Battle Bond: An Urban Fantasy Dragon Series (Death Before Dragons Book 2) Read online

  Of course not, Val. My stamina is amazing. And I’ve only spent an hour in your world today. Sindari kept rubbing his head in the grass.

  “Well, if you wouldn’t mind, we still need to find a kobold to question. And can you close your legs? I can see your junk.”

  My what?

  “Never mind. I’m going this way. Please join me at your earliest convenience.”

  My boots squished in mud as I walked along a well-used trail on the clear side of the stream. It grew dim quickly under the forest of firs and hemlocks, the trunks rising a hundred feet and more. Dew dripped from the branches, occasionally landing on my head.

  Every few steps, I knelt down to study fresh prints in the mud. They were smaller than mine but not as small as kobold prints. Maybe the local children used this path to cut through from property to property. That was another reason to find whoever was threatening them.

  You’re going the right direction, Sindari told me as he caught up. Forgive my distraction. I could not resist.

  “Resist what? Did someone sprinkle catnip under those trees?”

  Fertilizer, I believe.

  “Isn’t that stuff poisonous to animals?”

  This was bone meal and fish meal fertilizer. Quite aromatic and delightful.

  Maybe I would get some catnip later and see if my mighty silver tiger would roll around like that on my living room floor.

  “Where did you go when you disappeared? Did you catch the kobold?”

  No. I was close and then… ah, I found a trap of my own.

  “You didn’t step in a snare and fly up in a tree, did you?”

  No, I’m not so foolish.

  “Ha ha.”

  Follow me. Sindari sprang across the creek and onto another path. Here, the brambles had been burned back, as if by someone with a flamethrower. It was hard to imagine that being effective, since the forest was still very damp this early in the season. The trap was expertly laid and camouflaged. I didn’t sense the magic until it sprang, knocking me back into my realm with a blast of pain.

  I’m sorry you were hurt. Do kobolds have mages powerful enough to create such things? I eyed the burned-back vines, wondering if magic had been used rather than a flamethrower.

  It wasn’t created by a kobold.

  Do you know what did create it?

  Sindari didn’t answer right away, instead leading me around bends in the trail, then on toward an opening in the trees ahead. Maybe he didn’t know who had created it.

  A faint tingle poked at my senses, like electricity under a high-voltage line. Magic.

  Eventually, the trail led us into a large meadow of waist-high grass leading to an old windmill beside a creek. Sindari sat on his haunches and faced it. It was the source of the magic.

  That is who created it, Sindari told me.

  The windmill? I drew even with him, my instincts itching. The windmill represented a threat, but I also had the feeling that someone was watching us.

  No, the being using it for its lair. He isn’t there now, but I can smell dragon.

  I gave him a sharp look. Zav?

  I didn’t sense his aura, and it was powerful enough that I usually did from a mile away. All I sensed, other than the windmill itself was…

  Oh, damn. There were the kobolds again. I’d almost missed their auras since the windmill radiated magic. They were out in the tall grass. All six of them. Had they spotted us yet?

  No. I recognize the scent of Lord Zavryd. This is another dragon.

  “Another dragon?” I blurted out loud before I caught myself and switched to silent speech. How can we have gone from no dragons on Earth for a thousand years to two in the same month?

  I don’t know, but brace yourself. We’re about to be—

  All six kobolds rushed toward us, the grasses wavering madly with their passage. As I drew Chopper, the first one came into view. He’d traded his slingshot for a gun.

  3

  I dove to the side, rolling into the grass, a split second before the kobold fired at me.

  Sindari pounced as the bullet whizzed past my head. He tackled the kobold with the gun, but the five others burst out of the grass, armed with guns, daggers, and bows and arrows. The weapons were small enough to fit in their diminutive hands—but dangerous enough to be deadly.

  I leaped up from my roll in time to greet two rushing kobolds, one male and one female, with Chopper.

  The male had a dagger and the female a pistol. Faster than she could take aim, I whipped the blade across to strike the weapon. I’d only intended to knock it from her grip, but Chopper’s magical blade cut through it like butter, leaving a glowing blue streak in the air.

  Even though I could have finished her off, Willard’s words came to mind. I spun on my heel and launched a low side kick. My boot slammed into her small chest, and she flew backward into the grass.

  Her companion lunged at me with his dagger. His black eyes were glazed, and he didn’t react to his comrade being kicked away. As I skittered back to avoid the sharp blade, he stabbed at me with a combination of robotic movements.

  Like many magical beings, he was faster than the typical human, but my elven blood also gave me extra speed, and I was accustomed to quick and agile opponents. When he committed himself to a lunge, stabbing straight ahead with the dagger, I glided to the side and toward him, close enough to bend down and catch his wrist. I twisted it, but to my surprise he didn’t yelp in pain or drop the weapon. He didn’t make a noise at all as he tried to pull his arm away.

  I hefted him into the air, knocked his hand against a nearby tree trunk, and finally his dagger fell to the dirt.

  A roar came from the grass, and a disarmed and bleeding kobold sailed over my head and into the woods.

  “Don’t kill them,” I yelled as I struggled to keep my prisoner subdued, so we could question him later.

  They are not yielding to my superior power, Sindari told me, sounding exasperated. Another kobold flew into the woods. It is impossible to stop them without harming them greatly.

  The one I held struggled and managed to get a fist past my guard. It clipped me in the chin enough to hurt, and I had to resist the urge to fling him away—or bash him in the head with Chopper.

  Even as he battled me, his expression never changed and his eyes remained glazed. Someone was definitely controlling these guys.

  I twisted the kobold so that his back was to me and pinned his arms, pulling him against my hip so he couldn’t move.

  To my left, the tall grasses parted to reveal the tip of an arrow pointing at me. The bowman hesitated, maybe afraid to hit his buddy, but he was too far away for me to reach with my sword. I plunged Chopper into the ground and yanked out Fezzik and fired.

  My shot cracked through the top of the bowstave as I jumped back in case the kobold got the shot off. But I’d been fast enough. The arrow fell limply to the ground.

  Sindari plowed into my would-be sniper from behind and batted him into a bramble patch with a swipe of his paw. The kobold’s bow fell from his grip as he tumbled into the thorny vines. Like the male I’d captured, he did not cry out. Robotically, he tried to extricate himself.

  They’re going to keep coming if we don’t do something to stop them, Sindari pointed out.

  The two he’d first sent sailing had regained their feet and were stalking back toward us, even though they’d lost their weapons. The one I held kept squirming and trying to escape.

  “Chopper,” I blurted, a realization smacking me.

  You wish to behead them? Sindari paused to knock another of the returning kobolds back into the woods. They only weighed about forty pounds, which meant his blows could send them far.

  I winced as that one clipped a trunk with bone-crunching force. But it still had a dagger, and we couldn’t let them continue to attack us without defending ourselves.

  “No.” I shifted my burden around and tried to put my sword’s hilt in the kobold’s hand without losing control of the blade. “Chopper’s
magic has protected me many times from mental attacks. Maybe it could break whatever hold is on him.”

  The kobold’s small fingers wrapped around the hilt, and he tried to lift it, to use it to brain me. I was stronger than he was, but he made a valiant effort, and I started to think I had made a mistake.

  Until he blinked in surprise and stopped struggling. He gaped at me, glanced around, and screamed.

  It was right in my ear, and I almost dropped him just to get him away from me—or make it stop—but I needed to question someone.

  “Stop,” I said. “I’m not going to hurt you, and if you answer some questions, I’ll let you go.”

  I hoped he understood English. Most of the magical refugees that had been on Earth and in America for years knew enough to get by, with some being experts at blending in, but newer arrivals often didn’t know the language.

  He screamed again. I couldn’t tell if he didn’t understand me or he didn’t believe me.

  Sindari sprang close and roared at the kobold.

  “That’s not going to help anything,” I said.

  But the kobold, eyes widening even further, stopped screaming… and wet himself.

  I groaned and held him out at arm’s length. “Gross, Sindari.”

  My apologies. I didn’t anticipate that result.

  “What usually happens when you roar at people?”

  Stupefied acquiescence.

  “This probably qualifies. He got my hip.”

  Perhaps you can roll in the fertilizer on the way out.

  I don’t see how that would help.

  It would mask the odor.

  So I’d smell like blood and fish instead?

  Yes. Those are far more appealing scents.

  If you say so. I pulled my sword out of the kobold’s grip before realizing that might allow the mind-control to reassert itself.

  But the glaze didn’t return to the kobold’s eyes. He struggled weakly—nothing like he had before—and stared at Sindari.

  Two more kobolds, still under the mind-control influence, rushed at us. Once again, Sindari knocked them back into the brush. Though bruised and bleeding, they rose and came at us again.

  I will keep that one from escaping, Sindari said. You’re going to have to let them all hold your sword to break the spell.

  I didn’t hesitate to thrust my unwelcome and damp burden at him. As I trotted forward to catch the closest returning attacker, Sindari flattened our prisoner to the ground with a paw. He was kind enough to retract his claws.

  It took several long moments to go through the process with the other five kobolds, and I grimaced at one holding a broken arm and limping, but Chopper successfully shattered the mind-control compulsion on all of them. As soon as they realized where they were and who they faced—one of them whispered my most common moniker, Ruin Bringer—they fled.

  Since we had a prisoner already, I didn’t try to detain them. I had rope back in the Jeep, but I assumed the kobolds would cease to be a problem once we took care of whoever was controlling them. Or whatever. I glanced at the windmill, an ominous, dilapidated gray structure that looked to be a hundred years old, worried about Sindari’s warning about a dragon.

  “I hope we kept one who understands English.” I walked up to Sindari, the prisoner still pinned on his back under a paw, after the others disappeared into the trees. I hadn’t missed that they had all run away from the windmill rather than toward it.

  “I understand,” the kobold whispered, staring up at me. He had a split lip that was bleeding. “You are the Ruin Bringer. We didn’t do it.”

  “You didn’t kill the pigs?”

  He hesitated. “We didn’t take the children. I mean, we didn’t want to take the children.”

  “But you took the pigs of your own free will?”

  Another hesitation. “No. We were forced.”

  “Why do I think you’re lying?”

  He probed his bloody, puffy lip with his tongue. “Pigs are delicious?”

  He’s not wrong, Sindari said. On Del’noth, we have wild boars that are succulent.

  “Your kind would have an easier time hiding out in this world if you went vegan,” I said.

  You don’t think the locals would also object to carrots being stolen from their gardens? Sindari asked.

  “They might blame rabbits.”

  The kobold looked confused.

  “Kobold—uh, what’s your name?” Again, I thought of my mother’s advice to make friends with the magical, with those who weren’t criminals. I supposed I could at least be more polite. Maybe if fewer people loathed me, that would help with the issues I was reluctantly working on with the therapist.

  “Bob.”

  I raised my eyebrows, suspecting another lie, but this one didn’t matter. “Where are the children, Bob? Are they still alive?”

  His eyes rolled toward the windmill. He couldn’t have seen it through the tall grass, but he was looking in precisely the right direction. As a full-blooded magical being, he would sense its magic even more easily than I.

  “We took them there,” he said. “I do not know if they still live. He may have eaten them.”

  “He who? Who’s been controlling you?” I should have asked that question first, but I dreaded the answer.

  “The dragon,” Bob whispered. “If you go there, he’ll control you too. Or he’ll kill you like the other human who went there.”

  Uh oh, was that the forest-ranger contact Willard had mentioned?

  “Was it a black dragon?” I asked.

  It didn’t make sense that Zav would be killing people, when he’d pointed out more than once that he wasn’t a criminal and that he was only here to take criminals back to his own realm for punishment and rehabilitation. But I would prefer to deal with the dragon I knew rather than some mysterious new dragon.

  The kobold shook his head. “He’s silver and as big as that windmill.” Bob lowered his voice. “And meaner than a tragothor.”

  Is that as mean as it sounds, Sindari?

  Yes.

  “He’ll kill you.” Bob grabbed Sindari’s leg. “Please let me go. He’ll kill me if he finds out I talked.”

  I waved a hand for Sindari to release him. Unfortunately, I didn’t think the kobold was lying anymore.

  I wished I had a way to contact Zav, not that he would deign to give me information about his fellow dragons. Or about anything. But he had given me a sample of his blood after I’d recovered his artifact for him. We hadn’t parted on antagonistic grounds, never mind that he wanted to cart me around the world as his slave-bait to lure magical criminals to him.

  What’s the plan? Sindari asked as the kobold scurried away.

  We check the windmill and hope the dragon doesn’t come home before we’re done.

  And if he does? Neither of us is strong enough to kill a dragon.

  I know. We’re going to optimistically hope for the best. I marched resolutely through the grass.

  Sindari glided past me to take the lead. An interesting stance from someone with pee on her hip.

  I’m not sure I believe that you didn’t anticipate that result.

  His look back was not convincingly innocent.

  4

  As we reached the entrance of the windmill, its original door long rusted off, I looked one last time at the cloudy sky overhead. I didn’t sense a dragon, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be on his way.

  There is an enchantment on the doorway. Sindari twitched his tail as he gazed into the dim interior, where rotten rails and planks from a decaying staircase littered the stone floor. Will your charm work on it?

  I stepped close and gripped what I thought of as my lock-picking charm, but it had actually been designed to nullify enchantments just like this. No, not just like this. Enchantments placed by dwarves and elves and magical beings of their caliber. It might not be able to handle something made by a dragon.

  Not certain where to place my other hand, since the door was missing, I rest
ed it on the nearby frame. An uneasy tingle ran up my arm and down my spine. The urge to flee back the way I’d come rushed through me. I gritted my teeth and kept my hand in place, willing the key-shaped charm to nullify the enchantment.

  It heated in my hand, almost burning my palm.

  I flashed back to the dark-elf lair where I’d been a prisoner, held by magical bonds, and had managed to break them with the charm’s help. I hadn’t expected it to be strong enough for the task, but somehow, it had worked. It had almost seemed to draw power from me, but I wasn’t sure I remembered that correctly.

  Just because my mom had boinked an elf back in the day didn’t mean I had magical power. Sure, I had a few attributes that weren’t quite human, but it wasn’t as if I could cast spells. My charms and my magical weapons were the reason I could slay bad guys, not any secret power coursing through my veins.

  The enchantment is still there, Sindari noted.

  Annoyed that I’d let myself be distracted, I focused harder, willing whatever invisible protection was there to disappear.

  Wood snapped and stone cracked, and I jumped back.

  The doorframe I’d had my hand against split in a dozen places and crumbled inward. Several layers of the mortared stone of the surrounding wall collapsed atop it. Rock dust flew up, clouding the air.

  Now it’s gone, Sindari remarked blandly.

  “Uh, good.” I decided to pretend I’d meant to do that. It’s important to be suave in front of a magical tiger.

  I have not seen your charm perform so earnestly before.

  Earnest, right. “I’m exploring its full powers.”

  Sindari padded slowly into the interior, ears alert and nostrils twitching as he sniffed the air. Since he was more likely to detect a magical trap, I let him go first, though I hated hiding behind anyone else.

  As I stood on the threshold, a distant crying reached my ears. The kidnapped children? Dare I hope they were still alive? Or was it a trick? One designed to lure me into another trap?

  The noise came from under the floorboards somewhere. Ancient floorboards that creaked as I walked into the windmill. Sindari weighed more than I did, but somehow, his paws didn’t elicit the same response.