Xorlosh McMine

Distractedly, I downed me sixth mug, staring at a map of our home. The nooks and crannies of the underground city were still as vivid in me memory as they had been the day we had left. The Great Forge, built into the crater of a volcano, powered by Gaya’s very own blood, the vast halls, filled with whispering echos of ages past, the mines, fathomless depths, drilled through our island, until they reached far below the ocean line and most of all, the breweries, where the best mead in all of creation was lovingly made, each grain of wheat carefully picked form the flourishing fields.

Ah, home… it had been more years than I cared to remember, since last I had set foot on our island. The old wounds had almost healed, until the shadows of me past had encroached upon me and me lads again. The Axe of Angram… a name I had tried to forget, but here, in the middle of nowhere, it had suddenly resurfaced. Sighing, I closed me eyes and allowed the images, I had pushed away for far too long, to resurface…

The city was burning, swaths of smoke curling around houses, hewn from the very bedrock. An acrid taste filled me mouth and the song of axe and steel reverberated in me ears. It had been years, since the Mad King had ascended, but tonight would see his last breath, if me and me lads had anything to say about it. It had been enough. Enough bloodshed, enough cruelty, enough depravity… it was time to put an end to the worst era, our people ever had to suffer through. And if history wanted to call me traitor for it, then I’d gladly accept the title and wear it with pride.

“One last push, lads,” I roared, me voice thundering through the ruckus, as we carved our bloody way through the last line of defence, in front of the palace. Too many had died today, too many honest dwarfs, who had done nothing wrong but to serve their king until their dying breath. Their blood was on me hands, but the burden wouldn’t slow me down, not one bit. It was time to end this. One way or the other, tonight would see peace restored to our kingdom.

With a deft motion, I stowed Big Bertha, the last bolt still nailing one of the guards to the closest granite pillar, and reached for me axe. With a powerful swing, I cleared the space in front of me and growled: “on me! Break the shield wall and the gate is ours! Point formation. They might have them numbers, but we have the balls, move it, lads!” Before us, the bodies of dwarfs, I had called friend, not a week prior, were split in half, streams of blood running down the marble staircase, that led to the palace entrance. My boots had long since been soaked, turning every step into a hazardous gamble. Should I slip, I wasn’t going to rise again.

While bolts and spears hammered against cold steel, the projectiles hardly more than a gentle breeze against me armour, we pushed forward. Gurgling screams behind me signalled each and every death, when one of me lads finally succumbed to the onslaught, but the gaping holes in our formation were closed as quickly as they appeared, another comrade taking the place of our fallen brother. The tally kept getting worse, though. 156, 155, 154… may the fires protect us! At this rate, we wouldn’t make it to the gate, never mind breaching the rotten thing!

Casually, I whirled my axe around, neatly splitting an oncoming spear in two, before it could bury itself in the entrails of me cousin. I fumbled for the pouch, the priestess had given me, before she had choked on her own blood in me arms, the heat it exuded easily palpable, even through the thick leather of me gloves. “Cover me, use them last bolts to gimme a single fucking minute,” I hollered and allowed the stream of angry muscles and metal to overtake me.

A second later, I was surrounded by blinking steel and hacking, slashing and, above all, cursing friends on all sides. Despite the looming shadow of death and defeat, already bearing its fangs at us, I had never before felt so alive. This was it, the reason to become a soldier, to take up arms. Facing insurmountable odds at the side of your brothers, laughing at dangers, that would make others crumble, while the hymns of battle resounded around me. “We won’t fucking lose,” I promised them, even though they couldn’t hear me over their own screams and the ballade of broken blades we had unleashed.

“Concentrate,” she had whispered with her last breath. “Concentrate and call his name, the fires will follow. I don’t know how long it’ll last, so you better make sure to act. And Xorlosh, don’t fail us. The Mad King’s reign must end, or I fear our people might never recover.”

Without hesitation, I opened the pouch and downed the ash inside in a single gulp, its heat searing the back of me throat. “Angrosh,” I cried out, “your people need you again! Guide me hand and give me strength! By the forefathers, I call upon your oath, Wrath of the Dragon, it’s time to walk the earth again!” I called and the fiery fury of a bygone age answered.

Faintly, I heard me brother cry out: “no,” but it was already too late, as the fires of creation poured forth from the womb of the earth and engulfed me with warmth and sweet determination.

No longer was I Xorlosh, third son of a noble house, but the hero of old, a last, defiant flare of his flame, before it would peter out, for all eternity. And I wasn’t going to stop, I wasn’t going to give an inch. I was fury incarnate and the traitors would feel me wrath.

Wreathed in crimson flames, hot enough to melt metal, flesh and bone, I straightened and held me axe up high, dark red sparks dancing along its blade. An eerie, flickering light swept over me lads and I felt their hearts beat with renewed vigour, the toll, several days of fighting had taken on us, swept away in a second.

“Take heart, me friends, the end is neigh,” me voice boomed out, but it sounded deeper, gravelly, like mountains on the move. With each syllable, the flames grew brighter, hotter, larger, a crackling circle of death that slowly spread around us. “The Mad King will fall and his head will grace the tip of a pike before the day runs out! Let’s march! Not for glory, not for vengeance, but for our future! March, dwarfs of the mines, march!” And march we did. We marched and we sang, our voices heralding the birth of a new age, a birth marked by steel and fire.

The gates, massive slabs of granite, glowed and melted when we approached, the defenders turned into ash and slag, when a wave of burning stone buried them, the traps, nets and bolts were incinerated and without slowing down, we marched. Past statutes and corpses, past ill begotten wealth and stolen heirlooms, through misguided friends and desperate foes we marched until the black, unyielding doors of the inner sanctum laid before us. 35 of me lads were still alive.

A thunderous boom echoed through the hall, when me axe met a bulwark, that hadn’t been threatened in centuries, but tonight, it would crumble. I could already feel the fires consuming me heart, each beat eating away at me very essence, but I only laughed. I laughed and the fires burned even brighter, me axe a descending meteor, as it slammed into fortified steel.

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Three times I assaulted the door, three times me flaming axe left its mark on the final seal and with each strike, a part of me, a crimson spark carrying along me life, seeped into the metal until it shone as brilliantly as a star, overshadowing the flickering torch light. I felt the ache in me bones, I felt the weakening rush of power in me veins but I didn’t care. I raised me axe again and brought it down, willing even more of meself into the strike.

A deafening clash, an explosion of molten shards and the ancient, unyielding doors shattered, while another handful of me lads sank to the ground, their necks pierced by glowing metal. My breath burned in me throat and I could hardly see anymore, the fires still gnawing at me relentlessly, but I had a promise to keep. Straightening me shoulders, I rasped:

“This is on me, brothers. I will not have you sully your souls and become oath breakers at me side. Stay here, I will finish this. It’s been an honour serving with you. May your beards grow ever longer, when me bones have returned to the stone.” To me surprise, I immediately got an answer:

“Boss,” me brother wheezed, trough ash and soot, “go fuck yourself. Until he’s stone dead on the floor, we will not relent, we will not falter. And now move your flabby ass, it’s about time we returned the Mad King to whatever ugly hole he scrambled out of. What say you, lads?”

“Aye,” they rumbled, the clear sound of their axes slamming into their shields a soothing wave that cleared me mind. Smiling, I took the final step over the threshold to finish what we had started. The end had come and all that remained was slaughter. The slaughter of a family and their guards, of children and women, of innocents who had the misfortune of carrying on the cursed blood line, a heritage we had to extinguish, unless we wanted to invite a full blown civil war.

Amidst severed heads and spilled guts, between ripped off limbs and shredded armour, I finally collapsed, me axe stuck in the skull of our monarch, the late king Angram, whose descend into madness had cost us more than I had been able to bear. Amidst dying friends and slain foes, between murdered children and decapitated mothers, my strength finally faltered and the flames petered out. Amidst the gruesome chaos I had turned our world into, I fell to the ground, my head hitting the wet, crimson marble floor with a dull thud. The last thing I heard, before the sweet blackness of oblivion took away me shame and pain, was a gravely voice, deep within me bones:

“You’ve done well. Let this be my present to you. A last effort to serve our people. Stay vigilante, Xorlosh, for as much as you might wish it weren’t so, this isn’t the fiercest battle you’ll have to fight. The future is clouded and our people will need your aid, once again. When the time comes, remember who you are: you’re the last defender of our home. You’ve felt the Wrath of the Dragon, you’ve been forged in its fires. This is not your end, Axe of Angram, but the beginning of your story.”

In the aftermath, I had fully expected the new king, elected by the council of elders, to make an example out of me, it didn’t get much worse than regicide, after all. I wasn’t executed, though, but me titles were stripped away and me family, the spineless cowards, formally renounced me rights as one of their heirs. I wasn’t much more than an outlaw, but life was good and me lads, the few, who had survived the Mad King’s fall, stuck to me side.

Only when I tumbled through the hey with one of me former acquaintances, a duke’s daughter to be precise, did everything turn to shit. Without the backing of me family, the spineless father tried to make quick work of me, leaving me no choice but to pack me things and head out. With me lads, me ship and a belly full of spite, did I sail, until we reached Boseiju, a place I learned to call home, over time. And now, even that had been taken from me and I was going to head back to an island, a people, I had sworn to protect… but I had never had any intentions of returning.

Tiredly, I rubbed me hands over me eyes. They came away wet, salty tears clinging to the rough skin on me palm. “Buy me a dress and call me Margret,” I cursed. “If the lads had seen that, I wouldn’t have lived it down. Crying in me room like a little girl. Where’s that damned bottle?” Fumbling, I went through me desk, shoving away parchments and maps, but before I found it, me fingers brushed against the communication crystal, connected to the other ship. It was vibrating ever so slightly and glowing a deep blue. The lads were calling, even though they couldn’t be that close, yet. I was expecting them in a few days, at the earliest, which meant something had happened.

“Talk to me,” I spat, when I had managed to extract the crystal from the drawer. “Have you lot gotten lost or did you screw up? How far out are you?”

“Two, maybe three days, boss, but… there’s some crazy shit going on. We just finished pulling half dead humans out of burned wrecks. There was a battle, no, a full blown war! I’ve never seen… I don’t even know how they survived!”

“Slow down, son. Take a deep breath and tell me what happened, slowly.”

“Yes… see, we… you already know, we’ve met up with Arthur and his folks, don’t you? Well, we hustled back, as quickly as we could, tryin’ to get to Free Land as fast as the winds would carry us. About… an hour or two ago, the lookout called down, claiming he was seein’ smoke, risin’ in the east. We weren’t eager to delay, but smoke in the middle of nowhere? We had to take a look, didn’t we?” He exhaled deeply, his breath rattling through the crystal.

“Anyways, we came across a small island, covered in enormous, verdant trees and amidst the trunks, the wrecks of at least 20 airships still smouldered, the fires that had brought them down still burning merrily. A fleet of 20, sunk without a city close by? We had to know what had happened and landed… boss, I’ve see me fair share of ugly in me days, but what we came across down there… blood and corpses and… the survivors… they had all been maimed, their wounds were still bleeding when we finally found them! Bits and pieces had been hacked off, like we would chop wood, and… their eyes, the bastards, who did this, they even took their bloody eyes and placed coals in the empty sockets! How sick do you have to be?” His words trialed off, his mind consumed by the rising tide of gruesome images.

“It’s not your fault, son,” I said decidedly. “You did all you could. Will they make it?”

“They will. Even as we speak, the kitsune are workin’ their magics… but they won’t be able to restore what has been taken. They’ll make it, alright, but they’ll be crippled for the rest of their life.” I swallowed dryly. Waking to eternal darkness in a desecrated body might even be more cruel than never waking at all. But where there’s life, there’s hope. Once they got here, one of our mages might be able to do, what the kitsune couldn’t.

“You did good, all of you,” I rumbled. “Have you already managed to get one of them to talk? Did they tell you, who slaughtered them?”

“No, they’re barely conscious and a far cry away from a coherent sentence. They’re mostly moanin’ and cryin’ in their sleep, but… the flags, we recognised the flags. Those ships had come from Free Land and they belonged to seven different fleets. Each and every Captain has lost good men today. But that’s not all. There was another wreck… we could still see the leafs and branches, attached to the riggin’. They had hidden themselves among the trees and when the fleet had come close… I can’t say for sure, but it seems like they only lost a single ship.”

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened. The fleet, the Captains had sent to deal with the pirates, had truly been ambushed, but the cursed sorcerer hadn’t been idle. Instead of preparing a warm welcome at the Pirate Islands, he had set a trap, somewhere along the way.

“How long,” I suddenly asked, worry distorting me voice. “How long ago did it happen?”

“We’re not sure, boss, but some had already bled out, before we got there… half a day, tops.” I was thinking quickly. The timeline didn’t add up. The fleet had left much sooner, which meant they had to have been on their way back, already. But two to three days away from Free Land? It didn’t make sense. Unless they had been placed there, on purpose. Oh, shit.

“Are you taking one of the more frequented routes, leading to Free Land? Would the wrecks have been found, if you hadn’t been there?”

“Yes, we are… I think so. Why…” I sighed deeply, cutting him short.

“I fear you’ll have to finish what the monsters started. I don’t think there really are any survivors.”