The adventurers ran away, dispersing wildly across the pins, doing their best to get out of reach from the ining fire bst building up ihe h dragon.

  One of those adventurers, the boldest among them, had gotten closer than anyone else, and was now doing a mad sprint out of the creature’s shadow as the fmes began spilling out of its maw. He ran as fast as his naked feet allowed him, his loincloth swaying wildly in the wind from the dragon’s wings as he went.

  Jack dashed with all he had, one hand still holding his sword in pce behind his back as he ran, but with the huge fireball now desding from the creature’s mouth, there was little ce he’d make it far enough away in time.

  Far off to the side, betweeer circle of adventurers surrounding the pins, one young woman stood shouting amid the crowds of fleeing fighters, her calls drowned out by the cries and yells of the hundreds scattering away around her.

  Leah shouted aured frantically at her friend to keep running towards her, too far from him to do anything else to help.

  The entire se pyed as if slowed down in front of the group, watg safely from the bazaar, until the dragon’s fireball touched the grouh it, and perception caught up to reality with a vengeance.

  First to feel the power of the dragon’s fury, Jack was bsted away by the fireball, its fmes carrying him over the air before he was unceremoniously dropped over a pile of rocks in the middle of the grass and disappeared behind them.

  The impact sent out a forceful bst of dust a, followed by fmes that shed at the crowd like hungry tongues. Many who were either too close or too weak to withstand it were sent flying several paces from where they stood, rolling on the ground as they nded, like dolls made of dirty rags.

  Everyone ihe bazaar flinched and ducked as the wave of heat reached the sides of the gazebo like a windstorm from hell.

  As soon as it passed, the few adventurers who had e to resupply at the bazaar began running back out.

  “e ota help them!”

  “We o pull the injured away. Let’s go!”

  “I got a bag of potions. Someone cover me while I make a run for the ones closest to the impact!”

  Alone again, Balthazar and his four helpers looked at each other with livid expressions, those with the skin for it looking as pale as the moon.

  “That was bad,” said Rye with a hoarse voice. “You think… you think any of them… you know…”

  “We ’t think about that right now,” Madeleine quickly said. “We o focus on helping those still in danger out there.”

  “Guys, look,” Balthazar said, pointing a pincer outside.

  The dragon soared higher above the pins as the dust settled, revealing a huge crater on the ground below, left by its outburst.

  The crab’s pointy silver cw, however, was aiming at something far smaller on the edge of the crater.

  Running through the smoke and dust, an adventurer leather and steel, carrying a sword on her waist and a bow on her back, made her way to a group of roear the impact area.

  “It’s Leah,” Balthazar said, squinting through his monocle. “I think… she found Jack!”

  Pulling his arm up around the back of her neck, the girl retrieved her partner from the rocks. He stood up, visibly dazed, but scious, his skin covered in soot and dirt, and his trusty sword still strapped to his back. The horned helmet he had taken from the bazaar was still on his head, and it seemed to have served its purpose, for it looked like he had hit the rocks beh him with his head, as the dent on the front of the helmet was now much more pronounced, and a thin line of blood ran down his face from u.

  Jack stumbled, but raised one hand and gave a thumbs up towards the bazaar before his panion helped him back to the rger group of adventurers.

  “Damn,” said Rye. “Those potions you gave him might have saved his backside there.”

  The crab opened his mouth to make a witty remark about the swordsman’s backside and his torn up loincloth, but a booming voice from the sky interrupted him before he could even start.

  “I have had enough of your affronts to me, humans! If you will not returreasure that was stolen from my hoard, then your city shall burn!”

  Realization hit Balthazar like a rock thrown by an unruly goblin kid up on a cliff.

  A dragon’s hoard. Just like the ohat the strahe monocle couldn’t identify cimed his statuette came from.

  It couldn’t be.

  Or could it?

  Dragons were just a myth, a now there was one h right outside, demanding something that someoole from it.

  His precious new golden statuette.

  “I know what the dragon wants!”

  “What?!” excimed the surprised baker.

  The crab peeked outside once more. The dragon was cirg back, aligning itself iown’s dire.

  His eye stalks moved down, looking at the dispersed groups of adventurers still trying to get each other ba their feet.

  “No time to expin!” said the panig mert. “I o run to my islet and grab something, but we ’t let the dragon fly to the city and start torg it up, or it will be too te. I need something, anything, to keep it distracted long enough for me to grab what it wants and thes attention.”

  “But what, Balthazar?” a desperate Rye asked. “My arrows ’t reach that far, and it’s not like any of us fly to catch up to it up there.”

  A feeble, low growl came from the back of the bazaar.

  They turo see a young drake waddling her way into the room, her tail dragging behind as she sloroached.

  “Blue!” said Madeleine, bringing her hands to her fad looking worried.

  “What are you doing here?” Balthazar said. “You’re still too weak. You should be rec ba my tent, where it’s safer.”

  The drake let out another weak growl and raised her neck with difficulty. Some of her blue scales between her ned wings were still charred from the lightning strike and she was still clearly far from having recovered her strength yet.

  “You’re not seriously thinking of letting her fly out there like that, are you, Balthazar?” the baker asked. “Poor thing is still hurt!”

  The crab’s immediate rea was to agree. It was far too risky under normal circumstances, let alone iate she was in. But before he could say anything, he found himself uo pull his gaze away from the drake. Despite her feeble state, her intense yellow eyes were fixed on him with a determination strong enough to pierce through his thick shell and reach his very core. Blue did not speak, but her iions could not be any more clear to him. She wao help, and she was going to, whether they liked it or not.

  She was stubborn. Just like Balthazar.

  “Sorry, Madeleihe crab said with a faint smile, his eyes still fixed on Blue’s. “This one isn’t too keen on doing what I tell her.”

  The drake stood up on her hind legs and slowly stretched her wings open with difficulty.

  “Are you sure you’re up for it, girl?” Balthazar asked in a whisper as he got closer to her. “All I need you to do is keep that big thing distracted and away from town long enough for me to grab the statuette and show that I have it.”

  Blue gave him a gentle nod and unfurled her wings further before taking flight and leaving through the hole in the ceiling above them.

  The crab watched her take to the skies and towards the dragon with a small tightness in his small, cold heart before turning to the ain.

  “Alright, Druma and Rye, you guys protect Madeleine and watch over Blue while Bouldy and I make a run for my tent.”

  Wasting no more time waiting for a respohe crab skittered out of the bazaar through the back with the golem close behind.

  A loud roar from above forced Balthazar to slow down and look up at the sky.

  The enormous red dragon swerved into the air as a small blue speck spun around its head, nearly missing its eyes.

  Cirg back, the drake dove once more and swiped at the rger creature’s snout with her talons, making it rain, iher pain, anger, or a mix of both.

  The dragon’s response did not take long, however, for before Blue could get a safe distance away again, a red wing, bigger than her entire body, charged at her in full force, smag her down and sending her on a spiraling dest towards the ground.

  Balthazar’s run came to a sudden halt, and he yelled to his golem. “Bouldy, catch her!”

  Without a sed of hesitation, the stone giant pivoted and, with incredible grad speed for his size, dashed a towards the sandy shore o the bazaar and caught the fallen drake in his hands.

  The crab held his breath for a sed until the golem turned and revealed a dazed but scious Blue in his arms. Letting out a quick sigh of relief, Balthazar returo his objective and ran across the wooden bridge over the water.

  As he set one foot on the tral islet’s shore, a shadow loomed over him, apanied by a sudden gust of wind.

  He turned, and the ground shook as the terrible red dragon nded on the opposite shore, its neck stretg out as it extes head over the water towards the crab.

  “You,” it said in a deep and terrifying voice, like an echo spilling out of an old cavern. “Why does a lowly creature keep meddling in my affairs? These humans, everyone and everything else here, seem to revolve around you. Are you somehow their leader?”

  Balthazar stared i the giant before him and gulped.

  “I—I didn’t mean to offend... I just don’t want anyone else to get hurt,” he said, measuring each of his words carefully.

  “Something was taken from me,” the dragon said, “and those humans refuse t me the thief. They bring this upon themselves.”

  The golden crab weighed his response before speaking, something he was certainly not used to doing, but given the current situation, he khat saying too much could trigger a rea he had no way of ing back from.

  “Mister dragon,” he started, “I promise you that no one here, including myself, could have possibly known what that stranger had doo you.”

  “So finally you admit it,” said the dragon, its brow furrowing and its nostrils fring. “You know the one who took what was mine.”

  Balthazar winced and his mind raced, trying to measure his words as best as he could. Saying the wrong thing to an enraged dragon could lead to very undesirable sequehe crab would o ease him into it, preferably while him his treasure back.

  “Well, no. Sort of. He was just passing through. I ’t even recall which way he was going or what he looked like. But if you give me just a little of your time I promise I procure your precious treasure—”

  “Lies!” the dragon shouted. “All these pestering humans and you and your annoying panions, I see now that your only purpose was to distract me, to waste my time. I am a mighty red dragon, and insignifit creatures such as yourselves will not fool me. Your disturbances have exhausted my patiend my mercy. I will find this thief, and him and anyone who stands in my way shall burn.”

  The dragon pulled its head bad bared its sharp teeth as plumes of smoke shot out of its nostrils.

  Balthazar knew what was ing, and he knew he had no hope of getting away in time. Dragons were not the kind to be swayed by charming words or mertile tactics. Unless it saw the statuette in front of its eyes, its rage would not subside. If that would even be enough at that point.

  As its maw opened, a wave of hot air spilled out of the creature’s mouth and the bright glow of fmes grew within its throat.

  The crab could tell his fate was sealed as far as the dragon was ed. Its eyes pierg into his with no mercy or remorse for its prey.

  There would be no talking his way out of it any further. He sidered fessing he had the statue in his st seds, but at that point it would likely been seen as a desperate lie from a desperate crab, or it would only serve to ahe creature even more. Anything he could say would only further e. He was out of cards to py.

  He gnced back at his tent, the statuette hidden somewhere below, in his hiding hole. So close, yet too far for him to rea time and present it to the dragon.

  Would that even still be enough to calm it down? No way to know, and it did not matter anymore. The fmes were already spilling out from its mouth, the fireball ready to shoot out and turn him into a grilled crab.

  ly the way he expected to go, but then again, Balthazar always thought he’d live forever up until that point.