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Vol.5, Ch.3, P.5

 

“By the winds…” murmured Walter, and looking no less stunned than his companions, he let his staff fall to his side.

“Now, Rolf! Stick it in him!” Lise urged me asudden.

“Nay,” I refused, “that’s enough sticks and stones for today.”

The demonstration was done with, at any rate, with hero and rebel having both proven clear their prowess. And with so significant a battle ahead of us, there was little need to risk any more rough-housing.

“I say the same. What of you, Erika?” said Walter, turning to his confidante as she stood stolid in the shade.

“Ah, er…” she stammered, “…y-yes. Fine.”

“What? ‘Yes, fine’? That’s all?” Lise prodded her, with lips curled up in absolute delight. “Let’s hear it, why not? ‘I’m sorry I said such silly things’; ‘I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.’ Go on, out with it. Out, out.”

“The nerve of this… ghhee!!” screeched Erika, grinding her teeth.

“Calm, calm, Fräulein,” Guido admonished her. “The tales were put to the test, and we can deem them tales no more; the Herr’s strength leaves no doubt.”

“The Edelfräulein Lise herself trusts enough to him,” Gunthar added. “And as with her, so should all of Víly—and we Reùlingen with them, I judge.”

“Trust”; “no doubt”—that’s yet another wall broken down, by my measure.

“You two think for true. But as for you, Erika—why so quiet? That throat stuck with all the sorries you have to say, or? Come; cough them out! Cough, cough!”

“Ngh-gh-gh…!!”

…Or perhaps not.

 

∵

 

“I must say,” Walter began remarking, “a sight to behold that was, your swordcraft.”

“Nay, a long way to go it’s got yet. A long, long way,” I said. “The real wonder is the weapon itself.”

Gathered together again we were for more chatter, in which course Walter had quickly expressed an interest in my capabilities. And so, humouring him, I held forth the very source of them—the soot-steel in all its sable glory.

“What blackness… It awes the eyes,” marvelled Walter. “Yes, yes… And very curious that it’s only your hands it suffers. There must be a story behind it. There must!”

“A story and more,” I answered. “Long ago was it licked by the flames of Gweil’ǫrr, elder dragon. A memory of the myths, mind you. But I deem it a—”

“What!? Dragon, you say!? And Gweil’ǫrr!?” squealed Walter. I then told him that his ears had heard true, to which the hero’s regard veritably glittered with wonder. Indeed, any doubt as to his nature vanished at once: Walter was a scholar through and through, and one with a fever for fables of old, at that. “M-m-may I?” he asked asudden. “May I… h-have a touch?”

“You… may,” I said, dubiously eyeing the hero’s fidgeting fingers. “But you’d just as well touch a brand of hot iron, I must warn you.”

“J-j… just once!” Walter insisted unsteadily, his hand creeping ever closer to the hilt. “Just a little! Just… a tiny, little touchachachachaaah!?”

With a jolt and a jump, Walter lost his feet and fumbled to the ground. There he grasped his seared hand, rolling and writhing like a bug frantic to get back on its legs.

“Quit larking ’round, Walter!” complained Erika. “You look a fool!”

“Here we go again…” sighed Guido and Gunthar. But seemingly unfazed, their hero soon sprang back to his feet and approached me with all speed.

“S-splendid!” he wheezed, “splendid! A sword of Gweil’ǫrr! In the flesh! And bites like him, too, I bet! But… but, why? Why can only you hold it unharmed!?”

“There’s not a dot of odyl in me,” answered I. “And that’s the ‘why’ of it, were I to guess. The sword—it has a malice for magicks, you see.”

“Ah… ah, of course!” gasped Walter. “Yes, yes! Gweil’ǫrr himself despised magicks, it’s said! Intriguing… incredible!”

So thrilled and enthralled was he that Walter then flailed his fists about. Met with such a curious sight, Lise then asked him:

“Taken to dragons you are, Walter?”

“Agh…!”

There: a collective grunt coming from Erika and the others for who knows why. Their faces flashed and puckered, as if having bit into biscuits all burnt black. Too heated to heed them, however, Walter then launched into a passionate lecture.

“‘Taken to’? Why, I love dragons!” he cried. “And who shouldn’t? Take Gweil’ǫrr, for instance! A huff of his flaming breath leaves steel in ashes! But that’s scarce a story just to astound our ears, no, no! There’s power to be found in dragonfire! Pulsing in it! A sacred essence; a divine aspect! That’s the meat of the myths! So it follows that mysts can manifest in aught once flooded in the flames! Now, I know what you must be thinking: drivel, Walter, absolute drivel, that! But nay, nay! Eyewitnesses attest to it! History attests to it! As another example: Agatho! Faraway Agatho! You know the strangeness of that place! But you knew not, I bet, that dragons were behind it! Well, rest assured, because I studied the very subject! And after much book-delving and thought-swimming, I came to but one conclusion: the flames of dragons, the myst-marking—all of them be truths! Hard and cold!”

“Oh? Mighty steeped in the subject, aren’t you, Walter?” I noted, nodding agreeably. “It’s not everyday I meet a fellow believer in the old whispers about Agatho, let alone dragons.”

“What? You, too, Herr Rolf? Well, that is glad!” Walter sang. “Yes, yes, of course I am! Steeped and soused! But, it takes not a tipsy scholar to wonder why Agatho doesn’t freeze in the winds of winter! Despite being a bay of all places! A bay! Well, if we assume its landscape once scorched by dragons of old, then all the mysts of Agatho be full-explained then and there! And the mountains anear it; I trust you’ve heard of the recent discoveries, Herr Rolf? Of what seem to be claw marks in those mountainsides—marks of old left by dragons!”

“That I’ve heard, of course,” I replied, feeling quite fired up myself. “One of many mysteries, to be sure, Agatho, traceable to baptism by dragon-breath, as it were. And if of Agatho you know, Walter, then perhaps Beddau has caught your fancy? Of how Gweil’ǫrr’s flame fertilised the soils of that land? It’s a much-baulked theory at present, being barely evidenced, and yet it rings true in all the ears of its resident folk, as they’d tell you readily. Fascinating, given that Beddau’s famed fables concern not Gweil’ǫrr, but rather his very rival, J̌yfæ. And that’s to say naught of another peculiarity: that no tale as yet details what divinity lies in J̌yfæ’s own dragonflame. There’s some meaning in that missing detail; a very deep meaning, I deem, for differences between the jousting dragons never go without import or implication.”

“Yes, yes!” cooed Walter. “Fascinating, indeed! Fascinating!”

Amidst our musings, however, I spotted from the side of my eyes both Lise and Erika looking on with a curious coldness in theirs. But it troubled me little, for I was all too glad to have found a sure sharer of my interests. And so, for a while longer yet, Walter and I together indulged in more discussions of dragons and all their lore.

 

∵

 

“Here you are, Rolf,” said Emma. “Another share of your favourite.”

“Why, thank you, Emma. As always,” I replied. “Ah, that reminds me. Just a moment.”

Today was I back home in Hensen. And though the great battle loomed nearer yet, my daily regimen had not let up in the least. In fact, I had just now finished a long session of sword-swinging upon the yard, and was wiping myself down at the well when Emma came by bearing another gift of mares’ milk.

“And here’s a little something for you in return,” I said, coming back with an oiled parcel in hand. Ever had Emma been as sharing a neighbour as anyone could ask for, and long had I wished to reciprocate. Only, of late had my charges as a war-chief count ten too many, that not till today could I afford the time.

“Oh my—venison!” Emma cried with joy upon peeking into the parcel. “And such a quality cut, at that… Why, Rolf, I never took you for so honed a huntsman!”

“Hardly,” I chuckled. “I but chanced upon the critter en route from Arbel. It served a good bit of bow practice.”

“Did you, now?” she said with wonder. “My, my…”

It’d certainly been a crossing of the stars: myself a hatchling of a huntsman, chancing upon game amongst the groves—and dealing unto it a huntsman’s mercy. Not an everyday occurrence, I’ll emphasise again, and one I took for a good omen in the trials to come.

“The dressing I left to more learned hands, however,” I confessed to Emma, who smiled sunnily nonetheless.

“Well, thank you all the same, good Rolf,” she said, bowing warmly. “That husband of mine, he much adores a slab of deer on his board. Why, I ought get right to it, even—a special night needs all speed!”

Her husband Frank, too, was to set off on the morrow’s march. Yes, indeed: today itself was our last in Hensen. Open war was right on our hands. Emma, then, would soon be lonely for a long and uncertain while, though she showed little of it upon her face. Like as not, my broad-hearted neighbour wished not to lay her worries upon anyone else.

A pity that it must come to this. But seeing her so mirthful afore the mists of battle, I then inly swore to see her husband home safe and sound.

And myself along with him.

 

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