Wyrm Lord of Brockton Bay 18

Wyrm Lord of Brockton Bay
Chapter 18

-VB-

The assembled Dragonteeth soldiers placed themselves in a half circle around the stage of our headquarters. I stood on top of that stage.

“Our targets are Merchants,” I began curtly. “The cockroaches, the gang rapists, undesirables, degenerates, scum, or whatever else you call them privately, they are the worst in the city. They take and take and take and give nothing back,” I said as I looked over them. “How many of you lost friends or family to the Merchants? How many died begging for another shot of the very drug killing them? How many disappeared without a trace as the Merchants took them to harvest their organs?”

My Dragonteeth were too disciplined to shout and yell like the common rabble. They held their tongue but I saw fire in their eyes.

“These are the scum who can’t bear to see anyone else do better than them. These are the trash that needs to be taken out but the government, in its infinite ‘wisdom,’ allows them to exist. They still care more about their precious face.

“But I am a tyrant, and you all know this to be true. I claim a portion of this city and make sure that everyone who serves gets their dues.”

I stomped hard onto the stone stage I’d made with my earth elemental manipulation, and watched as the Dragonteeth soldiers and staff before me froze from how a single stomp shattered a five tone stage.

“The eastern smeltery is in ruins. The goods I’ve dug up to pay for your medical bills, rent, electricity, water, and food have been taken.” I let that sink in. “AND THEY DARED TO ATTACK OUR PEOPLE!

“They killed Joshua, who wanted nothing more than to be a baker! They killed Michelle, who wanted to be a mother! They killed Arnold, who’s expecting twins!”

Discipline held, but the bulging muscles of the dead’s comrades showed how much they cared for who we lost.

“If I led a PRT branch, then I would have to let that go.”

I leaned in.

“I am not the PRT.” I paused and then grinned viciously. “We march to war.”

“OOHHHHH!!!!!” the entire warehouse thundered with the sound of the roaring Dragonteeth.

“Kill all Merchants you encounter. I want their ilk declared extinct by the time we are done! Leave their capes to me. Dismissed!”

My men and women rushed out to arm themselves. I stood there on the stage as the warehouse cleared out, and allowed Lisa to approach me. She held a single sheet of paper in her hand.

“How did the negotiations go?” I asked gruffly as I allowed myself to change minutely into my dragon form and used the heightened elemental manipulation to make myself a stone chair from the broken stone platform beneath our feet.

“The Coalition has some conditions if you are really set on wiping out the Merchants.”

“What conditions? They attacked me, so they will pay the price. What the fuck do they think they can do here?”

Lisa snorted. “They think they have the advantage because of their numbers.”

“Even after I made Leviathan run like a kicked dog, they still think they can win, huh?”

“They are aware of your ramp up weakness.”

I paused. “It’s not something they can easily take advantage of.”

“I know, you know, but they don’t know.”

“So they think they have the advantage, so they’re starting to make demands.”

“Yes.”

“What are the conditions?”

She looked down at the paper. “‘The Coalition acknowledges that the Merchants are the aggressor in this fight. We are willing to stay our hands if Wyrm and his Dragonteeth adhere to these terms: no capes must die, no territory will be taken, and no Merchant cape will be inducted into the Dragonteeth.”

“Unacceptable.”

Lisa sighed. “I thought so. You want me to tell them to fuck off, right?”

“How about instead of a plain ‘fuck off,’ ask them how many of them are willing to entertain a mile long dragon in their homes.”

“Got it. You sure need to assert your dominance, huh?”

I snorted. “If there is one thing my lesser counterpart got it right, then it’s that dragons do as dragons please,” I said and then pulled her onto my lap gently. She let me do it without complaint.

---

No more than an hour after that, Dragonteeth and I marched out to war.

Thanks to Lisa, we had all of the Merchants’ main “bases” of operation pinned down and even some of their hidden caches.

I struck out from the Docks into Trainyard and Downtown simultaneously. The latter was just land for us to pass through to reach the Downtown South (or Poor Man’s Downtown) where the Merchants have been congregating in large groups, mostly to party.

And then we crashed their parties.

I roared as I slammed through the walls of a club, and saw my mark immediately: Skidmark.

The man immediately began to spout slurs and insults as my well armed, armored, and disciplined Dragonteeth poured into the building through the hole I made. They spared no one here, gunning down anyone and everyone without mercy.

On the spot, I changed from a ten meter dragonling to a fifty meter dragon in the span of ten seconds, and roared. The entire club shook and Skidmark shot up to run away.

Heedless of the people around me but my Dragonteeth, I charged forward.

And then something crashed through the roof and landed on top of my head. I shook it off immediately, and watched it flip over and then land on the floor on a three-point landing.

Adorned with blue and an energy halberd… it was Armsmaster.

“Wyrm, stand down immediately!”

Ugh, they never learned.

I opened my maw in response and spat out fireballs as big as him.

The Merchant Purge had begun.