Wandering Writings

[Whatwedotogether]

The Traveler's Bargain

 

 

The traveler withered under Koragnak's imperious gaze.

The ancient red regarded the human with contempt only restrained by annoyed interest. After all, few and far between would be the humans skilled enough to creep into his lair without alerting those drakes which had the wisdom to bow their heads to him. Fewer still were those foolish enough to then afterward openly display themselves before a god in the flesh such as himself.

"You wish for audience before your death?" Rumbled a voice so grand and tempestuous that it felt to the traveler as if the walls of the cave themselves were chastising him. He knew, witnessing such might, that if he misspoke in even the slightest, he would not even see his death coming before he was turned into soot or red stain.

"Mighty and Venerable Koragnak, Lord of the Southern Pass and all lands that know his voice, I come begging for your blessing—your permission to act." He spoke up, doing his best to present his voice clearly and loudly without seeming presumtuous. Then, in the time which it took the traveler to realize that he had been left a silent pause after he was done, he instantly knew that his continued breath meant he had received all invitation to continue that there would ever be. Heart pounding, he held his voice stead and so resumed his speech.

"Khar'jala, the pretender of the North, comes this way. He will travel the Southern Pass by the next quarter moon as he seeks his vainglory." To this, the cave once more reverberated with the growl of the behemoth which knew it to be his throne. The animosity between Koragnak and Khar'jala was well known throughout the region. 'The Violet', 'Dragonrend', and 'Titans Hollow' were various names for the city-wide blasted field where the two ancients had had their last open confrontation. Yet without even this charred and lifeless monument in mind, one needed only look across the landscape of Fangsel itsf in order to see the naked evidence of the millennia-long draconian disputes that had come to characterize the land. 

This domain's exustence was lredicated on the histiry of their violence and thus if an ancient was moving, it meant he was doing so knowing it would force his opponents to move as well.

"So, apeling, you sought permission to inform me." thundered the stirring crimson storm, considering the implications of thisninformation idly.

"I would never deign myself worthy to disrupt your rest for news of a meager pretender, my lord!" hurriedly corrected the traveler, warry of his seeming usefulness coming to an end. "I have no illusions that you would need any service from one as low as me. Your might and wisdom are much beyond my-" The traveler was then interrupted by an explosion unlike any he had imagined before. There was no light nor heat to accompany it, simply the unyielding force of wind and sound and command behind it.

"SPEAK PLAINLY, APELING". The shout, which was for the ancient red little more than a stern word, had knocked the traveler to the ground—though whether this was from shock, the force of the boom itself, or draconian authority melting his legs out from underneath him, he could not know. All he knew was that in his fear and hurriedness he had forgotten a cardinal rule of speaking to dragons: to never, ever, treat then as another human. A 'king' to dragons was simply a monkey wearing a shiny circlet. To address a dragon as royalty was to disrespect them by implying their status and that of a human could be equivalent. Respect needed to be absolute, and yet unlabored by niceties and politesse. Had the traveler not mentioned Khar'jala, he knew he now would surely be dead on the spot for such an offence.

Getting off his ass and standing clear again, the traveler therefore did as instructed "I wish only to be given safe passage through the pass when Kar'jala comes, O mighty scarlet mountain." There was a pause. And then, a low rumble unlike anything Koragnak had produced yet. Roiling and bubbling like waves upon a vast sea of magma—the sound was far removed from any which the traveler had heard before, but he recognized it for what it was all the same: laughter. Mockery.

"An apeling, skilled and wise enough to worm his way into my sanctum, would come to my jaws begging for his life in fleeing from another's maw? Your kind is one of many insanities, but this is new to even my eyes."

"I do not seek safety!" Shouted back the traveler, though where it should have been from fear of being misunderstood, he was surprised to see that his own rage proved more powerful in this moment.

The ancient regarded him, and once more the silence of but a second was all the traveler needed for him to know he was now expected to explain himself. Staring up into the eye of Koragnak, the traveler felt himself tremble with emotion shockingly divorced from terror as he spoke. "The blue worm has taken from me. He moves now only because of information that I have arranged to be whispered in his ear. He moves—as the blind oaf that he is—towards a trap. What I seek is only for your horde to stay their wings and save their fangs. Khar'jala will die before the next moon sees its first sunset, and his foul blood will stain Fangsel for the final time as i watch it feed the flowers of the pass!" For a moment, for but a moment, remembering his most hated enemy— not 'rival' as Koragnak knew him, not "lord" as the other fearful humans called him, but simply "enemy" as had been burned upon his soul—for that single moment it was enough for the traveler to entirely forget his fear of death. It was as much prophecy as proclamation to him. But quickly he remembered himself and ensured that his tone showed the proper respect towards the being that could and would put an end to his ambitions right here and now.

"I ask only for your blessing, O mighty Lord. Your allowance—while I operate within the realm of your roar—to take from he who has taken from me."  Yes, rage. Rage more than anything had pushed the traveler forward. Beyond the fear, beyond the sorrow, beyond hopelessness and despair itself, rage had kept him walking, taking the next step towards his vengeance. Towards the day where the blue was torn from the sky itself and made to answer for its crimes. Yes, with Rage in his heart, nothing else could find purchase. And it was so that the apeling was able to withstand the dragon's fiery gaze without seeing his resolve turned to ash.

Koragnak ruminated for a moment, then gave his answer in form of a question. "None intrude on my sanctum, witness my fangs, and leave without paying tribute. What do you offer, human?"

The traveler's blood went cold. Fear manifested now not as an "emotion", but rather an undeniable physical reaction in him. He had brought tribute, certainly, but he knew now that the offer sitting in his pack was insufficient. Insulting to a Dragon Tyrant, in fact. Riches and emotional value would do nothing for a dragon.

'Tribute' was willful submission—and only the lesser races accepted mere tokens for this.

Great beings knew better. Tokens could be tricked and traded for. True and undeniable submission was pain.

Without entirely thinking... Or rather, while willfully ignoring the implications of what he had just understood and focusing instead on his immediate reality, the traveler took a single step back and kneeled as he spoke. "In return for your grace, I would offer you my own leg-"

A wall of red, a thundering CLACK, and a sense of utter bemusement—for how could something so unbelievably large move so imperceptibly quickly?

And then: the pain, the payment.

As the red dragon retracted his enormous head, taking everything below the traveler's left thigh with it, the traveler's brain finally caught up with the blinding pain as he tumbled over on his side, holding his newly amputated stump with open, howling cries.

The human barely felt it then when—looking down from his grandeur at the haughty human who presented himself as worthy of negotiating for his own life—the ancient red breathed out a short plume of fire like the spittle of the sun itself. For mercy or cruelty, it had not been aimed at incinerating the traveler but rather cauterizing the rapidly bleeding leg wound. Perhaps the only objective mercy was that shock was rapidly making any additional pain input little more than a distant thrumming now.

In fact, all he would remember when waking from his comatose state some hours later, would be the last words Koragnak spoke before returning to his own slumber.

"Survive that, and you have my permission."