“Great.”
“I’m serious. We’re getting closer to a hell of a lot more magicals all squashed into one place. The only time I wanna walk after this is once we reach the capital. Come on.”
After they grabbed their packs, Cheyenne followed him toward the gate in the metal wall. A blue light blinked in the center of the gate, then a round hole opened in the metal and launched a ball of blue fire at them.
Cheyenne stepped back, and Persh’al chuckled. “They’re checkin’ for warrants, kid. You don’t have an APB out on you in Groulco or Kur Vróst, do ya?”
She raised an eyebrow and stared at his goofy smile. “Several. I’m surprised you haven’t heard.”
He ignored the sarcasm and stepped toward the stream of blue flames. “Look, swipe your hand through it like this. It won’t burn ya. And then we’ll be all in the clear to—”
The blue flames switched to orange in an instant, and the gate let out a high-pitched whoop. The top of the wall opened, and two levers unfolded to extend long rods down toward the startled troll before small round beads gathered at the tips like flower petals.
“Are you kidding me?” The beads flashed orange, and Persh’al raised both hands in surrender. “All right. Stand down, man. Damn. I’m walkin’.”
A slow, rumbling chuckle came from the other side of the wall, and the troll shook his head as he returned to the skiff.
“What just happened?” Cheyenne followed him, glancing back at the extended rods and the orange beads that seemed to be following them.
“Warrants.” Persh’al slammed his hands down on the skiff’s panel, which lit up and rose again before he jumped over the side.
“Oh, you have warrants.” The halfling climbed onto the bench beside him and dropped her pack in the back. “Was it Groulco or Kur Vróst?”
He glanced at her but had to look away again as he muttered, “Both.”
Cheyenne barked a laugh and turned to look at the levers hanging over the wall. “And you just set off the alarm.”
“It’ll be a lot more than that if we don’t get outta here. Dammit. I didn’t even think to look for those.”
“Hey, don’t beat yourself up. I’m sure it’s easy to forget you’re a wanted troll somewhere.”
“Damn right, it’s easy to forget.” He flicked the control panel, and they lurched away from the metal wall to keep heading inward. “It’s been almost two thousand years, and I even checked the system before we…oh.”
“Let me guess. Warrants stuck in the old system.”
Persh’al slowly turned his head to look at her, his orange eyes widening. “You unlock mind-reading before you opened that puzzle box?”
“That would’ve been helpful, but no. I did the same thing a few years ago too. Made changes in someone else’s system and failed to look for the old backups from before the updates. Barely got outta that one alive.”
“Well, trust me, I’ll be fixing that little issue.” He turned and flipped the bird at the metal levers, which folded back in on themselves as the skiff sped away from the wall. “Shitty town anyway.”
Chapter Forty
They passed half a dozen other towns that were clustered together and larger the closer they got to the capital. Other hovering vehicles raced past them in both directions without roads or signs or any form of directing traffic.
The hills became steeper, dotted with patches of trees and late-blooming wildflowers. The skiff struggled up the next hill, and Persh’al gave it another little jolt of magic fuel to get up the rest of the incline. When they reached the top, Cheyenne’s jaw dropped.
The city stretching below them looked remarkably like the New York skyline built three times as high—rising skyscrapers and towers, most of them connected by open walkways at every level. Hovering crafts darted around the lower levels, and smaller, faster vehicles whizzed through the air around the towers. No planes, though. No landing pads. So nobody’s flying in or out overhead.
Stone, metal, and glass had been used to craft the metropolis, which looked like it had been added on to forever without the previous structures giving way to time. A tall translucent wall of light encompassed the expanse of the vast city, outside of which more buildings were scattered.
“You’re gonna get something caught in there if you don’t close your mouth.” Persh’al snorted and moved the skiff down over the other side of the hill.
“That’s the capital?”
“Oh, yeah. Hangivol in all its messed-up glory. Doesn’t look any different than I remember.”
“Seriously?”
“When we get down there and start walking the streets, kid, we’ll find out how close to the mark I was about what’s going on here. Then we’ll know how to handle things when we get back Earthside.”
The ground rumbled as they glided down the hill, sending huge clods of dirt tumbling after them. Cheyenne turned and saw the top of a massive metal tank crest the hill, the whole thing hovering off the ground by less than a foot. “They didn’t send anyone after you, did they?”
“Huh?” Persh’al looked over his shoulder and grunted. “Not for me. That’s an army tank, all right.”
“It’s as big as a house.”
“Yep. Can you picture Maleshi sittin’ at the helm of that thing?”
Cheyenne wrinkled her nose. “Kinda, yeah.”
He laughed wryly. “Happened a lot.”
“Watch out.”
“What?” He turned again as the house-sized tank spilled over the top of the hill and raced toward them at top speeds. “Those morons!”
Persh’al swiped both hands across the control panel, and the skiff bounced sideways across the slope, narrowly escaping being run over or knocked aside by the metallic beast racing toward the city. Their skiff wobbled from side to side, and he brought them down slowly with an aggravated snort.
“Nobody cares about the little guy anymore.” He leaned over the console and shouted at the war tank, “What happened to keeping the peace, huh?”
Cheyenne pressed her lips together and watched the speeding contraption. “Is there an army stationed down here?”
“Of course there is.
