“Kurt, take the crystal. Keep the cyborgs on patrol and kill any tendrils of the Deep One that dare to show their faces. See if you can get the hang of making them use flamers as well,” Jones ordered, passing the tiny gem over to the dwarf whose eyes glazed over as he took over control.

  “This is… sehr geil!” he exclaimed.

  “Just don’t let them get too near to music. One of mine got possessed by the god of Music and now insists on nightly sets in my pub,” I grumbled as Jones led me back through the rear lines.

  Messages must have been delivered, somehow, because lines of dwarves and other sentients were moving forward. Most were armoured, but a sizeable chunk of them pulled heavy hand carts loaded with supplies behind them.

  “How many can you send us?” Jones asked once we were back in the ‘safe’ tunnels.

  “I don’t have that many on hand,” I prevaricated.

  “You’ll get what they’re worth, Bob. And they’re worth a lot. When I let the uni-bunnies take over, it was just a slaughter. Not safe to use them with friendlies nearby, there’ll be too much bunny-on-blue collateral damage. However, as a front line of shock troops, they are perfect for this fight. I heard your secretary say you had five hundred. I reckon the King will be happy to take them all off your hands, and any more that you can make.”

  I ducked under the lintel of another door and resumed my awkward half crouch. After a few steps, I shifted my body again, becoming broader and shorter. I didn’t quite end up looking like a dwarf; I was too clean-shaven for that. I was operating under the assumption that the females must be just as hirsute as the males, as I hadn’t seen a single one without an impressive beard.

  “I’m not jealous,” chuckled Jones as he crab-walked along. “You get used to bending over around here.”

  As a responsible and mature dragon, I did not make the obvious joke.

  “I’ve got my own problems. Shit is going a bit sideways in the Empire, from what I gather. And once I’m done with Hateskale and the mayor of Longbottom, I suspect more than a few nobles will be pissed off with me.”

  He gave me the side eye. “Civil war?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe. I’m new here. But when I find Tricksylicks and Pinklebottom, or whatever the fuck those pixie-shits are called, I’m eating them. I don’t care who their friends are,” I snarled. My trouser legs were trailing behind me, and I kept standing on them. Some clothes designed for shapeshifters would be nice. I sure as hell wasn’t going to buy them, but I would see if I could persuade a minion or two to figure out how to make them.

  “I left the Empire for a reason,” he said softly as we emerged into the main corridors and I shifted back to my normal human form. “I was in the Regiment back home. People like me… well, we’re very popular as recruits in their armies. If we don’t fancy it, we usually end up not having a choice. What did you do back home?”

  “Worked for my dad.” That was all he was going to get on that particular subject. “You didn’t want to fight? And yet now you’re half a mile under a mountain killing shapeshifting monsters.”

  “I didn’t want to kill people anymore. My karma wasn’t so good, ya know? But the Deep One isn’t people, Bob. Although sometimes it fakes it for a while. Waking up to find half your barracks has been subsumed by someone you thought was a new recruit is a shitty alarm clock,” he said bitterly. “Can you imagine what would happen if it got out onto the surface? The dwarves are kind of dicks, but if they fall, the surface world would face an apocalypse. The Unterwelt is not a nice place, and it's populated by deeply unpleasant chaps.”

  “Main thing: you’re onboard with the cyberbunny program?” I asked as we reached the throne room's doors. He nodded and shoved them aside. I followed him in, and we found Saalk?nig in his habitual position, chin perched on a fist, elbow propped on one knee, glaring at the far wall like it owed him money.

  “King. The dragon wasn’t full of shit. The soldiers are good. Easily worth two grand a piece,” the soldier called as he removed his gleaming helmet and nodded politely. I trailed after him to stop at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the oversized throne. I was pleased with the price he mentioned. Greed rubbed his claws together happily.

  “So five hundred is fair?” intoned Saalk?nig without moving.

  “What? No! He said two thousand. Is your ear hair giving you problems?” I called.

  “I’d say fifteen hundred would be reasonable,” Jones replied affably. What the fuck was happening?

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “I can probably stretch to nine hundred?” Saalk?nig offered.

  “Oi! They’re my bloody troops!” I barked, stepping forward. A pair of very heavily armoured dwarves appeared in front of me and hefted their warhammers. “You think I’ve not met ninjas before? You can’t intimidate me! The Welsh dude said two thousand!”

  “You can’t negotiate, Bob. Only members of the clan can negotiate,” hissed Jones. “Leave this to me.”

  “Fourteen hundred, at least. Plus a hundred miners to produce materials needed for more,” Jones countered. My math opened and closed like a guppy out of water.

  “So valuable? Twelve hundred and fifty miners. We cannot risk our own output, or the other k?nig will shave our beards at the Clanmoot,” Saalk?nig said, looking down for the first time since we entered. Was he smiling? His face looked like the ball of hair you might pull from a hairbrush, so it was hard to tell.

  “Done,” Jones said happily. Well, it was more than I’d been hoping for. I needed to get adopted so I could argue my own bloody case next time.

  “Your associates are waiting for you on the surface, Titan. May thy pick strike true,” said the king.

  “May thy gold never run low,” I muttered, nodding up at him as Jones took my arm and led me back outside.

  “That went well!” he said brightly.

  “Two grand each?” I snapped at him.

  “You always pitch high. We’re rich, but you don’t stay rich by throwing away money. Follow this corridor; it will get you back to the surface.” He waved an arm down a passageway. “It’s been a pleasure, Bob. You’re ok for an English Dragon.”

  “Thanks, Welshy. I’ll get a shipment ready to send. Give me a week?”

  “Sounds good. Portal them into the battle hall. Someone will be around to meet you with some gold.” He nodded his head at me and headed back to the subterranean war, whistling a tune I recognised but couldn’t name. I’d warned him about music around the cyborgs. It was on his head if the ghost of Michael Jackson possessed some of his new toys.

  I found Geeku and Halefire glaring at each other, while a squad of dwarves glared at both of them equally.

  “Nice atmosphere. Geeku, how many troops you got left?” I asked.

  “Loads, Bob-Bruv. Da fightin’ were good, so we had babies!” He grinned happily.

  “How many?” I asked in confusion.

  “Oh, bout twice what we started wiv. Stumpies fight well.” He gave the dwarves a thumbs up, then winced as he lowered his arm. They’d had about fifteen hundred Orlics before. Now the horde had doubled… I had a decent force at my disposal. I’d like to see the armies of the Empire mess with hundreds of robobunnies and thousands of battle-mad Orlics.

  “You can find them?” I asked, looking over at Halefire, who was scowling at me.

  “Sure, dragon-bruv. Dey dat way!” He pointed towards what I assumed was the south.

  “You lot gonna bother my guys as they withdraw?” I asked the dwarves.

  “We’ll shadow them,” said the hairiest of them in a soft voice. He spat then resumed, “But we won’t attack as long as they fuck off home.”

  “You hear that, Geeku? Go find the warband and bring them back to Mount Bob. I can promise some more fighting soon enough,” I said, clapping him on a green shoulder.

  “Proper fights?” he asked excitedly.

  “I don’t really know what dat means, but if it means fightin’ ooman armies, den yeah.” I really needed to avoid talking to Simeon. If I caught his rhyming slang as easily as I fell into an Orlic patois, I’d never be able to get anything done again that didn’t involve eating things.

  Geeku bellowed happily and took off in a flat sprint that was impressively fast considering his injuries. As he disappeared towards the lake, I turned to Halefire, met his glare, and raised him to level three. “What’s your problem? I just saved your life.”

  “I’d ask that you release me from my vow, dragon. You don’t need me, and I want to go home,” he muttered angrily.

  “Sorry, buddy. You owe me, and you know too much. Besides, I’m gonna need you sometime soon, I reckon. How the hell else am I going to find the secret entrances to the slavers' hub?”

  “You’d drag the Silverwood into this affair?” he snapped.

  “You were off the books, remember? Disavowed, they called it, back home. ‘If you are captured on this mission, we will deny all knowledge.’”

  “I am a brown ranger, my father is–”

  “I don’t care what colour your undies are, nor do I give one damn about your daddy, dude.” I shifted back into my real body and shook myself out. I preened my feathers slightly, straightening the beautifully valuable things out so they looked sleek and smooth. My head snaked around, nearly the size of his torso. “Hop on, long ears. It’s a long flight home, but we should be able to do it in one go if we’re lucky.”

  “Very well. But there will be strongly worded letters from my government to the Empire! You’re in for a world of paperwork!”

  I looked back, fixing him with a single eye as he settled unhappily onto my shoulders. He paled and locked his lips shut.

  “You there,” I said, turning back to the elf's former guards. “Keep the humans here until I use the portal again to bring your next load of troops. They can come back to the Mill and go home if they want. Better than having them wander about unguarded.”

  “Yes, Titan,” ground out the hairiest of them.

  “You’ve got a portal? Why can’t we just– oh shit!” Halefire began, but I launched skyward, knocking the breath out of him for a moment. Splendid fingers grabbed desperately at scales and horns as he tried his best to stay upright.

  “It’s low on power after I brought the bunnies through. You’ll just have to suck it up. Besides, I need to hunt and get some evolutions. God, I’m hungry. Have you got any gherkins? Do you even have gherkins on Helstat?”

  “What’s a gherkin?” he moaned as he closed his eyes to avoid seeing the ground falling away beneath us.

  “Typical. I’m not really into veggies, for obvious reasons. I turned to give him a saurian smile that was wasted on his tightly shut eyes. “If you’re going to piss yourself, you’re going in the claws. I don’t want to have to scrub between my scales, Halefire.”

  “I’m fine. I’m fine. I’M FINE!” the elf chanted.

  He hadn’t been this bad on the way out. Maybe I should wrap him in a length of the slave-chain I’d stashed away in my belly pouch. I circled lower, not out of sympathy for my suddenly reluctant new minion, but because I really was famished. Hunting at night was harder, but also more fun.

  The elf screamed as I stooped and dove down on an unsuspecting cow-thing.