by Andy Remic
After all the support I gave you.
After all I had to put up with.
You owe it to me.
* * *
A
* * *
Skalg found Anya three days later, half drunk and sat on a stone mason’s lap. She was giggling and buying everybody drinks. Skalg staggered in, eyes wild from exhaustion and filled with a primal hate.
Their eyes met across The Dragon’s Fire Tavern, and the smile fell from her face. Skalg stalked over to her, and spat on the stone flags.
“You fucking bitch. You are beyond contempt. You bided your time, waited for my mother to die, and then took her money for yourself. You called my family vultures for what they did, but look at you, you fucking pathetic specimen of a dwarf; you are just like the others: a vulture, feeding off the remains of the dead.”
A big fight ensued.
Skalg could not remember it.
He could only remember biting Anya’s ear off.
The blood pouring out.
Her screams.
It was the moment Skalg had changed forever. It was that act, betrayed by his brother and his lover, over the death of his mother, that determined he would never play fair again. Everybody around him was fair game. He would use every ounce of cunning and strength and guile and backstabbing nastiness to get what he wanted, get where he wanted, and fuck anybody and everybody who stood in his way.
Because, it was only the mountain that gave, and the mountain that took away.
Everyone else could burn in the Chaos Halls.
Three days later, Skalg was trapped in a mine-collapse, screaming for his life.
* * *
After hours, days, what felt like fucking years, Skalg breached the final ridge, his bloodied hands clawing the rocks, and he rolled onto his back, and looked back at the vast vista before him. This dark black world rolled out, ominous and alien, and Skalg felt hot tears run down his cheeks, but this time he was congratulating himself; he’d done it, he’d surpassed insurmountable odds and achieved something even most able-bodied dwarves would have found impossible.
He looked at the view.
The world seemed broad and wide and harsh.
There came a cough.
Skalg looked to his left, tearing his gaze from the stunning view, to see three squat, powerful dwarves standing there on the rocky flat plateaux. They had grumpy faces, broad and flat; faces which appeared as if they’d been punched several hundred times. And with a start, Skalg realised…
These were the Great Dwarf Lords.
Not immortal, not gods, but flesh and blood, just like him.
They wore tarnished iron armour, black and battered, and carried a variety of ancient chipped weapons which had seen decades of better use. There was nothing to set them apart from mortals. Except, maybe, their eyes. Their eyes were older than the mines, dark and glinting like devil’s diamonds.
Slowly, Skalg pushed himself into a seated position and surveyed his three… tormentors. And he smiled.
“It is an honour to meet you, finally, O my gods,” he said, and bowed his head, affecting a submissive posture.
He heard a snort. And the stamp of a boot.
“Get up.”
“You took your fucking time!”
“We’ve been waiting fucking aeons!”
“Looks like you crawled up the fucking mountain on your fucking face!”
Skalg smiled internally, and cursed them, but rolled over, and got to his knees, and then gradually, to his feet. He surveyed his lords, his masters, his gods. Those sublime creatures who, as it was enshrined in the Scriptures of Hate, had transcended flesh using dark magick after imprisoning the great wyrms to do their bidding. After creating… the Five Havens. After constructing the Dragon Engine.
Skalg took a deep breath.
“I am your slave,” he said.
“We know,” said one.
“You bastard,” said another.
“You think we’ve nothing better to do?”
“But you waited,” said Skalg, calmly, intuition kicking in. “You want me.”
“In the absence of any other better hero material, yes, we need you.”
And there was that word. And Skalg breathed slowly, calming himself.
Need.
“What can I do for you, O Great Dwarf Lords?” said Skalg, and his lips smiled, just a little. Pain flooded through him, his fingernails were broken, he had two snapped fingers, a broken rib, a twisted ankle, a bump the size of an egg on his forehead, and to make matters perfect, needles of agony jabbed down his spine. It was like somebody had drilled into his back, and was pouring liquid iron into him. The molten fluid spread slowly, like a web, throughout his shoulders and back and spine and arse. And yet here he was, expected to smile and put up with it and that’s all anybody ever expected of him. To act like he wasn’t in fucking agony all the time because that made them feel comfortable and if they knew he was in pain, then they were uncomfortable. Dwarves. The way their minds worked. It was fucked up. Selfish, and fucked up.
“We have a mission for you.”
“I thought so,” said Skalg, coolly.
“You seem distant! What’s the matter, mortal? Cower before our omniscient deadly gaze!”
Skalg bit back various sarcastic comments that leapt to mind, and bowed lower. “What can I do for you, O Great Dwarf Lords?”
“You have released the dragons! The wyrms!”
“Me, Lords?”
“Not you specifically, no, but your kind.”
“Our kind, surely?”
“Yes. Yes yes. Well, they must be stopped. Or destroyed. Or re-imprisoned!”
Skalg took a deep breath. “Er. Can you not come and do it?” he said, without any irony.
“We have transcended,” said one.
“We are in a different level.”
“We are on another plain.”
“So it’s not your problem?” said Skalg, with a smirk.
The voice built up, like a hand-turned generator gathering speed. When the blast came, Skalg thought he was ready for it, but he wasn’t. It was like nothing he had ever heard or seen or smelt or experienced…
“OF COURSE IT’S OUR FUCKING PROBLEM YOU TINY FUCKING MAGGOT!” came the scream. It blasted into and through Skalg, making his hair and beard stream backwards, and for long moments his smugness and sense of gentle superiority were dissipated as he realised the Great Dwarf Lords did indeed have Power.
There was a long silence.
A cold wind blew.
Skalg’s nostrils twitched. He imagined he could distinguish the scent of carrion on a long distant battlefield.
“I chose an eternity of this,” he said.
“I will suffer the consequences of this,” he said.
“Lead me to the source of your despair.”
Skalg stared at the Great Dwarf Lords. And they stared back.
“We have a way forward,” said one.
“You can help.”
“You can be a saviour.”
“And we will be forever in your debt.”
Skalg considered this. “You will be in my debt?”
“Listen.”
“Focus.”
“Understand.”
“You are crippled. Weak. Broken. Fucked up. A fucking maggot. A rat with a snapped spine. A cockroach with a crushed skull. You are a fucking nothing, Skalg, First Cardinal. Yes, people look at you, and they smile, and they talk, and they talk about what a fucking disgrace you are, what a fucking pathetic specimen of a dwarf, and how can you possibly run the church when you are so ridiculously crippled. What can you offer with your broken body? After all, we are a race of warriors. With your kind, we leave you down in the mines to die.”
“My kind?”
“The broken ones. The useless ones.”
“You discriminate.” Skalg’s face showed no emotion. It was not a question.
“Yes.”
“Why? Do you know how many years I have su
ffered? How many years I have fought? How many fucking years I have fought cunts like you to actually achieve something with my wounded life?”
Skalg was panting with exertion. And passion. And fury.
“Are you angry?”
“YES!”
“Then you will help bring the dragons under control?”
“Why?”
“Untold wealth, power, status. And we… can make the pain go away.”
Skalg guffawed, spittle spraying from his furious mouth. He slapped his thighs. Spittle drooled from his lips. “Yes, right, the finest surgeons in the realm could not help me. I am fucked beyond belief. What can you fucking offer, you… you false idols?”
And then it happened.
The pain left him.
The pain left Skalg.
For twenty years he had been tortured.
For twenty years, he had been nothing but a suffering mess.
But now.
Now.
The pain disintegrated.
It fell away, like tears from a dying child’s eyes.
And Skalg, well, Skalg felt purity flush through him.
He fell to his knees.
Tears streamed down his face.
“I do not believe it,” he whispered.
“Believe it,” said a Great Dwarf Lord.
“We control you. Like a puppet.”
“And we can cure you, like a surgeon.”
“Just do as we ask.”
“Do as we command.”
“Join with us.”
“Taste immortality.”
“How?” whimpered Skalg, overcome by a feeling of normality so pure he never thought to experience it again. It took him back decades. He was young again. Poor. Worthless. Invisible. Betrayed. But with new thoughts of lust and power and glory. But then, the terrible mine accident…
I was robbed.
No.
You were enlightened.
“We have a mission.”
Skalg grimaced. “What do you want me to do? I will do anything you command, O Great Dwarf Lords.”
One of them grinned. Then all three grinned. They were shimmering, as if seen through a massive heat haze. They shimmered. As if witnessed from a great distance.
“What would you have me do?”
Again, a long pause. Skalg could hear heavy breathing.
“You will infiltrate a dragon.”
“Infiltrate? What the hell does that mean?”
“You will take over its mind.”
Skalg frowned. “And do what?”
“You will kill the other dragons.”
“You want me to become a dragon?”
“Yes.”
Skalg considered this. “How?”
“We use the magick contained in the dragon heads.”
“Is it safe?”
A laugh. A chuckle. A gurgle.
“You will become the most impressive physical specimen of any creature to ever commit murder across our fair world! You will be stronger than anything else in Vagandrak. You will impale, and slice, and burn your enemies. How can that not be the safest place to be?”
“I will become a dragon?” said Skalg, eyes wide, in awe.
“Yes.”
“Tell me what to do,” said Skalg, and his eyes were wide and bright and the concept of throwing off the shackles of his dwarf flesh, crippled for so long, a flesh prison in which his mind had been trapped. Now he would be free.
Yoon’s Secret
The tall, elegant man paused in the middle of his speech, and smiled across the Grand Palace Hall to where Yoon was perched on his throne, hands on the rich, ornate, gold-trimmed arms of the throne, face impassive, like a wax mask, long, curly, oiled black hair glistening from the light of a thousand candles and various braziers which burned around the perimeter of the chamber. A hundred maids-in-waiting lingered around the edges of the room, some in extravagant ball gowns, silk glistening in the subdued glow, some naked and seated on cushions, watching the proceedings with drug-eyed lethargy, yet others wearing silken strands that attempted to be items of clothing.
“May I continue, Your Highness?”
“Continue, Duke Sargoth,” drawled Yoon, settling back and lifting a heavily-ringed hand to his goblet. He drained half in one gulp, and the red wine stained his lips, standing out against the pale make-up which caked his face. He clicked his fingers, and a young naked lad ran over with a footstool. Yoon placed one silk slipper on the stool, and bade the young lad sit, where Yoon’s free hand gently wound its way through the boy’s golden curls.
“Well,” said Sargoth, eyes alive with his pitch and the drugs which infused his bloodstream. “My engineers did a reconnaissance to the foothills of Zunder, and I think Your Highness would be mightily impressed with the minerals we found there. There were also traces of precious gems, buried deep under the volcanic rock. What I require from you, King Yoon, as I mentioned several months earlier, is not just patronage, but an investment. Give me… ten thousand in gold, and I guarantee within the year, I will triple the amount!”
Yoon considered this, and drained the rest of the wine from the goblet. He stood, and slowly descended the steps from the throne plinth, to stand on the marble tiles of the Grand Palace Hall.
“So,” he said, shifting closer to Duke Sargoth, so much so it was almost as if he were gliding. “What you’re telling me is you want ten thousand royal gold to finance some kind of dig, around the foothills of Zunder, where you are convinced there is a wealth of precious gems?”
“Yes, yes!” said Sargoth, his eyes shining.
“But I am confused.”
“How so, Your Highness?”
“Well, you state you will return my investment threefold.”
“Yes, Your Highness!” His face beamed.
“Why not tenfold? Or twenty?”
“Highness?”
“Why not make me a partner on a percentage basis?”
“Er, Highness?”
“Boy, you boy, yes you, you fucking imbecile.”
“Yes, Highness?” squeaked a small boy in pink silks.
“Go hither. Get yonder silver tray and letters.” Yoon flapped his hand.
The boy ran across the hall, returning with a silver tray. Upon it lay various letters in a variety of interesting envelopes. Many would be invitations to dinner parties with the wealthy and powerful, Yoon knew, and even more would be invitations to attend drug parties and orgies, and in these Yoon was more interested. But there was one letter Yoon was searching for specifically, and his ringed fingers sifted through the pile, pushing paper around until he found a stoic brown envelope of the terminally bureaucratic.
“Ahhh,” he said.
Duke Sargoth blinked several times. The smile and eager, shining eyes had dropped now, disintegrated, to be replaced by a handkerchief-wringing posture of nervousness. King Yoon was known wide and free across Vagandrak as being a little… unstable. But despite his reported acts of decadence and apparent occasional insanity, he could have moments of lucidity and incredible intelligence. After surviving thirteen assassination attempts, many whilst high, it had to be observed that Yoon was nobody’s fool, and took more precautions than was readily acknowledged.
Yoon plucked out the brown envelope.
It was studiously stamped, stencilled and waxed.
He took a long, delicate letter-opener of filigree silver, and proceeded to slice open the top of the envelope. Then from the dour brown object, he plucked a thin sheet of white paper, on which was a handwritten missive. Yoon tapped the letter opener against his bottom lip as he read, eyes travelling from line to line, and Duke Sargoth watched his king with an increasing sense of uneasiness.
What could I have done wrong?
What the HELL could I have done wrong?
Yoon continued to read. And then he stopped. And then, without moving his head, his eyes lifted to fix on Duke Sargoth.
It was not a pleasant look.
Yoon remained like that,
until sweat started trickling down Sargoth’s forehead, and his cheeks sang red like the breast of a robin.
“Your Highness?” he quavered, finally, unable to take any more tension.
“Duke Sargoth,” purred King Yoon, and stood up straight, pushing back his shoulders. He started to speak, quickly, economically, words and sentences clipped as if prepping elite soldiers on a military mission. “You came to me three months ago, proclaiming your misfortune, your divorce, your children leaving you, your loss of monies, your bad business deals, your incurred debts. You specified you were about to go searching for precious gems around Zunder. You asked if I would be interested in investing if such a survey proved to be fortuitous for both parties.”
“Yes, yes?” said Sargoth, wetting his lips.
“You then sent out engineers to test the aforementioned site. Is that not so?”
“Yes!”
“So did I, Duke Sargoth. So did I.”
There was a pause.
“Oh,” said Sargoth, and the wetness disappeared from his lips.
“I have here my engineer’s report,” smiled Yoon, and to any who knew him, or even any who knew of him, that should have been a very, very dangerous sign. Duke Sargoth did not know Yoon, and as such, did not take the hint to run.
“Oh,” replied Sargoth, for a second time, frowning.
“Would you like to know what it says?” asked Yoon, never one to miss the opportunity of milking a fellow human’s misery.
“Yes. Yes please.”
“My engineers discovered a very rich lodestone of precious gems around the foothills of Zunder. And do you know how they found this? They excavated in exactly the same locations as your engineers. Which means you know what I’m about to tell you.”
Sargoth almost choked. In the end, he could not reply. His throat was too parched with fear.
“My engineers discovered that for an investment of ten thousand coin, I would not recoup in multiples of three. Or even ten. Do you know how much money I should be receiving? Even as a percentage of what you would excavate?”
“I don’t know,” croaked Sargoth.
“Thousands,” said Yoon, and any hint of a smile or humour had gone from his face. He turned, suddenly, and squared up to Duke Sargoth – who was actually quite a big man, and wearing sword and dagger at his belt. But Sargoth looked ill. He looked green. He looked like he was going to puke.
