The Bones of the Earth (The Dark Age) by Scott Bury

to find out its weaknesses.” He set out along the trail again, and Javor followed.
     
    By midday, they were climbing the steep, rocky slopes of a grey mountain. The air grew steadily colder and the clouds got lower and darker. Above, Javor could see only grey: grey rocks reaching dizzyingly upward, grey skies. No white or green.
    They stopped for a rest at a small ravine cut by a mountain stream. Photius sat against a rock and shared some of his wine and his mysterious, invigorating bread.
    “ We are now about to enter a truly dangerous area, my young friend,” he said, gazing calmly up the mountain.
    “ How do you know?” Javor didn’t see anything about the slope immediately above them that set it apart from the part they had just climbed.
    “ The aura of this place is black, dead. There are loathsome things ahead.”
    Javor let his pack slip to the ground and looked at the old man. He was sitting on the ground, leaning back against a boulder, and from Javor’s perspective it seemed the rock was almost a continuation of Photius’ head.
    Then Photius’ head seemed to move. It got longer, higher, and something black rose over the top. No—some animal, a huge snake was rising from behind the rock. In an instant, it towered over Photius. Covered in gleaming black scales, it curved its hideous neck downward again in a fluid motion, opening its maw wider, wider, so wide that Javor thought he would lose his mind. Slime dripped off its lips and teeth like daggers grew outward from the jaw.
    Sound faded and time slowed for Javor. Photius looked up, eyes widening in horror. The snake, or whatever it was, lowered its head as if to swallow the old man whole.  Javor’s body seemed to know what to do without his mind telling it. He realized that his father’s small hatchet was in his hand and that he was raising it over his head. He took two long, fast steps and sprang upward, swinging his arm down as he rose over Photius. The axe came down hard onto the snake’s skull, and he could feel its blade digging into flesh and bone. There was a horrible wrench at his shoulder, and he let go of the handle, and then his feet were on the ground again. He bumped into Photius, sending the old man sprawling.
    Javor became aware of sound again, of Photius yelling incoherently and the snake-thing roaring, tossing its head back and forth with the axe embedded in its skull, spurting slime and blood that hissed when it struck the rocks around them.
    Across the ravine, miles of tail writhed and tossed in rings and loops among the rocks. The snake-thing brought its head down hard on the ground right beside Photius, then heaved up again.
    Javor scooped the old man up in his arms—he was surprisingly light—and leaped up the hill, away from the snake’s death throes, just as it brought its head down again into the ravine. Half-carrying Photius, Javor scrambled up the slope. When they had climbed far enough that they could no longer see the snake-thing among the boulders, Javor halted, panting. “Was that the monster that killed my parents?” he gasped.
    “ No, Javor,” Photius gasped back. He looked bad. His face was gray and he seemed to be trembling. “No. That was a mere minor beast, a cold-drake of some kind. It was much smaller and weaker than the thing that killed the people of your village and all those warriors.” Javor was beginning to get his breath under control.
    Javor started back down the slope again, half-sliding on his backside.
    “ Where are you going, boy?” Photius asked, panic around the edges of his voice.
    “ To get my axe back.” It was still embedded in the monster’s skull. Despite Photius’ incoherent admonitions to stay away from the drake, Javor skidded and slid back to the ravine where the thing’s body lay strung out like an unravelled skein of wool. Its tongue now hung out of its mouth, draped over a dead log. As if it isn’t long enough, already, Javor thought. Stinking steam rose from it. Javor