by P D Dennison
There was a faint purple glow to the now enchanted bottle and it smelled of sweetness unbecoming the surroundings in which Graxxen ensorcelled it. The magick was complete. To Graxxen the sweet flowery scent smelled foul but he knew the simple love potion would serve its intended purpose.
Days passed and Graxxen simply sat in wait within the dank, dark solitude of his subterranean dwelling waiting for the single male egg to hatch. He’d used magick to divine its gender. He’d used magick to nurture the egg and its embryo to grow. He’d even used magick to artificially fertilize it. He kept it warm by the fire, and fed it with darkness to full maturity, for he had no love to feed it as its mother dragon would have. He’d had his ghoul servants tend to the egg while he slumbered the centuries in the long quiet sleep of the dead. Now it was time for him to finish the process.
He looked around at the cavern. It was once a breeding nest used by the ancient Barbarians to foster dragons into the wyrld. It was filled with eggs that simply needed to be fertilized and cared for and they would grow into the great beasts of legend to serve his evil will. The problem was the ancient Barbarians enacted a safety precaution they had devised whereby, if facing defeat, they would slay the last of the female and males of dragon kind to prevent their oppressors from gaining control over the terrible power of the dragons. They had planned to destroy the eggs as well but Graxxen and his wicked Blood Magi were too quick and too relentless in their assault. The Barbarians had no time to get to the eggs before nearly all their people were killed or captured.
The mountainside on which his small kingdom lay was also home to a band of goblins whose realm stretched far to the southeast of the Horror Hills. His ghouls reported back that the goblins had become aware of the keep and had begun patrolling the area to see just what these ghouls where up to. They didn’t want any of the ghastly beings that lurked within the Horror Hills spilling out into their land.
Graxxen had ventured out only briefly after his awakening, just long enough to travel directly into the heart of the Goblin Kingdoms to taint their water and food supplies with a charm elixir that would keep any living creature loyal to his will. He did so under the magickally induced guise of a lowly goblin patrol guard and moved about them completely unsuspected. Now it was only a matter of having the ghouls enter the camps from time to time to reapply the elixir to the water and food to ensure that the charm remained intact which they could do with ease while the goblins were under the elixir’s effects.
Hours, days, weeks passed waiting for the hatching, nurturing the egg, meticulous attention to temperatures, positioning, and of course the magickal droughts that fed the egg and the dragonling within. Graxxen’s perseverance paid off. Only moments before, all by itself, the egg tottered. Just slightly, but since all Graxxen did at this point was stare at the egg, he noticed immediately. It was ready to be hatched. He placed a small chisel on the top of the egg and struck it gently with a small mallet just barely cracking the surface, but letting it weaken enough for the young life within to have an improved chance for freedom. He returned to his seat upon a throne of skulls, homage to the fallen horde he had taken his mountain keep from, and there he sat to watch and to wait.
Several minutes then an hour passed and still nothing happened. Graxxen wondered if the little dragon would not make it and was too weak. Perhaps he wouldn’t be able to break free of his shell at all and Graxxen’s plans for evil and mayhem would be foiled for another thousand seasons. At the beginning of the second hour the egg wobbled ever so slightly as the creature within shifted. This was followed by a cracking sound, then another. Next the egg rocked violently and a clawed, scaled, slimy little hand could be seen emerging from the shell where Graxxen had struck it. Pieces of the shell began to be ripped away from within and two scaly black clawed hands emerged now, grasping and pulling at the shell. The little monster made sucking squawking sounds as it worked. Soon a scaly looking beak with under formed teeth and a forked tongue busted through. Little raspy chirpy sounds echoed in the cave as it fought fervently for its first breath of air. All limbs and fangs, the creature battled the shell with every ounce of its newborn strength.
A large crack appeared on one side and a big piece broke away with a wet chink, the Dragonling popped its head out, letting out a violent shrill cry. The sound of the dragon’s cry could paralyze a mortal with fear giving the beast time enough to finish him off without fear of retaliation. Graxxen was no mortal, nor was he afraid of the little monster. Being of massive stature and mystic strength in his undead, immortal form, he stepped over and picked up the small dragon with two hands under its arms, and the little beast kicked and snapped at him as he did so. To a mortal man this beast was neither small nor harmless. It could easily kill and devour an unsuspecting man. The dragon was nearly four feet long already, if not a little thin from being fostered into the wyrld by an unloving old lich. It opened its only partially formed wings and flapped wildly to escape. But Graxxen, with his immortal and magical strength, held him high and looked up at the little dragonling with great pride letting out an evil cackle that echoed throughout the cave and back up the walls of the breeding pits out into the open air of the courtyard above. It echoed off the stone frescos all the way up the great carven walls of Dragon’s Maw Keep out into the cool night air above where such sounds had no place in the clean and airy wyrld of nature and all things good.
Small birds resting on the parapets scattered at the sound of the terrible laugh and the shrill cries of the young dragonling that came with it. All one could see was the ominous form of the ancient keep and the shadow of carrion birds against a pale crescent moon. Had anyone been up in those mountains to hear the echoes of the abominable lich’s terrible laugh, they would surely have been stricken white with fear at such sounds, a chill warning of the dark and brutal Third Age that dawned on the Land of Shaarn and her unsuspecting children.
Chapter 3
The Deep Fiend
As young Ravak walked away from his village, he glanced back and wondered if he’d ever see his mother and father again. Looking back on the day’s events with his very brief exposure to the Council, what had occurred was dizzying to say the very least. He wondered how his father could believe in something as seemingly twisted as the plan the wicked old witchdoctor, Kadok had laid out before the Council elders. It was almost too hard to believe that even as traditional and set in the old ways as his father was, he would be party to such a dastardly plan. Moreover, he couldn’t believe his father could turn on him like that in such a furious rage. He’d embarrassed his father, the Council, and his clan speaking up the way he had against the notion of an attack on the South. In their eyes, he’d shown weakness in the face of a potential enemy.
The huts looked almost dirty in the distance, a sharp contrast to the childhood he’d spent believing that village to be the very centre of his universe. Smoke billowed up from his father’s hut. Ekes had made it all too clear it was no longer Ravak’s home. Memories flooded his mind and rushed out of his eyes as repressed emotions took control. He saw his mother in the kitchen, his father showing him how to fletch arrows. He remembered the hunting excursions they would make together out onto the plains that lay before him. He could see several sites where they’d camped, he, his father and the tribal hunters, all fond memories of growing into a man.
Ravak felt tears roll down his cheeks and it snapped him back into reality. It always did. A Winter Wolf mustn’t be caught crying. It was a sign of weakness. Drilled into him since he was very small, the enormity of the situation truly took hold within. He was utterly alone for the first time in his life. He’d always been with the clan, with members of his family, amongst his people. It had never occurred to him how close the clan was until this very moment. Banishment as the highest form of punishment was all too fitting for the Barbarians. Although they are fierce warriors, hunters, and keen survivalists, they travel and find strength in numbers. To be banished meant to face the harshness of the Great Northern Plains
alone.
He fell to his knees and began to cry. The sorrow of seventeen seasons of repressed emotions washed over him like a tidal wave, cleansing him of all the terrible things he’d pushed down and held on to for so long, fearing he might not be seen as a real man by his fellow clansmen. The sensation was so overwhelming he swayed as he sobbed like the grass in the wind all around him. He let it come, not caring anymore. There was no one around to see him and so he cried. He lay on the ground curled sideways until he was done and remained there for several long minutes before he climbed back to his feet.
He was renewed; washed clean of a youth yoked in oppressive backward ideals set in place ages before he was born. Although he was afraid and missed his parents a great deal he felt free, truly free, for the first time in his life.
At least he was away from Kadok and his plans for war. War with the South was the very last thing the horde ought to be doing. They ought to be nurturing a trade relationship with some of the larger kingdoms. Not planning to kill them off. Besides, none of those old fools knew for sure if the Southerners had anything to do with the goblins that had sacked the village. After all, the North and the South had banded together to fight off the goblin horde during the Goblin Wars. Why now would they choose to side with the little rotters?
Ravak thought back to when he was young, standing head and shoulders over most of the other young men his age in the village. He remembered his father telling him he was a natural born hunter. The thrill of the hunt is what excited him and he revelled in the excursions. They took him as far outside the village as he’d ever been, as far as any of them had ever been really. He’d always wanted to experience the rest of the wyrld, knowing deep inside that others existed; different cultures, different colored skin, elves, dwarves, gnomes, goblins. He knew of different ways to live life but he knew so little of those differences save what he saw of the Southern traders that would come to the village to trade metal and steel weapons for the exotic spices, finely cured hides, furs, and hardwoods that only his clan could offer them. These men often lived hard lives from the road and could be unruly once outside the governance of their southern kingdoms, thinking they’d come to lawless uncivilized lands. They soon learned different if they crossed the Winter Wolf.
His people kept their children sheltered from the outside wyrld and did so with what they thought to be good cause. The wyrld was a big, frightening place to a Barbarian who did not understand the ways of ‘civil’ folk. Ravak thought on that word for moment as he stared back down at his home for the last time. Civil. What did it even mean? Why did the elders speak as if the outside wyrld’s peoples varied much from them simply because they called themselves civilized and called the horde uncivilized?
He walked up into the vast expanse of the Winter Wolf Hills, the foothills and forest at the base of the Mystpeaks. It was a wide and treacherous range. The elders told stories of mythic creatures that inhabited the range to scare the children away from getting too curious. He looked back one last time, finding the village now only small blots on the vast, windswept, snow covered plains in the distance with a few wisps of smoke lazily leaning east in the breeze.
He turned toward the Mystpeaks, determined not to look back again, not to think, but to forge ahead. He shifted his pack and took a step toward the unknown, scared, unsure of himself, and freer than he’d ever felt in all his days.
Up to this point he walked during the day and camped on the open expanse of the Great Northern Plains by night. He was an accomplished hunter and warrior and had no qualms about his venturing out into the wyrld alone. It had always been his dream to travel and now he would be able to see the Land of Shaarn on his own terms, even if ill gotten, with his father’s blessing.
He was excited and eager to make his way through the mountains as quickly as possible. It was a seven-night journey over the Mystpeaks. He’d never traveled it himself, but had listened to many a traveller speak of it and had a good idea of where he was headed. Difficult journey or not, he was a Winter Wolf at heart and a very sturdy young man. He had his bow, a long recurve made from the branch of a three hundred season old Rowenwood. In fact, it was made from a branch of one of his ancient ancestors’ spirit tree. This grandfather rode dragons during the First Age. Ravak knew all about his family heritage all the way back to the beginnings of time recorded. Such was the way of the Barbarian peoples of Northern Shaarn. He rubbed his hand over two axes girded at his waist. He’d liberated them from his father’s belongings while he was packing, along with a very fine hunting knife the old man had given him when he was fifteen seasons old as a rite of passage into manhood. At the same time, he was also given a spear made of seasoned and hardened Rowenwood taken from the family Spirit Trees. The tip was crafted of the finest dwarven steel, another gift from his father.
A Winter Wolf spear marked a man as a warrior and a hunter. It marked the fact that Ravak had survived the trials of the Winter Wolf rite of passage known as Forvandla, which meant to transform in the Old Nordish Speak. It signified he was now just as much wolf and predator as man, and had earned the right to carry that spear and wield it in battle against any enemies of the clan. Each spear in the village was viewed with great respect and looked upon as a symbol of power and manhood. To Ravak, who preferred his bow, and had a strong disdain for the old ways and for war, it was quite simply, a spear. With the knife he could fashion himself a new bow if needed and as many arrows as he could whittle. He had absconded with several hundred arrowheads his father fletched in the evenings and saved in a large leather pouch that Ravak now had strung to his girdle along with the knife, axes, and quiver. Ravak’s jaw tightened. If his father could send him away, the least he could have done was offer these necessities to him. He hadn’t. So Ravak simply took what he knew he’d need. Ravak shook off the thoughts. His life lay ahead, not behind him.
By dusk on the third day into the foothills, Ravak found himself a place where he could rest for a few days and better prepare himself for the journey before him. The dangerous snow-girded peaks, all stone and no food, provided very little shelter. He ached to simply press on, and even though his exuberance would have carried him half the journey without resting, he decided to set up camp in a little thicket of Elms, Poplars, and Fir he thought would offer some good shelter from the elements. With the skill of a thousand generations of his tribe passed down to his hands, he fashioned himself a lean-to for sleeping and built a small fire. Once done, he set out into the nearby thickets to hunt for game. He enjoyed exploring the hills and had made a days’ journey last three so far just for the sheer joy of experiencing them on his own terms.
He shot himself a couple of nice plump rabbits that happened to be foraging nearby. The first one he took through the neck. His shot placement was off, but it still dropped. The second he held the string and full draw a half-second longer and placed the arrow directly through the little critter’s heart. One for supper and one he would let dry overnight over the low coals of the dwindling fire so he would have some meat to travel with before the next day’s hunt. He skinned the rabbit adeptly, the way his father had taught him, making a split down the center between the ears and pulling the hide free in one deft rip. The sound of it was awful. It slurped and tore as he yanked the flesh off. It was a sound he’d never gotten used to for as many times as he’d done it. He had no tanning supplies, save salt, which if used liberally with the brains of the animal would do the trick to cure the hide and he had plenty of it. He boiled the brains in a saltwater solution, churning the pot to dissolve the meat into nothing. After straining out the bits through a cheesecloth he carried just for camp tanning, he placed the hide into the pot and let it simmer for a while, just until the flesh became saturated with the solution. Then it was hung over the fire at a safe distance and stretched while it dried. The stretching rack was made simply using two stakes he’d trimmed from dead wood and driven into the ground with the butt end of an axe. Using string he carried for various purposes made of sinew he care
fully threaded it through the hide at one foot intervals and tied the ends off on the stakes.
The rabbit was young, the meat fresh and tender. A warm meal was welcome after his long, chilling trek across the northern plains. It was spring, but the peaks would still be bitterly cold and the winds enough to freeze his fingers if he wasn’t prepared. The rabbit hides would make a fine pair of mittens. He ate his modest meal and swallowed it down with some cool river water from a nearby stream that trickled down into the hills out of the Mystpeaks.
He piled a little more snow up on his lean-to in order to keep the wind out and crawled inside to sleep. He’d been angry and upset when he left and had not remembered to pack any hides to sleep under. He curled up and tucked his hands in between his legs. Still better than the last three nights under the stars, he thought. He was chilly, but his spirit of freedom and his childlike excitement of the wyrld ahead of him kept him happy enough that it warmed his soul. He closed his eyes and quickly began to dream.
