Simon didn’t arrive he top of the peak by dawn, and by then, he was pletely spent. He’d been up for more than a day, ting the ride back to the smith, and half of that time ent walking around in full pte, which had not been one of his better ideas.

  So, rather than keep going, he found a patch of grass off the beaten path before the treeline and passed out to grab a short nap. His sleep was fitful, and he woke up many times, but by noon, he could no longer sleep, even in the shade. Instead, he got up a going.

  It turned out that he didn’t have far to go. He realized that as soon as he saw many of the wagons parked o each other he top. A few mier, he noticed the giant cave entrance, which led into the creature’s ir, and right after that, he saw the dead dragon lying there.

  It was an awful sight, made even worse by the awesome nature of the beast he’d seen the night before. Even lying on its side, dead to the world, the giant corpse would have covered a football field. From o tail, it might even be longer. He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t see too well from here.

  What he could see was that it was impossible to see how the dragon had died now because they’d already carved away too much of the corpse. At first, he didn’t really uand what they were doing and why they were using tools more appropriate to felling a tree than butchering a corpse, but then he saw the way they were carefully slig away the scaled skin and pulling out the teeth and horns. Then, it all made sehat stuff robably worth as much as the glittering hoard he could see in the distanbsp;

  Beyond that, though, everything was blood. Blood flowed out of the giant open wounds that these men were carving into it. It ttered on the walls, sprayed across the treasure, and pooled on the floors so high that the men in boots waded in it up to their ankles. It had been a giant among mortals, but now it was just a giant mess, and lines of men were gathering it up and buckets and then walking out to the edge of a cliff where they were dumping it out.

  As he passed the line of wagons and approached the entrance, one of the men with an air of authority yelled at him. “We aren’t paying you to stand around, old man. If you want a piece of this, get to work. That blood won’t get itself out of there!”

  For a moment, the urge to kill the man was strong, just because of the bloody nature of the se. He resisted, though. If these guys thought he was just another hand, well, there wasn’t a better disguise to get close to things that he could think of, so he went with it.

  Simohe few hours doily what everyone else was doing: dumping the blood of the dragon into the valley below. As the day wore on, a giant flock of carrion feeders gathered above them, making the whole se even stranger.

  Simon was determined not to be distracted by any of that, though. Instead, he kept his ears open and learned everything he could about what had happened here. People talked freely about it, of course. They talked about how much they were going to get paid and how cool it was that the job was already dohey even talked about how the dragon wasn’t nearly as tough as they thought it would be, and when Simohem know that the vilge was no more, his fellow workers shrugged it off. “Just the price of doing business,” someone said. “Better them than me,” another added.

  He was disgusted by those responses, of course, but he tried not to let it show. Instead, he kept his head down and learned, especially about their leader. There was no mystery why Sir Anias was called the Red Knight now. The man had practically bathed in blood. Acc to some people, he’d sin dozens ons, and acc to others, it was only his sed or third one.

  Simon wasn’t even aware that there were dozens ons in the whole world. He’d heard a few stories of them before, and he’d heard a few bards sing about them. Even after he’d read some detailed ats while searg for information about the Bckheart, he’d sighem to myth more than a real threat he might have to fae day. He wasn’t sure exactly how he was supposed to faething so huge, though, or for that matter, how the Red Knight had do.

  Sir Anias didn’t ahat question directly, even though several people asked him in earshot of Simohe course of the day. He'd even caught the man's eye once; he'd given Simon a weird look but said nothing to him. Every time, all he would do was simply stand there, strike a pose, and say something like, “Everything has a weakness; you just o know where to look for it,” which was less than useless.

  While Simon did all this, gallon by gallon and bucket by bucket, the floor was returo something close to dry. After it was merely sticky and slimy with the occasional puddle, some of the men switched to something even worse: hauling off sbs of flesh that that were in the way of gathering the valuable scales and treasure.

  Some of these were set on skewers for the feast that had been ponight, but the rest were dumped off the cliffside o a time. That part was much harder work than the blood and the way that the thing's dead, milky eye looked at his as he did so made Simon feel like a grave robber more than anything.

  That night, they ate well, and the Dragonsyer promised every man they’d receive more than their tracted share. “This bitch had more than I ever thought possible. It might take two trips just to get it all down the mountain!”

  A wave of cheers went up at that, and the admonishments that “Anyone caught thieving would be thrown off the cliff with the rest of the useless meat did nothing to dampehusiasm.”

  Simon had husiasm, though. He had some of the charred meat just to taste dragon. It retty good, and the fact that he’d definitely worked up a hunger with all the hard work over the st couple of days made it eveer. Mythological barbecue had never been on his bucket list, but some part of him e.

  The taste was rgely spoiled for him because of the attitude of the people he was surrounded by. This way of treating such a majestic creature like an industrial strip mining operatio him pig listlessly at his meal. It just didn’t feel right.

  That night, he slept like the dead, and in the m, they repeated the previous day all ain. This time, they weren’t hauling blood a, though, so much as gold and silver. The dragon’s hoard tained many strange objects. This wasn’t limited to deg chests ems as rge as his fist, either. There were ons scattered around, along with other items that obviously had magical properties.

  Simon dearly wao study those, but when he saw the meroying the most obvious examples of such priceless artifacts, he knew he’d get treated the same way. I’ll just have to find a way to get at those ime, he thought to himself.

  Of course, that thought led to others, and soon, he was w if he didn’t have to save the town or kill the dragon at all. Perhaps I just need one of these pieces of treasure for a future level, he thought to himself. Whie exactly, though, was a plete mystery.

  It wasn’t even a mystery he could really solve, not until ter levels. He had no firm evidence for this, of course, but he retty sure the slime ut there for the zombie level, and the death knight was in front of the volo level for a reason. He wasn’t about to waste a question to Hedes firming it, but he was sure enough. If that was the case, then whatever was on the level might well be solved by something in this room.

  The vultures he was w with didn’t seem particurly ied in any of that, though. They just wao break anything they were afraid of a down the pieces for the gold they tained, and as far as Simon was ed, that was like burning hundred-dolr bills to get a few pennies out of the deal.

  He did his best to ighat, though, and focused oask at hand: carrying gold s out, one bucket at a time. He might have dohat all day if one of the men w nearby had not said, “What the hell?” making him stop what he was doing and look over.

  The other man’s dark, scraggly beard almost entirely hid his look of shock, but Simon could see the whites of his eyes clearly enough to know that something in the chest he’d just opened up had spooked him. “What is it?” Simon asked, trying not to seem too ied. “More evil magic? Human remains?”

  “Nuh-uh,” the man said with a shake of his head as he stepped bad gestured at it. “It’s none of that shite. It’s a road or something… I think…”

  This piqued Simon’s i, and he looked and found it was indeed a muddy-looking road on a drizzly day, with a forest in the distance. He didn’t reize the area specifically, but it was definitely somewhere in the north. There were a few crates scattered around in view, but otherwise, there was nothing visible to give any clues as to what might be going on there. Ohing was for sure, though, Simon had found the gate to the level.

  The fact that it was in the Dragon’s Hoard seemed less than ideal. What if I o use it again? He wondered. What if this big beasty is alive ime?

  Still, he wasn’t about to hesitate now. He had a lot more questions about this level, but he was fairly certain that he could get the ao some things on the level and make his rip here more productive. So Simon said, “Wow, that is crazy. You better go get the boss to take a look at this,” as he closed the lid. “I’ll stay here to make sure no ories to mess with it.”

  The bearded man squi him for a moment as he searched for some ulterior motive, but when he couldn’t find one, he just said, “That’s right. Don’t want you stealing my credit for finding this!”

  The man waddled off, looking quite pleased with himself, and Simon waited until he was far enough away that he couldn’t intervehen he opehe chest back up, shoved a handful of gold in his pocket, and grabbed the closest sword before he dove through and smmed the lid shut behind him.

  Yesterday, Simon had vanished down a well in full view of everyone, and today, it was an areasure chest. I o stop making this a habit, he thought with a smile.