Previous Chapter

Adalai flopped down next to a steam vent, enjoying the feeling of warmth for the first time in a day or so. “They really have thought of everything here.”

“You seem pretty relaxed given where we are,” Verina said, making herself comfortable next to him.

“The mines were worse. All that dark, not able to talk for hours? I’ll take this over that any time.” Adalai studied their leader, who was pacing back and forth and glaring at Marta and her Baron. “Sit down, Cassian. You’re tired and walking around isn’t a good way to warm up anyway. Not when we have our very own slice of volcanic activity.”

Cassian turned his ugly stare towards them but Adalai refused to acknowledge it. Finally his shoulders slumped and he walked over to the vent. As he took his seat there grumbled, “We’re wasting time.”

“Let her have her moment,” Adalai said. “We have to wait anyway.”

“Waiting won’t help us,” Cassian hissed. “There isn’t going to be any emissary from the Court in Torrence, they’re currently in the middle of a succession crisis. Fionni and a handful of the other major cities aren’t recognizing the new Prince. It could take months to a year to sort out. I don’t think the Court will have the time for us while a third of his subjects are in revolt.”

“We’re not waiting on the Court, we’re waiting on the Captain.” Adalai gestured towards the opening they’d entered through. “Remember what that patrol leader said? One of the Benthic captains is going to ask us about the sea dragon.”

“I… don’t see how that helps us.”

“Depends on how things shake out,” Adalai said. “But if all else fails we can just tell them we ate the sea dragon. You said yourself that paints a target on people’s backs and towns that don’t want a dragon attacking on a regular basis throw people like us out. I doubt the Benthic will be any different.”

Cassian’s eyebrows shot up and he nodded approvingly. “Not bad, not bad. You could have mentioned this before we get stuck waiting here but it’s a clever idea.”

“We were underwater at the time so I couldn’t bring it up. Either way it was worth coming here. Marta found her Baron. We needed to be sure your brother wasn’t here and this was the easiest way to be sure.” Adalai glanced at Marta. “What do you think of that ?”

“I’m kind of surprised she actually knew the Baron,” Cassian admitted. “I was expecting him to be her liege but not a personal acquaintance. But there they are, thick as thieves.”

“Think the Towers clan might be more important than she was letting on?” Verina asked.

“No idea,” Cassian said. “Hessex isn’t a place that concerns smiths or bravos in Fionni very often.”

“I’ve met the Heracleans, they’re Hexton mercenaries,” Adalai said. “Very down to earth people. I liked them a great deal and Marta’s not that different from them in dress or speech. They weren’t nobles by any stretch of the imagination. So if you’re thinking she might be a Baroness herself… I disagree.”

“So how does she know Baron Braxton Green?” Cassian mused.

“That you’d have to ask them,” Adalai said.

“Is this important?” Venina asked. “There has to be something more important that we should be focusing on right now.”

“According to Signore Carpathea waiting for the Benthic captain to show up and ask us about the dragon is the best thing we can do right now,” Cassian said. He laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back to look at the ceiling. “Do either of you see that?”

Adalai looked up at the ceiling but it just looked like plain reddish brown stone. “What?”

“If you don’t see anything I wouldn’t worry about it.” Adalai and Verina shared an annoyed look over top of his head. “If I were you two I’d try to figure out what ways I’ve changed since that thing with the dragon. Something tells me it’s more than what we’ve seen so far.”

“I would keep taking stock of it, too,” Adalai added. “It may take time for new abilities to settle and show themselves.”

“What makes you think that?” Verina asked.

He considered explaining that it took nearly four months for him to successfully use his Arminger’s Gift after the King of Dreams gave it to him. He hadn’t ever told that story to anyone. “I’m just saying that I haven’t noticed anything new except for the water breathing.” Adalai pointed towards the ceiling. “You think your seeing things might be one of your changes?”

“Possibly. I’ll need to find a chance to experiment but I think my Gift changed in some way as well as my lungs and eyes. Something for the two of you to think about.”

Adalai mulled that over. Armingers were a weird mix of abilities. They could glean information from objects, which was his specialty, and they could animate those objects to fulfill their purposes on their own. He had never been any good at that second one.

For six months after his arrival in Fionni Adalai lived with a mentor who had helped him understand the Arminger’s Gift. While Maestro Giorno wasn’t an Arminger himself his Symposium hosted a few of them from time to time. Adalai always envied the one who could make a broom sweep the floor on its own. It seemed like such a useful trick.

Unfortunately the animation of objects was never something he’d figured out. Sometimes he could tell what a man had eaten before throwing on the clothes he died in. Once he realized a waitress loved the drunkard in her tavern by picking up her serving tray. But animating that tray to serve drinks on it’s own? Impossible.

Perhaps that had changed now. He’d been told one of the simplest animation tricks an Arminger could do was making a pair of boots march on their own. However after an hour of tinkering with his own footwear he was nowhere closer to doing that than he was when he received the Gift. He was just starting to think about trying something different when Marta interrupted him.

She was alone when she rejoined their little group. Cassian immediately stopped tinkering with his armor and asked her, “What happened to your Baron?”

“He has some kind of direct line to the Benthic Captain.” Marta sat down next to Verina. “It seems he’s been acting as the lead prisoner for the last few months, serving as the warden and chief barrister all in one. Most people here don’t want to spend any more time in Benthic waters then we do and they’ll be happy if they can just get back to dry land safely. So Braxton has done his best to keep the peace. He didn’t know about the war brewing in Torrence so he initially thought most of the prisoners would be able to leave in a few weeks. If he’d known it would take so long he might have done otherwise.”

“Why doesn’t he try to escape now that he knows?” Adalai asked.

“He’s given his parole to the Benthic ,” Marta said. “To break it would tarnish his good name.”

“Reasonable,” Cassian said, much to Adalai’s surprise. “Did he say what brought him out here in the first place?”

“He said he was going to Renicie to deal with a pigheaded merchant.” Marta shrugged. “I hope that’s a saying that means something beyond the obvious in Nerona. Otherwise I’d have to say Braxton has become much more reckless than he was in the past.”

“How so?” Verina asked.

“Taking the Drownway just to speak to a merchant is wildly irresponsible based on what I’ve seen. Even ignoring all this,” Marta waved at the underwater fortress surrounding them, “the other hazards I’ve seen so far are nothing trifling. It’s not the kind of risk he’s fond of. He ran off to talk to the guard captain before I could ask him why he took it.”

“Because there’s only one pigheaded merchant in Nerona,” Adalai said. “Grigori Borgia, the head of House Borgia and one of the most powerful and least trustworthy men in Renicie.”

“Surely there’s more than one pigheaded merchant in all of Nerona,” Marta said.

“Only one who’s House uses a boar’s head on its coat of arms.” Adalai shot a glance over at the only native in the group. “You’re the resident expert here, Cassian, surely you’ve heard him called that before?”

“I never expected to spend much time outside Fionni,” he said. “Much less go all the way to Renicie. At least, not until a couple of weeks ago. I’m afraid the pet names of the wealthy and powerful in that city aren’t something I had time to learn.”

“No, of course not,” Verina said. “The Slavs aren’t natives to any place in particular anymore but I lived in Torrence’s territory most of my life and I’d never heard of him either.”

Adalai frowned, various small details swirling through his mind. Cassian clicked his tongue. “Well, Adalai, what is it? When you make that face it means you’ve some idea trying to work its way out.”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “If I’m remotely close with this idea it’s not important to what we’re trying to do.”

“Maybe you could let us in on the secret so we could decide for ourselves,” Marta said.

“I would have to get some answers from Baron Braxton before I’d be ready to share my thoughts with someone else.”

“I’d be happy to answer what I can.” Adalai swung his head around a hundred and eighty degrees so he could see the man in question, who stood near the middle of the cavern, holding a cluster of lumpy objects in one hand. “Before I can do that I’m afraid I have to ask you to come with me. Captain Trill wants to meet you.”

“This is the Benthic commander I’ve heard so much about?” Cassian asked.

“The same,” Baron Braxton said. He held out a handful of pale blue pearls. “I know one of you can speak underwater but the rest of you will need one of these.”

Cassian got up and took one, eyeing it with obvious suspicion. “We don’t have to put these in our foreheads, do we?”

“Just holding it in your hand is usually enough,” Braxton said with a hint of bemusement.

Marta and Adalai each took one as well. Adalai felt a cool sensation wash over his neck and the base of his skull. “Do I sound any different?”

Verina shook her head. “Just as raspy as always.”

“Wonderful.” Adalai tried to read some impressions off of the pearl, on the off chance it was human made. To his surprise he got the sensation of distant music. “These are Artifacts.”

“They are,” Braxton said, surprised. “As I understand it they were created somewhere in Torrence and both sides keep some on hand for these kinds of situations. How could you tell?”

“It’s what I do.”

As it turned out there was a back door to the cavern. Or perhaps it was the front door. Either way, it led up into Ursus Nest, into flooded parts of the mountain containing more and more Benthic. Along the way Braxton tried to give them an idea what to expect.

“Captain Trill deals with humans on a daily basis. Has for years. She’s not exactly good at reading our tone of voice or expressions but she can do it. Try not to give the wrong impression.”

“Any advice for how we’d best handle them?” Cassian asked.

“I don’t see them every day and I haven’t been here for years,” Braxton said. “But there is one thing – there are many more female Benthic than male. I don’t know why. But it results in some strange customs. Trill is female but she’s not a Lady, if that makes any sense. There’s a lot of Benthic females like that, it seems.”

“So what?” Adalai asked, struggling to keep his balance and match Braxton’s pace in the boyant water. “Are you just telling us to be polite?”

“I think that would offend her most,” Braxton said. “Best you just talk to her like she was a man.”

“Lovely, ” Cassian said. Whatever function of the pearls transmitted the sound through water so they could be understood apparently didn’t regulate volume. His voice had the tone of someone speaking under his breath but it came out in a normal speaking volume. Several pairs of curious eyes turned to stare at him for a moment.

The Benthic’s stares didn’t seem to bother Cassian but they gave Adalai an uncomfortable feeling. Maybe it was the blank eyes. Maybe it was the sheer number of them. Adalai guessed there were at least a hundred armed Benthic moving around the main chamber they passed through. None seemed surprised at the sight of five humans passing through. He still felt very out of place.

Most of the caves and chambers they’d seen so far were made of very natural looking stone. The captain’s chamber, located at the back of the main cavern, was the first one they’d seen that looked man made. Or Benthic made as the case may be.

All six sides of the room were flat and smooth except for a stone protrusion serving as a table and a sconce on each wall holding a glowing anemone. There were four Benthic in the room. Adalai guessed the captain was the one wearing bright green armor with a sash that looked like it was made of some kind of plant.

Sure enough, that was the one Braxton addressed. “Captain Trill, these are the four I told you about.”

Adalai didn’t know enough about Benthic to tell them apart. This could be the guard who found them at the mine exit for all he knew. But when she looked hard at him he felt something strange wash over him, different from the attention of other Benthic.

“How strange,” Trill said, her voice higher pitched than Adalai expected. “They are breathing the sea. Very different than you, Braxton. How is it you four can breathe the ocean?”

They all looked at Cassian, who took a deep breath of seawater and said, “That is because we killed and ate the sea dragon.”

Previous Chapter

After spending the better part of a day in total darkness Adalai was overjoyed to find himself in natural light once more, no matter how distant the source. The arrival at half a dozen armed Benthic did little to dampen his mood. The natural difficulty of moving through water did make drawing his weapons harder than normal and he omitted his usual flourish as he leveled their points at the undersea denizens but for a brief moment he was optimistic about their ability to deal with the creatures, out numbered or not.

Then the Benthic came to a stop floating ten feet overhead and Adalai realized the obvious. If it was just a question of martial skill they might have had a chance. However the Benthic were built for the water and in it they had the luxury of fighting in all three dimensions. Land bound bravos didn’t stand a chance.

One of the Benthic lifted up its spear and a voice echoed over them. “Dry born souls,” the creature said in rich, feminine tones. “The Gulf of Lum is closed to you. Is there not a treaty between our people and yours, signed by Lum the First and Porphyrio del Torrence? The arid land is pledged to the sons of men and the sinking land to the Benthic Stellaris. You have no place here.”

Adalai let his weapons drift down until the points were towards the sea floor. He’d never heard of a treaty with the Benthic. He did know that the City of Torrence was ruled by a family that shared its name. The Torrence family also had a claim to the throne in Lome, so perhaps one of them had come to an agreement with the Benthic at some point and signed it on behalf of all Nerona.

Unfortunately he was not in a position to explain that.

As soon as he realized that Adalai found himself staring impatiently at Verina, waiting for her to say something. While Cassian had already reached that epiphany and Marta didn’t lag too far behind the two of them, the Benthic themselves apparently weren’t waiting on an answer. “You will be held prisoner until such a time as the descendants of Torrence shall answer our summons and explain this injustice.”

“Wait!” Verina called finally realizing she was the only one who could communicate with the creature. “How long has there been any treaty between Nerona and the Benthic?”

The spokesperson for the guards drifted down until Cassian’s head was roughly equal with its waist. For the first time Adalai had the opportunity to take a good, hard look at a Benthic. To his surprise they did not look a much like the creatures they had seen the day before.

Their tails were long and thick but the edges were lined with delicate, almost frond like fins. Their upper bodies were more humanoid than Adalai had presumed. They had two arms in much the shape and place you might expect and their fingers, while decidedly webbed, were otherwise quite human.

The biggest difference was in their faces and heads. They had no hair, just more of the delicate fronds, on top of their heads and the eyes in front were small, beady and solid black with no visible pupils. The overall shape of the skull was more tear dropped than egg like. They had no discernible nose. And, of course all their exposed skin was covered in light blue-green scales.

The leader wasn’t showing much skin, though. She was covered, from neck to what Adalai thought were her hips, in what looked like the shell of a crab. It was presumably a form of armor. He wasn’t sure how effective it would be against steel weapons, though here under the ocean he suspected facing steel wasn’t something the Benthic did on a regular basis. She wore a helmet of the same material that covered the top and sides of her head but left most of her face visible.

Even without the helmet Adalai wasn’t sure how to read her expression. Like a fish, most of the Benthic’s skull bones were very close to the skin, leaving little flexibility in her face. The creature did have clear eyelids that flicked and fluttered and the fronds on her head twitched in ways that seemed to have nothing to do with the currents in the water. As she spoke to Verina the gills on her neck fluttered. Adalai wondered if that was how she spoke or if their speech was some kind of magic innate to the Benthic.

“How is it you speak on the waves, dry born?” The Benthic asked. “Even among the dry born those who can survive in the bosom of the ocean cannot speak without air.”

“I’m not sure,” Verina replied. “We fled into the tunnels behind us to escape a dragon that emerged from the ocean. Until we did that I had never put my whole self below water. I was as surprised to discover I could speak here as you were.”

At the mention of the sea dragon the Benthic leader motioned with her spear. Two of her underlings slipped past the human quartet into the tunnels with great speed. “You are fortunate to survive,” she said. “That creature has enslaved many of the Benthic Tidallais and bent them to its dark works. Does it still pursue you still?”

“No. When I last saw it the tunnels proved too narrow for it to proceed.”
For once Adalai was glad he couldn’t speak under water, it made clamping down on his laugh fairly simple. The Benthic leader just nodded. “It has always come over the arid walls in the past so I am not surprised.”

“You’re familiar with the dragon?”

“It has been a plague the Stellaris as well as the Tidallis for some eight cycles of the evening light.”

Verina perked up a bit. “Perhaps we could offer you some help with the dragon to compensate for our trespass in your territory? We came here because we were in great danger. Furthermore I have never heard of a treaty between you and the Prince of Torrence.”

“Yet it exists.” The two Benthic that had left earlier now returned. Adalai didn’t hear them say anything but from the way they stared at their leader while gesturing he got the feeling they were communicating somehow. After a few seconds of that the leader gestured down at the anemones. The other Benthic quickly began moving the glowing things out of the way. The lead Benthic motioned them out of the ring. “You will come with us.”

Verina gave a resigned nod. “If we must. Where are we going?”

The Benthic leader bobbed along beside them at head height but with her body trailing behind her, parallel to the sea floor. “You will be taken to the Nest of the Ursus. The dry born can be held there until the Court of Torrence takes custody of you.”

Cassian grabbed Verina’s arm and gestured to her. The Slavic woman gave him a blank look. “What?”

Cassian tried a number of things, like counting on his fingers, pointing upwards and finally clapping his hands in rhythmic fashion. Verina did her best. “Numbers? The sea? Applause? Clapping? Counting claps…” The idea visibly clicked into place. “Counting time. How long will it take for someone from Torrence to answer you?”

“It depends. In the time I have served the Descendants of Lum it has taken between eight and twenty days. However no one has come to us from the Court in the last four cycles. You may have to wait at Ursus Nest quite some time.”

Cassian immediately got upset, trying to tell Verina something with an increasingly frantic set of gestures. She ignored him, instead staring off into space for a long moment. “Tell me, do you know how many dry born have been found in this area in the last month? Or the last cycle.”

The Benthic leader gave her a sharp look. “I haven’t found any but there are many who patrol these waters just as there are many who guard the arid wall, as we do. Are you seeking someone who was lost?”

“Yes, some of us are.”

“Then you will be given the chance to look for them at the Nest. I can tell you no more.”

Cassian calmed down some after he heard that but he still didn’t look very happy about it. Although he lacked the other man’s personal stakes in the matter Adalai was sympathetic. Hopefully they’d reach the Nest quickly. He also wanted out of the water as fast as possible. It was cold, dark and the boyancy made every movement three times more difficult than it needed to be. Frankly, he didn’t know why anyone deliberately trespassed on Benthic territory.

The walk from the exit of the mines to the Ursus Nest was hard to judge, what with the lack of sun from above and the lack of watches in Nerona but Adalai guessed it took them almost two hours. By the end of it even the Benthic were visibly frustrated with their pace. It had to be nice having the option to swim freely over any obstacle in their way. Adalai was tempted to try it himself once but as he started testing how much upward motion he could create using his arms the guard leader said, “Stay on the sea floor. The currents here are strong. Few humans have the strength to swim against them. Even if you were one of them you’d do better to conserve your strength for the journey.”

So they walked. The sea floor proved very beautiful. There were plenty of anemones littering the sea floor, most casting a dim light like those they’d seen by the mine. The mix of pale blue, green and yellow light gave the ocean an unearthly appearance. The leafy and frondy sea plants that sprouted among them cast odd and haunting shadows. The silhouette of fish darted among them but didn’t approach. They seemed as wary of Benthic as rabbits were of humans.

Ursus Nest itself was a sight as well. Adalai had been expecting coral, as it was something sturdy and relatively easy to shape underwater. If you had the time to direct its growth, at least. However Ursus Nest proved to be an enormous cave complex that looked like it had been carved out of a spur of rock. It towered almost forty feet off the sea bed. It was a halfmoon shape with the bottom pointed towards them. The sides tapered slightly towards the top and were riddled with openings. A constant stream of Benthic were coming in and out of it.

Their escorts brought them in through a lower entrance. Instead of going up into the main spur of rock the entrance sloped down into a large cavern. They stopped at the entrance, which had an odd distortion across it. “You will stay here,” the Benthic lender announced. “The captain may wish to question you about the dragon but that may not happen some time. You will be fed meals that have proven compatible with humans.”

Verina nodded and said, “Of course. Are all the humans the Benthic capture held here?”

“Only those captured by the Stellaris. Enter now.”

There wasn’t much to do but cross the distortion. It proved to be little more them a sideways surface to the ocean. On the other side was breathable air, dim lighting provided by anemones is shallow pools scattered about and maybe a dozen people scattered about a cavern some fifty or sixty feet in diameter. The air was damp and fishy but very breathable. Adalai indulged in a few deep breaths before he took stock of the rest of the situation.

Naturally, Cassian was already marching through the cavern looking people over. “Is there a Cazador Clayheart here? Or anyone who traveled here with him?”

“Sorry, friend,” said a big man with particularly long hair and beard growth. “The name isn’t familar.”

“Is there any other place the Barthic keep prisoners?”

“If you try to escape they put you somewhere else,” the bearded man replied. “If he got here before me he could have wound up there before I saw him. But I’ve been here a good six mouths, maybe more. It’s hard to keep track down here.”

Marta paused in the middle of wringing out her kerchief. “No. It’s been longer than that. Braxton, is that you?”

The bearded man straightened up in surprise. “Marta Towers?”

Previous Chapter

It turned out they could all breathe water, presumably just one of the side effects of eating the sea dragon. That had its uses, the most obvious being salvation from sufication. It also made it possible for them to explore the flooded shaft for as long as it took to get back to the surface.

Marta was skeptical about abandoning their digging efforts but the air in the tunnel was already growing poor. The roof hadn’t caved in again but it was looking more and more unstable by the minute. Ultimately, Cassian made the decision to abandon the attempt to dig out and chose to swim, both because of the risk of a cave-in and because of the air situation.

Convincing the others to go along with this idea wasn’t easy. Even after they’d all climbed down the rope and stuck their heads under the water to confirm they could all breathe water as easily as air there was still resistance to the idea. Adalai wondered if the abilities they’d gained would wear off, leaving them with no way to breathe underwater. In many cases Cassian would have considered that a fine thing to worry about. However any Neronan familiar with dragon stories knew that it wasn’t possible to undo the changes brought about by eating a dragon so easily.

So they went down the mineshaft with Cassian in the lead. Along the way they discovered a number of new things about their condition. While they could all breathe the water the only one of them that could speak to the others while submerged was Verina which made keeping eveyone together difficult. Doubly so as Cassian was the only one that could actually see.

Clearly they had all had a different reaction to eating the dragon’s corpse. Doubtless Marta’s scales reflected some kind of change in her but whatever it was it wasn’t constant. In the time it took them to climb down into the water the scales on her skin had entirely disappeared. Adalai showed no obvious changes, which didn’t mean much given the circumstances.

Since he was the one who could see Cassian navigated with Adalai and Verina holding onto his shoulders. Marta took the rear, holding Verina’s free hand. That way Verina could tell Cassian if Marta got seperated from her and the extra weight of Cassian and Marta’s metal armor was distributed equally and would hopefully keep them from being swept away by a sudden current.

For the most part it worked. The group kept together and they managed to reach the first horizontal shaft without incident. However once they were there Cassian kept getting distracted by odd glimmers on the wall. He tried to point them out to Verina but he couldn’t explain them to her and she apparently couldn’t see them. That suggested there was more to his own changes than just seeing in the dark. He’d have to look into it more once they were on dry ground again.

In spite of their ability to breathe not everything about travelling under the water was easy. The shafts and tunnels had surprising currents and eddies in them. They were frequently forced to crawl on hands and knees in single file to make it through the narrowest parts of the tunnels. When struggling to ascend or descend a vertical shaft they frequently got seperated and Cassian found his stamina flagging after spending five minutes dragging himself up and down a particularly twisty vertical shaft, trying to pull the group back together after they were seperated working their way around a corner.

Behind it all was a constant, numbing cold. The mines had not seen the sun since long before Old Lum drowned them. The water within them was just as cold as the ocean without. If Verina had not known where a pocket of air was located thanks to the Linnorm’s scouting they might have given in to despair.
As it was it took them the better part of an hour to get down two mineshafts, cross two tunnels, climb up to their destination tunnel and emerge into the air again. At least the air pocket proved breathable. It wasn’t much progress but it was something.

They’d arrived at an intersection of two tunnels and whoever had built the mine had enlarged the area to create a staging ground. A few crates of half rotted supplies, piles of rusting tools and heaps of stones lay scattered about. One passage was collapsed and the other three were flooded. However there must have been a small passage out somewhere in the ceiling because they could feel a cold breeze washing over them the moment they scrambled out of the water.

It wasn’t much but after the night’s march, the frantic battle with the dragon and the grueling swim through pitch black tunnels they were all exhausted. Cassian picked through the debris, piled up the least rotted bits of rope, baskets and crates then doused them in lantern oil and lit it with his flint. After ensuring the smoke was venting through some crack in the ceiling they all flopped down beside the fire to dry out. Cassian wound up drifting to sleep as the warmth worked its way into his bones.

He woke up to the sound of a man dying. A deep, rasping cough echoed through the tunnels and, as he looked around through bleary eyes, Cassian realized it was coming from Adalai. The other man had withdrawn to the collapsed end of the tunnel and was in the process of trying to regurgitate a lung. Cassian dragged himself into a sitting position. Verina had collected a few more crates and was feeling them to the fire one board at a time. Their eyes met and he asked, “What’s wrong with him?”

She tsked. “He’s a man. Do you really think he would tell me? He has to pretend he’s tough even though we can all tell he’s teetering on the brink of Eternity.”

Cassian snorted. “Of course. If he despised you he would tell you all about his scratchy throat so that the feeling would be mutual. At least we know he holds you in high regard.” He spotted Marta lying at the edge of the firelight and gestured to her. “Has she woken up yet?”

“No.” Verina gave the Hexton woman a concerned look. “Her arm looks like it’s healed already but it’s taken a lot out of her.”

“It’s got to be better than making the entire trip here with a broken arm.” He dragged himself to his feet and shook himself out, trying to drive the last vestiges of cold and damp out of his feet and legs. After flapping his limbs around some to warm them he crossed over to where Adalai was hunkered down.

The Arminger didn’t look like he was dying. He wasn’t flushed or sweaty, he just sat staring at the fire with a glossy look in his eyes, a handkerchief over his nose and mouth. He didn’t seem to notice Cassian’s approach until the other man spoke. “Did you catch a chill in the water, Adalai?”

He jerked as if prodded with a dagger and his eyes slid over to study the Ironhand for a long moment. “Cassian?”

“Who else?”

“You wouldn’t believe me.”

Very cryptic but not at all helpful. “Are you sick, Adalai?”

His gaze wandered back to the fire. “No.”

Frustrated by the man’s obtuseness he plopped down next to him and said, “You don’t sound healthy, at any rate. Why are you sitting all the way over here? You’d do better to finish drying yourself out by the fire before we have to go back into the water later on.”

“Can’t.” Carpathia paused to lower his handkerchief and spit a wad of blood and phlegm onto the floor. “The smoke bothers me. I stayed as long as I could but I can’t. Not that close. Not in a place like this.”

Cassian frowned. That explaination did not really explain much. However it wasn’t really his place to pry into the lives and insecurities of the others. They were not really a company of bravos. They were just a handful of souls, joined together for the moment, trying to make it out of a bad situation. How one of them could be reduced to a coughing mess just by sleeping next to a campfire, a very common experience in Nerona, was not the most pressing concern. “Well, try to get some more sleep if you can. There’s not a lot left to burn and not much more left to eat. We’ll need to move on soon.”

Adalai nodded. “Has the Linnorm found a good place for us to head to next?”
“I haven’t asked yet. That is the next thing I need to look in to.”

As it turned out, the spirit had actually found two likely locations to head towards. Continuing in the direction they had been travelling would take them down below the water again but it was a fairly straight path. The Linnorm reported that, at the furthest reaches of its range the tunnel turned upwards again and may eventually return above ground. The surface was apparently only ten to fifteen feet overhead.

On the other hand, if they turned and headed to the left they would find a shaft leading down to a tunnel that exited into the Gulf only a short distance away.

“The Gulf will have more tides and currents than we’ve faced so far,” Adalai said. “It will be a lot easier to get separated out there.”

“But we know it will get us out of the mines,” Marta said. “Even if the other tunnel goes up there’s no telling if it will take us all the way out to the surface. Even five feet of dirt is a lot to dig through safely. We’re three times that deep now and we don’t even have tools.”

Verina nodded. “More than that, we’re here to try and find the caravan and Cassian’s brother. If the dragon took them then it would have stashed them with the rest of its treasures.” She pointed out towards the Gulf. “It’s lair is doubtless out there somewhere. The creature was far to large to fit down here.”

“What if it had its Benthic thralls hide its treasure down here?” Adalai asked.

“Dragons wouldn’t risk losing their treasure just because its servants die,” Cassian said. “It would keep them in a protected place, sure, but one it could get to on its own.”

Marla sighed. “I was hoping we’d be done with the water soon.”

“Aren’t your people great seafarers?” Verina asked.

“The Hextons? Yes. Clan Towers? We prefer the land.”

The journey out to the Gulf wasn’t as time consuming as the previous leg of the trip. Cassian estimated it was half are hour, no more. When they emerged into open water the others were excited to find that even they had enough light to see by. However that was the end of the good news.

Not all the light they found there came from the sun filtering through the waves. A great deal of it came from a ring of sea anemones that grew around the tunnel exit and glowed with a soft blue light from deep within. Each plant was the size of a large dog and they were grouped unnaturally close together. It was impossible to pass through them without brushing against one of their stinging fronds.

But keeping them contained was very much the purpose of the anemones. That and illuminating them for the six armed Benthic that swept down from above, brandishing spears.

Previous Chapter

Cassian pulled himself upright, head swimming, and looked around. He was sitting in a mound of rubble. Dirt and stones slid off of him in small avalanches. The dust of the cave-in still hung in the air, obscuring the world around him. Something sticky clung to his hands.He looked down to see them covered in dark, blue gray blood. So thick and clinging was the substance that he could not see his own natural skin tone through it. He shoved himself to his feet, his mind already trying to assess the situation and figure out what needed to be done. The first step after any accident in the smithy was to check on everyone in the area.

He’d caused the cave-in deliberately but otherwise the basic idea was sound. So he licked his lips, spat out the grit and said, “Adalai? Verina, Marta can you hear me?”

No answer came and, after waiting for nearly a minute, Cassian started to pace around the cramped area still free of rubble. It was about fifteen feet from cave-in to cave-in. Not a lot of space for three people to disappear in yet there was no sign of them, just a wedge shaped puddle of the same goo he was covered in. He pivoted to look back at the spot he’d woken up. He’d been the closest to the collapse so in theory he should have been the only one under the rubble. Theory didn’t go for a whole lot at the moment.He started digging through the rubble. “Marta?” Moving the rubble proved much easier than he was expecting. “Adalai? Verina?”

He’d just reached out to move a rock the size of his head, the biggest piece he’d come across so far, when the rubble on the far left side of the corridor erupted and Verina got shakily to her feet, pulling Adalai along behind her.

“Finally!” Cassian kept digging but spared one eye to study the two of them. “Is he okay? How did you get stuck under there, I thought you were further back.”

The yaga shook her head to clear it then looked around aimlessly. “Cassian? Is that you?”

“Of course it’s me, who else would it be?” A soft gleam caught his eye a few steps ahead and he moved forward to dig it out.”Where are you ?”

“What are you, blind? I’m right here.” It wasn’t the right moment to lose his temper but he was starting to get close.

“Of course I’m blind, Cassian, if you have the time to complain about it you might try lighting the lantern instead.”

Cassian realized he hadn’t seen the lantern during his brief look around the corridor earlier. “It’s around here somewhere. I can see just fine.”

He uncovered Marta’s shoulder and carefully dragged her out of the rubble, taking care not to jostle her shield arm too much. Once she was free he discovered two surprising things. First, her arm no longer looked broken. Second, her shield seemed to glow with a strange, silvery light. He wondered if she had strained her Gift in some way there at the end and this was some indication of it.

“What are you talking about?” Verina demanded. “I can’t see anything here. The lantern must have gone out when the roof collapsed.”

Cassian turned Marta face up and discovered, to his shock, that her skin had taken on a scaled pattern much like that of the Benthic. He looked around frantically, a cold feeling settling in his stomach.

“Zalt,” he whispered. “We ate the dragon.”

A long moment passed before Verina whispered back. “What?”

“I can see in the dark, the dragon’s corpse isn’t here and I don’t know how we all wound up buried in rubble unless we were eating it and wound up eating our way under the rubble.”

“We ate it?” Verina sounded faint.

“That’s what happens when a dragon dies. Haven’t you heard any of the stories? It’s hunger has to go somewhere and when people kill the dragon it’s almost always moves into the killers. Then they eat it.”

Verina made a soft gagging sound. For a moment Cassian was worried she was trying to force herself to vomit up what she’d eaten, which clearly wasn’t going to work. Even if they hadn’t eaten the dragon’s whole body, just the head and neck that had been in reach on this side of the collapsed tunnel, it was still a volume of meat greater than the largest cow he’d ever laid eyes on. To say nothing of the creature’s bones. Yet their stomachs showed no signs of gorging on such a huge quantity of food. It seemed the dragon’s hunger did more than drive them to eat. It also helped them absorb what they took in. Hopefully the supernatural powers of consumption and digestion wouldn’t last forever, or the provisions they’d brought along were not going to last.

Verina was still distraught. Her eyes were tracking something not even Cassian’s dragon enhanced vision could see and her lips moved without producing sound. He hoped she was just speaking to the Great Linnorm. He decided to give her a moment.

Taking a rope he tied a rag to one end, lowered it into the flooded mineshaft and let it absorb some water. Then he took the rag and used it to sponge some of the dirt off of Marta and Adalai’s faces. As he’d hoped that got them coming back to wakefulness. He also located the lantern and took possession of it, quickly draining the oil into a flask and tucking them both away into his bag.

As he finished Adalai sat up, rubbing his head, saying, “What happened? Did we get the dragon?”

“That’s one way to put it.” Cassian gently helped Marta up and brought her over to sit with the rest of them.

“It’s dark,” she muttered. “Let me find the lantern.”

“No lantern,” Cassian said. “We’re currently trapped in a very small space with no connection to the outside air. What air we do have is going to turn bad soon and lighting a lantern won’t help. The way I see it we have three ways to get out of here and we need to decide which one we are going to try very quickly.”

“Three ways?” Adalai sounded surprised at that assessment. “We can try and dig our way out the way we came or we can try to dig past the old cave-in. What’s the third way?”

“We can swim,” Verina said. Clearly finished with whatever communing she had been doing, the yaga’s attention was now on the matter at hand. “The Linnorm has gone to see if the flooded shaft connects aboveground anywhere. Or at least leads back to a shaft above the waterline.”

“There’s no way of knowing whether we can breath the air on the other side of the sunken mines, if there is any,” Adalai pointed out.

“That’s true of digging out the old cave-in as well,” Marta replied.

“And the fresh cave-in is the most likely to collapse if we disturb it,” Cassian concluded. “None of these are particularly good options. Honestly, I’d like it if we didn’t have to do any of these things but if we stay still then we are doomed and I’m not prepared to face Eternity just yet. So we have to choose one.”

“One?” Adalai cocked his head in contemplation. “Why not two? That way we don’t lose time if one of them doesn’t work.”

“We don’t have enough room to dig both ways at once,” Verina pointed out. “We’d just wind up with a new wall of rubble between us and that would make things difficult if we find a way out and need to join up again.”

“We could throw anything we move down the flooded mineshaft,” Marta suggested.

“Sure,” Adalai said, “but I was thinking one of us could swim the flooded shaft and the rest could dig towards the entrance.”

“Let’s hold off on swimming until we know what the Linnorm finds,” Cassian said. “How far from you can he go, Verina?”

“It depends on a number of things but right now, about a hundred and fifty feet. He should return soon.”

So they took a few minutes to dig towards the entrance, struggling against waves of loose dirt and stone that trickled from the ceiling. Cassian had just called a halt after a secondary collapse brought tons of falling debris down on them, undoing almost all the progress they’d made when Verina reported the Linnorm was back.The spirit reported that it hadn’t seen any new exit from the mines via the submerged tunnels. It did discover a large network of tunnels leading in all directions. There were even a few places where the Linnorm said there was no water although Marta was quick to point out again that that didn’t mean breathable air. Cassian still felt it was worth taking the time to explore. It did lead to another question, though.

“I should go,” Verina insisted. “If I move around then the Linnorm will be able to scout further. It will also be easier to pull me up out of the mineshaft if I don’t find anything. I weigh much less than you.”

“I can see,” Cassian said. “That’s going to be much more important to getting around safely down there than anything else.”

“You can see?” Adalai asked. “Since when?”

“Since eating the dragon.” He’d explained what he thought happened to the others while they were digging but hadn’t gotten around to mentioning the changes he saw as a result.

“Eating a dragon makes you see in the dark?” Adalai shook his head in bewilderment. “That’s amazing. I know they’re incredibly dangerous and all but why don’t I hear about people hunting down and eating these things on a regular basis?”

“Because the power held in dragon flesh is intended to pass down to their hatchlings,” Verina said. “When it winds up in the hands of others the dragons that should have inherited it chase them down, kill them and devour them to get it back.”

“That’s pretty bad,” Adalai agreed.

‘”Worse, no one wants the people who have eaten dragons around,” Cassian said as he passed a rope around his waist. “Too much collateral damage results.”

“That’s understandable.” Adalai braced himself and started lowering Cassian down into the mineshaft.To his surprise, once he reached the water he found it to be surprisingly warm. Given that the waters of the Gulf tended towards the chilly side of things at that time of the year Cassian found that rather surprising. It was not the only surprise in store for him.He also found that his enhanced eyesight could easily see through the surface of the water and down to the bottom of the mineshaft, which he estimated was at least a hundred feet below. He spotted at least three side tunnels branching off in various directions. “Okay, Adalai, there’s a rock here I’m going to tie the rope to so it doesn’t get lost. Go ahead and anchor your end somewhere. I’ll call for you if I need pulled back up.”

“Got it. We’ll keep digging, then. If we find a way out then I’ll light the lantern. Stay here if you see it and I’ll check in every so often until you come back.”

It was as good a plan as anything. Once he had everything in place Cassian dove under the water, intending to dive down to the first tunnel and look down it before surfacing for air. However he hadn’t descended more than half the distance to the tunnel in question before he subconsciously took a breath, sucking water into his lungs. Then he scrambled upwards through the water, using his Gift to add bouyancy to his armor. Once he broke the surface he called out, “Adalai, Adalai! I can breathe the water!”