Zevrack barked something in his native tongue at the Snow Burrowers and they dispersed, tending to their wounded and looting the corpses of the trolls, even chopping off hunks of meat from them and packing them away. I looked over to Zevrack.

“Did you expect me to do pushups when we first met?”

He shook his head. “We don’t hold non-kobolds to the same standards.” He looked at me a little closer. “Besides, you would’ve lost quite handily.”

I laughed. Having seen the amount he just cranked out I had no doubt that he was right. I looked over to the treeline and saw the rest of the party appear. All of them throwing confused glances at the kobolds that weaved around them to perform the various cleanup tasks that came after combat.

The largest of the snow-burrowers approached Zevrack. “These scale-less are all with you?”

He nodded.

“You keep strange company. Why do you not travel with your own clan?”

He cocked his head. “I do. I consider all of them members of the Buried Claw.”

The white kobold mirrored Zev’s head cock. “Ah, I see. You are strange as well. This makes much more sense then.” He nodded, satisfied with this insight, and joined the rest of his clan in their work.

The rest of the party reached us and turned the confused looks they’d been casting over all of the Kobolds, to us.

“Zevrack won a contest of strength and earned the acknowledgement of the Snow Burrowers. Apparently it’s something Kobold’s do when they meet another clan.”

Millicent brought a finger to her lip. “Do you think they’d mind if I took some of the troll’s blood?”

Zevrack shook his head.

“Excellent.” She said with a smile.

“Another useful reagent? Like goblin blood?” I asked.

“No, I just really love the taste.”

I fought to keep my expression neutral, but felt my eyebrow twitch.

She laughed. “It’s useful for potions and a few poultices. You have to boil it first though of course. I will say that it has a kind of licorice taste that is not unpleasant.” With that she went over to the nearest corpse with a small knife and a vial.

“So, what are these kobold’s here for?” asked Tristus.

“Same thing as us. A pilgrimage to meet the dragon.”

One of the kobolds that was passing by stopped what she was doing to join the conversation. “Yes. We seek to gaze upon the beauty of the color hoarder, the winged goddess, she who raises and shapes with abandon.”

“Where uh, did you come up with all those names for her?” I asked.

“We have seen her, flying above our burrows. Those are simply the titles we felt were appropriate.”

Zevrack looked at the other kobold excitedly. “You’ve seen her?”

She nodded proudly. “Yes. She is magnificent. Scaled in a thousand colors, and powerful beyond measure. We long to offer her our worship and service.”

Zevrack nodded emphatically, and the rest of us did so politely. Once the kobolds were done with the trolls and their dead, we all started back on the road to the mountain. The Snow Burrowers walked solemnly with their eyes ahead. They seemed a very different group from the Buried Claw, who I’d known to be quite friendly and talkative, but whether that was a cultural difference or had more to do with their proximity to what they considered their god, I wasn’t sure. We followed them, since the base of the mountain consisted of their territory and while it was cold, the air was relatively still which was a blessing.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

At the top of a high hill, that was one of many such we’d trudged over in the last few hours, I noticed that the Kobolds in the lead and Nica had stopped dead in their tracks. I made my way up the rest of the hill to stand next to them, and the reason for their hesitation became immediately apparent. In front of us, stretching as far as we could see, was a maze. It was made up of walls of red, blue, green, yellow, hot pink, neon orange, and any other color I could imagine. Looking at it reminded me of staring into Ren’s eyes and watching the kaleidoscopic colors shift and swirl. It gave me a headache.

The kobolds all started chattering at one another in their own language, a mixture of confusion and awe in their tones.

“What are they talking about?” I asked Zevrack.

“The maze. It’s new. Some of them have passed through this area as recently as a week ago, and the maze was not there then.”

“Based on the color, and what we’ve heard about the dragon so far, I’d guess this is her doing,” said Millicent.

Tib walked over to us. “The only surefire way through a maze is to place your right hand on the wall and walk until you get to the end.”

Nica shook her head. “Straightforward, but it may be easiest simply to go around this, climb the mountains on either side, and then climb down at the end of the maze. That way we can avoid it altogether.”

“Could be treasure in the maze,” offered Patience.

“You say something similar about every cave and town we pass,” responded Millicent.

“Yes, but I’m often right aren’t I?”

Millicent gave a reluctant shrug in agreement.

“It’s actually quite hard to start a peaceful dialogue with someone you’ve just robbed. I know you adventuring types may find that surprising,” noted Tristus.

“Yeah, we should avoid taking anything from the dragon’s hoard,” I said.

Patience’s eyes twinkled. “Hoard you say?”

“She locked a barbarian in a rage, teleported adventurers continents away, and created a maze from nothing within a week. Please do not try to steal from the dragon,” I answered.

Patience nodded. “Fair. I’ll keep my hands in my pockets. I don’t think you’d handle it well if I was transported away.”

“True, I wouldn’t,” I said with sincerity, catching her a little off guard and causing her to let out a small cough.

“I may be able to create handholds and guides on the walls of the maze so we can simply climb over them in a straight line,” suggested Millicent.

“I have some chalk I can use to mark our path as we move, though Millicent’s option seems the most sensible so far,” I said. As I spoke I realized that the snobolds were all gathered around us, eyeing us suspiciously and whispering to one another.

“I could fly over the maze to create a map we can follow,” suggested Zevrack.

“You could have the layout memorized that quickly?” I asked.

He cocked his head. “Yes? Couldn’t you?”

I shook my head. “Absolutely not.” I turned to Tristus. “Any ideas from you?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Unless there’s a way to talk the maze into simply giving us a clear path, I don’t think I’ll be of much use. Last time I was in a maze it was made of hedges and I had a couple of lovely kingsland nobles to pass the time with until some servants could lead us out. Of course, the servants wound up joining us first, but we didn’t mind the delay much.”

The largest of the snobolds pressed in front of the others toward us. “You would seek to subvert the will of the dragon by not meeting her trial directly?”

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“She has created this obstacle. Clearly she seeks her pilgrims to endure this trial in a direct way. Only the shielded one suggested an option that honors this.”

“Tib would’ve suggested knocking the wall down if he’d thought it was feasible,” said Tristus.

Tib opened his mouth to argue, hesitated, then opened it again. “It was my first idea, yes.”

“Why do you limit yourself to the clear path?” asked Zevrack, his tone more upset than I’d heard before. “Do you not wish to be dragons yourselves? Do dragons act based on the whims of others?”

The head snobold scowled. “We shall follow the path as it has been laid out. We acknowledge your strength, but we part ways here.”

Zev showed his teeth. “Good. Continue crawling on the ground while I enjoy the sky.”

The snobold took a step toward him, anger in his eyes, but hesitated and shook his head. After that he and the other snobolds broke off and entered the maze without us.

I placed a hand on Zevrack’s shoulder. “You alright?”

He snorted. “The Buried Claw at least dug for secrets with ambitions of their own. These Burrowers lack the heart needed to be dragons.”

To each their own, was my personal thought, but Zevrack was my friend and he seemed pretty worked up so instead I said. “Yeah. Fuck them,” and since they’d upset Zev, I meant it.

“So, how’re we going to do this then?” asked Tiberius, focused on the practical as always.

Zevrack looked up at him. “I’m going to fly everyone over it.”