by Andy Remic
“But it’s gone,” he whispered. “All gone.”
“Not all gone,” said Lillith, looking up at him, then looking round at the others. “The dragons ruled, for a million years. They were unconquerable. And we, men, dwarves, elves, we were their slaves. We were the slave races. They bred us, to build, to grow crops, to farm meat. They were kings and queens, and we their playthings. But they went to war against one another…” She paused, and her eyes drifted distant, and she reached out as if to touch something that floated in the air… “Three clans, three terrible, violent clans, and the world was bathed in fire for a thousand days as dragon fought dragon, clan fought clan, and a war raged like nothing which had gone before it.”
Lillith paused, sagging a little, and Beetrax held her, as he always would.
“They destroyed themselves,” said Lillith, softly. “Killed one another mercilessly, with hate, and spite, and violence. Impervious to fire, they tore one another apart, snapping wings, ripping off legs and tails and heads. It was a war of sickeningly violent bloodshed… and below it all cowered the remnants of their slaves. And then it was done. Then it was over. Only a few remained. And a group of slaves, made up of the hardiest men, dwarves and elves, they banded together and slaughtered the few remaining dragons. They built machines, using ancient Blood Dragon technology, and with these great machines they captured some of the old clans, and they destroyed the rest. From this came the birth of the Harborym Dwarves. From this came the Great Dwarf Lords. From this came the cessation of the Blood Dragon Empire!”
Lillith slumped, and Beetrax bore her to the ground, where she suddenly slept.
He looked up at Sakora, eyes searching for answers.
Sakora gave a little shrug, and smiled. “This place,” she said. “We do not belong here. This is a place of evil. A place of evil for us, anyway. And… it knows it. It knows we are intruders. It’s like a virus invading the human body; the body then creates antibodies to fight the infection. That’s what we are, here; an infection. Anathema to a million years of dragon rule.”
“And this place seeks to… destroy us?”
“I think so. I think it… kind of took over Lillith, for a little while there.”
“So I just slap her to get her out of it?”
“Do you remember being thrown thirty feet across the cobbles?”
Beetrax nodded. “Aye. That hurt, that did.”
“You just focus on killing… dwarves. And dragons. I’ll look after Lillith.”
Beetrax nodded, with a sad grin, and knelt beside his love waiting for her to waken.
* * *
It was hours later, although there seemed to be no time in this place. The same warm glow infused the world of Wyrmblood, and never seemed to change. Lillith had emerged from her short sleep of exhaustion, of horror, of possession, and apologised to Beetrax profusely. But her fixation was the same – to find the dragon eggs she had seen so many times across the tapestry of so many visions.
And so they followed her, more sedately this time, with Jael looking back sheepishly at Beetrax. The axeman studiously avoided Jael’s stare, in fear of taking his axe and planting it between the little bastard’s eyes.
The city of Wyrmblood seemed to go on forever. Endless roads, endless highways, some cobbled, some smooth silver or paved with a million jewels. Their boots trod the roads, their heads turning, surveying the endless, endless empty buildings.
“Millions must have lived here,” said Dake, at one point.
Lillith, more herself now, nodded. “Yes, somewhere near that. But not humans. Or elves. Or dwarves. They were down in the slave quarters.”
“Slave quarters?”
“Caves. A vast tunnel system, far below the mines of the Harborym Dwarves. It is a miracle the dwarves never discovered them before. The slaves would have no luxury from Wyrmblood.”
“There’s a lot of mountain,” observed Dake.
“A lot of mountain to fill with slaves,” agreed Lillith, with a narrow smile.
Beetrax strode at the back, now, his faith subtly shaken. His woman, his true love – this place had changed her. And he could not help but blame himself for bringing her here; yes, he’d dressed it up, eventually, as a rescue mission for Jonti Tal, but the truth of the matter had been twofold: greed, and adventure. So much for the adventure! The notion and glamour of adventure soon fades after one is tortured by barbarous dwarves for weeks on end with the aim of breaking a man’s will. Driven to the limits of sanity by sheer physical pain, by suffering, by the evil machinations of evil scumbags, living offal. He thought back, to better times, living, laughing, loving, drinking Vagandrak Red, eating smoked sausage and bread and cheese in meadows filled with buttercups. He smiled to himself, and before he realised what had happened, Jael was there, walking alongside him.
Beetrax strode on, eyes fixed ahead, his temper slowly rising.
“I wanted to apologise,” said Jael, his voice small.
“No apology needed,” rumbled Beetrax, still not looking at the youth.
“No. I need to apologise. What I did was wrong.”
“It’s all right, lad. Now I knows you’re a coward, I won’t be turning my back on you in a hurry.” He gave a tight-lipped smile.
“There is no excuse for what I did, but I want you to know, I will prove myself to you in the future. I will make this right again. I will show you I am worth something to you, that I do have courage when it counts.”
Beetrax halted, and Jael stumbled to a stop. “Well. Only time will tell. No go on, go walk with Lillith. I’m sure she’s missing her little, shitty-arsed pet puppy.”
With red cheeks, Jael accelerated ahead, leaving Beetrax alone with his thoughts once more. Dake dropped back to him.
“A little harsh?”
“It’s what he deserved.”
“Really?”
“Don’t you fucking start. Because of him, we could all be dead! And I broke a finger.”
“Ah. The finger.” Dake smiled. “Some things will never cease to amuse me.”
* * *
The roadway had been heading imperceptibly down, until they passed through a collection of huge buildings, golden cubes, each one as tall as the tallest church in Vagan; and yet these were simply cubic structures fashioned from gold bricks, walls perfectly symmetrical, but with no windows or doors. Their purpose was not clear, but they spread out now, and the overlanders walked between these seemingly pointless monoliths, eyes looking up, necks craning.
Conversation had ceased now, and they travelled in two discrete groups: Lillith and Jael up ahead, leading the way, and a subdued Beetrax, Talon, Dake and Sakora bringing up the rear. Lillith led them on a zigzagging path through what turned into a maze of these huge golden buildings, and soon everybody felt lost; yet still Lillith led them onwards, without faltering, without halting to check her way.
And then, they turned a corner, and it was there.
A mammoth, golden dragon, seemingly carved from one solid block and towering above them. Its wings were slightly outstretched, almost triangular head pointing forward, stretching out as if to attack. Lips curled back over fangs, eyes narrowed, threatening, glinting gold.
“That, my friends, is fucking awesome,” said Beetrax, stopping in his tracks. They all stopped. And looked up. And stared in wonder. Never had they seen a statue so big, or so impressive. It could have swallowed ten Vagan churches.
“What is it?” whispered Dake.
Lillith turned, staring back at the group. “It is the embodiment of the Dragon Queen, a merging of every Queen Wyrm that has ever existed down here in Wyrmblood. Every time another Queen dies, so her image is absorbed into the whole, and becomes part of a hive mind, a kind of ruling conscience which offers advice to the rulers of Wyrmblood. Every time another Dragon Queen is absorbed, the exterior alters a little to accommodate her physical form.”
They stared at her.
“How could you possibly know that?” whispered Sakora.
&nb
sp; Lillith frowned. “I don’t know,” she said, finally. “I just know.”
They stared for a little while longer, and then without a sound, Lillith padded forward towards the statue’s massive front legs, claws splayed, each claw bigger than a serrated longsword. The others followed, staring up once more as the golden dragon reared above them, silent and glowing under the strange, ethereal light of this underworld.
Reaching a point beneath the front legs, so Lillith paused, and closed her eyes, and there came a grinding of ancient gears, a spinning of cogs, and the floor opened in a circle, a spiral staircase dropping silently, smoothly, deep down in a wide shaft that, once again, told the overlanders that this was not their city, not their world; it was a strange, alien place, and the staircase was big enough to allow several dragons side by side.
Struggling, they dropped down from step to step, down into more warm light. Beetrax counted softly to himself, but gave up when he hit three hundred. They were deep. Deeper than deep.
Finally, they emerged into a massive chamber with an intricately carved ceiling; it seemed to be some kind of language. The walls and ceiling were perfectly smooth, and plain, and a soft cream in colour. The chamber stretched off further than the eye could see, and the heroes dropped from the final step, crunching something underfoot, as they moved away from the great dragon stairwell and peered about.
They moved, and each footfall crunched, a seemingly deafening sound because the vast long low chamber was so quiet.
Beetrax stopped, boots crackling, and he knelt, rubbing his hand through the tiny white particles.
“Shells,” he said, finally. “Like seashells on a beach.”
“Not seashells,” said Lillith, and they all looked at her.
She closed her eyes, and lifted her hand. Her lips started to writhe, and the centre of her outstretched palm glowed red. The others looked about, then to Beetrax, who shrugged, face open with his own curiosity.
Suddenly, the world around them seemed to fade. They were in the same place, but the features changed; a mist hung across the ground, but spreading out before them were orbs of cream, nestled in the mist, stretching away into the distance. Each one was a slightly different size and shape, many of them irregular; not one had any form of symmetry.
“What…” began Beetrax.
“Shhh…” came Lillith’s gentle lullaby.
More noise, a series of sudden clatters and shouts. They turned, staring back at the stairwell, and from it, like drifting ghosts, spilled the hazy figures of three dwarves, sporting huge beards, fearsome scarred features, each carrying a massive battle axe stained with blood.
“Here!” bellowed one harshly, over his shoulder, and more dwarves spilled into the chamber, and they started kicking the cream orbs, creating a path, as yet more dwarves emerged. They were a rough-looking bunch, many of them wounded, some singed by fire. Many had lost eyes, blood dried on their faces in streamers, and several had lost limbs. They appeared as if they’d just emerged from some violent battle.
“This is it, lads. We have to destroy them all,” came one voice, a harsh, guttural sound without any hint of doubt.
They readied their axes, and looked at one another. There was a long pause, as if these dwarves were considering the significance of their actions. Then the lead dwarf, who’d led the way, approached a large oval egg – lifted his axe above his head, and brought it swiftly down. The egg shattered, and inside the embryo of a dragon was almost sliced in two. It squealed, a high-pitched screaming sound, shrill and painful to the ears, the body curling in upon itself, squirming in juices, and a second blow cut it in half, ending the noise. Flames flickered around the shell interior.
“Come on, lads!”
The spell was suddenly broken, and the dwarves waded in, axes rising and falling, boots stamping, crushing the skulls of released dragon chicks. A huge cacophony of squealing went up, but the dwarves were brutal, uncaring, battering and chopping. Yet more dwarves arrived, until they were a hundred-strong, and the ground was slippery with chopped dragon embryos and smashed shell oil… and with roars, the dwarves surged forward, smashing, breaking, slicing, killing…
The scene faded.
The heroes stared at one another, each sick to the stomach.
“It’s a slaughter,” said Beetrax, eyes narrowed.
“I suppose they’re getting their revenge,” said Dake, carefully. “And they couldn’t let the eggs hatch. Or there’d be a thousand more dragons to fight. We were slaves to the dragons, remember, Trax?”
Beetrax turned on Lillith. “So these are the shells of the slaughtered? It makes me sick. They were babes.”
“… that would have grown up into killers,” said Lillith.
“You could say that about humans, as well,” snapped Beetrax.
Lillith turned her back on the group. “Follow me,” she said, and strode forward, each footstep a crackle reminding them of the carnage, the murder, the infanticide.
The others followed, reluctantly.
“What next?” muttered Beetrax, and he’d tumbled into a foul mood. Because of the vision of the dwarves, yes, whom he admittedly despised anyway, and now despised with a need for further murder, but also because of Lillith. Not only did she seem more cold, more distant, she also seemed to be on some secret mission, guided by magick, maybe misguided by magick, that she was not willing to share – and, more importantly, not even willing to share with him.
“I couldn’t even guess,” muttered Dake.
“I bet it’s unpleasant,” scowled Talon, looking down at each crunching footstep.
“I bet it’s dangerous,” said Sakora, and they all nodded in agreement.
The chamber seemed to stretch off for an age, and before long they looked back, and the descending stairs had disappeared. Their means for escape had, temporarily, vanished.
“I feel,” said Talon, “that the longer we stay here, and the further we descend, the less chance we’ll ever have of getting back up to the surface. Honestly, guys, I don’t feel like I’ll ever see the sunshine again. I don’t feel like I’ll ever smell the clean air again – just this fucking dwarf stink. And it stinks all right.”
Sakora moved close to him, and put her arm around his waist. “Hey, Tal,” she said, “you need to try and be more positive. We’re going to do this thing. We may die trying, but Lillith is right – it’s for the greater good.”
“You think there are more eggs that need destroying?” His voice seemed very small. “I don’t know if I could do that.”
“Me neither,” rumbled Beetrax. “Give me an enemy before me any day of the week with a big battered axe, tattooed knuckles and obnoxious breath. But murdering the unborn? That’s for men with stronger stomachs and weaker minds than me.”
The others nodded, wondering what Lillith was about to reveal – for in the vision, when they had flown with the image of the dragon, so they had seen fields of eggs, and these had not been smashed. Had they, by some miracle, survived?
Finally, a wall came into view. It was matte black, and stretched off to either side, disappearing distantly. It was a bizarre sensation. In this place far beneath the mountain, time seemed to have no meaning.
Lillith stopped, and the others gradually crunched up behind her.
“This is it,” she said.
“What is it?” asked Beetrax.
“A portal,” she said. “A secret place. When the dwarves invaded this sacred place of dragon eggs, laid by the Queen, Volak, over a period of several hundred years, they thought they had destroyed them all. But they never found the second chamber, because they were ignorant and uncouth, and unversed in the ways of Equiem magick.”
“So there are more dragon eggs?” said Beetrax, voice soft. “Listen, Lillith, we cannot destroy them. I cannot destroy them. I swear, I haven’t got it in me.” He seemed to deflate. “I don’t believe these creatures are evil; they were just dominant. Like us, now. To kill the unborn… it’s just wrong, Lil.”
“Just follow. And watch,” said Lillith, and turned, and smiled at them. “We don’t have to destroy the eggs, we just have to stop them hatching. These are two very different concepts.”
Lillith approached the wall, and placed both hands flat against it. She started to whisper, and her lips writhed, and once more her hands glowed. Slowly, silently, the great black wall started to slide away, accelerating as it flowed almost like a vertical liquid stream, to reveal…
A huge, soaring chamber, with a massive, smooth, domed ceiling, and walls covered with tiny intricate machines fashioned from gold and silver, all moving, tiny pistons and cogs, gears and spinning shafts, a hundred machines, a hundred thousand of them… and the floor dropped, it was a depression in the ground, and nestled in the vast space were eggs, dragon eggs, but these were different from the ones in the vision – whereas those had been a plain cream colour, these were different, these glittered and gave off a gentle glow, as if each egg was a covered in a tiny, complete covering of active flame.
“The dwarves found the room where the bad eggs were stored,” said Lillith, and stepped across the threshold. The others followed, moving onto a slick, black, polished walkway which led all the way around the chamber. They looked back, and up, where thousands of tiny machines clicked and whirred and spun and pumped and twisted, like some vast array of clockwork, as if they stood inside the chamber of the world’s largest, most complex clock.
“Bad eggs?” whispered Beetrax, for this room commanded reverence.
“Yes, the deformed, the broken, the twisted; those that could never live as dragons if they hatched. The dragons would never leave their greatest prize, these, their offspring, their future, for the dwarves to simply stumble across. No. There was the extra barrier only accessible by magick.”
Dake and Talon were frowning.
Sakora surveyed the sea of fire-glowing eggs. There must have been ten thousand. Ten thousand dragons waiting to hatch. A new empire. The next Blood Dragon Empire.
There came a gentle tremble, under their boots.
“Lillith?” said Sakora, and her eyes were wide in her freshly scarred face.
