The King's Gamma (#Wattys2024)

Twelve

The scent lead through the forest towards an area of marsh lands, the stench of rot and decay attacking my nostrils. Small brown and dark grey plants gave off toxic scents while the murky puddles of water around us hid the fact that if you stepped wrong you might just disappear right into the mud. I shifted back, looking over to the Bear clansmen.

"Your name is?" I allowed my eyes to shift again, taking in the puddles to see where it might be deeper.

"Soren."

"If you are to continue to follow me, Soren, you'd best step where I do. This place is riddled with sink holes. Wouldn't want to drown in mud, would you?"

He shook his head quickly before coming right behind me.

"Why did you sniff the baby's blanket?" He asked as I mapped out where to step.

"Lizard people were once a type of dragon, remember? They were part of scouting troops and Assassins for the dragon Celestials. They adapted into the ability to lower their own body heat, which in turn helped hide their scents. No body heat to emit their natural scents. So they are somewhat hard to track. It's why you've had trouble tracking them down."

"If they were dragons, what happened to them?"

I stopped for a moment, him almost bumping into me. My eyes tracked the minefield of sinkholes before I turned to him.

"They became obsessed with serving the black Celestial. They revered him as a god of sorts."

"That doesn't explain what had happened."

"They killed for the black Celestial. Making sacrifices and stealing from others to appease the 'Black one'. They were exiled and the black Celestial removed and killed, a punishment for being different and not stopping the rituals."

"Black Celestial? Never heard of it."

"You wouldn't have. They are rare, and their power is near god-like. The last one that lived was killed as soon as they found out he was a black Celestial, fear of what the lizard men would do to appease the 'Black one' again, urging them to take drastic measures."

I tilted my head slightly, my eyes scanning around again.

"I suspect the lizard men might be using your children as sacrifices to call for a new Black Celestial."

"Sacrifices?! Why would they sacrifice mere babes?"

"When sacrificed in the name of someone or something, that object or person receives the power of the life force sacrificed. Or they're eating the children."

I turned to him once more before sighing and waving him closer. I put my hand at the back of his neck before drawing his head to mine.

'You will turn back the way we came.' I thought to him. 'You will follow our exact path and then forget. You will tell your chief that you lost sight of me, that you do not know which way I went. Deny my brother access to your mind for as long as you can.'

I watched as he left and turned my eyes back upon the dark aura that oozed out through the reeds and grass. Stepping forward proved difficult, this might be my last day. Whatever it was that was waiting on the other side of that aura was powerful, and ancient. I could feel it as I stepped forward, tendrils of dark power latching onto me as though I was a new prey. My body started feeling sluggish, the weight of the power pushing me down.

The tendrils lead me to a cave in the face of a cliff near the marshlands. The water from the marshlands seemed to be coming from the cave as well.

The cave was thin and narrow, heading at a slight upward slant that had trickles of water rushing past my feet. My eyes wandered further in, finding slitted eyes glaring back at me. It was watching me with cold calculation as a set of twin orbs glared at me from right next to him before another set and another and another joined them. They were allowing me inside, probably sensing my own draconian relation.