“Who’s in charge here?” I demanded as I approached the southern barricade.

  “The hell happened to you?” demanded Hand. Lockso stared impassively, but Nimbra had bowed her head reverently.

  “The avenging photon,” she whispered. “Can it be true? Our lord has blessed you with such an artefact?”

  “Yes, and now I sparkle. I’d rather not talk about it. Where’s the officer, or NCO, in charge? I’m sure there’s going to be a guard here who is a bit of an ass and ends up getting eaten, so if they would like to step forward, we can save ourselves a bunch of time and just get it over with.”

  “Lord Champion, I’m Lieutenant Jardin of the Temple Guard. At your service.”

  I looked the woman up and down. Shiny armour, hammered out rather a lot at the top to accommodate her shapely physique, helm with a white mohawk of horse hair rising a foot over her head. Her troopers looked polished as well. Overall, I approved of the shininess. Maybe Bulb’s people weren’t so bad after all?

  “A pleasure. Lockso, where are the Bonkers?”

  “Salnia took them to the east gate. You’ve got a hundred cyberbunnies, the four of us, plus the guards here,” Hand said helpfully. He clenched and unclenched his fists, rolling them back and forth, and pushing his thick leather bracers up his forearms a little.

  “Jardin, what are your lot capable of?” I knew what the Fighting Dolphins could do. Lockso was an assassin/thief, Handock was a bruiser, Nimbra was a cleric, and Halefire was their reluctant ranger.

  “We are generally used for ceremonial purposes, but we can all fight up close,” Jardin said, a touch defensively.

  “Toy soldiers,” Hand muttered, nudging Nimbra, who glared at him.

  “Humans are so… ungraceful,” Halefire added.

  “We’re mostly level twenty or so, and there are fifty of us deployed along the southern front, Lord Champion.”

  “Just call me Bob. Righto, Lockso, let’s sic the bunnies on them and see how they react.”

  “There are a few thousand of them out there, boss,” replied the laconic team leader. I’d seen the enemy deployments from above earlier, albeit briefly, and the taciturn outremonde squad leader was not mistaken.

  “How far does the light-shield thing extend?” I asked, turning back to Jardin.

  She scratched her chin thoughtfully. “Ten metres or so?”

  “Keep them within that distance of the wall, and open up with the mana-cannons.” I nodded decisively, and the team followed my orders. I leapt onto the barricade, startling the pair of troopers perched on the ramshackle construct.

  “Hi, name's Bob, Champion of Bulb, all around nice dragon. A pleasure. Is one of you a bit of an ass and needs to be eaten?” They nodded nervously at me. “Which one please?” They shook their heads frantically.

  The bunnyborgs leapt clear over us and fanned out in a double line beyond the barricade. The front rank knelt on one knee; the rear rank remained standing. As one, all the mana-cannons clicked into place next to their heads, the noise echoing out around us. An eerie red glow appeared as they charged their shots.

  The first of the enemy ranks was perhaps two hundred metres away, just outside the range of accurate crossbow fire. Some watched nervously, shifting to put something between themselves and the threat. I marked them down as the smart ones that might be trouble. The rest jeered, one man turned and dropped his trousers to flash his arse at us, earning cackles of laughter from his companions.

  “Ok. Time to spank them hard.” Tex would be proud of me. “Dolphins, give them three rounds, volley fire, sweep the beams.”

  A hundred red beams slashed out into the enemy, scything to the left for the half-second they were sustained. Then it happened again. And again. Half were at neck height, the rest were aimed lower. The naturally malicious bunnies who were kneeling down had chosen to aim for crotches and gut shots.

  Magical shields had sprung up in places, survivors cowering behind them, peeking over into the smoky air. A couple of the officers must have had enchanted armour as well. They were staring in terror at glowing red lines across their chests and struggling to get the superheated metal away from their skin, slicing at the leather ties holding it in place with their daggers.

  As for the rest…

  “Sliced and diced. Good job hitting the gentleman who showed his bottom to me!” I called out. That fellow had been sliced in half cleanly across his buttocks. Gore, entrails and splashes of blood. We’d just knocked down perhaps two hundred of the bastards, but there were plenty more to go. My tongue flicked out to taste the smells, and the ionised air the mana-cannons left after firing was mixed with the ammonia-stink of terror and the coppery taste of blood drifting towards us from the decimated front line of Umbra’s forces.

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  “Looks like they’re bringing up some more targets for us,” I said softly. From my perch on the barricade, I could see the rear ranks moving with good discipline, fresh blocks of troops sliding forward. Something flashed past me, and the guard at my side exploded. I leapt back into the road behind the wall, leaving a trail of sparkles behind me. “What the hell was that?”

  “Bulb’s protection only stops magic,” Jardin shrugged, her armour clanking with the movement. “That was a ballista bolt.”

  “That would have hurt if it hit me,” I grumbled. Explosions rang out on the other side of the barricade as spells splashed against the divine shield.

  “Give them five minutes, and the catapults will be raining rocks down on our heads. You kicked the wasp nest, Bob,” Hand complained. “If you’ve got any ideas to stop that, it would be helpful. We’re adventurers, not soldiers.”

  “Oh, quit your belly aching,” I snapped, my stomach rumbling unpleasantly at the words. “I’ll deal with them.” It was time to unleash the beast.

  My clothes vanished, earning blushes from Nimbra and Jardin, then my scales appeared, and I stretched and grew, resuming my draconic majesty.

  I was pleased to note that the Nardshire Stone remained on one claw; it now looked like a regular, non-garishly scaled rock on my finger. I was less pleased to note that I still sparkled. Stealth had never really been my strong suit, but it had been nice to have when I wanted it, and now that option was gone.

  Wings beat, and I barreled into the sky. I used Badly-Made-Firework to make myself twist and turn as I rocketed upwards, dodging the volleys of spells and projectiles. Within thirty seconds, I looked down and skimmed through the list of aerial attacks I had assimilated when the system downloaded Dragon-fu into my brain.

  Dresden-Had-It-Coming popped up, and I went with it. I swooped, dodging the flak, imagining myself a B-17 roaring through the skies of the 1940s, an image of Esme in a revealing yet tasteful pose painted on my nose. A long dress, cut halfway up her thigh to show some skin, leaning back, chest pushed forward, and one hand giving a sardonic salute. Lust perked up in my mind, but Wrath beat it to the ground.

  Green and orange fire rained down, tracking lines through the enemy formations that dissolved and began to run.

  I am not, appearance and bloodthirstiness aside, a monster. As soon as they started fleeing, I switched to fresh targets. “Dakka dakka dakka!”! I chuntered happily. “Open the bomb bay doors! Bomb bay doors open, Captain!”

  I lined up on an artillery park; half a dozen ballistas and two catapults were wreathed in fire. I had lost track of all the kill notifications, but I knew I’d just made a lot of gold, all of it plinking into existence on my hoard. Imagining the gentle tinkle of shiny on shiny action in my mind filled me with fuzzy feelings. Wrath turned his anger on Greed and knocked the goblin out cold with a fiery right hook.

  I jinked and dove, spiralling upwards, then swerving to the side, stopping the clumsy heavy weapons from getting an accurate shot off at me. Rocks and bolts filled the air around me, quite possibly soon to become a major issue for the town behind me. “Flak is always thickest over the target, sir!” I mumbled as I took out another set of siege engines with acidic fire.

  A blast of magic burst against my back leg, knocking me off course. I dropped rapidly, flapping frantically to stabilise the dive, then swooped low over the top of the enemies. A few spears lunged upwards only to snap against my scales, and my tails swung down beneath me. I used them to impale soldiers and shovel them into my jaws as I passed almost within arm's reach of the terrified soldiers. As I headed back to altitude, the feathers on my right wing smouldered slightly from the fireball, leaving a trail of semi-divine smoke, and I checked my biomass.

  Biomass stored:

  498.2 KG

  That was a couple more evolutions to look forward to, but my stomach growled unhappily. I needed gherkins.

  I dodged a barrage of spells coming from what I took to be the command group. I recognised Brigadier Moonslight’s deliciously shiny armour. Thankfully, this time she wasn’t caked in shit, so she would make for an excellent dessert.

  I slammed down ahead of them, growling and hissing, and they backed off slightly. A blast of fire to either side of them sent their guards to heaven or put them to flight. I gave them a trademark saurian smile, long teeth flashing in the flickering light of the fires I’d started.

  “Lizard!” Moonslight called, stepping forward. It was an act of bravery that seemed to steady her officers; they stopped shifting nervously and attempted to project a menacing air. It wasn’t very effective.

  “Been a while,” I said pleasantly. “Turns out killing and eating you Umbra-lovers isn’t the ethical dilemma I thought it was last time. Hence…” I waved a couple of tails at the destruction around us.

  “Arrogant worm!”

  “I object to that. It should at least be wyrm.”

  A series of spells flew at me from the robed figures behind Moonslight. I blinked and backed up a little as the detonations buffeted against my armoured hide.

  “Got new scales since last time. You guys are screwed. How about you bugger off?” I asked.

  “Oh, we won’t be doing that. You played your hand too soon, reptile! Even now, my troops are storming the other barricade, slaughtering your minions and the slaves of Bulb.”

  “You are aware I was flying just a minute ago? I could see the whole damn town. The bunnyborgs are slaughtering your people. And probably loving every minute of it, the vicious little bastards.”

  “Your machines are no match for–”

  “Look, can we cut to the chase? Consider the evil villain speech received and understood, oh foul servant of the shadows.”

  She grinned in a way that made me feel suddenly uncomfortable and nodded. “Very well. Now!”

  Stone fingers reached up and latched onto my feet. I pulled back, lifting the automatons out of the dirt they had been buried in. As they came free of the ground, the stone machines began climbing up my legs and hugging on tightly while my sparkles drifted over them. It didn’t hurt or do any damage, but it felt like I was wearing weights.

  “That’s it?” I snapped. My jaws closed around the first one to scale my left forelimb, and my teeth crunched against something unbreakable. “What the fuck!” I growled. More and more clawed their way free from the earth and showed their affection with unbreakable hugs. Behind Moonslight, a row of the big ones tramped into view, towering five metres tall, with thick arms and legs that might well be able to give me more of a hug than I wanted.

  “The Armaments Guild makes good golems, Baronet,” Moonslight hissed at me. “And they’ve recently found themselves with a bunch of extra arkendrite available, courtesy of an off-the-books arrangement with a follower of Umbra.”

  I would be having words with Dalgliesh the next time I saw the teenage psychopath. I mentally added the “edible” tag to gangster.