly blimp, my head swivelling back and forth to look for anyone suicidal enough to take a shot at me.

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  Something stirred in my mind. Something primal and arrogant as I watched the squishy mortal run in terror at the sight of me. I’d been too nice, too human and sometimes you’ve got to let your inner lizard shine.

  The downdraft from my beating wings cleared the smog away as I passed, revealing the stains and soot marks of years of neglect on the houses below. I settled gently to the ground outside the bunker-like guardhouse three buildings down from the now merrily aflame mayoral manor.

  Oops. I’d put a load of people to sleep in there before I set it on fire. I shrugged, dismissing the thought with reptilian coldness and turned my attention to the idiots pointing crossbows at me from behind the bars that lined the windows of the squat, heavily reinforced building.

  “Those aren’t going to work on me, dudes,” I growled. One of the bows thwanged and a bolt skittered across my face. “Hollyberry and Hateskale are dead, Mike and Vargo have bent the knee. Surrender and leave if you want. Or I’ll eat you, it’s your choice.” I gave them a saurian smile.

  “How do we know you won’t eat us anyway?” called a voice from within the guardhouse.

  “Good point, Klip! This is hardly a relationship based on mutual trust and respect. This is a very unhealthy way to approach a confrontation. It’s presupposing violence from the outset that makes it very difficult for us to negotiate in good faith.”

  I blinked slowly at this response.

  “Excellent points, Reg!” replied the first speaker. Why was it always a bloody Reg? Was there a guild or some ancient bylaw or something that required every Reg I met in the wild to be a pain in the ass? “In light of the power imbalance, which is being oppressively used to abuse us, I’d like to add, it seems like a very immature approach to take in a situation that could easily be resolved by an open yet challenging conversation between reasonable beings.”

  “You’re calling me childish, and saying I’m being a bully?” I asked, glaring at the window I had identified as concealing the next Edible-Reg.

  “Well, the Captain does that as well, Klip, to be fair. How many times has he docked your pay because you were slow on your patrols? He had me whipped for failing the last physical!” replied Reg.

  “I agree! This seems to me to be a between a rock and a hard place situation for us poor guards. The Captain is a tyrant, and keeping quiet about the slaves below is a moral quandary I’ve been struggling with.”

  “Likewise, Kilp. If any word of it got out among the peons, it would make our lives extremely difficult, especially if they found out we were complicit in the foul trade, at least to the extent that we kept the secret and didn’t do anything to help those poor people.”

  “Shut up, you two!”

  To my surprise, it wasn’t me that finally snapped at the babbling guards, but a man in heavy plate armour, holding a sword as tall as he was had stepped out of the main door, which hastily slammed shut behind him.

  “Yes, Captain! Sorry, Captain!” the pair chorused.

  “So you’re he?” I asked.

  “He who?” the armoured man replied as he moved forward carefully, sword held in both hands, tight against his chest. The blade waved like a flagpole behind him as he approached me.

  “I’m starting to see where that pair of idiots got it from,” I growled. I sent a jet of flames into the two windows the voices had come from, and stared impassively down at the knight until the death notifications pinged up in the corner of my vision. “I think I probably just did you a favour? How about you do me one and take off that silly armour? It’s like trying to eat a lobster whole, and while it doesn’t trouble my digestion, it ruins my culinary delight. It looks valuable, and I could probably get something on the resale for it.”

  “This armour has been in my family for generations. It was worn by my great-great-great-grandfather at the battle of Toegoo, when the Hateskale forces put paid to the Nambycot pretender and saved the Empire! It was at the van when the sixth Hammerbaan invaded, and it stood in the line at the battle of Tinklecreek when the Elves attacked to kidnap their princess, who Emperor Periwinkle had legit kidnapped first, fair and square!” he snarled. “Come, beast, come and die on the Holy Sword of Gurash, which slew the orlic warchief Hagglebrand at the battle of–”

  My jaws descended and closed over him, armour, sword and all. My fangs crunched into the metal to expose the delicious human meat within. I swallowed and poked at a lump of steel caught between my back teeth with my tongue.

  Biomass stored:

  261.7 KG

  Nearly enough for another level. I really needed to hunt and get some more evolutions, but first…

  “Anyone left alive in there? I know there is because I haven’t taken control of the town yet. I ate the Captain, by the way. Look, if you surrender, you can leave or keep your jobs, whichever you prefer. I’ve got my own people I can bring in if I need to. Bloke by the name of Hardprick. Apparently, there’s always been a Hardprick in the Longbottom?”

  “He knows the old legend!” a voice inside hissed. I chose not to disabuse them of this erroneous impression.

  “Yeah! Look, just surrender, will you? This can be the easiest feudal land grab in history if you guys just accept that I’m a bloody dragon and you can’t do shit to stop me.”

  The door opened a man in rusted chainmail was shoved through. He spun and kicked at the door as it slammed shut behind him, then slowly pivoted to face me, a sickly smile on his face.

  “You’ve got this, LT! Kick his ass!” The voice inside sniggered evilly after he spoke. If I recalled correctly, the concept of fragging, ‘accidentally’ killing an unpopular officer in the army, had been fairly common at certain times in history back on Earth. It seemed the troopers were using me as an opportunity to clean house.

  “Ah, Mr Dragon. I’m afraid I really must ask you to leave Longbottom. I expel you!” he waved a hand at me, then snapped it to his side as I leaned down for a closer look at him. Dishevelled blond hair under his chain coif, a simple sword on his hip. Broad shoulders and a straight nose.

  “Name?” I asked.

  “Defiant Flatulence, er, sir?”

  “No, the Captain hasn’t made it far enough through my guts for that.”

  “I meant that’s my name. My father was a Quaestor, sir.”

  “Ouch. Look, Flatulence, I’m not just a gust of wind passing through; I’m going to linger in the air. This is my town now. How about we go have a beer and discuss the terms of your surrender? As well as possibly changing your name by deed poll.”