Path of Dragons

Elijah awoke to the sounds of a breaking camp, so he quickly extricated himself from the furry blankets and crawled his way to the tent's entrance. After pushing the flap back, he was surprised to see that the sun had already begun to rise. More interestingly, the hill goblins had clearly been up for a few hours, as the signs of the previous night's fire were completely gone and many of the tents had already been taken down.

The goblins themselves went about their work with cheerful efficiency, stuffing their belongings into enormous packs. The makings of the camp even went inside. Elijah tried to lend his assistance, but he was gently – but firmly – told to stay out of the way. So, he settled onto a nearby hunk of granite and helped himself to a grove fruit.

At the sight of food, some of the goblin children mobbed him, and grinning, he handed out portions he carved from another fruit. At first, they were a little disappointed at the small amounts on offer, but the second they popped their prizes into their mouths, those expressions were replaced by elation.

"You spoil them," said Okarin, his hands on his hips.

Elijah shrugged. "Maybe. But that's the prerogative of a man who doesn't need to deal with the aftermath. Like a wacky uncle."

"Hmm."

"Where will you go?" Elijah asked.

"East. The hunting is better in that direction at this time of year. What of you?" Okarin asked, sitting next to Elijah.

"North. I want to investigate the cannibals. And if they're as bad as you say, I may have to do something about them," he answered. "I get the feeling there's more to it than that, though."

Suddenly, the hairs on the back of Elijah's neck stood on end. "You feel that?" he asked, jerking his head to the west.

"I feel nothing," Okarin answered, though he did unhook the spear from his back. "What is it?"

Elijah barely heard him. Instead, his eyes darted around the camp as he studied his surroundings. But he saw nothing out of the ordinary, so he shook his head. "I think I'm just paranoid. It felt like someone was watching me."

"Ah. Yet you see nothing?"

"There's nothing within about fifty feet or so," Elijah stated confidently. He could push Soul of the Wild a little further, but that was its passive range. He pushed it out a little further, but he still felt nothing out of the ordinary. A few small rodents. A couple of birds. Lots of insects. Normal stuff for the ecosystem.

Elijah raked his hand through his hair and let out a sigh. "It's probably nothing. Just stress, I guess. Spend a few months sleeping with one eye open so you don't get attacked by mutated flesh spiders, and you'll know why."

"Flesh spiders?" asked Okarin with a shiver.

"Not recommended for anyone who doesn't want nightmares for the foreseeable future. Plus, they don't even taste good," he said. "Anyway, I think it's about time I mosey on along. Take care of yourself. And if Venka's alive, tell him I came around. Tell him that if he ever wants to talk, just head to Ironshore. Or send a message through one of the Branches."

Okarin insisted that he would, though Elijah could tell that the hill goblin didn't believe Venka had survived. Neither did Elijah, come to that. He'd seen the mass grave and the ruined town. It was hard to believe that anyone had made it out of that alive, though he chose to hope for the best.

With that in mind, after watching the hill goblins depart, comically huge packs on their backs, Elijah headed in the opposite direction. He pointedly chose not to transform into the Shape of the Sky until he was miles away. Partially because he still felt like something was watching him, and he wanted to give it a chance to attack. But whatever it was – probably a monster – it never made a move.

For all Elijah knew, it was just a mirage. A remnant of his experiences, as he'd told Okarin.

In any case, it was mid-morning before he finally decided to fly away. After he was high in the air, he circled a few times, just to be sure, but he came up empty-handed. So, he wasted no more time and headed north. It wasn't long before he passed above the Third Army's encampment, and even miles above, he felt his abilities silenced, though the ethera drain and attribute debuff was nonexistent from so far away.

He quickly left it behind, and after another hour of flying, he felt himself return to normal. The potent debuff was still a problem, and one he'd yet to solve. He had some ideas on how to get around it, but if he was forced to attack them on their turf, things would get very ugly, very quickly.

Only then did Elijah realize that he'd already made his choice. He'd already picked a side. The only question was when and how he intended to attack.

It was only a few hours later that he caught sight of something interesting.

A stepped pyramid rose from the ground, its style reminding him of Tenochtitlan. Clearly, the flat-topped pyramid in the distance was a new construction. It lacked the wear and tear of those ancient Aztec ruins, but the inspiration was obvious to Elijah.

Stolen story; please report.

That meant it was likely built by humans.

Surrounding that pyramid – which was probably fifty yards across at its base – was a series of small buildings that Elijah took to be a village. He was still dozens of miles away, so even with Eyes of the Eagle, he could only barely make out the tiny figures passing between those square structures.

Elijah had only just noticed the pyramid in the distance when he saw movement almost directly below him.

Men and women wearing only loincloths and with ritualistic markings drawn in red paint across their torsos, rushed ahead, weapons in hand. Clearly, someone had taken the Aztec aesthetic to heart, because each of them wore elaborate headdresses. Some were modeled after jaguars, while others bore what looked like eagle feathers.

And alongside them charged demonic beasts.

To Elijah, the creatures were unmistakable. Even well out of range of Soul of the Wild, he could practically smell their stench. They weren't unnatural – not like the golems, Voxx, or monsters – but they just as clearly had originated in an entirely different plane. They were visitors, not out-of-place invaders.

If he could have sighed, he would have. The distinctions between different sorts of creatures grew more confusing with every passing day. Fortunately, Elijah's instincts did a lot of heavy lifting where those classifications were concerned. The only problem came when he was forced to explain it to other people.

But he understood it, which was what mattered the most.

The end result was that the beasts – which resembled jackals, but with bloodred eyes and a slightly more muscular build – did not elicit the same need within him to rid the world of their presence. Instead, it was more like smelling something slightly foul. Unpleasant but bearable.

There were ten people in the group, accompanied by five demonic beasts, and their sprint speeds indicated a decent allocation of attributes. Elijah watched them bound across the rocky terrain, leaping over ravines and bounding off of fallen trees.

Ony then did he see their prey.

The creature looked bovine in nature, though far larger than any cow he'd ever seen before. Perhaps a buffalo that had grown to gargantuan proportions due to the influx of ethera – though given the rocky terrain, that didn't make much sense.

Either way, the chase had clearly been ongoing for some time, because the creature was on its last leg. Huffing and puffing, it stumbled over every obstacle until the hunting party caught up.

They lanced in. Most were armed with huge clubs embedded with sharpened bits of rock – macuahuitl, if Elijah remembered the term correctly – but a couple wielded bows. The weapons were obviously effective, because they carved a dozen wounds into the bovine creature, and in only a few seconds.

That's when the jackals hit it.

They moved sinuously, raking their claws across the beast's tender ligaments. It soon collapsed, unable to support its own weight. That, as well as the thing's exhaustion, meant that it didn't last much longer.

How long had the hunt gone on?

Hours, at least. Perhaps even longer.

The people let out whoops of success before falling upon the beast with practiced savagery. They dressed the animal expertly, though when they got to the overlarge heart, they held a sort of wrestling match to see who got to eat it. The winner was a lithe woman with a scarred back and a half-shaved head.

She eagerly tore into the heart, ripping it apart with her teeth as blood flowed down her chin and mingling with the markings on her torso.

By that point, Elijah had long since landed and shifted into the Shape of the Scourge, approaching in Guise of the Unseen so he could get a better view. Oddly enough, the people displayed a range of ethnicities, suggesting a level of diversity of origin that Elijah had not expected, given their aesthetic.

The woman finished eating the heart remarkably quickly, then joined the others in carrying a portion of the meat. Each person had hundreds of pounds on their shoulders – paying little attention to the blood running down their bodies – before they set out at a light trot. Very little had been left behind. Just the offal and the bones.

Curiously, the jackal demons didn't even look at any of it. Instead, they followed the group of people. And Elijah followed them.

In doing so, he realized that they weren't as advanced as he thought they were. Perhaps they'd used some sort of ability to gain a few extra attributes during the hunt, but now that it was over, they were clearly sub-one-hundred. Although, given that he suspected that the bovine beast had been just shy of ascension, the fact that their hunt was successful was an impressive feat.

Miles passed, but their pace never wavered. The jackals killed a few pesky creatures that were attracted to the smell of blood, but they did so efficiently and quickly. The group never really came under threat.

After approximately twenty more miles, the village came into view.

And it was a sad thing indeed. The buildings were made of mud brick, constructed without an ounce of ethera. They were also uncomplicated cubes with a single opening at the top. Presumably, that was for smoke. Otherwise, the cubic structures' only other feature was a single door, its opening covered by an untanned animal skin.

The people were even sadder. They wore only a little more clothing than the hunters, with a prevalence for long skirts that reached their ankles. Those skirts were made of heavy wool, with elaborate designs at the hem. Some of them wore necklaces of bone, and quite a few had plenty of facial piercings.

Barely any metal was in evidence, though.

The residents rushed forward to take the meat from the hunters, who received a hero's welcome. The bulk of the meat went to a fire pit near the center of the village, but quite a lot of it went to the pyramid. Elijah followed the latter.

The pyramid was maybe a hundred feet tall, with a flat top accessible via steps on any of the four sides. It not only reminded him of Aztec architecture, but also of the pyramid at the center of the Elemental Maelstrom.

Was it a coincidence? Or was it all connected somehow? Perhaps that was just the most stable way to stack stone blocks.

Whatever the case, Elijah soon found that the pyramid was the focus of quite a lot of ethera. The stones used in its construction were each densely inscribed with detailed enchantments, and when he set foot on the steps, he felt a thrum of energy passing through his feet.

He followed the workers to the top, where they unceremoniously threw the meet upon an altar before leaving the way they'd come. Elijah stuck around to see what would happen. However, he did avoid standing upon the flat top, instead staying on the top step of the stairs.

As it turned out, his caution was well founded, because as soon as the villagers retreated down the steps, the top of the pyramid erupted with fire and ethera. Flames blazed at all four corners, then shot to the center, tracing a dizzyingly complex design before consuming the meat on the altar.

It happened so quickly that Elijah didn't even feel the heat or smell the cooking meat until after the flames had dissipated.

As he stared at the now empty altar, he couldn't help but wonder what was going on.