“Shit!” The guard squealed, drawing his dagger from its sheath. “How the fuck am I supposed to beat that!” Raucous laughter filled the forest and echoed off the rocky walls in the distance.
Ian sighed as he watched the dagger miss the mark, and watched the man lose another week of coin. The sun was just peeking through the canopy above and already the guards were playing games and losing money. Some profited, of course, but they were just as likely to spend it on booze as they were to lose it gambling, whoring, or all three in the next town over. Invariably, one or two lucky guards would spend a day or two painting the town while the rest covered their shifts. Their regular antics, often half remembered, always ended with some sort of illness or another. By the time all was said and done, just about every guard in the caravan was left with half their wages, if they were lucky. It isn’t unique, it isn’t new, it’s just sad. Caravans gouge the tradesmen and the guards gouge themselves.
“You alright over there Ian? Wanna join us? Your purse is looking full as ever, why not test your skills?” The same guard, Ian realized he hadn’t bothered to learn his name, looked hopefully, and almost lustfully at the purse on Ian’s belt. “You might not join us for cards or dice, but it’s no gamble throwing a dagger, I’m sure it’s easier than you’re thinking!”
“No, thank you.” Ian gave a polite smile, but didn’t stand. They left Eren yesterday and made camp in the Defiler’s Gorge. Since the dragon ate just about every living thing around when it woke, the gorge was one of the safer places to be. Generations of overhunting meant the gorge would never be as densely populated as the surrounding wilderness, despite any gossip of wolves or disappearances the townsfolk might enjoy.
He was rooting through his pack, looking for something to read, when he heard it. They all heard it. A terrible, resounding roar.
Ian dashed through the forest. Something had been through this way, the brush was all broken up, but he didn’t have time to think about that. He should have known better. He should have seen it coming. He’d always had rotten luck, it never seemed to stop for long, and he’d been foolish to think it would be satisfied with a little fall off a horse.
He slid to a stop, breathing hard. There’d been a fight. The dirt was all torn up and soaked with blood, but it didn’t seem fresh. Was it waiting for us? Did they take too much? Wouldn’t it just attack the town if they did? Damn it! He changed directions, taking glances over his shoulder as he went. He hadn’t heard it for a while now, he hadn’t heard much of anything. Though, he supposed, he wouldn’t. He focused on his Well as he ran, packing it down and holding it tight, before tapping into it. His back straightened, head raised, and shoulders leveled. His stride evened out, turned rhythmic. Without any conscious effort, his form improved in an instant, and his eyes scanned the forest with renewed sharpness. He gradually picked up speed while taking steady, measured breaths. The swaying branches, the crushed pine cones and the long shadows, he noticed each with a kind of practiced ease before looking to the next.
It wasn’t long before Ian heard the sound of running water. He turned toward it and soon found himself on the bank of a raging river. He ran alongside it, under the cover of the tree line, upriver. He was breathing hard again, but if he could find a place to hide along the towering rocky wall, he stood a chance.
* * *
It watched. All she did was watch. All day, every day since she was taken.
“Is it not all that I promised and more?” Kahromei asked, leaning on his golden staff.
“It is,” replied the stranger “I never could have imagined.” The two of them stood looking through the window. A window It could not see through. She sometimes dreamed she could, dreamt she could escape, even for just a moment, even into the deadly embrace of the ocean below. She longed for the feeling of the air, of the water on her skin, she longed even for the gnashing jaws she knew would greet her before long. But she was forgotten.
“Open ocean as far as the eye can see, and even farther. And yet there is no safer place in all the world. It is a humbling view, and you must remember it.” Kahromei placed a hand on the sill and turned, regarding the man beside him for a time. “Consider, Palarus, what do you see? You stand now above all roads you have ever walked, beyond all borders you have ever crossed.” He ran his hand along the sunbaked stone, traveling over the faint weather-worn grooves, “Yet still… you stand in a place fashioned by men and tested by time.” Palarus nodded slowly. “From afar, a speck on the horizon, but closer… and its majesty becomes clear.” He raised his hand steadily above the stone. “An island, a grand tower. A fortress… a palace.” He froze, and whispered. “Can you see it?”
“Yes,” Palarus breathed.
“Step back,” Kahromei commanded, and Palarus did, gaze fixed on the window. “There it sits, all that I have built, atop jagged cliffs. All that I have accomplished, cloaked in the ocean.” He lowered his hand, coming to rest upon the sill. “The greatest testament to its beauty, the natural world around it. Endless blue.” Kahromei’s staff cracked against the stone floor. “It screams to all the world its name! It asserts its place in it and demands respect!” Palarus jumped, his eyes torn from the window to meet Kahromei’s. “The world does not hear. Its cry is stolen by the waves. Lost by the horizon.” Kahromei smiled. “Your beginning was much the same as mine, Palarus, but a true wizard does great work, and humble beginnings are quickly forgotten. They must be. You must remember this instead.”
The men spoke, Kahromei and Palarus. The waves crashed against the beach below, against the island and its rocks. And It watched. All she could do was watch.
* * *
Juliane, trader and head of the Greener Pastures caravan, ran with what remained of it. Ran for his life. Many split off, ran in different directions. Likely that was the right idea. But he was fat, and slow, and many of the men didn’t know any better. He was proud of his weight. He could afford to eat, travel, and trade without the slightest impediment. He would have described himself as happy, or healthy, or perhaps large-chested with an equally large heart. Honeyed words could not help him now. He was fat, unathletic, uncoordinated, and helpless outside of civilization. By the seas, I swear if I survive this I’ll change my ways.
Less than half the caravan ran along the trail. More than a quarter sounds best. By all accounts it should be less. Not too many sharp tools in my traveling shed I suppose. “Gah! My knees are killing me!” He gasped, spittle flying from his mouth.
“Keep moving! Look for paths off the main road! Game trails! Anything!” One of the guards called out ahead of him. Easy for you to say, bastard.
“There! Off the road a ways!” the drover said, also ahead of Juliane.
“Good spot Kenneth!” The guard launched into a sprint, closing the distance like a true athlete. He leapt over the shrubs by the side of the road, careening down the beaten path and through the trees.
“We sh- we should sto-” Juliane vomited, and it shot out like a cannon, splashing off the ground and onto the boots of everyone nearby.
The man running beside him, who caught the brunt of it on his shoes, shot back, “Ugh! Careful where you aim that shit!" His look of disgust rivaled even Juliane's feelings of illness. "And no, we can’t stop! We need to keep moving until we find a place to hide, or mount a defense!”
“I-” Juliane choked out, ignored.
“Down here! There’s a door!” A door? Out in the woods? In the Defiler’s Gorge? “Come on lads!”
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There was a sound like metal grinding on stone, followed by an unfamiliar voice. “Ah, I wasn’t expecting any more visitors.”
Something about the voice set Juliane on edge. The tone, the words, they were all wrong. “Wait,” he stumbled forward, following the trail until, indeed, he found an open door. Recessed into the earth, hidden behind the greenery, set into the base of a large boulder.
“Come in, come in,” once more that voice rang out, muffled by the sounds of boots and heavy breathing.
“Thank you, sir, the dragon-”
“It’s finally over!” His would-be companions rejoiced, out of sight, somewhere past that threshold.
“Be at ease," the voice cooed. “Trust me, this is the end.”
Tired, sick to his stomach, and aching in every joint, Juliane turned. As the cheers and laughter rose from the ground behind him, and as metal ground against stone with sickening finality, he hobbled back up the trail.
* * *
A terrible idea. It had been a terrible idea to follow the river. Sickly green clouds, tinged with wisps of white, hung in the air, drifting to the forest floor. He’d run for a long time, and he was mentally exhausted. It required constant attention to keep his Well compressed, and since he was using it too, it was half empty. And there was a hole in the uneven rock above, impossible to miss. Of course, I flee from the relative safety of my caravan straight to the dragon’s actual den. And of course- There was one more thing impossible to miss. A naked man lay along the bank of the river. He didn’t need sharper eyes to spot the dark red bruises on the man’s legs, or the blood running from the gash in his bald head.
Ian broke from the tree line and slid to a stop next to the man. He tapped into his Well, redirected the flow of power inside, and then released his grip on it. It’d make him easier to spot, but he was in the open anyway, nowhere to hide. And he had to focus.
His eyes softened, his posture relaxed, and he carefully adjusted the man. He was cold, and barely breathing. Neither of his legs were broken, and the head wound wouldn’t be fatal, but he was going to need more help than Ian could give him. He opened his pack anyway and got to work.
Ian made none of the refined movements he had earlier that day, and he grumbled quietly to himself as he carried the man over his shoulder. He handled the weight as if he’d done so his whole life, shifting easily with it, but it was still hard work. Harder still to carry a man while focusing on his Well, stubbornly packing it down, the flow of power tightly measured and controlled. It was the bastard’s own damn fault for getting himself hurt like that, but it was work that had to be done.
There were no signs of the dragon, and no game trails to speak of either. He wouldn’t have noticed before, but it should have been a clear sign something was wrong. Regardless, he couldn’t go back to the dirt road the caravans used, so he trudged through the forest. His muscles burned, his bones ached, and he made his quiet complaints known to the world, but he kept marching.
As the light faded, Ian found a good spot to set the man down. Not as gently as he might have liked, but he wasn’t in a position to complain. Free of the first burden, he seized what little power remained and let his Well expand. As quickly as they’d come, the skills that he had never learned left him. He took a sharp breath, fell back against a tree, and sat hard in the dirt. It had been a long time, and he’d been borrowing skills all day. Disorienting as it was, he’d paced himself, and as he shook his head beneath the setting sun, he found he felt like himself.
His body was a different story. He felt better than the man across from him looked, wrapped in his only blanket, honey and blood soaked bandages around his head, but not by much. He noticed different things with his head clear. Instead of the swelling on his legs, or the uncalloused softness of his hands, he noticed how odd he looked. He didn’t have any hair on his body, and every inch of it looked sunburned. He looked young, pristine. No wrinkles, no scars, and no blemishes, aside from the injuries. He mustered up the energy to lean forward, stiff body creaking as he did, and put a hand on the man’s head. No fever. He sighed. “Looks like your luck’s better than mine.” Unless the town’s under attack. That would be an ironic climax. To survive the Gorge Defiler in its home and escape, to run back to civilization having found life in the forest, only to find death at its doorstep. But nothing he could do might change the outcome. Either it would be there, or it wouldn’t. And so he made ready for the long night ahead, and kept watch.
* * *
Glittering gold. That was the first thing. Gold glittering in the first rays of morning, shining down to blind him. Just a hatchling, he woke from his first feast sleep to find, half buried beneath his paltry bed of gold, the most wonderful treasure he had ever known. A swirling golden staff marked by many pits and craters, each stoppered by scintillating crystals. That was the happiest day of his life.
When he woke from his second feast sleep, curled around the staff, he had grown. His home, and his hoard, had grown. He had claimed treasures of his own, and more coins, but something was out of place. For the second time in his life, he found unfamiliar treasure glittering amongst the gold. He could have mistaken it for his own, and it surely was now, but he had not taken this treasure. He knew, this was like the staff. A gift. A miniscule thing, the earring was camouflaged, but not well enough. Dragons take, and all things wish to be a dragon. He scoured his hoard, and to his unending fury, found one treasure missing. A single gem, half the size of an acorn. Gone. He had not misplaced it. He could never misplace any of his treasures. Taken. It was stolen while he slept.
The sound of footsteps, barely audible, broke the silence. They drew closer. Closer still, carefully, slowly, the very definition of cautious, nay, the epitome. All for nothing. He opened one eye, hidden beneath a precisely placed paw. He watched as the human crept around his hoard. It reached out, took hold of a pearl necklace, and silently drew a dagger. It deftly cut the string, plucked two of the pearls from where they lay, and tied the string back together. Then, it withdrew a golden needle, and nestled it between the coins at the foot of his hoard. The cautious one was precise, practiced and smooth. He forgave it, but not before what remained of its corpse slid equally smooth down his throat.
When he woke from his third feast sleep, he panicked. Unaccustomed to his larger body, he slipped in a viscous green slurry, and even as he struggled for balance the coins beneath him tumbled away. The wicked, poisonous sludge had seeped through the cracks, coming to coat his hoard almost entirely. As he slept and grew in strength, his power bled into the world around him, as he knew it would. But he had not foreseen the mess it would make. As he slid uncontrollably, no sign of traction and picking up speed, the thought of cleaning up his mess filled him with dread.
When he woke from his fourth feast sleep, he had once more grown. Too large for more than his tail to wrap around his staff. Rings of precious gems, earrings and anklets, bracelets and bracers all adorned his hoard. Treasures he had not seen before the sleep-
Loss. That was the first thing. The end of his tail was forced open, his most valuable treasure prized from his grasp. Clinking metal. That was the second thing. Golden coins flowing like water, bouncing off one another to crash against the stone floor. He was not dreaming. A fortune crashed around the feet of an old human, and fortunes more fell as Willaartauraxx the Gorge Defiler rose to his full height.
“This one’s steeped enough,” It murmured. It held a simple golden staff in one hand, and his treasure in the other. They looked silly next to one another, the plain stick of gold sharply juxtaposed by the opulent masterwork. The old fool and the dragon were much the same.
It turned away, and he poured Poison from his Well, gathering almost half of his power in his gullet. He felt the bile of his stomach rise to his throat. He almost emptied his Well entirely as he added Vegetation to the Poison, and they crashed and tangled together. The moss was ripped from the cavern’s walls, ceiling, and floor, even from beneath the feat of the old fool. A torrent of green drawn to him, blasting through the entrance to his lair. Branches and vines crashed into and around the old fool, drawn into Willaartauraxx’s open maw. Vile flowers began to sprout beneath his scales, buds barely pushing through before joining the rest of the plant matter. All was mulched and churned, sucked into the vortex and made to be liquid death. He shone, an avatar of verdant light, and his growing antlers cast a net of terrible shadows over the barren stone. Willaartauraxx the Gorge Defiler let loose a roar, born of disbelieving hatred. It was so absurd, so cruel a joke, so impossible that the sky itself might sooner open up and swallow him whole. He would show them. He would show the world.
His breath cut stone, boiled and turned to toxic vapor. The light dimmed, his antlers shrunk, and the life burgeoning beneath his scales turned to dust. Thick clouds of death blew in the wind and escaped through the gaping hole he carved in the earth. Eventually, they would settle into the forest below, and some would settle into the river. The town would suffer much worse. He would raze their defenses, enthrall hatchlings in the night, and soon he would carve a new valley. The world would forget the town. Instead, he would expand his domain, and it would remember him.
“I’ve heard you eat humans.” The voice was calm, steady, disinterested. He was not. “As expected of a dragon, of course. But you were spoiled.” The silhouette of the old fool appeared through the haze. “You sought no conflict, no conquest. You have grown stagnant, like a pool of fetid water, adorning itself with the trappings of filth.” In the twisted light, which shyly weaved through the clouds, he emptied his Well. He wove a blanket of Obscurity, a crude thing suited to stillness, to lying in wait in the dark. He ducked low, fastened it to his body, and crept through the shadows. The voice grew stern. “The insects that skitter across your surface, until some disturbance drops them into your shallow depths. The duckweed, the green shield beneath which you hide, skulking in the dark. The pocket change of travelers and children fell into your quaint little ditch, and so you contented yourself.” More than halfway now, a few more strides and he’d be free. “For more than 200 years,” it’s voice raised, “you have spat sickness at ants, and allowed rats to relieve you of your paltry riches. For more than 200 years you have squandered my gift, and it is as weak as you!” He felt the sudden weight of a Well behind him, dense enough to drag power around his own Well. He flung himself out and into the open sky, Obscurity fluttering behind him in the wind. The voice sounded almost mirthful. “Do you enjoy irony?”