by Jenner, M
“Yes. We got them open expecting riches, but they were empty,” Kern said, spitting a mouthful of blood into the dirt.
“You lie!” Bok interrupted.
“The mage must have grabbed the contents before our friend stole them.”
“I’m going to kill him!” Bok stepped forward again but Svorn held out a hand, stopping his advance.
“Tez, send two men back to Forkvain and check out their story. The rest of us will wait here for the other one until dark, then we move on. Hopefully he’s dead and we can go home; I’m sick of these damn thieves. We saw him drop with the half-orc; if he doesn’t appear before dark, an arrow must have sunk him. There’s nowhere else he could have gone; the water was way too strong for him to swim against it.”
“Where’s his corpse then, you fool?” Bok snarled.
Svorn drew his sword with lightning speed and spun around, the tip coming to rest against Bok’s throat. “You ever question me again and I will cut your fucking tongue out!”
Bok held his hands up and swallowed hard. “Yes, sorry.”
“You’d just better hope Kern’s story doesn’t turn out to be true and those chests are in Forkvain.” Svorn stared at Bok for several long moments, then re-sheathed his sword, “Get out of my sight.”
Kern managed a smile as Bok walked past, but he didn’t see the ranger’s jest. Seething from his dressing-down, Bok sat up against a tree watching Svorn’s soldiers strip the half-orc’s body of its richly dyed robe, and wondered if the shopkeeper had double-crossed him.
They waited until nightfall, but there was no sign of Ty. True to his word, Svorn gave the command to move on, and the prisoners were marched through the fields and paths until they hit a main road that led all the way to Breeze. Kern, Galandrik, and Pedlyn were crowded into the back of a wagon. It was a jolting, uncomfortable ride; Pedlyn’s back was still sore from the bruising water landing. Cold, wet, and miserable, the party didn’t speak as they drew ever closer to the town of Breeze, resplendent in the moonlight.
Breeze was the main town on the east-west roads through the Eastern Mountains. Everyone stopped here; it wasn’t a huge trading town like Raith, but you could buy virtually anything you wanted. It seemed more geared to the traveller, with pubs and shops lining the streets, and dancing girls swaying provocatively in the windows.
They entered Breeze through the main gates. As they travelled through the streets, people ran alongside the wagon laughing and jeering; some even spat on them. Only common criminals were led through town in the back of a wagon.
Eventually they reached a massive house surrounded by an enormous wall, giant gates barring the entrance. Four guards stood watch at the gate; upon seeing Svorn, they unbarred the gates and the wagon was led through. Svorn and his guards dismounted near the front entrance of the house; Svorn handed his reins to a waiting horseboy, then started up the steps.
“Take them to the dungeons,” he said, without turning back.
The captives were led from the wagon around the side of the giant house. House guards patrolled every thirty paces or so and trees lined the inside walls of the grounds. They finally reached a small, plain door at the back of the house. One of the guards unlocked it and led the trio inside, then along dark, damp corridors and down winding steps, until they reached a large underground room with six cells, three in a row along either side of the room. They were each pushed into separate cells, and the barred doors slammed behind them.
One of the guards undid his trousers and began pissing into Galandrik’s cell. “I hate dwarves,” the guard said, laughing as he aimed in Galandrik’s direction.
“Surprising,” Galandrik said thoughtfully. “With that little thing you should feel like you’re family.”
The guard finished off and turned round, walking out of the only door. They heard the lock click shut.
“Well, this looks familiar,” Galandrik said, stepping over the puddle of piss as it flowed towards the drain in the centre of the room.
“Aye, they all have a tendency to look the same,” Kern answered.
“You’ve been behind bars before?” Pedlyn asked.
“A couple of times,” Kern said with a snort.
“This is how we met,” Galandrik added.
“You met in a cell?” Pedlyn said with a smile on his face.
“Yes, we did,” Galandrik replied.
“It was much like this one, to be honest,” Kern said, looking at the hinges on the door. “It’s at times like this I miss Ty the most,” he added, rubbing his chin and gently touching his broken nose.
“Is he dead?” Pedlyn asked solemnly.
“Don’t be stupid. Ty, dead? He will turn up all grinning and happy,” Kern replied.
“Yes, I can see him now,” Galandrik grinned. “But you’re right – he would relish getting us out of here,” the dwarf said, kicking at a rat as it scurried out of the drain.
Svorn entered the study, his usually bright and gleaming armour dirty and dull. He stood silent as Conn sat with his back to him, facing a roaring fire.
“Where are my chests?” Conn said without turning. Biting his lip, Svorn didn’t answer. “Well?”
“We…” Svorn cleared his throat and started again. “We lost the Rat and the chests, my lord. We think he died under the Eastern Mountains. There was a battle with the orcs there; we lost three men of our own. Ty never came out, nor did the chests, my lord,” he reported.
Conn spun round in his chair and stood up, his face like thunder and his eyes squinting in anger. “You know how precious they are?” Conn asked, thumping the table with his fists.
“Yes, my lord. We did all we could, I swear it.”
“The King will not be happy about this, you know that,” Conn added walking over looking out the window, His arms now folded, he rubbed his chin.
“I’m sorry; I have failed you and the King, my lord,” Svorn said, bowing his head.
“Do we have the others?” Conn said, glaring at Svorn.
“Yes, there are three of them. They seem to have picked up a mage on their travels,” Svorn said, trying to be as enthusiastic as possible.
“They need to be punished, and never let to see the light of day again. Make sure they suffer every day. Keep them locked up until they forget their own names,” Conn snarled. “I travel back to Raith in two moons, and I will have to explain this ball-up to the King – and only one wyvern returned,” he said, sitting back down in his chair.
“It will be done as you wish, my lord,” Svorn answered, not daring to mention the burned wyvern carcass he’d seen.
“And clean yourself up,” Conn continued. “You’re the captain of my guard, not a beggar. Now be gone,” he hissed, spinning back round to face the roaring fire.
Svorn closed the door behind him; taking off his helmet, he wiped his forehead. He headed along the corridor and down a spiral staircase, at the bottom of which sat Bok. “Thank you for the help,” Svorn said, throwing the cutthroat a bag of coins. “Don’t ask for any more; our business is complete,” he added, nodding to another guard to see Bok out.
“Many thanks, but he’s not dead. You know that, right?”
“I don’t care, as long as he stays ‘dead,’ that’s all that matters,” Svorn replied, watching Bok walk to the exit.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Bok said, walking down the path to the main gate, tossing the bag of gold in the air.
Two days had passed. The imprisoned trio had been given no food, and precious little water. They were routinely soaked with cold water during the day, which made them freeze at night; their morale was low. Galandrik had even contemplated killing a rat for food, but had refrained – so far.
“I wonder what rat tastes like?” he mused aloud.
“You’d eat your friend?” Pedlyn joked.
“No, not Rat – rat. A dirty, smelly, horrible rat!”
“Yes, your friend,” Kern added to the banter.
“You know what I mean.” Galand
rik managed his first smile in two days.
“We could try one,” Pedlyn said, squatting near the drain.
“I don’t think it’s going to pop out with you sitting there!”
“You wouldn’t want to eat rat,” Pedlyn said. “They carry horrible diseases – plus we have nothing to cook it on,” he added, giving up on the jest and walking back to the wooden bed.
“Who said anything about cooking it first?”
“You’re one sick dwarf,” Kern said.
There was a long silence as they each busied themselves with their own thoughts.
“You think he’s dead?” Galandrik finally asked Kern.
“Well, he was right behind us, and he didn’t come out.”
Pedlyn turned to Kern. “But before you said he would ‘turn up all happy and smiling’.”
“Indeed I did, and I hope he does, but… this time I’m not too sure. That water had a ferocious current.”
“What about the eggs? Do you think those chests are waterproof?” Galandrik added.
“There’s me, wondering if our pal is alive, and you’re wondering about the eggs!” Kern laughed, and there was a despairing note under the amusement. Then he sighed. “Good point though.”
“Well,” Galandrik said, stroking his beard, “wherever he is, I bet the chests aren’t far away.”
Ty’s eyes opened slowly. His head was pounding. Reality hit him like a thunderbolt – he was still in the water, his head barely clearing the surface, and his legs pointed in the direction of the current. He instantly started to cough, water spluttering out of his mouth. He tried to see what was holding him but couldn’t. He knew his tunic was caught up on something but couldn’t tell what. He was in total darkness, and the noise from the rushing water was deafening.
He carefully freed one arm from the strap of his backpack, and the force of the water’s flow made the pack swing around to his other shoulder. He pulled his other arm free, then raised a leg out of the water and wrapped the backpack straps around it. Slowly he pulled one arm in to free it from the sleeve of his tunic. As he spun around in the current he felt around with his free arm, eventually determining that his collar was snagged on a piece of wood. He released his dagger and cut himself free.
Floating freely now, he was pulled along by the water towards an opening with sunlight bursting through into the darkness. Ty was flung out of the gap; he seemed to be in the air for ages, then landed in the centre of a pool with a splash.
Pedlyn’s leaf had worn off and he struggled to hold his breath until he broke through to the surface. He bobbed there in the pool while he took stock of his surroundings. He was alone, apart from two wild dogs some ten feet away on the bank, greedily ripping flesh from a carcass. He treaded water towards the dogs until he could feel the sandy bottom of the pond under his feet. He continued moving slowly forward, bending nearly double to keep most of his body hidden under the water. At last, he leapt up, shouting and splashing the water with his hands; the dogs bolted.
Ty stepped out onto the grass, dragging his backpack behind him. He slumped to the ground and took off his freezing wet clothes. He wrung them out as best he could, and laid them on a rock to dry in the morning sunlight. Tipping the contents of his backpack out onto the grass, he saw that only the chests were intact; everything else was either smashed or water-logged and ruined. He suddenly remembered his money pouch, and reached quickly into his tunic. With a smile he pulled the pouch out, intact and heavy with coin. He felt in his pocket for his ring, but it was empty; frantically he searched all his other pockets but the ring was gone. All he had left were his chests, his gold, and one dagger.
He sat on the grass to think, and spotted one of the dogs lurking nearby, next to a tree. He picked up a rock and threw it; the dog disappeared, but he thought it wouldn’t stay gone for long. He stared at the thing the dogs had been eating, half submerged in the water.
It looked like a corpse.
He stood up to see better and moved stealthily forward. It was a corpse.
He grabbed a branch and poked the body’s back, just in case it was still alive; it didn’t move. Using the stick for leverage, he rolled the corpse over; even though the face had been mostly eaten, he knew it was Tovlok. He threw the stick down and walked back to his clothes. He knew he should have been triumphant that he had survived while his attacker was dead, but he felt nothing at all.
After an hour he felt warmer and his clothes, though still damp, were not half as wet as they had been. He shook off his stupor enough to get dressed. He stared down at the chests, then sat next to them and picked one up. Resting it on his knee, he placed four fingers on the gems and pushed. The chest clicked open; the egg inside looked as good as ever at first glance, but then Ty noticed something different. He gently lifted the egg out of the chest for a closer look. It was freezing to the touch, and steam rose from its shell like a morning breath on a winter’s day.
Ty heard a noise from behind; turning, he saw the two dogs edging closer, getting braver by the second. He gently placed the egg down next to his backpack, then leapt up and ran at the dogs, waving his arms and shouting. The dogs hesitated briefly, then bolted. Ty chased them for a few steps, then stopped as the dogs retreated a small distance. It was obvious to him that as long as the body was there, the dogs were not going to be chased off.
He walked back to the corpse and stood above it. “Well, I’m not burying you, if that’s what you think,” Ty said to himself.
He grabbed one leg of the corpse and dragged the body into the shallow water, then used the stick to push the corpse into the pool. It floated lazily towards the centre of the pool, then gradually sank. Ty shook his head. So much death, he thought; every day another death. Distractedly, he walked round the bank to a higher point and studied the landscape, wondering to himself where Kern and the others would have gone.
From behind him he heard a squeak; thinking the dogs were back, he turned and ran, waving the stick and shouting “Be gone!” – but there were no dogs in sight. Again he heard the squeak. He looked around carefully, but saw nothing. Ah well, time to go, he thought.
He turned and walked back to his backpack. When he got there he saw that the white dragon’s egg had split in two. “What the –”
Ty bent to pick up the empty shell; the inside was empty and wet. His expression changed to panic. “Oh, fuck,” he said loudly.
He stood back up, looking around frantically. I’ve only gone and fed one of the last baby dragons to a couple of wild dogs, he thought, running to where he had last seen the hounds. They seemed to be gone; he saw nothing but grass and trees. He looked up at the sky for a few seconds. Maybe it flew away? Kern will never believe this.
He walked back down to his backpack, shaking his head. Can my luck get any worse?
Kneeling down next to his equipment he heard the squeak again, and out of the corner of his eye saw his backpack move slightly. Grabbing a stick, he cautiously lifted the flap of his backpack.
The baby dragon inside squealed and snapped at his hand.
“Whoa, little fellow,” Ty said, dropping the flap closed in surprise. After a moment he lifted it again for another peek. The dragon squealed again, opening its mouth wide; Ty let the flap fall again, and thought it was a good thing the little creature couldn’t yet breathe fire, or he’d have been burnt to a crisp. It didn’t appear to be very happy in its new surroundings.
Picking up a soggy piece of what had once been hard rations, Ty lifted the flap once more and held his hand out a few inches from the backpack. The dragon snapped again to bite, then saw the offering. It hesitated before stepping out of the bag, then took the food and swallowed it down greedily.
Looking around, the dragon stretched and flapped its wings, then folded them back and sniffed Ty’s hand. Ty broke off another small piece of soggy beef and placed it on his knee. The dragon jumped up and gulped it down again, then looked up at Ty and started to sniff him, inspecting Ty as intently as Ty was inspecting
the dragon.
Slightly bigger than Ty’s hand, the dragon was a very dark green. Its skin was smooth, but Ty could see the impressions of the scales that would one day appear. Its head was lizard-like, with high bones above the eyes and bony spines down the side of its face. Its wings were tucked away like a bat’s, and more spines protruded down the length of its back. It sniffed and wriggled, reminding Ty of the dogs he had raised as a child in the thieves’ guild, training them to be guard dogs that would let only members of the guild pass in and out of the guildhall.
The dragon’s curiosity was plain to see as it took its first tender steps into the new world. Ty watched it explore for several moments; then there was a noise from behind him and the dragon slid back into the backpack in a flash. Ty jumped up and looked around; the dogs were back and only a few feet away. Ty shouted and waved his arms once more, and the dogs backed off a few paces, but they were bolder now, and Ty knew they would not relent.
He carefully picked up the backpack and looked inside; the dragon was curled up at the bottom, its big round eyes looking up at Ty, almost sad. Ty arranged the two chests in the pack as best he could to give the baby dragon some space, then kicked through the contents of his backpack where they lay scattered on the ground. There was nothing worth taking – everything was ruined or smashed. He closed the backpack and swung it onto his shoulder, then walked along the bank up the path. He kept a close eye on the dogs, but they were now heading to the place the corpse had been, and showed no interest in Ty as he edged around them, making his way north towards Breeze.
Ty grabbed a lift on the back of a farmer’s wagon headed for Breeze. As the wagon jounced along, he opened the backpack. The dragon was sleeping, tiny and helpless. He closed the bag and thought about the other chest. Was its egg ready to hatch as well? One dragon will be hard enough to conceal, let alone two – but they should grow together, and if you have one, you might as well have two… His mind was spinning with thoughts and ideas. Oh, how he wished Kern were here! He would know the solution. What the hell am I doing babysitting a dragon?