When they got to land, ogres lumbered out of the forest with spiked clubs, taking down another half dozen men before they were felled themselves. In the black forest, a suffocating mist had swarmed them like flesh-eating ants. They couldn’t see what surrounded them or where they stepped.
Two more men were swallowed by the swamp. One fell into a bog and never emerged. Another was lost to quicksand no matter how the remaining men tried to pull him free. Yet more warriors fell to giant bat-like creatures and rats the size of lions.
By the time they finally arrived at their destination, they numbered only four.
The cavern at the base of the ash-sputtering mountain forked in different directions. Out of necessity, they split up in search of their prey. Within minutes, however, it was clear from the muffled screams of the warrior’s compatriots, thattheywere the prey instead.
The thing that they’d come here to hunt was hunting them.
The warrior wielded a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. The other men had all used a shield as well as an offensive weapon. That was because they wanted to live. They sought to defend as well as attack.
The warrior had no such aspirations.
Perhaps he’d survived this long because of his fierce fighting skills. Perhaps he was stronger and bigger than the others. But the warrior knew in his thundering heart that the real reason he remained when all of his men had fallen was because vengeance and hatred fueled his veins.
He wasn’t here to accomplish some great heroic feat. He wasn’t here to collect a trophy. He wasn’t even here for the treasure that would make him richer than any king.
He was here to kill the monster dead.
Or die trying.
He was plunging ever deeper under the mountain, the passageways leading him into lightless, humid bowels of the earth.
The path widened, and the ceiling elevated, until he could walk without hunching. Until the tunnel opened to a gigantic hollow space where the rocks were covered with crystals, glistening around an eerie waterfall that splashed almost silently into a pale pond lit from within. There was no source of light in the cavern, yet the rocks sparkled; the water shimmered.
He scanned the space warily.
There were three large entrances to the central hollow. The tunnel he’d come through didn’t count. The others were made to fit creatures a dozen times bigger than him.
But where was the monster he was here to destroy? Everything was still and silent, save the soft splash of the waterfall.
The warrior drew cautiously closer to the edge of the pool, its internal light pulling him in.
When he looked inside, he saw what made the water glow—
Countless coins and jewels piled beneath the water, shining with metallic and crystalline brilliance as if they’d been stacked near a roaring fire, even though there was no source for the flames.
And what fire could live in water in any case?
The warrior didn’t dwell on the conundrum. He’d seen enough of magic in the creatures he fought to protect the kingdom that he knew anything was possible.
Case in point: he was here to kill a fuckingdragon.
“Come out and fight, you arse-sarding overgrown lizard,” he muttered beneath his breath, growing impatient.
The hot flood of adrenaline rushed against his eardrums like tidal waves, making his head buzz. His body was primed to fight and kill.
He’d done it before. This would not be the first dragon he’d slain.
But this was the dragon he hated the most. The one for which all of the others had been mere practice. The one for which he’d become the King’s most fearsome dragon-slayer.
“Show yourself,” he growled.
There was no need to raise his voice. The deep resonance of his words echoed across the pool and the crystal-dotted rock walls.
Smoke began to fill the space from the tunnels that led to the central hollow. It swirled around his feet and legs. So thick, he could no longer see his lower limbs.
He sliced through the smoke with his sword, swiping in wide arcs around his body, trying to regain visibility of whatever might attack from below.