Chronicles of Mirstone

The Dragon of Blackstone-2

And he did, with the first bright shards of pain.

Tringad almost swooned, but he fought to hold onto his wits, and did so, though just barely. He drew his sword, slipped it under the boulder, and wedged it against the spur of rock that crushed his leg. Then he leaned on the hilt. A groan of rock. The boulder shifted, and he could feel the broken ends of his leg bone grind against each other. He paused to vomit, then leaned on the sword again. The boulder lifted a finger’s breadth, then two, then three. He clenched his teeth against the pain and started to pull his dangling leg free.

That was when the blade of his sword snapped.

Tringad flew backward. The boulder lurched to the side, rolled over, and tumbled down the slope. His fingers clutched for a hold to stop his fall, but they found only loose stone. The boulder had set all the rocks around him into motion. He shouted a curse to all the gods of darkness. Then with a roar like thunder a large part of the mountain went sliding down the slope and carried his body with it. He might have screamed, but a stone struck his head, and all went black.

Tringad woke to the unfamiliar stars of the night sky.

For a moment he struggled in disorientation. A shadow hovered over him. The light of the moon glimmered off the steel outline of a rose. Then he blinked in understanding and let the strong hands ease him back to the ground.

“I knew the gods would bring you back,” Elaninir said.

Tringad gave a bitter laugh at the conceit of his words. “Do your gods often break the legs of people just to get what they want? They sound more like common thugs to me.”

Now anger twisted the elf’s face. “And what of your dark gods? Do they not use others for their gain?”

“They do, only they are honest about it, and never disguise it as anything else. But none of that matters.”

With a grimace, Tringad sat up and tried to piece together what had happened. Elaninir must have heard the boulders fall, must have followed the sounds of his moans, must have somehow dragged him back to his camp. Tringad searched with his hands. The elf had splinted his leg, and had tucked the hilt of his broken sword into its sheath. Why hadn’t he just killed me? It didn’t matter.

“I’ve got to go,” Tringad said.

He struggled to his feet. The pain was manageable with the splint. Then he took a step. A moment later, he was on the ground again, clutching his leg, spitting and swearing.

Elaninir knelt beside him. “You can’t walk well enough.”

“Yes, I can.” It was a lie. Tringad didn’t care. At that moment, he hated the elf.

“No, it’s a sign.” Again, that utter confidence lit his sightless face. “You can see the way. And I’m strong. I can help you up the rocks. Alone we can do nothing, but together we can make it to the top.”

Tringad fell still and gazed at the elf. “And what would we do once we got there? Or have you forgotten our differing intentions?”

Elaninir shook his head. “Perhaps it will be decided for us. Perhaps the dragon will be amenable to your talk of alliance. Or perhaps it won’t, and then I will slay it. Let us see when we get there.”

It was madness. Tringad knew it. The Shanmour Knight could only be trouble. He likely thought he could convert the dwarf along the way, to win Tringad over to his cause. Blast the righteous arrogance. It made him sick. Yet sometimes, in a mad world, madness was the only way.

“Yes,” he said at last. “We shall see.”

They began their ascent at dawn.

The sun heaved itself over the horizon, a baleful eye that glared at the land. In moments a hot wind sprang up out of nowhere and raced over them. Its gritty breath stung their hands and faces. Tringad looked up at Blackstone, but he could not make out the crown of the peak. Instead it was sheer slopes of ebony as far as his eyes could see.

“Are you ready?” Tringad asked.

Elaninir adjusted the rag that bound his eyes, then nodded. “I am.”

“Then we’d better get moving. We’ll want to make it to the summit before sunset if we can. Whether it’s to talk to it or fight it, better to face a dragon in the light than in the dark.”

Tringad pushed up from the ground with his arms, got his good leg beneath him, and stood, though in the process he drew in a hissing breath of pain.

Elaninir must have heard him. He reached out, found Tringad’s arm, and placed it on the slender slope of his hips.

“I will help you.”

Tringad hesitated. He did not like the idea of depending on another, not for anything. And Elaninir seemed too willing, almost too eager to help him, as if he enjoyed that the dwarf was weaker than him. But, whatever Tringad felt, the elf was right—there was no way he was going to climb the mountain alone. Tringad clenched his teeth, then looped his arm around Elaninir’s waist and allowed the elf to take the weight off his splinted leg.

“Now you must show me the way,” he said.

His face was so calm beneath the dirty bandage, so full of pride still. Was he not disgusted with his own deficiency? Was he not furious that he needed another to lead him like a child? But Tringad only grunted and limped toward the foot of the nearest slope, Elaninir beside him.

What an absurd sight they made, two broken knights, one dark and one light, one crippled and one blind, struggling together up the knife-edged side of a mountain. But there was no one to see them, only the hot, unblinking eye of the sun. Nothing grew or lived on the slopes of the blasted peak. Rock and sand and wind, that was all.

The slowness of their progress was agonizing. Every boulder, every ledge of stone was a battle. Tringad described what the way looked like to Elaninir, using words to guide his hands and feet to the scant holds, until he was able to leverage himself up. Then he would reach down to pull Tringad up after him while the dwarf pushed with his good leg. More than once Elaninir’s blind hands missed their mark, and he skidded back down the slope, scraping his hands and face. And every time he heaved Tringad up, his broken leg was jarred and buffeted, sending sharp knives of pain up through his body.

Their armor was a hot and ponderous burden, yet they were loath to cast if off, knowing they might well need it at the top. And, too, it saved them from the worst of the scrapes and bruises. Still, by midday they were battered, bleeding, and exhausted. They sat on a broad ledge of rough stone. The land, flat and brown as the skin of a drum, stretched far below them and made Tringad dizzy to gaze down. He still could not glimpse the summit for the haze, but by his guess they had come at least halfway.

They ate some food, then Tringad pulled his bottle from Elaninir’s pack. The water was scalding and tasted like the waste swill from a tanner’s shop, but they drank it all the same, and it was an effort to keep from gulping. Tringad replaced the stopper. There was still a long way to go.

For a few minutes more they rested. Tringad gazed into the empty air before them, while Elaninir gazed into nothingness.

“Tell me, was it a vision that led you here?” the fair-haired elf asked suddenly.

Tringad gave the elf a sharp look, even though he knew Elaninir could not see it. “What do you know of visions, Knight of Shanmour?”

“Only that they are something each Knight of Stormguard has, something that guides them, that leads them onward to their dark purpose.”

“No, not something that each has. I forsook my clan long ago, as well as the visions,” Tringad’s words were harsh, but he didn’t care.

Tringad would never forget that day—the day he was brought before the leader of the Stormguard clan, the day the powerful dwarf lord had laid his hands upon him. Some said that his mother was a stone goddess, and Tringad believed it. The dwarven lord had given him a choice: go out to the streets and live with the thieves and murderers until he became one himself, and ended up swinging from a gibbet; or join his army, become one of his knights, and know honor and glory.

That ultimatum had made Tringad angry, he remembered. Who was he to offer Tringad such a choice? Who was he to tell him what his life would or would not be? But he could not resist the power of the dwarven lord’s eyes. Tringad had taken his hand, and the lord had kissed him and welcomed him, and right there a sword was brought to him. Tringad had knelt before him, and the lord laid his hands on his head and spoke a prayer to the dark gods, and that was when the visions came upon him.

They were like dreams, the visions, only they were with him every time he closed his eyes, in the dark hours of the night, and in the stillness between every thought. The true magic of the visions was that they were different for every knight, his own path to glory or death.

The strange thing was, Tringad could no longer remember what the visions had been to him.

When his lord died, the visions went with him, for they had come through him, and was of him. Now Tringad was left with a gaping hole in his mind, a gap he could not stop worrying over, like a dwarf who has been to the barber and searches with his tongue his empty lip where his mustache used to be. He knew that the visions had filled him with both terror and wonder. But even the memory of them was gone now, and he knew he would never regain them.

“I’m sorry,” Elaninir said at last.

His words infuriated Tringad. Was he sorry for what he had said? Or sorry for him? Even when he spoke humble words such as those it seemed to be with the implication that he was the better of them. Yet there had been genuine remorse in his voice, and Tringad knew he was being unfair.

“There is nothing to be sorry for,” he said. “I don’t need the visions. I know my key to glory. I’ll have it soon enough, once the dragon and I are in league together. With its strength and my brains, nothing will stand between us.”

Elaninir shook his head. “Enemies we are in another place, and enemies we still may be, but here and now you are my companion, and so it is not my wish to offend. Yet I still say you are misguided in your intentions. What do you have to offer a dragon? What makes you think you can convince it to form an alliance with you?”

“And what makes you think that if you perform some bone-headed heroic deed that the gods will restore your sight?”

Elaninir winced at his words, and Tringad knew they had struck some sore spot deep within him. Good. We do not have time for this. Tringad glanced up at the sky. The sun had passed its zenith and was already starting its descent.

“Let’s get going,” Tringad said, “if you really want to kill a dragon.”

The elf helped him to his feet, and they started up the mountain once more.

After his fall the day before, Tringad should have been more wary of the treacherous slope. But as they climbed on, exhaustion dulled their caution. It was only a matter of time before one of them made a mistake.

It was Elaninir who did so first.

They stood on a slim ledge, a drop of five hundred feet below them. Perhaps he got too tired to think, or perhaps he had grown overconfident. Either way, Elaninir started to pull himself up the rocky shelf in front of them before Tringad had sufficiently guided the elf’s hands to the best holds. The crack he had gripped was too shallow. His blind fingers could not dig in deep enough to support his weight. He dropped back roughly to the narrow ledge. His heels skidded on the edge of the precipice, his hands flew out in search of balance. They found nothing. He toppled over backward.