Bianca took a second to regain her breath, as did everyone else. Tension was still thick, many felt nervous.

  She dismounted Death and approached cautiously. Her anger turned to a welcoming smile. “Ser Shimmer? What are you doing up in these mountains? Did your ducks shit on you?”

  Ser Shimmer laughed so hard he almost vomited. Bianca joined his laughing. The two gave a tight a hug, and she gave him a friendly kiss on both cheeks.

  “Ser Bianca, it is you,” he exclaimed. “I thought I’d drowned in that pond and was seeing an angel! You still have a strength in your strike, stronger than I remember from our sparring days!”

  “I should’ve recognised you from your cape! Covered in mud, I didn’t see the pink. Call me just Bianca, we discussed this.”

  “Nonsense!” he hollered. “I knighted you in secret and I made you a knight! You’ve earned the title of Ser Bianca! I see you have a squire now. Little lad, you’ve got a great mentor.”

  Her smile faded slowly as she remembered her duty. She took many steps back and summoned Dragonhammer, putting it flat against Ser Shimmer’s armour. The Dastane knight understood her actions but was still disappointed.

  “Must we do this?” he asked. “We are friends.”

  “What the fuck is going on?” Vera asked. “Are we fighting or not? Make up your fuckin’ minds, dipshits.”

  “You travel with a prisoner involved in Runaya’s kidnapping, Ser Shimmer.” She ordered Billid to her side. “The fox has a bounty from years ago on her head; the one I was fighting escaped from our dungeons with the help of a cambion, that one, I believe. There were slaughtered camps outside of Vatanil, the lack of options suggests it was the white-haired one that had a hand in that.”

  An owl hooted above them, yellow-eyed.

  “And the Voiceless One orders you not to kill them,” said Ser Shimmer. “Lower your hammer, Ser Bianca.”

  “No,” she grunted. “I have followed the Voiceless One here. I believe he is wrong. Leave this place, I do not want issues with you.”

  “Shucks, I don’t want issues with you either.” He drew his sword and challenged Bianca with it. “I’m a Knight of Roses. The Council of Fate ordered me to follow the will of the Voiceless One. The owls dragged me away from my pregnant wife and my farm of ducks to this mountain, at this time. If my only purpose is to die to stop you from killing these folks… even if their supposed crimes are heinous… I must fight you with all I have. Make your choice, Ser Bianca, friend or foe?”

  She unsummoned her hammer. “I need a moment,” she said. “So do the rest of you. When I’m back, I’ll listen.”

  She pulled Billid aside and inspected him for injuries. She found a light cut on his neck from where Snow held the sword, and a few bruises on his cheek from where he fell into the mud. She cleaned his face with a cloth.

  “You need it more than I do, Miss Bianca,” he said. “Your face is covered in blood.”

  She gave him the cloth after spitting on it. “Clean me then. Tell me my injuries.”

  He wiped her face free of red—she had an upcoming ring of brown and purple around her eye, a green patch on her forehead from where Death had repeatedly headbutted her.

  “Still pretty,” Billid said. “Just bruises and a few cuts.”

  “Nothing worthy of a scar?” she joked. “I heard you speaking to your enemy while fighting, Billid.”

  “You were speaking to yours.”

  “I was not being friendly with my target. The Voiceless One asking you to spare your enemy doesn’t mean to offer them help.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Be better. You have a good heart, but some will put a knife into you without a second thought. You were lucky that these people didn’t kill you. Take your shirt off, I need to look for any other bruises you may have.”

  “I’m fine,” he assured.

  “You might be. You might not. Our bodies are gifted, if our bones are broken, we may not feel them for a long time. I’ll look, then we’ll speak to the prisoner.”

  “Will we have to kill them?” Billid asked.

  “Maybe,” she grunted. “If we do, you stay out of the fight, alright? There is something strange about this prisoner… I think I remember his name being Death. He seems powerful, he fights in a way that I’ve never seen. Be wary of him.”

  “Yes, Miss Bianca.”

  Ser Shimmer calmed the others by inviting them to peek into the Dragon Chasm.

  I don’t feel terrible that I lost that battle, Death thought. I felt I wasn’t fight at my greatest either. My focus kept swapping between her and Snow… she held herself well. If our next conversation goes sour and we are forced to fight, I might be able to give a greater battle to Bianca without worry of Snow dying.

  Vera and Snow were in awe and disgust at what they saw at the bottom of the Dragon Chasm.

  Tumulus snored, sound asleep, with many full-grown dragons also asleep around her. She was giant, trumping the other dragons by over twenty times in size. Scales of dark purple, a white belly, two heads—one with dozens of eyes, the other eyeless, cursed with saggy flesh, both gobs had teeth like swords and a forked, green tongue. One wing was torn and useless, and the other was no wing at all—a mass of tumours bigger than its own buddy, laden with purple and green bubbles of sickly pus, each one booming with a heartbeat and holding a tiny dragon embryo inside.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Scattered around this tumour were a few freshly born dragon hatchlings, each suckling on the wiggling, purulent, tumorous tentacles as if drinking milk from their mother’s breast.

  “That’s disgusting,” Vera said. “I thought dragons laid eggs, not whatever I’m looking at.”

  “Haven’t you heard the theory?” Ser Shimmer said. “Tumulus isn’t a real dragon. The ones that are born don’t have souls.”

  That explains why I never got the power from that dragon that Snow killed in Caron, Death thought.

  “They say Tumulus is the result of a ritual of death, one that went horribly wrong. They say the second the beast tried to take to the skies, their wing bloated and popped into what you see now, leaving them in constant agony and despair, unable to seek out the target of their ritual.”

  “Who is the target?” Beion asked.

  “No one knows,” Shimmer said. “But like all living things, the beast became hungry. It adapted, popping out hatchlings to attack villages, towns, anything to bring it food.”

  “How do you know all this?” Death asked. “You have a lot of knowledge on the subject. I thought Valan’s borders were strict?”

  “Ser Bianca told me when I knighted her. The target could really be anyone… but that beast is strong, potentially able to rival the God Arms that the Valans hold. This was a strong ritual, for a strong foe. A single drop of human blood would turn a human into a ravenous cannibal creature… this is overkill for a simple target.”

  Death found it interesting that the Voiceless one seemed to guide them all to one place. He wondered if the owls could see the future. He asked Beion if Hell had owls, which it did.

  That makes sense then… the owls are not prophets, just heavily prepared, Death thought.

  Bianca came back with Billid and crossed her arms. She first apologised to Snow for what her squire did.

  “I’m sorry too,” she said. “I hope your balls are okay.”

  “They are, I think,” Billid said back. “They’re intact.”

  Bianca cut through their conversation with a direct question. “Where is Runaya? I know that you have her.”

  Death told Bianca she may want to sit. Death cut down another log and they all sat around the still-roaring fire. He gave Bianca all the letters he still had, also telling her that he had given Stroke a letter that Beion had stolen from the Killian Entrail’s chambers.

  “I don’t understand, what is this?” Bianca said. “Blackmail, declarations of war, a death ritual in Caron? This doesn’t answer my question, where are you hiding Runaya?”

  Ser Shimmer took Death’s silence as an invitation to speak. “I know not what happened, Ser Bianca, but I will tell you what they said to me—”

  “No need,” Death assured. “I will tell her. I just don’t know how to say it without bluntness.”

  “Then say it bluntly,” Bianca said. “Where is she?”

  He explained his reasoning for being at the Great Lizard Hall. He explained his unsealing, the slaughter at the tavern of Sekoi, his entire journey that brought him to the library—he skipped the detail of Runaya’s injuries, but flatly told her that Runaya was killed, her head popped under the boot of Killian Entrail.

  Bianca’s eyes became teary. She called Death a liar and went to summon her Dragonhammer… but an owl hooted by Snow’s side. Snow picked it up, and they carefully passed it to Bianca’s hands. When she had it, her eyes widened in fear and sadness, then the owl flew away.

  “Miss Bianca, what did you see?” Billid asked. “Runaya isn’t dead, is she? The owl showed you where she’s locked away. They said the room filled with purple, they must have hallucinated it.”

  “Killian said there was no sight of her in Caron…” Bianca said in disbelief. “That vision was so clear. The Voiceless One saw your fighting through the shattered window as it sat on a tree. Death, if you had no part in this… why did you run? Why didn’t you say a thing to anyone?”

  Death shrugged. “Knowledge can be used as bargaining.”

  Bianca struggled for words. She pointed at Snow. “The owl also showed you. The camps outside Vatanil, you did what the Voiceless One wanted you to do… I saw you too, demon, aiding them fighting a black-haired demon in Lakevalor.” She shook her head in denial. “No. I refuse. Runaya is not dead. A person’s body in a death ritual can persist through many injuries. The ritual was not completed.”

  “It was ended,” Beion said. “My sister saw the purple mist. She told me it meant it was stopped.”

  “Somebody had to have known,” Bianca mumbled. “Godwin, Harren, someone must’ve known… someone had to give that letter to Killian Entrail, someone had to give the command.”

  “Is she really dead?” Billid asked. “That’s not right. All I’ve ever heard from others was how sweet she was. I never believed the false rumours spread about her. Miss Bianca, is she gone?”

  “These people are not our enemy,” she told Billid. “I don’t know who is… but it’s not them. Godwin made it sound like all of you were travelling across Valan, killing, looting, that all of it would stop if you went away. It was unheroic of me to attack without trying to learn your side, will you forgive me for that?”

  “I’m sure they will,” Ser Shimmer said. “They listened to me when I fell out of a tree.”

  “I want to hear it from Death. He is clearly the one who speaks for the rest of them.” She looked for any disagreement. Vera, Snow, and Beion also looked to Death for his answer. “We don’t have to be enemies.” She reached a hand across the fire. “Travel with me for a while. I can add two horses to your wagon if there’s space.”

  Death accepted her handshake but did not yet agree to travelling as one. “Travel to where?” he asked.

  “Runaya can’t be dead. I believe your events, but I refuse her fate. Come with me and tell your story to Stroke. He is my friend.”

  And I already have a deal with him, Death thought.

  Beion cleared his throat. “We can’t go to Vatanil. Cambions don’t fare well in that city. I can help you find Runaya.”

  “What do you mean?” Bianca asked.

  “Tears of the angels have… heavy scents for cambions. There aren’t many. I smelled it on the hands of my sister; I smell it still on Death’s hands. It spent a long time in her chest during the ritual. I can sniff her out. I can smell her right now.”

  “Please take me to her,” Bianca begged. “I have to see her fate for myself before I believe it.”

  “What’s in it for us?” Vera asked. “We want something cool for helping you!”

  “We don’t,” Snow said. “We’ll help you. We’re travelling to the north of Vatanil on a plotted path, but we can backtrack.”

  “We won’t need to,” Beion assured. “The scent I smell is on this path… not back towards Caron. Someone moved her.”

  Ser Shimmer heard the hooting of an owl and stood, gathering his equipment and putting on his helmet.

  “Ser Shimmer, where are you going?” Bianca asked.

  “The owl bids me in that direction. Farewell, my friends, the journey I am on takes me elsewhere.”

  “You came all this way to give us a letter and leave?” Vera said. “Your god has you doing lots of work.”

  “I don’t question the will of the owls. Young knights, I bid you travel safe. I shall name a duck after each of you so that I remember all your names. I have a feeling we shall meet again one day.”