I screamed. I screamed again. And again. Still they took no notice of me. I writhed on the cold stone slab, hoping to dislodge at least one binding from my numbed limbs. The knot of woven metal rope around my right ankle slipped off, sloughing my skin with it, and this time I screamed in agony as well as fright. My leg spasmed with pain and the flailing limb caught one of the slender braziers surrounding me. The resultant crash as metal connected with the heavy flagstones of the temple floor finally brought some attention my way.
The hubbub of conversation echoing through the vast chamber halted and one of my captors, the one I recognized as their leader, made his way over to the low table they had trussed me on. The dignitary stepped over the hot coals and burning weeds spilled on the ancient stone, and as he reached me, I realized that whilst the table may have been low for men such as my father, it was the perfect height for these untermen who held me prisoner.
The unterman leaned in over me, the accompanying smell of stale sweat and liquor strong enough to overwhelm the sulphurous emissions emanating from the lake of lava occupying one corner of the cavern.
“There now, best you don’t struggle.” He gazed at the raw patch on my leg, “You’ll only make the suffering worse for yourself. Believe me child if there was any other way…”
“Let me go you…you pig! Filthy pig!” I tried my best to spit as I screeched but only managed to gob in my own eye, “If you knew who my father was you’d let me go, in fact you’d better let me go now before he finds out!”
The middle aged unterman sighed and ran a hand through the unkempt mane of greying hair.
“I know who your father is dear,” he paused to wipe the spittle from my face in an unexpected display of tenderness, “that’s why it has to be this way. The head forgepriester says it must be personal, real personal like. As personal as what your Da did to me.”
“Wha…?” Confusion overrode my pain and fear.
“Your father killed my firstborn, who came to him under a banner of peace, put him on a cross to die slow whilst your peasants pelted him with their foulness.”
“No…No father isn’t like that. He would never kill a man who came to speak under truce.” I denied this tunnel dweller’s lies.
“Ha! Reckon you don’t know your Da as well as you think,” he snorted, “I reckon you don’t know him at all child.”
“I’m not a child! I’m almost marriageable age, and I know my father better than a…smelly dwarf like you! He’s just and honourable.”
The unterman’s body racked with a series of coughs, which I belatedly realised was laughter, a moment later his solemnity returned.
“You need to watch those racial slurs child, most of my kind would have taken your head before you’d finished the first syllable,” He shook his head, “as for the matter of him being just and honourable, would such a man have turned down an offer to trade your life for peace?”
“You lie!” Rage coursed through me and I tried to grab for the deceitful unterman’s voluminous beard, but my bindings held fast this time.
“Sadly not child. Sadly not,” He danced away from the kick I aimed with my free leg, with a grace belying his stout stature, “which leaves only this…this accursed option to save my kin.”
“You wait till he comes for me. You wait till he finds us here!” I clung to my blind faith in my father, ignoring the nibble of doubt my captor had introduced.
“He’s already here child, his armies are massed at the head of the valley,” he held a hand to forestall my shout of glee, “afore you get your hopes up, like I said I already tried to trade you for a peaceful end to this war. He wasn’t having none of it, butchered my own daughter in front of me as his response.”
“No, he wouldn’t__” I was cut off by a howl from the unterman.
“Don’t tell me what I did or didn’t see! Do you think I can’t recognise the fruit of my own loins? I sent her away in a caravan the day before last, hoping she at least would survive the coming hell. More fool I.”
A tear rolled from one of his white eyes, a display of emotion my own father would never have made.
“He’ll come for me, of course he will,” a wave of tiredness and pain washed over me as I spoke, robbing my words of conviction, “he won’t negotiate with barbarian aggressors that’s all.”
Wiping aside the tear the unterman puffed out his craggy cheeks, “Barbarian? Aggressor? Nae child, neither.” He stared me in the eye for a long moment as if he was weighing up the effort required to re-educate me, “My clan mined the metals here and wrote paeans to the Lord of the Forge whilst your forebears were making axes from deer antlers. We lived in peace for aeons, our only enemies the twisted things that live in the depths, then your father rose to power.”
“Father says you hoard knowledge and gifts that should be available to all. That you steal our children and sacrifice them to your lava god.” I had listened dutifully to my father as he addressed the assembly of barons before the crusade began.
The unterman jerked back as if stung, “No. No child has ever been sacrificed to the Lord of Forge. Not until now…your father has used us to unite your warring tribes and now must fulfil the greed and jealously he has unleashed.”
“We don’t need money, we’re already rich.” I sniffed at this barbarian’s ignorance.
“Hah! The avarice isn’t for the shiny lumps of metal in this mountain, no child this is what your father and his puppets desire.” The unterman bent and grasped at something on the floor giving a little grunt as he expended effort to free something.
Straightening again he held a glittering flower between the thumb and forefinger of one hand, with a bead of blood pooling on the tip of the thumb.
As I peered at the strange blossom with its tear shaped petals, they seemed to catch the light from the lava lake reflecting a colour that seemed at one instant to be gold then the next silver. The stem was covered in barbs like the heads of arrows and glistened with an oily sheen.
“Our histories say they were created by the first Smith with his High Forgepriester under the word of the Lord of the Forge. The Forge Bloom we call it, a flower made of living metal,” he placed the bloom on my chest near to my chin, “the scent has its own properties, but we smelt the bloom down to an elixir, which has…regenerative properties. We call the tincture the Blood of Eternity.”
Without trying I inhaled the heady fragrance of the bloom, a rich mix of rose and water blossom, underpinned with what I swore was the delightful aroma of the first batch of morning bread baking in the Citadel kitchen. Immediately I felt calm descend upon me, my racing heart slowed, and the fiery ache in my leg disappeared.
“I still don’t understand though, why would my father reject a trade for my life? I’m his legacy.” I was no longer afraid, but felt an insatiable curiosity grip me.
The unterman’s lips curled upwards in what might have been a smile, or a trick of the light.
“Who needs to leave a legacy, when you think you can live forever?”
“Live forever?”
“Dear, how do you think we…dwarves as you call us, live so long?”
“You do is all, everyone knows that.” Everyone was also jealous of that lifespan, even I realised that might have been a spur for the war.
“Were it only that simple dear, were it only that simple.” Drained resignation had the unterman shaking his head, “No, we partake of the Blood of Eternity, and that allows us to postpone the final twilight for years, centuries even.”
With my head clear the pieces of the puzzle were easier to arrange in my head, “My father knows about the elixir,” The tunnel dweller nodded as I spoke, “he wants to live forever, he thinks he can be like you.”
The unterman nodded and opened his mouth to impart something further, but logic drew me on, and I forestalled him with an observation of my own, “You are old though. You look old, and there others here who look ready for an afternoon nap in front of the fire and nothing more, like Great Uncle Jali.”
“Ha! You are sharp one indeed, aren’t you?” This time I was sure of the smile on his face, though it faded, replaced by a deep melancholy in the eyes, “Well they say the seam that follows often glitters brighter than the one that drew your eye in the first place.”
He glanced at the row of golden statues adorning one wall of the chamber, before turning back to me, “The Blood of Eternity gifts us many additional years, but even that cannot stop the Lord of the Forge calling us back to the Great Anvil. The only way for one of my race to live on is to be judged worthy enough for the Wall of Smiths.”
“My father believes it will though. That’s why he says you are hoarding knowledge.”
“Though we told him the truth when he first demanded we hand over the Blood of Eternity, your father spat on our honour, calling us liars and demonspawn,” the white eyes closed at the remembrance of the slight, “we offered to share what we could with him, though we produce barely enough of the tincture for own kind.”
“That wasn’t enough for him, otherwise…” I stammered as I felt my sense of serenity start to slip, the scent of the bloom wearing off, “Why don’t you offer him some of the flowers, let us grow our own?”
“It would be no use child, the Bloom only flourishes here in this cavern, supported by the light of the forge lake and water drawn from the Lord’s Tears.” My blank expression drew further elucidation, “The great river that flows from deep within the sacred mountain.”
“The flower withers away whenever we have tried__” The unterman was cut off as another of his number, even older with a great flowing grey beard and dressed in robes of glittering gold, called to him in a guttural language.
My captor gave a tired wave of dismal before replying in the Unterman mining tongue, a dialect my tutors had forced me to master, much to my chagrin at the time.
“Why do you insist on speaking to me in high speech? You know I have trouble following the old tongue, and so does everyone else living in this pile of rocks.”
The interloper looked taken aback for a moment, before regaining his poise as he made his way to us, “As High Forgepriester it is my duty to salvage our sacred traditions, as indeed my Lord Bergab it should be yours as the chosen Smith of the Forge.”
“As if following the written word of our predecessors from aeons ago, has helped us at any point in the intervening years Sylvain.” Bitterness seeped from the unterman I took to be named Bergab.
“It may yet save us my Lord Smith.” The clipped tone and steely gaze brooked no dissent.
“You are sure there is no other way? No alternative at all?” Bergab’s shoulders slumped and he seemed to shrink in on himself, his voice trailing off.
The forgepriester hesitated, only for a second, Bergab in his misery missed it, but not I.
“No. None. It must be this way. Harnessing the elemental forces, and I mean all of the forces, in this manner is the only way to ensure the blessing of the Lord of the Forge.”
Bergab raised his head and stared at the emotionless façade of the forgepriester, “Two wrongs, a right does not make Sylvain.”
The High Forgepriester gripped the Smith’s shoulder with a firm hand, “You are a good soul my lord, but the devastation that awaits us and the privations that have already been visited upon us force our hand.” Pausing to gauge the reaction to his words, he looked his doubtful compatriot in the eyes, “The souls of our people outweigh the soul of the Smith, the soul of the High Forgepriester, and indeed, even that of an innocent.”
My heart began to race again as the implication of that exchange filtered through the reawakened blaze in my leg.
“Then let us get this…deed…over with Sylvain.” Bergab straightened up and pushed his shoulders back, as if he had shrugged off a heavy weight.
I began to struggle against my restraints again, desperate now, wailing with despair as my efforts brought naught but more raw skin.
Bergab regarded my efforts for a few precious moments, before reaching for the bloom that I had dislodged from my chest. He crushed it in his fist and dropped it back where he had laid it previously.
I sucked in the scent as if nothing else mattered in the world, noting as calm returned there was now a coppery undertone from the toll it had exacted on the unterman’s bare palm.
He nodded to me and switched back to the traders’ speech he had addressed me in earlier, “It will help some child, something at least, for you anyway.”
A large metal bucket descended via an arcane pulley system from the ceiling above my stone bed, from the charring on the outside of the ornate container it looked as if was often in contact with something hot, extremely hot.
As the rest of the untermen formed a circle around my prone self, most wearing the robes of forgepriesters, my eyes idly tracked the rail system on the roof which presumably would draw the bucket back to the lava pit.
Oh gods, they mean to cook me alive! The panicked thought broke through, but then was lost in, the envelope of unbreachable calm ruling me.
A rhythmic chanting was taken up by the majority of robe wearing untermen, interrupted by choking noises from those evidently unused to the stench of smouldering weeds.
The one called Sylvain began a separate chant as he was passed a lump of metallic looking rock, there was something odd about the way it gleamed in the lava light. The forgepriester’s voice rallied to a crescendo as he placed the rock in the bucket.
“The Gift of the Air, the last of the skyrock ore, offered to the Lord of the Forge.” I heard Bergab mutter to himself in the mining tongue.
The High Forgepriester was passed a tall brass pitcher and took up his guttural chanting again, when he was finished, he upended the graceful neck and poured the liquid contents into the bucket.
“The Gift of Water as we return the Tears of Lord of the Forge.” I realised that Bergab’s repetition was his way of translating, doing so aloud in such a way that would have brought a smart rap on the knuckles from my own tutors.
Sylvain took up his chanting again as he lowered a large wreath made from forge blooms into the waiting cauldron.
Cauldron? No, NO! My mind fought to impart something important, but I couldn’t quite grasp the dangled thread.
“The Gift of the Earth, made by the Forge Blooms themselves.” Bergab shook his head at this part, and I heard him mutter, “As if they have a mind of their own.”
The High Forgepriester pivoted to glare at the Smith of the Forge before resuming his chanting.
“The final element is the Gift of Fire; the Lord will provide it himself when we lower the offerings into his lake. We must now provide the last of our own…submissions. Oh.” He turned to look at me and clasped my hand between his own, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Forgive us child. Forgive me.”
The rhythmic chanting resumed, and Sylvain moved towards me, drawing a wicked looking blade from his belt as he closed the distance. The dagger was a long as my arm with a curved and wicked looking point; gleaming with the same alien quality as the skyrock, almost as if it were sucking in light rather than reflecting it.
“The Gift of Spirit, the blood of the enemy, the progeny of the defiler.” I heard the translation, but my gaze was transfixed by the motion of the blade as it rose.
“Please father now would be a good time. Father please! Please! Where are you? Father!” I heard my own scream.
The knife flashed down.
I felt the impact in my chest, I felt something crack inside, but there was no pain.
Sylvain began to saw with the blade and I spasmed on the plinth.
“Forgive me child, forgive me.” I heard a familiar voice sob.
Father you didn’t come. Abandoned by my own father, High King of all men. Abandoned!
Darkness crept into the edges of my vision, yet I was aware as Sylvain pushed a hand into my chest and yanked hard, he staggered as something came free. Blood pumped from the object in his hand, my heart. There was a wet noise as he dropped it into the cauldron.
The darkness overwhelmed my sight as someone spoke the last thing I ever heard, “The heart of the defiler, the curse of blood.”
Nothingness.
Silence.
Abandoned!
#
“Well that’s quite a violent beginning, and despite you earlier pronouncement, I can’t imagine that this sort of thing will change perceptions, neither in here nor out in the wider world.” The sharp faced elf closed his emerald eyes, presumably rifling through the testimony he’d heard to determine where to place his next thrust, “You are implying then that the child was you, and that somehow we should be feeling sorry for you?”
The man named Raith, used his handkerchief to mop his brow, the lights and the enormity of the occasion having left him with significant nervous perspiration. He waited a few seconds as he prepared his reply, speaking when he was ready in the calmest voice he could manage.
“No not me. It. I’m the mouthpiece, that’s all, as I explained to you earlier. I don’t think we…or it, if you get what I mean, are looking for sympathy. Empathy maybe, but mainly a chance to be judged against the real record.”
“Empathy? Given the events we are considering here, given the situation we are witnessing, that will be a tall ask.” The interrogator folded his hands, fingertip to fingertip, and drilled into Raith’s soul with his unflinching gaze, “Given the alleged crimes, an even taller ask.”
“It knows some of its past is black, all we desire is a fair hearing, so a fair judgment can be made by those that count.” Raith smiled, his laid-back version, usually employed when a mark was dithering, something to get them over the line.
The elf unfurled a smile of his own, razor thin, and followed up with his whip like voice, “Yes we’ve seen that you’ve been peddling this charade all over the land, over all the lands, recently. I think you’ll find the examination this time much more…exacting.”
Raith felt the beads of sweat break out on his brow again, and as he turned to the rows of his peers sat opposite, waiting to give their judgement, his smile faltered.
“Should I go on?” He managed to choke out.
“Yes, please do, let’s see if this nonsense has any legs, shall we?” The elf leaned back in his chair and waited.
How in the name of the Lord of the Forge did I get mixed up in all this? Raith thought to himself, not for the first time that day, or in fact, many days.
[You know how,] spoke the presence in his head, [now then, where was I?]
#
Darkness. Peace. The urge to move somewhere, somewhere else, to move on. A flicker of something. A falling sensation, downward.
Fleeting sounds. The scorch of steam blasting. Hammering. Then speech.
“A sword? Of all the blasted things, why a sword?” The voice was known, “Why not a hammer or on axe? Good honest tools, something to help rebuild later.”
Swords. I’d always liked swords, longed to feel the heft of a balanced blade in my hand, not that it was likely father would ever let that happen. Father. Abandoned. Betrayer!
“We cannot hope to rebuild until the defilers have been vanquished…” Another known voice, one to despise, one to fear, “…until they’ve been put to sword as it were. Or, do you doubt the message the Lord of the Forge has imparted with this boon?”
“It’s not the Lord of the Forge that I doubt Sylvain. Long have I blocked your desire to rebirth the ancient ways,” the first voice again, the one called Bergab, “now in my hour of need I’ve unlocked the door and put out the welcome mat for your ambition.”
Sylvain? No! I must flee!
I tried to jerk my numb limbs into life, but I couldn’t feel them, I couldn’t feel anything. I screamed, or at least I tried, but no sound breached my lips.
Eyes! Open your eyes!
Nothing. Nothing but darkness, wrapping me tight in a stifling cocoon.
“You must not fear the old ways my Lord Smith, with them we will make the Untermen great again!” Sylvain’s voice had taken on a manic edge.
See! You must see!
In a panic I pushed hard at the elusive cocoon surrounding me.
“Right now, I’d settle for saving us Sylvain, nothing more than…blazing embers! The thing twitched in my hand.”
“The Spirit lives, as the scriptures foretold, let me hold it for a moment my Lord.”
A whisper, barely audible, in the guttural language I’d heard as Sylvain plunged his blade into my chest.
Father, where were you?
As the muttering ended my world exploded with light, a kaleidoscope of colours, all hues imaginable. I screamed.
[Help me!]
“Gah!” Bergab chosen Smith of the Forge echoed my own torment, “What? You didn’t hear it? It screamed loud enough for the army of men to hear outside.”
“No, my Lord Bergab, the bond is between the two of you alone, none but you can communicate with the entrapped spirit.”
The barrage of illumination that overwhelmed my senses dimmed, and I was able to make out distinct shapes and the contours of the room surrounding me. I was still in that pit of darkness, the cavern. I tried to blink, becoming alarmed at that latest oddity when I failed.
More detail emerged, colourful blobs some bright blue and others an unusual shade somewhere between pink and yellow.
The blue blobs carpeted the floor of the cavern, and indeed I mistook them at first for a rug, pulsing gently.
The Forge Blooms?
The pinkish blobs were more animated with many bustling around the margins of the chamber, they too pulsed rhythmically. As my sense sharpened, I became aware of two more immediate presences, pink blobs again.
I realised I appeared to be resting on the lap of one, the outline of which was reminiscent of the unterman named Bergab, sat opposite him was another similar outline. I tried to move my arms and legs, and to turn my head, but all to no avail.
The second outline spoke with Sylvain’s voice, “Has the sword spoken again?”
Sword? Oh no!
[You villains have trapped me in a sword?] The outburst came from deep within me, followed by another, [How? Please release me, I want to go home!].
“Yes, it says we have cursed it to live forever in a perverted form using the foulest of dark magics. It wants to go home.”
“I prefer enchanted to cursed, the spirit is fused with the metal now, never to be released.” Sylvain began to laugh, a horrible guttural chuckle, “As for going home, well the child will get a reunion soon enough I fear.”
As the High Forgepriester blob spoke I noticed that the rhythmical pulsing appeared to start from the chest, around the heart, and push outward. As I focused on Sylvain, a black spot, a stain of corruption became evident within his breast. With each pulse the pollution seemed to push further outward to the rest of the body.
I noticed no such stain within Bergab, nor within the other animated blobs roaming the cave on some errand other, however the same blackness was beginning to spread within the blue tones of the Forge Bloom.
“Ah yes, there’s the rub of it. To the butcher’s work now. The last runner said they were right at the walls.” The Smith’s voice was flat.
“You aren’t exactly displaying the rabble-rousing enthusiasm which can help your people turn the tide of this war. Don’t you want revenge on the defilers, the maniac who killed both your firstborn and your daughter?” The sneer from the High Forgepriester contained more than a hint of that foul corruption.
“It’s salvation that I pray for priester, not an empty and self-defeating dream. Revenge won’t bring my children back; all I want is to spare the rest of my kin from similar fates.”
I could feel the sad earnestness flowing out of Bergab and folding around my soul, wherever that was now.
“Well whatever the motivation Lord Smith, you and the sword both will need some added spark, to ensure we vanquish the army of the lower race at our gate.” Sylvain drew something pitcher shaped from behind his back and filled a tankard, “Here drink this, it will fortify you and provide you with added…impetus.”
Bergab paused before shrugging his shoulders and quaffing the contents, within seconds he was coughing and spluttering. His colour flashed to bright red, before settling back into the previous pink, this time shot through with threads of angry black.
“What…poison. What…have you done?” He struggled to get the accusation out.
“Not poison my Lord, the runoff from our earlier preparation, mostly the blood of the child.”
“Why?” Bergab’s ire began to rise, I could feel it coming off the unterman in waves.
“It will entwine your soul with that of the child’s, unlock your inner rage, and that of the child too.”
“Gah!” the promised fury was bubbling over in the Smith, I could feel it, grasp it almost.
“Yes my Lord that’s it, feel the pain, watch again as the crows pick at the eyes of your first born,” anger surged through Bergab as Sylvain spoke and through him into me, “see the rats eating the entrails of your daughter as the Defiler laughs, this so called High King.”
“I will eat his own entrails!” Bergab’s screamed echoed through the cavern, and my own echoed through the unterman’s skull.
[Father! Abandoner! Defiler! I will kill you!]
#
Dawn rose over the Hammers, the twin mountains that guarded the entrance to the valley, and twin columns of smoke drifted upward through the rose hued light marking the position where the outer guard forts had been. I felt the paired fires of my and the Smith’s soul burn even hotter at the sight.
Since the unterman had downed the dark draught the High Forgepriester had prepared I found that I could see through his eyes, and from the position he had taken atop the ancient crenellations together we looked down upon a sea of animated humanity.
Overlaying the Smith vision were my own…senses, the vast horde below was wreathed in shades of pink and red and I could even…feel…the men dwelling within the armoured siege machines resting beyond the range of the untermen’s mechanised throwers.
The whole of the High King’s army stood on the cusp of the rock and shot flingers reach, and judging by the number of crushed bodies strewn in front of the shield line my father had been as ruthless as ever in determining the effective range.
Far beyond the massed ranks of the shield bearers, deep behind the platoons of archers, and surrounded by the mobile light cavalry, sat my father amongst his own heavy cavalry unit alongside my eldest brother. I knew from the briefings my father had given that he hoped the sheer weight of numbers would help him overwhelm the defenders of the ancient citadel.
Betrayer! I will kill him! Fury rippled through me and I felt Bergab shake on the spot as he cried out as well.
“Defiler, I will smite thee!”
I had expected the Smith to give a rousing speech to raise the morale of the unterman massed behind him, the ravaged remains of a once proud army. Instead he gave a great roar and thrust me skyward. I felt the corruption pulse in him and a surge of some powerful wyrd enveloped me and I screamed too.
[Die Father!]
I felt some part of me fly upward and reach into the sky.
There was a blinding flash of light.
CRACK!
A fork of lightning streaked down from the heavens blasting apart one of the waiting siege towers, a couple of the huge timbers from the frame spun away along with other debris into the crowded field of soldiers. The screams of the dead and dying rose from the smouldering battlefield, quickly overwhelmed by murmurs of panic.
Shouts of encouragement and orders to hold fast rang out from the human officers. I saw my father gesturing to his commanders. Rage filled me I focused on the gold armoured figure on his massive stallion.
[You left me to die!]
“Rargh!” Bergab gave inarticulate voice to my inner torment. He stabbed towards the heavens again.
CRACK!
A second siege tower scattered itself across the field, screams accompanying its progress. This time the line of soldiers broke, scrambling over one another as they fled away from the citadel, a rabble rather than an army.
[Now! Let’s finish them!]
I expected the Smith to draw down the wrath of the air again, but instead he sagged, the pink hue he emanated was fading and the tar like foulness was in the ascendency. The effort to call the lightning had weakened him.
I spread my focus back to the battlefield, the heavy and light cavalries had moved to block the flight of the infantrymen, attempting to herd them back towards the fortifications.
“No, no, you won’t get away that easy, Defilers!” With a burst of energy absent a moment earlier Bergab raised me high again, but this time plunged my blade down into the carved stone blocks beneath his feet.
I felt an unstoppable surge flow from the unterman through me, down into the depths of the earth itself. I screamed in unison with Bergab.
CRACK!
A tremendous rent came from the earth itself, out beyond the lines of men, a wall of stone many hands high tore itself free from the sod. The road to the Hammers was cut off, there could be no retreat even if my father wished it.
There came an anguished roar from the massed ranks of the army. I knew my father well, he would use the impediment to push his vassals forward, the only way out now would be death or victory.
Bergab dropped to his knees, the blackness now almost extinguishing all else within him. One of his aides rushed forward to help him, as he reached out to his leader, Bergab grabbed the proffered arm and pushed me through the unterman’s armour into his chest. The unfortunate aide gurgled and writhed as I pierced his heart.
I felt some part of the murdered unterman flow back into Bergab. The pink hue had disappeared from the dead man, but the Smith’s own colour was almost restored. Save for his eyes, to my senses they were now bottomless abysses of darkness.
Bergab turned to his shocked aides and remaining generals, “Follow me, destroy the defilers!”
With that snarl he stepped off the top the crenelated rampart and into space, despite now longer being alive, I still felt the mortal fear of falling and considered that we had lost the chance to gain revenge on my father.
Falling however did not occur, I felt the unterman channel more energy, and a whirlwind buffeted around us as we made our unorthodox descent. Bergab alighted from the cushioning vortex of air at the last moment, stepping down as if from an upholstered lounger.
A hushed silence fell over the army of men facing us, whilst I determined that the loud wooden creaking emanating from behind us heralded the appearance of the remaining untermen shields through the great gate.
A scream from one of the marshals in the frontline of the High King’s army and the jittery line broke towards us, thousands of voices shrieking defiance and despair.
Hundreds of untermen poured past Bergab’s shoulder and the din of metal on metal and cascaded everywhere as battle engaged. Bergab stepped to the front of the line, wielding me with both hands. He pushed one of his own shieldmen down to gain more room to swing at the hated enemy.
As he whirled away in a deadly arc, I felt impact after impact as my blade bit through armour, leather, flesh, and bone. With each kill I fed more energy back to the thing that had been the Smith of the Forge. As a pair we focused on one goal, and one goal only, reaching my father.
The sheer weight of numbers was pressing us back, never mind that Bergab’s hacking limbs seemed tireless, our objective was as distant as ever.
[We’ll never reach the betrayer this way!].
The Smith creature paused in its slaughter for a moment, as if considering, then uttered a single word in the untermen high tongue.
A wave of the foul darkness flowed outward from the heart of the Smith, channelled along my length, and swept over the rows of men ahead of us. An incredible surge of power funnelled backwards as Bergab sucked in the very souls of over a score of men.
The pressure inside of me was overwhelming and I cried out in relief as the unterman sank me point first into the sod, the stolen lifeforce streaking past the bedrock this time until it reached what was sought.
The line of men had begun to break again after witnessing the eldritch elimination of their brethren, they paused though as the very ground began to shake beneath their feet, caught in a stupor of fear and foreboding.
Without any further warning hundreds of the men were flung around like so much kindling on a wave as great geysers of water spouted through the ground, the Lord’s Tears coming to the aid once more of the Untermen. Bergab jabbed me forward as if directing the water, and the geysers sped through the High King’s ranks, halting a foot from the man himself.
Stepping on the waterlogged bodies of the fallen, ignoring the cries of the injured, the Smith strode towards our quarry.
A phalanx of fur cladded Wildmen from the cold lands far to the south, my father’s own personal bodyguard, blocked the path to the High King.
A further whisper in the high tongue and the souls of the Wildmen joined those of their unfortunate comrades in the black heart of the Smith creature. The untermen shields caught up with their chosen Smith and flanked us, forming a square.
My father dismounted, and strode forward, planting his own great sword tip down in the earth. His armour reflecting in the early morning sunlight like the god he aspired to be.
“Fight me Bergab, one on one, no need for anymore slaughter eh? Winner takes all. You best me and my men will depart, I win and your men will let me take the bloom.”
Incredible, even at this point the betrayer still tries to make capital from his disaster!
[Slay him, run him through!]
“Why should I bother fighting you, when I can simply cut you down like the cur you are,” the voice that was Bergab’s and yet not Bergab’s dripped with scorn, “ and the fate of your men is no longer yours to decide.”
“A real father would fight the killer of his children, like I wish to fight you, the slayer of my youngest no doubt.” Father sighed as he resumed his taunting, “Still I should have expected it, your daughter said you wouldn’t have the stones to avenge her. Broke her heart, at the end, well that and the dagger I slipped in there.”
You left me to die!
“Defiler!” Rage boiled through the remnant of the Smith as he barged through the protection of his shields, “Face me then primitive.”
As the unterman settled into a battle stance, my father smiled like the dragon that had stolen all the gold.
“Now!” a shout came from the left and I recognised the voice of my eldest brother the Crown Prince, at his command a dozen Steppemen shorn of their usual ponies moved through to the front rank of the remaining men. In one motion they raised their hunting bows and loosed a volley of their barbed arrows.
Each shaft struck home and Bergab jerked around like a fool’s marionette, whatever life remained in the Smith evaporated, leaving only the corruption behind. That was enough.
In a voice straight from the deepest of nightmares, “Once a betrayer always a betrayer, no shame is beneath you is it Scilroh?” the Smith laughed his response, “Now High King, your soul is mine!”
My father sent my brother a despairing glance, the arrogance finally stripped away, as if to demand his help. My brother for his part stood with his mouth agape, rather ruining the smart visage he cut in his silver mail.
I felt a surge of darkness, bigger than anything previous, rip from me into the sod, searching deeper than either of the previous occasions.
The floor rumbled, and the ground wobbled as if it was liquid.
“Brace yourselves men!” I heard my father call out; it was the last time I ever heard my father speak.
Then he, my brother, and hundreds more of his men were gone, vaporised in an instant by a tower of fire and lava that ejected tens of feet into the air. The searing column peaked and then rained down all around, annihilating man and unterman alike.
Throughout the thing wrapped in Bergab’s body continued to laugh but grew weaker as its power drained. Soon it would need to feed I realised.
With a snap the anger that had filled my soul melted away, replaced by a keening sense of loss. I realised I was on my own and would never see my family again.
Father! Brother! I’m sorry, so sorry! Please.
The lumbering hulk of the Smith replete with its coat of arrows, shifted around, sniffing at the air for survivors.
I found my anger again, this time at the ones who had done this to me, who had cursed me so.
[Bastard! You have killed me and my kin, cursed me in this form. I will let you kill no more!]
“Child of a betrayer, tries to follow the sire, eh?” The dark thing chuckled, but it had miscalculated, for whilst it had been burning through energy, I realised it had nothing left to fight with.
I reached down into the minute kernel that remained of the real Bergab’s soul and yanked on the thin thread of life I found there. His limbs responded to my commands, the lifeless body my puppet now.
“No, No! Cursed you are indeed, Melltith I name you, the accursed one!” The corruption screamed out as I commanded the Smith to raise the sword in both hands, one last time.
[I do not forgive you! Do you hear me? I don’t forgive you!]
The trembling hands thrust downward driving blade through the chest to the hilt, skewering the black heart. As I drank in the souls of the Smith and the dark corruption, I thought that a fitting end to this sorry tragedy.
The body fell forward, joining countless others amongst the mud and ash of the Reaper’s field.
An interminable amount of time later, it may have been hours or even days, I felt a tentative hand close around my hilt and a new presence entered my story.
[Hello.]
“What the bleedin’ ells?” The hand belonging to the shocked voice almost let go, almost.
[Nice to meet you.]
“What the hell are you?” The voice, female, was still afraid but a hint of curiosity shone through. The hand firmed up its grip.
[I’m Melltith.]
“I should say so, too bloody right you are!”
#
The emerald eyes bore into Raith once more, but this time there was a touch more sympathy.
“Welcome back to the viewers at home, throughout the commercial break the audience and I have continued to hear from Bergab Raith, a self-described medium for hire and alleged descendent of the last Smith of the Forge.” Recap out of the way the elven presenter paused for breath before summarising the story so far.
“So, what you would have us believe then is that you hold on your lap, the fabled sword of myth known as Melltith. Considered by some to be a demon in the form of a blade, and after cutting a bloody swathe through the annuals of early history, missing for hundreds of years.”
“Well yes that’s correct, more or less.” Raith was struggling with telling the god’s truth, a recent concept for him. It was ironic in his opinion, that now of all times, people chose to disbelieve him.
“More or less?”
“Well it’s not been missing that long, it’s done a lot more than anyone thinks, up until about the advent of firing powder.”
“Really?”
Raith dabbed at his brow again, the studio lights continued to make him sweat like he was on the witness stand, and he knew from experience that wasn’t a good look.
“Well it can change it’s shape, adjust it’s form to the demands of the time, plus the name was rather sensitive, so many wielders choose a different name for it.”
The elf rose a sardonic eyebrow, in the way that only elves can manage, and consulted the notes held on his e-pad before commencing a new line of attack.
“So, you came into possession of…Melltith, via a little old lady, one careful lady owner eh?” The live audience laughed dutifully at the quip, remembering the instructions given to them by the warmup guy.
“Yeah…well yes…little old lady is right at least, “ the unterman stumbled over his words, not for the first time that day, “ I did a séance for her, and when I couldn’t hook her up with her deceased husband I refused payment. So, she offered me a pick from the assorted knickknacks her husband had accumulated.”
“A medium refusing payment? Now I’ve heard everything, time to retire!” The elf got a bigger laugh this time.
[Raith, let me, please.]
The unterman ignored the voice in his head.
“Well she was a sweet old thing, and I didn’t want to raise her hopes then crush them like. Anyways, I found this fancy looking sword cane in her umbrella stand and she said I could take it.”
“The thing on your lap isn’t cane shaped Mr Raith, more like what they used to call a bastard sword according to my producer.” The talk show host put his hands together again in his trademark pose and invited an answer with his demeanour.
“Like I said it can…morph… it’s shape, usually to meet the needs of the user.”
“And it sat in an umbrella stand for what, decades, without anyone having a sword in the stone moment? So, to speak, that is.”
“It doesn’t need to reveal itself to casual wielders anymore, and it’s preferred to stay retired, enjoying the quiet life. It only revealed itself to me as it realised I was a descendant of one of its creators.”
“Yes, your claim to be of the direct line of Smith Bergab the Great.” The elf host unfolded his finest condescending smile.
“Well don’t quite believe it myself, my mam always maintained it was so, but I thought it was a flight of hippy fantasy on her part. The name came in useful for my line of work though.”
Seeing that the elf was about to wedge in another quip at his expense Raith hurried on.
“For Melltith though, seeing me triggered a train of thought. All the histories and those lurid historical fantasies always paint it as the evil one, the corrupter, the drinker of souls. When truly it was as much a victim as everyone else. The ultimate victim even, in terms of its creation.”
“That’s why then you’ve spent the last year touring the talk show circuit of the known world, appearing at comic conventions, all to set the record straight and not to earn an easy buck?”
“Well…um Lestar…Mr Eveningstar Sir, Melltith spent a lot of time watching daytime television with the old lady whilst sat in the umbrella stand and those are the folks…sorry markets it wants to reach.”
“So that’s why your agent, contacted us here on the World’s number one daytime chat show, so a cursed sword could set the record straight?”
“Well not um…erm…my agent. Melltith’s agent. I have a different guy.”
“Oh, you have a different one for swindling old ladies?” As ever Lestar Eveningstar was adept at skewering a victim through the gaps in their armour.
[Raith he’s slaying us, let me take over.]
“I hate it when you do that!” The revulsion Raith felt made him snap the response aloud.
The elf looked startled for a second, before whipping out a finishing line, “What? Tell the truth?”
[That wasn’t meant for you Lestar, an internal discussion went external for a moment.] Raith’s body jerked around, as a new controller settled in, [Big fan by the way. Have to say you’d give some of those old Imperial Inquisitors a run for their money, but then runs in the family doesn’t it? That great grandfather of yours eh?]
There was a collective gasp from the studio audience, followed by conspiratorial whispering.
“Wha…? How did you?” The unflappable king of daytime television found himself, flapping.
[As Raith mentioned earlier, I’ve been around, a lot.]
“Uh…well that’s a nice trick with the voice, how do you manage it? A sub dermal voice amplifier on the throat?” The elf made a decent stab at regaining control of the interview.
[No, good old-fashioned possession, voice projection, and practised enunciation.] Raith’s lips curled upwards in an awkward attempt at a smile. The sound of an audience member retching was audible against the pin drop background.
“Right…OK…so supposing we believe you, just for a moment, you have a hell of reputation, literally. How do you explain yourself on that score?” Eveningstar looked like he’d swallowed a dragon egg as he forced the question out.
[It’s a legacy of my early days, and as Raith has explained I was bewitched by Sylvain the High Forgepriester. Both Bergab and I were pretty much kippered up by the sneaky…fellow…sorry nearly swore there.]
“But what about afterwards, it’s not exactly pretty after your origin story either is it?”
[Well Lestar I must admit I was off the rails for the first few decades, I mean quite literally I was a child in a sword’s body.] Melltith paused to wipe away a droplet of sweat that had rolled into Raith’s eye, [The things I saw and did no youth should have faced.]
“Right, of course.” The elf was still struggling, but even that would be viewing gold.
[I was up and down, had no real guidance at first, but once I matured, I did my best to make amends for those early mistakes.]
“Forgive me…Melltith, but neither official history nor legend are exactly awash with tales of your…heroism.” The presenter smirked as he found some footing again.
[To be honest I wanted a fresh start, and most of my partners didn’t exactly want to be associated with soul stealing demon sword either.]
“Can you give me a concrete example?”
[Lots, but I’ll start with a satisfying example from my point of view, the day I finally caught up with Sylvain and ended his evil forever.]
“That’s not exactly ringing a bell with me, what about you folks?” The elf threw the question to the audience. A collective pantomime no was the response.
[Well you’d know it as the Great Corruption, Sylvain had opened a door to the Underworld when he sacrificed me and the corruption seeped out into him, and the Forge Blooms.]
“The Great Corruption?” Eveningstar scoffed. “The Great Corruption where the untermen waged war on the rest of the World in the name of the Dark One?”
[The same, the Dark One was Sylvain you see, and he corrupted his fellows after feeding them Blood of Eternity made from tainted blooms.] Raith’s hands made a clumsy attempt to point to the sitting unterman, [Not all were tarnished, many fled the tyranny and spread around the globe, which of course explains the unterman diaspora today.]
“But, but, it was MacAnne the Great that slew the Dark One, we all know that!” Consternation led to the elf’s nostrils flaring in a most unflattering manner.
[The very same, she drove my blade right through Sylvain’s blackened heart, on the very same altar that he’d cut my heart out on.] Raith paused for Melltith’s sense of dramatic effect, [Brought the whole mountain down on our heads when the altar cracked of course, and sealed the Forge of the Lord off forever, but it was worth it to send that lich back to the Underworld.]
“The sword, her sword, was Lightbringer. Again, we all know that.” The presenter’s reserved manner had deserted him.
[I never liked that name, too cliché, and I told her that. She was headstrong and stubborn though that one.] Another pause, [She was very clever to gather up all the remaining Forge Blooms, you Elves wouldn’t be around if she hadn’t.]
“What? What do you mean? We evolved shortly afterwards from a superior strain of humans. We’re the most evolved race on the whole race on this planet. Again, everyone__”
[Knows that? Well not quite Junior, we brewed as much of the elixir as we could, finally finishing my father’s grand obsession. Within in a generation the Blood began to ring in some serious changes to your family line.]
A strangled noise came from the interrogator’s throat. The sound of a body hitting the floor echoed as someone in the studio fainted.
[Before you know it was all pointy ears, emerald eyes, tortured existence and staring off into the middle distance.] Raith gave a chuckle in Melltith’s tone, [Best one for that of course, was Archeh, always obsessed with duty with that one, often to her own detriment.]
A further strangling noise came from the host, before he managed to squeak out a response, “Blasphemy, sheer blasphemy, and Archeh the Luminous wielded Midnight’s Glaive not a sword.”
[Took me forever to get the shape right on that one.]
Eveningstar shook as he pressed his finger to his ear, listening to some instruction from the production gallery.
“Well now it’s that time of the show where we throw the floor open to members of the audience so they can interrogate the subject themselves. First up is Marion from Edwinstone.”
A flaxen haired maiden wearing a cosplay wizard outfit stood up and grabbed the proffered microphone, “I’d just like to ask Melltith, were you born a boy or a girl?”
[Well now it’s so long ago I can hardly remember! Truth be told I don’t think it really matters, not these days. Let’s just say I identify as non-binary.]
As the woman made to sit down, the studio doors crashed open and several men in paramilitary garb rushed in, brandishing assault rifles in the face of crew and audience alike. Shouts to stay still intermingled with confused cries from the original occupants of the studio.
From behind the men marched in a black robed unterman with a buzz cut and a pair of dark sunglasses. The pale skin on his face appeared cracked, or else someone had tattooed a web of heavy lines across his visage.
Surveying the room, the gaze of the unterman settled on Raith and the object in his lap.
“Finally, you’ve come out of hiding child, this time I won’t let you best me.” The figure removed the glasses to reveal obsidian pits where the eyes should have been.
[Sylvain? Seriously? How’s is this even possible? We nailed you to that altar!]
The Dark Lord cackled, “Foolish child, you cannot kill what does not live! Well not entirely.” The former High Forgepriester clenched his fists together, and threads of darkness began to flicker outward from them.
The audience members screamed and scattered for the exits, pushing past the assembled heavies.
“Let them go, we have what we came for,” Sylvain turned his attention back to the medium with the sword, “and here in this modern world of technological marvel, there is no elemental magic to save you child.”
[All that darkness hasn’t left you with much in the way of brain cells has it Sylvain?] Raith gestured around the studio, [The elements are still with us today, closer than ever before.]
“What nonsense is this?”
[The electricity in those cables, the water in the sprinklers, the heat from the studio lamps, and best of all which idiot decided to build the entertainment capital of the World on top of a major fault line?]
The studio shook, throwing crew members to the floor and sending lamps crashing from the overhead gantries. There was time enough to register the look of shook on Sylvain’s putrid features as the studio floor beneath him and his contingent fell away.
Broken cables sparked and a water main spouted into the air.
The medium known at Bergab Raith rose from his chair, sword in hand, and gazed into the gaping abyss that had claimed half of the studio.
[Come on Raith, time to be a hero.]
The unterman’s body shook.
[Don’t worry, I’ll show you how. We have a debt to pay to your ancestor.]
With that Raith’s body leapt into the pit.
Lestar Eveningstar turned to the sole remaining functioning camera, “My god folks, history is being made live in front of our very eyes! Stay with us after this break!”
THE END
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