by Johnny Cycles, October 8th, 2025. Looking for the beginning? Click here.
Chapter 3
Ton rushed to Salestia and felt for a pulse. She was alive, though severely injured. Blood oozed from her hair and the hand she’d used to grab the log from the fire was blackened. Her fingers were stubs of their former selves, sliced cleanly at the middle knuckle by the dragon’s ice blade.
Ton cursed. He had the means of healing the worst of it, particularly if he could find her fingertips, but he had to act fast.
He glanced at the fireplace where the dragon had died. Flames flickered and danced, oblivious of the evil they’d only just consumed.
❖
Salestia groaned and rolled over, trying to ignore the familiar aches and pains that greeted her every morning. Just a few more minutes of glorious sleep before facing the day’s chores and disappointments.
But why did her head hurt so badly? And her fingers? They ached in a way not normal.
Bortis had worked her extra hard in preparation for the Dragon’s visit, but…
Salestia’s eyes snapped open as consciousness took hold. The day’s events clarified simultaneously with an onslaught of agony. It wasn’t just her head and fingers. Her entire body felt bruised and beaten.
“Sal?” a quiet voice tinged with urgency and worry drew her attention momentarily away from the unpleasant sensations rippling through her.
She turned her head and regretted the decision.
“Sal? Are you awake?”
Salestia focused on the voice. It was familiar, yet different. She knew the gravely, harsh sound of it, but didn’t recognize the notes of kindness and concern she now heard. It sounded unnatural, like a rat barking. “Ton?” she asked tentatively.
“Yes, it’s me. You’re okay.”
It sounded like a question forced into a statement, which did little to reassure Salestia of her current condition. She sat up and winced. Ton was squatting next to her, eyes assessing.
“We need to go,” he said.
“What?” Salestia asked. She looked around, trying to get her bearings. Had they really fought the Dragon? Had they really killed the Dragon?
“We need…”
“…to go!” she nearly shouted and leapt up as the full realization of what had happened struck her.
“Careful,” Ton cautioned, supporting her by the elbow with a surprisingly gentle touch as he stood with her. “You’re injured.”
Salestia shook Ton’s hand off, not registering the irony of such a move after her various midnight musings about the rough stranger. “And you’re insane!” she said, moving towards the door. The pain of her injuries had diminished considerably, dulled by her panic and fear.
“What?”
“You killed a Dragon!” she shouted now, turning on him. “A Dragon!”
“You helped,” he said and smiled.
Salestia did a double take at the sight. It was the first time she’d seen him do anything other than scowl and it did something to his face, morphing it from the hard, angry drunk to a young, handsome, dare she say happy, duwyn.
“But yes,” he continued, “that’s why we need to go. Now.”
Salestia turned back to the door, then stopped. It was hopeless. “They’ll hunt us down and kill us,” she said more calmly now, as if stating an obvious and simple fact.
“Which is why we have to go,” Ton repeated calmly. He brushed past her towards the hallway.
“Where?” Salestia said, desperation making her voice rise to something close to shrill. “Don’t you get it? They’ll find us wherever we go and kill us! Or worse!” She grabbed Ton by the shoulder to stop him. That’s when she noticed the blue light seeping out of neat bandages around her fingers. “What is…?” she managed.
Ton glanced back. “You need to be careful with your hands for a day or two.”
Salestia brought her other hand up and saw more bandages with the same blue light.
“How?” she asked. The memory of sharp pain and absence brought her up short. The Dragon had cut her fingers off, she was sure of it. And yet, there they were, attached and moving.
“Healing magic,” Ton replied. “I’m not as good at it as others, but it should do.” He turned and strode out of the room, as if healing magic was something completely normal.
Salestia followed him this time.
“What about the soldiers downstairs?” she asked, only just now remembering how this nightmare had started. “How are we going to get past them?”
Ton stopped in the hallway just past the threshold. “Don’t worry about them,” he answered as he retrieved his daggers from the throats of the two soldiers who had been guarding the Dragon when she’d arrived.
Salestia shuddered and looked away. She wasn’t sure what was more disturbing, the dead men slumping to the ground or the casual way in which Ton pulled his knives from their corpses, as if he’d done it a million times.
Ton was moving with a purpose down the hall towards the stairs, and Salestia tripped after him, shorter legs pumping fast. She felt weak and woozy, fragile as a newborn baby. Or as an old-as-the-hills dwarf, one foot in the cairn. “Bortis?” she asked, spiteful hope flavoring her voice.
Ton looked back at her then, dark eyes appraising. “What would you like to do to him?”
To him, she thought, not with him. Salestia suppressed a shudder. Ton had heard the dark intention in her voice and it hadn’t appalled him, or even surprised him. She might need to rethink her fantasies about this duwyn capable of killing a dozen men and an Elder Dragon. Not to mention the magic. Where had he learned that? Magic had died out with the green of the land centuries ago. At least, that’s what her grandma had told her growing up.
They were almost down the stairs now. “Where is he?”
Ton shrugged. “Hiding in his office?”
“You don’t think he went for help?”
Ton smiled then, but it wasn’t the face-transforming smile of earlier that made him look young and friendly. It was the baring of teeth of a hunter who’s spotted his prey in the trap. “I’ll get the horses.”
Salestia watched Ton’s back as he disappeared through the front door and into the night. She hesitated a moment. She hated Bortis, had hated him ever since she figured out his kindness in offering her a job and a place to stay for her and her sister came with unspoken conditions.
Why she had been surprised by this was almost as surprising as the first time Bortis had maneuvered his drunken, sweaty bulk into her bed. She’d suffered his advances for the sake of Talinia. What she hadn’t realized was that he’d grow tired of her and start on her sister. Another life lesson she should have seen coming.
She grabbed the poker from the still burning fire and went in search of Bortis.
❖
Ton found the Dragon’s carriage and horses in the barn. He gave the inside of the carriage a quick search but didn’t find anything worth taking other than a leather-bound notebook with some kind of writing in a language he didn’t recognize filling its pages. The letters were tiny, scrawled in wavy lines as if by a child. On the cover was the seal of the dragons, two staves crossed over a triangular-shaped shield. He pocketed the notebook and went for the horses.
He found two massive, black beasts lazily chomping oats in the stall adjacent to his own and smiled. Horses were rare in the Empire, even in the army. But the Dragons were the elite of the elite and these were impeccable specimens. They were a rare breed that combined speed, power, and endurance, perfect for traveling the rough lands of the Empire’s borders. He quickly transferred his things to one, then led them out.
Now he just had to find some oil.
❖
Salestia emerged from the Manor House to find Ton waiting for her, blazing torch in hand. He raised an eyebrow at the fire poker she held, but made no comment about it. Instead, he asked, “Is there anything inside you want to take?”
Salestia thought of her cellar room with its dust and its vermin and shook her head. What few personal belongings she had there would bring her no fond memories.
Ton held the torch out to her.
Salestia took it and put the flame to the dark, slick spot of oil running from where they stood to disappear inside the bar.
“Let’s ride,” Ton said grimly as flames erupted inside the Manor House.
Salestia spat and clambered into the saddle like the young dwarf she actually was.
❖
They rode hard through the night, stopping only twice for short rests and to eat some dried meat and bread Ton produced from somewhere. The rush of adrenaline and euphoria Salestia had felt as they’d set out was long gone, lost somewhere along the rugged trail they were cutting south to the Rock Lands. In their place were exhaustion, a dull ache in her hands and head, and a growing fear.
They had killed a Dragon! It didn’t matter how far they ran or which direction they went, such a crime would not go unpunished.
Making matters worse, while they were ostensibly leaving the Empire, in reality, they were heading towards the Empire’s army in the south.
Salestia told Ton as much the next morning as they rested by a sputtering fire in the shadows of a deep crevice. They’d passed into the Rock Lands in the early hours of the morning, when the darkness of night had begun its gradual transformation into the gloom of another cloud-filled day. The land was slowly changing, the sandy ground of the Empire’s borderlands turning rocky and dark, gullies and ravines cutting deeper and deeper gashes through the earth.
“Look, Ton,” Salestia began, her voice dry from too much riding and too little sleep. “It’s not that I’m not grateful and all that you saved me from that,” she hesitated, not sure what to call the Dragon now that she’d seen what it was, “thing, but your heroic gesture will be wasted if we just get caught by the Empire’s army.”
Ton glanced at her, then went back to poking at the struggling fire. There wasn’t a lot of kindling in the Rock Lands.
Salestia sighed. After what had been an avalanche of words – for Ton – the night before, the duwyn had reverted back to his customary grunts and one-word remarks, most of which didn’t correspond with what she was saying. “An army, Ton,” she repeated..
“The Rock Lands are a big place,” he replied.
“So, what, we’re just going to stay here until they quit looking for us?”
Ton shrugged.
“This place isn’t fit to live in!” she retorted. “We can barely start a fire! Not to mention the predators.”
As if to show how little he was concerned with her concerns, Ton stretched out on the hard ground, pulled his lion spider fur over him, and closed his eyes. “Sleep while we can.”
Salestia stared at the young duwyn who’d saved her, about whom she’d allowed her fantasies to distract her from her miserable life, and sighed.
Sleep was a long ways off.
❖
The danger and hardships of their escape and journey through the Rock Lands soon turned into the monotonous routine of long, silent days in the saddle and cold, hard nights sleeping in the shadows and crevices of ravines. Despite Salestia’s fear of predators, so far they’d encountered nothing of the sort.
In fact, they hardly saw any signs of life anywhere. Ton was gone progressively longer each morning and evening in search of something to eat. While he was hunting, she would cajole a fire into life, boil some water, and regret the day Ton ever showed his hard, handsome face in the Manor House.
She knew it was irrational, seeing as she’d be dead, or worse, now if he hadn’t been there the night the Dragon showed up. But the pressing cold, hunger, and tedium of the present had a way of coloring even that fact with something akin to nostalgia.
She poked at the reluctant fire with a charred stick held by hands complete with all their fingers. The blue light of Ton’s healing magic had slowly faded over the first few days, leaving clean scars encircling her knuckles. She’d marveled at the process and had asked Ton about it numerous times, but he either grunted something unintelligible or said nothing.
She jammed the stick into the burning logs, hung the pot of water to boil, and sighed.
The man might as well not have a tongue for all the words he’d spoken to her since that first night. Sometimes when he was asleep – he had the most annoying ability to sleep anywhere and instantly – she’d entertain a different sort of fantasy about him. In this one, she’d creep over to his gently breathing figure, pry his mouth open, and yank his tongue out, shouting various ridiculous things as she did so – “This is what you use to talk!” or, “See, you do have one of these!” or, “I’m going to cut it out seeing as you never use it!”
She sneered at herself. Ton’s perpetual silence and curmudgeonry was beginning to make her miss Bortis, beatings, sweaty flab, and all. She wondered if Ton’s scowl and muteness were because he hadn’t had a drink in weeks. Surely he was suffering from withdrawal.
Then again, she recalled, he hadn’t been any different when he was drinking. In fact, the only time she’d seen him behave even close to a normal person was that night. After he’d killed the Dragon and his soldiers.
Salestia shuddered and not for the first time wondered who exactly Ton was and if she should be more afraid of him than of the Empire’s soldiers hunting them. Not that there had been any sign of pursuit. Grafdak was weeks’ travel from the capital, so the news of the Dragon’s death would only just now be reaching them. But she knew the pursuit would come, as surely as she knew Ton would say nothing when he returned from his morning hunt.
The hair on the back of Salestia’s neck suddenly stood up and she froze. “Ton?” she called, her voice a squeak.
A pebble bounced down from the rocks above.
❖
Ton crouched in the shadows of an overhanging rock near a trickling stream etching its way through the hard ground. These crevices and ravines were ancient, formed centuries ago by perennial floods from the north. The rain and the countless rivers and rivulets it brought had largely dried up, leaving this miniscule trickle to tease travelers of a lush land in a happier past.
Ton tried to imagine what this place had looked like then, but he didn’t have much by way of comparison to help. His home was even more desolate.
He shifted his weight to ease the burning in his right thigh. He’d been waiting for the rodent he’d spotted to reappear from its burrow for close to an hour now. Hunting was as much about patience as it was about ability to kill.
He was in no hurry.
Which was a different sort of problem than their slowly dwindling food supplies. He was in no hurry because he had no place to go. His selfish self-indulgence in lingering in Grafdak had ended the way it had, and now he had a dwarf to keep safe. That task should invigorate him, give him the purpose he’d been lacking for almost a year now, but it had the opposite effect. Instead of rising to this new challenge, apathy, lethargy almost, enveloped him. He wasn’t lost here in the Rock Lands, not in a physical sense, but he was lost in a state of spiraling depression and despondency.
Salestia wasn’t her. There was no brining her back.
So why had he stepped in that night in the Manor House to save the dwarf? Why had he killed all those duwyns and the Dragon, risking everything he’d come here for in the process?
He sneered at himself and the thought of his mission. What was the point? Let the others do it.
With a smooth, quick motion, he let fly the dagger in his hand. The marmot-like rodent that had finally emerged into the light let out a sharp squeal of pain. They’d have something fresh to eat, at least.
A scream cut the air from the direction of their camp.
Ton grabbed the dead animal and dashed off.
❖
Salestia screamed again, charred stick clutched in one hand, the knife Ton had given her in the other. She hadn’t seen anything other than the pebble, but she knew there was something out there, something that had caused the pebble to fall. She scanned the rocky ridges surrounding her, but saw nothing. Maybe it had been the wind, but that didn’t explain the feeling she’d had that something had been watching her, had caused the pebble to fall, had wanted her to know it was there.
“What is it?” Ton asked from behind her, causing her to jump. He moved like a ghost, even when hurrying apparently.
“I heard something,” Salestia replied, cutting her eyes at Ton before looking back at the rocks surrounding them.
Ton didn’t ask where. Instead, he clambered up the ravine wall and disappeared in the direction from where the pebble had fallen.
Salestia bit back the words of caution and question that came to her as he went. The duwyn wouldn’t respond. Would serve him right to get eaten by a lion spider or whatever was out there, she thought.
Ton returned a few minutes later and tossed the dead rodent at her feet.
“Well?” she prompted.
“Nothing.”
Salestia growled and snatched up the animal. “Something was out there,” she snapped as she set about skinning and cleaning the marmot. Ton hadn’t asked her to do the cooking – that would require talking – but she’d started doing it the first time he came back from one of his hunts. He, as usual, had said nothing to stop her. It helped calm her nerves to keep busy doing something familiar.
“I believe you,” Ton replied, settling down by the fire. That was his routine. He’d close his eyes and nap, or pretend to nap, probably to avoid conversation, she thought bitterly, while she made breakfast.
“You do?” Salestia asked, her tone wavering between the fight she was prepared to wage and surprise she didn’t have to. “What do you think it was?” she asked when he didn’t reply.
“Lion spider,” Ton answered, crossing his arms over his chest and closing his eyes.
“What?!” Salestia nearly shouted. She stood and frantically looked around at the rocks above them. “Is it gone? How do you know? What are we going to do?” she fired the questions at him in a burst of panic.
Ton shifted his shoulders but didn’t even open his eyes.
Salestia nearly hit him with the bloody corpse of the animal she was about to skewer.
“Ton! Answer me, curse you!”
“It’s gone. It’s been following us for a couple of days. I think there are two, maybe three of them. We aren’t going to do anything yet.” Ton delivered this speech with closed eyes, clearly more annoyed at having to speak than by the very dangerous predators stalking them.
Salestia did hit Ton then, striking him again and again with the dead rodent. “A couple of days?!” Whack. “You’ve known about them and you said nothing!?” Whack. “You left me here by myself!?” Whack.
Ton didn’t move, though he did open one eye as Salestia’s rage crescendoed and was spent.
“I can’t believe you,” she said, gasping, the remnants of their uncooked breakfast splattered about them. She was squatting by the fire, eyes boring into the still motionless figure. “You’re an asshole, a total and complete asshole! I don’t care that you saved me! Why save me? To bring me out here to get eaten? Or worse, to ignore me until I get so bored I go find the lion spiders myself? Gods and demons! If you’d just open your cursed mouth every once and awhile and use your flaming words like an adult, I wouldn’t be so scared.”
Ton sat up.
“NO!” Salestia shouted, jabbing a finger at him. “Don’t start talking now! Heaven forbid you interact with your only traveling companion.” She paused and took a ragged breath. “You know, I used to think you were this mysterious, tragic duwyn, hiding a dark secret and a broken past, but now I realize you’re just a pathetic drunk full of self pity and self loathing!”
Ton blinked, but said nothing.
“We’ve all lost someone, you know,” she said, quieter this time. “You don’t have a monopoly on pain.”
“Who did you lose?” Ton asked, his tone surprisingly gentle after her tirade.
“Fuck you!” Salestia shouted and brushed by him and down the gully their camp was in.
❖
Ton dropped his head as Salestia barreled past him, blazing a trail of anger and hurt away from their camp. He was and wasn’t surprised by her words. He hadn’t thought he’d been such a difficult companion, but he’d known it was just a matter of time before she figured out he wasn’t good for anything other than killing and drinking. He should never have stopped so long in Grafdak. He never should have saved her.
But then she’d be dead. Or worse.
He still wasn’t sure what the Dragon had been doing to her when he’d saved her, and they hadn’t talked about it.
He sighed. They should have talked about it. Small comfort that his training hadn’t included much by way of dealing with post-traumatic stress and loss. She didn’t know that, nor should it have mattered. He was a living, thinking, feeling being, after all, even if he’d drank most of his thoughts and feelings into hibernation.
He’d just finished gathering up what remained of their food and water when a sound behind him caused him to turn. “Salestia,” he began, then froze. Three lion spiders stared their hundred-eye stare at him. Before he could move, the middle creature spoke.
“We have your barra,” the thing said, lisping slightly.
He couldn’t believe it could talk. “Sal?” Ton asked by way of clarification.
“The dwarf,” the creature said. “She will die if you don’t do what we say.”
Ton stared at the lion spider’s blinking eyes. Its lids didn’t close in unison, and the effect was discombobulating. He took in the two long fangs protruding from its mouth and the shorter, less sharp teeth on either side. It must be an omnivore, Ton couldn’t help but think as his brain calculated his chances of killing all three.
“How do I know you haven’t killed her?” he asked, stalling as his mind raced through possible combat scenarios. The creatures really were alpha predators, and Salestia had been right to be impressed that Ton had killed two of them. Their eight legs gave them a speed and agility that was shocking in a creature so large – they were easily the size of a horse – and they could move along walls as effortlessly as on the ground. Their head wasn’t like that of a normal spider. It was wide and round and sat on a long, muscular neck that allowed it to swivel and bite as effectively to the side as to the front. It was this neck as much as the creature’s dark, fur-covered body that accounted for the lion in its appellation.
The creature’s mouth opened wider in what Ton could only describe as a smile. “You may have killed two of us, but if we wanted you dead, you would be,” it remarked, reading Ton’s appraising stare.
Ton tilted his head in acknowledgement of the thing’s prowess. Pissing contests were a waste of time and energy. They’d learn soon enough who would win in a fight should Salestia be dead. “Take me to her.”
From the top of the ravine, four more lion spiders suddenly appeared. Two scuttled down the walls towards Ton, who didn’t flinch. Once on either side of him, they turned and excreted a white substance from the back of their torso. Before Ton realized what was happening, he was enclosed in a thick web and lifted on to the back of one of the creatures. He thought briefly about their horses. He hoped they’d found their way to safety.
❖
Salestia struggled against the chords that bound her, but they only seemed to tighten with the effort. She hadn’t made it ten feet from the first bend in the ravine when the creature fell upon her. It hadn’t bitten her, but it hadn’t needed to. In mere moments, her hands and feet were wrapped in a white, sticky substance and the lion spider was standing over her, leering and breathing its fetid breath on her. She spat in its open mouth.
And now she was being carried face-down across the creature’s back. She’d managed a few glimpses of the ground and ravines around them through the lion-spider’s stubbly legs, but at this point it was too dark to see anything. It wasn’t night yet, so the thing must have dragged her into its lair under the Rock Lands.
A part of her felt satisfaction over puzzle pieces coming together – that would explain how the lion spider lived in such a god-forsaken place – but the larger part of her was equal parts angry and afraid. Anger at Ton for getting her in this situation and fear for the obvious reasons. Who knew what these things did to their living victims, but it probably wouldn’t involve a hot bath and a cool drink.
She squirmed against her restraints and tried to twist over onto her side to get a better look at her surroundings. A leg swatted her still and she resigned herself to breathing through her mouth. The thing smelled like rotten meat and shit.
She lost track of how long they’d been scrambling through the darkness when the lion spider suddenly stopped and thumped her unceremoniously down to the hard ground. Her head thwacked painfully against a rock and she cursed the creature’s back as it scuttled away into the darkness.
That’s when she realized she could see the darkness, which meant there was a light somewhere. She wiggled around to face the opposite direction and saw a massive tunnel twist off into the distance. And there was a draft, she realized, choking back bile from the overwhelming stink. More shit and death. A sudden thunk had her twisting back.
Ton lay wrapped in webs at her side.
Salestia snorted, more from despair than derision. So much for her hero saving the day again. She met his eyes, rolled hers, and looked away.
“They threatened to kill you,” Ton said.
Salestia snorted the derisive kind this time. “So you let yourself get captured and dragged here to, what, be their second course?”
“They want something from us.”
“Yeah, our bone marrow and brains, I’d wager. At least you’ll die a slow death along with me.”
“Sal, look, I’m…”
“Don’t mistake me, Ton. The only comfort I’ll get from your presence will come from the knowledge that you’re suffering the same as me.”
Ton sighed and started to say something, but a shadow fell across his face and they both twisted up to look. Two lion spiders, larger than the ones that brought them this far and with different color fur, loomed over them. Without warning, each stabbed a leg into the webs binding their feet and dragged them towards the large opening. Salestia lifted her head to keep it from bouncing off stray rocks and stared at the lion spider’s ass as it pulled her to her death.
Chapter 4
They left Darkmoor before first light the next morning, before the mob could lick their wounds and regain their courage. Sava really didn’t want to have to kill anyone, particularly those who were evil by ignorance more than by choice. Blowing out their torches with magic had been the least violent way of resolving the situation. It came with its own risks, however, risks of drawing too much unwanted attention to them too soon.
But she’d had little choice at the time. Reasoning with a drunken mob rarely resulted in anything but drunken violence.
Stanley hadn’t wanted to leave, of course, but a short conversation with Aura changed his mind. Sava let her shipmate do the convincing since she didn’t want to encourage anymore goo-goo eyes and stupid smiles from Stanley. It was in his own best interest that the duwyn get over his crush on her or Ragnar may get him over it.
Leaving Darkmoor, they followed the large river that fed into the swamp in the direction of the Empire’s capital. The ground gradually became drier and the mosquitoes thankfully became scarcer. The marshy forest bordering the river broadened out on both sides as far as the eye could see.
Which was the unusual thing, Sava realized after they’d left the swamp behind for good. She could see a great distance in this forest. She was used to the densely packed trees and thick underbrush that were the main features of the forests back home. But here there were no bushes or young saplings, and the trees themselves looked dead or dying, as if winter had perpetually taken hold despite the balmy weather. It made for easy but monotonous travel.
Everything was so…
“Why aren’t any of the trees green?” Sava asked Stanley when the true oddity of the place sunk in. It felt like they were walking through the skeleton of a forest, or the dried-out remains of one. Everything was brown and gray.
“Gr-, gr-, green?” Stanley repeated the word as if he hadn’t heard her. “N-, n-, nothing’s green anymore.”
“Anymore?” Sava asked. They were walking in a ragged line through the empty forest.
York was a few yards behind, ostensibly covering their rear, while Ragnar was ranging out ahead, clearly visible between the brown trunks. Aura was on the other side of Stanley, who remained in the protective center of their party. He was a civilian, after all, and an unwilling companion. It’d be a shame to get him killed.
Stanley looked at Sava with a puzzled expression. “The land lost its color hundreds of years ago,” he explained. “Is it not like that on the other side of the sea?”
Sava ignored his question. “How many hundreds of years ago?”
Stanley shrugged. “Th-, th-, the last generation to see a green tree was probably my gr-, gr-, great grandfather’s. My grandfather used to tell stories his grandfather had told him about the swamp being full of life. And of the seasonal floods that made the land as fertile as, as, well, really fertile,” Stanley finished and blushed at his lack of eloquence. “’Anything and everything used to grow around here,’ he always said. I n-, n-, never really believed him,” he finished with a shy smile.
“What happened?” Sava asked. “What made the land change?”
“D-, d-, depends on who you ask,” Stanley answered as he hopped over a fallen log. “The Church says it’s because the dragons have all died.”
Sava nodded. The Church of the Dragon held as its central belief that the world had been created by the Great Mother Dragon to serve as her birthing grounds. She laid eggs in the four corners of the planet from which hatched the four brother gods who ruled the separate regions of the world after each consumed a part of their mother, thereby absorbing some of her godhood. From the brother gods, life as it was had sprung forth. The mother dragon had thus not only sacrificed herself for the good of her children, but for all those who now lived on the planet. Stanley had explained all this to them the previous evening.
“But you don’t agree?” she asked
“Who knows?” Stanley replied. “No one’s ever seen the dragons. At least, no one alive.”
“What did your grandfather say?”
“He told stories of the dragons, sure,” Stanley said. “B-, b-, but he told lots of stories.”
More than a week after they’d left Darkmoor the forest ended. They emerged from it early one morning to find a vast plain stretching out before them. Far away to the north, plateaus and crags broke the monotony of the horizon. Storm clouds loomed above them. The way forward, east towards the capital, was flat and clear and just as dead as the forest they’d left behind. Brown and sickly yellow grass folded limply before the constant wind. Loose, fragmented clouds scurried across the otherwise clear sky.
“Is that storm heading this way?” Aura asked. She was typically quiet, content to let others do the talking, while she did the observing, and so the question surprised Sava.
Stanley, however, was quick with an answer.
“T-, t-, they’re always there.” He looked at Aura and then quickly away, his face flushing. “That’s the beginning of the W-, W-, Wild lands,” he finally finished.
Sava stared hard at the north, tempted by its deceptively close proximity to rush off after Ark. But she knew better than to think the plateaus and thunderclouds were within a few days’ ride. Or even weeks’. Distances were deceiving in such a place as this. “You know a lot about the Empire for never having left home,” she remarked.
Stanley’s blush deepened. “I read a lot of b-, b-, books.”
“Where do you get books in a place so far from everything?” Aura asked.
Sava didn’t listen to Stanley’s answer, though she did notice his eagerness to explain and Aura’s sudden verbosity.
Another week of travel left them in an ocean of dying grass, the mountains to the north with their perpetual dark sky hanging over them now as monotonous and familiar as the plains they were slowly traversing. At least, Sava assured herself they were in fact making progress. Once the forest behind them disappeared from view, it became impossible to judge how far they’d gone each day. And with each camp made as the light failed around them, Sava had a harder and harder time shaking the feeling that they were just treading water, or grass, as the case may be.
The mood of her companions worsened with each passing day, as well. Without the feeling they were progressing, each grew quieter, sinking deeper and deeper into a depression wrought by the purgatory of a never-changing and never-ending landscape.
And so it almost came as a relief when the sound of approaching horses followed by the sight of duwyns bobbing above the dead grass interrupted their march a week after they’d left the forest behind.
Sava called a halt to await the final approach of the soldiers. Her shipmates formed a casual looking line in front of Stanley, hands near weapons.
The group of riders, itself a show of power if Sava understood the rarity of horses in the Empire, fanned out in front of them, a pale, bald-headed hawkish looking duwyn at the center. The two groups stared silently at one another as the horses snorted and stamped.
Finally, the leader of the group spoke.
“I am Ral, the Dragon’s Claw, sent by the Lord Dragon himself to escort you to the capital.”
Sava held his gaze a moment, dark eyes locked on his green ones. The duwyn was smiling, but his eyes were hard and calculating and cruel. Sava had seen such eyes before and the memory gave her pause. But she didn’t have the luxury of revisiting the past at the moment. Somehow, someone had gotten word from Darkmoor to the capital that strangers were afoot. Why such a thing needed telling and why it had inspired an entire regiment of horsemen to greet them was both curious and problematic. Perhaps her stunt with the torches had been the wrong move. She wondered if they would have been met in the same fashion had they simply murdered the mob and moved on.
“I am Captain Sava,” she finally replied. “My people and I have arrived from across the sea,” she repeated what she’d told the deputy constable of Darkmoor. “We are journeying through this vast plain,” she swept out an arm to indicate the dead and dying grass surrounding them, “on our way to the capital of the Empire.”
It was Ral’s turn to remain silent, green eyes boring into Sava’s for the truth she was not telling. His face finally split in a toothy smile, though his eyes never stopped digging.
“Then you’re in luck!” He dismounted with a fighter’s grace that told Sava the sword at his hip was not simply decorative and moved to stand in front of her. His glance fell to her feet before inching its way up her legs and torso before finally reaching her eyes.
Sava sensed Ragnar moving closer and saw the group of soldiers behind Ral reach for their weapons. She flicked the index finger of her right hand to signal her shipmate to stand down and smiled. “Like what you see?” she asked seductively, kicking a hip out as she spoke.
Desire momentarily replaced calculation in Ral’s eyes, though the cruelty there never wavered. He laughed. If he were uncomfortable being called out for his lascivious undressing of her, he didn’t show it. “Females in the Empire do not wear,” he paused as if searching for the right word, “such clothing. It brings out the animal in the males, you see.”
“Women must have great power in your society if such dress,” she indicated the loose fitting pants and tunic she wore, “turns men rabid.”
Ral blinked and his smile faltered so slightly it wouldn’t have been noticeable to one less experienced in observation than Sava. He recovered quickly and smoothly. “Forgive me. The sight of such beauty has me all befuddled. But it is your weapons that are truly shocking,” Ral continued, his smile still stretching his face. “Females are life-givers here, not death-dealers. They have no need to carry weapons.”
Ragnar let out a low growl next to her, but Sava returned Ral’s smile. “In my experience, travel is a dangerous undertaking. It is best to do so prepared.”
“Of course, of course,” Ral said, his smile brightening. “But I assure you, you have nothing to fear here in the Empire.”
“Hmm,” Sava replied. “That wasn’t our experience in Darkmoor.” There was no need to pretend Ral didn’t know what had happened there.
“Yes, the borderlands are more…backwards,” he said. “Though from the reports, you and your people used,” Ral paused as if searching for the word, “magic?! Tell me, Captain Sava, is that true?”
Sava nodded slightly. “I’m not sure what your reports said, but I assure you that we possess no magic. Does such a thing exist here?”
Ral’s gaze hardened even while his smile remained frozen on his face. “Of course not.”
“Well, as you said, a backwards place. And those duwyns were drunk. Who knows what they thought they saw!” She let her gaze take in the mounted soldiers flanking Ral. “Is that why you brought so many duwyns?”
Ral performed a small bow. “A proper escort to show our visitors from across the sea the proper respect. Such guests deserve honor! The Lord Dragon eagerly awaits your arrival. He is most curious to learn about your homeland.”
Sava executed her own small bow. “Of course.” She knew the group of twenty armed duwyns for what it was, though – guards and jailors. All Sava or one of the others had to do to dissipate the mirage of a guided tour to the Empire’s center led by these well-armed and unsmiling soldiers was to start walking in a different direction. She turned and indicated her crew.
“This is Ragnar,” she said, then went on to introduce the rest of her crew. “Stanley has been kind enough to serve as our guide,” she finished, nodding towards the small duwyn trying not to draw the attention of Ral. “He is accompanying us to the capital.”
Ral surveyed the others, barely glancing at Stanley. “There is no longer any need for a guide. He may return to Darkmoor.”
“Stanley,” Sava looked at him. “Would you like to return home or continue on to the capital?”
Stanley’s eyes darted between Ral and Sava. He licked his lips before answering. “T-, t-, the capital,” he said.
Sava smiled at Ral. “Shall we?” she asked before he could protest. She watched the conflict resolve itself in his eyes, though, and knew he, much like she, was scouting out the battlefield and gauging the enemy.
“Of course,” he replied with another bow. “As you wish.” He turned and ordered horses brought and, with a flourish, offered to help Sava into the saddle. “We wouldn’t expect our guests to walk while we rode.”
Sava returned the bow and stepped lightly up onto Ral’s outstretched hands and into the saddle. He managed to squeeze her foot in a way that nearly made her shudder.
❖
“Ragnar, son of Ragnar, rip fool’s belly open and bathe in guts!”
He and Sava, ostensibly to take care of their personal needs, were far from the camp Ral had ordered set up after a day of hard riding.
Sava turned her large shipmate to face her, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed him hard and long. After a moment, she felt her partner relax and return the kiss. “You will have to get in line,” she said after pulling herself away.
Ragnar smiled and reached for her again, but she held him at arm’s length.
“But we can’t go murdering every creep we meet,” she continued. “Nor can we risk giving ourselves away again. No magic.”
Ragnar growled. He became more inarticulate the angrier he became, frequently reverting back to the barbarian he once was. “Creep know more than seems.”
Sava nodded. “It’s a dangerous game we’re playing.” She sighed. “But with Char and Ark missing, we have little choice.” She put a hand to Ragnar’s face. “Control yourself. I must play a role with this Dragon’s Claw. You will not like it, but it is necessary.”
Ragnar engulfed her hand with his own and pulled her to him again. “After, we bathe in his blood and fuck on his corpse.”
Sava barely hid the shock her partner’s words gave her. Even after all these years, his savagery still surprised her. She smiled. “Let’s keep our options open on that one, shall we?”
It took two weeks for the Empire’s troops to find Sava and her crew and “escort” them to the capital.
❖
They made good time on the horses Ral provided and the vast plain was soon left behind, replaced by a hard road through small villages and languid farmland where blighted plants determinedly offered a meager crop. That anything could live and grow in a place so bereft of life was beyond Sava’s understanding. The duwyns they saw looked as sad and pathetic as the land they worked. Each village they passed through increased the feeling they were riding through a ghost country populated by half-duwyn, half-spirit creatures who hadn’t yet fully passed over to the life beyond death.
The bleak and gloomy atmosphere weighed heavier and heavier on Sava and the others.
The need to remain on guard and ready to fight or flee gave them a purpose, but the dead and dying land around them slowly eroded away their desire to do anything other than follow Ral mindlessly forward. For his part, the Dragon’s Claw maintained the appearance of the cheerful host conducting a grand tour of his home. He kept up a constant string of chatter with Sava throughout most of the day, narrating the landscape and sights as they passed and asking for details about Sava’s homeland. He studiously ignored the others while tirelessly flirting with her. It was more exhausting than the travel itself, which consisted of day after day in the saddle, and night after night on the hard, dry ground.
Another week passed this way before they reached a proper town with stone buildings and streets lined with wooden walkways.
“Welcome to First Hope,” Ral announced as they crested a hill one evening to find a tightly packed group of buildings in the crook of a wide river running crossways before them.
From this vantage point, Sava could see that the fields along the river didn’t look as yellow and sickly as the ones they’d passed on their way. You couldn’t say the crops were flourishing, but they were doing more than barely clinging to life. The sun’s fading light seeping through thin clouds almost made them look golden. “First Hope?” she turned an inquisitive smile on Ral.
“It is an old name for an old town,” Ral replied and spurred his horse forward.
Sava shared a look with Ragnar, whose now perpetual scowl had only hardened and deepened since Ral’s appearance. They’d kept their relationship no secret from the Dragon’s Claw, but so far this had done nothing to hinder his shameless flirting. Sava quickly caught up with Ral and matched his pace. “Tell me, Ral,” she began as she surveyed the outskirts of First Hope, “what’s wrong with the duwyns in this land?”
Ral raised an eyebrow at her. “I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific.”
Sava nodded towards a group of workers who were trudging along the road just ahead on their way home from a long day in the fields. They didn’t just look sickly; they looked fragile, as if a strong wind would blow them over. Their skin had the color and texture of old parchment paper. “They look…dried out almost.”
Ral made no effort to conceal the disgusted look he leveled on the group of workers as they rode past them. The duwyns shuffled off the road and kept their gazes down.
“The land is dying. The people are dying along with it.”
“But why?”
“The dragons are dead,” Ral answered. “Without their life force to feed the earth, it is consuming itself. It will continue to do so until there is nothing left.”
“What then?”
“Rebirth.”
Sava nodded. This was in line with what Stanley had told her of the church’s doctrine.
“But not everyone thinks so, correct?”
Ral met her gaze as they reached the first row of buildings marking the beginning of the town proper. “Heathens and heretics you mean.”
Sava didn’t look away. From what she understood, the schism in the Church had been mostly over this argument. Ral and his side believed the dragons had died and would be reborn at some unknown point in the future. The so-called heathens and heretics claimed the dragons had fallen asleep and would awaken at some unknown point in the future. To Sava it was all the same and she marveled that the church had split so violently over what essentially was an issue of semantics. Stanley had described the various atrocities that had occurred when the disagreement had reached its peak. Schism was just a kind way of saying mass murder.
She decided not to press the issue with Ral now, but instead asked, “But you and your soldiers don’t look the same. You don’t appear to be dying along with the land.”
Ral smiled. “We are the protectorates of the Church. We are alive thanks to our faith.”
“So those don’t believe?”
Ral’s smile broadened. “Some do. Others don’t. Some have great faith. Some have little. But they are but the body of the Church. We are its head. And its heart. From us the Church will be reborn along with the dragons!”
Sava nodded, though she was getting lost in all the rhetoric and metaphors. It sounded like a lot of bullshit to her and she wondered what was really going on.
They finally stopped and dismounted before a shabby-looking two-story building with a wrap-around porch and a small barn in the back. The innkeeper rushed out to greet them, nearly touching his head to the ground his bows were so deep. He was a thin man with the now-familiar dried out look of one much older. He had wispy hair and large brown eyes over a small nose and wide mouth.
“Your graciousness,” he said to Ral, though his eyes never reached above the Dragon’s Claw’s waist. “You honor me with your visit. My inn is far too humble for one…”
“Stop talking,” Ral interrupted in a quiet, almost gentle voice, though Sava recognized in it the cruelty she’d grown accustomed to seeing in his eyes.
The innkeeper’s mouth hung open a moment in shock before he bowed low once more.
“We’ll take all of your rooms. Draw up a bath for the lady,” he indicated Sava, “and prepare your finest meal. No piss soup or rotten meat.”
“A-, a-, all the rooms your holiness?” the innkeeper managed after it became clear Ral would say no more. “W-, what of the other guests?”
Ral’s face hardened and his eyes gleamed. Sava saw glee in them. What she didn’t see was the backhanded blow Ral dealt the innkeeper. She’d never seen anyone move so fast. Rather, she hadn’t even seen him move he was so quick. One moment the innkeeper was doing his best to appear accommodating and subservient, the next he was on his knees, bloody face in the mud. Ragnar growled. York shouted something in protest. Stanley cowered.
“Must I repeat my orders?” Ral asked, his tone light and annoyed, as if he were complaining about a petty, but not difficult, chore.
The innkeeper scrambled up and away, a “No, your honor,” floating back in his wake.
“Was that necessary?” Sava asked.
Ral looked at her and for the first time Sava thought she saw behind the façade of the ingratiating host to the harsh general beneath. “I wouldn’t dare tell you how to treat your crew, Captain. Do not presume to instruct me on how to deal with the insubordination and stupidity of my parishioners.”
Sava held Ral’s hard gaze a moment, then acquiesced. “Of course,” she nodded. “Lead the way,” she signaled to the inn with a small smile.
❖
“Ragnar, son of Ragnar, cut fool’s balls off and wear them around neck!”
He and Sava were alone in their room, the finest in the inn, the innkeeper, Jorge, had assured them after Ral had insisted she, as guest of this land, have the best lodging available. It wasn’t much, but there was a bed with a thin mattress in one corner and what could pass for a tub in the other. Sava was more than accustomed to the discomforts of travel, but that didn’t prevent her from being more than eager to indulge in the amenities of civilization, even ones as lacking as these.
“Control yourself,” she chided Ragnar, who was pacing back and forth across their small room. She’d just emerged from the bath and was drying off. Ragnar was so angry at Ral he didn’t even register her nudity.
Ragnar growled and made another circuit of the room. “Ragnar, son of Ragnar, make fool’s death slow. Slow and painful.”
“Remember your training,” she continued. “It is not for us to right every wrong we encounter here. We cannot let injustices, no matter how offensive, prevent us from completing our mission, and right now our mission is to reach the capital.”
Ragnar finally turned to face his partner. “Rag…,” he stopped midsentence as he took in Sava’s lack of clothing. The scowl that had so marred his face these past days was replaced by an ardent desire Sava could almost feel from where she stood by the tub. She smiled. The giant barbarian strode towards her and swept her up in his arms.
A knock on the door interrupted them.
Ragnar made a desperate, angry sound and pressed Sava to him tighter, but she pushed him back. “Duty calls, my love,” she whispered. “Later.”
Ragnar reluctantly let his arms fall to his sides, then stomped towards the door as Sava covered herself with a towel.
Ral stood in the narrow, dirty hall leading to the stairs to the common room with a broad smile on his face. Ragnar’s thundercloud of a scowl did nothing to deter the Dragon’s Claw, who looked past him to Sava. “Would you do me the great honor of your gracious and,” he paused and let his glance take in her near nakedness, “beautiful presence for dinner?”
Ragnar reacted before Sava could answer. Quick as a cat, he grabbed Ral by the shirtfront and slammed him backwards into the wall behind him. At least, he thought he did. But a moment later he was once more standing in the doorway glaring a hole through Ral’s oily face and invasive eyes. Ragnar hesitated only a second but it was enough. Ral placed a hand on the large duwyn’s chest, stopping him as surely as a blow would.
“It is a crime of the highest order to lay hands on one of the Dragons or his representatives,” Ral whispered. He patted Ragnar’s chest. “We’ll pretend that never happened.”
Ragnar grabbed Ral’s hand in his own massive one and squeezed. He grinned as the duwyn’s knuckles ground together. He was dismayed to see Ral not even flinch.
“Ragnar, son of Ragnar do more…”
“Enough!” The word cracked like a whip. Sava, still in the towel, stepped between the dueling men. Ragnar reluctantly ceded ground, while Ral continued smiling. “You dishonor me and my crew with your actions,” she snapped at the latter. “If we truly are your honored guests, then you will treat us with the respect we are accustomed and cease these childish games of eyelash batting, lewd glances, and inappropriate innuendo.”
Ral blinked.
“You and I will speak later,” Sava continued, leveling her glare at Ragnar, who failed to look even slightly ashamed of his actions. “Now, go, both of you!”
A short while later, Sava joined the Dragon’s Claw in the common room for a modest, though surprisingly tasty meal. Jorge had partitioned off a corner of the otherwise open, rugged bar area for their dinner and personally waited on them.
Ral stood as Sava approached. “My apologies, Captain,” he said with a deep bow. “I meant no offense with my,” he paused and a half smirk, half smile crossed his face, “eyelash batting. As I said, females here do not wear such clothing for just this reason. It causes us to,” he waved a hand in front of his face, “misbehave.”
Sava nodded slightly. “Where I come from, males know how to control themselves and do not blame females for their own lack of will power and unchecked desires.”
Ral accepted the reprimand and signaled Sava to sit as he took the seat opposite. “But you are in my land, are you not?”
“Shall I cease being who I am simply because I crossed a border?” Sava asked in reply. “Tell me, Dragon’s Claw, should I stop being captain as well as cover my entire body for fear of bringing the animal out in you?”
Ral smiled and waved Jorge, who’d been hovering at the edge of the partition, over.
“Tell me more of this land you are from, where females not only carry weapons, but lead males!”
“I have told you all there is to tell,” Sava replied, smiling at Jorge as he poured wine into her glass.
“I would hear it again,” Ral said, his tone unyielding. “It is just so fascinating!”
“Of course,” Sava said and told him again of her homeland. She couldn’t shake the feeling, though, that this was more of an interrogation than a casual dinner.
❖
York watched Ragnar and Ral enter the common room, the former scowling so hard York worried he’d leave scars, while the latter wore the same shit-eating grin he always did while interacting with Sava and her lover. York sighed and signaled to the bartender, a short, stout woman with luxurious dark hair and ample soft curves in the places so cherished by most males. York, for his part, didn’t care for females and their squishy parts, but he did notice this particular one looked healthier than any they’d seen so far, and she wasn’t covering every inch of her body, as they’d been told females did in the capital.
He nodded his gratitude as she set another mug of ale down in front of him, then cut a glace at the group of soldiers crowding the opposite end of what passed for the bar, two rough-hewn planks stretched across empty barrels. A counter with mostly full bottles of liquor ran behind the bar, while a lively fire danced in a hearth opposite. Tables full of the rest of their escort were scattered in the remaining space. A backdoor led to the wrap-around porch and the barn, while the staircase to the second floor was to the right of the main entrance. All in all, it wasn’t the worst bar York had ever seen. Clean enough and well-stocked.
Ragnar glared at York as he stalked through the loud and crowded room on his way to the porch. Some of the soldiers grumbled as he bumped by them, but none wanted to pursue the matter further with the furious barbarian.
“What do you think that’s all about?” Aura asked as Ragnar slammed through the door behind them. She had a glass of whiskey in front of her that she’d barely touched.
York shrugged. “Ral, I imagine.”
“How many drinks is it going to take before you go talk to him?” she asked.
“I doubt Ragnar wants my company right now.”
Aura poked York in the ribs with an elbow. “Stop playing stupid.”
York glanced again at the tall, thin duwyn with the freckles flanked at the bar by two of his comrades. He blushed, though it was hardly visible on his tan face.
“Seriously, York!” Aura half-chided, half-encouraged. “Go talk to him!”
“I’m on duty,” he grumbled, which was true. As long as Sava was with that Dragon’s Claw, York wasn’t just on duty, he was on guard. He didn’t trust the bald-headed, hawk-looking duwyn anymore than Ral probably trusted them. All the fake smiles and empty words did little to hide the threat each posed to the other – York and the rest as potential invaders, and Ral and the Empire as potential jailors. Sava’s explanation of the magic she’d used in Darkmoor had sounded reasonable enough, but York knew better than to think Ral believed her. And until who they were and what they wanted was established, they would be looked at as dangerous foreigners.
“That’s your fourth beer,” Aura retorted. “My kind of duty!”
York snorted. “This stuff wouldn’t get a baby buzzed. It looks and tastes like dirty water.”
Aura laughed and took a sip of her whiskey. Her eyes bulged momentarily and she sniffed her finger to stop her mouth watering. “That’s stronger than Paris’s brew!”
“Code names, Aura,” York said automatically.
Aura rolled her eyes but said nothing.
“Where’s Stanley?”
“How should I know?”
York glanced at her from the corner of his eye, then took a long draught from the mug.
Despite what he’d told her, he was beginning to feel a slight light-headedness. He’d need to stop after this one.
Aura blushed into the silence. “Ten years is a long time, York.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Go talk to him already, then!”
The door to the porch opened and Ragnar joined them at the bar.
“Feeling better?” York asked the barbarian.
Ragnar grunted. “Whiskey!” he shouted at the bartender, who was in a deep discussion with the group of soldiers opposite. She said something to them that made them laugh, then turned to Ragnar with a smile. Ragnar’s glower deepened. “Two!”
“A little politeness goes a long way, Ragnar,” York remarked.
“Polite like that fool?!” Ragnar nearly shouted.
Aura laughed and downed her whiskey. She took the extra one from the bartender before Ragnar could snatch if off the counter. “Jealousy is unbecoming.”
Ragnar glared at her through the disappearing whiskey as he gulped it down. “Ragnar not jealous of fool!” he snapped. “Fool disrespect Sava. Fool disrespect Ragnar. Fool die a slow, painful death. Ragnar eat his…”
“Ew,” Aura interrupted. “No details, please. Haven’t you been with us long enough to lose all that,” she paused, “backwardness?”
“Respect not backward!”
“I meant the eating of dead people’s innards.”
“Not dead,” Ragnar smiled wickedly. “Whiskey!” Ragnar shouted at the bartender.
A few hours later the common room of Jorge’s inn was louder and more boisterous than it had ever been. The whiskey had eventually melted Ragnar’s icy mood and he was currently arm wrestling two of the Empire’s soldiers while chugging a flagon of ale. He was winning.
Meanwhile, York had finally mustered up the courage to strike up a conversation with the freckled, thin duwyn, and they’d disappeared somewhere along the way. Stanley had joined them at the bar, but after a few more whiskeys, Aura had dragged him to the seats by the hearth, where they were currently entangled in each other’s arms.
Only Sava and Ral remained silent, sitting as they were on opposite ends of the common room and observing the commotion. They were like two boulders in a roaring river, stoic and untouched by the rapids. Their dinner had ended amicably enough and without Ral’s usual flirtatiousness. Nonetheless, Sava couldn’t help but feel like she was somehow being fooled by this Dragon’s Claw. They were both playing a game, she understood, but she wondered if she knew all the rules.
Her thoughts automatically went to Ark and Char. Were they okay? Should she have abandoned them to seek out the capital? Her stomach churned at the thought they were hurt or in trouble somewhere and in need of help, help she had chosen not to render in favor of continuing their mission. She silenced the doubts and fears coursing through her mind and stomach. Ark and Char had been specially trained to survive hostile environments alone. They could take care of themselves.
In the meantime, she needed to focus on the task at hand – convincing this Dragon’s Claw they were not a threat.
Zemlyanin is a stand-alone novel in The Podkind series by Johnny Cycles. Want to read the first one? Click here.