What Do You Think of This

The rivers ran backwards the day the queen vanished. Her King had long since ridden off into the mountains among the high places on a holy quest to find a dragon—for only the noble creatures could heal the festering rot that plagued their son. Spring dawned and blossomed but neither king nor child returned. Then, on the first strange day of summer, the sun lingered too high, and the earth shivered.

It was the final whisper of doom and the last of the portents.

But the young eyes of men had long lost the art of reading such things—for the old ways were no longer tended. The silver trees had been pulled from their roots and burned, their people driven far from the realms of men—for so strange were their ways. The fruit of those ancient boughs no longer stirred in the bosoms of men.

So it happened there were no wizened eyes to read the signs plain as they were in the hour before calamity.

Then the dragon came.

Down from their high places they sailed, abandoning kinsmenship with the realms of men to set the great cities alight.

Those wondrous creatures sparred for the crowns of men. The battles were fierce and blazing and terrible spectacles. Rarely, did one of the mighty yield, and so came to ruin what was once most beautiful and fair. In that hour, men first learned a terrible truth: the dragon can die.

But the hearts of men were not so stout. The valor of kings and knights and men melted before pyrous bale-fire of drakes. Courage melted like snow that ran like shivering rivers through the bones. There was found not one among them to contend those holy creatures and their almighty malice.

But, there was one—a knight errant who came out from beneath the Wandering Mountains wearing wornshod armor and an old beautiful sword. The rings of his mail were tarnished and haggard; his breastplate—once sterling—was cracked from contest with one greater than he; the belt about him had lost its buckle and so he fastened it with a knot. He walked as a testament to his own poverty.

He had come with his lady wife, their babe and young son—and an impossible shame.

From the highlands of her people they hailed upon wearied steeds. It was a land of eidolic marches beyond the western river and the realms of men in those elder places, where Old Folk shepherded vast herds of dragonkin. There, the venerable people still ate of glistening boughs and grew trees tall as mountains. The rivers ran great and wild through that numinous land with their starlit songs. High above, ancient drakes sailed through clouds like sky-born ships upon misty seas. The land there hymned the ancient verse, and it was known by all as the blessed realm of Eletheme.

At sunrise, they crossed the Old Stone Mantel and emerged forthwith from out of the depths of that grand kingdom beneath the mountains and its wondrous City of Frothinger where the Old Great Ones stood entombed in titanic mausoleums of stone. The knight and his kin had spent a fortnight walking in the roots of the mountains and its cavernous deeps, among those stoutest people. The dwarves there spring up like many stones in the cold hard places, but their hearts are not un-warm. It happened in their coming that the Lady Ellowyn of the Old House Ėhraandis came to earn the friendship of a master dwarf there.

Uurnik the Wizard—so they called him.

There was no real magic about him, or so he would say, save his mind, and yet the wonders wrought of his hands left many spellbound at their machinations. He was chief of the Great Thane blacksmith’s beneath the mountain and found himself endeared to one of the eldest kinsmenships—that being the dwarf and the elvin lady.

Uurnik had walked with knight and lady as far as the Old Stone Mantel and listened intently to their tale in its whole part and shared with their sorrow. Their boy looked like worn miles walking beside his pony. The babe was tucked in a sling about her mother’s shoulders and cooed gently in shadows of the place. The dwarf was fascinated and greatly alarmed to hear of the sudden malice of the dragon upon the Old Folk, for they were eldest of the dragon’s friends and fellowship.

If the dragon’s displeasure had fallen on the Old Ancient Houses of goodly people, who would they spare?

It was a troubling line of query, one the thane would need soon to answer.

Uurnik thought of the King of Men and his holy errand. The creatures were esteemed for their exceeding wisdom, for their deference. They were cherished among the noble for the boons they bequeathed to the upright and virtuous—but now it seemed they were wrath.

“Down from the heavens he sailed,” the Lady Ellowyn walked beside her pony as the last of her words tiptoed from her lips, “glistening like a gilded stream and there he kindled a bowl of flame and poured it out on all the house of my father. All those who dwelt among the ancient trees burned, and so, the house of Ėhraandis was laid low.”

“Surely, the dragon laid the guilt of your father’s house before his feet? Some wickedness to earn this judgement,” Uurnick said.

The ground shivered for the second time that morning. Dust fell from the ceiling of the cavern and the party stopped for just a moment.

The babe rooted in the lady’s arms. Ellowyn deftly pulled the fold of her tunic and leather plate and tucked the little one’s head inside. The baby cooed as it latched and fed, “The dragon did not name our guilt nor offer us a path for recompense—there was no stay of mercy. The mighty dragon forgot himself. He was like one of the tyrant lizards that hunt the flocks of willow-necks,” said Ellowyn.

The dwarf pondered her words for a long time before he offered reply.

“I scarcely believe these tidings. If they had not come from the lips of this lady, I should not have trusted a word of it. The Dragon are wiser than all the kings of men and truer still,” Uurnick said. He caught the young lad looking on him. He offered the boy a gentle smile, but the lad didn’t know what to do with it.

“I tell you this, master dwarf,” the old grim knight spoke, “The radiance of the mighty one… of Mêmraahq, or Glimmering Wing as the House of Ėhraandis call him, was lessened somehow.”

For a moment they walked on with no more, but then the knight with the broken armor spoke again.

“Often he came to the fields of his hunting humming ancient words that woke deep places to joy and wondrous yearnings, but that day—,” the knight’s voice caught like a whetstone on the hitch of a blade, “there were no ancient words stirring, just a sudden vehemence.

“Fights broke out in the fields. The long-necked lizards set to thrashing their long necks and lashing their tails like whips. The beasts stampeded their shepherds. Friends clawed at one another’s eyes and faces; mother turned on daughter and father on son. Then Mêmraahq fell upon us all, and the herd of wondrous beasts burned to their number.”

“You speak as one who knew Mêmraahq the Dragon,” said the dwarf.

“It is I who tended flocks Ėhraandis’ long-neck lizards. A tenth of his dragon-kin he delivered to the dragon. Once a moon, Mêmraahq came to my fields. I knew him and he knew me. He would listen as I played him the flute. Or sang the old tales,” the knight said.

“A shepherd? You have the bearing of a knight, good Ser.”

“My father is a knight—,” the boy said most seriously.

“Of course he is, my lad,” Uurnick said, but the child’s eyes were scarcely forgiving.

“Aethanail,” Ellowyn had but to say his name and the child took his place and lowered his gaze. The lady took her husband’s hand in her own, “he forsook title, land, and lordship among his own people to become a servant in mine own.”

Looking upon her visage, the dwarf need not ask why.

She ran her fair hand down the knight’s arm and he stopped to fall into her eyes. She was to him the very warmth of summer. A blue jay on the wind, but she should not have come with him. Not on this road. If there was any goodness left to him, he would’ve heeded her father’s command and left her in the enduring lands of her people.

But she was not there. He had walked her into a mortal peril.

He was no knight at all.

The valor of his heart a coal no longer kindled. Should I have wounded her soul and made her stay? Not for the last time did he think the thought.

“He became lowly that he might partake of the blessed fruit of our silver tree and share communion with our enduring people,” said the Lady Ellowyn.

“A knight is knight even if he is not known by that name,” said the dwarf and the boy seemed pleased at the words, “and earning the friendship of dragon is a treasure of its own. No doubt, this blessing saved you from his withering wrath.”

“I was not spared,” said the knight

“He fell upon you also?” Uurnick asked.

But the knight would say no more.

Ellowyn lifted her husband’s tunic and revealed skin that looked like candle wax long beneath a living wick, “He did not escape.”

The dwarf stopped walking. The young lad strained round the Uurnik to peer a glimpse at the sight. A mighty fear befell the dwarf as he beheld the knight anew.

“He prevailed,” said the Lady Ellowyn.

“No,” the dwarf whispered, but the quiet place swallowed his words.

“The Glimmerwing lies ruined in the field of his hunting. His carcass burning from the inside. Even now he burns.”

“It is not so! Not in all the age of men…” said Uurnick.

“It is. And, he did it. I saw him,” the boy said serious as a grown man.

His next words were hard and hewn from wonder, ”You have slain a dragon.”

“He did it on fire,” the boy said and not without a great deal of pride.

“It is not possible,” the dwarf stammered.

The boy stepped in front Uurnik and looked ready to cross blades, “He did it. He killed the dragon just like he killed a tyrant-lizard, just like he killed the mighty jackals that come down willow-necks. My dad isn’t ‘fraid of anything.”

“Aethanail, you speak out of turn son,” Lady Ellowyn scolded her son with her gaze and he once again sunk to the back of the adults, “My pardons Master Uurnik.”

“It’s quite alright, I can see this one is as fierce and grim as his father. The little greenhorn, ready to fight.”

“The little greenhorn should learn his place,” said his mother, casting a backwards glance.

“It’s hardly possible to believe,” the dwarf said, drawing near to the knight and looking upon his ruined plates with new eyes, “This is not the work of an axe or sword as my I assumed.”

The Lady Ellowyn pulled a bounty from the satchel at her steed’s side. It was long as her arm and heavy as an omen. She handled it deftly about the babe at her breast. The lady unwrapped it and set the dragon’s tine in Uurnik’s open palms and watched the dwarf’s wide eyes wonder. There was still a breath of fire within it. The bone was hot to the touch.

“Is it enough?” Lady Ellowyn asked the dwarf.

The child watched him with hungry eyes.

Uurnick looked from mother to son. The boy was awaiting his reply.

“It is,” he whispered with a reverence, “Surely, it is.”

Uurnik’s fingers traced the sacred bone to where it broke in terrible, splintered ruin. He trembled visibly. The dwarf had never held the bones of a dragon—not in all days of yore had one held such a sorrowful boon.

“There is no little meaning in this,” the dwarf said, pondering the hour, but he whispered no more.

His mind turned to black tales that’d come down from north and east. Tales of woes. Cities bathed in dragon fire. Blackstone, Eddenbur, Thimbledon; the dragon had come down upon them all, burning man, woman, child, and suckling babe. In those cities of ruin, the once noblest of creatures, turned beds of ash and ruin into new nests, harboring unto themselves a strange new malevolence.

Ellowyn pulled her babe close into her bosom as if she knew the dwarf’s inner thoughts.

Why else would the ancient drakes turn upon those they’d warded since the first dawn? thought the dwarf. Who would stop them in their wrath, for the dragon did not die. Their majesty was like the stars. They were not killed. How could one so kin to god be felled?

Uurnik looked then upon the knight.

A stirring wonder swelled within his breast. He was of the child of men. A young people with little might and far from great deeds of splendor, and yet, this knight had put down a creature older than the mountains. It was a blasphemous thing, but no less did the dwarf abound in marvel.

Uurnik looked long upon the distant lands stretched out before him. In the far distance, away below beyond the valley-lands and meadow, the great city Ithilion twinkled near the horizon where sky met the sea.

It was unburned—untormented, but its king was gone on a quest to save his son. A journey Uurnick now feared the crown might never return. Who would defend Ithilion when fiery wrath was flung upon it? He looked to the knight.

“For such a time as this…,” Uurnick whispered, “This is why you sojourn?”

The earth trembled beneath their feet for the third time that morning and the dwarf saw it as a sign.

The knight looked down the long bending road. His eyes steadfast.

“You were made to leave the Realm of Eletheme.”

“I profaned myself,” the old knight whispered, “The Lord Ėhraandis was right to attaint my honor and deny me the boon of my heart.”

The child snorted like an obstinate horse.

“And, yet his fair daughter is nigh at hand?”

The knight and lady looked then upon one another. Their gazes touched. The beauty of thousand sunrises was in her eyes, but they would know sorrow before the end… and it was his doing. She did not belong in the realm of men. The knight pulled gaze from hers and sent it the road before him.

“Should he not also have withheld his daughter from you in your banishment, it is within his right,” continued Uurnick.

The knight hung his head low, “So it should have been. It would have been a kinder fate.”

But, the Lady Ellowyn became fierce in voice and face, “He is mine and I am his and we are one. Could you unmake the steal from the bone once it’s forged?”

The dwarf smiled, “It is not possible.”

“Nor, was it possible for my father to separate me from the one who exceeds him in all things.”

The knight dared a look upon his lady, but now her gaze was steadfast before them. They walked on for a moment in silence.

“My days will now be short upon this earth,” the knight said “I shall not walk the ages as my lady nor my son or daughter, and when I go to bed upon the earth I shall grow no tree.”

The dwarf’s eyes became misty. He looked heartily upon the man before him. Then to the fair one beside him with the babe wrapped about her, whose grief went on like the long road—hidden far back behind her eyes where only the old could see.

“I will be no more,” said the Ser.

“And the days of life will be kinder still because you gave me a summer among them and autumn will not seem so long then.

The knight walked ahead then and when he was away off, Ellowyn spoke thus to the dwarf, “He was to be taken in, given communion among our peoples. Seven years he labored a servant to partake of the blessed fruit of Eletheme, but then Mêmraahq came down with his wrath and set to flame my father’s herd and house. All the trees of my people burned.”

”It was a sorrowful thing,” Uurnik said. The dwarf knew this and yet strange yearnings were pulling upon the threads of his heart. He was not bereft of hope for the pitiable knight. He looked to the boy, the child’s face was crinkled into a scowl.

“My father would have perished had not my Summer slain the mighty Mêmraahq. He would have been given communion among another house—such is our way.”

“The one who would have died shunned his savior from his house,” Uurnick said, saw the lady’s mist laden eyes, “I assume our good knight, means to contend with the drakes that have beset the realms of men, even as he has Mêmraahq?”

The lady looked upon her knight and then to the master dwarf, “This is why he has come—but also to teach men how to do it themselves. He has slain a tyrant lizard and its cousins.”

“He is a mighty slayer of beasts.”

“No, master dwarf, he is a shepherd; just a different kind.”

They walked for a long time in the stillness of the place where they caught up to the knight. They rested and had some water.

“We are very near the Old Stone Mantel. Soon you will be back beneath the skies. Fill your skins with the waters of the Angmier and it shall make your spirits strong.”

The dwarf pat the knight on his back and they begun again, “This quest is a grave thing, but it is not an ignoble one my friend. Stripped of land and title you have been, but not of honor. And you hold near a treasure far dearer than all the gold of a king.”

His eyes twinkled as he looked upon the fairness of the Lady Ellowyn.

“A fairness I lead to ruin and shame,” whispered the knight.

“You lead me nowhere, I have chosen the path my feet will tread.”

“You should not have come,” the knight’s voice rose to growl and he became very fierce with the lady, “There is only suffering and ruin upon this road. Your days are long and mine will be short, you would be wise to soon forget this child of man and return to the land of your people.”

“Your words are unkind Ser Knight,” she said with an equal fierceness, “And I will suffer more from they than all the days of our toil.”

She raised her hand to reveal a plain silver band, “Are a knight’s words untrue?”

The knight’s face flushed red, “Then speak no more of undoing them. I am yours and you are mine and we are one and I shall have it no other way no matter what may come of it.”

The grave knight then whispered words like stones,“Who is it that would contend the almighty and lay ruin upon those divine?” the knight said to the long road before him,”Is it only the profaned? And, yet my hands did not dither in their task, nor have my feet faltered to walk me nearer to doom.”

Neither the wisdom of his lady, nor the understanding of the dwarf had words to contend with him.

From the silence the lady endured to the dwarf, “When the house of my father burned, children and mothers became wicks; babes like coals, glowing with flame. All the houses kindled. There was not one in my father’s house who thought to contend Mêmraahq. None but he.”

They walked on

“He is a good one,” his voice bounced like dwarvish children in a hall, “Your grim old man.”

She squeezed the knight’s hand in her own, but he did not squeeze it back, “Yes, he is.”

“Grimold,” the dwarf smiled and the knight attended him with his gaze, “Go to their Queen—for the king is gone on errand and has been gone too long. The queen consults with strange peoples from a far away land and fears greatly drake fire. It seems a strange chance that this hour you have come to the land. The queen shall esteem the wisdom of your lady wife, but she will marvel at the might of your deed, young knight.”

The Lady Ellowyn bowed with grinning eyes, “It is a mighty thing and no small testament to the wonder of my lordly knight. I should like the kings of men to behold it…”

The dwarf thought to persuade her further.

“But, I see meaning behind your eyes master dwarf and it is a treasure to my soul,” she pulled a short wonder from her own satchel and unwrapped it. It was a tooth, “This shall have to do for the eyes of the queen.”

“It will be enough,” Uurnik said confidently.

The lady looked upon her knight and there was hope in her eyes. The dwarf then kissed the brow of the babe in her arms and pulled an iron handle from his purse.

“This is a bow for the young squire,” Uurnik said and boy looked up with pride at hearing the word squire. The dwarf flicked his thumb and the handle unfolded. Winding gears and turning metal clinked and unfurled like a coiled serpent set loose. The handle of iron became a bow with a hiss.

Even the fair eyes of Ellowyn looked on with surprise.

“It is a fair weapon sprung from the vaults of mine own mind. One of kind, as of now. It can reach further than men’s long bows and your mother’s people are the fairest with the tool. Learn from her eyes and more than birds and squirrels shall fill your belly.”

The boy bowed like he’d been taught and then took the bow in great wonder. The knight laid a friendly hand upon the dwarf’s shoulder and bowed his own head.

“You honor us more than we deserve.”

“Oh, quiet, quiet you Grim Old knight,” he laughed and thought it good, “I am a giver of names among my people and this is a good thing.”

The knight stopped his steed where it was and Uurnik looked deep into the knight the way he read stone.

“This is no jest Ser Knight,” said Uurnik, “You have left your own to become one of the enduring folk—but they would not have you.”

The dwarf placed a heavy, iron-worn hand upon the breast of his knight. With a hearty gaze and a gentle grin he spoke his words with the tenderness strange to his people, “I name you Grimold the Knight, dwarven friend and first to the Dragon. Denied that blessed fruit and communion with the enduring people, you may never grow a tree, but your name will be written in stone among our mightiest and thus you shall endure unto all time.”

Lady Ellowyn’s eyes twinkled and she took again her knight’s hand in her own and squeezed it and his eyes were not unwet.

“What say you fairest lady,” Uurnick asked.

“I think it is a fine dwarven name you have given. He shall wear it with honor, for it is a name true to him, milord.”

“At last, I am not done,” the Master Uurnik turned to the young Aethanail. He placed his mallet like palm upon the lad’s chest and steered his gaze into the deep, “You young squire are grim as your lord father, but every bit of his steel is with you. You are fresh as a greenhorn, but you will become like the stone of a mountain. People will run unto you and they will be safe. Grimhorn, dwarf friend shall be your name before all others, though you will make many more before the end of things.”

With wide eyes the young lad watched the dwarf. A nudge of his mother reminded him to bow.

“Thank you Master Uurnik,” said the lad.

And the lady smiled upon the dwarf.

“It is the least, for you have brought me close to the vision of dawn,” he said kissing Ellowyn’s hand and bowing himself before her, “Be on your way good folk and may favor find you before the court, but return then to me before fling yourself headlong into this perilous quest.”

They bowed deeply before the master dwarf and strode out from under the Old Stone Mantel and the earth quaked.

The party stopped and the ground shuddered. Even the mountains shook. Uurnik placed his hand upon the mantel until the trembling had passed.

“The rock heaves with violence. It is angry I think.”

The Lady Ellowyn turned then to regard him, “It is wräth—for this night it was made to drink the blood of the innocent.”

“Those are ill words for such a fine morning. Pray it not be so. But, be quickly upon your way nevertheless, and return hither before you pursue peril for I will have gifts-a-plenty to aid you in the hour of need.”

So it was they left the master dwarf at the Old Stone Mantel and turned then into the lands of men. The night wore thin and dawn had crawled into the sky like a gentle yawn, its morning air was warm and golden and smelled of orange blossom.

It was a fine day for new names—and the end of the world.

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Would love your thoughts in the comments:

• What did you love—or what didn’t land?

• Were you hooked, bored, or somewhere in between?

• Did anything feel confusing or unclear?

• Were you emotionally invested in the characters?

• Would you keep reading if this continued?

• Did a particular line or scene stick with you?

• Any thoughts, reactions, or critiques are welcome—I’m here to grow as a writer.