There was still the matter of actually killing the trapped worm-drake, which thrashed around so violently that it was dangerous even to approach it. It still had javelins poking out from its worm-flesh like porcupine quills, and I could see, if I looked closely, the little blackened holes where burning steel balls had created charred wounds.

If this thing was able to retreat, I thought, I’d lose five out of my six shots. I should really keep that in mind in the future. And get some more steel balls. The sword pommel didn’t fly quite like the other balls, but I pocketed it anyway. A good luck charm.

None of us were able to think of a good solution, although Cadoc suggested we simply all charge it at once. I pointed out that one of us would likely die, so we went with plan B.

We slept. Or, at least, Naomi slept, while the rest of us couldn’t help but look fearfully at the monster, wondering if its frantic struggles would finally free it. It never seemed to tire of its fight. If it did escape, we would be screwed.

But the trap held. When Naomi woke up, we fed her the last of the food - she insisted that she needed her strength up - then pressed her to use her cutting magic again. She didn’t want to - “I’m going to be worthless all day,” she said - but it was by far our best option, and it was that or starve.

Once the worm-drake was cut cleanly in half, Naomi returned right back to where she had been sleeping. “Goodnight,” she said, yawning. “Try not to die while I’m gone. You guys can split the mana if you want.”

Then I got that same question-feeling. I hadn’t thought of it before, but did that mean that Naomi had taken the mana from the first one? I guess she had killed it, but still, it seemed a little greedy.

“Can I take this?” I asked. “Wait, what does she mean, split it?”

Cadoc shrugged, but Amaia answered. “You can choose to take part of the mana. Just think it.”

“What?” I asked. “We could have done that the whole time? Why didn’t you tell us?”

She shrugged. “Didn’t come up.”

I sighed. Some things never change.

The rest of us - everyone except Naomi - got started with the body. I retrieved my ammunition first, using a knife to dig the balls out. Then I searched the bone and rusty-metal filled refuse, looking for the last one. I found it before too long, luckily.

The next problem was how we were actually going to eat the thing.

Cooking it was simple enough - I’m not sure if it would be easy, per se, or even if the result would be tasty, but it should be simple. Make a fire, cook it, eat it. The bigger concern was preserving it. It was way more meat than we could ever hope to eat in one meal - or even a hundred meals, maybe.

We didn’t exactly have a refrigerator on hand, or a freezer, so that about exhausted my experience of food preservation. I tried to think of what methods I’d read about in biographies of famous historical figures, but all I could think of was salting. Or pickling. We didn’t really have the materials for that.

“You have any salt in that pack of yours?” I asked Amaia. She shook her head. “Not enough,” she said. It was worth a shot - I was surprised she had any. I was in the same boat - I still had some little salt packets from the MREs stashed away in my pack, but nowhere close to enough to actually preserve something.

So, unfortunately, most of the worm-drake was going to go to waste. It was aggravating to have killed two massive creatures, enough food to last us for years, probably, and end up having to let most of it rot after a few days.

“Isn’t there, I don’t know, magical food preservation or something?”

“Even if there is, friend,” Cadoc said, “None of us are saltomancers. Preservomancers, perhaps. Whatever the case. Let us cook, and feast, and eat our fill. When we grow hungry, we will only have to hunt another drake.”

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I almost cried.

But there was no sense in waiting around. The body wasn’t getting any fresher. Amaia pulled a long knife from her pack and begun cutting into the pinkish meat with an trained hand. She began with carving an exit into the bulging mass jammed in the doorway which led out into the cavern - otherwise it would be difficult to even leave before the thing rotted. She had Cadoc and I prepare more spears, to skewer the meat on. I really, really hoped it was going to taste good.

When she had cut off some sizeable chunks, she told Cadoc and I to start a fire. Cadoc summoned sticks and arrayed them into a pyramid-shape, and I worked on getting my nails to ignite them. Before long we had a roaring fire, comforting in that subterranean clime. We built it near where Naomi slept, and she muttered some ‘thank-you’s in her sleep.

Amaia, meanwhile, had continued her slicing, moving up and down the length of the carcass, occasionally shaking her head, as if looking for something. The incisions were meticulous, and revealed thin bones like those of a fish. Finally, she sliced into a segment, nodded, and pulled forth a narrow organ larger than her head, which was dark red, and looked like an elongated heart. She set this aside as well - piercing it on a freshly-sharpened spear, which caused blood to burst from it, and then run lazily down the spear’s shaft - then moved down a seemingly measured distance, sliced again, and pulled out a brown-ish blob, slimy and, honestly, disgusting-looking.

Finally she moved to the head, peeling back the skin until the skull was revealed. Then she called me over and asked me to smash the skull.

“What? Why?” I stared at her in disbelief. Is she going to eat the brains? But Amaia only stared back at me, and motioned to the skull again.

Whatever, I thought. If she wants to get mad-cow disease or whatever the fuck you get from eating worm brains, that’s her business.

“Don’t come crying to me when you’ve got a parasite in your gut,” I muttered.

I drew my antisword, wishing that I had brought my mace - there were many more wide spaces in the dungeon than we had anticipated - but the drows would have to do. I steeled myself for a long ordeal.

To my surprise, it only took a couple of swings. The skull was as thin as the rest of the bones, and it began to crack after the very first blow. If we did have to kill another one - though I still dreaded the thought - that might prove to be invaluable information.

Once she deemed the skull sufficiently pulverized, and the brain underneath was slightly scrambled, Amaia said “Enough” and took over. She carefully removed shards of cranium, and then used her knife to scoop out the brains. She put it in a little pot she’d pulled from her pack - was her pack full of nothing but cooking supplies?

This done, she got to cooking. Most of the meat was skewered, and so didn’t need much work, but she had some spices in her pack - none of which I recognized - which she pulled out and applied to the chunks of meat carefully, as if one extra fleck of spice would ruin it.

We also built a little pot-stand for her brain. The frame was made simply enough from Cadoc’s summoned sticks, while we were able to scavenge a chain from the remains of an old, impractical looking weapon. It was a knife on the end of a large chain, though the knife was mostly rusted. The chain wasn’t must better, but didn’t have any broken links. It wasn’t too hard to wrap this around the handle of the pot, suspending it above the fire. Amaia twisted the metal with her magic to make sure it would hold.

She filled the brain pot with all of the water she and Cadoc had left - she wanted to use mine too, insisted it would be worth it, but I refused.

“We’ll definitely need to find more fresh water soon, though,” I said, hurrying to change the subject away from the idea of drinking brain juice.

Naomi began mumbling in response - she was in and out of sleep. “Shoulda drained the blood,” is what it sounded like. I hoped that wasn’t right, because Amaia made a face like regret, as if she wished she had thought of that.

Amaia added spices to the brain-stew as well, and then we simply waited, turning our skewers occasionally so that they wouldn’t burn. I intended to cook mine thoroughly.

“How does a bodyguard know so much about cooking?” I asked Amaia, once we had all settled into our places around the fire. We’d cleared the area of bones and debris, but we didn’t have anything to sit on - just spots on the ground. Naomi was in her bedroll, awake again but clearly quite tired still.

“Part of the job,” Amaia said.

“Truly?” Cadoc said. “I wouldn’t have imagined.”

I shook my head. “That can’t be right. Maybe we use a different word for the same thing. Your job was to protect someone, right? Make sure no one killed them?”

Amaia nodded.

“Then why the hell were you cooking?” I asked. “Where I come from, bodyguards definitely aren’t cooks.”

Naomi perked up. “You’re a foreigner? Where are you from? How did you get here? Did you walk? From what direction?”

Cadoc answered for me before I could. “He’s from a land without magic. He appeared in the desert south of here. He was transported there by magic. The contradiction there is obvious, but Miles assures me of its truth.” He grunted and twisted his face, as if he had tasted something sour. “Although perhaps his word does not mean as much to me as it once did.”

“A land without magic?” Naomi asked. “That sounds…huh. Y’know, I suppose it might be kind of nice. No fighting, no war.”

I laughed. “Dream on. There’s still plenty of fighting.”

“Hmm,” Naomi said, staring off. She was pondering something, clearly.

“Anyway,” I said, ignoring Cadoc’s returning displeasure - and possible suspicion. “Back to the question. Why did your employer have you cooking? They couldn’t afford a bodyguard and a cook?”

Amaia shook her head. “Couldn’t trust them.”

“What, from poison?” I asked. “Just how important was this person? And was he that hated?”

“Oooooh,” Naomi said. “She must have been guarding a famous celebrity or something. Maybe a king, or a duke, or something. What a glamorous job.”

“She was not-“

“She?” Noami and I both said at once. We turned to each other for a moment. Naomi stuck out her tongue at me.

“I have already said too much,” Amaia said, and refused to continue on that subject.

“What about you, Naomi?” I asked. “You ever going to tell us your story?”

“Oh, it’s nothing, really,” she said. “I’m just a famous adventurer, known across the lands for my stunning beauty. And, y’know, heroic deeds or whatever.”

“I’ve never heard of you,” Amaia said.

“Well, that just means that you are dreadfully uninformed. It isn’t my fault you spent your life making sandwiches for the queen.”

“But you’re only a First Ring mage,” Cadoc interjected.

“So what if I am?” Naomi retorted. She stood up, using her staff as a support. “Y’think I can’t be powerful as a First Ring mage? How’d you like a test? Got any fingers or toes you won’t miss? How’s this - I shoot my magic at you, and then you can hit back with your stick and board routine, and we see who’s stronger, huh?”

Cadoc might have actually agreed to that, if Naomi hadn’t collapsed a moment later. We all rushed over to help, but she beat us off. “I’m fine, I’m fine, leave me alone. I’m just tired. And starving. Is the food ready yet?”

I looked at the meat. I had been trying not to think about the fact that I’d have to eat it, but my stomach was growling.

If I died from food poisoning, I would be so unbelievably angry.