The mist lay thick upon the narrow mountain path as they descended from the High Gate. It clung and soaked through cloak and tunic alike, beading upon beard and lash, until each man rode sodden and shivering. The horses huffed low in their chests, and their hooves beat the stony way with hollow, funereal rhythm. For three days Veorn urged them onward, ever downward, as though drawing them from the world of breath and sun into some unseen purgatory of haze.

  By night came the distant drums of war, low and slow, echoing as from the pulse of the earth itself; and each man dreamed of standing before the dragon.

  “I fear, sire,” whispered one at last, daring the words only in the thick blackness where no faces could be seen.

  “What is it thou fearest?” Gedain answered.

  “I fear dying here, my lord.”

  Gedain did not pause to ponder. “Then fear thee not,” he said, “for we are already dead.”

  By days, which were scarcely more than a dim illumination of haze, they marched until the dimming made it treacherous on the weathered trail. The further they descended, the thicker the mist and haze grew, dampening even their words and the beats of hooves. There were no sights or calls of bird nor stirring of beast, just five riders and Gedain and their horses and the fleeting figure of Veorn, resembling more an apparition than a guide of flesh, leading the way half-seen, half-imagined, in the grey mist ahead.

  In the rare moments the veil was lifted, they found themselves threaded within a murky forest of black pines and coiling fern, their tangled trunks and branches wove in and through like a snaring web of dread. And nary a path lay beneath their horse’s hooves, save for the faint, stoney way that found them and pulled them along, as if they were riding the scales of some mythic serpent exceeding their comprehension. Above, the sheer, jagged walls of black stone rose, towering upwards ominously on every side, as if Ed? herself were slowly closing her jaws upon them.

  “Is this our damnation, sire?” asked one.

  Gedain gave no answer.

  Again, the night’s ink filled with the beat of drums, nearer and louder than the last. And each man, exhausted beyond his ability to reason, resisted sleep both for fear of what lurketh in the darkness, and for what terrors awaited them in their nightmares.

  They rose again not knowing the hour, for the fog was so thick one had to near swim through it.

  “Where is the river?” Gedain asked Veorn who was rustling unseen in the grey. “Doth not the road followeth its descent?”

  “There is no river by this way,” Veorn answered. “Yet this is the road that leadeth unto whom thou seekest.”

  “He leadeth us into a trap,” whispered a rider.

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  Gedain heard, yet gave him no heed.

  On and on they descended, and on the fifth or sixth day— they had lost count— the setting Sol kindled the haze that enveloped them, like the glowing coals of some vast pyre.

  “There!” Veorn shouted, his figure just ahead but unseen. “Dost thou behold it?”

  “I see naught but golden glow,” Gedain answered.

  “Follow me!”

  Veorn’s footfalls faded as the party pressed forward into the cloud of gold. The path had nearly vanished beneath them, finally ending and the mist falling away. Before them, a stone arch framing a corridor of shadows, choked with root and vine. Veorn was gone, neither heard nor seen.

  “We go no further, my lord.”

  Gedain cast a hardened glare, but then softened.

  “Abide with the horses, then. If I have not returned by tomorrow’s sunset, leave mine and return to Gruen by way of the High Gate.”

  “Listen!” said one. “The drums return.”

  “We are lost,” said another, “and may not find the way.”

  “Let you fears be your guide,” Gedain replied.

  He dismounted, took the lantern fastened at his saddle and struck flame. And with it in one hand and his sword in the other, he approached the entrance. He hacked and swept away the foliage, then crossed the threshold and was swallowed by the darkness.

  Guided by the lantern, Gedain crawled over fallen stones and roots, hearing the echoes of dripping water. Forward he crept, the light of the entrance receding behind, down an ancient hewn stair, roots strangling the steps, air guttering his light while humming like a long exhale through the narrow chamber.

  A faint blue glow bloomed upon the cavern walls ahead. Then daylight appeared on the walls and Gedain passed through to the other side, into a wild oasis of verdure.

  Many silent, suspicious faces greeted him there, emerging from the brambles and shadows, men and women alike, clad in hides and furs, each with readied steel or bow. Gedain gazed upward. The skies had parted, the clouds deepening with the hues of sunset flame. Above, all around, the dense black forest rose, and beyond that, spires of jagged stone thrusting heavenward. Gedain felt then that he stood within the very lair of the dragon of his dreams.

  He lowered his gaze. Ahead stood a man in a Norland tunic. Gedain approached slowly, knowing his name, yet not his eyes that seemed to be those of another— a more ruthless, silent version reborn.

  Menek.

  “What is this place?” Gedain asked.

  “Truth,” Menek answered.

  Gedain sheathed his sword and set down his lantern as the wild folk closed in around him.

  “Art thou their leader?”

  “No. They brought me hither a fortnight past,” Menek said. “Even as thou wast led.”

  “Who then ruleth here?”

  “He who is the king.”

  Gedain searched the eyes of the wild folk gathered around him. They stared without emotion, as if looking straight through his flesh and bone and directly into his soul.

  “Will this king receive me?” Gedain asked.

  “Rest,” Menek answered. “He will come for thee soon.”