Battle Bond: An Urban Fantasy Dragon Series (Death Before Dragons #2) - Lindsay Buroker Page 0,3
weeks ago. The best way to get your health back is to rest.”
Finally, Sindari fully formed, once again a solid silver tiger at my side. I’d ask for details as soon as I got off the call but leaned against him and wrapped an arm over his back.
“It was a magically induced unnatural cancer,” Willard said.
“So that means doing squats and bench presses right after is fine? You better not have signed up for a new triathlon.”
“I’m not doing squats. Just light leg presses. And you do know that you’re my lowly civilian contractor, not my boss, right?”
“Lowly? I tower over you.”
“Two inches isn’t towering. If I grew my hair out, I’d be taller than you.”
“I’m positive that you with a six-inch afro isn’t regulation,” I said, though I suspected Willard could wear her hair and her clothes however she wanted at the office in Seattle. The soldiers stationed there were supposed to blend in to more easily monitor and control criminal activity from magical beings hiding out and traveling through the city.
“The regs just say it has to be off your neck and fit in your hat,” Willard said.
“If I had more money, I’d bribe you to grow it out just so I could see that.”
“You’ll get your usual combat bonus if you bring in whoever is leading the kobolds. There’s a school less than a mile from there. We can’t let them keep kidnapping children.”
“I know. I’m on it.” I hung up.
I’d resumed walking as I spoke and reached a stream that flowed through the corner of the property. The blackberry brambles lay thick on one side but hadn’t yet taken over the other.
“Looks like we can get through here, Sindari. What happened to…” I trailed off, realizing he wasn’t at my side.
I whirled, afraid he’d been kicked out of our world again. But I spotted him rolling like a dog on his back under some apple trees.
“Sindari?” I called. “What are you doing?”
He stopped rolling, his legs splayed, his forepaws in the air, but he kept rubbing his head on the grass under the tree. Rolling, he replied.
“I see you’re not overly traumatized by whatever punted you away from Earth. That was someone else’s doing, wasn’t it? You didn’t simply get tired and want to take a nap?”
Of course not, Val. My stamina is amazing. And I’ve only spent an hour in your world today. Sindari kept rubbing his head in the grass.
“Well, if you wouldn’t mind, we still need to find a kobold to question. And can you close your legs? I can see your junk.”
My what?
“Never mind. I’m going this way. Please join me at your earliest convenience.”
My boots squished in mud as I walked along a well-used trail on the clear side of the stream. It grew dim quickly under the forest of firs and hemlocks, the trunks rising a hundred feet and more. Dew dripped from the branches, occasionally landing on my head.
Every few steps, I knelt down to study fresh prints in the mud. They were smaller than mine but not as small as kobold prints. Maybe the local children used this path to cut through from property to property. That was another reason to find whoever was threatening them.
You’re going the right direction, Sindari told me as he caught up. Forgive my distraction. I could not resist.
“Resist what? Did someone sprinkle catnip under those trees?”
Fertilizer, I believe.
“Isn’t that stuff poisonous to animals?”
This was bone meal and fish meal fertilizer. Quite aromatic and delightful.
Maybe I would get some catnip later and see if my mighty silver tiger would roll around like that on my living room floor.
“Where did you go when you disappeared? Did you catch the kobold?”
No. I was close and then… ah, I found a trap of my own.
“You didn’t step in a snare and fly up in a tree, did you?”
No, I’m not so foolish.
“Ha ha.”
Follow me. Sindari sprang across the creek and onto another path. Here, the brambles had been burned back, as if by someone with a flamethrower. It was hard to imagine that being effective, since the forest was still very damp this early in the season. The trap was expertly laid and camouflaged. I didn’t sense the magic until it sprang, knocking me back into my realm with a blast of pain.
I’m sorry you were hurt. Do kobolds have mages powerful enough to create such things? I eyed the burned-back vines, wondering if magic had been used rather than a flamethrower.