A Thousand Year Voyage- Chapter 31

Marwyn had never been more grateful for the feel of earth beneath his boots than when they finally descended from that cursed contraption.

He stood for a long moment simply breathing, staring at the soil, drinking in the ordinary solidity of it. Gods, it had been too long since he had touched the ground, too long spent where no man belonged—dangling above the world like a leaf in a gale.

If this was the magic of the new age, he thought grimly, then he wanted none of it. Let others scrape the sky. He would be Marwyn the Grounded.

In truth, the journey itself had been bizarrely short. Flying above the peaks had carried them into Dorne far quicker than any road, their strange “flying balloon” allowing them to sail over mountains in no time at all.

Talia—his new master—had not landed at the border, instead taking them further south, into the lush heartlands where rivers braided and split across fertile meadows. Only then had she guided the contraption down.

Not because of any plan, of course. Talia rarely bothered with plans. She had simply seen something glimmering in the water below, something that made her grin and tug them lower.

They settled in a tangle of riverside brush, the balloon deflating behind them with a weary sigh. At once, Talia set about hiding it. With a flick of her hand and a muttered incantation, canvas and wicker warped into the shape of a great, grey boulder. Amazingly, the disguise was not mere illusion; when he touched it, it was solid, cold, unyielding as stone. According to Talia, only a deliberate blow would reveal the balloon beneath.

Another spell in the long list of things he desperately wanted to learn from her.

When they stepped out of the thicket, the landscape unfurled before them in quiet majesty. A wide, sluggish river wound past, its surface gleaming like molten silver under the sun. Tall reeds bent in the breeze, their feathery heads whispering against each other. The air was heavy with the smell of damp earth and green life. Out on the water, narrow boats glided like shadows. He could just make out the figures of fishermen at work, hauling nets hand over hand.

It was a tranquil place. Almost disarmingly so, at odds with the stories that painted Dorne as a place of heat and sand.

And then he saw it.

The turtle.

It moved through the river like a drifting hill. Larger than any elephant he had ever seen—almost as large as the trolls of the Inbetweeners—it was immense beyond reason. Its shell, vast as a roof, glistened wet beneath the sun, each plate ridged and cracked like ancient stone. Every step it took stirred the river into turbulence, great limbs driving whirlwinds through the water. There was an odd dignity in its movements, one difficult to describe yet impossible to deny. The turtle’s head would turn to the side once a while, its eyes, dark and wet, regarding the banks with unhurried calm. There was majesty in the act, like a monarch surveying its watery realm.

Old Man of the River—that was the name of the beast, taken from a lesser god in Rhyonish mythology, a turtle said to be the son of Mother Rhyone herself. Supposedly, every turtle in these waters was the goddess’, some even believed that the true Old Man of the River still wandered here in secret, hidden among his kin.

Marwyn had studied such tales during his pursuit of the arcane, but the Citadel sources, even the ones regarding the Rhyonish sorcery, were not overly focusing on those animals, treating their significance as entirely cultural and religious, with no arcane connotations.

But seeing the creature with his own eyes made Marwyn doubt the scholars’ easy dismissals. This was no mere animal. not divine, no—but there was a weight to it, something not entirely mundane.

He stood in silence, entranced—until his master shattered it.

“Marwyn, we did it!” Talia declared, her voice ringing bright and triumphant. Even though the mask hid her face, the woman’s excitement was palpable. She practically bounced on her toes, arms flung wide toward the river. “Our quest to learn the water sorceries is all but complete!”

Marwyn blinked.

“…What?” He managed, unsure what his master meant. How did the sight of an animal—even one so magnificent—complete their quest? Did she mean the Rhyonish sorcerers would surely be near, given the beast’s religious significance? "What do you mean, master?"

“What do I mean by ‘what do I mean’?!” Talia spun on him, scandalized.  “I mean, just look at him! A wise beast! And so big! Imagine how much knowledge it must have!”

The turtle, as if summoned by her shout, paused mid-step. Its great head swung ponderously toward them, eyes like wet black stones fixing on the riverbank.

“…Wisdom?” Marwyn muttered under his breath, squinting at its wrinkled features. It was enormous, sure. Majestic, certainly. But wise? He saw no glimmer of sage counsel in its wrinkled face. After all, why should he? It was just an animal. “Is this one of your ‘How do you not know this, Marwyn? It’s common knowledge, Marwyn’ lessons again, master? Because I can never tell…”

“Of course it’s common knowledge!” Talia snapped back, indignant. She thrust a finger at the turtle. “Turtles and tortoises are the wisest of beasts. Everyone knows this! Pastor Miriel—one of the oldest and wisest beings in the world—is a tortoise!”

“…So maybe,” Marwyn said carefully, “they’re only considered wise because one of them happened to be very old and very wise?”

Talia hesitated for a second, tilting her masked head as though giving the notion weight. Then she shook briskly, folding her arms with absolute finality.

“No. You speak silly things, Marwyn. You still have much left to learn.” And with that decisive dismissal, she turned back to the turtle and strode toward the water, her voice rising in a solemn cry. “O, great beast of wisdom! Hear me!”

The turtle did not react, save to blink once—slowly, heavily—at the approaching human, seemingly not finding her threatening.

Marwyn sighed, shoulders sinking, and followed, dutiful apprentice that he was.

At the water’s edge, Talia raised her arms high and addressed the beast in clear, ringing tones, as though she fully expected it to lift its colossal head and answer her in the common tongue.

“O great beast, mighty you are, and mighty must be your wisdom! I am Talia, head of the Lunar Conspectus, seeker of truths from distant lands!” She gestured grandly over her shoulder. “This is Marwyn, my apprentice! He is terribly inexperienced, but he has some potential!”

She turned to look at him expectantly.

Marwyn held her gaze for a moment, deadpan. Then, with a long sigh, he relented.

“…Greetings, great beast.” he said flatly.

“Excellent,” Talia said with crisp satisfaction, whirling back to the turtle. “We are seekers of knowledge. Please, share your wisdom with us, mighty—”

“Old Man of the River.” Marwyn muttered.

“—mighty Old Man of the River!” Talia finished without missing a beat, nodding as though she had intended it all along. “Our motives are pure, our minds eager!”

For a long, stretched moment, nothing happened. The turtle stared. They stared back.

And then, ponderously, it lowered its head.

The air shifted. A low hum rippled through the river—not quite sound, but vibration, a resonance that sank into his bones. Marwyn staggered, clutching his chest as something vast poured through him. Cool as riverwater. Heavy as stone. Endlessly enduring, like the slow grind of mountains, the patient turning of years.

For a heartbeat, the world was not separate. Not distant. It was within him.

And then it ended. The weight receded, the hum faded, and Marwyn was once again himself. And yet…something lingered. Something in him had opened, just a crack, his soul changing ever so slightly.

He looked down at his trembling hands, then raised them slowly, to look back at the animal.

But the Old Man was already moving, its massive head swinging toward the current. With the ponderous dignity of an ancient monarch, the beast turned away and pressed onward into deeper waters.

“No!” Talia cried, her voice sharp with frustration. She thrust her arms upward as though intending to drag the turtle back by sheer will. “O wise one, I want no blessing! I am no disciple of faith! I seek truth, not grace—show me not incantation, but principles and formulas! The workings! The calculations! That is what I desire!”

The Old Man did not answer. Slowly, silently, it sank into the river’s depths, until only ripples remained.

Talia stood at the bank, glaring at the water with her fists clenched. “Can you believe it, Marwyn? The first beast of wisdom we meet in this land, and it offers only a blessing!”

Marwyn did not answer at once. He stared at the ripples, chest still thrumming with the echo of the mysterious power.

“No.“ Finally, he muttered, almost to himself. “I don’t believe it at all.”

***

The mountains sprawled beneath her wings like some endless blanket of stone, fold after fold of ridges and valleys. They went on forever, or at least it felt that way. Every so often Adula gave her wings a harder beat, air hissing sharply through the gaps between her glintstone-plated scales, to release some of the Irritation that bubbled inside her like an itch she couldn’t reach.

Seriously. Why was this place so stupidly big?

She’d spent what felt like half her life here already—though in truth only the past month—drifting from one jagged peak to another, always chasing that same stubborn scent yet never quite catching it. Always near, but never close. Just… teasing.

Besides a few breaks and that particularly insufferable local creature that wouldn’t stop screeching until she silenced it with a gift” her days had been nothing but the same dull rhythm. Fly. Smell. Turn. Fly again.

And still nothing. No glimpse of her quarry. Not even a claw-mark to go on. Just that damn smell—always lingering, never close. It was maddening. When she finally found him, she swore she’d bite his tail off for the trouble.

She dipped lower, scales catching the light in flashes, glintstone glittering faintly. Below, a river wound silver through the valley, sunlight rippling on its surface. Maybe a cold drink would take the edge off this miserable chase.

But as she banked down, her nostrils flared.

The scent spiked sharp, no longer a whisper, but a clear call.

Adula’s maw curled into a jagged grin, teeth like broken glass glinting in the light.

Finally.

The river was forgotten in an instant. She snapped her wings, banking hard to the left, her body cutting through the air. She arrowed down the valley, every beat of her wings driving her faster, hunger and anger and thrill coiling through her chest.

The trail led her into a cleft between jagged peaks, the valley narrow and mean. And there—pressed along the riverbank like mold—sat a cluster of huts.

A village.

Adula’s crest spines rattled faintly, a tremor of scorn. The sight curdled in her gut with disappointment. Not only were these humans—mammal upstarts she had never held in high regard—but their settlement was so crude it hardly deserved the name. Crooked timber, hides stretched, smoke coughing from the firepits. It was a crude and primitive sight, even worse than the sorry excuses for dwellings she’d seen along her journey.

Still, the smell was here, stronger and thicker than in the rest of those Bayle-forgotten mountains. It clung to the village like mist, rising from these little creatures and their shabby hovel-town.

Perhaps her quarry truly was here. Perhaps he had decided to rule these pathetic scraps, keeping them as pets, playthings or servants. Ranni and her mate had their subjects fawn over them and meet their every whim with devotion, so she supposed there were some advantages to owning inferiors.

Her decision was made.

The first shouts carried up from below—thin voices shrilling in panic as eyes turned skyward. She smiled, jagged teeth flashing.

Then she folded her wings tight to her body and dropped.

The wind howled in her ears, the mountains blurred to streaks of gray and green, and then she slammed down with the force of a falling star.

Impact thundered through the valley. The ground split beneath her talons, earth buckling, huts shuddering, thatch exploding into the air in ragged tufts. Her claws carved furrows deep in the soil as she straightened, wings mantling wide.

And then the screaming began in earnest.

Adula stretched to her full height, wings flaring wide, tail carving lazy arcs behind her. Her eyes, hard and bright, swept the village with leisurely precision, noting each pathetic detail: the scurrying of fur-wrapped bodies, their pathetic shrieks, the dropped tools.

The village looked even worse up close. It was not merely primitive—it was wretched. The huts, little more than timber frames stuffed with hides. Muddy tracks wound between them, slick with animal dung and the refuse of meals. The air tasted acrid, thick with woodsmoke.

The people matched their hovels perfectly. They were clad in roughspun furs and hides of crude design. What passed for weapons were either sharp stones bound to sticks or clearly looted pieces of weaponry, rusted from misuse. Their hair was a tangle of knots and grease, their teeth jagged and yellow. Wild things in human shape—little better than beasts. Adula doubted they even knew the word sophistication.

She then noticed a fairly unusual detail, however.

Almost every single one of those people bore the same mark—burns. Fingers gone, mangled stumps where they once were. Ears melted down to nubs. Faces blistered and twisted like wax too close to the flame. One man’s eye socket was a dark, melted pit; another woman’s skin was a tangled lattice of ridges. She even spotted such bizarre sight as nipples seared away, replaced by twisted tissue.

Adula blinked once, eyelids clicking shut and open.

Was her quarry…branding those people or something? Like livestock? She supposed it was clever in a crude sort of way—it ensured that people would never forget whose human was whose. But still… by Bayle, what an ugly herd.

Many of the villagers had scattered by now, shrieking like startled hens, vanishing into their crooked huts or running out of the village. Yet some lingered. They froze in place, rooted by fear or perhaps awe, staring up at her with wide, shining eyes.

She let them stare, because she knew it was not their fault.

She was magnificent, after all.

A full minute passed, people either screaming or utterly silent, but then—something changed.

From the largest hut in the village, a crude longhouse, a group began to emerge, their bearing almost…martial. Adula tilted her head, amused. Ah, the defenders.

They were what might pass for warriors here, she supposed. Their armor was mostly chainmail, but the rest of the armor differed greatly between each person, all of them seemingly wearing only what they had managed to loot. In their hands were steel swords and shields of at least adequate quality. Their bodies bore even worse burns than the others—faces melted half-away, hands mutilated, skin cracked. They advanced, stepping in ragged unison, their ruined bodies approaching her.

Leading them was a figure draped in charms and trinkets of bone and feather, daubed in strange paints that streaked across burned flesh. Older than the warriors, his face was a ruin: everything save the eyes and mouth devoured by flame. It was clearly a deliberate mutilation, inflicted with purpose.

Adula’s grin split wide, fangs flashing, tail swaying in a lazy rhythm.

Finally. Something to burn.

Her claws flexed, curling into the dirt until deep furrows split beneath them. Heat began to build in her chest, a slow, swelling furnace. The glintstones embedded in her throat sparked alive one by one, pulsing faintly like stars. She could feel it gather, that bloom of warmth rising through her throat.

Normally, she was not allowed to hurt people without reason. That rule had been beaten into her—quite literally—by Ranni, who insisted that “her” dragon could not simply go around killing whenever she pleased.

But here, at last, she had her excuse.

These villagers would come at her, wouldn’t they? Their weapons, crude though they were, were lifted in her direction. Their scarred faces were set with grim determination. They were here to defend their hovels, to defend the man they served. They would strike first—she would simply retaliate.

Self-defence, clean and justifiable.

…If one squinted their eyes.

The heat swelled higher in her throat, her chest vibrating faintly with the force of it. The glow in her throat brightened, dazzling, sapphire flame caged behind her teeth. Already she pictured them writhing, their blistered bodies turning to ash.

The warriors drew close, their gazes fixed on her. Yet their eyes blazed not with fear, but with raw, searing intensity. Adula lowered her head—

And then, one by one, they fell on their knees.

The elder dropped first, his ruined body crashing into the dirt. The warriors followed, collapsing like wheat cut by a scythe. Shields and spears clattered uselessly to the ground, foreheads pressing into the mud. Behind them, the crowd moved as if swept by an unseen tide—men, women, even children throwing themselves on the ground, arms outstretched, voices breaking in ragged cries.

Adula froze mid-breath. The fire guttered in her throat with a hiss, trailing sparks between her teeth.

The elder raised his head. His face was a ruin of melted flesh, yet his voice rang out like thunder, carrying a deep conviction.

“Oh, great dragon, sent by the Fire-Witch! Blessed is your arrival! After so long, you return to us with the gift of immolation. We are ready—ready to taste your flames! Burn us! Cleanse us of weakness! Let us taste your fire!”

The words struck the valley like a bell. Silence followed, deep as a grave. No one stirred. No one breathed. Every villager’s gaze locked onto her—not with terror, not with despair. Their eyes shone wide and bright, glittering with awe, with reverence.

With worship.

For a heartbeat, Adula only stared, jaw slightly agape, caught somewhere between disbelief and boiling fury.

Then her tail lashed, smashing through a nearby hut with a crack. Her roar followed, voice booming off the mountainsides like an avalanche breaking loose.

“Damn it all! What is wrong with the people in these lands?!” she bellowed. “Do you just… not fear dragons on principle?!”

Somehow, her words—the fact she was able to speak at all—only deepened the reverence in everyone’s eyes.

***

The Kingswood lay hushed. High branches swayed in the wind, their green leaves whispering softly, their shifts allowing the light to fall in broken patterns across the earth. Shafts of gold danced on the ground, dappling roots and brambles, illuminating the darkness of the deep forest.

It was a good day for an ambush, Simon supposed.

He sat pressed into the gnarled base of an ancient oak, its trunk wide enough to swallow three men whole. One knee was bent, the other leg stretched forward, his sword laid across his lap like a sleeping hound. Steel and leather weighed on his shoulders, yet he felt no burden—his body was strong and his heart filled with purpose. His eyes lingered on the bark above him, tracing the deep grooves and scars in the wood, thoughtful, almost distant.

Around him, men crouched waiting, utterly silent, eyes fixed on the rutted path below. Ruffians. Outcasts. Vagabonds and oathbreakers. These were his…comrades, he supposed. Because each of those epithets fit him as well.

He was Simon Toyme, a knight from the house most disgraced.

His house name was once spoken with respect. Once it meant knighthood, honor and glory, a place among the other lords of the Seven Kingdoms. His forebears had been men of duty, men of oaths, men who stood proud when others bent.

And now?

Nothing. The name was thrown into the dirt and forgotten, their lands taken and their honor stripped for daring to disagree with the dragonlords—dragonlords who, these days, had no dragons at all.

His hand curled tight around the hilt of his blade as memory surged, his jaw clenching until his teeth began to ache.

Rage pulsed in him like a second heart, hot and relentless. It beat in his veins, crawled under his skin, swelled in his chest until his ribs felt like they were about to splinter. He could feel the beast inside—hungry, restless, always whispering in the dark corners of his mind. It clawed at him with phantom claws, hissing for release, ordering him to tear, rend and break, rip apart the word that scorned him.

And he had been so close—so very close—to opening the cage. To becoming nothing more than the rage that ruled him.

But then—She came.

The Lady.

He remembered the first time he heard her voice.

It rang like a bell, clear and unflinching, and yet it burned too—every word laced with fire. She spoke of tearing down the old order, of dragging kings from their thrones and throwing crowns into the dirt. She spoke of shackles shattered, of men no longer bent beneath the yoke of petty tyrants. She spoke of firebrands, of those too proud to kneel, too defiant to bow, ready to spill their blood if it meant a freer tomorrow.

And she believed. Gods, she truly believed.

It was not the kind of speech a noble would give, gilded and practiced. No—it came raw, from her bones, from the marrow. That was why Simon had believed too. Her words lit something in him he thought long dead.

And he had not been alone.

One by one, they had come. Vagabonds with blood on their hands. Outlaws with no roofs over their heads. Broken knights, stripped of honor. Hardened men who had not wept in years found their eyes wet as they listened, as they saw her look upon them—not with disgust, not with scorn, but with understanding. With acceptance.

Because when she looked at them—the broken, the guilty, the discarded—she saw their souls, tarnished and rotting. And still, she welcomed them.

The Lady called upon the fallen knights and gave them a second chance. She took the oathbreakers and gave them new oaths to swear. To the dishonored she offered redemption. To the wretched she brought dignity. To the purposeless she gave a purpose.

Fair, innocent, yet fierce as fire, she had given them all something no lord, no king, no dragonlord had offered: a chance.

A chance to burn the world down so that something better might rise from the ashes.

And to Simon, she gave more than that. She gave him a reason to still be Simon Toyme—and by all the gods that still dared to listen, he would prove himself worthy of that gift.

A flicker of movement pulled him back to the present.

One of the scouts raised a hand, sharp and silent. Every man stilled.

Simon leaned forward, ears straining. At first—he heard nothing. Then the forest bloomed with sound: the steady creak of timber, the clop of hooves on hard earth, the rattle of wheels, the murmur of voices.

A carriage.

As he looked through the leaves, careful not to be seen, Simon glimpsed its paintwork: the sigil of House Largent, a petty Crownlands line. Minor prey, perhaps—but prey nonetheless. They had to start somewhere, after all.

Today, a Largent. Tomorrow…who knew?

A score of guards—maybe twenty— flanked the carriage, spears glinting in fractured sunlight. Not an impressive force, not nearly, but more than adequate for what they had probably expected; an uneventful passage through the King’s wood.

Adequate for yesterday, perhaps.

But not today. Today the Kingswood was no longer safe.

For today, they were here.

Around him, men shifted—broken men, wretched men—eyes alight, bodies restless as leashed hounds. Simon raised a hand, stilling them, his voice unspoken but understood. Their hour was here, but it would be his word that unleashed them.

They had waited for this.

He had waited for this.

The chance. The favor. The only redemption monsters like them might ever deserve.

The carriage rolled closer, wheels rattling over ruts, guards scanning the treeline with lazy disinterest. A mistake that would be their last.

When the moment came—when the carriage was almost level with their hiding place—Simon rose from the brush. The guards’ heads snapped up towards him, shock flashing across their faces. His comrades licked their lips like wolves scenting blood.

Simon drew his sword. Its steel caught a single shaft of sunlight, flashing like an omen. He pointed the blade at the carriage, his voice loud and steady, resonant with purpose. It carried fire, as though the Lady herself breathed it through him.

“Recusants—attack! Leave no survivors!”

The woods came alive. Branches sang as arrows loosed, hissing through the air. Shafts slammed into horseflesh, into men. Screams tore the stillness apart. A guard toppled from his saddle, another dropped clutching a gaping wound. Horses shrieked and reared, the carriage skidding to a halt, wheels biting dirt.

Panic spread like fire through dry grass.

From the treeline they came. Vagabonds. Exiles. Oathbreakers. His brothers.

Recusants.

They burst from the bushes in a frenzy—blades flashing, faces twisted, voices raised in ragged cries. In their blood ran the Lady’s fire, a wild grace that made them quicker and stronger than they could ever hope to be.

And then, from the other side of the road, he emerged.

The Lady’s favored beast. The abomination with no name.

His armor was black, crusted with old gore. His grin split ear to ear, teeth bared in lunatic joy, while his laugh ripped through the din as he crashed upon the guards like a storm. His body was steaming slightly as he ran, the Lady’s blessing particularly potent when it came to him.

His massive blade sang as it swung, manoeuvring around the shields and mails, cleaving through flesh as though it was butter. There was madness in him, yes—but not blind madness. His strikes landed with dreadful precision, every motion a lesson in the art of killing.

Men screamed. Steel rang on steel. Horses shrilled in terror. And through it all, he laughed, face flecked with red mist, joy unholy and pure.

None could stop him, men useless against his strength, their courage nothing before his madness.

Simon’s teeth ground together. A part of him wanted to stand aside, to watch the beast glut himself on slaughter, the man’s rampage mesmerizing in the most gruesome way.

But no.

That way lay obscurity. That way lay being forgotten, just another faceless wretch following Her.

The Lady’s eyes would not find him if he did nothing.

And without Her, he would be nothing.

“For the Lady!” Simon roared, and with sword drawn, he hurled himself from cover. The blood in his veins boiled, hot as Dragonstone’s molten fire, his Lady’s blessing aiding him in his task.

The first guard barely had time to turn before Simon’s blade punched through his throat, hot spray spattering his cheek and hissing upon contact. He tore free, moved forward and struck again. Another fell under his blade. The cry echoed in his throat as he fought, as if each stroke was a prayer, each kill an offering.

“For the Lady! For the Lady!”

Every thrust, every swing, every life spilled was for Her. For the one who gave him purpose, who gave them all meaning.

Steel rang. Flesh split. The woods echoed with shrieks and death-cries. Guards broke and died beneath their fury. The carriage doors were wrenched open, and a Largent, shrieking in horror, was dragged into the dirt, his pleas choked as a blade opened his belly, noble blood spilling dark onto the roots of the King’s wood.

And in that moment—in that chaos, that baptism of gore—Recusants were born, their first breath taken in blood.