The heavy footsteps stopped just outside the cave entrance.
For three long heartbeats, there was only the sound of thick yellow mist swirling against the wet rock.
Then came a deep, wet sniff—a long, rattling breath that pulled the damp air through flared nostrils.
“Get into the back,” Vaelgor whispered.
The dragon did not look at Kiran.
His body had gone completely flat against the stone floor, every muscle along his spine coiled tight like an iron cable.
“Vaelgor—”
“The crevice by the water,” Vaelgor hissed, the sound barely louder than the drip of the ceiling.
“A dragon cannot squeeze through that split.
An ape can.
Move now, or I will throw you in myself.”
Kiran did not argue.
He scrambled backward on his hands and knees, his wrapped shoes silent on the dry dust.
He squeezed around the fallen stone slabs and ducked into the narrow throat of the rear tunnel, pressing his back flat against the cold, wet rock near the water basin.
From here, he had a clear view through the crack between two collapsed slabs, looking straight into the main room.
He tightened his grip on the old steel wrench.
His knuckles were white.
A shape stepped through the curtain of yellow mist.
It was a dragon, but it did not look like Vaelgor.
It was smaller—about twenty-five feet from snout to tail—with a lean, wiry frame built for speed rather than raw power.
Its scales were a sickly, mottled copper-green, dull and greasy.
Strapped over its snout was a thick muzzle made of oiled animal hide with round brass eye-holes, designed to keep the burning yellow fog out of its face.
Across its chest ran two heavy iron chains, holding a curved iron hook that hung by its flank.
The newcomer took two slow steps into the dry shelter, shaking the yellow dampness off its leather muzzle.
Its neck arched, sniffing the air again.
“Sulfur outside,” a scratchy, high-pitched voice echoed off the cave walls.
“Dry ash inside.
And the smell of burned scale.”
The green dragon reached up with one front claw and unhooked the leather straps behind its horns.
The mask dropped to the dirt with a wet slap, revealing a narrow, sharp head with a mouth full of needle-thin yellow teeth.
Its eyes were small, milky yellow, and sharp as broken glass.
“They said you died on the high ridge, Vaelgor,” the green dragon said, grinning until the corners of its jaw stretched wide.
“They said the cold took you.
But I know how a Red-Iron drake smells when he’s rotting.”
From the shadows near the central pillar, Vaelgor did not move.
“Kark,” Vaelgor rumbled, his voice coming from deep in his chest.
“The Iron King sends a scavenger to do a soldier’s work.”
The green dragon—Kark—gave a sharp, barking laugh that sounded like dry sticks snapping.
“A soldier fights on the open plains where the sky is clean,” Kark sneered, circling slowly to the left.
His claws clicked against the stone.
“A scavenger gets twenty silver bags for tracking a broken dog into a ditch.
Look at you.
One horn.
One wing.
You can barely lift your chin off the dirt.”
[JYOTI]
Target: Copper-Claw Scout Drake (Kark).
Realm: Bone Forging (Stage 1).
Status: Healthy.
High agility, low bone density. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
Vaelgor Status: Bone Forging (Stage 3, Crippled).
Odds of victory in direct trade: 50/50.
Kiran watched from the shadows, holding his breath.
Bone Forging?
Kiran thought.
That’s the same stage Vaelgor is in?
[JYOTI]
Vaelgor’s stage is higher, but his body is broken.
A healthy wolf can kill an injured bear if it stays out of reach.
Vaelgor slowly pushed himself up onto three legs.
The strain made the thick black scab on his left shoulder crack, and a thin trickle of hot blood ran down his iron-grey scales, hissing against the dust.
“Come take the head, then,” Vaelgor growled, showing his heavy, stone-crushing teeth.
“Or did you bring the chains because you are too afraid to bite?”
Kark didn’t charge.
He was too smart for that.
He darted forward two paces, feinting with his front claws, trying to draw a strike.
Vaelgor didn’t bite; he stood his ground, keeping his injured wing pressed tight against the rock wall to protect it.
“The King doesn’t want your head whole,” Kark cackled, his long tail whipping from side to side, kicking up small clouds of dust.
“He wants your other horn to make a drinking cup.
He wants your hide to patch his war saddles.
Your mother cried very loudly when they dragged her to the thunder wall, you know.
She kept asking if her brave little bull was coming to save her.”
A terrible sound came from Vaelgor’s throat.
It wasn’t a roar.
It was a suffocated, grinding shriek of pure fury.
Vaelgor lunged.
Even on three legs, the sheer mass of the Red-Iron drake was terrifying.
He crossed the cave floor in a single heartbeat, his good front paw slamming down toward Kark’s skull like an iron hammer.
Kark was faster.
The smaller dragon dropped flat, sliding beneath the strike on his belly.
His hind legs kicked out, claws raking across Vaelgor’s uninjured front leg with a harsh, metallic screech.
Sparks showered off Vaelgor’s scales, but the force of the strike threw Vaelgor off balance.
Vaelgor stumbled, his heavy shoulder crashing hard into the central stone pillar.
The entire cave groaned.
Dust rained down from the ceiling.
Kark scrambled up onto a flat boulder behind Vaelgor, his eyes gleaming with nasty delight.
“Too slow!
An old cart with broken wheels!”
Kark coiled his legs and sprang straight for Vaelgor’s torn wing, his needle-teeth aimed directly at the fresh, bleeding crack in the shoulder.
If that bite landed, Vaelgor’s wing would be torn clean off.
Kiran didn’t think about his authority level.
He didn’t think about quests.
He stepped out from the crack in the rocks, took a deep breath of the heavy cave air, and drove it down into his gut.
That small ember beneath his ribs caught, heating his blood in an instant.
He raised his arm and threw the heavy steel wrench with everything he had.
CLANG!
The wrench did not pierce scale.
But it struck Kark square in the center of his right eyeball.
The green dragon let out a high-pitched, furious screech of pain.
His leap went crooked in mid-air.
Instead of tearing into Vaelgor’s exposed wound, Kark missed by two feet, his heavy belly crashing into the dirt beside Vaelgor’s flank.
Kark rolled over, clawing at his bloody, ruined eye, his head whipping around in wild rage.
“What was that?!
Who threw that?!”
His good eye locked onto Kiran standing in the tunnel opening.
“A rat?” Kark snarled, blood dripping down his scaly cheek.
“A hairless ape?!”
He opened his jaws wide to snap Kiran in half.
He never got the chance.
Vaelgor had turned.
With Kark on the ground and distracted for a single, fatal second, Vaelgor didn’t use claws.
He didn’t use teeth.
He brought his massive, heavy head down like a falling boulder, driving his single, broken horn straight into Kark’s exposed throat.
The sound that followed was a sickening, muffled crunch.
Kark’s screech cut off instantly into a wet, gurgling gasp.
His long neck snapped back, pinned to the stone floor beneath the blunt, brutal wedge of Vaelgor’s horn.
His four legs scratched uselessly at the dirt, scoring deep white lines into the bedrock, before his tail twitched once and fell still.
The cave went dead quiet.
Vaelgor stood over the dead scout for five long seconds, his chest heaving like a pair of giant bellows.
Dark red blood covered his broken horn, dripping down his snout and puddling in the dirt.
Slowly, the massive drake lifted his head.
His golden eye turned toward the tunnel entrance.
He looked down at the empty space where Kiran was standing, then looked at the dead dragon’s face, where the steel wrench lay half-buried in the dust beside a crushed eyeball.
“Your aim,” Vaelgor rasped, his voice shaking with raw exhaustion, “is slightly better than your breath.”
Kiran leaned his shoulder against the cave wall, his knees trembling so hard he had to slide down until he was sitting on the floor.
“I used to throw rocks at tin cans behind the garage,” Kiran croaked, wiping cold sweat from his forehead.
A bright blue box snapped open in Kiran’s vision, glowing steady and clear in the dim cave light.
[JYOTI]
Combat Resolved.
Host Contribution: Critical Distraction (1 eye blinded).
Target: Neutralized.
The blue text melted away, replaced by something new.
[JYOTI]
Harvest Available:
Lesser Fire Core detected within target’s chest cavity.
Status: Intact.
Quest Progress: Sunken Gorge route compromised.
Imperial trackers have entered the Upper Gorge.
Recommendation: Consume core, burn the remains, and move before the pack arrives.
Kiran stared at the blue words, then looked up at Vaelgor.
“He called you an old cart with broken wheels,” Kiran said quietly.
Vaelgor let out a low, dry snort, blood blowing from his nostrils into the dirt.
“Old carts still carry iron, ape.
Now go pick up your little metal stick.
We have work to do before the meat goes cold.”