Dragondoom: A Novel of Mithgar

by Dennis L McKiernan

  Too, there came the day that Elyn’s ribs were unbound. And she followed Thork’s example, practicing with weaponry to regain her muscle tone and to rehone her skills: swinging saber, warding with long-knife; working her spear as quarterstaff, blade, and javelin; hurling sling stones; stringing bow and loosing missile.

  When it came to casting arrows, she and Thork would engage in contests, he with his crossbow, she with her re-curved bow of Jord. And time and again they would prove once more that the crossbow struck truer and harder at close ranges, while the hand-drawn bow was the better afar. And they would come away from these tests of skill in good humor, for both had won, neither had lost.

  At last, hale and fit, they finally prepared to leave the Wolfwood. It was not that either wished to go, for they had both come to love the shaggy forest, even the Dwarf of carven stone caverns, even the Woman of wide grassy plains. And both had come to love the Silver Wolves as well. Yet, love of Wolfwood, love of Wolves, neither could hold them, for a higher duty called, and they could not ignore it, though it meant hardship and peril in the days to come. And so they brought Wind and Digger to the cottage, and gathered together that which was theirs, lading the animals with weaponry and food and grain and other goods to see them on the long journey ahead.

  And the Wolfmage came unto the twain and said that he must speak with them ere they set forth, but in a place of his choosing. And he led them unto a nearby tiny glade, a wee clearing shielded by a circle of overarching oak trees, a place that they had not seen before. The shadowed round was grown with a soft green sward, a plush carpet of bladed grass tipped with tiny yellow flowers. Nearby, a flowing spring bubbled clear, sparkling over rounded rocks while speaking the gurgling language of clean water rushing along a tumbling path. And in the center of the minuscule glade was what Elyn called a Fairy Ring: a circle of Moon-pale mushrooms within a luxuriant growth of a low mossy fern. Carefully stepping over the edge of the Ring and bidding the two of them to do likewise, the Wolfmage sat them all down in a circle center, deliberately placing Elyn and Thork and himself at what would be the points of an equal-sided triangle. On the outside of the ring sat the gathered Silver Wolves, a circle of five within a circle of nine, the Draega bearing silent witness to those within.

  “I have brought you to this place of protection for a reason, for I would speak to you of Andrak. And what I have to say concerns your mission as well. I have not called you here ere now for you were not yet ready, not because you were wounded, but because when first you came you would have found it too hard to accept what now will be revealed. Even at this moment there is a chance that it will force you apart, yet I think not, though it is certain to strain the bonds between you.

  “Andrak sits in a strongholt in the mountains of Xian. It is from there that he has been using his dark powers to direct the Foul Folk and others against you. For he fears that you are the ones spoken of in the elden prophecy, the two foes of one another bound together in honor:One to hide;

  One to guide.

  From around his neck the Wolfmage removed a leather thong upon which depended a silveron nugget. He held it out to Elyn. “Take this, Lady Elyn, and wear it, for I deem you are the ‘one to hide.’ It is a device for protecting you from enemies, a thing that will keep them from seeing you. I have merely been holding it until it was needed, and I ween that time has come.

  “You would perhaps call it a thing of ‘magic,’ but I do not understand what is meant by that word. It is simply a thing of hiding. Nay, not hiding, that is the wrong word; mayhaps instead it should be called a thing of unpresence. Regardless, I was wearing it the night you came unto the Wolfwood, the night you did not see me until I willed it. Oh, I was not invisible, and you could have seen me at any time, had you willed it yourself. Nay, this token does not render the wearer invisible, but, rather, unlooked at. For those who do not have the will, as well as for those who do not know the power of sight, they will glance everywhere but straight at you, peering around your edges, in a manner of speaking.

  “It will protect both you and Thork from Andrak’s detection, for its scope is such that he will look around both of your edges, as long as Thork stays near at hand; hence, Andrak will not know just where to send his foul creatures to intercept you. Yet ’ware, the closer you come, the more likely he is to find you, and the closer Thork must be unto you, Lady Elyn. Here, remote from Andrak’s holt, you can ride as always, remaining somewhat apart, taking care of your separate needs, as your privacy demands. But if you draw nigh Andrak, you must be within a step or two of one another, else the one not wearing the nugget will of certainty be found. Yet should Andrak think to look past this . . . barrier, then nothing will conceal either of you, nugget or no.”

  Slowly, Elyn reached out and took the remarkable gift, and stared in fascination at it glittering in her hand. “I do not have the . . . the training, the knowledge to . . . command . . . it,” she said hesitantly.

  “Fear not,” responded the Wolfmage, “for it needs no commanding of yours. Aye, there are those like myself who can use it to its fullest. But for you, no bidding on your part is necessary, for it will ward you and Thork when enemies are at hand, when those of hostile intent would seek to do you harm. Simply keep it with you and you will remain . . . unlooked at . . . unlooked at by foe, remove it from your presence, and you shall be seen again. But remember, if the foe be one of power who thinks to look past the hindrance, then he will see you, whether or no you wear the token. Put it on now, Lady Elyn, for you are both about to set forth from my domain, and I would not have Andrak find either of you.”

  As Elyn slowly placed the thong about her neck, tucking the silveron token down into her leathers, the Wolfmage gave a grunt of satisfaction, though neither Elyn nor Thork could see that aught had changed.

  “One last thing about the silver stone, Lady Elyn: if you are the one, then it is written that this nugget will protect you in horror’s domain; yet there will come a time when you will sling it from you . . . but that is as it should be, for the token, too, has a destiny to fulfill; it is so ordained.”

  As Elyn pondered these bodeful words, the Magus turned to the Dwarf, handing him a large cloth with a draw cord. “Here, warrior, take this shield cloth and cover the Dragonhide, for even the power of the nugget cannot conceal that glittering rainbow from hostile eyes. The cover has no device upon it, but that is as it should be, for you go in stealth.”

  As the Dwarf accepted the cloth, the Wolfmage spoke on: “Thork, I deem it that you are the ‘one to guide,’ for you are a Châk and cannot lose your own footsteps. And days will come when this gift of the Châkka will be sorely needed by you both, if indeed you are the wayfinder foretold of long apast, one of the two foes bound together in honor. Even so, it is written in the prophesy that one will die without the other. Hence, beware stepping beyond the protection of the nugget, for then you will be revealed. Stay close. Ward well.”

  “You read much into this prophesy of yours, Mage,” growled Thork, folding the cloth. “Yet what makes you think that we are the two it speaks of?”

  “It is not only I who deem it so, Warrior Thork,” answered the Magus. “Andrak sends his minions against you because of it.”

  “But why?” queried Elyn. “Why would he, why does he, set the Foul Folk upon our track?”

  The Wolfmage spread his hands wide, palms up, as if explaining an obvious fact. “Because I ween ye both seek that which he wards so jealously: the Kammerling.”

  “The Kammerling?” Elyn blurted out; angrily, she confronted Thork: “Is that what you seek? Adon’s Hammer?”

  “Aye. It be the Rage Hammer I am after,” answered Thork. “But it would seem to be your quest as well.”

  “You seek the Hammer to gain advantage o’er my folk, o’er the Vanadurin,” Elyn spat accusingly. “Deny it not, for that is your way.”

  “I do not deny it,” Thork shot back. “But can you tell me that it is otherwise with you?”

  Elyn jerked back as
if she had been slapped, and then her face fell and she shook her head no and peered at the ground, feeling betrayed while at one and the same time feeling as a betrayer, refusing to look at Thork, something inside her hurting beyond pain. Thork, too, was anguished, for he cast his hood over his head and stared down at his hands.

  The soft voice of the Wolfmage cut through the outrage and shame of both: “Did you not hear me? It was prophesied: two foes bound together in honor would one day come; and that is what you are, and how you are bound. Yet the prophesy does not say that the two will succeed, nor does it say that you are the two; but it does say ‘in honor.’

  “Now list to me . . . list to me, I said!” When he was certain that he had their attention, halfhearted though it was: If you are the two then you will need this knowledge later: Andrak sits where he can watch Black Mountain, the Wizardholt in Xian. Why he spies upon it, I cannot say. Yet I think he wards it for his vile master, Modru, to report movements upon and within.

  “This I also know: You both set out to find Black Mountain, for you believed in the eld legend that the Kammerling would be found therein. Yet it is not so—the Kammerling resides with Andrak. He wards it for Black Kalgalath.”

  Thork stirred himself from the depths of his wretchedness. “The Wizard wards the Rage Hammer for Black Kalgalath? Why would that be? Is he in league with the Dragon?”

  “I do not know why Andrak protects the Fire-drake,” responded the Wolfmage. “For Kalgalath is not an ally, or was not during the Great War of the Ban. Yet Andrak keeps the Kammerling, and Kalgalath remains safe.

  “Even so, still you must search out Black Mountain, for within is that which will reveal the location of Andrak’s holt. Else you cannot find him, for he, too, knows the art of concealment, and weaves his . . . magic . . . to remain hidden. Yet heed: although I cannot teach you this manner of hiding, nor of seeing, within the Black Mountain is that which will permit you, Thork, to find where Andrak dwells, for as I have said, you are a Châk.

  “Heed me! When you come unto the mountains of Xian, look for four close-set peaks that appear to be fingers on a hand, and then look southward for the thumb. Go through the col between thumb and first finger, and fare north and east. There you will find Black Mountain. Seek within the Map of the Wizards of Xian, for this even Andrak’s spells cannot deceive.”

  The Mage stood and bade them to stand as well; and he led them from the Fairy Ring, through both wards of the encircling Silver Wolves, and out from under the protection of the oaken grove. And neither Elyn nor Thork would look upon one another, for the heart within each of them felt hollow and empty.

  Riding in morose silence, they fared to the far eastern edge of the Wolfwood, the Draega all about them. And when they came to the border, Elyn dismounted, and stepped unto Greylight. The great grinning Silver Wolf stood still as she approached, and she clasped him around the neck, hugging him to her tightly, burying her face in his clean-scented soft silver fur. “Good-bye, my protector,” whispered Elyn, releasing him and mounting Wind once more.

  Suddenly the Wolfmage was standing among the trees at a distance, yet how he had come, they did not know. “Thank you for your healing, my Lord Mage,” called out Elyn, “and for the warding of your Wolfwood.” The Magus did not answer, but instead stood in silence, watching the twain as they departed the forest, horse and horseling splashing out across another shallow river crossing.

  And as the two gained the far bank and left the water, behind them came lornful cries, Silver Wolves keening at their leaving, voicing the wail of the pack calling out for lost ones. And when Elyn looked back unto the eaves of the Wolfwood, she noted a great Silver Wolf set apart from the others, a Silver Wolf somehow darker than all the rest, there where the Wolfmage had once stood. And then the Draega faded like smoke back among the trees, and she saw them no more.

  CHAPTER 16

  Dracongield

  Early Summer, 3E1601

  [Last Year]

  Ruric, Reynor, and Pwyl—the senior of the two healers in the Warband—led Elgo out across the courtyard, the Prince in such agony that his breath came in moaning gasps between clenched teeth. From forehead to cheek, the left side of his face was nought but a fiery wound, his eye a burning hole in his face.

  They took him to the crystalline stream gurging below the wall. “My Lord,” bade Pwyl, “lie on your stomach here at stream’s edge. Take a deep breath and hold your face in the clear water for as long as you can bear; the dregs of the Dragon spume must be washed away. Force open your left eye—use your fingers if you must—for the orb and lid must be washed clean; blink if you can, else let the waters flow o’er open eye.”

  Belly-down, Elgo took in a great gasp of air and plunged his head into the water, and a moan escaped his clamped lips as his scored face met the icy chill. Long he held his visage under, but came blowing to the surface at last. And he sucked in gulps of air until he’d caught his wind. Wiping water from his right eye he looked at the Armsmaster squatting alongside the gurging rill, bitterness in his one-eyed gaze. “I did not think, Ruric! I did not think! It never entered my thoughts to question the speed of a charging Drake,” gritted Elgo, “and because of that, good Men died.”

  “My Lord,” admonished Pwyl, “talk not; instead, immerse your face in the stream over and again until the water has done its work.”

  Once more Elgo thrust his features into the cold rush.

  “My Prince,” growled Ruric, “it entered none o’ our thoughts to ask after the speed o’ a Dragon in his lair. Hold yerself not at fault for such.”

  Again Elgo surfaced, gasping and wheezing.

  “My Lord Elgo,” said Reynor, “we all knew the risk we took when we went into the Dragonholt; that perhaps some would die was in all of our minds. Yet we went in gladly, knowing that we served the Realm.”

  “Realm, Hèl,” responded Elgo, and would have continued, except Pwyl’s words cut him off—

  —“The water, my Lord, the water.”

  Time and again Elgo plunged his face into the chill stream, its soothing coolth flowing o’er his tormented features. Yet the water could not take away the hideous agony within his left eye socket, and only partly did it soothe the fiery burn raging leftward along his forehead and down beside his eye.

  Finally the healer closely examined the Prince’s face. “Well, Pwyl,” Elgo asked, “what say you?”

  Pwyl, heedful of the raw flesh, carefully studied the acid scoring, confirming what he already feared: the quilted cloth mask that Elgo had worn had protected his face somewhat from the splash of Dragon spray, perhaps due to the limestone and charcoal; yet along the left, the unshielded skin had been dreadfully seared, and the eye itself had been holed. “Your brow and temple will heal scarred, my Lord,” answered Pwyl finally, “but the eye is lost. What little remains must be removed, else it will rot and kill you with its poisons.”

  Elgo blenched to hear such dire news, yet with his one good eye he looked Pwyl square on. “Then have at it, old fox. And, Reynor, make me a patch; I shall be as Thorgald of old.”

  Pwyl put away his pitifully few instruments, the grisly business done: tweezers and small fine knife as well as a narrow searing blade used for cauterization. The Prince, still drugged with a sleeping potion, lay upon blankets within the west chamber, his acid-burned face smeared with a salve, his left eye covered with the black-leather patch Reynor had made.

  During the cutting out of Elgo’s ruined eye, Men had gone down into Blackstone, down into the Dragon’s lair, to recover the corpses of the eight slain Harlingar. Tearfully, they had gathered up the reft bodies of their comrades, bearing the remains unto the daylight.

  Ruric had commanded that they be borne out to the mouth of the vale and buried there ’neath green turves. “Yet hold yer grief; we shall mourn when last we leave this abode of Death.”

  Others had come to the Armsmaster, telling him of the vastness of the trove; and Ruric had glanced first at the bodies of the slain and then over at
those struggling to hold Elgo while Pwyl cut at the gaping eye, the nearby searing knife cherry red upon hot coals, and the Armsmaster had wondered then at the curse of Dracongield.

  But now the burial squad had departed, and Elgo slept drugged; and in the center of the great western hall lay the gigantic corpse of a slain Cold-drake.

  Sometime during the night Ruric was awakened by the sound of metal striking metal. And by lantern light he looked to see Elgo, hammer in one hand, chisel in the other, whelming at the brow of dead Sleeth, cutting a great flap of hide from the Drake’s face. And where Dragonblood dripped, smoke curled up from the stone.

  Ruric stood and stepped to the Prince’s side, to hear him muttering under his breath with each blow, but what he said, the Armsmaster could not discern. Sweat ran down Elgo’s arms and back, more poured down his forehead, and he would stop at times to wipe his brow, dabbing carefully at his seared face. At Elgo’s feet lay three dulled chisels, blunted by the iridescent glittering scales. “My Prince—”

  Clang! “He ruined my face, Ruric”—Dlang!—“I but return the favor”—Chang!—“Dwarven steel is”—Chank!— “worthy; I took the best from the smithy”—Clank—“yet Drake armor must be forged in the very pits of Hèl.”

  Ruric looked into Elgo’s remaining good eye and saw that it was glazed with fever. The Armsmaster awakened both healers, Pwyl and Alda, and the two closely observed the Prince, the healers speaking quietly to one another. Then Alda prepared another potion, yet Elgo would not drink it until the great swath of Dragonhide at last came free. Clank, chank. The Prince dropped hammer and chisel. And wiping his brow, he gulped down the draught, then dragged the flap of skin to his bedding, hurling the hide against the nearby wall and collapsing into a fevered sleep.

  “Pwyl? Alda?” Ruric asked an unspoken question.