Dragonblaster

a dream, he nodded.

'Go ahead, General.'

'Haven't you done enough?” the Revenant cried. “Please, just leave us in peace.'

'We will do so, Revenant Murar,” Quelgrum said, “as soon as you have considered a few additional matters.'

'What do you want?” the old man demanded, tears running down his face.

'First of all,” the soldier said in a cool, businesslike tone, “we require our wagon, our horses, our weapons and our supplies.'

Murar climbed to his feet. “They're all in the storehouse, over there, Realster,” he said, pointing to a small building to the north of the Breeder pen. “The horses have been well treated and fed; we are not monsters.'

Grimm, clenched his teeth, biting back a bitter rejoinder; Quelgrum's style of negotiation was less likely to lead to unnecessary bloodshed than a self-serving tirade.

'If that is all you require, we have no need to talk any further,” Murar said, but the soldier shook his head.

'We have other demands, Revenant.'

'What are they, Realster? Perhaps you wish us all to commit suicide?'

Quelgrum sighed. “Murar, this war was not of our making. You seized us for the purpose of providing blood for Uncle Gruon. Would you have submitted willingly to such a fate? Under those circumstances, would you have risked your life to spare the very people who took you prisoner?'

'Perhaps not,” the Revenant admitted, “but we were desperate. Very well; what more do you want from us?'

Grimm squeezed his eyes shut and heaved a hacking sigh.

If I'm to lead this expedition, I have to take charge, he thought, marshalling his emotions.

'Excuse me, General,” he said. “I'd like to say a few words.'

Quelgrum nodded. “Of course, Lord Baron.'

Grimm stepped forward. “Revenant Murar,” he said. “I allowed you to live when I could have let Brianston vanish into nothingness, and you with it. I acted in your interests, while it would have been easier to let you all die.

'I only killed Gruon when he began to lay waste to Brianston, threatening to kill me and my companions.'

'Agreed,” Murar said. “However, you were the one who awoke Uncle and killed him. Why could you not have just left us, allowing him to sleep on?'

The Questor shrugged. “The simple answer to that is that I was foolish and impetuous. However, I do not regret my decision: if we had gone, you would have continued your enslavement of Realsters to provide Gruon with their blood. I cannot, and will not, allow that situation to continue.

'Gruon is dead,” he said, giving the final word considerable emphasis. “Yes, I killed him, and I do not regret that. Yet you still live, and so do the others of my kind. If you wish to die, I can achieve that in the space of a single breath. I can do that; indeed, I want to do that, for all the pain and anguish you have visited upon blameless travellers over the space of decades. I despise you; I spit on your philosophy and on this maudlin grief over the death of an insane man's creation.

'You worshipped Gruon because he gave you life, but he is dead, while you still live, due to my actions, not yours. Whether you realised it or not, you worshipped death itself; death for people like me!'

Quelgrum turned to his Baron, his eyes wide. “Er… Lord Baron, I really think…'

'I'd really like to kill them, General,” he muttered. “But I won't, if I can get what we want-some sort of fair treatment for the Breeders.'

The warrior shrugged. “You're still in charge, Lord Baron,” he whispered.

Murar shrugged. “So? What else do you demand of us, mage?'

'I want freedom for the Breeders, old man; integration into the very life of the city. Right now, they feel cheated because I have robbed them of their deaths, while you cry that you no longer have anyone to whom to sacrifice them.'

'Breeders?” a young, female Dreamster screamed. “Haven't you done enough to us, murderer? Do you now want us to be ruled by those mindless, pathetic Realsters?'

'Do you want to live or die?” Grimm snapped at the now-murmuring crowd. “If you want to live, I can leave things just as they are, if you agree to a few, simple changes. If all you want is to die, I can achieve that in a moment. It is a simple enough question; answer me!

'Will it be death or life?'

'We want to live as we were!'

Grimm could not tell who screamed those words, but he did not care. He knew he could wipe out these people in the blink of an eye, if the need arose.

'My apologies,” he said through gritted teeth, “I cannot bring back Gruon, and I would not do so if I could. I'm not asking about ‘maybe’ or ‘perhaps', but about what you have, right now! If you have any problem with the concept of treating the former Breeders decently, I'll just snuff this bloody city out like a candle! That's all there is.

'Die, in the sure knowledge you've stayed true to your perverted little philosophy,” he said, allowing flame to flicker around his fingertips, “or live, and try to give these poor, pathetic Breeders a fair chance in this city. You never know, you might just find they can help you, after all. All you need to do is to persuade them that they really don't have to die to make a useful contribution to Brianston.'

'Is this intended as some kind of bribe?” Murar demanded.

Grimm smiled, although he knew there was little humour in the expression. “If you want to call it that, Revenant, then it is.'

He paused to let the words sink in, trying to keep the rising agony in his head from showing on his face. “We will be leaving shortly. However, we intend to come back this way when we've finished. If the Breeders are still treated as slaves, or if they're dead, then I'll just put an end to you!

'I don't want you to let them run the city, regardless of their abilities, but just to give them a chance. Support and help them, and I'll be happy.

'Just teach them that they don't have to die in order to serve this city. Is that really too much to ask?'

'Just take your belongings, Realster,” Murar growled. “We will go along with your unreasonable conditions, but we'll not put the Breeders on any sort of pedestal.'

Grimm opened his mouth, trying to laugh, but only a harsh groan emerged. He felt the firm hand of the General on his shoulder.

'I don't think you can ask for much more than that, Lord Baron,” Quelgrum whispered into his ear. “Please, just let it rest here. You've done enough.'

It would be so much easier to just kill the whole lot of them, Grimm thought, rubbing his aching brow as his mouth twisted into a painful moue. I never thought I'd have to deal with people like this…

He had stayed his tears ever since he had heard of Crest's death and Tordun's blindness, and it had seemed easy now to hold them in. Nevertheless, he found it impossible to speak, and he flapped his hands like a beached seal. His heart felt like a cold, heavy stone, and he shivered in the grip of what seemed like a shroud of ice, his eyes burning.

The mage's arms and legs seemed beyond his control, and he saw the ground wavering beneath him.

'Please, Lord Baron, come with me,” Quelgrum said, wrapping his arms around the young man's shoulders.

In an instant, Grimm felt himself drifting away from the massed crowd of Brianstonians.

It seemed that he moved for a long time, although it might have been only for a few minutes. As if from a great distance, he heard the General's voice: “He's seen too much, too soon, Lord Seneschal… poor kid's never had any childhood… been plunged straight into it… tortured…'

****

'I killed Crest! Let me kill them!” The tortured words and hysterical laughter burst from someone far away, decaying into nothing; the mage could not be sure of their source.