“Are we there yet?” Venthrax the Guilty whined.

There was a sharp crack as Khankiller Drogo spat over the edge of the trail, then glared at Venthrax.

“No,” said Trust-not-the-devils Bortiz.

“This is what, perhaps the ninth time you have asked?” Ramuz said, huddled inside massive robes so thick and padded that it looked like there were three of him in there. Ramuz spent much time inside, and had not built the raw constitution that the others had, from long exposure to cold.

“Well I don't know if we're there yet, is all. Just making conversation. Can't really see anything in this storm,” Venthrax whined.

There was only a light film of flakes in the sky, Bortiz noted. But then, to Venthrax, no hardship was too light to go unnoticed.

“Let's just go and get this over with,” Agnez the Greenmaiden sighed. Her horns poked out of her furry headband, making her look like a very lost deer. She was the least covered of all of them, a fact that Bortiz didn't mind so much. Not that he'd ever say that, of course. Agnez was the reason that Fimble had beer. Nobody in their right mind wanted to offend her.

Behind them, Bhob Don't Ask grunted.

The group stopped, looked back to him. Bhob was kneeling next to a pile of dung that had been partly covered by the snow.

Bortiz relaxed, and put his mining pick back into its sheath. “Please do not scare me like that.”

Bhob shrugged, reached out a finger, and dug it into the dung.

“Oh for the love of—” Ramuz sputtered. “Do you have to do this to every pile you come to?”

Bhob grunted again, and brought the finger towards his face.

Bortiz looked away, forcing his gorge down.

“Let's just keep walking,” Khankiller Drogo groused. “Get this over with.”

“Dyer Wolf,” Bhob announced, his voice creaky and deep with disuse. “Adult, male, and big. Look out for color where there shouldn't be none.”

“Why are you slowing down?” Atoppa Stone's cheerful voice rung back down the trail, and the small cluster of villagers jumped and shot guilty looks back. (Or in the case of Venthrax, his usual look.) “It is not far now! The truths of the universe await!”

Ramuz muttered something that Bortiz didn't catch. He had originally been quite happy to chat with someone who was from somewhere around his great-grandparents' birthplace. But that goodwill had seemingly soured with every step along the trail. The innkeeper had his job and his routine, and they rarely involved the cold harshness of the mountain trail.

Let alone strange blue women who were probably snow monsters sent out to lure men out onto lonely trails to die. Though she hadn't done it to him.

But...

What if she had held off on that, so she could come to town and get even more victims out to die? What if this was a massive trap?

Bortiz edged backwards, let Bhob Don't Ask pass him as the group started up again. He glanced back toward the distant lights of home, and slowed his steps...

...but when he looked back front again, he caught Agnez glaring at him.

Bortiz swallowed, hard, then moved to catch up once more. She gave him a rare smile, then turned away.

Surviving this but losing access to Agnez' beer would be intolerable. She was the sole source of alcohol in Fimble. Losing access to Fimble's second favorite passtime (drinking until you didn't care you were in Fimble) was a fate worse than death.

It was a hell of a view from here, he had to admit. The setting sun nicely framed the slopes, lit up the entire range. And this mountain was the tallest of all of them, albeit the most dangerous. The nearby peaks were a lot more friendly than Fimble's own mountain.

Which was why they were all claimed by people who had very little interest in letting Fimble-ites move to them. If you looked East, you stared into territory claimed by Bharstool. West was Upper Derope's little slice of heaven. South was Lower Derope, though it was barely a postage stamp worth of turf. Just enough to piss off Upper Derope, which Bortiz figured was the goal, there. North... well, that was the part that wasn't so nice. The Crown of the World was up there, and the only things that called it home were cannibals and madmen. And mad cannibals.

“Makes you think, doesn't it?” Khankiller Drogo said, as he stopped next to Bortiz. “Big old world, and we're so small. The mountains were here way before we were, and they'll be here after we're all gone.”

“Unless this dragon prophet knocks 'em down,” Venthrax muttered. “Dragons can do that, I heard. I heard their fire can melt stone!”

“What, like burning through a tree trunk?” Ramuz joined the three of them. “If so, then he'll be along time at it. He'd have to work from the bottom, and it takes days to go around the mountain.”

“Well yeah, but dragons can fly,” Venthrax pointed out. “So he could go around the mountain really fast, and flame all around it... like...”

There was a pause, as Bortiz stopped to imagine a dragon orbiting the mountain, roaring fire all the while. Everyone else fell silent, and on all of their faces, (save for Bhob Don't Ask,) he could see the same thought percolating.

“It strikes me the dragon would probably get dizzy,” Drogo said, finally. “Would like pretty silly, too. Never heard of dragons looking silly. Doesn't seem right.”

“They can,” Agnez said, and the small cluster of men jumped, then looked up the trail to her, and the blue lady who was tapping her foot impatiently, arms folded. “But this one won't,” Agnez continued.

“And why not?” Bortiz asked.

“Because—” Agnez started, then grimaced. “He won't. He just won't. You can't join his... cult... if you're all dead.”

“Which will assuredly happen if you keep standing here and staring off into nothing,” Atoppa Stone said, her voice sharp and scolding.

“Was that a threat?” Agnez turned, horns bobbling in the wind, eyes squinting in that way that Bortiz knew all too well. He cringed, took a step back.

“No. How is it you haven't noticed?” Atoppa pointed upward.

Bortiz looked up, just as a yellow number popped out of his skull, and drifted skyward.

It wasn't the only one. A few went up to join it, from among the men in the surrounding crowd.

“It's getting colder,” Ramuz said. “We need to move quickly!”

“May she be praised! Finally he gets it!” Atoppa Stone threw her arms skyward. “Come quickly!”

There was some muttering as the now-chastened group headed after the blue woman, now at a decent jog. Yellow numbers from your head meant that you were taking stamina damage. And when your stamina hit zero, you would fall unconscious, collapse into the snow at the mercy of the elements and whatever wild beasts roamed the slopes.

It was very much not a surplus of mercy. That particular product didn't sell well around Fimble.

They made good time up the trail, pausing when Bhob Don't Ask grunted again. This time he was kneeling before a puddle of liquid that seemed to shimmer between every color imaginable. It was beautiful, and the group risked the wrath of Atoppa and the slow drain of their stamina to pause and peer down at it.

“So this'll be Dyer wolf spoor then? Like you said? 'Cause it's all colors, and stuff?” Venthrax whined.

Bhob poked a finger toward it.

“Bhob! We already know it's Dyer wolf stuff. You told us earlier,” Ramuz said. “Don't... oh gods.”

Yep, there was no need to guess where that finger was going.

Bortiz shook his head, stood, and walked away.

Behind him he heard Bhob's gravelly voice. “Not spoor. Blood. Dyer wolf blood.”

“Something killed it?”

“Not something,” said the massive outcropping of rock ahead as it unfolded. “Someone. Me.”

Muttered oaths behind him. And Bortiz found his feet frozen to the ground, and not by the usual method that Fimble employed to freeze things.

They'd been told. They knew full well what they were getting into. And still...

And still it loomed, massive, with a single solid white eye staring downward at the creatures who had dared to enter its domain. One solid white eye and, ludicrously, a patch of rainbow goo on its mouth.

“Uh...” Bortiz said.

“You're freezing,” the dragon said. “I should do something about that.”

“Oh he's gonna burn us!” Venthrax the Guilty wailed, and fell to the knees. “Please! Please have mercy!”

“What? No, I—” the dragon clamped his mouth shut. He closed his eyes for a moment, and the group felt the wind as he inhaled, let out a breath that smelled of blood.

“Dyer wolf blood,” Bhob Don't Ask muttered at the back of the group. The dragon's eyes snapped open and considered him.

Bhob had a way of making one remember your priorities. Those priorities usually included getting out of Bhob's presence as fast as possible.

In this case, they seemed to restore the dragon's focus. “If I wanted to burn you to death I would have strafed your village and burned every part of it to the ground. I haven't, and I won't. Aunarox!”

The blue woman winced. “Er, I was using my other name, great prophet. They know me as Atoppa Stone.”

“Okay, whatever. Make some wood for a bonfire, will you? We can't convert them if they're frozen.”

“Major Creation!” Atoppa... Aunarox... whatever her real name might be, waved her arms and pointed with a dramatic flourish. And lo and behold, logs of wood clattered to the ground in an untidy heap.

And then the dragon ROARED, and the world was fire.

Five minutes later, after the blue skinned woman had chased Bortiz down and dragged him back, his shame in fleeing for his life was tempered with a bizarre pride that he had been the last one recovered.

Everyone in Fimble knew full well the saying about not having to be faster than the wolf, just faster than your friends. And today he'd proven his legs, for what it was worth.

But his odd guilty pleasure faded as he felt the warmth of the fire. He gasped, staring in awe at the bonfire. This was more wood than Fimble saw in a month, and it was going up, literally, in smoke. The waste almost offended him... but then he recalled that the blue woman had created it literally from thin air.

“Good,” the dragon said. “You are right to fear me, for I am fearsome. If it was my will I could slay any or all of you with very little effort at all. But it is not my will. I am not here for that.”

Bortiz frowned. He knew that tone.

PER+1

That was the same sort of tone he'd heard in his own voice when he was practicing proposing to Rogshanne Khankiller. That time back when he'd spent hours staring at his face in the ice, fighting to keep it steady and working up his courage. That same nervousness that went along with the feeling of putting yourself on the line. Of risking rejection.

(Of course then Rogshanne had engaged in Fimble's most popular pastime, and fled away from Fimble along with most of her family's savings and that traveling Bard that had come through, but still, he would never forget that tone.)

He had never thought to hear that tone in a dragon's voice. Had never thought to hear a dragon's voice, to be honest.

“No. I am here to...” the dragon tilted his head, looked at the blue woman. “I am here to tell you the truth. Auna— Atoppa, go ahead and tell them of Anjuuta. In the meantime, the least I can do is treat you to dinner.”

The blue woman spoke, but Bortiz' eyes, along with the others, were drawn to the dragon as it stood upright. Tall as two, perhaps three of them, it was a black shining bulk in the light of the bonfire. Bortiz flinched as its tail passed overhead, a full five feet up but still a deadly, spined weight that waggled back and forth as the dragon dug in the snow. “Ah! Here we go,” the dragon said.

He threw something onto the fire, and logs sprayed out, sending embers and hunks of wood spiraling into the night as the villagers dove for cover. “Whoops. Ah... a little more wood please, Atoppa?”

“—for freedom is the essence of what we are fighting for— what? What have you done now?” The blue-skinned woman broke off her speech, then huffed, and waved her hands again. “Major Creation!”

Logs fell into place, piling on top of the object, which Bortiz could see was a fuzzy corpse.

A very colorful fuzzy corpse.

The scent of burning fur filled his nose, and he coughed. He wasn't the only one.

“Oh for nature's sake,” Agnez snapped. “You've got a Tanner and a Cook here. Let them dress the carcass and turn it into food.”

The dragon paused, staring down at her in shock.

“How dare you speak to the prophet so—” the blue woman started, but Agnez whirled on her, and stabbed a finger at her face.

“You! Keep talking! Let's get this over with so we aren't here all night! Some of us have to work in the morning.”

Rumbling. Loud, discordant rumbling, that shook the world around Bortiz. He and the others looked around wildly, trying to figure out where the avalanche was coming from.

There is no avalanche, Bortiz realized, as he figured it out. The dragon is laughing.

Finally it faded. Then the dragon reached forward and nudged the carcass of the Dyer wolf out of the fire, tumbling more logs to the ground. “It's a good idea,” the dragon offered. “Why don't you fix it up properly?”

Bhob Don't Ask pulled out a knife and stepped forward, hesitantly.

“I don't have my cooking tools with me,” Ramuz said.

“Well, it's fortunate we have someone here who can make you some,” Agnez pointed at Atoppa.

“You presume to order me? You presume to speak to the enlightened of Anjuuta this way?”

“Do it,” the dragon spoke. Then he squinted at Agnez. “You're in charge of Fimble?”

“No,” she said.

“Yes,” everyone else chorused from their spots safely behind her.

She turned around and glared at them, and Bortiz shrunk back.

“You don't have to step forward and volunteer if everyone else takes a step backward,” the dragon mused.

Now that sounded like the sort of thing a prophet would say. Bortiz nodded in approval, then stopped nodding and looked down as Agnez' glare found him.

“I make the only alcohol available in the village,” Agnez said, crossing her arms. “So I guess I'm in charge. Every other leader who ever rose to power here left. They scammed the villagers out of as much wealth as possible and fled.”

“Leaving you holding the bag,” the dragon nodded. Then he folded his claws. “Aunarox, we're dropping the cult idea.”

“What? I mean... great prophet, this is a test, right? They have to earn enlightenment, yes?” The blue-skinned woman was sweating now, her grin wide and nervous.

“No. I mean, we haven't lied. Anjuuta gives us many useful powers. But I don't give five shits if they worship her. What I need is knowledge.” The dragon twisted his neck around, looked from where Bhob was happily making dragon steaks, to Agnez, who was standing with her arms crossed, glaring murder up at him. “Why would anyone ask me to destroy half your village?”

Even though they stood next to a roaring bonfire, it was as if the temperature dropped.

“You would destroy our village?” Agnez' voice was filled with disbelief. “What? Why! They have nothing! They are nothing.”

“No. I said half the village. Someone I owe a favor to wanted me to harass Fimble. But they were very clear that I shouldn't destroy it completely.” The dragon stared at her, meeting her death glare with unimpressed eyes. “Now why is that?”

Agnez blinked. Then she sighed, and walked over and poked Atoppa.

“Hey! How dare you—”

“Shut up. Get those tools for Ramuz. Help him cook.”

“You do not give the orders—”

“It's a good idea, do it,” the dragon said.

“...yes, oh great one.” Bortiz had never actually seen anyone grind their teeth before. It was kind of funny to watch.

“You. Come on.” Agnez stabbed a finger at the dragon. “Let's go that way and discuss. The rest of you,” she turned, and looked sourly at the villagers. “Stay here and eat up. Get fat and stay warm. Since I'm evidently your leader, I'll go sort this out.”

Then she marched off further up the trail, vanishing into the night.

The dragon watched her go with what seemed to Bortiz like a very bemused look.

“Well?” Agnez' voice drifted back.

Giving a shrug, the smooth bulk of the dragon furled its wings and headed off into the darkness, claws clacking against the rocks as its weight pushed its feet through the snow.

Ten minutes later, Bortiz crept up the side of the trail, clinging to the mountain, with three feet of clearance between him and the edge of the cliff. This was higher up than he'd ever gone, and the warmth of the fire was a distant memory now.

And he didn't know why.

Something in him had rebelled at Agnez going out into the darkness alone. And so he had slipped away from the feast, and followed their tracks. They had gone far, farther than expected, and he couldn't even see the light of the fire he'd left behind.

And then the dragon's voice rung out ahead.

“All right. Is this far enough?”

“I think so,” Agnez' reply was faint against the howling winds of the highest peak.

Bortiz hesitated. Then forced his feet to keep moving. And slowly, so slowly, he eased his head up over the last ledge, to see a glittering plateau, ice shining in the starlight.

Agnez stood in the center of it, standing between the black hulk of the dragon, and what appeared to be a yawning cave mouth a few hundred meters away.

“Is this cave what you wanted to show me?” The dragon asked. “Is there something in there that would explain the situation?”

“Yes,” Agnez replied. “Me.”

And Bortiz screamed, as her form bulged, and where before there was one dragon, now there were two...