The Realm Beneath the Sands

(Part 17 of Shadowdale)

"Damn bird," Bane muttered, pulling his exhausted body from the shallow river. He made his way onto the bank, approaching the cave opening in the sand dune before him as he gingerly examined his side.

His battle with the roc, Mok-Oloth the Sky Queen, had been a costly one. Of the six (five scorpicores and the dragon) warriors that made their way into the desert to search for the great eagle, only three returned. The scorpion-men had promised to release their captive if he aided them against their top predator and held to their word.

Thus the green dragon was now alone in the desert, tracking down the remainder of his party. The others had abandoned him, likely thinking their lost companion dead; he could only guess how far they had gone.

The thought of flying home had appealed greatly to the less-than-willing fourth member of the group. Alas, however, he could not bring himself to fly back west; his companions would think him dead only to find him, at the journey's end, comfortably lounging about the forest with a meal in one hand and a woman in the other.

No; he was morally bound to his mission.

Bane entered the cave, his claws making a light scraping noise as they brushed against sandstone. He leaned against the solid wall, grimacing as he looked down to his side. He had suffered a number of minor wounds from the claws of Mok-Oloth, but one injury stuck out among the scratches: a massive gash that had sliced the skin just above his thigh. If one ran a needle through the slash it would have passed from one side of his body to the other without any resistance.

Thankfully the injury was not life threatening. It was too far above his leg to cut the vital artery that ran through it, and too far below his chest to puncture a lung. He was safe, provided the blood would clot.

He shook away his worry as he looked out into the darkness of the tunnel before him. He had only just left the scorpions a few hours before; in all likelihood the wound was still taking its time to mend from the battle such a short time before.

Slipping away from the wall the dragon shook the fatigue and pain from his body, resolve replacing the unwanted sensations. He not only needed to find his way through the caverns, but he needed to do so quickly; he had to outpace three larger dragons. The task was daunting but feasible; after all, any obstacles should have long since been cleared from the path.

Light began to fade at Bane's back as he worked his way deeper into the belly of the desert. The shadows surrounded him, taking the sight from his keen brown eyes; he was at the mercy of the earth.

He walked for a long time, losing track of the passing minutes without the moving sun overhead to guide him. The dragon could have guessed he had moved for something akin to half an hour but, in truth, he could have moved for well over a day and not known the difference.

Finally something stuck out in the distance, a light in the darkness. As Bane neared the object he realized it was a flame, dancing merrily in a massive brazier. Several hundred feet away from the light the underground passage opened up into a somewhat circular cavern, the domed cave stretching some three hundred feet across.

All around the walls of the cave were torches, unlit and perfectly sized for a dragon's claws. The wanderer selected one at random, sticking it into the crackling fire. He drew the burning stick from it a moment later, pleased that he would no longer be forced to travel in darkness.

But then came the question: why was the brazier here?

The flames were clearly new, showing that the other dragons could have easily passed through the cave only a short time before. Perhaps the trio was making slow progress; perhaps they had waited on their captured companion. Regardless, Bane was much closer to them than he could have hoped.

But their recent presence did not answer the more pressing question.

Bane scanned the remainder of the cavern, searching for some clue as to the reason for the light. The first thing he noticed was rather unnerving: there was no way out, save for the way he had come in. Yet the others had clearly moved on, which meant there was something more to the mysterious chamber.

The dragon moved to one of the walls, squinting in the flickering light at a carving in the stone. A woman, her lower body resembling a snake while the upper half resembled a human, was wrapped around want appeared to be an unfortunate man. Bane studied the art for a moment before letting loose a low groan: the "human" victim had wings.

The carving was of a naga killing a dragon.

Bane moved on down the wall, inspecting what appeared to be a timeline carved into the stone. The series of carvings actually began before the murder scene, the killing actually taking place in the third segment of the story. The first depicted what appeared to be territorial lines: dragons had land to the west of the Flexus River while the naga lived to the east. The following scene showed that members of both the naga and dragon communities had crossed the river, apparently showing a fight.

After the scene of a dragon dying to naga hands what appeared to be a major battle was depicted along the wall. Draconic and snake forces alike slashed and strangled each other mercilessly, the furious conflict taking up a great span of the sandstone timeline.

When the dragon passed the gory scene he came to a more peaceful carving, one of dragons ordering the snake women underground. He moved on, coming to the sixth and final scene: a door, locked and barred, with the word "Contained" written in draconic above it.

Bane studied the door more closely, looking for some other clue. He saw that, behind the metal bar, was the carving of a sword; it appeared as though the naga had taken Stone Heart with them under the earth.

Now the green dragon knew why the cave was so important, why the Inner Council needed to access it; but where was the door?

In the bright light of the raging brazier behind him, Bane spotted a crack in the wall. It was hard to notice, the thin split in the rock appearing at first only to be a fold in the sandstone; but it was certainly there.

The curious dragon traced his claw along the crack, following it back past the timeline to where it stopped on the opposite corner of the room. Here there was another carving, this in the shape of a sword.

His curiosity peaking again, Bane reached up with one hand to run a finger over the surface of the stone. It seemed to slightly give way before him as his claw brushed the carving and, applying a bit of pressure, the dragon managed to push the design of the sword into the wall itself.

A grinding sound filled the cave as the stone before its surprised occupant shifted. The sandstone seemed to fold back in on itself, moving further and further away and getting smaller and smaller. Finally it stopped several yards away, the final section ending in the shape of a door.

Bane approached and put a hand to the barrier. He was entering the lair of a possibly hostile race on his own; and, likely, this door was the point of no return. He would be forced to find his way to the others or die trying if he went further into the bowels of the earth.

With grim determination a green hand pushed the door forward, letting a blast of cold air escape the confines of its subterranean prison. Claws scraped lightly on the stone as the nervous dragon made his way forward, his torch illuminating the stone of the deeper tunnels. As his body left the threshold the door slammed closed behind him, the rock pulling back to its original shape.

As he predicted, Bane was trapped.

The dragon ran five shaking fingers over his eyes, trying to clear the anxiety he felt. The brown orbs peeked out from behind the digits, scanning his new surroundings.

The cave was bare of any natural formations, an identical chamber to the first save for the lack of a brazier. There were, however, other creatures in the room: three, to be exact.

"Bane?" Blaze asked, surprised as the green dragon approached.

"You honestly thought a bunch of bugs could kill me?" he shot back. "Yes; I'm back."

"We were about to go deeper into the tunnels." Pyre explained. "You're lucky you found us when you did. Another five minutes and we would have gone further, and you would have lost us in the splitting passages."

"My timing, as always, is impeccable." Bane replied, rubbing his chest proudly.

"That or you're just lucky." Razor pointed out. His companion snorted at the comment but let the matter fall; the important thing was that the quartet was reunited.

"We're in naga tunnels, aren't we?" the newcomer asked, the others allowing their returned friend rest for a moment against the cavern wall. He poked gingerly at his side as he spoke, a bit unnerved by the fact that his side was still bleeding.

"We are," the red dragon nodded. "For as long as the Eastern Empire and Surris have battled one another, the naga and our kind have also battled for the desert. About a thousand years ago we sealed the largest of the clans, a group of earth naga, beneath the ground. Unfortunately, we hid them away in the exact same caverns that housed Stone Heart, the Key blade hidden by our ancestors long before."

"So we're surrounded by enemies in their home territory looking for a trio of artifacts scattered about in a series of tunnels that spans hundreds of miles?" he asked.

Solemnly the draconic leader nodded.

"Perfect! Our odds just keep getting better and better." Bane muttered.

"Well, the sooner we get moving, the sooner we get out of enemy territory." The purple dragon reasoned. "Are you ready to move?"

"Yeah," the new arrival muttered. "My side just hurts, that's all."

"How recent is that wound?" Razor asked, his fiery red eyes examining the injury more closely.

"It's a few hours old." The green dragon admitted. "But I'll live; I took a pretty nasty bite from a roc."

"You fought a roc?" Pyre asked, surprised.

"I had the option of fighting the bird or a whole clan of scorpicores; what would you have done?" Bane asked. "Regardless, there were a few repercussions."

"How did the scorpions manage to coax you into fighting such a powerful creature?" the Council's spokesman asked. "Why didn't you just run when you had the chance?"

"They put a bracer on me." He explained, turning to Blaze. "It would release venom into my blood if I didn't come back to prove I had killed the bird."

"You said the wound was a few hours old." Pyre reminded her smaller companion. "Scorpicore venom is known to, in large doses, kill; but in small quantities it simply prevents blood clotting. A bit of the poison may have worked its way into your veins; you won't heal very easily, I assure you."

"Damn it," the dragon spat. "So I made it all the way down here to bleed to death?"

"Not if we can flush the venom out of your system." The red dragon explained. "If we can find a water source, you can drink yourself sick and get rid of the poison. I know of an underground river, but we'll have to take a bit of a detour."

"Fine by me," the dying dragon quickly agreed. "Lead the way and I'll try not to slow us down."

The dragon queen nodded, once again digging into the top of her two-piece garment to extract a worn map. She scanned the layout of the tunnels for a brief moment before pointing to the tunnel leading out from the cavern.

"This way," she said, leading the way into the darkness.