Kellanved's Reach

The bone-chilling water rose at times to their waists, while at other times the chute lowered or narrowed to the point where Orjin had to slide along sideways, or hunched double. Poor Orhan had to crawl nearly on his stomach through these choke-points. The way continued ever onwards, however, without any dead end or impassable barrier – so far.

Eventually, they did come to something of a dead end: a cliff where the waters cascaded over, arching downwards into misted darkness.

‘How far?’ Orjin asked over the roar of the falls.

The youths appeared uncertain. ‘We do not know. Beyond is the cavern of the … of it.’

Orjin looked to Orhan. ‘Throw a torch.’ The huge fellow tossed down his torch and everyone watched it tumble to land amid rocks. Some ten fathoms, Orjin reckoned it. ‘Do we have any rope?’ he asked of the troop at large. Heads turned, peering round, but no one spoke up. Wonderful, he thought. No one held on to any rope. ‘Fine. I’ll try climbing down.’ He handed Orhan his weapon and knelt at the edge, feeling down over the cliff.

At least it was solid rock and not rotten crumbling sandstone or shale. He found handholds and slowly, his way lit from above, he felt his way down the cliff face to piled fallen detritus, the talus slope. ‘Not too difficult!’ he shouted up. ‘Did you see that?’

‘Yes,’ Arkady answered. ‘We will follow. Do not move!’

Orjin remained where he stood – feeling rather foolish standing unarmed in the lair of some sort of reputed eldritch horror.

When perhaps half of his troops had descended, Orjin turned to the hill-tribe youths. ‘Thank you, but you needn’t go on from here. Just tell us the way.’

‘No one alive knows the way from this point onward,’ one said. ‘We will come.’

Orjin nodded his gratitude. He glanced to Orhan and Arkady. ‘Let’s take a look.’

They explored the cavern. At one point starlight streamed downwards from some hidden crack above. The bones of animals that had tumbled into the gap above lay broken amid the rocks here. Listening, Orjin thought he could almost hear the surf rolling against the rocky shore. The cavern narrowed here, the water rising to their knees.

He might have been fooling himself, but he thought he saw the glint of light just above the water level far ahead. ‘Is that an opening?’ he asked Arkady.

The Wickan did not answer. Glancing at him, Orjin saw the fellow staring aside, hand white on the grip of his curved long-knife.

What Orjin had taken for a pile of pale rocks off to one side now shifted, rising, climbing ever higher until he found himself staring upward at a great upright lizard standing at some four fathoms of bones and withered flesh. Yet it stood awkwardly, tilted, and he saw that the bones of one thick leg were broken.

The hill-tribe youths all gaped, frozen.

Yune came, pushing forward. ‘Not a dragon!’ he yelled. ‘Though I understand the confusion. A K’Chain Che’Malle warrior.’

Orhan had given back Orjin’s two-handed sword and now he drew it. ‘I don’t give a damn what it is – can it be killed?’

‘It appears preserved against rot somehow. Undying. Perhaps it fell from above ages ago,’ Yune told him. ‘It will have to be dismembered.’

‘Dismembered!’ Orjin snarled, appalled. ‘Fine. Orhan, you distract it and I’ll go for the other leg.’

Prevost Jeral had pushed forward. ‘No! All at once! Too many targets, yes?’

The creature struggled to advance upon them, dragging its shattered rear leg.

Orjin cursed again. ‘Right! All at once – we overpower it.’ He raised his sword overhead, bellowing, ‘All who would dare … draw your weapons and attack!’

He did not wait to see how many actually took him up on his challenge and charged in. The creature took great wide sweeps with its forelimbs, knocking soldiers flying aside. With his two-handed sword and brute strength, Orjin managed to deflect one such sweep, but it took far too much out of him to be worth it, and he ducked from then on. Some few managed to reach the good leg and they hacked at the bone and withered dried ligaments. The beast brushed them off, and too many of the tossed men and women did not rise again from where they’d fallen among the rocks.

Incensed by these losses, just on the cusp of escape, Orjin charged in for that side. He ducked a sweep and hacked with all his strength, chopping deeply. But the blade caught and he could not dislodge it. The next thing he knew he was flying through the air, the wind punched from him. He crashed into rocks and was sure he heard and felt ribs crack.

Gasping, rising, he staggered in once more, meaning to retrieve his blade from where it stood jammed into the main joint of the beast’s leg. It was pawing at the blade now, and from the opposite side the giant Orhan came charging in, two-handed mattock raised high above his head. He brought the weapon down on the creature’s skull with a bellowing yell that echoed from the rocks around. There was an audible crunch and the creature staggered, but not before turning upon Orhan, snapping its jaws round him and tossing him aside.