The Naming

by Torsten Weitze

  Nobody said anything in response. Even the dwarf had a serious look on him, his cheerful nature defeated. It seemed to Ahren that their new companion would see it as a personal disgrace that his task was holding them up for so long, and yet he was performing extraordinary feats on a daily basis, pushing back the worm.

  ‘Maybe we should alter the direction of our attacks’, suggested Falk in a resigned voice.

  ‘His head is in some ways his hardest part. If we attack him from the side or the back, maybe that will change things.’

  The others didn’t seem particularly convinced. After all, they had already tried an attack from the bottom with their magic, but nobody had a better idea and so they decided to try it.

  The familiar tremors which announced the impending arrival of the worm grew more powerful, and everyone, with the exception of the dwarf, was crouched in the little cavern which had been their home for days and waited for the enormous body of the monster to push past them. The Nameless dwarf stood a few paces upwards, ready to drive the worm back, should their experiment fail. Jelninolan and Uldini had cast a mighty spell on the Paladin’s weapon and they hoped that the blade they had strengthened by magic would somehow pierce the worm’s armour when Falk attacked the creature’s flank through the cavern opening as he passed by.

  The rumbling intensified and Uldini whispered, ‘now’s the time, get ready, everybody!’

  Then they saw him – the head of the worm had reached the crevice – and Falk prepared to strike. His sword-arm was shaking as he drew it back to strike, and the worm contracted. For a moment the view through the gap was clear again. A heartbeat later and they would see the creature’s flank as he pushed himself forward.

  Ahren held his breath and concentrated completely on the hole in the wall. It was now or never.

  Suddenly, their cavern trembled violently, and rocks tumbled from its roof. Everyone threw themselves to the ground and covered their heads with their hands as the worm began to smash his head against the cavern wall.

  Falk lunged his blade forward frantically, but the magic discharged itself uselessly in a scornful violet on the beast’s head as the animal opened its mouth and began grinding the outside of the cavern wall with his teeth and digging into it.

  There was a bone-shaking crash and the thin wall of stone disappeared into the worm’s mouth, which was now directly in front of them. They were now totally unprotected and at the mercy of the beast that for some reason had turned his attention to them.

  The dwarf stormed into action and hammered against the side of the skull but the worm seemed completely oblivious to him.

  Khara was hit by a falling piece of rock and tumbled dangerously towards the worm’s mouth but Jelninolan leaped forward and pulled the girl to safety behind her. Ferocious flashes of magic darted along her staff as the elf fired dart after dart of charm power, which came down in a magical shower on the shuddering body of the worm.

  Ahren’s limbs were paralysed by fear but his brain was wide awake and he forced himself to bring the animal part of his nature to heel, which was urging him to curl up into a screaming, helpless ball. With effort he slid into the Void and then he had a brainwave.

  ‘Master, jump out to the dwarf!’ he roared.

  The worm contracted. The next moment he would be in the middle of the cavern and no blow of a hammer, no matter how strong, nor no magic charm would be able to force back the incoming monster. They were caught in a trap and the animal would swallow them as easily as flame extinguishes a snowflake. Jelninolan dropped her staff and bent down protectively over Khara, as a mother would protect her child, and frantically tried weaving a protective spell.

  Time seemed to pause as Falk and Ahren exchanged looks, the one questioning, the other urging. Within the blink of an eye his master made his decision and threw himself out into the tunnel and beside the dwarf.

  The beast’s head spun around, looking back once more into the familiar tunnel, and the Nameless One hammered away at his head, full of energy and at twice the speed of his normal rhythm. The worm pulsated forward and forward again. The beast seemed to be driven this day by a frenzied voraciousness and the dwarf’s chest rose and fell in a forceful tempo, his breathing like that of a blacksmith’s enormous bellows.

  At last the massive body retreated down the system of tunnels and disappeared into the blackness. The rumbling died down until all that could be heard was the panting of the companions. The panting and another sound. Everyone turned and looked at Ahren in disbelief.

  The apprentice was chuckling, and a broad smile had spread across his face. He looked at them all, his eyes bright, and he said in a low voice, ‘I know how we can beat this cursed creature.’

  He had spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening persuading the others of the value of his idea. And the rest of the time they spent sleeping, planning and packing their belongings.

  One way or another, they would be leaving the area the same day, because they only had one chance. Which was why it had been so difficult for Ahren to win everybody over. Should they fail, the predictable deadlock that the dwarf had achieved all this time, and which had prevented the worm from making progress, would be gone. On the other hand, there was the alluring prospect of victory, and in the end, it was that which had decided things.

  ‘I’m in favour of giving it a go’, said the nameless dwarf in support of Ahren. Falk too had expressed his belief in the plan, and much to Ahren’s surprise, Khara had said shortly, ‘good idea. Might work’. In the end, Jelninolan and Uldini gave in, not least because they could put forward no other proposals.

  Now they were all standing at the ready and awaiting the first sign of the approaching Ore Worm. The soles of Ahren’s feet tingled and he turned to the others.

  ‘It’s happening. Everybody knows what they have to do?’ he asked nervously.

  Uldini folded his arms, his head tilted.

  ‘It was your idea but don’t milk it, young man. Jelninolan and I did things like that hundreds of years ago’, he grumbled complainingly.

  ‘Give him his moment’, said Falk reassuringly. ‘It’s an idea, and if it goes wrong, then he’ll have to explain to the Elders why their ore veins are lost.’

  Ahren looked forlornly at his master, who winked back at him before putting on his helmet. He looked quite silly there, dressed in his linen clothing with the clunky headgear on him.

  Ahren straightened the unfamiliar chest guard which didn’t fit him properly and had a tendency to flap. Somehow it looked lighter on his master, he thought nervously, as the worm came ever nearer. Then the silver, shimmering head of the beast appeared and Ahren ran ahead of it.

  The others followed his example and at the first crossing, Khara, with Culhen at her side, an improvised torch and Falk’s forearm guards in her hands, veered off into the left tunnel. The others ran straight ahead and Ahren risked a glance over his shoulder to see what the Ore Worm was up to. The head of the beast swayed to the left and it pushed itself into the tunnel that Khara had taken.

  ‘It’s working’, he called out and increased his pace. They had impressed upon themselves the pattern of tunnels and had practised the routes in the run-up several times and now everybody had to take up position at the right place and at the right time. Khara was the only one who could run the wide arc in the short time available to them, according to the plan. Ahren was probably the faster runner over longer distances but the girl was a born sprinter. The apprentice ran another twenty paces exactly, then stood still and counted slowly up to thirty-nine.

  Nothing happened.

  The apprentice broke into a sweat and his head was full of doubts. Had something gone wrong? Had he miscalculated? He saw a picture in his head of Khara, alone in the darkness being grasped by the worm, and he was on the point of abandoning his post.

  Then the glimmering body of the monster appeared behind Ahren and he breathed a sigh of relief as the creature moved towards him.

  With his oppon
ent on his heels, Ahren ran on with fresh courage. He came up to the crossing where Uldini was waiting for him, who beckoned to him with Falk’s sword.

  The apprentice gave him a grin and ran on, while the little figure remained floating where he was and waited for Ahren’s pursuer.

  Now every heartbeat counted. Ahren had run the furthest. Up to now they had used up a lot of time, although had done everything as planned, but the simple truth was this: there was no other way. Each member of the group was wearing one part of Falk’s armour and they had positioned themselves so that the worm would instinctively follow whoever had the biggest and nearest piece of armour. The animal smelled pure ore, and Falk’s armour was made from hardened Deep Steel, the purest and noblest metal that existed. And so the creature followed the path laid out by the armour carriers. Through clever interplays and pre-timed positioning, they had created a route which would lead the worm to a point in Ahren’s plan in which they would have a real chance of defeating the beast. The young man wore the largest and heaviest piece of armour and if everything ran smoothly, the creature would be facing him at the end.

  Ahren raced over jutting rocks, ducked under stalactites, pressed his way through fissures in the rock as he neared his final position. The others would hopefully distract the worm until Ahren was in situ.

  Finally he reached the last cave and breathed deeply. Now it depended on the others and particularly on Uldini and the dwarf.

  It was sticky in the cave and Ahren was becoming warm in the armour, when the ground began to move. In the natural reddish smouldering light of the cave Ahren spotted the silver, shimmering colossus, as it rolled inexorably towards him. His breathing quickened and he watched every movement of the rhythmically contractive mass of muscle and steel-hard armour. When the Ore Worm was two paces in front of him, Ahren took two paces to the side. The head swayed around and the creature followed him slowly but with determination. Ahren was soaking in sweat by now and the moisture was running into his eyes, but he kept his eyes fixed firmly on his opponent. The ground near the abyss was uneven, and slowly the apprentice felt his way backwards, step by step, on the edge of the vertical drop.

  The surface of the worm playfully reflected the light, and for a heartbeat Ahren had to admire the simple beauty of the creation whose existence they were being forced to extinguish. The young man took a few steps backwards and the Ore Worm followed him. The creature, ten paces in length, had followed him a good twenty paces along the ridge of rock and the enormous body was now parallel to the chasm.

  It was time for the last part of his plan.

  A glance behind and he knew he had a bare six paces until the end of the cave and he would be caught in a trap.

  ‘Now!’ he roared at the top of his lungs. The dwarf and Uldini stepped out of the darkness of the uneven rock walls and ran along the side of the shimmering mass.

  The Arch Wizard raised his arms in conjuration and the rocks the length of the ledge along which Ahren had stepped began to glow. Then the Ancient called out a command and the glowing cliff edge broke away, pulling the worm with it, down into the stream of lava, which was rolling inexorably and smoothly through the cave, and which Ahren had dismissed only a few days earlier as beautiful, yet useless.

  Ahren was on the point of cheering, but the Ore Worm rotated on his own axis and held on to the last section of rock, stopping himself from falling. The rock having fallen away, the heat of the boiling lava rose directly up to them and Ahren could hardly breathe in the searing heat. Ignoring the danger, the worm moved towards him again and the young man realised to his horror that there was now no way he could skip around the beast. He had missed his chance. Either the Ore Worm would fall, or he would be swallowed.

  ‘Help!’ he screamed as loudly as he could, but the dwarf was already in position. Then he smashed his hammer with such force into the worm’s flank that a piece of rock came crashing down from the roof of the cave and Ahren had to cover his ears against the deafening clangs of the hammer.

  Slowly, like a gradually unfolding avalanche, the enormous creature began to tip over to the right. The worm stretched once more in Ahren’s direction and opened its greedy mouth. The biting smell of the corrosive saliva hit the apprentice forcefully and he pressed himself against the wall, making himself as thin as possible. The dwarf carried on hammering at the side of the Ore Worm until finally the imbalance became too great. In surreal silence, the massive figure of the worm tipped over the edge of the ridge. His mouth snapped one more time, directly in front of Ahren’s nose, and then the enormous worm was gone and splashed into the lava, where he curled together before he finally sank like a stone. The fiery mass closed over the creature and a heartbeat later the cave was quiet and still. As if the monster had never existed.

  The journey back to the Grand Junction seemed strangely unreal to Ahren. The others had congratulated him euphorically, and the dwarf had embraced him with a bear hug, but everything seemed blurry to him, as if he were under water. Jelninolan had finally looked into his eyes and, turning to her companions had said, ‘that was a close shave. He’s in shock and he also breathed in some of the moisture from the poisonous saliva. He’ll need time and then he’ll be back to himself’.

  And so they had headed off, someone always at Ahren’s side, leading the apathetic young man while Culhen pressed in beside the other leg of his friend. They followed the round tunnels, then the dwarf passageways. The further they ascended, the clearer Ahren’s mind became. When they finally came across the light of an active smelting works and saw dwarves for the first time, the apprentice was almost back to his old self.

  Many questions were asked and answered but everything was spoken in the rumbling language of the dwarves, so that Ahren could only guess what they were talking about. But the tumult that ensued suggested to Ahren that the news of their deed had certainly created a stir. Their dwarf friend’s back was repeatedly slapped in recognition and the miners bowed before the travellers, even before Uldini.

  A little retinue of dwarves accompanied them, and there were always some running ahead to announce the good news. When they finally arrived at the Grand Junction, over two hundred dwarves were already waiting for them, squeezed into every corner of the large hall. Ahren saw that the entrances to all the Clan Halls were bursting with dwarves, all eager to catch a sight of what was about to happen.

  ‘Now that’s what I call an impressive entrance’, whispered Uldini.

  ‘This is a full meeting of the Silver Cliff Elders. There’s nothing more official outside of Thousand Halls. Only the Clan Board and the King of the Halls are of more importance than such a gathering’, whispered Falk.

  Their Nameless Dwarf appeared so self-satisfied that Ahren feared he might say or do something silly through cockiness, but he simply walked through the cheering dwarves and then planted himself in front of the Elders.

  A circle of twenty dwarves, all of them very old and dressed in golden chainmail, stood in the centre of the Grand Junction, and each of them was holding a decorated object.

  The Mountainshield Clan Elder held a golden shield, other ones had a bejewelled tankard, a priceless blacksmith’s hammer, silver ingots, copper staffs and so on. Each object seemed to represent the respective crafts of the clans, and each of the Elders looked at their dwarf friend with a mixture of veneration and distrust.

  ‘They don’t seem to be as overjoyed as the other dwarves’, mumbled Ahren, confused.

  Falk snorted. ‘He’s going to outstrip them in rank any moment now, and Pure Ones have a reputation for not taking their precious rules particularly seriously. Imagine you opened the door to a provisions room for Culhen, and it was filled with delicacies of all description, then you can imagine how they are feeling at the moment.’

  Culhen licked his chops and looked at Ahren expectantly. The young man tousled the wolf’s head and asked himself if the wolf deliberately misunderstood them when it suited him.

  The Elders began to speak to the Namel
ess Dwarf, and all of the other dwarves present radiated patience. Ahren noticed Falk’s relaxed stance and figured that the ceremony would take some time.

  Half a day later and his legs were aching, his bladder was bursting, and a certain starving wolf was constantly standing on his master’s right foot and begging for food. Ahren couldn’t help looking over at Falk for assistance, but his master’s eyes were fixed firmly on the ceremony’s guest of honour. At last the final one of the twenty-four dwarves stopped talking, and the Nameless Dwarf opened his mouth.

  ‘Trogadon’, he said, and a murmur went through the hall, awestruck and disbelieving.

  While the dwarves quietened down, Ahren took the opportunity to shake out his legs a little and he quickly asked Uldini who Trogadon really was. ‘They all seem to be really impressed’, he added.

  ‘He was their best blacksmith. Lived for over two thousand years and discovered the secret of Deep Steel. He forged weapons and armour for half of the dwarves in the old days. One of his last deeds was the creation of his own clan, that of the Hall Smiths. Many of the greatest dwarf architects came from their ranks, I’m talking about dragon arches, new enclaves and the famed fortifications of Thousand Halls. The founding of the Silver Cliff was his dream and his direct descendants founded this enclave for that very reason’, said Uldini casually.

  Ahren looked at him in surprise and the childlike figure raised his finger like a schoolmaster.

  ‘I’m no great fan of the dwarves, but of course I know about those who have achieved something.’

  Before Ahren could respond, an expectant silence fell over the hall. All of the Elders stepped forward and each laid their hand on the head of the lonely dwarf in their midst.

  ‘Reg vulan Trogadon’, they intoned, and a thunderous sound filled the hall as the dwarves started stomping on the ground with their boots, growling throatily, hitting their armoured hands off their shields or clanking their metal tankards together.

  The noise made Ahren see double, and he placed his hands protectively over poor Culhen who was whimpering wildly, but then then looked gratefully back up at his master.