The passage from the mine was as treacherous as feared—brutal, but owed more to our condition than to the road's. At any step along the way, were our legs not up to the task, the ice underfoot was poised to carry us clear to the basin, and so, cold and aching, we leaned upon one another until we met our cloven convoy. When we found him there, it wasn't pretty what was left—skin and bone in a loosely bound bundle, but was ready to ease our burden.
Snarling pain hushed to a growl when I took my seat, and once I was adequately tied to it, I used the time we had left en route to clear most of the hazy details. In painful detail, I retold all that preceded her untimely collapse—how the blood still flowed in our veins, though most of it covered our clothes. And about my time shared with the marauder, everything from pleasantries leading up to his change in spirit. It was an incomplete chronicle, with many a hole and gap, but for now, I was happy to be alive to tell it.
Even if it had cost us our lives, we had accomplished the impossible, and to no surprise, that carried a supreme satisfaction. The rest of the implications were yet to be understood, though one seemed clear. While the winds still blew cold, they no longer instilled the sense of foreboding that they did when we embarked; it was as if the mere presence of the beast had caused a shift in pressure, and that slaying it removed the unnatural blight. But more than in just the literal sense, it seemed the air between me and Cordella had also warmed and lifted. We'd been through a lot in a short time, and our bond was stronger for it.
Chenglei was as much improved as we were, bustling and busier than when we had left it, or perhaps just lighter under a new lens. The lull in snowfall had finally given the town a rest, making for a tranquil scene even as the inhabitants rushed through it. Shops were just as brightly lit, those same heavenly scents rising from street-side vendors and caressing my starving nostrils. This time, however, we wouldn't have the chance to partake. We were hung and bled—corpses meandering through a teeming city, and the passersby that caught sight didn't seem to take fondly to us.
Without the faintest idea of how else to proceed, we ended up at the oak door of Sam's humble lookout. We seemed no more than two lost children at the foot of the tower, yet to even clean ourselves from our endeavor as I wrapped my knuckles against the wood and waited, though not for long before the door swung open, and we were welcomed into open arms.
"You two!" she exclaimed, hardly able to find her composure after our appearance had robbed her of it. "I’m so glad you’re back! I told you you'd have no trouble, did I not?" Her optimism was contagious, one fell breath and I found myself beaming with the same pride that she did. Then, worry filled her face as she found us riddled with holes and tatters, and our clothes hadn't fared much better. "Oh, Corda, your robes are devastated!" Her hands exuded a soft glow as she ran them along the gashes in the bloodied fabric, the living fibers interweaving and repairing themselves under her touch. "You two sit! I'll be back with rags as soon as I can."
Cordella halted the woman before she could rush off. "It can wait, Samara. What we found is more pressing than a few wounds." She peered at me expectantly.
"You'll fool no one, sweet. I can tell you're worn out. If we get started now, you too will just as likely give out before we finish! Please, come and sit down."
We did as instructed, finding a seat and sitting in mutual silence. Into a neighboring room, she vanished, returning a split-second later with tunics and a large cauldron in tow. Clothes were tossed in our laps. "I can't have two cadavers standing around dripping blood on my carpet! Take these to the washroom and give me what's on your backs. Your clothes are well battered, so I'm afraid my magic will be no faster than a seamstress. For now, just clean up and try to get comfortable."
"You first."
"Nonsense," Cordella told me. "They're just scuffs; you're clearly worse off."
"I thought I hid it well," I chuckled, hoisting the brimming tub and rags and carrying them off to where Samara pointed. "I won't be long. Don't come running if you hear a bit of splashing."
The water swelled, climbing up the walls of the clay pot with every pained, lilting step down the short but perpetual hall. A dribble climbed over the lip as I carefully lowered it to the floor before shutting the door and letting out a long sigh. Agony, every step—not just lifting the water, but my legs, and my arms over my head. It wasn’t much nicer removing the clothes from dry wounds. The gambeson came off first, then the chain simply enough, but the tunic below it was as much a part of me as the skin underneath. I sucked the air between my teeth as I peeled it away, and threw it into the brass-tinged jumble. Finally, some relief. As protection went, it was fairly light, but it felt like I’d just removed ten tons.
I touched my fingers to the water in the cauldron, retracting them when I found it still scalding hot. Had she just prepared this?
Seeing no harm in a moment’s repose, I hung my head in the steam, dew collecting on the tip of my nose before it dripped past my chin and back into the spring. On the water and under the haze, I finally saw what he did: a man drained—void of color, really not so unlike the Sycscera. The clear, nigh translucent effects of ether withdrawal. He was right. I was moments from passing, both feet in a tall grave before he dragged me out of it, and not a day later he was ready to put me back. Had I misinterpreted? If he meant any harm, he wouldn’t have saved us in the first place. My head pounded, and I lifted it out of the vaporous cloud.
Having cooled a little, I took one of the hot rags and started at my abdomen. Having mostly just been bruised above the waist, it didn't take long to dredge, a light gray runoff mixing back into the stew. My legs, on the other hand, presented the herculean task of bailing the ocean with a bucket. Countless cuts covered my legs as scales sheared straight through the trousers. Each excruciating swab of the rag had me whispering profanities from a long-forgotten repertoire; however, not because they bled. They were burned shut—half of them tended to in the time I was passed out, the rest from when I rode that blazing saddle.
It didn't make sense, the lengths he'd gone to. Did he seek more from us than answers? And why did the discovery paint him red? Too many questions, all for later.
Wounds cleaned and dressed, I threw the soiled clothes and bloody rag in a pile and stretched into the thin white linens Samara had provided. I eased the door open and resumed my seating. "Go ahead, then."
"You sure made a lot of noise in there," she said with a grin. "And beautiful blouse, might I add. Suits you well." She snorted as I curtsied for her. "Have a seat lass, I won't keep you waiting."
The door shut behind her, and I sat down quietly while Samara worked my clothes over. She was engrossed in the process, my mail folded over her lap as she ran one hand underneath it. When she pulled it out she rubbed her fingers together, lifting an eyebrow at the oily smut.
"Wow, really did a number on these chains of yours. Some of the links are sheared clean through!" I didn't say anything, preferring to mind myself than to make idle chatter, but I could feel her eyes on me. Peering down, I could already see fresh blood through the old shirt. "Those injuries look grave. Cordella's too. My heart aches thinking about what you both must have seen."
"They hurt, but they'll heal. We're immensely lucky they weren't any worse."
“I wasn’t there to spectate, but I’d venture to say that luck played no part. You two were right for the job.”
Job. That was the word he used too. “I certainly wouldn’t go so far.”
She spoke tenderly, "It doesn’t matter to me what brought you back. Luck or otherwise, I'm just glad to see you're both here. Thank you for keeping her safe for me, Kaiser."
I said nothing, letting the praise drift idly by until it was already out of reach. As much as I wanted to take credit, and as easy as it would have been to do so, I was no liar, and I knew I wouldn’t feel the warmth of words I didn’t deserve. Quickly as the conversation had started, I smothered the young flame with cold silence. I leaned back into the chair, somehow expecting this time for it to give but finding it no less unyielding.
After a few more minutes like that, I decided I’d had enough of the cold for a lifetime or two.
“She means a lot to you.”
A simple thing, but enough to bring the flame roaring back. Samara lifted her head, not to see me, but to consider the whole breadth of it. “More than anything.”
“Maybe it’s not in my place to say it, but I know she’s happy to see you too. With or without me holding her hand, she would have come back here just the same.”
“You know,” she began anew, or perhaps where she’d left, “for a long time, I didn’t think I’d ever see her again. Not that I didn’t ache for it, but with all that’s happened...well, I’m sure you’ve gathered the pieces. Eventually, you make a sort of peace in someone’s absence, and you tell yourself that where they are—where they’re going—is not for you to say. Then one day, out of the grey, they’re back in your lives, and you realize you haven’t lived a day since. I don’t whether to find that cruel or beautiful.”
“A little of both?”
“Most likely, yes.” She laughed to herself. “That girl. I hope she hasn’t given you the same trouble. It’s a lot of passion that fuels that fire, even if the heat is hard to handle.”
On cue, the door swung open, and a woman walked out, though debatably not the same woman that went in. She was clean, fresh and free of the gore that stuck to her skin, and with new clothes, I was almost convinced that it was never there in the first place. At least, she gave that illusion better than I did. The plain colored tunic fit her far better than it did me even if the short sleeves and low collar gave her away. Several deep, evenly spaced gashes were drawn along her arm, and her collarbone was a yellowed shade of violet.
“Ah, both of you are looking much better! How about I pour you something hot to eat? Or perhaps to drink?”
Both sounded excellent to me, but Cordella was quick to decline. “Maybe after, Sam.”
“Oh, fine. Let me hear the tale of your grand encounter. You told me it was pressing?”
The two of us exchanged sideward glances, each urging the other forth in a silent war, moment-lasting. Cordella was first to relent. “Needless to say, your intuition was right. With your map, we found the mine’s entrance in the summit, and with a little digging, we found the cause of its abandonment.” She sang the prelude with confidence, but her voice weakened before the chorus, her lonely foot tapping a nervous rhythm as her eyes wandered first to her lap and then slowly to me.
“Yes?” Samara followed her gaze, but her partner was no more forthcoming. My mouth was full of words, but none of them belonged together; the monster I drew was too large for its canvas and too hard to capture in the medium.
After enough struggling, I produced a trophy: my ragged weapon, covered and crusted by the black of the leviathan, laid upon a short end table as proof of our triumph. She snatched it up, examining and scraping at it with one of her fingernails. The loose soot dusted the floor, and on her fingers, it left a prismatic sheen. She looked at me again with even greater curiosity. Her head tilted, and her brows furrowed, but she waited patiently for me to explain.
I told her the same story from start to finish. First of the scourge, or what little I could string together—a headless serpent covered in metal scales and an aura the source of which we hadn’t started to decipher. I told her how we fought it, about how we were too foolish to leave before we had the choice not to. All the way down to its den, it sucked away at our lifeblood like a leach—as if through tendrils hidden in the dark. By the time we found a weakness, there was too little left, and Cordella fell before our leviathan.
Her curiosity flickered there, a glance at Cordella as worry filled its space. “But you slew it?”
A nod from each of us. We had, but it was neither of our strengths that brought us back. By the time I had finished it off— drained, Cordella incapacitated, I could hardly lift my legs, let alone hers.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Not until you woke up, you mean? It was at least another day before you two returned.”
"Eventually," Cordella remarked, "But not in the mine."
Next was our brush with the stranger. For some reason, I found this chapter harder reading than even the one before it; the subtext was warped, footnotes were missing, and in the margins were written some smudged mentions of arch-wyverns and omens. Like the creature buried below it, I couldn’t wrap my mind around what happened on the summit, but I happily returned to Samara the box of scraps—every loosely bound detail ending in his pointed blade. Even if we routed him, it didn’t change what happened there or what might have happened had our paths not crossed.
For a brimming tale, our informant was, so far, empty of sentiment. Somewhere in the unraveling thread, she must have gotten lost. She continued to toil with the weapon, but her eyes were glazed. She'd already gleaned all that she could from it. When she made no effort to respond, Cordella urged her. "Who was that man, Sam? And what did we exercise from that damned mine?"
"I—" she started and paused. Our usually lively friend was dragging her feet. "I may have an idea, but I think it's best if we start from the beginning."
"What do you mean the beginning?"
“I mean when I discovered it.”
The air froze in the moment that followed, time enough for the three of us to realize what she admitted to but not enough to understand it. My face was cold-flushed before it was overtaken by the warmth in my cheeks.
"Now, don't think wrong of me, but when I informed you two of my suspicions, I had more than an inkling of what dangers wait in those abandoned burrows."
"Sam..."
I huffed, but the deep-seated heat remained, brewing with only one path of release. From the depths of my throat words rose, horrible, accusatory words—but they didn't escape my mouth before she donned a saccharine shield.
"What's important is that you both returned! The two of you, I told you there was no reason to doubt—"
“No reason?! We had every reason to doubt, and to keep us compliant you send us under false pretenses?”
"I admit it was careless of me to cast you out without better preparation," she said, trying to quell the ember she'd just provoked, "But I wasn't sure you'd have been willing to help were you fully aware of the risk."
“Kaiser—”
"To what ends would you throw us into that thing's den, knowing full well we should've been swallowed whole?" Lacking my friend's restraint, my voice continued its rise until the last of it escaped in a rasp shout. "You could've sent any other bunch of mercenaries, and you choose your niece? Cordella was as good as dead!"
"Don't sell yourself short, my friend." Her soothing words were ineffective, as good as stones hurled against an unwavering steel tower. Her kin, on the other hand...
"Please, just listen to her."
I looked at her incredulously. "You'd vouch for her? The person whose actions nearly buried you?"
“I mean it. Just wait a moment.”
"You knew it too, didn't you? All those drawings in the compendium," I said, coming to my feet. The more I spoke aloud, the harder it was to stop. The fire grew high, and my mind grasped at fuel for the flames. "Those were all Samara's. That's why you needed me—an unwitting tool to aid you in this suicide mission!"
"Stop it, Kaiser!" she cried, and despite my boiling veins, the droplets welling in her eyes stopped me cold.
Samara gingerly took my tensed arm. "You have every right to be angry with me, but please, spare her of your indictment. I know my word is worthless to you now, but I promise that Cordella was just as ignorant of my plan as you. It was only luck that we crossed paths in Chenglei."
"Luck, huh?" I spat, but as much as I couldn’t stand it, she was right; I'd come too far with Cordella to deny her my ear. "Start talking, then. This is your last chance to explain yourself."
A heavy sigh followed, and the bonfire reduced temporarily to the coals. "Thank you. I swear I will give you nothing more than my honest word; however, I must admit that conciseness is not my strong suit. Could I have you two join me in the study?"
We both rose, Cordella a step ahead. Her head was turned, but the pallor hadn’t yet left her cheeks. When we came to Samara’s side we stood in the same decrepit alcove we had visited briefly the day of our first meeting. This time, on her desk lay a blanketed artifact, which upon lifting revealed a stone slab—crumbling and rounded and corners and inscribed with a faint text. The symbols were shallow and worn, barely an impression left on the face of the tablet, but even with its best years behind it, I could see the characters enough to know that I didn’t recognize a single one of them.
"When I told you I had suspicions about the beast's influence on our wyverns, I didn't lie per se, but I confess that it wasn't intuition that led me. I came into possession of this curiosity thanks to a gentleman whose name escapes me, and I've been busy translating ever since," she described as her wizened fingers ran along the timeworn rune. "Well, it's turned out to be quite the relic—a perfectly preserved record of a civilization lost to time."
With a huff, I hunched and feigned interest in the broken artifact. The anger had stopped frothing, but the pot still simmered. Our lives were risked for this old rock, along with a stone nearly as old as she was.
“As you’re aware, Cordella, I have a minor obsession for the historical—mania as you so lovingly call it. If I’m not studying wyverns, I’m playing in the dirty
As you so often remind me, Cordella, I have a keen interest in history. When I'm not studying wyverns, I'm frolicking in dirt, but the two studies rarely cross. You see, until recently, I've had a hell of a time trying to decipher it, but your old friend Sam doesn't easily quit." A devilish grin crossed her lips as she produced a small parchment, transcribed with even less intelligible writing than what it sought to interpret.
Cordella took the paper and read silently.
"Whatever I tried, there were always a few keywords that I couldn't make sense of, but in the end, it came down to a trivial oversight. I had presumed the people who left it behind to be less advanced than our own, lacking certain technology and, with it, the breadth of vocabulary that we have now. However, as my latest translation has led me to believe..."
I perked. While Cordella had been fully invested since the beginning, I was too busy airing my frustration to listen to her drone on. I didn't share her fancy for times gone and only partially attended her lecture until now. "You mean to say that these people, a millennium past, were as advanced as we are now?"
"I suspect more so."
My eyes grew. She was lying—surely she had been. Despite her promise not to, she had deceived us once again, and gullible as I was, I drank it all in. A discovery of this magnitude was astronomical—potentially the most profound in the history of modern archaeology—and this elder woman was its sole proprietor? I didn't believe that for a second.
Cordella resumed charge of the conversation when I refused to entertain her nonsense. "It's perplexing, Samara, but I fail to see the relevance. Wherein lies the dilemma?"
Her question was met with another. "Doesn't it make you wonder? What could cause a nation as great as we, greater, to up and vanish? And without leaving a mark on written history, no less. Read on," she pressed.
"Why? What does it say?" I asked.
"Exactly what I asked it to. It describes a struggle, but it's less than clear what with. I've been kept between kingdoms looking for what could eradicate such a prosperous people, and each time I've returned empty-handed until I found the shadow lurking in the mountains. With your confirmation, I'm able to fill in a few of the remaining details."
"The arch-wyvern," I said flatly, "That's what he called it."
"Arch-wyvern? Hmm. Not the title I'd assigned it. I quite fancied 'earth-wyrm' but I suppose the name is a good as any."
Cordella's head rose slowly from the text. "What is this?" She asked in a whisper.
"Best I can tell, it's a warning. The last cipher before something wiped their civilization from memory."
I'd been lost for words since the revelation, but a still nagging voice crawled, growing again from a cowardly whimper to a growl. "And you think all of this justified your request of us? Just to satisfy a morbid curiosity? I still don't get it. Two days," I surmised. "Two days and you'd have had your answer whether we came back or not, so why us?"
"I’ve drawn you the picture, but you’re still considering just a narrow part. Were it as simple as correcting our history books, it could have well remained a curiosity, but you've read the script, and now you've confirmed it." Her face soured, darkened from its usual lively pale and shrunk to the bone. "A grand beast tearing away beneath our feet, buried away for God knows how long...I want you two to consider again what brought you to Chenglei, and tell me then that the information I bear to you has no greater importance."
After deeper deliberation, a lump formed in my throat. “You mean the wyvern migration.”
She nodded solemnly. "I can't say if this is an isolated incident or not, but a cynical part of me is afraid it's not. From the sounds of it, the gatherings may merely be the early signs of a disease that's plagued our world for eternity. It could be that it wasn't just our ancestors' history that was erased, but tens or hundreds of lineages before them.
The two of us gawked at the matronly woman. What we were just informed of was impending Armageddon, and it seemed more than a little far-fetched. Even were we to accept this sardonic solution to the puzzle, there was a piece that didn't fit. A jolt ran down from the base of my neck when I remembered what the man had told us. It seemed an empty threat at the time, but I was less sure now. "He told us that it was above us. That we didn't understand what we'd done."
"That much is clear, but I wouldn't fret it. I can't say for sure what role your masked marauder plays in this, but if he was keen to let that monster roam, then it's obvious his motives are counter to the greater good. Anything that throws his plans sounds like a step in the right direction."
His plans. With my anger now having fully subsided, I remembered an important detail from our skirmish: "He said something about heading to the marshes. Do you know where he could mean?"
She reeled from the suddenty of my acquisition. "Marshes?" I reaffirmed. "It's a vague query, but if memory serves, the lowlands aren't too far southwest of here. If the man located the wyrm in the mine, it could be that another has surfaced nearby there. I'll consult my maps and let you know what I find."
"And then what? We march down on a whim and nothing else? Even if you're right, it was a stroke of luck that we made it back here alive. I'm not so willing to throw caution to the wind a second time."
Samara's usual positive attitude was vacant from her response. "I understand your unrest, but the severity of the situation demands attention. We're privy to knowledge that no one else is and that even fewer would ever believe. With that comes a responsibility, and were I fit to fulfill the task, I wouldn't hesitate to stand at your side."
"You won’t come then?" Cordella asked.
She bit her lips and creased them in a guilty smile. "I'm so sorry, Corda, for burdening you with this, but my accompaniment would only heavy the load. Besides, you saw where my absence led this place; my duty is to Chenglei. I can repair your clothes and fill your pockets again, but I'm afraid that's all the help I'll be."
She turned to me now, a soft expression and pleading eyes. "As for you, lad. Your actions are yours and yours alone. I owe you more than I can ever offer for keeping this one alive, but I have no control over what you do next, and if my lies have curbed your appetite for the 'truth' you spoke of, I can do nothing of it. But please, take the night to consider what I've told you today. Use the day to rest, and I'll see you both off tomorrow whatever your choices may be."