I was hot off my heels, boots in stirrups before the ground could even shake.

  Boom.

  The wyrm, no, probably just worm. A big motherfucking’ worm sure, but I doubted it breathed fire.

  I hoped it didn’t breathe fire.

  It landed in a billowing rush. A sandstorm conjured just from its bulk.

  Moxie was already moving, using her tusks to harden the ground and make our escape that much easier. She kicked up and turned through the gritty haze, breaking into a charge as I coughed and hacked in a desperate attempt to breath.

  We broke through the dust and found clear air once more.

  Didn't matter. The worm was on the chase.

  As my razorback hog sprinted on mana hardened sand the massive beast burst and dove like it was swimming in the crystal waters just to our west.

  Every second or two I got a good glance down it's gullet.

  Teeth, teeth, and more hungry teeth.

  Its roar scattered the dunes, revealing red rock under a century of sand.

  I was split awe and muted fear as Moxie ran. We were fast, so fast. But so was it.

  Inch by inch, moment by moment, that razor grew on our trail. The sound of its massive body was a thunderous rattle, shaking the very world.

  It hit me like a ten-pound sledge in the hands of an Uruk lumberjack.

  We could outrun it.

  I drew my shotgun from a holster on the saddle and spun.

  The jostle of a racing murder pig was mighty hard on my aim.

  Boom.

  A cloud of dust to its left.

  Boom, punched through the haze over its head.

  Thunk. Thunk. Click.

  Reload. Try again.

  It was twenty feet from Moxies short, bristly tail. Snapping at her scent and roaring in hunger.

  It was my chance.

  I fired at the soft tissue in the roof of it’s mouth.

  This time, I didn't miss.

  Boom.

  Lead impacted tooth, flesh and bone. Hurdled right down the gullet of the great worm. It spat, blood and bits of metal and tooth flying from its mouth.

  Moxie roared in bloody triumph, but too soon.

  But it didn't slow a wit.

  Instead, the pain only seemed to enrage the titanic beast, and it put on a burst of speed until it was inches from my mount's heels. It bit, fangs catching a little of her tail and ripping off a chunk of bloody, bristly hair.

  "Run Moxie! Run!" I roared as we crossed the deep sand, headed straight for a cliff. For the ocean below.

  "Jump, godsdammit!" I hollered, and boy, she damn sure did.

  Pigs could fly after all.

  Sand mixed in with the sudden scent of water and salt as we approached the apex of our soarin’ arc. We hung for a moment, suspended in a slow arc by sheer speed. Then, the world came rushing back.

  Moxie screamed in rage. I slapped a hand on my hat, and we rode down into the cold, blue, depths. I held my breath as the chill hit me, then tried to breath in a gasp of panic.

  Pigs ain't good swimmer. Neither are farm hands.

  Me and she, we fuckin' sunk.

  Even more so when a hundred foot of worm came crashing' in. It was like the whole ocean shook with the force of that impact and the two of us were tumbled in a roil of surf, and sand, and blood. Propelled like dandelions seeds in a harsh gust of wind.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  For a while, a deep, breathless moment, I was sure we'd met an early, watery end. It was all I could do not to breath as the ocean pushed us deeper.

  A dark shadow disturbed the reality below. A working of mana heralding some far, far worse.

  Then-

  Whoosh.

  It spat us out in a wave of power and rage. Pushed us to the edge of the shallows with a gout of spat water.

  It weren't providence. It weren't luck.

  It was the work of something bigger and hungrier than all that. As the worm thrashed and sank, and me and Moxie caught our breath in wet sand, a toothy maw rose from the wake.

  Ten, twenty, fifty feet high...

  Snap.

  Gone in a bite. Half the worm disappeared into the mouth of a thing I could scarce comprehend. Red soaked the blue and all manner of small fishes joined in.

  Leviathan.

  Like a living island it made snack of that gargantuan beast. And for some reason, it had saw fit to let me and my pig live.

  "Thanks be to the sea, I guess," I spotted and coughed as Moxie stood and shook like a wet dog, showering me in salty spray.

  She snorted. Agreeing with me in her own way.

  "Yeah, that's one thing to always know Moxie," I shook the wet from my soaked hat, "there's always a bigger fish."

  She gave a toss of her tusks splashing water at me as she nimbly kicked up the the beach.

  As she did, my eyes scanned the coast and the cliffs above. We'd very nearly become worm shit, and narrowly avoiding being fish bait. There were a lot of rocks in this inlet, we'd barely missed them. As I was appreciating the sheer... luck of our survival, a glint of distant light caught my eye.

  There, sat in a shallow cove, was a boat. Probably a mounted spyglass had caught the light and made me notice it.

  A single mast sloop made for quick trips up and down the coast. A ragged tear in the crimson sails marked the ship a vessel of the Empire, and temporarily inoperable.

  Dollars to dinars, Hartwell was in that cove.

  I smiled and patted my mount on her flank as she continued to shake the surf off. Seemed razorback hogs didn't much like water.

  "Hey Moxie," I said, "that's our man. Mind waitin' around here? Cave ain't a place for big strong pig."

  She snorted, and started digging in the sand until she'd make a little divot where she plopped on her fat ass. Her throaty grunt suggested somethin’ between resignation, and porcine impatience.

  I was sure she felt like she’d already earned dinner, so why the hell was I makin’ her wait?

  "Good girl, and I will bring a snack,” I frowned and looked toward the cove again, “if I survive.”

  Rather than jump the gun like I usually did, I took a breath, had some water, and saw to a few practical matters.

  Sea water is hell on quality firearms. The iron and salt, they'll rust the best steel if you let 'em. A good clean with an iron brush and some oil applied where it mattered fixed the worst of that.

  Then I was off to hunt my man.

  I usually wasn't much for stealth, but that battle at the stable had left me thinking. Maybe a little more caution was in order. I took off my boots, and tied them to my belt. Wouldn't hear me coming, once I was walking on all that stone.

  Crossed the beach and climbed up onto the rickety old dock. The boards were bleached and weather worn, and a few were cracked.

  All around was proof of this small harbor's trade. Cages, sized for men.

  And children.

  I see the spirits of some lingering here in the wake. Small shadows of the dead. Little kids and mothers. Old men. All of 'em shackled and collared like common animals. Lingerin' here instead of restin' with their gods. I'd bet

  My teeth grit, I felt them bleed and creak. These sons-a-bitches. They deserved what came next.

  I stalked quietly across the old boards, careful to set foot on the seams. Less likely to creak. I kept to the shade of the wooden overhangs and let my arcane eye guide me to where I needed to be.

  Normally I tried to shut it out. What it showed was hard to see, hard for a mortal mind to comprehend...

  I tore my mind from worryin’ about the details, about all that what made me sick, made me mad. Neither of them things made you smart, and considerin' I was about to kill a man, I needed all my wits about me. Never knew who was strong. I'd met farmers on their tenth Step. Unassuming men who dedicated their life to the fields, yet could kill a rabid mana bear with a dull plow blade and call it lunch.

  Well, okay, I met one farmer like that. And yes, he'd been drunk as a fiddlin' skald when he told it to me, but still. I'd live longer if I managed to think as often as I was lucky. If I remembered that this was a deep ocean, and me?

  I was just little fish.

  The cove was quiet as I stalked deeper into the caverns. Water dripped from stalactites, and the air was cool and damp. A small schooner sat anchored in the shallows. It looked neglected, but not quite abandoned. Used in a pinch, maybe, but it was clear none of it's masters had been aboard for some time. A small dock led to a wide open cave. The wood creaked and groaned beneath my feet and the water lapped against the pilings as I snuck through the caverns.

  There was an unnatural breeze here, and my nose picked up a foul stench that set my teeth on edge.

  There was a pit. A natural drop in the back of the cavern, beneath the tall loft that loomed above the dock. Stone by water and the slow, inevitable erosion of time. And there, that scent was strong. Sweet and greasy and rancid.

  I didn't need to look to guess what they used that for. Thing about keepin' people as your product is that they're a lot like anything else. They expire sometimes, and gotta deal with that. Back on the ship, the I'd escaped from just days ago in my experience, years since in truth. That smell had been everywhere in the hold. Spoiled meat and sour skin.

  The crew cared little enough. Often let us stew in it, before throwin' the corpse overboard and claimin' the gods would do away with it. I doubted any gods were doin' away with whatever was in that pit.

  I don't they wanted to look inside any more than I did. And so we were all blind to that truth as I made to the stairs to the loft.

  Up there came the only sounds that weren't made of wind and sea. A man's voice, hushed and tense. Flickers of spent mana leakin' out of the small office perched near a collection of crate and barrels. I crept forward on quiet toes as I heard the words get louder. The sound of a man's voice, speaking to the air.

  A little tremble lit up and down my spine. Not fear, not anger, just plain anticipation.

  This was him.

  Thomas Hartwell. And this place he'd made, this monument to cruelty and good 'ol fashioned greed. Where people were spent and traded, and discarded when they weren't good for that. This prison-grave of the meek and young...

  I'd make it his grave too.