Page 206 of The Discount Damsel

He gripped the linen-covered edges of the table as he chewed and swallowed. No other DDP had ever attracted an army. It went against protocol: “A Rescue is further defined as single combat or similar engagement between Dragon and Hero.” But who could tell an army it was breaking the rules? Sir Eustace certainly wasn’t; he was only one Komodo.

History was going to be made here today. This would either catapult his career into a management position or ruin him to a desk job with the Annals Division. He didn’t want either of those. He just wanted a life of leisure and travel and the occasional DDP with princesses and dragons who didn’t cause a fuss. Unlike this Princess Mildred Angelique Tisane and Dirk the Dangerous. If he ever came across either of them ever again in his life, it would be too soon.

“The dragon queens give me strength.” Sir Eustace mopped his brow, checked his comb-over in the mirror, then his teeth to make sure no smudges marred his brilliant white smile. Straightening his lapels, he gave his reflection a firm nod and left his tent to face his destiny.

No sooner did he step foot upon the sands than the screaming began.

The ministry official flung up a hand to shade his golden eyes. Were those spiders attacking the infantry? His gaze slitted. This wasn’t the first time spiders with hallucinogenic venom had attacked a Hero.

A fourth of the company broke away from the main body to whack spiders or subdue the hallucinating soldiers from running amok, stripping naked, or rolling down the dunes like children, or all three. The rest of the army marched on.

The camels bellowed, lashed forward by whips to bring the Skybreaker crossbow to the crest of the last dune. The bolts were heavy and the spring tight, requiring a crew of ten men to work it. As they prepared the weapon, the rest rushed down the dune with a war cry to assault the tower with grappling hooks.

The screams returned as the front lines tripped on barbed wire hidden in the sand. Twenty, perhaps thirty, men tangled up into one very large and very prickly tumbleweed and rolled past the tower and out of sight, their cries snatched away by the wind.

Since when had there been barbed wire in the sand?!

The moment the remaining soldiers were in range of slinging their hooks was the moment they were in range of the three tower defenders—a gnome, the hedge knight, and a young woman with a ferret on her shoulder who made very liberal use of her middle fingers. Glass jars rained down from the tower windows, choking the soldiers with clouds of yellow smoke and geysers of green slime.

“Oye!” Sir Eustace shouted. “Only the dragon can defend his princess.”

“We’re defending a tower, Sir Eustace, not a princess,” Sir Roger called back.

“A technicality!”

“And a legal one! Now please excuse me. I have to concentrate.”

The hedge knight lobbed a large glass jar from his window, then quickly shot it with an arrow. Pink glitter exploded across the sky and sprinkled down like fairy dust. Whosever skin it touched suddenly abandoned their assault on the tower, thrust their weapons into the sand, and sat in a circle for a group therapy session. The soldiers shared their canteens, rations, and emotions, and any haranguing by their uninfected fellows to rejoin the fight was met with either, “That sounds like classic displaced aggression disorder to me,” or “How do you really feel?”

Sir Eustace, fully aware this situation was leaving the realm of ridiculousness and headed straight into the land of tomfoolery, hurried forward to the chronicle on his desk. “I say,” he called to the army, “might I get your names before you become completely embroiled?”

The officer overseeing the Skybreaker swiveled around in his saddle. “Sir Raleigh Flinthart of the Crystal Court of Leighton.”

Sir Eustace wrote that down. “Wonderful. And the other officers?”

“There aren’t any,” he barked, clearly displeased by the interruption.

“Then who is that?”

Though it was incredibly rude to point, it was necessary at this moment to draw attention to the other horsed man on the opposite side of the Skybreaker. He seemed like all the others, except he wore a quilted jerkin of amethyst silk and no helmet. The man was young, too, about the same age as the dragon’s valet, Sir Eustace surmised. Whereas the valet always seemed to be scowling, this one’s mouth was carved into a permanent sneer.

The ugliness of his expression was accentuated by the black jewel that hung from around his neck by an iron chain. It didn’t reflect light as much as it absorbed it, and no natural gemstone did such a thing.

Unease bubbled up in Sir Eustace’s stomach like over-fermented kombucha—sour and tart.

“Not an officer,” came an elusive answer.

“Sir!” Sir Eustace rose from his desk, fingertips pressed against the page to keep it from flipping in the desert wind. The bezoars had not only managed the output of his sweat glands, they had emboldened him. “I represent the Ministry of Folklore, an authority higher than any kingdom or court. You will answer the question. Who. Is. That. Man?”

The young man in question set his hand on the massive arrowhead beside him. Between one heartbeat and the next, the blackness of his pupils spread to the entirety of his eyes, and black fire, molten and sticky, engulfed the Damascus steel.

“Don’t you have eyes in your head?” Sir Raleigh sneered. “He’s a war mage.”

That wasn’t any old war mage, Sir Eustace knew. Their magefire was the purple of springtime violets. What this young lad wielded was something darker. Something forbidden. Something drawn from that gem—which was no crystal at all—strung about his neck.

“That’s against the rules,” Sir Eustace screeched. “No Discount Damsel is to be rescued by magical means! You must desist at once.”

If he was very, very lucky, they would comply. The ministry official didn’t wait for a response and yanked open his desk drawer to extract his lighter and prepare a flare. The home office would make mincemeat out of this army and their dark mage.