“Gunther,” he nodded to the angry dwarf, speaking in a slow and ceremonious baritone. “Members of the Dauric Council. My honorable brothers. I have called you here. There is trouble growing in the dwarven lands. We have all experienced much suffering these last few seasons. There have been too many setbacks. If we do not recognize the troubles upon us, they may well bury us in darkness. That is why I called you together."
Gunther nearly answered. He had a temper like earthfire, but even he would not interrupt the Prince in Council. Still, Wotan turned to him. "No, Gunther. I understand your frustration, but it is only because this trouble has not yet reached your borders. But it shall spread southward all too soon. You have much worry yet to come. You would be better, we all would be better, if we faced these times united.”
The Prince's words rang heavy, dismal, and for some time their shadow lay across the silent council hall. Then a muttering began, a sound of objection. It started small and built like an avalanche, and finally it was Gunther himself he rose to his feet and address the Prince directly.
"We
are
united," he said. "Have we ever been divided? We are the Dauric Council. On my honor—"
"On your honor," the Prince said, shaking his head slowly. He raised his hand in a pacifying gesture, and after a moment Gunther sank back onto his throne. The Prince nodded. "On all our honor. On all our happiness. On all our plans and all our lives. The troubles come upon us, and they will strike down deep. I feel it in my bones."
"What are these troubles?" Gunther demanded. "I have heard of nothing but superstition and springtime shifting. Or are we to believe Gregg's tale that the earthfires are waking?"
Wotan held Gunther's eyes for a long moment. Then the Prince hung his head. “I do not know. Perhaps it is just more superstition, but I have a feel for the earth. I have a feel for the
land
. And I feel that these pangs are only the beginnings. I feel Gregg's earthfires will fade in comparison to what we shall see. You have all complained of tunnels collapsing, of mines falling apart on the heads of your men, of children born frail and livestock born still. But the trial still before us feels far greater. The danger is far more serious. Far more serious…”
The last he muttered thoughtfully, almost under his breath, but there was no uncertainty in Wotan's heart. He only hesitated out of fear. This great warrior, this unchallenged and undiminished prince, was too afraid to speak the truth he knew in his bones. For minutes his anxious breathing was the only sound in the room. Many of the councilors showed fear plainly in their eyes, merely from the Prince’s tone. All of them waited in utter stillness to hear his dreadful pronouncement. Dark imaginings stirred behind their eyes. He could see it happening. They tried to guess what troubled him so, and their hearts trembled at the possibilities.
And yet, when he finally spoke, none in the circle was prepared for his words.
“I believe the dragons are waking.”
One heartbeat of silence hung in the room. Then it exploded into an uproar. All around the table dwarven chieftains shouted denial of the Prince’s claim. They slung accusations and dismissals alike that none would have dared voice in the calm of reason. But the Prince merely waited. He watched and waited. And in a little time, all the dwarven chieftains began to fall still. They took their seats again, and they were shaken. They were pale. They looked weak, and it injured Wotan to see his chieftains weak.
In the silence that followed, Gregg spoke up. His voice shook, but he met the prince's gaze unblinking. “Perhaps you are right," he said. "Perhaps the dragonswarm is here, but I think you speak with too solemn voice. We have fought the drakes before; we can fight them again. They are only beasts. And now we have the king’s men to protect us. Now we have the wizards.”
The others around the table nodded, more and more with each word from Gregg, and Wotan's heart bled yet more to see his chieftains hang such hope on the help of Men. Men had never been friend to their tribes, and Men would little aid them now.
Still, Wotan almost acquiesced. He almost let his chieftains have their hope. But if the dragonswarm was coming, they could not afford to meet it unprepared. He drew a breath and met their eyes again. “This is no idle threat, my friends. We do not face a stampede of unruly cattle, or aggressive, hungry wolves. It is a new kind of terror being born, like nothing seen on earth or in its depths in over seven hundred years! Man has grown soft, and we have become slaves; neither of us are prepared to deal with the dragonswarm. Perhaps…perhaps..." and doubt reigned in his voice, but he shook his head and said once more, "perhaps the wizards shall yet save us. Someone must go and warn the king of Men.”
A new silence answered that. One of nervous fear instead of terror. The prince frowned, confused, until Gunther finally grunted, “No one will take this task.”
The Prince gazed imperiously down the table, surprise and displeasure mixed in his eyes. “What are you saying, Councilor?”
Gunther shrugged uncomfortably. “None of us will volunteer to go to New Chantire. We all have work to do. There are preparations to be made for the coming spring: walls to be mended, roofs repaired, and a dozen major projects in each region."
The prince cocked his head, bewildered at this denial, then ran his gaze around the circle. Most would not meet his eyes. Even young Erik shook his head, before nodding across at Gunther. "He speaks the truth, Wotan, and you know it. We had just started work on a dam at Highford when your mutt called me here, and I am anxious to get back to it. Should I leave that work undone, to carry a message to the king of Men? Is there any chance he will believe us?"
Wotan rocked back at the question. He hadn't considered it, but if even his own chieftains could not believe it....
Gunther nodded sharply. "That's it," he said. "It is a pointless errand, in service of a little fear." He turned to the others, likely afraid to speak directly to his prince, but he did not shrink away. "Perhaps the spring isn’t as quiet as you’d like it. Perhaps there are troubles with your mines and some tremors in the ground. But spring work demands more attention than your idle fears.” He finished and sat for a moment, pondering. Then he nodded sharply again and climbed to his feet. "And for that very reason, I must take my leave."
Wotan only stared. He felt thunderclouds gathering in his breast, outrage and anger piling up at Gunther's stone-headedness, but mostly he felt astonished. He had never faced such open defiance—dismissal—and he could ill afford to allow it now.
"Gunther!" he shouted. "Take your place."
The chieftain only raised his chin. Before Wotan could shout again, Erik spoke up again from the other side of the table. “I mean no disrespect, Highness, but perhaps Gunther is right. Perhaps we are swinging at spiders. Spring is always a time of trouble. I have felt it as much as any of us, but it is a long run to believe.... Well, to claim what you claim. Ten thousand dragons awakened at once? A world awash in fire? I've heard the stories, too—my father survived the second swarm as a boy—but here? And now? Ten thousand wyrms at once? I find that hard hewing indeed. Has any of us seen a dragon at all?” He waited for an answer and nodded at the silence. "Not even one."
The prince pressed both hands flat on the ancient table. He pushed himself to his feet. He drew himself up, he caught his breath. His heart hammered as though he were about to go to war, and in a way he was. He fixed his gaze on Gunther first and then on Erik. He opened his mouth.
But before he spoke, the Wolfhound let out a great yelp and leaped to its feet. It threw a shoulder against the door to knock it open, then lurched out into the gathering gloom without. A disheveled figure was just then trudging the last few steps to the threshold, and the Wolfhound guided her forward to stumble wearily into the hall. Already on his feet, Wotan was the first to meet the haggard intruder. With a gentle hand he brushed back a mass of tangled hair to reveal the face of his wife, covered with scrapes and bruises from her half-day trek. She opened her arms to lay Michael on the floor at her feet; the boy shook himself a bit and squirmed into a more comfortable position on the wooden planks, but he never woke.
Suddenly oblivious to the presence of the other Councilors, Wotan drew his wife against him in a protective embrace. “Elsa, dear." His voice caught. He coughed, and turned her face up to his. He shook his head. "What has brought you here?”
"Michael," she said, and he could hear a touch of madness in her voice. "Our home. Wotan." A shadow passed before his eyes, and Elsa seemed to sense it, too. Her grip on his arms closed like pincers, and her eyes flashed unearthly terror. "Oh, Wotan."
He leaned his forehead down to touch hers. "Elsa, you are safe. Michael is well. Come back to me, Elsa." Dimly he recalled the Council. He sensed them standing, now, gathered at a distance—anxious to express their concern, unwilling to intrude on the scene. A part of him was grateful for this distraction. It had united them, in its way. It had distracted them from Gunther's defiance and swept Erik's challenge to the side. A part of the prince was grateful, but the greater part felt grief at his wife's fear. He stroked her hair and touched her cheek and whispered in her ear.
"Come back to me, my Elsa. I am here."
"Oh, Wotan," she moaned against his palm. A shadow passed over the room again, and Wotan frowned. He brushed the tears from his wife's cheek with a calloused thumb and trembled at the mindless panic in her eyes. She licked cracked lips, and a childish little sob escaped her. "My Wotan." Her voice cracked. "You were right."
Behind her words a piercing shriek tore the air. It was the sound of a hunting falcon magnified a thousand times. It pressed hard against his eyelids and twisted in his guts. Elsa gave a scream of her own, almost in answer, and then she fell limp in his arms. Her courage and strength had burned like a candle, and there was nothing left.
The prince heard the sounds of nervous confusion among the chieftains, but he ignored them. He gently, carefully laid his wife upon the ground next to his sleeping boy. Then he rose and turned to the Council. They were assembled in half a circle, five paces away; silent, anxious, and afraid. Wotan met their eyes, one-by-one, and he gathered them in. He bent the fingers of one hand, beckoning, and they came to stand behind him as he turned back to the door. That same terrible cry came again, but the chieftains stood together now.
Nothing came through the door. Instead, an explosion tore away two-thirds of the wall, leaving a jagged, gaping hole in the Hall of Meeting. "You were right," she had said. He felt molten steel in the pit of his belly, and winter-cold iron behind his heart. Wotan drew the axe hanging from a loop on his belt, and he heard the Councilors behind him reaching for weapons that had long been useless. They were a warrior people. All these servile centuries of man could not take that from them. Perhaps they could not carry a message to the king, but they could make a warning here and now.
Wotan felt the thunder of his heart. He felt the fire in his veins. He screamed his fierce defiance and more than a dozen voices shouted right behind him. And then they were moving, leaping through the rent wall, and Wotan sensed Gunther at his side, Erik at the other, both ready and willing to fight by their prince. Their heads turned this way and that as they scanned the woods for any sign of the unknown threat.
But Wotan knew better. "You were right," she had said. He raised his axe and pointed to the sky, and fourteen warriors' faces turned up. And there above them was a dragon out of legend. Shades of black and violet to match the midnight sky. A tail as long as the Council Hall, a head at least as tall. Its wings could hide the sunlight, and its teeth could chew through stone. It dove at them now, claws outstretched and flames roiling in its gaping maw. And in the distance, dancing over the trees, a dozen living shadows flew to join it. A dozen distant, piercing screams echoed the elder legend's cry.
"You were right," she had said. The dragonswarm was come.
Then the monster was upon them.
THE END
My family moved around a lot as I was growing up. Not as much as a military family, maybe, but every five or six years we'd pull up roots and cross a state line. I never really took it that well. I was born in Dodge City, Kansas, but while I was still a baby we moved down to Dallas, Texas. Just before I started elementary school, we moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Then I transitioned over to middle school by moving north to Wichita, Kansas.
I settled down in Wichita. That was two decades ago, but half the friends I have today I met in Wichita. That's also where I started dating the girl who's now my wife. I became a writer and dreamed up most of the fantasy stories I'll be writing for the next two decades. And then in the spring of 1998, a couple months before I graduated high school, my dad accepted a job in Little Rock, Arkansas.
His new employers wanted him right away, but after a little negotiation he convinced them to wait until the end of the school year to make it easier on the kids. Not a
lot
easier, mind you. I walked across the stage at my graduation on a Friday night, shook the principal's hand and accepted my diploma, then slipped out the side door and into the waiting moving truck.
That move was probably the hardest for me. I had a lot more connections to sever and a lot more plans to interrupt than I had in the past. And, worse, I had another move looming up just a couple months later. I knew I'd be heading to Oklahoma City for college, so it seemed such a waste to move to Arkansas for three short months.