Sorry for being a day late posting this one, friends. For the last few days my poor pup was feeling unwell, and it progressed to the point yesterday where we ended up taking him to an animal urgent care. To say I have been distracted and anxious is an understatement. But! Today he is much better, and hopefully the antibiotics will set him back to rights.
So, back to it then.
Here is a short story, one I’ve written some years ago, presented in three parts. This is part two. Look for the conclusion next week.
Part One | Part Two | Part Three
7th Late Spring, 59th year of the Company Calendar
Somewhere in the Viridian Coast
II.
The Wayfarers continue forward, Natalie taking the lead with Raulo a step behind. Despite Danil’s earlier complaints, the path Natalie has chosen for them has brought them right to the large building Tayyip pointed out, their various ascents having skipped past much of the city which lays now below them. The great doors of the domed building they have come for are fallen apart. Tayyip needs only step over the rubble and he passes through the threshold of his life’s great desire.
“What is this place?” Sami asks, wonder in his voice. All of the contractors follow Sami inside, stop, stare up at the domed ceiling. Half of the ceiling is cast in shadow but half of it is visible from the light that spills through the broken stone walls, open door, and long shattered windows.
The dome is a mosaic. Pieces of it are missing, here and there, where tiles have fallen to shatter upon the floor, but the image is mostly intact. It depicts a shining golden city - this city - built atop crags. Dragons fly between the spires, while Dragonborn - the First People - ride upon their backs, being carried between the buildings or flying out and away towards the rest of their empire.
“The Forbidden City,” says Tayyip. “A city closed to all but the priests of the First People, forbidden to any who were not Dragonriders. This is the Deverajah, named after their first emperor. It’s their central temple complex.”
“There!” Danil says, pointing excitedly at a part of the roof mosaic where the day scene turns to night. “Constellations! There could be new patterns here, new arcane glyphs to be learned.” He rushes off towards the southern wall.
“Wait,” hisses Natalie, hurrying after him, but moving with a great deal more caution, checking for tripwires and false floors. The Broken are not intelligent, like humans, but they have a crude cunning.
“This great overdone bit of tilework what you’re here for then, runt?” Raulo asks Tayyip, with a nod up towards the mosaic.
“No, though, I wish we had brought an artist to make a likeness,” Tayyip says, near breathless with excitement. He pulls out his notepad and begins sketching, and though his lines are neat and precise they are hurried and more suited to sketching birds, insects, and lizards rather than ancient works of surpassing artistry. “Still, if you will linger a few moments, mister Michelis, I will be brief. Then we must find passage down, deeper into the complex.”
“Pfah,” Raulo snorts. “Linger, the daft shit says, as if there aren’t a thousand of the Broken bastards ready to stick us full of holes and do tides know what with us.”
“I hear they’ll gnaw our bones like dogs, Cap,” says one of the contractors with a wink, an Iskilariote woman named Esma Kader. Her skin is mottled green gray, her jaw large, canine teeth pronounced, her demeanor every bit living up to the reputation her people have for fierceness.
“Gnaw our fucking bones,” Raulo exclaims, but has has already begun shoving the members of his company to get to work checking for traps and keeping an eye out for danger. “Break their fucking teeth on my bones, sure as shittin’ in the morning, but the rest of you cupcakes will be good eating so keep your ugly eyes open. Sami, go after Natalie and our intrepid, honored, beloved Scholar before he gets her killed. And someone find a fucking way down for this little Siphlin welp. Fool fucking thing, going underground, get dirt in my fucking beard…” Raulo’s muttered complaints become too quiet for Tayyip to make out. Saeralins are notorious for disliking being underground.
Tayyip moves closer to one of the columns holding up the roof. Even these are carved and though age has done much to damage many of them this one remains well preserved. It, like all the other columns as far as Tayyip can tell, depicts a dragon standing upon its back legs, forelegs extended to support the roof. Tayyip frowns in puzzlement, flipping to a new page in his notepad to begin sketching.
Esma has come near, does a double take as she walks past the column, comes closer peering at the dragon’s head.
“Is that supposed to be a… black?” Esma asks. “With no horns? And the snout is kind of…”
Tayyip is no expert on dragonology, but contractors like Esma make hunting dragons their livelihood. He knows not to dismiss her.
“Could it be a green? They have no horns, I believe,” Tayyip asks.
“Not a chance,” Esma says, shaking her head. “Green’s jaw is pretty unique, more narrow, elongated, and they have a spiny frill runnin’ down their neck. Blues have a horn on their nose, some spine frills as well. Reds got horns that run back from their snout up over their eyes, blacks got horns that run forward from back behind their eyes like a bull, and metallics all got a totally different look to their skulls. This one’s got a skull a bit like a black’s, but no horns and no neck frill, just this bumpy ridge down its spine. Guess these First People artists ain’t never seen a dragon.”
“I think that unlikely,” Tayyip says, jotting down what Esma is saying in his quick shorthand. “This city would have been filled with living dragons, and all the people here would have been Dragonriders - the First People did not have artists, as we know the profession, but all artistry was performed by their priests. This city was as much a city of artistic expression as religious.”
Esma doesn’t look convinced. “I’ve spent many an hour next to the beasts, though they wasn’t living at the time. Even learning a bit of the harvesting trade from Weston. Fella who carved that there, Dragonrider or not, ain’t carved no kind of dragon I’ve ever seen before.”
“Hmm,” Tayyip says, biting at the side of his lip in thought. “It could be a mythological representation. I’ve never seen a dragon placed in this position before, as if it were holding up the Dragonborn society depicted upon the roof. The symbolism of an individual holding up society is common in their ruins, but is always a statue of either Emperor Deverajan or Empress Alia. If it is mythology, then it’s a new -”
Tayyip cuts off as there’s a loud crash of stone tumbling, great blocks of the floor falling and bouncing, the sound echoing through the entire building. One of the contractors, Cesar Sandoval, has found a passage down–the man is clinging to the side of the floor, a trap having given out beneath his feet. Raulo rushes to the man’s side, pulls him back up single-handedly before anyone else can offer aid, cursing all the while.
“Fucking Broken will hear that for sure,” Esma hisses.
Tayyip hurries over - with a wary eye for loose stonework in the floor. Through the opening he can see a hallway, sloping downwards, statues of Dragonborn lining the route. Each of the statues is wearing armor, not of stone, but made of dragonscale, armor reserved for long disappeared elite imperial guards, and each statue holds a ceremonial glaive made of black obsidian. Tayyip can feel his heart thundering. This is it. This is the Graveroad, like he has long suspected. This is the tomb of the Dragonborn emperor and empress. Each is said to be buried with a fantastic wealth, but Tayyip cares little for that. There is a greater treasure to be had. All his questions will be answered if he can but walk that road, he is sure of it.
“We have to get down there,” Tayyip starts to say, but then there’s a sharp whistle from the lookouts.
“Broken!” one of them calls out. Over the pounding of his heart, Tayyip hears the beating of drums.
Raulo grabs Tayyip, pulls him away from the ledge, spins him so they are eye to eye. “Scholar, listen to me. No games, no bluster, we are leaving now. Listen! Don’t shake your bloody head at me, you’ve been in your share of ruins. You know what comes next. We’re leaving.”
Tayyip wants to argue - he is so close! A decade of his life! A year spent petitioning for funding! - but he has been to nearly a dozen ruins. They always have Broken. Sometimes, you can spend days in the ruins before the Broken notice you’re there, sometimes you get hours, but once they notice they go berserk, like creatures possessed. Faith, he is so close! Was so close. Tayyip curses, the first Raulo has heard any profanity from the diminutive Scholar.
“Where is Scholar Sokolov?” Tayyip asks.
“Fuck!” Raulo curses, looking around. One of the contractors, Weston Morey, points to the stairwell that leads up the southern tower. “Gods of the salty fucking sea. Briana, you’re in charge, keep that door clear so we can get the rusting hell out of this place. Scholar, you’re with me, let’s go get your told-you-he-would-fucking-kill-us colleague. Move your scrawny arse!”
Tayyip takes off up the stairs, shouting for Danil and Natalie and Sami. A long horn blast pierces the air. Broken hunters calling to the warbands. A moment later Tayyip hears the crack of a longrifle, and the horn falls silent. Too late, of course, more horns join the first, and the drums, the drums are sounding from everywhere in the city below.
Still, even with adrenaline and fear coursing through his bloodstream Tayyip can’t help but notice the walls and ceiling of the tower as they run past. The mosaic continues here, the artistry beyond anything Tayyip has seen before. He has the impression he is running up into the night sky, stars spinning about him, dragons flying as black silhouettes through the air, Dragonborn dancing among the constellations. It’s no wonder Danil, an astronomer with a focus on arcane principles, felt drawn to explore this.
Raulo and Tayyip nearly collide with the astronomer and his two minders. Sami has Scholar Sokolov tucked under one arm and is following Natalie down the stairs, ignoring the indignant protests of the Scholar. The two parties nearly collide.
“Unhand me you disgusting barbarian!” Danil is squawking. “You have no idea the value of the knowledge you are dragging me away from! The stars hold the keys to arcane rituals you have no notion the - Tayyip! Tell this brute to unhand me!”
Before Tayyip can say anything, Raulo is right there in the other Scholar’s face.
“Listen to me you pink puffy Navan bastard, you arrogant fucking soft-bodied whoreson, this is not one of your ivory towers in Auldport, this is a dead city filled with thousands - fucking thousands! - of Broken bastards that just woke up and are coming to kill us. We are leaving, now. We can try to come back later if these angry cunts settle down, but right now we are leaving,” Raulo growls.
Danil’s face pales. He swallows once, twice, trying to formulate a reply, but the Wayfarers and Tayyip begin to descend the staircase with haste. The sound of gunfire rises to meet them. Tayyip believes Danil may honestly not have heard the horns, the man is so obsessed with the stars, but now panic grips the other Scholar.
They come to the grand room where they left the other contractors. Esma and Briana are at the doorway, firing out, Esma working the lever action of her carbine so that her hands are only a blur. As Esma stops to reload, Briana leans out from the rubble and blasts away with her shotgun. Weston Morey, the company’s harvester, is up at a window with a longrifle, taking aim and firing with methodical precision. Cesar Sandoval has a hatchet and a shortsword out, a carbine discarded at his feet. He struggles with two shadowy shapes in a hallway that must lead to another entrance.
With a roar, Sami drops Danil, rushing forward to Cesar’s side. Two echoing blasts of a shotgun and then Sami grips the weapon by the barrel and lays about with it as a club. There’s a sound of hail against stone from the front wall, and Esma and Briana stagger back from the door, a half dozen arrows sticking out of them. Raulo is at Briana’s side in seconds.
The contractors wear tough leathers made of dragonhide; Raulo pulls the arrows from Briana’s duster, runs his hands over the leather.
“None of them pierced, my pearl, none of them pierced,” Raulo says breathlessly. Briana gives a wide-eyed nod, sets to reloading her shotgun.
Tayyip is at Esma’s side, helping pull the arrows from her leathers. Esma grunts in pain as Tayyip pulls one of them away, covered in her blood. He stares at it, eyes going wide. There’s a viscous, ugly colored substance mingled with the blood dripping off the stone arrowhead. Esma sees it too. A choked sob escapes her, is cut off by a curse and roar of anger as she goes back to the door and fires the remaining bullets in her carbine.
Raulo risks a glance outside.
“Gods of the salt and earth,” he whispers in shock. Tayyip takes the same risk, sees a city come alive with vaguely human shaped figures, all rushing up the street towards the temple complex. He has never seen so many Broken in one place in his life.
Part One | Part Two | Part Three
Very vivid writing. Well done. I like how the action and violence ends with a pic of sleeping puppies. 😂