A smoky brimstone scent taunted my nostrils, and I started sneezing as soon as we passed through the portal into Dun Kroth. Not a good sign. I’d packed my inhaler and a first-aid kit—this time, I’d also remembered a winter coat, since legions of fantasy novels had educated me on the fact that dwarves lived in the mountains—but if I had an asthma attack, I was a long way from a hospital. Zav would take care of me to the best of his abilities, but dragons seemed better at healing punctures and gashes than ongoing medical issues.
You didn’t accidentally bring us to a volcano world, did you? I asked silently as Zav flapped his wings, the portal fading behind us.
He banked, giving me an alarming view of craggy peaks, tree-filled canyons, and a tiny river far, far below. I gripped his scales as tightly as I could from the broad expanse of his back. He’d warned me that we would arrive in the air, but I hadn’t imagined it being quite so high in the air. Or that one of the nearby peaks would be emitting plumes of smoke.
I did not, but the mountain ranges that run across great swaths of Dun Kroth contain many active volcanos. The intermittent foulness of the air is one of the reasons that the dwarves burrowed tunnels, using magic to filter out the gases and protect their lungs as they built their cities underground. We are fortunate to come during an epoch when the air is much improved.
If you say so. I bet elves don’t visit a lot.
This is true. Dragons are sturdy and do not mind a little ash and brimstone in the air. We find it invigorating.
And yet my air fresheners for the Jeep turn you green.
They are repugnant.
Zav flew down the back side of a mountain and into a canyon. The trees were a normal shade of green, unlike the oddly colored ones on the elven world, but they were short and squat. I didn’t see anything like the towering pines or firs of Washington.
We soared low over a stream trickling between the trees and past a clearing dotted with stone houses that looked like something Fred Flintstone would have built. Tangles of briars and brush hugged their walls and overran the paths in a way that would have made me suspect the place was abandoned even if my senses hadn’t told me that nobody magical was around.
Zav flapped his wings to take us out of the canyon and flew across a scree-covered slope at the base of a mountain. A beautiful road built with stone blocks wound toward an archway in the side of the cliff.
“Tolkien must have spent a couple of summers here,” I murmured.
Definitely not the winters. Even with a white-yellow sun shining through the hazy smoke from the volcanos, there was little warmth. Frost glinted in the shadows.
Stone doors sealed the archway, and tufts of broad-leafed grass stuck up between the pavers here and there. As with the village, it seemed like the dwarves had abandoned this place months, if not years, ago.
I can sense the dwarves deep within this mountain. Zav landed on the road, facing the double doors. I have informed them that the great Lord Zavryd’nokquetal is here and requires they send an enchanter to speak with us.
“Requires it, huh?” I patted his scales and slid off his back, landing harder than I expected. “That’s sure to work.”
Unfortunately, my own senses didn’t extend far enough for me to detect anyone inside the mountain. I’d seen a few small animals skittering through the leaf litter under the trees, but so far, this entire world seemed abandoned to me. Abandoned and strange. Aside from the pervading brimstone odor, the air was thick and heavy.
No, I realized, jumping a couple of times and coming down hard. Not the air—the gravity.
On the elven home world, it had been close enough to Earth’s gravity that I hadn’t noticed it. This was a different story, and I made a mental note that my arms might grow fatigued quickly in a sword fight. Would I be able to swing Chopper as fast as usual? I dredged through my memories of heavy gravity explained in science-fiction novels, but the authors had rarely brought up sword fights.
Do you have an alternative plan? Zav asked.
I walked up and knocked on the door.
I tried that already.
“Yes, but you’re a fearsome dragon. They would be foolish to answer the door for you. I’m a charming half-elf.”
You are more likely to vex them than charm them.
“Only if they prove themselves our enemies. Or say something that requires ridicule.”
They have not responded to me at all.
I rested my hand on the cool stone and gripped my lock-picking charm with my other hand, willing the magic to open the doors. I didn’t expect it to work—Zav’s magic was far more powerful than any of my charms, and he’d surely tried this—but it would tickle me if it did.
I already tried that, Zav informed me dryly. Ancient dwarven masters enchanted the doors long ago, perhaps the very ones who worked with smiths to make the dragon blades.
“I’d like to talk to them then.” The doors didn’t budge—I didn’t see hinges and wasn’t even convinced that they were legitimate doors instead of slabs of granite placed to permanently bar the way.
Zav let out a long breath, the dragon equivalent of a sigh. That would be ideal. I do not know why they have ensconced themselves in their mountains and will not answer the summons of even a Stormforge dragon. My kin and I are known to be reasonable.
For dragons, I thought but didn’t share. “The fae queen said Mount Crenel is where my sword might have been forged and that there are caves and temples inside that might hold information. Can you take me to that mountain?”
I have heard of Mount Crenel, and that there are tombs among the temples and also that there is a repository of knowledge, so that is a logical place to check, but I am not certain which mountain it is. The name is from dwarven lore, not dragon lore.
I took that to mean that one dwarven mountain looked like another to a dragon.
I have flown over the various mountain ranges of this world a few times, and I can make some guesses, Zav added.
As I returned to his side to climb on his back again, he spun around, almost whacking me with his tail. His back stiffened as he peered toward another mountaintop, his nostrils quivering.
“Problem?” I stayed crouched low in case the tail whipped around again.
Whatever he saw or sensed, he was on full alert.
I sense powerful creatures flying this way.
“Flying? Like dragons?” I drew Chopper.
They are not dragons. They are not… Climb on my back.
“No offense, Zav, but I’d be more comfortable fighting from the ground.”
There are many of them. We will need to find a defensible place to face them. Climb on now.
He levitated me in the air before I could say anything else. It was just as well. I didn’t want to argue further, not when he was worried about whatever it was. I couldn’t remember ever seeing him worried about anything. Dragons were the supreme predators in the Cosmic Realms.
Weren’t they?
Zav sprang into the air and, instead of flying in the opposite direction of the approaching threat, flew toward it. He didn’t soar straight toward the mountaintop but stayed low and headed for that canyon we’d passed. As he tilted his snout downward to fly into it, I sensed the creatures for the first time.
A creepy graveyard chill came over me, reminding me of the touch of the invisible fingers in the artifacts room. But this couldn’t be related to that, could it? We weren’t even on the same planet anymore. Or had the thief followed us here and was sending this attack?