The dragon's head loomed above the inner gate of Tino City, bronze-black scales catching the light, horns curving like lances, fangs bared in a final, frozen snarl. Beneath it, the road swelled with travelers: merchants and messengers, soldiers of Ross in green-gray, a hundred earth-orc heavy infantry gleaming in burnished mail—and the polished column of envoys from the Tongsley Alliance Empire, sent by Duke Leonhart.
Waum, king of the earth-orc realm of Wakan, planted his hands on his hips and burst into booming laughter.
"Hah! Look at that! The warriors of the Empire are truly fearless—to bring down a beast like this!"
"Aye!" one of his veterans barked. "If I could slay a dragon before I die, I'd be satisfied!"
"Follow the Empire," said another, "and we'll do great things yet."
Their admiration rolled in cheerful waves, but it crashed against a wall of scowls. The dragon knights riding with the Golden Lion envoys stiffened, fury brightening their eyes.
"Shut your filthy mouths, orcs!" one dragon knight roared, voice cracking under the dragon head's shadow. "When is it your turn to speak?"
Waum's tusked grin sharpened. Around him, the earth-orc heavy infantry lowered their broad shoulders and smiled like men at a tavern brawl.
"This is Ross," Waum said, voice gone mild as a whetstone. "What are you here?"
Laughter rippled through his ranks.
"Does it anger you," another orc called up pleasantly, "to see a dragon your people lost hanging on a Ross wall? **Hah! Knights of Tongsley—**perhaps tie your mounts tighter next time."
Their easy mockery stung. The Golden Lion great knight at the head of the column chewed the inside of his cheek and said nothing, but the dragon knights—linked in soul to their vanished mounts—felt a phantom ache tear through their chests.
Just then, commotion at the gate. Two more delegations rolled in under the arch, banners snapping in the city's sea wind. Their flags were unfamiliar to most Ross citizens, but the Tongsley envoy recognized them at once: two small border kingdoms, vassals on the frayed edge of the Alliance, long neglected, perpetually overlooked.
The kings themselves rode at the front, each in a curious mixture of old and new: fur coats from Ross, court silks beneath, long leather boots, and crowns worn a touch too proudly. In their countries, such dress screamed wealth. In Tino, it looked merely comfortable—a truth that unsettled them more than they let on.
One of the kings craned his neck, took in the dragon's head, and gasped. "By the heavens!"
"The Empire of Ross truly has power," the other murmured. "To bring down that."
Somewhere behind them, a courtier hissed, "Majesty, your coat—don't gape." But both kings were already straight-backed again, faces smoothing into diplomatic calm as their eyes sparked with calculation. They had come to please Ross, to weigh its future, to decide whether to jump ship from the Tongsley Alliance to the new rising power. This wall, this head, this humming, ordered city—all of it told them which way the wind blew.
The Golden Lion great knight saw them, saw their awe, and his jaw set. He wheeled his horse so the lion-banner filled their vision and snapped:
"Wallace IV! Gunther III! See that head removed at once!"
The two kings went a shade green. Of course they knew that banner. Of course they feared the duke behind it. Old habits twitched in their muscles—obey, bow, survive—but then the dragon's mouth, the Ross machine guns, the straight streets and fresh-painted signs reminded them where they stood.
Wallace IV shot Gunther III a quick, low whisper. "Are you a fool? This is Ross, not our backwater. We are envoys here. We speak to Emperor Gavin—with Ross behind us."
Gunther III blinked—and woke up. Right. This wasn't his own hall, where a Golden Lion courier could swagger in and demand the moon. This was Tino City, where the guards wore Ross rifles and the walls wore dragons for necklaces.
He smoothed his coat and stared very deliberately past the great knight, as if the order had been a stray breeze. Wallace IV did the same.
Color filled the great knight's face, from collar to crown. "You—!"
"Best keep your voice low," rumbled Waum, almost kindly. "Ross doesn't care for slaves barking at guests."
A nearby king—Wallace IV—bowed with real respect toward Waum. "Your Majesty," he said, picking his titles carefully, "may we enter the city with you? We would be honored."
Waum's chest swelled. "Walk with us. We go to greet His Majesty the Emperor."
Wallace IV, Gunther III, and Waum moved off together, deliberately leaving the Golden Lion column behind. Their retinues flowed after them, dignified and bright, while the Ross sentries watched in cool silence from under their caps.
The great knight stared after them, hands shaking on the reins. Every instinct told him to lash out, to teach some lesson with steel—but the dragon's fangs above, the heavy muzzles of the anti-air mounts, and the memory of the downed wyrm chained his rage.
He was not a coward. But he was not a fool.
He swallowed it. For now.
"Just wait," he told himself, anger sliding into a poisonous hope. "When Duke Leonhart moves, when the drums beat, when the border burns—we'll kill them both. The orc king. Those petty monarchs. And we'll mount their heads where that dragon hangs."
His men heard only the click of his tongue. He forced the column forward.
Behind them, the orcs' laughter rumbled on.
---
They reached the inner square, where the city breathed like a living thing. Telegraph wires stitched building to building; loudspeakers announced drill times and parade routes; crews in blue coveralls were bolting a review platform together plank by plank. Every few blocks, a squad of Ross soldiers crossed with the same steady gait—boots in step, rifles slung, faces calm.
Gunther III couldn't help himself. "Your Majesty Waum," he said, voice soft to hide the awe, "it's true then? The Orc Empire really split… and you rule Wakan?"
Waum's smile went proud and simple. "Aye. Ross broke the beast-lords. We took our land and swore ourselves to Gavin Ward. Blood oath. Our children will learn letters beneath his banners."
A hush fell among the border kings' men. Children. Letters. The words hung in the air like new stars.
Waum pointed with his chin at a Ross supply truck rolling by—wooden crates stamped with an eagle and a gear. "They send us tools. Books. Metals. And men who teach the use of each. They buy our grain at fair price and sell us machines at fair price. Not like the old empires' markets—one hand giving while the other steals."
Gunther III swallowed. Wallace IV looked at the faces on the street—less hunger, less fear—and the truth grew like a tree in his chest. If the palaces of Tongsley held power, Ross held tomorrow.
Behind them, the great knight finally pushed his way into the square—and found his path blocked.
Two Ross sentries had stepped half a pace forward, not threatening, not inviting, merely there: solid, unblinking, reliable as bolts sunk into stone. Their sergeant spoke in a voice like rolled leather.
"Envoys of Tongsley, you will be shown to your quarters. The city is preparing for the Imperial Proclamation. Please keep your men orderly and your tempers cool."
The great knight smiled the kind of smile that shows all teeth and no warmth. "We will go where we please."
The sergeant gave him a look that was not quite a smile in return. "Not in Tino you won't."
A current of tension snapped like a wire. Hands moved—gloves creaked, leather shifted—but no one reached a hilt. The Ross sentries didn't lift their rifles. They didn't have to. It was in the set of their boots, the calm in their eyes. They were the kind of men who would shoot if ordered and sleep well after.
The great knight felt sweat under his collar. He coughed once, waved his men down, and jerked his chin. "We'll go. For now."
The sergeant's cap tipped a hair. "Welcome to Tino City."
They were escorted away, pride limping, fury gnawing like a rat.
---
At the far end of the square, Wallace IV and Gunther III walked with Waum past a bakery where children pressed noses to glass to watch egg tarts cool on their tins. The smell spun out into the sun and tangled with the tang of machine oil, fresh-sawn wood, and a vendor's call of "Roast duck! Hot roast duck!"
"Your coats," Waum said suddenly, good-natured mischief in his eyes. "You bought them from Ross?"
Both kings flushed, caught. "We… wished to honor local craft," Wallace IV said with dignity a bit too practiced.
Waum laughed. "Good taste. But you'll want boots with better soles for parade day. Cobblers on King's Row—ask for Mara. Tell her Waum sent you."
They thanked him, trying not to sound like men thrilled by practical help. In their lands, kings were served; in Ross, a king of orcs pointed two human kings to a cobbler without a hint of irony, and somehow it felt right.
"Majesties," said a Ross adjutant approaching at a brisk clip, "your lodgings are prepared. When you're rested, there's a briefing on ceremony protocol. Parade step, reviewing line, the order of foreign banners—"
Wallace IV blinked. "Reviewing line?"
"His Majesty expects allied delegations to pass the platform," the adjutant said. "A show of unity."
Gunther III glanced at the dragon's head behind them, then at the platform rising ahead. "Unity," he echoed, and smiled a small, careful smile. "Yes."
---
Back near the gate, the Golden Lion great knight stood in the shadow of the dragon's maw and stared up at the rows of riveted plates and heavy fangs. Every piece of him wanted to strike, to scratch, to spit. He did none of these things. He simply let his hands fold behind his back and spoke so softly only his nearest aide heard.
"When the Duke gives the word," he said, "Ross will burn."
The aide swallowed. "Yes, my lord."
The great knight glanced sideways at the machine guns glinting dull as old ice under the sun. "And when we win," he added, as if the saying could make it true, "we will tear down this head and hang their emperor's instead."
He turned his horse and followed the escort toward the guest barracks, his mind a grinding mill of injury and promise.
Above him, the dragon watched with dead eyes as Tino went on—hammer striking nail, wheel turning axle, flag finding wind—unmoved by one knight's pride.
---
That evening, word of the gate scene moved through the city like smoke—carried by market gossip, courier notes, and the low chuckle of soldiers on break. Ross had a way of absorbing such frictions and turning them into quiet warnings. Most citizens simply shook their heads: outsiders swagger, Ross endures. A few engineers in the taverns ran fingers over blue-stained calluses and grinned into their cups.
"Knights can glare," one said, "but wrenches don't blink."
In a barracks yard, the earth orcs finished polishing their armor by lamplight. Waum walked the line once, then twice, saying little. When he stopped, it was beside a young soldier who kept glancing toward the city's glow.
"First time in Tino?" Waum asked.
"Aye, Majesty," the soldier said, eyes wide. "It's… big."
"It'll be bigger," Waum said. He tipped his chin toward the distant silhouette of the Lowes Tower, its steel ribs scissoring the sky. "We stand where the world changes. Act like you belong."
The young orc swallowed, squared his shoulders, and answered with a steady, "Aye."
---
Night pulled its net across the city. Under the dragon's head, a pair of Ross sentries shared a quiet thermos and passed a pack of cards between them. The dragon knights slept badly, dreaming of blazing skies and breaking bonds. Wallace IV and Gunther III drafted polite phrases and bolder ones, uncertain which they would dare when they finally stood within Emperor Gavin Ward's sight.
And the great knight of the Golden Lion lay awake, watching the dark line of a barrel in the rafters across from his bed, and told himself, over and over, that guns were tricks, and dragons were destiny, and Ross was a bluff he would be proud to call.
He believed it. Because he had to.
— End of Chapter 103 —
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