Page 47 of Fortune's Blade

My body felt like a giant wound from the searing pain of burns, too many to count; I couldn’t see much through the billowing steam; and my ears were still being assaulted by hissing sounds as the suppressant battled the fire. But the senate’s stash proved its worth, and in the end, the fire lost. And I collapsed back onto the steps, unable to cope for a moment, even to assess the damage.

I just lay there instead, trying to pant my way back to something like coherence, while spent blue goo slowly dripped off my body and down the stairs, making a small puddle at the bottom. I watched it blankly, wondering what the hell. And whether my duffle bag was currently getting batted about the hall by massive claws or crushed underfoot.

I wasn’t worried about that so much, as I’d paid a mage a fortune to layer protections on the thing, enough that even a dragon’s weight shouldn’t bother it. The big question was, had they seen me disappear into it? I was in slow-time when it happened, so it should have looked like I simply vanished, disappearing in the blink of an eye with the dark colored bag falling unnoticed to the floor thereafter.

Should have.

But what if dragons could do slow-time, too? I’d never thought to ask Claire. Seemed like kind of a glaring oversight at the moment.

And if they could . . .

I stared up at the ceiling, wondering if my squeaky fan would get fixed by the simple method of a bunch of enraged dragons tearing it apart. My overstimulated brain even had me jumping at literal shadows a few times, as the elongated, moving fingers of the fan blades mimicked dragon claws ripping through the concrete. The third time my heart almost leapt out of my chest I decided that I had to know what was going on, regardless of how bad it was, rolled over and got to my knees.

And winced when the movement stretched damaged flesh to the splitting point. But my body supported me, however unwillingly. And I ignored the large burnt patches on my legs where the burning skirt had slapped me, some of which looked well and surely cooked, because I was still in battle and you didn’t stop in battle unless the wound was mortal.

Or else you’d likely acquire one that was.

Instead, I cracked open the door at the top of the stairs to see what was happening outside. It looked like an actual door on this side, with a knob and everything, and a round hole on the other where the portal let out into the real world. I stayed well back, as getting too far through the door would activate said portal and dump me out somewhere that I probably didn’t want to be. But that limited my vision, and all I saw was . . . nothing.

Just nothing.

A wall of boiling blackness met my eyes, without the tiniest fragment of light to help me out. I killed the fluorescents overhead by dragging a bloody hand across the switch by the door, but it didn’t improve things. Now all I saw were leaping after images.

Yet I could feel, and the air was warm, humid and strangely heavy. And I could smell, although I wished I couldn’t as whatever was out there was nose-wrinklingly rancid, like rotting meat mixed with sulphur mixed with . . . I didn’t know. But it was awful enough to make the abattoir of a hall seemed perfumed by comparison, and to leave me teary eyed and thus even less able to see anything!

I could hear, however, only I didn’t know what, exactly, I was listening to.

Instead of the scrape of huge claws over stone, the flapping of giant wings, and the unearthly, mind-numbing, almost-a-weapon-in-itself screeching, there was . . . I wasn’t sure. It sounded like a giant kettledrum, beating loudly from somewhere nearby. And a rushing wind that was even louder, almost gale force in its intensity, although I could feel none of it. And underneath it all, the faint lapping of waves . . ..

I was still trying to puzzle it out when one of those unearthly screeches tore through the air, sounding muffled and far away, yet echoing so loudly that it pierced my body and threatened to jolt me apart. I clutched the stair underneath me and the nearby wall, holding on despite the fact that the room wasn’t moving, being in another dimension from whatever was happening out there. And despite the fact that it didn’t help; I continued to feel like a pancake that was being flipped a dozen different ways.

Until the hellish sound broke off, as abruptly as it had come, leaving me panting again and more than a little freaked out. As soon as I could move, I grabbed an industrial-strength flashlight and aimed it out of the door, trying to see something, anything. And I did, although nothing I had ever expected.

Instead of the Great Hall, what appeared in the flashlight’s thin beam looked like a cave, albeit a weird one with a floor of liquid sloshing against strange, curved walls. The liquid appeared to be the source of the stench, sending foul streams of gasses floating upward and bubbling alarmingly as it hit the sides of the cave. The rounded walls bowed inward and did not appear to be made out of rock. Instead, they glistened pinkish red and wrinkled, and pulsed slightly, almost as if—

My thoughts stuttered to a halt and I stared at the walls some more. Then let the light slowly trace what looked like dark veining running through what was definitely not stone. And finally splashed some illumination around the extent of the “cave” while I adjusted to my new reality.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, then.

I closed the door carefully, so that none of the wetness sloshing about a few feet below the frame would get in. And started digging through my arsenal while ignoring the beating of my own heart, which was more like a snare drum at the moment than a kettle, and the rapid rushing of air through my own lungs, and the sudden cramping in my own stomach. Because if ever there was a time to break out the good stuff, it was after having been swallowed by a dragon.

One who was about to have a very bad case of indigestion.

I’d lost my portal in the confusion, probably when Steen smacked the hell out of me with his tail, and wasn’t sure I had anything in stock that would work on dragon scales. But fortunately, I wasn’t dealing with dragon scales. Unless the creatures had them coating their insides, too, and it hadn’t looked that way.

In any case, the game plan wasn’t to bust out of here; it was to get the beast to vomit me up, and then go HAM on anybody who objected to my continued, non-digested state. Which was why I went with potion grenades, grabbing a couple of the largest I had and lobbing them out the door before slamming it shut. And waiting.

Some vague noises made it to my ears, but I couldn’t tell what they were. If the beast was bellowing in agony, it was being subtle about it. So, I threw out a few more bombs, and then a few more, all with the same effect—not much. I stood there after a moment, nonplussed and gazing about, and wondered what to try next when the damned creature’s stomach acid just absorbed whatever I gave it, as if I was feeding the thing instead of hurting it!

And then I noticed: I had a bigger problem.

Way bigger.

Because I wasn’t actually in anything’s stomach; the door to my portal was, having been swallowed along with my duffle bag by a bastard of a dragon. But said door was starting to look a little ragged around the edges, despite the layers of protection on it. It was supposed to be impervious to just about anything—except dragon stomach acid, apparently.

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