On the whole, the bar sign was well received, at least by Esme. Jenny muttered some nice things, then asked to be shown to her room.

  “I’ve been sleeping on dirt or stone for more than a week.” She stretched as she rose, and her spine clicked audibly.

  “Oh, you poor dear! Let me show you to your room. Bob mentioned you’re a baker? That must be so much fun! Making delicious treats, it’s so kind of you to come all this way, as well!” Esme shot me a wink as she sashayed further into the pub, leading Jenny by the hand.

  “You brought booze?” Benton asked as he sat in Esme’s seat. I suppressed a sigh and topped off a glass with Golden Jack and slid it over to him. What the hell. I poured one for myself as well and sat back down.

  “Some good stuff, some bulk. Spices and delicacies from the city, as well.”

  There was a pa-ting as Benton once again demonstrated his unerring accuracy when it came to spittoons. The old man took a long sip, then gave Bob a shocked look.

  “How much of this have you got?” he asked excitedly.

  “One less bottle than I had an hour ago.” I waved the now mostly empty bottle with one hand before pouring myself another double. “Enough to last a while. And I can pop back to Baginton to restock easily enough. How’s the business been while I was away? It was busy out there.” I nodded towards the bar.

  “The soldiers helped a lot. Angtirm is doing just as well, though.” He cocked an eyebrow at me. “That’s what you really care about, isn’t it?”

  “He… wronged me. And I am not the kind of… man to take that lying down. But–”

  “But you also want to lie down with my daughter!” he glared at me.

  “Only if she’s willing!” I blurted out without thinking, and the look he gave me could have melted steel.

  “I had assumed that would be the case,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “Esme is a good girl, and who she chooses to marry and give her flower to is up to her. As long as I approve.” My stomach rumbled loudly.

  “You mean she hasn’t…?”

  “Course not! What kind of– you and I are at risk of falling out right now, Sir Bob.” I reached and wrapped one hand around the dangly part of my ascot and squeezed my hand shut. Why the fuck did dragons want to eat virgins? Was it a flavour thing? Did just one injection of “Vitamin D” ruin the taste? The highwaymen had tasted pretty good, and I seriously doubted they had gone to their maker “unspoiled”.

  “I’m sorry! I wasn’t expecting to have this particular chat with my girlfriend's dad right now. Benton, I have no ill intentions towards Esme. I will try to be a perfect gentleman.”

  “Oh, you already are, Bob. Ignore the old man, he’s been insufferable since Widow Gardie gave him the cold shoulder!” Esme said as she breezed through and back into the bar, putting some extra wiggle in her step as she called out, “Ok, gents, sorry about that! Who needs a top-up?”

  “Cheeky mare,” Benton muttered fondly. He fixed me with his eyes and spat from the side of his mouth without even looking at the spittoon. A perfect pinging sound rang out half a second later. “You be good to her,” he growled.

  “I will not take advantage of Esme,” I solemnly promised.

  “That’s a shame!” she called back from the bar. I blinked at the same moment as Benton winced.

  “Look, man, where do you want the booze? I have a few things to check out before I head home.”

  “The cellar. Where is your home? I asked around about you. You just wander off into the woods, never stop in town.”

  “I’m a naturalist.”

  “You run about with no trews on?” he asked in confusion.

  “That’s a naturist. Whatever. I prefer to be out in the wilds. Look, just show me the cellar so I can get back to running about the woods with my danglies on display.”

  He led me into the bowels of the Cod. Down a twisting staircase lay a long, dank room that was poorly lit from narrow windows at one end. It smelled of beer and mould, and was long overdue for a very thorough bleaching.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “Delightful. Where’s good?” I asked.

  “Stick it where you like,” he said gruffly, and I refrained from making the very obvious wisecrack.

  “Happy?” I’d laid out the barrels down one wall and put most of the bottles of the good stuff on the shelves that lined the opposite wall.

  “Balance’s Bouncy Bits, where the hell did you… Yeah, this will do, boy.”

  “Who the hell is Balance?”

  “The goddess of holy shit, that’s a lot of whisky and wine! Good job, lad!” Benton slapped me on the shoulder and then shook out his hand. I had a suspicion they did not, in fact, have a local god for shit loads of whisky. Then again, Scotland was a real place back home…

  “I expect to make a profit on it,” I growled. “Look, I need to go water my plants. Can I leave this shit with you?” Armies, well, warbands were on the march, and I wanted to check the local area to see if anything needed a bit of “death from above” to preserve my financial interests in the Mill.

  “Hmm? Yeah, I’m good. Bloody hell.” He ran his hands lovingly along the rows of cheap whisky, then lingered on the ranks of Golden Jack. He swallowed convulsively, and whatever tobacco substitute he favoured must have gone down the wrong way; he burst into a coughing fit, and I had to slap his back a couple of times to dislodge it.

  Once I was confident my punitive father-in-law wasn’t about to choke to death and make this place smell even worse, I slipped back up the stairs as he spat, slipped a nugget of some unknown plant into his mouth, and started chewing again. I left him to it and made my escape.

  Esme planted a kiss on my cheek and squeezed a buttock, thankfully one of mine, as I headed out the door. I assured her I’d be back tomorrow, then fled into the night like a teenager with strict parents. But I didn’t have to be home before a curfew. I needed to do some flying. The good captain, whom I was not going to let drink that much ever again, certainly not on the house anyway, had made it clear that this peaceful little corner of the Empire was about to get a lot less sleepy.

  Once I was safely out in the woods, I checked my surroundings, vanished my clothes, and for a fraction of a second, I was the weirdo Benton now thought I was. Within moments, scales sprouted from my flesh, and I shook myself out into my proper body. Much as I loved running around cosplaying as a mammal, it didn’t feel as right as my draconic majesty.

  My wings spread out, and I launched myself into the sky. I fought for altitude, moving from updraft to updraft as I circled around Fidler’s Mill. The nature of the geography drew me closer to Mount Bob, where the low-level air was driven upward, but I kept one reptilian eye on the town below me.

  I had flown in this area often enough to know where I should, and more importantly, shouldn’t be seeing little glowing lights of mammalian activity. While my hoard called me home, the mighty pile of gold psychically demanding that I laze upon it, I sent my senses out in the opposite direction.

  To the south, there were the usual stretches of darkness, but also several unexpected splashes of light. I switched to gliding and sped in their direction. Three blobs of light looked out of place.

  Campfires might not seem like much, but if you put enough of them close together, they can light up the night. I stayed high, that way I could easily escape should anyone take offence to an armoured titan drifting around above them. It was unlikely they could hurt me, but better safe than sorry, and there was no point tipping my hand. My being able to douse them in acid fire while they slept is a huge advantage, but it only worked as long as they were willing to sleep.

  Each of the camps had somewhere between five and six hundred troops in it. This was what we call a ‘wild ass guess, I’m pulling it out of my ass. ’ I was thinking it would be four to six people per fire and doing a quick count as best I could while trying to Batman my way silently through the sky.

  I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like the Rompers had less than a thousand troops, and that was a generous estimate. Probably closer to five hundred.

  So my business interests were being protected by less than a third of the forces camped a couple of days' march from my doorstep. This was going to get messy. Could I just slaughter an army and make the problem go away? Maybe. The Hunter and Adventurer Guilds already had a juvenile dragon on their radar, and if I started wiping out armies, it would make my life more complicated in the long run.

  Would the Rompers be able to cope with this threat? I didn’t want to intervene. But I also didn’t want anyone to rob me of the Cod or my revenge on Angtirm. Stealing my revenge on someone who stole from me might seem a little meta, but dragonic minds work in draconic ways, and that was how I felt. I circled north, flying low until I reached Mount Bob, then I began to circle to spiral up on the north side, keeping stone between myself and the gathering human forces in the south.

  Before I could park myself upon my golden mattress, I spotted another aberrant glimmer of light to the north. I pulled away from the entrance to my lair and flapped hard to gain some altitude.

  I switched to a glide, keeping the mountain between myself and the moon as I slowly lost altitude. What had started out as a glimmer on the horizon quickly grew as I sped across miles in minutes.

  The fires burned on seemingly forever. I regained some altitude and peeled off to the right, circling round what looked to me like a vast force. Using my shitty four to six people per fire maths once again, there were thousands of Orlics gathered into the host.

  The humans would be outnumbered by a huge margin. I would be even worse for them if they fought each other and thinned their numbers in advance of the horde's arrival. I flew lower and listened to the garbled babbling of the Orlics, interspersed by the mad slang of the occasional mad doc.

  If this army moved south, it would be trouble. For the humans, but more importantly for me. The bastards would have to pass by Mount Bob, and then their first stop would be Fidler’s Mill.