Path of Dragons

Elijah chose not to let the war elf live.

Not because he wasn't forthcoming with information. He answered each question, but every answer served to seal his fate. Still, Elijah tried to make his death as quick as possible, even if there was some part of him that wanted nothing more than to slow things down and make him suffer.

That was a deserving fate for Hak Tar.

In the end, he bled out in seconds, his throat severed down to the bone. Elijah had meant to decapitate him, but his attributes still hadn't completely recovered. What's more, the elf's constitution attribute was anything but trifling.

As Elijah left Hak Tar's quickly cooling corpse behind, he considered the implications of what he'd discovered. The war elves were there to conquer Earth. Hak Tar hadn't said so in as many words, but reading between the lines, the intention was clear. They'd been sent on a mission of conquest, and they would not rest until they were successful.

By all rights, Elijah should have gone straight into the encampment and torn them all to pieces. However, he suspected that task would not be as simple as he might have hoped. Despite his superior power and many abilities meant specifically to slaughter large groups of people, they had plenty of countermeasures in place that would make that mission much more difficult than it should have been.

Not only did they possess that boundary formation – which was empowered by people with very specialized classes – that had sapped him of his attributes and drained his ethera, but they also had Warcallers. According to Hak Tar, those people were the backbone of the army and the reason the Eternal Empire had been so successful.

From what the doomed war elf had described, they seemed like they had a little bit of everything going for them. Healing, defending, sorcery – they could do everything, at least to some degree. However, where they truly shone was in debuffing enemies.

Elijah wasn't ready to go up against that. Not yet.

Besides, Hak Tar had revealed a couple of other details that Elijah found worth investigating. The first was that the local mountains were home to nomadic tribes of hill goblins. The Third Army – as the war elves thought of themselves – considered the hill goblins to be nothing more than pests, but after a little persuasion, Hak Tar admitted that they were the reason the war elves had not crossed the mountains.

"Devils," he'd growled. "They spring up out of nothing, kill as many as they can, then disappear. We would lose half the Third Army if we tried to cross via one of the less-traveled passes."

Left unsaid was that the army had no interest in taking the main pass, which was guarded by guild forces. Trying to reach the other side via that pass would be a nightmare. Not only did it feature three large fortresses, but it was also a natural bottleneck that would make the war elf numbers count for much less.

The hill goblins were quite interesting to Elijah. Most goblins he'd met had been quite reasonable, so he expected he might find allies in these mountain nomads. Assuming he could find them, at least.

But as intrigued by their presence as he was, Elijah was far more interested in the other tales Hak Tar had spun. Apparently, there was a sprawling civilization to the north that had stymied the war elves' progress just as surely as the mountains. Most of those people were humans, but Hak Tar described fighting against many monsters as well.

Elijah wasn't certain what to make of that – and neither had Hak Tar been – so the only cure for his ignorance was to investigate it himself. After all, if they were the war elves' enemy, then perhaps they would be Elijah's ally.

Or maybe New York's at least, if Elijah chose to ignore the threat represented by the war elves. Though in the back of his mind, he knew that would not be the case. It was one thing to ignore the petty squabbles between city-states, but it was something else altogether to turn a blind eye toward invaders hellbent on conquest.

And given that the mountains were much closer than this mysterious civilization to the north, Elijah chose to investigate that first. So, he soon found himself sprinting toward the foothills in his scourgedrake form. His attributes had mostly recovered by that point, but his abilities were still blocked.

That remained the case until, two hours later, he finally reached the mountains proper. Only then could he shift back into his human form, which came with a sigh of relief. He hadn't acknowledged it, but he'd begun to fear that his spells would remain untouchable for much longer.

He liked his bestial forms, but he definitely didn't want to spend days – or weeks – in them without end. He'd only done that a couple of times before, and in each instance, it had begun to affect his thought processes.

Perhaps when he upgraded his mind cultivation, maintaining his identity would become easier.

For now, though, he continued into the mountains, eventually taking to the skies. At first, he saw nothing, but he attributed that as much to the darkness as to other factors. Once the sun rose, the diversity of the biome became readily apparent. He saw hundreds of species of beasts, ranging from wolves to bears and every other sort of animal. The only creatures that weren't in abundance were reptiles, probably because the lower temperatures weren't really conducive to a cold-blooded existence.

He also saw evidence of lost civilization. Abandoned and overgrown gas stations. Cabins that were barely standing. Even a few small strip malls, suggesting that at least some portion of the mountains had originated in the United States. But there were plenty of other cultures in evidence, proof that the mountain range had taken pieces from across the world.

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Elijah also saw people here and there. Groups of five or six, mostly hunting or gathering. They all wore homespun clothes made from animal hides or woven from local plant fibers. Simple people, he concluded, living the hard but quiet life of self-sufficiency. He could respect that.

Indeed, he'd lived it for quite some time.

His initial instinct was to land and offer help, but ultimately, he decided that his presence would be more of a hindrance than anything. They might even attack him, thinking that he was with the war elves or some other hostile group. So, in the end, he chose to leave them alone.

Besides, they weren't the people he was looking for, and he had a strong notion that they wouldn't give him any information concerning the hill goblins, even if he asked. So, he continued his search, flying slow circles while using Eyes of the Eagle.

Then, almost by accident, he caught sight of a hill goblin. Or rather, he saw movement. Just a slight rustle of a scrubby mountain bush. But it was enough that Elijah noticed and continued to watch.

He was miles above the ground, so he knew he wouldn't be seen. He just needed to remain patient.

It took almost a full minute before he saw the author of that movement. He let out a short exhale of disappointment when he saw that it was just a mountain goat. Elijah was just about to move on when everything happened, all at once.

Three figures burst free of a nearby crevice, spears already in the air. The goat sensed the attack before the spears reached it, and it bounded high into the air in an effort to escape.

That's when a fourth figure sprang into view, his spear already extended. The goat had no hope of avoiding that sharp tip – not with gravity working against it – and the spearhead soon erupted from its back in a shower of blood. The goat died a second later, and the four hill goblins got to work.

They dressed the carcass right then and there, then strung it to a spear that stretched between two members of the hunting party. In minutes, they were on their way.

If Elijah hadn't already known they were there, he might have lost them. But from far above, he was able to track their movements as they followed the natural terrain, letting it conceal them. Even with their burden, they were almost invisible, owing to their mottled skin and camouflage clothing.

Only when Elijah focused Eyes of the Eagle on one did he realize that the mottled pattern he saw was not natural. Rather, it was painted on. Or perhaps tattooed.

An interesting turn of events.

Elijah followed them from high above as they covered almost ten miles across the mountains. It was four hours until they reached their destination, which was a tent village abutting the mountain.

He counted almost a hundred members of the nomadic tribe, but he was more interested in their dwellings. They resembled yurts, though with conical roofs made of animal skins. In addition, even from so far away, Elijah could sense the ethera in each structure, though he was unsure of its purpose.

For a while, he just circled until, at last, he chose to make contact.

So, after landing a mile or so away, he began the short trek to the village. He only got halfway there before he sensed a trio of hill goblins pacing him. When it became clear that he was heading toward their temporary settlement, they decided to act.

Soon enough, Elijah found himself facing down a spear-wielding hill goblin who'd planted himself in his path.

The hill goblin was taller than the other goblins Elijah had met. He was also far more muscular, with a thick neck and a pair of small tusks jutting from his lower lip. His ears were pierced with bones, and he wore thin leather armor.

"I mean you no harm," Elijah said, holding his hands up in surrender. "I wanted to talk to someone about the war elves to the north."

"You are Elijah Hart."

"Uh…yeah. How did you know?" he asked, a little confused. As far as he knew, the nomadic hill goblins living in the mountains had a policy of isolationism. Certainly, no one in New York communicated with them.

"You are known to us. Follow. Our people welcome you."

Then, he turned and began the trek back to the small settlement. The other three goblins did the same, and Elijah reluctantly followed. The trip didn't take long to reach their destination, and though the residents were a little alarmed at his arrival, they settled down once they learned his name.

Over the next few minutes, he found out why.

Apparently, Venka – the hill goblin he'd met during the Trial of Primacy – held a position of some prominence, and he'd spread word of his friendship with Elijah throughout the mountains. Every hill goblin knew his name.

"Is he close by?" Elijah asked, sitting next to Okarin, the leader of the Leopard Tribe.

Okarin glanced at him and said, "It is unlikely. He was in the city trading when the Third Army attacked. We fear that he was lost."

The city in question was Alabique, and it was the very same settlement Elijah had ventured into. Given what he'd seen, he didn't have high hopes for Venka's survival.

That only fueled Elijah's disdain for the war elves.

"What about the civilization to the north?" he asked.

"The cannibals."

Elijah blinked in confusion, asking, "What?"

"They meddle in unnatural magics," Okarin stated. Before he continued, he spooned a bit of goat stew into his mouth. "Very unnatural. We avoid the area. All who venture into their territory forfeit their lives. No exceptions."

Elijah frowned. "What kind of unnatural magics?" he asked.

"The kind we do not study."

Elijah tried to get more information out of the hunter, but there was nothing more forthcoming. What's more, it became increasingly clear that the hill goblins were in no position to help with the Third Army. They weren't terribly populous in the first place, and they seemed to recognize that the only reason they'd survived for as long as they had was because of their familiarity with the mountains. If it came down to open warfare, they would be slaughtered.

After only a little while longer, during which time Elijah got to know the hill goblins a little better, he was escorted to one of the tents. The interior was cozy and covered in furs, though it was also packed full of other sleeping goblins. Obviously, they'd originated in a cold environment, which they'd survived, at least in part, due to sharing body heat.

Elijah shrugged and found a corner of fur blanket for himself, then settled in to rest. He didn't really need it, but after everything he'd learned in the past few days, it gave him a little time to think. Unfortunately, it was obvious that if he wanted allies, he needed to look further afield.

The hill goblins were out.

New York was probably too far away.

So, he had no choice but to either fight the Third Army on his own or investigate the so-called cannibals to the north. Even if they turned out to be evil, there was a chance he could use them to his advantage.

With that plan cemented in his mind, Elijah managed to doze off. His last thought was that it would be a miracle if everything worked out in his favor.