The Crucible of the Dragon God

Thudding.

Kali grabbed her tankard of thwack before it wobbled off the bar and looked around as others did the same. She stared up at the ceiling as streams of dust began to fall in columns. She gazed at the windows, expecting them to crack at any moment. She bit her lip. There was nothing she could do here. But there was something she could deal with outside. And her name was Dolorosa.

Kali slammed the main door to the Flagons behind her and stood with her back to it for a second, sighing in relief. Then she jumped away as the entire tavern shook. She moved across the relative silence of the courtyard and then frowned darkly as she spotted Dolorosa pottering about near the stables. Kali moved up behind her slowly and quietly, saw that the old woman was hastily wrapping what looked to be a new tavern sign in folds of cloth. It appeared that the Here There Be Flagons had been in the process of being renamed — as The Olde Crow's Nest.

Should be the Old Crone's Nest, Kali thought. By the Gods, I go away for a few weeks and when I get back my pub's been boarded by pirates.

She was about to prod Dolorosa in the back, give her the fright she deserved, when her attention was distracted by a noise from the main stable. A low rumble, in fact. A strangely familiar sounding low rumble.

Horse? Kali thought.

Horse!

Kali slammed open the stable doors, making Dolorosa jump, and there he was, a living, breathing armoured tank desultorily poking his snout into a pile of hay. His big green eyes looked up as she entered and, as Kali said 'Horse' once more, his head rose and a serpentine tongue curled out and slobbered itself with abandon all over her face. Kali moved forward and slapped his neck.

You came back, she thought. You didn't return to the Drakengrats, after all. Hells, it's good to see you, boygirl.

There was, however, something wrong. As pleased as Kali was to be reunited with her mount, Horse's whole demeanour seemed off kilter, eyes duller than usual, chitin plating less polished, and his general presence — usually quite comment worthy — less, well, imposing. Kali patted the bamfcat, murmuring a soothing hey, hey…

'Eet ees the worgles,' Dolorosa explained from behind her. 'They havva all gone away.'

'Worgles?'

The small furballs were Horse's favourite snack — almost his staple diet, in fact — and were usually to be found in abundance all over the peninsula. It had taken Kali some time to get used to Horse's habit of scooping the poor little creatures up with his serpentine tongue, but used to it she had got, and the fact that they were apparently not around was even more unsettling than Horse's carnivorousness before their disappearance.

'Worgles, poongs, bladderrips, all of the small creatures they hide a fromma the k'nid. But the worgles, especially, seem to fear them greatly. It ees almost as eef — '

'These k'nid? Where do they come from? What do they look like?'

Dolorosa shrugged. 'Where they come from, no one knows. Whatta they looka like is difficult to say. I have hearda many reports. All I know is thatta they are deadly. Butta you need notta worry, Dolorosa doubts they will find their way here to the Cro — erm, to the Flagons.'

Kali frowned. 'It doesn't strike you that the worgles and the rest have gone into hiding because the k'nid might be somewhere near?'

'Fff. No, the Flagons is special, isolated. Dolorosa feel it inna her plumbing — they will notta come here.'

Kali grimaced and forced a certain image from her mind. But the grimace froze as, in the vitreous of Horse's eyes, she caught a glint of something low and dark behind her, moving into the Flagon's courtyard. 'Think again,' she said.

Working its way around a bush into the courtyard was an almost indescribable shape. It reminded Kali of the brackan she had encountered in the Sardenne Forest, but of many other things also. Somehow that made it seem many times worse. Moving slowly, and crackling strangely, like an open fire, it began to work its way around the edges of the courtyard, probing in a way that made Kali think it was some kind of scout. And where there was a scout, there would be the main party not far behind.

'I take it,' Kali said with some distaste, 'that's a k'nid.'

She moved slowly out of the stable, shutting and bolting it behind her. Then she peered along Badland's Brook where, in the darkness, she could just make out what appeared to be a blanket of deeper darkness on the ground, extending back to the horizon. The blanket undulated and rippled slightly.

'Walk slowly back to the Flagons,' she instructed Dolorosa. 'Make no sudden moves.'

The old woman nodded and did as bade, walking sideways so as not to lose sight of what lay outside the tavern's grounds.

They had only made it halfway across the courtyard before the scout k'nid reared and its friends tumbled forward, as if they were leaves swept into the courtyard on a breeze. Before either of them knew what was happening one leapt straight for Dolorosa, and the old woman screamed.

Kali stared, shocked and unable to believe what had just happened. One second beside her, the next not, Dolorosa was gone, as if she had never been.

That bloody woman, she thought, watching the door to the Flagons once more slamming behind her. Hidden athletic depths or not, she and I are going to have to have serious words. But not now. Because, right now, there are more pressing things to deal with. Namely, thanks to a certain someone, that I'm now the only target.

As the k'nid rushed at her in a sudden, swarming sea, Kali did the only thing she could to get out of their path. With a grunt of pain from her bad leg, she leapt upwards to grab the guttering of the stable roof, using this to flip herself up and over so that she ended up crouched on the lip of the roof itself, watching as the k'nid impacted with the stable wall.

As they recovered from the impact, it was a good position for her to study the creatures. She certainly couldn't disagree that they were ugly little bastards, flooding the courtyard like a colony of insects that had been disturbed from beneath some rock. But whatever rock that had been, she had certainly never come across one like it. These things struck every fibre of her being as unnatural.

They did not, however, seem to be quite the destructive force Aldrededor's reports had suggested. They were certainly making no moves to destroy the Flagons.

Now, why exactly was that? she wondered.

It took her a second to realise that the k'nid seemed to be reacting to the vibrations from inside the tavern — actually shying back each time a thud occurred. Was it possible, she thought, that these things had worked their way across the peninsula, attacking all in their path, only to be stopped here, by a dance troupe?

Kali chided herself, almost laughed. No, that was plain daft. In fact, it was the stupidest thing she'd ever -

The Flagons suddenly fell silent, doubtless in response to Dolorosa informing everyone that the k'nid had come to eat their face, and sure enough each lit window was suddenly eclipsed by a number of shapes peering into the night. What mattered more, though, was that as soon as the thudding stopped the k'nid had become more agitated and their attention had turned to the tavern — and consequently the people inside.

There was a sudden rush against the side of the tavern and Kali cringed as she heard masonry and wood splintering before the assault.

Dammit.

She had to warn those inside, but there was no way she could get back to the door. Instead, she raced along the stable roof, leaping from there onto the Flagon's outhouse, and from there onto the roof of the tavern proper. She clambered up its slates, slipping back twice as some broke from their fixings beneath her and then, at last, reached the apex. There, she found herself doing something and saying something — especially to its intended recipients — that she would never, ever, in a thousand lifetimes, have imagined she would.