Spear of Destiny by James Baldwin (little bear else holmelund minarik .TXT) 📕

they were firing canister shot, ammo that turned their cannon into a giant shotgun. Karalti was big, but fast: If they couldn’t see her, she would be okay. As long as they didn’t hit her wings...

“Surrender, Gallo!” I called to him, as he dodged around the bridge. “It’s over!”

“I’ll kill myself before I surrender to you, you Tuun peasant scum!” He roared back.

“Then it’s my job to make your dream come true!” I followed him around the corner, and ran right into a slug he shot from a pistol at his hip. The round struck me in the upper arm, punching through leather and padding into flesh.

[You take 399 ballistic damage!]

I flung my hand out and willed a loop of dark energy out like a lasso, snapping it around his thick neck like an assassin’s wire. Zoltan’s eyes bugged as he clawed at his throat with one hand, unsteadily aiming the pistol with the other.

There was a bellow from the other end of the ship, then screams and the sound of twisting metal and splintering wood. Karalti roared in triumph as she flew back from the ship with her prize—the 12-pounder cannon she had ripped from the stern.

“It’s over!” I repeated, disappearing into a veil of black smoke and reappearing over Zoltan as he collapsed, choking, to the deck. I jammed the point of the spear under his chin and crushed his gun hand beneath the soul of my boot, earning a pained cry.

“We’re almost at the towers,” Zoltan spat. “Your dragon is dead!”

“My dragon isn’t stupid.” I wedged the point in closer. “Karalti, pick us up before we reach the attack radius of those towers!”

“Aye aye, cap’n!” She strained to gain speed over the ship, struggling with her load until she was over the bridge. She dropped it right over the roof. A thousand pounds of wood and cold iron smashed into the cockpit, throwing up a cloud of wood and debris. The ship’s engine stuttered, the craft listed, and then it started to fall.

Zoltan let out a shout of terror, struggling to get away from me as Karalti swooped down. Guided by her senses and the Bond, she reached with her back legs and snatched Zoltan and I from the deck of the yacht as it rolled over and plummeted out of the sky.

“Gods damn you! Demon spawn!” Zoltan yelled, kicking and struggling in Karalti’s hind claws.

“Just give it up, man!” I climbed up to her ankle, holding onto her leg like a mast. “You fucking lost!”

“Never! I never lose! I just… I don’t win sometimes!!” Zoltan ranted, banging his fist on Karalti’s toe as she wheeled back toward the castle. “I want a rematch! Someone cheated! I’m sending for the magistrates! The satraps! All of them! No outlander can claim a noble title in Vlachia! I deserve it, not you! This is obscene!”

“Look down, you big dumb stinky loser. Everyone in this place is glad you’re leaving,” Karalti groaned, pumping her wings as she strove back toward the castle.

She was right. As the spotlights tracked us back across the city, people were coming out of their homes: cheering, and then brawling as they massed together and mobbed the militia guards hanging out on the street corners.

“Fuck: we need to get them to surrender before citizens start dying. Take us to the Upper Ward.”  I shakily bought up the group chat, pinging Suri. “Head’s up: we’ve got Zoltan, alive. Heading for the Upper Ward to do the honors.”

“Just in time, too. We’re starting to get real tired down here.” Suri replied. “On our way.”

The melee in the castle was still in full swing. It had broken up into skirmishes in both courtyards and the walls. Our smaller, better prepared, higher level forces, fortified by morale and bloodlust, were clearly on top despite the difference in numbers.

“Look down!” I barked at Zoltan. “Do you see that?”

“You know what I see? My reinforcements, ready to enter the castle and kill you all, you damned cave rat!” Zoltan snarled back at me, pointing toward Solonovka.

Karalti dove toward the Upper Ward, pulling up about twenty feet from the ground to drop us. I landed lightly. Zoltan did not. He hit the ground with the grace of a dead cow, smashing his chest and face into the stone. Even so, he was able to push himself to his arms as I walked over—and planted a boot on the back of his head. I looked back to see Suri striding ahead of Kitti, Letho and Gruna. All four of them were bloodied and exhausted: Suri largely unscathed, Letho with a makeshift bandage tied around his head, and Kitti with a battered nose and deep cut from chin to ear on one side of her face. But despite that, when the young noblewoman saw Zoltan, her eyes darkened to a stormy blue.

I hauled the robber baron up by his collar. “Here you go, Kitti. One hog, delivered fresh.”

“Oh look: it’s my little straw dolly,” Zoltan wheezed, his lips flecked with blood. His left arm hung limp and unnaturally low by his side. “How lovely of you to come back to me. I trust this abomination you call a Voivode left you your maidenhead?”

Kitti’s face turned pink, then red. Letho and Gruna both made to step up, but Suri waved them back. She crossed her arms, leaving Kitti to advance alone as Zoltan swayed on his knees and leered.

The girl racked the bolt on her rifle, ejecting a spent case and loading a new one into the chamber. “You’re disgusting.”

“Aww, Kitti Cat, you’re so cute when you’re mad,” Zoltan wheedled. “Come and give papa a kiss.”

“You dare speak to me this way?” Kitti ground each word out through her teeth. “I am the lady of this House, Zoltan. And you are a traitor to my family!”

“House Hussar.