The man was tall, strong, and handsome. His regal face was covered with a well-cropped beard of auburn brown, and his eyes were a deep olive. He stood a head taller than his companion and had shoulders broad as an ox. His splendor was absolute until he opened his mouth.

  “Right, mate, look we can sneak in and steal the girl ya see! It’ll be easy. Thems dragon types are always makin’ raids and what not. We can wait ‘til we sees it leave and then scale the cliff right quick in a hurry like, then use these fancy wing thingies what your boy back in Bevin town made to fly on down. Easy.”

  His companion was a man of four and twenty, gaunt, almost skeletal with deep socketed blue eyes that shone as lights from a cavern. His nose was twisted, and he breathed in a measured, difficult way, sighed heavily, and then responded, “Bronson, the glide wings were made for someone of smaller stature, not you hulking brute. Besides, you’ve not scaled a low wall much less a cliff.”

  Bronson shone a wicked grin before pulling a small vial of molten silver liquid from his pocket, “Ah, but, Titus, we have this we do. Like I said, easy, mate.”

  Bronson blinked, Titus’s hand struck like a viper, and then Bronson’s hand was empty, and his jaw dropped.

  Titus pulled a small eyeglass from a pouch at his side and was intent on the vial. His one blue eye was magnified enormous and made him look like a disproportioned child’s drawing. “Is this what I think it is, Bronson?”

  “How the hells should I know what you think it is?!”

  “Bronson…” Titus removed the eyeglass from his eye and placed it back in his pouch, “Do you know what this is?”

  “Right sure I do. It’s a magic potion.” Bronson’s grin spread from ear to ear across is his broad face.

  “Well no…” Titus slapped his forehead with his palm, and took a deep breath before he continued, “What kind of potion is it, Bronson?”

  Bronson twisted his face and said, “The magic kind, moron. Said it didn’t I?”

  Titus turned away from his companion to look up the road toward the spiraled mountain peak in the distance. It was still somewhat warm where they stood, but he shivered just looking at the ice that covered it from tip to base. The road on which they stood was mostly mud in the transition from a cold winter into a warming spring. Ice and snow began to flow through this valley in waters mixed with earth and stone. It wouldn’t be an easy trek even to the base.

  “How do you know it’s that mountain, Bronson?” Titus asked.

  “Ye do believe me that there’s a princess up there needin’ rescuin’ and what, and treasure and adventure and magical thingamawhats and…”

  “Didn’t say that I didn’t believe, just hoping to cast some doubt on your certainty so I don’t have to walk through half a hell of mud and snow to maybe meet a dragon that may or may not exist. Bronson, this is a fool’s quest.” Titus turned his sapphire stone gaze on his companion who seemed to shrink to normal human proportions. “Why do we risk our lives here?”

  “Cause nothin’ we ever done before done mattered one lick, d’ya know what I mean? Rob and steal and cheat and pretend we got some purpose. Tired of bein’ the bad guy, Titus, bein’ the rake, the heel, the… what’d that last lord we worked for call me?”

  “The meatshield for monstrous madmen and a…” he cleared his throat and took on a supercilious air, “disgrace to all human, beast, and earthly kind.”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Yeah, all that and whatnot. Not sure what he means, but it don’t sound no good ta me, and I don’t wanna be no good to anyone, I wanna be some good to someone.”

  Titus shook his head and sighed again, “We are no good, Bronson, no good at anything but being bad. We’ve made names for ourselves among the dregs and the underground. We’re reliable we are. Some good to them. What makes you suddenly want to be a hero?”

  Bronson’s face took on a childlike gleam, a kind of enraptured awe, “Ye have ta see her, Titus. Eyes like those funny eastern stones we found, lovely green, like. Her hair is braided rope of auburn horsehair with ‘lil bits of sharper red. And when she smiled, O gods of heaven or wherever, you never seen such a smile. Do you remember when I got bled in that tavern brawl back in Tarovia?” Bronson looked straight into Titus’ eyes, his own eyes blazing.

  Titus stepped back awkwardly, leaning away, “Yeah, I remember. You were laid out for a week. Shortsword to the gut’ll do that. It’s a miracle they missed your stomach and the healers were able to sew you up quick.”

  “When I saw her, the byor, this pretty bird from a dream I don’t half wrap my head ‘round, it was like that sword stabbing me, and my chest crumpled. No good with words, Titus, ye know that, ye know? Wish, wish I could make ye see.”

  Titus stood as tall as he could and stared back at his friend becoming a stranger, “So let me get this straight, you have a dream about a pretty girl and suddenly want to traipse a thousand leagues and climb the world’s biggest mountain and maybe fight a dragon just to, what? Marry her?” Titus threw back his head and laughed. “Can’t believe I am still with you. I thought you’d stop about here and we’d go back to conning and muscling and it’d be grand old times, but you’ve lost it.” Titus turned back toward Bevin town and began to walk away.

  Bronson’s face fell like a struck child, but only for the fraction of a moment, like the flickering of a strong flame before a gust of wind, “Whatever I lost wasn’t worth havin’ ya know. We’re like those flagons of mead once thems been drank and we ain’t got no money for more, Titus.”

  Titus yelled back over his shoulder, “You never made any rottin’ sense, you brute, but now even less. Goin’ noble on me, but not just noble, crazy – chasing bleedin’ fairy tales like a street tough’s urchin kid.”

  “We done tried all this real fer a while, Titus? What’s the matter? Ain’t got the rocks to try something fresh? Maybe real ain’t what you think it is.”

  Titus spun all the way around and made a broad swath of his arms, “Look around you, Bronson! Nobody is here. It’s cold, it’s muddy, the road is shot, our boots are heavier than they started, and that mountain is still mad far away. Why do you think nobody is here? I’ll tell you why, because there’s nothing good that way.”

  Bronson adjusted the pack on his shoulders and put his head down and stepped toward the mountain, furthering the distance between the two men. Titus turned to face the town, and the two were back-to-back separated by a few paces. “Maybe imma fool or whatever else meanness people say, but I’m goin’ that a way, toward that mountain. Maybe alone, maybe with a friend. Maybe I die or worse or maybe nothin’. But I have to try ya know? I know the other way, and there ain’t nothin’ there. Oh sure, taverns, and girls, and jobs for hire, maybe a binge or two, some drunk nights I don’t remember. Nothin’. It’s all nothin’. Rather somethin’ than nothin,’ d’ye know what I mean like? You in or out, I’m goin’ either way. Dravok naa, masni.”

  Titus laughed louder this time, his back still turned to Bronson, as he stared down the road back toward Bevin town. “Was that draconic?!” Another peal of laughter, “Where’d you pick up that little phrase. Killin’ me, my friend, you are killin’ me. Now you are goin’ to go off and kill yourself.” Another laugh, now closer to a chuckle, “And he speaks some random phrase in draconic. Wherever did you pick up that nonsense?”

  Bronson silently walked away, up toward the mountain in the distance, his face set like flint.

  Titus kept laughing and laughing as he stood in the middle of the muddy road. He laughed for what seemed like hours, days. He laughed without knowing how to stop, and before he knew it, he was crying. He buried his skeletal face in his fingers and hunched down in the road and wept himself straight into weakness in the mud.

  Then a thought struck his brain like a brand of fire, Where did he learn a draconic phrase? He looked back, through tear blurred vision and saw, a long way down the road, the distant silhouette of his friend, trudging toward the mountain. He whispered, “Wait” as he reached out a feeble hand toward the outline of Bronson. Then he swallowed hard, clenched his teeth and stood. He looked down at his feet then looked up at the mountain, down to the outline of his friend, back to his feet. Move he thought just move. His own voice scared him, “MOVE!” Ploddingly he lifted the heel of his left foot, then the mid-sole, finally the toe, as bits of mud tried to suck it downward to the earth, and he took a step.