“The Sky Gods came to us in their time of need
But with their treachery, they sowed the seed
Of betrayal, mistrust, and of death
So until Ilo sighs her final breath,
They will be our enemies, our bonds bereft.”
-The Dwellisian Song of Ages, verse 9832, stanza 12.
Thalsi growled, twisting in the golem’s grip and driving her knife deep into its gut. It stumbled back. Vorn managed to break free, but its hold on Thalsi tightened. Vorn reached for them. Pain flared in his side and a dry cough ripped itself from his throat. The golem cracked Vorn across the face with its forearm, throwing him back against the wall.
Torvar stomped towards them, laughing.
While Thalsi struggled against the golem, Vorn retrieved the vial of harrswood smoke from his belt. He flicked the cap off and inhaled all of it. Fire filled him and he keeled over as hot coughing exploded out of him in a shower of blood and smokey phlegm. His head rolled and body burned. Had he taken too much and destroyed his lungs? Then the pain melted away and vigour flooded through him.
Vorn rose with lightning crackling over his fists, then threw a punch at the golem, splintering its face. It fell back. Thalsi kicked it away and broke free.
Vorn glanced over his shoulder. Torvar was almost upon them. Vorn turned to meet him, but Thalsi grabbed his shoulder, pulling him down the tunnel. Torvar growled and charged after them, his bulk belieing surprising speed.
Golems emerged from the walls, reaching for them. Vorn and Thalsi shoved aside some and ducked past others. Slowly, step by step, Torvar gained on them.
Finally, the gate appeared, but the portcullis was down.
“Fools!” Torvar bellowed behind them. “This is my domain. You can’t escape.”
A tunnel of unhewn stone branched off to their left, sloping upwards. They turned into it. A golem emerged from the floor in front of them. Vorn charged it with his shoulder, running it down in a crash of cracking stone.
Vorn and Thalsi ran on. Torvar followed.
They turned left, then right, then left again. The tunnel sloped up, then down, then levelled out, curving and winding until they lost all sense of direction. They came to a fork and stopped. Left or right? Torvar hurtled towards them.
“This way,” a soft voice whispered from the right.
They followed it.
“Left,” it said at the next junction.
They rounded a bend, and for a moment, Torvar was lost from sight. Zera emerged from a dark, narrow side passage. Vorn opened his mouth, but she shushed him, ushering them into the passage and motioning them to crouch in the shadow of an overhang jutting out of the wall. The thundering footsteps of Torvar drew nearer. Zera cupped her hands to her mouth and threw the mimicked sounds of footsteps out into the main tunnel.
“This way!” Vorn’s voice echoed down to them from the direction towards which they’d just been running.
Torvar barreled past and disappeared around a corner.
Vorn opened his mouth, but Zera motioned for quiet. Torvar’s footsteps began to fade into the distance. “His hearing is very good,” she whispered. “And sound travels in this place. Be careful not to speak too loudly.”
Vorn nodded. “Where did you go?”
“You know where,” she said, shuffling past him, deeper into the passage.
“You didn’t actually steal from him, did you?”
She grinned, retrieving a long, leather bound package from the gloom. “I knew he wasn’t going to trade with you,” she said, shuffling back over and offering it to him.
“Why didn’t you warn us?”
Thalsi gave her a hard, questioning look.
She shrugged. “I knew you wouldn’t approve.”
“You’re right. You made us an enemy of Torvar. This… this is a disaster. What will the Elders say?”
“Does it matter? Torvar hasn’t traded with us in ernest for centuries.”
“Thalsi and I could’ve been killed.”
“But you weren’t. I knew you two could handle yourselves. Go on, open it. You wanted a new weapon. I think you’ll find it was worth the risk.”
“Next time you’re going to do something like that, at least warn us first,” he said, undoing the package’s buckles.
Thalsi nodded in agreement.
“I can’t make any promises.”
“Zera, I’m serious. It’s too–” He peeled back the casing. The axe within was magnificent. Triple bitted and wrought of bronze and burnished steel with silver scroll work etched along the edge of each blade. Embedded into the head’s center was a polished sphere of smokey quartz, alight and humming with power. “Beautiful,” Vorn murmured.
Zera smiled. Vorn tried and failed not to smile back. “I still don’t condone what you did, but… thank you.”
Vorn picked it up. The haft was almost as long as he was tall, the head easily the size of his torso. Holding true spell worked steel, the likes of which only Torvar could make, felt good.
“Now. We still need to get out of here,” Zera said, starting off down the tunnel.
Vorn nodded and started to rise when the harrswood smoke wore off.
His side exploded with throbbing, sickly pain and thick nausea bubbled up through his gut. He gasped, groping at the wall, struggling to stay on his feet.
Zera stopped and looked back. “What is it?”
“Ariana’s medicine…” Vorn spluttered. Even talking was agony.
“Do you have more?”
“No.”
“We have to get moving. Thalsi can you help him?”
Thalsi nodded.
“I’ll be alright. I just need a moment.”
Zera glanced up and down the main tunnel. “Alright but just a moment. I don’t want to wait around for too long. Those golems are searching for us. They could be anywhere.”
Vorn took a deep breath, then pushed himself off the wall, tottering on his feet. His head spun, but he managed to stay upright. “Alright,” he grunted. “Let’s go.”
Zera nodded, then turned left down the main tunnel with the others following. Vorn was thankful for the slow pace she set. He wasn’t sure if he’d have managed to go any faster.
Zera guided them through winding ways, always ascending, always toward the distant rumbling of Torvar’s footsteps.
“We pursue Torvar?” Vorn asked.
“I don’t know my way through these tunnels anymore than you,” Zera said without looking back. “But Torvar doesn’t know that. The triple arched gate is not the only way in or out of Sorholm. With luck, Torvar will think we’re heading for another exit and accidentally lead us to one.”
“With luck?”
“I’m afraid luck is all I can offer, unless you have a better plan?”
“Unfortunately not.”
Vorn realised they were climbing what must’ve been a great spiral, for the passage always veered ever so slightly to the right and whenever they came to a junction, Zera always led them along the right-hand path.
Eventually Torvar’s footsteps fell silent, and Vorn began to worry they would lose their way.
Then they rounded a bend and the tunnel’s roof parted into a jagged crack open to the star-studded sky. Carved into the wall below the crack were crude, narrow steps leading up and out. Further along the passage bent left and sloped downward.
They stopped and waited for a moment, listening. All was still and silent.
“Wait here,” Zera whispered. “I’ll scout ahead and signal the Skithiar.”
She crept forward and carefully worked her way up the stairs. Vorn and Thalsi moved to its base as she disappeared over the rim and out of sight.
A long moment passed.
Then the mountain quivered, and a deep rolling boom rumbled up to them from the depths.
Torvar roared from above. “Nowhere to run!”
The mountain shook again, and sulphurous smoke flooded through the tunnel.
“Zera’s in trouble,” Vorn said. “We have to get up there.”
Thalsi nodded and started up the steps. Vorn went to follow, but slower, gritting his teeth at the sharp pang in his side. Thalsi looked back.
“Go,” Vorn said. “I’ll follow when I can.”
Thalsi rolled her eyes, and reaching down, grabbed his hand. With a grunt, she hoisted him up in front of her, then pushed him up and out.
They emerged high on the steep, charred mountainside of Sorholm. Above them loomed its jagged top, smoking and glowing with molten heat. Below them, Zera fled before Torvar, with the Skithiar circling overhead.
“Torvar!” Vorn cried. “This is what you seek,” he said, holding the axe above his head.
Torvar turned to face Vorn. “So the thief reveals himself. I knew you were without honour.” He turned away from Zera and began stomping up the slope towards him. “Return it and I might be kind enough to let you live out your days in servitude.”
“I’m sorry, Torvar, but we’re leaving. Too much is at stake.”
Vorn and Thalsi dropped into combat stances. Vorn winced at the pain in his side.
“You need to not fight for him, Thalsi,” Torvar said. “You can still stay here with me.”
Thalsi shook her head.
“Then you can both die!” Torvar struck the mountainside and surged forward as fire and ash exploded from Sorholm’s top, blotting out the sky. Behind Torvar, the Skithiar swooped low and Zera leapt onto its side.
Vorn and Thalsi met Torvar. Axe clashed against hammer in a resounding crash. Thalsi ducked past Torvar’s fist, thrusting up with her knife. The blade bent harmlessly against his leathery skin. Torvar swung at Vorn again. He parried, but the shock rippled through him, forcing him back. Vorn and Thalsi retreated up the slope before Torvar’s onslaught, only to be halted by the magma tide creeping down from above. Molten rock fragments bombarded the surrounding mountainside.
The Skithiar, flying low, passed by Torvar’s left. He reached for it but missed. Zera let down a rope, and Vorn and Thalsi jumped for it. The crew began pulling them up. The Skithiar banked port side, pelted by flaming debris.
Vorn and Thalsi scrambled on board. Patches of fire were spreading across the deck, and several crewmembers were already aflame, writhing and screaming. Thalsi rushed to help Ariana and the crew battle the conflagration with barrels of water brought up from the hold.
The Skithiar shuddered. Vorn looked to the helm. Torvar’s gnarled hand gripped the stern rail, inches from where Zera handled the steerboard. Vorn ran towards it. Torvar’s head appeared, roaring as he pulled himself up. A Lowlander human charged with his spear. Torvar swatted him away, launching him overboard.
Vorn struck Torvar in the forehead with a strike like a thunderclap, throwing him off the Skithiar to crash onto Sorholm’s rocky side.
Pain exploded up Vorn’s side and he collapsed to his knees, clutching his side and panting.
Far below, Torvar emerged from the crater of his fall. “Never again shall the Dwellisfolk have dealings with the Herazor,” he called up. “I declare enmity between our peoples until the end of time.”
If you have any feedback regarding the story, either positive or negative, don’t hesitate to let me know. I’m always looking to improve.
Thank you for your time and attention, I truly do appreciate it.
Vera saved the day!! The ventriloquism ability is pretty cool. Also, the battle axe sounds amazing.