Warsinger James Baldwin (read this if TXT) 📖

This will promote Faction Member to the rank of Clan Leader and give them access to the Kingdom Management System.]

“Yes,” I said aloud.

There was a chiming sound, and then the green circle turned into a small golden crown. Suri beamed at me, squeezing my hands in hers.

[Suri Ba’Hadir has been promoted to Countess of Myszno]

[Suri Ba’Hadir has claimed a residence: Kalla Sahasi]

Suri’s eyelids fluttered shut, and she let out a soft sigh of relief. Her shoulders slumped, and she leaned into my chest.

“Finally.” She dug her fingers in around my harness, clinging to it. “This sounds… like… really stupid. But please… tell me I never have to go back there again.”

“Suri…” I wrapped my arms around her and buried my mouth against her hair, kissing her brow fiercely. “You never, ever, EVER have to go there again.”

A shudder passed through her back, and she stayed where she was for a long minute. I’d have kept her there, but our reverie was interrupted by an irritated shriek. We looked up, startled, to see Cutthroat kicking out and waving her claws like an angry toddler in a booster seat. Karalti gave us both a long-suffering look.

“I… I’d better get my bird before she accidentally cuts Karalti’s throat or something,” Suri said, sniffing.

“For sure.” I kissed her one last time. “Welcome home.”

“I… yeah.” Her eyes misted up a little before she turned and slammed the visor of her helmet down, striding toward her hookwing. Cutthroat strained toward her, honking with indignation. Karalti bent forward obligingly, and Suri took care of the snaps. The hookwing dropped to the ground and immediately began to preen, hissing like a tea kettle as she frantically combed her feathers back into place.

Cocoa had been motoring around the courtyard with her nose snuffling in the dirt like a cross between a curious puppy and a shop vac, but when she saw Cutthroat, she stopped hoovering and happily waddled toward her. If hookwings could be placed on a scale, with one end being ‘sword-hands death machine’ and the other end of the scale being ‘giant toothy chicken’, Cutthroat and Cocoa were a 1 and a 10, respectively. Cutthroat was a Bugatti. Cocoa was a short bus.

“Oi! What are you doin’?” Suri backed up as Cutthroat snarled and lurched forward, putting herself between Suri and Cocoa. She raised her arms and gaped her jaws wide, her feathers standing on end. Cocoa did not get the message. The old hookwing's whole body spasmed as she gave a great honk of delight and ran straight at her, short plump tail wagging rapidly from side to side.

“Cutthroat! No! Down!” Suri tried to catch her reins, but Cutthroat was having none of it. She snapped around at her, drool streaming between her teeth, only to stop when Cocoa bounced up right between her raised arms and headbutted her under the chest. She cooed and chirped, and then – to Cutthroat’s confused rage – to tooth-groom HER feathers.

“SKRREEEEK?!?” Cutthroat backpedaled, swiping out in front of her. Cocoa, through sheer dumb luck, bumbled underneath the slashing claws and began to earnestly attempt to jam her nose under Cutthroat’s tail. She reared her head up, every feather bristling with indignation, and demurely whisked her rump to the side. Cocoa wasn’t so easily deterred. She ducked forward, snuffling curiously, only to squawk when Cutthroat struck her over the head with the blunt club of her wrist.

“Cutthroat! C’mere, you bloody old bitch!” Suri hollered.

Cocoa seemed no worse for wear. As Cutthroat whirled around, heaving with the need to destroy, Vilmas slid down Karalti’s wing with Masha in his arms. The sight of her favorite human drove all thoughts of buttsniffing from Cocoa’s mind. She cheeped with excitement, absentmindedly dodging Cutthroat’s one-man slapfight and toddling over to the pair of them with her crests lifted high.

“Ack!” Masha laughed as Cocoa began to lick her hair, slobbering all over it. “Oh, look at you! There’s a good girl! Who’s a good girl?”

“Peep! Peep!” Cocoa wagged her entire body from side to side.

Suri ran to Cutthroat and caught her by the rings, hauling her head around as she stalked Cocoa with menacing intent. “Nope, no you don’t. Come on, you big sourpuss.”

“Lovely creatures, aren’t they? I’ve had Cocoa since she was a little ball of fluff. Dumb as a post, but this girl’s nearly thirty years old and can still haul a cart from Taltos to Czongrad.” Masha chuckled, pushing Cocoa’s muzzle away. Now that Cutthroat was contained, one of the stablemen ran up and took Masha’s mount by the mouth. The smaller, stubbier hookwing happily pranced away with him, her chubby thighs jiggling on every step. “Come on, Tuun. Let’s go and see this man of yours and glove up.”

Suri dragged her irate dinosaur to the stables, while Istvan, Rin, and Ebisa followed Masha and I to the castle’s hospital. It was more like a small medical bay than an actual hospital, with room for six beds and maybe a row of stretchers. The chief medic of the Myszno Defense Force, Lazar Skalitz, was busy using a small mana-powered soldering iron to cauterize the inflamed, abscessed flesh of Vash Dorha’s upper arm. The Baru lay there as the machine sparked and hissed, stoic and sweating with fever, staring at the ceiling as the eye-watering stench of infection roiled through the room. As soon as we stepped in, his eyes darted across to us.

“About time you wankers came back.” He leaned up just enough he could see us, and flashed the three of us a broad cheesy grin. Like all Tuun men, self-included, he had a Eurasian look: dark hair, well-lined eyes used to squinting against the wind, the ruddy, rosy cheeks of someone who had grown up on the steppe. He might have been roguishly handsome once, but at some point in his life, he’d had his face smashed in like a windshield. His nose, cheekbones, and mouth were crooked with thick scars, his skin weathered from hard years of asceticism and