A Dead Wyvern and a Dead Dwarf
First, he felt the cold. Icy fingers reached beneath his chain shirt, touched his skin, traced lines along his lips and nipped at his ears and nose. Then his hearing returned, and he listened to the cold. It spoke to him, as it had all his life while ranging upon the blustery Larren marshes. Wind swirled about his face, slapped his cheeks, encouraged him to wake. He opened his eyes. Rather, he opened his right eye; his left remained shut for some reason. He could see the cold, now. Dry flakes of snow danced above his face like moths before a flame.
The sky was dark above him, but not so black that he could not see roiling storm clouds. They raced across the heavens. Lightning crackled within their smoky depths, revealing their size and shape in vivid detail for the briefest of moments. The storm was high overhead – he could not hear the thunder. Perhaps the wind tears the sound away.
A face came into view. He struggled to focus. It was the priest. Kellus’ face was grim, his brow furrowed with concentration. Raylin watched him, confused. The man’s face was covered with flecks of dried blood, none larger than a fingernail. They dotted his cheeks, nose, bald pate.
Raylin raised a stiff arm, lightly touched his eye that would not open. Kellus leaned back on his haunches. The ranger swallowed – his tongue seemed swollen and his mouth tasted of hangover. “My eye,” he murmured.
He felt Kellus pat his shoulder. “Still there. Covered with wyrmblood. ‘Tis thick and dries hard. Wait.” Kellus disappeared from Raylin’s vision, and the ranger took the opportunity to study the stars. His memory was coming back – he pushed it away.
There was Juglo Bear-hands. Not far from his boot sat the Four Crabs of Castamere. Soon, very soon, the stars of Shaundukal’s Way would look down upon the mountain. Raylin could not see the moon for the clouds, though he knew it must be nearly full.
Kellus’ face appeared over him once more, blocking his view of the firmament. He felt pressure on his closed eye, wetness on his cheek. The water was cold. The priest dabbed at him for a time, then helped him sit up. Raylin opened both eyes, now, and visually took stock of himself. His cloak was shredded, but it was nothing he could not mend. His mail was rent – he would need an armorer for that. Mayhaps Baden?
He gingerly pressed a hand to his side. He had felt the wyvern’s claw slide into his stomach. There was a horrifying amount of dried blood upon his hips, his breeches, his boot. But where there should have been a hole the size of a gold crown, there was only flesh. He pulled back his cloak and jerkin and stared. The was a near-perfect pink circle, tender, but no scar. He looked toward Kellus. “My thanks, friend.”
Kellus nodded, apparently satisfied with Raylin’s condition, and stood.
Raylin looked about the ledge. “The others?”
The Rhelmsman busied himself cleaning bits of gore from between the spikes on his mace. “Fine. Better than you - they were not poisoned. Come, we must move within the cave before the storm arrives.”
Poisoned? Raylin pushed himself upward. Each passing moment brought more strength to his limbs. He stretched, stared at the heavens, and silently agreed the coming storm would be formidable. Especially here on the mountain’s crest. They were fortunate the wyvern had a cave…
The wyvern. Raylin nodded to John, who flashed a smile in return, and walked over to the beast’s body. It was not so large as the ranger remembered. Perhaps the size of a mule, if that. Mostly the creature was wings, tail, and neck. Broken neck, Raylin noted. A tongue the length and width of the clansman’s forearm lolled to one side from between its fangs.
“By the spirits, who did that?”
John stood from beside the dead wyvern. The bard shared a look at the massive wound running the length of the wyvern’s underbelly. “My rapier. Would you believe it?”
“I would not.”
“The dwarf, then. His axe opened the beast’s belly like a sack of sausages. The half-troll broke its neck.” John reached out an open palm. Upon it were a pair of scales and a few brown teeth. “Want some?”
Raylin shook his head. “Not hungry.”
The Pellman looked surprised for a moment, then laughed. “By the sixty great gods, Larren, I believe you just told a joke. Certainly I have heard better – and those from the mouths of spider monkeys - but it is a start.” John feigned suspicion. “Are you certain you are – truly - Raylin? Perhaps he died and one of these so-called spirits he spoke so much of have taken over his body?”
The ranger reached out and patted John’s shoulder. “You fought well, from what I remember. I thought southlanders only loved their women and their wine.”
John smiled. “Fighting has always been the surest, if not easiest, path to achieve the both.”
***
Raylin made his way over to the half-troll. Vath sat on a rock tightening the cords about his wrists. The ranger sat beside him. No words were needed. Both watched Amelyssan and Baden as the elf and dwarf studied the cave entrance.
Amelyssan pursed his lips. “There is no magic. Not on the entrance, not on the ground beneath it.”
The dwarf strode forward and ran fingers along the rock. “Do you see – here, and here?” He patted the left and right wall of the entranceway. At the elf’s nod, Baden chewed on his beard. “Dwarf-made. This is no natural cave. Though it was made to look as such.”
“They fooled me,” John interjected.
“Of course they did, bard. Them was dwarves.” Baden puffed his cheeks and blew air. “Old work, but good.”
Amelyssan nodded, eyes clouded with thought. “Not so old as Epalian plaza we crossed down on the plains.”
John walked forward to flank the duo. “The first rule learned within the famed traveling companies of Cymeria is that the older the ruins, the more dangerous, and the more rewarding for those brave enough to enter them. Since this is not so old as those cobbles below the mountain, then it is not so dangerous.” John tapped his chin. “I suppose it follows that neither is the treasure so grand…but I was unable to find a purse on the wyvern, so I am in an accepting mood.”
Kellus shoved his now-clean mace through the loop on his belt. “We came for the staff. I see neither the traitorous priest nor his mount. The storm comes, regardless. We must enter.”
Raylin caught the unlit torch thrown to him by John. He struck flint to tinder for a handful of moments before the fire took. The ranger stood, drew one sword, wiped the smeared blade on his leg, and walked toward the opening.
***
The cavern opened up inside. Raylin’s torch lit the ceiling – perhaps thirty feet above at its apex near the center of the room. The room seemed as wide as it was tall. Roughly circular in shape, like the top of a stone egg. The ranger was unsure, but it did not look to him as if any of the stone was carved or fashioned.
Near the rear of the cavern was a pile of shadowy forms that smelled of rot. Raylin paused for a moment, listening quietly, then moved forward. He heard his companions funnel into the cave behind him. Kellus had lit a torch as well. The party fanned out, side-stepping piles of the wyvern’s excrement. Raylin toed the body of a half-eaten yak sow, wrinkling his nose at the smell.
Atop the pile of corpses was the body of a mare – its belly opened much like the wyvern’s had been. The wound was not a clean slice, however. The wyvern had fed upon it for some time. Huge gashes – most likely from the beast’s gripping talons – marred the poor horse’s sides. Raylin saw that one of the saddle bags had been cut loose. He hoped the piece of Margate’s staff had not been in the missing bag.
Raylin tried to push the horse’s body aside with his boot, but could not. He set the torch down, took a deep breath, then squatted and rolled the animal onto it back. There were other bodies beneath it – a pair of goats, a ram, even the hollow carapace of some white worm, complete with large mandibles, that was probably as long as the half-troll was tall. The ranger leaned back on his heels and prodded the bodies further with his sword. He was impressed – the wyvern must have been extremely strong to carry its prey aloft as it did.
Baden joined him. “The Bishop?”
Raylin stood and wiped his sword along the dead horse’s mane. “He probably fell off his horse after the wyvern grabbed them both. His body could be anywhere between this mountain and that meadow where his trail ended. At any rate, he is not here.”
“No,” came Kellus’ answer, “he is over here.”
***
Raylin turned. Now he saw it. There was a faint path of blood, a few scuffs from boots, leading from the pile of dead animals toward the shadowed corner Kellus now occupied. The Gondian apparently was alive when the wyvern dropped him and his horse upon the floor of the cave. It looked to Raylin like the man had crawled, bleeding, away from the corpses. The party converged around the Rhelmsman. Kellus held the torch out, the firelight dancing upon the slain Bishop Herryn of Tarn Cal.
The man had died sitting upright, his back against the wall. He was remarkably untouched, for the most part. There was one visible wound in his stomach. It looked as if one of the wyvern’s talons had pierced him just above his groin. Raylin lowered his own torch. “He was a long time dying.”
Kellus glanced at Raylin before studying the Bishop once more. “His hands are clutching something.”
“The staff?” John kneeled and peeled the man’s fingers – stiff from death and cold – away from his chest.
“That is his holy symbol. A miniature smith’s hammer.” Kellus knelt next to the bard. “Methinks he was praying.”
“To heal himself, eh?” John nodded in agreement.
Kellus shook his head, his face covered in shadow. “Or begging the forgiveness of his god after healing power did not come when he asked.” The former priest sighed. “It does not matter, now.”
John reached forward and unbuckled the Bishop’s wide belt. He pulled it from behind the body and set it before him on the ground. Raylin held the torch above the bard. The Pellman filtered through a large sack tied to the leather strap. “A few platinum plates, a handful of gold crowns. Some copper.” He pulled an item from the purse. “A ring. Not a cheap one, by the looks of it.”
“It is the ring marking him as a member of the clergy of the Smith-Father. He must have removed it.” Kellus patted down the Bishop’s chest. His fingers curled around something hard beneath the man’s outer garments. He pulled aside Herryn’s green robe and withdrew a stick of polished wood. “Margate’s Staff. The second piece.”
John looked to the elf, who shook his head. “Not magical. Well, lads, we have done our job. We can rest here tonight and-”
“No.” The group turned toward Baden. The dwarf had been busy rolling aside the body of the snow worm. He pointed toward the wall where it the met the floor at his feet.
Raylin lifted his torch and walked with his companions to the dwarf’s side of the cave. He held the brand toward the ground and frowned. “I cannot read it.” There was a circular stone, perhaps three feet in diameter, set within the floor. It appeared like the flat drain plugs the clansman had once seen in the bathhouses of Mon Mith. There were runes on the lid.
“Them words are dwarf-runes, or close enough.” Baden spat. “They are written in the dialect of the dwem – dark dwarves. Maybe five hundred years old – it is difficult for me to know for sure since our calendar is so different than yours.”
Raylin nodded. “What do they say? Can you tell?”
The dwarf stroked his beard. “It is hard to translate directly-”
John groaned, “By the gods - just tell us the gist of it, then.”
The dwarf eyed his companions. “This is the entrance to a tomb - the final resting place of a dwem known as Borbidon Elfkiller.” Amelyssan’s eyes widened at the name, but Baden continued. “It warns all to leave this stone unturned, or suffer…great pains. And, finally, death.”
“Good enough for me.” John rested his chin on his fist and studied the sealed entrance. “Now how do we manage to open this thing?”
