"It's gone!"
The roar shook the mountain, reverberating through stone and marrow, followed by the deep rumble of thunder rolling across the peaks. Rain hammered against the obsidian gateway, a torrential downpour that turned the world beyond into a wall of water and grey.
Veliah jolted awake, her heart pounding. She stumbled from her bed and pushed open her door to find chaos in the main chamber.
Barjuchne tore through her hoard with frantic energy, scattering coins and candlesticks, overturning silk and throwing aside Sir Malwas's scarred armour. Her movements were manic and desperate, her thick tail lashing wildly behind her as she dug through pile after pile. Its wild swings threatened to bring the cave down every time it crashed against a column.
"What's gone?" Veliah asked, rubbing her tired eyes. Her voice came out hoarse from sleep.
Barjuchne spun toward her, and in three strides the dragon crossed the chamber. Her palm slammed against the wall beside Veliah's head, and Veliah pressed herself back against the stone in startled surprise, suddenly very awake and very cornered.
"My three hundred fifty-seventh coin!" Barjuchne's voice was fierce, her pupils contracted to pinpoints. "I counted everything twice! It's missing!" She leaned closer, her face inches from Veliah's. "Did you take it?"
"No!" Veliah replied quickly.
Before she could say anything else, Barjuchne pressed her nose into the side of Veliah's neck, inhaling deeply. Veliah let out a surprised exhalation, her hands coming up instinctively but stopping just short of pushing the dragon girl away.
"W-What are y-?"
Barjuchne pulled back abruptly. No nervous sweat. No elevated heartbeat beyond the normal spike from being startled. She wasn't lying.
She released Veliah and spun away, clutching her head with both hands, her claws digging into her scalp.
"Somebody stole my coin!" she yelled. "A thief!"
Veliah stepped forward, sighing as she rubbed her tired eyes again. "Why would anyone steal just one coin? That doesn't make any sense." The elf gestured to the rest of the treasure scattered across the chamber. "It probably rolled off somewhere. I bet you kicked it while you were asleep. We'll find it."
But Barjuchne wasn't listening. She dropped to all fours and bolted toward the cave entrance, her claws scraping against stone; her breathing was ragged and uneven. The greed in her chest had taken over completely, drowning out every rational thought.
She skidded to a stop at the obsidian gateway, which stood slightly ajar. Rain poured through the gap, creating a small puddle just inside the threshold. She looked outside at the storm, at the forest beyond turned into a blur of grey and green.
Then she looked down toward the glade below the cave’s entrance.
Footprints.
Small ones, pressed into the mud just beyond the gateway, already filling with rainwater. Fresh. Recent. They were leading down the mountainside toward the forest.
A visceral and consuming heat flooded through her body. Someone had been in her cave. Someone had touched her hoard. Someone had stolen from her.
Barjuchne screamed.
The sound tore from her throat and thunder answered from the clouds above, no less quiet than her own desperate roaring.
"Hey. Easy." Veliah's voice came from behind her. Veliah approached slowly, one hand extended. "You can't go out there. The mountain's dangerous in a storm like th-"
She froze.
Barjuchne's head turned, and her shining, red eyes locked onto Veliah's gaze. They were wild. Feral. The shape of the dragon’s pupils was contracted in a tight slit, barely recognising her.
"I'll kill them," Barjuchne growled. Each word was sharp and cold. "I'll eat them alive." She flexed her claws, and blood-red rage coloured everything. "Stay here. Lock the door. Stay in your room and lock it too."
"Hey!" Veliah snapped, and there was steel in her voice now. She gathered her courage and stepped closer, meeting those dangerous eyes head-on. "Please don't go out there. Wait until the storm passes at least." The elf held out her hand. "Okay? We'll figure it out."
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They looked at each other. Rain hammered against the gateway. Thunder rolled overhead.
Slowly, Barjuchne stood upright. Her breathing was still ragged, her body still trembling with barely contained fury, but she reached out and took Veliah's hand.
For a moment, it seemed like she might listen.
Then her other arm swept around Veliah's waist, lifting the elf clean up and off the ground.
"Ah!" Veliah shouted in surprise as she was carried back into the cave and deposited unceremoniously onto the treasure hoard, the quilt cushioning her landing.
Barjuchne turned and strode back toward the entrance. "Stay here until I'm back," she ordered.
"Hey!" Veliah scrambled to her feet, but the obsidian door swung shut before she could reach it. The sound of stone grinding against stone echoed through the chamber, followed by a heavy thud as something locked into place from the outside.
Silence fell.
Veliah stood alone in the central chamber, her chest heaving, staring at the sealed door. She waited, listening for any sound beyond. Nothing came except the muffled roar of rain and distant thunder.
She sank down onto the hoard, onto the quilt she'd made, and pulled a corner of the fabric up to her face.
"Stupid," she muttered to herself, rolling her eyes.
Who cares so much about one single coin?
The dragon Barjuchne barrelled down the mountainside through sheets of rain.
Water streamed down her black scales, plastering them flat against her body. The ground was slick and treacherous, loose stones skittering beneath her claws, but she didn't slow down. Lightning split the sky overhead, illuminating the forest below in stark white flashes.
The footprints were already washing away, but she didn't need them anymore. Her senses were sharper than any human's. They were honed by magical evolution and an even more powerful, nearly supernatural desperation. She caught the scent despite the rain. Her instincts recognised it immediately.
It was the smell of a goblin. Small. Male. From the look of the prints in the mud of the forest floor, he was moving fast but not fast enough to escape her.
Her tail lashed behind her, helping her balance as she leaped over a fallen log and splashed through a swollen stream. The water came up to her knees, cold and fast-moving, but she powered through it without breaking stride.
She could feel the coin. Her coin. It called to her like the cry of her precious, stolen child. She loved that coin. She would die for that coin. It meant everything to her.
Trees blurred past. The storm screamed around her. And deep in her mind, beneath the rage and the greed, a small voice whispered that this was excessive, that it was just one coin, that Veliah had been right.
But she ignored it.
That voice was wrong.
The goblin clutched the coin to his chest with both hands, running as fast as his short legs could carry him.
Rain pelted his face, getting into his eyes, making it hard to see. His breath came in harsh gasps, and his feet slipped in the mud more than once, sending him sprawling. But he scrambled up each time and kept running.
The coin was perfect. It was golden and shining even in the storm, clearly being valuable in and of its own right. But what gave it its real value to him was that it was clearly taken from something dangerous. There was the lingering scent of the beast on it, permeated into the metal of the coin.
It was exactly what he needed to win the contest. It was exactly what would prove him worthy.
He'd heard rumours of a dragon on the mountain. Everyone had. The whole clan was talking about it. But he'd thought they were exaggerations. These stories had been told for years and years, since he was a pup. They were always the same warnings: to stay away from the howling cave.
He had thought they were stories meant to scare children. Dragons were extinct. Everyone knew that.
But when he'd crept up to the howling cave and seen the obsidian gateway, when he'd slipped inside and seen the hoard glittering in the darkness, when he'd grabbed the single coin closest to the entrance and ran… He'd seen her.
Just for a moment. Just a glimpse. Sleeping on her treasure, scales dark and dangerous, claws sharp enough to cut stone.
Real. The dragon was real.
He burst from the tree line into the clearing where his village sprawled in a collection of ramshackle huts and hide tents. Torches guttered in the rain, protected by crude awnings, casting everything in flickering orange light.
And in the centre of the village, beneath the largest awning, the contest was underway.
Goblins of many tribes crowded around a raised platform where challengers presented their prizes. Stolen goods, mostly, as is the goblin way. There was a sword from a human caravan guard. A necklace from a merchant's waggon. With these gifts, each suitor was trying to prove himself worthy through the value of what he'd stolen.
And seated on a throne of scavenged wood and bone, watching with bored golden eyes as she received these lavishings, was the goblin princess herself. The heiress of the mountain clan and all of its sister tribes.
She was small even by goblin standards, her skin a pale green, her ears adorned with rings and studs. She wore a crown of twisted copper wire and looked utterly unimpressed by everything happening around her.
He clutched his coin tighter and pushed through the crowd. He was going to win this.
And when he became chieftain, when he married the princess and united the clans, no one would ever call him worthless again.
Behind him, somewhere in the storm-dark forest, something screamed. Everyone just held it to be more thunder. But he was already climbing onto the platform, holding his prize high for all to see, too focused on his triumph to notice the sound of suspiciously low thunder in his wake.
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