Flint the King p2-2

by Mary Kirchoff

  Ruberik stayed with him. He brought water in a tin cup, though Perian was not aware enough to drink. He stood awkwardly to the side, not wanting to intrude on Flint's grief, yet offering any help that he could.

  Finally, Flint looked up at his brother, after trying to stem the bleeding as best as he could. In his heart, he knew there was nothing more he could do.

  The brothers' eyes met in a pain-filled gaze. "You'd better get out there," Flint said hoarsely. "I'll be… following along." He could say no more, dropping his head to hide his tears.

  "I'm sorry, Flint," replied the gruff farmer. Ruberik shuf fled wearily out the door.

  Flint turned back to Perian. She looked as beautiful as ever to him. A few strands of coppery hair curled across her forehead, but the skin below that hair was so pale, now — so horribly pale. And at Perian's too-white throat Flint saw the aspen leaf necklace.

  Suddenly her eyes fluttered open, and Flint's heart leaped.

  She smiled at him weakly, and her hand closed, ever so faintly, around his. Her lips parted slightly, but she didn't have the strength to speak.

  "My Perian…" Flint said, choking the words around his tears. Her hand tightened once more, breaking his heart.

  And then she was gone. Flint held her long afterward, still unaware of the battle outside. His grief threatened to tear him apart. He felt as though he never wanted to leave, to do anything again.

  But as the chaos of the battle grew to a crescendo, his pain slowly changed, burning its way from his heart to his soul.

  And as it moved, his mourning became anger, developing into a hot, blazing rage that at last compelled him to return to the fight, and to kill those who had slain Perian.

  The gates of the brewery splintered open, and even from within the building Flint sensed the urgency of the fight. He reached for the axe Perian had returned to him back in Mud hole, cursing with surprise as the weapon's haft burned his hand. The white glow of the Tharkan Axe had become tinged with red, as the metal itself heated like an iron bar in a smith's forge.

  Without thinking, Flint looked around the storeroom, quickly spotting a pair of leather gauntlets. He drew these over his hands, and then picked up the gleaming weapon.

  Its razor sharp blade gleamed clean, ready to drink again.

  Flint charged the door of the storeroom and threw it open, looking upon a scene of mass confusion in the court yard. The derro had smashed open the gate with a heavy battering ram and now poured into the enclosure, where they were met by a sturdy line of hill dwarves.

  He concentrated his gaze, looking for one hated form. Fi nally Flint saw the hunchback, limping along behind the leading mountain dwarves.

  "Pitrick!" he bellowed, charging into the courtyard. The force of his voice carried even above the din, and several of the mountain dwarves, including the thane's adviser, turned toward him.

  "Come and die!" Flint challenged. He raised his axe, and though its unnatural light was somewhat mutted in the growing illumination of dawn, it drew the derro's eyes like a hypnotic token.

  "Fireforge," breathed Pitrick, watching Flint's advance for just one moment. Then the hunchback seized the five heads of his iron amulet, and that cold blue light poured from the magic token.

  "Reorx curse your cowardly skin!" Flint growled, sprint ing toward the savant. He knew he would never reach him before Pitrick cast his spell. Oddly, he felt no fear of his own death; just an overwhelming sense of sadness that so much other killing would remain unavenged.

  Pitrick's sneer was all the answer he spared for his victim, then the derro barked the harsh command for his spell. A bolt of lightning suddenly sizzled from his hand, exploding toward Flint in a blast of magical death. The hill dwarf howled his rage, squinting against the blast of approaching magic, but not faltering in his charge.

  Then the Tharkan Axe blinked brightly, and a white burst of light overpowered the pale dawn and caused Pitrick to close his eyes, crying out in pain. The axe shone as the light ning bolt crackled into Flint, and suddenly the spell was gone, inexplicably snuffed. Whatever the reason, Flint dimly realized it had something to do with the axe.

  "Now you'll fight, scum!" hollered Flint in savage exulta tion. For reasons he did not stop to contemplate, the axe would protect him from Pitrick's magic!

  Other mountain dwarf troops stepped in the way. Sud denly one of these was bashed away by Tybalt. Then Ru berik stepped to Flint's side, knocking back another of the savant's protectors.

  "Face my blade, you miserable coward!" called the king of the gully dwarves, until only one guard stood between

  Flint and Pitrick. He was charged by Fidelia, who cut him down with a blow.

  "A hill dwarf will never best a mountain dwarf," Pitrick said, his tone threatening, challenging. Trembling with both fear and joyous anticipation Pitrick raised his axe finally, knowing that he could not defeat this hill dwarf with his spells. Flint raised the Tharkan Axe and the weapon lit up the courtyard.

  Resolutely, the two leaders hammered their blades to gether. The hunchback was surprisingly strong, and both dwarves staggered back from the impact of their combined blow. The ringing noise filled the courtyard, and the hill dwarf found a savage satisfaction in the clash.

  Flint pressed quickly forward, feeling the heat of his own weapon through his gloves. They clashed again, and once again fell back from the resounded collision. Scowling in concentration, Flint focused all his strength, his skill, and his hatred against the repugnant derro before him. Again and again he raised the blade high, driving forward with earthshaking blows that Pitrick somehow deflected.

  Flint sensed the fight around them stopping, as derro and hill dwarf alike paused to watch the duel between their lead ers. A hundred individual combats waned, forgotten in the periphery of this fight to the death.

  Flint and Pitrick raged back and forth, axes clashing, fine steel meeting steel, backed by muscle and fury. The thane's adviser attacked with bestial savagery. Suddenly he flew forward, unleashing a storm of lighting-quick blows. Flint fell back, desperately deflecting the mountain dwarf's cuts.

  The Tharkan Axe blocked every assault, the haft growing hotter and hotter under his palms, until even his gloves could not protect him. Ignoring the searing pain, Flint held his axe tighter — he would cling to it until death or victory freed his grip.

  Suddenly Pitrick lurched away. The quick retreat caught Flint off guard, and he instantly crouched, watching his op ponent warily.

  Again the savant seized the iron amulet that hung at his neck and raised his fist toward Flint. With a sharp hiss, like hot rocks dropped into water, a line of blue sparks erupted from the Theiwar's hand. The embers seemed to hunger for

  Flint's flesh as they rushed toward him. Swirling like living things, the sparks formed a ring around him.

  Desperately the hill dwarf raised the Tharkan Axe and stumbled backward. The gleaming blade bit into the blue fire as if the flame were a solid body, striking true with the keen, avenging steel. Once, twice, and again Flint chopped, each time with growing force, breaking through the circlet of magic, knocking the stream of sparks to pieces. Slowly the pieces settled to the ground, and the arcane magic of the amulet lay as twisted ringlets of harmless smoke on the ground.

  Both dwarves sprang at the other, and once again the fight became a test of physical strength and endurance.

  Blinking his eyes to clear the sweat away, Flint ignored his fatigue. He saw only the hateful face of his enemy before him, and his own hatred coalesced with Pitrick's to form a cocoon of berserk rage around them. The derro smashed his axe again and again against Flint's blade, but suddenly the hill dwarf saw his opening. Ducking backward before the

  Theiwar swung, Flint waited until the derro's attack swished harmlessly past his face.

  Then he stepped in, putting every bit of the strength in his toughened muscles behind the blow. All his hatred and fury, all of his overpowering grief came together, focused by the driving power of his weapon. Pitrick tried t
o twist away, to turn or parry the punishing blow, but in his last instant he knew he would not succeed. Finally, for a brief second, Flint saw those mad eyes grow still madder, this time from stark terror.

  It was a sight he would savor for a long time.

  The Tharkan Axe cut a silver streak through the air, meet ing the savant's neck below his helmet and above his breast plate. The blade made a clean cut, severing the heads of his amulet, then his skin and muscle.

  The blade finally came to rest near Pitrick's heart, jammed tightly into his collarbone and breastplate. The Theiwar commander staggered backward, tugging the weapon out of Flint's hand. Pitrick's blood soaked the once shiny blade of the Tharkan Axe, sizzling and scorching from the fiery heat of the metal. As he watched in disbelief, Flint saw the blade grow cherry red.

  Pitrick's body twisted, then sagged to the ground. He dropped to his knees with a groan, looking in disbelief at the blood that spread in a growing circle around him. Finally he collapsed on his face in the mud, the pool of his blood grow ing ever larger.

  And the world went mad.

  The first rays of sun crept over the eastern ridge, spilling light into the town. Flint scarcely breathed as he reached to retrieve his weapon. The Tharkan Axe in Pitrick's chest, nestled against the remains of the five-headed amulet, glowed red, so hot that Flint could not even touch it through his gloves.

  Suddenly it burst into flames. White smoke billowed from the fire. The cloud hissed forth, snaking upward and rapidly spreading into the sky.

  Simultaneously, the severed heads on the amulet began to writhe like snakes, hissing, spewing a great cloud of black smoke. This dark vapor, too, poured into the air, growing like a living thing, writhing and twisting its way upward.

  The two clouds met, spuming around each other, but each remained separate in a shocking contrast of light and dark.

  The dawn sun reflected from the white smoke with a bright glare, but the black vapor seemed to absorb the light, suck ing the energy from the air and giving nothing back.

  Flint stumbled away from the clouds, stunned by their sudden incarnation. The sight frightened him in some sub conscious fashion with a terror he could not articulate but that chilled him to his soul.

  The warring dwarves in the courtyard watched in amaze ment and backed away in fear. The dense trails of smoke, both white and black, grew larger and larger and began to coalesce vaguely into the shapes of humanoid heads: a beautiful, dark-haired human woman with blood red lips and almond-shaped eyes; and a gray-bearded, fierce looking harrn dwarf, his eyes radiating anger. The two foggy shapes hovered above the brewery.

  The clouds writhed together and apart, almost as if in combat — though an eerie, silent, and ephemeral battle it was. They grew still larger, filling the sky above the entire town. At the base of the intermingled black and white clouds, the amulet and the axe crackled with white hot fire, an arc of hissing power sizzling between them. The heat drove Flint still farther back, though he could not avert his eyes from the spectacle.

  Suddenly, there came a terrific rumbling sound, and then slowly the earth beneath the dwarves' feet began to shake and tremble. The ground rippled like water, shaking stones loose from the brewery walls, knocking Flint and every dwarf in view off of their feet. Many of the wooden build ings began to fall like matchstick shelters.

  Wisps of the black smoke trailed through the town, touching off fires where they struck the dry timbers of buildings whole, or ruined. In moments the flames roared upward, and Hillhome became a nightmare of hungry, crackling blazes.

  The dwarves in the courtyard of the brewery scattered in fear, trampling each other to get through the gate first. The

  Theiwar were the first out of town, running through the wreckage for the hills. Not a living one of the derro re mained to face the rage of the vengeful hill dwarves.

  The earth shook again, a convulsive tremor that wracked the town from one end to the other. Great cracks appeared in the ground, exploding outward from the white fire of axe and amulet. Flint watched, still stunned to immobilty, as these fissures erupted to either side of him. He saw hill and gully dwarves disappear into the cracks, and he could not move to help them. The stone walls of the brewery crum bled and split, collapsing into heaps of gravel.

  Screams of panic shrilled through the air. Mad stampedes erupted, as hill and gully dwarves scrambled through the ruins, seeking an escape from the convulsions that wracked the world around them.

  Flint shook off his numbness.

  But before Flint could gather his family and escape, the trembling of the earth stopped. The black and white smoky forms cast one more stony glance at each other and then dis sipated into thin wisps in the morning air. The hissing fire between the two artifacts slowly faded. There was no sign of Pitrick's body, nor of his amulet.

  Flint's attention fell upon what remained of the Tharkan Axe. It was now a thin sheet of fragile foil in the shape of the axe. Of the weapon's original form, only the runes remained.

  "The Tharkan Axe," said a soft voice beside him.

  He turned to look at Hildy's blood- and dirt-streaked face in surprise. "How did you know it's name?"

  "My father taught me the Old Script," she explained, pointing to the runes. Flint nodded dumbly, watching as the runes themselves started to fade.

  "The Axe of Tharkas, it says," repeated Hildy. "Crafted by the god Reorx in honor of the great peace among dwarves. Its magnificence shall last — " Hildy looked softly at Flint, sympathy welling in her eyes before she concluded,

  "— until it is used by a dwarf to shed a dwarf's blood."

  In the courtyard, now full of the stillness and death that follows war, the sheet of foil caught the wind and fluttered away.

  Epilogue

  Hillhome became a ghost town in less than a week

  What the battle had left standing had been leveled by the earthquake. Not a single family had escaped losing at least one member in the Battle of Hillhome, and most of them wanted to start anew elsewhere in the hillcountry, where the memories would fade more easily with time.

  Diehards, like the Fireforges, whose families had been in the village since before the Cataclysm and whose homes had been at least partially spared from the devastation, chose to stay around and rebuild their town as best they could.

  Though her brewery was destroyed, Hildy stayed behind with Basalt and the promise of a life together.

  And so with much dignity and tears the Fireforge family buried its dead, among them brother Bernhard, the valiant Aghar Garf. And Perian.

  After the short service offering their souls to Reorx, Flint had wandered alone with his thoughts to a small crest over looking Stonehammer Lake to the west and the remains of

  Hillhome to the east. The sky seemed too blue, the early winter air too crisp and… ordinary for a day when his heart was near to bursting, His memories of Perian were few but sweet; he prayed they would not fade with time. Sud denly he became aware of shuffling behind him.

  "Old queen gone," Cainker said sadly, coming up behind the gray-haired dwarf, a tear dripping down his filthy cheek. In his grief Flint had lost track of his subjects and was now reminded that they were likely waiting upon him for the direction of their lives.

  "Yes," Flint said softly. He looked with affection at the gully dwarf, but then he thought of something. "Old queen?" he asked.

  "Sure. New queen Fester, she just fine!" Cainker bobbed his head enthusiastically.

  "Hi, kingly guy." said Nomscul as he joined them. "Good fight!"

  "Thanks," Flint muttered, growing more confused.

  "What's this about Fester being queen?"

  "Yup. She my queen! Me new king, you know."

  "New king?" Flint was too surprised to immediately do the sensible thing, which was to heartily endorse the idea.

  "Sure. Now that you got no queen, it good idea." Noms cul sighed, apparently with real regret. "You one nice guy, though," he amended. "But just not work out as king. Real nice guy, all r
ight!"

  Flint chuckled, feeling a lump growing in his throat. He wanted to laugh aloud, and he wanted to cry, so he just stared in bemused wonder at the new king of Mudhole.

  "Just not work out," Nomscul said with a shrug.

  The general stood high upon the temple platform, look ing over the still-smoldering city. Sanction was not so empty as before, as thousands of ogres and human mercenaries gathered. Legions of hobgoblins formed vast camps on the ashen slopes around the city.

  Across the valley, beneath the seething Temple of

  Luerkhisis, the rest of the general's army was born — draconians, hatched by a corrupting process from the se cretly hoarded eggs of good dragonkind.

  The draconians pleased the general greatly, gathering as they did in well-disciplined companies of savage warriors, eager for bloodshed and war.

  Indeed, his army grew daily, and this made the matter of armaments all the more vexing. One day, the shipments to the hidden cove had simply stopped, and they had never re sumed. All of his attempts to contact the grotesque Theiwar, Pitrick, had failed, and the general disliked fail ure. He would not fail his Dark Queen, the five-headed dragon-goddess, Takhisis.

  Yet the preparations would go on. He had enough good steel to arm many of his troops, and the rest would find other sources for blades, and shields, and armor. Still, the general knew, his army would be strong.

  And soon, it would be ready.

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