The smell was thick and wafted around Cody in thick clouds. He coughed and the paw steps ceased no more than ten yards from where he lay. A shadow was cast over him and he heard the heavy breathing of the beast that had pursued him. It grumbled and growled low in its throat as Cody slowly flipped over onto his back to face the thing that he and dreaded seeing. He couldn’t help the scream of terror that escaped his lips when he saw the reason for Mournful’s warnings.

A bear, easily just as big if not bigger than the largest deer Cody had seen.

The bear grumbled and growled again and lowered its head down to Cody. Each of its fangs was as long as he was, if a bit longer. It opened its mouth wide and roared; the noise so loud that Cody’s ears started ringing as if a blast of thunder had gone off just beside his head. The bear picked up a paw, intending to squash him apparently, but Cody dove aside as the paw came down and he was instead showered in a layer of dirt.

The bear growled loudly in frustration. It dove forward to bite Cody, but the rider dove aside once again. The bear pursued him and followed its attack with a swipe of its paw. Cody yelped in surprise as the massive paw made contact and he flew a dozen or more feet. There was a screech from up above before he crashed against a tree and passed out.

                A few seconds later, or perhaps a couple minutes, Cody grumbled and looked up. He heard another hideously loud screech and saw a flash of white as Mournful clawed at the bear’s ears. She dove for his eyes but the bear lifted its head and snapped at her wings, missing by mere inches and making her avert her course. There was a howl and a roar just as Cody caught a glimpse of glimmering gold in the sky and a flash of misty grey in the forest among the tree trunks.

                The bear roared twice as fiercely and loudly as before when Destiny tore at his left eye and Ashheart bit his toe fiercely. Aval dove from Destiny’s back and drew his dual swords. He lashed out with them and tore at the bear’s flank as he fell, making the beast roar once more. Everything was a blur of motion as each creature fought the one-eyed bear and it fought back as best as he could.

                Then it happened.

                With one paw the bear somehow managed to pin Destiny, Ashheart, and even Mournful, while the other paw was free to defend against the attacks of Omen and Avalsmokes, which was easy enough. Shaking off his dizziness, Cody stood and took his bow off his shoulders before knocking an arrow. He fired at the bear several times, but the arrows vanished into his fur seemingly without any effect. In the shadows Cody noticed Inferno for the first time, keeping low to the ground to avoid detection. He was clearly itching to swoop in and help, but even though he could run well his injuries would prove to be a terrible disadvantage. Even if he could land a blow, he definitely wouldn’t be nimble enough to evade the bear’s paw for even a single swipe.

                “Stay put,” Cody commanded as Inferno pawed the soil, desperately trying to stay where he was. “Please Inferno, we can’t lose you too, not now.”

                “But they need help!” The dragon howled helplessly, but he obeyed and backed away into the trees.

                Cody turned his attention back to the bear and felt his heart skip a beat. All of the beings trapped under the massive bear’s claws were perfectly still, dead or dying. Most terrifying was the image of Mournful, lying in a crooked heap of feathers, fur, and blood. Cody roared in fury and raced at the bear, drawing his sword as he did. He knew he was no match, but the blood and adrenaline ran through his veins with such force that he could not stop himself. He dove at the bear’s paw that held Mournful and the others. Even as the other paw collided with his body he drove his sword deep into the bear’s ankle.

What happened next, he couldn’t tell.

~

                Cody was roused from his unconsciousness for the second time that night a few minutes later. Unlike the first time it felt like he was waking from a deep sleep, consciousness coming to him only reluctantly and after much work. In his half-asleep state he just barely noticed the whisper of wind through his hair and the feeling of claws wrapped carefully around his body. His arms hung limp over his head and overall he felt weightless.

                Slowly he became more conscious. He opened his eyes.

                Cody gasped, but his voice was lost in the wind as it rushed by his face. The thing holding him up was difficult to identify from below, but looking around he saw a fluffy white underbelly, two massive white wings, a light silver mane of neck scruff, and a second pair of legs on the back of the creature. It looked like a gryphon, but it certainly wasn’t Mournful.

                Cody then looked around as much as he could. He saw another gryphon, red as blood, soaring high above, and turning his head to the left towards the approaching mountains he saw a green gryphon with a human on its back. The human seemed to wear a cape made of eagle feathers, so most of it was concealed from view. Cody tried looking to the right, but the gryphon carrying him obscured most of the view on that side.

                Lifting his arms back over his head he wrapped his hands around the talons that held him in place. He could think of no way to escape his predicament, and he was still too drowsy to fully comprehend or even be afraid of what was going on. Hours passed as they flew, the sun rose over the horizon, and still they flew steadily onwards. As Cody slowly came to, he also figured even more that there was nothing he could do to escape, so he just sat and observed the situation.

He began to fade in and out of sleep, which didn’t help at all in getting his senses, but it passed the time and kept him from worrying about whatever he should have been worrying about. Hours slipped past unnoticed and still they flew all through the daylight and the night again. Then suddenly Cody was wide awake, just as the sun began to rise again.

The gryphon holding him quickly descended out of nowhere, aiming towards a tunnel at the top of the largest mountain around. Their apparent target was high above even the cloud cover, and before he knew it Cody was dropped onto a ledge at the entrance of a massive cave. Not knowing what else to do he looked at the cave.

Before him was more of a tunnel. It was lined with torches and candles and the walls were colored with incredibly intricate designs and pictures, varying in scenes from ocean side to old villages of humans. All around the pictures were thousands of different animals from snakes to wolves to hawks and at the ceiling of the cave was the largest of all the animals: a massive dragon, a Wyrm.

A muffled oof! attracted Cody’s attention, and he looked back at the entrance to see Avalsmokes lying on his back with a hand pressed to his forehead as he moaned with discomfort at his landing.

“Aval!” Cody cried in surprise and pulled his friend back further into the cave.

It proved to be just in time, as Omen and Mournful, in human shape, dropped onto the cave floor at the same time next. Mournful seemed terrified beyond reason, while Avalsmokes and Omen seemed either confused or unconcerned, much like Cody was. This time before anyone could even react two men dropped down onto the cave floor on either side of Omen and Mournful. They seemed relatively young, perhaps a year or two younger than Cody was, and both had peculiar-patterned hair. The first had black hair with silver lowlights while the other had bright green hair flecked with yellow. The two men suddenly grabbed one person each: the black-haired one gagged Mournful and tied her hands together while the green-haired one did the same to Omen. Both dragged the people they held further into the cave and Cody turned to watch them in an instant.

“What are you doing!?” Cody yelled just before he felt rough hands seize his wrists.

Before he even knew what was happening he found his hands tied behind his back with a rough rope, far too tight for him to even consider getting loose, though he was lucky enough to be left with the ability to talk. Avalsmokes wasn’t as lucky as another newcomer, this one with normal chocolate-brown hair, tied his wrists and gagged him. Cody was turned abruptly around to face the entrance of the cave before he and his companions were dragged painfully back into the cave another few feet. Cody struggled, kicked, and yelled as loud as he could, but he was entirely ignored and his efforts were futile. Finally he saw the sense in sitting still and stopped struggling, however reluctantly.

Within a few moments one last man was dropped at the entrance to the cave. With the building light it was easy to see that the newcomer was older and more muscular than the other strange men and, as Cody briefly saw, women. He also suddenly noticed that each person there was no shorter than eight feet tall. However, this last stranger was easily ten feet, and had hair whiter than pure snow, if that were possible, and his steely amber gaze locked on Cody in an instant. He was the one that wore a cape of eagle feathers that Cody had seen, and now he saw that it was clasped with a brooch made of the teeth of a normal-sized animal. The man also wore a simple vest made of bluish-black animal fur and pants made of tanned animal hide. His feet were bare, and on his head was a circlet-styled crown of white gold that wasn’t overly obvious, but had the intricate details of a lion’s head carved into the front with two yellow sapphires for eyes.

The new, strange man stepped forward a few steps until he was only a single stride from Cody. He drew a dagger from a sheath at his belt and held it at Cody’s neck as he observed him with the golden contempt-filled eyes. Everything was still for a whole minute as Cody locked eyes with the strange man.

Finally Cody burst out, “Who are you, where are we, and why did you take us here!?”

“I would have thought that you would be more grateful for saving your life,” the stranger responded, never taking his eyes off of Cody. Ignoring his questions, he continued, “The question is not where are you, but why?”

“I did not come here intentionally,” Cody growled.

“I doubt that. Your path was too straight and unwavering for you to have come here by chance. What brought you here?”

Cody resisted the urge to yell at the man as he said, “I did not know where I was going, Mournful-”

“Mournful!” the man interrupted thunderously. A second later he noticed the gryphon among their company, seemingly for the first time. “Ah yess,” he said, drawing out the s in a hiss, “the outcast.”

Cody realized his mistake too late when he saw the hatred in the man’s eyes as he approached Mournful. He looked at her carefully, and she returned his stare with unwavering precision and contempt as they watched.

“I thought the queen had you banished…what brought you back?” the man growled as he ripped the gag out of her mouth.

Mournful growled quietly, “I won’t answer to you or your dogs!”

“Who are you?” Cody asked, trying to take the attention off Mournful.

The stranger seemed to brighten slightly and he strode back to Cody with a sly smile on his face.  He mock-bowed before straightening and answering, “I am Willful, son of Thoughtless, king of the Dreamkeepers.”

“King?” Mournful spat. “I remember when you were only a cub and you were terrified of the dark!”

The man holding Mournful chuckled but fell silent under Willful’s glare. The king seemed to ignore her question and continued to focus on Cody with a growing grin of satisfaction on his face. He shook his head, obviously disbelieving something.

“Oh what Blissful will say when I tell her that we caught two dragon riders, a wolf rider, and Mournful!”

Cody suddenly realized that Inferno was missing and broke free of his captors. He dove forward and tackled Willful as he shouted, “What have you done with them!?”

In an instant Cody was dragged off of the king, who brushed himself off and stood as though the incident was nothing of concern before he answered, “The weakling black one was too slow to keep up so he is being slowly escorted by foot with the others. They should be here sometime within the week.”

Cody stared daggers at the king, his frosty eyes literally glowing with hatred. “Why wouldn’t you let us stay with them and how did we get here!?”

Willful shrugged before saying, “What does it matter, you are here now, and however it came to be, the knowledge of how it happened would not affect your position. But I did not bring you hear so that I could be questioned, you were brought her so that you could tell me what you are doing here and what your intentions were.”

“His dragon was banished,” Mournful hissed. “I was trying to find some sort of help for them!”

“You knew you yourself were banished and still you came! Why should I believe your story, and why is there another dragon, wolf, and their riders?” The king asked, his cape flowing and rippling as he turned swiftly around to face her again.

Mournful sneered at him as she answered, “Are you so thick-headed that you couldn’t see the signs? The black dragon was injured by another dragon in the Duel of Barbarians and sentenced to banishment, and the others chose to follow, which got them banished as well.”

“I say it was a clever trick,” Willful growled. “All those years ago you tried to finish us off by bringing a dragon here, and after all this time you try it again with a wounded dragon to earn our trust! A clever idea, I’ll admit, but you can’t fool me! How many riders do they have now? Are you working with them to destroy us all and claim our land? Speak, you trick-winged rat!”

Mournful lurched forward in an attempt to copy what Cody had done and tackle him, but a second man came and held her tighter, holding her still. Seeing that the effort was futile she stopped struggling and looked up into the king’s eyes. Though she wasn’t looking at Cody, he could still see that she was fuming and hating the king with every ounce of her being. Seeing that she wasn’t even going to answer, Willful turned his attention on Cody for what felt like the millionth time.

“Would you be willing to answer my questions? Are there any more of you crawling around where you shouldn’t?”

Cody was still for a minute, then spat on Willful’s black vest. The king glared at him in disgust and rubbed the spittle off of the bluish-black fur of the vest, leaving a streak of slightly darkened and flattened fur along the trail his fingers passed. He looked down and shook his head, showing his disappointment, but when he looked back up it was clear that he didn’t care overly much.

“Come, let us see what the queen will have done with you when she hears of your intrusion and lies.”

Cody was surprised for a moment, but hid the emotion under a mask of grim acceptance, hoping the defeated look would help, one way or another. The man holding his hands tugged on them and led him further into the tunnel as Willful led, the tunnel sloping steadily downwards and curving slightly to the left in a spiral that widened the further they went. Cody walked along, matching their somewhat rushed pace as he did. He could hear the others being led further into the tunnel and wondered what would become of them.

He resolved not to worry about what would be, but think about what had been and what was happening at that very moment. When that proved nearly as depressing, he ended up just looking at the ceiling. Once again he noticed the dragon painted on it, but they were already at least a dozen yards and the dragon remained. The Wyrm had no legs, as he expected, but it had several pairs of wings shaped like fins all along his back, which told Cody that it was probably a Water dragon, though he knew little of the different “elements” that dragons could be. Nevertheless as each yard passed virtually unnoticed he found himself continually fascinated with each detail of the twisting form. Most surprising was the sudden questions that came to Cody’s mind: Why is there a dragon, and seemingly so important, doing in these halls where dragons are supposedly enemies? This must be the family Mournful was talking about and she probably learned everything she knows about dragons from them, but why and how do they know so much about dragons?

The questions seemed to have no apparent answer, and Cody did not dare ask unless the perfect situation arose, but the questions still confused him and even scared him the slightest bit. When he was suddenly pulled out of his thoughts by a small hole in the floor that he tripped over, Cody realized that they had gone much deeper into the mountain. As far as he could tell, their path wrapped around rock that was likely more than a few hundred feet thick. Cody began to wonder when their trip would end.

Several minutes of ceaseless walking later, each step of the foot and design on the walls seeming exactly the same, Cody suddenly came round the bend of the wall to see an end to the tunnel. The floor continued to slope down a bit, but about ten feet ahead it opened up into a wide room of sorts. Cody walked into the open curiously and suppressed a gasp of surprise.

Before him the path continued down another 10 to 15 feet, but to the left in the open was a massive room. On the ceiling was painted a massive sunrise that revealed the backlit shape of a massive and muscular but beautiful white leopard with a white lion beside it, both looking regal and powerful, and the design was incredible. On the walls were paintings of the mountains with the strange gryphons Cody had seen flying around them with powerful figures perched upon their shoulders. There were no dragons in the room, but the paintings seemed significantly newer, which convinced Cody that dragons had once been there but were removed.

Looking at the room itself, Cody saw that it took up a lot of the space that Cody had previously thought to be entirely stone. The path he trod upon wrapped around the right side of the room and there was a similar path leading away on the opposite side. Directly ahead there was a doorway that stood over a dozen feet tall and at least eight feet wide, golden-brown and engraved with white and black markings. The door seemed to be mostly hidden in the golden light of the torches and various other lights that illuminated the room. In the middle was a large fire about ten feet across, and on the opposite side of the fire, away from the door, were three thrones.

There was a somewhat small throne that appeared little more decorated than a dining room chair on the left side, and in it sat a young boy with white hair, who appeared to be about twelve years old, despite being a bit taller than Cody. On the right there was one much more richly carved and designed with two real dark brown wings extending to either side. The wings had obviously come from a giant eagle, though smaller than Cody would expect for the mountains at a somewhat small wingspan of ten feet, though the wings were partially furled and lifted up, as though the empty throne was trying to take off and fly away. The throne in the middle was the greatest yet.

There were three steps that raised it above the other thrones, and the back of the throne was built of sturdy wood lined with several animal pelts. The arms of the throne were bare and revealed a detailed battle scene that Cody couldn’t see well from his distance. Greatest about the middle throne was the massive pair of moose antlers, each tip longer even than the average human body. The horn extended probably twenty feet upwards and their distance across was impossible to estimate, but it was clear that the tips were embedded deep in the rock to help support their weight significantly.

Seated on the middle throne was a woman. Her hair was as white as Willful’s and far more fair and beautiful, even though there were many seemingly natural flecks of black throughout the waist-length tresses. She had similar clothes to the king made of animal fur and hides, which confused Cody, but he didn’t focus too much on it. She wore a circlet of white gold like the king’s, only the head was that of a leopard with lush green emerald eyes. The woman had similar green eyes that watched as the company approached.

Cody tried not to make eye contact as he followed Willful to the end of the path and they turned around, walked along the side of the fire, and approached the woman on the throne. She focused on them more intently as they approached, especially Cody. Her eyes seemed to be locked almost entirely on him and Willful, possibly since they were the first of the company. After a few more steps they stopped about ten feet from the base of the greatest of the thrones where the woman sat. There was silence for a few moments more as she surveyed them.

“What is this?” The queen asked as she straightened in her throne and seriousness swept over her features like a thick cloud had passed over them.

Willfully dipped his head, a universal sign of respect to an equal before he answered, “You would remember that I had gone on patrol of the territory a week ago, and when I reached the southwestern edge of the territory I encountered these people, most all humans.”

“And what makes them significant?”

Willful suddenly became a bit more nervous as he answered, “They are two dragon riders, a wolf rider, and Mournful.”

“Mournful!” the queen said, her gaze hardening as she searched the group for the woman.

Mournful stepped forward, or rather was pushed by her guards, and dipped her head respectfully before responding in a genuinely decent tone of voice, “Blissful.”

“I thought I ordered you to never return!”

“What right do you have to kill your sister, rightful heir to the throne of the Dreamkeepers?” Mournful asked seriously, surprising Cody.

The queen stood abruptly and stepped down to their level. Staying at the base of the steps she said, “I am the eldest-born of Cedric, who you conspired to kill in an effort to take the throne.”

“What proof do you have that I tried to kill him?” Mournful said, maintaining a calm and collected air. “He appointed me as his successor and his death was a tragic accident that I grieve to this day.”

“So you call murder an accident?” Blissful hissed.

Mournful quickly answered, “Of course not, but whatever part I played in his death was entirely outside of my own choice. If you can recall, the murderers were our friends and I had hoped to help them out of a dangerous storm. I knew nothing of their treachery.”

“The why do you now lead not one, but three riders into our halls, and where are the dragons and the wolf?”

Cody cringed, and when he opened his eyes he found all attention on him. He realized that he would have to explain. With a sigh he bowed to the queen as low as he was allowed with his hands tied and said, “I am Cody Ashheart, rider of Inferno Blackscales. My dragon was challenged to the Duel of Barbarians and nearly slain. We were exiled from the Hidden Mountain Pass but managed to flee into the wilderness in the hopes that we could find help for Inferno. We found Mournful in the mountains and she agreed to help us, as well as lead us to people that we had assumed were friendly.”

Though Cody left out the part of the truth that he had known Mournful before Inferno was injured, his story seemed to convince the queen slightly. In the very least she seemed gladdened by his clear respect for her role and in turn respected that he seemed open and honest with her. Mournful forgotten for a moment, the queen turned her attention back on Willful.

“Why did you not tell me about the injured dragon?” the queen asked seriously.

The king seemed partly ashamed but shrugged and chuckled as he said, “A dragon is a dragon is a dragon. The black dragon was indeed injured, but his health was returning at a steady rate and he was growing stronger. He is growing more dangerous and my warriors are leading him back as quickly as possible. They should be here in around a week, if it is your wish.”

The queen looked puzzled and asked, “Why so long?”

Mournful quickly answered, “His wings were torn badly and beyond my abilities to heal. He will not be able to fly ever again unless he is seen soon by a master healer.”

“Don’t think that you and your friends are off the hook,” Blissful growled before pausing to think a moment. “Willful, I want you to return to the group with as many warriors as you dare to bring and get that dragon back here as quickly as possible, and warn me when you return.”

The king seemed obviously displeased by her command, but bowed his head and walked away from the group and opened the door at the opposite end of the room just enough for him to slip through before disappearing and shutting it behind. The queen looked over the remaining people for a long few moments more. Cody began to worry that she would have Mournful, or perhaps all of them executed.

“Bring them to the dungeons,” she ordered, both relieving and horrifying Cody. Then she stepped forward and whispered in a man’s ear just loud enough for Cody to hear “Treat them as any other prisoner and have two per cell. Give them one fermlar a day.”

Cody raised an eyebrow at the use of the strange new word, fermlar, but pretended that he hadn’t heard. With a tug on his wrists he was flipped around to face the opposite direction and was led away towards the door. Everything was silent as a woman strode forward and opened the door for them to enter.

When the doors opened Cody was surprised almost instantly. Though the light was a bit dimmer, he could clearly make out a tunnel on either side with doors that were marked by a series of runes but appeared mostly quiet and unimportant. What purpose they served, Cody had no idea, but the possibilities were endless.

The group continued down the main tunnel for perhaps ten minutes, passing even more doors. All of which were marked with similar runes to the first, but more often than not the tunnels lacked doors of any kind and were left open. A while into their march they came to a tunnel on the right, with a door and lock. A man came forward unlocked it and led the way down a rusty metal spiral staircase. After a few minutes of going down in light that was dimmer still, they came to what Cody assumed was the dungeon.

It was nearly pitch black even with good night vision, but the good news was that there didn’t appear to be any sign of rats, and compared to what Cody had heard of most human dungeons, the smell was bearable and it appeared to be relatively clean. They were still filthy and unpleasant, but far more bearable than Cody expected. They walked down a short tunnel and passed a small archway that led to a well-lit room that was possibly the dungeon master’s quarters before coming to the cells. By the noise Cody could guess that there were no other prisoners, which was somewhat heartening for some reason.

After going into the dungeons further, passing a few cells, and fading from the light most of the rest of the way, their captors threw Avalsmokes and Omen into a cell and threw Cody and Mournful into the next. While the doors were being closed no one struggled, but Cody observed what the cells were made of and though they were quite unlike the mesh cages that Merikh had held him in, they were covered in bars of steel so thick that a dragon would struggle to open them. Cody didn’t know what Aval and Omen were doing, but he heard Mournful flop down onto the cot in their cell.

When the guards vanished from sight, Cody explained to the others the plan that had been gradually forming since they had begun walking down the first tunnel. “If we could wait for the right time, I could teleport us out of here and back to the spot where the bear attacked us.”

“Won’t work, it’s too far,” Mournful said gloomily. “And don’t think about bringing us to the tunnel entrance either: these bars will severely injure any who try to use magic to escape.”

“Injure, how?” Cody asked, surprised by both her tone of voice and the words she said.

Mournful sighed, “It depends on the spell. I don’t know if teleportation has ever been tested on them, but it could very well kill us if you try.”

“You could be wrong,” Cody pointed out.

Mournful paused, possibly raising her eyebrow questioningly before answering, “Oh yes, I could somehow be wrong, but are you willing to risk your life to find out? Even if you make it to the entrance of the cave there will be dozens of warriors watching. If you somehow find a way down, you won’t get more than two feet before a gryphon picks you up and gives you a quicker and more painful route.”

“Those gryphons are weird: they look nothing like you from what I saw, but I didn’t see much of them. Why is that?” Cody asked, desperate for one of his many questions to be answered.

Mournful sighed again, answering, “I’m very tired. Let’s save that story for after we get some sleep, shall we?”

“Agreed,” Cody heard Omen say from the nearby cell.

“Fine,” he breathed, though he wasn’t feeling too tired.

There wasn’t a word more that passed between them as Mournful seemed to fall asleep on the little cot. Cody lay down on the floor and rolled under the cot for some sense of security as he thought about the day’s events and what would possibly happen now. His final thoughts before he fell asleep were of wondering what a fermlar was.