Light Dragons 03 - Sparks Fly

me backward.
    “Be more careful,” he scolded, turning to yell down to the inner bailey. “Baltic! We’re about to have visitors!”
    “Where?” Baltic bellowed back, pausing in the middle of shoving a jeep up against the gate.
    “Murder hole.” Savian turned back to me. “Ysolde, you and Brom had better get off the wall. I’ll stay here with Her Royal Highness and light up the little devils as they come in.”
    “I am not a princess! Stop calling me that!” Maura said, whomping him again.
    “They can’t get in the murder hole,” I told him. “It’s too small.”
    As I spoke, two little hands reached through the murder hole and gripped the sides before a brown head popped into view. The negret stared at me for a second, then bared its sharp teeth and lunged, getting its entire torso through the hole.
    Savian swore and pulled me backward, pushing Brom and Maura back with his other hand. The negret cursed in what I assumed was its own language, apparently stuck, twisting and turning and struggling to get through the hole. Just as I was about to point out to Savian that even beings as small as the negrets couldn’t get through the murder hole, it managed to pull itself through, falling in a heap on the stone walkway.
    “Go!” I yelled at Brom, shoving him toward the stairs before pausing to pick up one of the crates loaded with bottles. It had taken the four of us-Brom, Savian, Maura, and me-to manufacture the three dozen Molotov cocktails, and I didn’t want to leave them where the negrets could get them.
    Savian, in the meantime, took advantage of the negret’s moment of inattention to pick it up and attempt to stuff it back through the murder hole. He was hampered not only by the negret’s objecting to such treatment, but also by another negret’s attempting to claw its way through the hole to us. I snatched up one of the bottles, lit the rag hanging limply out of it, and said loudly, “Drop him, Savian.”
    “Get away while you can,” he answered, grunting in pain as the negret twisted on itself and bit his hand.
    “Drop him!” I yelled just as Maura shifted into dragon form.
    Savian glanced over his shoulder at us, and dropped the negret, sprinting toward me, one arm around my waist as he took the bottle and heaved it at the two negrets. They both shrieked as Maura’s fire and the bomb exploded around them.
    “Go to Baltic,” Savian ordered, grabbing Maura when she returned to human form.
    I shrugged off his arm and raced back to grab one of the two crates. “I’m not going to leave you two here with them by yourselves!”
    “I’m responsible for your safety, and I say you get down!” he bellowed.
    “In your dreams,” I started to say, but was suddenly lifted off the ground from behind, and set down onto the stairs. I glared up at Baltic when his voice rumbled over my head. “Do as the thief-taker says, Ysolde.”
    “We agreed that the bombs were my job.”
    “Do not even think to argue with me,” he said, then spun around as the now-metal negret that had been in the process of crawling through the murder hole hit the ground, another of its brethren in the process of wriggling into the keep. Baltic planted his feet in a battle stance, spun his sword in his hand, and ordered Savian to stand out of the way.
    “We’ll go to the other side,” I told Savian and Maura as Pavel rushed past me on the stairs, his sword in hand, his eyes-like Baltic’s-alight with pleasure. “There’s a murder hole on the south side of the gate, too.”
    “All right, but if I say stay back, you stay back.”
    “Are you sure you’re not a dragon?” Maura said, puffing a little as we ran down the stairs, our arms laden with the crates. “You’re sure arrogant enough for one.”
    “Ha!” Savian said.
    “I agree with her. And for the record, one bossy male in my life is enough,” I said, scanning the yard for intruders. It was empty of everyone. “If you keep it up, I’m just going to hit you on the head with one of these bottles, and then you won’t want to work for me, and everything will go to hell in a handbasket. So lighten up. I’m older than you; I know what I’m doing.”
    “May says you were resurrected two months ago.”
    “Lovey, stay with Nico and Holland,” I called out to Brom as he emerged from the second outbuilding (evidently used as a storage shed) with a plastic container of gasoline, and a couple of men’s shirts.
    “We’re going to make more fire bombs,”