Dennis McKiernan - Dragondoom

At these words, there murmured a low rumble, as of several deep voices.

“The manner of thine orbs didst we forget,” responded the voice. And there came the sound of splitting stone, and in but moments a dim light shone within the cavern, a giant form moving back from a freshly cloven crevice leading horizontally unto a gloom-cast day.

In wonder, Thork saw that he was in the company of Giants, great gemstone eyes peering at him. Four there were, each with skin hued like stone: buff, dark, grey, rudden. He could not tell if he looked upon male or female, or if that was even a factor among these Folk, for they wore no clothes that he could see, nor carried any equipment about them, and still he could not say.

The grey Utrun stepped forward upon the shuddering cavern floor. “Ae be Orth, Friend.”

“I am called Thork,” said the Dwarf, bowing, gasping in pain, the rush of blood to his seared face bringing agony.

“Ae be honored to be with thee, Friend Thork,” said Orth, “for thou bore the Kammerling forth from the holt of our enemy, thou and thy companion.”

Beloved.

Thork turned away, his eyes glistering with the rush of sudden memory, his chest feeling hollow, empty, as if his heart were gone.

Oh, my Elyn, thou art dead.

Long moments passed in the trembling earth, yet at last he spoke: “My companion. I would see that she is. .”

Again he could say nought, tears streaming down his face. Yet at last: “Stone or fire. She must be laid to rest in stone, or placed upon a fitting pyre.”

Orth gazed north and downward, as if looking through the very stone itself, then turned back to the Dwarf. “Soon, Friend Thork, but not now.” The great sapphirine eyes cast blue glints. “Come. Ae wilt let thee see thyself just why.”

Orth spoke to the other three Utruni, then turned and began stepping through stone at a swift pace, great hands reaching out, spatulate fingers inserting into the rock, arms and shoulders pulling, stone cleaving, and a passageway forming as Orth went.

Thork followed, and within a matter of minutes, the passage opened into air, light streaming inward.

Orth stepped aside, beckoning the Dwarf forward, and he gazed out upon a desolate landscape: mountains: grey, blasted, devastated, dead. Pumice covered all, for as far as the eye could see, a thick smothering of volcanic ash suffocating the land below. No trees, no animals, no birds, no streams. Only death and destruction.

The sky itself was roiling black, filled not with ordinary clouds, but with choking dust instead. And lightning stroked down from the dark churn above, flash upon flash crashing among the peaks, as if the very vault above was charged with endless bolts.

In the near distance before him, thick black smoke boiled upward from the remnants of Dragonslair, and fiery magma ran red down its flanks. Great rocks were blasted upward, out from the gut of the firemountain, the booming explosions slapping and shocking throughout the Grimwall.

And the earth tremored.

And Thork knew that he looked out at Hèl upon Mithgar.

He scanned what was left of Dragonslair, his searching eyes seeing that the vertical face he and Elyn had climbed yet stood, as well as the ledge and slope just above it.

Orth’s voice came gently: “We will bear thy comrade back unto thee when we do go to claim our own slain.”

Weeping for Elyn, Thork turned and went back the way they had come. Orth followed, sealing the passage shut behind.

The other three Utruni were named Hundar, Brelk, and Chale, and when introduced to Thork, spoke in a tongue most peculiar, like rocks sliding one upon the other. Brelk was the largest, towering some sixteen feet, Chale and Hundar standing twelve and fifteen feet respectively, Orth’s height falling in between these two. It was at this time Thork was told that these three be male Utruni, whereas Orth was female, yet this but barely registered upon Thork’s consciousness, for he was deep within his grief. Even had he been interested, Thork still could not have told the distinction; in shape, the Utruni were but little different from one to another, except for height, and there seemed to be no sex about them. Yet that is not to say that they were alike in all particulars, for there were the differences in skin color and in the set of their bodies, and the casting of their eye gems also set them apart-sapphire for Orth, ruby for Hundar and Chale, emerald for Brelk.

Orth was the only one who spoke Common, saying, “Ae wast one of mine Folk taught by Wizard Farrin, long apast, for there wast great need in that hindward time. And when the signals camest of the rescue of the Kammerling, ae wast called forth for ae couldst yet putteth tongue to the ancient speech.”

At these words, Thork spoke for the first time since his return from the surface: “Aye, we rescued the Kammerling,” said Thork. “But from what you have told me, I deem it be now destroyed, plunged into the deep fire below Dragonslair where nought may survive but melted stone.”

“Nay, Friend Thork,” responded Orth, her gaze again turning north and downward, and Thork knew that she was peering through solid stone at something far below in the belly of the firemountain. “Nay, the Kammerling yet existeth, and lieth deep within the melt. It be safe, for not even the fire of Dragonslair couldst melt away Adon’s Hammer. We wilt retrieveth it upon a time, when the stone doth cool sommat. Till then, it be protected from all, better than wert it within our very halls.”

The Utruni conferred among themselves. Orth at last speaking to Thork: “Thou art injured, that much canst we say, and thou must be taken to a healer among thy surface dwellers and be tended unto.”

“Not until Elyn. .” Thork could say no more, but Orth understood.

Hours passed, and the spasms of the shuddering earth changed in a subtle fashion noted by the Giants. Brelk and Chale and Hundar disappeared into the stone, leaving Orth behind with the sleeping Dwarf, tossing and moaning in his dark dreams.

When they awakened him, they led him up through the stone, fissuring it as they went, up to the very peak of the mountain. It was night when they emerged from the scissured rock, yet no Moon or stars could be seen, for Dragonslair lay off to the north, belching fire and fumes and thundering in anger, flowing incandescent magma coloring the roiling underbelly of the black smoke-laden dust-filled sky a bloody red. And sheet lightning stuttered in the distance, ruddy light chattering across the boiling reek.

On the summit where they had emerged, the crest was flat, made level by the Stone Giants. And thereupon lay wood for a great funeral pyre, pine gathered from below the pumice by the Utruni. Among the slain trees they had searched diligently, and had stripped limbs that were yet laden with needles, and they had washed them and had made of them a bed. And in the midst of the soft boughs lay Elyn, her weapons arrayed beside her, her black-oxen horn as well.

Thork approached and climbed up unto her side and knelt, and he took her hand and held it to his cheek, seeing past the burnt thing before him, seeing instead a copper-haired, green-eyed Warrior Maiden of infinite grace and beauty. Long did he kneel and whisper to her, but what he said is not known.

At last he clambered down from the stack, and behind him, Chale clasped burning brands in his great hands. The Utrun held a torch out to the Dwarf, and Thork took it and placed it among the kindling at the base of the pyre. Another and another were thrust into the wood, Thork and Chale stepping about the pile, the Giant handing the warrior each torch until there were no more. And the fire blazed up into the night, flames roaring skyward. The Utruni withdrew to a respectful distance-north, south, east, and west: each of the cardinal points-sapphire, ruby, and emerald eyes warding both the Dwarf and the one he mourned. And Thork cast his hood o’er his head, and the mountains rang with his cries, a grief so deep and desolate that not even the roar of Dragonslair could still.