The next day, they reached their destination. Thor could not say how he knew, for Harad’s directions had only been vague, but as he looked down on the land below him, he knew it was the place. A river stretched from the coast, through a plain until it reached the feet of the mountains, and then a little further through their valleys. The river was not so large as the Ursfjord they had passed, but it was large enough to host all manner of fish should a hungry beast grow tired of the herds of elk he could spy evidence of.
Thor set down near the river’s headwaters, giving the others the chance to disembark from the tree and stamp their feet, warming themselves up. For all the sky was clear and blue, the sun seemed to provide little warmth, and the morning’s travel had not helped matters.
“This is the place?” Wolfric asked, looking around. The land around them was flat, a thin layer of ice and snow as far as they could see.
“I feel it is,” Thor said. He drummed his fingers on Stormbreaker’s head. “I see no clear signs of the creature, but Harad did say it has slumbered for many years.”
“How does one track a dragon?” Grigori asked. If theological dilemmas still weighed on him, he hid it well. “Even the greatest hunter cannot track a raven on the wing.”
“We could bait it with meat,” Wolfric said. “Surely it would be hungry after hibernating so long.”
“If the smell could reach it, perhaps,” Grigori said. “There must be some evidence of its passage, a mountain lair that animals do not venture near.”
Thor remembered the manticore he had fought, how he had drawn it out with taunts. Infuriating dangerous beasts was a talent of his…but then another thought occurred to him. A dragon was sure to be a beast of power, and perhaps that power would serve to lead him to it. If he could figure out how to see it, of course.
“I have an idea,” Thor said, loosening his shoulders.
“Will you taunt it, as you did the Aeslings at Vinteerholm?” Wolfric asked, the corner of his mouth curling slightly.
“I,” Thor said with great gravity, “will look for it.”
Wolfric and Grigori shared a look.
“How?” Grigori asked.
“With my eyes,” Thor said, unable to help himself. “And perhaps something a little deeper.”
Since coming to this new world, Thor had been shown just how far he had to go to truly grasp the truth of his power. Perhaps it was the fundamental reality of this world, or perhaps he had always had this potential, such that the lightning he had wielded against his sister was the bare fumblings of it. That fumbling growth had been spurred by the rage sown on the Statesman, only to be abandoned to rot in the wake of the battle at Wakanda.
Now though, he had begun to grow once more, learning and rising with each deed. Spears hallowed, swords blessed, groves sanctified, daemons slain, Gods defied, worshippers gained - all of it served to stoke his might, but such things were reactions, of mostly blunt power. It was time for something more subtle.
Long had he known the worth of visions, for all that he had not seen clearly enough, swiftly enough, to divine the truth of Thanos’ coming. What he sought to do now was nothing so complex, but it would take focus and skill all the same. He closed his eyes, calling on his power, and it answered, coming eagerly to hand.
There was a tingle in the air, like that in a thunderstorm the moment before a lightning strike, and he eased off. He did not wish to saturate himself with power, he wanted to see, to glimpse the hidden things and that which went unnoticed by those without the eyes to look.
“Ty Tor,” Grigori breathed.
Thor opened his eyes, and saw. Light shone forth, and he saw the currents of the world. He saw hazy arcs of something like his own power but not in the sky above, green threads of some great root system beneath his feet, even a faint aura of heat and passion around the three of them. There was more, but he had not the discernment to see, not yet, for all that what he could see was enthralling. But not all was pleasant.
Here and there were patches of greasy sickness, of darkness, carried and buffeted by the currents he could see. Sometimes they were cast onwards and away, but others they would infect the currents they touched. Some few times they popped like an overripe cyst. He noticed that they all trended southwest, but why he could not say.
“What do you see?” Wolfric asked, aura pulsing a darker red with his words.
Thor had to blink. The currents were beginning to overcome the mundane world. He opened his mouth to respond, only to pause. There was another current.
This one did not so much flow as suffuse, laying lightly upon the land, the other currents drifting through and around it, though perhaps that was a trick of the eye due to its brightness. As he watched, a cloud of sickness touched upon a thick section of it in a fold of the land, only to burst, fading away. His gaze sharpened.
“A curiosity,” he answered.
That thick section of bright lightness was not the only one, and he turned, following it. His mechanical eye began to throb with phantom pain, but he ignored it, searching, seeing, finding. It did not sprout from nowhere, but flowed slowly down the mountainside until it pooled, and his gaze followed its path. The higher he looked, the fewer patches of sickness he saw, until he found himself looking at a peak that gleamed brightly even under the light of the sun.
“The dragon?” Wolfric asked.
Thor glanced to him, but found himself looking not at a man, but a blurred form of one, colours and currents forced into shape and barely restrained. His eye throbbed again, and he closed them in pain, loosing the hold he held on his power, letting it drift away.
“Aye,” Thor said, as the mortal world returned. For a second there was an overlay of both, but then he blinked and it was gone. He pointed up at the peak he had observed, the source of the bright current. “If that is not the beast’s lair, whatever is there will know where it is.”
Wolfric was already moving, as if he meant to climb the mountain by himself.
“Ah, my friend,” Thor said. Wolfric turned, and Thor glanced meaningfully at their tree trunk transport.
“Right,” Wolfric said, turning and approaching the trunk like that had been his intent all along. His hand rested eagerly on his sword. They were close.
Though the peak was their goal, Thor chose to set down just short of it, eagerness tempered by caution. His days of rushing into the lair of some dangerous beast with only the barest of preparations were over. He was a more canny and wise warrior than he had been in his youth, more even than he had been a scant decade past.
“What is the plan?” Grigori asked, slipping from the trunk. He kept his voice low and hoarse in the quietness of the mountaintop.
“We shall go in there, and I will slay the beast,” Thor explained, likewise speaking quietly. Well, as quietly as a god of thunder could. “I will rely on the two of you to ensure we are not ambushed by any small drakes.” It was an ill thing to strip the agency from those who would follow him, and he was no longer so arrogant as to dismiss the idea that he was beyond their help.
“We will keep them off you while you slay the dragon, Lord Thor,” Wolfric said, checking his sword belt and adjusting his mammoth hide mantle.
Grigori shifted his grip on his axe, looking between them. “Right,” he said, nodding, waiting for Thor to lead the way.
There were times he feared he would not live up to the devotion of his followers, but that would not stop him from giving it his all. They were a short scramble from the peak, and there was a definite nip in the air as they climbed. The mortals shivered, but neither complained, cold nothing new to them.
They reached the peak with minimal fanfare, certainly less than an entrance atop a flying tree trunk would have caused. But what they saw was not what they had expected.
“There’s nothing here,” Wolfric said, frowning as he looked around.
Thor had been expecting a lonely cave entrance, but what they found was a bleak plateau, hard grey stone swept by cold winds and the occasional tendril of snow. The only break in the flat visage was a rounded boulder, seemingly half buried in the ground near to the centre.
“What made - what drew your eye here, Mighty Thor?” Grigori asked, drawing his furs tighter as a particularly bitter wind swept across the empty space.
“There is a power flowing from this peak,” Thor said, “and I would not wager on a dragon and such a power existing here unrelated.” He found his gaze fixed on the boulder. A flat peak, and a single boulder sitting upon it? He had seen strange and unlikely natural formations in his time, but this was perhaps not one of them. He stepped forward.
Snow piles had grown around the edges of the boulder, but the wind still tugged and pulled at it, preventing it from building up past a certain point. With a hide boot, he swept a portion away, revealing the point where the boulder was set into the peak, peering at the seam. Nothing jumped out at him, no evidence of tool use or sign that it was more than an oddly placed rock.
A sound of surprise and the slip of a boot came from behind. “Fuck me,” Wolfric said, more startled and annoyed than anything.
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Thor turned to see his follower on one knee, up to his calves in snow. What had seemed another path of ice and snow resisting the pull of the winds was more than that, instead a small crater. He narrowed his eyes at it. An entire peak cut flat as if by some great sword, except for a small boulder and a crater of suspiciously similar size?
“Step aside,” Thor said, turning back to the boulder, considering.
Wolfric was quick to do so despite his lack of understanding, sharing a look with the Kislevite, but Grigori was no more sure than he was. They turned to watch as Thor seemed to size up the boulder.
It was no perfect orb, for all that it was quite round, and Thor made several false starts before apparently finding what he sought. He stepped forward, arms outstretched as he knelt, and attempted to take the boulder in a bearhug. His full reach just managed to round the thing, and he took a deep breath, holding it tight.
Thor grunted as he rose, bringing the boulder with him. Stone scraped on stone as it rose, loud and discordant against the harsh serenity of the mountaintop, and he almost stumbled as he took a step back, unbalanced. Rock splintered and cracked at his hands, his grip sinking into the boulder as he turned with the ungainly thing, stepping carefully over to where Wolfric had stumbled. Slowly, carefully, he began to sink into a crouch, back straight and knees bent. He flexed his belly, pushing the boulder forward and out of his arms into the crater, where it fell with a dull whump, a cloud of snow kicked up by its fall. It did not roll or shift, only settling into place as if the crater had been made for it.
With a noise of satisfaction, Thor turned back to where the boulder had come from, joining his followers in staring at the dark hole that had been revealed. The bare beginnings of a twisting tunnel could be seen, the sides worn unnaturally smooth, before disappearing into darkness.
“I’ve heard this tale before,” Grigori said, staring down, keeping his feet as far back from the edge as he could.
“A tale of adventure?” Thor asked.
“Child’s fable,” Grigori said. “‘Don’t go exploring down strange holes in the ground or you’ll never be seen again’.” His mouth was set in a resigned grimace.
“We’ll need rope,” Wolfric said, more to himself than anything. “Maybe some metal stakes…”
“Ah, my friends,” Thor said, replying to them both. “You forget with whom you quest!” And then he took them both by the shoulders and stepped off the edge and into the tunnel, allowing gravity to do its work. They fell.
They did not scream, but only because Thor was quick to clap his hands over their mouths, trapping the no doubt manly yelps of fright within their throats. Stormbreaker was quick to slip from his back to catch him, and he perched on it well enough, one foot on the blunt side of its head, the other halfway up its haft. Their fall was arrested just in time to avoid crashing into the wall as the tunnel turned, beginning to spiral.
‘Do a trick,’ he could hear the shadow of Tony say, and his lips quirked in a smile.
The etching on Stormbreaker’s head began to glow, casting light about the tunnel as they descended, and his companions settled, no longer so frantic now that they could see. He eased his grip on them, focusing on the task at hand. His beard fluttered up around his face as they followed the turning path, and slowly it began to widen. Where before it was scarce wide enough to accommodate Trumpetter, now it could fit a grown mammoth, should one find itself capable of flight or of climbing a dark, twisting tunnel in the upper reaches of a great mountain. The smoothness of the walls began to lessen as well, more and more natural cragginess showing through. Here and there he saw stalactites, and at one point he had to swerve alarmingly to avoid sitting on a stalagmite that suddenly appeared around the bend.
As they went, Thor looked with more than his eyes once more. The brightness he had seen was all about them, almost drowning out the faint wisps of red that came from his companions with every excited breath. Outside, he had seen the - the tides, the currents, the winds - whatever they were, flowing through the world, but within the mountain, it was different. It was like stepping from the shallows to the depths, not crushing, but omnipresent. If his instinct was correct, and the dragon was at the source of the bright wind that purged the sickness it touched, then they were surely on the right track. He wondered if it had taken some mighty artefact for its hoard.
The descent was not over quickly, but it did come to an end. Wider and wider the tunnel became, until at its end Thor could have wrestled Hulk within it and not brushed the sides if they did not want to. It opened into a large chamber, devoid of anything but more stone. He let his companions go as he stepped off his axe, taking in their surroundings.
Wolfric and Grigori both stumbled, shaky, as they found their feet again. Their eyes were wide, their breathing heavy, but they said nothing as they shared a look, jaws clenched with what Thor was sure was the effort of containing their excitement.
There were two passages from the chamber they were in, rounded and tall, each at opposite ends. Stormbreaker floated back up to rest at his spine, its glow fading, but there was still light enough for even the mortals to see by, if barely. The passage to the left had a soft yellow gleam coming from around its bend, while the one to the right disappeared into darkness. The bright current had only gotten stronger, though it was impossible to tell from whence it came, here near the source of it.
“Let us search out the light,” Thor murmured. The sound of his footsteps were soft on the smooth stone floor as he made for the left passage, Wolfric and Grigori slightly louder as they followed.
The passage, for it could not be called something so base as a tunnel, was not a natural formation. It had the same unnatural smoothness he had noticed in the tunnel from the peak, though this seemed more deliberate, the walls almost glossy, uniform rather than smooth in patches. The soft light rose as they walked, leaving the dark chamber behind, arcing right.
In time, the passage ended, and they stopped, stupefied. Before them was a set of stairs that led down into an enormous cavern, the size of Asgard’s throne room and positively glowing. Some manner of stones were set into the walls and ceiling, putting off a soft white light, intricate carvings covering every inch. But it was not the light or the carvings or the scale that drew their eyes.
It was the gold.
The white light put out from the walls fell upon the gold and was reflected in turn, a yellow glow rising from what could only be the dragon’s hoard. Treasures of every kind could be seen, from stacks of neatly ordered coins to rows of statues to piles of precious gems, even a section of portraits made not from paint but from mosaics of precious metals, all separated by lanes wide enough for five pegasi to ride abreast. It was a staggering amount of wealth.
“This is the wealth of empires,” Grigori said, scarcely breathing.
“There is more gold here than in all of Norsca, surely,” Wolfric said.
“Ehh,” Thor said.
Wolfric stepped forward, only to find Thor’s hand grasping his shoulder.
“Hold,” Thor said, gaze sweeping around the room once more, looking with more than his eyes. The brightness of the pure current he could see, but it flowed around much of the treasure, as if flowing against something else he could not quite see. It was no corruption, for he had seen how that fared against the brightness, but there was something. His eyes lingered on the neatly stacked coins.
“Do you see it?” Wolfric asked. His sword rasped slowly as he began to draw it from its sheath.
“No,” Thor said, still looking around the hall - for it was nothing so simple as a cavern - and finding only more treasure, no hint of somewhere a dragon might hide. On the far side he spied another small passage, but this one was a rough tunnel as best he could tell. “There is something off.”
“The gold is a trick, a fake?” Grigori asked, still unable to take his eyes off its gleam, and Thor remembered that he had been taken by raiders while part of a merchant voyage.
“No, it is real,” Thor said, fighting the urge to summon his armour. He could not tell what was pricking at his instincts, only that something was out of place. He had not his brother’s eye for traps, so it was likely not that, and yet… “We will check the other passage.”
Carefully, they crept back from the top of the stairs they stood upon, leaving the hoard behind, and ventured back into the growing darkness. After the gleaming of untold riches, the shadows seemed deeper, and Thor stoked the glow of his axe to throw them back. His companions kept close, ears pricked for the faintest sound, but there was only the scrape of their shoes on stone and the shallowness of their breathing. The light of the treasure faded, and then they were surrounded by the dark.
The passage seemed more sinister now, even though they had only just come this way, but they pressed on, emerging into the chamber they had first found after leaving the peak tunnel. A lesser man may have faltered, knowing that a dragon lurked somewhere out in the darkness, but he was Thor, and he had ventured into places steeped in greater evil than the lair of some scaly beast.
Down the dark passage they went, and like the other it was smooth and glossy, reflecting the light of his axe. It too arced to the right, though ultimately in the opposite direction to the other passage. When they reached its end, what scant light was put off by Stormbreaker was not nearly enough to illuminate whatever immense cavern awaited them, and for a moment they stood at the threshold. He could feel the attentions of his companions on him, waiting for his guidance, but he waited, reaching out with his mundane senses. So great was the room beyond that it even had its own air flow, slow and regular, almost like a great bellows was keeping the mountain ventilated. Had the dragon moved into an old manmade structure?
Thor’s nose twitched, picking up a scent, and he frowned. Realisation dawned. The airflow was too slow, too regular. It was no breeze. He looked deeper, and the darkness was thrown back by sudden brightness, though again he could see it flowing against and around something invisible to him, like there was another current he could not discern.
That was secondary, however, to the dragon in the room.
Larger by half again than the manticore he had slain months past, it was bathed in the bright current he could see, and with each breath it would set the current to billowing. Its scales were a blue so pale they were almost white, while sky blue wings were tucked into its sides, sharp spikes at the wrists of its wings. More spikes came from its frill, and they were akin to jagged icicles, though they were not as fearsome as the curling horns of black that grew from the back of its skull. Its eyes, though, its eyes were the most terrible of it all, the colour of glaciers.
Thor knew this, because the dragon was staring right at him.
“Wolfric, Grigori,” Thor said evenly, looking around the chamber as if he were a darkness blind mortal, “I want you both to turn around and leave, carefully. When you reach the next chamber, bunker down and wait. If you hear anything before you reach it, run.”
The dragon blinked, unmoving from where its head rested on its foreclaws. Its nostrils flared.
For a moment, the two men hesitated, but something in his tone and the way he did not turn away from the darkness that was all they could see before them convinced them. They began to retreat as quietly as they had arrived.
White eyes followed them, and the dragon raised its head, languorous. Its chest swelled as it inhaled, and it loosed a great sigh. It was laying on a bed of skins and furs of all manner of great beasts.
Something again pricked at Thor’s instincts. He was missing something, some implication, but he had not the time to think on it deeper for the dragon was opening its mouth, revealing rows of fangs sharper than any mortal blade. Then the dragon did something that stopped Thor cold.
“What is this?” the dragon asked, low and slow, like it had been woken from a deep sleep. “More food, come to my door?”
Thor blinked.
“The others were too skinny, too hairy - but you look like a tasty little morsel,” the dragon said, head rising even higher as it did more than look up, neck extending to its full length to settle at twice Thor’s height. It sniffed again. “No metal to pick from my gums, and you may even be free of taint. What a treat.” Its tongue snaked out, testing the air. The air grew colder.
“I would taste most awful,” Thor assured the dragon, before his mind caught up. “Oh, you talk. This will perhaps be awkward.” This was what had been niggling at him - not a trap or a curse, but the signs pointing towards the dragon being more than a simple beast. It was sapient.
“Why would I not?” the dragon asked. He? She? was a ways into the cavern, not nearly close enough to take a swipe, and they made no move to stand or lunge closer.
“You are a dragon,” Thor said.
“You are a human,” the dragon said, before yawning, showing off just how many fangs it had in its maw. “I am impressed you can speak at all. Well done.”
“I am an Asgardian, I will have you know,” Thor said, pointing at the beas- at the being.
“Oh?” the dragon asked. “I believe I met one of your kind, once.”
Impossible hope leapt in Thor’s breast.
“They said they had come to slay me in the name of their lady,” the dragon mused, eyes half lidded in thought. “Their lance caught in my teeth for weeks, but their horse was a fine delicacy.” They tapped a claw on the stone floor by their nest, as if remembering. “Bretonnian, that was it, not Asgardian.”
Thor strangled the wave of feeling that followed, keeping his mind in the moment. “You will find my axe does more than inconvenience you, should you attempt to eat me,” he warned.
“Perhaps,” the dragon said. Its scales seemed to ripple as it shifted, and so did the brightness of the winds, like it was manipulating them.
No, not like, Thor realised. It was manipulating them. The dragon itself was the source of the power.
“Perhaps,” the dragon repeated. “For what cause have you intruded upon my lair, stolen upon me as I slept with your weapon bared?” It began to stand, head rising higher again, and even at their distance Thor had to look up to meet its eyes. “Do you come a thief, thinking to take from my peerless hoard? A would be dragon slayer, seeking renown?” Its voice began to thrum, on the verge of shaking the mountain walls, outrage and amusement blending together. Already cold, the temperature began to plummet, enough that Thor could feel its unpleasantness.
“First of all, in Asgard we gilded our rooftops with more gold than your hoard contains,” Thor said, his breath beginning to mist. “Second - well, yes. I really must apologise, but I came here to take your heartblood.”
“I see,” the dragon said, near hissing. “Then you will die.” Then it opened its jaws wide, and a torrent of ice roared forth.
Lightning answered, shattering the relative quiet of the chamber. The ice was shattered, the pillar thick as two men turned to shards and splinters. They were sprayed around the room and down the passage, and Thor spared a moment to be grateful that his companions had left.
“Not a simple knight, are you?” the dragon asked, taking a step forward, out of its bedding. Dark claws carved grooves into the floor as it flexed.
“I am Thor, the God of Thunder, son of Odin,” Thor proclaimed. “You challenge me at your own peril.”
“Gods,” the dragon said, disgusted. “My kind were here before your coming. We will be here after your fall.” Its tail flicked, and its eyes began to shine white.
Thor felt his own eyes glow as he called on his power. His form rippled with eldritch light, his armour called by seidr, and silver glinted in his beard. Lightning sparked along his arms, and he hurled a bolt like a spear.
A band of light formed above the dragon’s head, intercepting the bolt. The glow of the band intensified, almost painful in its brightness, and a moment later three spears of light lanced out.
Stormbreaker was already in his hand, knowing it was needed, and Thor caught them all on its head. The first shattered, but the second ricocheted off into a wall, cracking it, while the last slipped past and glanced off his arm. He grunted. That was going to leave a bruise.
The brightness of the chamber grew once more, harsh all around, driving out whatever else had been present. Thor’s grip tightened on his axe. He would not slay a thinking being to harvest them for parts, but he found himself in a fight all the same.