Vane tossed a length of frayed rope at Gunther’s feet. “Bind your own ankles. Three loops. Tight.”

  Gunther didn’t move. The cold of the stream seeped through her trousers. Behind her, she heard Jacob’s labored breathing, the wet sound of him spitting blood onto the moss.

  “You heard him,” grunted the cultist holding her, his gauntleted hand tightening on her shoulder.

  Slowly, Gunther picked up the rope. Her fingers felt thick and clumsy. She looked past Vane to where Sihar was being hauled upright by two men. The old mage’s face was a mask of stoic pain, her arm bent at a wrong angle. Think. Move. Survive.

  She wound the rope around her ankles, pulling it just shy of tight. A performance of compliance. As she tied the final knot, she let the tip of her index finger slip between the rope and her skin, creating a quarter-inch of slack.

  “Now him,” Vane said, nodding at Jacob.

  Gunther shuffled on her knees to Jacob’s side. One eye was swollen shut, and a deep gash above his brow leaked a steady trickle down his temple. He looked at her, his one good eye glinting with a fury that had no outlet.

  “Don’t be a hero,” she whispered, her voice barely a breath. She took another length of rope and began binding his ankles, making the same deliberate, hidden slack. Her hands brushed his leg, and she felt the hard line of the boot knife he’d shown her two days ago, still strapped to his calf. The cultists had taken his sword, but missed the hidden blade. A spark, tiny and desperate, caught in her chest.

  “Enough,” Vane said. He gestured to his men. “Get them moving. We have six miles to the forward post before the sun hits the ridge. I want to be at the Peaks by nightfall.”

  Rough hands hauled Gunther and Jacob to their feet. The slack in her bonds allowed her to shuffle, but not walk. It was an awkward, hobbling gait designed to prevent escape. Two cultists took point, blades drawn, scanning the dense bracken of the forest. Two more fell in behind, one of them leading a dazed-looking Sihar by a tether around her wrists. Vane walked just ahead of Gunther, his posture relaxed, as if on a morning stroll.

  The forest was a cage of green and shadow. Birdsong, once comforting, now felt like a taunt. Every rustle in the undergrowth made the guards tense. Gunther kept her head down, watching the ground, memorizing the path. They followed the stream east for a half-mile, then cut north onto a game trail that widened into a crude road. The earth was packed hard, marked by recent boot prints and, here and there, the deep, three-toed impression of a drake’s foot.

  “The forward post,” Jacob muttered beside her, his voice thick. “They’ve been using this route for a while.”

  Vane glanced back, a thin smile on his lips. “You’re observant. For a thug. Yes, this path has seen considerable traffic. Supplies. Personnel. The future, marching on.”

  “The future stinks of dragon shit and desperation,” Gunther said.

  One of the rear guards cuffed her across the back of the head. Stars burst behind her eyes. She stumbled, but kept her feet.

  “Let her talk,” Vane said, amused. “Defiance is a currency that devalues quickly where we’re going. You’ll spend it all by sunset.”

  They marched. The sun climbed, baking the humidity into a thick soup. Sweat glued Gunther’s shirt to her back. Her ankles chafed against the rope. She focused on the knife in Jacob’s boot, on the specific shuffle she’d need to reach it. She watched Vane’s back, the way his grey cloak swung with his stride. He was confident. Arrogant. He hadn’t even ordered their hands bound behind their backs just the ankles. A small, critical oversight.

  The forward post was a fortified camp nestled in a box canyon. A wooden palisade, fresh-cut pine still weeping sap, formed a semi-circle against the cliff face. Inside, she could see tents and the glow of a cookfire. But it was the clearing beside it that froze the blood in her veins.

  Three drakes were tethered to iron stakes driven deep into the ground. They were smaller than true dragons, maybe the size of a wagon, with pebbled grey hides and frills of bone around their necks. They snapped and hissed at each other, their breath pluming in the cool canyon air. Cultists in scaled leather moved among them, checking harnesses and loading panniers with lumpy, canvas-wrapped cargo.

  “Mount up,” Vane called to his men. “We ride the rest of the way.”

  Ride. Gunther’s stomach turned to ice.

  The cultists untethered two of the drakes and brought them forward. The beasts stank of musk and spoiled meat. Their yellow eyes, slit-pupilled like a snake’s, tracked the prisoners with cold intelligence.

  “You will ride with handlers,” Vane said, as if explaining a quaint custom. “Attempt to dislodge your rider, and the drake will be commanded to roll. You will be pulp. Attempt to attack your rider, and the drake will bite your leg off. The rules are simple: sit still, and you might arrive intact.”

  A cultist with a face pocked by old burns grabbed Gunther by the arm. “You’re with me.” He dragged her toward one of the creatures. A crude saddle was strapped to its back, with a second, smaller seat behind it. The cultist mounted the front seat with practiced ease, then reached down to haul Gunther up.

  Her bound ankles made it a clumsy, brutal process. She was flung over the drake’s hot, scaly back like a sack of grain before being shoved into the rear seat. A leather strap was cinched around her waist, binding her to the saddle. The cultist in front took the reins thick chains connected to a bit in the drake’s mouth.

  She looked over. Jacob was being similarly trussed to another drake. Sihar was being helped onto the third, her broken arm cradled awkwardly. The old mage met her eyes for a second. There was no fear in them. Only a deep, calculating focus. She was studying the harness, the chains, the drake’s vulnerable spots behind its frills.

  “Move out!” Vane shouted. He mounted a sleek black drake of his own, its scales polished to an oil-slick sheen.

  With a lurch, Gunther’s drake started forward. The motion was a rolling, muscular undulation that felt nothing like a horse. Each step jarred her spine. The ground fell away as the creature cleared the palisade wall with a powerful leap, its wings bat-like and leathery snapping out to catch the air for a brief, gliding descent into the forest on the other side.

  They weren’t flying, not truly. They were leaping and gliding from hilltop to ridge, covering ground with terrifying speed. The wind ripped at Gunther’s hair. Trees blurred past underneath. She clung to the front of the saddle, her knuckles white.

  For an hour, they raced north. The forest thinned, giving way to rocky foothills. The air grew thinner, colder. Then, they crested a final ridge, and the Sentinel Peaks rose before them.

  Gunther’s breath caught.

  Two colossal mountains, like broken teeth, jutted into the sky. Between them, in a vast, sheltered valley that should have been hidden from the world, was the roost.

  Dozens of dragons. Not just drakes. True dragons, in every hue of murder. Coppery reds the colour of old blood, deep blues like storm clouds, sickly acidic greens. Some were the size of great halls, coiled around stone spires or lounging on ledges, their wings folded like sails. Smaller ones, still larger than the drakes, circled the thermals above the valley in a slow, ominous carousel. The air vibrated with their growls, a low-frequency rumble that Gunther felt in her teeth.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  And everywhere, movement. Cultists, ant-like from this distance, scurried along carved stairways and rope bridges that connected nests and armouries. Siege engines great ballistae with harpoons the size of trees were being positioned along the valley rim. Cauldrons, large enough to boil a house, smoked over colossal fires.

  This wasn’t a hidden cult. This was an army. A nation of fire and scale.

  The drakes began their final descent, spiralling down into the heart of the valley. The smell hit Gunther first: ammonia, ash, seared meat, and the cloying sweetness of rotting treasure. The din was overwhelming roars, the clang of hammers on metal, shouted orders.

  They landed on a broad stone platform near the base of the eastern peak. Gunther’s drake skidded to a halt, its claws screeching on the rock. Before she could even process the scale of the fortress around her, she was unstrapped and dragged from the saddle.

  Her legs, numb from the ride and the bonds, buckled. She hit the rough stone hard, the impact shooting through her knees. Jacob and Sihar were dumped beside her.

  Vane dismounted smoothly, handing his reins to a waiting servant. He straightened his cloak and looked down at them, a conqueror surveying spoils.

  “Welcome,” he said, his voice cutting through the valley’s roar, “to the culmination of your worst nightmares. And to your last chance.”

  He pointed to a vast, arched entrance carved directly into the mountain’s face. Torchlight flickered from within, revealing a smooth, descending passage.

  “The Pyre Throne room lies down there. Our master awaits. You will be brought before him. You will kneel. You will witness the scope of his power. And then, you will be given a choice.”

  Jacob spat a gob of bloody phlegm onto Vane’s polished boot. “Go rot.”

  Vane looked at the mess on his leather, then back at Jacob. His expression didn’t change. “The choice is this: swear fealty. Lend your… particular skills to our cause. The mage’s knowledge of wards. The sellsword’s brutality. The girl’s… tenacity. In return, you live. You will be rich beyond the dreams of the grubby villagers you so foolishly protect.”

  He leaned closer, his voice dropping. “Or, you can refuse. And you will be given to the hatchlings in the lower pits. They are always hungry, and not yet trained to kill cleanly. It takes them hours.”

  He straightened up. “Take them to the antechamber. Clean them up. I will not present gutter trash to the Pyre Lord.”

  Guards yanked them to their feet and shoved them toward the mountain entrance. The transition from deafening open air to the muffled, echoing silence of the carved tunnel was disorienting. The stone was warm to the touch, humming with a deep, geothermal heat.

  They were marched down a wide corridor, past side passages that echoed with strange sounds the hiss of steam, the drip of water, the scrape of scale on stone. Finally, they were thrust into a small, circular chamber. An iron-banded door slammed shut behind them, the sound final.

  It was a cell, but a clean one. A bench. A bucket of water with a rag. A sliver of light from a high, narrow slit in the rock.

  For a moment, they just stood in the dim silence, breathing the hot, mineral-scented air.

  Then Sihar let out a slow, pained breath. “The ropes. Now.”

  Gunther immediately dropped to the floor, fingers scrabbling at the knot on her ankles. The hidden slack was enough. With a few frantic pulls, the rope loosened and she kicked it free. She crawled to Jacob, who was already sawing at his bonds with the edge of a loose stone tile.

  “Here,” he grunted, pulling up his trouser leg. The boot knife gleamed. Gunther snatched it and sliced through his ropes, then went to Sihar.

  The old mage sat on the bench, her face pale. “My arm is broken. The ulna. I cannot weave with it.”

  “Can you still… do anything?” Gunther asked, sawing through the tough fibers around her ankles.

  “A whisper,” Sihar said, her eyes closed in concentration. “A spark. Nothing that will stop a dragon. But perhaps…” She opened her eyes, looking at the iron door. “A lock is a small thing. A guard’s mind is a fragile thing. If we get a moment.”

  Jacob rubbed his freed ankles, wincing as circulation returned with a prickling fury. “We’re not swearing fealty.”

  “No,” Gunther said, her voice firm. She tested the weight of the boot knife. It was good steel, balanced. A tool. A weapon. “We’re not.”

  “The scale of this…” Jacob said, shaking his head. “We can’t fight this. Not three of us.”

  “We’re not here to fight the army,” Sihar whispered. She nodded toward the door. “We are here to meet its head. The Pyre Lord. Cut off the head…”

  “The body might thrash,” Jacob finished, a grim light returning to his eye. “But it’ll die.”

  Footsteps echoed outside the door. A key scraped in the lock.

  Gunther shoved the boot knife into her own boot, hastily arranged the cut ropes to look intact, and shuffled back against the wall, assuming a posture of defeated exhaustion. Jacob and Sihar did the same.

  The door swung open. Two new guards entered, older, more seasoned than the ones who’d captured them. They carried rough-spun tunics and trousers.

  “Change. You have five minutes. Then you see the Lord.”

  They tossed the clothes on the floor and left, locking the door again.

  The moment the lock clicked, Gunther moved.

  “This is it,” she said, stripping off her filthy tunic. “They take us to him. We get close. We look broken.” She pulled on the clean, grey tunic. It was simple, like a servant’s garb. “Sihar, the lock on the throne room door. Or the guard’s will. Can you do it?”

  Sihar nodded stiffly, struggling one-handed into her new clothes. “If I have a moment of contact. Skin to skin. Or metal he has touched. It will be a tiny spell. But a lock is just a thought that believes it is closed.”

  Jacob dressed quickly. “I’ll take the guard. Gunther, you get the knife to the Lord. Don’t hesitate. Go for the throat or the eye. Anything else is decoration on a thing like that.”

  “A thing like what?” Gunther asked, her mouth dry.

  “You saw the size of the dragons outside,” Jacob said, checking the hidden knife’s position in her boot with a glance. “The Pyre Lord won’t be a man in a chair.”

  The footsteps returned. The key turned.

  The door opened. The two guards stood there, hands on their sword hilts.

  “Time’s up. On your feet. Walk. Don’t speak.”

  Gunther stood, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She shuffled forward, her head down, but her eyes took in everything. The corridor beyond was wider, lined with braziers that burned with a green-tinged fire. The heat was more intense here, the hum in the stone a palpable vibration.

  They walked for what felt like miles down into the mountain’s gut. The air grew thick, acrid with sulfur. The sound was a growing roar not of dragons, but of fire and machinery and a deep, rhythmic thump like a colossal heartbeat.

  The corridor ended at a pair of towering bronze doors, etched with scenes of dragons consuming suns. Two massive guards, not cultists but hulking brutes in full plate armour, stood before them. Their faces were hidden behind helms fashioned into dragon maws.

  Their escort stopped. “The prisoners for the Pyre Lord’s audience.”

  One of the dragon-helmed guards stepped forward. He looked them over, his gaze lingering on Sihar’s hunched, pained form. He grunted. “Open.”

  He placed a gauntleted hand on the bronze door. As he pushed, Sihar stumbled, as if her weakened legs gave out. She fell against the guard’s arm.

  “Clumsy worm,” the guard snarled, shoving her back.

  Sihar caught herself on Gunther, her good hand gripping Gunther’s arm. Her eyes met Gunther’s for a fraction of a second. They were sharp, clear. She nodded, almost imperceptibly.

  The bronze doors swung inward, revealing a blast of withering heat and a light so fierce it made Gunther flinch.

  The Pyre Throne room was not a room. It was the crown of a volcano, tamed and shaped. A vast, circular chamber a hundred yards across, its walls were the raw, glassy rock of a lava tube. A river of molten rock, brilliant and orange, flowed in a channel around the perimeter, casting hellish, dancing light.

  In the center of the chamber, on an island of black obsidian reached by a narrow stone bridge, was the throne.

  It was carved from the fused bones of something unimaginably large. And upon it, wreathed in tendrils of smoke and ambient heat-haze, sat the Pyre Lord.

  He was not a dragon.

  He was something else. A man-shaped figure, but eight feet tall at least, his skin the colour and texture of cooled lava, cracked with glowing fissures. He wore no armour, only a kilt of scaled hide. His face was elongated, fierce, crowned by two great curving horns of obsidian. His eyes were pools of liquid fire.

  In his hand, resting casually against the arm of the bone throne, was a spear. Its shaft was black iron, its head a single, monstrous dragon’s tooth, jagged and cruel.

  The heat radiating from him was a physical force, pushing against Gunther’s skin.

  Behind the throne, partially submerged in the glowing river, a dragon of deepest crimson slept, its sides rising and falling like bellows. Its eye, the size of a shield, was cracked open, watching them approach.

  Vane stood at the foot of the dais, head bowed. He turned as they were prodded forward onto the bridge.

  “My Lord,” Vane intoned. “The intruders from the Elmwood. The mage, the sellsword, and the village girl.”

  The Pyre Lord’s fire-eye gaze settled on them. The room seemed to hold its breath. The only sound was the crackle of the magma river and the deep, sleeping exhalation of the dragon.

  The Lord’s voice, when it came, was the sound of mountains grinding together.

  “Kneel.”