Legend of the Runeforger: A Dwarven Progression Fantasy

My foe—I still don’t know his name—runs for me with his left fist raised. Heartseeker darts right at it. He was not expecting me to pick that target, and my trick works. Heartseeker’s black blade stabs deep into his hand, splitting it nearly in half.

He shouts in pain and jumps back. I don’t pursue, and instead stand and watch the blood drip out the ravaged lead scales. The wound on his right shoulder is still bleeding too. I smile fiercely.

“I’m stronger than you,” I say.

“Go to hell.”

“Tell me, is your friend Danath the same degree as you?”

“Go to hell.”

“I’m going to kill him next, if he isn’t dead already. Where is he?”

My foe charges for me, springing forward with his body angled low and his arms outstretched as if to tackle. He’s still incredibly fast, but I’m used to the look of his movements now. I step out the way the moment before he closes the gap and dart Heartseeker at his thigh.

It pricks in. I could drive deeper, but he’s aware of the pain and is already kicking off with his other leg to change direction. I pull out and retreat back out of his range. Blood drips from his thigh to mingle with the pools already on the stone.

“Damn you,” he says. “Why don’t you lie down and die like your little friend did?”

“I already told you that trying to provoke me won’t work.”

“We put his head on a spike after you fell, you know. As for his body—”

My strike is not one of rage. I calculate it carefully. It is light, for he expects a violent rush, and aimed not at the most obvious target but the least: his rear foot. While before when I aimed at his foot I made the mistake of attacking when it was freely mobile, now it is the only point of contact between him and the ground as he leaps. My stab pins it to the stone and he howls and collapses. He grasps for Heartseeker’s shaft, but my weapon is already blurring backward out of range.

“Where’s your friend?” I ask him.

“Go to hell!”

“That’s where you’re going, as soon as you tell me what I want. You should look forward to it—it’ll be nicer than what I’m about to do to you.”

“Hah!” he barks out. “You don’t have the stomach for torture.”

“I’ve watched it,” I say, remembering the torment the river troll chief inflicted on that lava troll we captured—a more innocent victim than this piece of shit. “I think I can do it also.”

My enemy struggles to his feet, struggles to raise his fists. He makes to advance but his movements are sluggish now. Too much blood loss. I increase it with a quick stab to his thigh. Heartseeker touches the artery there—I can feel the weapon’s thirsty shiver.

He falls to his knees.

“I won,” I say, half to myself. “I’m stronger than you two.”

“Bastard.”

“Where is he?”

“Who?”

“Don’t play dumb! Your friend.”

My enemy bows his head. His shoulders slump. “Up on the mountain somewhere.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is that all you have?” I spit at him.

“Yes.”

“Are you going to apologize for helping murder my friend? Trying to murder me?

“No.”

“Fuck you then,” I say, and drive Heartseeker into his chest.

When I rip it out, blood gushes from the wound, and he falls down face first. I stare down at his corpse, feeling oddly dissatisfied. Why did I kill him so quickly? Maybe I really don’t have the stomach for torture.

Cursing under my breath, I turn back to see if his comrades are still in sight. They are, barely, still chasing after the remains of our forces. I ought to pursue, I suppose. Yet with my adrenaline from the duel fast fading, I can’t quite muster the energy.

I really do feel strangely disappointed. My victory feels hollow—I just beat a dwarf as strong as Danath, with relative ease too, and yet I feel no joy. I’m stronger than before—yet feel the same. Perhaps because my problems remain: the dragon, and everything to do with it.

Still, I can't stand around here feeling depressed. I have a duty to fulfill. I turn and begin to walk down the tunnel after the enemies.

The stone around me shudders suddenly, so violently I’m sent to one knee. I try to stand up, but it keeps on shuddering. I feel a heat at my back, and turn to look.

Upon the walls is a white glow, very faint, but a shade of white I recognize. Brighter than bright, and cruel on the eyes, it is the glow of dragonfire. Deep in the tunnels, something is burning through the rock.

I manage to stand up, and begin to run from it. There is a terrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Hayhek hurries down the streets, panting violently. There’s no soldiers around to accost him now, to accuse him of being a lying coward after he gives his lame excuse that he has an urgent message to deliver. True, he may be a liar today, but he’s no coward. He runs because he knows he needs to protect his family.

He has a feeling the interception of the dragon will not go as planned. They were a tough lot hurrying from the frontlines, with powerful equipment and combat skills for sure, but he has seen the dragon. It is a monster greater than any other. With whatever power it gains from using the key...

And even if the interception force does defeat it, can Vanerak really kill a Runethane?

His footsteps echo around the deserted buildings. Nearly there now.

The ground begins to shake.

Vanerak is in the midst of combat, a four on one duel he cannot seem to win. Golden scythes and axes flash toward him from shifting angles at speeds physically impossible for anyone without the skills and runes of a first degree to see. He registers them on instinct; his halberd flies out to block each one as it comes. Sparks explode at each impact, a bad sign, telling him that the onslaught of attacks is beginning to degrade his weapon.

His own attacks are thwarted. When he last fought the golden guard they were overwhelmed, scared of his sudden advance. Now they have the superior numbers and it is Vanerak who is overwhelmed. He does not seem to be able to get close to even scratching their gold chainmail, and as for the silver legend, he cannot seem to get his halberd to within closer than a foot of his armor.

The impossible runeknight’s breastplate is a masterwork of titanium, tungsten, steel and platinum alloyed together in layers so thin their various shades meld together. The reflections of the sparks glisten on them softly like pearls, their violent light diffused into velvety gentleness. A series of runed diamonds in a central circle provides the armor its repelling power.

Creating just one of those diamonds should have taken six months at least, not to mention the hundreds of years of trial and practice required to be able to perform the advanced graving techniques necessary.

Yet this miner, if the rumors are true, managed the entire piece in less than six days.

Strange for him to emerge at the same time as Zathar, Vanerak briefly reflects, before he is forced to focus all his concentration on parrying a flurry of slashes from the silver legend’s sword.

These at least are none too skilled, but the blade’s preternatural sharpness scars Vanerak’s halberd in two places. He is forced to retreat, step back at a steady pace into the ranks of his few remaining elites.

He frowns behind his mirror-mask. How can he win this? He needs Banrack and the rest back, to distract the golden guard while he cuts down the silver legend. Yet slaying even an injured dragon could take time, and result in many grievous injuries.

How to win?

Sparks fly from his mirror mask as the female golden guard’s axe slashes into it. Bright light breaks through—it is pierced.

How to win?

Pain erupts at his shoulder as the silver legend’s sword cuts deep into his tungsten pauldron.

Is he going to lose?

Is this the end?

A terrible shaking ravages the mountainside, like the mile-high mound of rock is nothing but a jelly tapped by a teaspoon. The motion sends Vanerak rolling backwards in a tangle of armor and weapons and sudden yelling. With perfect reactions he leaps back to his feet while others in lesser armor with worse combat prowess flail helplessly on the slope.

Only the female golden guard—Broderick’s daughter, he remembers—manages to get up with similar quickness. Vanerak wastes no time in lunging for her with the spike of his halberd. She blocks, but he still manages to pierce right through her arm.

She shouts out in pain. The noise of her shout is cut off by a terrible roar from deep below, which grows in volume and pitch to become an unearthly scream.

Vanerak is just about to follow up his strike when he is blinded by a stream of white light that explodes up through the peak of the mountain and keeps on going until it hits the cavern ceiling and becomes a sunburst that sends half-melted stalactites plummeting down.

The interception team has failed.

For the first time in three hundred years, Vanerak feels a twinge of fear. He nearly turns to flee down the mountain, before he realizes that is the exact opposite direction he should go in.

He rushed through the thunder-shocked enemy army into the tunnel just as the black dragon bursts through the peak of the mountain in an aura of white flame.

Power! Power! Power!

I can feel the power flooding through my blood, such power that dwarves with their measly little runes could never know, could never get the merest taste of. True power comes from within, not from without. Those vermin think they can gain the taste of true control by binding strength to their bodies, but they have no idea what it feels like to have raw energy welling up from within their very hearts.

I look upon them, writhing on the mountainside like the larvae of insects and they are so pathetic it makes me want to laugh. They point up at me—for what reason? Some stand still, proving their utter lack of brainpower, for the only thing for them to do now is flee.

My wings carry me to the very highest dome of the cavern. With each beat a hurricane of wind blasts down, forcing the dwarves to huddle to the stone lest they be blown away. Many are blown away, and they crack their helmeted skulls open like eggs.

They are the lucky ones, mayhaps! For now it is time for the cavern to feel my true strength. The strength of a real dragon, not a sniveling pretender.

Dragons grow by consuming not just flesh, but magical power. That is why we gather great hoards of magical objects. As a dragon curls around its hoard, the magic leaks through its scales, making its size greater, its fire hotter.

There is one other way to obtain power, however: to take it from another dragon.

It is very rarely done. The reason is fear—a dragon could raise the ire of others through so shocking a method, and be torn apart in turn.

But the dragon emperor could have chosen this way. It was far stronger than its cousins and had no reason to fear their ire. It should have hunted them down one by one and taken their strength for itself. Yet something held it back. Fear, or some other un-draconic emotion. Camaraderie, or perhaps even love for its fellows.

Pathetic! It was no true dragon.

I spread my wings as wide as I can. The updraft from my heat keeps me afloat. My shadow now spreads over the whole cavern, for my body and wings block the sun shining reflected from the dwarves’ ancient mirrors.

It is time for a different light to illuminate the cavern.

I breathe in. My chest expands and glows. The heat within is hotter than magma, hotter than the sun, hotter than any substance even the Runegods have yet lit their forges with. I close my jaws and let it become even hotter.

This is the power of the dragon emperor and all its subjects concentrated behind the will of a true dragon. As I ate, my jaws and flame grew stronger. After I drank the dragon emperor's blood, I was nearly strong enough to open the next cages without the key. After drinking the blood of four more dragons, my claws could slash through the tungsten bars like they were nothing. And my jaws were wide enough to tear apart the rest of the dragons in just a few bites each. My feast went quicker than expected.

Did some dwarves arrive at some point? I can't remember.

I open my jaws and release my heat. A wave of brilliance spreads over the dwarves’ city and turns their buildings to glowing red liquid. It expands through the forest of stone in which the dwarves hunted me. The stalagmites wilt and bend. The stalactites drip lava.

The very air burns! Every dwarf caught in the open becomes a candle, and then ash.

Their runes are nothing against my flame, against the flame of a true dragon! Against the flame of I, the black dragon, the bringer of death, a being of sentient flame and greed, the very embodiment of power!

Yet there is still something wrong here.

I have gained so much, yet not everything I have lost is returned to me. I close my jaws and look at myself reflected in the shimmering mirage of heat that was the dwarves’ city.

An arm is still gone, and an eye also.

And I feel it is likely that the vermin who did this to me are still alive.

A terrible heat permeates through the stone. The white vanishes, but almost as soon as it does so, the tunnel begins to glow red, and my beard becomes drenched with sweat. The air becomes like the air from an open kiln. I struggle to breath.

I see a turn. I take it, and see that far along it are stairs down. I pound toward them, choking and rasping—the air is growing hotter by the second. The red of the stone is creeping up the spectrum toward yellow.

I make it to the stairs and hurl myself down them. A hot wind chases me—a wind hotter than flame. The pressure bowls me over and I tumble down the steep steps, rolling over and over.

At some point I reach a landing. The heat is still unbearable and I find another passage down, and then another, until finally I am in a world without light or heat.

And still I keep on fleeing downward.