Percy chuckled darkly. “It’s not cave trolls at all, Cap’n Vance. It’s something that eats cave trolls, swallows ‘em whole, like. Something that gives cave trolls nightmares.”
I realized what he had to be talking about, and when I understood, a broad grin brightened my face. “Wyrms...”
“Aye, bloody wyrms,” Percy said. “Now that you know what you’re up against, I’m going to assume that you’ll forget that silly idea and just launch a mass harpy attack against the cliff defenders … right?”
“And miss out on the chance to add an undead wyrm or two to my undead army? I thought by now you’d have gotten to know me better than that, Percy.”
“Like I said, I should have known,” he said, shaking his head. “I suppose I should go call your party members and get ‘em to assemble on deck?”
“Perhaps you do know me better than I thought,” I said, flashing him a cheeky grin.
A few minutes later, all my party members were standing before me. I explained the situation with the clifftops being covered by ballista-wielding defenders, and said that to avoid losing a large number of harpies, I had decided to take the Black Passage. The harpy army would be sent on a journey parallel to the coast, where they’d stay out of ballista range, seeking out a place to fly ashore that wasn’t defended by ballistae and Church troops. It could take hours, but most likely it would take days. I explained that the danger of the Black Passage was not simply limited to the inky black labyrinth, or the maze-like passage through underwater caves. When I told them that we might have to face a wyrm or two in the ancient caverns, more than a few eyebrows were raised. One or two of my party members hadn’t heard of wyrms, though, so I had to explain exactly what we might be up against.
“While the two words sound the same, ‘worms’ and ‘wyrms’ are two very different things, although they do bear a few similarities,” I said. “They both have long, limbless bodies, and they both live underground. One, however, lives in your garden and is as small and limp as Elandriel’s cock, while the other is a monster with armored scales covering its body, ten-foot teeth that can slice through steel and rock like they were made of butter, and the ability to swallow a cave troll whole.”
Drok, predictably, was the most excited of all of them about this. “We fight wyrm!” he exclaimed gleefully, practically jumping up and down with joy. “Drok cannot wait! Drok people will sing songs about Drok killing wyrm! Drok be hero of legend!”
“You’re already a great hero, my barbarian brother,” Rollar said, grinning at his fellow barbarian’s infectious enthusiasm. “But we must approach such a foe with caution. Wyrms are some of the deadliest monsters in all the world, almost on par with dragons when it comes to ferocity and difficulty of killing.”
“Nothing comes even vaguely close to being as tough and fierce as a dragon, you hairy, ignorant ape,” Yumo-Rezu said haughtily, glaring at Rollar with venom in her gorgeous almond eyes. I had to suppress a chortle; nobody could say anything that could be even tangentially construed as diminishing to or critical of dragons without the Dragon Goddess chiming in, especially when her already feisty personality was enhanced by Yumo’s fiery temper and mercurial temperament.
“All right, Yumo-Rezu, I’m sure Rollar didn’t mean to offend any dragons or dragon goddesses with that statement,” I said. “Did you, Rollar?”
“No, no, of course not,” he grumbled, nevertheless shooting Yumo-Rezu a withering glare.
I picked up the conversation before an argument could erupt in earnest. “The point is, wyrms are huge, deadly, and very difficult to kill, which makes them ideal additions to my undead army,” I said. “And, what’s more, they’re capable of tunneling dozens of miles underground in a day, perhaps even as much as a hundred miles according to legend. If I can kill and resurrect a wyrm—or, even better, a few wyrms—I’d have a devastating new weapon to use against Elandriel, one that I could move in secret across Prand, and have it strike out of nowhere. The harpies are brilliant, but for all their maneuverability and ability to fly over great distances in a straight line, they’re far from invisible, and Elandriel’s troops will see a giant flock of harpies from a mile away. With wyrms, though, the huge beasts could be right under the army’s feet and they wouldn’t have a fucking clue, not until the earth opens up under them and entire divisions are literally being swallowed whole from below.”
To my surprise, the most enthusiastic supporter of this plan turned out to be Elyse. She’d come a long way from being disgusted by my zombies and freaked out by Fang. “That’s brilliant, Vance!” she said, delight sparkling in her stunning blue eyes. “A weapon like these loathsome wyrms would be unimaginably effective against Elandriel’s vile followers. It would be a trap unlike any other for the unsuspecting fools.”
I suspected that at least some of her eagerness to capture and deploy wyrms against Elandriel and his Church of Light troops came from a part of her that desired revenge against the Church authorities who had stripped her of her rank and title, excommunicated her and declared her a heretic.
“Such beasts would make for mighty undead warriors,” Isu said, her pale eyes gleaming with dark delight. “You have my support for this bold plan.”
“They would indeed make for a potent weapon,” Ji-Ko said, and his monks murmured their own support for this plan.
Everyone else voiced their agreement too; as intimidating a prospect as it was to have to navigate the Black Passage and then fight and kill wyrms in the ancient subterranean caverns beyond it, the advantage such creatures would give me in battle was undeniable. Even though they were still recovering from the battle against the harpies, my
