Legend of the Runeforger: A Dwarven Progression Fantasy

Despite its massive size, twenty times larger than when I last saw it, the black dragon is instantly familiar. The curve of its limbs, the darkness of the scales, the color of the fiery light shining through the gaps between those scales, the shape of the spurs of its bat-like wings, the curves of its claws—but for its many hundreds of new scars, glowing brightly as it absorbs runic power to heal them, everything I recognize instantly.

Fifteen years have passed, yet my memories of it are as fresh as if it were only yesterday that I handed it the diamond key, then took its eye when it betrayed me.

“I'll kill you!” I whisper. “I'll kill you. I'll kill you!”

“Silence!” Gollor hisses. “Shut up, Zathar. Remember what I said!”

I clench my teeth and press my lips together. My chant continues in my head.

“Let me leave now,” begs Davath. “Please. Give me my supplies. I was on the edge of death back there, you know. I couldn't move. But now I think I'm healed. It's a miracle from the Runeking. Please, repay me.”

Xomhyrk nods. “Gollor, give him some supplies. Plenty of supplies.”

I listen to the rustling as Gollor prepares a bag of supplies for him. There's no other sound than that. The presence of the dragon has utterly stilled everyone's voices.

Apart from one, very quiet:

“I'll kill you. I'll kill you. I'll kill you.”

It's not my voice. I glance back and see Braztak's lips moving in just the way mine were, shaping and spitting out the exact same syllables.

“Here you are,” says Gollor. “Be careful on the journey back. We wish you luck.”

“I'll need it,” says Davath. “Thank you, dragonslayers. Kill that thing. For my dead comrades. Kill it.”

He hurries past our column and disappears into the darkness. Gutspiercer trembles slightly, angry, perhaps, at a missed opportunity.

“Follow me, my dragonslayers,” says Xomhyrk. “Keep quiet. We don't want to wake it until it's time.”

Very slowly, very carefully, we make our way down the slope. The bright—though fading—lanterns illuminate discolored patches in the stone. I spot some warped runes. Encased in the stone here are bodies, and not even the ruby can stop the sudden fear that comes upon me and makes me tremble.

Once we're onto the glassy floor, Xomhyrk orders us to spread into a wide formation, with at least six feet space between each dwarf. If the dragon wakes, he doesn't want us all fried in one breath.

“Listen carefully to me,” he says, very quietly. The Dragonslayers relay the words in a chain of whispers. “This what we are to do.”

They have finally arrived. The slopes of the Mountain of Halajatbast rise high before them, smooth and pale. All they have to do is climb them.

“Change your boots,” Vanerak orders.

Most have already fallen to pieces. The poems were written to get to the mountain as fast as possible, and now they've arrived, their purpose is over and their magic is failing. Straps are coming undone, cracks are widening, screws and rivets are coming off and apart.

The runeknights take them off gladly. Vanerak does the same—though they've fared better by far, they're still no longer worthy of being worn by a runethane. He puts on his regular boots. They're tungsten, of metal imbued with the secret, enruned with a poem about standing unwavering in the midst of battle. Vanerak does not like to dodge and leap when he fights: he moves on his own terms.

“Up,” he orders.

They begin the ascent. Although the rock directly below the wound in the mountain's center is as smooth as a frozen waterfall, that around it remains rent with crags and spurs from the uneven weathering of aeons. And there is very little snow or ice.

It's still hard going. At several points, Vanerak has no choice but to order his runeknights to besmirch their weapons by breaking apart the stone to make handholds, or to clear boulders off their pass. Up and around they wend, zig-zagging back and forth. The wind howls past them. Stones fall from above, battering their armor. Halax nearly has his face crushed by one, ducks only at the last moment.

The runeknights grow fatigued. They've been nearly flying over the land until now, carried by their runes, but now they're forced to work for every step. Only Vanerak feels no fatigue, or rather, only he is capable of ignoring it entirely. His desire to find Zathar drives away any sense of pain.

“Climb faster,” he orders, after scaling a particularly difficult slope. “Faster. The future lies at the end of this journey.”

The runeknights grit their teeth and redouble their pace. Torn muscles and cold-burned throats are nothing compared to the pain Vanerak will inflict if they fail him.

“Nearly there,” Halax hisses to himself. “Nearly there!”

The black wound in the mountain is only a few dozen feet above them now.

“He is close!” the shadow hisses. “So close, so very close. He's after something that was stolen from him, but in its making he stole from me. He has what by rights is mine.”

Hardrick stumbles onward through the black corridors. He does not know what direction he is going, nor why he makes the turns he does; he doesn't even know if the walls are close to him or if he's come into an open cavern. All is black around him. Only the shadow can sense where he and their quarry are.

“So many things were taken from me! So many things!”

Hardrick gets the feeling that the shadow isn't really talking to him, or even talking at all. It's just thinking, and its thoughts are somehow leaking into his mind.

“Left! Now right!”

His movements don't feel like his own anymore. In his first crafts, the shadow had said nothing, just given him a feeling about when to strike. After he advanced past second degree, it started to give him more specific advice, guide him more firmly, yet it had always only given guidance. In the end the movements of hand and hammer had been Hardrick's to make.

Now the movements are the shadow's.

“He doesn't deserve what he has. He didn't work for it, was just gifted it, by my enemies! The scum who threw me down. They're going to get what's coming to them. Oh, yes they are. I'm going to punish them. I don't care where they are, or what form they've made for themselves. I'm going to tear them apart!”

“Who?” Hardrick whispers. “Who are we after? Who are we going to tear apart?”

“What? What's that voice?”

“It's me!”

“Who? Keep on running, keep on running. I have to keep on running!”

Xomhyrk has placed the Association of Steel a hundred yards away from the black dragon's right foot. We stand in battle formation, a wedge, ready to charge. Braztak and Erak are the tip, then the two other remaining third degrees and I form the second rank.

The plan is simple. Xomhyrk explained that the right way to see a dragon is as a large problem. You cannot tackle a large problem all at once, so you break it into parts. One group attacks the legs, another the arms, another the belly, the head, the tail, and so on. It shouldn't be thought of as a singular foe. It has the power of an army, and must be tackled in the way an army is tackled. Each section must be defeated individually until the whole no longer has the power to win the fight.

It's all very logical, and he sounded very logical when he explained it. For once he said nothing grand. We have arrived at the problem we are to fix, and now we will tackle it in parts.

They were calming words, but not everyone is calm. I can feel the fear behind me. I glance back guiltily, searching for Guthah and Pellas. I swore to protect them and lead them, but that promise has been forgotten, shoved violently aside by my fury to destroy the dragon.

Pellas especially I'm worried about. Her armor can barely be called such. It's more dead weight than anything protective. A single splash of the dragon's flame and her battered flesh will burn like a torch.

“Just look at it,” Braztak whispers. “Look at it, Zathar.”

My head snaps around. My eyes focus on the target. My hands tighten on Gutspiercer. All my thoughts about the tenth degrees vanish like smoke in the wind.

“I see it,” I whisper back.

“It's misfortune incarnate. All the pain our guild has suffered—it's right there in front of us.”

“Yes,” Erak agrees. “We kill it, and we are healed. We will be the burning brand that quells the bleeding wound.”

“A fine way of putting it,” says Mulkath. He's in the centre of the formation, a couple rows behind me.

“Indeed,” says Braztak. “Indeed. We're the burning brand. Wharoth couldn't see that. Couldn't see that if someone else was to kill the dragon, without us being involved, we'd never be whole again.”

“He's going to get quite the shock when we return with its teeth strung to our belts,” laughs Erak. “Won't know what to say.”

“He will. He'll say he's sorry for doubting us. Who knows—I might even accept the apology.”

“I will,” I say. “Even if the decision he made was wrong, it was made out of love.”

Braztak, surprisingly, nods.

“Yes. Love—that I can agree with. He never makes a decision that doesn't have what he thinks are our best interests at heart. Even if those decisions end up being wrong and cowardly.”

He pauses, struck by sudden emotion. Tears well in his eyes. We wait for him to compose himself.

“My decision to come here was made out of love too,” he says. He raises his axe. “I haven't been able to say her name since the dragon took her from me, but I'll say it now: Marath. I kill the black dragon to avenge you.”

Erak raises his axe too. “Batath and Kelgor,” he says. “My dearest friends.”

“Gorok,” says one of the third degrees.

“Halga,” says the other.

“Nazek,” Mulkath says.

“Rastak.”

“Joroth.”

“Whelt,” I say, remembering my red-bearded friend who gave me so much advice in my earliest days as a runeknight.

“Lastak.”

“Ralgor.”

“Erkast...”

The names go on and on. Every victim of the black dragon is listed, whether they were lost in the first attack on the guildhall, slain in the stalagmite forest on the hunt led by Vanerak, or burned when it rose again with its strength renewed a hundred-fold by Thanerzak's hoard. Not a single name goes unmentioned. Not a single one of its victims has been forgotten.

Each syllable spoken sounds to me like the heavy beat of a war drum. These names are our reasons to fight.

Far above, at the entrance of a broken tunnel near the cavern roof, a light shines twice. That's the signal. Xomhyrk is in position.

We ready to charge.

“It's time,” says Braztak. “Good luck, all.”

Xomhyrk angles Icemite down toward the dragon's wing-joint. He reaches out with his left hand also.

And a claw of ice flies.