The ground began to change. Smaller shrubs dotted the surface.
This was what most people in the village used for firewood, if they were able to bring it upslope. It was difficult to carry most of this wood up the slope, so they relied upon dung, which was far easier to acquire.
The longer he traveled, the more the landscape changed, though it did so in a way that was similar to the front face of the mountain, giving everything a familiarity, though he rarely traveled in this direction.
And then the dragon skidded to a stop.
“This is as far as you can bring me?”
“There are others not far from here,” the dragon said.
Jason nodded. He climbed off the dragon’s back and patted the creature’s side, then stepped away.
“You will summon me when you need me.”
He reached into his pocket, feeling for the dragon pearl, and sent a surge of power through it. “You can feel that?”
“Yes.”
“Then I will summon you.”
With that, the dragon pumped its wings and took to the air.
As he did, Jason watched as his form became ever more distant. Eventually, he became lost in the clouds, nothing more than a memory.
Jason breathed out, squeezing the dragon pearl, hoping he’d be able to reach the dragon when it came time to leave, but if he could not, at least from here, he thought he might be able to find his way back to his village.
It would be a long climb, and potentially treacherous, but there were plenty of people who had come down from the village to this part of the world. From here, Jason knew he’d be able to return.
He started down the slope, clutching his bow, holding his bearskin jacket around him, trying to ignore the chill, and yet, it wasn’t the chill that sent a shiver through him. It was the idea that he was going someplace dangerous—a place where his father had been lost—and going without any protection other than his bow.
It was a mistake, he thought, and yet it was something that needed to be done.
7
It was late in the day when he saw light flickering in the distance. At first, he thought it was someone’s campfire, and he moved carefully, slowly, thinking that if he approached too quickly, he could raise the wrong kind of attention. He’d expected to come across others long before now. The dragon had detected someone, so he’d expected he’d find that someone, but there’d been no sign of anyone else on the road with him. And it was more of a roadway than a vast expanse of snow. The wind wasn’t nearly as harsh as it was on the front face, and though the evening brought snow, it came in softer flurries rather than the violence he knew from the front face of the mountain.
It might’ve been easier to have come this way and hunted, and yet the longer he’d been down here, the less he’d seen signs of life. There were some birds flying overhead, but that was about it. There was nothing else. Certainly no signs of a herd of deer or any other creature that might’ve been valuable to him. He passed a few copses of spindly trees, but within them he found no trace of squirrel or rabbit or anything that would have been edible.
These lands were overhunted. It was for that reason that he preferred to hunt the front face. The work might’ve been more difficult, and he rarely caught something, but coming this way would force him to compete against the others from his village.
Could that be who he’d come across?
There were times when people from the village would descend far down the mountainside and come back empty-handed.
At least when Jason returned empty-handed, it wasn’t quite the same climb. And when he did find something—which was increasingly common these days—he didn’t have to share it with as many people as the hunting parties did.
Maybe that was why someone had been stealing from them. It was possible the hunting parties had been splitting too much, making it so those who’d been out hunting had to go hungry. If that were the case, Jason would’ve expected to have heard something more about it, and yet there had been no sign of others suffering starvation.
He approached the light slowly, and when he did, he realized there was something off about it. It wasn’t just a campfire, not as he had believed.
He had found the town of Varmin.
Jason had visited here once before with his father, but it had been a long time and he could barely remember what it had been like. The journey down with his father had taken the better part of several days, and the return had been nearly a week. That had been a time when he was much more willing and interested in venturing out of the village. He remembered how hard it was to travel this way. His father had worked with him, training him to hunt, and had used it as an opportunity to explore a part of the world they didn’t visit as often.
He recalled the buildings themselves. Many of them were made of wood, something not nearly as common up in the village. There they preferred to use ice, and packed it against stone dug out of the mountain itself.
More than that, in Varmin they were far more eager to light fires than they were in the village. There was less of an issue with acquiring the necessary firewood.
Seeing the flickering lights lifted his spirits, if only for a moment.
It reminded him of the festival, and yet knowing what he now did of the festival and the purpose behind it, he couldn’t help but think that was a mistake. There was no reason to try to taunt the dragons. And there was no reason to fear them, either. The dragons were only a threat to them because of the Dragon Souls, though he doubted anyone within the village would know that or understand why.
He continued down the mountainside, moving cautiously. Doing so meant he ran the risk of questions, and though there were enough people from his village who visited this far down the mountain, the fact he’d come this way by himself would raise questions.
Jason paused at the outside of the town. Varmin was a large town, spread out over a flattened section of the mountainside and along the slope, built in such a way that it flowed downward.
Not only was there the light from flames inside of buildings, but there was the scent of smoke, that of firewood rather than dung, all of it filling his nostrils. Other smells were there, food baking, the scent of strange spices, and every so often, the sound of a steady thundering.
The first time he heard the thundering, Jason paused. It had been a long time since he’d heard that, and it reminded him of the cannons used by his people during the festival, but he didn’t think this thundering came from cannons. It was something else, though he wasn’t entirely sure what.
When it came a second time, rumbling beneath him and reminding him of the dragon, he reached for the dragon pearl, gripping it for a moment as he worried there might be some need for its protection.
He needn’t have been concerned.
There was no additional rumbling.
He reached the outskirts of the town. He didn’t have any money, and he hadn’t come with anything to trade. He should have brought the coin pouch he’d taken from Gary, but that remained in his room, hidden.