“He’s a coward!”
“Fuck you!” the goblin retorted.
The dragon’s fire was more like napalm than a simple continuous blast of fire. Where it moved through the air, it made for thick licks of fire. Where it touched the rooftop, it spattered, making stone burn with all the eagerness and enthusiasm that wood or paper might.
It wasn’t stopping.
It wasn’t stopping, and I was almost certain that the Barber wouldn’t leave it at that.
He’s playing a role. He’s trying to hold on to Johannes, avoiding doing anything that could jeopardize this claim to a demesne that he might be able to use.
What would Johannes do?
If the pillar fell, we would lose all of the cover we had. The flames could keep coming, and we’d bake. I’d combust, by virtue of the heat around me. We might well suffocate before anything else.
Both were possible even if he left the pillar where it was.
But he had no reason to leave the pillar where it was.
No reason, except to keep us here, waiting for the dragon to run out of fire.
The others?
“We have to go back!” I shouted.
“Back!?”
“The others!”
Mags seemed to get it.
The goblin didn’t.
“Go!” Mags ordered. She gave him a kick in the rear end.
He did go, and very nearly left before I could join them, with me throwing myself past the licks of accelerant-fueled fire that danced in the gap between shield and pillar.
It wasn’t a long trip to the stairs, but with my focus on the fire, the dragon, the shield, and positioning myself exceedingly carefully in the midst of it all, joining Mags and the goblin in taking a zig-zagging path, I did my utmost not to let myself burn or walk on any patches of ignited ground, I very nearly missed it.
I’d guessed wrong when it came to the Barber’s goal here.
The railing rose, the space between the top of the railing and the floor of the roof grew thicker, with curls of metal and stone filling in to become a wall.
Ringing the tower, sealing everything in.
Turning this into an oven.
Four enemies to fight. Demon, gatekeeper, dragon, and the tower itself.
“Keep going, protect the others!” I shouted.
“What!?” Mags asked.
But I was already changing course. Separating from her. The intensity of the fire got worse as I stepped further from the shield-bearing goblin.
Pieces of wood at my back ignited. One foot did as well.
I could feel Rose’s flesh sear and burn, and it was a pain unlike just about anything I’d ever felt.
But I reached the railing, staggered into it, and cut at it with the Hyena to chop at a piece of it, pushing myself through the biggest gap.
It now shielded me from the fire, giving me avenue to pause. Hanging on with one hand, I used the Hyena to hack at myself. Cutting away wood where it burned, too generous in how I cut, just to be sure I didn’t miss anything. I left Rose’s foot as it was, seared by licks of the flame.
I climbed. Up the exterior wall, onto a pillar.
The fire had stopped, and had perhaps stopped some time ago, but the flames remained intense, burning as if they consumed fire for fuel, endless, roiling, dying out in one place even as it surged in another for no apparent reason.
Looking down, I couldn’t make out the others. They’d retreated into the stairwell, and the fire danced above them.
In the midst of the fire, I could see the Barber. He was joined by the dragon, which moved awkwardly, its entire form and function altered by the way it had been parted.
I was twelve feet up, twenty feet away from the Barber. Armed with only a broken sword.
We weren’t equipped to win this fight as it stood. There were too many heavy hitters.
I stabbed the Hyena into the pillar’s top for leverage, in case he tried something.
The Barber saw me, using the Sight. Or he sensed the offense to the demesne he sought to control.
I was ready for him to move up here. A fight with a burning rooftop below and a fatal drop to the street on the other side.
He ignored me. He used his shears to cut at the flame, severing it like he might paper. A swat of the tool, another cut, and he created a path for himself, the dragon right behind. Moving perpendicular to me, as if inviting me to come.
No, he was forcing my hand.
He was leading the dragon to the stairwell. From there, all he had to do was fill it with fire. The others wouldn’t be able to hold it off. They just weren’t equipped for it.
Have to remove a threat. Can’t do anything about the angel, the Barber is too careful…
My eye fell on the dragon.
Fuck me, I thought. It was really my only chance.
I found myself running along the top of the wall, following the route they were traveling. With the circular nature of the roof, we naturally converged.
I leaped, with all of my strength. I flew, for lack of a better word.
No longer breathing fire, readying for its next blast, the dragon was focused on the stairwell, the Barber was focused on me. I couldn’t touch him. He’d meet my blade again, and he’d move away if he felt threatened.
I landed on the Dragon’s wing, tumbled, and only just managed to grab the dragon’s shoulder to stop myself from falling off to one side, at the base of the wall. The fire there was only part of it.
My goal lay elsewhere. With the leverage the grab had afforded me, I hurled myself over. Into the v-shaped gap where the dragon’s body parted.
Into the divide the Barber had made. With white-hot burning scales on either side of me.
I stabbed the part that looked most like a heart.
I saw the dragon wither, staggering away.
It made for a feeling of victory, however fleeting and tinged with the other danger that was moments away, but even that feeling faded fast.
As I turned, I saw that the Barber had answered my stab with a cut of his own. He’d finished cutting the Dragon.
Now whole, its sickened and dying half killed by my sword, the Dragon rested against the wall. Patches of flame surrounded me, and the Barber faced me, weapon at the ready.