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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!”