"Oh, Ven," she sighed. "What would you do if you were asked to be an assassin?"
But, of course, she knew his answer. Vendevorex had confessed to her that he'd served as Albekizan's assassin multiple times. Indeed, he'd killed her own family at Albekizan's orders, simply to demonstrate his power. Her life story proved that when asked to be an assassin, Vendevorex had answered, "Of course, sire."
It was strange to think of Vendevorex as a killer. He'd always been so kind to her. Indeed, she'd never seen Vendevorex show cruelty toward anyone. Though perhaps the most powerful dragon in the kingdom, he hadn't abused his abilities. He never acted in anger, nor had she ever known him to hold a grudge. When Vendevorex had decided to use his powers to kill, he made the decision based on logic, and only acted when he felt that resorting to violence would serve some greater good.
She could almost hear his counsel now. "Killing one man might spare the lives of tens of thousands if a wider war breaks out."
By the time she reached the eastern gate, she'd convinced herself. She was no longer here as a diplomat. Invisibly, she approached the bloodied wood of the eastern gate. The giant wooden structure looked as if it had been knocked flat, then hastily rebuilt. The ground had been trampled into a gory muck that sucked at her boots. The stench of vomit hung heavy in the air, making her eyes water.
Standing ankle deep in the dark mire, the air full of death, she remembered how she'd stood on the oily beach, cradling the dying seagull. Killing for the greater good wouldn't be murder. Only, they weren't her hands that held the seagull, were they? And it hadn't been her decision. Those memories belonged to Jazz. She shook her head to try to push back the alien thoughts.
She touched the wood of the gate, impregnating it with her nanites. She allowed a few seconds for the tiny machines to slip between the molecules, then willed a hole to appear. A rough rectangle five feet high and two feet wide crumbled to sawdust. She ducked to step inside the gate and glanced back at the mound of pulverized wood, like a puzzle formed of a million impossibly tiny pieces. She could see in her mind's eye how all these pieces had fit together only seconds before. With a nod, the sawdust rose and swirled as her nanites lifted it on magnetic pulses. In seconds, the hole began to close. A moment later, the door was restored, as if she had never touched it.
Shandrazel's camp had been silent as a morgue. Even with the sun down, Dragon Forge was noisy. Men shouted back and forth, hammers struck metal, and dozens of carts rolled toward a central furnace, all loaded with the bodies of earth-dragons. The stink inside was even worse than outside, as the aroma of two-thousand unbathed men mixed with the other odors.
She wasn't certain how best to locate Ragnar. She'd met him briefly in the Free City-he'd been the naked, wild-eyed prophet Pet credited with saving his life. She'd instantly disliked him. He manifested every unpleasant trait the dragons attributed to humans. He'd been dirty, irrational, and brutish. How had such a man bested an army of dragons?
Then she heard a familiar voice from above. She looked up. The wall here was thirty feet high. She couldn't see who was talking, but was certain she knew the speaker.
"Pet!" she shouted out, losing all caution. Could he really be part of this rebellion?
Some of the men in the street glanced in the direction of her voice. Seeing nothing due to her aura of invisibility, they turned away.
A soldier in a tattered cloak leaned over the wall, staring down where she stood. This man's face was misshaped, his nose bent and broken, his scabby brow knotty and bruised. His chin and cheeks were covered in a scraggly beard. Her heart sank. It wasn't Pet.
The stranger asked, "Jandra?" He pushed the hood of his cloak back, revealing a head full of golden hair, greasy and matted. His face was smudged by mud and blood and soot. Yet, as torchlight caught his eyes, she saw they were the same blue as a sky-dragon's scales. She only knew one man with such breathtaking eyes.
"Pet?" she asked.
"It's me," he answered. He dropped his voice to a whisper. "What are you doing here?"
"That's what I was going to ask you!"
"I'm fighting to free mankind from dragons," he said. He disappeared back over the wall. She heard him say, "Take over up here, Vance." An instant later, Pet reappeared at a nearby ladder. He slid down the ladder rails in a fluid move that reminded Jandra of the first time she'd met him, when he'd performed as an acrobat.
"When did you get all militant?" Jandra asked. Pet approached with such confidence she wondered if he could see her.
"Since Shandrazel started torturing helpless women," he said, now speaking to the empty air a few feet to her left. "Since he outlawed all weapons for humans, then threw me in the dungeon as a traitor for standing up to him."
"Torturing women?"
"Yes. The Sister of the Serpent we captured."
"What was the point?" she asked, confused. "She had no tongue. What could she have told him?"
"I don't think there was a point," said Pet. He turned his body a bit more, and was now speaking directly toward her unseen face, barely five feet away. "I think he's in over his head and doesn't know what he's doing. He's drawing on the lessons his father taught him: the real power of a king lies in the force and fear he commands."
Jandra shivered at these words, remembering how Shandrazel had been energized by the thought of her serving as an assassin. Was she now part of the fear he commanded? And if Shandrazel had fallen back on the lessons his father had taught him, was she any different? She was drawing on Vendevorex's moral choices to guide her this evening.
"You never answered my question," said Pet. "Why are you here?"
"I've come… on a mission of diplomacy. I need to talk to Ragnar."
"I can take you to him," said Pet. "But I don't think he's interested in diplomacy. Neither am I, to be honest."
"I need to at least try," she said.
"If diplomacy means surrendering Dragon Forge, forget it," said Pet. "We've paid for this fort with blood. We won't give it up."
"Not even if it means more blood shed?"
"We've made our stand," said Pet. "Every man here would give his life to keep this town in human hands."
"You might get that chance," she said. "Shandrazel's talking about burning this city to the ground. And, from what I'm told, it sounds as if Shandrazel's army might have lost their first attack due to bad luck. He says some sort of illness swept his army just after the attack began. Can you count on a mysterious illness a second time?"
Pet crossed his arms, looking stone-faced. He answered, in a cold tone. "We don't rely on luck. Ragnar says the Lord is on our side. So far, he's been right."
"You used to be so scornful of prophets," she said. "How can you be part of this?"
"I'm not the man I used to be," Pet said.
"Look, this is getting us nowhere. Just take me to Ragnar. I should at least hear what he has to say. Maybe he can make a believer out of me."
"Maybe," said Pet. Then he paused again. He was now close enough that she could smell him. His scent didn't trigger the same erotic response it had the last time she'd been near him. Her senses were now more under control, for one thing, and he smelled especially ripe, for another.
Despite this, a small chill raced through her as she met his gaze. Before, when she'd looked into his eyes, though they had been beautiful as gemstones, they'd been empty; vacant windows into a vacant soul. The only emotion she'd ever seen inside him was lust. Now, his eyes were lit with something else-a hardness, a seriousness that told her Pet no longer desired her. He'd surrendered his life to a larger cause.
"Shandrazel hasn't sent you here to do something dumb, has he? You're not here to kill Ragnar, are you?"