NOVEL FROG Initiate: The Sword of Inevitable Victory
Everyone lies there, stunned. The others more than me perhaps—they’ve never seen a dragon before, let alone had one’s claws clamped over their mouth. Kazhek, blood feud forgotten for the moment, looks up at the sky in horror.
“There can’t be a dragon so far up here,” he says. “Not possible.”
“No,” Hayhek says quietly. “No.”
“The Runethane must know.”
I attempt to wipe the blood off my armor. The boar’s heart is still spasming slightly.
“Why are you here, Kazhek?” I say.
He glares at me. “Boss decided three wasn’t enough to guard the boar after all.”
“Liar.”
“Doesn’t matter any more. This is more important.”
“Was it talking to you?” Whelt asks me. “I couldn’t quite hear. What did it say?”
“It said... If we don’t stay out of this part of the forest, there’ll be consequences.”
“I see.”
“It might come back,” Kazhek says.
“You should get out of here,” Whelt spits. “Sneaking up in the night! You’re a coward.”
“I’m not going anywhere or doing anything. Unless we want to fight amongst ourselves with a dragon overhead.”
No one does. Kazhek retreats to stand by a stalagmite away from us, but not so far away. He's shaking, we all are.
I don't for one second think he's quit his quest to kill me, though.
The rest of the night passes thankfully eventless. Soon after the faint moonlight from the mirrors becomes the rays of dawn, illuminating the city and its two mountains in a cone of red-orange, Kazhek takes his leave in silence. A short while later the veterinarian arrives.
He's shocked beyond words at the gory-drenched scene, and it takes him some convincing that what attacked us was indeed a dragon. Eventually though, accept it he does, and after he closes the dead blindboar's tear-streaked pink eyes, we head back to the city.
Six months.
I have only six months.
Several days have passed now since the news of the dragon reached the ears of Runethane Thanerzak. He has ordered forces from the north districts to be brought to the south. A great many forces. Runethane Thanerzak does not like dragons, to put it lightly.
Ten of Runethane Broderick's runeknights emerge from a disused tunnel into the northernmost district.
The dwarf at their head is Fugthath, the one with the scar through his lips. He has forged himself a new suit of armor, an advanced one. It is composed of lead scales, each imprinted with a rune of platinum. The effect of the runes is to make it so the lead is weightless to him. It feels like wearing cotton—but to those he strikes a light jab is like the blow of a mighty hammer. He wields no weapon; his armored fists are appropriate for the close-in combat he expects.
Eight of the other dwarves are equipped in more or less mundane fashion: in bronze or steel plate, wielding short swords and holding bucklers, and employing various runes of hardness, strength, and speed.
The last dwarf, though the junior of all, is the most spectacular. His armor is steel and writ on it in dense text is an ode to speed in shining silver. An odd choice, for such a stocky dwarf—it doesn’t exactly amplify any natural strengths—but he has his reason, and that reason is his sword.
It is the mark two of the weapon he forged for his application to Inevitable Victory, and it is better in every respect. The blade is longer, taller even than he is, and he is not short, and curved very slightly and it is single edged. This makes it a peculiarity among dwarf blades, because so-shaped weapons are no good for stabbing into the gaps of armor.
This does not matter. It is not designed for stabbing into the gaps of armor. Writ along its edge in runes less than a millimeter high is a long ode to sharpness in a triplet-iambic structure.
The ode is far too long to write down here.
Ordinarily a long sword of any shape would be useless in the close-quarters fighting these runeknights expect. But Hardrick’s sword, as Runethane Thanerzak’s dwarves are about to discover, is not ordinary.
The dwarves advance through the midnight streets and come to the gates of the shop that is their target.
This shop is a very important one, and thus it is guarded at all times by four runeknights of the fourth degree. They draw their weapons as Fugthath approaches.
“Who are you?” their leader says. Flames flicker on his short sword. “It doesn’t matter.”
The four rush Fugthath. Their leader stabs, and the tip nearly catches in the gaps between the lead scales—the fight might end here and now—but Fugthath has one hundred years of fighting instincts and turns. He punches as he does so, just a quick flick of his right hand, and the leader’s breastplate cracks and crumples. He flies backwards and hits the shop door.
The other three are taken on by more of Fugthath’s dwarves, but not Hardrick, who is stuck at the back of the formation. The guards last some minutes, before the weight of multiple weapon blows results in total armor failure and they crumple to the ground, blood pouring from their wounds, limbs, ribs and skulls cracked.
The ten runeknights advance into the shop. The guard leader is behind the counter, struggling to breath with his breastplate caved in, reaching for a button. Fugthath sprints to him. The leader presses the button and a tinny alarm sounds, not throughout the city, but inside one of the barracks of Runethane Thanerzak’s castle.
Fugthath does not notice the button, or that it was pressed. The next moment he leaps over the counter caves the survivor’s helmet in. Blood and brain matter are forced out the visor; some gets on Fugthath’s boots and he grimaces in disgust.
“Ugh. Anyone have a tissue?”
No one seems to.
“Fine. We don’t have much time. Grab whatever incandesite you can and put it in the sack.”
The dwarves hurry about the shop. The sound of smashing glass fills the various rooms as display stands and cabinets, each containing various purities of incandesite, are broken into. The purest and most expensive they throw into their sack, the rest they place into a pile on the floor for incineration.
“Get all of it, all of it!” Fugthath tells them. “The back rooms too.”
Most of the dwarves jump to the order and hurry to the deep-carpeted back rooms. Hardrick cannot be bothered, and picks through the pile of low quality incandesite for anything good enough to go in the sack—the more they bring back the better their bonus, after all. The crystals shimmer like fire in the low light as his greedy hands sift through them.
Fugthath, who has been irritated by the newly minted runeknight on many occasions, opens his mouth to chastise him.
The door flies open. Five runeknights of Thanerzak’s personal guard charge in. Their armor is like steel but with a slightly darker shine to it—tungsten. Their helmets are blank masks, like that of their master, and it is unclear how they see out of them.
They wield maces spiked with long shards of diamond.
Fugthath defends the first blow with his arm and his counter sends his assailant flying. But the other four are already closing in, and he can see those diamonds will go through his lead armor like it is paper.
A mace swings for his head.
It misses and spins off to the far corner of the room, owner's hands still clasped to it. Blood spirals in the air.
Hardrick is fighting. His sword loops through the air at incredible speed, a silver blur cutting through everything it touches. The tight walls of the shop offer about as much resistance as the air does, and the armor of his opponents only slightly more.
Three of the runeknights fall in bleeding chunks. Not one of them is below the third degree. The last is of the first degree—he knows Runethane Thanerzak personally and has for three hundred years. The runes on his armor are better written than those of his dead comrades, and there are more of them.
Hardrick’s sword cuts into his right arm, but does not slice all the way through. The runeknight strikes, Hardrick ducks, but the runeknight has anticipated the duck and the blow connects with Hardrick’s helm anyway, sending him to the floor. Luckily for Hardrick, the angle was such that the spikes did not penetrate his skull.
Fugthath rushes in and unleashes a flurry of punches that only manage to slightly dent the elite’s tungsten plates. The elite sweeps his leg with his mace and a diamond spike pierces into the back muscles of Fugthath's lower leg. Fugthath falls to the ground.
But by now Hardrick is up again, and the other eight dwarves are here too. He hews another sword-blow into the elite’s shoulder—again, not deep enough through to sever anything, but it draws blood—and the elite does not fancy his chances.
He flees.
The dwarves cheer for Hardrick, who smiles nervously. He is not used to being cheered.
He better get used to it though, he thinks. He removes his helm, turns to face the warriors of Inevitable Victory and his injured commander, and turns his nervous smile into a wide grin. It sparkles white—he has paid to have the yellow beer stains thoroughly cleaned away.
They cheer louder.
What, Fugthath wonders to himself, exactly is this dwarf?
He seems to be a legend in the making.