Bernard shivered and pulled his cloak tighter. Despite the summer weather, the air had gotten colder as he ventured toward his homeland. He fingered his weathered map yet another time, to reassure himself he was going in the same direction. Some part of him, deep in the back of his mind, wanted to believe he must be going the wrong way. The chill in the air was too unnerving. But in his heart, he knew his feet were pointed in the direction of Verdania, the lost kingdom of the halflings.
It had been a months-long journey to make his way even this far. Bernard had quit his job as a store clerk in Pyrith, sold off everything he couldn’t carry, and ventured off into the unknown. Truth be told, he could scarcely believe he had gone through with it. Where had this courage come from? He had never journeyed further than a day outside of the city. But something called him home.
It’s a strange thing, being called home, to a place you’ve never laid your head to rest. It had been generations since the fall of Verdania, halflings scattering in every direction around the world. Halflings now lived a fractured existence, everywhere and yet nowhere—communities in every city, yet without a homeland. But the Homeland remained rooted deep within their culture. Stories of Verdania and its former splendour were passed from grandparents, parents, aunties, and uncles to the next generation. The traditional greeting for meeting a new halfling was, “Caern trebig Verdanàin”—“Hail, traveller from Verdania”, with the customary response of “Caern voraek”, meaning “Hail, wanderer”. No matter the time since the fall of the Homeland, no matter how settled halflings were in their new communities around the world, they remained wanderers.
Bernard Ramblefoot was now, truly, a wanderer himself. He had heard the tales passed down, of Verdania’s halcyon beauty. But in all the tales his Auntie Rosie told, she never gave much detail about its destruction. What had happened to the Homeland? Why had no one ever returned to rebuild, after all these years? She said dragons had destroyed it—but why? The question had gnawed at him since his youth, and now, evidently, it had become the irresistible question that demanded an answer.
---
He saw the old woman with the precarious-looking cart before she saw him. Her mule was struggling to find footing on the scarcest of pathways. “Well met, traveller,” Bernard called out. She looked up with a quizzical expression, and then broke into a grin of crooked teeth.
“Ahh, a fellow rambler! What brings ye out here into the wilderness?” Hunched over as she was, her eyes were almost level with his.
“I’m adventuring, on my way to Verdania, or what’s left of it. Do you know, are we now within its former borders?”
“Verdania, eh? What a curious place t’want to go. Aye, ye’re within where Verdania once was. But I must warn ye, there’s naught but danger farther along.”
One part of Bernard was excited. He had made it! But, danger? “Danger? What sort of danger? Were you not just heading from that direction?”
The old woman cackled. “Aye, I venture in to find all the strange curios left behind, all the bits ’n’ bobs of the past, to peddle them where I go.” Then, thinking for a moment, she held up a finger, and turned to rummage around in her cart, which was full of all manner of assorted clutter. After a brief time, she turned back to Bernard, holding up a small device. “If ye do disregard me warning of danger, then mayhaps ye’ll be needing something such as this. ’Tis a compass, but has a sort of magic to it. It points the way to safety. Perhaps it’ll help ye steer clear the worst of it.”
Bernard looked down at the small device that had been placed in his hand. It was, indeed, a round compass, with the arrows pointing in opposite directions, as they all do. He twisted it back and forth, and the needle stayed directed at the path before him. “That’s lovely. I’ve been using this map, but it’s only been enough to get me to the general area. I suppose this might help get me the rest of the way. How much?”
“Ahh, for you, dearie, I’ll give it to ye for being kind to an old lady as meself. I think ye need it more than I do, anyway. Young ladies only get to be old ladies by knowing when danger lurks nearby.” She gave another toothy chuckle at him, then patted him on the cheek. “I hope ye find what ye’re looking for.” Then she turned back to her mule, gave a little tug on the reins, and ventured her cart onward.
Bernard gave another look down at the compass, as the needle spun around for a moment, then turned back around to show the way. Then, with renewed determination, he stepped forward into the unknown.
As the lady continued along in the opposite direction, out of earshot of the halfling, she leaned in conspiratorially to the mule. “They always fall for that one, don’t they?”
---
The compass had led him here. Here, to this strange grove. The ruins made themselves obvious—large chunks of stone lay strewn about, even yards away. The forest had already started reclaiming its domain, lichen covering the rubble and weeds poking out of every crack and crevice. As he got closer to the grove, he came across statues as well. The forms were detailed and lifelike. Bernard marvelled for a moment at the craftsmanship. At the height of it, his people must have had talent for stonework that rivalled even the dwarves! The intricate details of the faces, the animated expressions and implied movement. He had never seen such craft before. There was a deer, antlers large and proud, looking as if ready to leap into the air. A woman, maybe human, perhaps an elf, stood with her arms outstretched, body twisted as if turning to run. A goblin knelt on the ground behind a rock, just poking its head upward to take a peek. Such fine detail, with pointed ears held back and the crooked expression on his face!
The statues became more prevalent the closer he got to the grove. Many were of woodland animals. As he got to the grove itself, he saw ruins of what could have been a temple or an altar, perhaps—slender stone columns in a circle, raised up to a dome, now half crumbled with the ravages of time. In the centre, there appeared to be a small stone basin, perhaps for water, or serving as a brazier. The sculptures around him faced toward the structure, as if all man and beast had come to pay reverence.
As Bernard wandered closer, though, something nagged at the back of his mind. The statues were convincing and detailed, but instead of reverence, they often showed signs of surprise or fear. Perhaps this was a holy place, once touched by one of the gods, or an angelic being? Perhaps it was a place of awe, inspiring both reverence and fear. He knelt down to inspect the smallest of the sculptures, a squirrel perched on one of the collapsed stone pillars.
Two things struck him at precisely the same moment. One: He heard movement, coming from somewhere on the far side of the stone structure. Two: If the statue was on the stone pillar, that means it was crafted after the pillar had collapsed. The statues were produced after the ruins already existed! Something deeply instinctual in him took over, and he ducked behind the pillar. Suddenly his heart was pounding, to the point where he was sure that whoever else was here must be able to hear it.
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As the sounds grew nearer, he heard a voice. It was a woman’s voice, humming quietly, in an idle tune, melodious yet with a wandering lilt. Bernard’s mind was still racing, trying to put together all the pieces. Was this woman the skilled sculptor, who found the structure after its ruin, and fashioned the statues on top? No. That was too much. What would a sculptor be doing here, in the middle of nowhere? That must mean...
Yes, there it was. Beneath the woman’s tune, he could hear a quiet hissing sound. It sounded like many snakes, trying to match the woman’s voice in rhythm, if not in harmony. This woman was no sculptor. These statues were no statues at all. She was straight out of the tales Auntie Rosie told around the campfire, in the darkness of night. The kind of creature who turns flesh to stone with a single look, with snakes for hair, who prey upon those who venture too far from the fire at night. The kind of monster little halflings could swear they saw, the whites of their monster eyes peering out from the darkness, as the little ones huddled by the campfire listening to their auntie’s frightening tales.
Eyesight! That was it. That was the key to the story; the monsters needed to see your eyes. Still crouched behind the pillar, facing away from the...creature...Bernard took one quick look around him to figure out a path. Then he shut his eyes tight, tighter than he ever had, and snuck away as quickly and quietly as he could. He crawled on hands and knees until he bumped into a tree trunk. Then, he scrambled to his feet, and ran, and ran, and ran. He didn’t stop until he was wheezing, gasping for breath. Only then did he risk looking behind him. No snakes. No monsters. No statues, even. And no statue of a little halfling to add to the creature’s collection.
---
The terrain had become swampy. The humid air hung low, and biting insects buzzed around Bernard’s head. After the escape from the petrifying creature, he had followed the compass for several more days. It was clearly leading him somewhere, but...where? Bernard tried to find a dry path through the wet ground, in some cases having to leap from spot to spot to try to keep his feet out of the muck. When he did misstep on occasion, his foot would land with a loud squelch, and mud would shoot through his toes.
Even the marshy ground wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for the smell. It was musty and stifling, with an acrid scent as if the liquid underfoot was vinegar rather than water. Unlike a bog with the rich and earthy smell of peat, in this place, the stench of death hung in the air. As Bernard continued onward, the fog got worse; the mist stung his eyes and nostrils.
It wasn’t so much that Bernard wanted to continue to venture deeper. It was more that, at this point, he was utterly lost. The compass was pointing in a direction, and heading in that direction was still better than wandering in the foggy marsh until his own corpse added to the smell of necrosis.
Then he found the barrows. They were hard to recognize among the fog and muck. But low humps of earth rose here and there, and he managed to find the rotted doors on a few of them, leading into what was once a halfling’s home. The interiors were filled knee-deep with stagnant water; anything inside would have long rotted away by now. In a few places, a worn-away fence post still stood stalwart out of the ground, the last reminder of a long-forgotten history. Bernard wondered if perhaps he had found the place his auntie had told him about, the place called Pilgrim’s Rest. He tried to imagine the lush and verdant slopes she had described. Sheep and cows grazing in the pastures, rows of corn and wheat and beans, with halflings singing songs and baking pies and falling asleep in the grass under the stars. How could this be that place? How could it have ever been that way?
He tried climbing atop one of the barrows to see if he could get above the fog. Looking around, off in the distance he saw another structure. The stonework looked much like the one in the grove, but this looked bigger, grander. Or at least...had been grander, at some point in the past. Now, moss and vines draped over the columns, and the ravages of time—or something nastier, perhaps—had torn much of it to pieces. But still, some measure of the grandeur stood, defiant, above the sullied landscape, as if to say, “The halflings can never be defeated. We are still yet here, staking our claim to our homeland.”
Bernard headed toward the structure. He nearly tripped over a large stone brick, not realizing in the fog that he was as close as he was. But, as if on cue, the mist parted, and there, lying amidst a glittering pile, was the largest beast Bernard had ever seen—an enormous black dragon! Its wings were tucked back behind it. The claws on its front feet were as large as Bernard himself. And two massive black horns came from either side of the beast’s head and curled around toward its snout.
And it was looking right at him, with piercing green eyes.
Bernard froze. He didn’t know what to do. The dragon had clearly seen him before he saw it. His little legs wouldn’t be nearly enough to outrun it.
“Whhhat are you doing in my domain, little one?” As the dragon spoke, its breath turned the air acrid. It stung Bernard’s eyes.
“I—I came here to—to see my homeland.” Bernard stumbled over his words. He was trying to speak, even as his mind raced to find a way to make it out alive. Maybe he could hide in one of the barrows? No, he wouldn’t even make it halfway before this thing would gobble him up as a light afternoon snack.
The dragon let out a throaty chuckle. “And whhhat do you think of your hhhomeland? Is it everything you dreamed of, tiny footling?”
Bernard paused for a moment. Somehow, right here, standing before the mighty beast, the impossibility of escape emboldened him. Maybe it was the residual grandeur of the columns that still stood around him. Maybe it was the absolute inevitability of his death. “Were you the one who destroyed Verdania? I was told that it was destroyed by dragons.”
The dragon laughed again, breathing acidic air into the halfling’s lungs. “No! Not I. I came hhhere whhhen this place was already abandoned. Already desolate. Turned it into whhhat you see now. Quite lovely, isn’t it? The place needed a little...hhhomely touch. But tell me. You say dragons destroyed this? Interesting...We dragons are quite solitary creatures. We don’t often work together. I wonder whhhat you little ones must hhhave done to anger us so.”
The dragon sat up, pushing up with his front feet and extending himself forward. The gold coins and glittering gems beneath him shifted, and a number of them dropped into the swampy water with a plop! plop! plop! He then bent his head low and leaned in to inspect Bernard closely. The green eyes peered into his soul. “It doesn’t seem likely that such small and insignificant creatures could drive us to such anger. Perhhhaps you hhhave been told a lie, little one. Perhhhaps someone tried to slander the dragons so.”
Bernard tried to work some saliva into his mouth, which had gone dry. His hands were shaking. “I don’t know who said it was the dragons. Those were just stories. I came here to find out the truth. I came here to see it with my own eyes.”
He looked around him, at the destruction and ruin. Then somehow, as if something deep inside that had laid dormant his whole life suddenly awoke, Bernard felt emboldened. He straightened his shoulders, grabbed the hilt of his dagger and unsheathed it, pointing it at the enormous beast. “Maybe you weren’t the one to destroy Verdania, but you have ruined the land, and kept my people from returning!” He started to shout. “This isn’t your home, it’s mine! Those hills back there were homes, and now they are graves! I have come to reclaim this land for myself and my people, all those scattered across the world with an aching in their hearts for their homeland! I reclaim this kingdom for the halflings!”
Bernard waved his dagger wildly to punctuate his words. The dragon pulled his head back, then got fully to his feet. He towered over the tiny halfling. With one foot, he could crush the two-legged creature. Then, extending his wings outward and rearing back his head, the black dragon let out a terrifying roar that turned into a full-throated laugh. Billowing acid spilled out into the air from his mouth as he bellowed.
After a long moment of laughter, he arched his head down and looked at the small creature before him again. “You are certainly a brave one, little footling. You hhhave made me laugh.” Then, bowing his head down low—still far above Bernard’s head—he spoke again. “Very well...I cede my claim to this land. I hhhumbly yield myself to the kingdom of the footlings. I only request that I be permitted to live out my days in the shhhadow of the kingdom, as this place hhhas become my hhhome as well. I hereby declare, to all man and beast, that this land belongs to the hhhalflings, and shhhall always be the hhhalflings’.” The corner of his mouth curled back into a sly smile, showing off just a few of his pointed teeth. “Now, little one...your bravery hhhas saved you. I will let you go. Return to your people and tell them the dragons hhhave ceded the land back to them. Perhhhaps one day, you shhhall all return in glory.”
Bernard sheathed his dagger, his hands still quavering. But he held his head high. He was Bernard Ramblefoot, wanderer no longer. His feet now stood firm upon Verdania, the Homeland.