Dragondoom

CHAPTER 26

Mid and Late Fall, 3E1602

[The Present]

“Oh!” Elyn exclaimed softly, and Thork turned, his “eyes following her gaze back across the river into Wolfwood. The Dwarf looked yet saw nought but trees with leaves fluttering in the gentle zephyr, for the Wolfmage and Draega were gone. Turning back to the Warrior Maid, Thork cocked an eye. “I thought I saw. .” she began, then fell into a silence.

They rode easterly league upon league, neither saying a word, the silence a chill uncomfortable wall between them. Even when they stopped to eat and feed the steeds and to rest and take care of other needs, still they spoke in but monosyllables. Each was still hurt, feeling both as betrayed and as betrayer, for it was but this morning that each had discovered that the other was after the Kammerling-the Rage Hammer, Adon’s Hammer-for no other weapon would accomplish that which must be done. And both knew that when this necessary-this vital-mission was accomplished, such a weapon could then be used in the struggle between their two Folk. And so, they regretted ever having met one another, no matter what they had come to feel, and now wanted only to be alone. Yet they also had been told by the Wolfmage that neither one alone could hope to succeed in securing this token of power, for destiny and prophecy ruled o’er talismans such as these, and the prophecy concerning the Kammerling told that two were needed-One to hide, One to guide-and both Elyn and Thork had a role to play, in spite of being enemies, in spite of. . other things. And so, in a silence stretched taut between them, easterly rode the twain, for easterly lay their goal.

All day they rode thus, and when evening began to fall they encamped in pines alongside a burbling stream dashing out into the open wold. Thork made a small fire, while Elyn rubbed down both Wind and Digger, using handfuls of long grass pulled from the slopes, and then curried both beasts.

As the two warriors sat and ate jerky, the Sun sank below the horizon and darkness came creeping upon the land. Finishing his meal, Thork got to his feet and washed his hands in the stream and turned to his weaponry. He cocked his crossbow and laid in a quarrel, and set his axe at hand, and lay his cloth-covered shield and metal warhammer within easy reach. Then, turning to Elyn, at last he broke the silence: “Now we shall see if that silver nugget truly wards us, for the dark is full upon us, and if Andrak sends evil after, then it will not be long ere we will know it.”

Elyn, too, prepared for combat, spear, bow and arrow, saber, and long-knife at hand, yet she seemed preoccupied all the while. And she stood across the fire from him and at last she spoke her mind: “Thork, secrets lie between us, and bar the way before us. Now is the time to lay them bare if we are to go onward together as the Wolfmage has said we must.

“We have fought together side by side against the forces of darkness, and at times back to back. We have fought on even when it seemed that there was no hope of surviving. I have taken wounds meant for you, and you have taken mine. A better comrade I could not ask for.

“I know that a common foe has thrown us together, regardless of our own choosings, yet you go against all that I had thought of your kind, and I do not see how this can be.

“These past weeks I have wondered how you could be such as you are: honorable, steadfast, worthy.” Elyn paused, looking not at Thork, but studying her hands instead. When she continued, her voice was soft, barely above a whisper. “And I wonder at your care for me, a companion-nay! an enemy-met upon the road. For there is this thing that lies between us: our Folk war with one another.

“When I set out upon this quest, I thought to turn the Kammerling against your kind in the end. And you have admitted as much to me. Yet I cannot partake in a mission where the thing I seek will be, might be, turned against me and mine.” Now Elyn’s voice was filled with emotion, with hurt, with the thoughts of things remembered. “Already have we, have I, been greatly wronged by your Folk, and I would not have that happen again.

“Yet my destiny seems somehow bound up in yours.

“And now we go into a danger beyond reckoning, and all doubt must be expelled ere we come to the final testing.

“Ere now I have deliberately hidden my questions, treading on nought but safe ground. But the time has come when we must say what is true and what is not, for I can have it no other way.”

She glanced at Thork for the first time since beginning, yet now it was he who could not meet her gaze, and instead stood looking down at the fire. Even so, he nodded, twice-short, jerky movements.

“Who are you?” Elyn’s voice quavered, verging upon tears, knowing that if he answered, there would be no turning back. Yet there was nothing that could have prepared her for his response.

Looking her directly in the eye, Thork answered, his words slow and measured, ringing like knells of doom upon a funeral bell: “I am Thork, son of Brak, brother of Baran, DelfLord of Kachar.”

With each word, Elyn listened in growing horror, stunned, and when the last word came, without warning she hurled herself at him, fists flailing, crying, “Murderers! Killers! You slew my brother! You slew my brother! You slew my twin!”

And her clenched hands struck Thork in rage, but he did little to protect himself, fending with his forearms, turning his face to one side. Yet at last he clutched her unto himself, hugging her tightly. And for a moment she struggled, but then she locked her own arms about him and for the second time in her life she wept as would a lost child, all the fury gone from her, nought but desolation left within.

And Thork held her and comforted her even though he now knew who she was: Elyn, daughter of Aranor, King of Jord, sister to Elgo, Sleeth’s Doom, Brak’s Slayer, Thief. And a great look of anguish swept over Thork’s face.

The next day they continued their easterly ride, again saying little, for each had much to ponder. Some two hours after setting out, at their second rest stop of the morning, Elyn at last broke the silence between them, noting a red hawk circling in the high blue sky. “Redwing,” she muttered, following its flight.

“Eh?” grunted Thork, peering ’round.

“I said Redwing.” Elyn pointed, Thork’s gaze following her outstretched arm. “It is like my hawk, Redwing, raised from a chick.”

They stood and watched the hunting pattern of the raptor, and every now and again the Sun caught upon the outstretched wings just so, and burnished copper flashed in the sky. “So like your red tresses, Princess,” said Thork quietly, not realizing that he spoke aloud, until-

“My tresses?” Elyn turned her eyes toward the Dwarf, but his gaze refused to meet hers.

“The soaring hawk, Lady,” Thork said at last. “She gleams as would red gold, just as does your hair. A fitting symbol of your kinship, a bond between this red huntress of the skies and this red huntress of the plains.”

Elyn turned her face away, her heart hammering for no reason. And the red hawk circled higher and higher, until it was but a speck in the sky, flashing copper now and again.

Onward they rode, stopping at last for a noon meal alongside a clear stream running out into a greensward. As Thork prepared a small fire, Elyn took up her sling and trod quietly into a swale, returning shortly with but a single rabbit at her belt. “Sparse fare, Thork,” she grumbled. “Not much game hereabout, I ween.”

“Someday, Lady, you must teach me the manner of that rockthrower of yours,” said Thork, reaching out and taking the coney from her, pulling a dagger from his boot. Thork stepped to one side and began to dress out the game, preparing it for the spit.

“Not rocks, Thork,” responded Elyn, “though they’ll do in a pinch.” She fumbled at the pouch upon her belt and withdrew a small lead ball. “Instead, these, Warrior: sling bullets.”

Thork set the rabbit above the fire and rinsed his bloodied hands in the stream. Then he reached out and took the metal shot from her, turning it over and again in his fingers. “Chod,” he said. “We call this grey metal, chod. It is common, easily smeltered, easily fashioned. Yet there is something about the working of chod that is dangerous. Like a slow poison. For the most part, we Châkka leave it be.” Thork handed the bullet back to Elyn. “Steel would be better.”

As the steeds munched upon grain, Elyn and Thork sat and watched the rabbit cook, each taking turns at rotating the spit above the flames. “It seems the token the Wolfmage gave us provided protection from Andrak and his minions,” remarked Elyn, breaking the silence. “At least nothing came upon us in the dark. Nothing that is except memories. . and dreams.”

Thork did not reply, instead turning the spit again.

Elyn fingered the token on the thong about her neck. “You know of metals, Thork. What be this alloy?”

Thork turned to look, then moved closer, his eyes widening in amaze. “Starsilver! This be starsilver.” Reverently he reached out and touched the nugget. “You would call it silveron, yet it is none other than the special metal placed within Mithgar by Adon. No wonder it holds magic.”

“Is it as rare as I’ve heard?” Elyn stretched the thong to its limit, looking upon the nugget with new eyes. “I thought it common silver, but now I see it is not.”

“Aye, rare and priceless,” answered Thork. “Only in a few places within Mithgar is it known to exist, and every grain is carefully sought out, for it is precious.”

Elyn cocked her head to one side, and quicksilver swift changed the subject. “Thork, what did the Wolfmage mean when he said that being a Châk signifies that you cannot lose your footsteps?”

Thork rocked back on his heels and peered intently into the fire, and for long moments Elyn thought that he would not answer. But then, as if he had made up his mind about some aspect of their relationship, he at last spoke. “We Châkka have a special gift given to us by Adon: wherever we have stepped, wherever we have travelled by land, be it on foot or astride a pony or within a waggon or by other means, the track we have fared upon comes alive within us, and we can unerringly retrace our steps. There is an eld Châk saying: ‘I may not know where I am going, but I always know where I have been.’ And it is true, for easily can we step again a path trod, be it pitch black, be we blindfolded, forward or reverse, it matters not, for still can we trace out a route once travelled. Without this gift, we could not live in the labyrinths below the ground.” Without further word, Thork pulled the rabbit from above the fire and split it in two, giving over one half to Elyn.

They rode through the rest of the day, settling into another coppice-sheltered campsite when evening drew nigh. As darkness fell and Elyn spread her bedroll ere turning in, she looked across the fire at her comrade. “Thork, when I attacked you yesternight, it was not you I was assailing: instead it was your Lineage. You see, I loved my brother very much.”

A long silence stretched between them, broken by the Dwarf at last: “As I loved my sire.” With these words, Thork cast his hood over his head and stepped into the shadows beyond the reach of the firelight.

Tears sprang into Elyn’s eyes, yet whether they were for herself or for Thork, she could not say.

All the next day they rode in silence, each wrapped in thoughts unspoken. A covering of clouds crept across the sky, and the wind grew chill, presaging the winter to come, and the Châk Prince and Human Princess huddled in their cloaks and moved across the land. By nightfall a cold rain fell from above, and the twain spent a miserable night under a leaking lean-to hastily constructed by Thork from boughs of whin and pine.

Sometime in the night the frigid drizzle ceased, and next morn as the Sun broke over the horizon, the two ate in silence. The dawn air was cold and damp and uncomfortable, and the chill seemed to seep into the very bones. Groaning, Elyn got to her feet. “Ah, me, but what I wouldn’t give for a good cup of hot tea.”

Rummaging about in his knapsack, Thork held up a brown packet. “Lady, if you can light a fire in this wet wood, we can both have tea.”

“Hah!” Elyn barked, snatching the packet from Thork. “Set me an impossible task, will you? Hola, but wait, mayhap there be a way after all.”

Emitting a low, throaty laughter, the Princess searched her own pack and extracted a tiny lantern. Unfastening a metal clasp, she pulled the diminutive brass and glass square-pane chimney from the base. In a trice she had the wick burning, and in anticipation Thork had a small pot of water ready to suspend above the flame.

After some time, they hunkered down within the edge of the woods and sipped warm, bracing tea, each revelling in the smell and taste and heat of the drink. And as they savored their mutual victory over nature, before them in the east for as far as they could see lay the open wold, and somewhere in the far distance beyond the horizon lay their hidden goal. They sat in silence for a while, yet at last Elyn said, “Thork, I must tell you something. Until these past two days, I never considered that others had lost loved ones in the strife between our Folk. Oh, I knew it, but I didn’t feel it. My only thought was that I had lost those dear to me. I did not stop to think that when Elgo was slain, so too was Brak. And just as my brother was loved, Brak must have been loved as well. And I did not admit that in the War, casualties were suffered by both sides. But, I am not ready to dwell upon the rights and wrongs of the deaths suffered between us. . not yet. But this I do propose: that during this day, as we ride eastward, I will try to see the justice of your claim against the trove, and you will try to see that of mine.”

During Elyn’s words, at mention of Brak’s death, Thork had cast his hood over his head, a Châkka gesture of mourning. And when she spoke of considering the Jordian claim against the trove, Thork shifted uncomfortably, as if being asked to do something that went against his grain. He turned his head away, and stared off into the morning distance, his sight flying far across the open wold, as if seeking some sort of answer along the rim of the world.

“Thork?” Elyn’s voice was soft.

The Dwarf turned and looked deep into the emerald pools of her eyes, his own dark glance shadowed and unseen deep within the cowl of his cloak. And down within the viridian depths he seemed to find an answer, his discomfort vanishing in the endless clear green of her gaze.

“Aye,” he agreed, “I will think upon it.”

Over the next several weeks they slowly wended eastward, the land about them changing from an open wold unto rolling hills, thickets and grassland slowly becoming forests and glens. Two small hamlets did they encounter, and an occasional woodsman’s cote or crofter’s farm. And when they came upon these places, Elyn found as long as she wore the silveron nugget, no one perceived her or Thork. She would slip off the amulet long enough to gain permission to sleep in a loft, or to replenish their supplies, or to take a room within an inn of comfort and dwell a while, always wearing the stone in private. And all who saw them upon the way deemed it strange that a Dwarf and a female Human were companions of the road, though few voiced these thoughts. Stranger still was the fact that the Woman girded herself about with weaponry, and that the Dwarf bore a covered shield with no device. Armed and armored like warriors were these two. Yet those they encountered questioned not, for the copper coins they received from this pair purchased privacy from prying as well as food and shelter and grain and other such. And always the twain sought information as to the direction of the Black Mountain, said to be the Wizards’ holt. And ever was the answer a vague wave eastward: “. . somewhere in the mountains to the Sun, I hear.”

And all who saw them noted that the two seemed engrossed in deep discussions, now and again appearing to disagree in anger, though quietly. In the first village that they came to, a woodcutter sat near their table, and when asked by the innkeeper, the cutter told that he had overheard some of their discussion, though it didn’t seem to make much sense. “Speakin’ o’ Dwarf enemies, he wos. Said that he whot makes a enemy o’ a Dwarf has a enemy e’erlastin’. Said that Dwarves’ll seek revenge fore’er, ’tis their nature. And that sommun whot wos named Sleeth wos still their foe, he wos, and would ha’e been till the stars theirselves died ded.”

“Ar, now there be a bit o’ news,” responded the innkeeper, his eyes going round with wonder. “Sleeth be a Dragon, I hear. Well now, did he say anathin’ elsewise, or did she say anathin’ back?”

“Coo, after a bit she said somethin’ about a land whot lay fallow for a thousan’ five hunnert years wos abandoned, by her reckonin’. E’en so, she could see that if Dwarves’d seek vengeance fore’er, then perhaps they wosna finished with this here Sleeth.

“Then he says that if Men thought that a thousan’ five hunnert years wos a long time, wellanow he could see where they got their misnotions about diligence. That fifteen hunnert years wos but four, mayhap five, Châk lifetimes, but those same fifteen hunnert years wos twenty spans o’ Man; it wos fifteen generations o’ Dwarves, but sixty or seventy o’ Man. Hoo now, doesna that make your head spin right ’round?

“Then she says somethin’ softlike whot I didna hear, and that’s when he grabbed her wrist fiercelike and hissed, ‘Black Kalgalath! Black Kalgalath’s got it?’

“Har, she just jerked her arm outta his grip and nodded, lookin’ about ter see if any had seen. I acted like I wos deep in my stew, but that wos when they got up and went outside, and I didna hear no more.”

“Sleeth and Black Kalgalath, too.” The innkeeper let out a low whistle. “Now doesna that beat all. Two Dragons. Two! Hoy, whot would a Dwarf and a warrior Woman want with even one Dragon, much less two?”

“Somethin’ strange, though,” whispered the cutter, looking about guardedly. “I got up ter follow, ter see whot they wos up to anow, but they wosna out there! It wos like they disappeart inter thin air, it wos!”

With these words, both the cutter and innkeeper scribed warding signs in the air.

Thus were the whispered tales that followed Elyn and Thork. And wherever they encountered other living souls, they left behind looks of puzzlement over this oddly mismatched pair of warriors that sought the Mountain of the Mages, and spoke of Dragons and vengeance and Death, and seemed to come and go unobserved.

No foe attacked them on this long journey, for the token borne by Elyn seemed to ward them as the Wolfmage had said it would.

And the farther east they went, the stranger became the tongues of the natives, the more peculiar the accents and the harder time they had in making themselves understood and in understanding words spoken to them, even though the locals were uttering a brand of the Common Tongue. Too, the skin color of the inhabitants slowly shifted, shading to a dark tan and then tending toward a yellowish hue. Finally the two came to a region where they could not speak the language at all, and had to communicate by sign. Even so, with pen and ink and parchment, Thork sketched a picture of a dark mountain, blackening it until it was ebon. And by pointing to the figure and then gesturing, palms upward in puzzlement, they still received vague hand motions to the east.

Mid-fall passed, and late fall stepped into the world, and still eastward fared the two, living on the game brought down by Elyn’s sling, or her bow, or on Thork’s skill with his crossbow, supplemented with supplies purchased from woodsmen, crofters, the rare innkeeper, and the even rarer village store. What concerned them most was grain for the steeds, yet they managed to supplement the grass of the earth with oats, millet, or barley obtained from the scattered inhabitants living in the land. And as they had fared eastward, the nights had become frigid, and the pair wrapped themselves about in the winter dress they had borne all along. Wind and Digger, too, prepared for the coming cold, for their hair had gradually transformed into thick coats of winter shag.

Slowly the wold had given way to forested hills, and now these too began to alter, rising ever upward and becoming barren of most trees. At last one day as they topped a desolate hill, low in the distance before them they could see a jagged range of white-tipped dark mountains clawing up into the sky, the reach before them ramping upward toward the remote somber peaks.

All that day they travelled, and the next as well, the mountains seeming as distant as ever. Yet Thork assured Elyn that they were indeed drawing closer.

And on the second day, while Elyn waited below, sheltered from a raw north wind ablowing, Thork climbed atop a large boulder on the crest of one of the hills and looked for the four close-set peaks spoken of by the Wolfmage-like fingers on a hand, the Magus had said. And suddenly he saw them, and southward of the southernmost finger there was the thumb as well. Calling down to Elyn, he pointed leftward, guiding their route northeasterly, aiming for the col between thumb and first finger.

Of a sudden, it seemed, on the third day they found themselves passing upward among grey stone looming left and right, perpendicular slabs soaring up, immense somber massifs, towering dark giants, overlooking their progress, furiously brawling creeks dashing down slopes and hurling outward into space, free at last from the fettering rock, the crystalline plume plunging hundreds of feet only to smash into dusky stone below and hurtle frantically onward, seeking to escape once more.

Up through this hard land of dark unyielding rock and plummeting flumes plodded horse and pony, led by Elyn and Thork afoot, the air thin about them. And as they came through the col, in the distance before them they could see peak upon peak without number marching beyond an unseen horizon.

Yet, to the north and east stood one crest above the others, ebon as the night.