Nanorod Petyr Trollbrandt Ultrahardt saw the man fall from the night sky like a burning lamp; cracking the starry black heavens like glass held under too much heat and impacted in the middle of the forest with incredible violence. The shockwave flattened trees of the Wilde Forest, and the heat of the explosion caught shattered wood and broken brush afire for many leagues. Trollbrandt was so far away, camped in Broken Tooth mountains, near one of his hunting spots, that in daylight it would have been too distant to spot. He clutched his long bow of Titanbark Yew to his deep chest. The cold sweat on his face dried instantly from the terrible heat of the flames.

Another light appeared in the night sky. A star burning with silver-blue light traced the same path that the other fell and suddenly, another explosion shook the night and nearly threw Trollbrandt from his hunting perch. Leave, Petyr! Run away! The young dwarf held bow in one fist and the solid wood of his hunting lean-to, near where wooden back was secured to the trunk of a Bar Tooth Fir, in the other. The sounds of repeated clashes shook the young dwarf from his transfixed state. Abruptly he was in motion. Trollbrandt shimmied down the ladderlike rungs of his lean-to, and nearly collapsed when his broad feet touched the nettle laced ground. When he steadied himself, Trollbrandt decided. Heart pounding, eyes streaming from the bite of the cold night, he half-fell, half-sprinted down the mountain. Why are you running towards that battle! Trollbrandt thought to himself, as brush and low hanging branches lashed his face and body. Despite a full silver white moon, and another waning crescent of blue-green, there were deep patches of shadow in the forest. Rocky outcroppings, stony burrs, crevasses, small deep green ravines, and thin streams of water that a dwarf could step across also leapt out from the night to hinder his mad dash. In his madness he barely slowed. His body slammed into trees and rocks, he fell often, surrounded by scree, broken branches and nettles. Trollbrandt surprising felt little of the impacts. It was a miracle that he survived it.

Trollbrandt ran for hours. Dwarves of Faeybon were known for endurance and not speed, but the youth could not limit himself to a reasonable ground-eating pace. He ran as if it was open ground, as if the specter of death had bony fingertips grasping, barely grazing the back of his thick neck. His heart drummed in his chest in tune with the thunder of the battle fought a great distance before him. He passed hundreds of fire blackened trees and entire copses where nettle and leaf stripped conifers bowed away from massive craters in the forest floor. Trollbrandt passed a stand of trees still burning fitfully and tried to turn away from the awful heat that seared the flesh and made his clothing smoke and ran over the lip of one such crater. The young dwarf bounced once, his thick back cracking what felt and sounded like glass in the cindered earth, then twice, striking his wide skull on a rock, which shut his mind off like a candle extinguished.

When he awoke the young dwarf thought it was full morning for the brightness around him. The crater glittered as if countless jewels matted its yawning chambers. Trollbrandt blinked when he saw that the sky was still dark, but the space near his left side was blinding. His eyes watered, and he had to shut them to keep from having his sight burned from his skull. Immediately the light dimmed.

“I’m…sorry, uh…dwarf…it can be…hard to control…You can open your eyes now.”

Trollbrandt hesitated. The light was no longer as painful, but he did not know if he wanted to see a creature, who could fight in the sky, and destroy forests with ease of weeding a garden. Why did I run towards this…man? That thought was confusing.

“It’s all right…I’ll answer your questions…” The voice said.

It sounded like a man. Trollbrandt opened his eyes. It was the man that fell from the sky. He knew it the moment he saw him. The light did not grow dimmer as the young dwarf originally thought, it threw back the shadows of the night with the same alacrity as before, but somehow Trollbrandt did not feel any discomfort from it. He wanted to ask how, but the beauty of the man stole his words. He was otherworldly, like flesh polished from gemstone or marble with eyes that burned with metal-eating fire. Armour clad him as if it was painted, then poured into reality, thick sweeping bards that both touched the man’s flesh and hovered in many layers beyond him. The armour was iridescent, a pale crystalline color that changed to deep red-gold, like the legendary metal, bloodstar and then back to every other hue and color. The light he gave off poured from his skin, and blazed from his eyes, nostrils, and mouth as if a tremendous forge worked from within his body. A cloak of flames lay about his armoured head and trailed off his back, its color was so bright that Trollbrandt knew that it should have killed him from the heat alone. However, the most beautiful part of the armour was the wings. It was two sections. A pair of liquid metal rings, as broad as the young dwarf was tall, and golden white hovered over what looked like a pair of metal raptor pinions grew from the man’s backplate. They were pearlescent white and dripped with what seemed like fluid luminescence that turned the blacked glass and sand beneath them as pure as crystal.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Come closer, child.” The man whispered, his voice echoing as if they were in a great hall.

“No.” Trollbrandt said, “First tell me. What are you and what are you doing here?”

The man blinked, and then his eyes went wide. “It worked…surely you cannot be…I searched for millennia, and this is how it happens? By accident?”

“You said you would answer my questions.”

“You’re right…I…hurgl…”-

-Silver blood poured from the man mouth as he hacked into a gauntlet. The blood vanished into steam the moment it touched his armour. His face twisted in pain. “I’m sorry I don’t have much time…but It is fated that it is you that I meet. I thought…I did not think…”

The young dwarf drew back at the display between the blood and platemail.

“Who are you?” Trollbrandt asked.

“I am…Aurtur Silvurndermn, a Hunter Slayer Hero. I came to your world to stop an evil from rising to threaten all the Dream. I failed.” Aurtur said. “But perhaps…if…it is truly you that I seek…will you accept a gift?”

Caution and greed warred in his heart. The blood of dwarves bore a sickness that hungered for gold, gemstones, and other precious ores. But another bloodline, diluted that sickness with a healthy fear of gifts with unnamed costs. It was not the half of the blood, but simple reason. I should not accept gifts from men that fall from the sky. Trollbrandt thought.

“Yes.” Said the dwarf, surprising himself.

Aurtur blinked again, “My Fated Sight, showed that you would not…I cannot think overlong on this…please draw near me.”

Leary of the armour that could turn blood into steam, Trollbrandt nevertheless crawled close enough for the winged man to touch. Aurtur reached out with a gauntlet and Trollbrandt closed his eyes and flinched away. The air around the young dwarf held him fast. Trollbrandt’s eyes flew open, and he blinked in a panic at the absence of the stuff of reality that he saw holding him. However, he only saw it when his eyes were closed, and could not see it with his eyes open.

“Peace.” Aurtur said.

And Trollbrandt felt it. A soothing warmth spread from the center of his chest and outward, slowing his heartbeat to a reasonable ‘thump’ and calming his breathing. His eyes closed and for a time everything around him was golden.

“Now.” Said Aurtur, “Thy Mind is Thy Blade So Keep it Sharp, Thy Body is Thy Shield, so Keep it Strong, Mind these two, so that Thy will do no Wrong. Blessings of the Sigil, Curse of the Emblem. By my right as a Keeper of Keepers I offer a Covenant of Power by my Sigil. By the power bestowed I lift the Curse of the Emblem. For the Cost of Sigil and Emblem, I seek to make you a holder of the Fruit of the Irresistible, seed of the Inexorable. May it be to you as a bitter pill in the belly and as sweet as the ambrosial honey on the tongue.”

Even in the golden calm caused by Aurtur’s words Trollbrandt felt his pulse quicken and mind wonder at the unease he felt at the man’s words.

“It is done.”

The young dwarf opened his eyes and saw that much of the light that once flowed from the man was now gone. Trollbrandt looked down where Aurtur’s armoured finger touched his bare chest, right over his heart. A sigil of iridescent hue, like the man’s armour, marked his chest about the size of a jule. His tunic and shirt had burned away, just like the blood.

“What now?” Trollbrandt asked.

“You both die.”

The dwarf looked up sharply and cursed at the overwhelming silver blue light that now suffused the space around him. On instinct he squeezed his eyes shut and cursed again as his eyes still burned at that oppressive light. Trollbrandt felt powerful metal hands, which felt like smooth glass pick him up as if he were child and set him on his feet away from the newcomer.

“Run!” Said Aurtur.

Trollbrandt’s legs obeyed without input from his mind and suddenly the young dwarf was dashing away from a cataclysmic battle, faster than he ran to it before.

“You will buy him, few seconds Dragoneater, I have thrown you down twice before. And it was only a thirst for worthy battle that stayed my hand from ending you too soon.”

“The strong may be fools then, when hunger and thirst is the purest pursuit of their life!” Aurtur snapped, choking on what might have been silver blood. “I will make you regret every moment that you spared me.”

“Unlikely.” Said the other. “And your pet will die, not even a moment after you.”

The rest of the banter of the star beings was lost in a roar of clashes that sent Trollbrandt flying up and out of the crater. He bounced on ash matted, kindling and despite his body hurting, he was up and moving before he could even think to do so. Trollbrandt ran with everything that he had. But the other man’s voice chased him. ‘You both die,’ and ‘your pet will die, not even a moment after you.’ Both proved true. It happened faster than thought itself. There was an explosion of power, golden light against silvery blue. Once again, the young dwarf was sent flying at incredible speeds. He cracked a ruined tree in half with his skull and then slumped against it feeling warmth flowing from his crown, down his face, filling his nostrils with the scent of iron before he tasted it on his lips. Brilliant light entered his chest, where Aurtur had touched him, while he was still batting away at the darkness that threatened to eat his consciousness. He did not even have time to gasp before his eyes dulled and his heart stilled, pinned by the sword of light. Trollbrandt’s breath left him in a rush.