Twilight of the Dragons (32 page)

C
haos had come
to the Five Havens. A breakdown in law and order, a breakdown in church rule, the arrival of anarchy. Dwarves ran through the streets, hacking at one another with axes, looting shops and houses, setting fire to churches.

“Where are the Great Dwarf Lords?” the people would scream.

“Where is our Dragon Engine?”

“Where is King Irlax?”

“Where is the Church of Eternal Hate when you fucking need it?”

“Where is First Cardinal Skalg?”

Nobody could give them answers, and so chaos beat down the door and began a savage party, with only destruction, fire and death as companions.

A
t the doors
of the Cathedral of Eternal Hate, a crowd had gathered, bearing arms and firebrands. A chant went up. “SKALG SKALG SKALG SKALG!” as if the illustrious leader of the church, the First Cardinal, could give them answers, could give them forgiveness, could offer them some form of hope or repentance or saviour. But he could not. He was locked down in the Iron Vault with the Dragon Heads. And his mind was in another place.

V
olak slammed through the skies
, heading north and east, her great wings smashing the air as if it were an enemy. Inside her head there raged another battle, as Volak screamed and thrashed, attempting to retake control of her body. But Skalg was wielding powerful Equiem magick, and despite the pressure he felt from Volak's thrashing mind, he retained control, and headed for the Five Havens, Wyrmblood, and the dragon eggs far, far below the mountain.

I know where you are, my sweets.

Fuck you, cripple dwarf, give me back my body…

No.

When I am free, I will hunt you down and give you the longest, slowest death I have ever dealt. You will take years to die, you fucking insect. I see you, I can see you even now, crouched in the Iron Vault below the Cathedral of Eternal Hate. I know EXACTLY where you are. I can smell your fear, your piss, your shit, you spineless fucking worm
.

The irony being, Volak, that now YOU are the spineless fucking wyrm… for I control your spine, and I will use your discarded shell to murder your unborn babies in their hundreds, in their thousands. You are fucked, Volak. Your reign is over. You'll be imprisoned, back inside the Dragon Engine, and you will serve the Harborym Dwarves once more.

Skalg felt himself shiver. He felt Volak crawling around the inside of his mind, rifling through his memories. How?
How could she do that
?
HE was supposed to be in total control!

You lie
, said Volak, her voice calm.

No, I will destroy the hibernating remains of the Blood Dragon Empire!

And then you will keep my body
, said Volak.
I can see it. In your mind and in your soul. You would seek to BE me, to rule the dwarves, to rule the world. You have become corrupted, Skalg, you have become obsessed with power and physical prowess. Go back to your crippled shell, do it now, and I may spare you when I riot through the Five Havens destroying every fucking dwarf that walks or crawls
.

No
, said Skalg, and Volak's single remaining black eye gleamed.
I will do what I please. I will do what I will. For I am no longer Skalg, First Cardinal of the Church of Hate. I am Volak, Queen of the Blood Dragon Empire.

T
he scene
to him was the most painful thing he had ever experienced, and he'd experienced many. The death of his father, when he was just fifteen, from a heart attack. Seeing him lying there on the wooden floorboards, face contorted, eyes closed, unable to do anything, unable to bring him back. That had been hard. One of the hardest moments ever, and the sense of frustration at this kind of loss was still with him.

Then there was his mother, a beautiful, noble woman, taken before her time as cancers ate through her bones and left her a shell of her former self. Sitting with her, holding her hand, praying for her, reading to her from the Scriptures of Hate whilst he squeezed her hand and wept at the pain coursing through her; at her clenching and contortions. That had been harder than his father. For this time it had gone on, and on, and on; and there's nothing quite like witnessing prolonged suffering to really put a dwarf's life into fucking microcosmic perspective.

But seeing the body of his daughter, Kajella, after taking her high dive from the top of Skalg's home, the Blood Tower, had been the nadir of his entire life. She'd been crushed, broken up, her face distorted and almost unrecognisable. Lying in an open casket in the church, Kokar had choked, tears streaming from his eyes, and reached out, taking hold of his daughter. He'd inadvertently grabbed one of her arms, not realising she'd been
so
broken up on impact with the hard ground many storeys below, that the mortician had had to arrange Kajella's body and limbs – including detached limbs – in such a way as to appear normal. The poor mortician had not expected a grieving father to grab at her body, or rather, her arm, thus detaching it from its place of rest, and waving it in the air as his wails reached the high, vaulted, expensively gilded rafters of the church.

It hadn't just been the knowledge of her violent impact which had shaken Kokar so badly. After he'd discovered the real means of her demise, it was the fact Skalg had used his…
his
fucking name,
his
position as High Born,
his
clan name Karik 'y Kla, to coerce Kokar's sixteen year-old daughter to his bed, with the Great-Dwarf-Lords-only-knew-what fucking promises. Skalg had raped her. Skalg was scumshit of the lowest order.

Slowly, Kokar walked down the steps, his boots thudding. He halted at the bottom, and pushed open the door.

By the altar, knelt Skalg, head bent, covered in his own piss and shit, and stinking something horrid. Before him glittered three huge gems. The Dragon Heads. They glittered in the chamber, their light threatening, creeping and eerie.

Kokar turned, and reached out, and his friend and comrade, Echo, passed him a mace. It was a hefty weapon, with a brutal, spiked head. Kokar weighed it thoughtfully, and then peered around the chamber, looking for traps, tripwires, hidden crossbows, or any other threat which might leap out and turn him from a living Kokar to a dead Kokar. Amazingly, there seemed to be nothing. Which, now, was almost irrelevant. Kokar's fury had reached such a pinnacle he would have waded through a thousand rotting corpses, swam an ocean of sharks, fought a battalion of mud-orcs in order to get to Skalg's worthless, rancid fucking body.

Kokar strode forward, aware he was treading a path for Echo.

Echo followed softly behind, his footfalls silent.

Kokar stopped, and kicked Skalg hard. Skalg murmured.

“Oy. You fucking rat. Wake up.”

Skalg's eyes flickered open, and for a moment panic fleeted there. His lips writhed wordlessly. Then he focussed, and yet was distant. Incredibly distant.

“I've come to kill you,” said Kokar, who wasn't one for mincing words, especially when it came to revenge regarding his dead daughter.

“Eh?” Skalg focussed a little more. “Who are you? I have money. And power. More money than you'd know what to do with…”

Still, he was distant. As if processing an internal monologue.

Kokar shrugged, hoisted the mace, and stared down at this wretched specimen of dwarf-kind before him. “You raped my daughter, Kajella. You let her fall from the Blood Tower. By all the powers vested in me, by the nobility and authority of the clan Karik 'y Kla, I sentence you to death.”

Skalg frowned. “Wait, wait!” he said, holding up both hands.

The mace slammed down, brushing aside his hands like leaves in an autumn breeze, and connecting with his face. There was a thud. Skalg screamed. Kokar hit him again, pulverising his cheek bone, then his nose, then his forehead. In a fury, Kokar beat Skalg until he was a corpse, with hardly anything left of his bloody, broken head.

A terrible silence fell on the Cathedral of Eternal Hate.

Echo stepped past Kokar, who was panting, covered in blood, his eyes alive, alight, and triumphant.

“That murdering bastard will rape and kill no more,” he said.

Echo nodded, slipping the three Dragon Heads into a velvet bag.

“You certainly showed him the fury of your revenge.”

“Yes! I did, didn't I?”

Kokar beamed, and wiped his hand on his jerkin, leaving a smear of blood.

Echo walked towards the door leading from the Iron Vault. Then he turned, and lifted his crossbow. “But it's such a shame it had to end like this.” The crossbow clicked, the quarrel hissed, and the bolt took Kokar in the throat.

Echo watched him fall, his eyes compassionless, and then weighing the Dragon Heads thoughtfully, he stared at the corpse of Skalg. And he thought about his own sister, so similarly abused.

“Maybe now your shade will rest,” he said, and smiled, and left the chamber filled with blood and murder and revenge. He slowly climbed the steps leading to the Five Havens and the riot of chaos and violence above.

V
olak entered
the mines at an incredible velocity, soaring up into the sky, into the thin, freezing air, then dropping like a comet, straight into the black descent, a wyrm tunnel which led from the uppermost reaches of the Karamakkos, the Teeth of the World, straight down into the heart of Wyrmblood.

She plummeted, wings folded behind her, her mind a rage as she battled Skalg. But then, like some miracle, he became distant, unfocussed, and for long seconds Volak regained control and her jubilance filled her with an ecstasy she didn't believe possible. Skalg withered and shrunk, his power diminishing, folding in and in and in upon himself, until he was just a tiny screaming voice… but then he started to come back, and Volak, weaving in her supersonic descent, screamed, fire lashing out, scorching the vertical tunnel walls…

Skalg's strength returned tenfold, and Volak withered, relinquishing control once more.

How can he be so powerful?

What channels him?

What motivates him?

And then she realised. And it chilled her soul.

The Dragon Heads.

But the Dragon Heads were mis-named, for they had nothing to do with the dragons themselves, but more to do with Equiem magick; the old, dark magick, the magick of the land, the magick of the shamathe. They were powerful beyond all mortal comprehension, and Volak feared them completely, for they had the power to scorch the earth, to cleanse the world, to kill every living creature on the entire fucking planet.

Just as Skalg's power could increase no more, just as Volak had been pushed into the tiniest cell of her own mind, with no chance of ever escaping, so he was suddenly gone. Skalg was gone. Utterly, totally, completely.

What happened?

And it drifted lazily into her mind.

Knowledge.

Volak knew exactly what had happened.

Skalg was dead.

Thunder rumbled, and she realised, it was not thunder.

It was the beginnings of an earthquake.

An earthquake, deep down under the mountain.

She plummeted, a black, falling star, towards the core of Wyrmblood, where her babies waited for her, softly calling…

L
illith was panting
, the bolt in her chest a metal parasite, eating into her. The pain was incredible, like nothing she'd ever felt, but it was all for nothing, and she did not care, because there, before her, her true love, the love of her life, her rock, her anchor, her lodestone, had died.

Beetrax's heart had stopped beating.

Lillith's tears, and her blood, fell to mix and mingle, covering his face in a bloody mask.

“No,” she wept. “No…”

E
cho ran
through the streets of Zvolga, his footfalls light, a dagger in one hand, the velvet bag tucked deep inside his shirt. The dwarves were rioting, and a thousand fires burned through the city, including every single Church of Hate. A dwarf staggered into his path, bearing a massive double-headed battle axe. He growled, and swung at Echo, who leapt over the axe swing, dagger cutting out neatly to slice the dwarf's throat. Echo landed in a crouch, motionless, and glanced back. The dwarf folded over, and lay, dying quickly on the cobbles.

The ground shook.

High above, a grand, carved gargoyle detached from the top of a building, tumbled, and smashed onto the cobbles to Echo's right.

He set off again, increasing his pace, down an avenue lined with iron trees, their iron leaves reflecting the glow of a hundred burning buildings which roared, like burning demons, announcing the end of the world.

The ground shook, more violently, and this time it kept on shaking. Buildings started to collapse, and Echo dodged a tumbling, cascading wall which vomited stones at his feet. The rumbling increased in intensity until Echo could hardly run, such was the violence. All around fires burned and dwarves screamed. Echo's gaze snapped up. High up, a massive, arched stone and iron bridge, built ten thousand years ago by the Great Dwarf Lords themselves, jiggled, and shook, and then slowly, folded downwards, detaching, describing a broad arc as it began to break apart, falling through the darkness to decimate a thousand houses, churches and civic buildings far below.

For a while, it seemed it was raining stone and iron.

Echo ran for it… as the mountain slowly, lazily, began to reclaim Zvolga as its own.

T
he floor was shaking
, the walls were shaking, and a gradual rumble increased in volume and intensity. Everything was vibrating, including the dragon eggs, wreathed in mist, which danced and swirled, creating crazy patterns…

“We've got to leave!” screamed Talon, sprinting to Lillith. He grabbed her shoulder, but she spun, pushing him away. Her eyes were wild, her chest soaked in blood.

“I'm not going anywhere,” she hissed.

Talon glanced to Dake. “
Help me
!” he screamed.

Dake ran over.

“He's gone, Lillith. And the mountain feels like it's about to collapse around our heads. We need to
get the fuck out of here
!”

But Lillith wasn't listening. She was leaning over Beetrax, chanting, lips writhing, and the palms of her hands were glowing red, and she felt the energy of the entire fucking
planet
beneath her knees, swirling with energy, swirling with the meshed elements of order and chaos… and her blood dripped, into Trax's eyes, into Trax's mouth, and he drank down her lifeblood, and her hands moved, and she dragged up his blood-soaked shirt, and placed her hands over the wound in his guts. Heat poured out, and the flesh ran together like molten wax. Slowly, as if in a trance, as the whole world around her shook like the mountain itself was collapsing down and down in on itself, so her hands rose to Beetrax's neck, and she covered the wound and prayed, and sang, and invoked the Old Gods, the Ancients, her mind opened and knowledge poured into her, the dark arts, from the elder days before elves and men and dwarves… Power surged through her, and she looked up, looked around, and she could
feel
Hex, feel the group mind of all the dead wyrm queens that had ever existed. They were watching her. And yet there was no hate there, no anger, just a cold and calculating observation.

I can see you
, she said.

Yes
, said Hex.

I never wished the dragon eggs any harm
, she said.

We know. You were a victim of circumstance.

What shall I do?

Heal him, and leave this place. You are not welcome here.

I will do so
, she said.

Lillith closed her eyes, and her hands glowed with a golden light. The wound in Beetrax's neck closed, blood running backwards as a localised area of
time
ran backwards, and Lillith continued to pray, to invoke, her lips writhing, smoke pouring from her mouth – like dragon smoke.

Beetrax sat up, screaming, hands clawing his own flesh.

Lillith toppled to one side, face pale, eyes rolled up to show only the whites.

The rumbling increased, and then, smashing through the domed ceiling, came Volak, the Queen of Wyrmblood. Pieces of black stone rained down, as her mighty wings outstretched, and she landed with a
thud
amidst the hundreds of dragon eggs. Flames broiled around her snout, and her single eye orientated on the overlanders, kneeling amidst so many corpses on the polished stone platform.

Volak breathed, and fire rumbled. Then she looked around, at the intact eggs, and looked up, as the whole chamber shook and the shock of the earthquake increased.

“You have spoken with Hex?” she intoned, voice almost musical.

Talon and Dake looked at one another, and climbed to their feet. They brandished their weapons.

“There's no fucking way we can kill
that
,” hissed Dake.

“But we'll die trying,” said Talon, voice bleak.

Volak strode forward, head weaving, neck rippling like a serpent. “Hex has spoken with your witch,” she said, head swaying from side to side. She came close, and closer still, and Talon and Dake both took a step back. Beetrax, both hands above his heart, suddenly became
aware
. His head turned to the right, slowly, to face Volak, Queen of the Wyrms.

She lowered her head, until they were only inches apart.

Beetrax swallowed.

“Er. Lads? Need some help here, lads?”

Volak blinked, her one good eye, multi-faceted in black, fixed on Beetrax's face. Slowly, carefully, she said, “You have my permission to leave.”

Beetrax considered this. “All right! Come on, lads! Let's get the
fuck
out of here!” He stood, and picked Lillith up, cradling her unconscious body to his chest as he would the most precious of babes. The ground was shaking, the walls shaking, the tens of thousands of tiny machines whirring faster and faster and faster.

Dake knelt by Jael, and checked for a pulse. Then he stood, dragged the lad up, and threw him over his shoulder. Finally, Talon lifted Sakora in his arms, staring down into her face. Suddenly, she began to cry, and Talon's heart fluttered, hope filling him. But then he realised it was his own tears filling her eyes and running down her cheeks, and he wept all the more.

Lillith's eyes flickered open. She stared at Volak. And she smiled.

“Look after your babies,” she said.

Volak nodded her huge head. “I feel that one day we will meet again, Lillith.”

“I am sure of it,” she said, and curled into Beetrax's massive arms and chest, a child again, Beetrax her protector.

Slowly, as the rumbling and violence increased, so Beetrax, Talon, Dake, Jael and Lillith left the chamber of the dragon eggs; of the wyrms.

They moved through the adjoining chamber, boots crunching on old dead shells, and Talon said, “I can't help feeling we should have stayed, and maybe destroyed the eggs.”

“No,” said Lillith, gently. “It is already written in stone.”

“What is?”

“The death of the Blood Dragons,” she said.

T
he mountain vented its fury
. The mountain shook, and the world shook, and the tens of thousands of tunnels, and caves and hollows, of mines and pits and chambers, all had, for millennia, carved a fracture in the infrastructure of the mountain's bowels. Now, with a simple application of tremor, the whole internal warren came collapsing and screaming down. Dwarves ran wailing as high ceilings and bridges collapsed. Houses and towers folded in upon themselves. The earthquake rioted through the Five Havens. None were safe. It lasted for a week, and above, in the open air, amidst the forests and mountain flanks, amidst the snowline and the peaks of rock, so the mountain settled, and shifted, and slowly hunkered down upon itself. Great fissures opened up, only to crack and crumble and fill themselves in once more.

Because…

The mountain gives.

And the mountain takes away.

I
t took
them a week to escape the mountain. And for long stretches of that, it felt like the mountain was taking care of them. They traversed long lost tunnels, travelling upwards, always travelling upwards, and they walked over crumbling high bridges, through chambers that could swallow a cathedral, a village, a city. After the insanity of the main earthquake, so the mountain had settled, and hunkered down, hitting them with many aftershocks but always managing to preserve their route to freedom.

After three days, both Lillith and Jael had been able to walk for themselves. Which was good for Beetrax. He complained of a bad back, moaning long into the night.

On the seventh day, they crawled up a long, thin tunnel, the roof too low to allow any of them to stand.

They could see a circle of bright, white light at the end, and increased their pace, finally emerging with gasps and sighs and tears onto a rocky hillside, dotted with conifers, a view opening up before them, a view that took their collective breaths away.

They looked out over valleys and rolling hills. It was morning, and the spring sun was climbing in a cold, brittle blue sky.

Beetrax breathed in deep, revelling in the fresh air entering his lungs.

Talon, tears streaming down his face, turned and hugged the axeman.

“Tastes good, doesn't it, lad?” grinned Beetrax.

“It's good to be alive,” nodded Talon.

Dake gently lowered Sakora's body to the ground, and they stared at her scarred face, a tapestry of the horrors they'd endured in the realm of the Harborym Dwarves.

“We need to bury her,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Somewhere beautiful.”

“Yes. She would have liked that.”

They glanced back at the tiny tunnel opening. Even now it was shrouded by trees and bushes, almost invisible to anybody passing. A random vent hole. An escape passage from the world of the Harborym Dwarves.

Under their boots, the mountain trembled.

“She's still upset,” said Talon.

Beetrax grunted. “Aren't we all?”

“It's a miracle we're alive,” said Jael.

“A miracle is the right word,” nodded Beetrax, and looked over at Lillith. She was standing, her back to the group, gazing off at the amazing, panoramic vista which presented itself to them; a vast, rolling, pastel landscape. Something so beautiful it transcended language and thought. It just
was.

Beetrax saw that her shoulders were shaking. He moved over to her, and wrapped his arms around her from behind.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey you,” she said.

“You in pain?”

“Yes. But more in my head than in my flesh.”

“You, er, saved my life back there. Well. More than that. Dake says you brought me back from the dead.”

“Let us just say the experience of Wyrmblood has opened my mind.”

“Equiem magick?”

“Yes.”