The New King and the Glittergold Worms
There’s a valley in the far south-west. A hundred years ago it was home to an ancient and despicable dragon, a wyrm of persistent, revolting un-life that made a mockery of natural decay; now, it is occupied by humble and, miraculously–if such things still yet occur–decent farmers and shepherds. A warrior queen traveling on campaign in ages long past slew the dragon with the might of her army in its lair and took only a golden broach, a symbol which found its way onto her banner and, eventually, her funeral shroud. None alive today recall the dragon in its fell majesty and dark glory, though all who live and work in the valley know of its infamy; very few today remember the queen, noble and proud and kind, and those that do remember her also as pale, plagued by disease and misfortune till her dying breath.
The kingdom, stretching from sea to shining, eternal sea and of which the dragon's former valley home comprises only a tiny, unnamed part, is rotting. The past creeps in through the gaps left by royal chronicles and preserved records, ill fates and cruel designs of rulers and devilish sorcerers long since banished from life and history come to untimely and remote, unintended fruition.
Once again, in a valley in the far south-west, something moves in the darkness. Once again, cattle go missing with no corpses found, and the children are taught to fear the night. Once again, a royal procession ventures into the valley through the winding mountain pass to its north. History does not repeat, and the past, while intrusive, does not proscribe what is yet to come. You need not consult an oracle or sage to know that blood will once again stain that earth. What remains is the telling and the trial.
The king, long may his name be treasured and long may his reign endure, strikes a pathetic figure atop a poorly groomed destrier, its saddle and barding worn not by conflict but simply a lack of care. He is a youth, and what a youth he is: a narrow face hidden behind a beakish nose and sallow, sunken eyes. His figure is that of long, thin limbs and a spine that could not decide if a lean to east or west was preferable, and chose the winding middle path, a back and forth curve making his significant height all the more remarkable.
The royal company, not on campaign but merely tour, enters the valley from the north on a narrow, unkempt road be-speckled with hardy mountain shrubs and roots between two enormous cliff faces. The western wall is notable for its engraving, carved with skill by long-past residents and overseen, if for only a few decades, by royal masons:
Here, in this valley which bears no name of note, on the 137th day of the 10th year in the reign of Her Royal Majesty Hyacinth the Great, first of her house and of her name, did the Queen and her companions, not least of whom were the knights Armand, Drusilla, and Sevrien, guided by the wisdom of the sorcerers Morgant and Malachi, do battle with and slay a mighty dracon, fifteen men in height and forty in length, from whose mouth issued foul vapours and arcane disease. The people of this valley are forever grateful to Her Royal Majesty and her house, which as yet has no name, and pledges forever its loyalty and support.
“And she died in her sleep, choking on her own spit.” The king says, transfixed by the engraving. The company halts around him, silent, save for a middle aged man, a knight in title if not in proven valour, who continues to cut away at mountain bushes with a unadorned steel sword.
“What say you, Driskall?” The king says without turning. The knight halts his attack mid-swing and regards his king. “What say I to what, lord?”
“What say you that we carve our own glory onto this rock, like my ancestor before me?”
The knight stands very still. “My lord, I fear we may lack the proper tools and skill to...”
“Nonsense!” The king dismounts, a little unsteady on his feet, and grimaces as he paces towards the wall. “Your sword, Driskall.”
The knight obliges, handing over the poorly weighted broadsword already bearing brush-made chips in its edge. The king takes it by the hilt and half-blade, carefully wrapping mail gloved hands around it, and begins to scratch into the stone with the weapon’s tip:
Another king came here, and soon again departed.
“It is...concise, sire.” Driskall shrugs, uncertain. “It will give future scholars much to puzzle over, perhaps to his highness' amusement.”
“Your majesty, if I may,” a slow voice, melodious if ragged, issues from an old, wizened man with flint-sharp eyes. “Perhaps it would be better to leave behind some kind of date marker, such that your travels can be better recorded in later days?”
“Do you think we will be remembered, Malachi?” The king doesn’t sneer; he’s asking a genuine question. “Should we be?”
“I can only hope that you are, majesty, as that means someone survives these days to tell of them. Myself...” The sorcerer says, quietly, “myself, I would prefer to go un-recalled, lest those of lesser restraint learn by my example that can escape a just fate.”
The king turns from his engraving, not monumental like its elder but altogether human in scale. “I’d like to be remembered kindly, Malachi, but I do not think it likely.”
“Thus is the fate of kings, majesty.” The sorcerer grimaces. “Fame, at the price of fate.” He turns back towards the road ahead. “Come, your majesty, let’s carry on down into the valley. There will be softer beds there than can be had here atop these roots, no matter how well Driskall prunes them.”
The knight, inspecting the chips in his now utterly dull blade, grunts.
The valley below holds in tender grasp a mighty mountain-ice fed swamp and marshland, the driest part of which bears a town of around a thousand persons. It is, and has been since its liberation from the dragon’s dominion, a peaceful if not always happy place.
Two inns avail themselves of the king’s patronage, but on discovering his party comprises fifty persons, half as many horses, and a dozen wagons with two donkeys per, the company is split between the two establishments and the horses stabled all about the town, making strange company to the hardy sheep they find themselves enclosed with.
The first night in the town, its name long forgotten to the residents and of little use to its scant visitors, is well enjoyed by the king’s company. There is no beer, as marshland makes for poor wheat and barley, but plentiful and rich wine, barrels of which are consumed happily. The food is simple but hot, and the beds soft if not luxurious. The second night, during which the king met with the town council, the owners of three vineyards, and the local sheriff, is otherwise uneventful. The third night, the morning after which the party intended to leave at dawn, making south for the sea and coastal cities of greater import, is interrupted by screams of fear, anguish, and confusion.
“A boy is dead.”
This is the main fact the king’s company can gather from the confused cries of assembled farmers and shepherds at a torchlit gathering in the town’s humble square. A boy is dead and, if the hushed whispers that follow are to be believed, the flesh has been sloughed off his bones from head to ribs, and he his half-skeletal steaming corpse, found at the foot of a creek down at the valley’s southern tip, was identified only by a distinct birthmark on his left foot.
His parents, two men of stout physique and stoic reputation earned in former days, are now husks of pain and fear. Pain, that their eldest, a kind boy near to adulthood, is dead, and dead so wretchedly; fear, because their younger son is still missing.
The king’s company comprises, as said, fifty people. The king, two dozen knights, ten squires, fourteen servants, and the sorcerer Malachi. As the story of the boy’s disappearance evolves and becomes more clear, two camps form: one, comprised mostly of the knights and their commander Driskall, arguing that they are all obliged to help avenge the boy and rescue his brother; the other, championed by Malachi, that it would be best to move on at once, in case the townspeople, in their grief, turn and associate the company’s arrival with the boy’s grisly death.
The king decides, by either a stroke of wisdom or indecision, to confer with Malachi and Driskall.
“I appreciate that there may be little we can do,” he says to Malachi, who by this point has argued repeatedly and from every angle he can think of that departure is necessary and prudent, “but we cannot leave this behind without bringing about some kind of resolution. The men will not have it,” Driskall nods in agreement, “and if word somehow got out, say by rumours told first at campfires and then at court,” Driskall nods again, slower this time but with a grimaced appreciation, “it could stain my reign permanently.”
“Lord, whatever killed that boy,” Malachi shudders, “it stripped the meat off his bones, and it did it quickly. He was last seen at dinner, and the sun is yet to rise.” He turned to Driskall. “Your men could be brave, but they are untested. They can deal with a few underfed bandits, but a true monster, that takes more than steel to best.”
Driskall scowls at the sorcerer and places his mailed hand—he had possessed the wherewithal to armour himself when shouts woke the company—on the other man’s shoulder. “And what then of your magic, Malachi?” He sneers, “surely one so old and wise as you can aid two dozen knights in slaying one boy-killer?”
“One?”
Driskall looks confused. “Aye, one, one beast that killed the one boy, or maybe killed the boy and dragged his brother back to some lair.”
“Why only one?”
“Why more than one?” The king, eyes narrow, searching.
Malachi sighs, looks off to the side. They’re gathered under the awning of a blacksmith a few doors down from the inn they’d been staying in, The Bitter Lion. It’s raining, softly, a dull pitt-pitt-pitt along the thatched roof above them. The king has seated himself on the anvil and alternates rubbing his shoulders and back.
“There aren’t enough animals here to feed this many people.”
“I don’t see anyone starving” says the Driskall, but now he’s starting to glance around too.
“There isn’t much grazing land here, and most of it is either around the town or on the mountain slopes, up above the marshland. I didn’t see any herds on the slopes coming down into the valley, though, so the shepherds are keeping their animals close. Something’s been killing them, probably has been for the last year.”
The king scowls. “They didn’t say anything today. If there are wolves, or a bear...” He stops himself.
“Wolves don’t slough the flesh from a boy’s bones, your majesty.” The sorcerer grimaces. “Something bad has been killing animals in this valley, and now it’s killing children. Either it’s one thing, getting bigger and hungrier, or multiple things, getting bolder and greater in number.”
“Or both.” The knight, hand on the hilt of his blade.
The king decides that his retinue will remain in the valley and assist in searching for the lost boy. His name, according to his fathers, is Yorich; until dawn, plate-armoured knights trailed by armed squires and servants with pole torches traipse up and down the valley, crying “Yorich!” out into the night.
Of all those out searching, the fifty of the king’s retinue and some two hundred townsfolk, ten do not return as dawn starts to trickle over mountaintops. This takes some time to establish, but the disappearance of two knights is noted almost immediately, along with a squire and a servant. The movements of these four is known only for the first few hours into the night, after which another knight, a member of their search party, had rolled her ankle on the marshy earth and returned to town with her squire. The four had last been seen at the far southern rim of the valley, opposite the side where the company had entered.
No more corpses have been found save one: half of a knight’s body, everything from the waist down missing save corroded and steaming bones.
Malachi, the king, and Driskall are gathered again near The Bitter Lion. The king, prevented by all present from going out to search, is still dressed in a woolen night gown; Malachi is in his usual robes, muddy at the hem from traipsing up and down the valley casting light into the treetops; Driskall is in his full plate. The three have been silent for some time, each dwelling his own private and growing horror.
“There are deep caves, hidden and buried in the marsh, all along the valley’s southern side.” Malachi keeps messing with his scant remaining hair and won’t look the other men in the eyes.
“Was that...” The king, startled by the sorcerer’s sudden comment.
“Yes. That’s where the dragon lived, and that’s where it died its lasting death.”
“You’re sure?” Driskall looks poorly—nobody has slept, but he’d decided to move between all the search parties all night, relaying messages and collecting reports. With only a small torch in hand, he stumbled and tripped his way through the dark for almost eight hours, and even his armour doesn’t hide his plentiful bruises and cuts.
The sorcerer regards the weary, anxious man standing beside the king. “We removed its head from its body, despite the flesh constantly trying to re-knit itself. The head was burned, along with most of the heart and spleen, in a bonfire fed with arcane salts and kept burning for two and twenty years by demons bound to eternal service. Five knights, far more—”
The king coughs. “Your point is made, Malachi.” He puts a thin and faintly shaking arm on the knight’s shoulder. “If the dragon is dead, this must be something else.”
“Something that can take the meat of a man’s bones in minutes.” Driskall closes his eyes. “That can get through full plate like it’s nothing.” He turns, faces away from the two men, towards the village’s outskirts and the unlit night. “None of my men killed it, we haven’t even found any sign they bled it...”
The king approaches him and shakes the armoured man’s arm gently. “It was dark, Driskall, and nobody suspected anything amiss beyond mountain wolves. They weren’t prepared, nobody could’ve...you couldn’t have...”
The knight shakes the king’s grasp before half turning, mumbling an apology, and retreating inside The Bitter Lion.
“Get some sleep, Ser Driskall” yells Malachi, “after dawn we’ll need to go into those caves.”
“You’re certain?” The king hopes for a no.
“Yes, your majesty,” the sorcerer smiles without much confidence, “it seems this valley has a particular need for the royal dynasty’s care and attention.”
The king is silent, long enough for the sky to begin to lighten and snow to start gently falling. “We’re going to die here, aren’t we?”
“I...my king, I don’t...” the old man, older than he has any true right to be, sighs. “I don’t know, sire.” He catches a snowflake in his hand. It doesn’t melt; it’s been some time since his flesh has been warm.
“Find something that does, then.” The king turns to regard him, murky eyes suddenly, briefly, fierce like embers. “Consort, beseech, beg, convince, whatever it may be: speak with something that knows better than you. Find out what this is, and if we can kill it.”
“Sire, your reign is yet tenuous...if we left now, I don’t...”
“We’re not leaving, Malachi.” The king turns to go back inside, doesn’t see the pain on the other man’s face when he says “but if I’m to die regardless, I’d do it myself with a dagger in the bath so at least there’s a body to bury.”
Malachi, alone, watches the snow.
One of the village girls, exhausted from being awake all night screaming her kinsman’s name—mother’s sister’s nephew's son—lays stomach down in the grass beside the creek at the village’s edge. She shouldn’t be out, despite the gold-violet light radiating off the mountain tops, has been told it’s dangerous to not be out alone now. Doesn’t think she can listen to her little brother scream about no milk in the porridge anymore either, or smell the donkey's shite because the poor creature has to be kept indoors so it doesn’t get eaten.
She has a good angle on the swamp-forest’s edge, thinking to herself that she’s keeping lookout, which is exactly what she does on the old man steadily clambering over the loose rocks leading up from the creek to the brush and trees. He looks funny, in his strange robes and with his scraggly hair. Like the tinker who comes to town every few years to sharpen knives and sell little baubles that glow in the dark.
He still looks funny when he starts shaking a jar of dust while dancing—he’s bad at it, looks like he almost falls over a few times—in a wide circle. She can’t decide what colour the dust is, what colour the circle is in the grass and moss just inside the forest. It hurts her eyes, the circle, or maybe the place right behind her eyes.
Suddenly, there’s someone else in the circle with the man. They’re talking, but the other person is between her and the old man so she can’t see what the newcomer is saying. It hurts her eyes even more to look at the new figure, all dusty black, like a charcoal smear against birch wood, so she tries to read the funny man’s lips. He looks like he’s asking questions while the charcoal smear figure shakes its head.
Without seeming to move, the figure’s arm is out from the elbow, sharp looking hand up, as if to receive something. The funny man goes a bit pale, looks around, before grabbing a duff grub off the forest floor. They’re pests, duff grubs, eat everything and anything and grow bigger so long as they can get more food; the name is because they roll themselves in leaves and bark instead of growing thicker skin.
The figure shakes its head. No. The figure’s head is facing a little left, then a little right, no in between movement.
The funny man doesn’t seem so funny anymore. He looks mad and panicked, like her dad when he’s lost something. He touches a tree, gestures at it with his other hand. Another head shake that isn’t motion, just a no.
The figure turns around and points directly at her. The face is wrong, no eyes and a mouth that’s just a long emptiness light seems to fall into. The man yells something in a language she doesn’t know, it hurts to hear just like the figure and powder do to look at. It feels bad watching him slump, give up. He looks so sad, she’s far away but there might be tears in his eyes, as he looks at her and starts to mutter.
Her heart stops. A kindness, wrapped in a deeper cruelty.
By first light proper the king’s company is in full assembly. Everyone who has armour is wearing it; every weapon possessed by the company has been distributed such that all, even the servants, are armed. Enough small swords and spears are spare that some of the villagers are armed too, beyond the shovels and rakes their comrades carry. All in all, the remains of the company comprises forty six armed and at least passable trained combatants; another one hundred eighteen villagers have joined them.
Malachi and Driskall are standing outside The Bitter Lion waiting for the king. His spine makes changing into armour difficult, but he insists–has always insisted–that only a single squire may help him. Malachi has offered tinctures that might ease the pain and discomfort of the process in the past, but these have been refused curtly enough he hasn’t tried this time.
“Did your friend tell you anything?” Driskall doesn’t look at Malachi as he asks the question.
The sorcerer regards the knight. “Not a friend. And not yet.” Turns back to count how many people remain in the king’s company–no change since he last counted a few minutes prior.
“What good did it do, then?”
“Did what do?”
“I smelled blood, and smoke.” Driskall wrinkles his nose, “foul smoke, that I remember from the last time you summoned that thing.” He turns away. “I hope it was worth it, in the end. And that the family assume it was this creature, not us.” With the final word, he walks into the assembled crowd, checking the fit of his knights’ armour as he goes.
The king exits the tavern on unsteady legs in armour meant for someone larger and more practiced in its motions that he’s ever aspired to be. He nods to Malachi and says “Let’s move.” He doesn’t say it loud, but the sorcerer has experience with his lord’s reticence to yell; a quick twitch of his fingers and paling of his face and a richer, bolder version of the king’s voice echoes around the village.
The king’s company departs first, southwards, followed by the villagers. Some twenty of them, having made the show of assembling armed and eager, hang behind or slip into waiting doorways. A few, possessing the rare combination of being pessimistic and bold, swiftly move themselves into the lodgings of neighbours who’ve followed in king as entire households.
Driskall notices the latter phenomenon as they leave the village and finds the king near the back of the company. “Sire, some of the villagers…”
“Stayed behind?”
“Yes, sire, and some even…” he lowers his voice, as though the villagers a few yards prior might hear him over the din of footfalls and hushed voices, “they’re looting and claiming their neighbours’ homes, sire.”
The king turns his bleary, bloodshot eyes to meet Driskall’s. “Hubris may be a royal failing, Driskall, but bad times make kings of all men.” He closes his eyes and lowers his head. “They’ll die just the same if we don’t kill whatever is eating this valley. Until then, they might as well enjoy themselves.”
The largest cave entrance, a pockmark like hole in the bottom of a gully at the base of the mountain slope, contains a darkness that seems to ooze out into the surrounding ground.
“That goes down into the cavern where the dragon slept and hoarded stolen wealth.” Malachi looks to some of the villagers who’ve been serving as guides and scouts at the front of the company but they won’t meet his gaze.
The king, already looking weary from the hour of walking through rocky hill country and marshland, gestures for one of the villagers to answer his questions.
“Do you know this land?”
The man, a middle aged shepherd, nods his head swiftly.
“Are there any other passages down into that cavern? Or larger cave systems further to the east or west that might give something more hiding space?”
“I do not know, your majesty.”
The king squints, looks at the man carefully. “You said you knew this country well, did you not?” “Yes sire.”
“Then…”
The shepherd takes off his hat and holds it in his gnarled hands. “Sire…none of us have ever entered the caves. Not since, gods rest her soul, his majesty’s ancestor came here and slew the beast.”
“Not even looking for lost sheep? Not even to take some of the gold for yourself?”
At the latter question the shepherd's eyes go wide. “Never, majesty!” He calms himself slightly; his outburst has drawn the interest of the king’s men and the quiet fear of his neighbors. “The curse, sire,” he says, quietly, “all that gold has a dragon’s curse on it, won’t do to take any, can’t do no good for none.”
The king turns to Malachi and offers a questioning glance, which the sorcerer matches. “I’ve never heard of this curse, sire, but I’ve only met the one dragon.”
The king’s hand goes absently to his chest, where a heirloom broach suddenly feels twice as heavy. “Maybe it’s best if the men know to take nothing, then.”
Malachi looks around for Driskall, hoping to ask him for input; the king knows all the company’s faces, the sorcerer each voice, but Driskall knows, as much as any person can, the character of every person in their company.
“Maybe best, sire,” the shepherd's face goes pale as he speaks and remembers himself, “I mean, er, your royal majesty might consider that…” his speech trips and fumbles.
“Speak honestly and simply, man.” The king looks tired.
“Sire, tell the men they may have gold only after they’ve done their bloody work.” The man still looks nervous, but it’s clear he’s thought this through. “I know his majesty’s men are no mercenaries, but the promise of wealth is always a powerful cause for courage. And, while I know they are loyal to the death,” he falters briefly, dreading what he plans to say next, “men exhausted from combat are least likely to…complain.”
The king regards the shepherd, dressed in wools and with flesh that could have been no more than rough wood. “You’re a wise one, shepherd. What is your name?”
“Madrigal, sire. My family has no name, save that of our work.”
“Should this end in blood and death, Madrigal, I would have you live, and keep your village and home as safe as it can be. I would charge you with this,” he turns to his squire, a few meters behind, and mouths words lost to the wind, “should you kneel.” The youth unwraps a sword from oilskin, and hands it to the king.
“Sire?”
“I would make you a knight, Madrigal, charged with the welfare of this valley. Not in my service, but that of your kin and folk.”
“Sire, I…” the aged shepherd, suddenly seeming a little younger than his years have made him, smiles. He kneels, head down.
The king lifts the sword, places it on the shepherd's shoulder. “Shepard Madrigal, do you hereby forsake the cause of mortal men, and embrace the eternal truths of valour, kinship, and courage?”
“Yes, sire.” The company has come to a halt and watches, a few stunned faces among the crowd. The villagers have formed an outer ring around the king's men, peeking over mailed and armoured shoulders in shock and excitement.
“Do you pledge your undying commitment to this land,” the king gestures at the sky, the mountains, and the marshland beneath, “and these people?” to the villagers, watching.
“Yes, sire.”
“Then a knight you are, and a knight I call you. Stand.” The king finds Driskall in the crowd with his eyes, motions and says “a sword, for this man.” Driskall fetches a spare from a nearby knight, too stunned to voice annoyance at losing the blade, and hands it to the king.
“Take this weapon and protect this land, Ser Madrigal.”
The shepherd-knight stands, grinning, just as the screaming starts.
Six gold covered masses, shining bright in the dying sunlight, are moving up the hill from the cave entrances, the closest of which has already grabbed a villager–a youth, lanky and thin–in its many fanged maw full of pungent, fuming acid.
“What in the…” one of the knights, at the back of the watching company and closest to the approaching creatures, hefts a steel halberd in mailed fists and brings it down against the shimmering side of the creature consuming the boy.
It hits true, but digs only an inch into a skin of many layered and overlapping golden coins and gemstone diadems before being turned and glancing further into the makeshift armour. The knight steps back, but his weapon is embedded and caught; some sticky resin holds the gold and his weapon in place.
Another creature, larger than its comrade, squirms its way up to him; it’s as tall as the knight, twice as long down its body, with no feet or limbs breaking its gold coated surface. No eyes peek out: the only opening is a cavernous mouth full of spittle and ringed with many hundreds of needle-like teeth.
The villagers flee, those with weapons putting them between themselves and the creatures as they retreat. The king’s men, startled but at least notionally trained for violence, present arms and close with the six beasts. It’s quickly apparent that they cannot easily attack more than one person at a time, but they do quick work: the youth is already dead, pulled into the creatures maw by his leg and his flesh dissolving rapidly from its acid. In response to the knight’s attack, the leading beast lets go of its first prey and swivels–ponderously, but faster than its size would suggest–to start snapping at the now unarmed knight.
The two creatures get a hold of one of the knight’s arms each; their mouths protrude when lunging then retract, allowing them to hook and pull with their entire body weight. The man screams as his arms are forced in opposing directions while the beasts’ fangs and spit begin to chew through his armoured limbs.
“Malachi,” the king and sorcerer hang back as the mailed knights begin trying to pierce the shimmering hide of the creatures with rondel daggers and stout knives, “what are these things?”
“I entreated a…denizen of somewhere else to answer that same question. I asked what nature of things plague this valley, and it answered that they are nothing more than mundane beasts, though rarely so large.” The sorcerer’s face, already pale, has taken on an alabaster, gaping rictus.
Sir Madrigal, uncertain as to what he might do with a longsword and slower to react than the trained fighters, stops staring at the combat and approaches the king and his councillor. “They’re duff grubs, sire. Local pests that eat whatever they can find and coat themselves in whatever they can’t. I’ve never seen them so large, though…”
The king smiles wanly at the two men. “What need we of profane intelligence, sorcerer, when we have local wisdom to guide us.” At the mention of the profane the newly knighted man goes pale and aghast, but he and all those outside the melee are quickly startled by a wretched sound from behind them.
The first knight to be seized by the worms has been ripped in half, despite numerous attempts at rescue and distraction by his comrades. One of the squires managed to drive a rondel dagger into the largest worm’s flesh where an eye should have been, to little effect. When the knight is ripped in two, both worms roll backwards and the squire, still attempting to force his blade deeper, is crushed under the mass of his opponent with an awful cracking of bones and wet scream. A knight, her armour pockmarked by droplets of acidic spittle, attempts to thrust her longsword into one of the worm’s exposed bellies but finds it just as armoured as their hardy backs.
Malachi ascends a rocky outcropping and casts his voice wide across the downhill slope: “Drive your blades into their mouths, inwards then up!” For good measure, he takes a yellowed scroll from inside his robe, mutters the words on its surface, and with a pointed, long nailed finger sends a bolt of scorching light at the rearmost worm who has yet to be assailed by knights. The creature screams and twitches while the gold on its surface crackles and melts inwards before going still.
The king’s company and the bravest of the villagers begin the unpleasant work of baiting the remaining worms into lunging while teams of combatants pin the creature with short blades. The scant few spears and halberds are used to jab at the worms’ internals from a distance, but these quickly become unusable from the corrosive acid. The villagers, with their rakes and sharpened shovels, end up providing the most useful tools for the work.
The sun is very low when the butchery is finished. The king’s company now comprises only thirty eight bodies, less than half of which are trained knights. The villagers have fared worse, despite their initial avoidance of danger and the reach of their weapons; sixty of them now stand, haggard, panting, and nursing injuries on the downward slope towards the saves.
The newly titled Sir Madrigal still lives. His sword is chipped in three places and has pitting from the worm’s acid spit all along its surface, but its tip is stained with their blood as well. He grins, although he feels that when he stops smiling he’ll begin to weep.
Driskall’s leg is stuck under the behemoth weight of one of the worms, its death causing it to roll down the gully and, catching him along the way, drag him down the slope and eventually pin him. Three villagers with shovels, having given up trying to push the corpse away, are digging a ditch on the beast’s side opposite Driskall while Malachi keeps him distracted from his broken and bleeding leg.
“Coins, mostly?”
“From where I’m sitting, yes. Almost nothing newer than the previous dynasty, though, and I don’t see many of them either.”
“It must be the dragon’s hoard, then.” The sorcerer remarks. He’s been attempting, between glances at the three men working behind him, to tear a piece of the worm corpses armour away so he can look at its flesh.
“You think they knew what they were doing?” Driskall’s voice is filled with an increasing amount of pain as the adrenaline leaves his body.
“Knew about the treasure, that it would be so effective as armour? No, I can’t imagine they did.” With a long rip and a wet, sucking sound, a chunk of bloody gold comes free from the corpse’s surface, exposing red-purple flesh filled with a spread of thin black tendrils. “Strange,” the sorcerer says, sounding older than he tries to, “it looks like something is…growing in this one.” He cuts a sliver of the flesh out and shoves it into a deep pocket at his side.
“Makes them hard to see, I suppose.” Driskall murmurs, suddenly faint as the creature’s body begins to lift and roll.
The sorcerer turns to consider him, shaken from deep thought, and to satisfy his curiosity just as much as keep the knight awake, and asks: “The shining gold makes them hard to see?”
“Not up here, no.” The corpse suddenly tips and falls into its shallow grave, almost knocking Malachi over before he quickly steps back and kneels beside the knight. “But down there,” Driskall nods his head to a nearby cave entrance, “where its some kind of lake of gold? I imagine it feels a lot like blending in.”
The sorcerer smiles at Driskall as the man starts to breathe heavily at the sight of his mangled leg. “You’re a clever man, Ser Driskall.” He mutters an incantation under his breath, memorized long ago, to ease the knight's pain. “Cleverer than even the king believes.”
The smell of ash is suddenly intense, along with the sounds of a crackling flame. Both men turn and lift their heads–Driskall with some difficulty–to see a figure made from shadows standing off to the side of the battlefield, seemingly invisible to their comrades.
“I should speak with it,” the sorcerer says, standing slowly on cracking knees. “I asked for more information, and there’s still contingencies to–”
“Not me. Please. Not me.” Driskall’s voice is full of dread and fear. “I know I won’t survive the next hour, two at most, that I’m no good out here.” He looks into Malachi’s eyes with some hesitation. “But please don’t give me to that thing as payment.”
Malachi looks old, terribly, wretchedly old for a flickering second. His glamour–if his regular, ancient form can be described as such–reasserts itself swiftly, but the wrinkles around his eyes have gone even deeper; his beard, already white and ragged, has lines of yellow like mouldering paper.
“I wouldn’t consider it, Sir Driskall.” He bends down and fishes a slip of paper from his robe, folds it into a small square, and tucks it into the knight's mouth before the dying man can continue speaking. “Rest, now, sir knight.”
Driskall hears few things as his life begins to drain out of him down into the soil, the air, everywhere but his body. The sound of men beginning to set fire to the worms, as a precaution. The screams of other wounded men, some of whom receive mercy at the hands of their fellows. Whispering from behind him, in a language which he realizes he’s beginning to understand.
Speaking the Dead Tongue, in a conference isolated from their surroundings, the sorcerer and the creature confer.
“I say again, old one, they are nothing but mortal beasts, grown larger than they often do.” The shadow-thing’s voice sounds like something viscous and boiling hot dripping.
“Grown larger on what?” Malachi demands, his tone sharp. He holds up the piece of flesh he removed from the worm, the black, snaking tendrils visible. “What have they been eating?”
The creature in front of him, standing on rapidly dying grass, smiles. “Ahhhhh, very good, Malachi.” It makes a clapping gesture with arms that end in sharp stubs. “Your master would be so proud of you, perhaps he even…” the creature cocks its head as though listening to some far off sound. “Yes, yes, he sends his regards, very proud.”
“Wonderful. They’ve been eating the wyrm’s corpse, then? Which, even though we burned its organs here and its soul is,” he gestures at the creature in front of him, “with you, never…”
“Went away, no. I know you’d hoped for bones, Malachi, but down there you’ll find its body still waiting, if lacking animation. What did you expect, given what it was in life?”
“Is it growing in them? Corrupting them in a way that can be dispelled, or…”
The figure shakes its head. “Growing, yes, but it just makes them hungrier. Imagine if you were full of flesh that kept trying to grow itself back, if it became part of you…” The thing, despite its lack of face, looks almost wistful. “Magic cannot solve this problem for you, Malachi. Not this time.”
The sorcerer curses repeatedly. Turning, he searches out the king’s figure in the crowd; the monarch is helping set fire to the last worm corpse.
“One final deal, then.”
Another smile. “I’m listening.”
“If I die–” he stutters at the whining sound the figure makes, one he’s learned is akin to laughter. “When I die, down there or later, you may have my soul in exchange for ensuring the king’s safe departure from this place.”
The creature nods. “How will I know which he is?”
Malachi gapes at the shadow. “How…he’s the fucking king, you numb-skull demon–”
“You all look the same to me, Malachi, it's the–” a word like smell, but of a deeper sense–“that lets me separate you. So unless you’d like me to get acquainted with the king–”
“No.” The sorcerer sighs. “The king bears an heirloom broach on his chest, by which you will know him.”
The creature nods again. “By which I shall know him.” It bows, though not low enough to connote respect in most cultures. “Thank you, Malachi.” Smiles. “I’ll see you again soon.”
Malachi returns to the king’s side, informing him of the worm’s ruinous diet and Driskall’s unfortunate demise.
The cave is dark, but not as much as it ought to be. Down the passage the light cast from torches meets a shimmering green glow rising from below. The light dances and sways, as if it were cast from beneath water.
In truth, the shimmer is caused by raging sconces of green mage-fire, a relic of the caverns long gone inhabitant, reflecting off the moving sea of golden treasure filling the bottom of the cavern. Shapes–hundreds of shapes–squirm and wriggle in the sickly light.
“I’d been hoping for…fewer.” The king stands near the front of the assembled crowd. The passage opens onto a wide cliffside overlooking the cavern below. To the left a steep ramp goes down into the sea of gold; at some point long ago, it cut across the cavern to its other side. At the back of the cavern, rising from the treasure sea, a headless, scarred and iron scaled eight limbed body–two pairs of legs, one of arms and one of wings–lingers like a blighted island.
“Malachi,” the king leans over to the sorcerer, attempting to ignore the movement below, “how did it…fit out? The passage behind us was only twice the height of a man, I…”
“It didn’t really fit, your majesty. The dragon did not concern itself with pain, and it could heal any wound to its flesh and bone in minutes.” Malachi looked ill. “It would just force its way out, pause but a moment for its bones and wings to mend, and depart.”
The king is silent for a time. When he speaks, it seems only because the murmur of the company behind the two men has started to grow, it’s a whisper. “What is our plan, sorcerer?”
“We bring the cavern down, majesty.” The sorcerer glances up at the ceiling. “The rock above here, and along this wall,” he gestures at the cavern’s wall immediately behind them, through which the passage exits, “is too stable to be brought down quickly or in such a way that doesn’t simply open another exit higher up the mountain. We thought of that, myself and your ancestor.” He pauses, remembering, before shaking the thought away.
“Our plan, originally, was to bring the back wall down,” he pointed towards the opposite side of the cavern, along which the dragon’s corpse lay and some dozen worms feasted on regenerating flesh. “On seeing the dragon and what it could do–given time, it would claw its way from even the deepest pit–we resolved to slay the beast in full.”
He turned to face the king. “Sire, I believe our original plan of that long past age is now necessary. The worms might have endless food, but they cannot force their way through the rock. They will suffocate and crush themselves together in here, even if they continue to multiply.”
The king nodded. “What must we do, then?”
The sorcerer produces a handful of small stones from his robe, then another, and another once more, before motioning to the surrounding kings-men. “Anyone not in armour is to take one of these stones and get it, by whatever means, to the opposite wall of this cavern.” His voice is amplified, catching the attention of the entire company. “The knights, and whichever squires have sturdy arms, will keep the worms busy.” At the sudden noise the sloshing of treasure grows louder and more fevered.
The nearest knight, a woman of middle age with greying hair and a scarred face grimaces. “We are to die, then.” She doesn’t ask it as a question, nor does she raise her voice such that anyone but the king and sorcerer can hear here.
The sorcerer goes to speak, but the king cuts him off. “Yes.” He gives a rictus smile. “For me, for the people in this valley, for the gods above,” he raises his voice so that everyone can hear him over the din. “For those who have fallen and those yet to die, for everything and nothing,” he screams hoarsely, “that death might greet us proud!”
The company cheers; only the brave or foolish have survived until now. A line is formed to distribute the sorcerer's rune-marked stones and the knights and their remaining squires assemble midway down the ramp. Beneath, the closest worms have already taken notice and begun to drag their golden masses upwards.
With a bellowing cry, the company charges, the sorcerer and king at the rear.
The ramp’s slope is steeper and smoother than expected, and many slip on their way down. Some manage to direct their fall off to the side so they fall into the golden sea, itself deeper than most people are tall. Many others slide right down the ramp, a few into the waiting maw of a worm. The dame-knight who’d spoken earlier is one of these, but she manages to bring her broadsword up to her chest and tilt it a quarter skyward; when she collides with a worm’s waiting mouth, she impales and crushes it with such force it’s body collapse backwards and knocks over two of its kin.
The sea of gold is treacherous to such a degree that many who fall in never manage to bring themselves to the surface. Most of the treasure is gold, and it is light enough that many of the less armoured persons can swim–a clambering, desperate sort of swim–along its surface. The worms, with their rough exterior and large, flat bellies, are well equipped and practiced moving across their pond.
The battlefield quickly becomes a skirmish along the base of the ramp–a dwindling collection of knights and squires using what little advantage the high ground gives them to fend off the growing mass of worms–and a game of cat and mouse between the seventy or so unarmed–shovels, rakes and spears long abandoned or handed off to knights as polearms–villagers and servants attempt to move through the treasure sea while pursued by worms.
The king and Malachi, standing behind the struggling line of knights, look on in horror.
“How many of them need to make it, sorcerer? How many of those stones…”
“Only a few, sire.”
The king regards the sorcerer with surprise. “You knew, then?”
“That it was a near impossible task? Yes. But nothing I can cast from over here can bring down the cavern wall, and if I instead were to go myself to the other side–”
“You could bring down the wall but die in the process.”
The sorcerer nods.
The king turns back to look at the chaos below. Ser Madrigal, unarmoured, is attempting to decide if he should dive into the sea of gold or fight with the other knights; he was not handed a stone.
“You’re a coward, Malachi.” The king’s voice is cold.
“Sire, I…” the sorcerer fumbles his words, caught off guard. “I suppose I am, your majesty.”
“My whole life, and only now…you’re a coward, you’ve always been a coward, and I…”
“Sire, it’s not–”
The king turns and holds out an open hand. “Give me one of the stones, Malachi.”
The sorcerer gapes at him. “Your majesty, it’s practically suicidal to…” Malachi’s protest is cut short by the king’s mailed hand striking him across the face.
“Your liege demands it, you demon worshiping bastard! How much blood have you spilled, how much blood is on my hands, because you won’t sacrifice a shred of your own safety?” He throws his sword to the side and grabs the sorcerer's arm. “Give me a fucking stone, Malachi.”
The sorcerer reaches into his robe and produces another of the rune-marked stones and passes it to the king. The man takes it and tucks it underneath his mail glove so it sits within his hand.
Ser Madrigal is startled by the sound of crashing coins, turning just in time to watch the king dive and sink into the golden sea to his right. He stands, aghast, as Malachi runs down the ramp and clutches his chest, screaming: “After him, bastard, after him!”
The sorcerer, applying some kind of magical force to his push, sends the man hurtling deep out into the expanse of treasure. Ser Madrigal manages, as he falls, to cast aside his sword so it doesn’t skewer him on the way down. When he lands, he does so on his back, stopping him from sinking further but causing considerable pain.
“I suppose this is my lot, now.” The man rasps as he attempts to sit. Twenty feet away, he spots the king surfacing and pull himself up from the gold onto his belly. Sir Madrigal, newly knighted and until recently unaware of his monarch’s likeness, has the unique experience of seeing royalty begin to crawl towards him.
Three of the stone carriers make it to the other side of the cavern.
The first, a woman in her late twenties, does so on a broken ankle and by dragging herself half-submerged through the coins. She picks a path–a near straight line–that takes her between the shapes moving towards either the combat or the dragon-corpse. It’s slow, and it's very painful, but she manages to clamber up the far-wall’s rocky slope before she passes out from the pain.
The second is a youth, a reed thin eighteen year old. He realizes, while watching his comrades sink and flounder in the coins, that he’s light enough to stay above the surface on his feet if he keeps moving quickly, the issue being that the worms spot him very quickly. His route to the far-wall is circuitous, winding and looping his way between worms as they start trailing him. Bravely, upon making it to the far-wall he discards the stone at the base, not far from where some smaller worms still feast, and runs back out into the sea to draw the worms away from the other carriers.
The third is Ser Madrigal.
The king finds the new knight amid the churning treasure sea, almost tackling the latter man. His late start to the dash has given him a significant benefit: most of the worms are now either pursuing other runners or consuming the knights at the ramp.
“Move, you idiot, with me!” the king yells, climbing off the knight and clawing his way over the coins. The knight turns to follow, clambering his way forwards fistful of coins at a time. The king’s height and considerable reach are boons here, his long surface area and sweeping pulls eerily mimicking the wriggling motion of the worms.
The two almost make it to the far-wall. The king, in the lead, catches his foot on something larger than mere coins: a heavy chest, mostly submerged, with a sturdy steel handle protruding from its side into which one of his mailed feet has wedged itself. He lunges forward, attempting to get free, which only shifts the chest slightly upwards–enough to cause a collapse of the surrounding treasure as some new emptiness below pulls in everything above.
The king, slowly sinking into the yawning, clattering pit and stunned by his sudden misfortune, reaches for his chest, the broach. “Too long. I should’ve…I waited…damn it all to hell.” He rips the broach from his tabard and casts it and the rune-marked stone up away behind him, clear of the sinking treasure and towards Madrigal. It goes dark, as coins fall and clatter over him. In the last bits of sickly green light peaking through above, a single coin drops and wedges itself in front of his open eye. The inscription, along its polished and pristine surface, reads: Royal Majesty Hyacinth the First, year one, long may she reign. Likely the newest coin in the hoard.
The king laughs until gold fills his mouth.
Ser Madrigal, miraculously–if such things still yet occur–catches both the tossed rune stone and the royal heirloom broach. He clutches both to his chest as he wriggles his way forward unto the stony outcropping against the far-wall, standing only once he’s looked around for worms. A mix of pride and guilt washes over him; at his beating the odds and making it across the golden sea, and at watching the king drown in coins. He lobs the stone a distance away against the wall and begins waving his arms madly for Malachi’s distant attention.
The sorcerer is busy.
The worms have broken past the last few knights, and Malachi has come to realize the slope is neither rough enough to climb up nor steep enough to stop the ascending beasts. He sends licking jets of fire at them, scalding them despite their armour, but with each second and fallen knight it matters less.
One of them hisses at him–“That’s new,” he mutters–and as it rears back its maw retreats into itself. The sorcerer knows something is wrong, knows to expect the worst, reaches a hand out–too late, as the worm’s maw snaps forward and issues a stream of scalding acid directly at the sorcerer’s lower body. His robes, enchanted though they are, act as little more than a tripping hazard as his legs, covered in sizzling, bone deep holes, collapse under him. He starts sliding, slowly, down the slope to meet the worms.
He turns over onto his side, casting an arm out to slow his fall, and looks towards the far-wall. Distantly, he sees a waving figure. “Gods, please, let that be the king!” he moans as he fingers the final rune-marked stone grasped in his hand.
“Demon! I know you can hear me–gah!” he screams as another spray of acid catches his chest and arms. “Save the king!”
A voice, the sound of burning, dripping oil, enters his mind. “You’re not dead yet, Malachi.”
“Damn you! Damn you, damn y–” his cursing is cut short by the teeth of the closest worm catching the flesh of his upper leg and yanking him suddenly closer to its kin. Through the ruinous pain, the old man whispers a final word and squeezes the stone. A second later he’s devoured by the glittering, golden worms.
Ser Madrigal hears a sudden crack and resounding boom from all along the far-wall. Brilliant many coloured explosions of sparks bloom outward, cutting through the rock in long dashes and burrows and sending rifts and fault-lines all up the wall and along the ceiling. Rocks begin to fall, first dust, then pebbles, skull sized stones and boulders.
He ducks out of the way of a large clump of falling rock and is suddenly face to face with a horrific figure: a grainy black smear, stinking of ash and rotten fire, with a long, hanging mouth.
“Ahhhhh, your majesty!” It’s sigh is languid like the slow plunge into deep water. “We ought to depart, your presence here is no longer necessary.” The voice, an awful, liquid tumult.
“No! No, I am Madrigal, at best Ser Madrigal, the king is–”
“Congratulations on your recent ascension, your majesty.” The figure gives an too-wide grin and a shallow bow before placing a hand on his shoulder. Madrigal screams.
He’s still screaming when he opens his eyes and finds himself outside, looking down the gully at the cavern’s entrance. The mountain slope shakes, and he hears the sound of a crushing avalanche echoing from inside the darkness.
The broach’s pin, still clutched to his chest, has pierced the skin of his hand. He’s bleeding.
A voice, the dreadful, liquid voice, comes from his side. “What now, King Madrigal? What will you do now?”
He smiles, weakly, in hopes it will stop him from weeping.