The city of Dumumshtu, an independent dominion of the Nikkad under the rule of its local prince, lies at the base of the Dumum Mountains, which rise to present snow-covered heights across a great sweep of territory extending to the edge of Shdustu and beyond to the land of endless forest. The city lies upon the Shdulus River, marking the furthest point upon that lengthy waterway where a barge or raft might conceivably navigate and be sent south with cargo in the spring. The city relies upon vast fields of wheat and barley spread widely across watered patches of the foothills to support its survival, though even in good years harvests are poor. Rather than crops, trade with Kharal and Bahab hunters justifies the existence of this place. In addition to various local products, this is the point at which certain goods, mostly traceable to those distant northern forests and slowly transferred through the villages of the Bahab, enter the commerce of those who know the Enlightened Revelation. The most important of these products are various furs, but also include alchemical reagents, musk, and the powdered antlers of a strange deer whose tines are said to grow long and straight to equal the height of its shoulders. A dubious description, but I could find no good sketches. This antler, and especially the powdered velvet, is believed to serve as the central component of concoctions designed to improve virility, and commands high prices as a consequence. Amanili examined a sample of this substance and claimed that, while it possessed modest utility in formulas intended to ease blockages of the blood as all antler and velvet do, it was in no way superior to that sourced from any other deer.

I am inclined to believe her deduction. Scholarship has shown that most traits of medicine hold common across related forms, whatever cosmetic differences they might possess, and this generally sustains even when cooked, ground, or mashed.

Though trade sustains Dumumshtu, the city could not be called prosperous. The wheat crop, and that of a number of critically important vegetables, is precarious. In many years there is not enough, and the people derive many of their meals from burdock and onions that are poorly suited to strengthen the body, for the winter is very long here and demands much fuel to survive. Even at the walking pace of the expedition, winter kept up with our northward progress, so we arrived as spring had just begun. In the periodic years when the frosts are unkind and the first planting perishes, as happens at least one year in ten, starvation is likely, and raiding becomes an epidemic. Many of the houses lying within the city's walls lay empty, slowly surrendering their bricks to that of a handful of prosperous compounds. This is the northernmost city of western Shdustu, and while others exist at equally northern locations to the east along the Mumum River, the cold in that region is somewhat reduced, perhaps a consequence of reduced altitude and less scraping by chill winds. Dumumshtu is, so far as my knowledge extends, the coldest continually inhabited settlement in the world, though if hidden towns exist in the forbidding land of the northern forest what outsider could know of them?

The city's lack of welcome is apparent from the first approach. A high and barren wall surrounds it, with long stretches covered by snow from a lack of maintenance and vigilance. Crumbling towers of dubious brickwork mark out defensive intervals, but most are unmanned. The gates too displayed warped wood and flaking mortar. None of this suggested any capacity to hold off a determined Kharal warband. Inside the sooty marks of fire stained many buildings, as the grubby, smoky mixture of firewood, dung, and farming waste that is burned here for warmth regularly escapes control. Numerous buildings were half ruined. Only the temple, palace, and merchant's caravanserai were kept in proper repair and clean.

Desperate, perhaps even criminal, poverty, afflicted much of the city. Though it was still quite cold when we arrived at midday, children ran through the streets naked, hands blue with chill, while their parents labored elsewhere. Food and fodder were never kept open on display, and all the people were sunken and thin, even the members of the guard. The purple and pink shades beloved by the Nikkad were little in evidence here, and instead the people were clad in faded maroon coloring traceable to inferior dyes made from crushed berries. At night the city turned black, for none could afford candles and the sentry lamps went largely untended. Even in the palace darkness was allowed free reign, for the prince spent his nights engaged in endless debaucheries supplied by the merchants from the south, with each new exotic beauty who caught his eye a path to temporary favor. Even the temple burned few lights, with the night sky candle left to flicker forlornly in halls almost completely empty. No giant scorpions here, they cannot endure the winter. Only the merchants, whose business kept this place functional and supplied the tribute needed to prevent the khagan from ordering its erasure, worked into the night.

Those caravans that proceed this far north are few in number. The same handful of merchants lead their charges back and forth. Some go to Inukudish, but most take the western pass. As such none had been encountered upon the way, and combined with the expedition's rapid pace that carried it ahead of the endless rumor mill of the Kharal this meant our arrival was little anticipated. The chieftain of the local tribe of the herders, themselves poor but by no means as reduced as the city dwellers, did learn of our coming and met Erun Nassah before the gates of the city. He shared a drink of fermented mare's milk, the first of the year and therefore very honorable, and promised safe passage through his lands. In return for this courtesy, he was given a fine Crisremon-made dagger. The steppe leader claimed the nearby city was a plague, but the merchants paid the prince well, and the prince paid him, which he considered sufficient to prevent him from putting it to the torch. No doubt such an action would also anger the Bahab, who rely heavily on this city as a trading depot for key imports. The Kharal would claim this is irrelevant, that they have no fear of the mountain people, but I suspect the thought of endless raids upon their herds is not without weighty consideration. Therefore, Dumumshtu persists, surviving as a source of profit to everyone save its own citizens. A more miserable place I do not think I have ever visited.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The local merchants did not greet us with much welcome. This was compounded by the actions of the local priests, who chose to allow Princess Romou to lead the weekly services the day after our arrival. I believe laziness rather than piety was their motive. The furious sermon she unleashed regarding the duty all humans owe both to the Divines and their fellows, though cheered by almost the entire assembled populace, did not endear the merchants to the expedition's presence. I do note that the ability to give that sermon at all, entirely in Nikkad, served as testament to the Princess' dedication, for she had spent the winter acquiring proficiency in the language especially for such purposes. Truthfully, the reaction by the merchants ought to have offered an early warning as to the grip corruption and heresy held upon this land at the edge of civilization, and the dangers attached to that, but such awareness failed us as the concerns of the moment and the need to provision a push into the mountains consumed the days.

Poverty and exclusive contracts held by the merchant monopoly meant the necessary resources for the advance into the Bahab heartland were difficult to obtain and demanded hideous expense. Nor was the prospect of replacing the Iron Bells with members of any locally available mercenary groups enticing. The city had no shortage of crude thugs and desperate youths, all who eagerly proclaimed they held no fear of Bahab warriors and Kharal raiders, but even my eyes could tell they were poorly equipped and trained.

Captain Ashalan of the Imperial Guard told me that he considered less than one in ten of those available for hire worth bringing into battle at all and further opined that, given six months to spare he'd choose instead to train up twenty-five worthy youths instead and make real soldiers out of them. Very much the suggestion of a true warrior, but six months were not available. Bahab trappers and traders had, with the arrival of spring, come down to the city. One of these, impressed by my limited ability to parse his native tongue, which he claimed was superior to that of many merchants he'd traded with for many years, told me a fisherman working the ice in the high alpine lakes had seen the dragon fly past, low enough to properly describe the shape of the skull horns, not twenty days previous. This sighting was located very near to the source of the Shdulus River. Unquestionably, this was the most concrete report regarding our quarry that the expedition had yet received, and it demanded haste in response. Such information provided further reason to leave the crumbling city with all possible alacrity.

As such, decisions were made swiftly. Erun, infuriated by the stubbornness of the merchants regarding supplies, accepted my suggestion that we depart lightly laden and fill our stores through trade with the Bahab villages we would no doubt pass by repeatedly as we proceeded upriver. I believed, and was later validated in this most thoroughly, that they could better supply gear appropriate to the challenges of the highly elevated terrain while the Nikkad merchants would try to cheat and supply threadbare coats that would never serve. Fatefully, Tomad objected to this, precipitating a sharp argument before Erun forcibly overruled the purser. At the time, this disagreement seemed minor, with others far more serious having passed without long-term consequence. However, I had failed to recognize that, as Tomad spoke not a word of Bahab and had little proficiency with the hard-accented Kharal the mountain people used with outsiders, it would not be he who conducted these trades, but I. Such a shift, though absolutely necessary to sustain the expedition, represented usurpation of his position and authority, both of which he clung to desperately as Erun and the soldiers grew less and less tolerant of his complaining.

Though Tomad's choices were ultimately his own, I confess that I cannot say I handled this affair with the wisdom that a proper scholar should retain always.

The prince, upon demanding an audience with his imperial guests, stared at Princess Romou with such open avarice that both his great-aunt and his household priest rebuked him in public. Though a man of little virtue, he was not a complete fool, and realized his mistake afterwards. Perhaps in the knowledge that only the deference of the merchants preserved his position from ovethrow, and sent both an apologetic gift and forbore any further audiences. He also allowed the expedition access to his archives, from which I was able to procure maps that, though severely aged, suggested past knowledge of the mountains had been quite good and offered several options for our passage north.

Mercenaries too were secured with the silent assistance of the prince. He convinced one of the merchants soon to depart to both take on the Iron Bells and to add numerous of the city's dissolute youths to the guard for seasoning. A cruel measure, in part, since losses would surely be substantial, but this also removed otherwise hungry mouths from the city for the summer. This action freed up a thirty-strong detachment of a company called the Snow Banes for hire. This group was at least reasonably well-armed and moved with some discipline, but its members were mostly Kharal outcasts and half-breeds born as a consequence of raiding. They were by no means friends of the people of the northern mountains. Though it could be said there were no better options, the choice to hire them carried with it considerable consequences for future relations.

Though the Dragon Expedition spent a mere seven days in Dumumshtu, this was too many. Neither we nor the city displayed any regret when we parted. Such is the nature of truly wretched places; they both carry and source much woe.