Philip Athans - Scream of Stone

The ground collapsed behind them and Hrothgar shouted a very old curse in his native tongue, one that should have brought either the mercy or the wrath of every god in Dwarfhome.

Devorast stiffened and turned, falling out of Hrothgar’s grip. The dwarf bellowed his name, but his voice was lost in the thunderous crash of the collapsing hillside. Hrothgar, propelled as much by the wavelike motion of the muddy ground beneath his feet as his feet themselves, continued to run and though his mind had dropped into a primal panic, he was aware enough to see Devorast running under his own power, right next to him.

Side by side they ran for their lives.

Instinct and experience took them away from the canal, but one huge chunk of broken stone after another-debris blasted away by the explosions-turned them this way and that, and soon enough Hrothgar lost all sense of direction. He ran and ran, dodging smoldering wood, and fires still blazing even under the pouring rain. He bounced off a block of stone, tripped on something he didn’t stop to identify, grabbed Devorast’s arm to help him along, or was grabbed and helped along by Devorast.

When the shaking and the rumbling finally stopped again, the two of them stumbled in an effort to stop. The dwarf fell and slid, for a moment completely out of control, down a steep, muddy hill. He rolled to a stop only after tripping Devorast and the two of them ended up tangled together at the bottom of the incline, half-floating in six inches of standing water.

Hrothgar untangled himself from the human while he coughed out half a lungful of rainwater and pawed mud from his stinging right eye. Devorast was breathing so hard he seemed to almost gasp for breath.

When lightning flashed again and lit them both Hrothgar was shocked by two things: how horrible they both looked-like sea hags on the worst days of their lives-and that they were still alive. They’d lived.

“What were the chances?” Hrothgar asked himself.

Devorast shook his head and struggled to his knees. The dwarf stood, knee-deep in water, and looked around. The lightning was fast moving to the eastern horizon, but the rain still fell hard and steady. He turned his face up to the black, unforgiving sky, and let the rain wash the mud from his face. If the dirt was mixed with his blood or Devorast’s, Hrothgar couldn’t tell. He hurt all over, but he could breathe and he could stand. Any dwarf that could breathe and stand was just fine.

Devorast stood next to him and took a deep breath.

Lightning played along the horizon, outlining a jumble of broken stone and scarred earth.

“Don’t look at it,” Hrothgar said.

Devorast turned and smiled. The simple curl of his lips sent a shiver coursing through Hrothgar the dwarf was sure would finally shake him apart.

“I want you to promise me somethin’,” Hrothgar said, and though he found it nearly impossible, he looked the Cormyrean in the eye. “Promise that you’ll never, ever, should we both live for another ten thousand years, tell me why.”

The smile faded from Devorast’s lips and he nodded.

Hrothgar stepped away and busied himself with trying to get more of the mud off him. The rain let up a little, but the wind increased, which made the rain seem so much colder. Hrothgar’s teeth chattered and his toes went numb in his boots.

When Devorast placed a hand on his shoulder, the dwarf didn’t even have the energy to be startled.

He looked up and saw Devorast run away from him.

“Ivar?” he called after the human.

“Phyrea!” Devorast screamed into a wind-blown wave of rain.

“Phyrea?” Hrothgar asked the human’s receding back.

Hrothgar stood and thought for a moment, the cold making him think as slowly as he moved. Finally he started off after Devorast. The dwarf slipped a few times on his way around a bulge in the ground, and his ankle rolled painfully on a piece of broken lumber, but he eventually limped to Devorast’s side.

The Cormyrean kneeled in the mud next to what Hrothgar thought at first was the twisted remains of a scaffold or some other wooden structure. Though there was no shortage of that all around them, Devorast knelt before a body.

“Phyrea….” Hrothgar whispered. “She dead?”

Devorast shook his head and Hrothgar almost sobbed, but then the girl moved and he gasped instead.

“She’s alive,” the dwarf said, joining Devorast on the ground.

Phyrea lay face up in water and mud. Her left leg was twisted behind her, her hip shattered. Her left arm bent at an abrupt angle that made it appear as though she had two elbows. Blood clouded the standing water. She breathed, but only with obvious difficulty. Exhales came followed by trickles of blood.

“Phyrea,” Devorast whispered. “Why?”

“Come,” said the dwarf. “We need to make a stretcher, and tie her nice and tight to it.”

Devorast glanced at him and nodded, but he didn’t stand or show any sign that he was about to leave the dying girl’s side.

Hrothgar took a deep breath and went to work.

30 Tarsakh, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)

THE SISTERHOOD OF PASTORALS, INNARLITH

One man held his ankles to the floor, two more held his hands, and the fourth kneeled on his chest, tangled a grubby hand in his hair, and cut him. Once, twice, then a third time. His own blood felt so hot it seemed to burn his face. When he opened his mouth to scream he could taste it.

She held her baby’s head up, her soft, wispy hair in the palm of one hand. When she let the slight weight push her hand down, her baby’s neck gave no resistance. The infant was limp and still, her skin already going cold. A tear dropped onto the baby’s forehead and rolled down her cheek. Her dead eyes dry, it was left to her mother to cry for her.

He screamed when his arm came away from his body, but not because of the pain. It didn’t even hurt, really, not like you’d think it would. He screamed because he knew that he would live the rest of his life without it. As young as he was, barely seven years old, he screamed from the horror or having been mutilated. Startled, perhaps even guilty at the sound of the boy’s scream, the dog took a better grip on the bleeding, disembodied limb, and ran away with it in his jaws. The boy screamed after it as his blood poured away onto the floor of his bedroom.

She batted her face with her hands but succeeded only in burning her palms. The oil had had time to soak into her skin, and when her husband touched the torch to her face the burns dug deep. She took a breath to scream and seared her own lungs. She coughed and choked and writhed in blind agony. Her fear turned to anger, then there was no word for the emotions that exploded in her as her brain began to cook in her skull. She died a feral thing, overwhelmed by agony, chewing through her own tongue.

The little girl took her last breath on the day after her ninth birthday. Dressed in her finest nightgown, on her back under bedclothes of the softest silk and goose down, the woman her mother hired to care for her holding her hand in a cold, dry, unwelcome grip, she stared up at the ceiling over her bed and wondered how long it would take her to die, and if she would find herself in another world. She knew she didn’t want to go. She wanted to stay home. She wanted to stay at Berrywilde. She didn’t care about the gods and their punishments and rewards. If her soul stayed home, could she find some way to make her mommy love her? She was still asking that question when she felt her heart stop. Before her vision fled her, she saw the nanny shrug, stand, and walk away.

The woman’s face hovered in the air above her in a way that wasn’t natural, that wasn’t right. Her smile was the warmest thing she’d ever seen, and the light that shone from her perfect, glowing skin washed away the images of pain and torture and hopelessness. When she spoke, her lips didn’t move, but the words filled an empty space that brought the world of the living together with the world of the dead.