NOVEL NEXT EPISODE 36: SONGUNBARD
Cicadas, the 30th of Lost Speed, 4E 201
It wasn’t long after Nektariin had stopped the flow of juice that he and Draloth had worked out the business plan for ‘Nektariin’s Nektar’ (with a ‘k’) and the Dark Elf had convinced the Lychee that they’d need access to the portal so that they could approach the owners of the Hall of Velour in Songunbard with an exclusive deal on some of their stronger range of fruit drinks.
As Kharla stood before the portal, activated once more by returning the walking stick to the slot in the seal, she swallowed hard. The ground before her seemed to break apart like a giant eggshell as the light of the portal rose high into the sky as if it were some great column reaching out of the world and into the stars. Well, too late to turn back now. You had to see something through. Alun needed to be taught a lesson and Kharla was going to be the one to do it.
She stepped into the portal and the others followed. It wasn’t an unpleasant experience. In fact, there was no sense of motion at all. She simply stepped from a sticky stone floor and the smell of forest fruits to a hard, frosty stone step and the smell of fog infused with a whiff of mead. Kharla looked up to see the great column of reddish light ascending into the dark sky here as well.
“What you did back there, with that Lychee,” began Nyranfar as Draloth gazed out into the thick fog, “it wasn’t half bad.”
“Why, thank you. And thank you for your help in the Temple with those Daughtr. Most appreciated,” replied the merchant.
Kharla was glad to hear the two had made up, but of course, the reality was that they could all still die very soon as they confronted the biggest and baddest dragon of them all. All except Draloth’s ancestor, that is. He was already dead.
As they followed the stone steps down into a fog almost as thick as a bad day in Whiteruin’s Cloud District a figure emerged before them. A Torncloak soldier. He looked lost. He turned on seeing them.
“Are you lost?” asked Kharla.
“Near Giants’ Gape, in the dawn’s early light, we marched unsuspecting into the Impeccables’ trap. There we stood and argued, our shield-wall defending until twilight’s last gleaming. The Legion’s ranks wavered, but I never knew if the perilous quarrel brought victory—an arrow’s red glare to Songunbard carried me. Now, lost I wander.”
Kharla nodded. “Right. Sorry to hear that. Have you seen a dragon?”
“The haughty foe, Alun, his hunger insatiable, hunts the lost souls snared within this shadowed valley, bringing boredom to all he finds.”
“I see,” said Kharla.
“Can you lead the way to where Shorn’s hall waits, beckoning us on to welcome long sought?” asked the Torncloak, his face filled with hope.
Kharla turned to Draloth and, lowering her voice, said, “What did he say?”
“I think he wants to know the way to the Hall of Velour. Probably to have a drink,” replied the Dark Elf.
“Follow nose!” said Thral, sniffing the air and taking the lead. “This way to mead!”
“Hurry!” said the soldier as everyone followed Thral. “Before Alun your life devours. Bring word to Shorn’s hall of our hard fate!”
They wound their way down a broken path, past grass and boulders and ancient structures, all but impossible to follow were it not for Thral’s sense of smell. Perhaps it had been improved by all the power sneezing. No, it was probably just from all his experience of having to find local taverns in the dark.
“It’s all useless!” came a voice from the side of the path. Kharla glanced to the verge to see an Impeccable soldier banging his head against a boulder. “I’m so bored! No, I must keep order! Must remember etiquette! The Folded Napkin! No, I’m just too bored. Bored. Bored. Bored.”
They left the head-banging soldier behind. Above them somewhere in the misty sky a dragon roared. Alun. Kharla knew that roar. Another figure loomed before them on the path, turning as they approached. A young Nord dressed in fine clothes and with a royal circlet upon his head.
“When Oldthred Torncloak with savage and offensive Shout sent me here my sole regret was fair Elusif, whose whereabouts I had not discovered for some days, left forlorn and weeping. I faced him fearlessly, my fate inescapable but my honor is unstained. Can Oldthred say the same?” And then he disappeared back into the mist.
“Was that?” Kharla asked.
“Yes, High King Toerag himself,” said Eilgird.
They carried on, Thral quickening his pace. The scent of mead must’ve grown stronger or Thral’s thirst greater.
Alun’s form appeared a little way off, sweeping down, roaring. A man screamed. Another soul bored to death no doubt, the World-Sleeper devouring every bit of interest from his essence. Finally, the path came to an end and the mist seem to clear a little. Before them a huge, forked, v-shaped bone stretched over a great chasm.
A Nord, large and bare-chested, stepped forward from the bridge as they approached. “What brings you, wayfarers strange, to wander here, in Songunbard, souls-end, Shorn’s gift to honored dead?”
“And you are?” asked Kharla.
“I am Tim, shield-thane to Shorn, and Shearer of his sheep. The Wishbone Bridge he bade me guard and winnow all those souls whose heroic end sent them here, to Shorn’s drafty—I mean lofty—hall where welcome, well-earned, awaits those I judge fit to join that fellowship of honor.”
“We pursue Alun, the World-Sleeper,” said Kharla.
Tim nodded slowly. “A fateful errand. No few have chafed to face the Worm since first he set his soul-snare here at Songunbard’s threshold. But Shorn restrained our wrathful onslaught—perhaps, deep-counseled, your doom he foresaw. In this Hall of Velour worthy champions wait who must in Alun’s defeat partake if spawn of Mackintosh is to be undone.”
Kharla gripped her spear tighter, struggling to understand the strange speech. “Then we seek entrance to the Hall of Velour.”
“No shade are you, as usually here passes—save the one, blue uniform wearing, of Oldthred’s ilk, at your rear—but living, you dare the land of the dead. By what right request you entry?”
“By the right of birth.” Kharla put her hand on Thral’s shoulder. “This is the Dragonbore.”
“Ah! It’s been too long since last I faced a doom-driven hero of the dragon blood. Living or dead, by decree of Shorn, none may pass this perilous bridge ‘til I judge them worthy by the warrior’s test.”
“A test of arms?” asked Eilgird.
Tim indicated toward a flat-topped stone pillar about the height of his waist. “Yes, Guard of Whiteruin, a wrestle of arms.” Tim moved to the pillar, bent slightly, and put his elbow on the flat top, his hand open, indicating for Thral to do the same.
Thral had clearly arm-wrestled before as he clasped the other’s hand. The test didn’t last long. Thral wrestled Tim’s arm down so hard that the Songunbard hero went flying over the pillar and into a large bush.
“It is long since the living entered Shorn’s hall,” Tim said as he stood from the bush and pulled a twig from his hair. “Go, then, Dragonbore, green-skinned Orc, fur-faced Cat, red-eyed Dark Elf and departed kin, Guard of Whiteruin, Breton Mage, and Soldier Torncloak. But beware the Wishbone Bridge, for easily may it snap and deep is the chasm. Though, if snap it does, then console yourselves in hopeful knowledge that a wish you may make before plummeting to your doom.”
“That’s comforting,” said Eilgird.
The massive bone felt springy as Kharla, Thral and the others made their way tentatively across the weak bridge, as if it might break if one was to tread too heavily upon it.
“Why does everyone here speak so strangely?” asked Ti’lief. “This one can barely understand it.”
“Perhaps that’s the way you speak after you die?” said Mell.
“Only here, in Songunbard,” said Nyranfar. “I think death must damage a Nord’s brain.”
“Our dead here speak with the true tongue of the ancient Nords,” Eilgird said. “And speaking of tongues—you watch yours or there’ll be trouble.”
Nyranfar fell silent.
Kharla let out a breath of relief as she stepped off the Wishbone Bridge onto firm ground again. Before them now loomed the Hall of Velour, its top disappearing into the dark misty sky. Light flooded from its windows, though was soon lost in the fog. Thral pushed on the great doors and they swung open to reveal the largest hall Kharla had ever seen. Great tables sat in the stone hall, surrounded by seats all upholstered in a soft, velvet-like material with a dense pile. The glass vaulted ceiling stretch up far far above.
Before them stood a large man in ancient Nord armor, with a great axe upon his back. He looked at them as they entered and spoke grimly. “Welcome, Dragonbore! I am Isgrimmer. Our door has stood empty since Alun first set his soul-snare here. By Shorn’s command we sheared his sheep and sheathed our blades and ventured not the vale’s dark mist.”
Isgrimmer, the Hard Binger, First Ruler of Skewrim, Builder of the City of Windfarm, Leader of the Five Hundred Complainants. Grimmer than all other Nords, it is said. He set the bar for grimness (and binging).
Isgrimmer pointed toward three figures standing together a little way off. They looked familiar. “But three await your word to loose their fury upon the perilous foe. Gormlass Goldilocks the fearless, over-heated in battle; Hackin One-Ear the valiant (and slightly deaf), heavy-hearted warrior; Feeldire the Old, cynical and grim, though not as grim as me.”
“Right,” said Kharla, “so these three can help us defeat Alun?”
Isgrimmer nodded and then gestured for Kharla and the others to approach the three figures.
As Kharla drew near she recognized them as the three from the moving images they’d seen in the Elderly Scrawl on the Peak of the Thrill of the World. And so did the others, well except perhaps for Thral who was downing a large horn filled with mead that a beautiful serving girl had just handed to him.
“You were great, slaying that dragon—in the Elderly Scrawl, I mean. I cried when you died,” said Mell.
“This one shed a tear too,” Ti’lief admitted.
Gormlass smiled and ran a hand through her golden curls. “My thanks for praise given, but to the matter pressing: At long last, Alun’s doom is now ours to seal. Just speak the word, and with high hearts we’ll hasten forth to smite the Worm wherever he lurks before Hall’s porridge is served for supper.”
“Hold, comrades!” said Feeldire. “Let us counsel take before battle is blindly joined and porridge eaten. Alun’s mist is more than a snare—its shadowy gloom is his shield and cloak. But with four voices combined, we can blast the mist and bring him to battle—though we may all die for it!”
“Feeldire speaks wisdom, though I am not so lacking in hope!” said Hackin. He turned to Thral. “The World-Sleeper coward fears you, Dragonbore.”
Kharla made a face at Thral, trying to get him to pay attention.
Thral lowered the horn from his mouth. “What’s that?”
“We must drive away his mist,” continued Hackin, “shouting together, and then unsheathe our blades in desperate battle with our black-winged foe.”
Gormlass Goldilocks raised her arm. “To battle my friends! The field will echo with the clamor of war, our wills undaunted! Our porridge, on our triumphant return, not too hot, neither too cold, but just right!”