Chronicles of Mirstone

Introduction

October 8th, 2016. That’s the day the idea for this anthology was born. I was at a convention with my fellow author pdmac and we were talking about a number of things. I had the idea for a shared world where we could invite other authors to write short stories with a common theme. The idea was initially rough, but as it was fleshed out it became so much more than I could have imagined.

All of the authors in this anthology are masters of their craft and I am excited to share their stories with you. If you love what you read, you can find their other books on their biography pages. And as always, please leave a review. We authors live and die by them.

Happy reading!

Richard Fierce

Author Bio — Richard Fierce

Richard Fierce is a fantasy author best known for his novella The Last Page. He’s been writing since childhood, but became seriously invested in it in 2007. Since then, he’s written several novels and a few short stories.

In 2000, Richard won Poet of the Year for his poem The Darkness. He’s also one of the creative brains behind the Allatoona Book Festival, a literary event in Acworth, Georgia.

A recovering retail worker, he now works in the tech industry when he’s not busy writing.

He has three step-daughters, three huskies, two cats, two parakeets and a dwarf hamster.

His love affair with fantasy was born in high school when a friend’s mother gave him his first fantasy book.

His other work can be found here.

You can visit Richard’s website at www.richardfierce.com

The Dragon of Blackstone

Richard Fierce

Tringad journeyed to Blackstone seeking power.

At least, that was what he had told himself. Perhaps, in retrospect, he may have been seeking death. Yet it is an axiom of life that a dwarf never finds the one thing that he seeks—or perhaps never seeks the one thing he finds—and in those last hours he found neither power nor death on the blasted crags of Blackstone.

His tale did not begin with a beginning, but an ending. During the time of the Long Peace between dwarves and elves, the king of the dwarven clans decided to expand the boundaries of his kingdom. The problem, however, was that the forests of their elven neighbors surrounded the mountains of Rachdale. Tensions were high among their races, and after many heated arguments with both the elves and the clan’s leaders, the King convinced the Stormguard clan to use their magic to extend their mountain home. With exception of a few, the Stormguard wizards used their power to rip mountains up from the grounds of the forest. And as some had predicted, the elves were furious.

The Long Peace had died amidst thunder, earthquakes, and darkness.

In the first days afterward, the elves demanded answers. Who, they cried. Who had destroyed part of their homeland? Through the dust, the King laughed at them. The answer was simple: greed. And from that moment, everything had changed.

Before the Plucking, as some called it, Tringad had left his mountain home behind. He had fallen in with powerful forces, choosing the life of a wanderer and hiring out his talents to the highest bidders. He frequently brought in enough gold that he constantly had purpose, food in his stomach, and believed himself safe and on the path to great things.

His employers had seemed so strong, so glorious, so indominable. But at the end, they had shattered like so much glass. Now he was on his own. The old ways of doing things, the old rules, were gone, burned to ashes with the bodies of his employers. There were new rules to be made, and Tringad knew that those who made them would come out on top. That was why he had journeyed to this place.

He was nearly upon it before he got his first view.

The scorched wind changed direction and tore a rift in the gritty clouds of dust. There it stood before him, rising five thousand feet into the sky, a great heap of jagged rocks the color of night.

Blackstone.

Tringad licked his blistered lips with his parched tongue. Blast me to the Depths, he said, wondering if he hadn’t already been, if he wasn’t already there.

He craned his neck upward, and upward still, but the summit was lost in haze, and faded into a sky stained red with the soot of a thousand thousand fires. For a moment, he almost staggered. How could he possibly climb to the top of this … this thing? How could he even think to try?

But he had come too far. He could not turn away now. He let the wave of weakness pass over him, drew in a deep breath, and walked across the cracked uneven ground toward the tumbled base of the mountain.

He had first heard the story in a tavern, a filthy pub where swine rooted on the floor for scraps, and ate nearly as well as those who paid hard gold. A traveler from the east—a self-described merchant he called himself, a thief and a murderer Tringard guessed—told him, for the price of a cup of sour ale, of the great rock that had been thrust up from the bones of the earth by the tremors of the Plucking, and of the silhouette he had glimpsed by moonlight perched upon its summit: a winged, saurian shape that lifted its wedge-shaped head toward the sky.

Tringad had drank his ale, and wondered.

He heard the tale again in a village, told by a band of pilgrims who searched in vain for signs of the gods. Then once more, among a camp of outlaws, who pretended to take him in as a compatriot, and would have slit his throat in his sleep had he not cut theirs first. Again he heard it told, in a hovel, in a village, in a town. One telling he would have discounted, two doubted. But a dozen he believed, and so here he was.

The sun beat upon his armor. Sweat streamed down his brow, into his eyes, and stung them. A hundred times on his journey he had been tempted to cast off the steel that encased him, to toss it into some foul pit or to send it clattering down a cliff face, to be free of the heat and its stench. But his path had led through dangerous and broken lands. He had kept his armor, and kept his neck.

He was picking his way among the mountain’s first jumbled boulders when he saw smoke.

A thin, dark line rose upward, from behind a large spur of stone. Tringad froze. He had assumed the beast would keep to the heights of the peak, but he had not been able to see the summit for the haze. Perhaps it had come down to prowl among the rubble for food. True, it might decide he was suitable prey before he opened his mouth and spoke a single word to it, as he intended. But at least it would save him the climb. Tringad scrambled over the rocks toward the pillar of smoke.

It was no dragon he saw in the gully below.

At first he thought to slink away through the rocks, to remain undetected, then he halted. Would it not be better to know who it was that climbed behind him? And there was still a part of him that remembered what he had been before, and the oaths of honor he had sworn. Hollow they seemed now, empty. But what didn’t anymore? He hesitated, then stood and walked down the steep slope.

Dust-devils swirled around him. They must have blocked the elf’s view, or else he was dozing in the heat, for he did not seem to notice Tringad until he was a dozen paces from him and his small campfire. All at once he jerked his head up, leapt to his feet, and drew his sword. He held the blade before him, turned to his left, his right, his left again, searching. Tringad frowned. He was plain before the elf. Did he not see him?

Only then did Tringad notice the dirty rag bound around his eyes, crusted with dark blood.

No, he did not.

Tringad approached, deliberately grinding his boot heel on the gravel. The elf spun to face him, sword before him. Beneath the patina of dust, he could see a rose embossed upon the elf’s wind-scoured armor.

Are you friend or enemy? he called out.

Neither, Tringad answered.

The elf frowned at this, and Tringad might have turned away then, might have left this ruined elf to himself, but for something he saw among the elf’s few things: a large goatskin in a wicker frame. He worked his dry tongue in his mouth. It would be a long climb to the top, and he had precious little water.

The elf seemed to make a decision, then lowered his sword. If you mean no evil, then I will count you a friend in this blasted place.

Tringad made no answer. It did not matter to him what the elf thought.

I am Elaninir, he said, Knight of Shanmour.

My name is Tringad.

Elanirin made a stiff bow. I cannot offer you a feast, Tringad, but I have some food and you may share it.

He gestured for Tringad to sit, and he did. He searched through his gear with blinds hands. Tringad watched him as he did. They could not have been more dissimilar, the two of them, and it was not only their race that made them so. Elaninir was fair, and tall, and lean, while Tringad was dark, and short, and powerfully built. Even wounded the elf was handsome and noble of face. Tringad had never in his life been accused of being comely. The pockmarks of childhood had taken care of that.

There was little more in the elf’s pack than some hard tack and strips of dried meat, but Tringad did not turn up his nose at these. They ate, then when Tringad asked if he could fill his water bottle from Elaninir’s goatskin, the elf said he would be honored if he did.

Honored. Tringad sometimes thought the word meant the same thing as dead. He almost laughed, but there was scant water in the elf’s goatskin, and Tringad only filled his bottle halfway.

You will go now, won’t you, Tringad?

Yes.

The elf nodded. I cannot fault you. That is why I came here myself. To stand before the monster of Blackstone, and to slay it.

Why? Tringad asked, although he had already guessed.

For a moment, beneath the bloody rag, his face shone. After I perform such a glorious deed, how can the gods refuse to restore my sight?

So, he was a fool then. A noble fool. But then, they were the most dangerous sort.

Fighting a dragon is a deadly task even if one is blessed with eyes.

Elaninir shrugged. If the will is strong, one can always find a way. I convinced a merchant to bring me here in his wagon. Now I have built this fire. Sooner or later the beast will see the smoke and will come to investigate. He gripped the hilt of his sword. I was trained to fight in the dark. And now the dark is always around me—there is no difference. I will succeed no matter.

Tringad grunted at that. The elf had lost his eyes, but not his arrogance.

You can keep on waiting for the dragon to come to you, Tringad said. But I’m going to climb Blackstone and find the monster first.

And will you attempt to slay it then?

Why not tell him the truth? No, I’m going to talk to it, forge an alliance with it.

The hauteur on his face turned to shock. By the gods, why would you do this?

One word Tringad said. Power.

Elaninir shook his head. No. The dragon is a thing of evil. I cannot let you sell yourself to it. The dwarf reached for him, but his boot struck a stone, and he stumbled. Tringad caught the elf before he fell. Elaninir gripped the dwarf’s shoulder to steady himself, and his hand found hot steel. His mouth opened in surprise.

But you are a knight as well! Why did you not say so, brother? From which order do you hail?

Tringad said nothing. The elf’s blind hands touched Tringad’s armor, froze, then groped along the metal, tracing the hard outlines. Tringad grinned like the death’s head on his breastplate. Yes, let him touch me, let him know what I am.

At last he pulled away.

Now, I understand, dwarf. You have your path to follow, and I have mine.

His words were not angry, but rather filled with disgust and pity. This bothered Tringad more.

Thank you for the water, he said.

The elf said nothing.

Then Tringad left him, and he did not look back.

He started up the sheer slope. He climbed with speed and with purpose, using his hands as much as his legs to scramble over the treacherous rocks. Hot air rose in dizzying waves from below and seared his lungs, but he ignored it. Elaninir had been right about one thing—they did each have a path to follow. Only the elf’s path led to death, and his—if he was right, if he was lucky—would lead to mastery. Surely he could find a way to make himself useful to the dragon. If nothing else, he could catch far more meat for it than he would make as a meal. And with such a powerful ally beside him, there was no telling how far he would rise in the world.

He kept climbing.

Then it happened, so quickly he could do nothing but watch. With his hand he gripped the corner of a boulder to pull himself up. But it was loose, and precariously balanced. It shifted under his weight, tilted, then all at once came free. With a grating of rock on rock, the boulder slid down. There was no time to move. The ponderous block struck his left leg and pinned it against a spur of stone behind it. The steel greave he wore crumpled like paper. He heard more than felt the wet pop of his leg breaking.

A tingling clarity filled his mind. Injury, he realized, tended to do that. You idiot! You allowed yourself to be distracted by the fool elf, and now you’re going to pay for it!

And he did, with the first bright shards of pain.

Tringad almost swooned, but he fought to hold onto his wits, and did so, though just barely. He drew his sword, slipped it under the boulder, and wedged it against the spur of rock that crushed his leg. Then he leaned on the hilt. A groan of rock. The boulder shifted, and he could feel the broken ends of his leg bone grind against each other. He paused to vomit, then leaned on the sword again. The boulder lifted a finger’s breadth, then two, then three. He clenched his teeth against the pain and started to pull his dangling leg free.

That was when the blade of his sword snapped.

Tringad flew backward. The boulder lurched to the side, rolled over, and tumbled down the slope. His fingers clutched for a hold to stop his fall, but they found only loose stone. The boulder had set all the rocks around him into motion. He shouted a curse to all the gods of darkness. Then with a roar like thunder a large part of the mountain went sliding down the slope and carried his body with it. He might have screamed, but a stone struck his head, and all went black.

Tringad woke to the unfamiliar stars of the night sky.

For a moment he struggled in disorientation. A shadow hovered over him. The light of the moon glimmered off the steel outline of a rose. Then he blinked in understanding and let the strong hands ease him back to the ground.

I knew the gods would bring you back, Elaninir said.

Tringad gave a bitter laugh at the conceit of his words. Do your gods often break the legs of people just to get what they want? They sound more like common thugs to me.

Now anger twisted the elf’s face. And what of your dark gods? Do they not use others for their gain?

They do, only they are honest about it, and never disguise it as anything else. But none of that matters.

With a grimace, Tringad sat up and tried to piece together what had happened. Elaninir must have heard the boulders fall, must have followed the sounds of his moans, must have somehow dragged him back to his camp. Tringad searched with his hands. The elf had splinted his leg, and had tucked the hilt of his broken sword into its sheath. Why hadn’t he just killed me? It didn’t matter.

I’ve got to go, Tringad said.

He struggled to his feet. The pain was manageable with the splint. Then he took a step. A moment later, he was on the ground again, clutching his leg, spitting and swearing.

Elaninir knelt beside him. You can’t walk well enough.

Yes, I can. It was a lie. Tringad didn’t care. At that moment, he hated the elf.

No, it’s a sign. Again, that utter confidence lit his sightless face. You can see the way. And I’m strong. I can help you up the rocks. Alone we can do nothing, but together we can make it to the top.

Tringad fell still and gazed at the elf. And what would we do once we got there? Or have you forgotten our differing intentions?

Elaninir shook his head. Perhaps it will be decided for us. Perhaps the dragon will be amenable to your talk of alliance. Or perhaps it won’t, and then I will slay it. Let us see when we get there.

It was madness. Tringad knew it. The Shanmour Knight could only be trouble. He likely thought he could convert the dwarf along the way, to win Tringad over to his cause. Blast the righteous arrogance. It made him sick. Yet sometimes, in a mad world, madness was the only way.

Yes, he said at last. We shall see.

They began their ascent at dawn.

The sun heaved itself over the horizon, a baleful eye that glared at the land. In moments a hot wind sprang up out of nowhere and raced over them. Its gritty breath stung their hands and faces. Tringad looked up at Blackstone, but he could not make out the crown of the peak. Instead it was sheer slopes of ebony as far as his eyes could see.

Are you ready? Tringad asked.

Elaninir adjusted the rag that bound his eyes, then nodded. I am.

Then we’d better get moving. We’ll want to make it to the summit before sunset if we can. Whether it’s to talk to it or fight it, better to face a dragon in the light than in the dark.

Tringad pushed up from the ground with his arms, got his good leg beneath him, and stood, though in the process he drew in a hissing breath of pain.

Elaninir must have heard him. He reached out, found Tringad’s arm, and placed it on the slender slope of his hips.

I will help you.

Tringad hesitated. He did not like the idea of depending on another, not for anything. And Elaninir seemed too willing, almost too eager to help him, as if he enjoyed that the dwarf was weaker than him. But, whatever Tringad felt, the elf was right—there was no way he was going to climb the mountain alone. Tringad clenched his teeth, then looped his arm around Elaninir’s waist and allowed the elf to take the weight off his splinted leg.

Now you must show me the way, he said.

His face was so calm beneath the dirty bandage, so full of pride still. Was he not disgusted with his own deficiency? Was he not furious that he needed another to lead him like a child? But Tringad only grunted and limped toward the foot of the nearest slope, Elaninir beside him.

What an absurd sight they made, two broken knights, one dark and one light, one crippled and one blind, struggling together up the knife-edged side of a mountain. But there was no one to see them, only the hot, unblinking eye of the sun. Nothing grew or lived on the slopes of the blasted peak. Rock and sand and wind, that was all.

The slowness of their progress was agonizing. Every boulder, every ledge of stone was a battle. Tringad described what the way looked like to Elaninir, using words to guide his hands and feet to the scant holds, until he was able to leverage himself up. Then he would reach down to pull Tringad up after him while the dwarf pushed with his good leg. More than once Elaninir’s blind hands missed their mark, and he skidded back down the slope, scraping his hands and face. And every time he heaved Tringad up, his broken leg was jarred and buffeted, sending sharp knives of pain up through his body.

Their armor was a hot and ponderous burden, yet they were loath to cast if off, knowing they might well need it at the top. And, too, it saved them from the worst of the scrapes and bruises. Still, by midday they were battered, bleeding, and exhausted. They sat on a broad ledge of rough stone. The land, flat and brown as the skin of a drum, stretched far below them and made Tringad dizzy to gaze down. He still could not glimpse the summit for the haze, but by his guess they had come at least halfway.

They ate some food, then Tringad pulled his bottle from Elaninir’s pack. The water was scalding and tasted like the waste swill from a tanner’s shop, but they drank it all the same, and it was an effort to keep from gulping. Tringad replaced the stopper. There was still a long way to go.

For a few minutes more they rested. Tringad gazed into the empty air before them, while Elaninir gazed into nothingness.

Tell me, was it a vision that led you here? the fair-haired elf asked suddenly.

Tringad gave the elf a sharp look, even though he knew Elaninir could not see it. What do you know of visions, Knight of Shanmour?

Only that they are something each Knight of Stormguard has, something that guides them, that leads them onward to their dark purpose.

No, not something that each has. I forsook my clan long ago, as well as the visions, Tringad’s words were harsh, but he didn’t care.

Tringad would never forget that day—the day he was brought before the leader of the Stormguard clan, the day the powerful dwarf lord had laid his hands upon him. Some said that his mother was a stone goddess, and Tringad believed it. The dwarven lord had given him a choice: go out to the streets and live with the thieves and murderers until he became one himself, and ended up swinging from a gibbet; or join his army, become one of his knights, and know honor and glory.

That ultimatum had made Tringad angry, he remembered. Who was he to offer Tringad such a choice? Who was he to tell him what his life would or would not be? But he could not resist the power of the dwarven lord’s eyes. Tringad had taken his hand, and the lord had kissed him and welcomed him, and right there a sword was brought to him. Tringad had knelt before him, and the lord laid his hands on his head and spoke a prayer to the dark gods, and that was when the visions came upon him.

They were like dreams, the visions, only they were with him every time he closed his eyes, in the dark hours of the night, and in the stillness between every thought. The true magic of the visions was that they were different for every knight, his own path to glory or death.

The strange thing was, Tringad could no longer remember what the visions had been to him.

When his lord died, the visions went with him, for they had come through him, and was of him. Now Tringad was left with a gaping hole in his mind, a gap he could not stop worrying over, like a dwarf who has been to the barber and searches with his tongue his empty lip where his mustache used to be. He knew that the visions had filled him with both terror and wonder. But even the memory of them was gone now, and he knew he would never regain them.

I’m sorry, Elaninir said at last.

His words infuriated Tringad. Was he sorry for what he had said? Or sorry for him? Even when he spoke humble words such as those it seemed to be with the implication that he was the better of them. Yet there had been genuine remorse in his voice, and Tringad knew he was being unfair.

There is nothing to be sorry for, he said. I don’t need the visions. I know my key to glory. I’ll have it soon enough, once the dragon and I are in league together. With its strength and my brains, nothing will stand between us.

Elaninir shook his head. Enemies we are in another place, and enemies we still may be, but here and now you are my companion, and so it is not my wish to offend. Yet I still say you are misguided in your intentions. What do you have to offer a dragon? What makes you think you can convince it to form an alliance with you?

And what makes you think that if you perform some bone-headed heroic deed that the gods will restore your sight?

Elaninir winced at his words, and Tringad knew they had struck some sore spot deep within him. Good. We do not have time for this. Tringad glanced up at the sky. The sun had passed its zenith and was already starting its descent.

Let’s get going, Tringad said, if you really want to kill a dragon.

The elf helped him to his feet, and they started up the mountain once more.

After his fall the day before, Tringad should have been more wary of the treacherous slope. But as they climbed on, exhaustion dulled their caution. It was only a matter of time before one of them made a mistake.

It was Elaninir who did so first.

They stood on a slim ledge, a drop of five hundred feet below them. Perhaps he got too tired to think, or perhaps he had grown overconfident. Either way, Elaninir started to pull himself up the rocky shelf in front of them before Tringad had sufficiently guided the elf’s hands to the best holds. The crack he had gripped was too shallow. His blind fingers could not dig in deep enough to support his weight. He dropped back roughly to the narrow ledge. His heels skidded on the edge of the precipice, his hands flew out in search of balance. They found nothing. He toppled over backward.

No!

Tringad didn’t know if he screamed the word aloud or silently. It didn’t matter. Much as he hated to admit it, he needed Elaninir. Tringad lunged for him. Pain surged up his broken leg, but he ignored it. He stretched farther than he thought possible, so far that his joints popped. His fingers just brushed the hot metal of the elf’s breastplate—then caught the top edge of the beaten steel. He threw all his weight backward.

The Shanmour Knight sprawled forward, onto the ledge where they had stood. Tringad in turn stumbled forward, felt his leg twist sickeningly, and fell to the side. Before he could stop himself, he rolled off the edge of the precipice.

Tringad scrambled for something, anything, to stop himself. His hands found nothing but smooth stone. He fell. Then one hand slid into a crack in the rock, caught, and held. Fire exploded in his shoulder as his body jerked to a halt. He twisted in midair, suspended from the overhang by one hand. Beneath his dangling boots was five hundred feet of emptiness and, beneath that, sharp stone.

Pain sliced at his hand, blood slicked his palm. He could not hang on for long.

A shadow loomed over him.

Elaninir!

Tringad screamed the word. So much for pride.

The elven knight groped along the edge of the precipice in search of him. The elf had cut his forehead in the fall, and blood streamed down to soak the already crusted bandage over his eyes.

To your left, Tringad shouted. Farther!

Hot agony melted his muscles. His blood-wet fingers loosened. Another few seconds, no more. The elf’s hand came within in an inch of Tringad’s, moved away, then, as if guided by impossible instinct, slid back.

Contact.

Just as Tringad’s hand slid through the crack, the elf grabbed his wrist, then heaved back with all his weight and dragged Tringad onto the ledge.

For a minute they both lay there, panting. As last Elaninir spoke.

Are you all right?

Tringad cradled his battered hand. I’ll live.

The relief on the blind elf’s face was clear. Somehow, that eased Tringad’s pain.

Still shaken by the near fall, Tringad sipped some water, and Elaninir tightened his splint. After that they were ready to move on.

They started back up the peak. Soon it became like a game, albeit a deadly one, and each time they avoided a tilting rock, or survived a tumble down a short slope or scree, or dodged a falling boulder, it was like a personal triumph, a victory that affirmed they were smarter and better than the blasted heap of stone. Before long they were laughing as, battered but not beaten, they fought their way up the mountain.

All at once Elaninir’s laughter fell short. The curvature of the peak in either direction was apparent now. They were almost there.

I thought you were gone, you know, the elf said. Back down there, after you saved me from falling.

For a moment Tringad was silent. Then, to his own surprise, he grinned. You’ll not be rid of me so easily, Knight of Shanmour, he said.

He didn’t know why, perhaps he was growing used to the pain in his leg, but at that moment Tringad slipped his arm off the elf’s waist, reached down, and gripped his hand, and they walked those last agonizing steps together.

They reached the summit just as the