Diaries of a Dwarven Rifleman

Dust devils raced them down the trail and the voices grew louder in their ears. They spoke in no language Engvyr knew, words that no human throat could form that twisted his guts and made his head spin.

As they drew near the gate the pony, as if sensing that sanctuary, broke into a fast trot. His aunt held the harness and bounded alongside. The ox would not be left behind and Engvyr found himself letting it pull him along, struggling to keep his feet under him.

He looked back and saw the dust-devils converging into a single great, translucent shape that towered into the pale blue sky. It strode towards them on more legs than any natural creature possessed. The blowing dust seemed to form mouths and limbs randomly, only for them to swirl away an instant later.

The pony and ox succumbed to panic and began to race across the final ground before the stone arch. The voices merged into one great wall of sound that hammered at their ears and tore at their sanity. He saw his father grab his aunt's cote and lift her feet from the ground as the pony, screaming in fear, bolted the last few feet to the gate.

Engvyr fell but kept his grip on the pack-strap and his legs were dragged along the barren ground. The massive shape of wind-blown dust was solidifying into a form his mind recoiled from comprehending. It seemed to be reaching for him as the maddened ox plunged through the stone arch into silence.

The instant he passed beneath its stones, the voice was cut off and the massive shape dissolved into blown dust. The ox slowed and stopped, eyes rolling and sides heaving. Its long, matted hair was soaked with sweat. Engvyr released the strap and fell to the ground, his lungs clawing for enough of the thin air to catch his breath. He lay on the ground, content for the moment to wait for his racing heart to slow. Already the memory of that massive, eldritch shape was slipping from his mind.

“Engvyr! Are you alright?”

He looked up to see his aunt standing over him and levered himself to a sitting position, wincing as various hurts made themselves known.

“More or less,” he half-gasped. He could see that she was no worse off than he and asked after his father and Berget.

“Well enough.” She braced herself against the ox's pack-frame with one hand and extended the other to help him to his feet. Boyish pride be damned he thought, and accepted her help gratefully.

His father stood, his great-cote torn and his face flecked with blood from many small cuts, holding Berget next to the tumbled body of the pony. The altitude and fear had burst its great heart, he guessed sadly. His father had protected Berget as he rolled from the saddle when the beast went down. But other than superficial wounds and exhaustion they were all whole, for a miracle.

The trail wound down a steep slope into a small valley before them. At first glance it appeared no different than the lands they had just left, but further study showed grey-blue lichens coating the rocks, and a trace of green along a crevice in the valley floor that hinted at water.

They took the tack, harness and saddlebags from the pony and tied them to the ox's pack. It now stood phlegmatically as if nothing had happened at all. His father patted the great beast with an expression of wonder.

“If we live to see the Clanhame, old fellow, it's green fields and never again the road for you! You've earned a bountiful retirement.”

Though they needed meat they had not the heart to butcher the brave pony that had seen them through so much. Engvyr wished that they had the energy to build a cairn for the poor beast but knew that they could not spare the strength.

Though they ached to rest they had nothing to drink and no water to cook with, so they made their way down the steep trail and across the rocky valley as the sun dropped behind the peaks. There was indeed a stream, and the ox woke to new life and broke into a trot.

“Let him go,” his father said, “It's not as if you could hold him back from it anyway.”

They followed after, his father limping slowly along with the help of a cane, and found the beast knee-deep in a wide, shallow pool, his muzzle buried in the stream. They fell to their own bellies and eased their parched throats in the icy water and rinsed the grime and dust from their faces, then set about making camp.

They did not care that they were near the end of their supplies, and the aching head of altitude sickness seemed of little matter compared to their recent ordeal. They did not any of them care to chew more of the candied leaves for relief, either.

They lay their bedrolls on the sand by the pool, snuggled together for warmth as they had used the last of their store of fuel for the cooking fire. They slept the deep sleep of exhaustion, and if their dreams troubled them they did not recall them in the morning.