Here’s a sneak peek of an as-yet-unwritten installment of The Realm War Chronicles. It takes place on Alfheim before the events of Muspell’s Sons and follows the adventures of Leif, a young man raised among dryads who live in a lush jungle that has overgrown the ruins of an ancient world.
Unexpected Questions
Leif slipped off the back of his dragon, Tanath, to the moist earth of the jungle floor. The beast snorted, nuzzling the young man. Leif turned and stroked its broad scaly face, then ran his hands lightly along its furled wings. A rumble of pleasure vibrated deep within Tanath’s chest. Leif’s fingers brushed over the warm metal that replaced the leading edge of Tanath’s right wing and forearm, marvelling once more at how seamlessly it grew to replace the malformed flesh.
As his fingers traced the folds, though, they ran over a rough bit–rust. Tanath flinched.
“Sorry,” Leif mumbled.
No one had ever heard of rust infecting living metal, but the whole dragon colony now had splotches of the stuff all over them. The more rust, the more feeble the dragon.
Leif glanced at the ruin behind him. Hopefully, he’d get some answers about that soon.
“I won’t be long today,” Leif promised. “I just need to pick something up.”
Tanath chuffed, then settled down to rest his heavy crested head on his foreclaws, tail swishing against the underbrush. He let out a heavy sigh that rustled the half-rotten leaves as though to say Well, go on then.
Leif ducked into the ruin, following a well-worn path down through its muck and rot-choked interior, past mounds that once had been consoles, over lumps on the ground he knew from sad experience contained little more than jewelry and the odd bit of wearable tech. As he ventured down, the path through the much grew fainter. He had only ventured down this far recently.
There, on a metal table that had fused to the ground by fossilized muck, was a slender cylinder, about as long as Leif’s forearm. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands. He twisted the top, then tried the button on the side. Nothing happened, as he knew it wouldn’t. Nothing in the ruins worked anymore.
He ran his finger along the side, reading the etched runes along the side. For use on living metal only. Use with caution.
Whatever it was, it was the first thing he’d ever found referring to living metal.
Well, to be honest, it was the first thing he’d ever found that made any sense. He’d had to leave it behind last time when his father had found him here and dragged him home, shouting the whole flight back about how dangerous the ruins were, and how Leif was messing with things he didn’t understand.
Leif sighed and tucked it into his pack. He pulled out a red goja fruit that looked like it was covered in dragon scales, and made his way back outside. Red juice dribbled down his chin, so he swiped it away with the back of his hand.
That’s why I want to explore, he thought, so I can learn what I don’t understand. Why is that so dangerous?
As he emerged blinking back into the spotty sunlight filtering down from above, a deep-throated howl ripped through the clearing.
Leif’s blood went cold. A terrorwing? Here? But it was daylight!
Tanath didn’t wait to find out. He was in the air in an instant, aching wings heaving him laboriously into the canopy and up into the bright sky beyond, leaving Leif scrambling for cover.
Struggling to get his gangly adolescent limbs in order long enough to dart behind a fallen Huan tree, Leif finally slipped and landed in a heap. He pulled his legs in, peered out at the clearing, and waited, eyes searching the boughs above for any sign of the enormous, sinewy beast.
Raveners, called terrorwings by children for their great size and nasty demeanor, were the largest and most feared predators in this jungle. They looked like stretched out dragons, with long serpentine bodies and wide leathery wings. Their mouthful of teeth and wicked claws gave even dragons trouble; but that was not what made terrorwings so terrible. On their chests they carried two great sacks full of glowing venom that the monsters spat at its victims. The venom was so corrosive that it could burn a hole straight through a tree–or a man.
But the clearing was quiet. Leif frowned. No terrorwing. Not even another ravener call. He slowly allowed himself to relax.
A chirp behind him made Leif jump and spin.
There on the log was a creature about the size of a large felid, with a furry body and scaly wings like a terrorwing, but so tiny that Leif could almost see through the thin membrane as it stretched them, then tucked them alongside its body. And on its forehead was a single straight white horn.
“You’re a glymir,” Leif whispered. He’d heard of the fox-bat creatures, but he never dreamed he’d ever see one in person. In the old stories, everyone had a pet glymir. But ever since the Catastrophe, few had been sighted, let alone captured.
The glymir chirped again, then raised its snout and sniffed.
Leif reached out his hand, offering the half-eaten goja fruit, bright red and sticky like a jewel in his palm. The creature tilted its head, its large eyes blinking. It glanced up at Leif, examined his face. Then slowly, it crept forward–glanced up–then at the fruit–then stretched its neck out as far as it would go and snatched a nibble and pulled back.
A grin spread across Leif’s face. He held as still as possible, and after a moment, the glymir ventured forward again, this time perching on his wrist and wrapping its slender tail around his arm. It was warm and soft and lighter than Leif had imagined.
You’re gorgeous, Leif thought. Long, soft white fur covered its trunk, longer around its throat like a mane. Its limbs, wings, prehensile tail, and long ears were bare, its delicately scaled skin so thin and translucent that it almost glowed a soft pink. Now that he could see it better, he saw that in addition to the single long horn growing out of the tip of its nose, it had two smaller, delicate horns curling up between its ears.
Leif stared at the glymir, realization slamming into him. No metal. Not a single drop of it on its body. Every limb was purely organic flesh, not living metal. In a world where every living creature save the dryads were born maimed and grew replacement body parts out of living metal, where even the trees themselves pulsed with electricity-laden sap through metal skeletons, this was incredible.
Impossible.
The glymir licked his hand, making him shiver as it tickled. But he held as still as he could, worried that any movement would startle it.
“Where did you come from, little one?” Leif breathed.
Finished, the glymir turned to face Leif and chittered.
Leif carefully swapped the ancient device from one hand to the other and dipped his newly empty hand into his pack and retrieved another goja fruit. The glymir glanced at the fruit, then inched forward to sniff at the device in Leif’s hand.
It reached forward and place a paw on the cold metal. Light suddenly gleamed from the etchings all up and down the device. It thrummed, and Leif felt a warmth wash up his arm like he’d never known. Every hair on his body stood on end.
The glymir squawked and rushed up Leif’s arm to cower wrapped around his neck. As soon as its paw broke contact with the device, the cylinder went dark.
The glymir stuck its nose out and growled at the device. Then, when the device didn’t repeat its demonstration, the glymir turned its back on the cylinder and stuck its nose in the air, sniffing. With a snort, it immediately scurried down Leif’s other arm to pluck the goja fruit out of the youth’s hand with dextrous paws.
“What was that?” Leif asked with wide eyes.
But the glymir didn’t respond. It was too busy inspecting the goja fruit, though for what, Leif had no idea.
Leif scrubbed at the sticky remnants of the goja fruit on his free palm. His lip curled in disgust. He hated getting sticky stuff on him. Nothing short of water would get it off, or licking it. Leif shuddered at the thought. Even had the glymir not licked his hand first, Leif still disliked the idea.
This time, the goja fruit vanished into the creature’s mouth into a cheek pocket, making its cheek bulge out. Leif chuckled.
The glymir chirped expectantly at Leif through its full mouth.
“I’m sorry. I don’t have any more.”
It must have understood him, because it sunk its needle-like teeth into Leif’s hand.
“Ow!”
He yanked his hand back. The glymir chittered angrily and took to the air; but with the goja fruit in mouth, it fumbled back to the ground in a puff of leaves. The goja fruit rolled out of its mouth. With a squawk, the glymir snatched the fruit up, stuffed it into its mouth, then bolted away as fast as it could, listing a little to the left.
“No no no no! Come back!”
Leif scrambled after the little critter. It was so fast, though, and never ran in a straight line. Left, left again, right–every time Leif got close enough to lunge at it, the glymir hopped into the air and flapped its batlike wings a few times, fluttering just out of reach before crashing back to earth. At one point, it dashed straight at the youth, dodging between Leif’s legs, then circling around Leif until he tripped over his own adolescent feet and plummeted to the dirt. It chittered again and bolted away up the crushed ruin.
Did it just laugh at me? Leif thought. He brushed the thought aside and scrambled after the creature.
But it was no use. It was gone, and with it, any hope of activating the ruined device.
Leif slowed, panting, clutching at his side. He glared at nothing in particular, mumbling some particularly appropriate curse words he’d heard the metallurgist use, and stomped over to his pack. He picked up the cylindrical device from the ruins from where he’d dropped it on the ground, brushed off some mud, and turned it over in his hands. No light glowed from the lines etched on it. No thrumming, nothing. Dead as it ever was.
How had that glymir done it? Was it something to do with the fact that it was completely intact, unmaimed like no other creature Leif had ever seen?
He absently scrubbed at his sticky palm. This device hadn’t been activated for centuries. How had it done that?
But he looked over his shoulder at where the little creature had vanished, and the sticky juice faded somewhat from his mind. Goja fruit. He needed more goja fruit to lure the glymir back. He’d get some at home, then come back and stay until he’d found the glymir again.
Leif scrambled to his feet and hurried into the dark underbrush in the direction of a cluster of massive Tehan trees rising like arboreal gods from the surrounding jungle.
