Of Truth and Beasts

Your blades are worthless. Something greater is needed to breach my bowels, once I ignite what is left within me. And then ...

The dragon looked to the pool, and Wynn went numb.

She didn’t understand why it needed to be impaled, but it intended to somehow ignite all of the fluid it had disgorged. This place would collapse in an explosion, pulling down those who were right above, digging their way into the seatt. And she knew it would shatter this whole realm.

There is little time, for I cannot prepare all this again. Even now I fade in starvation. That is why I have made certain that what is done here is enough to reach them, no matter the cost.

Every question Wynn wanted to ask vanished as Deep-Root’s breath caught.

The way out through the range will become their way, if they take this place—and they will. It is what they seek to gain as quickly as possible, at any price.

Wynn envisioned the map she’d sketched in her journal, looking for what lay just to the north of here.

But the price to stop them is even higher. To halt those who would breach this place, all here must die by our choice ... though they would be lost just the same.

Wynn began to see the choice the dragon offered; it was no choice at all. Sacrifice an entire people to slow or cripple the enemy’s advance, but with no certainty that it would bring ultimate victory. Or wait and hope that more of the dwarves here might yet escape this place of madness, but at the cost of the enemy achieving an unstoppable advantage.

She knew the path the siege forces would secure, for she had traveled it, and then nothing could stop more of them from following. The Slip-Tooth Pass would take them into the north, unseen until too late. The very tram tunnel that she had used would lead them right to it.

Unlike the horde of undead buried by time in the plain beyond the Lhoin’na forests, nothing would stop an invasion of the living from swarming over it, even into First Glade. Perhaps that was what they were after most of all, that one place the undead couldn’t go. And then what would become of the Numan nations? Without First Glade, there would not even be a fragile sanctuary for the few who could reach it.

There is no more time. Either believe or not. If so, go and find what is needed. But if you die before it is your time, all is lost.

Wynn shrank in self-recrimination for all that she’d thought of Deep-Root in the passing season.

He turned and fled into stone.

Wynn choked for air, still immersed inside the memory. 

Over and over Chuillyon prayed until the rise of Chârmun’s presence within him grew into a pure silence, as if he were alone and all that was left alive in this world—as least for one more moment.

And that moment lingered on and on ... too long.

Chuillyon clung to Chârmun’s presence as he barely cracked open his eyes.

He stood there ... alone ... staring toward the dark breach where il’Sänke had madly thrown himself to his death. Even the flickers of fire on the stone had died, leaving only trails of smoke filling the air.

Where had the creature gone? Why would it leave him alive? For an instant, he wondered if his prayer to Chârmun had affected it, but that was a foolish thought.

From the moment Hannâschi had fallen, he had barely had the wits to think or feel anything. His gaze drifted to her, lying on the floor, and then continued onward, stopping at the charred pile that had been Shâodh.

Chuillyon quickly looked away from that unbearable sight, and it shook him from complacency. Only moments before, he had been ready to face death. He walked to the hall’s end and dropped down beside Hannâschi. With a touch of his fingers, he found she still breathed weakly.

“Hannâschi?” he said softly, but her eyelids did not flutter.

Chuillyon picked up her fallen crystal, still bright with her warmth, and he looked into the breach beyond her.

He had no idea how or if Wynn had managed to pass the trap in the tunnel wall, nor how to do so himself. For that matter, Wynn would fare no better than Shâodh if the beast had gone her way.