“I take it you two are already acquainted?” asked the figure from the throne designed for human growth hormone addicts. It looked a bit like the end of Conan, with him sitting on his throne leaning on his sword, only this guy had as much hair as Arnie had muscles. And the throne was about fifteen sizes too big for him. I could only assume that he had to fly up to reach his seat.

  Time to think fast, Bob.

  “Ah, yeeeaaahhh, I replied slowly. Not the right kind of thinking, you idiot!

  “And you are in command of this Dragon’s Hoard Warband?” The voice was deep and slow, every word weighed, considered, and hewn from granite before he spoke. I smiled briefly at the thought of my hoard, my golden cushion. Focus!

  “Command is such a specific word. I certainly have nothing to do with any day-to-day war crimes they commit,” I added hurriedly.

  “WAR CRIMES! FOR THE HORDE!” bellowed Geeku from where he was chained to the wall, his feet dangling three feet off the ground. He was in bad shape. Cuts covered his arms, the blood left to dry on his skin, and large brown bruises marred his formerly glossy green hide.

  “The Hoard has caused a not insignificant amount of disruption. Jared, I’m pleased you have captured the mastermind behind it,” said the Forge Lord. Even I was willing to admit that ‘mastermind’ was probably pushing it a bit too far.

  “Um, he came here to offer us a deal.” Jared then explained the terms laid out in our previous conversation: one hundred gold pieces for the first squad of robo-bunnies, no more slavery, and renegotiate the price if the cyborgs are any good. I was confident they would be. The uni-bunnies loved three things: carrots, breeding, and killing. While the first two were denied them after their conversion, their love of the third burned just as brightly.

  “Interesting.” Beady eyes hidden between a moustache that looked like an untrimmed hedgerow, and eyebrows that would rival most moustaches, glared at me. “And the elf?”

  “Halefire Greenleaves, Forge Lord Saalk?nig. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.” He tried to bow from his kneeling position, but Kurt’s grip on his arms prevented him from doing much more than nodding.

  “You’re a long way from your forests, long ears,” Saalk?nig intoned.

  “I was captured by your pixies while performing a routine inspection in line with Tract fourteen, clause six, subclause twenty-eight of the Accords,” Hellfire said quickly. “The Accords require that I be allowed to return to my people.”

  “Subclause twenty-eight refers to the number of toilets per involuntary recruit at each waystation along the route,” Saalk?nig stroked his beard. “You were inspecting lavatories within the pixie compounds?”

  “Which clause is fair treatment of children taken as part of the raids?” Hellfire asked in confusion. I felt the touch of Karen in all this legislation.

  “Ah, that would be Tract seventeen, clause five, subclause twenty-eight. It seems strange that a certified inspector from Silvertrees wouldn’t know his code.”

  “I’m, er, I’ve always struggled with those classes. The priests of Karen do go on and on.” Hellfire shifted nervously.

  “Boss-bruv, gemme down! I got to scratch me arse!” complained Geeku from the wall.

  “I’m afraid that will not be happening. Geeku the Super-Cyan is going to be outfitted with binding armour and sent down to the Dark Tunnels. We may as well make use of him, after the trouble he and his friends have caused.”

  “Saalk?nig, give him back, and I can get his warband to break off and return to their own lands. His mission was just to disrupt the slave trade, and if we can agree on a deal, you won’t need it any more,” I called up to the dwarf above me.

  “What is your name and serial number, dragon?” Saalk?nig asked politely.

  “The name's Bob, but I don’t have a serial number. I’m not a Ford Fiesta!”

  “So you are not a member of the T.O.T.S. How unfortunate.”

  “I do have this!” I pulled the snake-coin the strange dragon had given me during the siege of the Mill from my pocket dimension and held it up. “Does this help?” Jared snatched it from me and examined it closely. He carefully bit into the edge, then hurriedly spat as his saliva turned frothy. He began coughing and spluttering. “That isn’t my fault!” I added hastily as he shoved the coin back into my hand and fell to his knees.

  “So it is a legitimate token, and you have an open invitation to the Aerie. We will operate on the principle that you are indeed a Titan, and you will be accorded the due respect. I trust you will call off the green predators as you promised?” I nodded quickly. “Then we will release this one into your custody for now. Oh, do get up, Jared, it’s not that bad.”

  Jared climbed unsteadily to his feet and swayed slightly. His pupils were dilated, almost filling his eyes. He giggled under his breath every couple of seconds.

  “Geeku, you guys love a fight, right?” I asked.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “Sure ting bruv! Get’s da blood pumpin’.”

  I looked back up at Saalk?nig. “Would you be willing to use my mercenaries in your battle with the Deep Ones? In addition to the cyborgs, which I think you’ll be very impressed with when you see them. How about a thousand gold a week for say, five hundred Orlics to serve as auxiliaries?”

  “No deal. They’re oathbreakers, not bound by the system to keep their word, and no one sees the Dark Tunnels without being under contract or Bound.” Saalk?nig voice was firm, and I took it that his decision was final. It had been worth a shot. I could use the Orlics in the coming civil war instead. It would have been nice to have gotten them some levels, or whatever they needed to get stronger, before things got hairy at home.

  “I’ll need to see what you’re up against. We can tailor the suits to match the enemy.” I figured this was true. I’d have a chat with Simeon when I get home. No. I’d have a chat with Kat, and she could deal with his rhyming slang bullshit.

  Saalk?nig jumped down from his throne and landed with an impressive, if short, version of a superhero landing. He strode forward and stuck out his hand, which I politely shook. This bloke was clearly on the level of Big Kenny and the other human powerhouses I’d seen.

  “The scribes have knocked this together, sign it, and we’re good.” The dwarf king held out a hand, and a large stone tablet appeared, covered in intricate runes. I grimaced at the script.

  “I can’t read this, so I can’t sign it,” I said firmly, turning the slab over in my hands. The rear was also covered in angular script.

  “I can help there!” offered Halefire brightly.

  “Why would I trust you?” I asked, looking down at the elf, still held prostrate by Kurt.

  “I swear by the trees and roots, by the law and the system, to be your loyal elf for the rest of my days!” he babbled. The glow of the system approving the oath flickered around him.

  “Let him up,” ordered Saalk?nig. Halefire came over and took the weighty tablet, examining it carefully.

  “This clause… it states that you retain the rights to the ‘product’ after destruction. That wasn’t mentioned in the negotiations,” the elf pointed out.

  “I’d prefer to get the materials back,” I added. “Some of them are very valuable and can be recycled into new models.”

  “If they work, you won’t be short of materials,” Saalk?nig said gruffly, but he summoned a tiny chisel from somewhere and drove it across that clause to remove it.

  “Anything else?” I asked, and Halefire shook his head, his long ears swaying as he did so.

  “Everything else looks fine, Lord Dragon.”

  “It’s Bob.”

  “Lord Dragon Bob,” Hellfire corrected himself, and I sighed. Pick your battles, Bob, pick your battles. I took the tablet and shifted one finger into a chitinous claw that I used to cut my name into the stone on the dotted line. Another golden flash followed, then the tablet floated away from me and crumbled into silvery dust.

  “I’ll expect the first shipment within the week,” Saalk?nig said with a smile.

  “You can have them today, once I’ve seen what you’re up against.”

  “Very well. Jared, oh, rock and stone, you shouldn’t be so vulnerable to the toxin. Have you been sniffing hellspore again? Kurt, seeing as Jared is away with the pixies, please escort the Titan down to the front lines for an inspection. No secrets, he’s system-bound.”

  “What about me?” asked Halefire.

  “You’re Bob’s problem now. A guard will escort you and Geeku back to the surface to wait for your master. I have other business to attend to this morning. Good day, gentlemen.” Saalk?nig sank into the stone at his feet and vanished. He melted back into position a few seconds later atop his throne. Huh. So that’s how he gets up to his high chair. His other business appeared to be staring stoically at the far wall, but this had gone surprisingly well, and I wasn’t about to push my luck.

  Kurt didn’t make conversation as he led me through the low corridors and arching caverns. In some of the larger spaces, neat rows of houses had been grown out of the ground, the stone showing no sign of tools or any cracks between the parts. Dwarves and other species bustled about. There was always the distant sound of hammers striking anvils, and some of the forge caverns were clogged with workers rushing back and forth with barrels of equipment or materials.

  The other species were strange. Some looked reptilian, with stubby tails sticking out from holes cut in their trousers for the purpose. Others were insectile, with glowing orbs dangling from pairs of antenna that sprouted from their foreheads.

  We stopped at a huge steel door, set into the end of a cavern that was lined with bunkers designed to provide overlapping fields of fire. The spaces between them were patrolled by various mechs. I hadn’t seen any humans yet and was going to ask, but the door rolled into the left wall, and my mouth froze half open.

  Screams, the clash of weapons on armour, a roaring noise that reminded me of my breath attacks, it was the cacophony of war.

  “It’s dangerous from here. Keep an eye on the ceiling. I doubt a Dropper will do you much harm, but I’m not in my armour and would appreciate a heads up,” Kurt said quietly.

  “What’s a Dropper?”

  “Blobby thing with teeth. You’ll know it if you see one. C’mon. Let’s get this done.”

  He led me through winding side tunnels and vast caverns lined with fortifications, low walls and bunkers. Kurt was constantly twitching and scanning his surroundings. The tunnel sections here were taller than before. Not enough for me to go dragon-mode, but high enough that I could walk upright rather than doing my neanderthal impression.

  As we neared the line of contact, the light orbs became few and far between, but blasts of fire ahead of us threw enough light into the corridor for me to see by. Kurt stopped for a moment and took a deep breath.

  “About twenty metres dead ahead is the command bunker. When we go round this corner, we leg it for that cover, ok? I will not stop to help you; I will only run for that bunker. Are you ready?” I was not only ready, I was fairly confident I could outrun the pint-sized, ambulatory beard. I nodded. “And go!”

  He took off like someone had lit a fuse. Short legs blurred as he skidded around the corner and disappeared. I loped after him and then skidded to a stop.

  Ranks of dwarves fought from behind more of the stout stone barricades, pouring fire at the far side of the cavern from ornate-looking flamethrowers. Behind them, heavily armoured dwarves stood with axes and hammers held clenched in their fists. The final lines were made up of wild-eyed men with vials of various coloured liquids attached to leather bandoleers across their chests. At the ends of the walls they used for cover, squat bunkers, lined with narrow slits, secured their flanks.

  Further forward, it got messy. The mechs I’d met outside stomped around, crushing things. Little monsters that shifted and changed by the second. One moment, an imp-like creature with sharp claws and wicked-looking fangs, then the next, a doughnut-shaped blob that encircled a warrior's leg before snapping shut to amputate a foot. Humans were mixed in among the dwarves, as were other species I didn’t recognise. A handful of elves, a lot of the reptilian things, who fought with round-tipped clubs.

  Kurt disappeared into the bunker just as five of the closest blobs melted together and turned into a spear of grey flesh that flew toward me.