The Fall of Neverdark

by Philip C. Quaintrell

  “Go,” Gideon gestured to the door. “I will inform King Weymund of the orcs and advise him to reach out to King Jormund of Grey Stone.”

  Inara bowed her head and promptly left her master’s chamber.

  You would slay them both? Athis asked from nowhere.

  Through their bond, Inara could feel Athis’s concerns for Asher and Malliath. Do we have a choice? she asked. Look around; they destroyed a capital city in one night and nearly killed Gideon and Ilargo.

  But they are slaves to The Crow, Athis argued. They know not what they do.

  You could say the same about most of the soldiers in an army. How many armies have been torched by dragon’s fire over the millennia?

  Soldiers can choose to live by the orders of one side or the other, Athis countered. Asher and Malliath have been robbed of that privilege.

  Inara knew he was right, she just couldn’t reconcile their safety with the potential destruction they were capable of.

  We are Dragorn, Athis reminded her. We do not need to choose between such stark decisions. We have the power to find our own path.

  You’re talking about freeing them, Inara stated.

  Malliath is the oldest living dragon, Athis explained. He has seen and lived through more than any other being. His captivity under the mages of Korkanath lasted a thousand years and he has never been given the time to heal from that. Asher’s life, though shorter, was marred with just as much torment. He sacrificed himself to rid the world of Valanis and end the war. I think they both deserve a second chance…

  Inara stopped in one of the palace’s halls and leaned against the wall. Her head was swimming. Alijah might be dead, Lirian was still smoking, and thousands of people had been killed in the south. She wanted action and justice and she wanted it now.

  Yet, she could not argue with Athis’s wisdom. He always offered her an insight and a greater font of knowledge that most people could only dream of. The truth was; he made her a better person.

  And you make me a better dragon, wingless one.

  Inara smiled to herself, comforted by her eternal companion. Comfort was something she needed, but felt she didn’t deserve right now. There were many people in greater need than her.

  If we do not look after ourselves, we cannot look after others. Come, I shall take you down to Russell.

  The thought of being close to Athis put her legs in motion again. Can we really do it, Athis? The spell that binds Asher and Malliath is likely ancient and very powerful.

  As Dragorn, we carry the most precious gift and the most powerful weapon. With it, there is nothing we cannot accomplish.

  Inara raised an eyebrow. What are you talking about?

  Can you not feel it, wingless one? It has passed down the generations of our order for thousands of years. We carry hope…

  34

  An Empty Kingdom

  Doran cursed the light of the new day. It did nothing but worsen his headache. Still, to look away from the rising sun was to look upon Vengora; it wasn’t much better…

  The dwarf stood at the very base of the mountain range, an indomitable wall of rock that had once been home to all of his kin.

  “Are you ready, Doran?” Reyna asked, gesturing to the small entrance up ahead.

  The cave, tunnelled by the Namdhorians, was guarded either side by a group of soldiers with the lion sigil emblazoned across their golden cloaks.

  “Bah!” The dwarf waved the question away. “I shouldn’ even be here! I said I wasn’ goin’ in there an’ I meaned it!”

  “That’s not what you said in the tavern,” Nathaniel pointed out, pulling the collar of his coat over his neck.

  “You said we would need you in there,” Reyna reminded him.

  “I had more cider an’ ale in me than all o’ the other taverns in Namdhor combined!” In a quieter tone, he added, “I got ye into the know abou’ what’s goin’ on here, didn’ I?”

  Reyna held onto her hood to prevent it from blowing off. “I would not lightly enter such a place without a dwarf so brave as yourself, Doran son of Dorain.”

  “Ye can’ change me mind with such sweet words, Me Lady.” Doran looked up at the mountain again. “That way leads to a place I didn’ wanna go back to. I don’ belong there anymore than ye do…”

  “Is there a problem?” The call came from ahead, where their Ironsworn guide stood waiting in the freezing cold.

  “An’ there’s another reason not to go inside that bloody mountain,” Doran insisted. “We still have no idea why Arlon had his boys spyin’ on us in Grey Stone or why they attacked us on the road to Namdhor. Do ye really wanna go into the dark tunnels o’ their makin’ when they could slip a knife in ye back?”

  “It will be their end if they try,” Nathaniel declared.

  “Doran,” Reyna began. “We are going into that mine and we are going to face your kin. I would much rather do that with you by our side.”

  Doran dropped his head.

  “Are you coming or what?” the thug shouted back.

  “Bah! Keep a hold o’ yerself, laddy!” The dwarf looked at Reyna. “We’re coming…”

  The three companions followed the Ironsworn up the rise and through the small camp of soldiers. Again, Arlon’s man passed through the group without a word of protest from the Gold Cloaks. Doran walked through them with a wary eye and one hand resting on the haft of his axe, under his cloak.

  Leaving the Warhog in their company wasn’t easy, but he instructed the pig to kill anyone that messed with it. He also instructed it not to steal too much ale…

  The wind howled as they entered the tunnel, threatening to blow out the torches that lined the interior walls. The gloom came alive in Doran’s eyes, his dwarven senses easily attuning to the dark atmosphere that all his kin were born to.

  They walked in silence for some time before the Ironsworn stopped abruptly at the end of the tunnel. Here, the jagged rock ended and the tunnel opened up into a taller corridor of hewn stone. It was the first piece of dwarven architecture Doran had seen in sixty years.

  The son of Dorain pushed past the thug and put a hand to the cold slab, running his fingers along the grooves carved in straight lines. The stonework in these tunnels was far older than any found in Dhenaheim, constructed well over five thousand years ago. Vengora had never been his home, but the dwarf couldn’t deny the feelings a simple wall evoked in him.

  The Ironsworn pointed down the western corridor. “Follow this until you reach the stairs. If you get lost, look for the torches, they’ll show you to the mine.”

  “You’re not coming?” Nathaniel questioned.

  “It’s a long way, even from here,” the thug answered. “Just don’t get lost,” he added with a wicked smile.

  “Unlike ye,” Doran replied, thumbing to the tunnel over his shoulder.

  The Ironsworn disappeared back the way they had come, leaving the three companions in the eerie silence of an empty kingdom.

  “Does anyone else think this is strange?” Nathaniel asked.

  “Strange ain’t the word I’d use,” Doran said gruffly.

  “Not this,” Nathaniel gestured to the dwarven walls. “That tunnel must have taken years to dig through. This isn’t a recent project Yelifer has undertaken.”

  “Yes,” Reyna agreed. “And why here? The mountains of Vengora are beyond massive, yet the queen successfully chose the one place where they could dig straight through to dwarven halls.”

  “What are the chances?” Nathaniel asked with a suspicious tone.

  Reyna looked down at Doran. “Perhaps we should have left you in the tavern after all. It seems we are still without all the answers.”

  “We should probably get going.” Nathaniel looked down the long corridor.

  “I don’ like it,” Doran maintained. “Dwarven halls can be akin to mazes. Lots o’ dark corners an’ doorways. It would be easy for The Ironsworn to ambush us.”

  “And yet there is no step to take but forwards,” Reyna replied,
pulling down her hood.

  Doran sighed. “The logic of elves…”

  With bow, sword, and axe in hand, the three followed the torches and entered the dwarven kingdom of Vengora.

  They soon came across the stairs the thug had spoken of. Again, they were such a simple thing, but Doran found himself fascinated by them. Everything they saw from here on in was of dwarven design, made by dwarven hands.

  After an arduous climb, they found rest at the top, where a pair of rectangular pillars framed the entrance to the city proper. Leaving Reyna and Nathaniel behind, Doran wandered ahead until he could see past the pillars and gaze at history.

  With mouth ajar, the dwarf looked upon the home of his ancestors. Arching ceilings, taller and far grander than any church or palace in Illian, decorated the dizzying heights above. Every pillar and wall was traced in the perfectly straight lines preferred by his kin. Stairs could be seen between the pillars, leading to places unknown and beyond the reach of the torches planted by the Namdhorians.

  Nathaniel joined him on the platform. “What happened here?”

  His question removed the dreamy veil which Doran had been gazing through. Looking again, he saw the ruin of his ancient home. There wasn’t a single pillar that hadn’t been damaged and a handful of them weren’t even whole anymore, rising into jagged ends.

  Construction sites had been set up throughout the great hall, with scaffolding climbing the walls and pillars. Small makeshift hovels had been set up, sprawled across the floor, where the dwarves had slept between their shifts.

  Scattered amongst it all were skeletons, discarded weapons, and damaged armour. Dark stains were splattered up the stone here and there.

  It was a mass graveyard.

  “War,” Doran finally replied. “War is what happened here.”

  The three companions descended the next set of stairs and walked among the ruins. Up close, it was so much worse. Bulky pieces of armour encased long dead skeletons, their bony hands still clasped to their axes and swords. Cobwebs connected them all in the gloom, stretching cross the hall.

  Nathaniel crouched down and picked up a horned skull. “War with the orcs…”

  Doran spun about and stared hard at the skull in his friend’s hands. Its fangs were still sharp and its horns still thick and tough. Just seeing the beast’s empty head drove Doran to snatch the skull from Nathaniel’s hands and launch it into the nearest pillar.

  The dwarf spat on the ground. “Shits o’ the earth, the lot o’ ‘em!” Doran paused and frowned. “How are ye knowin’ that were an orc’s head?”

  Nathaniel stood up and looked to Reyna with a question in his eyes. The elf didn’t say a word, but the old knight had his answer.

  “We saw one not ten days past,” he said.

  Doran stepped back, almost knocking over one of the torches planted on the path. He couldn’t believe the words that had just left his friend’s mouth.

  “Ye seen one?” he questioned pointedly. “A dead one, aye?”

  “Dead, yes, but only recently.”

  “Bah!” Doran threw his hands into the air. “Ye lie, Galfrey!”

  “Doran!” Reyna rebuked.

  The dwarf shrugged apologetically. “Ye must be mistaken, I mean. Ye saw somethin’ that resembled these beasts.”

  “I’m afraid not, Doran,” Nathaniel continued. “We were summoned to the tower of Dragons’ Reach by Tauren Salimson. A small band of orcs killed the soldiers guarding Syla’s Gate.”

  Doran couldn’t find the words to respond. He hadn’t heard anything so hard to believe in nearly three hundred years of life.

  “They’re back?” he managed but a whisper. “It cannot be… Ye talking abou’ the foulest creatures to ever walk the earth. They ran us from our home, they damn near wiped out the elves! Thousands, tens of thousands o’ me kin died driving them into The Undying Mountains! There’s not a dwarf who don’t know the tales! They’re supposed to be dead! Long dead at that!”

  “Gideon Thorn is looking into it personally,” Reyna assured.

  “I don’ care if the whole damn Dragorn are lookin’ into it! Wha’ are we even doin’ here? We should be goin’ south! That’s where the real fight is!”

  “The council have ordained it Dragorn business,” Reyna explained. “We all have our roles to play, Doran. What could we three do against any orcs that the Dragorn could not?”

  The dwarf was pacing now with an iron grip around his axe. “Ye don’ understand. It’s in me blood!” Doran beat a hand against his chest. “There ain’t a dwarf still livin’ who’s actually seen an orc, but we can still feel The Great War in our veins! No dwarf could rest knowin’ that these foul creatures have returned to the world.”

  Nathaniel held up a hand to calm his friend. “I wouldn’t say they’ve returned, Doran. A handful found their way up through the ruins of Karath. They killed the watch at Syla’s Gate and Tauren’s men made them pay for it. Any few who remain will have to deal with Gideon. How many do you think will survive after that?”

  Doran stopped his pacing, eyes fixed on the corpse of another orc. Every dwarf had dreamt of burying their axe in the head of a smelly orc for what they had done during The Great War. That opportunity had been robbed from him and, to make things worse, he was soon to be back in the company of his kin. Muttering and cursing to himself, the son of Dorain kicked the leg of the dead orc and continued down the torch-lit path.

  “When this is all done,” he called back, “we’re goin’ south to hunt some orc!” That thought alone cheered him up and he laughed to himself. “I’d be the first dwarf to slay an orc in five thousand years! Aye… Doran the orc-slayer! Doran the orc-cleaver!” He laughed again. “It’s abou’ time I got meself a legend o’ me own.”

  With dreams of where they could be and lamentations of where they were, Doran led the companions through the towering halls. Everywhere they went, there was only more evidence of war and death.

  The next hall they entered had once been a temple devoted to the dwarven gods. Doran gasped and broke into a jog, weaving between the skeletons and debris to better see the chamber. Two rows of pillars supported the temple, but Doran was more concerned with the enormous statues reaching for the ceiling.

  “Would ye look at that…” The dwarf’s eyes lit up and he lifted his chin right up to see to the very top.

  “What is this place, Doran?” Nathaniel asked.

  “Considerin’ the age o’ all this,” he replied, “it could very well be the first temple o’ the gods.” Doran pointed to the broad dwarven statue on their left. “That’s Grarfath, the father. He spat on the world and the oceans roared to life, revealing the peaks of the first mountains. He pulled them up with his bare hands and set them on the land as monuments to his strength. Grarfath offered the mountains as a gift to Yamnomora,” Doran pointed at the statue on the right, “the mother…”

  The son of Dorain laughed as he recalled the liturgy. “Yamnomora cracked the mountain with her fist and reached deep inside for the purest block of stone she could find. Together, they moulded dwarves from that very stone.”

  Nathaniel admired the enormous statues. “I never took you as a religious one, Doran.”

  The dwarf frowned. “Ye don’ have to be religious to appreciate the works o’ ye mother an’ father!”

  “Do you not worry,” the old knight continued, “that, like Atilan and all the human gods, they’re just legends made into something more?”

  “Bah! Only humans an’ elves could turn some old evil bastard like Atilan into a god an’ worship him for ten thousand years! Don’ ye worry, laddy. Grarfath an’ Yamnomora are the real thing!”

  Doran could see that neither Nathaniel nor Reyna were convinced about his deities. He couldn’t blame them after the discovery of Atilan’s true place in history, as the last king of The First Kingdom. His evil scheming, from beyond The Veil, had seen him risen to the heights of a god, a false god, but worshipped all the same to this very day.

 
Doran could only dream of the day when every race realised Grarfath and Yamnomora were the creators. They just didn’t like humans, or elves, or anything but dwarves really…

  Leaving the temple behind, the three companions climbed several sets of stairs carved from the mountain. By the taste of the stone, Doran could tell they were heading north, deeper into Vengora.

  Nathaniel and Reyna wondered aloud many times about how many hours had slipped past on their journey under the mountain. Doran would always answer. As a dwarf, he had the uncanny ability to keep track of the time without the need for the sun. In these wintery months, he knew the light would already be fading outside.

  The sound of Namdhorian soldiers found the companions before the sight of them did. Echoing through the bare halls, Doran could hear plates of armour scraping together and feet shuffling on the cold floor. The crackling of a fire and the scent of smoke didn’t escape Doran’s senses either.

  “Sounds like this is the place,” the dwarf said to his friends.

  Reyna shook off any signs of fatigue and straightened her back before rounding the corner and facing the camp. Doran happily kept to the back, unsure if he was about to come across any other dwarves.

  The Namdhorian soldiers were startled by their sudden appearance. The closest of them shot up and reached for the swords on their hips, while the others dropped their drinks and food and stood to attention.

  “Stand down, fellas!” The order came from the other side of the makeshift camp. “They’ve come from our side,” he added.

  The soldiers visibly relaxed and parted for their commander. He strode through with the confidence of a man in charge, attired in a gold cloak and white armour emblazoned with the lion sigil. With short grey hair and a trimmed beard to match, he was older than those around him, though, in Doran’s eyes, they were all babes.

  “You must be the ones we’ve been waiting for,” the commander said, facing Reyna. “My name is Captain Adan.”