Dragon Breeder 3 by Dante King (e novels to read online .TXT) 📕

day. The camp medic and apothecary seem to think that she could pop at any time.”

Old Sleazy shook his head. “What a thing,” he said, turning the meat once more and spraying it with a bottle of juice that he produced from his Sex, Drugs & Sausage Rolls apron. “Truly boggles the mind.”

“What’s that?” I asked. “The miracle of creation?”

Old Sleazy shot me an astonished sideways glance, his beady eyes narrowing under his chef’s toque as if he thought I was teasing him.

“The miracle of… No, lad, I was referring to the madness that drove you to have three offspring at your age. You must be off your ruddy nut.”

I laughed and heard Rupert snickering behind me.

“Haven’t you heard, you grouchy shit?” I said. “I’m saving the Empire one fuck at a time.”

Old Sleazy made a face, pushed his toque to the back of his green head with one stubby finger, and scratched at his thatch of white hair.

“Well, I’ll admit that using your manroot to further the dreams of the Empire sounds preferable to using a sword, but I can ruddy well say this from the bottom of my heart, Dragonmancer Noctis: rather you than me.”

The little gnoll squeezed the meat on the barbecue between thumb and forefinger, then leaned forward and listened attentively to it.

“Ah,” he said, nodding his head, “that’s some ruddy perfectly cooked marmoset that is. Come and get it, lads!”

My coterie moved in with the eagerness of a pack of hyenas that have just seen the zebra they’ve been chasing fall over.

I grabbed a piece of the unfortunate creature that Old Sleazy had so lovingly cooked. When I took a bite out of it, I discovered that the meat was meltingly tender, juicy, and infused with a basil flavor that sent fireworks dancing across my tastebuds.

“Goddamn, I wish I could afford to eat from your cart back at the Academy every day, Old Sleazy,” Bjorn grunted, tearing into his chunk of flat-eared marmoset.

“There’s still three scales on your slate as it is, you debtor,” Old Sleazy said, his eyes shining as he watched us eat with obvious, caveman-like enthusiasm. “Maybe if you had as much of an appreciation and taste for my cooking as you do for those ladies of negotiable affection down Grabbygrab lane, you might have more cash handy.”

Bjorn snorted. “Who are you, my mother?”

“Gods no.” Old Sleazy pulled a tiny knife from under his toque and speared a slither of flesh from the board he had placed in front of us. “And I’m mighty fuckin’ glad of that. I don’t think I could stand the shame.”

Gabby grunted a laugh and licked his fingers. The mute pointed at Old Sleazy, and then around at the pop-up military town; at the hammering and the sawing, at the paper lanterns and the stalls in various stages of completion.

“Do I reckon it’s going to be a big evening?” Old Sleazy asked, chewing thoughtfully on another morsel of meat.

Gabby nodded.

Old Sleazy grinned. Avarice and excitement glittered in equal measure in his cunning eyes.

“Oh yes indeedy, lads,” he said. “I think that this evening is going to be one of those evenings people will be talking about for good long while. Old Sleazy has been around this world a time or two. If there is one thing that you can be sure of, it’s that there are very few people who can throw a better shindig than a bunch of soldiers that can smell a battle or campaign just around the corner.”

Chapter 19

The night sky was alive with more stars than I could ever hope to count, punctuated often and loudly by fireworks that would have given the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission a heart attack. Dodge City’s boardwalks were crammed with soldiers; men and women singing, drinking, and eating, their arms around one another.

I walked along the uneven wooden boulevard with my squad in tow, a broad smile on my face and a large tankard of ale clutched in one hand. Behind me, Gabby swaggered along with a horn of some syrupy, dark mead that smelled like it could be used as paint-thinner. Bjorn had Rupert in a casual headlock, while the smaller man pounded at the half-Jotunn’s thigh.

The night was alive with a thousand scents and with a thousand sounds. The long, communal barbecue grills manned by gnolls shed a comforting orange light on the sweating faces of the chefs watching over them. Somehow, that same light turned the visages of the hungry revelers into the masks of insatiable demons. Meat from a dozen different beasts sizzled over the coals.

Music of varying tempos floated out of the doorways of the many drinking establishments, competing with the myriad songs, jokes, insults, and stories being traded in more accents than I could hope to count.

Several enterprising individuals had started up books, with the chief subject of a wager being when Tamsin was going to give birth. One of these bookkeepers almost soiled his breeches when he approached our quartet and began telling us how he was offering very nice odds on the hobgoblin taking another week before she birthed the dragonling, before he realized who he was talking to.

“I-I-I-I meant no offence, Dragonmancer!” he said as he took a step back and respectfully made the sign of the claw with his index finger hooked above his heart. “No offense at all! It’s just… Uh…”

I patted the worried guy on the shoulder and flicked a golden coin at him. The booky snatched the gleaming coin out of the air and stared at it in puzzlement.

“Put me down for tonight,” I said. “No doubt that’d be my luck. Enjoying one hell of a party only to be called away for something as life-altering as a dragon being born.”

Gabby whacked me on the shoulder with the back of