What the Mountains Hold is a piece of fiction from Settlements of the Dragonsbreath Mountains, one of the supplements for Cities of Sundara.
The burly, onyx-scaled lizardfolk took a deep breath of the hot, gritty air, his crimson crest and frills extending as he savored the sensation as one would a fine tobacco. The boom of a volcano erupting in the distance added another dimension to the simple pleasure. Gnav smiled as he exhaled.
He didn’t need to look behind him to know that his charges were averting their gazes and shifting their feet. The sudden, sweet inflection of their scents was as good as them telling their Cinderscale guide that they were uncomfortable. Uncomfortable because of him. How could he pause to enjoy a place that was the spitting image of the hells portrayed in the holy books of so many faiths?
The three men wouldn’t say anything, though. They were laborers from the town of Osmen Slough, a once-prosperous mining settlement that was now steadily buckling from senescence and stagnation ever since the ore dried up. Age had already etched its first lines on the men’s faces, put bags under their eyes and shortened their breaths. They had left Osmen Slough in search of better prospects before they were no longer able to.
And right now, Gnav of the Razor Skulls was the key to those better prospects. He continued on the rough defile that cut between two jagged mountains, and he didn’t look back. The crunch of boots on gravel told him that his charges were keeping up. The jaunty pattern of their steps told him that they were desperately eager to be done with the journey. Eager to see whether all of the talk about Ironfire was fire or merely smoke.
Since slaying the red dragon Arvothaxx, most of Gnav’s jobs had consisted of escorting travelers to and from the City of Steel. The travelers felt protected, if not at ease, in the presence of a dragonslayer. That suited Gnav just fine. It meant quiet journeys with few questions and plenty of time to enjoy the ambiance, especially on this journey.
Gnav and his charges had already been on the road for two days, and they would be on the road for at least three more. The Razor Skull had had to cross through the heart of the Dragonsbreath Mountains to meet the laborers, of whom he had received word from a relative of theirs living in Ironfire. Even for a seasoned native like Gnav, the journey had not been easy, and he took petty pleasure in the fact that they would have to go back through the heart of the mountains. Home sweet home to him. Volatile hellscape to them.
The laborers’ breathing was getting ragged, and the day was barely half over, but Gnav didn’t slow down. He knew that he was doing them and Ironfire a service. If they couldn’t handle the heat, rock and smoke now, they would never make it in the city. And Gnav knew just the place to test his charges’ tolerance for heat, rock, and smoke…
The laborers shared a drink from a shriveled waterskin. Gnav quickened his pace. Lava rumbled off in the distance.
About an hour later, the defile yielded to a towering volcano. Gnav and his charges were like insects before it. The rumbling lava had grown louder, too. The laborers gasped with nervous awe and sweat sweetened their scent. Gnav smiled, a gesture that was partly mischievous and partly predatory.
“Rest soon,” the Razor Skull rasped.
The laborers gulped and nodded. Gnav knew that they were trying to convince themselves that this, whatever this was, was still better than Osmen Slough. For their sake, Gnav hoped that they were successful.
He led his charges around the volcano, and as they passed into its lee, the laborers’ eyes widened as a lake of lava came into view. In loose crescents radiating from the banks of the bright lake stood clusters of buildings of black rock with scaly, red roofs, roads winding between them. A foreboding cavern loomed at the back of the town, due south from where Gnav and his charges stood. The Cinderscale paused to take another deep breath, savoring it more than the last now that the air was more heat than grit.
“Are we there?” one of the laborers dared to ask. “Have we reached Ironfire?”
Gnav chuckled, a throaty, entirely inhuman noise. “No.” He looked back at his charges. They were standing closer together and gripping their hiking staves tightly. Their faces, clothes and hands were smudged with dirt. “This is Desire’s Fall,” Gnav said, “We will rest here and restock our rations before continuing on to Fireheart. After that, we will go to Thousand Step Gorge, and then we will be at Ironfire.”
One of the laborers frowned. “Why so many stops? Wouldn’t it be better to go through the mountains as quickly as possible?”
“These mountains are dangerous. We must meet them on their terms,” Gnav replied matter-of-factly. “That means that when they offer us one of the treasures they hold, we graciously accept.”
“So why is it called Desire’s Fall, then?” another of the laborers asked.
Gnav smiled. “You’ll have to follow me if you want to find out…”