Bladeborn

by Clayton Schonberger

~~He was the greatest Dwarven warrior to have ever lived. As legends say, he had powers similar in some ways to yours~~

  The Dwarf was surprised when he found out that Bladeborn was familiar with many of the tales he told. Bladeborn was being coached by Nightslayer, and he had read some of the stories in books in Fortress City, as well as Queen Deocarla’s library. Rollbard the Dwarf began to open up more as the evening progressed.

  “Dwarves have little to do with the gods,” Rollbard said. “Ours are strong and usually silent. The Dwarven gods have seldom shown interest in the world of mortal affairs, even in ages past. Most Dwarves love the underground, some spending their entire lives in the Halls of the Dwarven King. Some Dwarves are miners, some are priests, and some grow food. Some are simple craftsmen.” Suddenly puffed up, Rollbard said, “I was a smith! I made armor, shields, and occasionally, weapons. As fer as weapons went, axes were a specialty of my family. See the old axe which the man with the crown carries? Pish! It is nothing more than scrap!”

  “So, Dwarf,” Bladeborn asked, “if you are a smith what are you doing out here?”

  “I…err…” The Dwarf stammered for a moment, then said, “Like I said, I came out here to strike it rich! Prospecting!”

  “So, which of the Dwarven gods do you follow?” Bladeborn asked.

  “The greatest one of them all, of course! Aden, they call him, though some call him ‘Lighter of the Darkness’ or ‘The Wayfinder.’ He once gave a rare gift to the Dwarven people, though it was lost to some thief long ago. ‘Without a map,’ Aden the Wayfinder said, ‘it would be easy to wander for years in the underworld, even for a Dwarf.’ So, Aden crafted the map pages. Each time you fold them they show you the best path through. Or so the legend goes!”

  Rollbard took another drink from the water skin Sera Ayaba had passed them. The Dwarf made a sour face.

  “You don’t have any stronger stuff, do you?” Rollbard asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Bladeborn shook his head and said, “No, sorry.”

  “Ahh! Demonbreath!!” the Dwarf cursed. Then he changed the subject. “You know…if the Realms could give the Dwarf King enough gold they could trade. The King really likes gold…gold is the stuff of dreams…through it alliances and legends are made—or broken.” The way the Dwarf spoke of gold was repellent to Bladeborn.

  “Gold was once plentiful in the Six Realms,” Bladeborn said, “but now it can only be found in small amounts. You Dwarves got it all long ago, when trading between the Valleys and the Dwarves was common.”

  “I’ll tell you one thing, there, Bladeborn…” the Dwarf said, cocking his eye at him. “I’ll never go into the Pyramid City…I can wait for you on the outside, and then only if the King’s crown is promised to me at the end. But I won’t go in. Not even close!”

  “The King’s crown?” Bladeborn asked. “For what?”

  “I take ye there for the first price. But not for getting back. You give me the crown for getting you back. Otherwise, find your own way.” The Dwarf rolled over, and said, “Now…Let me sleep.”

  Bladeborn could only hope for the best when they came to the Pyramid.

  They travelled one more day and the Dwarven mountaineer Rollbard called out to Bladeborn over the howling winds, “We’re close now…very close!”

  Without letting anyone know his concern, Bladeborn began to wonder if they would ever make it to the Pyramid City. Nightslayer was Bladeborn’s only comfort at this time.

  ~~Keep your spirits up, Bladeborn! The men, even King Rosen and Sera Ayaba, are faltering! You must not slow your pace now!~~

  They were still in a land of high volcanic activity. They traveled on a thin path running next to a cliff side, and one of the men nearly fell to his death into a stream of lava. The Dwarf hardly paid the close call any notice, instead shouting, “These Mountains can be very dangerous! By the gods! I am not getting paid enough!”

  King Rosen said a few words to the man, “Your soul isn’t ready to face the Judge of the Dead yet!”

  The man nodded. They pushed on, with Rollbard maintaining a brisk pace.

  They came over a rise, and there it was. An enormous light-blue Pyramid, an ancient home of the Elves, lodged at an obtuse angle between two smoking volcanoes, live lava flowing down the city's sides in glowing red cascades. The Pyramid City should have been covered with ash and rock, but its surface looked silvery and smooth. Enormous magical runes covered the sides of the Pyramid. The corners were smashed away, revealing floors and an interior superstructure.

  It was smaller than the Fortress City of the Humans, but the Pyramid City was still gargantuan size, gleaming and beautiful on the outside even in a devastated state, half- buried in lava. Bladeborn could scarcely believe it had once flown, but how else had it gotten there?

  “Farewell Bladeborn! I’ll meet you on yonder ridge, if ye still be standing when you come out,” the Dwarf yelled. “Bring the crown!”

  “I hope we will bring something better!” Bladeborn yelled back.

  They used a rope to negotiate some of the most dangerous cliffs nearing the enormous city. They were almost to the Pyramid’s shattered corner, going hand over hand, hanging above a rushing river of lava.

  ~~Look out, Bladeborn!~~ Nightslayer warned.

  Bladeborn saw two fiery figures flying out of the crack in the city toward him. One of them came straight for him. He used his most powerful psychic attack, but there was resistance. He jumped to a tiny ledge and struck with his sword, just as two flaming arm-like appendages swung at him. His sword cut through air, and he nearly lost his balance. He ducked the fiery arms.

  Then he remembered reading about this type of fire-demon. At their heart was said to be a crystal that housed their spirit. His next cut was aimed at the very center of the creature.

  His sword passed through it again. But the fiery demon engulfed Bladeborn’s left side in flames. Bladeborn cried out in pain. Searing, burning heat! He made several quick cuts with Nightslayer and his sword hit something solid, the crystal! That blow knocked the crystal completely out of the center of the demon’s form. The creature temporarily dissipated, and the crystal landed on a ledge on the opposite side of the lava river. The demon started to reform around it.

  “Nightslayer! Lightning bolt now!” The Sword’s charged emanation hit the crystal and turned it to powder. The demon was destroyed!

  Bladeborn collapsed on the tiny rock shelf. He barely maintained consciousness long enough to begin healing himself with magical Essence, reducing the immediate pain. Nightslayer was undamaged, but the scabbard was partially scorched. Bladeborn’s armor had saved him, even if it had been heated to searing temperature.

  Bladeborn’s thoughts turned to his comrades. Could they have survived the attack of the other demon? The pain, the fear he had experienced only moments ago! But there was no time to think of that. He had to try to save the others.

  When Bladeborn got to the top of the cliff he realized he was too late. There were dark ashy spots and bits of melted armor where six of the men had been. And all that was left of Sera Ayaba were the gauntlets, now severely bent, surrounded by some white powder. Sera must have crushed the heart of the demon as he died. Yet one had survived. King Rosen was lying behind his scorched shield and his cloak by a rocky outcropping, burned and unconscious, but still alive. Bladeborn rushed to his side and began to heal him.

  “Bladeborn, you live!” King Rosen said, briefly regaining consciousness. “Arrgh I… There will be no saving me! My cloak protected me from the fire beasts…but not long enough, it seems. Sera Ayaba… Does he yet live?”

  “No, my King,” Bladeborn said sadly. “He gave his life defending you. Do not give up hope, I will try to heal you. Lie still, rest.”

  King Rosen passed out again while Bladeborn’s best healing worked on him. Long hours went by and the sun set. The King awoke again with a start, and spoke through his pain, “Bladeborn… you must go into the Pyramid alone and become its master! The city flies, Bladeborn,
and we can escape inside it! It is the great secret! All the people of Six Valleys would easily fit within it.”

  “How can I make it fly, King Rosen?” Bladeborn asked.

  “Find the Five Wards,” the King said. “Legend holds that they control the pyramid…We will go to a place where the Rhinolon and their devils won’t find us! We will be safe Bladeborn!”

  “Rest now, King Rosen,” Bladeborn said. “We will do this tomorrow, together, after you are better.”

  “No, Bladeborn! Go now into the city! We will not survive another day here! You must swear to me you will carry on! Even if it means my death!”

  After a great pause, Bladeborn said, “I will, my King…”

  “Go now, before other demons come!” The King rested. Bladeborn propped him up on the shield, gave him the last of his water. He also gave him his dagger, for all the other weapons the men had carried had been melted by the heat of the second fire demon’s assaults. There was little more he could do, so Bladeborn began climbing up to where it looked like the Pyramid City could be entered.

  Inside the city, Bladeborn could not help but be amazed at the beauty of the place where he was wandering. Every inch was covered in ornate detail. Carved on each surface were such things as cavorting Elves, mythical beasts, soothing patterns, and obscure hieroglyphs. Everything was made from what Nightslayer called “gemlite,” a hard, blue, creamy substance that faintly glowed like a glow-globe. All the carved walls had the same faint luminescence as did the carved patterns on the city’s floors.

  Bladeborn found ancient Elvin bones everywhere, as if the inhabitants had died simultaneously when the city crashed into the side of the volcano. Yet there was no sign of the possessions of the city’s inhabitants.

  The Pyramid could have been like Fortress City at one time, but now it was devoid of life.

  Bladeborn walked where the ceiling and a wall met, climbing over doorjambs. He came to plazas that were of dizzying dimensions. Bladeborn hoped to find what King Rosen had told him about—the “Five Wards”—but it looked as though they could have been anywhere. His best guess was that they would be at the top of the city. Slowly climbing upwards within the pyramid Bladeborn continued to be filled with wonder and awe at the place.

  Bladeborn had been climbing for hours, seeing nothing of value, no weapons, no jewelry, nothing but broken furniture, tattered cloth, and bones. It looked as though, at some point following King Rosen’s earlier visit, someone had come through the pyramid city and swept it clean of its treasures.

  He finally felt he was nearing a central nexus. Most of the doors he had come to thus far had been smashed down with great force.

  “What smashed these doors, Nightslayer?” Bladeborn asked the Sword.

  ~~I do not know. But be cautious here, Swordsman~~

  Finally, he was sure he had reached the doorway to the pinnacle. There were several inches of space between the doors, only enough to see the columns of a room with blue and red light. It appeared the doors were wedged that way, and Bladeborn knew if he tried to open them it would make a loud scraping sound.

  ~~There are riches beyond compare past this doorway. There is also great danger on the other side of it~~

  “What kind of danger, Nightslayer?” Bladeborn inquired.

  ~~A blood dragon… It must have taken the city’s treasures for itself~~

  Bladeborn knew that a dragon could be one of the deadliest beasts in existence. Long ago, he read that blood dragons could breathe white-hot fire. Yet Bladeborn was not afraid. He chuckled softly, and Nightslayer laughed with him. Bladeborn knew he had to fight it; and he even felt self-assured about his chances.

  ~~Do not be over-confident, Bladeborn! This dragon will tax your power to its limit. Use your Essence to maximum affect! Transition your shape into something the dragon will at first pay no heed to~~

  “What do you mean, Nightslayer?”

  ~~You will find yet another gift of the gods at your disposal now, Bladeborn. You know that you can grow large. Now grow small… The size of a hawk~~

  “How can I do that?” Bladeborn asked. “I have never been able to such a thing before, Nightslayer. And I doubt that—”

  ~~Try to do it. The gifts the gods gave to you are beyond marvelous. It will not be easy…you will only be able to fly for a moment. However, you must try~~

  Bladeborn fought with his Essence-energy. He simply didn’t have the Essence to do it. He could not begin to understand how to do it.

  Then he thought of a way. It was a mental state opposed to the one he had used to become larger. The new form of mental control emerged… He changed into something so small he could slip its feathered body through the crack under the command center doors.

  The massive, coiled dragon had been asleep, but when Bladeborn fluttered and flew near, it quickly blinked its eyes open with startling alertness. Bladeborn thought that the dragon smelled him, yet the beast was a bit too late to prevent Bladeborn’s first attack.

  The moment he transitioned back into a human, he plunged Nightslayer’s entire sharp length through the iron-like scales of the creature between its ribs! The dragon howled, head rearing back, flames shooting from its nostrils!

  “I am mighty SPE, human warrior!” the dragon shouted in a kind of ancient tongue Bladeborn only partially understood. “I am Master of the White-Hot Flame! I shall ROAST you alive!”

  While speaking, and even with Nightslayer still deep between its ribs, the dragon arose fully on its hind legs and coiled about with its tail. The coins that the dragon had been nesting on were scattered everywhere. Then it lifted right off the ground magically. Bladeborn dodged just as the blood dragon pounced.

  The dragon took to the air of the high-ceiling room, and as it did so Nightslayer ripped free of the blood dragon’s back, and it screamed in pain. Yet before Bladeborn could find another opening for his Sword he was forced to leap away. He rolled to a spot clear of the beast’s front left claw and teeth.

  As he dodged behind one of the room’s pillars, Bladeborn saw that the wounded beast clutched in its front right claw a small sack. Bladeborn would make sure to examine the contents of it…if he survived.

  “You cannot hide from me!” the dragon yelled, breathing gouts of fire about the room. In moments, Bladeborn was caught in the heat of one, and he would certainly have been burnt to a crisp…but he managed to shift his dimensions at the last second, the same trick he had used to defeat Durg the Despicable the previous year.

  The dragon seemed to have been fooled, “Come to steal the treasure of Spe, did you?! So, now? Where now are your smoking remains?”

  Bladeborn came out of the dimension shift and reappeared behind the dragon, again burying Nightslayer solidly into the creature’s ribs. This time, when Bladeborn removed the weapon from the dragon, a bit of its innards had torn free of the wound.

  Reflexively, the dragon calling itself Spe kicked at Bladeborn, grazing him. But even bring grazed by such a dangerous foe was enough to spin Bladeborn around and emboss deep claw-marks in the steel breastplate he wore. Bladeborn continued rolling back until he hit a wall.

  “Now you are mine!” the dragon said as it closed in on Bladeborn and prepared to exhale its hottest fiery breath yet.

  Bladeborn was dazed, and bloody gashes lay deep in his chest. Nightslayer shouted in Bladeborn’s mind, ~~POINT ME AT THE BEAST, SWORDSMAN!~~ Bladeborn, still dazed, extended his arm to do so.

  A massive stroke of lightning discharged at the mighty dragon’s head, shattering the boney ridges on one side. It recoiled in agony.

  “How could this be? Arrgh, my luxurious horns!” Spe cried out.

  Bladeborn arose, barely able to hold his feet, and again the dragon prepared to directly breathe fire on him. Desperate, Bladeborn reached into the “room that was not a room,” calling on the only thing that could save him—divine fate. He didn’t know if it could work…but he knew he was dead if it didn’t.

  As though it was spilled from an enormous bucke
t, freezing cold water dumped from above onto Bladeborn and the Master of the White-Hot Flame, showering them and dousing the Dragon’s fire.

  The dragon bellowed, “NOOO! NOT ICE WATER!”

  Steam hissed and filled the room as the dragon tried to re-ignite its magical breaths. Spe gasped and choked and Bladeborn was brought back to his senses. The Swordsman could see that the creature was charging him—its huge maw opening wide to swallow him whole.

  But Bladeborn still was quick enough to dodge to one side, and the mighty dragon Spe hit the wall of the chamber with incredible force. The ancient magical stone wall was partially broken through to the outside by the force of the serpent’s coiled strike—that failed utterly to connect.

  Then, Bladeborn thought he saw the dragon do something amazing. It—shrank—reducing its size in the way he did before the fight began. Through all the steam and smoke in the room, Bladeborn completely lost sight of the dragon’s flying form. For a moment, it seemed that the wounded beast would escape.

  But Bladeborn did see the sack—the same one, he believed, that the dragon had been clutching in its right claw moments ago. The sack had not gotten smaller along with the dragon! The sack was somehow being “carried” and was nearing the exit at the top of the room, as though the dragon was taking it away!

  So, he made a last-ditch Essence-based mental strike on the area where the sack was. The pure Essence instantly made the Master of the White–Hot Flame lapse into sleep.

  Dead weight now, the dragon lost the ability to shrink and fly at the same time. The magical reptile grew again to full size in a half second and the massive weight of its body slammed into the floor of the chamber.

  Bladeborn stood and wavered, exhausted from the fight. He was in awe of the splayed-out form of the giant, enchanted, and helpless serpent.

  ~~Kill it quickly, before it awakens!~~ Nightslayer demanded.

  “I will not kill this creature now,” Bladeborn decided. “It is defenseless. I can’t slaughter such a noble beast when it is defenseless.”