Zemlyanin – Chapters 1 and 2

by Johnny Cycles, September 12th, 2025

Chapter 1

Salestia Lowhill was sore and achy. She’d spent hours sweeping, scrubbing, polishing, and preparing for the potential visit of the Elder Dragon, out sermonizing to the heathens on his annual tour of the Empire’s borderlands.

Potential visit, as there were technically other dwellings in which a high priest, or anyone really, could pay a few coin for a night of rest without exposure to the elements. But if you were looking for a semi-respectable establishment that could offer amenities approaching that of a city this close to the Rock Lands to the south, then the Manor House was your only option.

At least, that was the logic Bortis had used the previous evening when he’d snapped at her to clean everything again, “this time with water and soap.”

As if she hadn’t used soap the first time, the drooling, doddering fool, too old and too drunk to know if his own mug was clean, much less his inn, which was heavy on the semi and light on the respectable, if you asked her.

Salestia’s lower back protested her first attempt to maneuver her legs out of her low bed to such a degree that she gave up and closed her eyes. She savored the sense of pampering this failure of will gave her only a moment before she pushed herself up and out of bed, aches and pains be damned.

Bortis wouldn’t be awake for hours, but he had a meanness he liked to indulge in ever since the last time he’d come for what he considered his due and couldn’t get it up, thank god for small mercies, pun intended. If the chores weren’t done and breakfast waiting for him when he snorted and farted his way out of his room around lunchtime, then there would be a beating.

The only unknown would be with what.

She shuffled over to the washbasin and poured tepid water into the chipped bowl. Her fingers flared with sharp stabbing pains as she lifted the pitcher. She felt like an old dwarf, though she was hardly into her adulthood, if you counted by years.

If you added up all the sufferings, miseries, and pain she’d experienced instead, then she may as well be ancient.

Being a bastard dwarf orphaned as a child and living at the ass-end of the Empire where laws and their enforcers rarely made their presence known had that impact on one’s appearance, not to mention one’s inner self.

And she felt old, too. Especially now, as her joints ground together while she dressed before running a comb through her long hair and putting it back in a bun. She checked her side whiskers in the mirror out of habit and hope, but they were as sparse and wispy as ever. For a dwarf she was embarrassingly hairless.

She made her way up from the cellar she shared with dusty casks of ale and impertinent rats to the cavernous kitchen and stoked back up the fire to start the water boiling. The Manor House, named that by the first governor of this fair and dusty land, who later was burned to death by townsfolk over his perpetually intensifying cruelty, was enormous, a three-story behemoth built to be a beacon of society and civilization to the outlanders.

But that was when the land had still been green. And long before Salestia had been born. She couldn’t imagine the sandy, flimsy earth around them being anything other than the drab husk it was.

While the water heated, Salestia set off for the barn to milk the goats. She flexed her back and hands, happy to feel the soreness dissipating, and suppressed the sudden tingling in her insides that had accompanied her to the barn every morning since he showed up.

His name was Ton and he’d been staying at the inn for a couple of weeks now. Well, more precisely, staying in the barn, despite the multitude of empty rooms in the Manor House. Something about softness and smells he’d muttered that first day when she showed him the barn, heart palpitating and that damn electricity spreading through her belly. She’d cursed herself then the same as she cursed herself now for going goo-goo, gaa-gaa like a dwarfling just sprouting sidewhiskers.

She may not be truly old, but she wasn’t so young anymore that fanciful daydreams of dark-haired, dark-eyed mysterious strangers should delude her into thinking her fate could be any different than cooking and cleaning at the Manor House.

And yet, she couldn’t help but fantasize about the kind of life they could lead together, away from the Manor House and the borderlands. It didn’t matter to her that he was a duwyn. Duwyn and dwarfs had mated in the past. And she was tall for a dwarf, while he was not as tall as most Duwyns. They could have babies, cute little bispecies bundles of chubby limbs and milk burps.

She cursed herself again and kicked the barn door a little harder than usual, sending it clanging off the inner wall and swinging back towards her. She stopped it with a toe and headed for the goats, trying and failing not to glance towards the stall where Ton slept.

Well, passed out, really. The man drank like it was his job. She only noticed that later, of course, not that it bothered her. If she waited for a sober mate, she’d be waiting in her grave. Sobriety was a rare thing among the males in the borderlands. Too much nothing to do.

Ton wasn’t drinking out of boredom, though. No, he was drinking to kill something. A memory, a ghost, himself, she wasn’t sure, but she’d recognized the look almost immediately when she’d met his gaze over the bar that first afternoon as the fragile light of the faded sun cut lines across the filth-packed floor, dust motes dancing in and out of view. There was pain and loss in his eyes, coupled with a sort of resignation, as if any hope of happiness or joy or wonder had long since been mercifully and mercilessly put down like a wounded animal.

But his haunted eyes weren’t what she’d noticed first. They were just the hook that snagged her heart – she’d always had a weakness for flawed males, something she’d gotten from her mother no doubt.

No, the first thing she’d noticed about Ton as he strode through the mostly empty bar was how he moved. There was an effortless grace and confidence about him that was immediately recognizable.

This man was a killer.

Salestia had seen the same deadliness in some military men. Not all, mind you. Most in the army fought and killed in a haze of fear and desperation, flailing about with whatever weapon they held in the hopes they landed more blows than the enemy. And such a technique worked, since the enemy was more often than not just as desperately and clumsily violent.

But there were those in the army who had turned killing into an art form. Their deadly skill was almost palpable and you learned real quick to stay off their bad side. Salestia had seen a few of these in her time as barkeep at the Manor Hall. The most recent had been the duwyn who took her sister.

A groan and a rustle interrupted Salestia’s thoughts before they could trudge down the well-worn path of impotent anger and pain so debilitating she hadn’t thought she’d survive it.

Ton wasn’t like that one. Where his eyes showed pain and hurt, that one’s had exuded a malicious evil, she recalled with a shudder as she peeked between the boards of Ton’s stall. He was asleep, face towards the ceiling, arms folded carefully on his chest, as if he’d been laid out for his own funeral by unseen hands. A dark, amber-colored fur lay to one side of him, kicked off during the night. Looking at him and thinking of her sister, Salestia couldn’t stop herself from entertaining a different sort of fantasy, one that involved Ton killing that other one and rescuing Talinia.

Nevermind that he’d said he was a hunter and trapper that first day, not a fighter. She didn’t believe that was all he was, even though he certainly had the look of a man who’d spent a long time living hard in the deep wilderness. And the smell. Earthy and sweaty and bloody, all under a thin veneer of perfunctory and infrequent bathing.

He also had the goods, as she’d found out when he’d unceremoniously plopped a stack of pelts down on the counter in front of her.

“How long can I sleep in your barn for these?” he’d asked oddly, the words sounding unfamiliar on his lips, as if he hadn’t had cause to speak in a long while. “And drink, too. Barn and drink. How long for these?”

Salestia was no fur trader, but she recognized quality craftsmanship in the dried and tanned skins of rabbits, deer, and even a cougar. But she did a double take when her eyes fell on the bottom pelt.

“Is that a lion spider?” she asked, trying to keep the disbelief out of her voice. Lion spiders were the alpha predator of the Rock Lands, a place full of alpha predators. They were massive, furry creatures with eight legs and a gaping maw full of razor teeth. And they were smart, deviously and wickedly smart. No one hunted lion spiders. It was suicide.

“Good name,” he grunted what could have been a laugh.

She was struck then by something she hadn’t noticed at first, what with his killer walk and disturbed eyes. He was young, maybe even younger than she. And yet he carried himself as if he were much older. Maybe suffering and pain had aged him as well, she thought.

“How?” she managed, glancing back up at his dark eyes.

“How long?” he grated out, ignoring both her wonder and her question.

Salestia smiled what she hoped was an inviting, yet reserved smile. “Without that,” she indicated the lion spider pelt – in a display of true expertise, he’d left the legs attached, though they were largely furless, short thick hair sticking out like bristles – “a month, maybe two depending on the market.”

He grunted again, then sat down. “Whiskey.”

Salestia blinked. “With this,” she continued, hesitantly touching the lion spider pelt, “you could stay as long as you like.”

He looked at her then, eyes distant, as if he wasn’t even hearing her. “Whiskey.”

“You don’t get it,” she explained, sympathy for this strange, hard duwyn flaring in her chest. “This is one of a kind! No one kills lion spiders! If you’re lucky, you might find one dead, but you know better than me what condition a pelt like that would be in. You could name your price for this with the right collector!”

He shrugged, “I have another. Whiskey. Please,” he added, as if sounding out a word he’d never said before.

That had been more than two weeks ago and Ton, as she had pried out of him a few days after his arrival, had been a fixture in the bar ever since, silently sipping whiskey after whiskey until dusk fell. This was when the majority of the town’s drinkers began appearing, like vultures to a rotting carcass. She was never sure when Ton left – the evening rush occupied all her attention – one moment he was sitting at the corner table he preferred, the next he was gone, silent and ephemeral as a ghost.

A goat mehhed, reminding her of the reason she’d come to the barn and she set about milking them. When she was done, she glanced once more at the sleeping figure of Ton. He looked so young, almost like a different person entirely, when his eyes were closed. She left the barn and continued the long list of chores that had to be done before lunch.

The morning passed unnoticed into the afternoon, the only change in her daily routine being the earlier than usual appearance of Bortis, hungover and fit to be tied. The Elder Dragon had him on edge and he took it out on Salestia, snapping at her to do her job even as she did it.

Truth be told, Salestia was just as anxious. The Dragons all gave her the creeps, with their covered eyes and boney, too-long limbs. It didn’t help matters that this one was extra creepy. Everyone knew the reason he was out proselytizing in the borderlands when no one else from the Empire ever showed their ugly, lanky selves here. He liked the younglings. Why he traveled so far from the center to find his prey was beyond Salestia. Then again, she realized, maybe he just liked the privacy the backwoods gave him. Either way, the locals all knew to hide their small ones if they could manage it.

She’d done exactly that with her sister.

Sadness and rage yawned open in her stomach at the thought of Talinia. She hadn’t been able to protect her from the other one, though.

The door to the inn opened and Ton’s familiar frame was silhouetted by the weak light of the unseen sun. It was covered by an opaque bank of endless clouds, casting the land in perpetual semi-darkness.

“Hi Ton!” she said, forcing her voice to sound cheerful.

Ton grunted and settled into his usual spot in the far corner of the large room. He would sit there for hours, silently raising his empty glass whenever he wanted another whiskey.

Salestia swayed her way over to him, aforementioned drink in hand. “Anything to eat, sweetie?” she asked with a smile.

Ton shook his head and downed the glass before she’d had a chance to set it down in front of him. “Another.”

“Did you hear about the Elder Dragon?” she asked, retrieving the empty glass from his outstretched hand in a way that let her fingers brush against his.

Ton met her eyes then, and she could have sworn she saw something change in them, the pain turning hard, the hunter rising up from the depths of the drunkard. But then it was gone.

He shrugged. “Another.”

Salestia sighed and returned to the bar. The afternoon crawled towards evening. The Manor House had been cleaned three times now and even Bortis had grown tired of yelling. He’d disappeared into his office to work, he said, though the shelf behind the bar was conspicuously absent a bottle of whiskey.

Off to rediscover his courage, she thought as she busied herself with created chores while keeping one eye on Ton and one on the door, equal parts anxious and afraid. She kept telling herself she had nothing to fear, that this priest of the Dragon wasn’t interested in adults, but a hollowness inside her belly steadily grew as evening approached. It was the same feeling she’d had right before the army passed through nearly a year ago on their way south to fight the Dark Dwellers.

Right before her sister was taken.

Salestia shivered and turned to the wall of bottles behind her, considering for the first time in her life a drink to quiet her nerves.

And so she only heard the door when it opened, though she knew before the tramp of feet that it was the Dragon and his guard.

Another shiver rippled her flesh. At least she could stop waiting for him to arrive and start waiting for him to leave.

❖

Ton couldn’t stop himself from counting the soldiers as they entered – twelve total, one commander, three officers, the rest grunts – nor from gauging their skill with the weapons they carried, mostly short swords, with a couple of crossbows scattered among them.

Instinct and training weren’t eradicated by whiskey, only dulled.

Not that he was drunk.

No matter how many drinks he had, that effect, oblivion and perceived, if only temporary, happiness, was never fully achieved. The energy, magic he reminded himself to call it, coursing through his body wouldn’t allow it. The most he could hope for was a fuzziness, a dulling of the edges of his bitterness and, if he were completely honest, self- pity, for that was what he was indulging in by lingering here in this abandoned outpost.

He knew why he was staying, the same as he knew why he was allowing himself the luxury of self-pity and self-laceration. It was because of her.

He glanced up at Salestia as she turned to face the onslaught of armed men, a smile tensing her face. She reminded him of her, and, despite his best efforts, he couldn’t bring himself to leave just yet.

He was reaching for his whiskey when the Dragon finally walked through the door. He was tall to the point of ludicrousness and so thin it looked like a strong breeze would blow him away. He wore flowing blue robes of such a dark hue as to be nearly black and which fanned out into wide openings at his hands and feet. They looked like something a monk would wear, which Ton supposed made sense seeing as he was a high priest.

But the Dragons weren’t just the representatives of the Empire’s only religion; they were the ruling elite. Religion and government were conflated to such a degree as to be the same in this part of the country.

The Elder Dragon swept through the room towards Salestia, the soldiers scattering like roaches in sudden light. One of the men, duwyn, they were called here, gave Ton a longer look than was necessary before taking a seat at a nearby table with two of his mates. The Dragon stopped at the bar and looked at Salestia, though he wore the customary dark swath of cloth over the upper part of his face that covered his eyes. How the Dragons actually saw, or if they were all blind, or if they had some sixth sense was unknown to Ton.

The Dragon stared at the dwarf a long moment, then turned ever so slightly. The commander was waiting at his elbow for just such a signal.

“Your finest room and a hot bath,” the tall, broad-shouldered man said in a deep voice. He wore light chainmail with a steel breastplate and a short sword at his hip. Ton had picked him out as the second-best fighter in the group.

“Yes, my lord,” Salestia said in a tight voice. “I’ll bring the water right up.” The Dragon made no move, but something was communicated between himself and his officer.

“The bath is for you,” the man said gruffly. “You will be summoned when his Eldest is ready.”

Even from Ton’s place in the corner he could see the blood drain from Salestia’s face. “Who will serve your lordship and the others?” she carefully protested.

“Him,” the commander replied, nodding towards Bortis, who had emerged from his office and his whiskey to reluctantly stand behind the bar.

“Y-, ye-, yes, my lord,” she finally managed.

Ton felt his chest tighten. He lifted his now empty glass. Salestia saw the motion and relief flashed across her face as she made a move for the bottle.

The Dragon turned slightly, and Ton saw the side of his cloth-covered face. There were no eyes visible, but he somehow sensed them boring into him.

“He’ll take care of that one,” the officer said. “Go. Now.” The final word carried an unmistakable undercurrent of violence.

Salestia swallowed, then smiled a grimace at the Dragon. “This way, your Eldest,” she said with a deep curtsey before leading the tall priest out of the bar and up the stairs, two of the officers trailing behind.

❖

Walter watched as the dwarf trudged down the stairs and disappeared into a back room. He smiled at the fear and apprehension on her face and licked his lips in anticipation. He loved working for the Dragons. He especially loved working for this Dragon. The priest had an uncanny ability to suss out vulnerable people and their unique vulnerabilities. As a duwyn who enjoyed dabbling in the occasional torture and torment of others, Walter couldn’t help but admire the Dragon’s preternatural skill. He had much to learn from the priest.

If there was anything left of the dwarf after, perhaps he’d get the chance to put some of those lessons to use.

The hard-looking duwyn at the next table over raised his empty glass in a futile effort to catch the fat man’s eye behind the bar. Walter smiled again. The barkeep understood his place. The drunk would have to get off his lazy ass and go up to the bar or go thirsty.

Or, better yet…

Walter stood and walked over to the stranger’s table. He eyed him a long moment before speaking. The man had an angular face, several days of stubble darkening his features, and shoulder-length black hair tied back with a strip of cord. He wore light brown leather and had a long knife at his belt. Otherwise he was unarmed. A trapper or hunter or something.

It wasn’t important. A drunk and here, just when Walter was itching to do a little provoking and punishing. Walter finished his appraisal and smirked. The moron had the nerve to meet Walter’s gaze with a droopy, hazy look.

“Next round’s on you, buddy,” Walter said by way of greeting, false affability layering his voice.

The drunk didn’t move.

“You hear me buddy?” Walter said louder, his smirk pushing into a grin.

The man’s chin slowly dropped to his chest and Walter thought for a moment he’d passed out, but then it rose again in a glacial nod.

Walter patted the drunk on the shoulder agreeably. “That’s a good lad, now.” He turned to the fat bar keep. “Hey, you! Another round! Courtesy of your esteemed customer here.” Walter’s two mates snickered, even though neither found him very funny. They didn’t want to discourage the violence they knew was coming.

Walter squeezed the man’s shoulder once more, then returned to his seat. One thing he’d learned from the Dragon was patience. The longer you could hold out, could savor the anticipation of pain inflicted, the greater the joy.

The night was young. He was only just getting started.

 ❖

Ton watched from hooded eyes as the soldier returned to his seat and exchanged a few words with his friends. They laughed.

Ton knew this kind of man. He’d encountered the type far too many times as he traveled the Empire. Purposefully cruel and always on the prowl for victims. You could see the eagerness for brutality in his eyes. This was just the beginning. It didn’t matter how many rounds Ton bought or what he said, this man would find a reason to make him suffer.

The door from the back room swung open and Salestia shuffled out, eyes desperate as they found Ton’s. He wasn’t sure why she thought he could help her. What did she expect from a drunk?

Bortis shakily carried over a tray of clattering mugs and handed them out to the soldiers. He didn’t bring Ton anything. That was fine. He had other things to occupy his attention.

❖

“Close the door,” the Dragon said firmly, though his voice was quiet, almost kind, Salestia would have said, had the circumstances been different.

She trembled as she did as he’d instructed, then cursed under her breath. This wasn’t the first male who’d forced himself on her. She’d survive this one, too. A few more years off her soul, but she’d survive. So why was she so scared she could barely hear?

The Dragon’s mouth moved again, but the rush in her ears stopped the words from reaching her.

“Come here, I said,” the Dragon repeated louder. He was standing with his back to her by the hearth in the far corner of the bedroom. The fire had been laid, but it hadn’t been lit, per his orders. Across from him was a large bed with four carved wooden posts and a trunk at its foot. The window opposite the door was currently closed and shuttered.

Salestia forced her feet to obey. She’d survived before precisely because she hadn’t resisted. An orphan dwarf didn’t have the luxury of fighting back. She had to do as she was told or…

“My child,” the Dragon soothed, turning finally to face her, black cloth still covering his eyes, “do you really think I have any desire to touch your repugnant flesh?”

“How…” Salestia squeaked but couldn’t continue.

“You have something far more precious that I desire,” the Dragon said, stepping closer. With one hand he pulled the cloth away from his eyes.

Salestia gasped.

❖

Walter slammed his empty mug of ale down and called for another. “On my new friend here,” he signaled. He turned when a movement from the corner of his eye caught his attention. The drunk was swaying by his seat, one hand flexed and reaching for the table to balance. “Leaving so soon?” Walter chided as he rose to his feet.

The stranger stumbled and took a heavy step forward before catching himself and straightening up. His eyes had the distant, glazed sheen of a man looking without seeing.

Walter smiled and grabbed the drunk by the arm in support. “We’re just getting started, friend,” he explained, almost gently. “And you owe us.”

Ton’s eyes focused slightly. “I bought the round,” he managed, thought the words were slurred.

“Ah,” Walter dragged out sadly, “but is a single round of ales really sufficient to atone for your sins?” Another lesson from the Dragon. Use as much highfalutin religious talk as possible to manipulate and distract. Fools like this one would lose the thread of the conversation so fast you’d have them believing anything. The confused look the man gave him confirmed the approach.

“You didn’t show his Eldest proper respect, I’m afraid” Walter continued. “You didn’t stand when he entered,” he patiently explained to the befuddled look he got at this. “You didn’t bow, or ask his blessing. You sat there like the drunk you are and had the audacity,” another word he’d picked up from the Dragon, “to stare.”

Here Walter’s voice turned colder. “And that was very rude, offensive even. And to offend one of the Dragons is to offend the church and what greater sin could there be?”

“Another round, then,” the duwyn mumbled hopefully to the ground, a stupid, puzzled look on his face.

This was going to be almost too easy. Walter preferred a bit more fight in his playthings, but beggars can’t be choosers. He tisked. The sound of chairs scraping told him his mates had picked up on the cue. He sensed them drifting to either side.

“Oh, there’ll be several more rounds bought with your money friend. But first, you must atone. On your knees,” he commanded sharply, hand falling to his short sword.

The duwyn met Walter’s glance then. Gone was the far-off, stupefied look of the town drunk. In its place were the eyes of a predator. Pain exploded in Walter’s chest.

❖

 Ton had always been fast. Growing up, few of the other children could keep up with him in their sparring matches. Now that he had magic flowing through his body, fast wasn’t the word to describe him.

He wasn’t sure there was a word, he thought grimly.

He drew from his source of magic to increase the strength and speed of his fist and slammed it into the taunting soldier’s sternum. He felt bone split and heard a sickening pop. The man flew across the room, knocking tables and chairs askew before crashing into a pair of soldiers idly playing cards near the entrance.

Ton had already killed the two flanking soldiers before their mate’s lifeless body finished flopping to the floor, throwing knives protruding from their throats.

There was a moment of complete stillness then, as if everyone in the large barroom were frozen in place by some wizard’s spell. The fire in the hearth to Ton’s left was the only thing unaffected, a pair of burnt logs collapsing in on themselves with a rustle. Then the room erupted in movement and noise.

Ton had decided his plan of attack as soon as the soldiers had settled in their various places among the empty tables as their Dragon disappeared upstairs.

Instinct and training.

He leapt forward, whipping two more knives from their place at the small of his back at the card-playing pair just as they struggled to their feet. As he blew by them, he snatched one of their short swords and launched himself at the next group. Grunts they may be – their commander was at the bar and had only just turned to face the commotion – but they were battle-hardened and capable.

It didn’t matter.

He moved through them like a leaf on a swirling wind, streaks of blood in his wake.

There were two left now, the commander, who held a crossbow pointed at Ton, and the best fighter of the group, a large man carrying a wicked looking blade and a cat-of-nine- tales.

Ton smiled. The thrill of battle rushed through him and with it a feeling he hadn’t had in years.

He was doing something good again. He was helping.

The commander, a scarred, rugged looking duwyn, let fly the bolt, his aim true.

The arrow stopped in midair halfway on its path to Ton’s chest, then clattered to the ground.

Ton’s throwing knife had no such problems reaching its target.

The final soldier paused only a moment before rushing in, sword at the ready.

Ton had to give him credit for his courage. He stopped the blade with a tongue of magic, then lopped the man’s head off. Salestia didn’t have time for Ton to test his skill against this one. He rushed up the stairs.

❖

Salestia was dying.

She could feel the life seeping from her. It was being slowly pulled out of her like a cork from a bottle.

The Dragon stood over her. He hadn’t touched her. He’d just removed the swath of cloth to reveal what she could only call a second face. It was almost laughable, if it hadn’t been so grotesque, one mouth directly below his nose and a second above it. But then the lower mouth disappeared, as did the duwyn-shaped nose, folding down and back in on itself as the face behind the cloth expanded and grew.

The thing’s skin – for this was no duwyn, but some kind of monster in the flesh – undulated, its cheekbones bubbled, and its forehead flattened and widened at the same time. The place where the thing’s nose had been stretched and stretched until the skin exploded.

When the transformation stopped, Salestia half-expected there to be an actual dragon’s head looming over her. Instead, a misshapen skull leered at her, pale green lights pulsing in empty sockets, holes where the nose should be, and a gaping mouth full of sharp enough teeth to pass for a dragon’s.

But then the dying had begun and she no longer noticed the strange creature sucking the life out of her with some unseen force.

And now she was slumped against the trunk at the foot of the bed, head lolling towards the door, limbs limp and lifeless.

Suddenly, the strange pulling sensation stopped and she gasped what felt like her first breath in minutes. The Dragon turned towards the door, bony skull bare, the green light of its eyes flaring.

Only then did Salestia register the twin thunks against the wall abutting the corridor.

The door crashed inwards, hinges and all, and smashed into the Dragon’s too-thin body.

But despite the thing’s apparent frailty and the force of the blow, it didn’t so much as flinch. Wood splintered and shattered off of it like water from a surfacing whale.

Salestia gasped again.

Ton stood in the doorway.

The Dragon bared its razor teeth and hissed. It took a moment for Salestia to realize it was laughing.

But then the thing slammed into the shuttered window with a crunch. The hissing sound ceased.

The Dragon wasn’t laughing anymore.

❖

Ton hesitated only a moment after he’d used a burst of magic to explode the door inwards. A normal duwyn would have at least been knocked to the floor by the blow.

But what he saw standing above Salestia was no duwyn. With a wave of energy, he flung the creature against the far wall and held it there.

At least his magic should have held it there, but the thing effortlessly cut through the invisible cords binding him and it was Ton’s turn to fly backwards.

He sailed out of the room and tumbled head over feet down the hall. Halfway towards the stairs, he got his bearings enough to stop his momentum with a push of energy and rose to his feet.

The creature filled the doorway, its hands beginning to glow with a light blue, almost white light.

Ton grabbed his last throwing knife from his boot and let fly.

The creature hissed as it swatted the blade out of the air with a twitch of its head. Then it lifted its arms and the whitish-blue light intensified. It pointed its hands at Ton and jagged shards of ice flew down the hall.

Ton brought up a shield of energy even as he dashed towards the creature. The air filled with white powder and fist-sized chunks of ice as the javelins shattered. Ton reached for his hunting knife at the same time that he whipped a tongue of energy at the thing’s head.

The creature jerked backwards from the blow, then toppled over, arms scrabbling at the empty air around him.

Ton nearly stopped moving in surprise, knife still at his belt. He hadn’t expected the blow to be so effective, but he’d never fought such a creature before. Maybe he’d lucked upon a weak spot. When in doubt, go for the head.

Then he saw Salestia’s hands. She’d made a garrote with her belt and had looped it around the thing’s neck at the same time Ton had struck.

“Drag him towards the fireplace!” Ton shouted.

The Dragon’s struggles intensified and it twisted nearly all the way around to face Salestia before Ton sheathed it once more with his magic. With a flick of his hand, he sparked a flame from the air around him and sent it flying into the lifeless hearth. The wood erupted, filling the room with a sudden and intense heat.

Blades of ice cut through Salestia’s belt and into her fingers. She let the creature go with a scream.

Ton was on it an instant later, pummeling the thing towards the fire with fists and feet.

As fast as he was, though, the Dragon was strong and its magic was stronger. Within seconds, Ton felt his blows bouncing off invisible barriers. A moment later and the Dragon was on the offensive, attacking with a speed and desperation that had Ton backpedaling, arms and energy up to cushion the blows.

Then the Dragon screamed, back arcing, head up.

Salestia stood behind it, burning log jammed into the creature’s lower back. The thing spun and swatted the dwarf across the face. She crashed against the wall, then slid to the ground.

Ton drew his hunting knife. It was a heavy, long blade, as good for skinning animals as for hacking down small trees. He swung it now like a sword at the Dragon’s neck and felt the blade bite deep into flesh. Using the momentum of his swing and the magic in his body, he jerked the thing off its feet and threw it towards the hearth. It crashed into the fireplace and erupted in flame. Within moments nothing remained but ash and the echoes of a scream.

Chapter 2

“Th-, th-, there’s something out there!” Stanley insisted to the constable, an overweight and underworked duwyn with bad skin and worse hair. Darkmoor was a small town, village really, with the bare minimum by way of a police force. It was Joseph, the constable, and his deputy Mark, a duwyn as thin as his boss was fat, and that was it.

“Something, you say,” Joseph asked, drawing his head back so that his multitudinous chins protruded down from his face like a little fleshy staircase. This was how he expressed skepticism and doubt.

Stanley knew the look, had seen it every time he went to the constable to report the perennial harassment and bullying he suffered at the hands of his former schoolmates, now grown duwyns, who hadn’t outgrown their pleasure in tormenting him for his stutter, short stature, occupation, lack of a love life, breathing the same air as they, or whatever struck their fancy in the moment.

It didn’t matter. They derived satisfaction in punishing him for their own failings, disappointments, and unhappiness brought on by less-than- fulfilling lives.

But who among the residents of Darkmoor considered themselves happy, satisfied, or fulfilled?

Stanley was just smart enough to understand the psychology behind the others’ behavior, which did little to assuage his own miserable existence or their repetitive taunts.

He also understood why Joseph preferred to disbelieve Stanley, repeating various empty and utterly useless phrases to explain away the actions of his tormentors, or to justify them, or to see them for the opposite of what they were. To believe Stanley the Stutterer – the oh-so-creative appellation miraculously conceived by the boy Thomas when they were five and which still brought the man Thomas a malicious delight every time he slung it at Stanley’s back or whispered it loud enough to be heard by all – to believe the Stutterer meant Joseph would have to physically move and everyone knew Joseph moved only to eat, shit, and sleep, and sometimes not even for those. The duwyn’s office stunk of filth and excrement, and dirty dishes lay scattered about, all telling the tale of the tough choice Joseph had of standing up or taking care of his needs at his desk.

And so Stanley was not surprised the constable now layered his chins in disbelief at his news. To do otherwise would not only mean he’d have to lift his massive bulk out of his chair, but that he’d be forced to shuffle out of his office, maneuver the two-step staircase leading into the street, and then somehow manage the hour trip into the marsh where Stanley had ran into the…thing.

Nor did Stanley blame him for his preferred inertia. Joseph was just as unhappy and unfulfilled as the rest of Darkmoor’s residents. But where Thomas and his cronies took their misery out on others, Joseph abused himself.

That he turned a blind eye to the suffering of those around him was an unfortunate consequence of his own self-destruction.

“Y-, y-, yes,” Stanley said, barely noticing the stop and start of his own speech. He always stuttered more when excited. “S-, s-, something, something big is out there.”

“Well,” Joseph began, his curiosity piqued just enough to motivate speech, “what’s this something look like?” He pawed at the side drawer of his desk for his stash of sweets. He needed something to grease the words from his small mouth.

“That’s j-, j-, just it,” Stanley said excitedly. “It’s not there!”

Joseph said nothing and Stanley watched with a kind of horrific fascination as Joseph’s hand searched the air just in front of his desk before finally catching the little metal clasp of the side drawer. With a grunt, Joseph pulled it open and fumbled his meaty hand around in it for what seemed like a full minute. Finally, he brought out the smallest of candies, wrapped tightly in paper, rested it on his massive belly, and began prying the ends open. Between labored breaths, he said, “So there is something or there isn’t, I’m confused, Stan.”

Stanley growled in frustration. How could he explain the impossible? “Li-, li-, listen,” he finally got out. “Something is there, but you can’t see it!”

Joseph finally solved the puzzle of the paper and began sucking lewdly on the piece of candy. “What, it’s…divisible?” he finally settled on the word he was struggling to find.

Stanley shook his head. “Invisible,” he corrected. “And, yes, it’s invisible.”

“How do you know it’s there, then?” Joseph asked and a smirk slithered across his face. He was happy to have found the hole in Stanley’s story.

“I bumped into it! While hunting,” he added.

Joseph’s smirk broadened. “Catching toadies ain’t hunting,” he laughed.

Stanley shrugged. “Will you come look at it?”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Stanley snapped. “It’s invisible.”

“How am I supposed to look at it, then?” Joseph asked and rested his hands on his belly.

Case closed.

Stanley made a sound that could have been choking, then said, “Will you come feel it? Help me figure out what it is? You can touch it; you just can’t see it.”

Joseph gasped a few breaths and groped at his desk again. He needed to stall Stanley the Stutterer until he could think of a reason not to go investigate whatever it is he’d found in the swamp. The swamp! As if Joseph would set foot in that gods-cursed bog. He’d sink right to the bottom and drown. Bad enough he had to smell it all the time from his office. No way he was getting that stench on his boots or clothing.

Stanley sighed. “J-, j-, just send Mark with me. Pl-, pl-, please!”

“Mark’s busy,” Joseph grunted.

“Doing what?” Stanley asked, though he already knew. Mark was preparing Joseph’s next meal, a task that never truly ceased.

“Official constable business.”

“It’ll only take an hour!”

Joseph started to explain the impossibility of the request when he remembered Mark’s hidden cache of chocolate he thought Joseph didn’t know about. But not only did Joseph know about the sweets Mark used to bribe his way into Sadie the carpenter’s wife’s bed, but he knew where they were, too.

“Meet him at the tavern in thirty minutes.” He wouldn’t miss his post-lunch snack, hidden chocolate or no.

❖

Stanley waited impatiently outside the tavern for Mark to arrive. He didn’t like going to the obese constable for help. The duwyn had redefined the meaning of uselessness in his policing of Darkmoor. He refused to budge, literally, from his perch in his office, regardless of the crime.

Last year someone had set fire to Coryn’s mud farm on the edge of town and Joseph had ruled it an act of nature, blaming lightning on the blaze, all from the comfort of his deeply depressed office chair. No matter there hadn’t been a thunderstorm in months.

Given Joseph’s willful ineptitude, one would think crime would be rampant in Darkmoor, but the townsfolk were by and large too simple and too lazy to break the law, even if that law were as ephemeral as the stink off the marsh.

The door to the tavern – barely more than a two-room shack with a hole in the ground out back – opened and Thomas stepped out, followed by his two shadows, Luke and John. Thomas’ face, flushed from afternoon drinking, lit up when he spotted Stanley. “I thought I heard the sound of someone trying to talk!” he chortled. His two friends snickered behind him.

Stanley rolled his eyes and willed Mark to arrive. Not that Mark was much better.

They’d all grown up together and Mark had been just as eager to mock Stanley when they were kids as the others. Now that he was deputy constable, he rarely harassed Stanley, but he just as rarely stopped the others from doing so.

“Whatch’ya doing hanging about the tavern?” Thomas asked, stepping closer to Stanley and sniffing the air. “They don’t barter drinks for frogs,” he sneered. “Good lord it stinks!” he shouted, waving a hand in front of his face. “Don’t you bathe?”

Stanley ignored the jibe, ignoring also the fact that Thomas was as filthy as the rest of them. Stanley at least washed off after a long day in the muck and mud hunting frogs. Thomas bathed only when it rained and only if he were unlucky enough to be outside.

“Who needs a bath when you go home to your right hand every night?” he taunted. On cue, Luke and John snickered again. Thomas stepped closer and put his face into Stanley’s. “What are you doing hanging about my tavern?” he asked, his tone absent of mockery now.

Mark had better hurry, Stanley thought, or Thomas was likely to beat him up just for being here. “I’m w-, w-, w-, waiting for M-, M-, Mark,” Stanley stuttered, cursing his blushing face and stumbling tongue.

“Wuh, wuh, wuh, waiting?” Thomas mocked. “Go wait someplace else. Your stink is clogging the air.”

Stanley held Thomas’ gaze a moment, then crossed the dirt street.

“Not far enough!” Thomas called out. “I can still smell you!”

Before Stanley could decide what to do next, Mark’s tall, lanky figure came into view. “What’s going on here?” he asked once he’d ambled up, long arms swinging with each step. “You three coming, too?” he looked at Thomas and his two friends.

Stanley groaned. Just what he needed, those assholes tagging along, mocking him the whole way.

“Coming where?” Thomas asked, immediately sensing an opportunity for more fun. “Stutt-,” Mark stopped himself and had the decency to blush slightly, “Stanley, found something in the swamp. He asked Joseph to investigate.” Mark smiled at the use of this official sounding word. He was an important duwyn and people needed to respect him.

Thomas snorted. “And he sent you why, because he’s all booked up today?”

John and Luke snickered again.

Mark looked hurt but ignored the comment. “You ready?” he asked Stanley.

Thirty minutes later and more taunts from Thomas, who wasn’t going to miss this unique opportunity to display his wit, than Stanley could keep track of, they were finally nearing the spot where it was, deep in the swamp.

Darkmoor was the last bastion of civilization before the Great Swamp that ran the length of the western coast of the Empire. Technically, the village sat on the swamp’s edge, but over the years, the bog had crept closer and closer, engulfing first the furthest most dirt farms, then encircling the homes of the hunters and trappers, such as they were. Soon, tepid, dank water would erase all trace of the muddy roads running between Darkmoor’s modest buildings and the village would become water-bound.

Stanley had already raised his own shack six feet off the ground in anticipation of the gradual erasure of dry land and he’d told others to do the same. Most ignored him since his stutter to them meant a lack of intelligence, as if his inability to speak smoothly was a sign he couldn’t think clearly.

“What is it we’re looking for?” Mark asked for the tenth time, grunting as he extracted his boot from a particularly deep mud hole.

Stanley sighed. He’d told them all to step where he did, but they preferred soggy feet to listening to him. “Like I said, it’s invisible.”

Thomas chortled. “And I told you already, you’ve been huffing too much marsh gas.”

Stanley stopped. “We’re here.”

They’d reached a large, grassy clearing on a raised part of earth. When he was frog hunting in this part of the swamp, Stanley liked napping here after lunch because it was peaceful and relatively dry. But today he’d ran smack into it instead. “See where the grass is all flat, like something’s resting on it?” he asked. “Walk over there and put your hands out.”

Mark raised an eyebrow at Stanley, but did as he’d been told, his boots squelching and sloshing with each step. Thomas looked on with arms crossed and a smirk twitching the corners of his mouth. Luke and John waited with mouths hanging open, eyes darting between Mark and the invisible object that wasn’t there and Thomas for the signal to laugh. Except for the sounds of Mark’s steps, the swamp was strangely quiet, as if in anticipation of a secret becoming known. Even the mosquitoes were absent.

Mark held his hands out as he stepped up on the bare hummock and took a few tentative steps forward. “Well?” he called over his narrow shoulder. “Where’s this thing supposed to be?”

A pit opened in Stanley’s stomach as he realized whatever it was that had been there was gone. He lurched forward after Mark. “It was right here two hours ago!” he said, a note of pleading in his voice. He searched the air around them with empty hands, but there was nothing. The grass was still flattened, but there was no longer the massive invisible object he’d smacked his head on.

“Is this some kind of bad joke?” Mark asked, his official, police tone slipping to reveal the mean, petulant boy he’d been in school. He’d received his fair share of bullying as a kid on account of his height, though it was nothing compared to what Stanley had endured. Now as the deputy constable he was hypersensitive to any mockery or perceived slight.

Stanley nearly leapt in the air when he heard Thomas laugh loudly behind him. He hadn’t noticed the duwyn join them on the hummock. Luke and John were right behind him.

“I think old Stuttering Stan here is pulling a fast one,” Thomas said and laughed again. “Thinks it’s funny getting us all dirty and stinky like him.”

Mark’s face darkened and Stanley felt suddenly very vulnerable.

“Yeah,” John added lamely and lifted one mud-encrusted boot as proof.

“He took us the long way, too,” Luke added, though he offered no evidence.

Mark stepped towards Stanley. “Is that true?” he asked, his tone menacing now.

“N-, n-, n-, n-…” But Stanley couldn’t finish the word, much less the sentence.

“Nuh, nuh, nuh,” Thomas mocked and stepped closer to Stanley’s back. “What’s the matter, Stanley?”

“I-, i-, i-…”

“Thinks he’s so much smarter than us and he can’t even talk,” Thomas sneered and placed a hand on Stanley’s shoulder. “If you’re so smart, Stutterer, why do you stink all the time?”

Luke and John laughed, though even in Stanley’s petrified condition, he didn’t think the jeer made any sense. But Thomas’ cronies were even stupider than he and they’d laugh at anything.

“Is that true?” Mark asked again, though it wasn’t clear to what exactly he was referring.

“I-, i-, it was right here,” Stanley finally managed to get out. He shrugged his shoulder to dislodge Thomas’s hand, but it didn’t work.

“Too much swamp gas,” Thomas chided, his tone condescendingly considerate. “And frog fondling.” He burst out laughing and shoved Stanley, who stumbled and fell on his knees in front of Mark.

“What?” Mark asked.

“What do you think he does with those frogs he catches?” Thomas asked with a grin. “It ain’t for no scientific research. Everyone knows it.”

“Knows what?”

“He does things with them duwyns ain’t supposed to,” Thomas explained as he stood over Stanley. “Why do you think he’s never been with a lady? He prefers frogs.”

Stanley went to stand, but Thomas pushed him back on the grass with a muddy boot.

“How is that possible?” Mark said, a look of sincere puzzlement on his face.

Stanley groaned. Mark had never been able to take a joke, even the nonsensical ones Thomas lobbed every few seconds. Everything was literal with him.

Thomas growled something unintelligible. “What should we do with him?” he asked.

Mark looked at Thomas, and Stanley saw the blank expression on the deputy’s face, not the familiar cruelty distorting Thomas’s features. Maybe he’d get out of this unscathed after all.

“On account of his wasting your precious time, constable,” Thomas explained, flattering Mark with his boss’s title.

“Deputy constable,” Mark corrected automatically.

Literal to a fault, Stanley thought and began crawling towards the edge of the hummock. If he could get out of this clearing, he was sure he could lose the bullies in the bog. If he were lucky, they’d lose themselves and join the other dead things that fed this place.

“This prank,” Thomas was patiently explaining, “befouls the most honorable office you hold. Such a slight cannot be allowed to stand unpunished, lest it embolden others.”

Stanley cursed to himself. Leave it to Thomas to use his single brain cell to eloquently articulate why they should beat him up. Then again, bullying was his only talent.

Mark squatted in front of Stanley. Thomas loomed over him, Luke and John on either side.

“I think it only just that we befoul him as punishment,” Thomas continued.

Then Stanley was facedown on the grass, Thomas’s heavy boot pressed squarely in his back.

“Bring him,” Thomas said and rough hands lifted Stanley up. It was Luke and John, ever eager to support Thomas’s cruel or inane endeavors.

“St-, st-, st-,” Stanley began, but his cursed tongue wouldn’t obey him.

“Ah, don’t worry,” Thomas said in a friendly tone. “We’re just going to give you a bath.”

“St-, st-, st-,” Stanley tried again, but they were already at the edge of the clearing and before he could manage another attempt at pleading, his face was forced into the muddy swamp water. He struggled futilely against the arms that held him, pushed vainly against the hands that kept his head submerged, but his efforts only made him more desperate for oxygen. Just when he thought his body would revolt against his mind and gasp at the filthy water as if it were air, he was lifted out.

“Pl-, pl-, pl-,” he managed to beg Mark’s boots standing half submerged in the swamp before him. But then he was under again, this time for even longer. Lights appeared in the darkness of his shut eyes and he thought for sure water would fill his lungs any moment.

Finally he was lifted out. Again, he began pleading with Mark’s boots.

Except there were three pairs of boots where before there’d been one. Was his vision blurred from nearly dying? He felt the hands holding him slacken.

“Wh-, wh-, who are you?” Thomas stammered.

Stanley was free of their grip now. He scampered back on the knoll and away from his tormentors, gasping for air as he went. He wiped murky water from his eyes and looked up at Mark and the others. They were facing two figures standing in the water. Stanley felt hands lift him up and a strangely accented voice say, “You’re safe now.”

Stanley twisted around to see a massive duwyn, taller even than Mark and almost as wide as Joseph, supporting him. But where Joseph was all fat and blubber, this one was muscle and more muscle. He had a light-brown, friendly face and dark hair. He held Stanley’s gaze with bright green eyes as he stood him upright. The hilt of a large two-handed sword jutted up from behind his left shoulder.

“You’re safe,” the large duwyn repeated and went to stand closer to his friends, though he didn’t join them in the water.

Only then was Stanley able to make out the two figures the others were staring at.

He gasped.

They were female.

And they were armed.

One was tall and thin, though even from this distance Stanley could see the lines of muscle on her forearms, and as dark as a moonless night deep in the bayou. She had long black hair in coils on top of her head and a striking, open face. Her eyes were full of fire as they stared at Mark and the others.

Stanley thought she was the most beautiful duwyn he’d ever seen.

The second duwyn was much shorter than the others, with blonde hair, pale skin, and big, blue eyes. She was rounder and less muscled than her comrades.

The taller female had a two-handed sword at her back and two axes at her waist that looked to be attached to a chain wrapped around her torso. The smaller one held a bow in her hand and had a quiver at her side.

The tall one finally spoke. “What were you doing to this…duwyn,” she said in a similarly accented voice as the big duwyn who’d helped Stanley. She paused before the word duwyn, as if she were sounding it out for the first time.

No one said anything for a moment and then Mark finally found his tongue. “This is official constable business and you are trespassing. State your name and your reason for being in my district.”

Stanley admired Mark in that moment despite himself. The deputy’s voice only wavered a little and he held himself in a way that looked the part. The only problem was the part was deputy constable of a backwoods, gods-forsaken conglomeration of shacks that barely deserved to be called a town. These were not people to be intimidated by the likes of Mark.

The tall, dark duwyn took a step forward and the others involuntarily pressed closer to one another. “Is it common practice among the authorities here to half-drown one of their citizens for nothing more than being wrong?” Her tone was icy and hard and her hands rested casually on the tops of her axes.

Mark swallowed. “Th-, that’s none of your concern,” he managed.

The dark duwyn appeared to consider this, tilting her head slightly as her eyes continued boring their way through Mark’s head. “You’re right, of course,” she said suddenly with a small smile. “My name is Sava,” she continued, putting special emphasis on the final syllable.

Sava, Stanley sounded the name in his head, free of any of the stammer he was suddenly hyper self-conscious of.

“This is Aura,” Sava pointed to the shorter female standing next to her, “and York,” she finished, indicating the dark-haired duwyn with the startling green eyes. “We are but travelers, visitors to your land. We’ve arrived from the other side of the sea after a very long journey and we’re looking for some kind of civilization where we can rest before continuing on our way. If your district is such a place, I ask that you lead us to you town.”

She paused. When she went on, her tone had become ice again. “However, if you prefer to continue punishing this poor duwyn, then we’d be forced to admit that you do not, in fact, represent anything remotely close to the kind of civilized people we are searching for. At which point,” she shrugged, “we would all be governed by the laws of nature. The strong survive.”

She paused again and surveyed the blank faces of Mark and the others as they struggled to follow her long and strange speech. “Who do you think is stronger here?” she concluded and even Luke and John couldn’t miss the threat of violence in her words. “So, what shall it be? The civilized or uncivilized way?”

Stanley’s chest flooded with gratitude and…and something that felt like love for this mysterious duwyn. As he watched Mark process his options, Stanley realized he was smiling stupidly.

“No more in swamp,” a gravely, rough voice said from behind Stanley and he jumped despite himself. When he saw the owner of that voice, he nearly jumped again. A huge duwyn, the twin of the one who’d helped him in size and muscle, stood in the middle of the hillock. He had long blonde hair hanging in a braid to the middle of his back and a matching braided blonde beard hanging nearly to the middle of his chest. He wore leather armor that left his massive arms all but bare, and he too had a giant two-handed sword strapped to his back and axes at his waist.

Who were these strange-sounding and even stranger looking people with their weapons? Stanley thought as he watched the blonde giant silently approach the group.

Mark’s face drained of all color and his eyes darted between the massive duwyn by Stanley, the massive duwyn who’d just appeared out of nowhere, and the tall, dark duwyn with the hard stare. “Welcome to Darkmoor,” he squeaked.

❖

 Sava exchanged a look with York as Stanley led them out of the swamp and towards the outskirts of Darkmoor. She knew what her first mate was thinking. They shouldn’t have gotten involved. She shouldn’t have threatened violence.

And he was right, of course. It was unwise, dangerous even, to draw attention to themselves so soon after their arrival with the beating of a deputy constable, even one of such a modest settlement as Darkmoor appeared to be.

But she didn’t care. Watching those fools bully Stanley, who had so desperately tried to explain his way out of it – as if bullies ever listened to reason – then nearly drown him brought up too many unpleasant memories of her own. It was all she could manage not to beat first, ask questions after, rather than the other way around.

She gave York a sufficiently abashed smile and small shrug and her first mate’s eyes danced with mirth. He’d enjoyed putting the local thugs in place as much as she; it was just his job to remind her of their mission. She stifled a sigh at the thought of their purpose here as the swamp gradually became littered with run-down, wooden shacks.

It’d been months since the last message from Ark and nearly a year since Char’s. She couldn’t wait any longer. Concern rushed through her at the thought of her two rangers. Something had happened to them or they wouldn’t have dropped contact. At least, there was no way Ark would disobey a command. Char…

Well, she knew he had other issues, to put it mildly. He may be perfectly safe somewhere licking his wounds, but Ark, if Ark stopped communicating, she was in trouble. Which jeopardized their whole mission and forced her to make the tough decision to move forward without them.

Sava fought down the worry for her rangers and focused on what they’d come here to do. She couldn’t let their unexplained disappearance distract her from their goal. They’d been trained to deal with the strange and unexpected for precisely moments like these.

Sava looked around. They’d finally reached dry ground and with it, the heart of Darkmoor. She took it all in in a glance, scattered buildings no bigger than two, maybe three rooms, in a rough pattern around a small square. There were two stone structures, to one of which Mark, as he’d reluctantly introduced himself along the way, was now leading them. She assumed this was the constable’s office and jail. The other stood across the square from them and was probably where the mayor, or governor, or whoever was in charge of this shithole, lived. She would want to have a few words with that duwyn before departing.

“Right this way…your…” Mark searched for the right term of address but eventually closed his mouth and just looked embarrassed.

“Sava will do fine,” she said after allowing the deputy constable to wallow in the awkward moment. Petty, no doubt, and York’s look confirmed what her conscience was telling her, but she wasn’t above a little pettiness when it came to assholes such as these. “Or captain,” she added.

This got a sharp look from Mark and Stanley. Thomas and the others had slinked away soon after they’d made it back to this shantytown.

Sava said nothing more, but instead strode up the two stone steps to the door of the constable’s office, leaving Mark fumbling and mumbling to her to stop, that he needed to go in first, that it was really only proper to announce their presence…

Sava ignored him and pushed the door open.

“Back so soon?” a duwyn sitting behind a desk said as he hurriedly slammed a drawer shut. “I thought you’d…” he continued, then stopped, mouth agape and face smeared with something dark, as he saw Sava for the first time. His small mouth widened as York and the others stepped in behind her. “Who…”

Sava did her best to control her own surprise at the sight of Darkmoor’s constable. The duwyn was easily the biggest person she’d ever seen. He had more chins than the four of them combined and likely weighed as much. He was nearly as wide as the desk he sat behind and his small, thick arms didn’t reach past his enormous stomach, where they now rested. His hands were covered in the same dark substance that was on his face, and Sava could just see the remnants of a piece of chocolate in his stubby fingers. His face was flushed, though she didn’t know if it was from embarrassment, surprise, or the effort it must take just to breathe with all that flesh pressing down on his organs.

“Who are you people?” the constable finally managed.

“My name is Sava,” she answered, then watched with curiosity as the constable appeared to squirm in his seat. A moment later, he started rocking slightly back and forth. It was then she realized he was trying to stand up.

“What…” he panted from the effort, “what…” He stopped the rocking motion and tried to catch his breath.

“They’re travelers,” Mark, who’d finally managed to maneuver his way around the massive duwyns, said. “Just passing through.” He joined the constable behind the desk. “We found them in the swamp.”

Joseph remained silent until his labored breathing slowed, then said in a whisper that all could hear, “Were they the ones in that…that divisible thing?”

“Invisible,” Stanley, who now stood pressed almost against Aura, corrected. He was struck suddenly by just how close he was to her and felt his pulse quicken. She smelled good, not like the acrid, thick stench of the swamp they’d passed through, but of light, airy things he couldn’t name.

“No,” Mark answered. “There was nothing there.”

“Th-, th-, there was something th-, th-, there,” Stanley insisted, then fell silent, cursing his cursed tongue as blood rushed to his face. He glanced at Aura from beneath his brows.

She smiled kindly at him and his blush deepened.

“You can’t have weapons in here,” Joseph said to Sava and the others in a futile attempt to reassert his control of the situation. “Certainly not you females!”

Sava again found herself fighting to keep her facial features expressionless. Ragnar made a threatening sound next to her and she watched the constable’s face pale. “We won’t be here long,” Sava replied in a neutral tone. “With whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”

It took Joseph a moment to answer, as he was staring at the giant blonde-bearded duwyn who’d just growled at him with eyes full of fear and something else that Sava swore resembled desire.

Finally, the constable introduced himself. “Constable Joseph Sterling of Darkmoor.” Joseph paused again, appeared to think about attempting to stand once more, then decided against it. Instead, he waved a stubby hand at the seat across from him, inviting Sava to sit. “Travelers, you say? We don’t get many of those this far from the center.”

Sava said nothing into the silence Joseph let hang between them, his unspoken question awaiting an answer. “How far exactly are we from the center?” she posed her own question instead.

Joseph blinked, then made a gurgling sound, as if he were gnawing on a bone. “You really shouldn’t be carrying weapons, miss.”

“Captain,” Sava snapped.

“Excuse me,” Joseph replied and he unconsciously reached one stubby arm out for the drawer of sweets.

“It’s not miss,” Sava explained patiently, though her tone was hard. “It’s captain. As in, Captain Sava.”

Joseph blinked again and cast a desperate look at Mark, who was busy examining his muddy boots, clearly considering the onerous task of cleaning them that lay ahead.

“Tell me, constable,” Sava continued, “how many days ride to the capital from here?”

Joseph wrenched open the drawer and fumbled out a piece of candy. This traveler, this female with weapons, was practically interrogating him! Still, there was something compelling about her, something that demanded answers. No, not just demanded, but made him want to answer her, and to do his very best. “Ride? Ride what?”

“Horses, of course,” Sava snapped.

“Uh,” Joseph thought a moment. The Dragon always came in a carriage, but he rarely, if ever, came straight from the capital. He started on some calculations of distances between various villages on the outskirts, then stopped. “Mark?”

The tall deputy glanced up as if he’d just been caught napping. “What?” he said stupidly before blinking and regaining his composure. “A month? Two? It’s hard to say.”

“Why is it hard to say?” Sava snapped. Her patience was wearing thin with these fools.

Joseph smiled, finally feeling a modicum of control coming back to him. “The only ones riding horses between here and the capital are the Dragons. And they do that rarely enough.” Joseph let out a small chuckle. “It’s been a couple of years since one of them visited last, wouldn’t you say, Mark?”

“That’s right,” Mark answered, his own confidence back now. “Ain’t no one got horses in these parts, lady.”

Sava ignored the slight in the deputy’s words. Instead, she said, “Take me to your mayor.”

“To who?”

“Mayor, or governor,” she waved a hand in frustration. “To whoever lives in that stone building across the way.”

Joseph chuckled again. This strange duwyn may exude authority like Stanley exuded swamp stink, but she sure didn’t know much about Darkmoor or the Empire. “Well, captain,” he said with a twist of his lips, “that’s the Dragon’s residence.”

“I’d like to see this Dragon,” Sava said. “Take me to him.”

Joseph laughed full on now, belly jiggling so much he nearly dropped the piece of candy he’d only just managed to free from its paper wrapper.

“Didn’t you hear the Constable, lady?” Mark asked. “The Dragon ain’t been here in years.”

“Then who runs this town?”

“The Dragon, of course.”

Sava felt the frustration building. These people were either total fools or deviously clever. Then again, she was flying blind right now, thanks to the disappearance of her rangers. They were supposed to have gathered all this sort of information already. “Who’s in charge when the Dragon isn’t here?”

“Well, me,” Joseph answered after a moment.

Sava nearly screamed. She remembered her training, their mission, and controlled the urge. She smiled brightly. “Give me all the maps you have. And we’ll need rooms. You do have an inn, don’t you?”

Joseph choked on the candy he’d only just shoved into his mouth he laughed so hard.

❖

 “I-, i-, it’s not m-, m-, much,” Stanley said as he led Sava and the others to his home on the edge of the swamp.

After Mark had stopped Joseph from choking with a few well-placed blows to his upper back, the constable had explained that there were no inns, though there was an old map of the Empire that dated back to before the schism.

“Schism?” Sava had asked.

“Split,” Joseph had said, smirking at her lack of knowledge.

“I know the meaning of the word,” Sava said coldly. “Who split from whom? Or what from what?”

Joseph’s eyebrows raised above his deep-set eyes. “You never did say where you’re traveling from?”

“Across the sea,” Mark supplied.

“The sea?” Joseph asked stunned. “There’s nothing across the sea!”

“And yet here we stand as evidence to the contrary,” Sava countered.

Joseph stared silently at the tall, dark duwyn a moment before continuing. “That would explain why you know so little about the Empire,” he agreed. “The schism in the Church of the Dragon,” he explained. “This was hundreds of years ago, so I’m not sure how helpful the map will be, but…”

Sava had nodded her head in thanks, taken the map Mark retrieved from a back room after what felt like an hour of searching, and left with the others in tow.

“I’m sure it will be more than enough,” Sava said now to Stanley with a smile. “Thank you for your hospitality.” They were nearing the end of the village. The dark swamp stretched off into the distance, its dead and dying trees jutting up at odd angles.

Stanley felt a smile split his face at her words and quickly looked away from her dark eyes. He hadn’t meant to invite them to spend the night at his house, but the words tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop them, clearly and uncajoled for a change. And now he had to figure out where four extra people would sleep in his two-room shack.

“We’re here,” he announced a minute later.

They halted in front of a wooden structure on stilts with a short staircase leading to a porch that disappeared around one side. It was a small house, but well-built and clean looking.

Stanley ushered them in to a jack-of-all-trades front room. A kitchen table occupied one corner next to a counter and sink. On the wall opposite a pair of bookshelves filled to overflowing with tomes and loose pages stood on either side of a chair and small table. Directly across from the front door was a large wooden desk stained red and brown. It was full of equipment and devices, though everything was meticulously organized. In its center a dead frog was cut open and pinned down, its organs exposed.

Stanley blushed and rushed to cover the corpse.

“What are you doing with that frog?” Aura stopped Stanley with the question.

“I-, i-, i-,” but he couldn’t finish. He couldn’t even meet the duwyn’s eyes, though she waited patiently for him to continue. When he finally managed to glance in her direction, she was standing quietly and attentively beside him. He stopped trying to hide the frog with his scribbled pages of notes and held her gaze. “H-, h-, haven’t you ever wondered how our organs work?”

Aura smiled and Stanley saw her eyes light up in excitement.

“Mind if we look at those maps you mentioned?” the large Duwyn named York asked before Stanley could continue. He’d told them about his collection of books on the way over. He knew he had a few more recent maps of the Empire than the dusty, ratty one Mark had finally produced.

“And I want to know more about this Church of the Dragon,” Sava said as she sat in the chair between the bookshelves. “Ragnar,” she said to the other large duwyn. “Get a fire going please and start dinner. The least we can do is feed our gracious host from the provisions we have.”

An hour later and a lengthy explanation of the structure and history of the Church, Sava finally looked satisfied. Empty dishes – Stanley had had to use some of his scientific equipment as makeshift plates – were scattered around the various tables and his guests were stretched out against walls and in corners. Ragnar let out an enormous belch, which drew a look from Sava.

“How many days travel to here?” Sava indicated an area due north of the Empire. The map showed it to be a rugged, mountainous country covered in dense forest.

Stanley looked at the captain in surprise. “I thought you were going to the capital.”

“How long?” Sava ignored his remark.

“Months, probably,” he answered. “But you can’t go there. No one goes there. It’s wild.”

Sava smiled a small smile. “I’m sure we can manage a little wildness.”

“No, I mean, t-, t-, t-, the creatures, the things that live there, they’re wild.” He blushed slightly. His stutter, which had all but disappeared in his description of the Church of the Dragon, was back.

“Creatures?”

“Not duwyns,” Stanley replied. “Animals, or animal-like, I’m not sure. Very little is known about them because, well, they’re wild and they don’t like outsiders. They kill any that find their way into their territory. Going there would be suicide.”

Sava’s heart dropped at Stanley’s words.

That’s where Ark had been heading when last she’d made contact.

❖

“I’m sure Ark is okay,” York reassured Sava later that night. They were on the porch overlooking the swamp. The others were asleep, Ragnar grunting a goodnight on his way to a makeshift bed in one corner, and Aura, after a long talk with Stanley about his dissections, curled up in the chair between the bookshelves. Stanley had offered his bed, but Sava had assured him they were more than accustomed to sleeping on the ground.

“I’m not,” Sava replied. She was leaning against the railing with arms crossed, a deep scowl on her face. York was sitting on the steps below her poking at the ground with a stick.

“Do you think it prudent to investigate?”

Sava sighed and hugged herself tighter. Their mission was too important to risk her crew getting captured or killed in an attempt to find Ark. It was a hard truth, but one she, as captain, had to accept. The most she could do was hope Ark’s silence wasn’t what she feared. But from Stanley’s description of the region Ark was last heard from, even the irrational reassurance hope provided wasn’t much.

“She can take care of herself,” York said, as if reading Sava’s thoughts. “Besides, we both know how rumors about a foreign civilization can be exaggerated.”

“Thanks, York,” Sava gave him a tight smile. “But that does little to explain why we haven’t heard from her.”

York said nothing. There was nothing to say. Sava was too smart to believe platitudes and too strong to seek comfort in empty words.

“We continue as planned,” she said, her tone that of the captain she was.

York nodded. “To the capital, then.” He paused. “I guess that means you still think it’s worth scouting out ourselves.” He didn’t sound happy about the idea.

“Char’s report was all but useless,” Sava replied, her tone angry. “And it is the center of the Empire. We may as well start our reconnaissance with the more civilized part.”

York raised an eyebrow at her. “Females forced to cover every square inch of their bodies sound civilized?”

Stanley had told them the Church of the Dragon had instituted strict rules regarding the role female duwyns played in society after the schism. It was one of the reasons for the split to begin with. However, the further you went from the capital, the less these rules were enforced. In a place like Darkmoor, they were all but nonexistent, though women still weren’t permitted to carry weapons.

“Not allowed to leave the house without permission from a male?” York continued, ticking through the highlights of what they’d learned. “Not allowed to work? Expected to breed and raise the little ones? That sound civilized to you?”

Sava sighed and squared her shoulders towards York. “If we’re going to establish any kind of relationship with these duwyns, then we need to make contact with their leaders. That means going to the capital.”

“And you think they’ll just welcome us with open arms? Particularly given our different values?”

“I think it’s worth trying, yes,” Sava replied.

York smiled. “And worth trying harder when they balk at you leading males and wielding weapons?”

Sava returned the smile. “You know I don’t prefer violence.”

York laughed. “Unless a sexist pig is asking for it.”

Sava laughed as well. “We’re not going there looking for a fight.”

“Just hoping we get in one, right?”“Speaking of,” she nodded towards the swamp. Flashes of movement between stumps and trees had caught her attention. “What do you think they want?”

“I can only imagine,” York replied. If he was surprised by her words, he didn’t sound like it.

Sava watched as cloaked and hooded figures scuttled from tree to tree towards Stanley’s home. “Should we tell them we see them?”

“And ruin their surprise?” York asked in mock shock. “They’re trying so hard. It’s cute.”

Sava moved off the porch past York. Her weapons were inside, but she didn’t need them. She stopped a few feet from the water’s edge and waited. She could almost see the shock on the first duwyn’s face when he spotted her staring at him and his friends as they crept through the marsh. “That’ll work better if you light it,” she called out in a friendly voice, indicating the still unlit torch in the closest duwyn’s hand.

He froze and turned to another duwyn approaching on his right. They were still too far away for Sava to make out what they were frantically whispering to one another, but she had a pretty good guess. More figures began moving towards the pair from either side.

They had quite the little mob.

Sava heard York stand up and disappear inside Stanley’s house.

A minute of hushed consultation passed before the group of duwyns, at least ten strong, turned and approached Sava. They stopped a few feet from her and their leader took a step closer.

“You don’t belong here.”

Sava recognized the voice even before he threw back his hood. It was one of the bullies from earlier today. She sighed at their predictability. “You may recall,” she said in a patient voice, “that we introduced ourselves as travelers, which, by definition, means we don’t belong here. We are traveling,” she put special emphasis on the word, “passing through this area. We’ll be gone in the morning.”

A spattering of mutters and curses rippled through the crowd. “You think you’re better than us,” the speaker spat.

Sava shrugged. The door behind her opened and she heard the heavy footsteps of York and Ragnar. “I think you’re bullies. I have little tolerance for bullies.”

“You’re no better than we!” another of the cloaked figures shouted. He sounded drunk.

“You threatened us! That makes you a bully too!” Heads nodded and words of agreement flicked among the group.

Sava sighed. Why was she trying to reason with an angry mob? Oh, right, because fighting them would jeopardize their mission, she reminded herself, even as her fists clinched and she began pooling magic in her hands and feet.

A torch in the back of the crowd came to life. Then another. And another.

“Hypocritical strangers coming to our town to bully us is not something we take kindly to,” the first speaker said, lighting his torch off one of the others.

There were so many twisted half-truths and all-out lies in what the duwyn said, Sava was momentarily struck speechless.

“Wh-, wh-, what’s going on?” Stanley asked from where he now stood in the doorway to his house.

“And we definitely don’t enjoy being led through the muck and mud at the behest of an imbecile with half a tongue and even less of a brain,” the speaker snarled. “You still have yours coming, stutterer!”

“Th-, Th-, Thomas?” Stanley said, his voice uncertain and fearful. “Wh-, wh-, wh-…”

 “Wuh, wuh, wuh,” Thomas mocked. “Just spit it out already! Talking to you could age a person ten years!” The crowd laughed. Thomas continued. “We’re here to put these outsiders in their place. Females going uncovered and carrying weapons! Thinking they’re smarter than males! It’s unnatural!”

Sava had had enough. She brought her hands together in front of her in a sudden, loud clap and a rush of wind not only blew the mob’s torches out, but staggered the group. She heard the familiar sound of Ragnar’s sword unsheathing and the massive blonde duwyn stepped beside her.

“Go. Now,” he said quietly.

Thomas straightened up. He looked frightened and confused, unsure what just happened.

“This isn’t over!” he threatened lamely. “Witch!” he shouted after a moment, but he was already turning and leading his mob of would-be arsonists away like a pack of chastised dogs.

“Gather our things,” Sava said to Ragnar as she watched the backs of Thomas and the others recede into the darkness. She laid a hand on his forearm as he turned to do as she’d commanded. “And tell Stanley he’s coming with us.”

 

Zemlyanin is a stand-alone novel in The Podkind series by Johnny Cycles. Want to read the first one? Click here.