Tironock turns to face the inner gate. Goblin bolters fire from the towers. They aimed for his head, hoping with luck to hit an eye. They are not lucky. They throw water from the towers, but the inner gate is too far away and none of it reaches Tironock. Tironock grasps the wall supporting the gate in both hands. It crumbles into dust. Men and goblins led by Lord Ran and Ghad continue to drive the tips of Trak’s iron swords under the scales of his legs. Into this chaos of blood and screams, Meg shuffles, tightly gripping her obsidian blade.
Krage, watching from the battlements, recognizes his mother at the same moment Tironock sees her approaching. The demon utters a contemptuous roar. He senses at once she is of the Thaumaturgist’s lineage. He would finish her before she could try anything. Krage realizes he can’t reach his mother in time. He summons the Earth’s power and directs a flash of blue light at Tironock’s face. The explosion temporarily blinds the beast and causes Tironock to stumble against the staircase leading to the keep’s entrance. The demon falls on his back. Goblins standing atop the keep dump vats of water onto the floundering demon. Baelock is among those dumping water. He sees Meg in peril. He grabs a soldier’s iron spear and leaps from the battlement. The momentum of his fall drives the spear deep into Tironock’s exposed belly. as Baelock’s body crashes onto the cobblestones and crumples upon impact.
Tironock begins to dematerialize. He intends to reform with his spear wounds healed and his vision restored. As his form quivers in the strong summer light, Meg closes the gap and buries Dragon Killer between Tironock’s shoulder blades with all her strength and all the strength her ancestors give her. The ancient weapon penetrates Tironock’s hard scales as easily as it would butter. Tironock feels the blade suck the power from his being. He knows the wound is serious. He looks over his shoulder to see who has delivered the blow. He sees only the frailest goblin imaginable. Too weakened to strike back, Tironock feels panic for the first time in his existence and concentrates on dematerializing.
Krage yells in disbelief as Meg’s body slumps to the ground. He rushes from the battlement into the courtyard. When he arrives, Myrel is already holding her grandmother in her arms. The old goblin is gone.
Duke Amin orders the injured cleared from the courtyard. Lord Ran stands waiting for the demon to reappear. Queen Fae regains consciousness, “What has happened?”
She is told, “An old Spore has stopped the demon.” Baelock and Meg are carried to their cave in the forest and laid on their pallets. Myrel thinks how wonderful her grandmother was and wishes Trak could have witnessed her courage.
***
Tironock can feel the blade wedged between his shoulders, as he struggles to reach the cavern beneath the main hive. He must find a way to remove it from his flesh. He thinks of Shenal Ken. She can be forced to help.
Tironock’s spirit enters his cavern and collapses in front of Shenal Ken. In his agony, he doesn’t notice that her chain is shattered, nor does he see Trak and Lizardthroat nearby. Trak and Lizardthroat feel his presence in the swirling dust and hear his voice command, “Pull the obsidian blade from my flesh.” Shenal sees her tormentor writhing in pain, the dagger protruding from his back. Shenal looks at Trak to see if he is ready. Lizardthroat’s sword emits flashes of blue flames and Trak’s sparks gold, signaling they are as ready as they would ever be. The air is charged with the odor of lightning as Shenal Ken withdraws the obsidian.
With the dagger removed, Tironock’s pain eases. He sees Trak standing in front of him with the gold and steel sword in his hand. Golden flames flickered off the Dragon Fire. The demon quickly assumes corporal form and charges straight for Trak. He is determined to crush the Spore of Septan with his bare hands. He doesn’t see Lizardthroat strike from the side. Melkerei thrusts his flaming blue sword into Tironock’s flank. The demon collapses and with a flailing arm smashes Lizardthroat hard against the cavern’s wall. Trak leaps forward and drives his golden Dragon Fire into the demigod’s chest. The monster tries to dematerialize but finds that the gold in the steel sword has fused his spirit to Trak’s. He can’t break the bond.
With his left hand on the sword’s hilt, Trak encircles Shenal Ken in his right arm. With all the strength he can summon, Trak draws Tironock’s essence into his body and thrusts it at Shenal Ken. As he does so, pain sweeps through his being and blackness seals his mind.
Postscript
Love between two people can happen in unexpected ways.
Alrik Redeyes
Duke Amin proclaims to his assembled comrades, “The old Spore’s magic has defeated Tironock.”
Myrel corrects him, “It was her obsidian blade. Obsidian is the earth’s magma in solidified form. It sought to regain its molten form by sucking power out of Tironock Kan.”
Farg understood enough to order craftsmen to make spears and arrows of obsidian. If the demon returns, he will be ready. Lord Ran visits the hive under the channel to survey the damage. Ghad has already begun repairs. Tironock has not been seen in five days. They are beginning to believe that Trak’s mission has been successful. But where is Trak?
Myrel cremates Meg and Baelock. Only Krage witnesses the event. Five days after the battle, Myrel sets off for the valley where Meg’s ancestors are buried. She journeys through the mountains accompanied by Dungoth who frightens goblins along the way. As she travels the Razor’s Back, she brings news of the battle to hundreds of refugees. Myrel passes the hive the Queen Mothers are building in the mountains; the queens tell Myrel they no longer feel Tironock’s presence. Myrel asks if they know where Trak is. They can offer no suggestion. Alexia and Grenab greet Myrel. They see Myrel is pregnant. With Trak missing, the revelation is bitter sweet.
A fortnight after leaving the Isle of Uisgebeatha, Myrel places the urns bearing Meg’s and Baelock’s remains in the cairn where Meg’s ancestors are entombed. Outside the cairn, she sits in a field of Atterlothe in full bloom and thinks of her grandmother. She summons the power of the Earth and releases her spirit. No sooner has she done so than she sees her grandmother’s youthful, timeless spirit standing before her. “Thank ye, Granddaughter, for bringing my ashes home, but ye must make haste. Trak needs ye.”
Myrel asks, “Grandmother, where can I find Trak?”
Her grandmother replies simply, “Look beneath Holy Mountain.”
Following Meg’s cryptic guidance, Myrel journeys to Neu Ardonbrae. On the streets of the capital city she encounters a few brave souls who have reentered the capital and are searching through the ruins for the means to begin a new life.
Myrel finds the house of Krage’s friend, Humock. It stands intact, while most homes in that part of the city were ashes. Humock meets her at the door. Myrel is surprised he wears the Blue Dagger sigil. “It is the sigil of my house. The time has come for me to assume my true identity.” He relates how Trak, Alrik and his father came to the city three weeks before and disappeared into Holy Mountain. “I fear all three perished in their quest to destroy Tironock.”
Myrel is surprised to learn that Humock is Lord Lizardthroat’s son. She remembers how she had confided in him so many secrets that she didn’t want Lord Lizardthroat to know. “Did you betray me to your father on the night we were captured trying to enter Holy Mountain?” Myrel asks.
“No, Priestess. I have ever been my own man. My father liked that about me,” Humock replies.
“I have reason to believe Trak is still in Holy Mountain. I must enter its deepest caverns. You are welcome to join me if you would like to search for your father,” Myrel says by invitation.
“It seems like a perfectly reckless thing to do. I would have said no in the past, but recent events have changed me. I owe it to my father to try and find him,” the new Lord Lizardthroat replies.
When Myrel and Humock reachs the hive below Ardonbrae, it is abandoned. She doesn’t know where Trak might be, but she follows Dungoth who finds a scent. The dog leads Myrel and Humock to the archway that announces, “A god lives below.” Myrel recognizes a bag sittin
g beside the entrance as Alrik’s, but the cleric is gone. It takes most of a day to reach the chamber deep in the earth. The glowing figure of Shenal is gone. Except for the glow Myrel generates, the cavern is without a glimmer of light. In the pitch-blackness, they find Alrik holding Trak’s unconscious body. The hand that gripped the golden sword is badly burned. Myrel takes in the grisly sight of Trak’s emaciated body and sees the hopelessness of the situation. Weeks without food or water would have killed anyone else, but somehow Trak still breathes. Alrik has exhausted his lamp oil and food supplies several days before. He says he couldn’t bring himself to leave Trak alone in the dark cavern.
Alrik gestures to a stone cairn he erected over Melkerei’s body. His Dragon Fire sword marks the grave. Alrik explains, “The Queen Mothers forbade me to enter the abode of the Earth Spirit. I stayed behind when Trak and Melkerei descended into the tunnel. But after two days, I had the overwhelming feeling the god had left and I was needed below. When I arrived, I found both men lying on the floor. It appears Trak and Melkerei attacked Tironock together. Except for Trak and Melkerei, I found the cavern deserted. Lord Lizardthroat was already dead, and I haven’t been able to arouse Trak even for a moment.” I can’t say if the demon is dead.”
“One more thing,” Alrik adds, “there is an ancient corpse lying in the corner of the cavern.”
Myrel replies, “It is the body of Septan. His progeny have asked me to recover his remains.” She asks Humock to gather what he can of Septan’s mummy. Myrel sets Trak’s head in her lap and summons the power of the Earth and wills it into Trak’s limp frame. Through her spirit’s eyes, she sees the cavern in a changed light. Dozens of ancestors surround them, many in ancient dress. One spirit stands out. It is taller than the rest. It is the spirit of a cross-breed. Myrel speaks to the spirit, “Are you ready, my husband? There is much work to be done and long years left for us to enjoy.” Trak’s spirit smiles and reenters his body. Myrel finds Meg’s Dragon Killer on the floor of the chamber. She gives the obsidian blade to Alrik. With Humock’s assistance, she helps Trak and Alrik back to the surface.
***
In the years that followed, many asked Trak what happened the day Tironock disappeared. He would only say Lord Melkerei Lizardthroat slew the demigod. Lord Farg became duke when his father succumbed to age. Farg believed it was Meg who did the most to kill Tironock. For the rest of his life he boasted about how he commanded the united forces in the great, final battle against evil. He would extol the roll each of his allies played in the greatest event of the age. Farg salvaged the bones of the dead trolls and constructed a grisly throne that he placed in his banquet hall. Thereafter, he was referred to as Trollkiller. A nickname he much preferred to Duke Toad.
Alrik believed Trak must have reunited Tironock Kan with Shenal Ken. Krage said he would ask the ancestors some day to know the truth. He and Meriem lived for a while in Alexia’s enclave, raising the queen’s twins. They prepared the boy to be the future king of Bretwalda and the girl to marry the grandson of Queen Fae. Lord Ran returned home and served as the kingdom’s regent until Meriem’s son came of age. He reopened the iron works and made the tools needed to rebuild the kingdoms of goblins and men. Ghad and Terrin repaired the hive beneath the channel and governed the white goblins who chose to live underground, while the Queen Mothers ruled the goblins who became shepherds and salt traders and lived in the new hive in the mountains. The Underworld goblins intermarried with the surface goblins so frequently that within a few generations it was rare to encounter an albino.
Surprisingly, King Lorring, the Ard Ri, abdicated and surrendered the throne to Humock Lizardthroat. Myrel suspected the king learned that the son Dorla bore him was not his or the rightful heir to the throne. Farg built Dorla a manor house on the Isle of Uisgebeatha with a banquet hall large enough for her to give dinner parties.
King Lizardthroat commissioned a large mural depicting his father slaying the demon Tironock. Trak was also in the picture. He was portrayed unconscious on the cavern floor about to be crushed beneath Tironock’s foot at the moment Lord Lizardthroat struck the decisive blow with his fabled blue sword. The king displayed the mural of his father next to the one of the great naval hero, Admiral Fishbeater. To his credit, Humock disbanded the Secret Police and remodeled the city’s jail and the justice system that went with it.
Trak and Myrel returned to Holy Mountain. The family did not live in the residential quarters of the temple. Instead, Trak built a broch in the crater atop the mountain. It contained an alchemy lab for Trak and a work area for Myrel to study and store her medicinal plants. He also built a smithy. Although he never regained full use of his left hand, he made wondrous ceremonial objects that he decorated with goblin glyphs and legendary creatures. He etched each piece with his mark, a dragon serpent encircling the blade of a raised sword. The mark gave everything he made a magical quality, but Trak knew that magic was not found in designs but in the bonds one makes with the Earth.
Trak had no interest in being the next Thaumaturgist. He asked to be bypassed when Krage died. Myrel devoted herself to preparing their son to succeed Krage. She took an active role in the administration of the temple. Needless to say, the Septantrak was repaired. The lava was left covering the floor of the Great Hall as a memorial to those who died in the Second Sowing. Each year, Myrel filled the butterfly zoo with chrysalides for the temple’s children to enjoy.
For the clerics of the Septantrak, the disappearance of Tironock presented a religious crisis. For three thousand years, the clerics had prepared for the Second Sowing. Now that it had come and gone, no one knew what role was left for the temple. They studied the ancient prophecies. They found nothing to guide them into the future. The clerics were not even certain what had become of the Earth Spirit. Had Tironock and Shenal been reunited into one being or had one or both been destroyed? They could only wait and see if the Earth Spirit ever spoke again.
Alrik placed the Dragon Killer in a glass case. It became the temple’s most sacred relic. Two swords, a copy of Lord Lizardthroat’s Dragon Fire, and the other, Trak’s gold and steel sword, hung on the wall of the Great Hall next to the obsidian dagger for pilgrims to view. If a pilgrim looked closely at Trak’s sword, he could see traces of burned flesh clinging to the hilt. During the biannual solstice celebrations, pilgrims came from as far away as Eastland to catch a glimpse of the holy relics and visit the tomb of Septan in the cavern where his statue once stood.
The irreligious made crude jokes about a cross-breed who married his sister, not understanding that love between two people can happen in unexpected ways. For the faithful, the tales of the half-goblins became the grit of legend. Of course, this is not the end of Myrel and Trak’s story, but the next chapter is saved for another time.
“A God Dwells Within.”
###
APPENDIX A, Characters Named in the Story
The Palace
KING GIFORING THE ARD RI, The First of his Name
QUEEN DAFNIE, King Giforing’s wife
PRINCE LORRING, King Giforing and Queen Dafnie’s son, heir to the throne of Goblin Kingdom, sixteen
HOGARTH KINGFRIEND, Master-at-Arms of the Royal Guard
GRENAB SPIDERMOUTH. Member of the Royal Guard
The Temple
SEPTAN, 1st Thaumaturgist and Founder of the Lineage
KRAGE ORGILE, 59th Thaumaturgist of the Septantrak and alchemist to the Duke of Uisgebeatha
MYREL ORGILL, Daughter of Krage and Queen Meriem, eighteen
TINGA, Myrel’s friend, eighteen
ALRIK REDEYE, High Priest of the Septantrak
ALEXIA, Priestess and Myrel’s friend, twenty
The City of Neu Ardonbrae
LORD MELKEREI LIZARDTHROAT, Commander of the Secret Police
ATZEL LIZARDTHROAT, Melkerei’s brother, monastic leader
HUMOCK CUTCUTTER, Captain of City Police
SALIGER, Member of Humock’s police force
TAAT COINBITER, War
den of the city’s prison
COOK, Chief Cook of the city’s prison
KRINK, Cook in the city’s prison
MARNARD, Cook in the city’s prison
GERUM FIREMAKER, King Giforing’s metal smith
ELLOT FISHBEATER, King Giforing’s Naval Captain
JUELIC SEADRAGON. First Officer aboard a goblin warship
The Isle of Uisgebeatha
DUKE AMIN GIANTSLAYER, Duke of the Isle of Uisgebeatha
FARG GIANTSLAYER, First born son, nineteen
DORLA GIANTSLAYER, Duke Amin’s niece, sixteen
NEAFON DAMFURY, Duke Amin’s Sergeant of Arms
TUMORG ROCKEATER, Sergeant of Duke Amin’s sapper unit
BAELOCK SWORDBEATER, Duke Amin’s metal smith.
TRAK, Orphaned, cross-breed apprentice to Baelock, eighteen
DEBRAH MEGAI (MEG), Old Goblin living in the woods
NAM and Drag CLAYDIGGER, Potters
WREEN WORMCLAW, Metal smith and rival of Baelock
DUNGOTH, Myrel’s dog
Legendary Persons and Deities
MIKOL BLACKFACE, Earth’s first metal smith
EARTH SPIRIT, Creator deity who was split in two by Septan to form:
TIRONOCK KAN, Evil presence
SHENAL KEN, Weakened Earth Spirit
Bretwalda and Eastland
KING RED, First of that Name, King of Bretwalda
QUEEM MERIEM, King Red’s wife
JOELFREY THE BRAVE, Queen Meriem’s deceased father