The Fire Within

by Nicholas Clausen

  Draek was in as much disbelief as Hayden was as he tried to describe what he was seeing. Draek wanted to complain about how miserable his eyesight was, but he remained silent. Hayden knew the complaints would come later.

  The bronze tubes met the lava without a sound, and soon there were more clanking and banging sounds as the pipes began to shake.

  “What’s happening?” Hayden asked. He knew Draek was about to ask the same question.

  “Watch,” Durgen replied. With a few more clanks and shakes of the pipes, lava began bleeding into the forges.

  “We use lava to heat our forges,” Durgen explained again. As soon as the forge’s large basins were full of the glowing liquid, the dwarves shoved in pieces of metal that were soon become weapons and armor. They didn’t let them sit long before they pulled them out and quickly placed them on their anvil.

  The clanking sounds of the pipes were immediately drowned out by the repetitive sounds of the dwarf’s hammers. The metal they were working on began taking shape with each hammer blow and lava sprayed with the sparks of the metal.

  Hayden couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The suspended forges were shaking and swinging, and Hayden was sure that they would hit each other, or break loose at any moment, plunging the dwarves into the lava below. Somehow this never happened, and the dwarves were just as calm as if they were working in a human forge safely anchored to the ground.

  There was so much to take in that Hayden didn’t know what to question or comment on first until he saw the lava begin to bubble like boiling water.

  “Durgen, what’s happening?” Hayden asked. He realized he was stepping back closer to the tunnel they had come through without meaning to.

  “Hmm?” Durgen asked as he looked down beneath the forges.

  “Ah, dragon.” He replied. Durgen said it as if it was no big deal and something that he saw every day. The more Hayden thought about it he probably did see it every day.

  One of the bubbles popped as a red dragon breached the lava, just like a blue dragon swimming in water. As the dragon swam, the lava rippled with waves and smacked against the walls of the cavern. That’s where Hayden saw the small nooks in the cavern walls right above the lava.

  The nooks were filled with glowing red dragon eggs.

  Chapter Nine

  “Are those dragon eggs?” Hayden asked. He didn’t think that anything could draw his attention away from the dark red dragon swimming in the lava, but the eggs had proved him wrong.

  “Those are,” Durgen replied.

  “How?” Hayden started, unsure how to ask the question that was creeping into his mind. “How do you get to the eggs?”

  “We climb,” Durgen said. Hayden quickly looked around where the eggs were resting and found no easy way to get to them. Climbing seemed near impossible, and if a dwarf fell, he was sure that it would mean death for the young would-be rider.

  Hayden couldn’t imagine what it would be like to climb down over the lake of lava.

  “The hard part isn’t getting down to the eggs though. It is getting back up with a newly hatched dragon.” Durgen scratched his beard as he must have been remembering when he hatched his own dragon.

  They have to climb back up with their dragons? Hayden couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Even Draek was at a loss for words as he sent his dragon images of where the eggs were hidden.

  “How often do dwarves. . .” Hayden started. “Fall?” Hayden didn’t know how to ask.

  “We hope they don’t,” Durgen said with all seriousness. “It does happen, but it is a risk they take to become dragon riders.”

  “We had trials to get our dragons, but it was nothing like this,” Hayden said, but Draek reminded him of his own trials.

  Do you not remember falling down the Metallic Pyramid? Draek asked.

  “Oh, yea,” Hayden said out loud. For some reason, the lava seemed worse than falling down the pyramid.

  Durgen looked over to him but did not ask what he was saying. Hayden thought it rude not to explain what Draek was talking about.

  “When I went through my trials, we had to climb up the Metallic Pyramid,” Hayden explained. He did his best to describe the pyramid and what they had done.

  Durgen nodded his head and watched his dwarves work as he listened to Hayden talk.

  “Each race is different, and yet we all had to do amazing things to get our dragons,” Durgen said. The dwarves on the platforms pulled more leavers and the lava they had been using fell back into the lake while the pipes shook back to life to refill the basins.

  Hayden thought back to his time spent with the different races and how they had each had their own kind of trials for their young to get their dragons. The dragons bonded each of them together and connected the races despite their differences.

  Soon the dwarves began shouting, and it brought Hayden’s attention back to the forges. Even though they had been working for a what must have been only a few minutes, the pieces of metal they had been plunging into the lava and hammering on were now finished tools of war.

  The dwarves put the newly crafted axes and armor into wheelbarrows and grabbed more material to begin working with. Hayden watched as the determined dwarves hammered away and called out to the others when they had finished one piece or another.

  “I know we are in a hurry, but dwarves don’t like to sit idly by and wait,” Durgen said with a laugh. “We don’t like waiting for anything.”

  Hayden looked to Durgen for further understanding.

  “They always work at this pace,” Durgen explained. “And they will not slow until it is time to leave.”

  “They are working until the other clans come back?” Hayden asked.

  “Yes.” Durgen scratched again at his beard.

  “How long until the clans make it here?” Hayden asked. He hoped they still had time, but he was getting an uneasy feeling that Kirin might be fighting as he stood around and watched the dwarves work.

  “They had better be here soon,” Durgen said. His voice was almost a grumble as he spoke. Even though Hayden could tell that the dwarves were in a hurry, it did not answer his question.

  “Do you think one of your people would mind making me a helmet?” Hayden asked.

  Durgen looked at Hayden and considered his request. “A helmet?” He asked, almost to himself.

  “I can return it when the war is over, as part of your condition that anything made by dwarves is returned to you,” Hayden explained. He thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a helmet for what he was sure was going to be the biggest battle of his life.

  “The rest of your armor was made by humans?” Durgen asked.

  “It was. The other scales have been added in from the other races, and I have two more to add, but it was originally forged in Celestial City.” Hayden couldn’t help but look down at his armor as he spoke.

  He remembered how excited he had been when Draek had first shed his scales and when he had first tried on his armor. Somehow it seemed a part of him.

  “I will have one of my people take a look at it and see that it is properly taken care of,” Durgen replied.

  “Thank you. I will go back to Draek and get my other two scales if that is ok?” Hayden asked.

  Durgen nodded, and as Hayden turned to leave, he noticed that Durgen still had his eagle helmet in his hand.

  Hayden quickly ran through the tunnels that curved their way through the mountain until he found Draek.

  Hayden knew that Draek had seen and heard everything that Hayden had, but it didn’t stop him from recanting what had happened.

  “Its liquid fire Draek. They call it lava.” He said as he undid the straps to his armor.

  It looks like the same stuff the red dragons breathe. Draek explained. Hayden thought about what Draek said as he undid the straps.

  It did, and there was even a red dragon swimming in it. Hayden thought. He finished undoing all his armor and dug through the saddlebags to find the black and gold scales as wel
l as his shield.

  That would explain why fire seems not to bother them so much. Draek said, thinking back to when they had fought the dwarves with the Metallic Nation.

  Possibly. I know dragon fire is hot but if you swam in lava all the time, I don’t think it would feel that hot. Hayden thought. He found the few items he had been looking for and put them together in one of the larger saddlebags that he could detach from Draek and carry.

  “I will be back soon,” Hayden said aloud as he heaved the bundle of his armor onto his back. He had to walk hunched over under the weight, but he managed to get it back to the forges.

  He knew Draek hated being left behind, especially with nothing to do and nowhere to go, but soon enough they would be flying with the dwarves to Celestial City.

  Durgen saw the bungle Hayden had brought down, and he called out to two of the dwarves that were working on the nearest forge. The two dwarves stopped what they were doing and hustled over to Durgen, the platforms swinging and swaying back and forth with each thundering step the duo took. The movement seemed to not bother them.

  “Yes, King?” One of the dwarves said when they were near enough to talk. The dwarves had pulled their sleeves back to their elbows to allow their thick, hair covered arms a chance to cool off from the work they were doing. They had been working for a few minutes in the heat of the lava fed forges, but they hadn’t started to sweat.

  “See to Hayden’s armor,” Durgen said. He waved his hand to Hayden as a way to tell him to open the bag up and lay the armor out. Hayden knew his armor was a little dirty, but he was proud of it. It had served him well.

  He did as the King asked him to do and began pulling his armor out. He was sure that the dwarves would be eager to hold it and look it over to see if there was anything wrong with the armor, but that was not the reaction he got.

  Instead of them reaching out for his armor they pulled away as if what Hayden was pulling out of the bag was some dead creature that had been shoved in the bag a few weeks prior.

  One of the two dwarves even looked at their King and tried to secretly whisper to him, but Hayden saw him and interrupted.

  “What? What’s wrong with my armor?” Hayden asked. He quickly picked up his breastplate and looked it over. “This is the same armor I was just wearing,” Hayden said, still confused as to why they were so offended by his gear.

  “We thought that was just your riding armor. We assumed that you had kept your real gear hidden away.” Durgen said with a shrug of his thick shoulders. The two dwarves with him tried their best to mask their smiles and laughter, but Hayden wasn’t mad at them. He just didn’t understand what was wrong with his armor.

  “Worry not Hayden, my people will do their best to fix your armor.” Durgen smiled. “And we can sharpen your swords as well if you would like?” He asked.

  Hayden was about to complain when he pulled out his silver sword to show them that it was perfectly fine the way it was. His blade still had a little bit of blood on it, but the dwarf he had fought had left several dents and chips in the blade.

  For a split second, Hayden was worried that the dwarves were going to get mad at the sight of the blood of one of their own on his blade, but they were more upset at the condition of the sword.

  “What have you been doing? Chopping wood?” One of the two dwarves said as he reached out and took the sword from him.

  “More like he was trying to break stone with it.” The other dwarf said, looking over the blade. “You do know that a pick would work better?” He asked.

  “I wasn’t breaking stone. I have been fighting.” Hayden tried to defend himself.

  “We know, we are only picking fun at you,” Durgen said. Hayden stood up and watched as the dwarves easily picked up all his armor and carried it to the forge where they had been working. They dumped out the old lava and pumped in bright glowing, fresh lava and shoved both of Hayden’s swords, the copper one he had taken from outside of Aldreth Stronghold and his own silver blade, into the yellowish liquid.

  The two dwarves had stopped laughing and examining Hayden’s armor, they were back at work.

  “Will it look the same?” Hayden asked as he watched his glowing sword get pulled from the lava and the dwarf begin hammering on it.

  “Let’s go for a quick fly,” Durgen said. He placed his hand in the middle of Hayden’s back and guided him back to where Draek was waiting.

  ~

  Hayden was sitting in the saddle again, but this time they were back outside. Durgen had asked Hayden and Draek to wait for him outside the mountain, and that was exactly what they were doing.

  We need to be on our way soon. Draek complained. Hayden knew he was right, but he also knew that there was no way to speed up the process and they needed the dwarf clans to return so they could begin the march south.

  Soon. When Durgen gets out here, I will ask him how much longer this is going to take. Hayden said. He shifted in the saddle to get a little more comfortable before they heard the sound of a dragon walking through the rubble.

  A dark red, almost black dragon walked out of the opening. The dragon’s legs were short, and its stomach scraped against the hard-stone ground as it walked. There was rubble blocking its path, but instead of flying or climbing over it the red dragon just lowered its head and pushed it with its shoulders.

  The red dragon looked old, almost ancient and there were stone growths all over it. Hayden didn’t know if the stone was growing out of the red dragon or if the dragon had slammed into so much rock over the years that it had embedded into its scales.

  Hayden didn’t know how long dwarves and their dragons lived, but he guessed that Durgen and his dragon were old, very old.

  As the dragon neared, Hayden saw Durgen ridding on its back in between its wing joints. The dragon lurched and leaned with every step which caused the dwarf King to sway from side to side.

  “Durgen,” Hayden said when the King neared enough for Hayden to talk to him without shouting.

  “Hayden, Draek.” Durgen nodded. “This is Bjorn, my dragon,” Durgen said as he patted his weathered red dragon on the back. It even sounded like he was slapping stone,

  “Bjorn, it is nice to meet you,” Hayden said. People tended to forget that dragons were intelligent creatures because they could not hear them. That meant that they usually ignored them.

  Bjorn looked up at Hayden to acknowledge that he heard him. The red dragon’s scales were almost black in color as they reached his head, the color of soot. Bjorn’s eyes were the same color as the lava in the heart of the mountain had been and seemed to glow against his dark head. The horns that grew out on the back of his head were both broken and had cracks going to the base of his head.

  “What did you want to show us?” Hayden asked. He still loved dragons and was fascinated by them whenever he saw one. If they weren’t in such a hurry, he could have spent days looking at Bjorn.

  “I wanted to show you Bergelmir.” He said. Durgen shifted in his saddle as he spoke.

  “Durgen, we don’t have time to be flying around the Bergelmir Mountains. We need to be on our way to Celestial City, the war won’t wait for us.” Hayden complained.

  “Mountain.” Durgen corrected.

  “Mountain?” Hayden asked. He wanted to press the issue of their lack of time but Durgen didn’t seem worried. He doesn’t have friends counting on him. Hayden thought to himself, and Draek growled his reply.

  “Bergelmir is a mountain. Just one. This one.” Durgen pointed to the mountain they had been in.

  “I thought Bergelmir was the entire mountain range,” Hayden said, distracted by what Durgen was talking about.

  “When the Metallic Nation first came to our mountains, they asked what we called them. We told them that this mountain was called Bergelmir and that every mountain has a name. Every mountain is unique and deserves a name.”

  “They didn’t want to hear that and renamed all the mountains Bergelmir?” Hayden guessed. Durgen gave a short laugh.


  “You are right.” He said. Durgen shook his head and pulled at his beard as he spoke. The two dragons shifted slightly, and Hayden could tell they wanted to be off and flying, but he had one more question to ask first.

  “You said each mountain had a name, do you know them all?” Hayden asked.

  “We are taught the names of the mountains when we are young. It is something every dwarf child must know.” Durgen said. Hayden looked around at the mountains he could see, and he knew that it was only a small portion of the actual size of the mountain range. He guessed that there might have been more mountains then people that had lived is Erskine when he was a child.

  “Shall we be off, or do you want me to name them for you?” Durgen asked. Hayden thought he was joking but thought better of tempting him.

  We need to go. Draek reminded him. Hayden was getting nervous for the fight that was about to happen, but Draek was right, they needed to go.

  “Let’s go Durgen, show me Bergelmir,” Hayden said. Bjorn opened his massive red wings and slowly lumbered into the air. His wings looked like they were caked in red mud with growths and scars covering the membrane. There were even several holes in the wings that had not closed when they healed.

  Draek jumped into the air after Bjorn, and soon they were circling over the top of Bergelmir.

  Draek stayed behind the red dragon and followed where he led.

  What are we supposed to be looking at? Hayden asked as they flew overhead.

  Bjorn says that Bergelmir is the oldest dwarf structure, they are not even entirely sure how it was built or by which specific dwarf clan. Draek said. Hayden sat back in the saddle as the wind tugged at him slightly. He decided to relax and listen to what Draek was telling him.

  During the first crusade, the Metallic Nation attacked the dwarves here. Draek flew over the backside of the mountain where the old monolithic statues lay broken and partially shattered. It was where they had entered in from.