Hiero was certain anyone left aboveground was either dead or turned Blighted.

It had been three days since the Blighted Multitude breached the inner ward of Aderenthyn Citadel. The field of tents and banners was submerged in molten shadows. The survivors of the flood—a pitiful few thousand by Hiero’s reckoning, compared to the tens of thousands the garrison had a month and a half ago—shut themselves inside the Gaolyan palaces.

Scarcely a day after that, those palaces fell one by one to relentless assault. The light-forsaken was done toying with them.

Hiero didn’t know what became of the other groups, but theirs retreated into the earth, having nowhere else to run.

They endeavored to lose themselves in gaping caverns and jagged cracks formed eons past by aileh bursts, connected with pristine constructions of the Gaolyans. Weeks prior, the Delves dug side passages, stocked provisions, and constructed extensive fortifications underground. They were as prepared as could be, yet everyone knew it wasn’t enough.

It was the last stand no one wished for.

Even Hiero.

Though he intended to descend the tunnels, the heart node, his ultimate goal, how things unfolded was far from what he envisioned. Alluverius and the others should’ve finished preparations while the Blighted Multitude was outside the Citadel. And as the battle raged on the walls, Hiero would steal away to the heart node and spark the beginning of the end.

What ended up happening?

Here Hiero was, with a few hundred others, more obstacles than allies, scurrying through the bowels of the earth as the Blighted chased them like great indigestion no sphincter could hold back. His indecision was partly to blame; he shouldn’t have wavered. But though his plan was tattered, it was plenty salvageable.

I can still return to the right track, Hiero convinced himself as he walked through freshly dug trenches. So… why am I here instead of doing just that?

He nodded at the stationed soldiers sitting on the ground cradling their weapons, offering a smile. He instinctively did it. They stirred and looked up at him. Their unwashed, gaunt faces masked their descent. The ragged surcoats over their armor had lost colors.

“Draecontyr…” murmured one. Their resigned faces lit up for a moment before reality slapped the hope out of them. They returned to their stupor as Hiero moved on.

When Lucas Cairon destroyed the palace basement and brought the tunnel entrance down behind them to impede the Blighted, the soldiers were forced to accept that this was their final resting place. Several Draecontyrs in their Scaled Titan forms had died, gnawed by the swarming Blighted like maggots on a still-living creature. Only three remained. What hope did they have?

Some entertained the fantasy of finding an unexplored tunnel leading to escape. Hiero heard their murmurings.

If there was such salvation, and Hiero doubted it, the exit should open far, far from where they were, for shadows had claimed the valley where the Citadel stood guard. A fortnight ago, the Blighted Multitude appeared on the western side of the Citadel. They were encircled, the noose tied—now, it had tightened.

The Ashilvan twins failed to seal the mountain passes.

It wasn’t surprising that tendrils of the Blighted Multitude overcame the precarious cliffs and almost vertical faces of the Aderenthyn Ridge. The ever-shifting weather brought by violent aileh tumbles and frequent avalanches would’ve claimed thousands of the light-forsaken. But the Multitude didn’t care for that; it was only a matter of time until they reached the other side.

And they did.

What was surprising was the Draecontyrs of Vestnord holding them off for so long. No word reached the Citadel about their fates. Either the twins died, or they fled back to Vestnord, behind the Iron Maw mountains, to wait for the end with their families.

Were they able to make that choice?

Hiero reached a curve of the trench where Bellighost, the general of a merchant city-state bordering Grammanus, sat in his lonesome, away from the two dozen or so of his surviving men.

Flanking the brooding general were two Dust sakers, which he had looted from a downed airscrew barge, propped against the dirt wall. He had a crate of Dust beneath him, a spear in one hand, its blade subdued in the dark, and an opened locket in the other. The piece of jewelry caught the flicker of the purple flames the next trench over and glinted subtle gold.

“My beloved Pealisoul…” Bellighost fondly nodded at the locket. He leaned against the thick barrel of the Dust saker to this left. “Pealisoul, we will see each other soon, that I know.”

By the look on the general’s face, the locket contained the picture of his lover. Perhaps he couldn’t accept that they wouldn’t meet again and fed himself nonsense to keep going. Hiero had witnessed this more times than he could count in the many battles he had trudged through. In the face of death, people tended to draw strength from others: their families, their lovers, their friends, their leaders, and even fellow soldiers.

Hiero never had that connection with anyone.

Or did he?

No. He wracked his brain, and nothing came up. No one would mourn if he died; he didn’t have anyone to mourn. It was somehow comforting to think of it.

“General Bellighost…” Hiero began. What’d be uplifting words? Again, he was unsure why he’d put in the effort for this.

“Draecontyr, there you are.” The general gestured at the rock beside him. “A pleasant surprise to see someone I know still alive.”

“Same,” replied Hiero as he sat.

“Don’t think me saying you’re easy to kill. My eyes have witnessed you stand amidst the Blighted, a tower in the blackest maelstrom. You’re the last person I’d think falling.”

“Thanks for the compliment, I suppose.” Hiero pointed at the general’s locket. “I’m not disturbing you, am I?”

“Nothing of the sort; I appreciate the company,” said Bellighost, even though he sat away from the others. He wistfully stared at the locket and held it closer to his face. “I’m just wondering what my jarlhound will do when she sees me.”

Hiero blinked. “Jarlhound? A… dog?”

“Yes, my priced hunting dog. A gift from my father before he returned to the Mother Core’s embrace.” Bellighost showed Hiero the portrait in the locket—a black dog with striking amber eyes and lush silver hackles. The painter exaggeratingly drew the jarlhound’s silver whiskers to be prominent in the tiny frame.

“A beautiful dog,” Hiero said, for what else was there to say? He had unwittingly walked into the trap of a normal conversation.

“I lost Pealisoul in an unfortunate hunting accident a few years back.” Bellighost closed the locket and hid it inside his dented breastplate. “When I reunite with her beyond the veil, I’ll ask for forgiveness.”

“I’m sure she has forgiven you.”

“I want to hear it from her. When in the embrace of the Mother Core, all living things will understand one another. I… I look forward to that day.”

Hiero nodded, not wanting to spare energy to cobble an empathetic reply. He couldn’t even understand thinking about a dog in the face of death. Also, he’d rather avoid conversations about religion with fervent believers. Worship of the new gods held much sway on the continent in recent years. To him, it was merely the other face of the same coin. He doubted the Mother Core could make him understand other people.

Bellighost sighed, rubbing his unshaven cheeks. “Look at me, talking about my dog. I’m ashamed to admit I was masking the encroaching thoughts of death.” He must’ve noticed something in Hiero’s expression because he added, “No mincing words, Draecontyr. I know this is my grave.”

“Grave?”

“That it is. This is my… our grave. I’m prepared to die, and I’m taking as many of these Core-damned Blighted with me.” He patted the Dust saker next to him.

Hiero stilled his tongue. He didn’t mean that Bellighost wasn’t ready for death.

Rather, this place couldn’t be their grave.

A grave was a burial place for a corpse. But if Hiero would succeed, there’d be nothing left here—no dead bodies, no earth to cover them, and no Blighted. At least, Hiero hoped to get most of the Dust-blasted monsters. If he’d succeed… only an impossibly vast crater separating both sides of Tabithala would remain.

“I hope you don’t think less of me, Draecontyr.”

“No, no. I juggle those same thoughts.”

“Do you think we can hold? Can we defend ourselves here?” Bellighost asked, his tired eyes averting his gaze from the answer before him—a resounding no.

If they couldn’t hold the previous times, what made this different? Did Bellighost mean to ask if they could last until relief reached them? To that, the answer was also no. There was no one on the way to save them. Still, he indulged the general. There was nothing much to do while waiting.

Hiero surveyed their meager forces illuminated by enchanted fires—they were conserving oil for the torches.

They were inside one of the perfect domes the Gaolyans had carved out of hard rock, its polished walls filled with bygone glyphs Hiero knew were for controlling aileh flow. A Grammanian court scholar aiding him, oblivious to his true goals, had deciphered how they worked and taught him. Many such rooms were scattered across the tunnel network, all vital to his plan.

Compared to the other caves they were forced to abandon, this was larger but scantily reinforced, their resources dwindling fast. Deep pits with sharp rocks and sharpened stakes pockmarked the front third of the cave, crude traps to slow and break up the Blighted charge. Molders and Solumin magi furrowed the rest of the ground into earthworks topped with stone and wood, scraps of their previous defensive lines. Behind the shoddy barricades were the equally shoddy defenders, the shoddiest among the thirds of their original group that had split and gone separate ways.

The Grammanians, led by old man Grammaton, took the straightest path to the heart node. The Escrimans, under the bombastic, but less recently, Lord Sinra-Jul, stuck to the upper tunnels instead of going deeper.

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Hiero chose to accompany the last group and traversed the narrower passages to unmapped areas. Those under his care were the ‘leftovers’—the leaderless soldiers, solitary warriors with no allegiance to any flag, straggling magi from minor gardens, and companies attrited to insignificance like Bellighost’s husk of an army. Some Romo and Delves were also in the mix, left behind when their kinsfolk tried to break out of the Blighted encirclement—some stupid argument about races.

No one left of the Silver Bullets company; Bollaghan and the last of his men perished several days ago. Likewise did the Falrusens, Basadhins, and many others. Despite Hiero’s unrivaled strength, he couldn’t save any of those who had fought by his side.

It wasn’t for lack of trying. He did save many. Many times, he saved many. But he couldn’t continue doing it.

Why did he bother?

Why was he bothering to protect this group now instead of going with the Grammanians to the heart node? Only death awaited them, either by the corrupted hands of the Blighted or by his own.

“Can we hold?” Hiero repeated Bellighost’s question to drive the thought away. “I don’t think so. You know what’s going to happen. We will be forced to abandon this position, collapse this cave, and retreat deeper—”

“And deeper and deeper…” came a raspy voice. Shuffling footsteps approached.

Turning right, Hiero and Bellighost saw Clement, the Khayo magus lad who seemingly had his youth sucked out of him through the weeks of the siege. The ruby on his forehead had lost its luster, and some of the gems lining his left brow had been knocked out by a slash that left a garish scar over his eye, mirroring Hiero’s own. Clement was one of the lucky few from his mind garden still alive; he chose to go with Hiero, while the rest went with the Escrimans.

“And deeper… and deeper…” Clement belabouredly continued, “Until we can retreat no more, the heart node to our backs.”

The Khayo magus collected his robes about him, its bright red gone dark with dirt, dried blood, and Blighted muck. He adjusted his heavy load and sat on another crate beside Hiero. Tied to his back with enchanted golden chains was a canister of refined aileh from the same crashed airscrew barge Bellighost looted for its cannons. Hiero couldn’t fathom how Clement had managed to hook himself up to such an energy source without the correct runic platform. The kid was indeed a gifted prodigy.

“Right you are, gardener of Khayo,” Bellighost said, laughing bitterly. “Yet, we still fight, don’t we?”

“We still fight,” Clement mumbled.

“Considering the alternative is sitting until the Blighted roll over us,” said Hiero in a cheery tone, “we might as well fight.”

Bellighost and Clement turned to him, perplexed by his relaxedness.

“I don’t know about you two,” continued Hiero, “but I can’t stomach the thought of marching with the Blighted Multitude. That many people… creatures around me? No, thank you. I’ve never been good with crowds.”

“Aye, Draecontyr.” Bellighost cracked a genuine smile. “It also doesn’t sound good becoming a filthy slime abomination of darkness. Quite an inconvenience, I say.”

“You’ll be all sticky and stick to others,” said Hiero, pretending to shudder in disgust. “Not to mention you’ll lose your will. It’s really inconvenient losing your will, I would think. Not that I have tried it.”

“Putting it that way, I suppose dying isn’t too bad,” said Clement, snorting a feeble chuckle.

“Fighting to the death,” Hiero corrected.

“What’s the difference, Draecontyr?”

“We will all die.” Hiero made a face, shuddering as if he ate a sour plum. “Doesn’t sound good when I say it out loud. But it’s the fate that binds all the living. Even the dragons that left Tabithala…”

He paused for a moment, wondering where Tiskas had gone. He hadn’t seen the eccentric red dragon since the Blighted Multitude broke through the inner walls. Tiskas might’ve flown away then. Hiero hoped this was so. But if the red dragon thought of fleeing, he should’ve done it right from the start, long before hundreds of winged Blighted commanded the air.

A waste of draconic Core if he died with no one to consume it.

“Even dragons will die,” Hiero went on. “I don’t know if the Blighted Multitude will someday reach them, wherever they are, but time will. Long-lived they may be, time will catch the dragons.

His small audience didn’t interrupt him, clinging to his words. Were they drawing strength from him? He was a Draecontyr, a fitting pillar of strength and symbol of adoration, though he didn’t think of himself that way. In this cold and dim place, deep beneath a land claimed by the Blighted Multitude, he was, to people’s minds, someone they could rely on.

“We have two luxuries,” Hiero said. He held up one finger. “Choosing how we live.” He raised another. “And choosing how we die. I call them luxuries because most people don’t have them; some are lucky enough to have one or the other. We are granted both.”

“Yes, I choose to come here,” Clement said, his voice growing stronger. “If this is my end, so be it. I will fight the Blighted ‘till my last drop of aileh.”

“Wise words, young magus,” said Bellighost. “So be it… Truly, that’s how it should be. Let’s make these Core-damned monsters work for our asses!” He nudged his head left then right at the Dust sakers. “I still have these loud-mouthed ladies with me, ready to spit fire. Got a few shots left.”

“You’re going to need them now,” Hiero said as a call broke the damp silence.

“They’re coming!” The shout reverberated, followed by sloppy thumps. “The Blighted are coming! To arms!”

The cave woke abuzz.

A burst of rainbow ended the monotone dimness in a blink. More torches blazed in different colors, radiant Core barriers rose, the few they had left, and magic circles rotated in the air, much fewer than a couple of days ago. Commands barked up and down the trenches. Hurried boots stomping to their positions was the response. Clanging weapons and rattling armor concealed the soldiers’ fearful rumblings.

Clement jumped to his feet, nearly tumbling forward, the cumbersome canister on his back dragging him down. Hiero helped him stand. Bellighost tossed aside his spear, exchanging it for a Dust saker. He heaved the long barrel over his shoulder.

Hiero examined his two companions for a moment.

Then he gazed at the lofty cavern ceiling. The cacophony of colors caught the etchings on smooth rock older than all the people under it combined. But the lights never quite reached the highest point of the dome, leaving a small island of darkness in its middle.

When they’d eventually be forced to retreat from this cave, the circle of darkness would expand and reclaim the entire room.

I can leave now, Hiero thought.

He could leave, let everyone die, and go to the heart node. Why delay the inevitable?

But his legs didn’t obey him to run in the opposite direction. He couldn’t abandon these people. Not after he made that speech. His words also applied to him more than Bellighost and Clement could comprehend. The Blighted were forcing his hand, and he wouldn’t be herded like docile groffs. He was his own master, holding on to two luxuries.

I choose to stay, he resolved with tensed jaws.

Hiero stepped onto the crate he had sat on, then to the ledge running the trench’s length, and climbed over its side in one go. He rushed to the front of the cave with vast strides, jumping over rows of ditches that’d be filled with Blighted dead later. Soldiers huddling below looked up, startled as he flew over. He didn’t care if he’d get speared or shot by jumpy men, focused on World Melding as he beelined for the entrance.

Approaching the cave was a scout astride a Meneck reptant. His large lizard ride scampered as he urged it on, its legs flailing as if paddling in the water. The scout waved his torch as he shouted himself hoarse, “They’re coming! They’re right behind me!”

A black mass pursued the scout, imperceptible save for the faintest rustling from the backdrop of the tunnel’s far ends. The shade of shadows retreated as it gained on the scout, driven back by the light of the brand he held, and true darkness remained. It was a parade of horrors. Humanoid forms strained against a membrane of black tar that bound them together, reaching for the terrified scout with dozens of hands.

Hiero didn’t hesitate in his charge, only slowing a half-step to navigate the spike-filled ditches in front of their lines. They didn’t disguise the traps because the Blighted would fall into them just the same.

Then the tunnel ahead became dark, the cave entrance an abyssal maw.

The Blighted snuffed out the torch, the scout with it.

Pops echoed in Hiero’s ear as his skull grew and reformed. A scaled snout shot forward, filling his vision. His gums itched as square human teeth sharpened into fangs and crowded each other. He leaned frontward and kept pace, so he wouldn’t fall as his head became heavier. The Core exposed on his chest drew in aileh, but not to fuel the growth of his Scaled Titan form—the cave was too cramped for it.

Hiero World Melded to use the dragon’s breath.

He stopped twenty paces from the cave’s mouth. Standing in a wide stance, knees bent, he Molded his legs into the sturdy stilts of a bowsnake bird. His living moss-covered feet flattened into four long toes, three in front, one turned back. Claws emerged from their ends and stabbed into the rock, anchoring Hiero to the ground.

He opened his mouth. Half his face hinged up like a coffer’s lid, his eyes pointing at the ceiling; his powerful jaw muscles strained as he gaped as wide as possible. The aileh distilled by his exposed draconic Core traveled up his body and pooled in his mouth like the surge of adrenaline but severalfold the tingling sensation.

It sparked.

In a split-second, the un-Molded parts of his body bore searing heat before he directed the flames churning in his mouth forward. Wailing filled the air as white-hot draconic flames flooded the cave’s entrance, meeting the incoming darkness. The collected consciousness of the Blighted Multitude had marked them all prey for immediate consumption, and its parts in their hundreds and thousands came. The light-forsaken fed themselves into his flames. No strategy but to overwhelm, no clever design but to assimilate all.

None reached the cave unless they had been made ash. From his peripheral vision, he saw the sides of the tunnel smoldered a golden halo, its fringes melting from the heat.

Seconds turned to minutes. And minutes ticked on as Hiero spewed flames without fail to hold back the Blighted.

Hiero didn’t know what the soldiers were doing behind him. He couldn’t hear anything with the flames howling like a pack of crackals. The force of the dragon’s breath was so powerful that it pushed him back. His clawed feet tightened their grip on the ground.

How long should he continue?

Aileh may be dense, being this close to the heart node, but it wasn’t the only constraint. Even as Hiero burned the Blighted, he sensed his prize from defeating Tiskas’ father, draining to its last essence.

Hiero had five Cores when he stepped inside Aderenthyn Citadel. But as the days went on, he spent more time as a Scaled Titan than a human. The half-depleted Cores he looted from the Draecontyrs of the Lapan-Shani—Escarra and his son, Melchor—didn’t last long. The Core from a minor dragon, his most recent draconic conquest, was spent defending the breach. He had one in reserve—untouched and far the strongest dragon he had vanquished—but that was for igniting the heart node.

Yet, he didn’t undo his Melding. Somehow, he could feel the father of Tiskas speaking to him again.

That wasn’t possible. He must be hallucinating. The guttural voice of the elder red dragon, who fed him the crap about choice, flitted in his mind…

I choose to stay.

I choose not to die.

----------------------------------------

Below the lowest part of the Fahllyr House, an unreachable chamber grumbled to life.

A wink of light disturbed the aged darkness. It came from a floating orb that had kept watch and waited for so long.

And it hadn’t waited at all, for it was only moments ago that it was bidden to do a specific task. Moments ago, that was hundreds of years then, and at the same time, it wasn’t.

The light sparked once more, brighter.

And brighter.

Again. And again.

The light pulsed like a heartbeat. It hastened until a steady glare bathed the entire chamber—an empty dome, its glossy walls blemished with writings both ancient and new, the most recent of them carved only yesterday, three hundred years ago. There were many such rooms, and the orb never knew where it would end up in cycles past.

The orb slowly descended to a notch in the center of the floor. It nestled into it, a perfect fit.

Lines of light rushed from the orb and raced across the floor, tracing elaborate patterns. The lines spread and crept up the walls, following predetermined pathways. When it reached the ceiling, the radiant threads intersected at its peak, not leaving any refuge for shadows.

The orb began to float once again. As it ascended, whole slabs of the floor heaved apart, bisecting the notch it had left, opening a hole unreached by light. And out of it emerged a large box—a coffin that wasn’t, the orb knew.

The seals etched on the coffin glowed blood red. Its lid slowly moved.

The aileh within the orb stilled, the light dimming, satisfied it had completed its task. Another sliver of Clement Tiberius’ consciousness dissolved with the hope it had done right this time.