“No wonder Otholo was so highly strung with you rammed into his little body,” said Ragna. “Then again, he does have a rather big head.”
Bray watched Elora step closer to the beast before he had time to pull her back. She stared up at the giant whose head sat between the rafters, his height dwarfing her. “You won’t take his body again, Zionbuss,” she ordered. “His or anyone else’s in our group.”
He nodded, white teeth shining as his grin widened. “Of course, my queen. Now, please sit.” He gestured to the chairs around the table. “Treat these quarters as your own until we reach Thea.”
“How far are we?” Bray asked, as they all sat around the table, Zionbuss taking his throne like-chair once again.
“Not far,” he answered, shifting through the scrolls and papers in front of them with his claws until he found what looked like an atlas. He rolled it flat and placed metal weights on either side. To Bray it looked like a big red square with patterns scratched in black. But then again, that’s what the landscape was.
“We’re about here. The gate where Otholo came through from Thea, is here.” He stabbed a claw at a small black triangle amongst a crudely drawn mountain range.
“How long will it take us?” asked Ejan, as she dug dried blood out of her fingernails with a small, curved knife.
“Time is irrelevant. Days, weeks, months will pass in the Shadowlands but in the worlds, only a handful of seconds would have ticked by. Those we left back on Earth, Jaygen, Norgie and the wood troll, will probably be still staring down at the gate we passed through. To them we had only just gone over.” Zionbuss sat back, placing his elbows on the chair arms and making a steeple with his fingers.” It’s hard to keep track of time here, where there is no night or day, no sun or moon. Just an endless burning sky.”
“That’s why it’s called the Shadowlands. Trapped between both worlds where the daylight never reaches,” explained Diagus, leaning back and making himself comfortable. Bray noticed he was the only one without a drop of spilt blood on him, even though he had probably brought down more bulworgs than the rest of them. “The stillness of time will work in our favour. We need to reach Aslania as soon as possible.”
“If Nathanial can keep up the wind like it is, we could arrive at the gate sometime tomorrow evening. That is if we had a tomorrow, which we don’t or indeed an evening.”
“No days or nights, think that would drive me insane after a while,” said Ragna, twirling his finger in the air near his temple.
“Insane?” laughed Zionbuss bitterly. “I’ve been trapped here since Solarius’s fall. That’s over twenty thousand years on Thea. How many lifetimes do you think that is over here in the Shadowlands?”
Bray couldn’t comprehend the scale of what that was, if a day here was only a few seconds there, then twenty thousand years there would be; his brain couldn’t think of a number so great without a calculator. “You did go insane, hence this ship of death.”
“You’re probably right. I’ve sailed every square inch of the Shadowlands a thousand different ways and times. Watched the dust plains crack open and spew mountains from the fire that burns beneath. Seen them crumble away to nothing, eroded by only the wind. The landscape changes shape, shifts itself, creating new crevices, new deserts all the while the Dark Army waits. Madness is my only escape.”
“To supply an army of any size, surely you would need provisions. Food, water, the bare essentials yet this land provides none,” remarked Ejan, finishing cleaning blood from one hand and beginning to work her knife into her other fingernails.
“It’s like I said before. Things work differently here. Solarius is the God of Chaos, but fool he is not. There’s no need for sustenance in the Shadowlands, not even water. Think about it. You’ve been hiking for what must have been hours up a ridge, then chased up the thing. You’ve fought hard in a bloody battle, in the heat, in the dust and not one of you has worked up a thirst.”
They all looked at each other, open mouthed. He was right, thirst hadn’t at any point showed itself. Neither were they hungry, and after a fight, even an easy one you always seemed fatigued, your body craving food.
“Your hair or nails will not grow, your skin will not wrinkle and you will cease to age here. Unless somebody opens you up with a blade or sticks you with an arrow, you would live to see the end of days.”
Silence descended on the group as they came to terms with those facts. It wasn’t everyday somebody pointed out that you were one step away from immortal.
“Still, who wants to live forever?” Ragna said, breaking the silence. “Place is a bit boring to say the least, and the dust -” Zionbuss chuckled at that.
“What’s this symbol mean?” asked Elora, her finger pointing to a blot on the map.
Zionbuss leaned over her. “It’s not a symbol. It’s a name - Grycul,” he said, the word sending a pulse of recognition through Bray.
“Interesting,” said Diagus. “She’s still alive then?”
“Still alive. But don’t worry yourself Shadojak, she’s chained to a mountain.”
“How thick are those chains?” asked Bray, sitting forward.
Zionbuss tapped the map with a claw. “The mountain will break before those chains. The links are forged from Valerian steel.”
“Who’s Grycul?” asked Elora, shifting herself closer to Bray and placing a hand on his.
“She’s a dragon. God created, by your father, like me,” replied Zionbuss. “He rode the fire breathing bitch into battle, reducing men, armies, whole towns to molten ash. When Solarius fell she went berserk and turned on her own. Burning battalions and crushing men between those huge jaws of hers. In the end we took her down by sheer force of numbers. Chained her to the mountain and put her under the protection of an infantry regiment. In the thousands of years that’ve passed they’ve become the Dragon Guard. Forging their own armour and shields from Grycul’s scales. They’ve set traps all around the mountain and now none can come close without falling into their hands. Those that try end up as sacrifice to the Dragon.”
“She eats them?” asked Elora, lip curling in disgust.
“Eats, burns, crushes. Same difference; whoever steps onto the mountain, dies.”
“What if we were to sail over the mountain. We could kill her from above, no?” said Bray, the beginnings of a plan slowly turning in his mind.
Zionbuss shook his huge horned head. “She’s god created remember. Only something that is also god created can kill her.”
“Like a Shadojak’s blade, a soul reaver, for instance,” Bray offered, raising an eyebrow as Diagus frowned at him.
“Yes, that would do it. Why, are we taking a small detour?”
“No,” said Diagus. Slamming a fist on the map. The weights holding the scroll bounced from the paper and it instantly rolled back up. “Our priority is Solarius. If we waste time killing Grycul, he may have gained enough strength to break his bonds. Then he could simply create another dragon or whatever else he needed to.”
Bray nodded, agreeing with his old master. His idea wasn’t to kill Grycul until after they had completed the mission. If somehow they all survived this ordeal he would bring Elora back and somehow slay the dragon, hoping that the Shadojak Supreme would grant her clemency for the act and let her live. It was a slim, long chance, he knew. But at least it was a chance.
“That’s settled then,” said Ragna, rising to leave. “If we’re not needing the water to drink, I’m going to use to wash off this bulworg stink.”
Bray used the distraction to slip the atlas into his smuggler’s pouch, then stood up. “Not a bad idea,” he said, brushing dried blood from his sleeve and walking from the room to join Ragna.
Elora stared into the distance, her new blonde hair catching in the breeze as she leaned out over the front of the ship. The plain still spread before them, red dust fractured by black fissures, disappearing into the mountain range which was gradually growing nearer. Her father’s army had dwindled to narrow formations, the big black squares of men becoming scattered the further they came until only random pockets of fighters stood alone or in small groups.
Ejan was by her side, leaning out over the rail, staring into the distance. Elora sensed an awkwardness between them, one that had been present since she threw her husband into the dungeon wall and didn’t know how to go about mending it. In the end it was the Viking that broke the silence.
