“Did somebody say Cloda?” Grundy asked. He looked at Freya. Smoogers moaned on the ground all around us. Those that weren’t wounded shivered behind clumps of grass. Chastity tucked the pieces of the staff and the pearl into a bag and strapped it to her back. Grundy watched her, nervously.

“We need to help these goblins." Freya said.

“But we have so much to discuss.” Jenna said. A smooger woman screamed. She pulled the charred body of an infant from a smoking pile of dead smoogers.

“Let’s do our talking somewhere else,” I said.

“Where'd you toss Reese's belt?” Chastity asked. She looked around. She walked past the bodies of smoogers.

“I didn't see it,” Grundy said.

The flow of water from the hole had stopped. The opening had filled in. Now there was just a wide patch of mud. Smooger tracks ran across it. The succubus lay half-buried and covered with crawling flies. Chastity sloshed into the mud pit. The mud sucked at her feet as she tromped to where we had lain. Smooger children watched her from the grass where they hid. She reached down and plucked something from the mud. It was the large metal buckle with the letter S.

“Poor Satyrio. Brave Satyrio,” she said. She walked back to us.

“He died trying to help us,” She said. The smooger children looked at the buckle and ran into the pit. They crawled in the mud, searching for more artifacts.

"He wasn't trying to help us, he was trying to get back to the booze faster" Drexel said.

“Can I please get some help here?” Freya asked. She was separating the dead from the wounded. Her burns made it difficult.

"Why are you even doing that Freya?" I shouted to her.

"We have to do something!" She cried.

"Freya, Drexel was right. We can't heal all these Goblins. We can't help them. We have done enough" Jenna shouted.

"Let's kill more of em!" I said, "They'll worship us as Gods!"

Freya sprinted for me.

"It was a joke!" I shouted, terrified.

Grundy stepped in front of me. She stopped her sprint.

"Freya, come on, we should really go, Telle aint completely wrong" he said.

The crowd of smoogers crawled over their wounded to catch a glimpse of us at a distance.

“Let us leave this place,” Jenna said.

I tightened Sheesha’s harness. She whined. She was exhausted.

We made our way outside of the smooger town. The yellowtoes crowded to see us, but kept far out of our way. Freya limped. Her arm was covered in white blisters. Grundy walked stiffly.

“Freya, did I hear you say something about Cloda?” He asked. The horn of Kraken had left an angry red gash in his back. If his skin weren’t so tough he would have been cut in half.

"Grundy, please, lets not speak of it." She said.

We walked until the Town was far behind us. These dead plains seemed infinite. We followed Grundy. After a few hours he admitted he had no idea where he was. After some discussion of the sun's angle, the tracks we had left, and a theory by Jenna about the wind vectors, we righted ourselves and were heading to Tang's. The sun was low in the sky.

“This is about as far as I can walk today,” Chastity said. She sat in the grass.

“Then this is far enough,” Grundy said. We stopped. Sheesha walked in circle and then lay in the grass next to Freya. She immediately fell asleep. Freya leaned on Sheesha.

“Someone else will have to make camp this evening,” Freya said. "I must try to find us some kind of food before it gets too dark."

“So are you a fan of Cloda, Freya?” Grundy said.

"Cloda was our friend, Grundy" she replied. She staggered off into the grass.

I tried to tamp down some grass. I twisted fistfuls of grass together and made a small fire. It gave off more smoke than flame. Soon we were all coughing. I threw on more grass until flames blazed.

“Did she mean Cloda, the singer?” Grundy asked.

“The finest singer there ever was,” Jenna said.

“But her days of public performance are over,” Drexel added, ominously.

“You know her? Really? I’ve loved her music since I was a kid,” Grundy said. His smile made dimples I had never seen on his face before. “I moved to Heedon Springs just for a chance to see her perform,” he said.

“That’s sweet,” Chastity said. She patted him on the head.

“I thought you moved to Heedon Springs to farm with your uncle,” I said.

“Well. Uhh. That wasn't the whole story,” Grundy said.

"I woudn't have pegged you for a Cloda fan, Grundy" Drexel remarked. Grundy blushed.

"Aww, Grundy's got a sweet streak" Chastity said, hugging him.

Jenna was digging through Chastity's bag, she pulled out the glowing sphere.

"Put that away woman!" Grundy yelled. Chastity jumped. Jenna held the pearl in one hand and glared at Grundy. He stood up.

"Put it away" he growled. She reluctantly replaced it. Grundy moved to sit near Chastity's bag. "That ball of evil stays in the bag, understood?"

"Grundy, you don't understand," Jenna said,"The power it posesses.."

"Yeah I get it" Grundy shouted. "It stays in the bag! This glowing bastard is comin out for one reason and one reason only"

"What's that?" I asked.

Grundy's mouth opened and he threw his head back. A deep, bellowing laugh shook his body.

“That fat flying lizard melted half of Heedon Springs, and we’re going to kill it!” He said.

“You can't be serious.” Jenna said.

“The last time I saw that oversized gecko she melted my house and my uncle with it,” he said. “She melted my whole neighborhood.” He shook his head. “If theres any way to make right the things that Lengnil did with this Pearl, and im not sayin there is, but if there is, that's the way.“

Jenna looked frustrated. "You don't know what you're talking about" she said.

"Well, why dont you enlighten me?” He asked.

"Lengnil swindled that very Pearl from Orka." Jenna tersely explained, Before he tricked her out of it, it was her prize possession. She wreaked havok across this and many, many other lands...what happened in Heedon Springs was barely a flick of her wrist. That dragon could level a mountain if she put her mind to it. And you want to march right up to her with the pearl..."She stammered.

"...And blow her lizard ass to hell" Grundy said.

"The pearl will be useless for us as a weapon unless we use it with the staff..." Jenna said.

"Well how else would you use it?" I asked.

"and if it's in the staff,"she continued, "Any one of us but Chastity that tries to use it will be fried crisp, like Freya's arm!"

"...oh" Gurdy said.

"Sometimes it pays to be human" Chastity said. She looked pale.

"Well, It's too bad for me, Chastity, "Gurdy said, patting her on the back, "But I guess you're gonna get the honor of blowing up the Dragon, once we find her"

Chastity looked nauseus.

“Barry will help. He'll know what to do,” Chastity said. She looked at each of us, guiltily. “That dragon is a treacherous, powerful, and wicked beast. There is no way in the world that I am going to be the one to point that staff at it.,” she said. Sheesha growled in her sleep and kicked her legs.

"Chastity you gotta!" Grundy pleaded, "How else can we touch that thing?"

“No way, not me, you can't make me! no no, no No NO!"She screamed. She slumped down on the ground and began to cry, audibly.

“Ugly,” Grundy said.

“She was prettier in her youth,” Drexel said.

“I meant our situation,” Grundy snapped.

"We need to stay as far away from Orka as possible" Jenna said, "According to the book, that dragon has been so depressed since the loss of the Pearl she barely ever leaves her cave to cut a new swath of destruction. I do not think we should put her in a position to take it back. The book's timeline ends long before she had Jehosephat, but from what Falstaag said, birthing him didnt make her any less depressed."

"Big Orka hasn't been around since she did the number on Grundy's neighborhood." I said. I don't think we have to worry about her. Anyway she'd never find us all the way out here."

"Her halfbreed son found us on a river in the middle of nowhere." Drexel reminded me.

"And he was a sticknit compared to her" Jenna said.

“Ah yes,” Drexel said. “What to do?”

“We keep towards Tang's in the morning. Freya needs time to heal,” Jenna said. “Grundy, how’s your back?”

“It’s sore,” he said. Jenna walked to where Grundy sat.

"I'm still sore from Falstaag's dungeon" I mumbled. "You dont see me bellyachin about it."

“This is going to sting,” she said. She peeled Grundy’s shirt back from the torn flesh.

Freya returned from the fields of nothing.

"This place is death itself! She cried. "No mushrooms, no living plants but this brown, chau-deficient grass. No earthworms! I found these," In one hand she held a tuft of grass, in the other a handfull of dead flies.

"I found them crawling on the body of a rat who had died of starvation" She said. "Im making a casserole." She limped toward her belongings.

"Shouldn't we be fasting again for Reese?" I asked Freya. She stopped cooking.

Freya frowned. "I miss Reese. I wish he were here, singing in that awful voice of his. I never thought I would say it, but it's true. If nothing else, he truly wanted to be a hero." She looked at me. "But it is inappropriate to fast after a suicide." She continued making her casserole.

"I see what you mean" Drexel said.

“There’s no way we'll get to Tangs before Falstaag,” Chastity said, I'm sure he's already attacked"

“We have to try, Chastity. We already have Tang against us. We don’t need to add the town guard to our enemies list,” Jenna said.

"The town guard have us as wanted criminals, Jenna, that was part of the whole big plan we conned Falstaag with" I reminded her.

"How ironic that our bluffed plan was one of the few we should have gone through with" Jenna said.

“Maybe we’ll get to Tang’s at the same time Falstaag does,” I said. I pictured my foot on Tang’s neck.

“Maybe Falstaag has already beaten Tang,” I said. “We should go there right away.”

“But what about Barry?” Chastity asked.

“Tang’s monastery and Barry’s estate are both along the road to the East Springs."Freya said, serving us small portions of the casserole she had somehow made, "We can go to Tang’s first and then travel quickly to Barry’s,” Freya said. Grundy grimaced as Jenna picked chunks of dirt from his torn skin. We ate. The casserole was not good. Chastity pouted and lay down to sleep.

Freya lay back and slept. Her blisters glistened in the firelight. The worst of it was on her hand and down her arm. Some blisters had popped. Yellow puss oozed into the dirt. When Jenna was through cleaning Grundy’s wound, he lay on his side and soon began to snore. Jenna and I were the only two awake. Jenna pulled the Book of Lengnil from her pack and stared at the pages. In the back was the crude map of Heedon Springs with circles drawn around areas closer to the actual springs.

“Of course! He must have been looking for the pearl,” Jenna said.

“Who?” I asked. I threw more grass onto the fire.

“Tang. That’s why he had this book and this map. He has been looking for the Dragon’s Pearl and Lengnil's staff,” she said.

“Well it wouldn’t be much use to him,” I said. “Unless he likes blisters.”

“I suspect Tang would find a way to wield this staff, Telle,” Jenna said. She licked her lips. “The power of that thing…” she said. She looked over at Chastity. Chastity slept with one arm over the bag that held the staff and pearl. Grundy also had one arm around it.

“Somehow the water that traveled through that tomb was affected by the pearl, even from within Lengnil's coffin. I assume that empowered underwater stream comes up in each of the town's two spring resorts. The healing power of the springs must have come directly from that pearl. Its amazing that it still has energy left after discharging so much into the waters over the years. A testement to it's magnificent nature.” Jenna oogled Chastity's bag. She chuckled. She continued giggling.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“Imagine,” she said. She rubbed her hands together. “Lengnil cleanses the land of all the ‘lower races’, for the shining glory of Twaddle, the Bupinder Empire. He lays himself down to die, assured his work is done, and his deeds will lead to greatness.” She laughed. “Within a few years his lands become a schmaltzy holiday resort, and the beings he thought to have exterminated have taken residence in his very tomb, where they deface it and worship the hunk of stone he uses to guard his coffin.” She laughed. I bit my lip.

“You think that’s funny?” I asked. My heart pounded. The Goblinizer pulsed in my belt. “You think worshiping a hunk of stone is funny? HAW HAW!"

“I’m sorry Telle,” she said. She tried to choke back her laughs. She saw my hand move.

“you tried to kill me in the tomb..." she said

I let my fingers brush the handle of the Goblinizer. A jolt shot up my arm.

“...I wouldn’t try it again,” she said. Her ears pointed toward me. She was not laughing. I stared at her.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I moved my hand away from the handle. My arm ached for just a second. “I was wrong to attack you like I did.”

“Well, I expected you to be upset. Why do you think I was avoiding discussing the prospect before I was sure? I tried to be careful in the way I told you,” she said. “Most people have a violent reaction to the truth."

I nodded. My chest felt hollow. Jenna went back to the book and turned a page.

"I should have said something sooner." she said, not looking up.

“I just need to get Tang. I have to make him answer for what he did to my town,” I said. She smiled again.

“Getting to Tang will be difficult,” she said.

“Not as difficult as getting over Kraken,” I said. I thought of my mother.

“True enough,” she said. She yawned and closed the Book of Lengnil.

“Good night,” she said. She lay back. I stretched out on the soft grass. Instinctively I started to pray to Kraken, to thank him for keeping me alive. I stopped my prayer. I faced the night sky. I looked at the same night sky I had looked at every night in that smooger pit I grew up in. Only now it was not Kraken’s sky. It was just sky. Tears ran down my face. With revulsion, I knew now one reason I had been so angry in Town, was because in those shit-caked pits, surrounded by Kraken's worshippers, some part of me felt at home.

All of violent life, I've been thanking Kraken for keeping me safe. Now the people I had to thank for saving my life slept in the grass around me. I turned my head. In the flicker of the dying fire I saw Jenna sleeping.

“Thank you, Jenna.” I said quietly. Her ears twitched as she slept. I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.

I awoke to a thick tongue slapping my face. A rope of saliva hung from Sheesha’s mouth to my chin. I was soaked from head to toe. It was raining.

“Good morning, Telle,” Freya said. I sat up and wiped my face on my wet sleeve. Freya looked soaked, but much better. The blisters were beginning to scab.

“I’m afraid there’s no breakfast,” Freya said. I was hungry, but relieved. Chastity yawned, choked on a little rain, sat up, and pouted. Grundy and Drexel were already up.

“We’ve got to move,” Freya said. She seemed much better. “Who knows what we will find at Tang's,” she said. She didn’t look at me.

We packed up and marched. The land was covered with nothing but tall, thin, brown grass. We waded through the sharp blades. None of us knew for sure anymore which way we were headed. More than once we passed our own tracks as we wandered in circles.

“This is just great,” Drexel said.

“Quiet, Reese,” Freya snapped back. We were all hungry. We spent the rest of the day wandering. The clouds cleared, and we tried to use the sun as a guide until it was too low in the sky. As night came, we continued. Freya knew the stars better than the rest of us.

“Let’s just hope we don’t see any clouds,” Drexel said. Freya led us as we trod through the endless plains. We walked through the night. Sheesha was so tired I didn’t dare ride her. My hunger turned into sharp pains that shot from my belly.

The sun rose again. I staggered along with the others through the dawn and into the morning. The grass crunched monotonously underfoot.

“Finally.” Freya said from up ahead. I followed her and suddenly I popped out of the grass and onto a gravel road.

“This must be the road to the East Spring,” Freya said.

“But which way do we go?” Drexel asked.

“We go this way,” Freya said. We began our walk down the gravel road. A cloud of dust appeared on the horizon. An open carriage behind two horses raced way toward us. Two riders sat behind a driver. The driver was properly sized and had ears like Jenna. He yanked hard on the reins and halted the carriage in front of us.

“I saw that couple at Barry’s,” I said. It was the same stilt couple I’d seen when we’d first arrived in Heedon Springs. The woman was no longer pregnant. She was sobbing. Her cheeks were wet with tears.

“Turn back,” the stilt shouted.

“Are you coming from Barry’s?” Chastity asked. She looked up at the couple.

“No ma’am. We are headed to Barry’s,” the driver said.

“Monstrous,” the rich stilt said. “It’s simply monstrous.” He wrapped his arm around the woman.

“It tried to kill us all,” the woman said. “Don’t go to the springs.”

“What tried to kill you?” I asked. He looked down at me and wrinkled his nose as if he smelled something bad.

“How many little beasts does this land support?” The man said, “Driver...”

“Wait, tell us what happened,” Chastity said.

“It was horrid,” the woman said. The man pulled her close.

“A dreadful stone beast with an awful horn popped up from the bottom of the springs,” he said.

“People screaming…blood everywhere,” the woman said. She rubbed her cheek against the man’s sleeve.

“Driver, take me back to Barry’s.” The woman said.

“At once,” he said. “Driver, you heard the lady.” The driver whipped the horses and they flew down the road. Far down the dirt road, I could make out a sign saying 'East Springs Resort'. Jenna burst out laughing.

“I guess we know which way Tang’s is,” she said. We turned around and followed in the dust of the rich stilts.

“First Tang’s, to scout for Falstaag. Then Barry’s,” Freya said.

“I hope we don’t have to scout too long,” Chastity said.

“Agreed,” Drexel said. He played with the amulet he’d taken from the tomb. A tiny fly was suspended in an amber jewel. He held it up to the light.

“There’s writing on here,” he said.

“I was wondering when you’d notice,” Jenna said. Drexel rubbed his thumb over the inscription.

“What is it, a name?” He asked.

“It’s a trigger,” she said.

“I’d better show you how to work that before we get into trouble,” Jenna said. She reached for the amulet. Drexel pulled it back instinctively. Then he slowly handed the necklace to Jenna. She squinted and looked at the words.

“Help me…” She said in a high-pitched voice. The amulet flashed and on the ground in front of us stood a giant stenchfly. It twitched and rubbed its giant eyes with its front legs.

“What is that?” Chastity asked. She took a step back.

"Ugh" I said, "It smells like a thousand stenchflies" I held my nose.

“What is the point of that?” Drexel asked.

“A skilled rider could mount that stenchfly and travel quickly,” Jenna said.

Drexel approached the stenchfly. It had a dozen legs. Two giant green eyes bulged from a ridged head. A collar of thick black bristly hair grew between the head and the tip of the wings. He grabbed a handful of the spiny black hair on its neck. He climbed nimbly onto the fly’s back. Drexel kicked his legs into the fly’s neck. Its wings flapped so quickly they became invisible. A whine filled the air. The fly launched into the air. It lurched and looped above us.

“I can’t control it,” Drexel said.

He held onto the hair with both hands. One of his legs swung off the fly and dangled in the air. The fly swooped down toward us. It stopped and hovered above us. The draft from its wings kicked dust into my eyes. The fly zipped back and forth. Drexel fell and hit the ground with a thud. The fly hovered over us. Its legs twitched.

“Help me…” Jenna said again. The fly vanished and the amulet lay on the ground next to Drexel. Drexel stood and dusted himself off. Drexel stepped forward and snatched up the necklace. He dangled the amber in front of his face. He put it around his neck.

“It must be worth quite a bit,” he said.

Freya was already up the road, almost out of sight. We walked as fast as we could to catch up. Sheesha whined. She was exhausted.

“Just a little while further girl,” I said. I patted her. Dirt filled the creases in her bald skin. She looked tired and smelled awful. The gravel crunched under our feet. We walked up the road until Tang’s monastery became visible on the horizon.

“I don’t see any sign of Falstaag,” Chastity said. “Can we go to Barry’s now?”

“We need a closer look,” Freya said. “I want to see if there are signs of a fight.” She led us off the road and into the grass. We walked slowly toward the monastery.

Metal glinted in the hot sun. Grundy bent down and picked up a shield. The town guard’s coat of arms was painted on the front. We walked a few more steps and found a spear.

“This is not good,” Jenna said. We found more bits of armor and weapons as we walked.

“There is no sign of a fight,” Grundy said. “It looks like these were just dropped here.” There were no spots of blood, no torn clothing, no bodies. Except for the occasional weapon and helmet, there was nothing unusual. Just the hot sun and the stinging grass. The grass was over my head, so I could only see a few inches in front of my face.

“He's not here, can we go?” Chastity asked.

“Just a minute,” Freya said. “There is something very strange about this.” She crept forward. We stumbled in the grass for a few minutes. Sheesha panted.

“Quiet, we’re getting close,” Freya said. We slowed our pace even more. Freya stopped. The sound of horns blared across the field.

“We’ve been spotted,” Freya said. “Get ready.” She took a fighting stance. I climbed onto the back of Sheesha. When my head was above the grass I realized we were closer to the monastery than I thought. three monks ran toward us.

“Thats a very small group," Freya said. Falstaag may have done the monks some damage, we take them now!” She sprinted toward the monks. I kicked Sheesha and pulled the Goblinizer from my belt. We raced toward the monks.

Grundy growled as he ran forward. Jenna sat on Drexel’s shoulders, her eyes rolled back. She chanted. Suddenly, Sheesha stopped. Her feed skidded in the dirt. I flew over her head and landed on my back. Grundy stopped. Even Freya stopped running. I looked to my left. Drexel was already running away. He dropped Jenna on the ground. She sat and looked around in surprise. Freya took a step backward.

“Help me,” Drexel said in a high pitched voice. The fly burst from his amulet and sat twitching on the ground. Drexel jumped on its back, grabbed hold of its spiny fur and took off with a whine into the air.

“Head for the Hills!” He said as he zoomed away.

I climbed back onto Sheesha to get a look. I watched in horror as the ivory tips of two vast, gnarled horns poked above the monastery fence. The horns rose over the fence, then the torn, leathery ears, and finally the head of the giant black dragon peered at us from across the field.