The sun had not yet risen above the treetops. The sky in the east was only beginning to pale, and the forest, exhausted by the night, had fallen still in anticipation of dawn.
Aerius woke first.
He opened his eyes and for a few seconds stared at the stone ceiling of the nook, unsure which of what he saw had been a dream and which was real. Then he slowly turned his head.
By the dead fire, coiled around the lad like a giant cat, the dragoness slept. Her tail was wrapped around Arthur's legs. Her head rested on her own paws, inches from the back of his neck. She breathed evenly and deeply, and the vapour of her breath rose in the morning air.
"Well, damn me," Aerius whispered.
He slowly, very slowly, reached for his sword. Then just as slowly pulled his hand back. She was not attacking. She was… protecting?
Arthur stirred. His eyes opened. He felt the warmth before he saw her — heavy, living, wrapping around him on every side. He went still, then slowly turned his head.
Their eyes met.
The dragoness's emerald eyes widened. For one brief moment, something flickered in them — not fear, more like bewilderment, as though she herself had not expected him to wake so soon and catch her in this pose. Then instinct took over. She recoiled — sharply, in one motion, slipping out from under her own tail. Her wings involuntarily spread, grazing the edge of the rock. A few wingbeats — and she was on the other side of the clearing, twenty meters from the fire, on a moss-covered boulder at the forest edge. She folded her wings and stayed there, staring at Arthur from afar. Her flanks rose and fell with rapid breathing. Her tail wrapped nervously around the stone. She was tense, but she did not retreat further.
"You know," Aerius said quietly, pulling his hand away from his sword, "in twenty years I've seen a lot of strange things. But a wild dragon sleeping curled around a man and then pretending it was an accident in the morning… That's a first."
Veridis let out a short snorting sound — either indignant or embarrassed. She turned her head away, pretending to be interested in something in the forest. But the corner of one eye stayed fixed on Arthur.
Arthur slowly sat up, making no sudden movements. He looked at the dragoness; she looked back at him. Then he rose to his feet — barefoot, in nothing but a chestplate and the cloak Aerius had given him yesterday in place of trousers. He offered no explanation to the messenger. Instead, he walked slowly, very slowly, toward the boulder.
"You saved me," he said in an even, calm voice when he was a few meters from the dragoness. "I fed you. You are mine. I will not abandon you, and you will not abandon me. Understood?"
The words were empty sounds to her, a set of vibrations, but she caught the intonation without fail. There was no threat in it, no pleading, no fear. Only a cold, confident statement of fact. Her nostrils flared, drawing in his scent. The very one she had grown accustomed to over these days. She did not let him come closer, but she did not flee either. She simply watched. Waited.
And then her head jerked upward.
Her nostrils flared. From her throat came a low, vibrating sound — a warning of danger. Arthur froze. He had heard this sound the night before, seconds before the Crimers emerged from the darkness. Aerius was on his feet, sword drawn. Goldcrest raised his head and gave a low growl, but he could not take off — his bandaged wing would not allow it.
From the forest, cutting off all escape routes, came figures in crimson robes. Cultists of the Crimson. There were two dozen of them, armed with sickle-shaped blades, and on the flanks, hugging the ground, crawled ground-type Crimers — five or six, no less. Above the treetops, blotting out the sky, rose a swarm of Demon Eyes — three dozen, perhaps more. And at the front, riding atop one of the Crimers, sat she.
Mens Sanguinea.
She dismounted lightly, almost gracefully. Her crimson hair, braided into a tight plait, fell over her shoulder. Her scarlet eyes, burning in the morning gloom, were fixed upon Arthur. On her palm pulsed a mark — a stylized eye, beating in time with another's heartbeat. The cultists froze. The Crimers pressed themselves to the ground. Even the Demon Eyes in the sky halted, awaiting her command.
"Enough," she said, not loudly, but her voice carried across the entire clearing. "You will come with me, Stranger. My lord has waited for you a very long time."
Aerius looked at the army. He looked at Mens. And he understood: battle was impossible. He turned to Arthur, and pain flickered in his eyes.
"Forgive me," he said. "I must deliver the message. Without it — war and death."
Before Arthur could reply, Aerius vaulted onto his griffin. Goldcrest, despite his wounded wing, surged into the sky with a powerful thrust. Several Demon Eyes lunged after him, but he vanished into the clouds. Arthur was left alone. With an axe in his hand. Against an army. He did not shout after him. He did not curse. He understood: in Aerius's place, he would have done the same.
The cultists began to close in. But before they could reach him, Veridis threw herself into the attack. She did not think. She acted on instinct — the very instinct that had driven her to follow this man across the entire Forest. Her poisonous breath covered the first wave — three cultists fell, choking in the green cloud. She tore at the nearest Crimer with her claws, battered a second with her tail. Her scales withstood one sword blow, then a second, a third — and blood began to flow from a wound in her side. She killed one after another. Five. Seven. Ten. The Crimers fell back. But she was already gasping. Her venom glands were empty. Her muscles burned. An arrow pierced her wing, and she cried out — a high, piercing sound, full of pain. A spear skewered her paw. She sank onto three limbs, but still she snarled, shielding Arthur with her body. She did not flee. She did not abandon him. And she fell only when a club-blow to the head robbed her of consciousness. Wounded, bleeding out, but alive.
When the battle ended, Arthur stood over her body, surrounded by enemies. He lowered his axe and looked at Mens. Appraisingly. Coldly. The way he had looked at competitors in his former life.
"What are you offering?"
Mens froze for a moment. She had expected fear, rage, pleading. But not a businesslike tone. And then she understood: this was not merely a vessel. This was a worthy bearer for her god. Perhaps even more than she had bargained for.
"You will become a god," she answered. "Not a servant, not a priest. You will merge with the Brain of Cthulhu and become a living deity in the flesh. And I… I will be at your side. As His Bride. And as your priestess."
Arthur shifted his gaze to Veridis, lying unconscious.
"I have conditions," he said.
Mens raised an eyebrow.
"What conditions?"
"She is to be healed. No harm will come to her. And when this is over, I will decide what to do with your god."
The cultists exchanged glances. No one had ever spoken to their High Priestess like that. But Mens smiled — for the first time in a long while.
"You are an interesting man…" She paused, waiting for him to give his name.
"Arthur," he said.
"Arthur," she repeated, tasting the name. "Good. Your conditions are accepted. For the duration of the ritual. After that — we shall see."
She made a gesture, and the cultists lowered their weapons. Arthur, without looking back, allowed himself to be led into the darkness of the Crimson Wastes.
---
Their path lay through dead lands.
Arthur walked on foot, surrounded by an escort of six cultists. His wrists were bound with rope — not tightly, more a symbolic restraint. Mens understood that he would not try to flee. Not here. Not now. Beside him, on an improvised stretcher of woven branches and crimson vines, they carried Veridis. The dragoness was still unconscious, but her wounds had been dressed — hastily, with rough bandages soaked in some dark ointment that had stopped the bleeding. She was breathing. That was enough.
"She will live," Mens said, noticing his gaze. "My lord has no reason to kill such a beast. She is too valuable."
Arthur said nothing. He was memorizing the route. Every turn, every landmark, every stone. Even in captivity, he remained a strategist.
They walked for several hours. First through a stunted undergrowth where the trees were twisted and coated with a crimson film, like dried blood. Then across barren wastes where nothing grew and the earth underfoot was dry and cracked, like the skin of an ancient corpse. The air grew heavier, saturated with the sweetish-rotten smell that Arthur had already learned to recognize. The smell of the Crimson.
And at last, they came to the Altar.
Arthur stopped. For a moment, his vaunted composure cracked.
Before him, stretching as far as the eye could see, lay an enormous hollow — a natural amphitheater formed by an ancient volcano or the fall of something from the heavens. At the bottom of the hollow rose a structure of crimstone — the Altar, vast, pulsing like a living heart. Veins radiated from it in all directions, through which flowed a glowing crimson liquid. The air trembled with magic, and Arthur could feel its pressure on his skin — like the heat of an open furnace.
But it was not the Altar that made him freeze. It was the creatures.
There were thousands of them. Tens of thousands. Perhaps more.
The entire hollow was filled with the creatures of the Crimson. There were Demon Eyes — not dozens, but hundreds, thousands, entire swarms, hovering so thickly in the air that the sky above the hollow shimmered crimson. There were Crimers — ground-type and flying, and some that Arthur had never seen before: enormous, the size of a house, slowly rolling in the distance like whales in a sea of flesh. There were cultists — hundreds, if not thousands of people in crimson robes, standing in ordered rows and chanting a low, vibrating hymn. Their voices merged into a single hum that made the ground tremble underfoot.
There were other creatures, too, that Arthur could not name: shapeless lumps of flesh oozing across the ground; long, worm-like things burrowing into the soil; multi-eyed monsters perched on the rocks; and stranger forms still, which seemed to exist at the edge of reality, constantly shifting their outlines.
This was not an army. This was a people. The people of the Crimson, gathered here to witness the birth of a god.
"Impressive, is it not?" Mens's voice was almost tender. She stood beside Arthur and gazed at the same scene with an expression of pride and anticipation. "They have come from all corners of the Wastes. Everyone who hears the rhythm of the Brain knows: a great event is coming. You are its center."
She turned to him. Her scarlet eyes burned.
"The ritual will be ready in three days. Perhaps four — the priests need to complete the preparations. All this time, you will be my guest. I promise that you and your dragon will be treated with dignity. But do not try to flee. Not here. Not from them."
She swept her hand over the sea of creatures.
"They are here to see their new god. Do not disappoint them."
Arthur looked at the endless ocean of creatures, at the pulsing Altar, at the wounded Veridis being carried away somewhere to the side of the main structure. He was silent. His face was calm, but within, a feverish calculation was taking place.
Three days. I have three days.
I need to learn the rules of the game.
And he stepped forward, into the very heart of the Crimson.
---
The Human Empire. The Hall of Stones.
Aerius flew into the castle on the brink of collapse.
Goldcrest wheezed the final miles on sheer willpower, and when the stone walls of the royal citadel emerged from the predawn mist, the great beast crashed into the inner courtyard, throwing up a cloud of dust and straw. His golden feathers were matted with blood, and a gash gaped in his side. Aerius himself slid from the saddle and nearly fell, catching himself on the stirrup. His face was grey with exhaustion, and in his eyes stood the thing that old soldiers feared most — guilt. He had left the boy and the dragon who had fought for him and had flown away. And now that guilt gnawed at him from within, like a worm.
"To the King," he rasped at the guards. "Urgently. And send for a healer for the griffin."
In the Hall of Stones, the candles were burning once more. The Council had already assembled: the King sat at the head of the table, the Mage was nervously drumming his fingers, the Warlord stood with his arms crossed over his chest, and both Goblin-councillors waited in silence. Aerius entered, limping.
"The alliance is sealed," he began without preamble. "The Empress of Light has agreed. She sets a condition: unified command rests with her. Our army serves in support. She expects our strike from the south the day after tomorrow at dawn."
A sigh of relief went around the hall. But Aerius was not finished.
"That is not all. On my return journey, I found a man in Erlingor Forest. A young lad. He was living at one of the giant trees. And he was not alone. A dragon was with him."
Silence fell over the hall. Even the candle flames seemed to freeze.
"A young green dragoness," Aerius continued. "She followed him, protected him. At night, when we were attacked by creatures of the Crimson, she came out of the darkness and killed one with her poisonous breath. And afterward, she slept beside him, curled around him."
The Mage leapt to his feet. The Elder Goblin slowly removed his spectacles and wiped them.
"These legends are nothing but tales," he said. "The last Rider died two hundred years ago."
"I know what I saw," Aerius said firmly.
The King raised his hand, and all fell silent.
"Where is this man now?" he asked.
Aerius lowered his head.
"In the hands of the Crimson. The High Priestess Mens Sanguinea came for him personally. She called him the Stranger. She knew of him. When I flew away, the dragoness was still fighting, but there were too many of them."
The Warlord slammed his fist onto the table. The King, however, remained calm. He was thinking. Then he rose.
"If the legends of the Dragon Riders are true, this lad is worth an entire army. We cannot allow the Crimson to hold him. We march as planned, the day after tomorrow. But at the same time, I am sending a detachment into the Crimson Wastes — to find the boy and the dragoness and to pull them out before it is too late."
He looked at Aerius.
"You know his face. You know where they were. Will you go?"
Aerius straightened.
"I will go. I must."
The King nodded.
"Then rest. You and your griffin. You set out tomorrow at dawn."