The Dragon Machine (Magebreakers Book 3) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  About the Author

  Sample of Scriber

  THE DRAGON MACHINE

  By Ben S. Dobson

  Copyright © 2017 Ben S. Dobson

  Cover by dleoblack

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations used for the purpose of articles or reviews.

  For more information, visit bensdobson.com.

  Magebreakers Novels

  _____

  The Flaw in All Magic

  The Emperor’s Mask

  The Dragon Machine

  Other Works by Ben S. Dobson

  _____

  Scriber

  The Swampling King

  Sign up for my mailing list here or at bensdobson.com to be notified when new books are released, and get a free copy of my fantasy short story The Last Hero, exclusively for subscribers!

  Chapter One

  _____

  TANE CARVER SQUEEZED closer to Indree and smoothed his rumpled waistcoat, trying to find some room in the press of bodies penning him in on all sides.

  People of all sizes filled the central square in Greenstone, a broad plaza of dirt and cobblestones surrounded by long brick ancryst processing factories and artifact manufacturies—the facilities responsible for the green haze coloring the sky overhead. Goblins and kobolds made up the bulk of the crowd, but every one of the sentient races was represented, from towering ogren to diminuitive sprites—which meant every inch of space was occupied by anyone who could fit. Many wore the sign of the Silver Dawn, armbands of twilight blue emblazoned with a silver sunburst, though Tane couldn’t be sure if they were members or just sympathized with the cause.

  Or if they were just trying to look like they belonged so they could cause trouble.

  “There’s barely room to breathe,” he said to Indree. “I’m not sure you brought enough bluecaps, if this goes bad.”

  Constable-Inspector Indree Lovial was dressed in a simple charcoal topcoat to blend in to the crowd, ready to signal the uniformed constables around the perimeter to move in at the first sign of violence. Despite the plain clothes, her delicate half-elven features stood out—elven blood was uncommon among Silver Dawn supporters. She surveyed the area with amber eyes, frowned, and tucked a strand of black hair behind one of her pointed brown ears. “We don’t have enough to deal with a crowd of this size,” she said. “It’s harder and harder to keep the peace at these rallies, since the detonations.”

  It had been a little more than a month since the Knights of the Emperor had declared themselves openly, targeting non-magicals across the city with explosive spellfire artifacts. In the aftermath, people had flocked to support the Silver Dawn.

  Unfortunately, the same could be said for the city’s pro-magical factions.

  And those factions were out in force today too, jeering and shouting outside the perimeter set by the bluecaps. A cordon of brass shield pylons topped with copper spheres was in place to keep them back and protect the Silver Dawn’s right to peaceful demonstration, but if that many people decided they wanted to act, they would overpower just about any defense put in front of them.

  “Remind me again why I’m here.” Tane had to raise his voice over a swell of noise from the crowd. “I hate these things.”

  “Because I wanted the company?” Indree suggested. “Or to support Kadka?” She pointed with her chin toward the small stage assembled at the front of the gathering, where Kadka stood beside a tall silver-scaled kobold with great shimmering wings. Iskar Estiss, the closest thing to a leader the Silver Dawn had—and another reason for the group’s increased support of late. A kobold who looked like he could actually be the descendant of the long-extinct true dragons, as his people so often boasted.

  “I don’t think that was it,” said Tane. “I’m not actually all that fond of either of you.”

  Indree elbowed him in the side, but she couldn’t hide her smile. “Probably for the case, then.”

  “Right. That sounds more like me.” He had come to a few rallies for Kadka’s sake earlier on, when she’d been nervous about speaking in public, but that hadn’t been necessary for a while. Today, though, Iskar had asked to talk to the two of them after the event, and Tane could smell a job coming. “But maybe later you and I could spend some time together?” He took her hand.

  Indree hesitated, though she didn’t pull away. “I’m… probably going to be busy all night. I’m sorry, but with everything that’s going on, Lady Abena needs me working.”

  “That makes sense,” said Tane, and released her hand, hiding his disappointment. He wasn’t entirely sure where he stood with Indree, of late. Sometimes things were almost like they had been in the good days at the University, but it felt like she was avoiding anything particularly meaningful. Her job as the Lady Protector’s liason to the constabulary did demand a lot of her time, but he could tell when she was using it as an excuse. “Maybe another time.”

  “Soon,” she said, but she kept her focus on Kadka and Iskar on the stage rather than meeting Tane’s eyes. “I promise. Look, I think they’re starting.”

  She was right; Iskar was just stepping up to the podium. He raised clawed silver hands for silence—or at least a lower rumble—and spoke into the small copper dish of the voice-caster artifact mounted in front of him. “Thank you all for coming. Now more than ever, we must be united in our pursuit of peace and equality for every soul in the Audland Protectorate.” His voice was deep and powerful and sincere; in getting to know Iskar, Tane had come to realize that the man truly believed what he preached. “When I look over this crowd and see so many willing to stand for themselves and their fellow citizens, it makes me believe that there is hope.”

  “A new day dawns!” came a cheer from the crowd, and soon it echoed from all corners. Not far ahead of Tane, an ogren man hefted a young goblin woman up on his shoulders so she could see, and they both raised their fists in the air and took up the cry.

  The angry shouts from the counter-protesters outside the bluecap cordon grew louder in response. “Audland for the magical!”

  Tane glanced back nervously. As long as they’re all talk, we’re fine. But there was a tension in the air he didn’t much like.

  Iskar raised his hands once more and waited for the noise to fade. “Today, an ally of our movement is here to share some words. I am sure many of you have heard her speak before, and if so I am sure you agree that her tales are much more exciting than my own. Please welcome my very dear friend, Kadka of the Magebreakers.”

  A roar of approval answered as Kadka took Iskar’s place at the podium. Her shirt and suspenders looked new compared to the tattered ones she normally wore—which was about as
dressed up as she ever got, really—but she’d done nothing to tame her wild fringe of white fur-like hair. She took in the noise for a moment, and even the shouts of “Orc filth!” from the back didn’t shake her sharp-toothed grin.

  “She looks a lot more comfortable up there these days,” Indree said.

  “You know Kadka. Nothing shakes her for very long.” But Tane couldn’t stop himself from glancing back behind the cordon, where the pro-magical protestors were becoming increasingly agitated. It wouldn’t take much to set them off. And Kadka had never been one to watch what she said.

  As it happened, she didn’t get a chance to say the wrong thing.

  “When Iskar first asks me to talk, I—” Kadka’s voice cut off as something metallic spun toward her head from somewhere near the front of the crowd. She snatched it from the air just in front of her face.

  “For the Emperor!” a man’s voice screamed.

  “Spellfire,” Indree swore, and her eyes glazed as she sent an Astral signal to the bluecaps around the perimeter and among the crowd.

  Behind the podium, the afternoon sun glinted off the brass shell of a charmglobe, clutched firmly in Kadka’s white-furred hand.

  And then the screaming started.

  _____

  Kadka looked over the crowd and licked her lips nervously. Hundreds of people filled the square, and she’d have felt more at home if they’d been advancing on her armed.

  But she was getting better at speaking in front of so many. And having Iskar there helped. She looked over her shoulder into his sapphire blue eyes, and saw the glint of encouragement there. That always made her feel more confident. He had secrets he hadn’t shared with her yet, she knew that, but she didn’t need to know everything to trust him—and his belief in her never seemed to waver.

  And he was extremely pretty, which also helped.

  With a deep breath, she turned back to the crowd, and spoke. “When Iskar first asks me to talk, I—”

  She had barely begun when she saw the man move. A few rows back from the stage, a tall blond elf drew back his hand and then hurled a brass sphere at her face.

  Instinctively, she caught it before it struck, turned her hand to look. A brass sphere with a winding key jutting from one side, turning with an audible tick. A charmglobe.

  A dwarven man and a kobold woman had already grabbed the elf, but he looked up at Kadka and screamed, “For the Emperor!” The kobold clapped a hand over his mouth—maybe to stop him casting more spells, or maybe just to shut him up.

  And the charmglobe was still ticking.

  “Deshka,” Kadka muttered, and hurled the globe straight up as hard as she could. In the same movement, she twisted around to grab Iskar, shielding his body with hers.

  A wave of intense heat exploded behind her and overhead, and bright silver light illuminated the stage, casting a long shadow of her and Iskar’s entwined bodies.

  Spellfire.

  But she was alive, and unburned. She’d thrown it far enough and fast enough. She looked over Iskar—no sign of harm there either. Relieved, she loosened her grip.

  Iskar was staring at her, his eyes wide with concern. “Kadka, are you—”

  “Fine, dragon-man,” she said with a forced grin. “Takes more than this little fire to hurt me.”

  She was aware now of the screams in the crowd behind her, and glanced back to see people surging away from the stage, shoving against one another in terror. Around the perimeter, the bluecaps were trying to maintain order between people pushing to escape from this side of the shield pylons and vekadan pro-magicals trying to push in closer from the far side. Carver and Indree were in the middle of that somewhere, and just then, there was nothing Kadka could do about it.

  “We have to do something,” Iskar said, and moved past her to take the podium once more, leaning over the voice caster. “Please, stay calm! Panic will only make things worse!”

  A few heads turned, but not many. Spellfire was always going to cause panic, and especially after the recent attacks. And by the way the pylon-shield was flaring in surges of silver-blue, Kadka didn’t know if it would hold against the incoming pro-magicals.

  “Kadka! Iskar!” Carver’s voice.

  Kadka turned to see him and Indree pushing their way out of the crowd to reach the stage, several uniformed bluecaps in tow. She should have known that Indree would keep him safe—the woman knew her way around a crisis.

  “Both of you need to come with us right now.” Indree shouted over the screams, with that bluecap authority she could summon so easily. “We’re getting you out of here.”

  “No!” Iskar shook his head and swept a hand over the crowd. “They’re going to trample one another. I can help end this, if I can just—”

  Kadka grabbed his arm. “Need to leave. Is you they come for first. Symbol, like you tell me so many times. You go, maybe less trouble. Better for everyone.” One of the things she most liked about the pretty kobold was his drive to help everyone, to mediate problems wherever he could. But not everything could be solved with talk. “I will deal with man who throws spellfire.” She turned and took a purposeful step back toward the crowd, where the elven man was still being held by several Silver Dawn supporters amid the chaos.

  Carver stepped into her path, one hand out. “No. You’re right, but you’re a symbol as much as Iskar is, Kadka. You both need to get gone, and fast.”

  Kadka hesitated, still looking at the elf, struggling to free himself from his captors. She liked magic, but when someone tried to kill her with it, she also liked to show them just how bad a mistake that was. “Might be with Knights of Emperor. He can not—”

  “We’ll handle him,” said Indree, and gestured to two of her bluecaps, a dwarf woman and a human man. They moved without hesitation, jumping into the crowd and wading toward the elf. “Good enough? We really have to move, before we lose our chance.”

  Kadka scowled, but Carver and Indree were probably right, and she knew Iskar would be more likely to go along if she did too. “Fine.”

  Reluctantly, Iskar nodded his head as well. “Very well, Inspector Lovial.”

  “Good. Believe me, we can control the crowd better if you’re gone. Come on, we’ve got a route held open behind the stage.” Indree gestured toward an alley between two factories, cordoned off by shield pylons. Angry counter-protestors shoved against the shield from both sides, and as Kadka watched a wave of magical force crashed against it, sending up a flash of silver-blue.

  Carver was looking too. “It won’t last much longer against that,” he said. His fingers dipped into his waistcoat pocket to rub his watch case, the way he always did when he was nervous.

  “Then we move fast,” said Kadka, and started forward, drawing Iskar by the arm.

  With bluecaps flanking them on either side, they ran for the alley.

  Chapter Two

  _____

  “IS KNIGHTS OF Emperor, you think?” Kadka asked Indree. Secure in the Silver Dawn safehouse, she could finally ask the question she’d been holding on her tongue during their breathless escape from the square. The single room Greenstone brick-front—much like the office she and Carver worked out of in Porthaven—was cramped, over-full between the bluecaps and Silver Dawn guards, but it was a safe place to talk.

  “More likely a lone idiot with illusions of catching their attention.” Indree looked tired—Kadka knew she’d been working long hours for Lady Abena trying to flush out any Knights of the Emperor left in Thaless. “We’ve got him in custody, so we’ll know soon enough. But it wasn’t terribly well orchestrated, and as far as I can tell there was no one else involved. It wouldn’t have been terribly hard to get that charmglobe close to the stage, with a little luck—we had diviners on the security detail checking for weapons, but brass would have blocked that without a direct search.” She looked to Iskar, standing beside Kadka. “I’m sorry we let this happen. We just don’t have the numbers to search so many people or detect every piece of brass. This whole situation has
gotten well out of hand. The Knights of the Emperor don’t need to act directly when they have sympathizers willing to do it first.”

  “It isn’t your fault, Inspector Lovial,” Iskar said gently. “As you say, it is an impossible situation. The blame lies with the man who created it.”

  “Endo Stooke.” Carver was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, and he scowled as he said the name. “All hail our dear emperor.” Carver had a strange history with the genius-level artificer and would-be emperor—they’d been in the same ancryst rail accident in their youth, an accident that had taken Carver’s parents and Endo’s legs, leaving the young gnome bound to a magecraft-powered wheelchair of his own making.

  “Not your fault either, Carver,” Kadka said. “He fools everyone.” No one had suspected that Endo was the power behind the Knights of the Emperor until his golem assassin known as the Emperor’s Mask had already killed several people. She and Carver and Indree had only barely managed to deactivate the Mask and turn what could have been hundreds of deaths in spellfire explosions set across the city into mere dozens. But despite their best efforts, Endo had escaped Thaless in the chaos. She still regretted not punching his teeth in when she’d had the chance.

  “Doesn’t really matter whose fault it is,” Carver said. “What matters is the mess he left behind. Even if he never comes out of hiding again, Thaless is going to be swamped in this muck for a long time to come.”

  A knock at the safehouse door interrupted the conversation. Three short, two long—the correct sequence, but still everyone turned to look, and bluecaps and guards put hands to weapons. A kobold man in a Silver Dawn armband opened the door slowly.

  “Just me,” said Gurtle Hruve, poking her head into the room. A goblin woman with green-brown skin, she was one of Iskar’s most trusted agents. “Iskar, I brought the Vreegs, like you said.”

  Iskar nodded. “Thank you, Gurtle. Bring them in.”

  Gurtle led a middle-aged goblin couple into the room, both of a paler green skin tone than herself, with the long-nosed, angular features common to their people. Despite their thin, lanky goblin limbs, squat torsos kept them below five and a half feet. The woman had mousy brown hair, and the man a ring of thin black around his temples below a bare green scalp. They both avoided the eyes of the uniformed bluecaps inside save for short, timid glances.