I was terrified.

  So far in the deep water that I could feel that primal fear in the very core of me. The part of a man that is just an animal, that wants to live and will do anything to survive.

  That survivor that could kill, lie, cheat, and not feel it at all.

  Truth be told, if it wasn't for Moxie and, I guess, Shorty bein' here, I'd have bolted and taken my chances in the desert.

  But they were, so I made a choice.

  I kicked that cowardly beast in its yellow tail and just got right down to what I do best.

  Boom!

  A pistol shot rang out of the din of confused shots and stompin' feet. A small, dark form fell even as it materialized from the shadow's of the world. A goblin, knife eared and armed with a small crossbow died before it could even understand it had crossed into the wrong camp. It's face a mask of shock, confusion and pain.

  A pregnant moment passed as the ripples of reality swelled, built. It was like a whole ocean pressing against a failing levy. As the last warding fires winked out, cracks formed, the world groaned and creaked.

  The smell of ozone, the touch of unnatural cold-

  Then all hell broke loose.

  Pow. Pow. Pow.

  "Get in the fuckin' hole!" I yelled fanning shots over the heads of suddenly sober sophists, "I'll hold the choke!"

  I didn't know how long I had to hold. All I knew is that the tomb was the safest space, no matter what lurked in it's depths.

  I'd seen a situation like this once before. It was rare, but sometimes Entropy could just build and build. Like a flood of dark water, til it was high enough to snuff whatever protections were keeping it back. When that happened, well, usually everybody had a real bad time. In our case, it was even worse. The Entropy hadn’t just built, I was sure. Someone or something had brought it here, invoked it for some dark rite maybe.

  I could only hope they were gone, because otherwise, it was out of the cook pot, and into the fire.

  "Squee!" roared a pissed off ton of porcine fury as she gored a goblin on the point of curved tusk. Moxie was in full mama mode and the razorback was out for blood and-

  She tossed her head and snapped the goblin out the air with a meaty crunch.

  A midnight snack.

  I walked past a ragged gaggle of folks as they started on removing the boards that blocked the entrance to the ancient tomb. The Professor himself was among them, pulling out nails and shouting orders to his students.

  They jumped as my pistol cracked, the flash of alchemy and the scent of smoke and sulfur. There were a few more goblins coming through the rifts. It felt like every where I looked was another ugly green head shaking off the confusion of coming over into our world.

  Boom. Boom.

  Click.

  Reload.

  I tapped the cylinder and started feeding rounds in. By the grace of the Gods my monstrous fingers seemed keen to cooperate. Every individual tendril that made them up seemed eager to play their part in my survival.

  "Roche!" shouted Shorty as she pulled at a plank, "We're almost through, can you hold out a bit more?"

  "Looks like-"

  A bone deep tremor, not the work of force or sound, pushed through the air and the gathered crowd. It made me shiver to my soul and for a moment I saw a flash of something in my arcane eye.

  I saw ruin.

  Then real cracks formed.

  A stinging pain pierced into my skull as looked on at the mirror of the world shattered and fell, and something a lot worse than any goblin began to come through.

  "Aw fuck," I groaned just before everything went tits up once again.

  A blunt, fleshy snout pushed through a gaping wound in our sane world. It was white, the color of bloodless flesh. A ring maw like a haggish from hell. No eyes, just a skinless, pulsing mass of muscle and mucus.

  Even Moxie had to stop. Even ornery pigs knew the score. You didn't mess with a creature like that.

  Some goblins up and fled. The litter critters had come into this world to murder and loot. Not to end up prey to the very things that made their world a nightmare.

  "Roche!" shouted Shorty, her voice distant in the ringing in my ears, "come on!"

  I closed the cylinder with a click and drew a smoke as the beast hauled itself through.

  "I'll hold this thing til ya'll got a new ward up." I said, trying very much to convince myself I should. I sitll had time to listen to that coward’s voice I so often ignored. To be that man I’d seen and hated in so many others.

  You don’t owe the world Roche, no matter how bad you are.

  I flicked my match and the flame caught on the wind. It lit my smoke, but died an instant later. There would be no light save that bright, full moon.

  There was a moment.

  A breath between the thunder of my beating heart and the thrumming pump of concentrated mana in the beast's chest. A breath to savor that last cigarette, to feel the cool wind on my face and to know that despite it all, I was alive.

  I breathed out and flicked. The cherry dead before smoke left my lips, and so did any notion of runnin’.

  Lorcan Roche didn’t run from shit. Not when good folk were on the line.

  Moxie gave a valiant snort and stamped the ground, her hooves digging deep furrows, her bristles raised.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  It finally emerged.

  A Winter Wyrm. A beast straight from campfire stories and the sort of tales that keep children in their beds.

  It's breath could freeze a man solid. Its body, thick was rubbery flesh. It stood on two stout legs, a club-like tail trailin’ it, and two pale wings reachin’ out. Tall enough to head butt a hill giant.

  And the teeth?

  Well, let's just say that by the time you’re familiar with those, you'd wish you were dead.

  As it crushed a tent with a clawed foot and set its weight down upon the sand a cloud kicked up. Snowflakes and rime growing from where it stood.

  It drew a bead as it gathered its breath to roar. As it breathed in to stake claim for all the other monsters to hear.

  "Welcome to my world," I spat, and with one unnaturally extended finger, touched the glowing rune on the barrel of my gun.

  Fire. Dragon's breath. A burst of alchemically charged flame shot forth and caught the great worm in the side of its face just as the first bass note of devastation popped my ears and kicked up a sandstorm.

  Its roar turned to a pained screech, and it began to flail, twisting it's body and slamming it's tail into the ground. Wings scatterin’ what was left of the camp and tearin’ up yet more dust and sand.

  Then it just stood as the smoke and haze cleared. Snarlin’ and twitchin’ in rage but-

  Just scorched. Pissed off.

  And very fuckin' far from dead.

  The cost of that one shot made me falter. What felt like a half a day of effort and energy gone in an instant. It didn’t slow me much, but I had too little lifeforce to do that without thought. It cost less than the spells of a mage, but not by all that much. A second shot would leave me dead on my feet.

  The beast turned to me, hungry and hateful and blind to the real threat chargin’ at its flank.

  Boom!

  A missile made of hog crashed into its broad flank and sent the monster reeling.

  Moxie squealed in fury as she pushed and heaved with all her might, digging tusks into fat and bone.

  "Moxie no-"

  In a flash it whipped its long head, and my pig took flight.

  She landed and rolled, tusk broken, blood leaking out.

  I felt a stab of guilt and a flash of white hot fury... But I didn't have time to spare a thought for her. I was dead if I indulged that want to save my friend. All I could do was make sure it didn’t have the change to finish what it was doin’ very, very well.

  The Wyrm surged, faster than anything so big had a right. It was on me in a blink and-

  Its mouth was open.

  I could see right down its throat. A low road to perdition paved with spikes and pain.

  Crack!

  A bolt of lightnin’ flashed, leaving the burning after image of a pissed off Wyrm in my eye. It staggered and roared. But it didn't go down.

  "Move back young man, this foe is beyond you," said Professor Clarke shoving me back with a steady hand, "I have faced such a beast before, and I can tell you, this is no longer your fight."

  I blinked rapidly as the monster recovered, its thick hide smoking and blood boiling out. And Clarke? Did he teleport? We stood with our backs to the dig entrance as fleein’ scholars flowed around. I now realized that Clarke was no simple old man. No over-the-hill thinkin’ man.

  He was a Battlemage. Imperial trained, I’d bet my boots

  Should have clocked that earlier, but he fooled my Arcane Eye.

  "It's goin' take us both old man, they need time," I said, shouldered my way to his side and fired into the Wyrm's snout.

  I stepped to its flank firing again, drawin’ to from the crowd to face empty desert. No way in hell would I do much damage, but it could keep it distracted and maybe, just maybe, I could find a weak spot.

  "Dive down," shouted the Professor as he raised a gold etched cane, "Now!"

  I did, diving into a roll as a gout of flame erupted from his cane and seared the Wyrm's flesh. It powered through the arcane fire but the volley of force missiles that came next slammed on home, snapping its long, sinuous neck on around.

  The old man was slinging spells like a hero of old, but already I could see them taking a toll. His breath was coming fast and his hands shook. Skin pale, fat and muscle evaporating as he turned lifeforce into raw mana to fuel it all.

  The wyrm roared and gathered itself again. The fuckin' thing was relentless. It would kill us, no matter the damage done. And if it didn't, the goblins that were gathering at the edge of the carnage would. Those little carrion pickers would have theirs no matter who won this night.

  I emptied five shots into the side of its head as it charged again.

  The Professor disappeared from its path with an earsplitting pop, reappearing ten pace away as the wyrm slammed into the carved cliff. I stood just a dozen paces away, enough to really feel when everything shook and the sandstone monument began to crumble and crack. My eyes flicked to the entrance where the expedition had finally kindled a flickering dark flame.

  Dust fell, and something shifted deep in the cliff.

  "Old man! We gotta go!" I shouted and holster my pistol to draw the scattergun from its sling. The Professor was already running. His hands shaking and his face covered in sweat. We closed the gap as the wyrm turned, and roared.

  Frozen rot and the smell of blood washed over us, but it didn't charge.

  No.

  Instead it welled up, drawing in all the air of the night.

  Fuck.

  Before thoughts could form Professor Clarke's cane flashed and I felt a haze of purple energy fall over us.

  Time slowed.

  Literally this time. I had never felt it before but I'd read just enough to know a Haste spell when I felt it. As a swirling vortex of ice formed from the Wyrm's mouth, the Professor and I moved as though in a dream. We were five paces from its head, fifteen from the safety of a forming ward fire.

  We got eight steps toward survival.

  Then breath of the beast came down like a frozen storm.

  I dove, and slid. Instinct carrying me faster than any spell could.

  I felt my hat freeze fast to my head as I passed from the Haste into normal time and came up into a stumbling roll beneath the belly of the beast. I looked up to see more of that false dragon that I ever wished I had.

  Behind me, I knew Clarke had not fared so well. I spared a glance, expecting to see him dead, snapped up as a crunchy treat for the monster that towered over the camp.

  I saw a pillar of ice, and a dark form within it. The wyrm above me roared again, this time I was so close my godsdamned ears bled.

  The ice cracked, rumbled and fell. Revealing the very much alive man within. The Professor was in a bad way though. All signs of mana burnout, a spellslinger's worst fear, evident on his thin and drawn face.

  His suit was torn, his hand bleeding. But his eyes were lit by that mad light that said he would go down fighting.

  Above and around me the monster dug claws into the sand. With a gust of displaced air and a heart pounding stomp, it charge.

  Now, look.

  I ain't no hero. And I sure as shit weren't the type to even consider self-sacrifice. That was for fools too good for this ugly world.

  But...

  Well I just couldn't stomach to see a brave man go out like that. Like an itch I couldn't scratch, the thought of Clarke dying here and now, it drove me mad.

  Mad enough to do something that would prove very foolish indeed.

  As the monster moved to make its first and only kill, I raised my scattergun.

  Sure its hide was thick, and it was covered in a cold that made me feel as though my bones were turning to ice, but there is a place on every animal where armor is thin, skin delicate. Especially on critters of the male persuasion.

  Boom!

  The wyrm howled and reared. A hot geyser of blood shooting up from its groin as two melon sized lumps of grey flesh were blasted into oblivion.

  A small victory. It was the bee stinging the bear in his velvety nose-

  Then failin’ to dodge the comin’ swat.

  I heard the sound of a whip crack, barely saw the creature whirl and turn. Didn't even feel my ribs crunch as its stubby tail sent me flying into the dark. I hit the ground and bounced. I hit again, and then, for a brief moment I saw Shorty up close. Lookin' at me from the ground as I flew overhead in a heap. I saw her eyes widen, and her mouth open.

  Then I hit the wall.

  Something broke, and I got to see the world fall apart, the entrance of the dig fallin’ like rain, before everything was black.

  The only thing left on my mind, was cold, numb terror, and a single question.

  Why didn't it hurt?