In all directions, titanic molten waves rose and fell. The rage of the earth pushed its incandescent rock to the surface, as if ten thousand volcanoes in perpetual eruption had drowned themselves and the land, from horizon to horizon. This was the ocean of tribulation and annihilation, and nothing could live in its eternal fury.
But the Krelstrag stood strong.
Volcanic peaks did rise above the surface of the burning ocean. Islands would come into being. Then the terrible waves would erode their shores, the internal forces would shake them apart, and they would crumble and melt back into the lava. Not all succumbed. Ten mountains had been there since the wound was first torn open. Perhaps it was their birth that had injured the land in the beginning. Jagged and twisted, like the anguished talons of an immeasurably vast beast, they towered over the waves, arrogant, defiant, unchanging. They were mountains at war, mountains under siege. They would stand forever.
And so would the Krelstrag.
The heart of the Krelstrag magmahold was within the largest of the great claws, the Forgecrag. The island mountain was broad, though so tall it resembled an onyx spike. It rose high enough to pierce the crimson-washed clouds. At a point just beneath the clouds, it was possible to look out at the entire domain of the Krelstrag lodge, the chain of basalt claws jutting from the lava. It was even possible, when the wind was strong enough to clear the worst of the haze, to see the sole hint on the horizon that something might exist beyond the Earthwound, that there was such a thing as a mainland. On those days, the bulky silhouette of the Great Weld would appear. Unlike the spikes of the archipelago, it had a wide, flat peak. It was a distant anvil. On this night, a hammer was striking it.
Runemaster Thrumnor and Runesmiter Rhulmok stood on the edge of the high platform. Behind them were a hundred warriors of the auric hearthguard, those chosen to make up the Sentinels of the Reach. Before each Fyreslayer was a drum. The drums were made of hide stretched over a stone framework built into the platform itself, and could never be moved. They had two purposes. The first was to provide the rhythmic thunder of the ritual. The sentinels beat their instruments, and the sound reverberated throughout the tunnels and vaults of the Forgecrag. The drumbeat was the pulse of the land as magma coursed through its veins. It shaped the humours of the Earthwound and called it to attention. When Thrumnor and Rhulmok listened to the beat, when it entered their flesh and their blood and their bones, when it vibrated through the ur-gold runes that were even more central to their being, then they were one with their environment. Then Thrumnor summoned the rage of molten rock, Rhulmok gave it form, and together they built the bridges.
There were homes and mines in the other claws of the archipelago, but the Forgecrag was the heart of the lodge, and its fortress in times of war. The Fyreslayers of the Krelstrag needed to move from one peak to another, and there was only one way that was possible. The Earthwound’s fury was so total that there were no tunnels that could link one island to another. Instead there were bridges.
Seen from the platform, a suturing of rock connected the islands. Narrow walkways spanned the ocean. Just as the fragments of Grimnir’s being were gathered together in the ur-gold, so the bridges brought unity to the fragments of the Krelstrag lodge. Grimnir had wrought the Earthwound, yet through his strength was a whole forged by his faithful Fyreslayers.
Though they were stone, the bridges were ephemeral. Once they were built, they sometimes lasted as long as a week, sometimes a single day. When the ocean’s rage was great, a bridge could vanish mere hours after its creation, swallowed by waves of lava a hundred feet high.
The bridges had high, curving sides, three times taller than any Fyreslayer, protecting those who crossed them from the worst of the ocean’s heat. Passage across them was controlled by more Sentinels of the Reach. Positioned at either end of each span, carefully trained by Thrumnor and Rhulmok, they observed the conditions of the crossings, determining whether or not they were still safe to use. There lay the second purpose of the drums – to beat the alarm when a collapse was imminent, and so help direct the work of the ritual.
In battle, Thrumnor summoned magma from below, destroying the foe as lava erupted from the ground, burning all who dared challenge the Krelstrag. Rhulmok commanded the direction of the magma’s flow. Tunnels opened before his will, and the Fyreslayers moved beneath the battlefield. Over the centuries, as he had learned to call on the magma’s wrath, Thrumnor had also learned how to calm it. He could cool it to solid rock. Rhulmok, in his turn, came to know how to shape what Thrumnor soothed. What was a bridge, after all, but a tunnel through the air?
And so the Krelstrag lodge thrived, extending its reach across the islands of the Earthwound archipelago, and any enemy foolhardy enough to try its strength against that of the Krelstrag first had to cross leagues upon leagues of the Earthwound ocean.
The Krelstrag had a term: lavasmite. It meant a period of time so short as to be not worth mentioning. It came from the contempt they felt for the sieges they had withstood and smashed to pieces, and for the uncounted thousands of foes who had been swallowed, screaming, by the lava. The sieges lasted only long enough for the Krelstrag to hurl the enemy into the embrace of the Earthwound ocean.
The Forgecrag could not be taken. It would stand forever.
Then the storm came.
Thrumnor was deep in the pounding trance of the ritual. He had caught a great fountain of lava in the clenched gauntlet of his will and chanted a prayer of low, guttural syllables. The blood of Vulcatrix must be called to answer. Righteous rage forced a wave of lava to climb above the ocean. It forced it to change its strength from fire to rigid stone. Rhulmok’s voice was there with him, no less determined but calmer, grinding and growling like the parting of stony waves. The cooling lava lengthened and the bridge came into being, arcing out from the side of the Forgecrag towards a new peak, one that had risen from the ocean a month before, and was now deemed stable enough to explore. Then, at the horizon, where the Great Weld stood guard, there was an explosion of lightning. It disrupted the song. Its thunder was too distant to be heard, but it was so huge it was felt in the air, and Thrumnor stuttered in his song. Rhulmok choked. The half-made bridge collapsed into the lava. Grimnir’s Binding unravelled, its energy lashing out uncontrollably across the bridges. They shook, cracking and groaning. The filament nearest to the incomplete crossing began to glow. Hundreds of Fyreslayers caught on the strut started to run, racing against the rising heat and shifting rock. They barely made it to the safe ground of the Forgecrag before that bridge, too, collapsed.
Out of the trance, Thrumnor saw the last flashes of Binding dispersing over the farther bridges.
‘Grimnir grant we killed no one,’ said Rhulmok, his voice strained with shock.
Thrumnor grunted. His own breath was rasping. His gaze was fixed on the sky’s rage. This was no natural storm. The lightning struck again and again as if beating a rune into flesh. Pulsing in sympathy with the flashes was a searing glow on the summit of the Weld. The light was a vivid green, and Thrumnor experienced each burst with a mixture of holy dread and the excitement of war.
‘What does this portend?’ Rhulmok asked. There was awe in his tone, but great suspicion too.
‘It portends much,’ Thrumnor said. ‘The hammer of Grimnir strikes his anvil once more,’ he recited.
Rhulmok did not appear to recognise the line of prophecy. The foretelling was an ancient one, and almost forgotten. There was much of it that Thrumnor could no longer recall himself.
‘We must speak with the runefather,’ said Rhulmok.
‘Aye,’ Thrumnor agreed.
But there was something he must do first.
II
Thrumnor knelt before the altar. It was a great stone anvil with seams of gold running through it. The strands gathered at its base, and then appeared to flow upwards, becoming a statue twenty feet tall: Grimnir in battle against the wyrm Vulc
atrix. The statue was resplendent with golden fire, shining in the light of a hundred torches. There was no ur-gold in its construction; that element, holy with the contained essence of Grimnir himself, was too precious to use in anything but the runes hammered into the Fyreslayers’ bodies. Such was the craftsmanship of the artisans who had created the altar, though, that the lines of the figures resonated in the runes of whoever came before it. Thrumnor felt the warmth of the designs in his flesh. Their power stirred, urging his blood to battle, to march along that road leading to the union with Grimnir, and the great reforging of his scattered being.
Thrumnor leaned forwards, arms spread wide. He rested his palms and his forehead against the side of the altar. With his eyes closed, he could feel the stone vibrate with the beat of the distant storm. The beat passed into his body. His runes flared. Fire coursed through his soul.
The beat grew stronger. It overwhelmed him. Thrumnor no longer touched the altar. He was falling through a darkness resonating with the blows of hammers, a boom boom boom boom shaking realm upon realm. Then, at the centre of the dark, there was a sharp point of bright orange light. It spread with every beat of the hammers. Then the dark peeled away, and Thrumnor beheld a vision. Something dark yet streaked with red and gold moved up the height of a vast anvil. It seemed to be a stream of living ore. A hammer as big as the sky was poised over the anvil. When the ore was gathered, the hammer fell. An explosion filled Thrumnor’s sight. The anvil shattered, then lava was flowing over a landscape. There was movement on the ground before its path, a suggestion of flight, a ripple of war. The lava consumed all. It was a tide hundreds of feet high, and it moved with purpose. Thrumnor could not see where it came from, nor where it was going, but a great will determined the destruction. There was a reason for this wave. And there was judgement.
The vision faded. Thrumnor rose to his feet. He bowed his head before the image of Grimnir and gave thanks.
‘I know what we must do,’ he said.
Auric Runefather Dorvurn-Grimnir regarded his council. With him, along with Thrumnor and Rhulmok, were his seven runesons. All had climbed to the platform to witness the storm. Now, deep in the magmahold, they sat in a circle of stone chairs, carved to suggest the jagged peaks rising from the Earthwound ocean.
‘Our duty is clear,’ Thrumnor repeated. ‘Grimnir’s hammer calls us to the Great Weld. There, on blessed ground, there will be a great forging, and we will march in fire and conquest across the mainland.’
‘To where?’ Rhulmok shook his head. ‘The meaning of your vision is unclear to me. The scrolls of prophecy foretell a time of tribulation when Grimnir’s hammer strikes the Weld. I can well believe it. Something of enormous power is at work in the realm. Why should we respond by abandoning the magmahold?’ He brought a fist down on the arm of his chair. Stone chips flew. ‘Might the portent not herald a siege such as we have never encountered before? You saw the anvil shatter. This disturbs me. Should we not instead be preparing to defend?’
‘No,’ Thrumnor said. ‘My vision points the way.’
‘How? You saw lava. You saw terrible destruction. Is that not the foe heading our way?’
‘No. It is us.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Forvuld, the eldest of the runesons.
‘In my vision, the destruction was a necessary thing. What burned was unclean. The lava was our lodge, overwhelming our foe as we march across the realm in answer to the call of Grimnir. The call every one of us has now witnessed.’
Rhulmok’s heavy brow was wrinkled with doubt. ‘That interpretation is not enough to justify the risk to the magmahold.’
Dorvurn tried to remember the last time he had seen his runemaster and runesmiter so divided on an issue. He failed. Though Thrumnor was Rhulmok’s senior by more than a century, the bond between the two was a strong one, forged by the unity of bridge creation. He had seen them taunt each other in jest about whose mastery over the lava was the stronger, but on matters of import to the lodge, they had always spoken with one voice.
‘Runesmiter,’ Dorvurn said, ‘it is unlike you to express reluctance for battle.’
Rhulmok grunted, but did not take offence. Dorvurn had come close to calling him a coward, and the fact Rhulmok ignored the gibe was telling. The runesmiter’s concerns were deep ones.
‘I’m reluctant to engage in the wrong battle,’ Rhulmok said. ‘If we misinterpret what we see and march toward an illusion, leaving the magmahold open to the real menace, what then?’
‘There is no question of misinterpretation,’ Thrumnor said. He sounded more heated than the runesmiter. His bald scalp, marked with an intricate tracery of ur-gold, reddened with frustration. ‘I have seen our duty! To delay is to defy Grimnir! And there is also the matter of the oath.’
‘What oath?’ said Dorvurn.
‘The Oath to the Lost.’
There was a puzzled silence in the hall.
‘I’ve never heard of this oath,’ Homnir said. He was the youngest of the runesons, but it was clear none of the others knew any more than he did. Even Rhulmok looked confused.
Dorvurn felt a pang of guilt. Was it possible he had never spoken of the oath to his sons? Had he never passed on that portion of lore? He had been remiss. He could tell himself the Krelstrag tradition and history were so vast, it was impossible for anyone to remember every aspect, and some things would be forgotten. The tool that was never used would be abandoned over time, and the oath had never been invoked. Even its name had been altered, the form it now took revealing that something had been forgotten. Nevertheless, it existed. Thrumnor was right to invoke it. It seemed that the runemaster and Dorvurn, the oldest Fyreslayers of the Krelstrag lodge, were the only ones to remember. The runefather could not let that situation stand, especially since the oath’s relevance was clear to him now.
I had forgotten, he thought. Grimnir, forgive me.
‘The Oath to the Lost,’ Dorvurn said, ‘was made at the time before the Krelstrag came to Earthwound. It was made to another lodge, one bound to us by kin, as we set forth on the journey that would at last bring us here. It was an oath of mutual aid. Should the Fyreslayers of one lodge be attacked, the other would help them in their defence. Our foe is their foe, and their foe is ours.’
‘Another lodge?’ Homnir asked. He was stunned.
The passing of so many centuries in the Earthwound had isolated the Krelstrag. They had not had contact with another lodge in the living memory of even Dorvurn.
‘What is it called?’ Homnir continued.
‘We do not know,’ Thrumnor told him. ‘The name has been lost to us. We know we were kin. We know of the oath. We know the lodge lies somewhere beyond the Great Weld. All else has been forgotten.’
‘So we don’t even know if it still exists,’ said Rhulmok. ‘To reach the Weld will be a long journey. When have the Krelstrag ever sought to reach the mainland?’
‘Our foes have come to the Earthwound from there,’ Thrumnor snapped. ‘Are we lesser than they are?’
Rhulmok’s brow darkened, but his grip on his temper was more secure than the runemaster’s. ‘I did not say that. Nor did I mean it.’
‘No one questions our valour and might,’ Dorvurn intervened. ‘It is true that we do not know if the other lodge still exists. It matters not.’ He rose from his seat. ‘What matters is the oath. We made it, and we shall not break it. A great storm has come, an omen of tribulations for the Fyreslayers. The anvil of the Great Weld is struck. And Runemaster Thrumnor has a vision of our unstoppable sweep over our enemies.’ He raised his voice, and he raised his grandaxe. ‘Grimnir summons us to war, brothers! And we shall answer! We march!’
III
‘The youngflame is unhappy,’ Rhulmok said.
He and Thrumnor stood a few paces away from where Dorvurn and Homnir spoke, surrounded by the other runesons. They were assembled on an enormous ledge, as big as a pla
teau, two-thirds of the way down the Forgecrag. Behind them were the main gates of the Krelstrag magmahold. The heavy iron doors were open, and in the great hall behind them, the massed ranks of the Krelstrag fyrds waited for the order to march. The thousands of vulkite berzerkers were a sea of red hair and beards. Thrumnor looked at them and saw the lava flood of his vision on the verge of being unleashed.
‘And what about his fellow youngflame?’ Thrumnor asked. ‘Is he reconciled to our quest?’ His question was serious. He wanted to know Rhulmok’s mind. It was important they were working well together again as they began the journey. How long would it be until they reached the other lodge? Weeks? Months? The lodge needed them, and it needed them acting as brothers. So he phrased his serious question using the frequent joke between them. Rhulmok was no youngflame. There were mountains younger than he. But Thrumnor was more ancient yet, and he still pretended to look upon the runesmiter as a youth.
He was glad when Rhulmok smiled. ‘This beardling has his concerns, but he will follow where the runefather leads, and be glad to do it.’ He turned serious. ‘And an oath is an oath.’ He looked out over the ocean, in the direction they were to take. The smaller volcanic islands blocked sight of the Great Weld, but the silver flashes of the greater storm were still visible.
‘The oath applies to us all,’ Homnir was arguing. ‘I too must fulfil it. How can I if I stay?’
‘You will fulfil your duty to the oath by staying,’ Dorvurn said. ‘I believe the runemaster is correct in his reading of the portents, but Rhulmok too is right: we cannot leave the magmahold undefended. You will defend our home, Homnir, and you will hold it against all enemies.’
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