Барб Хенди - Of Truth and Beasts

That they continued to fulfill their ancestor’s stand against the enemy was clear. But whether they were truly allies was not so certain. They wanted something from her, and she didn’t believe she would walk out of this seatt unless she fulfilled whatever they required.

Soon they passed the breach into the Chamber of the Fallen, but the lead dragon continued up the tunnel’s other way. Along the winding passage, Wynn saw it pause briefly ahead at turns, breaks, and splits in the tunnel. They kept on at a pace that forced her into a half trot, and soon she emerged in a pocket of deeply sloping stone.

The smaller, lead dragon settled on a rise of stone near one of the side walls. The surface beside it was strangely smooth, though it slanted toward the pocket’s roof. Wynn squinted, letting out a bit more light from the crystal in her hand.

There were ragged marks in the walls, as if clawed into the stone, but the longer Wynn looked, a pattern began to emerge.

You will wait here ... for him.

She looked back to find the first dragon inside the pocket’s opening, blocking the way.

“I don’t know where Ore-Locks is,” she answered. “How could he find us here?”

The blood will come to its own.

As if on cue, heavy footfalls echoed from the tunnel beyond the pocket.

Ore-Locks appeared at the opening, carrying the orb under one arm and the iron staff in his other hand. At first, Wynn could only focus on the orb. She remembered how heavy the orb of Water had been. She was astonished he could carry the orb of Earth with one arm.

At the sight awaiting him, Ore-Locks’s eyes widened. He backstepped, leveling his staff one-handed at the first dragon. It didn’t even look at him, but shifted to make room for him to enter.

“Ore-Locks,” Wynn said, waving him in.

He blinked at her, hesitated longer, and then cautiously crept down the passage.

“What is happening?” he asked.

The answer lashed every other thought from Wynn’s mind.

Look upon the last words, and speak them to him.

The second dragon swung its head toward the marred wall.

Wynn stepped closer, examining the claw marks. “I cannot read these,” she said, but words began filling her head.

Chane watched Wynn’s face as she flinched. Words poured from her mouth in Numanese as if she performed a recitation.

Wynn faltered, and her breath caught sharply. She covered her mouth, and a tear slipped from her left eye.

Chane put a hand on her shoulder, but before he could speak, she went on.

And again the words seemed to catch in her throat.

Chane felt Wynn shudder at every word, though she had faltered twice on one phrase. The brother mentioned in the verse had been admonished never to tell of Deep-Root, should that brother have actually survived what had happened here a thousand years ago.

Wynn heard every word in every language she knew. She could never have read the gouges on the wall, for those marks of these creatures were utterly unknown to her. And even so, what they’d recorded was from a lost dialect of Dwarvish.

The dragon guardians had recorded and passed down the last words—the last whispers—of Deep-Root damning himself to eternal death.

Without remembrance, he chose to pass into nothingness rather than the afterlife of this world in his people’s beliefs. He cut himself off from them. The few who remembered only the title of Thallûhearag were no better than Wynn in their ignorance.

But Wynn had recited less than what the dragons had read into her thoughts. Strangely, neither of them had reproached her for this.

A command erupted in her head.

You will tell him everything we showed you of the past.

Wynn turned around. “Ore-Locks ... Ore-Locks, I’m ...”

He looked so stricken that she faltered at where to begin. She looked to those marks on the wall, and then to the floor—to anywhere besides his face. She began recounting what she’d lived within Deep-Root’s memories. She never heard a sound from him. When she came to the moment of Deep-Root’s choice, tears were running down her face. Her knees went weak and she sank.

Strong hands caught her from behind. Chane held her up, and she let him, but not once could she bear to look into Ore-Locks’s face. Not even as she finished.

“I’m sorry,” she kept whispering, but it sounded weaker, more inadequate each time.

Ore-Locks still said nothing. And then Shade broke the silence with a snarl.

Wynn raised her eyes just enough to see Shade stalk toward the dragon by the wall. Shade looked so tiny before that great being, but it shifted immediately out of Shade’s way, never causing the dog to pause. She paced at the pocket’s back and then craned her neck, looking at Ore-Locks.

A pile of blackened shapes lay beside Shade’s forepaws. She lowered her muzzle to them as the multitongued voice spoke to Wynn again.

Tell him to take up his blood ... take what is his.

Wynn blinked hard, wiping her face with a sleeve to clear her eyes. She squinted at bones by Shade’s feet. There weren’t enough for an entire body, but she realized whose they were.

Those were the last remains of Deep-Root. The dragons must have unearthed what they could find over the centuries.

Ore-Locks set down the orb and his staff, and he slowly walked over. He fell to his knees before the bones, and just knelt there in stillness. When he started to reach for them, Wynn pulled out of Chane’s hold, frantically trying to strip off her cloak. Chane helped her, and she clutched it as she approached.

Almost afraid to come too close, she held back until Ore-Locks looked up.

Anger crossed his broad face. She couldn’t bear it, and dropped her gaze as she held out the cloak. When he didn’t take it, she crouched to place it on his folded knees.

“They say the orb is only for you,” she whispered. “You are its guardian now.”

He still said nothing, and Wynn watched only his hands as he began lifting the bones one at a time. He was so slow and gentle, as if any one of them might crumble to ash.

Wynn watched Ore-Locks place each bone in the small cloak, but she never looked up into his eyes.

All the way back through the seatt to the tram station, Chane kept a careful watch, peering into a thousand darkly shadowed corners. Once, he made Wynn sit and rest while he claimed to scout ahead, but that was not all he did. Out of everyone’s sight, he took another half dose of the violet concoction. They were far from out of danger yet, and he could not afford to be taken by dormancy.

When they finally crawled through the makeshift hole at the cave-in, he was not surprised to find two rather than one pump cart on the other side. Il’Sänke must have come on the second one, but the domin seemed to have vanished.

Chane wanted Wynn as far from this place as possible, and he quickly put her and Shade aboard. Then, he and Ore-Locks began pumping for the long journey back. Still, Chane watched the shadows, though il’Sänke was not foremost in his thoughts.