(Path of the Dragon Mage: Book 2) 7. It's Not The Size of The Rune... (Patreon)

A/N: Apology for typos. I'm trying to edit from a borrowed tablet.

Night had fallen and a three-quarter moon had risen above the eastern horizon. Corvus sat astride NightShade’s back, his arms around Gwen’s waist. For the first time in a long time, he wished that the Horse Folk used a saddle.

“Ready?” Gwen asked.

Corvus checked his seat, tightened his legs around NightShade’s barrel, and then glanced over at Charm. The dragon looked distinctly unhappy, but she had given up trying to talk him out of this.

He had to see the rune for himself, and she could not yet carry him.

“Ready,” he said.

NightShade took off on the word, galloping at breakneck speed across the plains. He was faster than any horse had the right to be—his hooves sparkled with the reflected glory of the silver moon.

 Charm leaped into the sky, her copper-edged wings sweeping down to catch height.

NightShade did not fly. He didn’t have wings. Instead, he ran into the sky. Every step took him higher and higher into the air as if he were using moonbeams as stepping stones.

It was a special spell he and Gwen had chosen in exchange for moon essences. Thanks to a bounty Larissa had collected over the years, they had made it to intermediate level.

Unfortunately, Gwen and Corvus had found no other demon creature which dropped Silver Moon essences. They seemed to be restricted to the lake around Duckwater village. Nor had they seen any for sale in various marketplaces. Corvus flatly refused to steal them. His sense of right and wrong had undergone some shifts since joining the Horse Folk, but he would never become a thief.

Soon, they were above the height of a building and still climbing.

Charm flapped in wide, slow circles nearby. Though she said nothing, it was obvious she was watching in case Corvus slipped off.

Gwen, of course, was never in danger of falling off her own horse. Corvus was not the rider she was. Not yet.

You should be on me, Charm grumbled irritably.

Gwen called out, her voice made thin by the rushing wind. “Can you see it?”

She rode the horse who could step on moonbeams, but he was the one with the Night Vision. Tearing his gaze from Charm, he looked down to judge the lay of the land. “Not all of it. Can you go higher?”

NightShade’s answer was to lengthen his stride as if galloping up an invisible hill. Corvus tried not to be nervous. Their moon-stepping spell was finite, and NightShade and Gwen had taken some nasty landings before. He had to trust that they knew their business now.

At last, they were high enough to see the land spread out before them. Between his Night Vision and Rune Sight abilities, the entire rune stood out like a torch-lit fire against a dark backdrop.

Corvus pulled out a sheet of parchment, a stick of coal, and started to draw. He worked frantically, knowing he would have seconds at best.

Sure enough, NightShade started to descend. He spent the time furiously scribbling, trying to fill in details of the rune by memory.

Ding!

You have increased your Literacy Skill

New Level - Intermediate 38

That was a welcome surprise. Literacy was a general skill, which was a catch-all for his reading, writing, and calligraphy. He had occasionally added experience to it via creative drawing as well. He wasn’t drawing this rune to the precision he would need to activate it — something this complex would have been impossible at a glance. So the experience must have fed into his creative pursuits instead.

It might have been his imagination, but it seemed like the lines became subtly sharper. His hand flowed a touch more easily over the paper.

NightShade landed with a jarring thud and Corvus cursed as he scraped a thick line through the middle.

He tried to smudge it out with the side of his hand, but then immediately returned to scribbling. He must not lose the detail.

Roan rode up to them on CloudStrike’s back. He had seen what he called NightShade’s little trick before, but his eyes were still pinched with a combination of worry and jealousy. “Well?” he asked. “Did you see it?”

Corvus didn’t bother to answer. Pausing only to slide off NightShade’s back, he laid his parchment flat on the dirt and continued scribbling. Only when he had filled in as much as he could accurately remember without guessing did he pause and look at it.

His lips pinched. He’d seen a glimpse of the shapes from up high, and the drawing only reinforced it.

“What does this look like to you?”

Gwen and Roan came over to look down at the page, each tilting their head in the opposite direction. Corvus gazed down, too.

In truth, he only knew for certain that it was a rune because of the clean barrier circle surrounding it. The inside was speckled with objects which had precisely impacted the ground and exploded out. Almost as if they had created their own inner runes.

In his experience, the inner lines of runes — the glyphs — must be precise. This was messy and disordered close up. Only by taking in the whole rune from far away did the shapes begin to make sense. Like trying to read an entire page by pressing his eye to the page.

He hoped his conclusions were wrong.

Roan held up a lit lamp so he could better see. “It’s kind of like a tree with wavy lines?” He guessed. “On a windy day?”

“It’s not a tree,” Gwen said, “And it looks familiar, but I can’t place why or now—“ She froze and looked at Corvus. “The way the lines branched off from one another… Do you think…?”

He knew where she was going and shook his head. “No, I don’t think it’s supposed to represent the Paths.” Those were represented by many lines branching off from various choices, but these traces on the runes weren’t meant to be lines.

Roan snorted. “Well? If you know what it is, just tell us. Don’t be so dramatic.”

“I’m just hoping I’m wrong,” Corvus muttered. He knelt, and with quick flicks of the charcoal stick, he outlined the lines as he explained.

“First, we have this long, curving shape. It looks like a snake or some depictions of a serpent. But at the end, we have this ball-shaped structure. Then, shorter serpent shapes erupting out—but they aren’t twisted like a snake, are they?” He rubbed at his forehead, realizing after he did it that he had just spread a line of charcoal across his face. Frowning, he continued. “It looks a little like a tree, except these shorter shapes are in a starburst pattern. And then there’s what’s connected to the starburst.”

He swiftly outlined the collection of speckles that were the impact craters. Finally, they took on a more recognizable shape.

The smaller ones coming off the starburst looked like rats. A circle of rats, all connected in a knotted ball to the tip of a much larger rat tail.

Gwen sucked in a breath.

“The ratkin?”

“The Rat Queen.” Corvus pointed to the largest serpentine shape. “This is her tail where she keeps her living flail.”

He, Gwen, and Roan had faced a ratkin swarm before. It had been a close thing, and they’d later learned that was a very small swarm. They had grown large enough to overrun entire villages.

“What does the rune do, Corvus?” Roan asked. Typically, he was either sarcastic or complaining. Now he was deadly serious.

Corvus shook his head. “I don’t know—“

“Guess, then.”

“I won’t know for sure unless I activate one just like it,” he said, “But usually runes depicted of a single species funnel the magical power only to that species. CloudStrike’s fertility shoe has one for horses — that way no woman gets pregnant after being around her. So whatever this is, it might be directed only at ratkin.”

“You don’t sound sure,” Gwen observed.

He stood, shaking his head. “Because I’m not. Those types of runes are an outline of a species. This is only the tail — the part that binds the Queen rat to her flail. That’s significant.” He turned towards the direction of the rune, and then shook his head. “Furthermore, it’s not linked by any other rune, so it should only do that one thing. But I’ve never seen a rune constructed like this. Sometimes the medium in which the rune is constructed matters, too. I just…” He shook his head, frustrated. “I’m starting to think there’s a lot about runes I don’t know.”

Ding!

You have increased your Rune Lore skill.

New level - Intermediate 15

He winced. Well, that was an indication he was on the right track.

Gwen’s expression was somewhere between grossed out and disgusted. “So, a dragon has constructed a rune for the ratkin. Do you think the dragon is trying to make a ratkin flail, like the queen had?”

Never, Charm said. Rats are for eating, not attaching to your tail and hitting things with it. What is the point?

Corvus shrugged.  “For all I know, there might be a swarm nearby and he or she is using this rune to chase them away.”

“Like a scented candle for bugs,” Roan said sagely. “Smart.”

Gwen gave Corvus a look. “I don’t believe that, and you don’t either.”

“No, I don’t,” he admitted.

“Wait,” Roan said, “Has your quest thing updated?”

“No.”

Roan shrugged. “We are searching for a dragon. Seems to me, we’re still on the right trail. Maybe when we find it, you can ask. CloudStrike and I will watch from a distance.” He looked at the drawing. “A really safe distance.”

 * * *

Since they seemed to be on the right track, they decided against returning to the road. Instead, they continued over the raw land to the north and east for signs of the dragon.

Corvus had dealings with feral dragons several times before. Each had a large range which included a hunting ground and a concealed denning area. The best bed on locating any dragon was while it was out hunting.

As they rode over increasingly rocky terrain, Charm flew ahead to search for scents of dragons in the air. The night was growing late -- it had to be near midnight by now. Corvus was just thinking about finding a place to camp and sleep when Charm’s voice broke through his thoughts.

I found another rune.

Instantly, he was as alert as if he had drunk some of Kale’s morning tea. “Where?”

I’ll return and show you the way.

“Charm’s found another rune,” he said aloud.

“Great,” Roan replied. “I love camping around a pile of creepy animal bones.” Apparently, he’d been thinking of stopping for the night, too.

Gwen gave Corvus a concerned look. “Is it as large as the first one?”

Charm hadn’t told him specifically, but through the link of the bond, he knew the answer anyway. “Yes.”

Charm arrived shortly after and led them to another killing field. It was indeed the same size and, as far as Corvus could tell, the same shape.

Only the bones and smashed debris seemed newer and not as weathered by age. More of the animal carcasses had scraps of hide attached.

“Strange that scavenger animals haven’t come by and dragged all these bones around,” Gwen noted. She had dismounted NightShade and was pacing the perimeter of the large rune, peering at the ground. She didn’t have Corvus’s night vision, but the moon was bright enough in the clear sky to cast shadows. “I don’t see any animal tracks whatsoever.”

Charm’s reply was loud enough for everyone to hear. The lower animals taste magic. They know to stay away.

Roan was busy examining what had once been a trader’s cart. The bones of the mule that had once been attached lay by the shattered yoke. “Awful way to go. And it seems like people would have noticed their animals and gear missing.”

“Maybe they thought there was a band of thieves in the area,” Corvus said. He stood back at the rune and frowned. There was one surefire way to know exactly what this rune was meant to do, but it was risky. “Charm, what do you think? If you and I combine our mana reserves--”

Charm made an inelegant squawk. Don’t you dare try to charge a rune this big!

“It’s not the size of the rune, it’s the--“

Also, she said, it belongs to someone else. Can’t you taste it?

Corvus hadn’t noticed. He closed his eyes, trying to sense the rune with senses other than sight. Only when he bent and touched a long cracked femur bone did he sense a tingle of magic. He felt... a sense of intent.

He opened his eyes. “It’s a single rune. How can it have an ownership stamp?”

You said it yourself: You’ve never seen a rune like this before. Maybe the rules are different.

“Maybe--“ He stopped as a breeze seemed to lift through him.

Ever since he had escaped his mother, he had been wary of the wind. However, none of the sparse grass waved. The breeze wasn’t outside--it was a force lifting through him. No, it wasn’t a breeze. It was a rushing force. Something building.

And it was coming from the bones.

His eyes shot open. He hadn’t realized he’d closed them.

“Get out of the circle! It’s activating!”

Thankfully, Roan and Gwen were close enough to hear his shout. They both stood near the edge anyway and it took only a moment to step clear. Corvus, who had been examining the inner parts of the rune, was last out.

His foot had barely left the barrier before Charm barked in alarm and took to the sky. Her head was turned to the southwest. Something brilliant lit the sky -- like a thousand blue torches -- in the direction they had come.

In an instant, the gathering energy from the rune crested. The bones lit into a brilliant runic blue. Hundreds of them.

And then beyond, to the north and east, another brilliant blue light lit the sky. Then another beyond that. And another.

There’s a whole chain of them! Charm called down from where she circled in the sky. They’re all leading to the northeast!

“That can’t be possible!” Corvus said. “The mana required to activate something this large-- and a chain of them? Why?”

NightShade tossed his head, turning to face the dusky black hills. CloudStrike did the same.

“Something’s coming,” Roan warned, going to his horse to pull his hammer out of the straps.

I can’t see! Charm said. These runes are too bright.

“Stay up there and be ready.” Corvus turned from the brightly lit rune. Within moments, his night vision readjusted to gloom.

He spotted movement... and it took him a few moments to understand what he was looking at. The creature seemed to be undulating.

No. It wasn’t one creature. It was at least ten.

A tiny collection of ratkin. Small, level one and two creatures no more than a foot long clustered together and arrowing straight towards them. A single larger ratkin was in the middle, though there were no others attached to its tail. The swarm was too tiny to host a queen.

They moved fast. Soon, they had come close enough for the others to see.

Gwen made a disgusted sound and reached for her bow and arrow.

“Wait,” Corvus said, “Let’s see what they do.”

Because it was obvious the ratkin weren’t aimed directly towards them, but to the side. Their only goal in mind was the glowing rune.

Part of the reason they had survived the swarm last time was because they had a fire at their backs and the ratkin seemed afraid of the flames. They didn’t mind the light from the rune now. In fact, they were drawn straight toward it.

As soon as they reached the barrier the lights flashed a blinding white... and the entire cluster disappeared.

“Did... did they just die?” Roan asked.

“I don’t smell any smoke.” But Gwen didn’t sound sure. “Maybe this is a ratkin trap?”

“Great. Maybe we can build one for ugalo wasps,” Roan muttered. “I hate those things.”

Corvus looked down at his drawing again and then back at the lit rune. “I don’t think it killed them.”

Charm landed nearby, but stretched her neck towards the distant chain of giant runes. I do not like where your thoughts are going.

“We have to be sure,” he muttered, and louder he said, “We need to follow the chain of runes. I think... I think the dragon will be at the end.”

And he only hoped these runes didn’t act like giant ratkin funnels. Otherwise, the dragon would not be alone.