The truck's two headlights were the only sources of light in the rainy night. The highway climbed slowly along winding switchbacks. The old guardrails were made from wood and sheet metal and without them Locus was afraid they would drive off a cliff into the forest valleys below. There was a disproportionate number of construction zones out in the mountains as well, delimited by bright yellow-green cones. In one stretch of highway the signs waffled back and forth between Saint Glenice County and Ashe River County as the highway followed a snake's trail along the perfectly straight border.

  Locus sat in the passenger seat in the forward cabin. Curiously, there was a rearview mirror even though it was impossible to see behind the solid sheet of metal in the back of the cabin. One of the girls in the back was moaning loud enough to be heard above the sound of the rain pattering on the ample surface of the cargo bed roof. Locus suspected it was Twist. Woodsman drove in silence.

  "So how did you meet everyone?" Locus asked.

  Woodsman considered this for a little while, rubbing his jaw occasionally.

  "Grace has been my arranger for several years now," he finally replied. "Her contracts always pay quite well. Enough to afford Sweets, who, as Twist pointed out, is the best diver in Taisia. Normally I run with a different cowboy and whatever muscle I need. But the client specifically asked for you and Burner to be included on this job."

  "What about Twist?"

  "Small arms expert. Good with a sniper rifle."

  "You didn't need to ask Grace to include her on the team?"

  "I have some autonomy when picking the muscle," Woodsman said. "If Twist gets herself killed, which is unlikely, then it's no loss to our arranger or our client. You and Burner, on the other hand, are considered critical, and there will be significant consequences if either of you die. So try not to fuck it up."

  "Affirmative," Locus said. "How did you get into this line of work?"

  "Not much else in this world for a whelp like me."

  "A whelp?" Locus asked. "That doesn't seem very flattering."

  "It means I'm the mortal spawn of a Dragon," Woodsman explained. "I'm also one of the last of my kind. The Gold Dragon Tribe went extinct decades ago. The vast majority of the whelps were killed during the war and the ones that survived lost the ability to reproduce. I was able to smuggle myself here to the Physical Realm, where I adopted this criminal lifestyle because it is aligned with the skills I had from before. It didn't take long for Grace to find me once I arrived, and the rest is history."

  There was so much about the response that Locus didn't quite believe or even understand. He said, "It sounds like quite the story."

  "We've got time. Let me start from the beginning."

  Kanten Korain, third-rank member the Guild of Woodsmen, was present in the great hall when the delegation arrived.

  It was late afternoon, and the light filtering through the ornate windows at the base of the great dome created golden undulations in the bronze din. Kanten crouched in a recess just below one such window, which made him nearly impossible to see from the ground floor. King Odhai sat upon his great throne flanked on either side by shallow rectangular pools which reached all the way to the door at the opposite end of the hall. His entire court, which consisted of hundreds of Gold Dragons, was arrayed in tiers cut into the sloping palace walls. The courtiers were seated according to their rank, with the lower caste at the very top.

  In the very center of the space there was a vast hollow sphere of intricately-carved wood, suspended above the hall by thin cables which were hidden behind semi-transparent ivory veils, one for each of the four directions. Everything about the space was perfect, patterned with mazes of ivory and umber and crimson with a handful of burgundy plants and the rare splash of green or blue in the tiles below the water. It was calculated to create feelings of peace and happiness and awe, though if the members of the foreign delegation were impressed by the display, they hid it well.

  Among the delegates there counted two Green Dragon whelps in drab olive robes that had seen a lot of wear, one middle-aged, one old and bent. The two men were accompanied by a woman wearing white-gold robes which marked her as a high-ranking priestess of the Church of the Lady Ghost. The older man advanced and then rapped his knotted ebony staff against the tiles three times.

  "Deorwine the Elder!" the King's Herald announced.

  Kanten could tell, from his many years of experience working in the palace, that King Odhai was displeased, and that he was on the verge of ordering the slaying of the three delegates. The slaying would not be ordered in public, especially not in front of the courtiers. No, the order would be given with a slight rotation of the king's wine chalice, and then carried out by the Woodsmen without question.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Deorwine the Elder cleared his throat. "King Odhai of the Gold Dragon Tribe, I have come to deliver an ultimatum on behalf of King Cyneric of the Green Dragon Tribe."

  The courtiers gasped. King Odhai looked livid. Kanten drew one of the recurve daggers strapped to his chest and held the flat of the blade against his wrist, a sign to the other Woodsmen that he was ready for immediate orders. From his vantage he could see the other Woodsmen doing the same.

  "You represent a charlatan!" the king bellowed. "A rebel that has spurred the generous and righteous love that I offer and continue to offer to all of my subjects. A terrorist. Tell me, colony whelp, the words your pretender king has commanded you to deliver."

  "King Cyneric of the Green Dragon Tribe offers the following ultimatum," Deorwine the Elder began. "Release his younger brother, Prince Aelfwine, and allow him to return to the Tribe for healing. If you do not capitulate to this singular demand, then all of the Gold Dragons, everywhere in the Elemental Plane of Dreams, will be exterminated."

  This provoked an uproarious explosion of laughter from the king and his courtiers. However, in spite of the general comedy of the moment, King Odhai rotated his wine chalice ninety degrees, so that the topaz on the upper rim faced to the south-west, the direction of Heaven and Light. One by one the Woodsmen began to withdraw through secret passages below the windows.

  The woman from the delegation rushed forward and then threw herself on the ground, prostrate, arms outstretched. In a shrill voice she cried, "Almighty King! Please allow me to speak! So it is written, in The Stained-Glass Window, which was dictated by Queen Rhea of the Purple Dragon Tribe, the Spirit of Nations, and penned by the hand of the Consort Eternal: 'All nations give birth to a Spirit, and this Spirit dies when the last patriot dies. Thus it is the labor of kings to prevent the genocide of their people by establishing strong borders between nations, just as a stained-glass window establishes strong borders between the colors.' Almighty King! Do not risk the Spirit of your nation by ignoring this warning. Do not make light of King Cyneric or his followers!"

  Superstitious nonsense, Kanten thought. In twenty-five years of life he had traveled to every corner of the kingdom and he had seen all sorts of Dragons. Gold, Silver, Copper, Green. One time he even saw one of the elusive members of the Nambulite Dragon Tribe, with mineral scales colored iridescent crimson, pink, and orange. He had even seen Dragons from distant lands, Red and Blue and Turquoise and Rose. But in all his years he had never seen a Purple Dragon, nor had anyone else he had ever met.

  The stuff about Spirits is probably true, he admitted. And what if the king is wrong? What if this Cyneric fellow actually does have the power to exterminate the Gold Dragons?

  Unsurprisingly, King Odhai did not revert his judgment. Kanten sheathed his recurve dagger and made his way into the narrow darkness of the passage behind his perch. A flash of magenta light halted his progress and the Spirit of the Gold Dragon Tribe appeared before him. She floated just above the ground, bare feet dangling, pale yellow-pink hair flowing in some unseen wind. Kanten dropped to one knee and bowed his head.

  "Grandmaster," he said.

  "Disregard the king's orders," the Spirit commanded. "That woman bothers me. Follow the delegation. Determine if the Green Dragon Tribe has the power they claim to have. Then report back to me."

  "It shall be done."

  A flashing pinkish light on the dashboard interrupted Woodsman as he explained his story. Locus could barely make out the corner of one of those glass boxes that Grace had given him. Woodsman reached out and tapped it.

  "Woodsman here," he said.

  "Take the next exit on the right," Grace said.

  Locus caught a glimpse of the pale indigo highway exit sign before the truck passed it. It read: Shoreline Ave. Lake Reese ARB 3/4.

  Woodsman eyed the sign curiously. He said, "Understood."

  The magenta orb in the glass box flickered and then went dull again.

  "I've been out here once," Locus said. "There was an airshow at the Lake Reese airfield three years ago. The White Ravens were there. But, it was only a five-ship performance, because the sixth pilot got sacked."

  "How do you get fired from the Air Force?" Woodsman asked.

  "Unapproved maneuvers, most likely. Why does Grace want us to get off here? I don't remember anything out here except the Air Reserve Base."

  "Hell if I know."

  The truck drifted right onto the long ascending offramp and continued on through the pouring rain. The headlights illuminated the wall of pines beyond the end of the ramp, bluish-green against an angry sky, black and gray with hints of purple and orange. They turned uphill onto a bow-shaped road leading up to a gentle crest overlooking Lake Reese. At the apex of the crest, the ebony mirror of the water was clearly visible in the distance, in spite of the rain. There was a long pier extending out over the blackness, illuminated with flashing lights and prominently featuring a huge varicolored gondola wheel.

  "Oh right, there's a pier on the lake," Locus said. "And a couple of hotels too. The first time I came here I wondered how to get over there. This road leads to the base and I didn't see any other roads."

  Indeed, the road quickly led to a tunnel through the mountain, illuminated by fluorescent lights spaced at intervals above the emergency exits. The flashing red lights of the sentry post halted their advance. On the far side of the gates the military barricades were already deployed, huge pillars of concrete capped with flashing yellow and red lights. Woodsman came to a stop just short of the gates and opened the driver-side window. Four Air Force sentries with assault rifles sauntered forward to surround the truck.

  One of the sentries stood beside the driver door and regarded Woodsman, his face betraying nothing. "You're not human, are you?" the man asked.

  "No," Woodsman replied.

  The sentry nodded. "These ones go through. Driver, stay here until the gates are raised. Your escort is already waiting for you on the other side of the barricades. Follow the escort and try not to cause any damage to Air Force property."

  Knights, Witches, and Fighter Jets. This rewrite was required to bring that story into the Fire Elementals and Fighter Jets universe, which I have begun to call the Elemental Airplanes Universe. The continuation of this story was blocked because certain characters in Knights, Witches, and Fighter Jets will appear later in this story. Hint: