Chapter Thirty-Six
Lilith and Nidhogg dismounted not far from the tower, hooves falling quiet on ash-gray ground.
Ahead lay a wide, bare plain, a slate of earth under ink-dark sky. They could hide, but the ghastly tall skeletal horse was a lantern of bone. The Undead on the tower would spot it at once. So the Little White Dragon and the Black Dragon went on foot, shadows threading a field of stone.
Lilith’s leg was mostly healed. Pain pulsed like cold iron, but with Nidhogg as her brace she moved like a willow in wind. Their pace didn’t drag too much.
Nidhogg even tucked the Little White Dragon beneath her outer coat, night wrapping day. It hid Lilith’s white, which gleamed like snow in the pitch-black around them.
“We’d better move faster.” Nidhogg squeezed Lilith’s hand, voice low as a hush of grass. “The faster we go, the less chance they see us. Then we won’t have to fight the Undead out here on this empty wild.”
Frustration pricked first, then grit. “I want to,” Lilith bit out, breath a frost-thread in the dark. The Little White Dragon pushed hard to match Nidhogg’s stride, but her right leg wasn’t whole. To keep up with the Black Dragon, she had to lean on Taint-flesh for support. If she used the Taint to walk, her movement turned too big, like waves in a still pool. The sentry Undead would spot the ripple.
“Why not be more efficient?” Wonder flashed, eyes moon-bright. “Just shift to dragon and ram through. These stone towers can’t take your claws.”
“And those Undead wouldn’t truly die,” Nidhogg finished softly, tapping the Little White Dragon’s brow, a feather-light knock on porcelain. “Under the Moonswallow Mist, they don’t feel pain. They’d scatter in the rubble and wait for rescue after the dust settles.” She paused, voice a quiet blade. “Sounds neat, but if you drop the tower, where do we find the way down? Also, we shouldn’t expose we’re dragons. A dragon in the lower levels of the Grand Mausoleum is a storm bell. It’ll draw schemers like crows.”
It wasn’t fear-mongering. Once, dragons leaned on raw power and crushed other races like reeds. The Adventurers’ Guild rallied hunters and struck them down. Since then, people covet dragon materials the way cold hands covet fire. If they target Nidhogg, fine—an adult Black Dragon can keep her own sky. But Lilith was still young. An orc had bitten through her leg; the Little White Dragon looked like a walking harvest of parts. Nidhogg’s worry sat heavy as rain.
“Okay.” Lilith nodded, shoulders drooping like wilted leaves. The Little White Dragon trusted Nidhogg, heart first, questions later. In matters like this, if Nidhogg said it, she believed it.
To quicken their steps, Lilith lifted a small hand and opened the Void Command Seat’s resonance for them both. Azure Star Energy rose like cool water, and even without starlight falling, it carried them forward, swift along the flat road before the tower.
“So Undead are heading for this tower too? We should steer clear.” She tucked herself into Nidhogg’s arms, peering out with big azure eyes, twin lamps in a cave. On the roads around them, tall knights on skeletal horses patrolled like winter statues. There were skeletons and zombies that looked to have fallen from the first layer, missing limbs like snapped branches. Some held each other up, some clutched the parts they’d lost, all shuffling toward the tower like driftwood pushed by a slow tide.
Nidhogg led Lilith away as smoothly as a shadow leaving a wall. If the Undead sensed the life in them, it’d be trouble. The Moonswallow Mist would drive them at the two like a storm drives hail.
“Hold your breath. Don’t let them notice.” No matter how they slipped aside, the road was a narrow ribbon. Sometimes there was nowhere to hide. They had to blend into the Undead flow like fish slipping a reef. Nidhogg’s whisper cut clean.
The Little White Dragon nodded. One small hand covered her nose, the other clamped Nidhogg like a lifeline. She matched the Black Dragon’s quick steps, darting through a knot of Undead like a sparrow through reeds.
“Phew.” Relief bubbled first, then breath. Once they’d passed the mass, Lilith opened her mouth and drew a deep lungful, air tasting of dust and old stone. She glanced back at the Undead and tilted her chin up. “Nidhogg, what are they pulling?”
The group they’d slipped through hauled a big wooden cart, its wheels creaking like old bones. When they passed, Lilith had seen heaps of withered black plants on it, not quite the same as the plain’s dead grass. She couldn’t name it; it just felt different—bigger, like thistles swollen by night.
“Some kind of dark crop,” Nidhogg mused, eyes weighing the sight like scales. “I’m not great at plant magic. I can’t ID it at a glance. If you want, once we get inside, I’ll try to snag a stalk to examine.”
“It’s not that important.” The Little White Dragon shook her head, curiosity a brief firefly. If Nidhogg didn’t know, then let it go.
“But hey, weren’t the first-layer fields abandoned ages ago? Why are they still moving dark crops?” Wonder pricked again, sharp as dew on nettles.
“I don’t know.” Nidhogg shook her head, night hair moving like water. Even a know-it-all doesn’t know all. Who knows where the Undead got them. “Maybe they stored harvests from long ago. Or maybe the deeper you go, the tighter their old social gears still turn.”
“Alright.” Lilith nodded. The Little White Dragon pulled her gaze from the withered plants, attention folding like a fan. Because—
They’d arrived. The tower’s gate loomed tall ahead, a slab of stone against starless sky. Flanking the gate, two knights held lances like shards of winter.
The lances didn’t point at the heavens. They pointed at Lilith and Nidhogg, frost-straight and unblinking.
“Uh-oh. We’ve been spotted.” The Little White Dragon’s smile tilted wry, a thin moon over a cold field.
