1. Hell
1
HELL
Skylanders had another word for the Deep.
Hell.
A more appropriate brand, without question. The Deep was too bland a label, applied so vigorously to any land ranging from sea level to five thousand feet above it. Skylanders felt secure in the label’s accuracy only because they measured from altitudes so much higher.
Whereas Hell, as a place of punishment hot enough to scorch, occupied by monsters and the damned, served as a far more accurate warning. Those people who made their homes in the Deep had their own feelings on the matter, but their opinions were never consulted.
If Skylanders considered the Deep a punishment, then it was also true that one could, by effort and necessity, learn to love Hell.
Anahrod had.
The Deep bore no resemblance to the indifferent mountaintops or the apathetic sky. The Deep demanded focus, insisted on attention. Anahrod might fear and hate her adopted home, but she couldn’t deny that every part possessed a wild beauty, a riotous curve of unmolested nature too rebellious to be conquered, too perilous to be ignored. The suffocating, sticky air and the boiling heat were a mild irritation compared to the Deep’s genuine threats: explosive oceans, howling storms, and giant, carnivorous animals.
In the Deep’s jungles and savannas, its deserts and forests and violent, ever-shifting green waters, dwelt every monster unfriendly to humanity. The worst of which—Hell’s true demons—would always be humanity itself.
A point Anahrod considered as she stared down the two Scarsea recruiters.
The Scarsea eschewed the green body paint worn by most jungle tribes in favor of shadow-valley violets. Ocean-green spikes thrust out in all directions from the shoulder plates strapped to their arms, lest one make the error of thinking them too friendly.
Anahrod had neither asked for nor been given introductions. She’d decided to call one man “Braids” because of his hair. Anahrod nicknamed the other one “Scratch” since he kept picking at his paint, the cracked mud flaking away from one arm to reveal brown skin underneath.
“We won’t make this offer again.” Braids tightened his hand on his sword pommel.
As they “wouldn’t make this offer again” on the last four occasions the Scarsea had found her, the threat’s value had begun to wane. She allowed silence to be her answer. If they decided her consent was no longer necessary, Overbite waited, hidden behind a nearby hillock.
They didn’t seem inclined to press the issue. Still, Scratch wore a sour expression, the look of a man trying to understand why Anahrod wasn’t leaping at the opportunity offered.
“Your refusals have grown tiresome, but if you return with us now, His Majesty won’t hold a grudge.”
“Sicaryon, you mean?” She’d heard far too much of Sicaryon lately, none of it good. Not so long ago, he’d been “Chief” Sicaryon, after killing his uncle for the position. Then he was “warlord,” gobbling up neighboring tribes with frightening speed.
Now he was “king.”
Anahrod avoided Scarsea territory, but what did such matter when they sought her out instead?
“ King Sicaryon,” Braids corrected. He clearly expected her to be impressed.
She leaned forward as if to share a confidence. “I must know. Does he really have forty spouses that he keeps imprisoned by the sea?”
Scratch sputtered. “What? What rumors—”
“I know,” Anahrod agreed. “The idea is ridiculous. Why would I think Sicaryon could handle forty husbands and wives when he couldn’t even handle—”
Anahrod paused. She felt a spike of concern from Overbite, whose senses far surpassed Anahrod’s own.
“—me?”
Sharp, high-pitched screams echoed from the jungle. Not human sounds, but she recognized them. Rock wyrms. Hunting.
A half second later, rock wyrms began calling to each other.
Anahrod drew her sword—but it was a pointless gesture.
Rock wyrms grew to over fifteen feet long, with tough hide and razor-sharp teeth. They used four of their legs for running and the remaining two limbs, which each ended in sharp, spiny points, to impale their prey. The females were solitary, but as there was no justice in the world, the males traveled in packs.
Anyone hunting rock wyrms used spears, arrows, pit traps, or best of all, sorcery. They didn’t use swords . Swords weren’t long enough to scratch a rock wyrm’s hide before the monster was close enough to impale the wielder.
“You’re the sorceress who can control animals!” Scratch snapped. “Can’t you do something?”
Something ugly and bitter twisted her guts. So Sicaryon had told them what she was. “Yes. One at a time.” Anahrod pointed into the jungle with her blade. “So, flee.”
Scratch started to follow her order, which would’ve been hilarious in other circumstances. He caught himself, a stubborn look finding root on his face.
“I’m summoning my titan drake,” Anahrod elaborated. “Run!”
Braids grabbed Scratch’s arm. “Let her deal with them.” He pulled the other man into the underbrush.
More baying sounded, but none in the direction the two men had fled. The two recruiters might yet escape.
[Overbite, sweetheart, I need you. We’ve work to do.]
Anahrod used a root vine to pull herself onto a branch. It was always easier if she kept herself tucked out of the way. Not safer (because rock wyrms climbed trees), but at least she wouldn’t be underfoot.
Behind that hillock, the titan drake called Overbite pushed herself up on six thick legs. She was a massive specimen: twenty feet at the shoulder and fifty feet long. Striped scales camouflaged her in the dappled light of the jungle canopy. Despite her bulk, she moved with barely a rustle of foliage. A perfect hunter with teeth the size of swords, she could take down anything smaller than a grown dragon. In the Deep, that was everything, including most other titan drakes.
[Let’s hunt.]
Overbite tossed her head in excitement. She was always eager for a hunt, even if she wouldn’t technically be the one hunting.
Anahrod slumped back against the tree branch, body abandoned. Transferring her consciousness to an animal felt like swimming through an ocean of sap to gasp at clean air. Rising from the depths and taking in a deep breath of new reality. Her senses expanded as she settled into Overbite’s mind. The world transformed into a tapestry of colors, odors, sounds. The nearby dama trees, the rock wyrms, the flowering coremfells—and the nasty stench of humans. Her hearing became hyperacute, distinguishing rock wyrms from birds, humans, and other predators.
Anahrod would’ve given Overbite her lead if the men had run farther, but they were too close. She had no faith in her pet’s ability to control her hunting instincts. If it ran, Overbite would chase.
The rock wyrms loped into the clearing on four legs. They all stiffened and raised their heads, scenting a larger predator.
Anahrod stood to her full height, or rather, to Overbite’s full height. She advanced on the pride, a lethal monster who had nothing to fear.
The rock wyrms turned to face her, heads down and growling.
Which wasn’t the correct response. The wyrms should’ve gone after the weaker prey, fled before the stronger. They should’ve chased the Scarsea, allowing Anahrod to pick off the rock wyrms from behind.
She was committed now. Anahrod ran into the clearing, straight at one of the “little” monsters. She sank her teeth into a rock wyrm neck, snapped the spine. Hot blood flooded her mouth as the creature let out a pitiful yowl.
She smelled something new then, something familiar: Scratch’s scent. That wouldn’t have been so special, but the scent was on this rock wyrm. Along with many other human scents, none of which belonged. When would a Scarsea soldier have had contact…?
She studied the wyrms a second time. Ropes. Scraps of leather. The clink of metal rings slapping against thick hide necks.
This wasn’t a wild pride. These were…
These were trained animals.
She tossed the rock wyrm corpse to the ground as she searched for the warriors. She still smelled them, so where had they gone?
The pride was attacking. She roared, the sound vibrating through her borrowed body, barely audible to humans but a thunderclap to Deep animals. She bit a rock wyrm, gouging out a giant chunk of his flank.
The rock wyrms encircled her.
She heard metal clang against stone, followed by cursing.
When she turned, she saw the little Scarsea bastards hadn’t fled. Instead, they’d circled around to the tree where Anahrod had hidden her body. Scratch carried Anahrod’s unconscious form slung over a shoulder. Her sword had caused the warning sound as it slid free from its sheath and hit a rock on the jungle floor.
Anahrod growled. Sicaryon had told them everything she could do.
It felt like a betrayal.
Braids rushed back to retrieve the sword. “Go!” he screamed at Scratch. “The others are waiting!”
The others.
Her pulse thundered in her ears. This encounter had been a trap from the start. Sicaryon had no intention of suffering a fifth refusal. This wasn’t a recruitment: it was a kidnapping.
A rock wyrm took advantage of her distraction to stab both spear arms into one of her—one of Overbite’s—legs. She twirled, swept aside that attacker plus several pack mates who failed to dodge.
But the damage was done.
Anahrod felt the icy sting of blood flowing too fast. She kicked out with a middle leg, caught another wyrm in the ribs; she was rewarded with a satisfying snap of bone.
Another rock wyrm tried the same trick, stabbing at Overbite’s front legs. She wasn’t distracted this time, whereas he’d just wandered into the reach of her jaws. She savaged his neck and tossed the corpse to his pack mates.
Perhaps she could’ve fought them off, even outnumbered, but more humans approached. Likely the other Scarsea soldiers, coming to finish the job.
The implications made her gut clench: Sicaryon had learned to train rock wyrms. His great successes against so many tribes became easier to explain. Worse was the certainty that she knew where her sword-brother had come up with such an idea: from her.
The scent of fresh blood swelled in the air.
Human blood.
The smell confused both her and Overbite’s lurking consciousness. No humans had been hurt. Yet the unmistakable, caustic scent of human blood flooded her senses.
Scratch stopped running. He, too, seemed confused.
He dropped Anahrod’s body in an ungraceful heap. She winced: that would bruise. Anahrod still saw no sign of injury, even if Overbite’s nose screamed otherwise.
Then Scratch made a choking sound. Blood poured from his eyes, his nose, his mouth—from every orifice.
Not a trickle, but a gushing exsanguination. His partner, Braids, shouted something at Scratch. His real name, perhaps. She had no idea why Scratch had died in such a way, but she could guess.
Sorcery.
That was when Anahrod scented the new arrivals. Not the second Scarsea group. These were something else. They smelled of perfumed lye soap and clean skin, weapon oil and writing ink, but it was the scent of spiced musk and hot metal that raised her frills. Overbite knew that scent too well, because it belonged to her only natural predators.
Dragons.
If a dragon lurked nearby, the situation had gone from the high surf straight into a tidefisher’s nets.
“Now that is a lot of pissed-off lizards,” a redheaded woman said in Haudan. She sounded delighted. “You grab the woman. We’ll take care of the wyrms.”
Anahrod bucked, kicking back while she roared to shake the ground. She brought a foot down hard, cracking a rock wyrm’s back.
There were too many. She couldn’t reach her own body.
Braids tried to retreat, but he’d decided too late.
A flash of metal sliced through Braids’s neck, so fast and clean that his eyes were still moving as his head fell away from his body. The sword flew on its own. Something in the odd way it spun and changed course suggested a weapon fastened to the end of an invisible rope—a weapon somehow being directed.
Anahrod noticed the redhead again. She stood just past the tree line, spinning, moving her hands in a pantomime of a warrior controlling a chained weapon. Despite the Skylander garb, she had the bright hair and pale skin so many Deepers revealed when the skin paint came away.
Everything about the woman was a contradiction. She looked like a Deeper but dressed like a Skylander. She wore—or wielded—a sword but used it in a way that required either sophisticated magical inscription or sorcery. The latter seemed more likely given her Deeper ancestry, but the scent in the air suggested a different option: dragonrider.
How could a Deeper be a dragonrider?
Regardless, a dragonrider by necessity required a dragon, likely flying nearby. A dragon nearby meant Anahrod needed to be at least five miles anywhere else, immediately.
Anahrod’s options narrowed to one: run.
The Scarsea still advanced. She could hear at least a dozen warriors moving in their direction, but she knew Sicaryon would have more waiting in reserve. Warriors who’d planned for this confrontation, who’d come prepared for a titan drake and a woman with the magical ability to control animals.
She cursed Sicaryon. He knew Anahrod too well: he’d witnessed her discovery of every spell. If she fled, it would be straight into a trap he’d designed for her.
Anahrod stood stuck between the cliffs and the tide.
Enough rock wyrms had died by this point to allow her some breathing room. The Skylanders proved more interested in killing wyrms than taking on the single enormous titan drake. Which Anahrod appreciated even as she marked it as strange.
The Skylanders’ odd behavior would change once they finished with the rock wyrms. Overbite was too dangerous to ignore. Anahrod needed to reason with them—which she couldn’t do as long as she possessed the titan drake’s body.
She also needed to run—in her own body.
Anahrod jumped backward. Away from her real body, away from the Skylanders, toward that first downed rock wyrm. She turned Overbite’s back to the Skylanders, lowered her head to the still steaming corpse.
[Eat, Overbite.]
No titan drake needed to be told to eat twice. The distraction might only last seconds given Overbite’s tendency to gulp her food, but hopefully, that would be enough.
Anahrod returned to her body. The transition was a cold vulnerability, the repressed panic of waking in an unfamiliar place. Her skull throbbed from where Scratch had dropped her. She was soaked in his blood.
She’d never learned his real name.
Anahrod sat up and raised her hands in surrender.
“Don’t hurt her,” she called out in Haudan, fighting not to stumble over rarely used words. “The titan drake’s mine. We’re about to be overrun. I can get us away from here, but we need to leave now.”
An overdressed, middle-aged man gave her an avuncular smile. If he wore a weapon, she couldn’t see it. “Oh, lovely dryad, what delight in your unexpected lucidity, but our fair scene requires no fast exit.”
Anahrod stared. Had he just misquoted Huala Lagareb’s The Valley of Green at her? She couldn’t recall many other Skylander plays that referred to “green-skinned” Deepers as “dryads.” It beat the normal pejorative—
“Troll girl, what he means is that as cute as it might be to discover that you can speak like a civilized person, we’re not the ones in danger.”
Mocking laughter preceded the speaker as she stepped into view. One of the two women—not the redhead. This one was younger and her Skylander heritage was more obvious: dark skin and tight-curled hair. Vivid scars crisscrossed her face with an uncomfortable symmetry—their positioning too precise to be anything but deliberate.
She dressed like she was still twenty thousand feet up: fully covered in a dark gray coat dipped black at the hems, a silver-stitched shirt underneath, little pops of bright color peeking out from charms that hung from her collar, from her belt. A lot of daggers.
“Call me troll again and you’ll find out otherwise.”
Sometimes, the best course of action was to pick the inevitable fight early.
The scar-faced woman evidently agreed. “Is that so?” She spun a bloody dag ger in each hand, the sort of aggressively showy nonsense that meant nothing in a proper fight.
What did mean something was that the woman had used daggers to fight rock wyrms . The woman had been using daggers, not at a distance like the redhead, but close up.
Somehow, she still lived.
Anahrod moved fighting her into a column marked “not without a damn good reason.”
A second man sniffed the air. “No.” He was heavyset but not out of breath, and like the other man, unarmed.
The scarred woman paused mid-knife-twirl. “No? What do you mean, no?”
“More rock wyrms on the way.” An odd accent flavored the man’s Haudan. He didn’t seem to be a native speaker. “More hunters, too.”
At this, the redhead called her blade back into her hand. The woman’s garden rings glinted gold in the light as she gave Anahrod an appraising stare. “Looks like you have a talent for making friends.”
The redhead appeared to be in her early twenties, prettier than any jungle flower. Prettier, but also more delicate, like some priceless portrait carved on a thin shell. She wore yellow-gold rings, though. Who in Eannis’s name would be brazen enough to wear gold rings?
“Apparently,” Anahrod snapped.
“I’m impressed.” The woman shattered any lingering perception of fragility by wiping the rock wyrm blood from her sword on her trousers. The woman looked like a Deeper, but she couldn’t be one—not dressed like that, not smelling like that, and not wearing those rings.
“We have to leave,” Anahrod said.
As she turned back to Overbite, Anahrod noticed a problem: that wounded leg. The injury bled a river of dark red down the titan drake’s front leg. Could Overbite run?
Did they have a choice?
Even as Anahrod inspected the wound with an icy fist clenched around her stomach, the bleeding stopped. All at once, with no sign of clotting or scabbing, no bandage or dressing.
The heavyset man lowered an unadorned hand. “We leave now,” he agreed.
He’d kept a Deeper accent even if he’d learned to dress like a Skylander. This man wasn’t trying hard to pass, though. He’d skipped the garden and social rings and didn’t wear his hair in pinned braids. Was he a dragonrider, too? She would’ve assumed such, but it made no sense. Since when did dragons take Deepers as their thralls? If he wasn’t a dragonrider, since when did dragons allow sorcerers to live?
They had no time to waste on solving mysteries.
Anahrod pulled herself onto Overbite’s back using a halter line. Overbite made no protest; she was used to it. She wasn’t so used to the next part, but Anahrod promised herself she’d make it up to her pet later.
“Climb up,” she told the others. “We’ll outrun them.”
“Or we can fight them.” The scarred woman cleaned her bloody daggers before sheathing them. “We can handle some rock wyrms.” The scarred woman gestured around the battlefield to make her point. She wore silver Skylander rings.
“No.” The fat man made that single word into an entire argument.
“You heard the man: no.” The redhead rubbed her hands together. “That means we’re going for a ride.” She raised her voice. “Gwydinion, it’s safe to come out now!”
A third man ran from the bushes.
No. Anahrod corrected herself. A boy ran out from the bushes. A Skylander boy no older than fifteen, too young for garden rings, too young for a division ring. Almost as pretty as the redhead, although his beauty was wide-eyed and dewy-cheeked, while hers whispered more worldly promises. He was no more visibly armed than the other men.
Anahrod felt a flash of anger. They’d brought a Skylander child to the Deep? What were these people thinking? Had they been thinking at all ?
“Climb up,” Anahrod repeated. “I won’t tell you again.”
The boy’s eyes widened as he took in the carnage; his steps faltered. The way he stared around the battlefield suggested he’d never been closer to death in his whole life.
Also, that he wasn’t prepared to deal with the experience.
His eyes widened again when they reached Anahrod, although in that case likely because he had also never seen a green-skinned woman wearing nothing but a few scraps of leather. A real live troll girl, in the flesh.
The boy blushed and stared at anyone else.
The redhead reached Anahrod first, ignoring the rope she’d lowered over Overbite’s side in favor of sprinting up the titan drake’s spine. The others used the rope assist and the impromptu landing created by Overbite’s bent leg.
“Hook in,” Anahrod ordered the redhead.
The woman was already reaching for her belt when she paused and laughed, bright as sunlight glistening on the sea. Because Skylanders rarely carried spring hooks on their belts under normal circumstances.
Dragonriders were never without them.
Without releasing Anahrod’s gaze, without glancing away from Anahrod for so much as a second, the redhead pulled the spring hook from her belt and snapped it to Overbite’s harness. Her stare was answer, taunt, and promise, all neatly presented by the greenest eyes that Anahrod had ever seen.
The answer: yes, she was a dragonrider. The taunt: what exactly did Anahrod think to do about it? The promise: that there had never been a single moment in this woman’s entire life where she had been anything but trouble, and she wasn’t about to stop on Anahrod’s account.
Behind them both, the others grabbed on to leather harness straps.
Anahrod glanced back for long enough to determine that there were indeed four other people besides herself and her troublesome dragonrider on Overbite’s back.
A rock wyrm screamed from nearby: the Scarsea were closing in. The telltale hum of a loosed arrow buzzed in the air as at least one of their pursuers made a last-gasp bid to spill enemy blood.
“Hold on,” Anahrod told her passengers.
[Run!]
Overbite sprinted into the jungle.