There wasn't any further interruption of their journey, which left everyone on edge with no outlet. Anichka and Tammy huddled under an oiled cloth tarp on top of the second wagon, desperately keeping their powder dry while a light rain came down. The road had been packed well with gravel, keeping even their heavy wagons from sinking.

"There's the marker. We'll see the walls of Hearthhome by sundown," a guard called out from the first wagon, and they kept rumbling ever onward.

"Walls are only half our problem. We need to get this on a train and headed to the capital. You heard what Steph said—we can't relax until we've handed this over to the King's Guard." Her voice low, Anichka had one of her rifles in hand and was ready to start firing if she needed to.

"Mmhmm. We might even save some gold on hauling, since we're going to need less miles on the train." Checking over the two rifles in her care, Tammy tapped at the powder with a dry finger to see if it clumped. "Is it weird I don't care about gold so much, Annie?"

"This is all Travis' fault, but I blame Fife too." Going quiet for a bit, listening to the wheels turn and the huge wolf in the wagon below her breathe, Anichka spotted movement behind them. She was already lifting the rifle when the horse-rider came fully into view. With the gun aimed to the side of the lone horseman, she watched them race past the wagons without the lone rider so much as glancing up at her. "It was easier back in Northridge. When you know every face, you know who isn't a target."

Tammy spent some time thinking about the problem as the sun crawled toward the horizon. "That's changing already. New folk coming into town—merchants and more settlers. You heard what the boss lady said. There will be more jobs for us, but we're going to need more skills. Fancy guns can only take us so far. There's a line of wagons ahead—at the city gate."

"Tam, are you finally going to learn how to fire one of these?" Anichka asked, turning and looking back along her body (under the canvas) and seeing what Tammy was describing.

"I can shoot a rifle as well as any of the other guards, but I know someone I can help out who shoots way better." Not taking her eyes off the queue of wagons as they pulled up to the rear of it, Tammy recalled that this city, Hearthhome, was a hub for multiple nearby settlements, and as such saw a lot of traffic. "We came through here, remember?"

"Yeah, though not all of it. How much can you recall?"

"You got so drunk one night you passed out, then I dragged you out of the city the next day. We didn't stop until we got to Northridge."

Stretching over with one hand, Anichka tickled the back of Tammy's lower leg through her pants. "Skipping Far Reach was the best thing we ever did."

"Plus they don't like fox kin." Twitching her leg, Tammy didn't bother trying to dissuade Anichka from her action. "Four wagons to go and then our first is up. Oh, three. They just let one in."

Anichka managed barely a minute before letting out a whine. "I hate waiting around like this."

"You spend ages lining up shots. How can this be any different?"

"It's boring waiting, Tam. Ah, was that another?"

"Yeah— Oh, those two must have been together. We should probably get down from here—don't want those guards opening up one of these wagons and finding a friendly puppy." Slipping over the edge of the wagon's roof, Tammy slipped herself down and held up her hands.

One by one, Anichka passed the rifles down to Tammy, taking the time to fit the leather covers over the firing mechanisms. She slid down the wagon to land beside Tammy. "I forgot how much weight is strapped to me. Still, I'm not going to go anywhere without them."

With their weapons stowed on their backs again they walked to the front of the line of heavy wagons and overheard the conversation in progress. "… get these on a train for the capital. Not our problem anymore once they arrive."

"What's the cargo?" the gate guard asked.

"That's between our bosses and the King. We're supposed to deliver these to the King's Guard, then our job is done. Until then, we keep our mouths shut and do what we're told. You know how it— Ah. Here's the two lieutenants now. Annie and Tam, I was just telling Sergeant Gradle here we can't say what's in the wagons."

For a moment, Tammy thought she recognized the sergeant. He was a bored man working a boring job that, if he was doing things right, made sure he never got paid too much and things never got too exciting. "You showed him the paperwork from our bosses?"

The gate guard said, "Yeah, yeah. Signed for by a reputable trading company. Any booby-traps on them?"

"Four big hounds. They got plenty of food inside, but they're always a little mean if someone they don't know opens the doors." Tammy looked over at the wagon. "Ran into some less-than-friendly types on the way here. One of them made the mistake of opening a wagon."

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"How many?" In the utter boredom of waving through wagons of grain, a mysterious set of wagons, beset by brigands, was going to be the highlight of the guard's whole month. "Did you get any of them?"

"I counted twelve, but couldn't see what the squad could. Most of them had knives or short swords." Tammy looked at Anichka and raised an eyebrow.

"Oh. Right. We took four that I can verify. Our hound got one." Anichka looked at the caravan guard.

"Our squad took out three more, so ten in the end. Though, two of my men swore they got another two that managed to limp off with their wounds." Nodding to Anichka, he added, "Camping on the roof of the wagon was a great idea."

Shrugging, Anichka said, "It's no city wall, but we still had a good view of things. Wish I'd spent more time practicing with my pistols—I missed a shot with one."

With the banter matching what the caravan seemed to be, and with the paperwork correct, the gate guard had nothing else to do but let them in. "Well, this is all in order." He passed the paperwork back. "I couldn't offer you a round of drinks to hear the rest of that story when I'm off-shift?"

"Sorry, Sergeant, we're on the clock," Tammy said, giving him her best smile. Despite what she'd feared, the man hadn't been as unfriendly toward her as many in the kingdom might. Once they were on the train that they were going to hire to carry them and no one else, all the worry would be over.

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What disturbed Eliza Sussaridge more than the fact she was coming back to this insane city was that her horse didn't seem to panic at the sight of Penelope far above. Her wagon was rumbling along the road, in the middle of another caravan of traders, with a cannon hitched to the back of it.

The ride back had given her a lot of time to think about all the details she'd gained. She'd put together Celeste's information, along with myriad other little tidbits, and come to a bizarre set of facts for how Northridge worked.

At the top, first and foremost, was an awakened city, a draconic dungeon that was either fully cognizant itself or its minions were doing a spectacular job of maintaining such a charade, and a far lesser (and in her mind not as aware as the genius loci of the city) verdant dungeon.

After that, the three city councilors. She had identified them, the first was the captain of their guard, Brolly Windchime: a man she'd found details on that suggested he was a commoner-born, but had raised to reasonably high ranking in the King's Guard before he'd gotten the bug to eke out his own place in the world. The second was a craftsman, Howard Tailor (the one that'd caught her off-guard pretending to be a servant), who had a prestigious history in the far south of the kingdom, creating luxury goods—she was annoyed that she had less information on him than the others, but such was the limit of modern intelligence gathering.

The third, and final, member of the council was Christine Sellswell. The third daughter of a trading family that had two sons older than her, Christine shouldn't have amounted to much. That's why the woman had been of particular interest to Eliza. Like all traders that have the skill in their blood, she'd only needed a small amount of gratuity from her family to make a living—but where Christine had stood out was turning that small stipend into a grand venture. She held major shares in every trading company north of the capital, and when the location of Northridge had been decided, she'd worked her contacts to attract settlers and footed the bills to found the city. In essence, Brolly defended the city, Howard managed the crafting, but it was Christine who owned it; as much as anyone could own a city.

Then there were the dungeons. She knew that the dragon, Penelope, was the boss of the dungeon, but in all things social it seemed like Celeste and Stephan were in charge. Celeste's conversation with her had been strange. She'd expected the kobold to have a weird accent or be barely capable of speech at all, but she'd not only been outgoing and vocal, she'd been warm. She spoke like a seasoned barmaid bringing drinks and a meal after a long time on the road—and Eliza suspected that was absolutely the case.

Stephan was a merchant, courtier, and strategist all rolled into one. At first, she'd suspected he was just the former, but after a few days she'd recognized his machinations as a literal show for her benefit. It wasn't often she encountered people as experienced with doing underhanded things as she was herself, but in Stephan, Eliza saw a real threat. She may have been made by him, but at the same time he may be treating all merchants with that level of caution. Until she had more information, she wouldn't know either way.

There were others, of course. The city numbered over five thousand, and she had caught glimpses of those others. The two women with more guns than they could fire (some of which were worth more than what a dozen wagons could haul), the kobold wearing a royal ransom in adamantine, and the boss of the verdant dungeon, Breath of Spring.

It was more complicated than such a young city had any right being, and she laid the blame firmly on the weird situation with the dungeons. Some cities had expanded enough to merge with the fort around their verdant dungeon, but such dungeons were kept firmly under control. What she'd have to deal with was a situation unlike any Eliza had heard of before.

On one hand, that terrified Eliza. On the other, though, she was excited to get the job done now, and see the city put into the right hands to run it. Never mind how much she'd get paid for the work. It was one thing to do a job she thought was right, and getting paid for it, and quite another to do said job and like it.

She was just enjoying a new rush of confidence when a crash sounded beside her. Turning her head to look at what had hit the ground with the force of a siege munition, Eliza's eyes widened as she realized the massive thing was a dragon.

The world closed in around the edges of Eliza's vision as the dragon shook itself off and walked up to her wagon. As it opened its mouth, she felt terror and panic war with the inevitability of unconsciousness. The last thing she heard as she slumped back on the bench of her wagon was an excited, gravelly voice ask, "Is that Trav's cannon? He's going to be so excited you— Are you okay?"

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This story is released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. If you are paying money to see this or the original creator, Damaged, is not credited, you are viewing a plagiarized copy of the story.