by Eric Ugland
When the sun hit my back, we were still flying over the forest. It just went on and on and on. Fritz showed no signs of fatigue; his huge wings seemed to catch the air with no effort. There was something magical about the whole process. Fritz seemed way too big to be in the air. He looked like an airplane. It made me wonder how he did simple things, like eat enough.
Finally, Fritz glanced over his shoulder, and he indicated wanting to land.
I nodded, and he tilted his wings ever so much. We started a gentle glide toward the trees below.
Fritz managed to land us in a small clearing that I didn’t even notice until we were almost right upon it. No idea how he saw it. A few small springs came up from the ground, and a tiny brook led out of the clearing into the trees that surrounded us. It was the sort of primeval forest where not much grew under the trees themselves. But the ground around the tiny springs had berries and the like. Small vegetation.
Fritz drank a little from the spring, then ripped off some leaves from trees, swallowing them down.
“You don’t eat meat?” I asked.
He looked over at me, branches hanging out of his beak every which way, then scratched a message into the ground. I had to walk around to see it:
Maybe both.
I shrugged, went to the springs, and refilled my water skin. I ate half of what remained of my rations, and then took my boots off and dangled my feet into the spring.
The water was freezing, but the sun on my face was warm, and somehow, the two balanced out. For a brief moment, I just sort of slipped into a state of bliss.
Naturally, Fritz was there to pull me out of something so silly, and he did so by hitting me with his giant taloned foot, which he’d pulled pulled into a fist of sorts.
I fell backward into the soft muddy ground with a squelch.
“Something on your mind?” I asked, squinting up at him, having a little trouble seeing him against the brilliant sun.
He nodded, then spread his wings out.
“You want to fly?”
He nodded.
“Any chance you know where we are?”
A shrug.
“What about a vague idea of where we are?”
Nod.
“Great. Now, do you have a vague idea of where we were when you died?”
He scratched at the mud.
Big tree on plains?
“Time before that.”
With Skeld?
“That’s the one. That’s where we need to go. Need to make sure the little guy and the brownie got out okay. Or, if not, we’ll take ‘em on home.”
Can find.
“Do you need to sleep?”
He shook his head. Then he gestured to his back, lowering himself to the ground so I could get back on.
He waited until I was strapped in and patted his neck twice. Then he launched us into the air. It was a huge leap first, which just felt like someone was hitting me in the face with a mattress of air, and then his hundred-plus-feet wings beat the air. We shot up.
Immediately, he angled south, toward the looming mountains.
I watched the landscape below idly. I was pretty much unconcerned about safety with this new Fritz around. He was so big, I didn’t imagine anything wanting to truck with us. Which definitely wasn’t the case as the frog. Clearly, considering the frog wound up being a mid-afternoon snack for that stupid glaumdrang.
Farther west, I saw a large lake. I tapped Fritz and pointed it out to him.
I could feel his shrug more than see it, that he was agreeing to go where I wanted, but he thought it was a waste of time. That we should’ve been focusing on getting back home.
But knowledge was power. I wanted to learn more about the landscape of the world around me, to understand the geographic elements, because that could determine the political landscape as well. Knowing a lake was here, a source of water and wood and all the stuff forests and lakes offer, that could be really important. Why was the Dark Queen coming here? Was it the lake? The Trees? Or was she trying to get through the forest to whatever was on the other side?
The lake was big, round, and beautiful, with water that was just such a deep blue. There were no signs of civilization below, no buildings I could see, no roads, nothing of the kind. It looked like pristine, untouched wilderness. I felt like an interloper flying over it. But, then again, it’s not like I was on an airplane — I was on just another animal here.
Fritz’s giant head turned back toward me, and I saw his golden eye latched onto mine.
“I’m done, big guy,” I shouted into the wind. “Let’s go get our friends!”
He banked, and we flew.
Chapter Twenty-Four
We took one more break before nightfall. Another clearing, slightly larger, with a small body of water. The trees hung over the water here, so Fritz had to land in the lake, startling more than a few geese and ducks away.
Soon enough, we were back in the air. We came upon the mountains in the night, and it was breathtaking at first, seeing the soaring peaks and the moonlight reflecting off the snow. But then it just got cold, and I got bored. I wasn’t used to sitting for such lengthy amounts of time, and I was dying to walk around, to do something.
Another day, and we made it to the Valley of Spears. It was pretty easy to find when you knew what to look for: just a whole shit load of steam coming out of a small valley. Fritz swooped down, letting the steam and mist swirl around his wings. He couldn’t really land though, because there were too many trees in the way. That’s something we discovered the hard way, when he almost crashed into a giant tree that was totally blocked from view by the steam.
Instead, we flew over to a clearing on the other side of a ridge, and settled down there.
Rest here, he scratched in the dirt. It made me smile, a little, we were, in a technical sense, back home. I could check the holding details, if I wanted, and get updates on things. But I didn’t want to get bogged down in menus and charts, especially when it was stuff that didn’t really matter at the current moment. But I was back home, and that made a difference.
I nodded, and started pulling the gear off of him. It took a bit of time to get the egg and the chests where I wanted them. Fritz was falling asleep when I left him, but I had a feeling he’d be fine. He certainly didn’t seem to think he needed anyone to watch over him while he slept. I only took the greenskins’ bane and the throwing axe — I didn’t know what I was going to find in the Valley of Spears but I didn’t want to take chances. I remembered that Skeld had been in pretty terrible shape, and if I needed to carry him out, I didn’t want to be weighed down. I considered taking the egg for a second, but decided that the better place to put an egg needing protecting was next to a giant fucking bird. Right? Had to make sense.
The last time I’d been here, I was with a group of friends, heading to take down an obvious evil. At least, it was really obvious in hindsight. And here I was on my own, going down and I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to find Skeld there. Because if he was there, that meant he’d been hurt so badly he couldn’t move. If he wasn’t there, it maybe meant he was fine, or it meant he’d succumbed to his injuries. I was more nervous now than I was when I’d been going to face down the Corrupted Ones. And while I took the short hike up and over the ridge, then a bit of a slide and a bit of a walk down to the valley floor. I kept comparing things now to things then. And I was terrified what I’d find in the weird Valley of Spears. The layer of fog/mist was still in place, and the tall trees pierced through much like spears. Walking through the layer of mist, I was taken aback by the bizarre and twisted landscape of the place. The hot springs nearly everywhere, the tall trees without branches until at least twenty or thirty feet in the air, and the singular trail leading to a rather mundane-looking cave. I tried to remember what the place had looked like the last time I’d been here, to see if maybe another group had come through, but I thought it was probably the same as before. The same sort of campsite left in a rush feeling. The remains, what
few there were, had either decomposed further or been feasted upon until there was basically nothing left.
I stopped at the cave. It was dark. Foreboding. And still creepy as fuck. Except, right outside, a little to the left, someone had planted a small garden. There was even a small fence made from woven branches. It seemed to be incredibly successful at keeping everything out, because I didn’t even see a bite missing from any of the impressive varieties there. Which was surprising, considering how little light the valley floor ever got.
“Took your damn time,” came a familiar voice echoing out of the cave.
I smiled, looking at a really beat-to-shit Skeld walking out on a make-shift crutch. He had more than a few bandages on, all of which looked as if they were repurposed from Ursus clothing, and none of which looked particularly clean. He looked gaunt, and there were patches of fur missing form him.
“Been a bit busy,” I said. “You know, getting back from another dimension.”
“You kill the big son of a bitch?” Skeld asked.
“Negative, good buddy. I bloodied him up a bit,” I said, thinking that it was probably somewhat close to the truth. “But I don’t think we’ve seen the last of him.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. You okay?”
“Not exactly.”
“Where’s the brownie?”
“Bear’s out foraging.”
“Bear, that’s right.”
“Yeah, she’s in your hirð and the reason I’m alive, so...”
“Learn her name. Got it. Fritz is back, pretty impressive.”
“Yeah?”
“Big bird.”
“Ah.”
“Not yellow though.”
“Why would he be?”
“Never mind. You up for the trip home?”
“No. I’m really not.”
“What about if we’re flying there? No going through the underground city filled with crazy murder bugs. No crawling through snow, or—“
“Kobold shit.”
“I mean, I can’t make any promises about kobold shit. They might’ve taken over Coggeshall completely by now.”
“Either that or Nikolai is about to kill them all.”
“I have no doubt that my chancellor is more than up to the task.”
“I hope he is.”
“Sure.”
He motioned for me to follow him, but instead I picked him up and put him on my shoulder. I had been used to carrying the lutra, though it was usually Ragnar who wanted to be carried, so I knew their weight pretty well. Skeld was shockingly skinny.
“You got a camp set up in here?”
“We do.”
I followed Skeld’s directions, which were pretty simple. There was really only one way to go: down, until you got to the ritual chamber. The camp, if you could call it that, was about halfway down the path, in a small open and mildly flat area. A tent had been fashioned out of what looked to be leather armor, and various furs were scattered on the ground. There was only a single sleeping spot, plus a small cooking area. They were using a helmet as a cook-pot. Water bubbled away in it, giving off a delicate fragrance.
“Tea?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “Set me down.”
I did, and he puttered next to the fire before sitting down on a rock with a sigh, like it had taken all the energy he had. He dug in a small stack of stuff that I thought was just junk until I realized it had all been repurposed. Skeld scooped a bit of the tea out of the helmet with what seemed to be the back half of someone’s canteen.
“Might want to wait for it to cool a bit,” he said. “It’s a bit deceptive with its temperature.”
“I don’t want to be rude but, uh, what happened to the unfillable knapsack?”
He pointed into the tent.
“At the back,” he said.
I gave him a smile, crawled into the ‘tent’ and saw the large backpack taking up a full third of the room. I pulled it out and held it like a long-lost pup.
First thing I did — you know, after the coddling — was reach inside and pull out a healing potion. I tossed it toward Skeld.
“Will that help?” I asked.
“Doubtful,” he said, looking at the potion with an almost melancholy air.
“Well, uh,” I stammered, trying to figure what I should say in a situation like this, “maybe just hold on to that for now. And, you know, if you, uh, shit.”
He nodded, like he understood what I was trying to say. Which would make one of us.
“Fritz isn’t far,” I said. “And there are healers back in Coggeshall--“
“I know you’ll do your best to take care of me, Montana,” Skeld said, patting my leg with his little paw. He seemed so small now, and my heart broke. I thought I’d saved him when I threw him through the portal back into Vuldranni, but maybe I’d only prolonged his suffering.
“Want to help me to the front of the cave? No need to, well, wait back here. Not much worth saving other’n that bag of yours.”
I looked at their camp, and nodded. Then I picked Skeld up and walked back out.
Chapter Twenty-Five
It seemed like I’d been gone for a few weeks. Skeld wasn’t sure, exactly — he hadn’t been conscious for a great swath of time, and apparently Bear wasn’t super keen on keeping track of the days so much as just existing in the present.
The brownie known as Bear came strolling up the path, whistling, a somewhat gruesome bouquet of frog legs in her hands.
She stopped when she saw Skeld and me sitting on rocks at the entrance to the cave.
“Holy shit,” she said. “He’s back.”
“I told you,” Skeld said.
“Yeah, but I didn’t believe you.”
“It’s hard to get rid of me,” I said.
“Seems like it,” she replied. She walked up, and I felt this tingling all over my skin. “Gods, it is him.”
“What the fuck did you think I was?” I asked.
“Doppleganger. Skinwearer. Fiend—“
“Okay, I get it. There’s clearly a few things that can just look like other people here. Let’s forget I asked.”
“What’s a skinwearer?” Skeld asked.
“It sounds gross,” I said. “Can we just, you know, deal with that later? You ready to see home?”
“The bag—“ she started.
“He has it,” Skeld finished.
The familiarity in that little exchange made me think there was probably more going on between Skeld and Bear than just friendship. I smiled. They were definitely knocking boots. Or would be if Skeld was healthier and still had boots. And if Bear had boots. I really needed to be more observant before throwing around clichés.
“I guess I’m ready,” she said. “Unless you want to eat these?”
She held out the frog legs.
Skeld shook his head, face grim. “No. No more of those.”
“I think I’ll pass,” I said.
She was about to toss the legs over her shoulder, but paused in mid arm-movement, so the legs just kinda thwocked wetly against her back.
“How are we getting there?” She asked. “You carrying Skeld the whole way? Back through the mountain?”
“We’re flying,” I said. “Air Fritz. First Class.”
They just stared at me. I realized that in a world without airplanes, what I’d said made zero sense. Again with my stupid clichés.
“Just,” I started, “leave the damn legs and come with me.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
I presented Fritz like I was Vanna White in her prime. My two small friends were suitably impressed, staring at the ginormous bird with their mouths agape.
“Fritz Air,” I said. “Only accepting the most dignified of passengers and flying the friendly skies in classic comfort.”
Fritz spread his wings out.
“What is he?” Skeld asked.
“Big.”
The nap Fritz managed to get in while I was picking up Skeld seemed to
be enough for him, because he was not shy about letting me know he was ready to fly. So I went straight to work rejiggering the harness so Bear and Skeld were tied in securely.
Then I explained to Fritz what I wanted to do: that we should make a visual survey of the whole Coggeshall Valley. Though he head-butted me with his giant beak and I bled profusely, he finally agreed that it was a good idea. Or, more likely, he finally agreed to just do it because he realized killing me wasn’t within his approved activities.
I got on, and Fritz leapt into the air.
It hadn’t gotten old. The rush I got from flying was massive. Sure, I knew it’d dissipate over time because I’d get bored of sitting still, but those first few moments of flight were simply impossible to adequately describe. It was truly and wholly awesome. I’m sure I had a big stupid smile over my face.
My companions weren’t quite as enthralled. They both looked a little worse for wear. I’m pretty sure Skeld would have thrown up had he anything to throw up in him.
It was a relatively quick flight up and over the mountain of the bugs, and then we were high enough up that I could see, in the distance, the lake that fed the river that ran next to Coggeshall. Fritz angled north, and we started our reconnaissance.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I’m not sure what kind of process would cause it to happen, but Coggeshall Valley is nearly a perfect circle. It looks like some god reached down with a divine hole punch and just removed a chunk of the world. For the most part, the mountains had sheer cliffs that dropped into the valley. Except, of course, for the spot we had climbed out of, and where the ursus had climbed in. There was also the spot that led to a kobold hole, and the warm valley of spiders and previously witches.