They’ll still be broken a bit longer. Hee hee!”

  I sighed. The sun was setting, and I still had shit to do today. The oranges and reds in the sky were reflected in the gleaming steel arrayed against me.

  “Sarge, I want to talk to Longfellow and come to an arrangement. I do not want to fight you. Reg was an exception; he threatened to take something precious from me.”

  “Let him in, Sergeant. I’ll speak to him.” Johnson’s voice came from out of sight behind the defences.

  The array of cutlery and crossbows was shifted just enough that it no longer pointed directly at me as I approached. Michael Bunnyson and I hopped up to land among the soldiers who shied away from us. I looked down to find Johnson and Angtirm waiting on the other side of the barricade.

  “Johnson.” I nodded to the soldier, then grinned at the banker. “Just the meal I was looking to run into.”

  “No bloodshed. Mr Angtirm is covered by our truce.”

  “He stole from me!” I hissed, feeling my teeth lengthen in my mouth.

  “And now you’ve stolen his town. I’d say you’re even. Mr Mayor, if you wouldn’t mind?” Johnson waved a hand between me and my meal. The banker and, apparently, the mayor of Fidler’s Mill held up a system contract.

  “What’s the name of your dungeon?” he asked, allowing the contract to unfurl and producing a quill from a pouch on his belt.

  “It doesn’t have one. The system calls it ‘unnamed dungeon’. What the hell is going on?” Jacko-bunny laid a metal hand on my shoulder and whispered ‘shamone’ softly.

  “In my capacity as mayor and representative of Lord Pratnip, this document will cede the territory of Fiddler’s Mill and the surrounding environs to the Dragon called Bob, who is hereby elevated to the rank of Baronet of the Empire, with all the rights and duties associated with his new position etc etc, blah blah, subject to appropriate checks and balances, remonstrance can be sought before the Imperial Court within thirty days, yadda yadda, establishment of a Quaestor House in the Mill forthwith, In the name of His Imperial Majesty Lozenge Madson, ad nauseam et mortis, etc. Here. I will quit the town when you sign, and the Banking House of Lucratis will send a new representative to replace me.”

  I took the scroll, which extended down to my knees and was covered in the tiniest writing I had ever seen, and stared at it blankly.

  “I want the restaurant as well,” I snapped. He scowled for a moment, then shrugged. He took the contract back and added a few squiggles to the bottom.

  “Fine.”

  “I hate paperwork. I need Kat to go over this. How about we retire to the Cod and have a drink?”

  Upon our arrival, we cleared out the bar, except for the new council; a few growls got them moving, and I dragged some tables together for us to sit around.

  Esme brought out the ales, then plopped down in my lap and watched with interest as Kat, who was growing increasingly annoyed by the male gaze her costume kept earning her, went over the contract line by line.

  I yawned and leaned back in my chair, listening to the bickering but not paying it much mind.

  “The ennoblement clause–” Angtirm tried to say for the fourth time, but Kat cut him off again.

  “It’s a gentrification clause. A Baronet isn’t a noble, that’s fine, though. The issue is the lack of specificity in the length of tenure. It needs to be heritable.” Esme perked up at that.

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  “Madam. He’s a dragon. He will live for hundreds of years. Are you suggesting we should grant a line of beasts an eternal seat in the Court?” Angtirm snapped, and I growled. I still very much wanted to eat the bastard, but it would be in poor taste to follow through on my carnivorous impulse.

  “He’s a dragon. He ain’t gonna be having any babies anytime soon, is he? If it’s heritable, he can nominate an heir, just in case some asshole gets lucky with an assassination attempt. It’s not unreasonable.” Assassins? The Hunters had been bad, you know it, shamo– dammit.

  They had been trouble. If I’d been more inclined to just kill everything and leave it to the gods to recognise their own, it might have been easier, but paid assassins would likely be worse. They’d be sneaky bastards like Big Kenny or the invisible Cyril dude from the Adventurers Guild. Or some freak like Worm who just needed to rest his hand on you to infect you with his wrigglies.

  “He’s under the protection of the crown! The Hunters Guild has just priced him out of the market, and a Quaestor House will make infiltration extremely challenging. Dear… Lady, surely you can see–” Angtirm tried again.

  “Make it heritable. He could simply declare himself king, claim it by force majeure, and set off a civil war. The Madson isn’t well-loved, and you know it. That’s why Foreverknot and Pratnip are playing silly buggers on the periphery of the Empire.” Kat sounded smug now, her tasselled shepherd's crook swinging back and being propped on one shoulder as she dropped a hip and adopted her most self-satisfied stance.

  Grumbling under his breath, Angtirm made some additions to the document and spun it back around so the pixie could stalk up and down it to check the amendments. She nodded in approval and glanced up at me with a beaming smile.

  “Sign it, my lord Baronet Bob of the Dragon,” Kat said happily.

  “Didn’t you say getting a noble title would be a shit load of trouble?” I asked, earning a snort of laughter from Johnson and a chuckle from Angtirm that stilled when my eyes tracked to his face.

  “Claiming one would have been. Being given one is a totally different kettle of fish, Bob. This is a good deal,” she said.

  “You should sign, Bob,” Esme whispered in my ear. I leant forward and took the quill from Angtirm, accidentally nicking his finger with a hastily shifted claw, so a spot of blood fell on the paperwork. I signed ‘Bob’ in the angular script of the empire, grateful I had been blessed with a three-letter name.

  Claim resolved.

  The town of Fidler’s Mill is no longer contested.

  Lord Pratnip’s third division has agreed to withdraw.

  Lady Foreverknot’s seventh brigade has retreated in disarray.

  A dragon called Bob has emerged victorious.

  Baronet Bob has taken control of Fidler’s Mill and the surrounding area to be ruled from his capital of The Unnamed Dungeon.

  The current tax rate is 19%. Tax will be paid directly to the dragon's hoard.

  Oh yes. Sweet, sweet taxes! Not a thought any decent person would have. Back home, only the vilest of aberrants and politicians could even conceive of such delight at parting other people from their hard-earned pennies. I, however, was already a monster anyway.

  I pulled out the bowl of mana crystals and set the portal gems to charge up, stirring them with one finger as the new council cheered, thankfully drowning out Mrs Hatrik's attempts to demand that she be made the new mayor.

  “I need a breath of fresh air. Esme, you coming?” I asked. She stood and leaned down, sharing a canyon of flesh with my eyes.

  “I just have a happy face, Baronet Bob.” She winked and took me by the hand, leading me out through the kitchen and into the rear yard of the pub.

  “Too much?” she asked as we sat down on empty barrels across from each other.

  “Yeah. I don’t know… I just want to get rich, not get my head chopped off, and try to sort out my karmic balance. Which, I must confess, has taken a hit over the last couple of days. Know of any missing kittens I can hunt down? I mean to rescue. I wouldn’t eat a kitten.” My stomach rumbled noisily.

  “We should go flying! Come on! It will help take your mind off things! Kat has everything under control, and you need to unwind. Let’s go find a nice, quiet hilltop somewhere and run around naked for an hour!”

  I smiled, lust and pride taking centre stage in my mind. My greed-goblin was currently sitting in front of one of those accounting machines with the whirring paper in my mind and touching itself inappropriately.

  I moved into the open space and shifted back to my true form, gleaming scales, obsidian talons, and bat-like wings of midnight. I shook myself out and found my wings felt stiff, but they were no longer leaden weights pinning me to the earth. I offered a scaled leg for Esme to climb up onto my back.

  “Milady?” I said with a toothy smile.

  “My lord,” she replied, returning my expression with a more acceptable level of dentistry on display. I felt her settle at the base of my neck, strong thighs gripping tightly as I crouched and hurled us into the sky. A few awkward wingbeats seemed to shake off the last of the aftereffects of the spell I’d been hit with, and I turned north to ride the thermals around Mount Bob up into the clouds.