The door opened.
9: Inheritance
‘Wait!’ hissed Zyra, holding up a hand to stop Tark from entering. ‘Somethin's not right.’
They carefully peered into the gloom of their basement hideout. The place was a mess — well, more of a mess than it usually was. The mattresses had been torn apart, their belongings strewn across the floor and Zyra's closet had been tipped over. The place had been ransacked. Their eyes immediately went to the far corner. The floorboards had been pulled up, the metal shielding torn apart, and the open chest rested on the floor beside the gaping hole.
Tark rushed forward to check their stash, still clutching the bag o’ gold. Zyra followed more cautiously, knives drawn.
‘I don't gets it,’ said Tark, staring into the chest. ‘Why breaks into our stash, but not takes any of it?’
‘That's a real easy-like question to answer,’ said a shrill voice from the hole in the floor. ‘What I was looking for wasn't in there.’
As Tark and Zyra watched, a large shape started to climb up from under the floor. As the shape squeezed itself out of the hole, they could see that it was a woman — albeit a very large woman.
She was a head taller than Zyra, with shoulders broader than any warrior either Tark or Zyra had ever met. A good padding of fat added to her bulk, and copious amounts of hair, gathered up into an untidy bun on the top of her head made her appear even taller.
‘Well now,’ she said, smoothing out her voluminous green and yellow, floral-patterned dress and adjusting her cream lace-edged apron. ‘Pleased to meet you all. The name's Vera.’
Copious bangles and bracelets jangled on her chunky wrists and several strings of pearls hung around her thick neck. She batted her eyelids, her false eyelashes flapping about like demented moths against the bright blue eye-shadow. Her lips were slathered with way too much lipstick, and her ample cheeks over-rouged.
She cast her eyes around the basement. ‘I like what you've done with the place, but it could use a decorator's touch. If you all ever need a hand just you let me know. Be happy to dispense a little advice. I've had lots of experience, I have. Made a cold uninvitin’ cave into a cosy home, I did.’
‘Do I knows ya?’ asked Tark. He was sure that he had never laid eyes on this bizarre looking woman, and yet she seemed vaguely familiar.
‘We've not actually met, not official-like,’ said the woman, sniffing at the air around her. ‘But I do believe I recognise your smell.’
‘Wots ya doin’ in ’ere?’ demanded Zyra.
‘Straight down to business,’ said Vera, nodding. ‘I can respect that, I can. I'm here because I believe that you all have something that belongs to little ol’ me.’ She looked straight at Tark. ‘Hand it over and I'll be on me way, real peaceful-like, back to my own home sweet home.’
Tark clutched the bag o’ gold tighter to his chest as his eyes narrowed. ‘You wuz in the dragon's cave.’
‘That I was,’ said Vera. ‘As were you. Took the bag o’ gold but left your scent. Yes, you did. It's going to take me some time and effort to deodorise the place.’ She held up a placating hand, the bangles jangling. ‘No offence meant, it's just that your aroma lacks any real appeal for me.’
‘I wons this ’ere gold fair ’n’ square,’ said Tark.
‘I would hardly call using a stolen sword o’ light, fair ’n’ square,’ Vera tutted, putting her hands on her hips. ‘My poor Edgar didn't stand a chance. No, he didn't.’
‘It's still mine!’ said Tark, taking a step back. ‘Combat is combat, and the dragon lost.’
‘Combat may indeed be combat … but it's no never-mind in this here case.’ Vera reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out a scroll of parchment. ‘This here is my Edgar's last will and testament.’ She unrolled the parchment and studied it. ‘And in it he bequeaths, and I quote: “all my worldly possessions to my beloved wife”.’ Vera stopped reading momentarily and looked up. ‘That'd be me.’ Then she continued. ‘“Furthermore I bequeath to her my body, which she may partition, sell and do with what she will”.’ She rolled up the parchment and replaced it in her pocket.
‘Do you all realise just how valuable a dragon's body is? Highly sort after are certain internal organs by alchemists and apothecaries … and collectors. You all could say I married old Edgar for his body.’ She chuckled to herself momentarily. Then her features hardened. ‘Edgar was elderly. He would have kicked it naturally in the next year or two. I even had a buyer lined up. But no, you all had to go and burn him up with your sword thingy. All you left me was a few charred scales.’ She glared at Tark. ‘Not real happy about that.’ She took a step forward. ‘And then you all go and steal his gold. My gold.’ She took another step forward. ‘Not real happy about that either. So hand over my inheritance.’
As Vera took another threatening step forward, Zyra threw one of her knives. It embedded in Vera's left shoulder.
‘Ouch!’ exclaimed Vera. ‘Why did you have to go and do that?’ She looked at the knife in her shoulder, a patch of red forming on the floral pattern around it. ‘That wasn't very nice. Now I'll have to kill you as well as take back my gold.’
Zyra launched herself at Vera, her second knife slashing for Vera's throat. But Vera swatted her aside like a fly. As Zyra thudded to the floor, Vera pulled the knife out of her shoulder, briefly studied the blood dripping from it and then threw it at Zyra. Luckily, her aim was not as developed as her strength. The knife clattered to the ground beside Zyra.
Vera turned back to Tark. Still clutching his bag o’ gold, and hoping against hope, Tark drew the sword o’ light.
‘Oh, I don't think that'll be working no more,’ said Vera, still advancing. ‘Not after dispatching a dragon. Takes a lot of energy to do that. So unless you all knows how to recharge it, and I'm guessing here that you don't, it's not going to do you all that much good.’
Tark considered using the unlighted sword o’ light simply as an ordinary sword, but then he thought better of it. Instead, he started backing away. Vera lunged. Tark sidestepped. She lunged again. He sidestepped again. She might be huge, but fast she was not.
Suddenly Zyra was on the hideous woman's back, arm wrapped around Vera's throat. But Vera merely tossed her aside again, sending her crashing into the hole in the floor where the chest had been. As Tark dodged Vera yet again, he got an idea. He sheathed the useless sword and edged his way around to the collapsed section of wall. Vera charged him yet again. He stepped aside. She went crashing into what remained of the wall. Tark ran to the other side of the basement as the support beam and brickwork collapsed around Vera. Seconds later an enormous mound of rubble came crashing down from the remains of the building above.
Dust filled the air as fragments of stone and brick and mortar scattered through the basement. Tark watched as bits of rubble continued to fall, adding to the huge pile that had crushed and buried Vera. He sighed with relief, then coughed up a lungful of dust.
‘Good thinkin’,’ said Zyra, as she pulled herself out of the hole, waving dust from in front of her face.
‘Nots a problem!’ said Tark with a smirk.
‘She aints no normal woman,’ said Zyra, retrieving her knives.
‘Normal people don't marry dragons,’ said Tark.
‘I meants ’er strength,’ said Zyra.
‘Maybe she's a ogress in disguise?’
‘Maybe,’ agreed Zyra. ‘Anyways, we's betta gets out of ’ere.’
Tark went over to the open chest, dropped the bag o’ gold into it and closed the lid. He started to lift it awkwardly.
‘Hangs on,’ said Zyra, standing next to her overturned closet. ‘Gives us a hand with this.’
Tark helped Zyra lift the closet back into its spot against the wall. Zyra reached out and yanked at the door without using her other hand to hold it in place. The door fell off its hinges, revealing a rack of clothing on old hangers and a box of assorted old weapons — everything from rusty daggers to empty pistols.
Zyra reached in behind the clothes and pulled out a shopping cart. It was the old-fashioned, vinyl-covered
