Part 1 – The Job
The Welcoming Hand smelled of salt, spilled ale, and trouble. In the corner, a battered map was pinned to the wall with a dagger that hummed faintly with static — Jandar’s work, naturally.
The man himself lounged under it, one boot on the table, idly spinning a coin across his knuckles. Black carapace armor glinted in the lanternlight, his red-lined cloak somehow billowing despite the utter lack of wind indoors. “I’m telling you,” he was saying to a nervous merchant across from him, “your mistake was hiring people who didn’t look like trouble. They scare easier.”
Deacon Bruce leaned against the bar a few feet away, cleaning the twin crossbows that never left his side. Reinforced leather creaked when he shifted, his eyes scanning the room in measured arcs. Unlike Jandar, he didn’t waste energy on looking dangerous — he was dangerous.
The merchant cleared his throat. “The caravans don’t just go missing. We find… pieces. Wagons shredded. Horses gone. The ground torn like—” He shuddered. “Like something dug upwards.”
Jandar’s grin sharpened. “Upwards, you say? How refreshing. Deacon, thoughts?”
“Thoughts are,” Deacon said, sliding a fresh bolt into place, “this smells like bait. Which means we’ll take it.”
The merchant relaxed slightly. “The bounty is a thousand gold. Double if you bring back proof—”
“Done,” Jandar interrupted. “We’ll leave by dawn.”
The merchant blinked. “You haven’t even asked—”
“Details,” Jandar said with a wave. “Deacon loves details. I love treasure. We’re both happy.”
As the merchant left, Deacon gave Jandar a look that had stopped lesser men in their tracks. “You’re not even going to ask what it is we’re hunting?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Jandar stood, sweeping his hat onto his head with a flourish. “Besides, my dear Bruce, if it’s got the good sense to kill upwards, I can’t wait to meet it.”
Outside, a storm grumbled far off over the hills — the kind that didn’t bring rain, only wind and the feeling that something was waiting.
Part 2 – Into the Wild
The trail out of the city was a ribbon of mud and wheel ruts, choked at the edges by tall grass and skeletal shrubs. The sun had barely risen when Jandar and Deacon passed the outer gate, the merchant’s directions scrawled on a slip of parchment that was already damp from mist.
“Three days east to Farrow’s Hollow,” Deacon read aloud, his voice flat. “Stay on the ridge road. Avoid the lowland swamps.”
Jandar glanced sideways, his grin practically audible. “Which is where we’re absolutely going.”
“Which is where we’re absolutely not going,” Deacon replied, never breaking stride.
The countryside rolled away beneath a sky the color of tarnished silver. Villages grew smaller, farther apart, until there was only open land and the occasional ruined watchtower — old bones of wars everyone had forgotten but the land. They passed the remnants of a caravan on the second day: splintered wood, a single half-buried wheel, and a trail of deep gouges in the earth.
Deacon crouched to study them. His fingers traced one of the furrows, brow knitting. “Not wagon marks. Claw marks. Four talons, at least the size of my forearm. Dug up through the roadbed.”
“Big enough to ride,” Jandar mused.
“Big enough to eat you in one gulp,” Deacon countered. “And the tracks don’t head off the road — they dive straight back under it.”
They made camp that night on higher ground, building a small fire shielded from the wind by a ring of stone. The storm they’d heard two nights ago had caught up to them, its winds carrying the faint tang of iron. Somewhere far off, in the dark beyond the firelight, the earth gave a low, shuddering thoom that they both felt in their boots.
Jandar looked up from roasting something that might have once been a rabbit. “That wasn’t thunder.”
“No,” Deacon said, methodically tightening the winding on his crossbow string. “That was closer.”
The rest of the night was spent with Deacon awake on watch and Jandar pretending to sleep — though his hand never left the hilt of Moon-Lightning.
By morning, the ridge road narrowed into a broken path between two hills. On the far side lay Farrow’s Hollow: a wind-bent cluster of houses around a sagging well. The few villagers they saw were pale and watchful, doors closing as the pair passed.
An old woman sat on a porch, peeling an apple with hands like gnarled roots. She didn’t look up when she spoke. “You’re not here to kill it. You’re here to feed it.”
Jandar stopped, tipping his hat politely. “Then I suppose we’d best make sure it chokes.”
The old woman’s peeling never faltered, but her smile was all teeth. “It doesn’t choke. It drags you under.”
Part 3 – The First Clash
The well in Farrow’s Hollow sat in the center of the village, its stones worn smooth from centuries of hands and ropes. But now, no bucket hung from the beam. No rope. Just a black, yawning mouth into the earth.
Deacon circled it, boots crunching on the gravel. “No water,” he murmured. “And the stone’s chipped inward, like something pulled itself up from inside.”
Jandar leaned over the edge, peering into the dark with a grin that made Deacon roll his eyes. “You ever notice how everyone says ‘don’t look down there’ when they want you to look down there?”
“Everyone says that because looking down there gets you killed,” Deacon said, but he still moved to cover Jandar’s back.
The villagers kept their distance, watching from behind shutters and doorframes. One boy — maybe twelve, thin as a rail — crept forward until he was just close enough to whisper. “It comes when it’s hungry. The ground shakes first. Then the air smells wrong. And then—”
The ground shook.
It wasn’t a subtle tremor. The packed dirt under their boots rippled like water, a deep vibration that rattled the bucket hooks along the nearby houses.
“—then that,” the boy finished, eyes going wide.
Deacon’s crossbows were up in an instant, bolts already nocked. “Move,” he barked, and the boy bolted for the nearest door.
A sound rose from below — not a roar, not a hiss, but something in between. A cavernous rush of air through jagged tunnels, ending in a wet, grinding scrape. The well’s shadow swelled, dark against the morning light.
Then it hit.
A blur of segmented chitin erupted from the well, thicker than a cart axle, glistening with wet earth. Talons the size of scythes hooked into the stones, tearing them free like loose gravel. A head followed — if you could call it a head — armored in overlapping plates, with a half-dozen eyes glimmering like onyx and a mouth ringed with jagged, grinding mandibles.
The thing screamed, a sound that was all dust and hunger.
Jandar moved first, leaping aside as the creature’s front claws slammed into the ground where he’d stood. “Well,” he shouted over the noise, “now we know it’s not shy!”
Deacon’s reply was the solid thunk-thunk of bolts punching into the beast’s armored hide. One skipped off. Another buried itself between plates, drawing a gout of dark ichor.
The worm-thing — whatever it was — recoiled, then lunged sideways, smashing into a hut and showering the square with splinters. Jandar darted in, Moon-Lightning flaring with sea-green light as he slashed along a joint in its armor. The blade cut deep, but the creature twisted away, vanishing back into the well with a roar that shook the ground.
Silence followed — except for the faint sound of shifting dirt beneath their feet, moving fast.
“It’s not running,” Deacon said grimly. “It’s circling.”
Part 4 – The Hunt Turns
The dirt path out of Farrow’s Hollow wound between low, scrub-covered hills. Behind them, the village had gone quiet again, shutters closed, voices hushed.
Ahead, only the wind moved.
Jandar led the way at a brisk pace, hat tilted low, cloak trailing like a banner. “I think I’ve cracked its hunting pattern,” he said.
“You’ve cracked nothing,” Deacon replied without looking up from the map he was sketching over in his head. “It’s not a pattern. It’s opportunistic. That’s worse.”
The ground gave a faint tremor.
Deacon froze mid-step, eyes narrowing. “It’s following us.”
“I’d be insulted if it weren’t,” Jandar said.
The tremor grew, rhythmic, like distant drums muffled under the earth. Closer. Then… nothing. The silence was louder than the sound.
Deacon drew both crossbows in one smooth motion, his body angled to give him full range. “It’s waiting for us to stop paying attention.”
“Then we’ll give it the wrong attention,” Jandar murmured. He picked a coin from his pocket — silver, polished to a gleam — and tossed it casually ahead. It clinked once on the dirt before the ground beneath it exploded.
The beast surged upward in a spray of soil and shattered roots. This time they saw more of it — at least thirty feet of armored body, rippling in sections, each plated like overlapping shields. Its eyes locked on them, glossy and black, unblinking.
Jandar dove aside again, rolling to one knee as he slashed Moon-Lightning across a claw. Deacon pivoted, firing both crossbows into the exposed joint along its side. One bolt embedded deep, sending the creature into a frenzy.
It didn’t retreat this time.
Instead, it lunged and whipped its body sideways, slamming Jandar off his feet and hurling him into a half-buried boulder. Deacon stepped in, snapping another bolt into place, but the worm coiled suddenly and disappeared into the ground with terrifying speed — straight under them.
The next tremor came from behind.
Deacon spun, just in time to see the ground bulge in a line — a deliberate line — heading toward him. He fired on instinct, the bolt striking just as the creature breached, snapping at him with a maw big enough to take him whole.
Jandar’s voice cut through the chaos, bright and reckless: “I have a plan!”
“Does it involve not dying?” Deacon grunted, diving out of range.
“Fifty-fifty chance!”
Part 5 – Final Battle
Jandar’s “plan” turned out to involve running.
Not away from the beast — directly toward the line of hills, where a jagged ravine split the ground into a labyrinth of knife-edged stone and shadow.
“Tell me you’re not thinking of leading it in there,” Deacon called, vaulting over a boulder to keep pace.
“Of course I am,” Jandar replied, grinning over his shoulder. “The walls will slow it down.”
“They’ll slow us down.”
The ground behind them buckled and split, the worm erupting in a spray of dust. It shrieked, a sound that seemed to vibrate in their teeth, and barreled after them with frightening speed.
The ravine yawned ahead, a sheer drop into darkness. Jandar leapt without hesitation, catching a narrow ledge halfway down and sliding the rest of the way to the ravine floor. Deacon followed, boots skidding on loose shale as he landed in a crouch.
The worm hit the edge a moment later — and kept coming. It poured down the ravine wall like liquid muscle, claws and armored plates grinding against the rock, the sound a teeth-on-metal scrape that set the air on edge.
“This is slowing it down?” Deacon asked dryly, firing a bolt into the beast’s leading eye. It burst in a spray of ichor, but the worm didn’t stop.
Jandar darted left, luring it toward a narrow choke point between two spires of stone. “Just need it to come here…” he muttered.
The worm lunged. Jandar dove clear at the last instant, and the creature’s bulk jammed between the stone towers. It thrashed, chipping rock, but for a moment it was pinned.
“Now, Bruce!”
Deacon had already moved. He planted his feet, both crossbows loaded with heavy steel-tipped bolts wrapped in oiled cloth. With a snap of flint, the bolts caught fire.
Two quick shots — thunk, thunk — straight into the softer underplates where the worm’s body met the ground. The flames took instantly, racing along the oiled armor joints, smoke and heat bursting into the ravine.
The worm screeched, wrenching itself free — but too late. Its movements grew frantic, then erratic, the fire eating into seams it couldn’t protect. It thrashed one last time, crashing against the stone walls, before collapsing in a shuddering heap.
The smoke began to clear.
Jandar stepped forward cautiously, Moon-Lightning’s edge still humming with stormlight. He nudged the beast’s side, then glanced up at Deacon with a satisfied grin. “Told you the walls would help.”
Deacon reloaded without comment, but the corner of his mouth twitched upward. “Let’s cut something off for proof before it starts moving again.”
Part 6 – The Spoils
It took the better part of an hour to saw through the worm’s armor plating. Even with Deacon’s steel tools and Jandar’s willingness to “borrow” anything sharp from the ravine floor, the plates were thick as a ship’s hull.
They settled on a trophy: one massive, hooked talon, nearly as long as Deacon’s forearm and heavier than it looked. Dark ichor still clung to the base, drying in strange, metallic flakes.
“That’ll fetch a bounty,” Deacon said, wrapping it in cloth.
“Oh, the bounty is just the appetizer,” Jandar replied, already prowling along the worm’s scorched hide. He found what he was looking for near the base of its skull — a cluster of deep scars that, when pried apart, revealed something metallic glinting inside.
He reached in and pulled free a lump of tarnished silver shaped like… a locket.
Deacon raised an eyebrow. “That doesn’t look like proof of kill.”
“It’s proof of style,” Jandar said, slipping it into a pouch with all the casual grace of a man who had no intention of declaring it to anyone.
They climbed out of the ravine before nightfall, the carcass still steaming below. The way back to Farrow’s Hollow was eerily quiet — no tremors, no movement underfoot. When they arrived, the villagers emerged cautiously, eyes widening at the sight of the talon.
The old woman with the apple peeler was waiting. She eyed the cloth-wrapped prize, then looked past it to Jandar, as if she could smell the extra weight in his pocket.
“It’ll be back,” she said softly.
“Then we’ll be back,” Jandar answered, tipping his hat.
The bounty was paid in clinking gold, the villagers closed their shutters again, and the pair were on the road by dusk — the talon secured in Deacon’s pack, and the locket weighing comfortably against Jandar’s side.
Epilogue – The Welcoming Hand
The Welcoming Hand was alive with noise by the time Jandar and Deacon returned — laughter, clinking mugs, the occasional off-key chorus that somehow stayed in time with the fiddle player.
They took their usual table by the window, the one that gave Jandar a clear view of both the bar and the door. Deacon set the wrapped talon on the table between them. The bartender gave it a long look, decided not to ask, and poured them each a generous measure of something amber and potent.
“To another day we probably shouldn’t have survived,” Deacon said, raising his glass.
Jandar clinked it with a grin. “And to surviving it with style.”
They drank.
The conversation drifted to the next job, to rumors of a haunted lighthouse, to how many crossbow bolts Deacon had left buried in the worm’s hide. Eventually, as the fiddle tune changed, Jandar reached into his cloak and produced the locket.
He flicked it open with one thumb. Inside was a tiny, perfectly preserved map — etched in silver, no bigger than a coin. Deacon leaned in, his brow furrowing.
“That’s not just a trinket,” he said.
“No,” Jandar agreed, snapping it shut and slipping it back into his cloak. “That’s a promise.”
“What kind of promise?”
“The kind that’ll pay for drinks for a month… and maybe get us killed.”
Before Deacon could press, a barmaid passed with a tray, someone laughed too hard at the next table, and the stool under Jandar creaked ominously. He shifted, the leg gave way, and he went down in a clatter of wood and cloak.
From the floor, he raised his glass — somehow still upright and full — and grinned up at Deacon. “Still counts as style.”
Deacon just shook his head, took a drink, and let the noise of the tavern roll back in around them.