Strangling a twelve foot-tall ogre is hell on your back, believe you, me. I twist around in my saddle and try in vain to crack it as I ride toward the big wooden doors that lead out of the pit. The ones the furry little goblin shits are all rushing in through. Before making my way out, I motion toward my hip and try to get their attention, “Sword? Where’s the sword I had? The one you took from me?” Of course none of them have any idea what I’m saying so I just throw my hands up and keep going. The doorway is tall enough that I only have to duck slightly to fit through it while riding the horse.

  On the other side is a subterranean village packed with dilapidated buildings made of what I can only assume is other creatures’ refuse. Everything’s lit by torches that are just begging to convert the entire place into a giant goblin funeral pyre. Along with being the worst fire hazard I’ve ever seen, it might be the worst anything I’ve ever seen. The building materials are all animal bones and rotting wood caked together with what I'm really hoping is mud. It seems they've even repurposed some broken ship parts and what look like the tattered remains of human structures that existed before. And it isn’t just my eyes getting assaulted. The place smells even worse than it looks.

  The townsgoblins are all ignoring me to run into the pit and join in on the ogre-cide celebration. I crane my neck around to take it all in and I see really ugly versions of shops and taverns and smithies and—god help me—now they’re cutting the ogre apart to add it to their collection. I cannot get out of this place fast enough.

  I keep riding until the cave narrows and the cheering quiets into distant echoes. Within a few minutes, I’ve passed the last signs of goblin civilization and I can finally breathe through my nose again. When I’m alone in a tunnel that’s barely tall enough for me and the horse to fit through, it occurs to me that the wall torches are becoming fewer and farther between. I see where this is going so I grab one off the wall so that I can use it to light the rest of the way.

  There’s water trickling down the wall here and there. I have no idea how far underground this cave is but I figure it must be pretty damn deep for there to be liquid water here. This is nothing like the frozen wasteland of the surface world. Up there, my piss was barely hitting the ground before it froze. Down here, it’s borderline comfortable. Almost damn near cozy. And it turns out, there’s even stuff growing in this cave. When I remove the torch from the wall, I spot some juicy-looking mushrooms hiding just behind it. They look a bit suspect, but I haven’t eaten in two goddamn days so, whatever, hopefully these shrooms aren’t of the instant-death variety.

  After scarfing down the mushrooms that may or may not be about to kill me, it isn’t long before the horse and I arrive at a fork in the tunnel.

  “Shhhit.”

  I have no idea which way to go. I was out cold when the goblins brought me down here. I look down and ask the horse, “You wouldn’t happen to remember which way we came in, would you?” It gives me a snort and then shuffles its feet around until I’ve convinced myself that it’s motioning toward the path on the left. So that’s the one we take. “Alright buddy, I’m trusting you here.”

  It’s about three hours later that I realize the horse was full of shit.

  I give it a pat and tell it, “It’s alright. We all make mistakes. Hey, maybe that dickhead prince was right and horses really should have names. What do you think, you want a name?” It doesn’t acknowledge my question but I go ahead anyway, “You strike me as a ‘Gerard.’ How about we go with that?” The horse trots along like I’m not even talking.

  “What do you think of Piper and me, Gerard? You think that’s gonna work out? I know what you’re thinking, that she can be kind of difficult…or really difficult.” Gerard silently concurs. “Exactly! And god knows she needs to get her drinking under control. I mean, I like to have fun as much as the next guy but—goddamn. She really likes to have fun. One time she got so drunk that she got lost outside the castle and Harikin had to lead a search party to go and find her. Turned out, she had tried to climb a tree and got tired halfway through and fell asleep.”

  Girard turns his head and huffs at the wall. “Right? I was the one who ended up finding her. And then I had to be the one to climb up there and get her out. She started bawling as soon as I woke her up. Saying all kinds of crazy nonsense about how sad it is that nobody ever just climbs trees anymore once they’re grown. Though, I was never allowed to climb trees when I was being forcibly entered into military service as a child so maybe I just didn’t get it...

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  “And at some point that woman is gonna have to start letting people get close to her again. Like, god forbid she ever actually tell me to my face how she feels about me. Because look, I still only have Ulric’s word that Piper actually loves me. That’s what he said she said, right? You weren’t there, never mind. Piper apparently said that she loved me. But then I spent a whole day with her and she didn’t say it once. And now I’ve been holding onto this idea that she's in love with me for weeks while I try to make my way back to her. But I guess you can never really know what’s going on in someone else's head, huh. Is your mouth dry? Mine is. I don’t know if Piper really loves me or not but whatever, it doesn't matter. There’s just…something about this woman. It's like I just can't stay away from her. Despite her many, many flaws.”

  Gerard gives his head a little shake to bat a flying insect away. “No, I’m not trying to fix her. It’s not like that. Honestly, it’s almost endearing that she is the way she is. A delightful mess, I’d call her. Hell, I might actually like her more because she makes my life so difficult. I don’t know why. Am I crazy or is this making sense?”

  We’ve come to another fork. “Goddamnit, well I know I can’t trust you this time. Who the fuck made all these tunnels anyway? Let’s go this way.”

  The walls of the cave are getting more irregular the farther we go. More rugged, like less effort was put into carving them. And more colorful. “...Did you see that? Never mind, I think I’m just seeing shit. So anyway Gerard, you’ll think this is funny. There was this one time when Piper was still learning how to use her bow and I was looking away, doing something else, and I start hearing something that sounds like a harp being plucked—But really out of tune and awful-sounding. I look over and Piper has discovered that if she holds the bowstring taut while plucking it with her other hand, she can make something that sounds sort of like music. And it sounds fucking terrible! So then, she’s so goddamn proud of this discovery she’s made that she starts going around showing everyone in the castle. And they all just look at her like she’s suddenly grown a second head!”

  Gerard amusedly trots along. “I know, right! That’s the sort of thing I love about her. She knew everyone thought she looked like an idiot and she didn’t care. If anything, I think it just encouraged her more. Oh, and then there was this time that—Whoa...”

  Seems we’ve entered a whole new area. Long gone are the irregular surfaces of the endlessly winding cave walls. Now I’m standing in what looks like an underground city. And not a shitty one made of garbage like the goblin village. These buildings are carved right out of the rocky surface, and each one has been artfully crafted. There are fluted columns and decorative molding and architectural flourishes that I don’t even know the names of. The whole place is even lit, though I can’t tell where the light is coming from. It’s as though it’s coming from everywhere all at once.

  I lean down and ask Gerard, “What do you make of this place?” He has no clue. I straighten back up and perk one ear when I realize I can hear running water coming from somewhere out in the distance. Then I steer Gerard in that direction.

  “Who do you think lived here? And how did they live here? I mean—what did they eat? There’s nothing down here. Except for those wall-shrooms that I’m really starting to question my decision to eat.”

  It looks like there’s real history to this place. Off to my left I see a building that looks like a library, and a minute later I see a tower that would look right at home in Valencia's capital. It takes a few minutes of meandering through the empty streets to get to where I can see the source of the sound—a huge waterfall at the far end of the city. Looks like it’s where the wall of the cave closes the whole place off. Not much else to do so I just keep heading in that direction.

  “At least it’s warm down here. Hey, do you think I was too hard on Ulric and the gang? I’m not saying I feel bad about it or anything but…Well, Piper’s always telling me I should be nicer to people. You think she’s right?” Gerard waffles about. “It’s okay, you can tell me the truth. I won’t be mad. Oh hell, who am I kidding? I have a busted hand right now because I lost my shit back there. They didn’t deserve that. Did I really tell them to have fun freezing to death? I must have sounded like such a dick! I mean, I don’t think I’d care if Fallow froze to death but everyone else in that party is alright. Ulric pisses me off but he’s also come through for me a hell of a lot more than I have for him. I’d just be a bloodstain on the wall of that coliseum right now if it hadn’t been for him. And Tabitha! She didn’t even think twice about coming on this insane mission with me. And now look. None of them want anything to do with me…”

  We’ve reached the waterfall and there’s nowhere else to go but through. It looks like there’s more light on the other side. I stare at it for a few seconds before asking Gerard, “What do you think? Do we just go in?” He isn’t sure. I look up to see where all the water is coming from. As far as I can tell, it’s just falling straight out of the rocky ceiling, way up above our heads. At the bottom, the waterfall forms a creek that runs through the center of the abandoned city.

  I look down at Gerard and shrug. “Well, not much else we can do. I guess we’re going in. Hold your breath for a second.” As I say it, I toss the torch to the ground, steer Gerard into the creek, and then ride straight through the waterfall to the other side.