The Sundering

The river ran backwards on the day the Queen vanished. It was the final whisper of doom, the ghost of a portent unseen, for in those days the art of reading such things had been long lost to men. Something long chained had been loosed; woeful calamity befell the realms of men, one upon the other. These estranged and wayward misfortunes had hitherto not been fathomed as one singular ruin. And so, when the sun shone bright and brilliant, many thought it the first day of summer and not the end of the world.

It was so, that on this day, there came from the cavernous deep of the Wandering Mountains a knight errant wearing wornshod armor, an old beautiful sword, and a miserable shame. His lady wife and their young son had trod weary leagues from their elder lands into the realms of men. At sunrise, they crossed the Old Stone Mantel and emerged forthwith from that subterranean realm of stout folk and their wondrous city of Frothinger where the Old Great Ones stood entombed in titanic mausoleums of stone.

Dawn crawled into the sky like a gentle yawn, its morning air was warm and golden and smelled of orange blossom. The lady took a deep, contented breath, “We at last can taste the sky.”

She smiled at her weary husband, but he wore black thoughts these days; they were a helm upon his brow. Misfortune was in the air; the day smelled of blood, but she did not tell him, for inwardly she worried. They’d been quiet these past days. Midmorning had come late. They crossed into the Gladden Fields among the standing stones where they could hear the roar of Agnmir’s mighty waters. They soon found themselves aloft upon a hill and with endless sight. In the far distance, nestled neatly beneath the horizon, Ithilion the grandest of all the cities of men sprawled out in wondrous display.

Down the road, there trod a company of men with some haste. It was a great host, full of clamor and raucous. They had little armor, but every man among them was armed. At their head rode a proud man in his later years, dressed in a fine black coat and riding a handsome steed. The knight brought his horse near his lady’s. She gave him a faint, playful smile and he did his best to return it.

“What do your keen eyes see, my love?“ he asked. He hadn’t called her that in a long time. She kissed him with her gaze and then looked to the road. A cold foreboding chilled her heart for the second time that day, “There are no clouds in the sky because they are all in those men’s hearts.”

“They mean us harm?”

“A wounded animal is the most dangerous one,” she looked at him. The world grew dangerously still. The very air was taut as a bow string. He sighed and loosened his blade, but she caught his wrist, “but if you mend, if you heal…, the animal will be yours forever.”

He watched the host approaching, then to his son, to his wife, “The chance isn’t worth it…,”

“Is this not why we have come all this way?” she said, “They bear a terrible sorrow, their spirits are broken. Hope shall be a balm unto them.”

“We should run.”

“The mighty Grimhorn—running? Ha! how little faith he has in his wife,” she teased making his cheeks burn.

“This is not wise, love,” he said.

“It is always wise to listen to me,” she looked up, it should have been noon by then, but it wasn’t.

Grimhorn nodded in defeat, “Alright, we will let them come to us.”

Their party stopped then before the knight and his own. It was the Lady Ellowyn that snared their eyes. A vision as only the siren could spell. She was a bounty of all things to which men most treasure. It was only the weathered knight and his dangerous countenance at her side that tore their gaze from the beauty before them.

“I am Lord Willem of House Blackmore,” the man in black spoke, “These are my men. You’ll pardon good me ser, but it is not often fair folk come down this way. We have not seen your kind in many years. Pray, give us your name and state your business,” but the man’s voice filled then with something akin to expectation, “Wait! Tell me then knight, do you carry hope upon your lips, have the elder houses at last brought aid to men in their hour of need?”

The knight lamented breaking the man’s hope, “My name is Grimhorn of the House Elaendor, this is my lady wife Ellowyn and son Grimold. I fear the hope you long for, is not ours to give.”

“Do your people know of our plight, good knight?”

The knight nodded, “That they do.”

“They would abandon us in our last hour?”

“They will do nothing to harm the dragon.”

“The dragon!” Lord Willem spit, seasoning his words with fire, “The dragon are not as they were… the cities of Blackstone, Eddenbur, Thimbledon, and Cramble—hundreds of thousands burned. Ever were their kind kindred and protectors of men; some new malice has poisoned their hearts,” Lord Willem shook his head in disbelief, “It is how the king fell.”

This was news to the Grimhorn.

“What king?”

“Why, the high king of course. King Huron, Lord of Ithilion, Warden of the Southern Realms, and High King of Men.”

“This cannot be so,” Grimhorn said.

“Huron’s son, Holsef, was beyond the healers. It has been long known an old dragon lived atop the Wandering Mountains. He took him there,” Lord Willem shook his head, “The queen sent parties to find the king and prince. They returned with but one. The man’s armor had melted into his skin, his face… was the countenance of a candle after burning the night away.”

“What did he say?”

“The dragon did not heal, but unleashed vehemence! Spouting flame and fury, devouring man and beast in a woeful wrath… prince and kind died burning.“

An old anger stirred the knight. He looked upon his lady, “Perhaps… your father was right; maybe this is nothing more than judgment.”

“No,” she said, her voice stern and ungiving as the stone, “He was not, my lord.”

“Why are you here knight?”

Grimhorn looked for the words to say, but it was Ellowyn who spoke.

“We have come offering another kind of hope, my lord,” Ellowyn said.

“I fear the hour is too late.”

Ellowyn reached into her husband’s saddle bag and brought out a cloth. She nudged her steed forward and handed it to the lord. The men watched.

“What is this?” Lord Willem asked. As he unfolded he gasped. It couldn’t be real. The lord looked up at the lady, “Is this real? How came you by this?”

“My lord husband pulled it from its maw after he had killed it…”

Lord Willem looked at the knight. He held up the dragon’s tooth. All his men were in wonder. A storm of whispers followed.

“It is not possible.”

“He has slain more than one,” Ellowyn said, “My husband is a knight no longer. He has been attainted. The lords of our house took his title, his land, his name. My father would have taken me, but he is less of a man than the one before you. My lord husband has given up all that belonged to him to aid you now. He will teach you how to kill them yourselves.”

Tender tears dripped down Lord Willem’s old, worn cheeks. He shook his head, unbelieving, “If you’d been here but a fortnight sooner, perhaps you could have prevented a great evil.”

Lord Willem rubbed his nose along his arm, “Perhaps providence has brought you to me in this hour. It is said your kind track better than men?”

“She better than I, what do you hunt?” Grimhorn said.

“Our queen. She is gone.”

“Your king is dead and your queen is gone?” It was not a good omen Ellowyn thought for the third time.

“When the cities burned, the Queen knew. The dragon would not be dissuaded from burning the realms of men into oblivion. She offered wealth, lands, and lordship to those who proved sufficient enough to slay that once noble breed, but more were burned and devoured than did ever succeed in bringing down a dragon.”

“Strange men came from across the seas. They boasted of a power to contend with the beasts. The half-men in their mountains supplied aid, but would not join us; we’d no word from your people, our great cities were gone. She gave them audience fearing all would perish in flame if she didn’t. They marveled all with that language foreign and forbidden to men and yet equal to god.”

A sinister whisper slithered up Ellowyn’s spine.

“The decree went out the next morning. All the boys younger than ten and all maidens older were to come to the forum. There our boys were guilded, our maiden’s bled,” the old man lost his voice. He began to sob. Lord Willem labored out tortuous words, “They burned their stones and painted themselves in maiden’s blood… Now the Queen is gone and the rivers… they have turned round. A portent it must be, though I know not what it means.“

“Show me,” said the knight. Lord Willem led them to the stone bridge of Angmir’s Pass. There the knight and his lady found Angmir’s waters rolling and frothing up and not down.

“Unnatural mock our eyes. We must leave this land at once,” said Ellowyn.

“We cannot leave, our families…” Lord Blackmore said.

“My lord, if you wish to perish with them, then I would ride with most expediency. The sign is plain: backward waters, the sun retreats the way it came, it will set in the east. Order has been turned round, and what follows will be a great undoing.”

“How?” he whispered.

“The black tongue… You’d have been wise to have slain those men as soon as you learned of it.”

As if summoned by the very utterance of the words the earth shuddered; a great tumult shivered through the land. Deep down an angst boiled beneath the surface; then a great cacophony; the bones of the earth popped and snapped in a sudden upheaval. They each watched in wonder as the City of Ithilion buckled and sprung for the heaven rising like a wave from the sea.

“What do we do?” Lord Blackmore said.

“Abandon all!” Grimhorn shouted to all, “Ride thy steeds unto their final breath! Follow me!” to his wife he spoke, “We turn now back to our friends beneath the mountains. Let us make haste!”

The knight plucked his son from his pony and saddled the boy before him. They rode with weary haste for the standing stones. The heavens heaved, and a great howling fell from the sky. Man and beast were flung from the other and sailed through the air, down they came crashing like thunder. Round they rolled. It drove the breath from the knight’s lungs. His boy was crying. Grimhorn could not find his lady wife, but Ellowyn was up; with the grace of a doe, she alighted upon her feet and found refuge behind a stone. Grimhorn snatched his son and pulled him round behind the standing granite while the whole world blew by. The gale became a tempest of a thousand winds. Men and horses sailed off to the heavens. Grimhorn then found his wife.

“Are we going to die?” his son asked.

“Not today son, not today,” he held his boy tight. Then quick as the wind came it was over. Grimhorn ran to his woman and took her face in his hand and kissed her brow, “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head, but blood ran from her nose and ears. She wrapped her son in her arms. Ellowyn pointed back to Ithilion. The ground beneath it rose higher and higher into the heavens, rolling up and round like a wave from the sea, its citizens falling from what was once the ground beneath them.

The sun sank to the horizon, the world was growing dark.

“Come now,” Grimhorn said to his own. His eyes found Lord Willem. The old man was hobbling. The knight took the old man under his arm, “We must get to the mountain! It will be safe there among the stout folk!”

The earth shook in great upheavals and split wide. Great slates of land thrust up in monstrous pillars, and other swaths fell way into an abyss. Out from those fathomless chasms burst great walls and torrents of flame that thrust their billowing spears into the heavens. The mountain for which they fled burst into the sky and an ocean of fire roared from beneath it. Grimhorn watched as that colossal mass drifted through the heavens smooth as a ship upon a glassy sea. The City of Frothiner was doomed…. When it landed the whole world shook.

The sky fell with boulders and trees and stones.

Behind the knight, Lord Willem watched in awe as his city, full with family and children and grandchildren slipped from out of the clouds and came thundering down. Sensing their end, astonished that it had not yet come, Grimhorn sat and pulled Ellowyn between his legs and brought his boy in tight for their final moments.

“This is it then?” his son asked.

“This is it,” he nodded, “I am sorry that I have brought you all to our doom.”

“Shsh, there my love,” Ellowyn spoke above the roar of the world’s end, “This was always your road. Had I not joined you, I would have lived in sorrow until the end, but alas, I am with you, and you with I. We shall grow our trees together with our son and there is no sorrow.”

He looked into the eyes he loved, there was so much he needed to say, so much she deserved to hear. There wasn’t time. He kissed her brow a failed man. She smiled and pressed her lips to his. She thought it as wonderful as their first.

“It is a wonder that we have not been crushed,” she said.

“It is, my love.”

Then the world fell and they were folded over by a colossal weight. This is what it is like to be crushed, he thought. Death had come. Grimhorn yielded unto his end, but his end it was not. A spear of a scream tore the heavens wide. A great wind rushed over him and the earth fell away. He was weightless before a falling sky. Grimhorn clung his son to himself. His bride! He called her name and there she was sailing through the heavens nestled neatly in the clawed hand dressed in obsidian.

“Hold on little ones,” spoke a voice made from fire.