“I can’t stand this place.”
“Stay put,” he says. Herse leans back and cocks the crossbow. “No, sit on that trapdoor. Make sure no one gets up here.”
Herse loads a bolt, but he can’t risk another shot yet.
Jeryon watches the bolt kill a man in the crowd, glances back to find no one behind him, then glares at Ject and whistles three times. Ject throws up his hands, yelling, “Wait, wait!” The dragon lunges. Ravis’s sword leaps from his baldric and arcs toward the dragon’s reaching neck. Oftly grabs his sword, grabs the eave, jumps, and presses himself onto the dome. The other guards dive for their crossbows. Ravis’s leaf-shaped blade sticks in a plate from which one of the dragon’s spines grows as the dragon snaps a medal off the general’s chest. Oftly charges Jeryon, who sweeps his knife at him and delays Oftly just long enough for the dragon to whip its head around to face the guard. The sword falls off its neck and clatters to the walk. It spits the medal onto the dome at Oftly’s feet. The guard screams. Jeryon says, “Comber.”
The flames envelop Oftly and chase him as he stumbles off the dome. Ravis throws himself and Ject aside, but the rest of the guards are caught. Oftly bounces off the balustrade and plummets to the terrace while the rest beat at their flaming bodies with flaming hands.
Jeryon yells at Ject, fire dancing in the lenses of his goggles, “Why did you do that? Why?”
“Whoever fired that bolt,” Ject says, “that wasn’t my man.”
“This one is,” Jeryon says. The dragon turns on Ravis.
Ravis crawls to his sword. It was a mistake to strike the top of the neck. One good sweep to the throat and the dragon will be finished. He grabs the sword and starts to roll, and a massive weight lands on his back. The gnashing heat of the dragon’s fire envelops him. The cries and commotion of the city dissolve into the simmer of waves receding. He feels weightless. Over the balustrade he floats and over the plaza, and when the dragon lets go he feels like he’s rising away with it.
When the first body splashes on the terrace, the plaza goes silent. Hundreds of faces look up and see the dragon. Differences are forgotten. A few say what many think, “There was a dragon. There will be no war.” When the dragon grabs a second man, dives, and flings him at the plaza, everyone thinks, There is a dragon, and it’s coming for me.
The crowd tries to drain into the nearby streets, but they’re blocked by the guard and the tanner’s cohorts. In the center, many people stand like rocks amid the breakers, and that’s where the trampling begins.
At the north end, people crash against the shields of Pashing’s squad, which drives the soldiers against the wagon. The horse whickers and dances, alarmed. As Birming tries to control her, Pashing says, “We have to get the money out of the plaza.”
Rego, standing on the seat, watches the woman in the old tunic crouch over the dead painter, protecting him from the dragon and the crowd.
“No,” he says. “We have to let these people out. Sergeant, your horn. Order the Guard to fall back and open up those streets.”
Husting puts his hand over the horn hanging from his belt and says, “No. The Guard doesn’t retreat.”
As if in agreement, several guards fire, but in haste. The dragon kicks right and up, avoiding them. Rego sees the man on its back, but his brain rejects the notion, and after the dragon circles out of sight east around the tower all he remembers is gray hide, spikes, and teeth.
“Pashing,” Rego says, “take half your men and break up that clot on the east side. Focus on the tanner. He’s the ringleader.”
“But they’re for us,” Pashing says.
“And you’ll expose us,” Husting says.
“This city has too many uses,” Rego says.
The dragon rises over the dome, a shimmering fleck of sun, and Husting realizes they’re trapped by the masses flowing around them. He jumps onto the wagon so he can be seen and blows the command to pull back.
As Jeryon circles the cupola, apparently aggravated at not finding what he figured he must, Ject wonders who fired the bolt. The girl? Jeryon wouldn’t have left her armed. Or untied. From what little he knows of him, Jeryon would be too scrupulous for that.
Ject figures the tower guards must be on their way—a falling body’s worth a dozen horns—but they can’t have run up here so quickly. It would take five minutes at least. He’ll have to do for himself or play for time.