Legend of the Runeforger: A Dwarven Progression Fantasy

Gold fragments, all traces of color and power burned from them, clatter onto the stone. Broken teeth from the dragon's lower jaw shatter beside them. The dragon lets out another guttural roar.

I feel no sadness at Braztak's death. That may come later. Instead I feel awe. I thought, when I crafted this armor of ice and death, that it was the ultimate expression of commitment to the quest. Yet I was wrong—Braztak's craft was superior. While I created armor to get me to the dragon uncaring of death, he crafted armor whose power could only be unleashed through death. Only through mortal wounds could his runes gain the power to wound the dragon.

Xomhryk darts down from the darkness and stabs again, then vanishes as the dragon tries to slash at him. It roars in frustration out its hang-jawed gape. Fire and blood spatter out.

A great blow has been struck, but the battle is not yet over. I angle my feet so the soles of my boots are firmly flat against the dragon's scales, and push up while ripping Gutspiercer out. I rise about four feet, slam Gutspiercer back into the dragon, repeat. A few strokes later and I am finally balanced on top of the dragon's shifting tail.

“Nachroktey!” I yell.

I charge up the tail, stabbing Gutspiercer down whenever I feel myself losing balance. The blows are pinpricks compared to Braztak's final strike and to Xomhyrk's stabs with Icemite, but I will keep on making them.

Vanerak rushes down the tunnel. It is like the throat of a dragon itself, rippled and smoothed by intense flame, flashing with white light at the end. They were too late; the battle has begun. Zathar may already have perished.

“Get the healing chains ready!” he yells back. It is the first time in a century that he has raised his voice. “They need to be out and ready to use as soon as we reach the cavern!”

The tunnel echoes with their footsteps and shakes with the roars of the dragon. It seems to be in pain, but even if this Xomhyrk is winning, that's no guarantee Zathar is unharmed.

How long will this sprint last? The tunnel looks short, but that is only because of its incredible width and height, half a mile in diameter. In these boots for defense and stability, running feels like walking. It's like his feet are encased in lead.

He must reach Zathar! He must! He will not allow him to die.

Runethane Broderick lies belly-down on the stone, his eye pressed to a crack through which bright light is flashing. He cannot quite believe what he is seeing.

Hardrick and the shadow are sprinting through a black tunnel.

“Almost there!” they scream. “Almost there! Almost there!”

They sense their goal—a dwarf in dark armor hurrying through the tunnels in the mountain—and they sense his goal also. A piece of metal, thrown up here from the dragon's hoard, imbued with runes of complete perfection in form.

“Where is it?” that dwarf whispers.

He has wound his way through hundreds of broken corridors, searching and searching. He watched the dragon throw it into the air during its first battle, with the ten thousand strong army that fell apart in a matter of minutes. He was sure then, that that glint of gold had been the craft he sought.

Unlike the rest of the dragon's hoard, there was still a small well of power within it. It was his craft, stolen from him so long ago—he is sure of this!

Yet where, in these winding tunnels, could it be?

“Death!” I yell for the hundredth time, as I stab Gutspiercer once more into the dragon's back. “Death!”

Xomhyrk's chain slices out from the darkness and freezes its claws into the dragon's neck. He comes flying in a second later, ice armor thickening as the chain flows back into it. The dragon rears up and slashes at him.

It has done so many times so far, each time missing. Its body is pocked with holes from Icemite. Each one bleeds less than the last. Slowly but surely the black beast's blood is being cooled. That which bubbles up when I strike with Gutspiercer, bubbles up less vigorously than before.

The claw on its thumb brushes his back. The force makes him tumble. His chain wraps around him. His armor immediately subsumes it before he crashes into its back.

He stands up, raises Icemite high, point down. It seems to thin and extend as he drives it into the dragon's flesh. How deep exactly does each of his freezing strikes reach?

He gives me a single nod of acknowledgement, then is off again. I watch him fly into the darkness. A second later, the dragon brings its maimed head around. I freeze under its emerald gaze.

I cannot help myself: “Remember me, black dragon?" I scream. "Remember who took that eye?”

It screams back through its broken mouth. Heat washes over me, making it hard to breath. I stab into a nearby scar and its scream loudens.

Xomhyrk slams into its neck. He drives Icemite deep into where its jugular would be, were it were any normal beast. It roars and swings its head away while swatting at Xomhyrk as if trying to kill a fly. Once again Xomhyrk is too fast and skilled for it. He vanishes, and the dragon claws its own neck.

Blood pours from the slashes: yet more wounds to add to the innumerable cuts and stabs that have already been inflicted upon its fiery flesh. It is terribly injured. The Dragonslayers, before they were shaken from its sides, cut deep into its chest and belly. Braztak ruined its jaw. Xomhyrk is cooling its blood stab by stab. Gutspiercer has helped tear open its feet, and my strikes on its back must be causing at least a little pain also, even if they are only a fraction as powerful as Xomhyrk's.

And what is more, the many wounds Uthrarzak's army inflicted on it are reopening from the stress and movement of battle. Scars on the verge of healing are oozing blood. The cleave in its face is beginning to glow again.

Strike by strike, the black dragon is dying.

How can this be? I am massive as a hill, strong as an avalanche, and my fire has the heat to burn through mountains. Before me, dwarves are nothing—nothing but the creators of my food. They exist for me to feed upon.

How have these ones injured me so? How are these few dwarves doing what tens of thousands could not?

The wounds struck by my earlier victims, which I thought healed, are burning with cold pain. I annihilated those dwarves! I stole their power and made it my own, as it rightfully should be! So why are their axe-strokes beginning to hurt again?

My jaw hangs broken.

My blood is going cold.

Is it truly possible?

Is this my end?

I cannot let it be!

I'm nearly at the dragon's neck now. The muscles under its shoulders shift as it bats at Xomhyrk coming in for another strike. I ram Gutspiercer into a pale scar just ahead of me. The metal shivers.

The scar glows white where I strike, then the glow spreads along it in either direction, both back through my feet and forward to the dragon's neck. There's a wet cracking sound. Blood erupts out. I yell and step aside, lose my balance and am sliding down the dragon's scales.

I twist and dig Gutspiercer in just in time. Now I'm hanging from the dragon's side just behind its shoulder. The scales are rent here from many strikes. Some hooks wielded by the Dragonslayers are still hanging from ragged breaks in the skin. Blood drips sluggishly from them.

The dragon is roaring in pain. The noise echoes around the cavern, and the echoes don't fade and disappear but overlap. The cacophony grows louder and more discordant each passing second. I want to climb back up the dragon's side, hurt it further, make it scream even louder, but I'm on the underside of its body's curve, and can't. I'm hanging off with nothing but fifty feet of air between me and the stone.

Xomhyrk flies in for another blow. He's a blur aimed directly at the black dragon's face.

The black dragon flails its claws at him.

And, whether driven by pain, or desperation, or perhaps by pure disbelief and refusal to accept that it could possibly be killed by anything as mean as a single dwarf—this strike is faster than any yet.

The dragon's palm collides with Xomhyrk at full force. There's a sound like a gong being crushed and Xomhyrk goes flying sideways. His chain snaps with a cyan flash, and icy shards explode from the break.

“No!” I scream.

The dragon turns and lunges at him. The exertion opens its old wounds further. Hot blood pours over me. I scream in sudden pain and twist Gutspiercer out. I plummet to the ground.

I collide with a small mound of treasure. Pieces of armor, drained of their runic power, bend and soften my fall, yet the shock of impact is still tremendous. I gasp as pain shoots through my back and left leg.

Then I'm sliding down. Softened and warped coins are thrown up around me. They spin in the air. Past them I can see the tunnel where the dragon burned its way into the mountain, and it seems to me that there are figures standing on its lip, wearing armor that gleams darkly.

The dragon lets out another guttural roar and my attention is drawn back to Xomhyrk. He's clinging to the side of the wall, frozen to it maybe. Icemite is pointing at the dragon, which is storming onward toward him.

“Move!” I yell as I crawl to my feet. “Xomhyrk, get out of the way!”

He remains still. Is he unconscious? Is he dead, his blue armor now just an empty shell?

The dragon stretches its great neck forward. It cannot bite any longer, so it raises its head as if to use its upper jaw like an axe and cut Xomhyrk from the wall.

Xomhyrk stretches out his hand, and from his armor leaps another glittering chain of ice. It strikes into the dragon's eye. It screams and pulls its head back. The momentum tears Xomhyrk off the wall. He's swinging down like a pendulum, then he begins to shorten the chain—he's going right toward the dragon's face.

Not its face. Its mouth.

He vanishes past the teeth. I can't see him anymore. I run, though he's too far away now for me to reach him.

“No!” I yell.

The black dragon roars terribly—beyond terribly—every roar it's let out so far has been terrible, but this one—there exist no words or runes that could describe its fury. Coins and bits of debris are swept up in a storm and clatter on my armor.

The black dragon quivers. The strength vanishes from its limbs and they bend, blood fountaining from the wounds in them, and then it hits the stone bodily. Its collapse is like the night-sky falling down to the earth. A tremor ripples out and throws me from my feet. Its head and neck are still up, straining to stay aloft, but then it can no longer maintain even the strength for this. Its neck crashes down like a slain snake. A second later, its head smashes a mosaic of black cracks into the floor.

I climb out of the broken treasure and run toward it.

“Xomhyrk!” I scream. “Xomhyrk!”

I can't see him. I sprint alongside the dragon's twitching body, the limp tail, unmoving claws—can it be dead? Can it really be dead? It does not seem possible, but the bleeding from its wounds is slowing, and the brightness in its one massive eye is fading.

The dragon's jaws, now that its head is resting on the stone, are closed. Xomhyrk must be within. Finally I reach them. It's like approaching a furnace—within is still terrible heat.

The dragon's lips curl into a snarl. It struggles to lift up its head a few feet. Its jaw opens slightly. I yell in horror. Within its broken mouth I see Xomhyrk lying in white flames, his ice armor running like water. He's struggling to stand.

“Remember me, dragon?” I scream. “You fucking lying bastard? Do you?”

Its snarl intensifies. I don't think it does.

“It was I who gave you the key. The key. Do you remember that, at least? Who brought you all your power? Me!”

Its eye, scarred from the chain but still functioning, widens. I grin madly—my face become a rictus of righteous fury.

“A dwarf gave you your power, and now dwarves take it away!”

I raise Gutspiercer and charge. The black dragon raises its massive head fully off the stone. Its broken jaw falls open and Xomhyrk tumbles out. The black dragon brings its head over me, cleaves down with its upper fangs. White dragonfire falls upon me. My armor becomes hot, burning hot. I scream.

Xomhyrk reaches out his hand. The last remnants of his armor become one final chain, which lashes out and freezes onto the side of the dragon's head. The chain shortens and he slams into the scales and drives Icemite deep into its temple.

The dragon's head lurches and falls toward me. I leap out the way. It crashes down next to me, one of its fangs shattering apart not a foot distant. I roll, still yelling in pain. The titanium around me has become like a suit of fire. It glows dull red. I struggle with the clasps and tear off my skull-helm.

I suck in air that's hot, though not quite burning. My vision becomes blurry for a second, then clears.

The black dragon's head lies still. Its eye is half open, yet there is no longer any gleam within.

Can it really be? I stand there staring, waiting for the gleam to return, expecting some resurgent flare of flame, but the gleam does not return, and the last flames around its mouth flicker and vanish.

Finally, it is dead.

The quest is complete.

We have won.

We have won!

But at the cost of all of our number but for me and Xomhyrk. I rush around the dragon's head to find him, hoping desperately that his injuries are not mortal ones.