“Good to clear that up.”
“There’s something else. When I told her of our destination, she advised against it.”
“Why?”
“Earthquakes have been plaguing the region recently. I cannot say what her exact definition of ‘recently’ is, but weeks or months seem like a safe guess.”
“Sounds promising, actually.”
“I expressed a similar sentiment.”
“By the way, when did you learn to speak minotaur? Or the other languages you know?”
“You’ve experienced the benefit of taking the time to learn another’s tongue. Dragon culture has understood for a long time that learning to speak the languages of other clans can lead to smoother interactions between other nations and species. There’s a reason dragon knights spread the shared tongue everywhere they flew. Young dragons are thus taught as many languages as we can learn for the first century of life. It helps that our ears and minds are adept at distinguishing subtle variations in sound. There’s more to it than this, but the intricacies of incantations and language are beyond you at the moment.”
Not including the language thing, I retold what I learned to the tracking team, to which Turell responded with, “Your friends are tight-lipped about how you came to learn the minotaur’s tongue.”
The dialect I used turned out to be a bit old-fashioned.”
“Nevertheless, I’m impressed.”
“I’m only the middleman, lieutenant.”
“Indeed. You can’t help but get in the middle of Advent matters, Captain Hallam’s trust, and Uthosis politics. I doubt I’ll ever meet someone so seemingly unconcerned with the affairs of others until he isn’t. Very well, keep your secret. We should head back. Let’s move out!”
Giggling, Clarissa nudged up to me and said, “Hey, wouldn’t that be a good nickname for you? The Middleman?”
“Uh, no.”
“You’re right. It sounds stupid out loud… What about as the title for your autobiography?”
Butting in, Ghevont said, “I was leaning closer to a pun on his numerous names.”
“Oh? You’ve already thought about writing Mercer’s biography?”
“Of course. It’d be remiss of me not to record all I can and not organize it in book format.”
“Oh my gods, yes! You’re a genius! What titles have you come up with so far?”
“Well, let’s see… How does ‘The Dragon Man with Two Names’ sound?”
“Okay, maybe ‘genius’ was too strong a word.”
Chapter Nine
The valley took less than a full day to cross, but the griffins needed half a day of sweeping over the mountain bases to find a trail their ground based comrades could use. More than a century had passed since humans last saw these paths, much less use and maintain them. Maps might have shown where they once lied, but nature had plenty of time to reshape her surface into something new. This meant the griffin team became integral in charting out the day’s hike. They mostly did a good job… mostly.
Once in a while a path led to an impossible impediment to overcome without forfeiting a great deal of energy, adding hours of steps retraced. To be fair, the aerial scouts would never make mistakes if they weren’t compelled to fly during all but the most unyielding of snowstorms. Daylight was also not a frequent guide due to cloud cover, snowfall, and short winter days. Even on clear afternoons the winds could be strong enough to make flying too dangerous for anything but short expeditions close to the ground.
Still, with a small army of soldiers for Eudon to employ, many obstacles were traversable. Gorges were crossed with earthen spells that created bridges capable of supporting wagons filled with the fattest of nobles. Dunes of snow were pushed away with two or three dozen soldiers working together, each bearing a load they couldn’t handle alone. Those who specialized in wards were ordered to cast a line of magical barriers every time their group traveled near a rocky slope. They hoped this prevented surprise rockslides and avalanches from overwhelming their comrades and give others time to react with counter spells.
Not everyone reacted in time.
One time it was a simple slip on at the edge of a precipice that sent a soldier falling two hundred feet to their death. Another time it was a mule startled by an unseen troll’s roar that kicked someone down a crevice—reminders that there were plenty of stupid ways to perish even if one did everything right. I doubt the letters to their parents would detail the pointlessness of their children’s deaths.
However, there existed a greater amount of letters that meticulously explained how a fellow warrior saved another from these types of senseless demises. One man, for example, had been jabbed with jests for always wearing his yellow satin scarf, handed to him for luck by his noble born lover. This scarf was grabbed on to by a comrade when he saw his friend about to take a fatal tumble after a bluster of wind. The act almost choked the wearer, but saved him from a makeshift burial. Now the jesters begged to borrow the scarf at every bend!
The yellow scarfed man belonged to a one of the three seeker divisions. His division used earth spells to stir the surface and then wait to feel for what kind of vibrations returned to them. From there they came up with a good estimation of what lied beneath us. Large hollow spaces engrossed us the most. The griffin units were of course in charge of looking for any atypical formations that pointed to Advent activity, but since it was doubtful a cult would be so out in the open, the earth division seemed to have a better chance at finding something off in the landscape.
Regardless, the third division’s prana detection ability held the expectation that they would be the unit to uncover our enemy first. Captain Quince led the prana finders, and like herself and Sophia, the majority of these thirty-eight casters turned out to be women. The vast array of spells were not usually inclined to a gender, but prana detection remained one of the few exceptions. It was believed that since women could nurture life within themselves, then sensing it outside their bodies was second nature. Not that all were women, of course.
Four of the prana finders were men, which explained their tendency to overcompensate their masculinity for using a spell seen as befitting the fairer sex. Nevertheless, due to the not always so civilized behavior of solitary soldiers on long campaigns, the male prana finders were highly protective of their female counterparts. Anyway, even if the Advent were using a barrier meant to disguise their prana, the barrier itself should emit a trace of its own prana that could not feasibly be hidden from the combined magical might of elite Alslana casters.
By their nature, illusion spells veiling an entrance or distorting a location were much harder to sense even if a prana finder stood near one. So if someone suspected an illusion spell in the area, then good ol’ fashioned throwing a stick at it should serve to expose the trick.
All the divisions were given twice the work load when the army stepped over a ridge and spotted huge columns of white gases rising dozens of miles to the north. A small valley of green and white stretched out from a volcano’s southwestern side. The maps said this volcano was Dulcet. It was tempting for the leaders to send the griffins immediately, but if the Advent were indeed down there and intent on defending their position, then sending the griffin unit without ground support would prove folly. There was thus a focused effort to raise bigger and longer bridges to get the army moving faster over the jagged terrain.
Almost as if Dulcet realized our resolve, the ground under its influence started to roll under us. I didn’t even process it as an earthquake at first. At first I thought I had somehow returned to the ship on a choppy day, despite the instability being more of a side to side motion rather than the sea’s up and down arcs. I didn’t find keeping my balance too difficult, but that changed when I had to dodge falling rocks. Luckily, the mass of the army had reached the upper elevation of the ridge when the quake started, so debris from above wasn’t as worrisome as being shaken off the precipice.
Ghevont timed the underground pulsations to last ei
ghteen seconds, a time I told him I did not quite believe. He agreed that he might have been counting too quickly—the opposite problem I thought he had—and started asking the others about their perception of time during the seismic event. As expected, the range of answers extended too widely for a scholar’s liking, but he did average them out to come up with a number closer to his personal tally. Despite the threat of another regional shiver, or because of it, the group progressed with inspired speed.
Even without providing the prana to create bridges, light, and wards, the enforced haste worn on me after a couple of days. Smaller aftershocks also kept flustering those unused to the phenomenon, which may or may not have included myself. I tried thinking of them as I did the waves of the sea—they even sounded much in the same way as waves crashing on shore—but the sea was supposed to roll and spit out anyone who did not belong in her dominion. Stone, on the other hand, was supposed to be stable, unwavering. This proof on the contrary was going to fuck with my perception of the ground no matter where I stepped next.
A journey that would have normally taken four days was almost cut in half. However, with the valley’s edge still ten miles away, Eudon ordered for everyone to take a day to recover our energy before we moved deeper into a land my restless corruption knew to be housing something as remorseless and savage as itself.
If I didn’t know any better, the power that excited the worst part of me could have very well been responding to the volcano itself. At night we plainly saw clumps of lava spurting out its mouth eighteen thousand feet up. Giant sparks of light also occasionally ruptured out from the highest plumes of ash. Gray ash mixed with the drifting snow, making it difficult for Ghevont to separate the two to study. Living up to its name, Dulcet’s melted rock did not come close to endangering anyone at ground level. And as long as the winds stayed cooperative, the ash and gases blew away from us in an eastward course.
Except for the fading aftershocks, the conical mountain acted aloof at the attendance of outsiders. We moved closer to its base before the sun rose, finally sending the griffin unit more than a mile ahead of the others. The ten beasts transported prana finders, earth specialists, and their defenders to the valley’s perimeter to begin their work.
Shortly after those on foot joined them on the valley, two griffins returned carrying Lieutenant Nedica and Captain Quince.
“You have an update for me?” asked Eudon.
“Aye, Captain Hallam,” said the lieutenant. “Not surprisingly, the earth casters have discovered plenty of underground cavities in and around Dulcet’s base. They are attempting to locate those closest to the surface. More surprising to anyone but us is what the captain’s unit sensed.”
The captain stepped up. “It’s dim, sir, but something’s down there.”
“Where?” asked Eudon. “Under the mountain?”
“Under, well, everywhere. The valley, the mountain, maybe even farther out. In spite of the extensive coverage, it required all of my unit to share prana to even begin to sense its flicker. Yet I never sensed anything so… so solid. I can’t properly explain it in words.”
Eudon sneered up at Dulcet. “Good. Sounds like a sign of the Advent to me. Each of you return to your units and gather them together. We’ll continue the search in full force once every available man is able to support the seeker units.”
Three or four hours later and every Alslana soldier on this side of the world swarmed the valley. Still no reaction from the enemy. Apart from Dulcet’s endless rumbling in the background, the area lacked any notable activity.
“Does no one want to point out the obvious?” asked Aristos. “What if these Advent folks already left? What if they destroyed all evidence of their work?”
“It’s doubtful they can eliminate every trace of their work, Master Kartini,” replied Eudon.
“And anyway,” said Sophia, “I don’t see a new god lying around, so the Advent can’t have completed their goal yet.”
“Their goal can’t actually be that grand, can it?” asked Lucetta.
“We’ve had this conversation before,” said Leo. “I believe we thrice agreed that the rebirth of a lost god sounded too farfetched. But right before reaching Uthosis we did in fact conclude that a lost god is a possibility we couldn’t ignore.”
“Who’s this ‘we’?” asked Clarissa. “I disagreed every time you guys agreed.”
“It’s obvious that I thus walked the democratic route after each discussion.”
“Has that route even been shown to work yet?”
“Many small towns essentially vote democratically on internal matters,” said Thoris.
“It would be a fascinating experiment to attempt on a nationwide scale,” said Ghevont. “Theoretically, the decision making of many people should be greater than that of a few.”
“Perhaps only in theory, young Rathmore,” said Eudon. “Commoners rarely have the information necessary for the right decision to be made, not to mention the time it would take to get everyone’s opinions on a subject. My family and the nobility have access to experts on trade, banking, engineering, and master casters at a moment’s notice.”
“Of course, of course. I’m not saying it would work, I’m only curious to see how well or how unwell it might work. The best example I can think of was the city-state of Eskyae. They were purely democratic for over a century before, well, before their civil war allowed its neighbors to ransack its city with impunity.”
“I think we’ve gotten off my original concern,” said Aristos. “Is there a plan if we can’t find anything?”
“We’ll find something,” I assured him. “Something is still here, something my suppressed corruption wants to reach out and touch.”
“And I smell something fishy,” said Clarissa.
“That’s the volcano’s gases,” said Ghevont. “I don’t smell fish, however. I’m getting something closer to burning eggs, though your sense of smell is superior.”
“No, the egg thing is closer. I was trying to be funny to annoy Mercer.”
“You partly succeeded,” I said.
The divided groups searched the valley starting from the south, moving up to the northwest once they cleared the last area. Since the exploratory tactics involved little in the way of eyesight, the probing continued well into the long night. I was in fact napping against a tree when my father “lightly” slapped my face to wake me up.
“What is it?” I asked his smirk.
“Stone guys found something. Let’s go.”
I took his offered hand and jogged to the commotion a mile north of us. We made our way toward the extended edge of Dulcet’s western slope. Casters were clearing the snow away from a twenty foot tall wall of rock, which I soon saw had an ingress fifteen feet high by ten feet wide.
“The stone guys felt the hollow and removed the weak illusion spell, revealing the opening.”
“Anyone go in yet?”
“We need to prepare first. There’s a high chance that the Advent will simply wait for us to move in and collapse half the mountain on top of us, so we need a quick exit strategy.”
“Which is?”
From behind me, Eudon answered, “Teleportation, young Eberwolf. We’ll place a large destination rune just outside the entrance. Then we’ll carve its smaller copies as we go deeper into the mountain, which will be defended by soldiers, wards, and earthen roofs. We can head for these if we have to retreat. The first group will enter once the destination rune is completed.”
“Are you part of the first group?”
“Aye. Will you be?”
“The inside of a mountain isn’t exactly my favorite place in Orda, but yeah, I’ll be ready.”
“Good. I recommend eating and drinking what you can now. The rune should be completed in half an hour.”
Chapter Ten
Captain Quince was placed in charge of the soldiers ordered to defend the destination rune. The griffin unit would be impractical under Orda, so only the lieutenant came into the m
ountain with us. Turell was thus given command of the prana finders and earth specialists. An ideal leadership situation would have kept the captain in charge of her units instead of the griffin team, but Turell was considered the better warrior. This change in circumstances was foreseen, however, so each had their chances to practice commanding the squads of the other throughout the less strenuous portions of the expedition.
As for the pirates, Lilly, Leo, Athilda, and Remwold had been “chosen” to help reinforce the surface defenses. In truth, the journey had taken a lot of energy from the least fit of the swashbucklers and they needed to sit still for a while. They would stay with three hundred soldiers selected to guard the entrance and rune. The other five hundred were to go into the volcano, though not all at once.
No sane strategist wanted Eudon to be in the preliminary group, but no one had the backbone to stop him. Conversely, a toddler delirious on mushrooms had the verbal potential to convince me to turn back.
After the glyph-riddled rune sixty feet in diameter had been engraved in the magically flattened soil, Eudon’s group took our first steps into the smooth-walled tunnel. Stanch strides from the former king obliged everyone to ambush the concept of tense caution. Balls of fire floating in front of us lit our way for the first hundred yards or so, but the light abruptly met a wall of blackness it could not penetrate. At first I thought it must have been an actual wall of black stone, but a fireball was able to pass through before being extinguished by the odd pressure.
“Your scholar friend should recognize this spell,” said Aranath.
Ghevont did indeed tell everyone to stop seconds later.
“What is this, scholar?” asked Eudon.
“A disorientation spell, Captain Hallam. A very powerful one, one much more concentrated than Gremly’s understated version. Effects will include visual distortion, loss of balance, nausea, short-term memory loss, possi-”
Flight of the Dragon Knight (The Dragon Knight Series Book 3) Page 12