It was a subdued and shaken group that climbed up from the cursed valley of tragic, foolish Kalin and his beloved, doomed Narina. Although it was still cold in the high mountains, it was a pure and natural cold, completely unlike the evil chill of the vale of death behind them; the weather had cleared, and the clean pale blue sky eventually began to drive away the horror of that last, seemingly endless, night…
Within a few hours the group found themselves in the highest passes of the southern Sarijis Mountains, above the treeline, following what Taeland continued to assure them this was the best way to come to the gül colony of Rekorgo with the greatest chance of surprise – from above, a direction they won’t expect.
On a wide alpine slope of sparse grass and great patches of scree, with the sun just reaching its zenith, they came across a pile of broken, twisted branches, apparently torn from the pine trees a few dozen meters below them on the mountainside. Devrik, on point with Taeland, poked into the pile with his sword, moving some of the branches aside to reveal the savaged and bloody carcass of an elk. Taeland, coming up close behind him muttered a quiet curse and began searching the skies above them.
“This is the stash of a wyvern,” he explained, calmly but with great urgency. “And the great winged beast may return at any moment to renew its feasting… we should be gone from here NOW!”
“I’ve never actually seen a wyvern,” Mariala said, looking around in curiosity. “At least not a live one. One of my teachers at the Aquina Chantry had a stuffed one… it looked rather adorable, really…”
“How big was it?” Taeland asked, as he continued to try to shepherd his companions away. Everyone seemed determined to get a look at the dead elk.
“Oh, a bit less than a meter I suppose, from tail to snout.”
“Ah, yes, very adorable I’m sure,” Taeland said drily, as he re-covered the carcass with the branches. “But that was a very young juvenile. I assure you, you do NOT want to meet a fully mature wyvern – they’re over four meters in length, with a wingspan of more than five meters, razor sharp talons and the most agile tail, with a poisoned barb on the end, that you’ll ever see. Unless you meet a dragon, of course.”
“Well, I hardly think they compare to a true dragon,” Korwin opined. “Not even really related –”
“True,” Taeland agreed. “But wyverns are insanely ferocious… and deeply territorial. Even their mating is violent! I once saw a coupling pair in action – the female latched onto the male, who is usually smaller, and they tore at each other, tooth and talon, in their sexual frenzy, locked together and spinning toward the ground… sometimes they don’t finish the act before they hit. Which is why the female tries to keep the male beneath her while they, um, mate.”
“Did the pair you saw both survive?” Vulk asked, fascinated.
“In that case, actually, they both –”
But before the Talim Nar could finish his sentence a dark shadow flashed across the ground and over the group, as a harsh scream rent the air. Everyone whirled, crouching, and drew their weapons as a great wyvern, obviously a female, hovered over her disturbed food stash. The wind from her grey-green wings buffeted them as she screamed again… and then stooped on them, talons flashing in the mid-day sun.
Taeland was her target, but the ranger blocked her talons with his buckler, and deftly avoided her slashing tail. But even as she rose up for her next strike, two more wyverns appeared over the ridge behind her, and dove instantly to the attack. They were smaller than the first, clearly males, and not yet entirely full-grown.
“I thought these things were solitary beasts!” Toran yelled as he twisted and turned in a spectacular rolling dodge that nimbly evaded both talons and tail. As the creature rose again, he rolled to one knee and pulled ’round his crossbow whilst reaching for a bolt.
“They’re obviously her offspring,” Taeland replied absently, focused on drawing a shaft through his hartbow. “Though they must be close to being fully fledged… by next spring she will have driven them away.”
“Wonderful,” Devrik interjected, dodging his own set of talons by diving in close in a fierce counter attack. “If only we’d waited until then to stumble across her dinner!” His attack missed the young wyvern’s pale underbelly by a hair, even as Taeland’s arrow sailed between the mother’s neck and wing.
Mariala, cocking her own crossbow and taking aim at one of the juveniles, was surprised… in the short time she’d known the ranger she’d seen him draw his bow many times, and this was the first time she’d seen him miss! But far from the first time she’d ever missed, she reflected ruefully, as her bolt sailed past its own target by an embarrassing margin.
Erol, leaping up next to Toran, hurled his net into the air, tangling the talons and one wing of the second male. As it struggled to stay in the air, the Khundari aimed his crossbow point blank and fired – only to have the trigger mechanism jam! With a curse that should have knocked the beast out of the sky all by itself, he struggled to free the trigger, while Erol hoisted his trident to cover him.
Vulk focused his own attention on the large female, casting his Weaver’s Web Trap spell for the first time in combat. The pale strands of arcane energy twisted up from his outstretched hands, twining around the wyvern’s legs and tail. But her wings remained free, and even as Devrik hurled his spear at her, she jinked upward and momentarily away from the battle.
While all this was going on Korwin had been busy casting a spell of his own, calling up Hortan’s Mist to obscure him from the sight of the winged beasts. As he faded from view Mariala called out in exasperation “How is that helpful, Korwin?!”
But before she could pursue the matter both mother and son had freed themselves from their entanglements, Vulk’s spell dissipating into flickering shreds of light and Erol’s net into just shreds which rained down around them all. In the same instant, the other male dove at Jeb, who had been trying to bring his own bow to bear, forcing the lad to roll for cover, dropping both bow and arrow.
As the other two wyverns stooped to the attack once agin, Taeland stood tall, seemingly unfazed as the larger male dove shrieking at him. In one swift motion he raised his hartbow and fired, driving the steel-tipped shaft right through the creature’s left eye. It’s shriek cut off abruptly, it twisted wildly in the air… and then it dropped like a stone.
The female pulled up from her own attack on Devrik, her shriek of fury and outrage almost ear-splitting. But before she could renew her attack, the battle took a sudden sharp turn toward the unexpected. Coming up over the ridge above them, gibbering in nonsensical shrieks, was a flock of hideous leathery-winged humanoid monstrosities, waving crude spears and throwing sharp rocks.
“Rokiriki!” Taeland cried, drawing and nocking another arrow from his quiver.
“Yelgri!” Toran cried in disgust, still trying to unjam his crossbow.
“Mountain Harpies!” cried Mariala, dodging as one stooped on her with filthy claws extended.
What looked to be two dozen or more of the disgusting creatures swarmed the two remaining wyverns, attacking with stones and spears, the cloud of their stench enveloping everyone on the slope. The wyverns attention was diverted to their ancient enemies, and the carnage quickly began. But while the wyverns were stronger and more powerful individually, the harpies were perhaps more agile, and certainly more numerous. Although several fell to the talons, teeth and barbed tails of the wyverns, the great beasts took many wounds themselves. It soon seemed that the female would prefer to retreat, but the male was frenzied in its attacks on the harpies, and the mother would not abandon her remaining child.
Not all of the harpies engaged the two wyverns, unfortunately – several dove to attack the group as well. Erol’s trident flashed out, blocking and counter-striking, sending two of the creatures to their graves, while Taeland, covering Mariala’s rolling retreat, moved like lightning and gutted another with his long knife.
Toran, giving up on his crossbow for the moment, fired off a blast of Stavin’s Arrow, knocking another harpy from the sky with arcane energies. Mariala, still shaken from her near miss, tried to blast the swirling mass above them with Fire Nerves, but her form was flawed and the spell failed.
Vulk decided it was time for some protection, and began to chant up his mystical armour, while Devrik decided he’d had enough of attempted death from above – he began to summon the energies to cast an Orb of Vorol spell. A moment later, as Vulk’s armour glowed golden around himself, a ball of flame leaped up from Devrik’s hands, expanding as it flew, to engulf the female wyvern and half a dozen shrieking rokiriki.
While the burning harpies dropped from the sky like screaming meteors, the tormented wyvern again turned her enraged attention on the fire mage below her, diving with talons outstretched and tail pulled back for a strike to puncture armour, muscle and bone.
Devrik’s battlesword flashed up to meet her neck even as he dodged her talons– and her head went flying in a spray of hot blood. Unfortunately for the warrior-mage, her tail kept going on its killing arc, its vicious barb striking him a glancing blow to the chest that sent him flying two meters, to land in a stunned heap near Vulk.
The remaining harpies had by now overpowered the last wyvern, bringing it down only a few meters from the corpse of its mother, and the entire flock swarmed both bodies in a feeding frenzy of deafening, sickening sounds. With the harpy’s entire attention focused on their defeated enemy, the Hand took the opportunity to decamp, Erol and Taeland hauling a dazed but still living Devrik between them. Vulk picked up his friend’s sword, and Korwin wandered out of his mist, drawing it up behind them to obscure their escape.
♦ ♦ ♦
For the next couple of hours, it seemed to the group they had escaped cleanly from the harpy flock. Once well away, they had stopped to tend to Devrik, who had been lucky as it turned out – while bruised and stunned by the blow from the wyvern’s tail, the poisoned barb had not penetrated his armour. Stiff and sore and slightly concussed, he was at least not paralyzed.
Later in the afternoon however, as the sun was more than halfway to the horizon, the group realized the harpies had not, in fact given up. A flock of twenty or more began harassing them from above, hurling spears, rocks and their own shit down on the fleeing humans. Those with ranged weapons would occasionally turn to fire into the flock, and while they downed a few, discouraging the rest for a few minutes, they always came back with seemingly as many as before.
Two hours of this fly-by harassment, while it had done little to actually hurt the Hand much, was beginning to fray their nerves. Dusk was not long off, and with it the problem of how to defend themselves in the dark, when they came to a great crevasse, splitting the mountainside across their path. A single, narrow natural bridge of stone arced across the chasm, and looked none to solid.
Coming to a stop, Taeland turned and shot one of the pursuing rokirki out of the air, as did Erol, while Toran downed another with a Stavin’s Arrow spell. Everyone dropped to the ground in exhaustion as the harpies temporarily retreated to the high crags behind them.
“We can’t cross this chasm with those damn things harassing us,” Vulk sighed. “We’re going to have to deal with them for good, and soon… crossing in the dark doesn’t sound much safer.”
“Agreed,” rumbled Devrik. “And here they come again.”
The Hand arrayed themselves for battle, and the harpies, seeing their victims stopped, dove in shrieking to the attack. This time Toran’s magical arrow failed to find a target, and Devrik’s Orb sputtered out, stillborn. Korwin had been leery of casting his most powerful spell, Breath of Arandu, recalling past misfires and their near lethal consequences… but as he hesitated, Jeb shot one harpy out of the sky, only to fall to the spear of another. Shocked into action, Korwin wasted no more time on doubts and began the long mental preparation to summon up the killing cold.
As the water mage focused on his spell, most of the others kept up the attack on the harpies. Taeland again missed a shot, to his great chagrin, while Erol scored a brilliant hit, taking one through the neck. Toran’s next spell also failed, while Mariala’s Syncope of Shala put four of the creatures to sleep, causing them to plummet to bone-cracking impacts on the rocky ground.
Only Vulk refrained from attacking, intent as he was on aiding the severely wounded Jeb. As the battle raged around them, he concentrated his healing powers on the heavily bleeding wound in the young man’s side. Gradually the blood flow slowed, then stopped completely, and the wound began to close. Before it sealed itself completely the cleric poured some of their precious Baylorium into the wound, to complete what he had begun.
Jeb began to regain consciousness just as Devrik’s latest spell backfired, resulting in a beautiful display of aerial fireworks that did no more than startle the remaining rokiriki. But as the gibbering monstrosities cackled and shrieked, preparing to dive down for another attack, a sudden cone of blue-white super-cooled air roared up from Korwin’s outstretched hands. Spreading as it rose, the blast caught all of the remaining harpies, turning them to frozen corpses in an instant… falling from the sky, their bodies shattered as they hit the ground.
♦ ♦ ♦
With the harpy problem solved, hopefully for good, the Hand now turned their attention to the problem of crossing the deep crevasse that blocked their way. The natural bridge that spanned it was thin and crumbling at the edges, and it seemed likely to crack at the slightest weight, plunging anyone on it into the chasm… in the failing light the bottom was entirely invisible.
“Well, Mariala is the lightest,” said Toran, considering the problem. “But I’ve far more experience with this sort of thing, and I’m not that much heavier… I suppose I should go first. I’ll take a rope with me, so as each of you follows, one at a time, you’ll have something to grab onto if worse comes to worst.”
“Excellent idea,” agreed Korwin. “But before you try it, let me try something… that last spell nearly drained me, but I might have enough left to strengthen the bridge with the Strands of Lakira…” But as it turned out, he didn’t have it in him, and the spell failed. He was not the only one to have a spell fail this exhausting day, of course, and given the spectacular success of his last spell, when it mattered, it would take awhile to run down his credit with his companions…
With a sympathetic shrug, Toran hoisted a coil of rope over his shoulder and started out across the delicate arch of stone, slowly testing each step. Just over three meters wide, it took only a minute to cross, even as cautiously as he moved. Once on the far side, the Khundari spread his legs to align with his shoulders, planted his feet firmly on the solid rock, and murmured a few words… a faint golden glow surrounded him briefly, before beginning to sink and gather around his feet, and finally seeming to seep into the ground.
“Alright,” he called across to his friends. “I’ve cast the Joining of Merkünon, which means I’m as firmly attached to the ground as the mountain itself… nothing can move me unless it moves the mountain itself!” After tying one end of the rope around his waist he tossed the other end across to Devrik, who anchored himself behind a boulder and ran the rope around his own torso, gripping it in his gloved hands.
Mariana was the next one to cross, and made it with no trouble, although she clutched the rope tightly as she went. Vulk wanted Jeb to go next, as he was still weak from his injury and blood loss, but the boy was too dizzy and unsteady. It was decided he and the cantor would cross together. Unfortunately, this proved too much for the delicate formation, which cracked and splintered beneath their feet. They barely made it to the far side before a great CRACK sounded, and the whole thing collapsed into the blackness of the crevasse.
Korwin had been preparing to cross next, and as the sounds of falling stone slowly died away, he again attempted to cast the Strands of Lakira… and this time he succeeded. In the gloaming light the white strands spewed forth from his hands, anchoring themselves into the stone on the far side. Moving his hands along the nearer side, he anchored them there, creating a softly glowing bridge of translucent… something… wider than the original stone bridge.
With a tired smile, Korwin lightly grasped the safety rope and strode quickly across the chasm. The rest of the party rapidly followed, with Devrik bringing up the rear. Twilight was upon them now, and everyone was exhausted, so they made it only another mile before deciding to stop for the night. A huge boulder, the size of a small house, with a sheer, slightly overhanging face on its south side lay just at the tree line, making a perfect campsite.
After a hasty meal, the tired companions rolled themselves into their blankets and quickly dropped off to sleep… except for the two unlucky ones who drew first watch. But the night was quiet and uneventful… right up until the end of the third watch, just before dawn. It was then that the harpies launched their third attack.
Taeland and Erol were both on watch at that hour, and each killed a harpy with their first arrows. Toran, wallowing up from his blankets with his freshly repaired crossbow in hand, fired in satisfaction, only to growl in annoyance as the bolt missed. Mariala, on the other hand, blasted three of the beasts into sleep and out of the sky practically asleep herself.
Vulk, assuming their adversaries must have good dark vision if they chose to attack so, decided to even the odds by chanting out the Ritual of Fortune’s Light, allowing his companions to see in the dark as if it were daylight… if a sort of greenish-gray daylight. This was a help to Devrik as he cast another Orb of Vorol, allowing him to target the largest group of harpies near them – five burst into flames and fell shrieking to the ground.
Korwin’s immediate, groggy reaction was to cast Cloak of Merthados on himself, which proved a wise action as several spears and stones almost immediately arched toward him… but with their energies dissipated by the Cloak, they fell harmlessly at his feet.
As the sun rose over the eastern shoulder of the mountain the Hand could suddenly see that they were surrounded by at least three score of the hideous Mountain Harpies. But even as their hearts fell at the overwhelming odds something else rose over the ridge, momentarily blocking out the newborn sun… and changing everything.
With a heart-stopping roar that shook the very mountainside, an enormous dragon bore down on the suddenly panicked flock of harpies. The Hand stood collectively stunned, hardly believing what they were seeing… a blue-gray body at least 12 meters long, wings stretching more than 15 meters across and looking like molten silver in the morning light, a mouth that could swallow a man whole, and intelligent eyes that glowed with a silver-blue light.
The harpies tried to scatter, but the dragon swooped low, passing only a few meters over the humans and raising its head toward the largest group, opening its mouth wide… a blast of blue white frost sizzled forth, catching fully half the rokiriki in its cone of icy death. If Korwin’s spell the day before had been a brazier, this was a blast furnace. A large blast furnace.
A rain of solidly frozen harpies began to fall from the sky all around the Hand’s camp, and Mariala, Vulk and Taeland narrowly missed being crushed only by having fast reflexes. The remainder of the flock spread out in panicked flight, shooting off in every direction. But the dragon seemed to take a positive delight in chasing after each group, sometimes blasting them with freezing breath, other times almost playfully batting them bloodily out of the air, occasionally swallowing one whole. It caught up with the last three just as they neared the ridge to the east, bringing its tail around in a graceful arc to catch all of them at once, crushing them against a cliff face.
With the last of the mountain harpies dead, the dragon turned and made directly for the Hand, settling down on the top of the great boulder overlooking their camp. With its wings folded behind it, and its tail wrapped around its feet and dangling lazily over the cliff face, it peered down at the group. The sheer power the creature radiated left even the strongest amongst the humans feeling powerless and small. Even Devrik felt not the slightest desire to challenge this magnificent, terrifying beast.
“So,” the dragon finally said, in a voice of silk and glaciers and cool femininity, “what are you little humans of the southern lowlands doing in my mountains?”
For a moment no one spoke, too overwhelmed by the sheer presence of the dragon and utterly uncertain of what to say. To everyone’s surprise (and carefully suppressed dismay) it was Korwin who spoke first, stepping forward to stand directly under the great worm’s gaze.
“Your mountains, great lady?” he asked. “I had not heard of any of the great Aranduin dragons claiming territory this far south in the Savage Mountains. And surely news of such a great and powerful dragon as yourself must have reached even into the kingdoms of the plains, if such were true…”
Although not physically built to smile, the dragon nonetheless gave the impression of doing just that. “Bold little human! And clever to boot, which is your saving grace I suppose… yes, I am newly come to these southern peaks, from my old home far in the north, above the Hidden Sea. And I do now claim this territory for my own. And I’m sure that this news will now quickly reach your lowland realms… assuming you live to tell the tale, of course.
“But come, you have not answered my question. What business are you about in these high places? Is it common for your kind to travel hither? I have not seen many of your kind, and those primitive and meek… you are the first bold and – what do you call it? Oh, yes, civilized – humans I have seen here. I’ve met such as you before, of course, in the north… and found them quite nice.”
No one was quite sure how to take that last statement – as pleasant guests or as a tasty meal?
“Indeed, beautiful lady,” Korwin answered, bowing his head respectfully. “Civilized humans rarely travel this far or high into the mountains. Your new territory will surely remain uncontested by our folk! But we come here seeking to put an end to the threat of those who might beset even you – the gülvini who infest these mountains and who seek to bring war on all our lands.”
“Hurumph, gülvini mean little to me, beyond a tasty snack from time to time… and better tasting by far than these nasty yelgri.” The dragon sniffed in disdain at her most recent meal, but then arched her neck down to snap up half a frozen harpy from the rock next to her.
“No doubt the gülvini could never pose a real threat to one such as you, to be sure,” Korwin agreed smoothly. “And yet I fear they could nonetheless, over time, come to discommode you with their constant disruptions and hectoring… for they may be more numerous than you know, coming as you do from the more sparsely populated north…”
“How numerous?” the dragon asked, her interest clearly piqued.
“The place we go to spy out, Rekorgo, has some 3,000 gülvini living there currently, the largest such concentration we know of… and they are always splitting off daughter hives, seeking to spread as far and wide as they can. I can only imagine how unrestful you might find such goings on…”
“Three thousand? Surely you exaggerate,” the dragon exclaimed. “But no, I sense you are telling me the truth, or at least that you believe it to be true. And in any case, I came here prepared to fight to claim my new territory if need be… with another dragon, true, but a few thousand of the gülvini could hardly be worse.
“In fact, I came here this morning expecting to face a young dragon of my own species – for I sensed the use of our ice breath yesterday, weak but unmistakable. But now I realize it was you, little Avikori mage… using the Breath of Arandu, yes?”
“Yes, gracious mistress of ice,” Korwin answered, flushing a little. “I sought to destroy our enemies, as you did so spectacularly this morning… although I could never hope to match your power or mastery of the Avikori element, of course.”
“Of course, that’s only natural,” the dragon agreed graciously. “Nothing to be embarrassed about. But let me give you a tip, dear child.” She bent her long neck down, bringing her head nearer to Korwin, who resisted an almost overwhelming impulse to step back. It as an impulse his companions shared but didn’t even attempt to suppress, taking a large step back as one.
For a moment he stared into the one great silver-blue eye she focused on him, his body going rigid. Mariala sensed the psychic tension between them, and stepped forward, although she wasn’t at all clear what she could do to help her friend, if in fact he needed help. But the dragon’s head rose back up, and Korwin relaxed, shaking his head as if to clear it.
“Thank you for your gift, bountiful lady,” he murmured after a minute, bowing again to the dragon, quite low this time.
“You are welcome, young Korwin Seaborn,” she replied. “And you may call me Ulsarinas… which is the part of my name you can pronounce.
“Now I must be about my own business, but it has been a pleasure meeting you all. It may be that I shall drop in on this Rekorgo you mention… you seem terribly few to take on 3,000…” She leaned down again to sniff the air around the seemingly frozen group of humans. “Although I sense that most of you are baby mages of various kinds.
“But not all,” she went on. “This one has been injured… but I smell… something odd. A flavor of Toraz, but with a hint of… something new. What is this?”
Jeb was utterly paralyzed under the dragon’s face, his eyes wide as saucers. Vulk stepped forward, hesitatingly, and spoke. “It is Baylorium you smell, um, mighty Ulsarinas. A healing potion recently devised by a friend of ours…”
“Fascinating!” Ulsarinas exclaimed. “Something new! Tell me all about this Baylorium!”
Ten minutes of explanation later Vulk trailed off with “…and that’s why we carry both kinds of Baylorium…”
“Marvelous! Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve come across something truly new?” The dragon sniffed at Jeb again. “But as wonderful as this potion of yours is, your young friend is not yet fully healed… here, let me…”
Her eyes glowed briefly, and she breathed out a chill mist over the quaking boy. In a matter of seconds, however, Jeb’s look of terror turned to one of amazement.
“I – I feel fine,” he exclaimed. “My side doesn’t hurt, and my headache is gone… I don’t think I ever felt this good! And I don’t even feel cold anymore! Thank you, um, mighty, um, dragon!” Taking his cue from Korwin, he bowed low.
“You are most welcome, child. And now a gift for the rest of you, in payment of an amusing and informative morning.” The dragon breathed out her mist over the rest of the group. Flinching only a little, the Hand quickly realized that they no longer felt the freezing chill of the early autumn morning mountain air!
“That should last for several days, and see you to your destination,” Ulsarinas said, as she suddenly launched herself into the air. “And now, farewell! Mayhap we shall meet again!” The blast of air from her wings almost knocked several of the Hand off their feet as the mighty beast beat upwards and away, vanishing into the sun much as she had appeared.
After several moments off stunned silence, the group burst into excited babble. The consensus was that they had all expected disaster when Korwin started taking, but everyone had to admit he’d done a bang-up job. Vulk examined Jeb’s wounds and confirmed that they were gone; indeed, it was as if they’d never been.
Only Korwin was a little subdued, either because he was still assimilating whatever the dragon had imparted to him… or because he was bummed that he was no longer the only one who was immune to the cold. Or, knowing Korwin, maybe both…
