Jeff Crook - Dark Thane

Before Zen could recover, Crystal tossed aside her by now useless weapon and grabbed another spear from the barrel. Zen struggled to rise, but Haruk had become entangled with his legs. Crystal thrust with all her might, not knowing how thick the draconian’s scaly hide might be. The sharp spear head sheared through scale and muscle to emerge an arm’s length from the creature’s back.

Black draconian blood erupted from Zen’s mouth. Feeling the imminence of death, he spoke now in the language of dragons, which few mortals knew or understood. But the import of his words and the hatred with which he spoke, spitting blood and phlegm with each phrase, was all Crystal needed to hear to know that the creature was calling down its blackest curse upon her head. An involuntary shudder passed down her spine.

With his last, dying words, Zen laid his great reptilian head down on the cold stone floor stained black with his own blood. For eighteen months he had lived by his wits undetected in the halls of Thorbardin, slaying at will until his revenge was completed. And now he had been killed by a woman and a mere child. His shame knew no bounds, and he prayed to whatever god would listen that his curse be granted. His prayer ended unfinished.

Crystal dragged Haruk away from the filthy creature. Though it no longer seemed to breathe, neither did it seem to be entirely dead. Its muscles continued to twitch, its mouth to champ. Even as they watched in horror, the creature began to transform once more. But this time, it took on the appearance of Crystal herself. After a few moments, they found themselves looking at her own dead body stretched out on the floor with a spear wound in her chest. Crystal stared at it a moment longer until she was nearly overcome with revulsion.

She turned to Haruk and quickly looked him over. “Are you badly injured?” she asked.

“What is that thing?” the young dwarf answered absently as he continued to stare at her corpse.

“Haruk, listen to me,” Crystal demanded. The tone of command in her voice broke through his shock. He jerked to attention, just as he had done from the first days he was a lowly student in her spear class.

“N-no, I am uninjured,” he stammered.

She breathed a quick sigh of relief. Multitudinous questions boiled in her mind, but she asked the most obvious one first. “Haruk, what are you doing here? I thought you were with your uncle.”

“I am, or, I was,” he said. “Uncle Jungor sent me here with a message, knowing that you would be obliged to see me.”

Crystal frowned in disappointment but nodded that she understood. Perhaps this was the bargain she had hoped for, the trade that would allow her to escape into exile with their son. “What does the Hylar thane have to say?” she asked.

“He offers a trade,” Haruk answered ashamedly, and sheepishly too, the words leaving a bad taste in his mouth.

“Very well. What does he want for Tarn’s freedom? Whatever it is, we’ll pay it. I hope you understand, Haruk, that I bear you no grudge. But I am sick to my soul of mountain dwarves and their wars and intrigues.”

“Tarn’s freedom?” Haruk asked in confusion.

“Yes, what does he want in exchange for the king?”

“But Tarn… that is, the king is already free. He escaped. I… I thought you knew,” Haruk stammered.

With a shriek of joy, Crystal wrapped her arms around the young Hylar warrior and lifted him off the ground. “Escaped, you say?” she cried as she set him on his feet. “Escaped? Then what could Jungor possibly want to trade for?”

“The Hammer of Kharas,” Haruk answered solemnly, gathering his dignity. Hearing the sounds of battle, several dwarves had gathered at the door. They gaped to see the two Crystal Heathstones—one dead and sprawled on the floor, the other quite alive. Not a few wondered which was the real one.

“The Hammer? And what does the Hylar thane offer for it?” Crystal said.

Haruk’s face blanched, and he seemed to struggle to produce the answer. Finally, he said in a cracking voice, “My uncle offers… the life of your son, Tor Bellowgranite, in exchange for the Hammer of Kharas.”

Tarn hurried north toward the fortress. With the Hammer of Kharas in his hands, he had marched through district after district, rallying the people of Norbardin to his banner, quickly relieving the besieged Klar and Daergar quarters in the Anvil’s Echo with hardly a fight, so great was the mob that swarmed to follow him. Arriving in the Council Hall, he and his force were met by Shahar Bellowsmoke, standing amidst a scene of bloody slaughter. The Daergar in his command had killed hundreds of dwarves loyal to Jungor Stonesinger, many after their surrender. Among the dead were Shahar’s own brother and Astar Trueshield, captain of Jungor’s personal guard, slain by Shahar’s own hand in single combat on the council steps. Shahar, still drunk on revenge and murder, greeted the thane with a soot-stained face and gore-soaked hands, grinning fiercely.

Not a few recalled that the Council Hall was once a temple dedicated to the god Reorx, father of the dwarven race. No one dared to guess how Reorx might have viewed the fratricide in his own hallowed halls. Tarn walked among the carnage for nearly an hour, horrorstruck by the depth and ferocity of the Daergar vengeance; the sweetness of his rescue and victory was forever tainted. The death skald, Ogduan Bloodspike, sat on the temple steps and wept so pitifully that even Mog had tried to comfort him.

Little now remained of Jungor’s resistance, however. The last remaining Theiwar had fled their defenses at the transportation shaft Here, Tarn found more bodies piled up—the bodies of those who had followed him into the trap. And here also he met Otaxx Shortbeard. The old general looked worn with care and grief, for he bore ill news. Something had happened at the fortress—an attack of some sort. He wasn’t sure, and he dared not speculate before the king, for the reports he had were merely rumors. Some said that Crystal was dead, others that Tor had been killed.

The Hammer of Kharas swung forgotten in Tarn’s fist as he strode up the short street from the transportation shaft to the southeast entrance of the fortress. Crowds thronged both sides of the street, though they were silent for the most part. A few tried to rouse a cheer for the king’s return, but these were met with frowns. This, more than anything else, confirmed Tarn’s deepest misgivings. The gates swung wide in greeting, the way lined with his warriors. Otaxx Shortbeard trudged along behind Tarn, his chin nearly on his chest, while Mog Bonecutter and his Klar silently brought up the rear. They passed though the tall entrance, through a wood gate and beneath a massive iron grate into a courtyard flanked by towers. An archway led a short distance into another court beyond. Here, they found dwarves carrying something on a litter from the gate’s armory.

Stumbling forward, Tarn ordered the litter bearers to a halt. They set their burden on the ground and stood back. Tarn glanced at them without recognition as he knelt beside the litter and flipped back its covering sheet.

The powers that had set themselves against him were indeed cruel, he now knew. There was no reckoning with them. He rose to his feet and noticed that the Hammer of Kharas was still in his hand. The Hammer created in recognition of the gallantry of the heroic dwarf Kharas had come to represent all that was good and noble about the dwarves. It was the symbol of his right to rule Thorbardin. Only the Hammer could forge a true dragonlance, a blessed weapon of the gods. It had never been used for evil purposes.

But now, Tarn felt the blood well in his heart and burn like the fires of the molten earth bursting up through rents in the stone, searing through reason and sanity. Even his fears of the chaos dragon sleeping in its chamber beneath the city vanished in his lust for revenge. One thought remained to him. He would see Jungor Stonesinger dead for the murder of his wife. He would crush the Hylar thane’s skull with the Hammer of Kharas, even if the blood of a fellow mountain dwarf defiled the holy weapon beyond any atonement.