I scooped Moonslight’s body up, shook off the saliva, and stashed her in my belly pouch, then scanned around the battlefield. We were in the mopping-up phase. The weird cavalry that I assumed belonged to the Merchants Guild had bolted, reptilian steeds vanishing ahead of dust trails as they fled.

  “Try and take some of the siege engines intact,” I called as I took off and headed over to the eastern side of town, where the Bonkers were dishing out the pain with their own squads of cyberbunnies. I lay down a few lines of fire to encourage the enemy to do the sensible thing and run like hell. Once they broke, I began swooping over the golems, dumping the valuable constructs into my belly pouch. When I’d cleared up all the intact ones and the handful of damaged ones, I circled down to land outside Bulb’s temple.

  Sticking my head through the big double doors, I scanned around, ignoring the screams of terror from the parishioners. “Jenny! Get your old man and let’s go!”

  The battle of Baginton has been resolved.

  The town of Baginton is no longer contested.

  Lady Nardshire sent her Second and Eighth divisions to relieve the siege. They did not arrive in time.

  Lady Foreverknot’s seventh brigade and its support elements from the Merchants and Armaments Guilds have withdrawn in disarray after suffering heavy losses.

  The Houses of Nardshire and Bob have emerged victorious.

  House Nardshire retains control of the town, and the House of Bob has claimed the loot.

  Well, that was good. Jenny picked up her old man, the pot on her head wobbling as she womanhandled him along beside her and dragged him through the terrified crowd.

  “I’m not going to eat you, you idiots. See? I’m sparkly.” I gave them a reassuring smile that seemed to have the opposite effect for some reason.

  “Stop smiling, Bob, it makes you look hungry. Nothing to worry about, people! He’s not very bright, but he won’t eat you,” Jenny called over her shoulder as she reached the door and stepped from the mesmerising illumination in the temple into normal sunlight.

  “Is this a ‘we’re leaving before they swarm the walls and get into the raping and pillaging’ kind of departure or the ‘yay we won, we’re swanning off with the loot’ kind of deal?” she asked. Her old man blinked owlishly up at me.

  “The latter.”

  “Then there’s no reason for me to go anywhere, is there?” the old man croaked. He sounded like I imagined an Egyptian mummy would if it woke after a couple of thousand years and asked for a glass of water. The man oozed dehydration, possibly as a lingering result of his alimentary issues.

  “Dad, we discussed this. It’s not safe here. Foreverknot has more troops she’ll send, and she has allies as well. The temple is going to make this place a prime target.” The people nearby who had been inching towards the door perked up and cocked their heads at the words of the moustachioed woman chatting to a giant purple and black dragon. Who also sparkled, bloody bracelet.

  “They won’t be able to do anything, Jen. The temple guard and this ugly beast will keep the town safe,” her father said.

  “What’s your name, please?” I asked sweetly, the crowd shying away as I treated him to a proper smile.

  “Bragnor, uh, sir,” the suddenly nervous old man replied with a bob of his head.

  “Well, Bragnor, first of all, I am a very fine specimen of a dragon. Among the most handsome in the world, or so I’m told–”

  “Esme is biased,” Jenny muttered.

  “–shut up. Definitely a nine out of ten in the looks department. At least. Now we’ve got that cleared up, Jenny is right. Not about Esme being biased!” I snapped as Jenny opened her mouth. “But about the fact that this town is going to be a prime target throughout the war. It’s too close to the city; the other side is all shadow-aligned and doesn’t like Bulb, whose main temple is here; it has easy access with good roads. Oh, and it controls the main road heading north from the city.” I ticked my points off by folding down a long, gleaming claw as I went through the list.

  The crowd, who had seemed cheered to learn of the defeat of the Foreverknot army, began to look worried. Whispered arguments broke out around us, and as always happens in these situations, more people materialised and joined the nascent hivemind.

  “But Lady Nardshire is sending troops, we’ve got the temple guard, and we’ve got you, what more could we ask for? We’ll be perfectly safe.” The crowd nodded along to the old man's words.

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  “I came here this time because Jenny is a friend, and you were here. I’ve got my own towns to deal with and a burgeoning pub-eatery chain to oversee, my own plans to take over enemy towns, among other commitments. I’m a busy dragon. If you hadn’t been here, Bragnor, I wouldn’t have dropped everything and portaled in straight away.”

  “Would the guards have held?” he asked slowly.

  “For a while. Long enough for Nardshire’s troops to get here before the slaughter and rapine? Dunno.” It might just be the size of our bodies, but when a dragon shrugs, it hits hard. The sparkles probably also accentuated the movement as they fell from my shoulders.

  The crowd began muttering among themselves.

  “So you have no intention of protecting the town again?” Bragnor asked. “Isn't it important enough to you?”

  The crowd turned angry eyes on me that I ignored.

  “It’s not mine. It’s easy to get to for me because I came here before, so I can portal in. But if Longbottom or the Mill was under attack at the same time, I’d defend my own lands first.” Enlightened self-interest for the win.

  The crowds muttering became a bit louder, and the tone dropped. A few stepped forward ever so slightly, and angry eyes had turned to hostile glares.

  “Bob came to help you, Dad. To help me get you out of here. He did a good thing,” Jenny explained.

  “Brother Shining-Scale, you wouldn’t come to assist your illustrious brethren?” called a voice I recognised from the middle of the mob. They parted as Neville pushed his way forward and joined us in the centre of what I now realised was a circle of people sealing us in on all sides.

  “Ah, Shining-Mug? Look, I’m not going to lie, but all the spanking kind of weirded me out. Oh, your cousin Creville sends his regards from the Empressesses Head. If you want to, I’d be really excited to bring the Broken Baguette into the Swinging Cod franchise. We should have a chat next time I’m in town. There are a lot of advantages to joining my growing organisation early and being in on the ground floor.”

  “Creville? You said you took over Longbottom. You attacked them?”

  “Accidentally. Kind of. I was there to deal with the pixie slavers and acquire a new pub, and things got out of hand.”

  “So if we made you the boss of Baginton… you’d have to protect us?” asked a young woman from the midst of the crowd.

  “No. Your town belongs to my ally, so I’m not going to take it over.”

  “But if, in theory, you were the ruler of Baginton, you’d feel compelled to defend us?” Neville had produced a glass and a rag from nowhere and began putting a shine on it as he talked.

  “Nobody steals from a dragon,” I growled. “Well, they don’t get away with it, literary hobbits notwithstanding.”

  “What’s a hobbit?” asked Bragnor.

  “Never mind, Dad. So, Bob, do you think maybe you could pull up a portal and let us go back to the Mill?” Jenny waggled her eyebrows furiously at me, the long tips catching in the wind.

  “Oh, sure.” I brought in a portal, and Kat looked up from the other side of her desk, her red life preserver propped up against it.

  “That’s a lot of people out there, Bob,” she scowled at me.

  “Safety!” A man yelled as he charged towards the blue oval.

  “Hang on–” I began, then winced as he staggered back, clutching at his privates.

  Kat fluttered to the ground and spun her flotation device like a spear, coincidentally making her biological flotation devices draw the eye of most of the men present. “I don’t think we want a swarm of villagers flooding the dungeon, scale-brain,” she said sweetly from the other side of the portal.

  The man had collapsed and was moaning around his private universe of pain. I nudged him with a claw, and he squeaked.

  “Bum rushing a psychotic pixie is a bad idea, people,” I announced definitively. “I would not recommend it.”

  “Well, we’ll be going. Hi, Kat. Are you meant to be Pamela or Yasmine? Either way, very fetching. Come on, Dad.” Jenny tugged on her father's arm, but the old man had dug in his heels.

  “Jen, I can’t. I’m a follower of the Light, I can’t leave the temple undefended.”

  “It’s not undefended. It’s got the light-shield thing and the guards. Jardin’s people are tough; they could have taken that army in the end,” I offered.

  “You said they wouldn’t have held until reinforcements arrived earlier!” someone yelled from the back. I narrowed my purple eyes as I searched for the offender, but it could have been any one of a hundred people.

  “I misspoke.” I was damning my soul for using politician-speak, but I had just saved the day, so it would be fine.

  “You mean you lied?” someone else asked. I tracked my head around on my serpentine neck, but they were hidden within the mob.

  “I wouldn’t go that far. Certainly not so far as to accuse the dragon that just saved your town of anything like that.”

  “Come on, Dad. Kat won’t hit you in the balls, I promise. Kat, this is my dad, no punching in the no-nos. You should see the kitchen we’ve got in the Cod, Da. Massive ovens, perfect temperature control. My baking has made a name for itself in the north, and with Bob growing the business, we could use an extra chef with your skills. You’ll give him a job, won’t you, Bob?”

  “Sure, but I wouldn’t make any promises about Kat not hitting people in the balls. Those seem like the kind of words that are destined to make you a liar.” I shot the crowd another glare.

  Kat shrugged, again catching the eyes of the men who could see through the portal and sashayed back to her desk to resume her paperwork. “You guys figure it out. Looks like Bob has a handle on it.” Her snicker suggested she was enjoying my discomfort a little more than I would have liked.

  “Jenny, I don’t want to just leave. I’ve got the cart to worry about! That bastard Jarlnipper will have my spot the first day I’m not there, and I’ll never get it back from the underhanded Hurple-sniffer!”

  “Oi! I do not sniff Hurple, you stinking old raisin! You should go with them. I’ll keep your corner warm while you’re gone,” a man I assumed was Jarlnipper called out from the back of the crowd.

  “Eat Janglebonk shit, Jarl!” the old man snarled. “It’s not just that…” He fidgeted uncomfortably.

  “What’s the problem?” I asked, running out of patience.

  “Well…” he looked up into my glowing eyes and winced. “Never mind. Ok, Jen. I’ll miss this place. Your ma…”

  “We’ll come back when it’s safer, Da. Come on.” Jenny put a hand over the frail old man’s shoulders and led him towards the portal. A stranger lunged out of the crowd and snatched the old man to one side.

  “He’s not going anywhere unless I come too,” he snarled, dark eyes flashing at Jen. He pulled a knife and held it to Bragodan’s throat.