Throne of Ash and Blood

Chapter 11 Scales in the Moonlight

By the third day in the Barron, the caravan had settled into a grueling rhythm — heat by day, bone-deep chill by night. The sandstorms came and went without warning, turning the horizon into a swirling wall of grit that bit at skin and choked the lungs.

The wild beasts of the Barron had tested them more than once, but nothing too serious. Lean, scaled jackals with needle teeth darted in at night, only to be driven off by Throkreat’s bellow and the flat swing of his hammer. Once, a pack of glass vipers tried to slither onto the second cart, their crystalline fangs glinting in the moonlight, but Thomme had crushed the largest with his shield before the rest scattered. These were small encounters — enough to keep everyone tense, but nothing they couldn’t handle.

On the fourth night, the air felt… wrong.

Even the beasts pulling the carts shifted uneasily, their ears flicking and their breath coming in short, quick snorts. The moon hung low in the sky, a perfect silver half-circle, painting the dunes in cold light.

Salish’s gaze lingered on the second cart — the metal-encased one they had been ordered to guard above all else. Her human form was flawless, hair dark as midnight, but there was a subtle shift in her eyes as she studied it. “Whatever’s in there…” she murmured, her voice low, “…it’s alive. And it’s drowning in sorrow.”

Alphonse looked up at the moon, his breath fogging in the chill air. Unbidden, memories came — Emiko’s mischievous grin as she coaxed him to sneak from his chambers, the two of them lying side by side in the dewy grass, whispering about constellations until they fell asleep under the stars.

Salish’s voice broke the memory. “You know,” she said, turning toward him, “I can shapeshift into any form. I could shift into her, if you’d like. Better than you finding some… close substitute.”

Alphonse’s jaw tightened. He cleared his throat. “No. It’s fine. And I told you to stay out of my head.”

Salish scoffed, leaning back with a half-smile. “Hard to stay out when your pain and sorrow are screaming the loudest for miles. My offer still stands. Just trying to be… what is it you humans call it? Be a friend.”

Alphonse didn’t reply.

That was when the roar split the night.

It rolled over the dunes like thunder, shaking the sand under their feet. The horses-beasts screamed and reared, and the hired hands scrambled to grab weapons. Dark shapes moved on the horizon, coming fast — too big to be jackals, too heavy to be vipers.

Then the moonlight caught them.

Dragon people.

Wild ones — feral, horned, their wings ragged but still strong enough to carry them in long gliding leaps. Scales shimmered in shades of black, bronze, and deep crimson. Their eyes burned gold in the dark.

And they weren’t going for the water cart.

They went straight for the second cart.

The first one hit the metal side like a battering ram, claws screeching as it tried to tear into the reinforced plates. Another came down from above, wings snapping open at the last second before it slammed into the guards.

“Protect the cart!” Thomme’s voice boomed over the chaos, shield already raised as a dragon’s claw hammered down on him. Sparks flew from the impact, and he shoved back, his sword slashing in controlled arcs to keep the beast’s attention on him and off the cart.

Salish dropped her human form in an instant. Her horns curled forward, eyes glowing a dangerous violet. Dark magic licked around her fingers as she murmured an incantation in Demon language that made the air shiver. A pulse of shadow erupted from her hands, slamming into a dragon mid-lunge and sending it sprawling across the sand.

Throkreat roared louder than the dragons themselves, charging into the fray with his two-handed warhammer. He caught a dragon in the ribs with a swing so brutal it lifted the creature off its feet and slammed it to the ground in a plume of dust. Another leapt at him from behind, but he pivoted and drove the hammer’s spike-end straight through its shoulder, pinning it for a finishing blow.

Still, they were losing ground. More hired hands fell, their screams swallowed by the clash of steel and the roar of wings. The dragons were relentless — they didn’t even glance toward the water cart. Every movement, every attack, was focused on the metal-encased one.

Alphonse had been holding back. No longer.

With a sharp gesture, his staff leapt into his hand from the side of the cart, though he didn’t need it. Power rushed through him like a flood, the air itself trembling with it. He lifted his other hand, and a ring of flames erupted around the nearest dragon, forcing it back with a deafening hiss.

Then he swept his arm sideways, pulling water from the air — and even from the beasts’ breath — to form a spear that shot forward, striking another dragon square in the chest.

The ground shuddered as he slammed his staff down. Spikes of earth burst upward, impaling one dragon’s wing and anchoring it to the ground. Above them, a sudden gust of wind tore through the dunes, throwing sand into the eyes of their attackers.

And then came the lightning.

It arced from his fingertips in jagged lines, striking three dragons in rapid succession, the light blinding and the smell of ozone sharp in the air. The creatures reeled, their cries more of rage than pain — but it was enough.

The dragons pulled back, retreating into the dark with heavy, wing-assisted leaps. A few bodies lay still in the sand, but most had vanished as quickly as they’d come, their roars fading into the distance.

Silence fell, broken only by the labored breathing of the survivors.

Alphonse stood in the center of it all, chest heaving, his magic still thrumming in the air like a storm that hadn’t quite passed.

Whatever was in that second cart… it was worth the lives of dragons to get to it. And that thought chilled him more than the Barron’s night air ever could.

The journey through the last stretch of the Barron was grueling. The battered caravan limped onward, wheels groaning over cracked earth, and the faint metallic scent of blood still hung in the air from the previous night’s battle.

The sun was high when Juno’s jagged silhouette rose on the horizon—dark spires, smoke plumes, and hundreds of banners in every color snapping in the wind. The gates weren’t elegant archways like in the royal cities of Oren; here, they were iron-plated behemoths designed to keep things in—or out—depending on who paid the most coin.

Even from miles away, the noise of the city was a constant hum—a thousand arguments, haggles, and drunken shouts blending into a single chaotic chorus. The air carried the scent of spice markets, burnt oil, roasting meats, and the underlying stench of too many bodies crammed together.

They passed through the gates without ceremony. The guards barely glanced at their papers; in Juno, anyone who paid the entry tax was welcome. No one asked questions here. No one wanted answers.

They wove through the maze of streets, past shouting merchants and shifty-eyed runners darting between stalls. Loose cobblestones clicked under the hooves of the half-bred draft beasts, the enormous carts creaking with every turn.

The man who’d hired them sat in the front bench, his hands clasped tightly. He directed them toward the bustling market square in the city’s heart. There, they unhitched the first cart, and men quickly unloaded the barrels of water. The transaction was swift—a sack of gold coins passed from the buyer to the merchant with barely a word.

Alphonse was about to ask where to take the second cart when the man spoke quietly, his tone dropping to something far more cautious.

“The second load… it goes north. Black Market District.”

The words hit like a quiet warning. The Black Market District wasn’t just dangerous—it was where people went when they didn’t want to be seen again.

The group exchanged uneasy glances.

Salish’s lips curled into a faint smirk. “Well… this just got interesting.”

They turned the cart north, heading deeper into the veins of Juno, toward its beating, lawless heart.

The road narrowed the deeper they went north. The noise of the central market faded into a heavier, more oppressive silence. Shuttered windows loomed above them, narrow balconies draped with ragged cloths and drying meats swaying in the wind. The cobblestones here were cracked and uneven, littered with broken crates, spilled grain, and the occasional dagger glinting in the gutter.

Their draft beasts snorted, breath misting in the cooler shadows, hooves clopping slowly as though they too sensed the shift in the air.

Shifty eyes peered from alleys and doorways. Thin silhouettes lingered just out of reach of the sunlight, muttering to one another. A pair of children—barefoot and filthy—watched the caravan pass, eyes darting between the carts and the pouches at Alphonse’s belt.

“This place reeks of trouble,” Throkreat muttered, resting one calloused hand on the haft of his warhammer.

“I’ve been here before,” Salish replied, her voice low. “That’s an understatement.”

They turned onto a street lined with boarded-up shops and crooked, leaning buildings. That’s when they saw them—a knot of men and women stepping out from both sides, blocking the way forward and cutting off the retreat.

There were at least twenty of them.

Leather armor stitched with mismatched plates, faces hidden behind scarves or hoods. Rusted but deadly weapons glinted in their hands—curved daggers, short swords, crossbows c****d and ready.

A man with a jagged scar running from ear to chin stepped forward. He had the swagger of someone used to getting what he wanted.

“Nice wagons,” he drawled, eyeing the second cart like a starving man spotting meat. “Tell you what—we’ll take them off your hands. You and your friends can walk away now. Live to see the sunrise.”

Thomme stepped forward, planting his heavy kite shield into the dirt with a loud thunk. “Not happening.”

The scarred man’s smile thinned. “Then you die in the gutter.”

They moved as one—a rush of bodies from both sides, steel flashing.

The fight exploded in the narrow street.

Throkreat bellowed a war cry and swung his massive warhammer in a wide arc, smashing two cutthroats off their feet with a single blow. Thomme stood like a wall, shield raised, absorbing crossbow bolts before shoving back into the fray, his blade flashing in precise, measured strikes.

Salish’s eyes burned a molten red, her human form shimmering at the edges as tendrils of shadow whipped from her fingertips, dragging a screaming thief into the darkness. She snapped her hand, and the man crumpled, lifeless, to the ground.

Alphonse moved among them like a phantom, his staff strapped to his back, one hand raised as fire licked along his fingers. A burst of wind slammed into a cluster of attackers, sending them sprawling into a pile of rotting crates. When one lunged at his back, he pivoted, ice crystallizing around his palm before shattering outward, freezing the man’s blade mid-swing.

But they were badly outnumbered. For every thief they dropped, two more seemed to take their place, teeth bared, eyes wild with greed. The air was thick with the stench of sweat, blood, and the metallic tang of magic.

Throkreat roared as a blade slashed his shoulder, blood streaking down his arm. Thomme’s shield splintered under the repeated strikes of three attackers, forcing him to draw back. Salish hurled another shadow bolt, but her breathing was starting to hitch.

Alphonse felt the pressure closing in. The thieves were relentless, their numbers pressing the group toward the carts, toward the very cargo they’d sworn to deliver.

The street echoed with the clash of steel and the shouts of the dying.

And still, the Black Market waited ahead.