I surveyed my target from above, wings snapping as I shifted to bank to my right. There was a solid thermal there I could catch to boost my altitude without flapping like a loon. I still didn’t know how I could sense them. It wasn’t as though my scales were sensitive to the breeze or temperature; I couldn’t see or hear the damn things. I just knew where they were.

  The rising air buoyed me upwards, and I spiralled towards the clouds. Below me, Longbottom spread out, a grey-brown skidmark on the otherwise green underpants of the empire. It lay at the heart of a spiderweb of roads and was much larger than Fidler’s Mill. Some of the houses looked to be four stories tall, and the air looked thick and heavy.

  It was built near a series of limestone mines, east of the town, where a series of slag piles formed artificial hills covered in thin yellow foliage. Beyond them, the heavy machinery and the burly-looking workers that used it beavered away to produce neat blocks of grey stone to be shipped away on barges down the river.

  The cement capital of the Empire. The rich deposits had made Longbottom rich, influential, and industrious. Its wealth had brought traders, who’d had the roads built, who in turn had attracted less savoury people. Highwaymen, bandits, and cutthroats thronged the hills and woods, and the marsh to the north was full of pixies. Hence, it was also a hive of what might be called scum and villainy.

  I settled well outside of town, no doubt having caught more than a few eyes in the process. I did my quick change routine, opting for some of my finer apparel rather than the more workmanlike tunic and trousers I usually wore. Gold filigree edged the red jacket, made of something like crushed velvet, and the matching trousers transitioned from scarlet to maroon down the legs. Black boots completed the ensemble.

  I preened as I straightened my cravat and strode towards the town. Smoke from the numerous fires burning away in hearths and workshops hung in the air, giving the place an aura of gloom as I strode towards the thick walls with a whistle on my lips. I paused a hundred metres away and admired the fortifications. This was what I wanted for the Mill, before things kicked off in the empire. Solid blocks of stone, the height of a man, made up the base layers, and the higher levels were composed of smaller stones cemented into place.

  I walked up and rested a hand on the stone, warm from the midday sun, and looked up. Four meters tall, give or take. Solid and impenetrable. Or was it? How much magic would it take to blast this apart? I was pretty sure I could smack a couple of tails through it and knock it down if I wanted to. We’d need magical reinforcement, something like Tim’s crotch defender, but to cover the entire wall.

  I mooched along to the gatehouse and smiled warmly at the pair of surly looking guards who manned the post. They ignored me as they shook down a farmer bringing a wagon of grain into the town. The shorter one intimated that the tax rate had changed, as had the entry fee, so the worn-out-looking farmer would have to pay more than he’d expected.

  The taller one just nodded along with half-lidded eyes, his gaze feeling somehow perverse when he looked at me for a moment.

  “This is thievery!” cursed the yeoman. His horse wickered angrily and shifted in its harness.

  “If you don’t like it, Kronty, you can piss off,” the tall guard finally said in a basso voice. He moved forward and poked the farmer in the chest. “Not our place to question Mayor Hollyberry. Not our place at all.”

  “Nope,” agreed his squeaky and vertically challenged compatriot. “Ours is not to question, just to enforce. So either pay up, or it’ll be the force.”

  The farmer cursed soto voce and reluctantly counted out some more silver coins. “If there’s no profit in bringing you assholes food, pretty soon you’ll all starve,” he hissed as he climbed back onto his wagon and cracked the reins to move his horse along. “Walk on, Binky.”

  I watched the guards divide the extra money they had extracted between them and slip it into their own pouches. The original fee went into a lockbox in the guardhouse window. Tall and bassy tucked the key back under his chain mail jerkin.

  A hand went up to stop me as I stepped forward, and the short and squeaky guard moved around me in a circle. He sneered as he looked me up and down, then stopped in front of me and spat at my feet.

  “Well, Mike, looks like we’ve got a lordling! What’s the rate for visiting nobility, again?” he chirped. His companion moved up behind him and loomed over the little one.

  “I’m just looking to visit some taverns, guys. Scope out the competition, maybe buy a place to start a business of my own. I own a little place called the Swinging Cod, and I’m looking to expand to your… delightful town,” I said affably. Wrath really didn’t like the way the tall, droopy-eyed one was looking at me like he was working out where to slip the dagger.

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  “A rich lordling!” Mike exclaimed happily. “Well, now, realtor rates need to apply, for sure, Vargo. So two gold for the entry fee, three for the landowner licence, eight silver for, er, the drinking badge, and nine bronze for…” He was really struggling to come up with something else to extort me for at this point. “– admin fees. Yeah, admin.” The guard nodded firmly, almost dislodging his crude barbute. Only the rust that lined it stopped the thing from slipping down over his face.

  “Ooh, admin fee. That’s a good one! I’m pretty sure you meant nine silver, though. That’s what it was last time, mhm!” He nodded happily and held out a hand towards me.

  “Fuck off.”

  “A tough one, eh? Mike, what level are you again?”

  “I’m a level thirty-two Rusty Ruiner, Vargo. Not many are a match for me.” Mike crossed his arms across his chest, possibly forgetting that it is extremely difficult to flex one's biceps in half-plate armour.

  “Speculator Visus! Speculator Visus!” I snapped.

  Mike Malcont

  Lumpy Larsonist

  Level 15

  STR 21 AGI 9 MAG 2 ARM 15

  Vargo Humpdire

  Rodent Wrangler

  Level 8

  STR 9 AGI 15 MAG 1 ARM 7

  “Right, unlawful use of magic. That’s a fine on top of the fees, going to have to add an extra ten gold on top. That brings us up to, Mike, you are better at the numbers than me. Mike? What’s up?” Vargo had glanced up at his colleague and found Mike’s face had paled.

  “The entree doesn’t know you lied about your class and level?” I asked with a sharp-toothed smile. “Vargo, Mike is only level fifteen, and he’s a lumpy larsonist, not a rusty ruin.”

  Vargo’s head snapped to me, then slowly panned back to Mike, who fidgeted uncomfortably. “Mike, say it ain’t so!” he almost wailed.

  “I’m afraid so. So the starter is a rat lover, and the main course isn’t the muscle you thought he was,” I said happily.

  “Fifteen years, Mike. How could you have lied to me for fifteen years? I’m little Lem’s godsfather, for the sake of the gods! We’re practically family!” Vargo whined.

  “Now’s not the time, V. Lem loves you, you’re like a second father to him–”

  “Does he know? Who else have you lied to?” Vargo snapped hysterically.

  “Look, it’s not a great class, but it has its perks. I just wanted to sound cool when I joined the guard, and then once I’d said it, I kind of had to run with it. We can discuss this later. Most important thing is I’m still strong enough to beat the sixteen gold and seven silver this prick owes us, I mean, owes the town.” Mike smiled in what he assumed was a menacing fashion. If I were a dentist, I would have found it horrifying, like yellow tombstones all misaligned and janky. As a dragon in disguise, I remained unfazed.

  “You’re still going to try and shake me down?” I asked sweetly.

  “Insinuating an illegal act on the part of the Longbottom Guard is also against the law unless you can provide evidence. What have you got to back up that assertion, sir? That’s going to cost you an extra five gold. Pretty sure lying to a brother guard is also illegal,” Vargo muttered.

  “For the love of… let’s deal with this rube, then we can have a talk, ok?” Mike said. He poked me in the shoulder, his heavy leather glove leaving a dirty smear on my jacket.

  Pulling-A-Pair-Of-Carrots was a simple move. My right leg slid forward as my hands rose to grasp their throats. With a minor effort, I hoisted them off the ground to dangle before me.

  “How the hell are you idiots still alive? I can’t be the first powerful dragon to pass by. Well, dragon, perhaps, but surely some human powerhouse comes by occasionally? Most army officers could stomp the pair of you in moments. Ah, dammit.”

  Their hands had locked around my wrists, but they couldn’t break my hold. They’d gone very still when I mentioned the word dragon. Then they had watered the grass. I held them out a bit further. Mike had already marked my jacket; I didn’t need to find out what piss would do to my boot polish.

  “When I have a chat with the mayor, I’m going to mention you two before I eat him. Is there some universal law in this world that makes all guards irritating morons? To be fair, Ankmapak was the refreshing exception to that rule, but that was only because of the brotherhood of botty-spankers. Una Somna! Una Somna!”

  I dropped the now unconscious pair and was about to walk by when Greed and Wrath pointed out that they had tried to rob me, and robbing from me was basically suicide-by-dragon. I briefly weighed the karmic significance of the guards and found them reprehensible, but not so much as to make them eligible to be added to the menu. I suspected they would have an unsavoury flavour, especially Vargo. So I kicked them each in the stomach, hard enough that the next time they watered the grass it would be red, and glanced at the small throng behind me.

  “They’re going to be asleep for a while. Feel free to put the boot in as you pass.” I gave the peasants a jaunty salute and resumed whistling as I made my way down the cobbled streets of the town.

  It reminded me of the Gloom. The rundown and miserable section of the city. Children were thin and dirty, and the few stalls I saw on the street corners offered mouldy and undersized vegetables. The town’s population was probably twice the size of the Mill, but the people probably weighed about the same in total, and the Mill folks weren’t exactly overweight.

  I tasted the air. Smoke, something almost granite-like, and the usual scents of medieval sanitation. The streets were narrow, throwing deep shadows in the canyons between the tall brick buildings. My wanderings took me through the residential areas, peeling paint and flaking facades highlighting the poverty of this place. As I found myself at the docks, I watched the simple cranes loading stone blocks from wagons onto the long, low barges that floated alongside the pontoons.

  An image of a woman’s decapitated head, the face locked in a scream, swung outside my first target. The Empress’esses Head, a dockside tavern. To be fair to the locals, that was a complicated word to punctuate.

  Time to scope out the competition. And probably have a drink to take away the taste of unwashed humanity.