The air by the water turned cold and foul.
It smelled of rotten swamp moss, wet gravel, and old, rusted iron.
The giant dragon took another slow step forward.
Each of his front claws was as thick as an iron fence post, sinking deep into the grey river mud.
His hide was dark greenish-grey, covered in thick, lumpy plates that looked like river stones cemented together with moss.
Around his thick neck hung an iron collar—heavy, rusted red, with three broken links of an iron chain dangling against his chest.
His slitted green eyes stayed locked on Kiran.
“A hairless runt,” Gorr rumbled.
His voice sounded like two flat stones rubbing together underwater.
“And he smells like cooked fat.
Where did you get that fish, little worm?”
Beside the water, Ignis was shaking so hard his claws were splashing in the shallows.
“We…
we caught it, Gorr!
It was in the weeds!
Kiran caught it!”
Gorr didn’t even blink at the younger dragon.
He raised one massive front foot and brought it down right in the middle of their small campfire.
Crunch.
The dry wood snapped.
Sparks flew into the damp mist, and the coals were crushed into black mud under the dragon’s heavy weight.
“Everything in this water belongs to me,” Gorr said, leaning his snout down until he was barely five feet from Kiran’s face.
A blast of sour, swampy breath washed over Kiran’s skin.
“The weeds belong to me.
The mud belongs to me.
The fish belong to me.
If an ape takes from my water, the ape goes into my belly.”
Kiran’s stomach tightened into a knot.
In the corner of his eye, the blue box flickered.
[JYOTI]
Target: Moss-Rock Drake (Gorr).
Stage: Bone Forging (Stage 2).
Thick scales.
Very heavy.
Slow to turn.
Advice: Do not try to run.
He can cover thirty feet in one step.
I’m not running, Kiran thought.
He stood his ground, his bare feet planted in the mud.
He remembered what Vaelgor had told him about fear.
He drew a slow, quiet breath through his nose, pulling the cool, damp air straight down into his belly.
The heat behind his ribs flared, steady and firm.
The cold trembling in his knees stopped.
His heartbeat slowed from a wild gallop down to a steady, heavy thud.
He held the roasted branch with the remaining piece of hot fish in both hands, holding it out toward the massive beast.
“If it’s your river, then take your tax,” Kiran said, keeping his voice level.
“There’s still half the fish on this stick.
It’s cooked.
No scales to choke on.”
Gorr paused.
His slitted green eyes narrowed, looking at Kiran with genuine surprise.
In this world, humans did not talk to dragons like that.
Slaves dropped to their knees and pressed their foreheads into the mud.
Runaways screamed and bolted into the rocks until they were run down.
This boy was standing straight, looking him right in the eye, offering him breakfast like a shopkeeper.
“You have a bold tongue for meat,” Gorr growled, though his nostrils flared as he caught the smell of roasted fat.
The massive beast snapped his jaws forward.
The teeth clicked shut with a sharp clack two inches from Kiran’s knuckles, snatching the fish and the green stick clean out of his hands.
Gorr chewed twice, swallowing the wood and the hot meat with a loud gulp. Get faster updates on g.com.
“Tastes better than raw muck,” Gorr muttered, smacking his scaly lips.
Then his eyes slid down Kiran’s body.
They stopped at Kiran’s waist.
The hem of Kiran’s torn shirt had shifted when he raised his arms.
The cold grey handle of the steel wrench was sticking out from his waistband, catching the faint green light of the mushrooms.
Gorr’s snout wrinkled.
“What is that in your rags?”
“Nothing,” Kiran said, taking a careful half-step back.
“Metal,” Gorr rasped, his voice dropping into a dangerous, greedy hiss.
“Smooth iron.
Slaves don’t carry iron.
The miners in the deep seam used to hide little pieces of tool-steel in their boots to trade for water.”
Gorr took a heavy step forward, raising a clawed front paw.
The curved black nail reached straight for Kiran’s ribs.
“Give it to me, ape.
Or I’ll peel your skin off and take it anyway.”
“Back up,” a voice echoed through the green mist.
It wasn’t loud, but it was deep.
It had the heavy, grinding weight of falling boulders behind it.
The sound vibrated through the mud, making the water in the stream ripple in circles.
Gorr stopped mid-step, his claws hovering in the air.
His broad head slowly turned toward the giant tree roots twenty yards away.
Emerging from the shadows of the dry overhang was Vaelgor.
The Red-Iron drake was walking slowly, his limp heavy and deliberate.
His dark grey scales were caked in dry ash and soot, and the broken stump of his right horn looked jagged and dark against the mist.
The black scab along his left shoulder was tight and ugly, but his head was held high, his chest plates expanded wide.
His single bronze eye burned with a bright, terrifying glow.
“Vaelgor,” Gorr grumbled, though his front foot slowly touched back down onto the mud.
“They said you were sleeping in the dirt like a sick dog.”
“I was,” Vaelgor rumbled, stopping ten paces away.
His massive front claws dug four deep furrows into the riverbank.
“Until your loud mouth woke me up.”
Gorr sneered, showing a mouthful of yellow, moss-stained teeth.
“You shouldn’t have woken up, Red-Iron.
You’re five hundred miles from your aerie.
You have no rank here.
You have no soldiers to lick your claws.
You’re just another broken drake in a ditch.”
“And you,” Vaelgor growled, his golden eye flicking down to the rusted collar around Gorr’s neck, “are still wearing the leash the Iron King put on you forty years ago.”
Gorr’s throat swelled.
A dark, ugly hiss ripped from his jaws, making the mud tremble.
“The King put this chain on me because I tore the gate off his prison!” Gorr roared.
“The King put that chain on you because you were too stupid to run when the guards came,” Vaelgor shot back, taking another heavy step forward.
Even on three good legs, Vaelgor was taller than Gorr.
His shoulders were broader, built from a bloodline that had carried heavy armor into battle for generations.
The air around Vaelgor’s ribs began to shimmer with heat, the faint orange light beneath his scales pulsing in time with his breath.
“The human stays with me,” Vaelgor said flatly.
“If you touch him, I will finish breaking that chain around your neck and drive the links through your skull.”
The two giant beasts stood motionless in the river mist.
Ignis had curled himself into a tight green ball under the bank, his tail over his head.
Kiran slowly slid his fingers down to the handle of his wrench, his muscles tight, keeping his breath steady.
Gorr’s chest heaved.
His green eyes darted from Vaelgor’s broken horn to the scarred, scabbed-over wing, searching for a sign of weakness.
He found none.
Even broken, Vaelgor looked ready to tear the riverbank apart.
Finally, Gorr spat a thick glob of black phlegm into the mud near Kiran’s feet.
“A broken prince and an ape,” Gorr spat, turning his heavy body around with a slow, clumsy scrape of his tail.
“Enjoy the weeds, Vaelgor. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
But the hunters on the upper ridge won’t stay up in the yellow fog forever.
When they come down here with their spears…
nobody will stand beside you.”
The moss-covered dragon dragged himself away, splashing heavily through the shallow water until he disappeared into the dark ferns on the far side of the stream.
Silence settled over the riverbank.
Vaelgor stood stiffly for three more seconds.
The moment Gorr was out of sight, the big drake’s shoulders sagged.
He let out a long, shuddering wheeze, his injured wing dropping a few inches, trembling with exhaustion.
“You should have stayed asleep,” Kiran said quietly, walking over to the big dragon’s side.
Vaelgor slowly turned his golden eye down to Kiran.
“If I stayed asleep, you would be floating down that river inside that toad’s belly,” Vaelgor grunted.
He glanced down at the crushed mud where the fire had been.
“Did you save any meat?”
“Ignis ate half, and Gorr stole the rest,” Kiran said.
From behind the mud bank, a skinny head popped up.
Ignis peered out, his crooked horn caked in wet muck, looking at Vaelgor with wide, shining orange eyes.
“That was…
that was incredible!” Ignis squeaked, scrambling out of the water.
“Nobody talks to Gorr like that!
He broke two young drakes’ ribs last winter just because they drank from his pool!”
Vaelgor looked at the skinny green dragon, his ear slits flattening with mild annoyance.
“What is this?”
“This is Ignis,” Kiran said, wiping mud from his jeans.
“He made the fire to cook the fish.”
Vaelgor snorted, a small puff of soot drifting from his nose.
“His horn is crooked.”
“His fire works fine,” Kiran replied.
He looked across the wide, misty floor of the Hollow, then looked up toward the fog-choked ceiling hundreds of feet above.
Gorr’s words were still echoing in his head.
When they come down here with their spears…
nobody will stand beside you.
A blue screen flickered in Kiran’s vision.
[JYOTI]
Settlement Status: Unstable.
The Outcast Hollow is not a fortress.
It is a trap with only one way in and one way out.
Current Strength:
Host: Mortal (Iron Breath initiated).
Vaelgor: Crippled Stage 3.
Ignis: Malnourished Stage 0.
Survival Probability if Imperial Guards breach the Gorge: 4.1%.
Kiran pulled his wrench out, weighed the cold iron in his hand, and looked at Vaelgor.
“How do we get stronger?” Kiran asked.
Vaelgor stopped, turning his head back toward Kiran.
“What did you say?”
“You said dragons get stronger by cultivating,” Kiran said, his voice firm and steady.
“I have the breathing down.
I can feel the heat in my bones.
But we need more than breathing if the King’s soldiers come down that trail.”
A strange, quiet look crossed Vaelgor’s scarred face.
He looked at the skinny teenage boy holding a piece of scrap iron, then looked down at his own broken claws.
“To forge iron, you need heat, an anvil, and a hammer,” Vaelgor murmured.
“You have the breath.
But to forge your bones into real steel, you need ancient fire.”
“Where do we find that?”
Vaelgor turned his snout toward the deepest, darkest end of the Sunken Gorge, where the glowing mushrooms ended and the black rock plunged into total darkness.
“Under the roots,” Vaelgor said.
“In the old human mine.”