by Sean Rodden
O cold northern sun and star
Bright eyes of the Fiannar
Hail! Fenders of Light and land
Flash! Brave Blade of Defurien!
Alas! Word of woe and war
Wings of darkness westward bore
Arise! Northmen strong and free
Stand! Faith and fealty!
Hark! The tolling bells of doom
Peal o’er Alvarion’s Tomb
Ware! Warders bold and true
Death and ruin beckon you…
Lament for the Fiannar
Late Summer
Year of the Strype 2025
Run!
The thought burned in his mind like a wild white fire fuelled by urgency and fanned by peril. The thought was unsought, unwanted – reviled even. And despite its insistence, its imperativeness, he forced the idea back and down. He could not do otherwise. He was a Darad. The Daradur did not run.
Run!
The concept was alien to him, anathema. He was Rundul of Axar, a Warder of the mara Waratur, the watchful Wandering Guard of the warlike Daradur. Squat and bearded, broad and steely muscled, hewn of the metal-veined rock of legends, the Daradur held that even the slightest wound on the back was an indignity surpassing shame. Never in the six hundred years since his Making had Rundul considered running from battle.
He was a Darad. The Daradur did not run.
But none other among that warrior race had ever seen that which Rundul saw in the deep places of the earth that day.
Miles beneath the broken stone of the Bloodshards, Rundul stood cloaked in the shadows of a high stone ledge, staring out and down upon a great cavern steeped in crimson darkness. That which he saw there in that huge hollow of the netherearth moved him – as much as an iron-hearted Darad might be moved by such things. In the flame-reddened unlight, his black eyes flared and flickered.
Urth ru Glir, Rundul swore silently, inwardly. Earth the Mother.
Fires burned both without and within. Within him burned alarm, controlled rage and seething hatred, the three coalescing into a single flame of defiant determination, a solitary blaze burning boldly before a dark subterranean wind. Without, red and rotten, vile and so very wrong, burned the foul fire of abomination. Abomination and outrage.
And then, from somewhere at the insidious core of that abomination, a heinous shriek burst from a spectral breast, ripping the air in execration –
“Daaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaad!!!”
Rundul’s presence was become known.
The Darad remained motionless for a moment, unmoved and unmoving, a boulder of the earth from which he had been Made. He then reached slowly, deliberately, for the great war-axe strapped to his broad back. He held the haft in a fist of iron. And with an inward shrug of his warrior spirit, he stepped forth from the shadows to the lip of the ledge, into the guttering glow of incarnadine gloom.
Thus revealed, Rundul hefted his war-axe with one powerful arm, raising the weapon above his head, bloodlight glittering on its broad blades. Whether the gesture was made in mock salutation or in brazen challenge, its effect was both predictable and immediate.
Unnumbered throats blistered in a single roar of mindless rage. Unnumbered hands reached for unnumbered weapons.
And the thought-voice whipped Rundul’s mind:
Run!
Rundul lowered his axe. He blinked languidly, once, twice. Then, with an expression of disdain, he put his back to the cavern and to the horrors it held. One stride took him back into the shadows, into darkness. Another three brought him to the tunnel that had led him to the cavern. He turned into this passage, wrapped himself in the cape of its blackness, and walked back along the way that he had come.
Run!!
The thought directly contradicted, diametrically opposed Rundul’s instinct, his desire, his very need to stand and fight. Turning from battle, even from one in which he would certainly be slain, came neither easily nor naturally to the Stone Lord. However, that which he had seen was a thing that required telling, that demanded telling. Specifically, such ill tidings needed to be delivered to the kumman ur Korr, the Daradun Council of Captains at Raku Ulrun.
Had Maiden Earth been present and potent in the dark places beneath the Bloodshards, the matter would have been simple enough. Rundul would have extended his awareness through the Maiden’s veins of power, through stone and soil, to the great halls at the twin peaks of Raku Ulrun. There his account would have been received by the uldwar, the ancient ones of the Firstmade. The Daradur would have been warned. His duty done, Rundul could then have remained to do battle, to fight, to strike a blow against the ancient foe. He would have been killed, surely. But he would have died well.
However, Maiden Earth had long abandoned the Bloodshards, and in her absence Rundul knew he could not send the message. The message must therefore be brought. The enemy would seek to deter him, strive to deny him, that they might shield their sinister secret. Speed was needed. Rundul was swift. But some among the enemy were swifter. A few, perhaps, were stronger. Most were below and behind him. But miles of tunneled stone lay between the Darad and the surface –
Run!!!
The roar of thousands shook the stone, rippling the rock in tremors of rage. The thudding of booted feet on the run, the skittering of sharp claws over stone, the hoarse barking of commands – all flayed the black air in the wake of Rundul’s passing, lashing his back with a single desperate decree:
Run!!!
Rundul’s stride lengthened, his pace quickened. His black eyes glinted beneath fiercely furrowed brows. There was an intense indignity in such flight, a marked disgrace masked by necessity, camouflaged in the urgency of the message. Was he not fleeing the foe? The enemy had sensed him, had seen him, and now would seek his death. And he had his back to them.
Ah, the shame! But regardless of the dishonour he would certainly suffer, the uldwar at Raku Ulrun must be warned.
Run!!!
Must be warned.
Run!!!
Battle and death and grave tidings to be borne.
RUN!!!!!
So Rundul ran.
Muscled arms pumping, thick legs thumping, the mighty Darad raced up the tunnel into utter blackness. The cries of his pursuers screeched at his back. The howls of the hunters drew steadily nearer.
And he had many long miles to go.
Then the tunnel branched into two greater passages: One led east, back the way Rundul had descended, the way he had come and with which he was familiar; the other led west, in the general direction of Raku Ulrun, but remained strange and unknown to him. The Darad gave the matter no thought. The tidings were urgent. And he was a mara Warator of the Daradur, a warrior among warriors. He held no fear for that which he did not know.
Rundul went west.
The passage was wide and appeared well and recently traveled. The stench of the enemy was heavy in the thick air. Torches burned intermittently from iron sconces in the stone. Other tunnels led to and from the passage at irregular intervals, intertwining with it until it and they became indistinguishable from one another. But Rundul did not hesitate. He was a Darad, and even in the absence of the Maiden he was one with the rock of the earth.
Upward and westward he ran, his strong legs churning like powerful pistons. Behind him, the screeches of his pursuers clawed at the torch-born halflight, reaching for him with invisible talons and unseen blades. The fleeter among them were drawing nearer. Rundul sensed movement in the maze, shadows in the black, hideous things hunting him in the darkness. He felt them moving in parallel passages, matching his pace, hungering for his life, thirsting for his death.
Rundul knew his hunters were herding him, biding their time, gathering their strength. They waited only for the numbers they felt were sufficient for a successful assault upon the solitary Stone Lord. Rundul sensed hundreds on either side of him, and thousands behind. The attack would come soon.
Very soon.
The attack came.
A flash of movement to his left, and an Unman darted out of the shadows, crude weapon raised, the creature’s malformed features twisted further with hate and fear. Without slowing, Rundul swung his heavy axe leftward, one great blade splintering the iron of the Unman’s helm and splitting its skull in two.
Rundul ran.
Three more Unmen appeared from tunnels before him, grouped themselves together and attacked Rundul as one. A single great sweep of Rundul’s axe, and all three Unmen fell disemboweled upon the stone.
And Rundul ran.
Then a dozen of the man-things burst from the catacombs, assaulting Rundul from all sides. Rundul leapt from his feet, turning full-circle in the halflit air, his war-axe whirling about him like a living thing. Two Unmen fell headless before Rundul’s feet touched the ground again, four reeled away ripped and razed, and six scurried screaming into the shadows.
And Rundul ran on.
The enemy feared him now. Their quarry was no common Daradun warrior – which would have been unnerving enough – but a Warder of the Wandering Guard. Loathed and feared, dreaded and despised, the warriors of the Wandering Guard made such frightful foes that, ordinarily, the thralls of the Blood King would have let a solitary Warder pass unhindered. But their numbers had swelled their courage, had soothed their natural trepidations. And they were driven by a will greater than their own, compelled by fear far surpassing that which they felt for a lone Warder of the Wandering Guard.
And so they pursued.
Rundul streaked over the rock of the passage floor, a shadowed blur in the half-dark, a strident thunder on the stone. The enemy came upon him in haphazard waves, often more by chance than by choice. The Darad’s historied war-axe glowed red with blood and torchlight, and the legend of Rundul of Axar grew wilder with every slice of its great blades. Unmen threw themselves at him in desperate efforts to bodily bear him down. But the great Stone Lord shrugged them from him like water shaken from a wet hound. He was a Darad with a duty, as determined as rock. He refused to be denied.
Rundul ran on.
And then, from both sides and from behind, a choral howl of gleeful hope rent the air of the passage. Something huge and dark moved though the labyrinth of tunnels to Rundul’s right, and though it was both lumbering and large, it was far swifter afoot than its quarry. At a twisting bend in the passage, a great black mass burst from the shadows before the racing Rundul.
An Urkrok.
The rock ogre’s muscled immensity almost surpassed comprehension. Wielding a great club spiked with shards of iron, it came upon Rundul with the force and fury of an entire tribe of Unmen. Rundul did not break stride. Club met axe with a crash of rage, wrath on wrath, but one weapon’s fury was the fiercer. Daradun steel shattered the wood and iron of the Urkrok’s club, cutting through and past it with irresistible power, biting into the flesh and bone behind with teeth both terrible and true. The rock ogre roared with rage and pain, one massive fist coming down on Rundul’s shoulder, bearing the Darad to his knees. Rundul gritted his teeth as he registered damage to his shoulder and deftly passed his axe to his good hand. Flashing like fire, the weapon’s blades ripped into the legs of the Urkrok, severing both at the knees in a single stroke. The Urkrok tumbled like a felled tree.
Rundul ran on.
But the Urkrok had slowed him, and those behind him had narrowed the distance. Arrows screeched in the passage like whistled songs of doom, some finding Rundul’s back, only to be denied by the hard inrinil mail that all Warders wore beneath their beaten leather. Howls, shrieks, screams of hunger and hatred surrounded him. Ill things moved in the tunnels about him, wretched creatures slunk in the shadows, sightless serpents slithered on the stone. The whole of the netherearth beneath the Bloodshards was alive with things on the hunt. Numberless voices in the stony deeps screamed for Daradun blood.
Rundul thundered on, his powerful legs propelled by purpose and passion, his wake strewn with a slew of blood and broken bodies.
But his ruined shoulder slowed him. Not for pain – for the Daradur knew no pain – but for the detrimental effect the injury had on his balance. So Rundul reached for the power of Maiden Earth inherent within himself, calling it to life – an inner light, an inner flame – and sent its healing fire to his wounded shoulder. Swift and soon a welcome warmth wrapped itself about the wound, mending muscle and binding bone.
His shoulder repaired, the damage undone, Rundul ran on.
The passage sloped upward at a greater angle, its grade becoming increasingly steep with each stride. The air thinned and cooled. Intuitively, Rundul knew the surface to be near. His black eyes blazed. Within him, something grinned triumphantly.
And then he sensed a thing in the cold stone that chilled his heated heart.
As he slashed his way through a cluster of screeching Unmen, Rundul perceived something darker and more deadly than either Unmen or Urkroks awaiting him in the near distance. But it was no creature, however foul of form, which so effectively cooled Rundul’s inner fires. His innate Daradun stone-sense had belatedly warned him of the folly of his flight’s path. He had sensed too late where, and to what, the passage he had chosen was leading.
But there could be no turning back. He had come much, much too far.
Rundul ran on.
The passage gradually leveled. Fewer and fewer torches lit the way. Soon there were none. All light faded, fell. But Daradun sight did not depend entirely upon light, and the deep darkness that filled the tunnel neither halted nor hindered Rundul’s flight. Indeed, even in the black of the passage, he marked a change in the stone.
The tunnel there had been hewn by hand rather than formed by the natural convulsions and displacement of the earth’s crust or by the power of primordial rivers that had run through the rock when the world was young. Rundul discerned that the passage had only recently been riven of the red rock beneath the Bloodshards. And, he intuited, the work had been left uncompleted.
And then the tunnel abruptly terminated before an impassable wall of tumbled and crumbled rock.
Snarling a curse, Rundul slowed, stopped.
He had run many long hard miles. He had slain dozens, scores of the enemy. But regardless of his valour, despite his skill, he had been herded like a beast, hounded, driven to a dead end of collapsed stone that forbade all further flight.
His brows knotted. He eyed the rough and rugged surface of the stone about him. His mind raced, measuring, calculating, devising. An impenetrable barrier before him. The solid stone of endless earth beneath him. Perhaps thirty feet of rigid rock above him. And an entire army of the enemy behind him.
And they were coming.
The corridor’s unsullied dark reflected in Rundul’s eyes, black on black. A few steps away from the blockade, he turned, braced his stout legs far apart. He took his war-axe into his left hand, extended that arm, and tapped the spiked head of the weapon against the rock wall. He then moved the axe to his right hand and rapped the other wall. He spat on the stone at his feet. A bestial growl rumbled in his breast. Eyes ablaze with black fire, his war-axe gripped in both mighty fists, Rundul awaited the enemy.
Let them come.
And so they came.
There are deeds done under sun, moon, star and stone for which the doer is best remembered, that define his existence more profoundly than all else. Such a deed was the battle Rundul of the Wandering Guard fought in the earth at the falling of that day. Long after his passing from the world, the name and deeds of Rundul of Axar would be honoured in sonorous song in the deep halls of the Daradur – but of all his many heroics, Rundul’s solitary stand in the blackness beneath the Bloodshards would ever be the most renowned and recalled.
They came upon him in one endless wave, driven by rage and madness, forced forward by the crush of the throng behind them. They whelmed against the dancing defense of Rundul’s axe with the weight of thousands. Dark forms leapt down the throat of the tunnel, Unman upon Unman, black manes flying, crude iron blades whirling. Th
e very stone shook with the ferocity of their assault.
They were met with metal thew and living steel. The bitter blades of Rundul’s axe dealt death masterfully. The darkness of the corridor seemed to retreat from the energy of his exertion, the battle illuminated by blade-shine and blood-sheen. Bodies and parts of bodies heaped at Rundul’s feet, and brackish Unmannish blood made a mire of the stone. Dozens upon dozens died at the hand and steel of the great Daradun warrior.
Still they came.
Unmen poured the length of the passage in a flood of flesh and iron. Black blood flew from Rundul’s blades like subterranean rain. But the Darad was slowly forced back by the sheer weight of their numbers and by their efforts to flank and surround him. Blows rained down upon him like insistent fists knocking on the doors of his death. A few evaded his defenses, blade and bolt landing with force upon him, only to be turned aside by the hardness of his inrinil. But the frequency of the blows was increasing, and the price of survival threatened to become beyond Rundul’s power to purchase.
And still they came.
Rundul fought on. His axe sopped with slaughter. His face and beard were begrimed with blood that was not his own. His eyes were wild black lights of desperate defiance. His throat blistered with roared challenges, exertions and exultations. He only vaguely registered the entry of two enormous Urkroks into the seething sphere of battle. He tore at them with crazed rage, ripping through them with an axe-wrath he had not known since the bloodied fields before Mekkoleth on Sark-u-surum.
And his foes became afraid. They retreated. Scattered.
He was Rundul of Axar, Warder of the Wandering Guard, mighty warrior of the Daradur. Unmen and Urkroks would never defeat him alone.
They were not alone.
Strange ominous sounds scored the tunnel – scraping, clawing, dragging sounds, as though something overly large was striving to negotiate too small a passage. The earth quivered. Dust and debris fell from the coarsely carved ceiling of the corridor. A hot acrid smoke snaked the length of the tunnel, burning the air, singeing the stone.
And there followed the caustic crimson glow of infernal flame, and the black of the passage parted before it. Scarlet shadows stained the stone. Great whips of acidic wind lashed along the tunnel, sizzling and sulphuric, like baneful breath from the black maw of a monstrous beast. And then came a terrible titanic roar, a peal of abominable power – the thunder of irrefutable doom and the breaking of the world.