At the Tavern

The noise in the tavern paused when Gogor shoved himself through the entrance.

“Good evening,” he hailed the persons inside and dodged past a joist.

“Welcome Sir!” The tubby owner dabbed a splotch off a table and put a jug of Jeje brew on it. “It’s on the house.”

“Thank you.” He wrung his soaked mantle, hung it by the hearth and then he pressed his legs under the table. “Do you have black soup?”

“For you Sir, I’ll make anything. Grubs or chicken?”

“Grubs.”

The owner dashed out through a door and Gogor heard him holler orders to someone. His marred hands gripped the jug and he sipped the Jeje, it had been watered-down, but still warmed his limbs.

“Did you fight at Hearahiriko?” a young man inquired while moving to Gogor’s table.

“Yes.” Curiosity burned in the young man’s eyes and Gogor smiled at the memory of his own youthful enthusiasm.

“Did you see the dragon?”

“I had the grand privilege of going into battle side by side with Aramhokk the Dragon and Ehuxa the Little.”

The front door opened and another Scarag warrior pushed through it.

“I wish people here were larger,” he grumbled as he disentangled his long black hair from a clinch in the ceiling.

“They serve black soup.”

“Grubs?”

“Yes.”

“I suppose it’s not all that bad then,” he chuckled and squeezed himself down by the table.

The owner came back bearing two hefty jugs and a wiggly stack of bowls. “Welcome Sir. This is on the house. Pickled toad tongues, fried dung beetles and cured Gazti embryos. I’ve heard it’s a delicacy in your home realm.”

“Thank you. I’d like black soup with grubs.”

“It’s being prepared as we speak Sir.” The owner scurried through the tavern, picked up dirty dishes and nudged the guests that gawked. The young man examined the content in the bowls with horrified titillation and Gogor pushed the one with tad tongues closer to him.

“Try one.” Gogor took a tongue, tore it in halves and dipped it in sauce. “The green sauce is milder; the purple burns your mouth.”

“I’m Bitxi,” the young man said while slicing a tongue.

“I’m Gogor and this is my brother Qulle.”

“Did you both meet the dragon?” Bitxi dipped the toad tongue in the green sauce and gulped it.

“His name is Aramhokk.” Qulle chewed on a beetle. “Mmm, tastes just as at home.”

“The story starts with Ehuxa the Little though.” Gogor dipped the tongue half in purple sauce. “It was Ehuxa that brought Aramhokk to the tunnels.”

“Who’s Ehuxa?” Bitxi coughed, his eyes watered and he grasped for air.

“Our pathfinder.” Qulle gave his Jeje jug to Bitxi. “Drink.”

“The best you could ever get. Didn’t think it when I saw him though.”

“He’s so puny; he’d seem insignificant to your people too.”

“There were Haerabib in the area. I thought one of their kids had snuck into our camp.”

“Have you seen a Haerabib?”

Bitxi shook his head while staring at the bug Qulle gave him.

“You’re supposed to eat them, not make friends with them.” Qulle twisted a leg of the beetle. “Try this first.”

“What’s a Haerabib?” Bixti asked and bit the beetle leg cautiously.

“Legend says they are spirits born from the sandstorms in the A’avikko desert. When you slay them they don’t perish, their spirits reshape in to Haerabib children.” Gogor emptied his jug and signalled the owner to bring more. “There are no female Haerabibs. They are all men.”

“Not that you’d know the difference,” Qulle said. “Their clothes cover them from top to toe, and masks cover their faces.”

“Anyone who removes the mask will be cursed. People have suffered ghastly deaths for trying.”

“They know ancient sorcery more potent than any other magic.”

The owner put two new Jeje jugs on the table and his servant brought bowls filled with black soup. “Let me know if you need something else.”

“Thank you.” Gogor stirred the soup and yellow grubs floated to the surface. “We first met Ehuxa as we marched into the eastern Wetlands. Our general was suspicious of him at first, but he carried a scroll with the royal mark on it, ordering us to bring him along.”

“The king himself wrote the scroll.” Qulle filled in and pushed his black soup bowl to Bitxi. “You should try this too.”

“The general didn’t like it. Ehuxa is small as a child and the general deemed him unable to protect himself.”

“I didn’t like the thought of babysitting him either.”

“Still, he proved invaluable. He’s the best pathfinder I’ve served with. And, he sure could fight.”

“I saw him take on and defeat two Boggs.” Qulle twisted the heads of two Gazti embryos and sucked the brains out with great delight.

“Have you seen Boggs?”

Bitxi shook his head while examining the grubs squirming in the soup.

“They are vicious creatures that dwell deep in the Wetlands. Their skin is covered with slimy acid, and it’s difficult to wash off.” Qulle showed the burn scars on his left arm.

“Ehuxa helped us a lot. Not only did he find a safe passage for the entire army, he also managed to persuade the Efirny to let us march through Sivasty.”

“The Efirny!” Bitxi grasped and stopped inspecting the grubs.

Those of the tavern guests who had tried to hide their curiosity for the Scarags stopped trying. The bravest of them went to sit closer to them and the owner stopped working to listen.

“He had us set up camp in a dell just out of sight of the border, then he left. We heard outlandish sounds through the night, but saw nothing. By the daybreak he came back to the camp, and told us that the Efirny had granted us passage through their lands.”

“It is the strangest thing I’ve ever seen.” Qulle took back the untouched soup and fished up a wriggling grub.

“Every plant had been removed overnight, and thick thorny bushes formed a tunnel for us to pass through. Ehuxa cautioned us against breaking even the tiniest twig. The Efirny would kill us if we did.”

“Did you see them? The Efirny?”

“Yes. They had overseers in the tunnel, sitting high above us, covering among the branches.”

“They didn’t hide. They intended us to know they were there.”

“What do they look like?” a woman asked.

“Pale, like the petals of the Kundon flowers. Small, just like you and their hair shifted in the colours of tree trunks. They flowed, like shadows and light falling through the canopy. Their clothes had the colours of the forest. They would have been invisible to us had they wanted to.”

“Their scent would have revealed them to us though.” Qulle pointed to his wide nose.

“Some spoke, and their voices sounded like the leaves of the bushes singing.”

“Chanting, not singing.”

“That’s how the army snuck by the Tekk-tekk border patrols. They didn’t secure the borders to Sivasty since they assumed the Efirny would never let anyone pass.”

“It’s never happened before. Foreigners can’t pass their borders and live to tell about it. Ehuxa never told us how he managed to persuade them to let us through.”

“Then he led us through the tunnels at At´a´hy. He said he’s been there before, in an earlier life, during the reign of Gaiztok. From there the army spread out into the lowlands and the desert while our troop kept on going.”

“He showed us the great lake. I’ve never seen as much water before.”

“It takes months to travel across it. My uncle did it once when he was young.” Bixti chewed on a beetle as if he had done it all his life.

“You have to tell me all about it later.” Qulle looked at Bixti’s with new interest. “I’d like to travel the great lake too.”

“Ehuxa revealed a secret passage leading into the Haerahiriko city. We planned to sneak in and open the gates for the army.”

“That’s when we met Aramhokk the Dragon.”

“Ehuxa trekked ahead of us to find the right path. We caught up with him in a large cave with a massive magic enforced gate. It would have taken us weeks to toil our way through it. The general wondered how we would get past it in time to help the army, and Ehuxa pulled the dragon out of his pouch.”

“Just like that.”

“It was the tiniest beast I’ve ever seen.” Gogor measured a size smaller than the nail on his pinkie. “I’ve never seen a dragon before and I have to admit, I was disappointed. We had a huge gate to get through and a baby dragon to help us. He crawled into a small crack. Squeezed through to the other side, and simply opened the gate for us. That’s when we discovered that he could change his size. His massive body filled the tunnel from wall to wall. From there he went ahead of us, to clear the path and quench his hunger. He ate the whole soldiers, clothes, armour, everything.”

“He left shoes with the feet still in them when he started to get full. I understand him; stinky feet wouldn’t be high on my menu either.” Qulle sucked greenish goo out of a grub and grinned at a young woman who seemed about to faint.

“Then we divided. Some entered the castle to find and kill the warlock; whiles the rest of us followed Aramhokk through the sewers. On the general’s signal we burst out of the sewers by the city wall. Aramhokk took a tremendous size and tore half the gate and part of the wall with him. We ran to the top and started taking down the archers. Aramhokk flew along and tore the wall down here and there to let our army in.”

“You should have seen him, magnificent and powerful. The sharp edges on his claws and fangs shimmered in the light and cut through enemy flesh effortlessly.”

“Everybody fought frantically, crushing the foe between us, Aramhokk and the army.”

“Ehuxa cut down both archers and knights. Many of them.”

“The general is a great swordsman. Still, even he had a hard time keeping up with the little pathfinder.”

“Victory was ours. Only a few foes still fought. Then Ehuxa fell.”

“Speared on a knight’s sword.”

“He died like a hero, covered in the blood of slain foes.”

“Aramhokk landed by his friend’s side. He picked him up and a blazing flash blinded us. The light faded and they were both gone.”

“Vanished.”

Solemn silence hung heavy in the tavern as the information about the dragon sank into their minds. There had been no dragons in living memory, Aramhokk was presumably the last dragon in the world and now he was gone.