“Ooooh, a ghost story! I love these!” cried Gigi. She loved urban legends and fairy tales. They made her think of places better than where she was. For her, there was real comfort in that. Qarl spat and gave her the stink eye.

“Ain't no ghost story!” Qarl growled. Gigi halted her joy. That was odd. Qarl usually loved it when she wanted to hear about his stories. He was full of tall tales, she supposed most old men were.

“What did this one really happen?” she snickered. Qarl grimaced. Gigi stopped laughing. “Oh shit, did this one really happen?” Gigi asked with concern. She looked to Drake, he looked anxious, with eyes hard on the driver.

“The Swords are… unfortunately, very real, Gigi,” Drake said softly. Qarl nodded.

“Smart lad, you ever been on the front when they were in action?” Qarl asked in a mixture of fear and wonder. Drake scowled and made that face she could already tell was the one he made when he didn’t want to lie, but the truth was a problem. The one where he clenched his jaw and sucked in his lips like he was eating something sour.

“I hope never to see any of them again,” Drake said with measured words. Qarl nodded solemnly.

“Spoken true, Drake Stone. No man who sees what they can do relishes the memory.”

Gigi’s eyes went wide in realization. By the gods, he’s THE Shadow Drake. She went slack-jawed for a moment before quickly closing her mouth. Her ears fluttered as she looked back to her companion. Now, it was crystal clear to her why he had been so tight-lipped when she had saved him. He wasn’t just some soldier. He was a bonafide hero in his homeland. People must know that he’s gone. She wasn’t sure what that meant exactly, but she suspected it was bad.

That thought filled her with a sense of urgent dread. Did that mean people were looking for him? It writhed inside of her as she listened to Qarl’s words.

“I’ve only seen them once…” a far-off look came over Qarl. The walls of the cavern raced by as Gus picked up speed. “That was enough for ten lifetimes, though.” The driver looked back to Drake. “I think it was going on five, maybe six years ago now. I saw two of them go at it.”

Gigi looked to Drake, who appeared to be trying his hardest not to scowl. A sinking feeling was coming over her, like gravity was lessening. She suspected that her soldier already knew the story he was about to be told. The wind was picking up as they traveled. It swept Gigi’s hair back and flung it wildly.

“What I saw that day was like two demons tearing the world apart. The whole city was watching that day.” Qarl looked back and forth to Drake and Gigi. “My whole family was with me that day…”

Drake looked away. He appeared to be trying to hide his face from the scrutiny of the old man. Gigi looked back to Qarl.

“Why were they fighting?” she asked hoarsely. Qarl shrugged.

“They didn’t say.”

“Oh,” she whispered.

“But I have had a long time to think about it… I do think I might know why,” Qarl said, nodding his head.

“Why is that?” Drake asked with a strained voice. Gigi caught only a glimpse of his face, but it looked like he was trying to hold back tears.

“Well, out of the blue, men from the King’s army tell us to leave our homes. Of course, we all tell them where they can shove that order.” He smiled wryly, but it quickly faded. “But they were serious, deadly so, didn’t mind tellin’ us that the city was being punished for ‘commiserating with the enemy,’ whatever in the realm that meant. Whoever had done it, it wasn’t us, not us at the bottom anyway.”

“What happened?” Gigi asked with rapt horror.

“The men left told us to do the same. At sundown, the Shadow Drake was going to level the whole city and anyone left in its walls.”

Gigi looked at Drake; she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Had he really destroyed a city of his own countrymen? It seemed unthinkable, but the shame on Drake’s face made it less farfetched. No, he couldn’t. The goblin just couldn’t imagine the man who did the deliveries with her every day, who had shown kindness to everyone in the village he had met, would do something like that. Perhaps it was naive, but she refused to believe Drake was a monster.

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“Did the Shadow Drake come?” She asked, not wanting to know the truth.

“See, that’s the strange part, no, he didn’t. From that wall, I saw the Shadow Drake,” he pointed to Drake, “your namesake, fighting with none other than the Flayed Dragon himself. It was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. That devil of a man, he became…something else.”

“Gaius…” Drake confirmed.

“Aye, Gaius, the Flayed Dragon, our Lord Commander, that man…that thing…was a terror that no man or woman in the realm should meet.”

“Why do you think they were fighting?” Gigi pushed. Qarl looked at her.

“I think the Shadow Drake said no, that he refused the order to ‘punish us,’ and that the Lord Commander had been brought down to punish him…and us.”

Gigi looked back to Drake. His sadness seemed to have been replaced with anger. He bristled as the story continued.

“They fought until late into the night. Many fled, but more stayed.”

“Why did they stay?” Gigi asked.

“Because they had nowhere else to go,” Drake said flatly. Qarl looked at him with surprise but then gave his silent assent.

“As the battle drew on, the Flayed Dragon marched toward the city. The Shadow Drake did everything he could to halt him.”

Gigi looked from Qarl to Drake. His look was electric, the sadness gone. She knew he was back in that fight—the same stormy gaze he had given the hunters.

“I don’t know what time it was when the Shadow Drake fell…he never did yield, though.”

“But he failed all the same,” Drake cursed. Qarl shrugged.

“Aye…he did, lad.” The driver looked the soldier over again as if seeing him for the first time. A look of curiosity came over the driver's dirty face.

“I can’t blame him, though,” Qarl said, meeting Drake’s eyes. “He wasn’t the one who gave that order, I think. He was the one that said no and tried to do right by us.” Qarl turned his gaze back to the mines ahead. Pulling hard to the left to command Gus to do the same.

“Did Gaius do that,” Drake asked. Gigi didn’t understand. What was he talking about? Qarl nodded without turning from the tunnel.

“Aye.”

“I’m sorry…my namesake should have done better.”

“It’s strange, I can still feel it sometimes. Like I stepped on something sharp, but then I look down, and it’s still gone.”

Gigi grimaced. his leg. They were talking about his leg. Gigi had asked about his leg many times. Each time, she had gotten a different answer. Sometimes, Gus enjoyed it for a snack, or sometimes, it was a pirate attack. Whatever story he told was always with a smile and a chuckle. Now, there was no humor in his voice. This was the painful truth.

“You deserved better. Everyone did,” Drake said with mounting resolve. “If the Shadow Drake ever meets the Flayed Dragon on the field again, he will avenge you and everyone else he failed that night, I swear it.”

Qarl grinned at Drake’s words, his teeth parting his bushy beard like a black sea. “You know, I think he just might.”

“Drake…” Gigi said to herself. She tried to picture what she had just heard—the man before her fighting with every ounce of strength he had, only to fall. She looked at her palms, then slowly balled them into fists. She wondered what such tiny fists could accomplish. The goblin woman had tried to punch her way through life, and where had it gotten her? Exactly where she had started.

Drake, the “Shadow Drake,” apparently had enough magic to command darkness itself to life. She thought of the wyvern he had made for her. It was so real that it practically felt like it had been breathing. That was what he had chosen to show her. If he was who she was beginning to suspect he was, she had no idea what kind of destruction a power like his could reap. He did, though. Drake had brought every ounce of it to bear against whoever this Gaius asshole was, and he hadn’t been able to stop Qarl from seemingly losing everything he loved.

Gigi felt cosmically small as she rode on the back of the gigantic lizard in the cavernous mines. She wanted so desperately to matter, to be someone great. If someone with all the gifts that Drake possessed couldn’t measure up to the world, what chance did she have? Then she recalled her soldier’s words that she already mattered. She pushed them away, but they kept returning to her again, like a dog with a stick.

“Okay, we’re coming up on Black Cat’s Hollow,” Qarl called out. “All those preparing to get up to no good, try to hold onto all your fingers and teeth,” he snickered. He looked over to Drake, who was stepping over to where Gigi was waiting for him. “Never thought you would be on ol’ Gus with me. The family got out because of what you did, standing up to that monster. Really is a bit of an honor. You’re a much nicer fella than I expected.”

Drake opened his mouth to say something. “Save it,” Qarl interrupted. “Your secret is safe with me, lad.” Qarl pointed at Gigi. “With her by your side, if you meet again, Gaius won't know what hit him.”

Gigi couldn’t help but smile. “He won’t stand a chance,” Drake agreed. She broke out into a full-fanged grin at her companion’s response. There was a lot Gigi didn’t know about Drake. However, she had no doubt that he believed in her. Maybe she owed it to him and herself to try and do the same.