by Sam Ferguson
Gorliad snorted. “That was not flying. Come, let me show you what it is to rule the sky.”
“Go on, Sandjean, it isn’t every day a prince offers a ride upon his back,” Hermean said as he nudged the dwarf forward.
Gorliad reached down with his snout and the dwarf grabbed onto the horn on the end of Gorliad’s nose. Sandjean moaned as the dragon lifted him up and placed him on his back. Then he launched up into the sky.
“Whoa!” Sandjean cried out as he grabbed on with all his might.
Up they climbed, leaving the white tundra far below. They rose high above the darkening sky and found themselves in a light blue sky, above the darkness and below the stars. Gorliad flew toward the south, carrying Sandjean toward the aurora.
“Come dwarf, that is no way to enjoy the view,” Gorliad said with a laugh.
“Easy for you to say, I don’t have any wings should I fall.”
The dragon beat his wings slowly, propelling them forward at a steady pace. “Put your arms out,” he told Sandjean. Gorliad glanced over his back and saw the dwarf slowly pushing himself up. First he stretched his left hand, still clinging to the dragon with his right. Then, a smile crossed the dwarf’s face and he let go with both hands. He stretched them out as far as they would go and closed his eyes.
Gorliad flew on, letting the dwarf alone and turning in to his own thoughts.
The aurora seemed to stretch out toward him, calling him ever nearer to it. Below the dazzling colors lay an ocean of frozen tundra. Here and there were white, pillowy snow drifts piled up by the ever relentless winds. Tender grass and brown bushes poked up from the unnamed ground, reaching up to feed on whatever sunlight they could before some grazing teeth took them in turn. In the distance he saw a pack of snow leopards. There were only seven of the fierce animals. They pinned down a large caribou. Gorliad couldn’t hear them from this distance, but he didn’t need to. He had once been in the caribou’s position, and he recalled the growls and snarls all too well.
Within a couple minutes, the caribou was down on the ground and the leopards tore the carcass apart. It had occurred to him that a mighty roar might have purchased him enough time to fly in and save the caribou. His younger self might have done just that. However, the adult dragon understood such things for what they were. Snow leopards, as large and fearsome as they might be, were a natural part of the world. They had always been intended to share in the cycles of life that rise and fall under the sun. They were not like the beasts and monsters created from the void, who wished only destruction and chaos upon the world. So, despite having had a singular experience of being on the wrong end of a hungry pack, he held no ill will toward them as he did for the trolls and other monsters that darkened the world.
Besides, if they ate the caribou, then they would have no need to pester the group of dwarves. A sated snow leopard was a happy one.
Gorliad scanned the tundra ahead, looking for anything that might pose a threat to the dwarves as they traveled south. Soon he found a crystalline rive of ice. He glided over the top, watching his shadow darken the river and extinguish the sparkles from the ice for a moment, and then he veered toward the west and flew out over a grouping of hills dotted with bushes. Atop one of the hills he saw a pair of foxes darting in and around the bushes chasing a snow hare.
The dragon turned back and soon rejoined the group.
He landed on the western side of the traveling company. He set Sandjean down and the dwarf waved with a genuine smile and then disappeared in the throng. A moment later, Hermean dropped in beside Gorliad with his drake.
“Anything ahead we should worry about?” Hermean asked.
“Not that I saw,” Gorliad replied.
“That was a nice touch, taking Sandjean along I mean.”
Gorliad nodded slowly and began to walk. “Seemed the easiest way to turn him into a friend.”
“You keep making a habit of that,” Hermean noted. He and the drake moved forward to keep pace with the burgundy dragon’s ambling. “The group is in good spirits.” Gorliad didn’t respond. Hermean brushed a hand over his hair and twitched an eyebrow. “Though I guess that is to be expected with full tummies.” Hermean rode quietly atop his drake beside Gorliad.
Over the sound of the marching feet rose the beat of a drum. It was quiet at first, but then it grew louder.
Bing-boom, bing-bam. Bing-boom, bing-bam. Soon a fiddle joined in with long, vibrating strokes that spread out over the tundra. As the drum continued to sound off, the fiddler added a melody long and sweet. It was not the songs his mother had sung to him from his youth, but it had a charm and quality to it that he could not deny. A chorus of dwarves hummed and the fiddler pitched higher and louder. More drummers joined in. There were no words to the tune, for none were needed. Each was free to adapt the melody to his or her own thoughts.
For Gorliad, the song was about home, and freedom. Not the mountain where he hatched, nor the confines of its society, but a true home where one was truly at liberty to be as he was, and yet still find acceptance. The dragon had no way of knowing what the chorus of humming dwarves was thinking about, but he guessed it was likely much the same as his own thoughts. They had all been searching for so long, and passing through tribulations that most could not begin to know.
Hermean joined in the humming, and surprised Gorliad when he opened his mouth and sang loudly. The dwarf did not use words, but singing was the only way to describe his voice, for it was sweet as a horn, yet maintained the rugged, deep quality his voice held when he spoke.
The dragon looked up to the aurora and imagined the colors swirling above danced in appreciation of their song. Gorliad thought to add his voice to theirs, but decided not to. For now he enjoyed this song, this marching anthem that compelled them to hold onto their hope as they pushed deeper into the wilds.
When the song finally ended, all were silent again. There was not a word to be heard. Gorliad looked through the crowd, seeing fathers carrying their young, pairs of dwarves pushing carts made from the shelters they had camped in that were now filled with additional lumber for fires, skins for blankets, and other materials for equipment. He saw the hope restored on their faces, and in turn had his own spirits raised by their courage.
They crossed slightly more than sixty kilometers that night on foot. The ground was even, albeit covered in snow, and the way was easy with no obstacles or foes to impede them. As the first rays of the sun stretched out from the east, the dwarves settled into a camp and began to lay out their blankets.
Hermean and his drake went through the camp, assisting to light fires as Gorliad was as yet unable to do so. Gorliad made himself useful by pulling timber from a copse of pines he had seen while overflying the tundra. He brought the trees to the camp and used his tail and claws to limb them. He then broke them into smaller bits and let the dwarves take from the piles as needed. As the group settled down for sleep, the sun rose up to help sweep the night’s cold away.
The next day was similarly easy going, except for the ruby in Gorliad’s shoulder. The burning grew in intensity and was such a bother that he could not fly at all. He walked ahead of the group to scout, with Hermean flying out for several kilometers at a time looking for danger.
By the Aurorean’s good blessing, no danger was found. They did, however, stumble upon a large herd of white-furred buffalo. Gorliad made short work of a score of the beasts, and then dragged their bodies in for the dwarves. They spent the rest of the day preparing and eating the meat. When sunset came, they were eager again to travel onward. However, they did not walk as far as the previous night. The tundra slanted up at a steady, yet challenging incline. They crossed roughly two thirds the distance they had the night before, and camped in the thick of a small forest before dawn broke.
Gorliad rested out in the open tundra, a few hundred meters away from the forest.
When the sun came up on the third day, Gorliad could hardly move. The pain in his shoulder burned so intensely that he moaned and
roared as it pulsed through him with the force of a dragon’s bite.
Hermean, Sandjean, and Fenerir stayed close to him throughout the day. They tried to bring him meat to eat, but Gorliad would have none of it. As the evening came in and darkened the area around them, Hermean approached with the large ruby.
“No,” Gorliad said when he saw the gem inside the pack. “No more,” he said.
“Forlean said that after the third day you had to have the next ruby,” Hermean pressed. “It is the last part of your recuperation.”
“No more,” Gorliad said.
“Open his mouth,” Hermean commanded.
Sandjean paused and stared at the fangs. “Open it?” he asked.
Hermean reached in and pulled out a ruby as large as his head. “Open his mouth.”
Fenerir and Sandjean moved in. They pulled long axes and used them as levers to pry his Gorliad’s mouth open. It required much effort, but at last they managed to work the dragon’s mouth ajar.
Hermean tucked the ruby in his arms and ran toward the open mouth. “Don’t eat me now,” he shouted as he ran in.
Gorliad twitched and clawed the ground with his left foreleg.
Hermean slipped and crashed against one of the rear teeth, but managed to protect the jewel from getting damaged. He steadied himself and moved to the back of Gorliad’s hot, damp throat. He stood as close to the open gullet as he cared to get and then he chucked the gem into the hole. Gorliad twitched violently and spat Hermean onto the ground out of reflex. The dwarf half tumbled and half slid across the ground in a thin covering of slime.
The burgundy dragon choked the jewel down, hacking and coughing several times before finally regaining composure.
“My apologies,” Gorliad offered with watery eyes.
Hermean nodded and waved the dragon away. “I’ve had worse days I suppose.”
Gorliad rose to his feet. A red glow emanated from his right shoulder. “The pain is gone,” he commented.” He checked himself over and sniffed at the gem in his shoulder. If he had known the large ruby would have taken away his pain he would have begged Hermean for it a long time ago.
“Well that was simple,” Fenerir said.
“If it was so simple then next time you go in the dragon’s mouth,” Hermean groused as he walked by.
Something struck the inside of Gorliad’s stomach like a rock. He froze. A wave of nausea overcame him and his body started to convulse. His neck arched and jerked forward.
“No, you keep it down!” Hermean shouted as he turned around. “I am not doing that again.”
Gorliad clenched his jaw and then a wave of heat washed over him from head to tip of tail. For the first time in his life he felt the hearts in his tail beating wildly. The heart in his chest beat harder, but it actually slowed in pace. His whole body became itchy, and then his muscles lost their strength. His knees buckled and he flopped to the ground. Fawump! A rush of snow billowed out around him. His eyes grew bleary and he could no longer see Hermean or the others.
“Her…” his voice caught in his throat, too weak to push the word out entirely. His head jerked to the side and he fell entirely limp. He may have lost consciousness for a moment, he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he could not move. His stomach was flipping and twisting into knots as if a den of atorats was trying to burrow out from him. Lower down in his guts he felt rumblings and pains he had never experienced before. All of this was accompanied by pulses of heat that ran through each and every one of his veins. Never before had he been so aware of his own body’s systems, and now that he was he surely did not want the awareness.
The pain pulled him and folded him over, jerking and twitching all of his muscles as the heat and knots rolled through him. There was no way for him to know how long he was there, but it felt like an eternity.
Finally, his eyes closed. His system had had more than it could bear. Something within him growled and rumbled. There was a flash in front of his face that shone through his closed lids, then his mind slipped out from the conscious world.
Hermean stood nearby, watching as a glowing red orb appeared within Gorliad’s stomach. The spaces between Gorliad’s scales shone brightest, as if the dragon was melting from the inside with an egg of lava in his gut. The snow and ice under the dragon melted and turned to steam within seconds. Bright columns of light streamed out through the dragon’s nostrils and Fenerir and Sandjean pulled on Hermean’s arms.
“Come, we should back up,” Sandjean said.
Hermean shook them off and moved in closer to Gorliad. He could feel the intense heat emanating from the beast’s body. Each breath sounded like the roar of building fires, and each exhale issued out wisps of smoke. Still, Hermean pressed in and got as near to Gorliad’s ear as he could.
“Come on friend, push through this. You can do it. Remember why it is you fight!”
The red and orange light now shone through from the spaces between the scales so intensely that the heat stung Hermean’s face and hands. He had no choice but to move back. Each step he made struck fresh ground as the aura of heat expanded and consumed the snow and ice around him. He could see Sandjean and Fenerir through waving steam and heat gesturing for him to hurry up.
The light on the ground became white and the heat now scorched through Hermean’s clothes. The dwarf decided it best to leave. He ran for all he was worth, stopping only after he passed by the other two and flopped down into a snow drift to sooth his backside.
The three of them sat, watching over their friend as best they could, though they could not look directly at the light now. Hermean and Sandjean offered prayers to the Aurorean on Gorliad's behalf, while Fenerir stood stoic with tight jaw and an expressionless face.
The following morning, Gorliad woke. His eyes slowly opened and he belched almost immediately upon waking. A plume of thick black smoke issued out from his throat and the dragon’s eyes went wide. Again he could feel the fires in his chest. Wearily he pushed up to his feet and threw a test flame. The stream of fire went out as easily as it had before the troll king’s spear had taken his fires from him. A cheer went up and Gorliad then realized that as many as fifty or sixty of the dwarves stood around him. Hermean, of course, was among them.
“Nice to have you back,” Hermean said.
Gorliad looked down and noticed that all of the snow had been melted from around him. Furthermore, the ground under him was charred black, much of it turned to charcoal-colored dust. “It is good to be back,” Gorliad growled. He roared triumphantly and a blaze of red and yellow flame leapt out from his throat.
The crowd cheered louder.
“Hail Gorliad!” some of them shouted.
“Hail to the dragon friend,” Hermean added emphatically.
“Hail to my dwarf friends,” Gorliad replied quickly. “Without you I would have no fire, and likely no life. The troll king’s spear would have ended my life.”
“But not before you ended his to save us,” Sandjean said pointedly.
Gorliad was about to say something when a blood-curdling scream rose up from beyond the gathered crowd. It was followed by another ghastly shriek. Gorliad’s head twitched with each sound and the crowd turned as one to see the source.
The burgundy dragon leapt over the crowd and glided beyond them to see what the matter was. He saw a group of seven dwarves with weapons drawn and standing back to back. A trio of whirlwinds circled them, whipping up snow and bits of ice.
Gorliad blew fire at one of the whirlwinds, thinking to force it away. The snow-devil twisted and dodged the fire, covering a great distance in the blink of an eye. There on the ground where it had been was a bloody arm, with a bit of bone sticking out where the elbow should have been.
“What is this?” one of the seven dwarves shouted as the second whirlwind came in.
Gorliad moved in, the whirlwinds slipped out of his reach. The third one then changed course, circled around in a flash and grabbed one of the seven dwarves. An explosion of blood painted the
whirlwind red for a second, and then the thing moved away before Gorliad could snap his jaws around it.
The dragon moved to stand over the six remaining dwarves. “Stay with me,” Gorliad commanded.
The rest of the dwarves huddled near where the crowd had gathered. Gorliad could hear Hermean shouting orders and forming the soldiers on the outside of the group.
“What is it?” one of the six asked again.
Hermean shouted from atop his drake down to Gorliad. “Ice-wraiths, they are ice-wraiths.” Gorliad looked up to Hermean. That was a mistake. In the half a second it took for him to glance up, one of the whirlwinds darted in and took another dwarf. The victim cried out in pain and left a grotesquely severed foot behind in a boot.
Gorliad wasn’t sure how to defeat the monsters. Every time he shot fire, they dodged with such speed and agility that it seemed impossible to strike them. “Very well,” Gorliad said. “If I can’t kill you, I will make it impossible for you to take the others.” Gorliad leapt into the air and knocked the five surviving dwarves back to the group with his tail. He took in a deep breath and then unleashed such a great flame that it formed a wall of fire ten meters high between the dwarves and the ice-wraiths. Two of the creatures managed to stop before getting too close, the third however did not and was consumed by the flames. It emitted such a squealing shriek that it nearly pierced Gorliad’s ears and mind. Many of the dwarves dropped to their knees and grabbed their heads, crying out in pain.
Gorliad saw the ice-wraiths splitting to circle around the wall. He had anticipated that. He flew in a great circle, spewing fire onto the ground and creating a great ring of fire.
“Carefully not to kill our own!” Hermean shouted.
Gorliad methodically expanded the ring outward with each revolution, keeping the barrier up around the dwarves but lessening the heat they felt inside. The ice-wraiths did not give up, however. They began to throw ice and snow at the wall, testing it for weaknesses.
“They won’t stop,” Hermean said. “And they won’t tire.”
Gorliad heard the words, but he didn’t respond. He circled the group two more times and then shouted out between breaths, “Go and attack one of them. Try to drive them apart with your drake.”