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Silent Flame Burns the Brightest

Some days were too beautiful for tragedies. In every ballad and epic, people always painted the scene of a raging tempest or a starless night as the backdrop to a disaster; never was it a bright, cloudless day or an entrancing sundown that framed such an event. But reality seldom matched human notions.

The pristine sand shifted beneath my feet as I strolled along the ruin-strewn beach. Husks of a hundred ships marked the length of the shore like ribcages of mythical sea beasts, the final resting place of countless generations of seamen. They weren’t new wreckages, not most. This one was just one more to the count.

The sun was already sinking beyond the mountains, the sands painted an ethereal orange, when I gave up my scouting. I raised my hand up to the sky, flashing a signal to my spectator. Moments later, the sound of enormous wings filled the evening air and the slender shape of a black dragon landed beside me. Eisherath looked at me expectantly, but already knew the verdict.

“[No signs of life],” I stated gravely. “[No footprints, no marks, no disturbed flotsam. The wreckage looks days old. Maybe weeks. Another] crew [claimed by the sea].”

Eishe sighed, nostrils flaring. Her crimson eyes scanned the surrounding scene with regret. “[Shame],” she said in her inhuman voice. Like a booming, growly whisper.

When Eishe had spotted a fresh wreckage being washed up near our gathering spot, I had elected to venture ahead as to not scare any potential survivors. After living through such an ordeal, a giant, fire-breathing predator would hardly be a comforting sight. But it was a vain attempt.

I still didn’t understand how I survived my own shipwreck. Even with my years as a sailor and my talents as a swimmer, the sea around the Southern Reaches’ eastern shores was a deadly blender of razor-sharp reefs and uncompromising tides. And the inland was hardly any safer. It was an untamed wilderness, pure and primal in its nature. Along with its inhabitants.

Without meeting Eisherath, I would have surely perished within the first week. This wasn’t a place for humans. But for some reason, the dragoness had taken pity on me. Later, she even took a fancy to me.

Perhaps it shouldn’t have been so surprising. She had always been fascinated by the strange relics of foreign civilizations that the ocean spat out here on the regular, collecting them like a treasure. She had never seen anyone like myself before I joined those washed-up relics. She didn’t even have a name for my kind. It was silly to hope that in the year I had spent here since, another of us unfortunates might make it out alive. But it didn’t hurt to look.

“[Sun is falling,]” she said, urgingly. “[We should go back. I return later. Bring new treasure.]”

I nodded in agreement. This wasn’t a welcoming place for a camp. It would be like sleeping at a graveyard. We made our way back to the highlands where we ventured to gather and hunt for resources. It was a simple existence; primitive compared to my former life. But I had taken to it better than I would have hoped.

After we had eaten our shares and our fire died out, I converted the wooly pelt I wore into a sleeping mat. Eishe curled up around me like a dome, sheltering me with her wing as she clutched me to her chest with one oversized hand. Just one of her fingers was as thick as two of mine, topped off with menacing black talons. One of them still bore the gleaming shape of one of my golden sailor’s earrings.

I stroked her scaly arm, marveling at the irony of fate. If anyone had told me that one day I would be living as a castaway in love with a dragon I would have laughed in their face. But after meeting Eishe, that is exactly what had happened. She didn’t just save me, she had shown me a new dimension, a new outlook. In my time here, I had grown to love her more that anyone ever before; her and this whole wildly beautiful place.

I had been offered a choice once: to leave her or to die. It had seemed like a hard decision at the time. Now, I would defy death a thousand times for her.

As the night grew colder, Eishe’s body kept the air underneath her wing warm like a summer’s day. She radiated heat like a lava rock. The smooth, pristine scales of her chest were hot against the exposed skin of my back. It was a comfort I wouldn’t have traded for anything.

I watched as she closed her eyes, her face tucked under her wing inches away from mine. The deep rumbling of her breath steadied into the rhythmic droning of slumber, tugging me right along with her like a lullaby. I gave in.

***

The next several days, Eishe had spent rummaging through the newly added wreckage in search of anything that piqued her interest. She was flying back and forth between our den and the beach while I worked tirelessly to chop and cure the meat she had procured previously.

Long before I had come along, Eishe had made her home in a cave situated high up in the eastern mountains. Though calling it a cave didn’t do it justice. The place had been altered heavily by its occupants, likely serving as a lair for many a fortunate dragon during the ages. The floor had been evened out by a neatly-compressed sediment of rocks and dirt which Eishe inventively covered over with fur pelts. The walls and corners were stuffed with the hoard of washed-up curios she had gathered over the decades – from unassuming cannon rammers and painted barrel lids, to sextants or compasses. There was even a hot spring flowing through the cavern, dammed to form a dragon-sized pool.

In my time, I contributed a thing or two myself. I had used old sailcloth to set up salt farms by the shore and shown Eishe how to use them to extract salt from evaporated sea water. I started growing some of the more hardy plants I had found outside the cave too. I even added a few foreign ones from washed-up seed bags we found. I was the only one who could eat them but that was also a great help, seeing as it meant more meat for Eishe.

Winter was coming and that meant a meaty diet for the both of us. Normally, she had no major issues feeding herself through the cold months, but an additional stomach, even a human-sized one, was a complication. I had learned from the last winter though and this time I was prepared. I made a thorough reserve of dried plants and cured a supply of meat using the salt I had farmed. Luckily, Eishe had shown a liking to it herself. There should be no issues this time around.

Once I was done with my work, I picked up my books and retreated to the cave entrance. The scenery outside was truly breathtaking. The rocky peaks were painted orange by the setting sun while the resplendent valley, filled with lush forests, stretched out in the distance beyond. It was truly a sight to behold.

I laid back against the rocky wall, reading through the pages of the dictionary under the evening light. The book in question was old and half destroyed by the waters that brought it here, but it was still remarkably intact, considering. It wasn’t a typical publication. It was a manuscript, belonging to a scholar unfortunate enough to decide to try and document the cultures of the Reaches. It contained the translations into Common of many northern tongues, but also of some exotic ones.

There weren’t any civilizations to speak of in the Southern Reaches, just tribes of hunter-gatherers and other primitive folks. And dragons. Not many would have described dragons as having a culture per se, but I have learned otherwise. They weren’t the most social species, but they too had their rules and codes they were raised to abide by. And no place for those who broke them…

Eishe had taught me about the dragon ways and why she broke off from them. It was an uncompromising hierarchy where the weaker submitted to the stronger and children obeyed their parents unquestioningly; regardless of the wisdom the choices of their ‘Betters’ bore. But it was this dictionary that allowed me to talk to her in the first place. She couldn’t read any of the letters in it, didn’t even know what it was she had here until I stumbled across it in my boredom.

I had devoured what there was to learn of Draconic already and Eishe supplemented the rest. I wasn’t fluent and likely never would be but our communication went as smoothly as I could hope. In turn, I’ve been teaching her what I could of Common. Even tried to teach her to read.

In my alone time, I had meanwhile taken to studying other languages the book documented. I had already learned that the author was elvish and read up on the language to decipher their personal notes. It was truly enlightening, reading about their journey and the motivation behind it. How they believed understanding a culture could bridge the gap between. Forge a path towards peace.

It was doubly interesting seeing that they tried documenting the language of the orcish tribes inhabiting the Reaches. I had run across their hunters just days after first crashing here. And I almost died. If it wasn’t for Eishe, I would have. But orcs were known to be naturally vindictive and ever since that day, we continued to have troubles with them. Every now and then during the months, Eishe would be spotted by a scouting party and need to perform evasive maneuvers to shake them off. They rarely came close enough to take a shot at her, but that was a small consolation.

There were notes in the book regarding their culture. Their social structure, honor codes, ways in which they procured resources. Even the location of their settlements. As far as I could tell, the author was convinced that learning their language and ways could ensure a peaceful contact. I wondered how that turned out for them.

They were dead. That was how.

The sun was still up when the beating of Eishe’s wings reached the cave entrance. She hopped inside, practically prancing in joy at her new finds. She laid the bundle of curios on the ground, summoning me to take a look.

Ever since we figured out our communication, she had me explain every new item she brought home. There was barely anything in this cave now that she couldn’t name. I knelt by the heap of stuff while she settled herself beside it.

“[Tell! What do you know?]” she demanded, picking at something from the pile.

I took the offered piece. It looked like a metal disk on a small chain. “A pocket watch,” I said I Common.

“[What does it?]”

“[I measures time,]” I answered, opening the lid. “[It is stopped.]”

“[Measure time?]” Eishe asked in confusion. “[Time flows always the same. It does not slow or stop. Why do you measure?]”

“[Sometimes you need to know it exactly. Not just evening or morning. Like how much time has passed since you were away or how long you slept.]”

“[You know how time passes. It is always the same. You think it and you know,]” she didn’t let up.

Something confused me. “[Wait. You mean you can always tell the exact time?]”

“[Yes,]” she confirmed. “[Can you not?]”

“[No. Not exactly,]” I marveled. “[Even when you sleep?]”

“[Yes,]” Eishe said. The things you learn after a year into a relationship. She nudged me toward the pile again. “[What else?]”

I dug around the scrap she brought. There were a few nothings – just weirdly shaped pieces of debris – a few duplicates of items she already had and some eating utensils, the concept of which I had already explained to her with no small amount of confusion. But there was another thing among the rest. Something that made my eyebrows rise. “No way…” I breathed, picking the thing up.

“[What?]” Eishe asked, intrigued by my shock.

It was a gun. A genuine, honest to gods, flintlock pistol! It looked intact, all the pieces where they belonged, complete with a craftsman’s emblem etched into the polished wood of its handle. There wasn’t even much rust on it.

“[Speak! What is it?]”

“A gun!” I exclaimed, holding it forward to look down its sights. I tried cocking back the hammer and pulling the trigger. It hit the pan with audible impact.

“[A what?]” Eishe demanded, frustrated by my lack of answers.

“[It is a weapon,]” I said. “A ranged one. Most powerful of its kind! They were invented by this dwarven artificer named Chekhov…!”

“[I understood half your words!]” Eishe interrupted me mid rant. “[It does not look dangerous.]”

“[It is not like greenskin weapons. It is like the] cannons [of our] ships! [Only small for a hand. It breathes metal like you breathe fire.]”

“[Is it whole?]” she pried.

“[Looks like it,]” I answered, still not letting my eyes of it. “[But it needs Black Powder to work.]”

Eishe took the pistol from me gently, turning it over in her palm. The barrel was thinner than her fingers. It looked lost in her hand; completely harmless. “[Is this how your people fight?]”

I shook my head. “[Not often. They are rare and new. Few can have them. Most use weapons like the greenskin do.]”

“[Then it is a rare find!]” she concluded. Eishe took the weapon and retreated deeper into the cave, finding a particular spot of reverence for it among her hoard.

I watched the pistol with no small amount of longing. I had only ever held a firearm once; when my former captain let me do maintenance on it for him. I never got to fire it. What a strange time it seemed now; that I would consider being assigned a chore to be a privilege.

“[And your work?]” Eishe asked when she was done allocating her new trophies.

“[Done,]” I answered. The meat was curing, gardens were growing and plants were drying. The rest was up to natural processes.

“[Good,]” she responded simply and plopped down onto one of the largest pelts. I was suddenly snatched up as her tail came around and pulled me closely to her curled up form. “[I am tired. You must too,]” Eishe proclaimed as she hugged her head around me.

I didn’t think to complain. It had been a long day and we had both spent most of it alone. The sound of Eishe’s breathing vibrated my entire body as it reverberated through her neck and chest. It was hardly a subtle sound but I had found it incredibly comforting. The knowledge that she was there. The physical sensation of her presence.

I reached a hand under her jaw and pulled her face closer, planting a kiss on her scaly cheek. My lips connected with her burning face and I felt more than heard a change in her rumbling breath, like a pleased purr underlining her exhale. Her eyes were closed in quiet contentment.

For the last year, this has been the highlight of my days. Moments like these; just the two of us, huddled in a wordless embrace. I would have expected it to get old after all these months. It had not yet.

“Ih luv yough, Edmund” Eishe droned absently. I smiled. Her pronunciation might not have been perfect, but she said the words with as much honesty as possible. Besides, I doubted my Draconic sounded any better to her.

“[I care for you too, my Equal,]” I answered her.

Draconic did not have a word for love or a lover. It did not need to. Dragons conveyed a lot more through the language of the body than any other race I knew. Not every phrase or concept had a vocal stand-in. As for their word for partners, they simply called them Equals. Dragons traditionally treated all others as either their Lessers or Betters. In every encounter, the weaker deferred to the stronger. To deem someone their Equal was the greatest expression of affection they knew. I rather liked the sentiment, even if I often did not feel quite worthy of the title.

The day was ending quickly, the skies outside already darkened, giving way to the light of stars. Getting lost in this moment of intimacy, we slowly started drifting off. There was no need to rush with anything. That was one of the benefits of this lifestyle: there was no pressure but your immediate needs. Dragons didn’t plan things, they just did them. The only thing that didn’t yield to them was time. And we had time aplenty.

***

I inspected the frostberry bush – finding an appropriate branch – and pulled out my knife. I sawed off the twig with careful precision, preparing it for transplanting. The Southern Reaches saw snow only in the highest altitudes and this particular bush had the advantage of thriving even during winter months, which made it an ideal addition to my garden.

Eishe yawned aloud as she lounged in the hot spring nearby. One advantage of not needing clothes was that she could simply hop in whatever stream or pond she liked whenever she fancied a dip. She could also withstand much higher temperatures than me. She wasn’t fireproof exactly, but I was fairly sure sticking a finger into the water would leave me with blisters.

There was no shortage of streams of all temperatures in the mountains. I used to marvel at the fact with gleeful excitement. At least until Eishe explained it was because we were essentially living atop a cluster of volcanoes. She assured me they were (mostly!) inactive and that she could always just fly away in case one decided it was time to get proactive again, but that hardly made me feel any safer. Especially since I, unlike her, couldn’t fly. I struggled to imagine myself outrunning a volcano.

Well, at least we had taken care of that issue.

One of the most annoying aspects of our uneven relationship was by far my walking speed. Whereas Eishe could fly from one coast to the other in a single day, I could scarcely walk down into the valley in equal time. I had suggested flying on her back early on but she quickly shot that idea down, citing how dangerous and chaotic dragon flight truly was. There was simply no way I could hold on throughout. And that’s not even accounting for the row of sharp spines running down the length of her back.

She couldn’t carry me safely in her hands either, not without sinking her claws into my flesh the way she carried her kills. She had to resort to just holding onto my sweaty form a few times already, but had barely managed to get me into safety without dropping me. Except for that one time she actually did drop me. I was fine, thankfully, but we had come to an agreement that carrying me was only for emergencies.

That is until I came up with the sling harness. The system was really quite ingenious in its simplicity. First, I had used some spare sailcloth Eishe had procured to cut and sew it into the shape of a hammock. Then I added leather straps that went around Eishe’s back so that the hammock clung tightly to her chest. The project took me almost two months to complete but I wanted to really make sure it wouldn’t come apart mid-air. I even made Eishe fly around with rocks in it for a bit just to make sure.

I felt a little like a newborn babe huddled in there, but the invention worked like clockwork. Eishe could easily put the contraption on or off and I was held securely against her chest while she flew around, clutching onto me with one arm just in case. I also didn’t have to see just how high up we were soaring which was aways a plus.

“[Are you done?]” Eishe asked, observing me from the steaming water. I could hardly see her within the cloud of vapor rising from the hot spring like a pillar of white.

“[A moment,]” I said, carefully stashing the samples in my bag.

“[You need rest,]” she declared firmly. “[Come to me. Swim.]”

“[I like my skin where it is,]” I replied, not without some quip. Eishe snorted and whipped her tail in the water, sending a barrage of drops splashing my way. I instinctively braced myself but the spray had cooled enough during its trajectory to only mildly startle me. She had found that amusing.

I scoffed and shook my head but couldn’t suppress a smirk. I sat down on a nearby rock and gazed at the surrounding scenery. The hills were mostly bare; mossy overgrowth and hardy bushes the only plant life around. Dark, sharp rocks pierced the wavy plains here and there like giant teeth. And every dozen meters a pond or another pockmarked the field of green. It was rather charming.

This too was a courtesy of the sling harness. My walking speed, or lack thereof, usually meant that venturing anywhere that wasn’t in the immediate vicinity of our lair took days. That used to mean reserving any trips for essential stuff only.

Not anymore. This land was filled to the brim with wondrous sites and breathtaking vistas, but before – while they were everyday pleasures to Eishe – they used to be mostly inaccessible to me. Now that that wasn’t the case, she took it upon herself to change that. She would regularly take me with her on her flights whenever she wasn’t hunting. I still didn’t like flying but I couldn’t complain. I grew to rather love our outings. There was never any shortage of stuff to see around here and I had still only glimpsed a fraction of this land’s wonders.

This spot was a particular favorite of Eishe’s. She had explained that she usually stopped here for a dip whenever she flew by. It wasn’t that far from our home, perhaps a day’s journey south, but I doubted I could make it here and back in one go. It was still quite something. I was glad I had the opportunity to visit here now.

One enormous downside was the smell. Turns out, not all hot springs are as pristine as the one in our cave. Most reeked of sulfur. A foul miasma, not unlike rotten eggs, hung all around, waiting to be blown in my face whenever the wind changed. This was true of many springs, not just the ones with warm water, but this was a particularly potent bunch. Another reason to stay far from the steaming pond. Sitting by the edge of the pit with Eishe’s head resting near my feet, I could actually SEE the sulfuric residue filling the cracks in the surrounding rocks. It was making my head spin.

It also gave me an idea.

I couldn’t help but be captivated by the purity of the noxious substance here. Where I came from, people would import this stuff from overseas. Often, my own ship’s cargo included sulfur among its inventory. Yet here it simply was.

I barely noticed when I got up, strolling between the steaming waters and bubbling mud pits, scanning the ground for those yellow crystals. The residue was everywhere. I could scrape the ground with a knife and find it stuck to its blade. But that wasn’t good enough.

I had spied a few good outcrops but they were far in the bubbling death pits, too hot even for Eishe to enter. I kept looking, unsure why I even bothered pursuing this train of thought. It is not like I could actually use it. But it still fascinated me. And before I realized, I stood staring at the Ravine.

My feet stopped roving, as if rooted to the ground. The enormous scar in the earth was carving out a path into the distant peak; as if someone had taken an axe to the mountain itself. Its beginning point was right in front of me, descending down into the shadows between the rock walls. There was a very clear divide where the grass stopped growing and the rock got jagged and rough. Eishe had told me that that divide was never to be crossed. Not unless I had a death wish. I was standing right on its edge.

I could hear her call after me uncertainly. She didn’t like to insult my intelligence; if she tasked me with something, she trusted me with it. But that didn’t mean she didn’t worry.

Eying the menacing gorge, I turned around and walked back toward her. Eishe had exited the scalding pond, shaking the water off her glittering scales. Steam still rose from her body.

“[Sun is falling. We go back,]” she declared, reaching for the discarded sling harness.

“Oh, no no!” I protested. “[You smell. Find clean pond first!]”

“[There is clean water home. I wash home,]” she answered and started putting the harness on. I tried pointing out that that defeated the whole purpose of washing up, but she wasn’t having it; just strapped the harness on and urged me to get in. I rolled my eyes and steeled myself.

Eishe crouched down to let me slide easily into the hammock, then pulled the securing strap and rose. To my great relief, the stench of sulfur didn’t cling to her scales very strongly. My stomach didn’t remain at ease for long though. I felt Eishe’s arm reach around my back and clutch me closely to her chest as she rose on her hind legs, turning me vertically. Then she jumped. A few turbulent flaps of her wings were all it took for her to climb high up into the skies before turning my world horizontally again and settling into a more comfortable glide.

The takeoff was always the second worst part. The ultimate honor – unfortunately for me – belonged to the landing.

***

She observed.

The mossy plains were cold and barren, unfit for life. Unfit for the hunt. There were no big beasts there. Nothing to hunt. Nowhere to hide, to stalk. To prowl. Yet that is where the Prey chose to reside. She did not understand.

She watched the black dragon emerge from the cloud, shaking off the water. It would be so easy to strike. To charge. To bleed it dry!

But that would have been a mistake. The Prey was small, but even a smallest dragon was stronger than the largest warrior. Attacking blindly would be foolish. Suicide. And she didn’t want it dead. Not yet. The only way to hunt a stronger foe was to surprise it. And the only way to surprise what you couldn’t sneak up on was to lure it.

That would be simple. The Frail One would do. She merely needed to get her hands on him.

She bided her time.

She watched the Prey take off, bringing the human with it. They were getting smarter. More careful. More annoying. She would deal.

She closed her eyes. When She opened them, She was in her own body again. She clutched her staff, the glow of its runes illuminating the tent; smoke rising from them like ribbons of darkness. A chance would present itself eventually. And when it did, She would be there.

She smiled.

***

As soon as I was free of the harness, I tore my clothes off and hung them up to air out. The sulfur stench wasn’t strong but it sure was omnipresent. I sunk into the considerably less smelly and much more temperate hot spring of our cave and relished the sense of warmth and cleanliness it provided.

Another downside of flying was how insanely cold it got. The sailcloth was thick and shielded me from the winds, but it wasn’t very isolating. I still needed to work that one out. Perhaps line the hammock with furs on the inside.

“[You are cold,]” Eishe said, more statement than a question.

“[Yes.]”

“[I am warmer than water,]” she teased, laying down with her head at the pond’s edge.

I smirked. “[You still smell,]” I couldn’t help pointing out. She eyed me offendedly. I grinned. I knew this game already.

Evidently, she took my deflection as a challenge. Eyes narrowed, Eishe pulled back then jumped into the pool as well. Water spilled over the side and out the cave, a wave washing over my face as it crashed against the back wall. Her snout emerged in front of me, nostrils spraying water as they flared.

“[Solved,]” she said. Her scarlet eyes pierced me like a cornered prey.

Eishe always respected my boundaries. But she did not like being toyed with. Which, unfortunately for her, I loved exploiting. “[Removing all water will not warm me up,]” I teased.

“[You think to be funny?]” she snarled, baring her teeth.

She placed one clawed hand on my chest, pushing me against the rock wall. Her head snuck closer, jaws parting, revealing an array of razor-sharp teeth. I felt her long, tapered tongue touch down on my chest, tracing a trail up the side of my neck. I shivered at the warm feeling. I closed my eyes, head falling back, baring my throat to her. Eishe’s muzzle nudged against it. Her hot breath sent shivers down my spine. She gently nipped my wet skin, leaving reddened marks behind. I reached a hand to her face and she grabbed it with her spare one, pinning it against the wall.

She always got forceful when I played games with her. What could I say? I liked her that way.

Not many people could hold this level of trust towards their partner, even if they weren’t a giant, fire-breathing predator. Once, I could never have imagined giving my body over to a dragon. But what did the rest matter if she already had my heart?

When her face was within reach, I leaned forward and kissed her forehead. Her onyx scales were hot against my lips. Her whole body glimmered with droplets of water like constellations in the midnight sky. She was always a sight to behold. Her slender beauty, her raw strength. The personification of power.

My shoulders were barely above water as she held me down against the rock. She licked my chest and upwards, starting lower each time, until her own head fully submerged. I didn’t have a good view of whatever she was doing through the rippling surface, but I sure felt it. A stifled breath escaped me when I felt her tongue on my inner thigh. Eishe’s muzzle parted my legs, creeping higher and higher up.

My blood had long since left my head. It was needed elsewhere. And Eishe approved.

I had to clench my teeth as her tongue licked up my member. It touched down on my jewels, tracing the length of my shaft all the way to the top. The feeling of being handled underwater was a new one. Eishe seemed to favor it. She explored all around my manhood, her hand letting go of my arm to hold my leg open. She could almost close her fingers around my thigh.

Our size difference was a challenge at first. I was surprised it worked at all between the two of us. But the basic principles applied and we found ways to work around it when need be. Perhaps once I saw it as overcoming an inconvenience. Nowadays, I could hardly deny how much I enjoyed it. It aroused me how big she was compared against me. How much stronger. And I felt a degree of pride at being able to bring her pleasure.

But most of all, I marveled that someone like her could love me. A being so much more powerful than my tiny self. So much greater. I felt blessed at being her chosen. Surely, if she could love me, it must mean I was worth something.

It wasn’t long before she emerged for air. Her nostrils sprayed water, her burning eyes smiling down at me. I could get lost in those precious jewels. Like two shining rubies; the black, vertical slits that were her pupils widening when we locked gazes.

Then she went back under. And this time I couldn’t stifle a groan.

Her long, dexterous tongue wound around the length of my shaft, encircling it like a spiral. I felt her scaly mouth close around my member without her teeth touching me; an expertly practiced move she knew kept me on edge. Then her tongue got to work. I had to grab her horn to steady myself as she flexed the slick muscle, gripping my shaft like a coiling serpent.

I could hardly focus. The relentless pumping movements of Eishe’s tongue were making my mind go numb. It was utterly unlike anything I had experienced with a human woman. She was unstoppable. Even underwater she refused to be hindered, tugging and squeezing on me with a fiery zeal.

I had never made love in water before. Not even with Eishe. Surprising, considering we had a dragon-sized pool right in our home. I sure was enjoying the experience so far. The warmth of the thermal waters relaxed my muscles and untensed my nerves. I felt like I was melting away; the sensation normally reserved for my most intimate part extended onto my entire body. It made each movement a little harder, but I felt it was a fair tradeoff.

I was amazed at how long Eishe could hold her breath too. Despite the popular belief, dragons weren’t cold blooded; her metabolism wasn’t any slower than mine. Yet she had been down there for minutes already and didn’t seem the least bit winded.

I couldn’t remain motionless, even though she was more than content doing all the work. My arms snuck up onto her head, grasping for purchase, until I took hold of her smooth, black horns with both hands. My hips moved all on their own. The water around me churned as I thrusted into her maw. Eishe’s hand slipped down to hold me by the shin, stabilizing me while my body repeatedly collided with her snout.

The inside of her muzzle was like heaven. I never ceased to be stunned by how warm and slippery it felt. Her tongue was like a limb onto itself. The amount of complex moves she could pull off with it was unbelievable.

But as much as her oral attentions were taking my breath away, they weren’t all she had in mind. As I was beginning to lose myself in her, Eishe let go of me and emerged for air again. This time though, she wouldn’t go back down.

She traced a parting lick across my shoulder then withdrew. Waves shook the entire pond as she turned around in the water to face the other way. Eishe rested her head on the pool’s edge, gazing right out the cave, resting her body at the bottom of the pond. The scenery outside was breathtaking as the sunset painted the sky all the hues of red and orange.

I still preferred my view. While her chest laid down, Eishe had risen her hindquarters above the water, legs apart and tail held high. My world darkened as her rump blocked out the rest of it. Each of her thighs was as thick as a tree trunk; impossible to hug my arms around in its widest point. The scales on their outside were large and firm, but on their inner side, they grew finer and more pliable; rippling muscles giving way to soft fluff.

Just touching my hand to the inside of her leg made Eishe’s whole body shiver. It was all I could do to not burry myself between them right away; dragging the process out instead. I wouldn’t want to spoil the moment.

Where her colossal thighs joined with her body, the round shape of her massive buttocks presented itself. The bulk of the thing was breathtaking. It wasn’t just larger than that of any woman I had met; it was practically bigger than an entire human. No matter how much I had groped and caressed it throughout the months, I always felt like exploring it all was a futile effort. Her tail somehow only added to its beauty, accentuating it. And right at the center, below where her tail joined with her body, was the crown jewel.

The first time I had witnessed Eishe’s sex, I was surprised at how familiar it looked. Despite being all scaly on the outside, the vertical slit below a triangular orifice was as humanlike as I could imagine. At least at first glance.

Its inside was another matter. Despite our considerable size difference, dragon genitals seemed to be smaller proportionally to their bodies than with humans. That alone wouldn’t have been enough to make us compatible. But while Eishe’s incredible muscle control made things pleasurable on my end, there was another quirk of her anatomy that took care of her side of things.

Unlike with humans, Eishe’s clit was located on the inside of her tunnel rather than the top (or in the case of a quadrupedal dragon, the bottom) of her vulva. That meant that all I had to do was proceed with things as normal, and the friction would do the rest. I could even service it with greater precision than a dragon would.

In situations like this though, it made things a bit of a challenge. Luckily, I enjoyed challenges.

Unable to resist her any longer, I leaned forward, nuzzling my face to her thigh. I kissed and caressed the tiny scales on its inner side, hearing Eishe’s pleased groans echo around the cavern walls. The whole limb shuddered as I slowly traced a line of kisses up its length. I licked and sucked and bit on her scaled skin, the soft tissue underneath giving way beneath my touch.

It wasn’t long before I reached the end of the line. I could feel her sex before I saw it; the heat radiating off of it warming the side of my face. My heart hammered within my chest. Eishe was no less excited, shifting around nervously as I let my hand sneak up, connecting with her scaly lips.

I could swear I felt the water heat up from her arousal alone. She wasn’t speaking idly when she said she was hotter than the thermal spring. Eishe’s body temperature was far warmer than that of a human. She was always hot to the touch; far from the image of a cold reptile people were painting of her kind. It was a much convenient attribute during the otherwise chilly nights in the mountains. And a very welcome one during the sleepless ones as well.

Placing my palm against her center, I parted her lips with my thumb like a veil, revealing the glistening pink folds within. Now her sex ceased to look human. The twisting, winding passage inside was as strange and inviting as it could possibly appear. It promised sensations like nothing else. The folds flexed and clenched with her excitement, demanding my attention. I couldn’t stall any longer.

My face was drawn to her like a magnet, moving almost without my input. My mouth connected with her entrance and Eishe shook so strongly the water splashed around us like a stormy sea. It was all I could do to hold onto her. My tongue snaked from between my lips and touched hers, tracing a line up the slippery flesh. I couldn’t tell how much was water and how much her wetness.

But I would go further. Once Eishe had a taste of what was to come, she got insatiable. She urged me to continue, her breath turning into a rugged growl. I obliged. Diving in, my whole face was enveloped by the incredible heat of her lips. Eishe shuddered and moaned, the sound like an earthquake. I licked and kissed her inner reaches, eliciting an encouraging purr.

I used both my hands to pry apart her walls until I could get my sight on that precious nub. It was about the size of a small grape, roughly a finger’s length inside her tunnel. I knew what she wanted me to do. She couldn’t get enough of it.

Holding her spread open, I reached my tongue out to it, flicking it over that sensitive spot. She shook so much I could barely hold on. All the muscles in her legs went tense, her clawed feet scraping the bottom of the pond.

I loved her visceral reactions to my efforts. The mere fact that I was able to bring pleasure to her always astounded me. I could go on about how much she meant to me, everything that I loved about her, how I never would have expected to feel this way about one of her kind; but what truly outshined all of that was that it was mutual. I did feel a sort of personal pride at my ability to bring her to extasy but truthfully, I just liked making her happy. It made my heart soar. And this was one of the more fun methods of doing it.

I had no illusions that dragon tongues had less trouble reaching that treasured spot. What dragons couldn’t do was use their lips. Pressing my face as deep as I could, I felt my mouth make contact with Eishe’s clit. My cheeks were burning up, enveloped by her velvety folds. Then I let my lips encircle the nub and sucked.

Eishe shook so forcefully, she could have knocked me unconscious had I not known to brace myself. She had always been sensitive underneath her armored form. Assuming one knew what buttons to push. And this one was the most effective.

I didn’t let up. Powering through her quakes, I serviced her nub as fiercely as I could, flicking my tongue over it while squeezing it with my lips. Eishe fell back, pressing me against the cave wall as she ground against my face. I felt momentary panic well up in me at the prospect of an entire dragon sitting on my head, but I knew deep down that she wouldn’t harm me. Eishe knew what she was doing. I hoped.

I couldn’t say I didn’t find it exciting. I used my teeth to stimulate her further, lightly nibbling on her as I sucked and licked the engorged clit. My rewards were her breathless moans. I felt like, had the stream not been refilling the pool, it would have long been emptied of all water, that’s how much Eishe was thrashing around. An incredible display of power. An incredibly arousing one.

I couldn’t tell how long I had been at it; it could have been three minutes, it could have been thirty. I could have kept going as long as needed. I would gladly have. But Eishe had different ideas. She was thinking of me too.

Withdrawing away from my face, Eishe released me from between her rump and the cave wall. I had to pause to catch my breath. Submerging to wash her juices off my face, I resurfaced to find her on the other side of the pool. Eishe had half climbed out of the water, resting her chest on the ground with her back end still in the pond. She spread her wings slightly to give me a better view as she lifted her tail. Her head turned, glancing at me expectantly. Her eyes were hungry.

I knew dragons preferred mating from behind, but our height difference made that very hard and uncomfortable to achieve. This was a unique opportunity. I slowly approached her rump, trudging through the water. Eishe wasn’t standing as much a floating, her hind legs relaxed and spread out. I settled between them, bracing myself against her thighs and pushing myself up to the proper height.

Once I aligned myself with her, I hesitated. Just hovering before her entrance, I could feel the heat coming off of it. Eishe voiced an impatient growl, goading me to proceed. I touched my tip to her sex – her incredible warmth almost too much to bear – before she rammed herself back, taking me in fully in one stroke.

I had to steady myself against her bulk. The sensations were overwhelming. Eishe’s tunnel was narrower than it seemed, deceptively intense; the heat of it almost unbearable. It might not be built for humans, but her muscle control couldn’t be outclassed. She clenched down on my shaft, pulling me in deeper while squeezing me tight, then releasing; draining me without me even moving. The motion was rubbing her clit against my length. I knew it must have felt ecstatic.

I wasn’t about to leave all the work to her though. Hugging my arms around the base of her tail, I got a purchase and started thrusting. Eishe’s reaction was instantaneous, her approval audible. The water resistance was complicating things a little, so she raised her rump higher, lifting me along with her till my hips were above the surface.

Free of the friction, I truly laid in. Eishe’s claws scraped against the ground, leaving behind white talon marks as my tempo increased. My hips collided with hers, the impacts echoing across the cavern halls. Her head was pressed sideways into the ground. Harsh sighs were escaping through her clenched teeth; eyes shut in bliss.

It wasn’t the least comfortable position we had tried. Better than the stepping stool attempt by any measure.

The water was splashing around us like crazy, more so from Eishe’s thrashing then my thrusts seeing as most of my body was above water. She was slowly slipping back in, losing her purchase on dry ground. I hoped she wouldn’t lose it completely too soon.

I knew things wouldn’t go on for too much longer. I could tell by the way her shaking intensified and her squeezing, blessed canal constricted around me that she was close. I had been for some time by then, but held out for her sake. Not for much longer.

Just then, Eishe decided to change positions, crawling back out the water and dragging me along as I held onto her tail. She rested her hips on the pool’s edge, her legs lifted so that she laid almost prone. I found myself practically kneeling up on her thighs. Adjusting to this new development, I quickly resumed in my efforts, not ceasing for a second longer than needed.

Stars were already appearing as the outside sky darkened. Eishe’s scales glittered in the faded red light of the setting sun, the droplets of water on her body accentuating it even more. As if she wasn’t beautiful enough already.

Judging by Eishe’s growls, we were now down to seconds not minutes. I doubled down in my efforts. My hips hammered against her enormous rump as if possessed, cheeks clapping and water splashing. I could hear her claws digging new grooves into the stone. Our breaths grew short as I did everything in my power to bring her to the edge.

I arrived there first. She followed seconds later.

As I cried out, clutching onto her while I let it all go, Eishe’s body convulsed, overtaken by her own climax. Her head shot up, roaring so passionately a stream of fire escaped her, blindingly bright in the gloomy cave. I kept going throughout it all, enthralled by lust. Until my breath and vision slowly returned.

Then, Eishe slipped back, plunging me under the water. Her massive bulk fell on top of me, nearly crushing me. I hadn’t had the time to inhale a lungful of air before she dragged me down, pinning me against the bottom of the pond. I tried slapping her cheek but she barely would have felt that even had the water drag not slowed my hand down to the speed of a lethargic sloth. She must have blacked out with ecstasy.

Stars were forming before my eyes when I finally felt the pressure release. Too out of it to move, I felt my body being lifted up by a massive hand, gasping for breath when I broke the surface. After I was done coughing and spewing water, I could make out laying on a soft pelt. Eishe’s concerned face hovered above me, eyes wide with panic.

“[Are you alright? Edmund! Breathe!]” she yelled, voice thick with worry and guilt.

“[I’m…]” I managed before coughing up more water. “[I’m… fi…ne. Fine.]”

In truth, I wasn’t exactly sure about that yet but I didn’t want her to worry. Even though she could have killed me…

That didn’t feel alright at all.

“[Really. I’m fine,]” I said, pushing her muzzle away. “[I’m just…]” I tried to get up and was cut off mid-sentence. As I supported myself with one hand, something in my leg exploded. There was a sharp dagger of pain shooting up from my thigh every time I tried moving it. That would make rising up harder for sure.

“[You are not!]” Eishe wheezed, eyes darting around my body. “[I caused this!]”

I didn’t feel like anything I could have said would be very calming, so I bit my tongue. I examined the leg instead. There was no visible wound, no swelling yet. I didn’t think it was broken at least. That was something.

“[Hold,]” she said, offering me her neck to support myself. I grabbed onto her and pulled myself up, balancing on my good leg all the while. She helped me limp to the nest of furs we slept on. Settling me down, Eishe dashed around frantically, looking for anything to bring me.

“[Hand me my medicine pouch,]” I said, instructing her till she found it. I opened it up, browsing the preprepared salves and cures, selecting something that would ease the pain. Rubbing it across the afflicted area was a fresh kind of hell, but I managed.

I could tell she felt guilty. My mind wasn’t very sharp at the moment, but Eishe looked just about ready to fall apart scale by scale. I felt guilty for making her feel guilty. I had to remind myself that my fragility was no fault of mine.

Making the bed for me, Eishe tried to make me as comfortable as possible. It was partially effective. I laid down so that my afflicted leg rested safely stretched out. It didn’t hurt when I wasn’t moving it but I expected swelling to appear any minute. I would have to wait and see in the morning.

“[Better?]” Eishe asked expectantly.

“[Hardly,]” I answered.

“[You will be good at sunrise,]” she said mistakenly. This wasn’t a superficial injury, I feared. It would only get worse by then.

Eishe tried to cuddle up to me the way we normally did, but I was in no position to do the same. She was struggling to figure it out without touching my leg. There was simply no way.

“[Eishe?]” I said diplomatically. “[I think it might be better if I sleep alone for now.]”

It hurt to say it and it hurt seeing her face go still, eyes droopy with guilt. “[As you say,]” she acknowledged, but looked as though it tore her heart out. She somberly laid down on an adjacent pile of rugs, watching me with concern. I tried to smile but managed only a teeth-clenching grimace. After a while she turned away and curled up, hiding her face underneath her wing. That made me feel even worse.

Being in no position to do anything else, I closed my eyes and tried to get some sleep in.

***

The sun shone brightly in the midday sky, not a single cloud befouling the endless blue. I sat by the entrance, listening to the few highland birds chirp as I stared absorbedly into the dictionary. I reached for the tin mug, sipping hot tea I had brewed over a fire pit and contemplating the elvish notes scribbled onto any free space on the pages.

‘I had entered their ultreanum and was welcomed by the chieftain. We sat in a circle of colorful stones, us at the center, others surrounding us. Reciting the sacred intrinnael I was accepted in and treated to a tulmula. It was poured from a horn of an itaxi and tasted bitter but it would have been impolite to…’

I was torn from my reading time by Eisherath’s arrival, heralded by the signature thumping sounds of her wings. Landing inside bearing a fresh kill, she laid the game aside and produced a pouch from her other hand.

“[I brought this. I do not know if it is grown,]” she said, pushing the bag towards me.

Putting my book aside, I stood up and grabbed my crutch. Shambling over, I inspected the produce she had harvested following my instructions and nodded in approval. Some vegetables were a little young still, but most of it was just fine.

Normally, tending to the garden was my responsibility, but given the almost vertical pass that led out of the cave and the lethal nature a fall from up there would have, I was currently confined indoors. Figuratively speaking. A door was about the only thing Eishe didn’t have stashed somewhere in her collection.

The leg was healing nicely enough, but not fast. The first two days were rough, but I was able to get around the cave unassisted now. Well, unassisted by Eishe. The second day I had tried putting together an improvised crutch while she was out hunting and, once it was almost done and I had explained to Eishe what it was meant to do, she produced a real one from her hoard. Because of course she did. I should have just asked.

She was less glum nowadays too. She kept blaming herself for the injury, which in turn made me feel terrible about it. The thought of the incident eating away at her was making me feel guilty myself.

The problem was: it was her fault. She had gotten carried away and ended up causing me actual harm. I didn’t resent her for it – in truth, I was surprised it had taken this long before it happened. Our strength disparity was stunning. It was a marvel she could handle me with such care at all. But it was bound to happen eventually. And now that it has, it made me worry. One day, it could end up causing something worse than this. Possibly something permanent. Or fatal.

That was not a possibility I enjoyed thinking about.

“[Are you better?]” Eishe asked, inspecting my discolored thigh.

I shrugged, putting my weight on the crutch. “[I am managing.]” She didn’t look happy about the answer but let the topic lie.

Aside from my temporary relief from duties, we had returned to normal. Eishe didn’t look like a wreck with guilt anymore, falling back into her excitable and assertive persona, and I did my best to assure her that I was alright. Except that we still couldn’t sleep huddled together as usual. And that was killing her.

Ever since I had wandered into her life and that fateful night she had brought me into her lair, Eishe had never slept alone again. Not once. She wasn’t used to it anymore. She was a very physical individual and being forced to go without bodily contact was depriving her badly.

Life went on though. Only time could remedy what had transpired. The best way we could help the process was to move along with it.

Receding to the back of the cave, I set down the pouch and started preparing the harvested fruits and vegetables; cutting them up and setting them to dry. Preserved this way, they could last all throughout winter. Eishe, meanwhile, processed the meat she had procured and once I was done, I moved onto curing it.

The day had advanced significantly by the time I finished. We had eaten a late lunch, then, while Eishe dozed off, I returned to my reding. The notes detailing the author’s journey have been the target of my interest for a while now. Especially a certain specific part.

‘As I had drunk the sacred water, the chieftain blessed me with an estraael and bid me to speak. I told her of my journey and my intent: to commune with the tribe as a friend. This was received with skepticism. The tribe had not yet mastered the written word and my andruel confused them. I felt not many beings in these lands were friendly and even less so the other orcish tribes here, few as they were.

‘The chieftain asked me what I had to offer as a tribute. I produced my iltassa sema and presented it to her. She was intrigued by the device. I explained its use and how it may help the tribe haesvelt. The elder matrons counseled and, at the end, the chieftain declared me friend. I would stay and learn and work with the tribe while I wrote my research. Then, after the steolien, I would depart again and we would speak no more. It was as much hospitality as I could ask for from their people.

‘One of the chieftain’s ranks challenged her decision. Claimed me a daomiel and a trespasser. This schism was to be decided in a ceremonial duel. The chieftain would face the challenger in a trial by combat. If she won, I would be permitted to remain. If she lost, I would be cast out or face their spears. This fight was to the death. I told the chieftain blood need not be spilled on my behalf and that I would leave and aestraem vhen_, but she explained that refusing the challenge would mean abdicating her post. That could not be. In the end, she stood victorious and I was permitted to remain as decided. I was hereafter under the chieftain’s protection.’_

Reading along the pages, I frowned. Something wasn’t adding up.

There was not a shadow of doubt that this was the orcish tribe that has been hunting us. All the information in the chronicle checked out. Eishe even tracked their hunting parties whenever the opportunity arose, confirming the location of their settlement as the scholar had described it.

Yet their experience differed drastically from mine. Why were they so different towards them? It is not as though an elf looked so different from a human. Something must have happened since then that made them more hostile. Perhaps their encounter didn’t conclude so well. Or the village was going hungry when I came across them. Or maybe they just really didn’t like me associating with a dragon.

One reason the orcs have been after us was revenge for the ones that had paid the price of ambushing Eisherath. Another was that they knew she had a weakness. Me.

The thing about hunting dragons was: even if you brought a big enough force, they could always just fly away. All except Eishe that is. The orcs had figured out pretty quickly that she wouldn’t abandon me to die should we be under attack. Which meant that they had a unique opportunity; probably once in a lifetime. To face a dragon in a battle to the death.

As for why hunt a dragon in the first place? That was anyone’s guess. There weren’t many reasons someone non-suicidal might want to try their luck against one of their kind. Glory was a common enough reason back north. In the olden days, no small number of knights had set out to make a name for themselves by felling such a legendary beast. Of course, most of them had had a burial urn commissioned by their lieges upon their departure as their squires tended to bring them back already pre-cremated. I couldn’t say I felt particularly sorry for that. It was essentially a sporting hunt for an intelligent being. But I had other suspicions about the orcs’ motivations.

Involuntarily, my gaze had wandered to one of the ‘treasure’ heaps in a far corner of the cavern. From atop a signature pile of sailing equipment and ship parts, a carved wooden mask stared out at us. It was nearly featureless, with only a few white-painted lines running across it in strange patterns; antlers of some large creature affixed to its sides in a V shape – their bases tied together at the chin, tips rising all the way above its top.

It had belonged to a shaman. An orcish mage. One that had almost ended us both in her quest against us. Had it not been for the help from someone else entirely who had wanted me dead, she would have succeeded.

Eishe had scavenged the mask from the battlefield afterwards. I did not understand why she wanted it here. It wasn’t as though it was an earned trophy. I sometimes stared into those empty eyeholes, filled with nothing but the shadows of the cave, swearing I could see a pair of yellow eyes stare back at me. I hoped it wasn’t an effect of my isolation.

But somehow what had scared me more was once the shaman’s mask had fallen off. Her whole body had looked twisted, skin marred by a web of black veins spreading from her eyes. Eyes which had themselves appeared wrong. Burning.

Was she the chieftain the scholar had met with? The way the orcs had followed her, I struggled to imagine her serving anyone else. If so, her good graces were a very rare commodity.

Either way, she was gone now. And given that we had barely come toe to toe with her tribe since, I took that as a sign that my suspicions were correct.

In the evening, I sat by the fire with a needle in hand and pain in my arm. The process was never pleasant but luckily, Eishe had found a plethora of sealed rum bottles during her scavenging. Not that she had any idea what a treasure they were.

Before I began, I had rinsed the designated patch of skin with it thoroughly then took a swig. It helped my hand stop shaking. Eishe, ever curious, tried taking a sip herself and nearly singed my eyebrows off. Turns out alcohol and fire breath are not a good mix.

Dipping the needle in the ink bottle, I brought it to my forearm again and poked a series of new dots in it, letting the ink settle beneath my skin. A shape had begun to form now.

“[You have done this before?]” Eishe asked, not letting her eyes off my arm. Her vertical pupils were dilated in fascination. Or maybe just from the gloomy light.

“[Yes,]” I nodded. “[For a time, I had been my] ship’s tattoo artist.” I continued, switching over to Common mid-sentence. Draconic simply didn’t have the fancy words for all the weird human practices. “A crewmate had taught me. Even shown me how to make my own inks.”

“[Have you done your own?]”

“Some,” I confirmed. I pointed out on my body the few pieces I had done myself. They were easy to pick out by their decreasing quality the further back they went, save for perhaps the one or two latest.

I had found the necessary gear in Eishe’s hoard a while back. The tools may not have been intended for this exact purpose but they’d do. I had simply spent a long while debating what new piece to get if any. Well, that and worrying about what I’d do in case it got infected. But desire had won in the end.

In the sailing tradition, tattoos served to mark accomplishments or to commemorate meaningful experiences. There have been a good deal of those since the crash, but most of them have not been exactly positive in nature. But upon further though, there has been something that summarized my life here quite well. It seemed obvious in retrospect. It was just a bit more literal than sailor’s tattoos usually were.

By the time I had decided to call it done for the night, the shape of a horned head and an outstretched wing were recognizable on my forearm. The finished piece would just be a solid black silhouette of a dragon in flight, but I thought that it was fitting. Eishe examined it appraisingly. I had based it on her of course, even if it was a bit stylized; the impressions of her while she soared in the skies. Judging by her expression, she found my rendition flattering.

I dressed the freshly tattooed skin to keep it from inflaming and decided to lay my head down for today. Once I washed up, I undressed down to my shorts – which, with the state of my leg was no small ordeal – and laid down carefully on my bed of furs. Still wary of further harming me, Eishe curled up on an adjacent pelt and settled for laying her head down near me. I patted her snout, her nostrils exhaling a hot breath.

That was all. It would have to do for now.

***

Eishe watched in concern as I carefully knelt down to inspect the crops, scowling.

“[Half the plants are so,]” she informed me as I threw away the half-eaten silverroot. “[Is it a pest?]”

“[Seems so.]”

In truth, there was scarcely anything else it could have been. The vegetables were clearly being eaten. Perhaps by a groundhog or something. Whatever it was, it had found its way to our garden – MY garden – and started helping itself to my food. It must feel like it had found a gold mine.

Not that I blamed the critter per se. It was just surviving, same as we. But getting on the bad side of a dragon was probably the worst thing it could have done for its life expectancy.

The only problem was: Eishe couldn’t just get rid of it. No animal would come close to a stalking dragon. Dragons hunted from the sky for a reason. They were hardly sneaky and while their sense of smell far outclassed that of let’s say a human, it was no match for most ground-dwelling creatures. And scouring the hills for all the burrowing beasties was not exactly doable either.

If we wanted to deal with this, I needed to set a trap.

I stood up, leaning on my cane and paced, thinking. It had been a month since my injury and it had healed up nicely, all thing considered – barely more of an inconvenience than a broken toe. I had switched up the unwieldy crutch for a more elegant cane I had dug up from Eishe’s treasury. Real suave stuff, with an engraved handle and all. Shame she couldn’t appreciate my fanciness herself.

I could now fly with her in the sling harness too. And sleep together with her. It had been great for morale, even though it was only in the literal sense for now.

The figurative cogs spun away in my head. Poison might do it. I could obtain it without issue. But it probably wasn’t smart to lay it out near my food supplies. What if the animal spreads it around the garden before it dies?

I could always take a length of rope and leave out a noose trap. I wasn’t sure how effective it would be on smaller animals though. Maybe a wire would be more efficient if I found any.

I doubted a pitfall trap would work, given that any animals that lived in this altitude liked to burrow. They would have no problem digging themselves out of it.

Or I could just try everything at once. Where was the harm?

I tightened the Var’shan hide around my shoulders to shield against the wind. The scaly coat was sturdy enough to resist most animals’ bites and conveniently isolating. It was better than a gambeson. I was essentially walking around wearing armor. A great advancement from my humble beginnings when I bumbled about half-naked.

The garden was a walking distance away from the cave, right at the nearest patch of soil. But since Eishe didn’t favor the idea of me scaling the climb with my bad leg, she made me get in the sling harness and flew me back inside.

I had spent the whole day tinkering away, trying to conjure up some traps. I had made a good amount of wire nooses, but I had been slowly coming to the conclusion that I would need to fence the whole garden. I struggled to see how I could do that with the available materials. It would need to be able to keep out large rodents and such; no gap could be left for them to slip through. But I couldn’t have that done before winter set in either way. I had the whole of it to plan this out at least.

Soon after I was done, Eishe arrived, bringing with her a pouch. She handed it to me with no small amount of aversion, the contents of it just as I had requested. I closed the bag of red berries and gathered the other stuff I had prepared. Raven’s eyes appeared deceptively innocuous, but were toxic enough to kill ten men each. They were used to brew poisons up north and even the orcs here coated their weapons with them.

Eishe had a good enough reason to act cautious. She had almost died from the toxin once. Then later, her father. I had instructed her to wash her hands thoroughly, as well as anywhere else they had touched her, and carried with me an antidote regardless just in case.

I set the noose traps from each side of the garden, then moved to place the poison. I had coated some sacrificial vegetables in the berries’ juices using a stick and set them down far from the garden. I poured the leftover berries into a glass jar and sealed it tight. I packed the whole pouch Eishe had used to collect them and stashed it away to be used in case we needed more and never for anything else. I didn’t like resorting to the poison, but since the soil was too hard to dig and I didn’t have a shovel there weren’t many other options. I had at least left it at a safe distance.

Nothing more to do but wait

***

A week later the issue still hadn’t been solved. The critter seemed to know to avoid the poison and the noose traps have been a long shot regardless. We simply kept trying and hoping.

I strolled along the beach, cane digging into the sand with each step. I had asked Eishe to take me there; whiling away the time scavenging through the wreckages. She quickly joined in of course, never missing an opportunity to add a trinket or two into her collection. But as much as I appreciated the distraction, I had come with a purpose.

I had spent hours inspecting each and every barrel I had spied that appeared even remotely intact, finding long-rotted food, materials reduced to dust, some bones, hiding sea creatures and a whole lot of sand. And, to my greatest dismay, one buttload of fermented fish which I fearfully suspected were in their intended state. I had never smelled anything that foul in my life and knew then and there that I never would.

What I hadn’t found was a single powder keg.

I had always thought it strange that Eisherath would never have found any Black Powder in her years of scavenging. Most ships these days had cannons on board. Even mine had. My rational mind reminded me that powder kegs sank. They didn’t float on water like most barrels since they were filled to the brim with the deceptively heavy stuff. But if there had been a half-full one for example, the air inside might keep it afloat. Of course, a half-empty keg would probably not have been sealed.

I wouldn’t be leaving completely empty-handed at least. I had found a bandolier. It was half-buried in the sand and touched by time, but it still held together. I tried it on over my scale-coat and regretted not having a mirror on hand. There was no pistol or powder horn to be found to go with it, even after a thorough ransacking of the nearby flotsam. The only thing I discovered upon checking the bags were a few metal pellets.

As the sun descended, Eishe landed nearby. I had instructed her as to what I was looking for but all she had brought back was a rope (always useful) and a single broach – could be brass, could be solid gold, hard to tell. She looked very happy about her find at least.

“[No luck,]” she announced apologetically. “[What is that stench upwind?]”

“Nevermind that,” I waved the memory away.

We flew back and the next day produce was missing again. The traps were empty and vegetables had been chewed up; the insolent critter triumphant once more. I was growing morose.

I sat at the entrance, toying with the pistol. It fit in the bandolier I had dug up and, upon further testing, the pellets it had contained fit inside the barrel perfectly. I smiled at that. Not that it was in any way useful, but I really fancied the item. It was the kind of thing I could only have dreamt about during my sailing days.

Eishe, unfortunately, had found my newfound obsession less thrilling.

She snuggled up to me, pressing her muzzle against my cheek, prompting me to put the thing away. I caved and did exactly so. Curling her body around me, Eishe let me lean my back against her torso, covering my lower half with her wing. I kissed her cheek, feeling the hotness of her scales against my lips.

We sat like that for a while, relaxing in each other’s embrace, but it was clear to me that she wanted more. She was trying to initiate. Eishe licked my cheek, her hot tongue leaving a trail of cold wetness on my skin. I closed my eyes and leaned in, her hand winding around my torso. Then her arm squeezed my thigh.

I yelped and Eishe pulled away abruptly. My hand darted above the afflicted region, the pain shooting through my wounded leg burning beneath my skin.

“[Are you alright?]” she quizzed guiltily.

“Yeah,” I wheezed, breathing out slowly. “I’m sorry,” I added. “[I am not yet healed.]”

“[So it is,]” she acknowledged, refusing to meet my eye.

I would not have that. I touched her chin, turning her to face me. “It is alright,” I said, kissing the front of her mouth. Her eyes smiled faintly, then she nuzzled her head into my chest. We sat like that until the light ran out, appreciating what we had, even if it wasn’t perfect. But things rarely were.

***

“E-D-M-U-N-D,” Eishe pronounced carefully.

“Good. Now read all the letters together!”

“Eedee’emyouendee.”

“No, no,” I interjected, stifling a giggle. “The letters aren’t pronounced completely the same when read in a word.”

“[Then how?]”

“Just read a part of the letter.”

“[Which part?]”

“Just try to say it faster.”

“Eedemiundh.”

“Better. Again.”

“[Why explain what the] letthers [are called when you do not say them so?]”

“You know, I haven’t figured that out yet either,” I admitted. She gave me an annoyed look. “Again, faster.”

“Idmundh!” she barked, scowling at the letters. Then her expression changed. “[Is this your name?]”

“Yes,” I said grinning. “See? You are catching on quick.”

“[I did not understand.]”

“[I said you are doing good,]” I repeated in Draconic, shuffling over to her and leaning against her neck.

She kept inspecting the letters inquisitively, as if looking for a hidden meaning. “[How would you] vrite [mine?]”

I pulled the stick out of the fireplace again and wrote with its charred end ‘EISHERATH’ on the stone ground next to my name in big blocky letters. She stared at the script in even greater bemusement.

“[Why does it start with the same]” letther [if they do not sound the same?]” she inquired.

“I, uh,” I struggled then gave up, “nevermind.”

“[Does your name have meaning?]” she asked out of the blue.

“What, Edmund?” I turned to her, watching the flames flicker within her ruby eye. “[No. Not that I know of,]” I answered. “[Does yours?]”

“Eishe-rath” she said simply.

“Silent flame,” I confirmed, nodding. “[But does it mean something together? Like ‘Halrathorm’?]”

I had never encountered Eishe’s full name in any other context, neither in the dictionary nor in our conversations, but that didn’t mean it didn’t exist. Draconic was a language largely comprised of compound words. It didn’t have that many unique ones; most were composed of multiple simpler ones. You had ‘sky’ and ‘fire’ but put them together and you got ‘sun’. For poison they said ‘unseen death’. And for eclipse ‘sun shadow’…

“[No, it does not,]” Eishe answered. “[It is from a saying. ‘Silent flame burns the brightest’.]”

“[What does it mean?]” I inquired, curiosity piqued.

“[Fire that is seen is quickly put out. Fire that is unnoticed spreads fast and much. Burns more.]”

“Ah,” I said, stifling an eyeroll. “It is literal.”

Esihe noticed. “[It means that which is unassuming is often more capable,]” she elaborated scoldingly.

I considered that in quiet. I would hardly describe Eishe as unassuming. “Is it a flattering name?” I asked

“[It is a name. It does not need to flatter. It needs to describe.]”

“So do dragons earn their names in life?” I queried further. “Or are you named like humans?”

“[We are named by parents as we age. Dragons have one child at a time. We do not need special word until we are grown.]”

“Well, that explains a lot,” I quipped thinking about someone else entirely.

Given how little dragons communed, their parent probably made up the entirety of their world growing up. And it is not as though human children called their parents by name; ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ sufficed. ‘Child’ was probably equally sufficient for dragons.

“So, what did you do to earn that monicker?”

“[I was unassuming and caused trouble,]” she responded.

“You? Trouble? I cannot imagine!” That earned me a playful shove. And a fresh stab of pain from my leg.

I tried to hide my reaction, but Eishe noticed nonetheless. She withdrew guiltily and I knew the moment had passed. I snuggled back up to her again, but the atmosphere felt forced, artificial. Still, it was better than letting her wallow in solitude. And so, I remained.

***

The days rolled by and patience was slowly eroding. Both mine, for we were yet to see any progress with the garden vandal, but also Eishe’s.

I could see she was bad. She tried to pretend like the situation wasn’t bothering her, but I knew better. I had been with her long enough by now.

She had her needs and my inattention was making her feel both guilty and neglected. My leg was better by the day; I could walk at an even pace by now. But she simply couldn’t understand that just because I could move around, that didn’t mean my body could withstand such stress as she tended to subject it to. Touching the spot, or even just jogging, still hurt like a bitch.

She had been taking care of herself in the meantime. I couldn’t pretend not to be intrigued. Eishe could be very flexible when she wanted to. While she missed the feeling of my own tongue, she supplemented it with her own. When she longed for my length, she used her tail.

It was truly a pleasure to watch. She would lay on her back, curled up forward until her muzzle reached between her legs. Her long tongue felt around her opening, licking the scaly lips of her sex. Gradually, she worked her way forth, parting them and reaching her tongue inside.

I could tell it was difficult for her, focusing through the pleasure she was feeling. I was worried she would end up biting her own tongue off. Her wings flapped around, slapping the ground. Her toe talons scratched the stone and her tail swished around like a whip, threatening to knock over the piles of accumulated relics. I stepped back to get out of its reach.

To calm it, she would put it to use. Eisherath brought her tail around and snuck its tip towards her center. It slithered forth like a serpent until it reached the spot her tongue had been so thoroughly tending to. She withdrew her tongue, letting it wander the outside of her sex while her tail replaced it, writhing inside her tunnel as if frenzied.

She shook so much during. I stared in amazement at her form, mesmerized by the sight. I had never seen her in pleasure from a distance; never enough to witness the whole of her. She looked so intense. I wanted to touch her. To caress her. I desired nothing more than to help, to contribute, to share in her pleasure. But every time she twitched and shook, I jerked back. By the gods, how have I been withstanding all that?

Eventually, she would come down from her high and all would quiet again. The cave returned to normal, the two of us cuddling up against each other or, depending on the time of day, continuing in our tasks. It was almost as usual. But it ground down on our morale regardless.

Still, life went on. Perhaps even too fast.

***

“Stupid, bloody pest!” I screamed into the wind. I tiredly circled the garden, putting down fresh rounds of poisoned treats. Not that any of the previous ones have been touched; that privilege was reserved for my plants. The noose traps also came up empty. Again.

I stashed the jar of toxic berries back in my bag and begrudgingly admitted I needed to build that fence – the sooner the better – and had Eishe start gathering materials. It still wouldn’t be done while crops were yielding but at least I wouldn’t need to worry about it anymore. And alternatives were running short.

I carefully climbed across the rocks, scaling the narrow ledges that led up to the cave. I didn’t need the cane anymore. The climb was still difficult, but manageable. My thigh ached by the time I arrived, forcing me to sit down. I used the downtime to start weaving together the sticks and ropes Eishe had procured so that I would have an easier time setting them around the garden later on.

The hours went by uneventfully. Eishe had brought in more materials along with today’s meal and I proceeded to put it to use while she processed it. Afterwards I sat fiddling with the pistol again. It wouldn’t get out of my head what an incredible instrument of destruction I held in my hands, yet it was completely useless. That all it took was a bit of some special dust to turn this junk into a deadly weapon. So close yet so far.

I was, on the whole, not very dangerous. I was never a fighter. Or a hunter. All I knew was how to sail, take care of a ship, the rigging, the whole of it. Without Eisherath’s help, I would have been dead. If only I could get this thing working, I wouldn’t have to worry anymore. Not as much anyway.

At least it got the garden off my mind. Somewhat. The whole debacle reminded me just how fragile human endeavors really were. All it took was one bad event and all would come to naught. And I refused for all of my accomplishments to be done in by some impudent rodent.

Eishe noticed my sulking in the corner. She sidled up to me, nudging me until I tossed the gun back into my bag. I tried leaning against her, but she didn’t stop at an embrace. She wanted to take things further again.

“[Eishe, I have told you I am not well,]” I sighed, putting an arm between my leg and her.

She turned away, not meeting my eyes. “[As you say.]” Eishe withdrew away from me, getting up and stalking off to the back of the cave.

I scowled after the exchange. Something in her voice didn’t sit well with me. “[What is the issue?]”

“[You reject me,]” Eishe growled, “[and then you ask?]”

I really wasn’t in the mood for this. “[You know I am hurt,]” I countered.

She stopped in her tracks. “[It has been many tendays!]” she shouted, turning. “[You are well now.]”

“Humans [do not heal like dragons,]” I reminded her. “[I can walk but it hurts. The more I strain, the worse it gets.]”

“[So you avoid me.]”

“I am not avoiding you; I just need more time.”

Eishe did something I could only interpret as the dragon equivalent to a scoff. “[Do you know how it is to be ignored? To have your Equal not take care?]”

“You’re saying it as if I did nothing!” I protested. “I garden, I cut and cure whatever meat you bring in, built the salt farms we use for it, clean and keep up the lair and have been hunting a damned pest for weeks! I try my best to constantly improve our lives and all I get for it is passive-aggression!”

“[Use my words!]” Eishe interjected. “[I barely understand.]”

“[I do everything I can, but you only see what I do not!]”

“[I have needs,]” she responded. “[You do much but it is not priority!]”

“[Then you should not have injured me!]”

Eishe pulled back, her expression changing, voice falling lower. “[Do you fear me?]”

“[I… What?]” I managed.

“[You do not touch me since. Do you fear?]”

“Come on. That is…” I faltered. ‘That is nonsense, I do touch you,’ I wanted to say, but came to a halt.

“[Not on your own. I have to come and beg.]” she finished, as if reading my mind. “[You toy with that thing instead! It is all you do!]”

I got defensive. “[I have to do something to spend time! I cannot even leave!]”

“[You never forgot to care for me!]” she continued. “[What does it mean to you? Why so important, that?]”

“[Because it is an opportunity!]” I shouted. “[Because if it worked, I could take care of me! Do what you do! Be strong!]”

“[I can be strong for you,]” Eishe pointed out. “[Have I not been your pack? Your strength? Not been enough?]”

“That is not what this is about.”

“[Do you not trust?]” she asked. Eishe tried reaching her hand towards me and, despite myself, I found my body pulling away. Her arm froze. I didn’t even know why I did it, I didn’t have any real reason, I was just being instinctually wary of my injured side. But the effect was enough. The hurt in Eishe’s eyes was real.

Perhaps she was right. Perhaps I didn’t trust her as much as I thought.

“[Tell me, Equal,]” she spoke eventually, voice teetering between sad and angered, “[do you fear that I hurt you?]”

I was quiet for a bit. I knew what she wanted me to say. But I also knew what she needed to hear, and that was the truth. “[I trust that you will not hurt me… intentionally.]”

Eishe screwed up her face. A part of me regretted saying it, but she has already done so once. Even she couldn’t deny it was possible. I didn’t mean to hold it against her, but she seemed to think that just because it was an accident, it would all magically be fine.

“[When father came to kill you, I sent you away,]” Eishe whispered, looking at the ground. “[You stayed, saying you did not fear. Saying you feared leaving more than death.]”

“[My feelings have not changed,]” I attempted diplomacy. “[I want to be with you. And I want to be alive for it.]”

Eishe grunted. She still wouldn’t look at me. “[If you are not safe with me,]” she said eventually, “[then maybe you should have left.]”

Those words cut. For a moment I didn’t register what she was saying. My mind refused to believe it. “[You cannot mean that,]” I said, voice cracking.

But Eisherath simply turned away, disappearing into the shadows. I stood there like a statue, unable to move. Unable to come to terms with what had just happened. Eventually, my hurt turned into anger. Without thinking, I grabbed my bag and left, climbing back down the ledge and out of the cave. I thought I could hear Eishe call after me, but I blocked it out. I just kept walking.

That she would throw away all we had, just like that? After a single block in the road? I just couldn’t get over that. What was she thinking? What was her goal? Did she really expect me to just let things go?

I marched on through the rocky hills, moss and tough grass squeaking beneath my boots. I couldn’t tell where I was headed or why, I just knew it was south. It was not like I could just walk all the way to the Canal, even without a bad leg. And there was no other way off this place than to try and catch a ship there. And nowhere else for me to go. I didn’t have a goal; I just didn’t want to be there right now.

Eventually, the aching forced me to a halt. I sat down on some rock, dumping my bag to the ground as I massaged my thigh. The flap came open and I saw the pistol still inside. Then, beneath it, the dictionary.

I stared at it for quite a while, then reached for the book. I had not bothered to read through it for some time. That miraculous piece of script that let me talk to Eishe all those months ago. I didn’t have a reason to. I opened it and flipped through the damaged pages, my eyes falling onto the squeezed-in elvish notes of the author. I have read most of them by now, and so I skipped to the last written page:

‘They say that the cure for conflict are words. An old adage, but scarcely practiced. People, I have found, often prefer to use their fists before using their tongue. It was always my conviction that a common word could prevent, nay, remedy the altercations so often plaguing our world. That all the wars that have ever been could have been solved with discourse, all the inequalities put to right through mutual understanding. That is why I have embarked on this journey to document all the tongues of the world. And, after so many years on the road, I am ready to admit that I no longer believe so.

‘I had meant this book, whenever it would be finished, to be the universal guide to peaceful coexistence. The art of understanding. A fitting title idea, if I may speak so boldly. But it is clearer to me now than ever before that I was wrong.

‘Words alone could not achieve what I had set out to do. The root of all evil, as I still maintain, is lack of understanding. The understanding of one’s intent, of one’s perspective or of one’s suffering, it is all the same in the end. I believed that such understanding began with the knowledge of another’s tongue. But alas, that is not all that is required. Conflict arises even there where people share their words.

‘For there is more to communication than mere speech. Even should we translate the words perfectly, their meaning when ordered into a sentence differs in miscellaneous tongues. What for one might seem as an innocuous phrase, to another might carry a hidden meaning; a simple slip of the tongue here might account for a grievous transgression elsewhere. Furthermore then are worth mentioning the unspoken rules of communication, the carrying of one’s body, when and where to look or even when to speak at all. All the things I have in my escalating desperation tried to compile in this script.

‘And worse yet are the misunderstandings of the willful nature. Though my kind is known to value honesty and speak truthfully above all else, others do not always share this trait. People do not always say what they mean and hide their meaning behind their words as much as they use them to carry it. And this deception is not simply born out of malice, but out of care. Out of affection. Or out of mercy.

‘My kind may need but words to achieve understanding, but to truly understand others, one must know them more deeply; know more than their tongue, but the way in which they use it: their very own personal language.

‘I write this now in Common so that whoever may read this understands. Too many of my peers, nay, people everywhere have focused on the wrong aspect of communication. We no longer seek to understand what is being said, only that which we hear. The more we understand the words spoken, the less we truly listen.

‘And that_, I believe is the true source of conflict. Not when words lack meaning, but when their meaning becomes determined by the listener. And I urge you now, whoever you are, to mark well and listen. This, by far, is the most important ambition of linguistics: not to understand the words that are said, but to understand the speaker_.’

I sat there, processing the author’s cryptic lesson. Perhaps it itself was an exercise in their teachings. But one thing that it had achieved was to clear my mind of turmoil. And as it did, I looked at the earlier exchange through a different lens. A startlingly clear one.

Eishe didn’t send me away out of anger but out of fear. Fear that I would come to harm. That she couldn’t protect me from herself.

She had always been so confident in our relationship. She never shared my worries of inadequacy. As much as I was insecure about my capabilities – struggling to call myself her Equal, consumed by a sense of ineptitude – she never cared. She had always felt at ease. She was happy to do for me what I cannot. She only needed me to try.

The only time she had ever felt otherwise was when her father threatened to kill me. For reasons of his own, he didn’t approve of my presence in her life, and for that he had wanted me gone. That was when she had sent me away. Brought me all the way to the canal. And that was when I had decided I never wanted to be without her. We have had arguments before and had gotten through bigger disagreements than this. If Eishe was sending me away again, it was because she was afraid for me, not because she was angry with me. Because she no longer felt adequate to care for me.

Tears welled up in my eyes. I looked down at my forearm, the finished black shape of a dragon in flight gleaming freshly on my skin. And I remembered why I had gotten it.

“Gods above and below, am I a fucking moron!” I uttered through gritted teeth.

Blinking away the coalescing tears, I looked up and assessed my surroundings. I had walked a good way south off the lair. There was a strong fog up here today and the sun was beginning to descend. Eishe must have been beside herself with worry and guilt by then. I better make it back before dark or she would flip.

I stood and picked up my bag again, walking back the way I had come from. I didn’t make it twenty steps before a silhouette emerged before me. A very tall, very broad silhouette.

The orc’s face came into view, tusked and grinning with malice. His green skin was painted red and white with blood and soot, an obsidian-tipped spear in his hand. I didn’t need to hazard a guess where he was from. I had met his tribe many times before.

I couldn’t make a run for it. I couldn’t hope to fight off someone twice my height and eight times my muscle mass. Especially unarmed and injured. But before I could even consider any other options, pain exploded in the back of my head and the whole ground came up to hit me in the face.

***

I blinked away the shadows and found something worse.

All around me stood orcs. At least half a dozen, all tribal warriors clad in hides and straw skirts, all clutching spears and bows and bludgeons. I tried moving and realized I was tied. Hands stuck behind my back; legs held together by thick rope. I was sitting down, propped up against a rock. Everywhere looked the same around here; I couldn’t tell if I had been moved or not.

My bag lay tossed aside, seemingly unopened. That was something. If they used the poison on me – or on Eishe when she came to rescue me – I would have an antidote ready. I knew she would come by the fact that I was still alive. That meant that they were keeping me as bait. They had no other use for me.

I wasn’t worried much. I had seen what Eisherath was capable of when enraged. And, even through our tension, I trusted she wouldn’t abandon me.

I wiggled as I regained my senses, the ache in my head overshadowing the one in my leg. That was evidently a mistake, as I had gotten their attention. An orc knelt by me, hoisting me up by the shoulder and dumping me back-first on the rock I had been propped up against. I yelped as my weight crushed my hands against the stone.

The orcs chattered and shouted at one another while I lay there in pain and, as my mind fully awoke, I realized something: I understood them.

I stabilized my breathing to focus. I had been studying the language of the tribe the scholar had met with, as detailed in the dictionary. It was only the odd word here and there, but there was no doubt. I recognized this language.

I overheard bits and pieces. Something about waiting and prey and orders. I recognized the word ‘lure’ specifically. That was the end of speculation then.

I decided to try something. I saw no point in simply laying there and waiting for salvation. I dug in my memory. As another orc approached me, I met his eyes and shouted: “Vo gazoor!” ‘{Let go!}’.

The warrior’s head snapped towards me instantly, eyes widening in dumbfounded fury. “Tho?” he shouted. He turned to the others. “Tho barzuu! Arga thurregh sehar!”

I had picked up two words from that: ‘{thing – speaks}’.

“{I speak,}” I continued. “{Let go!}”

The whole band started shouting, switching between yelling at each other and at me. I heard ‘no’ and ‘stop’ and ‘possible’. A couple had pointed fingers or even shoved at each other.

Then a loud crack rolled over the hills, the assembled orcs all falling quiet at once. A new voice rose from beyond my field of vision, footsteps slowly advancing. And once it came into view, my heart stopped. I met its eyes and it wasn’t a face at all that I saw. It was the lack thereof of my nightmares.

“No,” I muttered aloud, voice half stuck in my throat. That couldn’t be her.

The mask looked different. Of course, it wasn’t the same one. The antlers had a different shape and the wood was off color. But the painted white patterns and the yellow eyes shimmering with liquid hatred were unmistakable. She was clad head to toe in thick furs and skins held together by myriad strings and ropes. The only skin she was showing at all, as I recalled, were her hands and feet – the overlong nails on them blackened and disturbingly sharp.

The shaman loomed over me, the two piercing orbs watching dispassionately. I could never guess her expression – her thoughts. That was the worst part. But I could pretty accurately wager her intent. I opened my mouth to speak but she raised her staff – a solid wooden branch carved with occult runes and affixed with rattling bird skulls – and my body froze. I felt a pressure like an invisible hand clutching my form. I could sense the rock disappearing from under me as I rose, hanging limply in the air. Then she twisted her staff, grinding the butt against the ground. And I screamed.

I felt as the invisible force around me tightened, squeezing my entire being like a crushing fist. I clenched my teeth as the pressure mounted, pain exploding in my thigh and head until I couldn’t bear it anymore and my voice echoed across the mountains.

I knew what she was doing. She wanted me to scream, to cry, to holler for help. Only now I wasn’t sure I wanted it. A warband was one thing. I have seen Eishe deal with worse effortlessly and I could always cure the poison they’d inflict. But the shaman was another thing. Her magic rendered Eishe’s fire useless and her body, twisted with unclean magic, healed unnaturally fast. Wounds had closed and bones had righted themselves before my eyes. And if she had survived the inferno I had seen her disappear in, all the scenarios in my head ended with her triumph.

I grunted in shock as I thumped against the rock. I couldn’t tell how long I had been screaming, the air squeezed out of my lungs until I started seeing stars. Coughing as I gasped for breath, I came face to mask with her. The shaman stared at me but she hasn’t met my eyes, simply gazed somewhere past them, as if I wasn’t a being worth addressing but a curiosity to be examined.

I tried forming a word but her staff reappeared, hovering inches above my face. I stared at the smoking runes, the stench of burning wood assaulting my nose as the light within them faded to embers, the surrounding bark blackened to char. A bleached raven skull dangled before me, the empty sockets mocking in their hollow gaze.

But the runes were what got my attention. Something about them spoke to me; a piece of insight banging against my mind, begging to be let in. I had gotten the sense that they were wrong somehow. That they didn’t belong on the branch. But before I could piece it together the shaman’s hand grabbed me by the hair; nails too long and sharp for an orc digging into my scalp. She turned my head around, inspecting me silently.

Then I noticed another symbol. One unlike the others, seared directly into the skin of her wrist. That seemed wrong to me.

Before another thought had the time to form, someone said something and the shaman let me go. She issued a command as she stalked away. Even hunched over as she was, she towered above the brutish warriors.

As she disappeared out of view, a hand grabbed me by the scruff of my scale-coat, pulling me from the stone I laid on. The warband of orcs gathered around me, gazing vigilantly at the sky. Before I could say anything, a hand closed around my mouth (and nose and the rest of my face), shutting me up and robbing me of air. Another hand brought around a knife and as the orc released my mouth, the blade cut into my cheek.

I screamed again, stifling my voce as much as I could. But the cry still echoed. Whenever I tried to speak, the process was repeated. A few of the warriors seemed to exchange looks but no one disobeyed. The shaman’s wishes were clear. No words – only screams.

It felt like hours had passed; my head throbbing, cheek encrusted with congealed blood. I had stopped feeling my legs as I knelt on the cold ground. Then one of the orcs jerked suddenly. They all started scanning the sky, huddling closer together behind me. They weren’t stupid. They knew I was the only thing protecting them from being incinerated as soon as Eisherath showed.

My heart raced. As much as she was my only hope, I was beside myself with fear. And not for myself.

The warriors continued fidgeting; eyes up, weapons held firm. Then, a crash as an arrow of darkness impacted the ground before us. Eisherath stood where only air had been seconds ago, eyes ablaze with fury and death. Smoke rose from between her bared teeth but she held the flames back. She had seen me.

The dragoness rose to her hindlegs, towering over the warband, trying to intimidate them into a mistake. A hand slipped away from my mouth. But I barely had the time to shout a warning.

Out of nowhere a wave of invisible force crashed against Eishe’s side, knocking her over like a ragdoll. The shaman burst out from behind the rocks, her warriors sniggering and roaring in cheer as she unleashed a barrage of attacks. She swung her staff like a hammer, but the wood didn’t make contact. Instead, Eishe simply reeled as if she had been struck, each unseen hit carrying the force of a falling boulder.

She tried to counter, summoning her fire and unleashing a cone of flame upon her adversary. But the shaman merely thumped her staff before her and the fire washed over her like a river over a rock, held at bay by arcane forces. When the blazing light had vanished, the orcish leader was standing in a circle of untouched grass even as everything around her smoldered.

This only angered Eishe more. But her wrath was naught against the profane magic the orc held. She struck again – and again the shaman blocked it all, Eishe’s claws bouncing off thin air before the orc turned her guarding into a swing. I looked on in horror as, blow after blow, Eishe wavered. Her legs gave out under the force of the shaman’s strike and with another she had sent her flying.

Collapsing in a heap of splayed limbs, Eisherath was brought down. Blotches of red painted a bleak story upon her midnight scales. I thrashed against my captors, screaming for her to get up, but the universe remained as indifferent towards my pleas as the celebrating orcs.

As the shaman placed her foot on Eishe’s neck, the defeated dragon let out a groan. A part of me hoped she was just acting and would tear her assailant apart limb by limb any second. But it was a vain hope. Raising her staff high to announce her victory, the gathered orcs all followed suit – lifting their weapons skyward, the mountains echoing their fervent hollering.

They didn’t even regard me. I was left floundering on the ground like an afterthought, watching hopelessly as they all gathered around their prey. Eishe’s chest still rose and fell in the rhythmic tempo of unconscious breaths. Shuffling around, I wormed my way to a rock jutting out of the ground and found an edge sharp enough to try to cut my restraints. But it was too slow. Whatever material they had used to tie my wrists, it was strong.

My eyes never left the harrowing scene playing out before me like a theater of my nightmares. I had often dreaded this, but after a while, I had stopped believing it was a possibility. I could not shut my eyes even if I wanted to; it only made the images of what was to follow come faster.

But while I kept expecting the shaman to deliver the final blow any second, she did not. Instead, I watched as her warriors produced thick ropes and proceeded to bind Eisherath, affixing them around her muzzle, her wrists, her hindlegs. I couldn’t tell if it could hold her; the process gave off the impression of a temporary solution.

I had never stopped sawing my restraints against the rock’s edge. Once the orcs were done, I watched them all gather around the shaman, forming a rough circle along with Eishe’s limp body with their leader in at its center. The orcish mage then raised her staff high, the runes along its length awakening anew, searing with purpose. Then she brought the staff down. But instead of skewering Eishe through, the sharpened butt of the staff hit the ground at her feet and the group vanished.

I blinked. For a moment, the very space seemed to have warped around the shaman and her entourage – the anomaly outlining them as if their surrounding tried to compress them inwards – then, it filled in. The landscape simply painted over where they had stood as if the air itself had swallowed them whole.

And Eishe with them.

It felt like an eternity before I sensed the restraints give way, my wrists finally free. I shuffled over to my bag the orcs had left dumped on the ground and rummaged in it for a knife, cutting the ropes around my ankles. At last free, I stood and then faltered. What now? I shambled over to where Eishe and the orcs had disappeared from and found nothing but empty air. As if I had expected anything else.

I wiped my face as I frantically looked around, hyperventilating. The shaman could Displace! That explained how she had survived. This was powerful magic; a rare and mighty spell far beyond what I had thought her capable of. Which meant that I had greatly underestimated her. And that now she could be anywhere. Although, on second though, there weren’t that many places where she could have taken Eishe.

I had no illusions about what the shaman had wanted her for. Magic was a fickle thing. Some creatures (such as dragons) possessed it naturally. Others, individuals whose kind have not been blessed by it, were born with it at random. Such talents were uncommon and often unstable if not honed. And for those who did not possess these gifts, the only option remaining was to devote their life in the service to a deity and perhaps – should their faith prove strong and true – be blessed with their power to wield it for their cause.

But there was one other way to acquire magic. A much darker and more ancient one. A practice so depraved, most lands, creeds and faiths had all declared it anathema and left it to be forgotten by the ages. To steal it from a creature that had it.

When we first encountered the shaman, Eishe had called her Adrak’hasz. ‘[Heart thief.]’. An old wives’ tale dragons used to scare their hatchlings into behaving, same as a human might threaten a child that a monster would come and eat it if they didn’t stop throwing food. Oftentimes a big, scaly, flying monster. And in each story, there was a piece of truth.

They said that the heart was the vessel of the soul. Striking someone’s heart has always been a symbol of utter obliteration – the killing of body and spirit. It stood to reason then what devouring it could do.

Having seen the shaman’s twisted form – how her nails grew into claws, the black veins branching out across her skin from her eyes, the way her irises seemed to glow and her pupils formed slits when they constricted – I had no doubt as to the source of her power. And if I knew one thing about power it was that it was addicting.

My mind raced. Despite all expectations, the orcs hadn’t killed Eishe; they had abducted her. It must have meant that whatever profane ritual the shaman aimed to perform, she needed her alive. For now. I wouldn’t have much time. I knew where the orcish settlement lied, but it was near the other coast, a long way out west. But the more pressing issue was: what would I do once I made it there?

Provided I arrived in time, I was powerless against an entire tribe of orcs. In the year we had spent surviving them, I had only ever killed one. And hardly through my fighting prowess. Even a single orc, in a fair fight, spelled a certain death. They could snap my neck with a backhand.

This was hardly a dilemma. There was really only one thing I could do.

Setting my jaw, I walked back to my bag, slung it over my shoulder and headed determinedly into the mist.

***

It was growing dark by the time I made it. The back of my head was throbbing, my leg was killing me and I couldn’t feel my hands through the cold. As if the fog hadn’t been enough, visibility only grew worse as the day drained away and by the time the sun had touched the horizon, the only way I could tell I was heading in the right direction was the increasingly pervasive stench of sulfur.

I had almost stumbled straight into a boiling pit of volcanic water a few times as I wound my way south through the field of hot springs. Every now and then, the wind would blow an acrid steam cloud rising from the pools into my face, prompting a coughing fit. It was almost a relief when I finally glimpsed The Ravine.

In no time, I had reached the unofficial threshold which I had been made sure spelled certain death. I wavered for only a second before crossing it, my foot hitting hard gravel where spongy moss had been a step ago. I felt the air shift; an eerie feeling settling in my stomach.

Before me stood the entrance to the gorge. Walls of stone rose from the earth at my sides, closing in around me as I ventured down into the gloomy passage. Great boulders littered the path, making my progress slow and tedious. My thigh reminded me of its existence every time I tried climbing up or down a rock, hindering me further with every obstacle.

The place felt oppressive; the looming walls emanating a sense of claustrophobic unease. I wasn’t sure what to expect coming here, but the scattered bones, including several humanoid-looking skulls, certainly completed the aesthetic. I didn’t know how much further the Ravine went either. So far, I hadn’t seen anything that stood out, but I wagered I was getting close.

“Halrathorm!” I shouted, my voice echoing across the stone. I had been walking for half an hour and so far, there has been no response. On the other hand, I was still alive, so that was a good sign. “Halrathorm!” I continued. “Eclipse!"

As my echo died away once more, I considered the possibility that he wasn’t home. I wasn’t sure if that was a relief or a cause for worry. After all, I couldn’t imagine him pleased to find me here when he returned.

A gust of wind blew at my back. That was odd inside a ravine; and even more so how it was warm at this altitude. And smelled of smoke.

Goosebumps spread over my body as I slowly turned around. There, from inside a dark alcove I hadn’t noticed, two enormous eyes scowled at me with unconcealed disdain. They looked very much like Eishe’s, insofar as my knowledge of dragon eyes went, only they were a pale blue color and several times larger, much like their owner.

Halrathorm uncoiled, his massive form crawling out of the shadows, advancing toward me. I found myself stepping back, never letting the gigantic dragon from my sight. A growl like a landslide reverberated through me. His teeth were bared, face twisted in a wrathful grimace.

“[You,]” he thundered, the letters falling into place so slowly the word was barely distinguishable from a snarl. “[I let you go. Let you live. Have you regretted my mercy?]”

I barely backed away in time as his forelimbs ground the rocks I had just stood on. I stumbled over several times, holding out my hands. “[The greenskin had taken Eishe!]” I blurted out. That had given him pause. “[The Heart-thief is alive. She can travel without moving. She had ambushed us and vanished with Eisherath.]”

Halrathorm’s hand stopped mid-air, face falling limp. His eyes, focused somewhere beyond me, went wide; then, almost immediately, they closed again in dejection. If dragons could cry, there would be tears welling within. “[Then she is lost,]” he said.

“What?” I mumbled as the colossal dragon began to turn away, crawling back in the shadows with his head fallen. This was not how things were meant to go. “[Not yet. I said they took her alive!]”

“[If the Heart-thief has her,]” Halrathorm whispered, “[she will not remain so for long.]”

I stared incredulously. Was this the same dragon who I had met half a year ago? “So, you are going to do nothing?” I shouted. He did not react, simply continued walking. “You can drop the act, I know you speak Common! I’m telling you your daughter is in the hands of a bloodthirsty war chief and you are not going to do anything to bring her back?”

“And YOU did nothing to stop it!” he whirled on me, shards of rocks and bones spraying as his tail whipped around. “YOU who begged to remain by her side! YOU who challenged me when I had come to show you your place! YOU who promised to care for her!”

I weathered his insults without looking away. But I couldn’t deny they stung. “What could I have done? What way is there for me to stop an Adrak’hasz? I am not a fighter, Halrathorm; you are!”

“Do not pretend your kind are inept!” he snarled. “I know what you are capable of! You have taken my Equal from me! And now, you destroyed all I had left...” His voice broke, the ire leaking out. I almost felt sorry for him.

“So, you will do nothing? You who shattered an entire army of orcs occupying the Canal just because you wanted me gone? Who devastated a warband all on your own?”

“I… cannot,” he sighed. There was guilt in his voice.

“Why?”

“The greenskin poison,” he said regretfully. “It took my fire.”

“What?” I spat, blindsided. This was not something I could have predicted. “But… but I cured you!”

“They came again,” he responded. “You were not here.”

I stared at the crestfallen dragon. A couple of badly healed punctures were visible below his neck along the fire ducts, small but swollen and festering. His pupils, staring into empty space, were dilated so much they were almost circular. I thought it had been due to the darkness, but Eishe’s eyes had never done that. Except once. When she was dying from the same poison.

That stuff was strong, even primitive as it was. It could kill a roomful of humans and I had no doubt Eishe could have succumbed to it as well had she not been treated. Even dwarves died to it. The fact that Halrathorm was still alive, even if not whole, spoke much of his strength.

“When was this?”

“Moons ago,” he answered.

My gaze shifted to the floor littered with bones, both orc and animal. “You can clearly feed yourself. And your sight is not gone, not completely. Can you not still fight? Tear the village apart? Anything?”

The dragon snorted derisively. “No. I can see a short distance and only fly close to the ground. I could fly to their lair – then die to their arrows.”

I slumped down onto a nearby rock. As much as I found it hard to accept, he was likely right. Half a year ago, Halrathorm had managed to clear an entire coast from orcish occupation by raining down fire on them from the sky. He had then almost died on that same coast fighting a warband of forty in a melee because he feared catching Eishe in the collateral. He wouldn’t assault the village if he couldn’t tell whether she was in the way. And if he couldn’t breathe fire, he wouldn’t even be able to. A part of the strategy was to keep out of the range of their weaponry. An army like the tribe could bring down even a dragon.

“So, that’s it then?” I despaired. I had come all this way just for him to do nothing? “Eishe is going to die and we’re just supposed to make peace with that?”

“I made peace with her loss when I left her with you,” Halrathorm uttered venomously.

I eyed him through the welling tears. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You think I did not know this would come?” he thundered. “A day when your folly would take her from me? When I would finally be left with nothing, because you had to worm your way into our lives?”

“Don’t you dare make this my fault!” I rebuked. “Don’t you dare demand pity! You think you are the only one with the right to feel hurt? She is my Equal, Halrathorm! Whether you like it or not, I love her too!”

“You do not know love! Your kind destroy everything they touch! First you took her mother, now my echar! And you dare call yourself her Equal?”

“Yet I’m the only one at least trying to do something! You bemoan losing her, but all you do is sit here and ramble about the past I didn’t have anything to do with! The father Eishe spoke to me of would have stopped at nothing to get her back!”

“And a REAL Equal would not have let her be taken!”

A curtain of dust fell from above as Halrathorm’s voice resounded through the ravine. Without warning, his hand darted out, his palm, big enough to encircle my body whole, clamped down on me, lifting me up and bringing me close to his head. His eyes homed in on my face.

Even as he simmered down, I felt his words shake my lungs with their force as he spoke: “You would liken yourself to her? You insult her with your insolence! You are not one of us! You do not belong! You are a pathetic worm who slithered its way into our lives thinking you can upturn them to your liking! That you can take what you wish!” His hand squeezed, forcing the air out of my lungs. I couldn’t even yelp, let alone talk. “You would claim my echar as yours, but when time came, you say you could do nothing! You are not her Equal; you are not worth the dirt she treads on! To arghűl with the Code, the only reason you are not a splatter on the stone is that it was Rath’s wish!”

I clattered to the ground, gasping for breath. Stars danced before my eyes for several heartbeats as the great dragon left me tossed aside like the bones which littered the ground around, curling back up in his dark little alcove. He had a point of course; and not one I hadn’t said to myself before. But I was done with that kind of thinking.

“You’re right,” I said as I rose to one knee, holding onto a rock for support when the aching thigh gave me trouble. The dragon stilled just a little. “You’re right; I do not deserve her. I am weak. I am frail. I am not a dragon, nor do I know the first thing about being one. There is nothing I have to give that would justify me wanting to be with her. I do not understand what she sees in me. She is wonderful, she is powerful, she’s kind, passionate, strong-willed, excitable, loving! There is nothing she would balk away from and nothing she would stop at to help those she loves. And not a day goes by that I don’t think that I’m not worthy of her. And you know what? I don’t question it!”

Halrathorm didn’t look my way but I saw his head shifting slightly as I spoke: “I don’t question her. And I don’t question her feelings. Why? Because I love her! And love requires a little trust. I may not understand why but somehow, she loves me too. And I don’t need to understand; I just need to believe in her. I trust in her thoughts, I trust in her words and I trust in her capabilities. I trust her with my life and with all my heart. So, when she, the woman I had pledged myself to, tells me that I am worthy of being called her Equal, you bet I’m going to damn well believe her!”

The dragon said nothing. He did not speak; he did not look my way. He just stared into a wall. And, after a long while of silence, he collapsed. Even laying curled up as he was, his body slumped, head falling against a rock, his face twisted in a bare-toothed expression of pain. A quiet, high-pitched groan escaped from somewhere in his direction. Then another.

I looked at the quivering heap, forgetting to breathe. I couldn’t possibly reconcile this image with the terrifying apparition that had haunted my dreams six months ago. But it seemed that something I had said struck home. That it somehow helped relinquish his hate. And now that it was gone, he had nothing left but sorrow.

Whatever else he may be, beneath the façade of a grizzled, uncompromising warrior, he was a father first and foremost. And right now, whether Eishe was alive or not, whether he blamed me or himself, he mourned her.

I couldn’t just stand there. I felt for him more than I let on. I stepped closer over the fallen rubble, unsure which part of him I should even be approaching. I reached out a hand, inching towards his enormous shoulder. I hesitated. A part of me still expected him to eviscerate me any second.

Then I let my palm make contact. He shuddered as it did. An agitated growl reverberated through him but it just as quickly devolved back into a sobbing cough. I remained as I stood.

Eventually, Halrathorm’s head turned from the wall, facing me. I stood close enough for his eyes to lock in on me. His expression remained blank. Even despite the occasional noise that escaped him still, had I not known what he was going through, I couldn’t read his emotions. I knew dragons didn’t cry. This was somehow worse.

I turned away and looked at the puncture wound bellow his throat. It was small but bulging and leaking something dark and viscous.

“Let me put a salve on that,” I said not unkindly.

“It will not bring back my fire.”

“No, but it will hurt less.”

Reluctantly, he rolled over, lifting his neck up for me to reach the wound. I dropped my bag down on the ground and opened the flap, picking up the pistol and rummaging underneath it with my other arm. I produced the bottle I was looking for and felt more than heard Halrathorm snarl. His eyes though, however unfocused, aimed at my left hand.

“Where did you get that?”

I followed his gaze to the gun. “Eishe found it in a shipwreck on the coast.”

“She should not have given it to you!” he rumbled disapprovingly.

I sighed. “Oh, just shut it! You cannot forever distrust me for what my kind had done,” I rebuked, tossing the pistol aside. “Besides, it needs Black Powder in any case. Maybe if it worked, I could have…” I trailed off, my voice breaking in turn.

He said nothing further and so I regained my composure and got down to treating the wounds. Reaching them was a challenge. I picked my way up over the larger rocks, trying not to step onto his body for support. I had a feeling he wouldn’t appreciate that. He flinched as I scooped up the salve I had prepared and applied it by the handful to the wounds. Once, he slipped into a wheezing cough, a cloud of smoke rising from his throat.

“The swelling should diminish by morning and the wound should start closing up,” I informed in a low voice. Halrathorm didn’t exactly answer, just exhaled in a manner that suggested he didn’t want to incinerate me for the time being. That was practically a praise.

“How did it happen?” I asked afterwards.

I didn’t mean the wound and he knew it. His benevolent mood instantly evaporated. Everyone has seen looks that might kill; Halrathorm had somehow mastered sounds that spelled murder without actually using letters. I stepped back just in case.

“You have never told Eishe.”

“No,” he answered in a tone that made it clear he meant to keep it that way.

“Have you ever told anyone?” I continued. “You never know; it might help getting the weight off your chest.”

For a second, I thought I would actually get flattened, the way his claws shifted. “You know nothing! Do not preach to me your inane ways!”

I felt for him, then. In a way, him an I were going through similar emotions. I was thinking of something else soothing to say when I remembered this wasn’t a human I was talking to. Dragons didn’t voice their sympathies. To them, everyone was a superior or a subordinate. And I – though I wasn’t a dragon and it was due to a technicality – was his Better. He wouldn’t appreciate my empathy; he would read it as condescension. So far, he had only reacted positively to force. “Then enlighten me! I think I deserve to know what it is you’re holding over my head.”

Halrathorm seemed to mull it over for a while. Despite all odds, my approach was working.

“I was hatched in the north,” he spoke finally, staring at a wall. “Beyond the hot sands. In a grassland, much like this one. I grew and hunted and flew until I made home in mountains to the west. For decades, no creature was allowed to trespass on my land. Then I met Zahraverra.”

He went silent again, as if summoning up her memory, before continuing: “She was a small dragon, whereas I was the largest. Strongest. Yet she was the only one to become my Better. She was smart. Cunning. Unpredictable. I had never admired anyone like I admired her. I followed her as her Lesser. Learned from her. Courted her. And later, she allowed me to call myself her Equal.

“For a hundred years, the mountains and their valleys belonged to us. We made a nest. Made a home. A life. Then, one day, your kind came and declared the forests and valleys theirs. Raised their flags. Built their nests. Marked their borders and fought others of their kind for them. They claimed everything within for themselves: beasts, trees, soil; and hunted any who dared take them. They hunted us for hunting in our own forests!” Halrathorm swore, talons scratching the stone absently.

“We left them alone, hoping they would not return. But they came to our nest! With arrows and spears and sharp-edged rods, clad in metal. I have met their kind before and spoke to them in their tongue to leave or to die. They demanded we leave their land! We waited for them to stop, but they always returned. Death did not deter them. They came again. Called it vengeance! They called us monsters to be vanquished. And for what? Hunting their prey? Killing their invaders? Burning the nests they built on our land?”

That last one was a fair grievance I thought, but I felt like pointing that out would not be beneficial to my lifespan so I kept quiet. I waited for him to continue:

“After decades, Zahra and I were blessed with an egg. But dragon eggs hatch only when the moon and the stars are right, and that was not so for a long time. And all the while, they kept coming. Kept attacking. Kept threatening. We scattered them like ashes in the wind. All! For years we repelled them and did not even need to try. They were vermin. Not worthy of being called foe.”

“What changed?” I asked when the dragon refused to continue.

He turned my way for the first time since he started speaking. There was a fiery hate in his voice when he answered, the target of his ire easy to spot in the gloom: “They. Brought. That!”

The gun. I stared at the small metal object on the ground with sudden apprehension. I knew the thing was powerful. There was no weapon it couldn’t outmatch, no armor it couldn’t pierce. Nothing that wasn’t magic could resist it. In most cases, it was quite simply an overkill. Yet it has never occurred to me that this unassuming contraption could kill a dragon.

“They took Zahraverra from me,” Halrathorm continued mournfully. “There was nothing left for me there. Nothing to call home. I wanted to make them pay. All of them! I would bathe the world in fire to show them a fraction of the pain they inflicted on me!” He took a breath. “But I had other matters to think of. I couldn’t risk the egg. I couldn’t hunt; couldn’t risk them getting to it when I was gone. The only thing I had left in the world.

“So, I took it! Took it and gone. South. I flew for days and nights almost without rest, until I crossed the hot sands and the air grew colder again the further south I went. Here I found a new home. Home without greedy two-legs to threaten my daughter ever in her life!” he concluded. “Or so I thought.”

It had gotten dark. Only a line of stars shone above me where the black walls of the gorge opened to show black sky. I could barely see where I was walking, so I gathered together some dry bones and sticks and threw them on a pile, then pulled out my flint and tried to produce sparks.

Halrathorm eyed me as I managed to make a fire going, unimpressed. I had no doubt he considered my clumsy handling of the element a poor imitation of his former glory. I sighed, poking the flames with a bone of questionable origin. I assessed the miserable dragon, then my surroundings. Only now did I notice how wrong this place looked. This was no lair – not one like Eishe’s. There were no simple comforts, no quality-of-life improvements done to this place, not even a hoard. Unless Halrathorm fancied collecting bones. He didn’t even bother to keep the place clean.

I didn’t know which had come after his condition deteriorated and which had always been this way here, but I figured if he had been taking care of it here at some point, there would be signs still left. I had to imagine he didn’t care. There was only one thing that mattered in his life. This really was a man who had nothing left.

“Neither of us can stand to lose her,” I said definitively. “So, let’s work together to figure something out. Think about what do we do.”

“I think,” Halrathorm spoke eventually, taking a meaningful pause to weigh his words, “that I’m going to rest now.”

Without ceremony, the dragon curled up onto himself in his shadowy little alcove, shutting away the world. I sat there appalled. So much for the plan. There stood my only chance at saving her: cowering in a corner, willfully giving up.

I got up, picking up a flaming branch or bone and walked away from him into the shadows of the gorge. I couldn’t believe this was happening. The time I had spent coming here wasted. I felt hurt, anger and betrayal, and I didn’t even know who it was directed at. Him for giving up. Me for failing to prevent it. The orcs for always having to come and ruin everything!

The orcs.

Something sped across my mind. Before, when the orcs had held me prisoner, I had managed to unsettle them. When I spoke to them in their tongue it was as if I had caused a schism among their ranks. What was it they had said? ‘Thing – speaks.’ Like they weren’t aware they were dealing with a person.

Of course, one thing that all civilizations had in common was they always considered themselves ‘the people’. Meaning everyone else was not. The idea of a different creature, however similar, speaking their tongue was alien to them. But now I had an upper hand. I understood them. Not just their language, but their culture. Their ways. Their code.

I spent who knows how many minutes walking, thinking of how to use this against them. The tribe had met with and outsider before. The dictionary in my bag was proof of this. But clearly, their attitudes towards them had changed since.

Something fluttered past me, casting a big shadow across the wall of the Ravine as it passed my makeshift torch. It was a bat. There were great many of them, upon closer observation; simply flying up in the sky. Occasionally, they obscured a star as they hunted for whatever insects might be buzzing up there at this hour.

I looked back down at my feet and realized with some aversion, that the crunchy, pale stuff spotting the rock I had been walking on was not lichen. I made a face and took a step back when a thought occurred to me.

This was a natural canal. Water would flow through this side of the gorge whenever it rained. Maybe not much of it, perhaps a stream, but it clearly did based on the shape of the terrain. And the bats must have lived here for a very long time. They clearly didn’t mind the presence of a dragon; and why would they? They were too small for him to even notice them and the leftover kills would attract lots of insects. Even without him, this was their natural environment. They had to have been here for centuries. Perhaps millennia. And that meant…

I leaned down to inspect the floor and walls more closely, bringing in the fire from my torch. Sure enough, there it was.

I recognized the mineral littering the stone amid the fresh guano. My vessel used to ship it all around the lands. And the sulfur pits were just outside…

Quickly a plan had begun to take shape in my head. A crazy, desperate, stupid plan. I got up, walking back towards the entrance to the Ravine, the intricacies racing through my mind. This would either fail explosively or succeed explosively. Oh well.

Saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal. How hard could it be?

***

“Shit!” I yelled after yet another failure. I was sat back in the gorge, Halrathorm’s sleeping form looming just off to the side. The sun was already dawning, the fire barely smoldering amid the embers.

I picked up a burnt stick and ground its blackened end between two rocks, collecting the powdered charcoal onto a leather sheet. Then I spilled some onto the stone floor and mixed in two more powders from bottles I had emptied of their previous contents before collecting them, trying again to get the perfect ratio. I then got up to my feet and grabbed a stick from the waning fire. Taking a step back, I carefully brought the stick down onto the mixture.

And it did nothing. Only a string of noxious smoke rose from the pile of dust.

I swore again, throwing the stick back into the fire and sat down once more. I haven’t slept that night at all; I had no clue how long I had been experimenting. I made sure to collect enough sulfur from the springs and could always make more charcoal if I wanted to. Saltpeter was another story. There were deposits of it scattered all around the gorge where the bat guano had accumulated and leached over the centuries. But it came in very small quantities and it was the main component.

I was sure I knew the correct ratio and the chance of me getting it wrong this whole while was shrinking. I was growing increasingly certain the ingredients, as I had found them in nature, were not pure enough.

A shadow shifted above me. “What is this ruckus?” Halrathorm demanded as he stretched his wing. He sniffed the air while I worked, leaning in close to my makeshift workstation. “You are playing with bat droppings.”

I tried paying him no mind as I added ingredients into my ever-expanding mixture, then put aside a small amount and touched the flaming twig to it once more. And once more, it did nothing.

“Shit!”

“That is correct,” the dragon remarked. I rolled my eyes and continued. “Tell me what foolishness this is!”

“I’m making Black Powder,” I said.

There was silence for a spell as I continued in my makeshift alchemy. For once, Halrathorm was out of abrasive remarks. “You can do that?”

“Evidently not!” I spat. The lack of sleep was starting to get to me.

The same couldn’t be said for my dragon-in-law. His well-rested mind seemed to be running in overdrive. “The weapon,” he asked, piecing together what I intended, “how many times can it attack?”

“Once,” I answered. “Then it needs reloading.”

“You stand against a village,” he reminded me. “You will die after one kill.”

“I do not need to kill them all. Just one orc.”

“You will never get to the Heart-thief,” Halrathorm assured me. “She will be guarded. Hidden. Protected.”

“I have a plan,” I answered. He gave me a skeptical grunt. “I know their ways. I speak their tongue. I can force her to face me alone.”

“How?”

“I will challenge her to a duel. A trial by combat.”

“Will she not refuse?”

“She cannot. It is sacred for them.”

“And you are certain the weapon will work?”

“No!” I shouted as I picked up the stick again, whirling on him with it in hand. I wasn’t in the mood for constructive criticism. “I am not certain of anything! I don’t know if it’s gonna fire, I don’t know if my plan will work, I don’t even know if I can aim this thing! The only certainty here is that if we do nothing, Eishe will die! So please, I don’t need a reminder of how desperate my idea is, because I have spent the whole night burning bat shit and I don’t even have anything to show…” Crack!

Sparks flew with a loud popping sound as I touched the burning end of the twig to the sample pile of dark-colored powder. I dropped the thing to the ground, gasping in shock. I almost lost my balance due to the rush of emotions.

“Alright,” I stammered as Halrathorm looked on in stunned silence. I hurried over to my bag, looking around frantically for the abandoned pistol. I found it, then rummaged in the bag for the small pouch of metal pellets. I carefully loaded the gun – pouring in the main charge and slotting in the pellet – then sprinkled a priming charge onto the flash pan, closing the frizzen.

I held the loaded pistol in my hands almost reverently. Then I gripped it in one hand, finger near the trigger, and aimed it into the distance of the gorge. I gulped, trying to steady my shaking hand. My heart pounded wildly.

I pulled back the hammer. I pulled the trigger. The hammer struck the frizzen. And nothing happened.

My hope evaporated. I inspected the gun but some powder still remained on the flash pan. It simply hadn’t combusted.

“Fuck,” I breathed, as I closed the frizzen again. “Fuck!”

It was all for nothing. After a night of running around, of toiling, of hoping! I kicked at a rock in dejected anger, not caring that my leg hurt. My whole body was now hurting in concert so I barely noticed.

Halrathorm grumbled something under his breath and I just couldn’t bear it any longer. I was so brimming with anger I needed to break something. I pointed the useless pistol at a rock in the distance, imagining it blowing up into pieces as I pulled the trigger—

A deafening roar echoed through the Ravine. Startled bats flew up from their spots, my ears were ringing, my hand aching as if a horse had kicked it. And off in the distance, shards of stone sprayed away from the point of impact.

I stared at the smoking end of the barrel. It took me half a minute to process what just happened. Perhaps the gun had simply misfired the first time around. They did that quite often.

This was it. I held in my hand all the destructive power I had wished for. Suddenly, it didn’t seem like the universal solution to all my problems. But it would have to do.

“Alright, here’s the plan,” I said as I shoveled the rest of the makeshift powder into a waiting bottle. “You carry me to the orcish settlement. I approach the guards and ask to be shown to their leader. I am fairly certain they will want to do that immediately. Then, once I am seen by the shaman, in front of the whole village, I will challenge her to a duel. The victor gets to make demands. I shoot her, she dies, I free Eisherath and we will be on our way and never have to worry about seeing an orc again.”

Halrathorm seemed rather skeptical of this. “She heals. You cannot kill her.”

“Unless she dies immediately,” or so I figured. She couldn’t heal if she was dead, right? “A shot to the head should do it. Or the heart.”

“And the greenskin will accept your challenge? Even if you are not one of them?”

“Yes. They have let outsiders in before. The leader has to accept a challenge from anyone who speaks the words. It is their Code.”

“You know these words?”

“Yes,” I sighed. “Ulguur azur ba aleh-akan.”

“And you are certain you will hit?”

“No,” I said frustratedly as I packed my bag up again. “But I have to try. Or do you have a better idea?”

The great dragon stared nowhere in particular for a few moments. “Perhaps,” he said. Then, he grabbed me in his enormous hand and stood on his hindlegs, ready to take to the skies. I cried out as he jumped up without warning, shutting my eyes so I didn’t have to see the ground rapidly receding.

One thing at least was for certain: this was much less bearable that the sling harness.

***

After the harrowing experience that was the flight in Halrathorm’s clutches, I was almost glad to be dropped down before the orcish settlement. The guards were upon me almost immediately, by which time the dragon had vanished.

We had gone over the plan en route in detail. There was no space for failure. This would have to go perfectly.

The spear-wielding warriors surrounded me but before they made any moves I halted them: “{I demand to be seen by chief!}”

That made them stop dead in their tracks. Again, I recognized the words ’speak’ and ‘thing’ uttered in alert, along with ‘do’ and ‘what’ and ‘chief’. Then, one grabbed me by the arm and led me with them somewhere into the tall grass. That ought to do it.

The walk took longer that I imagined. Or perhaps that was just my nerves reminding me we didn’t have much time left. Eventually however, we came upon a wall made from sharpened wooden posts that stretched on as far as the eye could see. And right before us stood a heavily guarded opening. Four orcs with spears stood at the entrance and a small army of archers were stationed all around the wall staring at the sky.

Whatever my escort said to the sentries, it made them balk away in shock. I was beginning to find this quite amusing. Passing through the entrance, I was greeted with the full splendor of the orcish settlement. I forgot to breathe.

The place was much, much larger than I had assumed. Tents made of leather and fabrics of sort stretched on and on into the distance. All around, orcs peeked out of the flaps or paused in their errands to look my way as I passed through. Not just hunters; there were tanners, builders, farmers, craftsmen. Women and children. Most wore the expressions of cautious curiosity, as if I was something unknown and potentially dangerous. Something to be afraid of.

It made me realize just how little of their society I had truly seen.

Another thing that surprised me was the denizens’ behavior. Several times, the armed sentries that were escorting me were stopped by female orcs – adorned much more ornately than their male counterparts – and apparently questioned. My entourage answered with their heads bowed, hands moving in what I could only assume to be salutes. It seemed that the reason we had never encountered female warriors wasn’t that the tribe was patriarchal but matriarchal.

Eventually, we had passed through the densely populated area and came onto a clearing. It appeared to be a giant circular space in between the housings and the fields where only a single enormous tent of red-dyed leather stood close to one edge. And that was where I was being lead.

Before it stood a throne. There was no other way to describe it. It was a chair made of leathers and wood, framed by the tusks of a massive skull that made up its backrest. It seemed to belong to an elephant, if elephants were twenty feet tall. And along the ivory tusks, runes were carved. The same ones that adorned the shaman’s staff.

There was a giant circle of colorful rocks hammered into the red ground before the throne. I remembered reading about that in the scholar’s journal. The throne however was never mentioned. The tribe was supposed to gather in the circle, the chief and guest sitting at the center, the elder matrons immediately around us with the rest further out. The throne was somehow wrong.

The guards led me into the center of the decorative stone bullseye, shouted something at me and hastily vanished. I stood there feeling like an exhibit as the entire village amassed by the borders of the clearing, watching and waiting.

Then I noticed something else: Eisherath.

My legs started moving all by themselves before the orcs around the red tent fixed their weapons at me. That rooted me in place. She laid collapsed in a heap at one end of the clearing, just off of the shaman’s abode. She looked unresponsive but her chest rose and fell rhythmically. She was alive.

She was also bound thoroughly by what looked like excessively thick ropes. I could only be glad the orcs haven’t figured out metallurgy. Chains would be harder to get rid of if the necessity arose.

As my mind raced, the murmur in the crowd stopped, all the eyes fixed at the opening flap of the great tent. My view was obscured by the throne which sat right in the way. But soon enough, the shaman appeared from around it, walking slowly and purposefully, staff in hand. Then, she sat down, splayed comfortably in her seat.

She growled something in a voice like gravel; I wasn’t sure whether to me or the gathered throng. Her yellow, malignant eyes peered from behind her mask. This one was even larger than the other one: with meticulously carved patterns on its blank face and giant Var’shan antlers framing its sides. A great cloak of black fur completed the ceremonial garb.

Before me sat the chieftain and shaman of the orcs; the witch-queen of the Southern Reaches. She was as regal as could possibly be, leaving not a shadow of doubt about her status. And yet, it all seemed out of place. Artificial. Like something out of a northern legend.

The runes kept gnawing at me. She had carved them into her staff and they glowed like embers when they channeled her magic. Perhaps their presence on the throne had a function too, perhaps they were purely decorative. A status symbol. What I knew for certain was that this was nowhere to be found in the scholar’s description. In fact, I was pretty certain they had described the tribe as illiterate.

And then it clicked.

I now understood why I had been so fixated on the runes. Why they didn’t fit. I recognized them.

I stared at the awaiting shaman, my mouth twisting in an ironic smile as all the pieces fell into place.

“You know,” I said as I began pacing around the circle, “I have been to Karak Algho in my days on a trade ship. It is an orcish country up beyond the desert, in what they consider to be ‘the south’ in the Northern Kingdoms. It is a fascinating place. The denizens make the finest blades and produce the best-trained mercenaries on the continent. It all has something to do with their honor codes; swords are practically sacred to them. But by far the most curious thing is that there are no prisons.”

The shaman sat in silence, neither her nor the crowd reacting to my foreign-tongued narration. “That’s not to say there are no criminals,” I continued. “The ‘Honorless’, I think they call them, they get a different treatment. Instead of incarceration, they are banished into the desert. Doomed to die lost in the sands, or – if by some miracle they survive and make it into the Reaches – to live out the rest of their days cast out of civilization.

“But before that,” I exclaimed, stopping in my tracks, “they are branded on their wrists, so that they may never be accepted back.” I turned to face her again. “But you knew all that.”

There was grave silence for a while as the shaman observed me intensely. The crowd did not dare disturb. Then, she said one word, her voice like a bone saw, raising the hair on my neck: “Impressive.”

Despite myself I stifled a gasp. A part of me still hadn’t been convinced I was right. “That’s it?” I demanded of her. “This whole time you spoke my tongue and you have nothing more to add than that?”

“What do I have to say to you?”, the shaman said dispassionately.

I shook my head, chuckling mirthlessly under my breath. I could not believe this. The sheer heartlessness of it all. The tribe? They hardly saw me as a person, let alone Eisherath. They grew up in their little world between the village walls and anything outside was either prey or a threat. Hunt or be hunted. With a few words, I had managed to shake and shatter that security, their knowledge of the world.

But she knew. She knew who and what I was and knew what dragons were. What Eishe was! And she didn’t care one whit.

“What do you want here, whelp?” she sighed, as if bored.

“I came for Eisherath.”

She appeared confused, as much as she could appear so through her mask, then her head tilted towards the unconscious dragon. I could hear her snigger from all the way. “Then you have come a long way for nothing.” she turned to me. “I will not part with what is rightfully mine.”

“Rightfully yours?” I exploded. “You do not get to lay claim onto people! Nothing here belongs to you! Not even your position is rightful!”

“It is as rightful as anything,” she said, fingers drumming on the armrest. “They gave it over to me themselves. The old chieftain was weak and I bested her without effort. That is the only right in this world. The strong take and the weak serve.”

“Clearly, not everyone wanted you,” I deadpanned. The butt of the shaman’s staff ground against the earth. “Your own people kick you out so you wiggle your way elsewhere and instead of just living in satisfaction you style yourself their ruler? Build yourself a throne of bones like some sorcerous overlord? Hijack an entire culture?”

“And?” she asked.

I scoffed. The surrounding orcs began looking increasingly uncertain. A guard said something to the shaman quietly, but she silenced him with a raised hand without so much as looking his way.

“If you have come to grovel for your pet, human, you are here in vain. You have nothing to offer.” She waved me off dismissively.

I squared up then. “How about a challenge?” I proposed. The shaman turned away from examining her claws, looking me over curiously. “A trial by combat, according to the tribe’s rules. The winner gets to leave with Eisherath and the tribe’s respect. The loser will die.”

After a period of silence, the shaman burst into a bout of laughter like whetstone against a blade. “Amusing. You? What would you know about the rules?”

“I know enough,” I assured her. “I know a chieftain cannot refuse a challenge; not without having to abdicate the post and forfeit. You must accept, or lose your throne.” I grinned smugly. “How did you put it? The strong take?”

“I must do nothing! I am the ruler here! I decide what must be done. I speak the orders, not you! I could kill you right here and now without so much as standing up!”

“Oh, but you can’t,” I responded. “I am a guest. You must play by the rules. Otherwise, why am I still alive? You might have earned your place as their leader but you can be just as easily stripped of it. They put you in power. Look around! They’re already starting to doubt.” I gestured towards the massive circle of green bodies, many of which were exchanging uncertain looks. “Or do you want to be cast out of another home?”

The shaman scanned the crowd, a nervous tick manifesting in her hands.

“How did you get banished anyway?” I asked, pouring grease into the fire. “Did it have something to do with your powers? You must have obtained them before; I can’t imagine you surviving crossing the desert without them.”

The shaman’s claws scratched against the armrest.

“Killing a dragon isn’t a one-person job, even for an orcish warrior. And I know what the honor code says about the spoils of war. What did you do? Murder the rest of your warband in their sleep? Didn’t feel like sharing?”

“Rhaaaaaaaaaaaagh!” The shaman smashed the butt of her staff against the ground, a sound like a thunderclap making the whole crowd tuck their heads between their shoulders. Eisherath stirred. “Go on then,” the orc growled, leaning forward on her throne. “Speak the words! Challenge me! We’ll see how that fares for you.”

“Oh,” I said, a smile tugging at the corners of my lips. “I never said it was me who you’ll be fighting.”

I reached into my scale-coat and pulled out the pistol. The shaman’s eyes widened, her staff arm moving to shield her on instinct as I pointed the gun above me and fired at the sky.

The shaman’s thunderclap seemed like nothing in comparison. The whole assemblage jumped, the shaman and every warrior present standing with their weapons poised as the gun roared, the barrel flashed and a cloud of smoke rose into the sky. But no pellet had been fired. It was only a signal.

For one endless moment, nothing happened. Silence spread over the settlement as no one dared move. Then, while the shaman was regaining her bearings, the sun darkened.

At first it looked like a cloud passing overhead. Then the shadow deepened and shrunk. Gained edges. Finally, with a thunderous beating, it landed in the center of the clearing like a giant wave of darkness.

Chaos unfolded. I resisted the urge to duck for cover as Halrathorm’s enormous wings stirred gale winds over the crowd, tents threatening to dislodge and fly off. The orcs screamed, every warrior capable of fighting ran for their weapon.

Then something even more alarming happened. Halrathorm spoke: “Ulguur azur ba aleh-akan.” The words of the challenger.

If me talking had come to the orcs as a shock, then a dragon doing the same had just taken a hammer to their entire worldview. Everyone stopped. Mouths hung open, parents clutched their children, guards pointed their weapons in hands that all of a sudden forgot to tremble. I had to give it to him, this was a much better plan than mine.

“No,” the shaman said, thumping her staff. “This is a farce! You cannot expect me to honor that! Auguur lausan daviir!” she shouted at the guards, pointing towards the looming dragon. But they only exchanged confused looks, murmuring something between themselves. And they didn’t move.

“{The rule is clear,}” I spoke aloud in rehearsed words, attracting the attention of the whole crowd. “{ANY who speak the challenge must be honored.}”

The murmur grew in volume, spreading like wildfire through the awaiting throng. The shaman tried to drown it out, dragging their attention back to herself, but it was futile.

“{The winner gets the prey!}” I said pointing to Eisherath. I was afraid I had found no better word in the dictionary. “{The fallen retains their honor. Or are you not a chief?}”

Baleful anger burned within the shaman’s eyes. But the crowd had been swayed. Their voices grew from whispers to statements to shouts. And their words were not all of approval. I was fairly certain I overheard ‘pretender’ be uttered at least once.

The shaman kept turning around, scanning the crowd for any supporters, for whatever purchase she might gain. Then, some of the warriors started thumping their weapons. Just a few at first. Then the effect spread onto others – spears and bows striking the ground, clubs hammering against leather shields – until everyone present, guard and civilian alike was rhythmically stomping and chanting: “{Fight! Fight! Fight!}”

“{ENOUGH!}” The shaman roared over them. Her eyes were attempting to burn a hole through Halrathorm as she reluctantly proclaimed her acceptance of the duel. The throng erupted in a frenzy of guttural cheers.

“I will play your game, whelp!” she said to me with such bile I was surprised the mask didn’t melt off her face. “If the creature wins, it gets to leave with its kin.”

“[Why does she speak your tongue?]” Halrathorm growled behind me?

Before I could answer, the shaman twisted her staff and an invisible force snatched me from the ground and carried me forth until her outstretched hand clasped around my neck. “But only the challenger gets the prize,” she whispered in my face. “Your life was not part of the deal.”

My stomach sank as I realized the flaw in my plan. I had been counting on her to be honorable.

I could hear Halrathorm calling behind me as the shaman shouted at the crowd and dragged me away by the collar of my coat. The sun dimmed and the sky turned red. When I was dumped on the ground still catching my breath, I realized I was lying inside the red tent. Before I had the time to move, my arms were snatched and tied to one of the supporting posts; thick and set deep in the ground. Then, the shaman bound my legs together, leaving me all but immobile.

“You think to keep me as bait again in case he wins?” I taunted her, my hoarse voice undermining my mocking tone. “You missed the part where you’ll be dead if you lose.”

“I cannot die,” the orc stated flatly. She dopped her cloak on the ground unceremoniously, then took off her fancy mask, placing it in a corner and picking up another smaller one. The same she had worn when she ambushed us in the mountains. A battle mask. The short glimpse of her disfigured face before she fastened it on sent shivers down my spine. But it was also informative.

“Is that so?” I refused to relent. “Then why do you look afraid?”

A backhand like a mule kick silenced me. I coughed, tasting iron in my mouth, blood dripping onto my scale-coat.

“I promise I will make your pet watch as I devour its kin’s heart before I tear out its own with my bare hands.”

“Hal—” cough “—rathorm’s?” I queried, spitting out more blood. “Even if you win, he’ll be useless to you. You need them alive, do you not?”

The shaman paused while securing her mask in place, head tilted in confusion. “Why would I need it alive?”

That gave me pause. “Because… you took her,” I stammered, mind racing.

I had presumed that whatever the ritual of consuming a dragon’s heart involved, it needed her to stay alive for now. But that didn’t make any sense, did it? When the orcs had attacked us before, they weren’t trying to capture Eishe; they were using lethal weapons. Lethal poison. The shaman herself had been just a heartbeat away from killing her when Halrathorm appeared. She never needed her alive. But if that was the case… then this was a trap.

“Halrathorm,” I breathed as my entire assessment of the situation reassembled. “This was never about her heart. You wanted his!”

My pulse quickened. Half a year ago, the great dragon had shattered an entire blockade the orcs had held over the Canal, the main passage for trade ships travelling from east to west or back again. A trade route the shaman would have known of. And he did it without suffering a single blow. I had assumed the attack on his lair was an act of vengeance. And perhaps it was. But the goal never was to kill him; it was to weaken him.

The reason the orcs had been hunting Eisherath all this time was because they knew her weakness: me. Because they knew she would never abandon me to die. And she still gave them a run for their money. Hunting a dragon like Halrathorm would have been suicide. Until.

Until he almost died trying to save her. And in doing so, he had revealed his weakness.

“You knew if you abducted his daughter he would come for her. You used Eishe to lure him, just as you used me to lure her!”

“And you ran straight for him,” the shaman taunted.

I could scarcely believe it. Even leaving me alive had been part of the plan. “Tell me, is this revenge?” I tried to keep her talking. “Or are you just that hungry for power?

“The dragon whose heart gave me this might was barely larger than your pet and it had made me these savages’ leader. That one’s will make me their God!” she boasted. “And then I will have the lesser one as dessert.”

I laughed, not letting my nerves show. “I bet you didn’t plan on having to fight him alone though. You had an entire army of archers waiting for him. It hadn’t gone that well for you the last time from what I recall!”

Anther slap wiped the smugness right off my face. I recoiled as the shaman knelt before me but she had reached into my bag which lay dumped beside me, rummaging within.

“How fortunate then that you had brought me the means.”

I craned my neck to see what she produced and my heart sank. She was holding the jar of Black Powder. She pulled the pistol out of my coat (looking like a toy in her massive hands) and I watched in horror as she expertly reloaded it: slotting the main charge and pellet into the barrel, then adding the priming charge and closing the frizzen.

I shouted a warning to Halrathorm but received a tap against my jaw with the butt of the pistol. The shaman pulled my scarf down from my head and over my mouth, tying it tight until I could but mumble uselessly. Then she carefully stashed the gun in the flaps of her attire, let the staff fly into her outstretched hand and strode out of the tent.

A roar of cheers erupted outside. I could easily picture in my mind’s eye the assembled throng welcoming their chief as she was, in their minds, about to fell a beast straight out of their nightmares. What a mockery this show was.

I struggled with my bindings, but they were firm and thorough. There was no chance I could undo them or tear them and I couldn’t pull my hand out even if I dislocated a thumb. I stood up on my bound feet and tried to shake the post loose instead but it wouldn’t budge. It was a thick stake of solid wood set deep in the ground.

Drums sounded from the outside. My mind quickly weighed all the possibilities but I was running out of options. I looked all around me, scanning for anything I could possibly use but the shaman wasn’t careless enough to leave anything sharp within the reach of my feet. Then I looked above and saw the tent itself wasn’t attached to the top of the post in any way, it simply rested on top of it. It could be solid ten feet high. But I had nothing else left to try.

I tried to shift my arms from a downward position into an upward one behind my back but it was impossible. That would make this all the harder. I leaned forward, hanging my bodyweight on the post by my wrists and, with my ankles bound, I pulled my legs up underneath me, standing horizontally on the post. I braced myself and jerked my arms higher on the post then pulled my legs up again, repeating the process.

Slowly, I climbed higher and higher, inches at a time. My wrists were burning, feeling like they’d get torn off; I couldn’t feel my hands as the bindings cut off my blood flow. But I pushed on. Within a minute I was halfway up the post and ascending.

Voices joined in as the drumming picked up its pace. The trial would start any second. I couldn’t afford to delay but I also couldn’t afford to fall now. Methodically, I climbed up bit by bit until I felt the leather of the tent against the back of my head. I braced myself and with one last jump I shifted my hands up the post and found it ended.

I tumbled forward, landing hard on my shoulder. My cry of pain was muffled by the scarf around my mouth, now soaked through with saliva and blood. With my limbs bound I couldn’t get up and had no time to rummage in my bag for a knife, so I slithered my way forward like a worm until I poked my head through the flap of the tent.

The combatants stood in the clearing, so far apart I was seeing each of them from a different side of the massive throne obscuring my view. The crowd was still present, but slightly thinned out. They had sent the children away, I realized. The drummers were stationed at three sides of the arena, their thumping coming to a crescendo. I dragged my face across the ground to free my mouth of the scarf as the chanting stopped and a speaker announced the beginning of the duel.

The shaman reached into her robes. Halrathorm lashed out with a blow I knew would be blocked by the shaman’s force fields. I cried out a warning which attracted the attention of nearby orcs, but he couldn’t hear me. The shaman pointed the gun at the dragon’s oncoming face. She pulled the trigger. The hammer struck the pan.

And misfired.

Her mask turned to the inert weapon in shock. She had just enough time to raise her force field up, stopping Halrathorm’s claw from taking her head off. Casting the gun aside, the shaman gripped her staff in both hands, swinging it like a club. Invisible force struck him at the chin, but it barely slowed him down.

I had never been so glad for my faulty alchemy. Chaos erupted in the ring as the shaman was forced to give ground. Halrathorm lashed out with his tail, the strike redirected by his opponent’s shield and struck the crowd, the onlookers dispersing like minnows as they jumped out of the way.

Pushed to the edge, the shaman yelled commands to the assembled guards, but they remained still. She grabbed one in annoyance and threw him in front of her, pointing to the dragon, but the warrior only looked to her in fearful confusion before being swept aside by Halrathorm’s claws, landing beside me in a wall of the shaman’s tent and collapsing in the debris.

Panic erupted. The crowd’s chants and cheers turned into screams as the orcs scampered out of the clearing. Only guards remained. Some helped the escaping civilians not get stampeded, ushering them to safety; a few gave in to the shaman’s demands and rushed into the fray. But most simply watched, bearing witness to the trial in silence even as their more yielding compatriots fell like flies to the frenzied dragon.

That only angered the shaman more. She barely held out against Halrathorm’s onslaught of attacks but eventually she realized his affliction. He was compensating for his bad sight by attacking in wide arcs, hoping he’d catch her in the blow, but it was leaving him open and she noticed. And quickly exploited it.

She timed her strikes to get in the opening, then drew back while he was stunned, never letting him catch up. She hadn’t done any serious damage so far but she was wearing him down. It was a battle of attrition. And any wounds Halrathorm had managed to inflict upon her had already healed.

Dragons healed remarkably fast, at least compared to humans. It was the result of all the magic coursing through their veins. But the shaman’s speed of recovery was downright unnatural. Her wounds closed within seconds. I couldn’t comprehend the power she had consumed; the power of a dragon compressed into a form it was never meant to fit, leaking out of every seam, forcing it to adapt and grow uncontrollably just to be contained.

I looked around the clearing for anything I could use – sharp rocks, sticks, weapons abandoned in the chaos – when my eyes landed on Eisherath. She was awake and alert, and looking right at me. She struggled against her bonds but it was futile: the ropes that held her were as thick as my forearm and affixed firmly to great wooden stakes hammered to the ground. Her limbs were bound in such a way that she couldn’t stand; even her muzzle was held shut.

I crawled over to her as fast as I could, the watching guards all ignoring me as they were absorbed in the unfolding fray. She nuzzled me as I made it to her. I was tempted to make it last but there was no time for pleasantries. I rolled over, bringing my bound wrists to hers, letting Eishe’s claws make a quick work of my bindings. I didn’t bother with my ankles, instead I knelt by her face and pulled on the loops of rope around her muzzle until they slid off.

The reunion was short lived however. While the shaman struggled against Halrathorm’s overwhelming power, she had a strategist’s mind and was making visible progress. And as she dodged one of his strikes again, she noticed me.

She jumped aside then extended her staff at me, the invisible force pulling me off the ground and hurtling through the air towards her. Her free forearm wound around my neck, clutching me like a shield against her body. Halrathorm wavered mid-attack. Even amidst battle, he noticed what she was doing.

“Clever little wretch you are!” she hissed in my ear. “But you cannot outsmart me. YOU! Do not move! Or I snap him in two!” she shouted, pointing her staff at Halrathorm.

I reached out with my hands and grabbed the occult branch, skewing it to the side. The shaman’s force field flickered on for a second then collapsed. The dragon watched her with palpable hate but didn’t move.

“Suddenly you grow a conscience?” I struggled as the orc’s arm compressed my windpipe. “Just kill her and get Eishe out of here!”

He didn’t. I could see he was tempted to strike but he stilled his hand. Halrathorm’s squinted eyes glanced behind us where Eishe was bound, then back to the orc. He was waiting. I smiled.

“Those are mooring ropes scavenged from the wrecks,” the shaman informed us, realizing where he was looking. “They cannot be torn, even by you creatures!”

There was commotion from behind. “Perhaps,” I said, not resisting the chance to gloat back. “But they do burn, you rotted hag!”

Before the shaman could so much as blink, Eisherath’s claws reached around – remains of ropes still smoldering around her wrists – and sunk into the arm holding me. Her jaws locked around the shaman’s face and I was dropped to the ground, hopping away as she thrashed the orc around like a rag. She shaman struggled, flailing her staff at Eishe. Energy boomed, the air warping around her until she freed herself, landing off in the distance.

The mask had stayed in Eishe’s mouth. She bit it in two, spitting out the fragments as the shaman rose back up; her face, mangled and bloodied, reshaping into a frenzied snarl. She was outnumbered now. And the assembled warriors did nothing to even the odds. By the shaman’s own doing, this had long since ceased to be an honor fight. They merely stood around the edges of the clearing, their only goal to ensure the fighting didn’t spread to the village.

“[The Heart-thief heals,]” Eishe growled, not letting her eyes off her. “[And denies fire.]”

She was right, of course. Even with the two of them, the orc’s regeneration would render all their efforts meaningless. There was a reason they used to burn her kind at the stakes. But so long as she could summon her force fields, fire would be futile. Unless they could kill her instantly we needed a new plan.

“[Wear her out,]” I shouted to her. She glanced at me in confusion. “[Her stick burns with every trick she uses. She cannot shield herself without it! You must destroy it!]”

Snarling, Eisherath nodded. The dragons circled the shaman as her head snapped from one to another. They stood in a triangle, not wanting to be in each other’s way. Dragons weren’t fire proof after all. And judging from the way Eishe avoided putting her weight on her right side, she had hurt herself attempting to burn the ropes off.

Two dragons against one orc sounded pretty optimistic. Two injured dragons against an undying orcish mage, not so much. I grimaced as the fighting broke out again. I couldn’t see who had made the first move but suddenly they were upon each other again, tails whipping, claws slashing, flashes of fire blazing from the fray.

I struggled to get as far away from the fight as possible. I would only be an obstacle for the dragons to avoid and I didn’t intend to offer the shaman another advantage again. With my legs bound, I shuffled to the edge of the clearing, passing the shaman’s pretentious throne and a body of an unfortunate warrior impaled on one of the tusks.

I was at the red tent, watching the unfolding fight from safety but it wasn’t going as well as I had hoped. The shaman was conscious of the dragons’ injuries and was pressing the advantage. She struck at Eishe’s wounded side, making her recoil and took a tail strike from Halrathorm that knocked her staff out of her hands, but she snapped her fingers and it flew back to her before it hit the ground. It was a tough progress.

Clouds had gathered. This had long since ceased to be a sunny day, the very sky plunging the clearing into a gloomy shadow. It mirrored my mood as I spectated the combat. Blows were being exchanged but somehow the shaman didn’t appear to get worn down at all. A few times, one of them made a grab at her staff but she wasn’t dull. She kept the thing close, always snatching it away and retaliating in turn. In the end, it was only her who came out on top.

Her adversaries noticed this as well. They needed to come up with something and they knew it. Exchanging shouts, the two of them positioned themselves and – while Halrathorm blocked the shaman’s path – Eishe released a focused stream of fire directly at the her. She raised her barrier up again but she kept it up, not relenting in her attack. And when inevitably the shaman tried to step out of the blaze, there stood Halrathorm, ushering her right back into harm’s way.

They kept pressuring, the father herding their quarry while the daughter took a breath. And the shaman began to waver. After a time, the invisible sphere keeping the flames at bay grew smaller, forcing her to try to retreat out of the flames. But there was nowhere to go. Eventually, the shaman came down onto one knee, her shield shrinking even further.

But then, as I began to grow hopeful, she gripped the staff with both hands and raised it up, mouth moving in an unheard invocation. Neither dragon could see this through the wall of fire, but I got a bad feeling. Then, she brought the staff down and vanished. The torrent of flames flooded the space where she had stood but I knew she wasn’t there anymore. I could see, just before the shield came down, the very air shift and warp around her as she disappeared into the background.

Then, at the same time, the air spat her out again right above Eishe. I cried out a warning, but not fast enough. In a split second, the orc fell upon her, the sharpened butt of her staff striking right between her wings. Eishe’s flame wavered and she fell to the ground, the shaman rolling off her limp body. I watched in horror as she attempted to rise and faltered. The orc didn’t pay the struggling dragon any further mind, instead refocused at her other opponent.

But what for me was dread, for Halrathorm was fury. Seeing his daughter’s collapsed form, the colossal dragon stood to his hindlegs, towering over the village, and roared. Tents flapped from the force of his lungs. Then, he threw himself at the shaman. Staff blackened from the force of the magic it had to channel, she responded in kind, unleashing all her rancor at her singular opponent.

I clawed my way back to the shaman’s tent, heading for my bag. When I managed to fish out a knife, I finally cut off the bindings around my ankles, grabbed a salve and a pack of bandages and ran back out and straight to Eishe. She was weak but alive. I inspected the wound on her back but it didn’t look deep enough to be lethal, only very painful. I applied the salve for the pain and pressed the bundle of bandages onto the wound, attempting to staunch the bleeding.

I held it there until the salve dried a little and the cloth stuck to it. Eishe stirred, her eyes wandering towards me. Consciousness was a good sign but movement would not be well for her right now. I put a hand on her cheek, urging her to stay calm. “[Halrathorm’s got this,]” I said to her. But upon turning to look, I realized I might have lied.

For all his wrath, the great dragon was half-blind and fireless and unlike the shaman, with each strike he suffered he kept getting worse. This fight was steadily headed in a clear direction. And I didn’t like the end destination. Now that she didn’t have to worry about watching her back, the shaman had her victory at hand.

Not worrying about watching her back.

I considered this with a sharp mind, a purpose creeping into my head like a cold edge. Maybe I could do something. Make a difference. If I didn’t… I’d rather not think about that.

Rising from Eishe’s recuperating form, I turned around, scanning the area of the clearing where the shaman had discarded the pistol. I had found it eventually, catching the glint of the steel barrel upon the red soil. The fighting was happening a good distance off but a stray spell or a strike of a tail could always fly my way. I ran across to it, picking up the troublesome thing and rushing back to the tent.

I reached into the bag, looking for the pouch of remaining pellets and the jar of black powder hoping the shaman hadn’t kept them with her. I fished them out eventually, letting out a deep breath, and moved to reload it. And only then did I notice the barrel was bent out of shape.

“No,” I mumbled weakly as I inspected the damage. The gun must have been stomped on during the fight, either by the shaman or one of the dragons. The barrel was compressed and flattened in the middle, its end sticking out askew, the wooden handle cracked along its length.

“NononononofuckfuckfuckshitFUCK!” I cursed under my breath but it was expectedly of no use. As would be the gun. I dejectedly threw the weapon and charge back into the bag where it clinked among the tools, my books and the myriad jars of medicinal concoctions.

And something else.

The fight had devolved further in the meantime. The shaman had the clear upper hand, pushing Halrathorm back as she herself advanced, dodging all his strikes and retaliating with her own. He was growing increasingly more predictable as he suffered blow after blow. Eventually even the greatest boulder was worn down by the waves.

I steeled myself, creeping in behind the shaman while she was absorbed in the fight, not letting her eyes of her opponent. My vision was a tunnel, my intent steel. But the shaman was like a whirlwind, her staff swinging and air cracking all around. Perhaps noticing what I was doing, Halrathorm made another grab for the shaman’s staff, forcing her to cease attacking as she pulled it out of the way and jumped back out of his reach.

This was my chance. Before she rushed in again, I ran up behind the shaman and thrust my knife overhead into her exposed neck. It felt like stabbing a brick wall, my hand slipping on the handle with the force of the impact. But the steel sunk in.

A spray of blood erupted from the wound, but lasted all of half a second before it began healing again. The shaman turned, snarling when she noticed me. She flicked her staff at me nonchalantly and though I dodged out of the way a force like a boulder rammed into me regardless, sending me flying back across the field. I fell in a roll and came to a stop when landed squarely on one of the tusks of the shaman’s throne.

Pain erupted in my ribs. For a second, I thought I was dead. Then I fell back and saw that my scale-coat had stopped the pointy tusk from piercing me. I breathed out a sigh of relief, bruised ribs hurting. I laid supine on the ground and groaned as I tried to rise, my back and shoulder mangled and aching.

But the distraction was enough to give Halrathorm an opening. Before the shaman turned back to face him, his massive hand fell onto her, smashing her to the ground. Still, she didn’t let go of her staff, even as her bones broke and reformed. Then Halrathrom’s jaws closed around her, only her shield bubble preventing him from grounding her to paste. He thrashed and clenched his jaws, trying to break her hold on her magic but the shaman persisted, not relenting even under the weight of such onslaught. Then he stood on his hindlegs, trying to unleash a stream of fire at her, but only a cone of noxious smoke rose up into the sky. Still his hold on her remained, slowly crushing his prey. But not even that had been enough to break her. Not outright.

Thunder rumbled overhead. Knowing her shield would wane, the shaman tried one last desperate maneuver. When Halrathorm stopped to inhale she released her force field, letting his jaws clamp around her lower body and extended her staff skyward. As her incantation took hold, a bolt of lightning struck the top of her staff. For one suspenseful moment, the wooden branch glowed white with the immense energy it held, then the shaman gripped it with both hands and brought it down onto Halrathorm’s face.

The ground shook as the lightning passed through his body and into the earth. The deafening thunderclap made even the watching warriors drop their weapons and clasp their ears. Then, to my utter despair, the dragon’s limp body fell slowly to the ground.

The shaman rolled out of his jaws bloodied but alive. Smoke rose from her fur coat, her staff, entirely blackened now, was more char than wood. She braced herself against it as she slowly stood on her already healed feet. Straightening, she walked over to the collapsed dragon, step after trembling step. A few times she almost fell, but by the time she reached him no wounds remained on her body.

She approached his massive head, stopping before Halrathorm’s neck. He hardly had the presence to react when she braced her hand against his throat, his jaw moving, fingers twitching ineptly. Unresisted, the orc gripped her staff in both hands and raised it high. Its sharpened butt quivered above the dragon’s neck. Then, without ceremony, the shaman brough the staff down.

And barely had the strength to scrape his scales.

My head fell back as I laughed. At first weakly, then my voice devolved into a maniacal cackle. The shaman turned to me as I tried to rise from the ground, wheels spinning behind her teary eyes. Only now did she reach for the knife in her neck, staring at the bloodied blade in slow realization. Her widened pupils wandered over to me then to my bag dumped on the ground.

And to the jar of Raven’s eyes laying opened beside it.

“You—” the shaman snarled as she shambled slowly towards me, “—would use these savages’ tricks… against me?”

“I wondered,” I said rising to my feet, “if that stuff can kill a dragon, what would it do to you?”

“You fool. No poison… can kill me,” she boasted even as her legs threatened to give out. She tried to raise her staff at me but almost fell, holding onto it for support with both hands. “Once it clears from my blood… my body will… repair!”

I walked forth meeting the shaman halfway. I gripped her staff, hot like embers, and stared into her hateful eyes as she stood hunched down to my level. Then, without resistance, I pried the staff out of her hands. She tumbled to the ground, body giving out, and watched as I raised the staff high and broke it in two over my knee. Smoke rose from the glowing core of the branch still when I threw the halves onto the dirt.

“Wretch!” the shaman gurgled. “You will pay… for this. I will heal. I always… do!”

“Not from this,” I said, backing away from her.

She turned around tracing my line of sight and paled. Limping and bloodied, Eisherath stood behind her, battered but unbeaten. With palpable malice, she reared back and inhaled. Resigned to her fate, the shaman could do naught but stare dejectedly as the flames engulfed her.

And once the fire cleared, only ashes remained.

Tension dissipated from my shoulders. My mask of smug confidence fell and an expression of worried relief took its place as I rushed over to Eisherath. She immediately hugged her neck around me, pulling me to her chest with one arm. She was beaten good. Her scales, usually so pristine and cared for, were scraped and bruised, a film of grime and soot covering her body. I saw swelling or burns in a few places and she still favored her left side, but besides the puncture in her back I found no serious injuries.

But we didn’t have time for lengthy reunions. As soon as we confirmed our wellbeing she rushed over to Halrathrom, even limping still much faster than me. He still laid where he fell but his chest was moving. That was a good sign.

Eishe’s attempts to rouse him were being cut short though. Now that the fight was decided – ending in a loss with dishonor for the shaman – the warriors were mustering up around the clearing again, weapons pointed in our direction. Some were on guard, others appeared wary. Still, some looked to us in almost reverent astonishment.

A schism spread among their ranks. Despite protests from some less suicidal and other more tradition abiding guards, it looked for a few moments like they were going to attack us while we were down, an array of arrows already pointed our way, bows not yet drawn. But then Halrathorm stirred.

The shrinking circle around us enlarged as the orcs jumped back in unison when the great dragon opened his eyes. Slowly rising to his unsteady legs, he recuperated, enduring nuzzles and support from Eishe. New thoughts were being shared in the back.

I had the presence of mind to grab my bag while I had the chance. Eventually someone who appeared to be the chosen emissary stepped out of the ranks and spoke. He thumped his spear against the ground and gave a slight bow of the head. But he made it clear he wasn’t speaking to us in surrender. I understood the message even despite my limited grasp on their tongue: ‘You have what you came for. Now go!’

“[We should leave,]” I said to the reunited dragons. I shot a questioning look at Halrathorm, but he stared me down even before I could say anything. Straightening, he again grabbed me in his hand without consulting me, then rose to his hindlegs and shot up into the sky.

***

After what seemed to me as an entirely too long a flight, Halrathorm touched down onto the foothills of our mountains, followed closely by Eisherath. He seemed more beaten than he let on but refused to show weakness, whether before me or Eishe. As soon as she landed, I ran over to her, embracing each other again.

“[You are alright?]” I inquired before resorting to Common for lack of vocabulary. “I’m sorry Eishe! I shouldn’t have ran. Shouldn’t have said what I—” but I couldn’t finish the thought. She interrupted me with lick across my face, almost pushing me to the ground.

“[Shouldn’t what? What have you done?]” Halrathrom demanded.

“[The fault is mine,]” Eishe stepped in. “[I started it. I was selfish. I demanded without care. I accused when I should have listened and was doubtful when I should have been brave. I chose a coward’s way.]”

It was my turn to silence her. I put a finger (or rather a hand) on her muzzle, then leaned in and kissed her. She accepted my message with grace and gratitude.

When we refused to separate again for too long, a rustling behind me informed me that Halrathrom was turning to leave. Eishe let go of me momentarily and rushed over to his side. She hadn’t been aware of his affliction either. She attempted to console him and offered her help but he shot her down. He still wore a pained expression on him. And it wasn’t because of his wounds.

When, after some much needed catching up, he finally freed himself of Eisherath’s worried clutches and readied for takeoff, I called out to him: “Halrathorm?”

He turned in my general direction looking as displeased as always. “Speak.”

“Thank you,” I said. “For everything.”

“I didn’t do it for you,” he grumbled annoyedly.

“Maybe,” I stopped him. “But you could have ended it. Back when the Adrak’hasz had me. And you didn’t. So, thank you.”

He was silent for a while and if I didn’t know better I would have though his expression softened a little. He nodded almost imperceptibly. Then, once more and finally, he turned and took to the skies again, flying low over the hilltops towards home.

It was getting dark and we were still a considerable distance from the nest. I stayed and waited at my drop-off zone while Eishe made the short flight back home and returned with the sling harness. After the torment that was flying in Halrathorm’s clutches, the thing seemed as welcoming as a pillowed bed.

The first order of business once we both made it home was a dip in the pool. We got the grime off ourselves – me helping scrub off the entirety of Eishe’s body – then I tended to her wounds, applying salves where I could and vainly instructed her as to which parts of herself not to strain too much. She seemed to enjoy my attention, even if she was going to ignore all my advice regardless, just because she knew that I cared. For her part, she made sure to use her somewhat less effective if more pleasurable method of licking the hurt better in turn.

My entire face was swollen and bleeding. Both from the cuts and the beating I had endured while imprisoned. One look at my reflection in the pool told me there was a good chance I would end up scarred forever. Face disfigured, not entirely unlike the shaman.

A part of me understood now why she was so insistent on wearing that mask. Perhaps she wasn’t as comfortable with her twisted form as she let on. She sought power and wasn’t prepared for the consequences it entailed.

But the first thing Eishe said when I told her was: “[Warriors bare scars. It is not a sign of weakness but of strength. You survived and fought on.]” She leaned in close and gave me a careful lick on my swollen cheek. “[Be proud of that.]”

I looked at my reflection again and though my image remained the same, I saw something else this time. Perhaps if the shaman had had someone tell her this, she too wouldn’t have hidden behind pomp and masquerade. I turned back to Eisherath and returned a kiss on her scaled face.

Later, I stood at the entrance of the cave, contemplating the broken pistol: the twisted barrel, the bent hammer, the lateral crack in the wooden grip and the loosened oval plate bearing the craftsman’s mark with an embossed logo of a fish and the text: ‘Red & Herring’. Had this been a northern tale I would have done something symbolic and thoughtless like throwing the weapon over the edge. It was beyond repair and the thing had almost done more harm than good in any case. But it had been Eishe’s find and she had never valued things based on their usefulness.

Walking back inside, I sought out the spot she had picked out for the thing and placed it back. What an irony it was that such an intricate tool of destruction turned out so completely inconsequential. Both me and the shaman had sought it as the path to our victory. She had even been afraid of the thing when she first glimpsed it. To be brough down by something so primitive and innocuous as the poison, the same her troops had been using for ages before she came into the picture, was a wonderful turn of fate. It suited her nicely, I thought. Just another nameless villain who died in obscurity.

Arriving at the fur pelt, I laid down against Eishe’s awaiting form. We hardly let go of each other until the stars rose and we settled in for sleep. The feeling of being encircled by her like a living shelter almost made me forget all about the last months.

“Aigh lohve you, Edhmund,” she whispered, eyes closed.

“I love you too,” I answered.

I gave her one more kiss on her scaly cheek, relishing in her voiceless response. We had endured the worst so far. And I made a promise to myself never to let trivialities get the better of us again.

The next day we slept well until noon. Our immediate pains were mitigated but the overall strain on both of us had only had the time to fully crystalize. Regardless, life went on. And so did chores.

I went down to the garden to try to undo the two days of neglect and stopped when I heard squealing off to the side. In one of the noose traps, there was a distressed ground hog thrashing about.

“Huh,” I stopped and said to myself. Who knew. Perhaps now things would finally start going our way.

End