Windseeker Becomes Wind Bringer 2
It was a dragon.
An obvious enough statement, of course. It was the Dragon of Kraka Drak, of course it was a damn dragon.
But it was more than that, it could have lived for how real it was, how like the beasts of Caledor. The scales were shaped in perfect imitation, exactly shaped and polished and hammered until they were like unto that which had been formed by nature, by the gods, by the Winds of Magic, by whatever force one credited with the beautiful Apex Predators among Apex Predators. Its horns were as well-shaped as any living beast, framed by the sun, as it hunted its evening meals on the Annuliis. Its veined wings shifted and moved like the serpentine beasts as they carved through the air as graceful as any eagle. But such minor details could be "faked," could be copied without true understanding, could be like the shoddy imitations of pike the greenskins sometimes gave to their goblins, an emulation of good Estalian work without understanding the whole.
But the whole worked. Every proportion was not simply accurate, it was an absolute reflection of the Dragons of Ulthuan. Rather than the bulk of a Magma Dragon for the sake of more durability, the claws of a Chaos Dragon for the sake of cutting, and so on and so forth, or because examples were easier to gather if nothing else, it was nothing more and nothing less than an absolutely perfect copy of the mightiest Star Dragons. Sinuous and graceful, lithe and quick, and yet terrifyingly powerful. But more than power there was beauty: the eyes were beautiful marble, dotted with a sapphire pure and blue, and they captured the wry wisdom and pride and nobility that had burned in Ythoras as he had introduced the Dragon Mage to the Ruby Guild. Etched onto what would be horn and claw were carvings, not of mighty kings avenging Grudges, of slaughter and bloodshed, was the creation of beautiful things, and the going about of life. There, on that one, the weaving of a fine tapestry. The next, the forging not of hammer or ax or pick but a simple, beautiful door.
You will never make anything like this.
It was a rotten, bitter, ugly voice that sounded in her head. And that, she was strong enough to admit, was the root of it.
She could make books that would call down lightning. She could make a cloak that would call down the stars themselves. She could summon a blizzard. She could make a mask that would allow her to force the heavens themselves into auspicious signs. And it would be fine work.
But it would never, ever, match up to this thing from an age long, long past. To a figure steeped in myth and legend, a figure she wanted to believe could not exist. But even if he hadn't, even if Snorri Gift-Giver truly had been the Dwarfs attempting to form a mythologized past to deal with a miserable present, a hypothesis seeming more and more the scrambling of an arrogant mind itself (oh the irony). Then somebody had still taken up the damn hammer, and lit the forge, and put in the effort, and made a damn Star Dragon of a metal so hard she was not sure her entire country could destroy it, short of some treachery. They had even copied the abilities as well. Torques and amulets, still burning with Runic power themselves, made it an even closer simulacrum, an even closer mirror. It could breathe fire as hot as the stars themselves must burn.
But most importantly they had put in the time.
And that was the real root of it, wasn't it? Time. She would live longer than most of her species, but she did not have the time to pour the years--the decades--that had made this art what it was. She couldn't, she didn't, she never would. Morr would take her. She did not have the ashes of a dead god to sustain her; she could not coat her body in metal and become undying; she had not grail to sup from; she could not take on the constancy of stone.
She would, with time, die. Sooner than any Dwarf, short of the unlucky. With grand dreams, only half-realized, thanks to that which was the fate of mortality. She would, at least, pass to Morr's Garden, to a peaceful slumber and rest; but she would leave behind artifacts that only half-resembled what had been in her mind. Every blade she had made, only a fraction of what had appeared in her heart. Every suit of armor only a portion of what she desired in her mind. Everything, only a reflection of the forms, passed down to faltering material reality from merely mortal hands.
And the Dwarfs did not suffer that. Every one of them could make what was in their mind, exactly as they saw it.
And that, that was at the heart of it, wasn't it? Jealousy.
That even so fallen from their Golden Age, they had what she would kill for, had killed for in fact; never anyone who hadn't deserved it in at least some sense, servants of Chaos and Skaven and Orcs and worse, but she had. She had covered her hands in blood in service to that ideal, to try and get even a fraction closer to it.
And the Dwarfs? The Dwarfs simply had it. Whether some gift of merest fate, of biology, or more likely the knowledge passed down by the Ancestors, they had the perfect blueprint to take what in their mind and make it real. And that burned, that burned to realize.
That burned so much even to think.
She looked at the thing, the monument to her inadequacy. To what she desired to have, but never would. She felt bile rise in her throat to see it.
She could leave, and spare herself the indignity. Estalia would need her in wars to come, in reproaching the Skaven once more. She could be somewhere without the glares of ancient old Runelords, angered...angered for what? Angered that she had insulted their Ancestors, like as not. Not without cause. She could be somewhere with wine. Somewhere the cold did not seep into her bones, somewhere the sun was a companion and friend. Somewhere the Four did not constantly tempt her. Khorne, whispering that she could have revenge. Nurgle, promising he would dull the pain if she would but rot with him. Tzeentch, swearing knowledge in return for treachery. And Slaanesh, Slaanesh most of all. Promising that all she had to do to please him...was please herself.
Yes, she could have it all.
In contrast, the only thing keeping her there was an oath on the soul of a dead man.
She sighed, and began studying the curse again.
It was a beautiful, terrible, wonderful piece of spellwork Cyla had laid on the Dragon, particularly for something she had to have, for all intents and purposes, come up with on the spot. Aye, it was similar enough to the mystical matrix she had made that destroyed but still, that was like going from riding a horse to riding a gryphon, all in the span of the, at best, minutes she would have had to fight. A thing of Qhaysh, beautiful and pure and vicious. Chamon of course, the better to solidify the magic flowing within. Shyish, to ossify it. Ghyran, to lull it to sleep. All to ensure it would not move, could not move. And yet to destroy it, to remove it, would be to destroy the dragon itself too. Not the Runes, but the structure would implode, rust, and overgrow with moss all at the same time. There would be no repairing it, certainly not in time for the brewing war of all against all.
"The ages have not been kind to either of us, have they?"
She saw the old Dwarf again. But he was different this time. His beard was still the longest and whitest and purest she had ever seen, ever even imagined even the Dwarfs could produce. But he bore a hammer, and it was coated in Runic Magic, teal-golden light that seemed to shine more brightly than she could ever imagine. The faces of the Ancestor Gods Thungni and Smednir were placed on the sides, and though still grim of countenance there was, oddly, a comfort to their faces in the ensuing darkness; if nothing else, it seemed likely they were madder at the foes gathering against them than against her, for all she could not imagine they were well pleased with her. Their Runes burn on them, and on the center, the mighty striking face, the Master Rune of Conduction.
His armor was...it was right. Layers of plate, silver and white, like Mannslieb against the gray clouds, rest atop the craggy hide of not just a dragon, but Haruzrildrakk himself. Mail, made of gromril, covers what few spots are not covered by that same hard Adamant, resting just as snugly against the dragon hide, like a blanket of metal that rests well against his form. The mountains of Norsca are made in knotwork, placed along the entire harness, evoking the strength and surety of the mountain home of the Dwarfs, so perfectly she can even imagine living there herself, what life must have been like then. Burning on it, the Rune of Stone, the Rune of Fortitude, and the Master Rune of Unyielding.
But it is the hooded cloak of Shaggoth hide that clenches it for her. The three plates of Gromril, that bear stylized clouds. Framed within those clouds, at the center the Master Rune of Grungni, to the right the Rune of Lightning, to the left the Rune of Fury. The outside dyed a crimson like the setting sun, and a thin layer of adamant scale over the leather. Depictions of everyday life as it was in the Golden Age of the world, when things were right. So detailed, so beautiful, so well-made that one could see them as moving, shifting, going from scale to scale as easily as she could walk from one door to the other, blinking, breathing. Alive.
"Snorri Klausson."
"Gift-Giver." He turns, and one eye is covered with a patch, bearing the heraldry of Clan Winterhearth. The empty socket where the Eye of the Ancestors should be is covered; whether that means he has replaced it with a different one, if he simply isn't wearing it, if it was lost, or if it never existed in the first place, hardly compares to the absolute preponderance of evidence staring her in the face. Snorri without the eye is still a Dwarf who marched with Grimnir; She is not foolish enough that would not confer a certain weight to him. "I am more impressed with you than I thought I'd be, Umgi, but you've blackened my name enough don't you think?" His glare is cold, very cold, cold as the northern winds, cold as the blizzard.
But not quite as cold as the shoulder her own mother gave her when she discovered she was a witch. Though a seed of fear is planted she strangles it out and glares back at him. "Historical skepticism is not blackening your name."
"No, but your mad crusade against my apprentices is."
"Madness seems like it would require a bit more heat than suggesting that deeds may have been attributed to those who did not do them."
"Perhaps, but to cling to it in the face of everything saying otherwise hardly suggest a sane human mind, either."
She sighs and shakes her head. "I can't imagine you've called me all the way from Estalia to bandy about crooked words." She stretches out her Windsight, and as every legend has ever claimed, her magic has been reduced to nothing. With time, perhaps she could cast a spell; but she would need much more than a single spell to have even chance. "Perhaps, I suppose, to kill me and settle the Grudge?"
"Hardly. I intend to have you retract the insults you've laid against my person, and against my apprentices, and against my craft; and you're damn well going to help me fight off the oncoming horde; but word for word, not blood for word. That is the wisdom of Grungni, and I will not fail my Ancestors. Not again."
"So what did you want me for then? I can't imagine you need my help."
"No, I don't need your help. But I could use it for reasons that will be clear enough. But first, I'm going to tell you some damn thing: my legacy was not used to slay children."
"The Dragon was clearly lost--"
"I do not mean the damn Dragon. That is not my legacy. Or at least, it's not all of it. My legacy is this," he stretches his hands outwards, unfolds his arms, gesturing to the whole of the glittering might of Khazaghar around him. "Khazagar. My apprentices. My students. The knowledge I've shared with the worthy. The protection I've offered to my people. The Urks and Dumi slain by it, aye. And yes, even the war against the Elves: I'm no killer of children, but vengeance was needed. How else to show the world it had better be ready to catch it in the eye if it tries some nonsense than to carry that vengeance in the face of a wicked thing?"
"Then what did happen?"
"I had heard there was a shard of Hashut, far, far far to the east. And so far, far, far to the east I journeyed, hoping to finally see the aurochs destroyed, a Grudge so personal and so terrible that I needed to see it done, followed by my heir and my former apprentices, oaths of old called upon. I was gone; but I would not leave my people undefended. I would not. So as a show of loyalty to my king, I offered him command of the Dragon. And then he was slain; not by the Elgi, no, but by the Daemons for they had decided it was time to settle old Grudges themselves, while we were distracted and I think, to ensure cooler, wiser, heads could not, would not be able to speak against them. The new King was barely two centuries old, thrust into power and into a war that has few matches, four-hundred years of strife and slaughter between the two mightiest powers this world has ever seen.
The King of Ravnsvake, who imagined colonies loyal to him, was a thousand. So he spun tales of, and such promises he offered, to each king in turn, of a fast end to the war, of glory, and aye of dead dragons. I will not deny that some of my people have a hard heart towards the Drakk, we did not invent the Rune of Dragon Slaying because our history is a thing of peace and beauty and wonder. But then," the walls shake as something vast and ancient and terrible makes its way from the underground. Distantly she feels the world turn upside down as the Daemonhost finally arrives; and her mind races as she places all things together, "Not all have lost their sense so badly that they would become the slayer of children."
"You truly did raise Shard Dragons." She has seen wonders to excite the senses, terrors to stop the heart (fortunate she can shock herself to force it work again), and everything in between, but that, that finally forces her voice into numbness and wonder as the truth of it is revealed.
"Oh aye. What was the other option, a particularly hardy breakfast of eggs?" She chuckles, against herself, and he does too, and in that moment something in the air breaks. It's not the hardest she's laughed, probably because it's far from the funniest joke, but the absurdity of the image combined with the darkness of the implication forces her to feel again. "So that Beardling of a prince misused my damn Drakk to try and become a Slayer, and I'm sure he promised Reagents to the students of Khazagar; or if not him then the lord of Ravnsvake. And you know what? Not a damn one of them went! Oh they marched to other campaigns, but if he had Runesmiths...if my kin, if the Thungni-blooded had tossed away their honor in infanticide...it was not in the name of my school. How else do you suppose that the Elves found using their magic so easy? I'll admit, they likely had some as old as I am and so as able to draw up magic, but I promise you this, they would not have had so much luck popping the works we made if the Khazagari had been there, I can tell you that damn much. Why else train so much with the Brana?"
"That does lead me to the question, of why the Branakroki themselves would have joined such an endeavor."
"The Sky King had transcended," Snorri said, fiddling with his ax even as he walked towards the statue himself, "Left behind this plane. And for all He's been better at incarnating Himself than your gods, or the Ancestors, it's still not the kind of trick He can pull too often. So the Brana were stuck following His legacy and His example; and His legacy, and His example, were to aid the Dwarfs so they did, in the entirely wrong way. Some of them, anyway. And I would not be shocked if the King of Ravnsvake had kept his full intent hidden from them; a lying, subtle thing, for a Dwarf."
"Alright...but I am at last left with the question of why you summoned me, who has, as you said, sullied your name."
"I was curious. Who has the gall to speak so? The Colleges will not. The Tileans will not. The Elves of course, but they can stand against me well enough. But a mere wizard, even a mighty Wizard; but one who too, aids the Dwarfs. Who knows them, even as she rages against them. Who is attested by, as I said, no less than a King as a woman of honor, who keeps her oath."
"The vow was made." She closes her eyes, and she can hear her brother's voice on the horizon, in a far distant, warm country. "It will be kept."
"Ah. I don't know if I'd help those I hate for my brothers," He closes his eyes and remembers, remembers both, long gone now, "but if anything was going to make me, aye, it would be them."
"But then, why else? It would be strange to summon me now, of all times."
There is the crack of thunder, and the pall of lightning. "I did not...fully...lie. I truly do intend to use you as a hell of a surprise. As a wizard of course, but for more than that. Ever since I slew Kholek Suneater, the Dragon Ogres have wanted to slay me and destroy Drak, more than anything. Now they intend to use the storm their masters summon to become as powerful as they can possibly imagine. I'm hoping you can be clever and take it from them, since I can only use so much of Skarrenbakraz at a time so near home."
The stars twinkle in her mind's eye. "I may have a plan."
"As for helping me repair my Dragon, well, I suppose having you point out what was elf and what was Vaul was helpful enough." He raises his hammer. "Since I think the Smith god is slightly preoccupied turning Khaine's face into hamburger at the moment."
Outside, the armies of Beastmen and Daemons race towards the Throng, itself a glimmering thing of steel and gromril barely holding. They are relentless, horrifying, beyond all measure, beyond all reason. Without pity, or sanity, or mercy.
And then there is a roar they have not heard in four-thousand years.
And they freeze.
--
Don't know if there will be a third part. If there is, it will be coming after a palette cleanser that will hopefully make fewer people mad at me.
