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Race: Draconian

Bloodline Powers: Improved Strength+, Rending, Firebreath+

Greater Mysteries: Fire (Noble) 6, Wind (Noble) 5, Sound (Advanced) 2

Lesser Mysteries: Heat 4, Oxygen 4, Embers 4, Pressure 4, Current/Flow 4

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The snow was stamped flat by hundreds of goblin feet. Ash piles marked where a dozen or so cook fires had burned recently, but they were cool to the touch. A hundred other signs spoke to the abandoned encampment, ranging from the denuded nearby trees to the stool that covered the ground.

Samazzar shouldn’t have been surprised by the unsanitary nature of the camp. He’d spent months trapped in a goblin tribe with his siblings, and the concepts of both bathing and outhouses were well beyond the disgusting creatures. Still, maybe it was Vereton softening him, it was a shock to see the chaos left behind by a day or two of the creatures’ presence.

“Chief.”

He turned, Wessla was standing behind him, a frown on her face and a quiver of javelins on her back.

“The trees were stripped of bark,” she reported, nodding toward the nearby tiny pine forest. “Most of the trees were chopped down for lumber or firewood, and we couldn’t find any animals even though there were some older tracks and droppings.”

Wessla’s words might’ve been respectful, but there was something about the tilt of her head and the flash of defiance in her eyes that set Samazzar back a step. For a second, he thought about addressing it before giving up on that thought. They were in the middle of a rescue operation. Once they rescued the pups, then he could talk with the former chieftain about her attitude.

“What were they-” Samazzar stopped, frown deepening on his face. “Were the goblins eating the tree bark? I didn’t know that they could digest wood? I know that there is a very thin layer between the bark and the tree itself that isn’t entirely inedible, but they would have to be incredibly desperate to try and eat that.”

“One of my huntresses drew the short straw and went through some goblin droppings,” Wessla replied grimly. “She found bark. The goblins aren’t mountain goats. They couldn’t digest it. They’re moving from location to location, stripping their environment of food and fuel before migrating on like locusts.”

“They’re starving.” Takkla’s voice came from above, followed a second later by a rush of wings as the draconian landed. “I’ve found the goblin camp. They didn’t make it far before they had to stop again, and every goblin I’ve spotted is thin and shivering. They barely have the strength to start cooking fires, and they have nothing to cook. I haven’t seen anything like it.”

“I have,” Wessla responded. “For all of your siblings' power, the three of you are still very young. The winter I overthrew the previous Green Cliff chief was like this. There wasn’t much rain during the summer so many of the game animals died. Then, when the snows came, they made up for the drought by blanketing the mountains two paces deep. We couldn’t hunt. We couldn’t gather food. Kobolds tried to thaw snow for water, but a large number of them froze. There weren’t any options left but-”

She took a deep ragged breath, closing her eyes.

“We need to move chief. The pups are in danger. Goblins aren’t the most polite or civilized race in the mountains to begin with, but if they’re hungry to the point of starvation, anything could happen.”

Wessla opened her eyes and Samazzar felt his heart sink. For a brief moment, she looked older than Crone Tazzaera. There was a weariness there that was colder and deeper than the snows choking the furthest mountain passes. Then, Wessla shook her head. In an instant, the fiery chief of the hunters returned.

“Come Chief Samazzar, we need to hurry.”

She pulled a javelin from her quiver, stalking off in the same direction as the goblin tracks. He glanced at Takkla. His sibling had pursed her lips, a frown creasing the scales around her eyes. She shook her head slightly before motioning with a claw toward Wessla’s receding back.

Samazzar bunched his legs under him, leaving a fountain of snow in his wake as he jumped into the air. A second later, Takkla joined him, their wings beating in sync as they circled upward into the clear sky.

Beneath them, thirty kobolds, most with makeshift weapons, followed Wessla and her huntresses. The four female scouts, bodies hardened and scarred from tough lives of hunting game far larger than them, ranged between two and three hundred paces ahead of the rest of the formation. Dussok led the main body, Bronn proudly standing by his side.

The former kobold chief’s chest was puffed out as he stared at his draconian commander with sparkling eyes. Dussok was doing everything he could to ignore the kobold as Bronn tried his hardest to imitate everything about the big warrior from the tilt of his shoulders to the gait of his walk. If saving the pups weren’t so urgent, Samazzar would feel bad for Dussok, but his sibling would simply have to make due.

“Hurry up you laggards!” Samazzar winced at Bronn’s shout. Luckily the high pitched voice of a kobold, no matter how large for his kind, wouldn’t carry far, potentially preserving the element of surprise. “Lift your tails while you march. Stop making me look bad in front of Dussok!”

This time Samazzar winced, almost missing a beat of his wings. A quick glance downward revealed Dussok looking longingly up in the air. Samazzar felt a twinge of sympathy, but quickly pushed it down.

He closed his eyes, letting the wind give him all the information he needed. Colors faded away, replaced by a black and white map of the mountainside that stretched for leagues in every direction. Cliff faces covered in short stubby trees, valleys full of shaggy ox like beasts, empty snowfields, and silent pine forests, all of it felt like it was just at the tip of his claws.

Another pulse of wind burst forth from Samazzar’s wings, little more than the rustle of fabric over the fallen snow to the rest of the world, but a brilliant strobe of all illuminating light to his senses.

There.

Two leagues to the northwest, the goblin camp was as obvious as the snout on his face. Sitting some hundred fifty paces to the east of a pine forest, huddling beneath a snow-covered cliff that sheltered it from the worst of the mountain winds was an unnatural mass of angles and lumps.

Tents and campfires. Not nearly enough for the goblins gathered around them. Most were barely moving, huddled together for warmth, their arms wrapped around their knees. A couple, those that still had the strength to start fire and pitch tents huddled in their meager light and heat. Samazzar barely needed to use his mysteries to tell that the fires were weak things, mere candle flames shivering in the wind.

He changed his course, banking through the air as he aimed himself toward the goblins. At his side, Takkla matched him, the tips of her wings barely twitching to accomplish the same maneuver that took a full beat of the wings from Samazzar.

A grin plastered itself across his face. Sometimes, Takkla made him understand Dussok’s envy. Samazzar could fly. His wings beat a powerful steady rhythm, moving him efficiently from one point to another, but he might as well be a toad compared to Takkla.

When she flapped her wings, it was artistry. He’d seen her spin into a barrel roll with a twitch of her wingtips before diving toward a prairie field and pulling up at the last second, a flower that stood barely a pace above the swaying grass in her claws.

The precision and grace reminded him of Fel’Annthor. As much as taking flight ordinarily lightened Samazzar’s heart, it also triggered a feeling of envy deep in his gut. He had taken the first steps down the path toward becoming what he truly was, but each of those steps was like treading on nails.

Samazzar knew in his heart what a dragon acted and looked like. He was more like one now than he was a year ago, but at times, when he looked at his reflection in a puddle, he still saw a kobold. True, in those moments he stood on stilts to make himself look taller, and wearing wings crafted from cheap lumber and leaves, but his appearance was a clumsy facsimile of the dragon he truly was.

He took a deep breath, trying to push the thoughts away, but it was impossible to clear them entirely. Just like he could hear the wind and fire whispering to him when he opened himself to the mysteries he could feel a voice inside himself ridiculing the clumsy, amateurish beating of his wings and the pitiful heat of his breath.

“Little dragon.” Takkla’s voice snapped him back to the present.

“I can see the goblins without the mysteries now which means they will be able to see us shortly. Are we going to wait for the rest of the war band, or are the two of us going to move first?”

Anger welled up inside him. Whether it was at the goblins for daring to take the pups or at his earlier pitiful thoughts of self-hatred, Samazzar didn’t know. Regardless of its cause, it was like the mystery of fire was swelling around him and consuming his surroundings.

“I will land first,” the words tore themselves from his throat in a low growl. “The goblins are little more than starving beasts right now. We cannot trust them to not eat the pups. The rest of the hunting band will be there shortly. I only need to hold them off on the ground while you cover me from the air until the huntresses guide the ordinary warriors to our aid.”

Takkla didn’t respond verbally, instead removing her shortbow from the carrying case on her back and knocking an arrow. Samazzar still wasn’t entirely sure how she managed to fire the weapon accurately at full flight, but whether it was an application of the mystery of wind or an aspect of her bloodline, it was a sight to behold.

He tucked his wings to the side, diving toward the center of the encampment. One or two of the goblins spotted him falling from the sky. They pointed, trying and failing to alert their companions with weak, croaking gibberish.

Samazzar decided to fully announce his presence in an appropriately draconic way. He opened his jaws, spewing a blast of flame that he quickly fanned with the mysteries into an inferno. A tweak of his mind twisted the fire’s shape and it spread into a massive pair of wings, growing from Samazzar’s back and trailing far behind him.

Snow exploded around him as Samazzar slammed into the ground, evaporating and turning into mist as soon as it was exposed to the fire cloaking him. Goblins shrieked and croaked around him, unable to see Samazzar through the rapidly expanding cloud of scalding fog.

He didn’t know what he looked like from the outside, but it was easy to imagine. Thick white mist backlit by angry crackling flames. If Samazzar saw it without the mysteries revealing the truth, it would look like some ancient, apocalyptic beast had descended from the sky to take his head. Hopefully, it would scare the goblins into inaction.

Bolts of fire flew from Samazzar’s open claws, splashing into a pair of tents as their occupants spilled out into the snow. Another touch of the mysteries turned the thick, damp cloth into gouts of fire, dancing a dozen paces in the air. Even if the huntresses might have ordinarily struggled with their location, the light and smoke would be enough to draw their attention from leagues away.

Goblins began running. Most were weak and unsteady, barely managing to make it twenty paces on the uneven, powdery snow before stumbling and falling. Others, those with a little more strength, sprinted for the edge of the camp, scrambling over the fallen like they were downed logs.

In all of the chaos and confusion, not one goblin took a step toward Samazzar. There was no way that the feral creatures had enough presence of mind to communicate with each other, but universally they all seemed to know better than to approach the malevolent cloud of fog and fire.

Samazzar took a deep breath, internally wishing he had progressed slightly further in the mystery of sound, before he shouted in a booming voice.

“Bring the kobold pups to me and I will make your deaths swift and painless!”

The goblins trampled into the snow, their frail bodies heaving for breath, managed to find a second wind. They staggered to their feet, teetering uncertainly as they stumbled toward the imaginary freedom of the forest beyond the edge of the

Takkla circled above, bow in her hands, ready to shoot any of the goblins if they made a threatening action, but one and all the gibbering humanoids fled from their camp, leaving their handfuls of meager belongings and burning tents in their wake.

One goblin, a half pace taller than the rest and in actual control of its faculties, stepped out of the biggest tent in the camp. A second later, another goblin, a hair taller than the first, followed them outside, each of their hands on the shoulder of a kobold pup.

The pups were frightened but unharmed. The goblins on the other hand, didn’t look like they had eaten in days. Samazzar’s wind brushed over their skin, counting the bones in their arms and chest as they stood next to the small kobolds. Others might not have noticed it, but Samazzar could feel their frail forms shivering like a leaf in a gale underneath their loose-fitting robes.

Despite their obviously poor condition, the two goblins stood tall, pride stiffening their backs and necks. Samazzar couldn’t help but feel a sliver of admiration for the creatures. They had to know how outmatched they were, but that didn’t stop them from facing their fate.

He let the fire fade, using a touch of wind to blow the scalding cloud away and reveal himself to the goblins. The pups went wild, squirming in the grip of the emaciated goblin.

The one in the lead nodded, and their companion released the kobolds. The two of them ran toward Samazzar, scrambling over the churned snow to get away from their captors. As they ran, he noted that there weren’t any scars or cuts on them. Both of their scales were smeared with grime and soot, but other than that they were far healthier than they had any right to be.

“Thank the mysteries,” the closest goblin said with a deep sigh. “The little ones told us about their tribe and Chief, and it was like a ray of light shining down on us in the middle of a blizzard. We hoped beyond hope that you would arrive in time.”

“What?” Samazzar asked, blinking wildly as he swallowed a blast of flame that would have turned the two goblins to ashes.

They dropped to their knees together, placing their hands in the snow and lowering their heads in obeisance.

“Great Samazzar, Magus of the North, my people are shivering and starving. We ask- no, we beg of you. Even if it is as slaves, let our tribe join the ranks of Union City.”