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  [colpse]Chapter y-Six - The Rusty Raven

  The sandals Yond had given me went clip-a-clop with every step, and the dress I’d borrowed for the m was light as a feather. It made it feel really weird as I bounced ahead of my friends.

  Amaryllis had left her jacket behind to repair a few scuffs on it, and Awen’s trench coat needed a little love too, so we were all lightly dressed as we toured the town.

  “Where to ?” I asked as I spun around Amaryllis.

  “World save me, yetting more excited, not less,” Amaryllis said. “You’re like a hummingbird harpy who drank too much sugar-water.”

  “Ohh, there are hummingbird harpies? That sounds cute!”

  “Awa,” Awen said as I spun around her. “B-Broccoli is in a good mood. That’s alright, right Amaryllis?” she asked.

  “It could be worse,” Amaryllis said. She ed me on the head with a wing when I tried to circle around her again. “Be serious for a moment. We have a bcksmith to find.”

  I pouted, but Amaryllis robably right. I had let the overwhelmiement in the air get to me. There were so many people ughing and chatting and being happy arouhat I couldn’t help but want to bounce around all day.

  “Over there,” Amaryllis said as she poio a shop by the main square.

  A sign hung off the front with ‘The Rusty Raven’ written across it o a rusty bird-shaped bit of steel. The shop itself looked , despite the rustiness of its sign.

  We stepped in only to find a bit of a line leading up to the front ter. There were a bunch of big men, mostly humans, but there were a couple of Ostri people and even a sie-covered cervid.

  “Wow, this pce is popur,” I said as I slipped to the back of the line.

  The man behind the ter was a bck-feathered harpy with a big dirty apron agging his talons in the face of some gruff looking man.

  “That, little one, is because of the tour.”

  I stared at the person just before me, and then smiled. It was one of the Ostri people, a tall figure covered in dark-brown s who seemed bent in on himself. “Hello,” I said. “What’s that about a tour?”

  “Ah, so you’re not here for that? Too bad, I have never fought a amon Bun before,” he said. It didn’t sound threatening, more like he was genuinely sad. “The tour is what attracts so many of my siblings of the sands to this pce. To test one’s might, earn gold, a strange peoples. It is in many ways an attra tailor-made for us. But you seem to be on a different path.”

  “I guess so,” I said. His voice was strange, smooth and soft, like cloth rubbing over cloth. “We’re just here because my spade broke.”

  “A broken tool doesn’t serve well,” he agreed. “How did you break it?”

  “A wyvern bit it.”

  The Ostri man paused. “Ah.”

  I hen brought out the spade and the bit of the haill stuck to it. “It saved me in the end. It was either the spade getting bit or me.”

  “That must have been araordinary fight,” he said.

  “Yeah!” I said. I pulled Awen close to my side. “Awen got the kill. She smacked the wyvern with her hammer until it exploded.”

  “Awa, it, it was nothing?” Awen said.

  Grinning, I looked to meet the Ostri man’s goggles. “I’m Broccoli, Broccoli Bunch!” I said as I extended a hand. “These are my friends, Awen and Amaryllis.”

  He uncoiled a little from his hunched posture, took my hand in one of his and bowed over it. “I am Ladle Sedson, the Sandwalker.”

  “Oh, that’s a cool name,” I said.

  Ladle nodded. “Thank you, little o is the steltion under which I was born.”

  “Is that how Ostri names work?” I asked.

  “It is. First the steltion of your birth, then the order of it. Finally, your css. We do not prescribe much attention to the family of our birth, that way lies ism and weakness.”

  Amaryllis huffed. “The Ostri put in things like family. overs. Or ws.”

  Ladle nodded. “This is true. We believe that the strong must lead, and that they must protect the weak. The weak, in turn, must grow strohat is all that matters.”

  “Wait,” I said. “So you don’t have any gover at all?”

  He shook his head. “We rely on ourselves. It is far less terrifying than giving so much power to someone who you her know, nor trust.”

  I tapped my as I thought about that. It made a sort of sense. Anarchy wasn’t usually an acceptable form of rulership as far I was aware, but maybe it worked for the Ostri people. I would o visit them and see how their world worked to truly judge.

  The line moved ahead a few spots and I let my attention wander over all the ons racked on the walls around us. There weren’t that many. In fact, there were more tools and dlesticks and door handles and other kniacks than actual ons.

  “Ah, it is my turn,” Ladle said. “Goodbye, little ones.”

  I waved Ladle goodbye as he slid over to the ter, pulled out a pair of knives from his sides and started to talk with the harpy bcksmith. A few mier he was walking out of the shop with a nod for the three of us.

  “How I help ya?” the shopkeep asked.

  I smiled and pced my spade on the ter. “Ah, my spade broke,” I said.

  The harpy picked up the head, spun it around a few times, then scratched at the side of his h a talon. “Few dings as. And a det hole here. Still mostly good. Handle is... well, that’s obvious, ain’t it? Right, three sil, five minutes.”

  “That fast?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  Amaryllis huffed. “That means he do it for cheaper.”

  “Hey now,” the shopkeep said. “Don’t g to swindle me.”

  “Ah, I don’t mind the price,” I said. “But, um. Is there anything you do to make it tougher? And maybe give it more, uh, bat uses.”

  “bat... what’re ya on about?”

  I scratched the nape of my neck. “It’s not a spade fardening. It’s a spade fhting.”

  The bcksmith tilted his head to the side, the same sort of gesture Amaryllis did before calling me an idiot. “A bat spade? That’s different.”

  I shrugged. “We could pay more if you could make it better,” I said. “But, uh, it o still work with my Makeshift on’s Proficy.”

  The smith cawed. “That does plicate things. Give me a few mihen.”

  We watched the harpy waddle off to the back of his shop where an open fe rested o a bunch of tools.

  “You are awful at bargaining,” Amaryllis said.

  “I don’t really he mohat badly,” I tered.

  She huffed and walked off to stare at some of the things hanging off the walls.

  Awen sidled up closer to me. “Awa. Do you, um, think I could buy some tools?” she asked.

  “Tools?” I wondered. I wao smack myself a moment ter. She was an engineer of sorts. Of course she wanted... ools. “Right, tools. I have a couple of gold we could use to buy some things.”

  “Awa, but isn’t that gold for your airship?” Awen asked.

  “Well, yeah, but if I ever hire you as meic, then you’ll ools anyway, right?” I asked.

  “I, I suppose,” Awen said. “Thank you.”

  We moved around the shop, Awen pig out a few odds and ends, mostly tools that were smaller and that would fit ints. We ended up piling a few pliers, some tweezers, some pact hammers and a few adgets that I didn’t quite know the use of on the ter.

  The smith returned with my spade over one shoulder. “Here ya go. What’s this look like to you?”

  I gasped as I picked up my spade. The shaft was a little longer now, with a curvier ha the end and ara foot of pole to it. The head was reshaped just a little. One side now seemed much sharper and the other was serrated like a saw. There was also a metal band at the back to reinforce it a little.

  A reinforced ade of unon quality, new.

  “Wow! You’re so fast,” I said.

  “Caw, just have a few detly levelled skills. Saves a lot of time,” he said. “Now, let’s settle.”

  Amaryllis was quick to stomp over, and what started as a bit of friendly haggling soon turned into a flurry of squaomfihers as they argued over what they each sidered a fair price.

  Awen and I stood off to the side, staring wide-eyed as the price dipped and climbed.

  I think that Amaryllis won in the end, because she looked very smug as she handed over half a dozen silver s to a disgruntled shopkeep.

  “Don’t fet to tip,” I said.

  The looks switched.

  I ended up being dragged out onto the streets by a very unhappy Amaryllis while Awen held bae giggles.

  We were heading back towards Yond’s shop, me poking at Amaryllis while she called me all sorts of variations of ‘idiot.’ Awen tailed after us, quiet, but she didn’t look unhappy in her silenot with her little smile and the way she followed us with her gaze.

  I was hoping that we’d get to have a bit more fuhe sights some more, then maybe go to the duhe m.

  A huge shadow raced across the square.

  Amaryllis’ pining stopped, the eow deathly quiet.

  A sound, like sails snapping in the wind, echoed across the square, ohen twice.

  I heard gasps and saw heads turning up to the skies.

  A roar shook the air, windows rattled in their frames, people screeched in terror, horses neighed and I felt the sound pressing me down into the ground which shook in sympathy.

  A dragon has asserted its dominance. Your bravery is questioned.

  We were just o the rge square, bell tower rising above us, when the dragon nded.

  The tower crumpled, the bell spinning off to the side where it crashed into the ground with a resounding ‘dong!’ that made my ears ring.

  Feet with talons lohan I was tall dug into the stonework with all the ease of someone gripping ay of soda. Wings as wide as a bus fpped once, sending heavy gusts of air beating across the square.

  I shielded my eyes for just a moment before my attention was dragged back up to the creature standing tall and proud atop the ruins of the belltower like someoanding on a podium after getting an award.

  The m sun bathed matte blue scales over a beige sternum. A head with a jaw rge enough to p a cart in half rose and grinned down at the panig crowds below. I had thought the wyvern i dungeoiful and intimidating, but the creature above me trumped all that a thousandfold.

  “Insight,” I muttered.

  A cocky juvenile blue dragon Thunder Hammer, level ???.

  The dragon chuckled, an unmistakable sound. “Kneel humans! For I, Rhawrexdee, have decided to bee your overlord!”

  “We o run,” Amaryllis said. “We o run far and fast.”

  Awen, grabbed onto my side, her hands digging into me. She was trembling.

  “I am here to demand food! And tribute! And gold!” Rhawrexdee decred. “Bey servants and I will only feed upon the weakest of your number.”

  I carefully pried Awen’s hands off of my arm, then guided her over to Amaryllis’ side. “Amaryllis, take care of Awen please,” I said.

  “What? No! You moron!” Amaryllis said.

  But it was too te.

  If this dragon thought he could bully a whole town’s worth of happy people, he had ahing ing.