by Dan Allen
Gork knelt as his mother placed her hands on his head and spoke words known only to the few who still recalled the language of the Goddess. Within his heart a feeble light flickered, and the gauntlets under his arm flared with sudden heat. Gork was forced to drop them to the floor to avoid a burn.
Apparently, the summoned magic of the Goddess had clashed with the influence of the Dark Consul imbued in the gauntlets.
Was it possible she was still struggling, still fighting his influence?
Astonishing.
Gomi finished the prayer, and Gork stood.
He looked to his father. This was not the conniving king of the night previous. Now he was a man saying goodbye to the son of his flesh. He clasped arms with Gork and then took the jeweled ring from his finger and offered it to his eldest son. “My strength is yours.”
Gork placed the ring on his right hand and felt nothing new.
“When you have none left,” King Holm said, “you will find there is yet strength to fight.”
Gork nodded, hoping it was true. His father had given him the ring of Dwarfholm kings. Surely there was some magic in it. Gork had always thought having the ring would make him feel different, somehow better.
So much of his world view was changing. How much more would change? Gork couldn’t tell, but he couldn’t stop himself from finding out.
He turned and faced the honor guard. Nyan-Nyan sauntered into view and collected the gauntlets. Her eyes grew wide, like she was looking at her very own newborn baby. She slid her hands into the gloves. The light from the torch chandelier overhead glinted in the knife-edges of the claws as she flexed the hinged metal gloves. Her lips parted in a devilish smile.
That cat needs a scratching post.
“Go, my son,” said his father. “Find hope where there is none and bring it home. You honor us all with your courage.”
Gork gave a short bow of acknowledgement, wondering what a son should say when leaving home on a quest as hopeless as it was desperate.
“Bye, Dad.”
“Go with the light.” His mother’s face crumpled into a pitiful expression as tears welled in her eyes.
“Go with the light!” cried the dwarf soldiers in unison.
Gork stepped forward, his pace increasing as he reached the end of the room with Nyan-Nyan at his side.
“To the long slide,” Gork said, nodding to the side tunnel near the entrance to the forges. “You’re going to like this.”
“Why do I not believe you?”
Chapter 7: Wolves
Nyan-Nyan actually enjoyed the polished stone slide . . . for ten feet.
“What the—”
The slide dropped out from underneath her and Nyan-Nyan plummeted into the dark.
“Gork, I’m gonna kill you!”
As her backside came into contact with the slide again, this time at a substantially butt-warming pace, Nyan-Nyan decided she was done playing dwarf. She leaned back and dug the claws of her new metal gauntlets into the stone, sending up a shower of sparks.
“If you try to stop,” Gork shouted from up ahead, “you won’t make the jump.”
“What jump?”
Gradually the tunnel brightened.
“There’s light!” It had to be the end.
Nyan-Nyan leaned forward, only to see Gork disappear from view. A moment later, she hurtled through an opening in the tunnel and over a large pit of lava. Nyan-Nyan shrieked. Her arms and legs sprang outward in a vain attempt to grab onto something.
Her arc carried her into a funnel-shaped cave entrance and onto a second section of slide. This section was longer and shallower. Nyan-Nyan grew anxious as the dark tunnel dipped suddenly downward and light showed through a narrow exit.
“Here we go!”
Just ahead, Gork curled into a ball as he slid out of the tunnel and landed in a snowy chute between two rocky crags. The lighter Chaos Kitty had sailed much further and nearly landed on top of him. For another mile, the pair zipped along the icy half-pipe until finally the ice underneath them became slick with water and the chute slowed them to a slushy stop.
“I think I’ve got fur burn,” Nyan-Nyan said as she climbed to her feet and looked at her backside.
“Would you like me to put some balm on it?”
Nyan-Nyan leapt away, a look of horror on her face.
“Then shut up.”
Two more days of hiking took them to the edge of the snow where a small stream ran down into what Gork called “Crush Canyon.”
“That’s not ominous.”
This low in elevation, there was no snow on either side of the canyon. It was as if the south-facing slope had looked in the mirror.
No snow on the north face.
Odd.
Even the sun felt warmer, as if she were standing with her backside toward a fireplace.
Nyan-Nyan easily kept pace with Gork, who was carrying the pack. But wasn’t that what dwarves were for—carrying packs and the like? Her job was to stay alert.
“I don’t call this Crush Canyon for no reason,” Gork said. “Watch out for—” Gork started, but before he could get the words out, a boulder leapt from the side of the canyon and dropped right over the top of him.
“Rocktop!” Nyan-Nyan shouted. Her eyes went from the falling Rocktop, with its sentient, coal black eyes gleaming with malice, to Gork and back. Compared to her lightning reflexes, the dwarf was reacting like he was half-asleep.
Move, idiot.
There were times a person could reason things out. This was not one of those times. Nyan-Nyan had to trust her luck—though what luck could do with a two-ton boulder falling on it, she had no idea.
Nyan-Nyan sprang forward, kicking Gork squarely in the side. The push gave the dwarf enough momentum to get clear of the boulder. It left her right underneath it.
She was going to be crushed to death in less than the blink of an eye.
In that fraction of a second, the Chaos Kitty considered the silly injustice of it all—to survive so much beyond what any other being’s luck would allow only to be crushed by a cruel boulder that had the evil sense to jump on the slower member of the party.
But how could this be the end? The Goddess herself had blessed the journey. Nyan-Nyan had felt it.
The Rocktop’s stone appendages flailed with glee as it descended. Fury rising within her, Nyan-Nyan slammed her gauntleted fist up at the Rocktop’s nether region, quite sure that regardless of what happened to her, this creature would never be the same.
And then it was over. Nyan-Nyan was encased in groaning, creaking stone. She could scarcely feel her body and couldn’t see anything.
I’m dead.
That was fast.
. . . Wait a minute.
A dull scraping sounded. Then what could only be frantic cries muffled by stone. The rock shifted, and Nyan-Nyan had the dizzying sensation of realizing she was not lying down on her back under a pile of rock. She was standing with her fist raised straight up.
More scrambling. More scraping. And suddenly a beam of light.
“Nyan-Nyan! Holy handkerchiefs of Hammerhelm!”
Gork hurled bits of broken rock off the pile that surrounded her. Nyan-Nyan finally wiggled free and climbed out of her rocky casement.
The Rocktop had splintered like a cloven gemstone. Broken bits of stone lay scattered around in a heaping pile of rubble.
“Marvelous melodies of the mutton maidens!” Gork gasped. “How did you survive that?”
Nyan-Nyan looked at her Knuckle Smasher gauntlets and flexed her hands. “Wow. I think I like these—I really like these.”
“Of course!” Gork snapped his fingers. “The gauntlet took the strength of the Rocktop and gave it to you. The harder the strike, the more strength it takes from the target. You must have become as strong as stone when that Rocktop hit you.”
Nyan-Nyan picked bits of stone out of her fur. “My Chaos Gauntlets—can I trademark that?”
Nyan-Nyan’s ears suddenly turned forward. Gork spun around.
A dozen of the boulders had moved from the rockslide and were rolling and bouncing their way toward the base of the cliff where a lone man knelt by the side of a snow wolf. The animal’s side was red with blood.
“He’s trapped,” Gork said. “The Rocktops are going to kill him.”
“What’s he even doing out here? Is he crazy?”
“He’s in trouble. Come on,” Gork said. He sprinted forward, leaping from boulder to boulder.
Well, she wasn’t going to let Gork have all the fun. Before the dwarf prince reached the nearest Rocktop, Nyan-Nyan bounded past him and crashed her fist into it, sending broken shards of rock fragments tumbling through the air.
Nyan-Nyan gave a maniacal snicker of a laugh. They used to call her the Chaos Kitty—that was before she had Knuckle Smasher gauntlets. What would they call her now? A rush of strength ran into her arms from the gauntlets, but she could already feel it fading. These were berserker weapons. She had to keep up the melee.
At the sound of its fellow being pounded to bits, a Rocktop pivoted and made a roaring noise, like millstones grinding. It bounced toward Nyan-Nyan with murder in its coal-black eyes—only to be snagged in midair by a thick green vine.
“A Deeproot Druid!” Gork vaulted off his long-handled ax and gave a two-footed kick to a third Rocktop that had turned on Nyan-Nyan. It crashed against another and both wedged in a gap between two pine trees, flailing stumpy stone appendages in a vain attempt to wiggle free.
Nyan-Nyan dropped her hands to her sides. “Come on, I had that one.”
Meanwhile, the vine-bound Rocktop rolled back toward the barefoot Druid that had snared it.
“Uh oh.”
A root looped out of the ground to stop the Rocktop but was crushed by the boulder’s mass.
“Druid, get out of there!” Gork spun as another sinister boulder bounded for him. He aimed a chop with his ax at a crack in the Rocktop’s middle. His blade sunk deep but was ripped from his hand as the stony bully turned over in the air and crashed down behind him.
Nyan-Nyan rapidly closed the distance. “Leave him alone!” She lunged, and instead of striking with her fist, her instincts took over. She raked it with her claws.
The scream that erupted from the stone creature nearly deafened Gork. Cracks spread out along the scratch marks, as if the Rocktop’s very essence had been torn. It limped away, hissing in terror, as the other frightened boulders bounded for cover. Gork retrieved his fallen long ax and hurried with Nyan-Nyan to the base of the cliff.
“We haven’t much time,” Gork called, scanning behind him.
“But they’re gone,” Nyan-Nyan said. “They don’t like my claws, apparently.”
“Yeah, but they love pushing rocks from the top of cliffs,” Gork said. “How long before they finish climbing back up that slope—a minute, maybe?”
The Druid was kneeling again by the side of the wolf. “The Rocktops nearly killed her by pushing stones off the cliff,” he said. “She didn’t see the stones falling.” He nodded to a hole in the ground nearby. “And she has pups.”
Nyan-Nyan made an awkward expression. This bordered on treason. Freyjans had no affection for wolves, their chief hunting competition.
“Can you heal her?” Gork said.
Let’s hope not, Nyan-Nyan thought to herself.
The Deeproot Druid gave a heavy sigh as if weighing options. “Yes, though it comes with a price. Anyway, it may be our only chance for escape.” As if making his decision, the Druid gave a nod and reached for a vial of pink liquid strapped to his waist.
That was interesting.
“Ooh, a potion,” Nyan-Nyan cooed. “Can I taste it?”
The Druid ignored Nyan-Nyan, pulled the cork, and drained the vial into his mouth. He had scarcely swallowed the iridescent liquid before he doubled over in pain and gasped desperately for air.
“Never mind,” Nyan-Nyan said. “You got this.”
The Druid reached out with a trembling hand and touched the torn side of the wolf. As his fingers reached into the wound and came into contact with the wolf’s blood, arcs of light wound around his hand like an exploding spinning wheel. As he withdrew his hand, the loops of light went to work stitching the wound.
“By the Goddess,” Nyan-Nyan whispered. “It’s . . .”
“Deeproot magic,” Gork said in awe.
This was the first Nyan-Nyan had ever seen of the fae magic. And it was far beyond anything she had expected. She was only fifteen, but this was an experience of a lifetime.
“Cool.”
The light dove into the rapidly vanishing wound, and suddenly the wolf’s eyes shot open. It climbed to its feet, scrambled to the entrance hole of its den, and barked.
Two pups climbed quickly out.
Nyan-Nyan looked from her gauntlets to the newly healed wolf, which was nearly as tall at the shoulder as she was. She forced back the idea of making herself some new wolf pup moccasins.
“You did it,” Gork said. He looked to the Druid and gasped. Nyan-Nyan hadn’t noticed the change either. The man’s face was horribly contorted.
“It’s happening.” The Druid looked at his hands where the blood of the wolf had already soaked into his skin and disappeared. “I can feel it.”
The Druid’s fine clothing unraveled, leaving his chest bare until the white fur of the snow wolf sprouted from his arms and face.
“That is not normal.” Nyan-Nyan leapt back in fear as the man’s face lengthened into a snout, his feet stretched, and claws sprouted from the tips of his toes.
Gork stepped back a pace as well. “He’s turning into a wolf. I’ve heard Druids can do that, but—”
“He’s in pain,” Nyan-Nyan said. This was either a spell gone horribly awry or it was the man’s first time becoming a wolf.
The Druid tipped back his fur-covered head as a snout burst from his face. His jaws opened wide and he gave a mournful howl.
Nyan-Nyan’s courage faltered for a moment. Both snow wolves—the Druid and the wolf with puppies—had canines twice as long as hers.
The Druid wolf sniffed the air and then lifted its head to look up toward the top of the cliff.
Nyan-Nyan sniffed as well and detected the telltale musty clay odor of the Rocktops. “They’re back.” A head-sized stone clattered down the cliff and smashed into pieces only a few feet away. Three more stones followed, each bigger than the last.
“Run!” Gork called. He ran forward, but the Druid wolf cut off his retreat. It knelt and pointed its nose over its shoulder.
It was trying to get him to climb on.
“Get on, stupid.” Nyan-Nyan called to Gork. The dwarf jumped onto the wolf’s back, but the momentum of his pack carried him over the other side.
“Brilliant.”
While he remounted, the mother wolf bit the scruff of the neck of one of the pups. Nyan-Nyan tucked the other pup under her arm and leapt onto the back of the mother wolf. “Catch me if you can, Hearthsworn slow poke!”
The race was on.
The mother wolf leapt forward, and the world suddenly became a blur.
From not far behind, Gork cried out in what seemed to be a mixture of pleasure and terror. “I’m gonna barf!”
The wolves raced down the canyon, following the stream as it dropped into an even narrower section with the two misfit Frostbyte warriors on their backs.
Nyan-Nyan looked over her shoulder in time to see what appeared to be the entire boulder field rise up and roll after them.
Gork’s wolf drew alongside hers. “If they catch us in this slot canyon, we’re dead.”
“Some shortcut!” Nyan-Nyan shouted.
“Shut up and hold on.”
Nyan-Nyan’s fingers cramped as she struggled to keep a grip on the wolf’s fur. Bounding boulders crashed only feet behind her. The wolf leapt over a stream, launched off a steep bank, and cut back across the stream again, causing several Rocktops in pursuit to lodge themselves in the squishy mud along the bank.
“That mud will slow them down,” Gork shouted.
Two stones shattered against the ground on either side of Gork.
“I hope.”
A hundred yards down the canyon, the stream had dwindled to a trickle in a sandy wash.
After a bend in the canyon, there was no sign of the pursuit.
Nyan-Nyan gazed back at the rocky canyon, where all was suddenly still. “Why aren’t those Rocktops following us?”
It shouldn’t be this easy. Something’s not right.
The wolf beneath her slowed, and before she knew it, Nyan-Nyan was on her knees looking up at a wolf, two pups, and a Druid who was human again and wearing wolf-fur leggings and a wolf’s-head cap.
“We must be on our way quickly,” said the Druid. He looked to the mother wolf, who had managed to get the scruffs of both pups’ necks into her mouth. She gave one last look back and bounded up the side of the wash and out of sight.
Gork trudged a few paces down the wash and stopped, holding an open canteen in his hand. “Hey, what happened to the stream?” The canyon creek had narrowed to a trickle and then vanished altogether. Where Nyan-Nyan stood, not even the sand was muddy.
The Druid reached down and took a handful of sand and watched it slip through his fingers. “The celestian’s curse.”
Nyan-Nyan twisted her ears toward the Druid. “The what?”
Gork sat down on the sand and shook a small pile of gravel out of his boot. “The Arcadians, led by the Dark Consul’s lust for power, summoned a great magic in their attempt to conquer the winged celestians. But the celestians managed to turn the magic back on Arcadia. The lush land was cursed.”
The Druid knelt and studied the earth. “Once, these mountain streams kept the Arcadian plains rich with farms and forests, but no longer. To this day, water drains through the ground like a sieve—one massive desert.”