Rise of the Dragon Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Epilogue

  In the Dragon's Shadow

  Back Matter

  Rise of the

  Dragon

  C. K. Gold

  Rise of the Dragon © C.K. Gold 2018.

  Amazon Kindle Edition.

  Edited by Christine Dayao, cover design by Kasmit Covers.

  All rights reserved. No part of this story may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the copyright holder, except in the case of brief quotations embodied within critical reviews and articles.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  The author has asserted their rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book.

  This book contains sexually explicit content which is suitable only for mature readers.

  First LoveLight Press electronic publication: February 2018.

  http://lovelightpress.com

  Rise of the Dragon takes place in a fictional setting, and uses American English throughout.

  To my dear partner, whose advice to “just write” is invaluable,

  & to my lovely friends and readers, whose support help me be a

  better writer and person.

  Also by C.K. Gold

  His Catalyst

  His Faithful Sword

  Chapter 1

  Only one man remained standing in the cramped alley. The other twenty or so sprawled on the ground, some silent and some groaning from their wounds. None of the indigo sashes the Moon Knives gang was so proud of had escaped the mud or the blood. Fang looked back toward the mouth of the alley, but it was empty. Everyone knew that groups of young men rushing in one direction were bad news. The peasants of Dockside knew better than to gather and gawk. Curiosity too often led to death.

  It wasn’t curious onlookers Fang was concerned about, anyway. The Moon Knives had more toughs. They had to be on their way soon, if not already. This posse would’ve sent a runner out for reinforcements. Fang toed Leadnose to test for a reaction, but the huge lug was down and out, with a purpling knot growing on his temple. Fang knelt and rifled through the pockets of the enforcer’s tunic. The key wasn’t there but something glinted in the mud, nearly covered by a slab of fat. A tarnished key. The treasury key. Stupid bastard. Fang snapped the link connecting it to Leadnose’s sash and wiped it clean on the man’s hem before pocketing it.

  If they were cautious, the Moon Knives would cluster around their chief. It didn’t take a genius to see that the more pawns gathered around the king, the harder he would be to take down. Boar wasn’t a king, but he sure pretended to be one. His bodyguards were actually capable, but Fang had just finished breaking the knees of the best of them. Leadnose wouldn’t be giving chase. Without their human shield, the Moon Knives were vulnerable. Most importantly, Boar was vulnerable. Fang was going to take his head. He wouldn’t have time to crack the treasury, though, not even with the key.

  Fang dusted off his shoulders, tugged his hems straight, and checked his topknot. A real man was always neat and trim. But a hero had to take it to the next level. He walked down the alley, pausing to kick a scimitar-length butcher knife up into his hand. Balancing the spine of the knife on his shoulder, he turned onto the empty street, and then ducked into another narrow alley behind the row of dives and brothels that formed the beating heart of Deepwater’s Dockside precinct.

  The buildings known as the River Roses leaned together like reeking souses too sloshed to walk home. The River Roses’ value wasn’t in their looks, or even in the looks of their residents, but in the root ball of alleys, arcades, tunnels, and tight passages that had given a hundred thousand rats before Fang a place to hide and escape. No tail could stick to him in the Rose Maze, not when he could ran it with such ease.

  He had one more rendezvous to make before sending Boar to meet the heavenly bureaucracy. As much as Fang wanted to strip the treasury himself, he had a more important mission. Furthermore, he hadn’t been ordered to go after the Moon Knives’ wealth. He’d sworn to take Boar’s head. In, chop, out. In, chop, out. It had a cadence that soothed the sting of innumerable bruises and lacerations. He hummed a foreign sailing ditty as he squeezed through a narrow path formed by the exterior walls of two sagging tenements.

  This was easier when I was little. The thought chased the music out of him. He held the knife in his leading hand. There was no way to anticipate what lurked in the courtyard ahead. He’d made a deal with someone he trusted, but even Fang knew that trust was foolish in this business. Alliances were made and broken every moment, each man and woman a soldier of fortune in the wars for their own survival. Dockside scoffed at notions of peace and justice, chewed up the virtuous, and shat out the innocent. A wise man always expected the worst.

  He peeked into the sun-drenched courtyard. The smell of a recent whitewashing almost smothered the street scents of effluent and old frying oil. Hung laundry fluttered gently in an unfelt breeze. Fang moved robes and underthings aside with the flat of the knife. The only sounds were the scuff of his sandals and the coos of a flock in a dovecote. He’d eat as many roasted doves as he could get his hands on when this job was done.

  The boughs of the lone tree in the courtyard rattled, showering Fang and the laundry with yellowing leaves. Fang braced himself, but all that came was a familiar laugh.

  “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes,” he said.

  “Did you bring the key?” Birch had a throaty voice that Fang would recognize anywhere.

  “I’ll hand it over when I see you.”

  Birch laughed and muttered something about Fang not being any fun. Fang backed out of the laundry into a clear space with a wall to his back. He’d known Birch for ages, but people changed, and not just on holidays or solstices. Fang hadn’t seen Birch in months, not since they’d agreed that Fang would find and hand over the key. It had taken all that time for Fang to find his opportunity. They’d agreed not to meet in the interim, because being seen together too often endangered them both.

  Fang was a bravo in the Four Winds, one of the most powerful gangs that ran Dockside. He wasn’t just an ordinary tough, either; he was the fourth godson of the gang’s leader, Red Hand, a station he’d won not with a pretty face or fancy footwork, but by delivering results. Broken bones, repaid debts, new followers — and for all the violence Fang dished out, he was respected by his subordinates. And for his generosity and misplaced sense of justice, he was even respected by the peasants. He pretended he didn’t know they made fun of the “hero” thing in return.

  Birch touched down lightly, veiled by a light shower of leaves. He emerged from the laundry lines alone and empty-handed. Some of Fang’s worry eased, only to be replaced by a different kind of tension, one he couldn’t quite name.

  “Where’s Orchid?” Fang asked, feigning nonchalance.

  “She’s watching.” Birch grinned. He was shorter than Fang and more narrowly built, but mistaking that for weakness was something most people only did once. On a purely technical level, Fang had to admit that Birch was an
even better fighter than he was. And moreover, Birch cradled a flame of hatred in his heart that was so fierce, even death probably wouldn’t stop him.

  That made him a lethal captain for the Rootless Society. Gangs like the Four Winds and Moon Knives saw the Society as a nuisance more than anything, but the Society saw itself as heroes fighting for the good of the people. Most of its members came from the gutters — orphans, widows, peasants with an axe to grind. They frequently rolled any gangster stupid enough to be separated from the pack. But lest anyone think the Rootless Society were strictly do-gooder vigilantes, they kept their fingers in the smuggling pie, and when day laborer jobs were scarce, they turned to banditry, too.

  Fang settled the knife on his shoulder again and Birch lowered his hands. “You’re edgy,” he said.

  “I’ve been a bit busy,” Fang replied. He tossed the key; it flashed in the light just as Birch caught it and disappeared it up a sleeve. Or so Fang guessed. Following sleight of hand wasn’t his strongest skill. He was better at operating on instinct.

  “You didn’t bring your present along?” Birch raised his brows.

  Right after a hand-off was usually the most dangerous point in these games. That was when a real shark, having received what he sought, summoned his mates to tear the mark apart. Fang was a little relieved despite the peril. Part of him hadn’t expected Birch to come. He could’ve sent anyone else in his stead — that really would’ve been the smarter choice. A less valuable piece meant less risk. But Fang had still wanted to see Birch, had hoped to see him, even. Who wouldn’t miss an old friend?

  “I was pruning the bushes. Haven’t cut the rosebud yet.” He glanced to the side without even bothering to hide it.

  Birch’s smile dimmed a touch. Are you up to some scheme? Fang wondered. If Birch was, Fang would discover it soon enough.

  “Watch out for thorns,” Birch said. “I hear those blue roses are particularly tough. Wouldn’t want you to… Just be careful,” he said, almost under his breath. “I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

  “Same for you,” Fang said. “You could just send Orchid next time.” But even as he suggested it, his gut twisted. Orchid was a good woman and a good friend — and apparently an even better sneak — but she didn’t occupy the same place in his thoughts that Birch did.

  That spot had felt empty and sore for most of the past several years, like the socket of a pulled tooth. He couldn’t stop thinking about it, but he couldn’t do anything, either. All he could do was try to distract himself until the next stolen moment.

  “Thanks for this,” Birch said. “We found a doctor who can treat the black spot, but we couldn’t afford him — you came through at the right time.”

  The black spot fever had cropped up in Dockside again, first among the poorest of the poor. The last time it had swept through the city, thousands had died for lack of treatment. Rigor-racked victims suffered as their joints swelled and stiffened, leaving them unable to care for themselves and in too much agony to sleep.

  Stopping the sickness should have been the governor’s job, but he didn’t care how many peasants died. For the gangs, the disease was a lucky opportunity to sell brown tar.

  “Just lucky,” Fang replied, suddenly unable to meet Birch’s eyes. That wasn’t true. Everything had come down to timing. Spies, runners, bribes; he’d deployed every trick in the book to figure out who had that key and then set up Leadnose so he could snag it — and take out one of Boar’s top fighters in the deal.

  “Dinnertime,” Orchid called out in a lilting voice.

  “I have to go,” Birch said. “Be careful, okay?”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Fang said.

  “You’ll crush everyone.” Birch said it indulgently with an eye roll, but there was just enough sincerity there—

  Fang stepped forward and Birch leaned in to hear whatever secret Fang had to share, closing the distance between them. Fang brushed Birch’s jaw with his fingertips, the only part of his hand which might remotely be considered clean, and kissed Birch, a sweet and lingering not-quite-peck a man might’ve given his love-matched wife. Birch smelled clean, like he'd just stepped out of the baths and had only a hint of sweat about him.

  “Hurry up,” Orchid sang.

  Then Fang’s mind caught up with the rest of him. “Crack that vault,” he said, and made a swift escape down one of the steamy alleys leading out of the courtyard.

  Fang left the Rose Maze with the knuckles of his free hand pressed to his lips. The throng of the avenue welcomed him into its anonymizing fold. He relied on pure muscle memory to move his feet along as the last few seconds caught up to him. He could still just barely smell Birch’s scent on his hand, and its warmth was a faint echo of Birch. What was that? What did I do? Why?

  Fang had grown into the kind of man who followed his instincts and didn’t sweat over details, but this was a first for him. Those instincts had never led him to… He stroked the calloused pad of his thumb across his lower lip. Birch hadn’t pushed him away. It was a surprise to them both, but a fighter with such finely honed skills as Birch would’ve surely kept Fang outside his guard if…

  A short woman with two sloshing buckets of water hanging from a pole straddling her shoulders glared as he grazed one end, splashing them both. His hip knocked against a pile of pottery, which he barely saved from an early fate as potsherds. The withered old merchant started to curse, but stopped himself when he recognized who had blundered into his stand. A Docks man didn’t just ream one of the Four Winds’ young masters.

  I’ve got way too much trouble to worry about to add this to the pile, Fang decided. He fished a square coin from a pocket and flipped it to the merchant. “I’ll take this one,” he said, and took a plain, brown-glazed jug off the stack he’d nearly destroyed. The coin was worth more than the jug, but harmony had its own price. Fang didn’t need rumors about him or the gang hassling vendors.

  Mollified, the merchant bowed and gave thanks, probably more obsequiously than strictly necessary. Fang walked on without acknowledging him, new purchase tucked under his arm. The nameless avenue channeled spillover foot traffic from the main road to the docks. Hawkers kept their stands here; a man could buy anything from fish and cabbage to silk and northern brown tar on the avenue.

  Brown tar was naturally the most profitable and most dangerous of the goods for sale. Plenty of people – men and women, rich and poor, young and old – used it. Some ate it, some smoked it, and some used it in medicine. It killed pain and granted the deepest sleep. Gangs like the Four Winds were drawn to such things like iron to a lodestone. The chief, Red Hand, controlled all the tar for sale on this avenue, from deciding who got to sell it, to the prices and quantities distributed to the streets. Like any businessman, Red Hand wanted to reach a wider market, which meant he needed to seize more territory. But the Four Winds were hemmed into the dock by the Moon Knives and the Demons; expansion required war.

  And though Fang was one of Red Hand’s godsons, he was most valuable as another weapon in that war. Fang had worked his way up the ranks not through power plays or connections, but through pure strength: when it came to breaking knees and busting heads, he was simply the best muscle at Red Hand’s disposal. Flashy results like that got attention, and Fang had quickly and almost accidentally wound up with his own disciples among the Four Winds members. Now he was the fourth brother, the most recently adopted godson — one of Red Hand’s lieutenants.

  To cement his position, he’d sworn to bring Red Hand the head of the Moon Knives’ boss, the Dockside veteran known as Boar. Beheading the old pig would set off chaos in the ranks as the various factions within the Knives fought for control of the gang. The Knives wouldn’t dissolve, but they’d be weakened. Each faction would expend more energy trying to gain control over defending their territory. Under Red Hand’s direction, the Four Winds would move in to fill the void and see just how far they could push back the Moon Knives. Perhaps even enough to expand their territory past D
ockside and farther into the city’s heart.

  As for Fang, killing Boar meant one more piece of shit gangster would be dead, and that the deaths and insults suffered by hundreds of Docksiders would be avenged. Boar’s death would bring Fang closer to Red Hand, and getting closer to the chief, his godfather, would put Fang that much closer to his own goal. Father. Even thinking the word made his bile rise.

  The avenue forked right in front of Abalone’s Tea House, the worst-named den in the city, but also one of the most well-situated. Hundreds of people passed it every day. There wasn’t a single Docksider who didn’t know Abalone’s, and only the poorest of the poor had never been inside as either guest or worker. The place didn’t even serve abalone.

  Fang paused outside. Orchid worked there, and Fang often paid her visits in order to exchange information. She could have just met with him as usual. Fang covered his hesitation by wiggling the jug under his arm into a more secure position, one where the small handle didn’t dig into his ribs.

  He was getting that bad feeling he'd come to trust over the years, that feeling something was gonna go wrong. It trickled down his spine and quickened his step. That feeling didn’t dismay him; it made him angry. Anger was good. Anger was useful and gave him strength and the will to endure. Fang took the eastern fork that led into Moon Knives territory.

  The Knives’ members knew his face. His presence wouldn’t go unnoticed for long. They also knew he was aiming for Boar; Fang had announced it before all the Four Winds, and he wasn’t foolish enough to think there were no traitors among his brothers. But the Knives wouldn’t come at him openly in the street. Violence put a damper on business, and what was bad for business was bad for a gang’s cut of that business. They’d wait until he was isolated, maybe in another back alley if he approached their compound like he was trying to hide.

  He didn’t doubt they were sweating it right now. He’d taken out Leadnose and his whole posse alone. But he was tired and battered — they’d anticipate that, too. They had plenty of fresh manpower to protect their headquarters.