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“And would being near that thing – whatever it was – would that be worse?” Several of Otto’s counterparts voiced their disgruntlement, and even some of the Skaven seemed restless.
“All the more reason to head into the safety of those cliffs,” Wilfred replied. “Now, are we going to stay out here, exposed, or are we going to keep moving?”
There was little choice in the matter, and the group pressed on through the field of white, soon coming upon more rocks and cliffs that breached through the snow, rising hundreds of feet into the sky in places. The trail passed through the barrier into a winding trail, and it reminded her of the narrow pass with the tower all over again. It looked much wider than the last, several meters of space to either side of the trail, but the vantages on either side would make tempting places for their dwarven adversaries.
Wilfred seemed to come to the same conclusion, and after a few minutes’ of pushing into said pass, he motioned her aside so they could speak privately. “Miss Seeker, I feel a great unease in this place. We know the dwarfs favour to hide in the rocks above us, and there are many rocks in this place.”
“Indeed,” she said. “Someone should go and eyeball it just to be safe-safe. Yep, someone really brave and clever and good at climbing…”
“I was hoping you would volunteer your help.”
“Me-Me?” She pointed at her chest. “Skaven might be brave and clever, but did you see that wing-thing, Fred-Wil? It just flew up there, what if it’s got a nest-burrow?”
“I’m sure it has no interest in the likes of us,” Wilfred said. “It had likely spotted us just as we spotted it, it would have down if it had been hungry.”
“Or it was luring us into false sense of security! You can’t be sure of otherwise, human.”
“Perhaps, but I am sure that if the dwarves would accost us again, it’ll be here. You have young and fresh eyes, Miss Seeker, and you climbed up the ice well enough before.”
Skyseeker rubbed her arms in an attempt to warm up, considering.
“You know, if Skaven didn’t know any better – and I do – I’d think you were trying to stroke my ego in an attempt to convincing. Save your breaths, man-thing, that tricks won’t work on me.”
“You’re the only one I would trust with this task. We would all feel much safer with you watching over us, literally in this case.”
“Really? Well,” she said, scratching her head quaintly as she pretended to consider. “I guess Skaven could do this thing-thing for you, since I am so capable. Carry on, man-thing, Skaven shall look after you.”
“Hold on,” Wilfred said, as she turned to leave. “I urge extreme caution, Miss Seeker. That beast, it may not be hunting at the moment, but I would not count on that should draw any closer than you ought to be.”
“I’m always cautious,” she insisted. “And Skaven wont be going alone. Kretch! Kretch, where are you?”
“Right here-here” the ratman said. “Not have to shout.”
“Find some slaves who can climb and be quiet, the man-things need our help. Again.”
Kretch’s selection wasn’t exactly exemplary, but the two slaves he’d picked muttered no complaints as they followed her away from the group turning towards the rocks. Having become experts at this point, they took to the steep faces with ease, finding footholds and leverages without any falls or injuries.
The tops of the formations was a twenty or thirty meter climb above the snow fields, and wind was howling before they reached the lip of it. Even then, the crystals still rose higher before them, the blue ice rising and falling in giant steps, the growths reminding her of the sand dunes that plagued the lands surrounding the dead-city of the relic’s resting place. It was hard to tell they were above ground with all the crystal growths breaking up the sightlines, and the incessant gale of the snow reduced visibility further.
She could vaguely tell they were putting distance between them and Wilfred’s group, and as they vaulted over a lip of ice, she waved for the Skaven to give her their attention.
“Okay-kay.” she whipsered. “Watch your paws and watch your mouths, I not want any noise from here on out.”
“WHAT?” Kretch said, struggling to hear over the wind.
She smacked him upside the head for his insolence. “Because Fred-wil thinks there’s bear-things, and there was that flying-thing as well. If it’s here, we not want to come across it.”
“What flying-thing?” Kretch asked, quieter but still not getting the hint. “I not see anything like that.”
“That’s cause you blind as a… blind thing,” she insisted. “If you see anything like that, maybe some freaky, bird looking freak with feathers and beak, scurry other way.”
As they rounded a crystal formation, Skyseeker licked one of her paws and raised it, Kretch giving her a confused look. “What you doing?”
“Technique my man-thing taught me. You find out which way the wind goes by applying moisture to the paw.” She raised her paw higher, probably looking like a genius who’s just made a breakthrough to her onlooking followers.
“Can’t you just look at snowflakes to tell direction?” Kretch asked, and she faltered. The wind was not exactly subtle, carrying so much snow that the wisps took on a white, visual quality.
“Uh, this way more accurate,” she lied, trying to maintain her image of intelligence. She stood with her finger held out a moment longer. “Hm, wind was going back when we were with Fred-Wil, so if we go this way, we’ll get in front of him. Onwards, slaves.”
“Kretch feels very warm of a sudden,” the ratman muttered. He took a step closer to the ice, using it as a windbreak against the snow. “Come check this out, Skyseeker.”
It was true. After a pause, she felt hot air blow on her front, coming from the direction of the ice. There was a brief delay, and then it happened again. Had they found some magical rock in this place, one that turned cold air hot? Curious, she stepped closer, rounding a very satisfied Kretch as she examined the rock.
She leaned down to peer at it, and then her heart froze as an eyeball peered back.
Its pupil was very thin but reached the tops and bottoms of a slightly yellowy socket, one that gently turned blue as it reached the eyelids. It was not skin that surrounded it, but tough, grey rock. No not rock, those were scales, little diamond shaped scales that sat almost flush with one another, gently growing in size as it conformed to a familiar shape. A cheek, a raised brow, and a long snout. Her eyes looked to the pearly teeth that hung downwards from a closed jaw, easily as big as her entire torso. Two black nostrils flared at its tip, the source of that hot breath that she’d mistaken for wind.
A thick neck winded beyond the head, trailing into the crystal formation they had passed just before, but this was no mere rock, but a body. She watched in terror as the crystals and rocks began to rise, stretching out into a hulking body propped up on four, muscular legs capped with claws the size of her paw.
There were thorns of ice poking out the length of its massive spine, the blue contrasting with its grey scales, which shifted as rippling muscles flexed beneath it. She flinched as a thick tail slapped the ground behind it, as wide around as a tree, ending in a spade-like fin that flicked errantly at the air.
A great pair of wings rose from little fleshy muscles over its shoulders, raising up to make the scaley beat look bigger than it already was. Roderick and Wilfred had both mentioned dragons a couple times in the past, and she cursed herself for ever taking their stories lightly. This beast was enormous, a least twenty feet long if one included the tail, which made up at least a third of its length. Beneath it, she could see dark rock where it had lain, the snow having turned to slush beneath the heat and bulk of its presence.
Her eyes met the dragon’s, those off-blue iris gazing into her heart, down her soul and out through her back. It peeled back its glassy lips, revealing an impossible number of white teeth. A low growl rumbled from its lips, but she did not get the impression it was bestial, despite its appearance. There was cunning behind those wicked eyes, an awareness that made her uneasy, as though she was standing before a higher being.
She noted that her three companions were likewise too stunned to move, and Kretch was just beside her. She was the closest to those powerful jaws, all the dragon needed to do was feel a pang of hunger, and it would all be over.
Kretch was the first to move, taking a ginger step back, but Skyseeker hissed at him using the corner of her mouth, so the dragon did not get startled.
“No! You flee, it will eat you.” She didn’t really know that, but the air was so thick with tension that any movement might set off the dragon.
“W-What we do now?” Kretch muttered, finally deciding to keep his voice down
Skyseeker found it difficult to keep the dragon’s stare. It never blinked, never turned to look at the other Skaven, having eyes only for her. She wrangled her brain for ideas, quickly formulating a clever plan.
“Oh great and scaly and pretty dragon, we not mean to bother-disturb you!” She bent forward in an approximation of a bow, a sign of courtesy in the human realm. “We are just passing through, honest! We not mean to disturb your beauty naps.”
“What are you doing?” Kretch hissed, and she shot him a look that said shut up. If dragons were such mighty creatures, and they were more intelligent than simple beasts, then surely it would listen to reason?
“We won’t trouble you any longer than necessary, o’ wise and clever dragon, we not even know you were here, because… because you were as pretty as the rest of this barren, wasteland of a place. B-But a charming wasteland it is, of course!” She added when the dragon began to growl harder. “You not want to eat us, rat meat tastes terrible anyway. We just want to get back to our friends in the Empire!”
For a heartbeat she feared this would be her end, that her plea would be answered with a bite. She was not sure if the beasts understood her namedrop of the Empire, but it did understand her, she could tell by its expression, as cold and neutral as it may have seemed. The dragon slowly lowered itself from all fours, curling its limbs under its chin as it nestled on the snow. In a second its reptilian contours were difficult to make out, even though she knew they were their, and the scales turned the dragon into just another rock in the tundra. It’s eyes never closed, never left her own, but the thing did not react when she took a step away, then two, three. She grabbed at Kretch and had him follow her as they retreated, her slaves following closely.
She saw the whites of its eyes until she was a short distance away, and then it closed them, seeming to go to back to sleep. Skyseeker wasn’t sticking around to make sure, and the four of them bolted until the dragon vanished into the storm.
“Horned Rat save me!” Kretch said. “What was scaley-thing?”
“You believe Skavn now, you blind fool?” she asked. “And never mind the Horned Rat, it was Skyseeker who saved you.”
“Y-Yes-Yes, of course you did. How did you know how to reason with that thing?” he asked.
I didn’t, she thought, but she actually said: “I used my intellectual greatness, of course. A Skaven as brilliant as me can fool anything and anyone.”
Her self-indulgence was interrupt by Kretch’s expression. She didn’t like how he was looking at her, like she was some sort of tasty piece of meat. Perhaps she should let up on giving him cause to like her more than he already did.
The group moved on, and although they knew to check the rocks for any hidden reptiles, they saw no more dragons on their way. Soon they reached the eastern edge of the raised peninsula, and although Skyseeker knew Wilfred’s group was somewhere down to their right, even her goggles could not pierce the gloom. His suspicions had been right, this was a clear vantage point down on the trail, but there was more ground yet to cover.