Save the Dragons by Dave Freer

Author:Dave Freer [Freer, Dave]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: dragons, fantasy, monsters, vampires, magic
Amazon: B09WLGQ8T3
Publisher: self-published
Published: 2022-03-26T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter sixteen

Raiders of the last... Aaargh!

The Man drew deeply on his cigar. Looked at Smooth Mario. Nodded approvingly, and blew an expensive cloud of smoke. “Good work with Fava, Mario. He's been... fired, I hear. Nobody's going to try any hostile corporate takeovers on us again for a while. A pity the holy water didn't work. But then neither did the smartarse's idea with the mercenaries. Just one chopper got back... and none of those so-called professionals. So, tell me, how much did that... piece of shit offer you to downsize me?”

“Five hundred, Boss.”

“Five hundred grand! The guy's a cheapskate. For that alone he's got to go.”

Smooth Mario shook his head. “Five hundred million.”

There was a stunned silence. That kind of money could buy a lot of deaths.

***

“Now look here. This is a raid, not a war. We're not going to try to put the whole place to fire and the sword, Korg. We go in, we keep a nice low profile. We deal with these hoods and we come home,” Squigs had said, while they stood waiting on the top of the Ziggurat.

Their casual agreement hadn't reassured him much.

Now, in the grubby back streets of Chicago it reassured him even less. They were all dressed in floor-length shabby coats, the best Zoar-style garments Squigs had been able to find which would hide their dragon-leather clothing and weapons. They looked like an out-of-work circus-act on its way to watch a kinky movie.

Squigs had left them in the garbage-can lined back-street, while he ventured into the seedy looking pawn-shop.

He looked nervously around on leaving it. For all that the pawn-broker had cheated him outrageously, on what Squigs had claimed were his great-grandmother's gold knick-knacks from his great-grand uncle's mining efforts in the Yukon, he wouldn't put it past the man to call the cops. And the city was already having a marked effect on his little band of raiders. Crum it made nervous, Korg more aggressive than usual, and the Baron and Mungo merely curious. Squigs sighed warily. He didn't need any more complications.

But during the three minutes he'd been away the first complication had arisen.

“I just wanted a quiet pee,” said Korg defensively. “That beer we had at the Green Monkey while we were waiting went through me just like that.” He snapped the fingers of the hand that wasn't holding a blood-dripping axe. “I mean, when a man's got to go he's got to go. So, I just stepped into that alley. Truly, Squigs, it was their own fault. They pointed these little bitty knives at me.”

“And called you 'kid'!” said Mungo, smothering a chuckle.

“But the third one will probably live, if he gets to an armeror pretty quickly,” the dwarf went on, wiping his axe-blade on the jacket of the dead man at his feet.

“Oh God! I told you to stay out of trouble. Now let's get out of here before the place is crawling with Police,” said Squigs, leading them off as fast as his long legs could stride.

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