Following a pleasant and relaxing time, that’s all you’re going to get about what happened on that grassy knoll; we headed back to Mount Bob. We didn’t assassinate a president from it, although we might have conceived one.

  I flew Esme back to my lair and slid to a halt by my hoard. Offering her a leg to hop down, I quickly shifted back into my human form after she stepped down, and I donned the clothing needed to pass among the mammals.

  “You’re back! Where– what just happened?” Kat narrowed her eyes at me, and I wiped the smug expression from my face.

  “Have you got the flour for me?” I asked instead.

  “Why is she all aglow?” Kat answered a question with a question.

  “You’re over a thousand years old. Figure it out, Princess,” I snapped.

  “Princess? Are you a noble?” Esme came as close to a real glare as I’d ever seen from her as she narrowed her eyes at my pixie.

  “I was in a past life, sugartits. Bob, the first combat floor is ready, and I’ve got your flour. It’ll be a while before we can face a serious adventurer party, though.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes. War, potential famine, death. All I needed was pestilence, and I’d have a full house of horsemen. The night soil situation in the Mill promised to bring forth the final rider soon enough. When I opened my eyes, various minions, some of which were new to me, were piling sacks of flour just outside the hatch.

  “Nobility is always trouble for the little people.” Esme sniffed and smirked slightly at Kat’s outfit. “But you seem alright.”

  “Thanks, Esme.” Kat ground out through clenched teeth. “So, scaly, you gonna break the news to the rest of the townsfolk?”

  “I don’t think–” I began, but Esme cut me off.

  “Not yet! You should turn into a dragon and lay waste to the attacking army at the critical moment!” she enthused.

  “I don’t want to kill anyone,” I muttered. “I got booted into this body for being an asshole in my past life. I’m trying to be better.” Jesus, it sounded sad when I said it out loud. “I mean, I’m on a mission from God to make the world better.”

  “Bob, sweetheart, none of us can make the world better. Maybe we can help a little bit of it be a touch nicer for a while. And dealing with the army coming to attack my friends and family, that’s a blessing in my books.” Bloody womanly logic. She wasn’t wrong, though.

  “I don’t know how it will all work out! I’ve got a plan to try and drive them off. And if push comes to shove, I can do the whole angry lizard thing and try to scare them away, but–”

  “Are you going to let them take what’s yours?” Anger flared at her words.

  “Never! And I’ll eat that bastard Angtirm and the edible Reg for what he said he’d do to you! You’re mine! The town is mine! Anyone tries to–”

  Claim staked.

  The town of Fidler’s Mill is contested. Three factions vie for control of the critical crossroads.

  Lord Pratnip has sent elements of his third division.

  Lady Foreverknot has dispatched all of her seventh brigade.

  A dragon called Bob has dispatched himself and two dozen modified monsters.

  The spoils will go to the victor!

  “Oh shit.” I blinked the golden letters out of my vision.

  “Well done, Bob.” Kat slowclapped me from behind the rapidly growing pile of flour. “You just done fucked up, boyo.”

  “I think I might have done?” I muttered.

  “What?” asked Esme.

  “You didn’t get the system notification? What class are you anyway?” I asked.

  “Not the time for that, Bob. She’s a Sultry Gin Slinger, level nine, by the way. No wonder your mammal parts were utterly defenceless against her charms. Only the nobility and, I really must stress this part, LOCAL ARMY COMMANDERS will have received that message,” Kat yelled at me.

  “Oh shit. Johnson’s going to–”

  “What? I’ll wait while you find a way to avoid making that an innuendo.” Kat tapped her foot impatiently.

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  “Princess, you’re on my side, remember? I die, you go to the back of the queue for godhood. So quit being a bitch and help me fix this!” Esme rounded on me and took my cheeks in her hands.

  “Bob, what has happened?” she said firmly.

  “I accidentally staked a claim to Fidler’s Mill, so now I’m kind of at war with both Longfellow’s crowd and the army closing in on the town.” I did not sound sheepish when I said this. I’m a dragon, and dragons aren’t woolly.

  “Oh. So just take it over! Half the town will support you!” she said cheerfully.

  “Listen, Tits McGhie, that’s gonna bring down a whole lot of heat that poor ole Bob isn’t ready to handle yet. Quaestors, Hunter, and Adventurer Guild parties. Opportunists looking to score a tidy pile of gold from some dragon scales. This is a fucking disaster!” Kat yelled.

  “Don’t you speak to my daughter like that!” snarled Benton as he rushed in through the portal I had foolishly left open. “Oh wow. That’s a lot of gold. I condone your future nuptials with my daughter!” he said as he snatched his hat off his head and nodded politely at me. “But the pixie can shut her filthy pixie mouth!” He looked about for a moment and went cross-eyed. A distinctly unpleasant swallowing sound followed, and his face turned an interesting shade of puce.

  “You were looking for a spittoon, weren’t you?” I asked. He nodded and took long, slow breaths. “Jenny, you’re probably listening on the other side of the portal; you might as well come on through,” I called, and my hirsute baker came through with a pan in one hand. I wasn’t sure who she was threatening with it. The thing seemed to float between being aimed at Kat, Benton, and Esme.

  “Right, we’re all friends here,” I began.

  “More than friends in some cases, unless I miss my guess! Well played, Bob!” Jenny cackled in a way that reminded me of Kat when she was happy.

  “That’s great, thanks for being so mature about this situation,” I growled. “So it’s possible Johnson will turn on me. On us. And the townspeople. All I’ve got are robo-bunnies, a handful of minions, and you guys. How do we make this work?”

  “What kind of dowry are you looking fer?” asked Benton,

  “Do I look like I need your money?” I snapped and waved a hand at my hoard, the greed-demon in my mind gibbered at my casual disregard for more gold. Esme put a hand on her father's arm and shook her head as he moved towards it like a moth to a flame. Then my greed caught up with my mouth. Bloody mammal parts being stupid mammal parts. “Half the Cod!” I corrected.

  “Well, in that case, I can probably rally the small business owners. The florists, botanists, mad Mordechai, and most of the farmers. They’re all regulars,” Benton offered.

  “Great. I’ll have an army of traders and service providers at my disposal, plus twenty murder-bunnies. I’m not getting the vibe that this is a war-winning force we’re putting together,” I muttered.

  “You’ll have the local militia as well. I’ll see to that,” offered Benton. My mind flashed back to the first time I’d wandered into town and seen said militia scratching their arses and loitering next to the weapons they were supposed to be manning.

  “There are three hundred or so Rompers in the city and perhaps a thousand Sausage Makers closing in to strangle the Mill. There are maybe another thousand civvies caught inside the town, and the old guard is what? Twenty out-of-shape dudes who barely fit into their armour?”

  “There’s no need to be rude, Bob. They’re my mates.”

  “I’m sorry, Benton. I’m just not seeing how they contribute to the solution. They’ll need protecting, rather than helping protect!” I said as gently as I could.

  “How about some good old-fashioned bribery?” Jenny suggested. I refrained from eating her.

  “And what, precisely, shall we bribe them with?” Not my shinies!

  “Food, you dumbass. That’s more flour than there’s left for sale in the whole damn town, I reckon!” Jenny stomped over and leaned down to pull one sack open and rub the powder between her fingers. “Why didn’t you tell me you had access to this quality of flour? No bonemeal, no chalk, this is the finest bread flour!”

  “I didn’t realise there were grades of flour outside of self-raising and wholegrain.” I was, I must admit, starting to feel a little ganged up on. Esme moved over and slipped her arm through mine, nuzzling up and somehow achieving eighty per cent body contact in the process. My pulse slowed as I felt her pulse through the boob pressed against my arm. Then it quickened again due to said boob.

  “The harvest isn’t in yet, love. All we’ve got left is what traders brought in over the summer and the dregs of last year's milling,” she whispered in my ear.

  “Ok, so we’ve got food and Johnson doesn’t,” I said.

  “He’ll have supplies, Bob. Soldiers always squirrel away enough food to see that they last longer than the civilians,” Jenny said bitterly. Hmm. There must be a story there, but now wasn’t the time.

  “More than that, you’ve got you, scale-face. I know you’re trying to be a good dragon, but, ya know, you could just rain fire on them,” Kat suggested with a shrug.

  “Who’s the wee hoor?” asked Benton as his eyes rose and fell by tiny increments while he followed Kat’s shrug. She blurred forward, intent on testicular punishment, but I snatched her up before she could pound my putative father-in-law in the gonads.

  “This is Her Majesty Ekaterina bonbon Chewytoffee, twenty-sixth millionth of her name,” I said quickly, and she bit my finger, causing me to drop her.

  “You got that wrong deliberately,” she snapped as she crossed her arms. Then she uncrossed them and glared at Benton, who looked away guiltily.

  “Maybe I did. Do we have to fight the Rompers? I kinda like Johnson.” Jenny sniggered, and I glared at her. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to make things hard between– for fucks sake, Jenny. Kat, can you send for a minion with a glass of water to help her settle down? Maybe ask Gledna to work her magic on it.”

  “No, I’m good, I’m good. There’s only one gland that really matters at the moment, and he’s in the town!”

  “It’s a very long way down the base of the mountain, Jenny.” She fought for control and nodded solemnly. “And you can’t fly. Options for peace? I’ve got a plan to scare off the Foreverknot bastards, but it’s the snake already in the bed that’s going to be… Jenny?”

  “You’re doing it deliberately!” she snorted.

  “I. Am. Not. The Orlics are dealt with. I had Longfellow in my pocket, but now we might be enemies, and I need access to the town to use the trick I’ve got planned to deal with the other human army. How do I make it so that Johnson doesn’t kill me when I go back into town?”

  “He won’t dare, Bob. You could steamroll his detachment, and he knows it. Do what you’re naturally inclined to do. What you’re best at.”

  “What’s that, Kat?” I asked, but I had a sinking feeling I knew what she would say.

  “Unleash the dragon-kraken! Be the monster they think you are and make them tremble at the sound of your wings!” Kat said happily, giving me a double thumbs-up.

  “Goddamnit.”