by James Hunter
I paused, staring around, meeting each of their gazes in turn as they absorbed my words. “Ultimately, though,” I said after a time, “this isn’t my decision—at least, it’s not my decision alone. Everyone at this table has skin in the game, so whatever we decide … Well, it needs to be our decision.”
For a second, no one spoke.
“I have never trusted this Osmark,” Chief Kolle finally offered. “This was always the path we were destined to walk, I think. So, let us walk it proudly. Defiantly, as is the way of our people.”
“I am in agreement,” Amara added. “Let us see how his siege weapons fare in the muck and mire of the marshes. He will find we Dokkalfar are no easy game.”
“Damn right,” Forge added. “I didn’t wanna step on your toes, Jack, ’cause you’re our leader and a good guy, but that Osmark’s a real dickbasket. I don’t wanna make no deals with him. Me? I’m a patriot—my blood runs red, white, and blue—and I don’t truck with no empire. Not since 1776. I’d rather go down in flames doin’ the right thing than survive by compromisin’. So, I’m in all the way.”
“And you know where I stand, Jack,” Abby said, really smiling again for the first time since Ankara. “Osmark’s as bad as they come, no matter what he says. I’m glad you finally see that, too. Let’s fight him tooth and nail on this.”
Vlad was silent, his gaze hazy and distant—strangely thoughtful. “I do not speak much on my background, because I am Russian. And a proud Russian. The Motherland, it flows in my veins as surely as the stars and stripes flow through Forge. Still, my homeland has a long history of corruption and tyrannical leaders, and that is why I sided with you, Jack. I sided with you because you have power, but you don’t want it. And that? That is good. Not so Osmark.” He shook his head. “He is a man who only wants power, and such men are more dangerous than rabid bears. Such men must be stopped.”
“Well, you know I’m not going to say no,” Cutter added, the last to weigh in. “I’ve never been a fan of the Empire. Not out of idealism, you understand. It’s the bloody taxes. I’ll fight taxes to the death, mate. Plus, if I have to follow anyone, I suppose you’re an alright sort, Jack.” He shot me an encouraging wink.
I grinned—Cutter might not have been noble, but he was honest. Something I’d always appreciate about the thief. “Alright, then,” I said. “Let’s go take a trip to the Twilight Lands and put this thing to rest.”
TWENTY-EIGHT:
Twilight Lands
I lingered in the sacred glade with the Horn of the Ancients clenched in one white-knuckled hand. It was a simple instrument of beaten brass covered in hair-fine inscriptions that spiraled from the battered mouthpiece to the gently flared bell. It couldn’t have weighed more than a pound, but for some reason it felt impossibly heavy in my hand, dragging me down with the weight of its implications. All I needed to do was raise it to my lips, give one little puff, and the Twilight Lands would open to us.
One puff to set us on a crash course with the Empire.
One puff and I’d come face-to-face with a dragon, who might burn me to a crisp.
One puff and my world would change forever, one way or another.
I took a deep breath, pressing my eyes shut, hand flexing around the horn, pressing into the metal until my palm hurt from the strain. Was this a risk? Yes. Was killing the Sky Maiden morally questionable? Possibly—especially if what we’d heard in the Citadel was true. But I just couldn’t see a better choice, or another way forward, and as Chief Kolle was fond of saying, “There is no reward without risk and no change without challenge.”
“Well let’s not dawdle,” Cutter said from behind me. “That dragon isn’t gonna slay itself, and I’ve got better things to do than stand around in some dank, musty cave. Like drink and gamble and spend all my hard-earned gold.” His words were as confident and cocksure as ever, but I knew him well enough to catch the hint of worry and fear lingering just beneath the surface. One of us might die here. Maybe him. Maybe Amara. Maybe all of us.
Slowly, I surveyed each of my teammates in turn. As I scanned their faces, I saw that same worry, that same fear—though tightly concealed—in each of them. There was something else there, too, a hopefulness of things to come. A hope that maybe this was the road to a better tomorrow for all of us. I also read solidarity in their faces: for better or worse, we were in this thing together, and whatever waited for us on the other side … Well, we’d face it together. Suddenly, the immense weight of the horn faded and it was just an old piece of brass.
Just one more quest item on the road to something better.
I smiled, nodded, and raised the horn, pressing it to my lips and giving it a short blow. A single clarion note exploded out like a bomb blast, shoving me back a few steps as a wave of arcane power flooded into the stone archways surrounding the glade. In a flash, an eyeblink, the archways ceased being crude lifeless rock and became something more: gateways to other realms. Other worlds. Each of the doorways was covered with a spectral sheen of shifting purple light, and each looked out onto some new and fantastical landscape.
“Wow,” Abby said, her voice muted and oddly reverent. “This is incredible.”
I agreed completely. I’d never seen anything like this.
One doorway showcased an endless desert of cracked yellow hardpan, as flat as an ocean with a single pyramid—hulking, ancient, and crumbling—marring the horizon. Another peered onto the gray sands of a beach with white rocks jutting up; water, the color of a nosebleed, crashed endlessly against the shore. A third led to an orchard of towering wild apple trees with a small winding road leading to a crystalline lake in the distance. A beautiful, peaceful place—or so I thought, until a horror as large as a tractor-trailer, with a forest of black tentacles, broke the surface of the water before disappearing back into the depths of the lake.
Another portal, this one off to my right, caught my eye.
A barren, desolate land of rolling hills, covered in ashy pale dirt and dotted with patches of withered scrub grass and stunted, bone-white trees poking up like oversized skeletal hands. In the distance, colossal twisted spires—adorned with spectral green windows like glaring insect eyes—scraped a star-studded sky the color of an old bruise. A city. One which easily rivaled Rowanheath or even Ankara, though dreadful and dreary. I couldn’t be sure, but every fiber of my being said that had to be Morsheim, the land of Serth-Rog and home to the long-dead Vogthar.
I shuffled over to the Morsheim portal, my feet moving against my will, and reached out a tentative hand, stretching toward the twisted city beyond.
My fingers stopped short, though, jamming up against an invisible barrier as solid as glass. These doorways were locked, then. Restricted areas, barred until I had the right quest to open the way. Idly, I wondered if there were more areas like this glade scattered across Eldgard—some sort of primal hubs for players to access different realms of existence, locked during regular gameplay. An interesting notion—and the gamer in me couldn’t help but chortle in glee, imagining all the unique quests and loot likely spread through those lands—but it was a notion I’d have to ask about later.
I had a dragon to find.
It didn’t take me long to locate the portal to the Twilight Lands. “That one,” I said, jabbing a finger at a gateway with a giant volcano spewing an endless stream of molten rock high into the air. I stepped forward, but Abby’s hand fell on my forearm, her normally gentle fingers squeezing down, stopping me in my tracks.
“Can I just have one minute before we go in?” Unlike her steely grip, the words were soft, almost pleading.
I nodded.
She led me off to the side, away from the others, and drew me close. “Look, I know we agreed to fight Osmark and I know to do that, we need to do this.” She dipped her head toward the portal. “We need to get the artifacts and kill the dragon …” She trailed off, glancing away while she fidgeted with her dress. “But I still feel really uncomfortable about it. I mean after what h
appened back in the Citadel … I dunno, it just feels wrong to do this. I can’t explain it, but I can’t shake the feeling either.”
“I understand completely,” I replied, meaning every word. “I’d never say this in front of Amara or any other members of the Dark Conclave, but I believed every word the Priestess said. She had no reason to lie to us. Nangkri probably killed Arzokh and her family for some gold, which is incredibly crappy. But we need to think about the faction, Abby. This isn’t about us, not anymore. Like it or not, we’re in charge and that means people are depending on us. A lot of people. And what’ll happen if we fail? Osmark steamrolls us in two weeks and destroys everything we’ve worked for.”
“Yeah, I know that,” she said, bobbing her head in agreement. “Just, just promise me one thing …” She glanced up and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “If there’s any way to bargain with Arzokh, to find a peaceful solution, tell me you’ll at least consider it?”
I hesitated for a second, then nodded. “Yeah, of course. I don’t know how things will shake out, but if there’s any other way, we’ll do it.”
She leaned in and gave me a quick peck on the cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered, before letting go of my arm.
I shot her a lopsided smile in return, then spun and headed into the breach, shuddering involuntarily as frozen power splashed across my skin, freezing me to the bone.
The cold didn’t last long, though.
Nope.
A wave of sweltering heat bludgeoned me like a baseball bat, far worse than anything I’d experienced in the game so far. The Storme Marshes could be awful with high temperatures and overwhelming humidity, but not like this place. Not even the sweltering Barren Sands of Ankara came close. Perspiration instantly broke out across my brow, rolled down between my shoulder blades, and left my shirt and pants sticking uncomfortably against my skin. I staggered, slipping over to one side as I took a moment to get a handle on my surroundings.
The sky overhead was devoid of stars and black as the bottom of the ocean, though a vast battalion of clouds—angry red things—floated by on an unfelt breeze. The ground beneath my boots was gray, lifeless, and studded with spars of sharp rock like gigantic teeth. Nothing grew here—no flowers, no trees, no life. It was a dead place, made for the dead. I was in a canyon with towering walls of craggy rock flanking me on both sides.
The volcano—a domineering mountain of black stone and jagged peaks—vomited a constant stream of lava like a never-ceasing geyser; the glowing magma trailed down the slope and turned into a sludgy, slow moving river of fire and molten rock. That river, in turn, meandered through this canyon, implacably carving its way through the rock thirty feet to my left. I turned in a quick circle, scanning the jagged, irregular rocks for any sign of the dragon or the Twilight Acropolis—the Jade Lord’s prison for the last five hundred years.
It didn’t take long to spot an ancient complex, perched precariously on an outcropping, overlooking the canyon, since it was the only man-made structure in sight. A squat, flat-topped building with a host of columns, which marched around the perimeter like stern-faced sentries. Even at a distance, I could see seven figures, blurry and indistinct, standing in the shade of the immense columns, staring out over the fiery landscape. That had to be the Jade Lord and his brothers. Had to be. Hiking up to the Acropolis would be an absolute nightmare, but with Devil I could make the trip in minutes.
Without a thought, I drew on the frigid power of Umbra coursing through me, calling Devil from the Shadowverse in a burst of cold energy and inky smoke. The Drake appeared a few feet away, looking significantly better than the last time I’d seen him—his wounds healed, his wings mended, his scales gleaming and slick in the firelight from the river. The Drake glanced at me, dipping his head in acknowledgment, before turning his reptilian gaze on the bleak landscape. What is this place? he sent, sounding … not scared, not exactly, but a touch apprehensive.
Twilight Lands, I replied, clambering over to him and slipping onto his back. We’ve come to find the Sky Maiden, Arzokh.
Devil sniffed and snorted, his purple eyes narrowing. The mother of dragons, he sent, more respectful than I’d ever heard from him. Among my kind, it is said she is the true mother of all Dragons, Drakes, and Wyverns.
You okay to fight her? I asked, panic creeping into my thoughts, my heart leaping into overdrive … I was already unsure how we were going to win this thing, but without Devil to assist me, it would go from nearly impossible to absolutely impossible.
The Drake hesitated for a second, debating with himself, before eventually bobbing his head. She is a worthy foe—there is no greater challenge for one of our kind. It will be a honor to battle her.
A string of muted cursing interrupted our silent conversation as Cutter stumbled through the portal, followed in short order by Forge, Abby, Vlad, and Amara. Most covered their mouths against the choking dust or shielded their eyes from the harsh glare of the nearby volcanic river.
“Shite,” Cutter said, eyes squinted as he fanned himself with one hand. “And I thought the Storme Marshes were hot. This place is a right nightmare. I wouldn’t want to spend an hour here, much less five bloody centuries. No wonder Arzokh is disgruntled—I’d be too if someone damned me to this god-awful place.”
“Yeah, it’s awfully desolate,” Abby said thoughtfully, turning in a slow circle, searching the landscape much like I’d done a second before. “So, I assume that’s the prison”—she hooked a thumb toward the building—“but where’s the Sky Maiden? I sort of expected her to be just waiting for us. Do you think there’s a dungeon we need to fight our way—”
A roar, part earthquake, part thunderstorm, cut Abby off mid-sentence. The sheer volume shook the ground and reverberated in my chest as loose pieces of scree bounced down the canyon walls in a series of mini rockslides.
“Guess that answers that,” Forge said, pointing toward the volcano with his heavy axe.
I stared, thunderstruck, as an enormous creature of scale, spike, and bone emerged from the top of the volcano like a fire god brought to life then given wings and terrible purpose. Simply incredible. I’d seen visions of her more than once, but it was nothing like seeing her in real life. Not even close. The size of her alone left me breathless and terrified. When I’d first battled Devil back in the Darkshard mines, Cutter had told me Drakes were simply small dragons, but it wasn’t until this second that I understood the difference.
The scope of it.
Arzokh was easily ten times the Drake’s size. If Devil was a sleek sports car, then Arzokh was the love child of a coal train and an aircraft carrier.
She was longer than a jumbo jet from snout to tail and just as big around in the chest. Her hide was a red so deep it bordered on black, and covered with cracking slabs of volcanic rock. Her wings, instead of jutting from her shoulder blades, connected along the outside of her elongated front arms like a bat’s wings. Her head—bigger than a Slugbug and sporting jaws packed with teeth longer than my forearm—swayed on a neck as thick as a towering pine. Smoke and fire trailed from her yawning maw as she hurtled toward us, making me think of the cataclysmic asteroid that had ended the world not so long ago.
I couldn’t help but feel she was going to succeed where the asteroid failed: she was going to end me. End us all.
“Pizdets, nam pizdets,” Vlad said with a groan, his face drooping as he groped at the alchemic grenades crisscrossing his chest. “We are—how do you Westerners say—screwed royalty.”
“That’s not how it goes,” I mumbled absently in reply.
“I’ve got to agree with the Alchemist,” Cutter said, glancing longingly at the portal hanging open midair, leading back to the sacred clearing. “I think we ought to chalk this up as a loss and call it quits. There’s no way we can beat that thing. It’s bloody impossible. Especially if she’s indestructible until we get the amulet. Might as well go jump in that magma river—it’ll be quicker and less painful.”
“She
is bigger than I expected,” Amara said, nocking her bow with practiced efficiency. “But no creature is indestructible. She is formidable in body, true, but not more formidable than the mind.” She reached up and tapped at her temple. “She will rely on her size and strength, so we simply need to outthink her.”
As much as I subconsciously agreed with Cutter, Amara was right. I couldn’t go into this battle already convinced I’d lost. Beating Carrera had seemed impossible and so had defeating the Moss Hag, but I’d done both even when everyone thought I was doomed to failure from the start. I narrowed my eyes, squinting until I caught a glint of gold draped around her neck: the Jade Lord’s Amulet. If I could somehow get that away from her, then force her to land, we might have a chance. I wheeled Devil around in a tight circle, searching the desolate landscape.
Fifty feet behind us, and not far from the river of churning magma, was a jagged rock outcropping forming a small bottleneck with the canyon wall.
Not a great place to make a stand, but it would give everyone a little cover and it would restrict Arzokh’s ability to move. “There,” I commanded, gesturing toward the outcropping. “Forge, Vlad, Cutter—go set up in the fissures. Stay out of sight if you can. Abby and I are going to try and get that amulet, then drive her to the ground. Once she’s down and in range, unleash everything you’ve got.”
“And me?” Amara asked, glancing between the outcropping and the incoming dragon.
“Can you scale the opposite wall?” I asked, nodding toward the jagged rock-face. “That should give you a better vantage so you can put down suppressive fire.”
She frowned, canting her head to one side in thought, before dipping her chin in acknowledgment. “I will do it.”
