The Tiers of the Shiverfang

“Now now, gentlemen, you don’t mean to say,” the dwarf did declare, perching his considerable bulk on the counter-top so that he sat at a height with his audience. “None among you have heard of the Tiered Mountain?”

Oak boards groaned beneath his weight, seasoned and stained with centuries of spilled drink. Having already imbibed an impressive amount of the indeterminate swill these humans called ale, he belched to show his appreciation. The nearby hearth glowed across the burnished sea of red-gold filigree upon his bared chest. His cheeks, like pitted coal, smouldered beneath its warm caress. Swirling smoke from an unseen pipe curled across his features: the broken nose, the gregarious gap-toothed grin, the bristling stubble on his lantern jaw.

He heaved air into the powerful bellows of his lungs, savouring the acrid taste of dried summergrass like a connoisseur of fine spirits. Such distinctive scents tended to make him nostalgic for the silent weight of his ancient underground homeland, now lost to the chaos that consumed the far south. Funnelling the raw emotion into his voice as a spider might weave threads, he slipped into the assembled ears and arrested their attention.

“That will not do! Allow me to wet my throat with your finest ale... aye, thank you, that will suffice my dear... and elaborate on my quest.”

Already he had entertained the common room with three stories today. The best so far, a bawdy tale of a Cathayan prince and his pet dragon, had turned the tavern wench’s ears the same shade of scarlet as the Coronian wine she served. His latest pronouncement only further fanned their anticipation. Grime-streaked farmers leant close to better hear his words. Rush-strewn benches creaked as they fought for space with burly woodsmen and their equally burly wives. A handful of lone adventurers pretended not to listen from over their pewter tankards. From the shadows of the trestles in the far corner, a pair of tempered amethyst irises watched and studied.

“Somewhere in the mists between Knife’s Edge and Archen, far from the well-worn tread of the Wolf’s Trail, there stands a mountain held by the most fanatical followers of the Ethereal Sway. Nobody knows how to find it, and nobody knows how to get there. Ten of the King’s best huntsmen once tried, at the height of your civil war. Only one ever returned, raving like a madman that there was nothing there to find. The king chopped off his head, not long before his crown came tumbling off to join it.”

A satisfied hiss echoed through the flickering tendrils of darkness. The dwarf reminded himself that many of those present had likely fought for Church against King and noble, not so long ago. He would be wise to choose his words, so that his head didn’t end up separated from shoulders as well.

“Legend speaks that the Sway themselves led the Saint there during her frantic flight from her tyrannical All-Father. The heat of her silken skin melted the heart of even this most bitter of lonely mountains. Her presence carved a hollow soul from the cold rock, and instilled it with her divine grace. Her tears pooled in its darkest depths, where even now they glimmer in silvery sorrow. The sweat of her sculpted teats...”

The tavern wench shot him a dark look from behind the counter. The dwarf raised his hands in good-natured defensiveness.

“... very well, I leave to your imagination the beads of sweat that spilled from her soft, supple, sculpted teats.”

She upended half a tankard of stale bitter over his head. Leering snickers from his audience accompanied his exaggerated spluttering. The dwarf made a show of rubbing his cropped scalp and licking at the sticky rivulets that poured down his jaw. An appreciative sound rumbled from the depths of his muscled throat, as he too joined in the laughter.

“But we return to my quest! Long after the Saint departed the Tiered Mountain, rested and healed, the Church reclaimed it for their own purposes. And unlike the Aeromancer’s Tower or the Grand Cathedral in Knife’s Edge, they don’t want anybody snooping around there. The Tiered Mountain serves two purposes for them. It’s a monastery where they can train their most infamous of inquisitors and witch hunters. And it’s a reliquary where they can store their most powerful, most mysterious of artefacts. The Grand Cathedral is the light they want people to see, all glamour and relics and pompous circumstance. The Tiered Mountain is the darkness, in which they hid their deepest and darkest secrets.”

“Blasphemy!” a young voice called from the back of the audience, only recently broken into manhood. A couple of drinkers closer to the counter, more cynical and world-weary than the besotten boy, snorted with care into their mugs. All had heard at their mothers’ breasts the tales of shadowy figures burning innocents at the stake. But only some had experienced them first-hand.

“Aye, blaspheme I do!” The dwarf laughed again to wash away the shiver of fear that settled in the room, though he made sure to pin the speaker beneath a glare of flinted jade. He’d rather not that any mind-washed fanatics stole into his room at night, sharpened knives in their hands and blind devotion on their lips. “For I am a harmless drunken dwarf from Alerar, a humble spinner of words and purveyor of magnificent merchandise. I seek out secrets and I quest for truths, for I know no better!”

He punctuated his point with an emphatic gulp of his ale. Half the tavern followed suit, and all was well in their worlds once more. Now if only those cold amethyst irises would look elsewhere...

Throld Sartet’s voice rose again, continuing to spawn half-truths and fancies from his fertile imagination. With any luck, he would not pay for another drink tonight.

At the other end of the bar, a man with Y-shaped scars on his cheeks placed a thick Coronian crown on the countertop.

"That's for mine," he said, and added another, "that's for you, and that," he stacked three crowns atop one another and placed them down with a decisive thunk, "is to keep ale flowing into the storytelling dwarf's mug. Thanks lass."

"You really should not encourage him," sighed the bosomy barmaid, but she took the coins without further protest and resumed service along the dark wooden counter.

"Gold shall go where it is due," said Joshua 'Breaker' Cronen. He scraped a hand over the coarse stubble on his chin and ran callused fingers through close-cropped brown hair. He appeared absolutely relaxed as he sipped scotch from a squat glass tumbler, and yet his hazel eyes never stopped moving, always scanning the tavern in the dingy mirror behind the shelves. The scotch he supped had come from a tall amber bottle on the top shelf, the finest the tavern had to offer. The well-aged whisky went down as smoothly as a skier navigating the slopes of a glacier.

Breaker considered his image in the bar's mirror over the rim of his glass. He had come to Salvar for a holiday, for some time away from Corone where half the population knew his face, knew him as a fabled prizefighter. When there wasn't an avid follower clamoring at his heels there was always work in Corone, whether paid for by men with gold or by gifts from his goddess Am'aleh. In Salvar Josh was relatively unknown; he had a few friends from the civil war when he'd helped the crown fight off the Ethereal Sway, but no one else knew of him. Since the cold climate did not bother the young demigod, Salvar had seemed like an excellent place for some well deserved relaxation.

And then he crossed paths with the storytelling dwarf, and something in his mind shifted like the gears of an Alerian steamship.

Breaker knew of the Tiered Mountain. During the civil war he fought against warriors who called it their home, and had killed the then-king who led them. Josh took an extra long swig of scotch, emptied his glass and signaled for more. Moments before Josh bested him, the king of the Tiered Mountain had murdered Cronen's lover, Kristina Rythadine. Josh toasted the air and drank to her memory; a fearsome Salvic warrior woman with fire in her hair and fire in her heart. Kristina's brother had been first amongst the dead king's disciples, and had flung himself off a cliff rather than face Cronen's wrath. Geoffery Rythadine had survived that day, for he wore a pair of enchanted gloves that allowed him to navigate the winds like a bird of prey. The gloves had been a gift from his father, Tinker Rythadine, the alchemist who gave Breaker his patented black metal boots.

Years had passed since then, and still rage bubbled in Breaker's gut when he thought of the Sway-sympathizing Rythadine soaring to safety. Josh had sworn that day to hunt Geoffery down and end his miserable life... but he never had. He had returned to Corone and lost himself in an endless string of prizefighting matches. Years later, he had another chance, and he could not turn away from it.

So much for my vacation, Cronen mused, sparing a glance for the beardless dwarf, tonight, he drinks as much as he can hold on my coin. Tomorrow... we'll see if he knows more than he told about the Tiered Mountain.

Breaker leaned back until he could feel heat from the tavern's hearth on his broad back. The fire roared, but it could not match the blaze ignited in the demigod's belly. He stared into the mirror, into his own hazel eyes.

There was a chance Geoffery Rythadine now ruled the Tiered Mountain. Breaker would find the place and have his revenge; he knew it was no legend.

The frost-flowers had yet to wither when Throld stepped out into a dawn of cloudy grey. His breath, hot and heady, steamed from his bristly lips into the mists that wreathed the northbound road. His boots, heavy and resounding, trod a crisp unwavering path towards the foothills on the horizon.

Perhaps ten minutes after leaving the village perimeter, he came to a sudden halt in the middle of the road, sniffing the air like a beast at bay. Beneath the scent of muffled dew, beneath the aroma of the fleeing shadows, he caught the fleetest whiff of something else. Something that had bothered him the evening before.

“I suppose I should thank you for not causing a ruckus in the tavern,” he declared in full voice, tracking the reverberating sound. His travel-sack slipped to the frozen ground, and in the same movement he shrugged a peculiar crossbow-like contraption from his shoulders. “But if you think you have me at a disadvantage now that I’m alone, I’m afraid you’re sadly mistaken.”

Heartbeats echoed, wordless and silent. Wispy grey tendrils curled past bushy brows of burnished bronze, all that moved in a world of formless fog. Throld tensed, senses attuned to the slightest change in his environment. When the black-cloaked wraith rose like a summoned spectre from the shadows of a roadside hedge, amethyst eyes flaring like will’o’wisps in a mystic night, his features sagged in exaggerated relief.

“Master Sartet.” The apparition addressed him in a voice more sinister than lyrical, like the first strains of a dirge. One formless sleeve reached up to remove the alabaster mask that obscured his face, revealing pale olive skin and features touched by the ageless youth of elfkind. “We have need of a conversation.”

The air stirred with that vague hint of peppermint that always accompanied dark elf magic. Throld sniffed, then sneezed.

“Oh I recognise you,” he grimaced, the dark folds of his face contorted into something approaching distaste. “The young one in Raiaera, what was your number again... Four? Five? You don’t mind if I just call you Blackie, do you? And, on a serious note, you have to do something about that outfit. For a clandestine hunter-killer employed by the Alerian government, you stand out like an old wine stain.”

“Understand, Master Sartet, please. We asked when you returned to Ettermire, and we asked again via our attache in Gunnbad. We asked again after your journeys to Istraloth. Each time you grinned and agreed. Each time you failed to turn up at the appointed hour. So I am sure you understand that this time we are obliged to accompany you, to ensure that you answer our summons.”

“And?” Dropping the jolly facade, Throld fixed the elf’s paper-thin courtesy with a flinty glare. “Are you going to label me a dissident and toss me in a dungeon?”

The Blackcloak raised both hands in appeasement, though in the same movement he took a step closer to his diminutive target. “We promise. We only wish to know what you know about the rogue artificer and arcanist you encountered...”

Throld groaned, stomach churning with bitter memory. What he would have given never to think of that maniac dwarf-dam ever again! “Then tell your superiors that I know nothing!”

“I am afraid you will have to do so in person, Master Sartet.”

Another heartbeat passed before Throld scoffed one last time.

“Well here I am, refusing to budge.” Bell-shaped frost flowers shattered in muted tinkles beneath his heels, as he manoeuvred against the thick trunk of a Salvic oak. “What are you going to do about it?”

The elf sighed, almost sad... or had he steered the conversation to end in this manner? “You leave me little choice.”

Twin cudgels, trailing thick hempen cord, slipped from the folds of his formless cloak. In a blur of movement that only caressed the thick fog, he trapped Throld against the tree. One truncheon pinned the dwarf’s trigger hand to the bark, keeping the barrel of his dragon-belcher pointed in the wrong direction. The other coiled its rope around Throld’s remaining wrist, drawing as tight as a hangman’s noose.

“I will have to take you there by force.”

But Throld only bared his yellowed molars into the elf’s face: a filthy, mocking grin.

“I rather think not.”

He ducked.

Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch.

The frost gave each step a coarse voice.

Shit.

Through a curtain of nearly opaque fog, Josh saw the dark elf attack the dwarf. He sprinted. No time for a stealthy approach. He'd been following the dwarf since the burly fellow left the inn, staying far enough back and taking enough care to avoid detection. He'd been aware of the dark elf for some time, having spotted him flitting from one frost-laced building to the next as they left town. Under the cover of fog the elf hadn't looked like much of a threat, and at any rate the dwarf seemed the type to take care of himself. Then the clubs came out and Cronen's black metal boots chewed the frozen ground faster. Wind whistled in his ears and whipped through his plain brown woolen clothing as he ran.

The elf turned his head as Cronen's crunching footsteps neared, a look of surprise on his narrow face. He acted swiftly with the calm assurance of a professional, looping the cords from his cudgels around the dwarf's arms and securing them behind the oak. He clawed for the powder weapon the dwarf still gripped.

Josh leaped at a neighboring tree and bounded off the trunk, his enchanted boots giving him perfect traction. He came down at the dark elf, rolling his right shoulder back and delivering a thunderous downward punch.

Thwack! The fog muffled the sound of the blow but still it resounded off nearby trees. The elf stumbled away, cloak flapping, gripping his jaw and groaning. But he kept his feet.

Josh raised his eyebrows in surprise. He hadn't wanted to kill the elf, but he'd put enough into the punch to knock out most prizefighters he'd faced. The elf, it seemed, had a granite jaw. He shook the blow off and assumed a high guard with fists clenched, bobbing and weaving as he advanced.

Want to box, eh?

Breaker stepped in and delivered a sharp straight kick to the front of the elf's knee. He ducked under the retaliatory overhand right and snared a handful of the midnight cloak, twisting as he stood straight to whip the fabric over the elf's head. One wide, heavy palm caught the back of the blindfolded Alerian's neck and drove the side of his skull into the very tree he'd lashed the dwarf to. Breaker did not fight following any specific rules.

The oak shook slightly and the elf crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

Josh cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders and kicked his right leg up to snatch the black diamond dagger from his boot. Going for the blade sooner had not even occurred to him. He cut the dwarf free and sheathed the dagger and then picked up the dropped dragon-belcher and offered it to its owner. He wanted the dwarf at ease, after all.

"You're welcome, master storyteller," Cronen said with a warm grin, "would you care to reward me with a few words?"

“Remind me never to brawl against you, Mister Cronen,” Throld laughed, thumbing the trigger mechanism upon one of his many rings. The serrated blade poised against the cords that bound him slipped back into its notch with the muted click of a tensing spring. “Your reputation is worth every ounce of its weight in mythril.”

Not in a dwarven age could he mistake the People’s Champion, the prizefighter known as the Granite Phantom, described to him in excruciating detail whenever he conducted business in Corone. Neither had he missed said Champion’s interest in his tale of the previous evening, nor the surreptitious stealth with which the human had waited for him upon the road this morning. Throld reached up to retrieve the proffered weapon, and in the process offered Cronen his broadest, toothiest grin.

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, and to receive your help in my time of need.”

Nostrils flared as he breathed deep of relief and reassurance. Beady green eyes darted across the worn wooden stock and oiled iron barrel, checking for any scrapes incurred during its brief sojourn. The dragon-belcher meant much to him, even more than its custom construction might suggest. Though it had only left his possession for a handful of heartbeats, still he fussed and clucked over it like a mother hen.

At length satisfied, he turned his attention to the elf. An imperceptible rise and fall of the chest assured him that Blackie still breathed. A brief peer into sightless amethyst gave him no tell-tale signs of haemorrhaging. Dead bodies were bad for business, after all; Throld had no desire to make an irreversible enemy, just a unwilling ally.

Propping Blackie up against the flaking bark, he arranged the elf’s spidersilk cloak to cover the face. From the road the unconscious figure might look like a traveller who had stopped to grab shelter and rest. Throld hoped any inquisitive passers-by would overlook the obvious question of why said traveller had not entered the village instead.

“Blackcloak, right?” Cronen’s rumble interrupted from over his shoulder, a curt thumb indicating the unconscious elf. “What’s that all about?”

Throld’s gnarled features twisted once again into their grimace, as bitter as the whiff of wood smoke darting through the dawn. “Had a run-in with them last year in Raiaera, alongside a psychotic maniac of a dwarf-dam who’s been raising trouble ever since with the independence movements. They still think I know something about her. I don’t. All very bad for keeping a low profile.”

A few final touches ensured the elf’s comfort in his unconscious bliss. In the process, Throld slipped a faded scrap of parchment into his pocket, wondering if Cronen might notice. Either Blackie would find it himself when he awoke, or his comrades would notice when they caught up and checked on him. To Throld, it only mattered that the crude copy of the Tiered Mountain’s location told them where he headed.

“My appreciation for keeping him alive, Mister Cronen,” he turned to address his saviour at last. “Dead bodies are even worse for business than bad rumours. At least I can deal with the latter myself. The former...”

Harrumphing from the bellows-like depths of his lungs, he gathered his belongings from the crisp dirt path. Cronen fell into step alongside him - not difficult for the long-legged human - as the first rays of dawn seared through the mists, sublimating frost flowers from the grassy verge.

“But where are my manners? You wished me to reward you with a few words. About the Tiered Mountain, perchance?” Studious calculation fixed Cronen from beneath his grin. Yes, the People’s Champion would do. A strong arm in battle, a shrewd mind out of it, and a shared interest to boot. “I would be happy to enlighten you as we walk?”

The trail meandered over short hills, through sparse shriveled woods, and around burbling streams bordered by icy overhangs. Breaker kept pace with the energetic dwarf easily, enchanted black boots still crunching the frost with every footfall. The sun climbed higher in the sky, striving valiantly to melt the thick fog that shrouded the land. Birds flitted about small barren bushes and old rotted logs, supping on a scant supply of berries or worms.

Josh found himself wondering about the dwarf's history with the Blackcloaks. He knew little of the Alerian operatives other than the clandestine nature of their work, having never encountered one of their agents before. He'd been tempted to linger with the downed dark elf until the Blackcloak woke up to conduct his own brand of questioning, but the dwarf was eager to travel and Josh could not afford to lose the lantern-jawed fellow.

So he did notice who paid for his drinks last night, Breaker thought.

"Aye," he acknowledged, "I would know all that you know of the Tiered Mountain." Not wanting to share his true motivation, Josh spun a short story to appease the dwarf's curiosity. Like most good stories it started with the truth and ended far from it.

"During the war, I fought alongside the Salvic Special Forces repulsing attacks from the Ethereal Sway," Josh said as they strode past a stand of crooked pines, "I lost an adamantine dagger that was discovered by my grandfather, given to my father and then to me. It is of course a priceless family heirloom. The blade was captured by a Sway sympathizer who was overheard speaking of his home in the Tiered Mountain." Josh shot a look at the dwarf to see how his story was taking, hazel eyes steady as two stones.

"I swore I would recover that dagger one day, but no matter how I searched I could not find anyone who knew of the Tiered Mountain." He paused a beat to let his words sink in while a frigid wind whipped between them. Breaker did not shiver despite his thin traveling garments. "Until last night. Your story provided the first hope I've had of re-discovering my grandfather's blade."

They strode along in silence but for the crunch of frost and the wind whistling through the gnarled trunks of fresh-smelling pines. Breaker hid the emotion from his eyes as he remembered Kristina dying in the snow, and Geoffery Rythadine's mad laughter as he escaped off the edge of the cliff. He kept a modest smile on his face despite the part of his mind that screamed at him to shake the information out of the dwarf and be on his way.

Best not to rush this, he reminded himself, the dwarf likes the sound of his own voice. If I get him talking on the right topic he'll tell me everything he knows and then some. Josh pushed the burning anger into a sealed compartment at the back of his mind, banking the coals for later. He took a deep breath of crisp air, broad shoulders and barrel chest expanding.

"So aye," he repeated, "I would know what you know of the Tiered Mountain. But first, it seems you have me at a disadvantage. You know my name - although this 'Mister Cronen' business is unnecessary. Call me Breaker. And what should I call you, master storyweaver?"

“May Ronus forgive me! Or did I abandon all courtesy alongside my dignity when that blasted elf tied me up? Throld Sartet, merchant and raconteur, at your service.” The dwarf bowed his cropped scalp, not breaking the rhythmic tread of his cured auroch-hide boots across frost-hard Salvic trail. “And thank you kindly for your praise. I suppose I do have a reputation in certain circles, Breaker. Although it’s nothing as impressive as yours.”

“A merchant? With so few wares?” Breaker asked, sending a glance like a broadsword at the light pack Throld shouldered.

A low chuckle rolled across the waves of coarse knee-high grass. The dwarf ran a meaty hand ran across his close-shaven chin, morn fire glinting upon dusky chest hair.

“My family deals in a variety of goods... wines, gems, cloths, metals, the magical and the mundane of worlds both over and under. But I leave the carting and hauling to those who can manage pack animals without eating mouthfuls of excrement, especially above ground... oh, it’s a dwarven thing. Rather, I’m the friendly face you send to begin negotiations, the crowbar you use to pry open a barony of notorious small-mindedness. But my true wares are what you’re paying for from me at this very moment. The most valuable commodity in all the world.”

A second devious chuckle welled in his throat. He leant close, heady breath steaming into the promise of an overcast afternoon. Breaker had a strong, earthy scent - the scent of a life well-lived - but with a lingering undertone of mystery. It tickled Throld’s sense of story: another tavern tale to tease from its covers and sow into the soil of an eager audience.

“As a merchant I travel where I wish to hawk my wares. With a wink and a wave, a hundred princes and a thousand paupers dine at my table. As a raconteur I tease truths out of lies and weave lies out of truths. With a single word I can make a man or topple a dynasty.”

With equal alacrity he retreated from his travelling companion, enjoying the theatrical pause as he took the time to scan the withered moorlands. No sign of pursuit dogged their footsteps, though doubtless the Blackcloaks would take greater care now they knew who accompanied him. Ahead the trail rolled for many leagues before disappearing into heavy cloud upon the northern horizon.

“Information, Breaker. I deal in information. I don’t pretend to compete with the specialists in the field. And I leave the cut-throat aspects of this business to those more bloodthirsty than I. But I daresay that I’ve picked up a few juicy tidbits in my time.”

“Such as your tale of the Tiered Mountain?”

The dwarf chuckled a third time, sniffling messily as the chill infiltrated his nostrils. Almost on a whim he struck off across countryside, through a gaggle of thorny bushes that in time revealed to their feet a muddy, ill-used track.

“Like all good stories, it starts with a grain of fact. Like all good tellers, I then embellish it with glamourous smoke and mirrors. The Tiered Mountain does exist, of this I am certain. And I also know where.” Grinning up at Breaker he patted his chest pocket, drawing the man’s attention to a creased sheaf of parchment tucked there. “I have enough evidence to speculate that the Church used it as both training ground and reliquary, both before the Saint’s War and during it. Hundreds of students must have thronged its halls during its heyday, striving - or driven - towards the Sway’s ideal of a zealous enforcer. I’ve also got some hints that some of its secrets are far darker than that. Beyond what I’ve just said, though...”

Breaker’s footfalls came to a sudden halt, moments before Throld himself crested the latest rolling rise. Once alongside the tall, well-built man, the bristle-chinned dwarf grunted in satisfaction. He hadn’t really expected any of the villagers to react to his tale of the night before, given the notorious heavy hand with which the Church protected its secrets. But it had been worth the attempt.

His grubby finger pointed at the snow-capped peak that now pierced the clouds in the distance.

“Well, we’ll have to find out ourselves.”

As they trudged toward the towering, distant mountain, Breaker increased his pace until the dwarf was practically panting. The change in speed was not born out of impatience; Josh simply wanted the dwarf to stop talking so he could have a quiet moment with his thoughts. They marched over frosted ridges, around heavy drifts of snow, and through mountain passes where a single misstep might trigger an avalanche. As the day wore on the sun melted the thick fog that had shrouded the land, giving Breaker a clearer view of their destination.

The demigod wondered what was holding him back. He could have left the dwarf in his wake easily, and would arrive at the Tiered Mountain sooner for doing so. If Geoffrey Rythadine still ruled there, he would want the stealth of a solitary approach. And yet something in the back of his mind kept him from accelerating away from the stout fellow. For some reason Josh felt he might need the loquacious dwarf... perhaps Sartet had not been entirely honest; perhaps the mountain he'd pointed out was merely a marker along the path to their destination.

"I say Breaker," Throld puffed, a ghostly plume emanating from his whiskered lips, "might you grant me a brief reprieve? This pace of yours has placed a murderous stitch in my side." The dwarf paused in the lee of a large pile of boulders and sat on a flat rocky outcropping, twisting to and fro to stretch his stomach.

"Of course," Josh replied. While Throld rested the demigod scrambled up the pile of rocks and perched upon the top, shielding his eyes against the late afternoon sun and peering in the direction they'd been traveling. "It appears we'll have to choose the high road or the low road," he pointed out. Ahead, the trail they'd been following split in two. One path meandered along the gully between two snow-capped mountains while the other cut a straight line along the whitewashed slopes.

"A choice between two paths!" Sartet exclaimed as he rooted through his haversack. "How appropriate for the narrative! I defer to your better judgment on the matter." He waved a careless, meaty palm as he pulled some bread and cheese from the pack and munched on them noisily. "Hungry?" He asked, offering a heel of bread.

"I do not require much sustenance," Breaker replied. He leaped down from the rocks and landed lightly with a frosty crunch.

"Nor much rest, it would appear!" Sartet said, dusting crumbs from his beard and clambering to his feet. "Lead on then." The dwarf stamped his boots against the cold and wiped his nose with a thick sleeve.

They followed the path that led up the edge of one mountain and along its slopes. The air grew thin and the ground became snowy, with large drifts gathering in napes of the landscape. A snow hare burst out of one such drift as they passed by.

Without thinking Breaker kicked his right foot up, drew his black diamond dagger and threw with an overhand flourish. The blade buried itself in the hare's spine and the long-eared creature died without a sound. Blood stained the surrounding snow in a growing red halo. Josh retrieved his dagger, ran the blade through the snowbank to clean it and returned it to its sheath. He plucked the hare by its ears and carried it with him while the sun descended swiftly behind the western horizon.

"Why not camp here for the night?" Josh asked as they passed a particularly heavy drift of powdery snow.

"Out in the open?" Throld queried. "My poor chin might appreciate a mite more shelter than this mound of ice."

"Let me see to the shelter," Josh suggested with a knowing smile. He raised his hands, rolling his fingers inward from the wrists and calling on his connection to the limitless Eternal Tap. The bank of snow writhed and re-formed, shaping into four tall walls with a roof. As the structure hardened into solid ice one section melted into a doorway, and Josh stepped inside the improvised ice hut. He crafted a fire pit into the north wall, with a narrow accompanying chimney to vent smoke. He left the hare's body in the pit, and then ducked outside to see Throld marveling at the creation.

"Why don't you rest here?" Josh suggested, "I'll nip down below the snowline and find some firewood before it's fully dark."

The dwarf did as Breaker bade him, but not before unrolling the bear pelt he carried on his back and spreading it upon the icy ground. A sound somewhere between a relieved sigh and a pained groan escaped his chapped lips. Giving up on unbuckling his rucksack, he instead began to massage the weary aches in his legs and side.

“C’mon, you stupid stubby pegs.” He infused his reprimands with self-deprecating humour, knowing that keeping up the constant chatter would help him feel more at home. “You’re meant to be good at this endurance business. Get working again before the longshanks starts laughing at us.”

In short order, given generous application of gnarled massage and grumpy cajoling, Throld felt confident that he could find his feet. This time he did manage to shrug the burden from his shoulders, unpacking and laying out item after item in front of Breaker’s makeshift fire pit. A cast-iron traveller’s pot and wooden cooking board soon found themselves accompanied by a pouch of barley, three different varieties of dried tubers, and two small precious parcels containing sea salt and peppercorn.

He then reached into a coat pocket, pulling out a generous length of twine, a handful of iron stakes, and some bronze chimes that tinkled sweet song in his palm. Grunting with effort he waded into the drifts upwind from their shelter, scanning the lay of the land with the eye of an experienced traveller and identifying the most likely routes of approach in the lee of the boreal wind. Working with the fevered haste of one who wanted to avoid giving his fingers frostbite, he had soon set up a simple perimeter around the encampment. With any luck, the bells would give them warning should an inquisitive predator stray too close. He even had time to fill the pot with clean snow before his companion returned with armfuls of dry kindling.

“Welcome back,” he said, reinforcing his words with a hearty laugh that creased his wind-tanned brow. Breaker raised an eyebrow at the various homely accoutrements that had appeared like magic from Throld’s pack and pockets. The dwarf waved it back down with a nonchalant hand.

“Thank you kindly for taking care of the heavy lifting. And for the meat - great shot, by the way.” Nodding at the firewood and the hare in turn, Throld exposed his teeth in a broad grin. “I’m merely reaping the benefits of having learned how to pack for the road, and the consequences of wanting to live well while doing so. Not all wilderlands are quite so kind to give me fresh meat, after all, and old Vera here doesn’t do so well when it comes to leaving her dinner edible afterwards.”

The dwarf patted the crossbow-like contraption at his hip. Breaker gave it an incredulous look.

“You named your belcher? After a woman?”

“Yup. Ain’t she a beauty? Say hello to the nice gentleman, Vera.” He gave the man a wink. “In any case, I promise you that my famed stew will taste much richer with fresh rabbit than with the salted pork I usually use. We’ll see how much ‘sustenance’ you need when this gets to bubbling, eh?”

Throld lit the stacked kindling with a murmured word of power, and they set to cooking with a will. Breaker skinned and gutted his kill, while Throld soaked the barley and dealt with the tubers. Soon their dinner steamed its meaty aroma into the chill, salted to the dwarf’s liking, and the snowscape beyond their icy doorway bathed in the flame of a brilliant sunset. A pair of iron bowls joined the pot around the fire. The pair of travellers wrapped their cloaks about their bodies, huddling in newfound warmth.

Now they ate, and well. In a matter of minutes, only a simmering broth remained of the hearty stew. The onrushing night extinguished the world outside, bringing with it the first whispers of a frozen gale and the promise of an overcast dawn. But within their shelter such troubles mattered not. Reclining upon the furry luxuriance of his pelt, Throld breathed a puff of fruity smoke and allowed his sated muscles to relax.

“I suppose that you have many questions, Master Breaker. I certainly have some of my own. So let us share.” He grinned, at ease. “Please let me start us off. What tales can I spin for you tonight?”

Sleet fell as the growing wind moaned in the doorway, and Breaker sealed the opening with a casual wave of one broad hand. He drew a thin layer of ice across the entryway and the little hut grew warmer still, heat emanating from the glowing coals that remained of their fire. Josh sat upright in his snowy seat by the door, enjoying the sensation of the hearty stew digesting in his belly. Too often Breaker forgot the common comforts of mortals, and camping on a mountainside in Salvar seemed like a good place to remember.

"A story or two might help to pass the time," Breaker acknowledged with a gentle nod. He scrutinized the reclining dwarf. Everything about the stout fellow seemed light and casual... everything save for the dragon-belcher he still wore at his belt. "I'm curious how Vera came to have her name. Was she a long-lost love interest of yours, Master Sartet?"

"Love interest, no," the dwarf said. A shadow fell across his kind eyes. "Long lost... you do cut straight to the heart, Breaker." Throld cleared his throat with a low, gravely grumble. "Well, let me start at the beginning. I was born the fourth of five children. My younger sister Vera was a precious thing. Even as a babe she rarely fussed, and she grew up as beautiful as could be. My family had fallen on hard times and found it necessary to journey away from our homeland in Dheathain." Sartet plucked a rabbit bone from the stew pot and pointed to the edge of his bear pelt. "We sailed all the way to Corone," he said, dragging the bone to the middle of the pelt like a marker on a map, "but the island nation never liked us much. During the civil war we made our way to Scara Brae, and then eventually," the bone changed directions, "up to Raiaera."

"We came under attack during that last leg of our journey, and my father perished. Vera was lost to us all... but her memory lives still." Throld patted the weapon on his hip. "And that, my dear Breaker, is all that I will say on the matter." The dwarf dashed a grubby hand across bright green eyes and his jovial grin emerged. "Allow me to collect a new tale or two, if you would. Of course I've heard tell of Joshua Cronen, the legend... but I would hear of his deeds from the mouth of the man himself."

Josh chuckled. Throld could lay flattery on as thick as freshly churned butter. The demigod flexed his shoulders and leaned forward, wiggling his fingers in the warmth cast by the lingering coals.

"I suppose it is my turn to spin a yarn," Breaker said, "what would you hear of this eve, Master Sartet?"

"Well I am curious," the dwarf replied with eyebrows raised, "why call yourself 'Breaker'? An apt title to be sure," he said, splaying his palms defensively, "yet it does make one wonder about the origins of such a name."

Josh chuckled again. Without knowing it Throld had struck Breaker's true reason for seeking the Tiered Mountain.

"I met a Salvic lass during the war," Breaker began, "by the name of Kristina Rythadine. She called me 'Heartbreaker'. It was a joke you see... she insisted I'd break her heart when the war ended. Well, the war ended... and I did return to Corone. There I made the mistake of telling this same story to a particular bartender. She harped on it relentlessly, calling me Heartbreaker for all to hear... some of my students caught on and began calling me Breaker. The name stuck, and before long I became fond of it." Josh took a deep breath, trying not to let his other memories of Kristina surface. Throld had held back the details of his sorrowful story, and so too would Breaker.

“Love, in its myriad forms, will be the end of us all. Yet such is its beauty that we cannot help but throw ourselves upon its embrace, sinners to the pyre.”

Exhaling a plume of sweet-scented smoke, Throld played it about his lips before watching it flee up the narrow vent. One jade-green eye caught Breaker’s questioning look.

“Something an old hag I knew in Scara Brae used to say. Given the fifty shrunken heads of the fathers, brothers, sons, and ex-lovers that she kept in her hut, she knew a thing or two that I didn’t. Still don’t, in fact. Too bad she met her match in the fifty-first head she tried to shrink, otherwise I’d go back someday and ask about it.”

Breaker grunted disbelief. “Sounds like quite the story.”

“It is, indeed,” the dwarf nodded. “As there are many, where matters of the heart are concerned. Foolish, reckless, courageous, triumphant against all odds. I wouldn’t have a job without them.”

He thought for a moment, then continued.

“My people, though they prefer to swear oaths and drink themselves blind, have a saying. The heart is not a stone, built to weather the hard times. It is clay, to knead and to shape, to break down and to rise again.”

The dying embers caught a glint of Breaker’s small smile.

“How very wise.”

Perhaps unwittingly, Breaker had left him an important clue: his mention of Salvar and its war. A man as driven as he did not wander the middle of nowhere without purpose, and a taleweaver as experienced as Throld refused to believe in coincidence. Instinct, deep inside his gut, told him that whatever Breaker sought in the Tiered Mountain, it had to do with this Kristina Rythadine. Funny then, that his purpose there had to do with Vera, his own female ghost. At times like this, he wondered how he had dishonoured the Ancients and the Ancestors, that they laughed so at his expense.

“I hope that you find resolution someday soon, Master Breaker. As indeed I hope I will as well.”

“I’ll raise a glass to that, Master Sartet. If only we had something suitable to toast with.”

Throld grinned, chuckling to himself as if dismayed. His mirth shattered the solemn ice that lay between them.

“Of course, Breaker, I do admit a slight disappointment. I have to admit that, in certain Coronian taverns, I vocally professed a certain fondness for my personal theory behind your name. Rulebreaker, for the number of times they had to rewrite the Citadel’s rules to accommodate your superhuman strength in the arena. Hm.”

He stroked his bare chin where an honoured dwarf might grow his beard.

“Perhaps a series of tales... Headbreaker... Knucklebreaker... Rulebreaker... Heartbreaker? Too blasé?” He laughed again, low and rolling warmth. “I promise you, the people will love it. You’ve got nothing to fear, Breaker, I’d do you proud.”

They talked further, swapping tales of the road, until eventually Throld pinched out the flame in his pipe. Only the smouldering glow on the icy walls now warded the shadows. Beneath the fruity scent of tobacco and the meaty aroma of stew, the less tasteful smells of the road - dried sweat, damp pelts, matted hair - started to suffuse their shelter. But Throld had slept in far worse, including a pigsty or two in Scara Brae, and his gratitude for the protection far outweighed any discomfort. As if by common assent, the two travellers settled into slumber. Soon, only the rhythm of shallow breathing punctuated the whistles of the boreal wind beyond the walls.

Consumed by the oath he had sworn to Vera, he did not sleep much that night. Neither, he presumed, did Breaker.

Breaker did not require much rest. He did not so much sleep as meditate, sitting upright next to the sealed doorway. His breathing became long and deep, almost an afterthought, offsetting the more regular respiration that accompanied the rise and fall of Throld's barrel chest. As wind moaned through the mouth of the chimney Breaker visited his memories of Salvar, of Kristina, and of Geoffrey Rythadine, King of the Tiered Mountain. His head nodded slightly, and he had approached the point where memories become dreams, when an off-tune jangling from outside roused him.

Throld's perimeter had worked; someone or something had tripped the twine. The dwarf had been clever enough with the layout of his twine that it seemed unlikely the wind would be responsible.

Josh stood up swiftly and melted the icy door into the walls with a wave of his hand. He ducked outside with Throld only a half step behind, drawing his dragon-belcher and peering into the darkness.

Snow shifted about beneath the same wind that cut through their clothing, but otherwise nothing moved. It took them only a moment to notice a single set of bootprints approaching the twine perimeter, and then retreating at a run.

"Bloody Blackcloaks," Throld mumbled, peering at the prints, "you'd think they could leave a body alone for a night's shuteye." The dwarf shook his head and returned Vera to his belt. "Well," he said, "I'm not about to go chasing after them in the dark." With that he sauntered back into the ice hut.

Breaker peered after the prints for a moment, and then followed his traveling companion. Throld lay down on his bearskin once more while Breaker rebuilt the door and sat beside it. He considered bothering Throld with questions about the mysterious Blackcloaks, but decided it could wait for morning. He wanted the dwarf as rested as possible, and from the sound of his snores the fellow had already fallen asleep again.

Dawn arrived slowly, as if made lazy by the cold. As the sun peered over the horizon it illuminated the ice hut, making the walls glow blue. Sartet awakened in the incandescence and set about re-packing his haversack with the various creature comforts of the night before, and rolling up his bearskin.

Josh stepped outside, enjoying the feeling of fresh sun on his face. The wind had died down to a gentle breeze that played in his close-cropped hair. He stretched up, eliciting a series of pops from his spine, and then bent forward, loosening his hamstrings. He paced to the place where he'd seen the bootprints, only to find that the previous night's wind had covered them over with powdery snow.

Throld emerged from the hut and set about gathering his twine and trinkets. Breaker lent a hand, and before long the dwarf had all of his possessions packed atop his broad back.

"We might move faster if I carry your haversack," Josh suggested as they trudged back onto the trail.

"I fear such an act might wound my pride irreparably," the dwarf replied, placing a protective hand over his bag.

"As you wish," Breaker said, once again taking the lead. He set a slightly slower pace than the previous day, for he wanted Throld to be able to talk while he walked. "I am curious, Master Sartet. Why would this Blackcloak go to such great lengths to pursue you on this journey?"

A grimace creased Throld’s coal-pit features, as if torn between his desperate need to tell the story and his uncharacteristic desire to forget it. Warring emotions illuminated the banks of snow in shades of jade green. The coarse steam of his breath escaped into streaks of chill cloud. His shadow, birthed by the sunrise behind them, pointed the path onwards. Dark, stormy embankments wreathed the tall mountain on the horizon.

In the end, his instincts as a storyteller won out. Almost without his noticing, his voice settled into a lulling rhythm, its timbre pitched for Breaker’s ears through the occasional frigid gust.

“Last autumn,” he began, savouring the crunch of fresh snow beneath his boots as it punctuated his words. “I travelled to Raiaera, following a lead much like this one. Most elves don’t take much to my style of tavern tales. But there’s enough dwarves and humans in those lands these days that I can travel without fear of missing a night’s shelter and hot meal. I made my way to Nenaebreth - used to be an old woodsman’s village, now’s quite the bustling encampment - and was about to talk my way into another warm bed when this dwarf-dam showed up, causing all sorts of trouble by talking about burning ancient artefacts. Suffice it to say that neither I nor the guards took kindly to that.

“In any case, after talking to a couple of scavengers at the edges of the battlefield at Nenaebreth, I had some idea of where to head. Southwest, skirting the Black Desert towards the Lindequalme. A couple of days later I stumbled on the trail of a handful of Alerian Blackcloaks who I believed had what I sought in their possession. On the banks of the Elleduin I caught up with them.”

Though the cold wind of Salvar nipped at his cheeks, in his mind’s eye Throld could almost picture the confrontation. The languid river waters, susurrating through the tall reeds. The grove of silver birches that guarded the low island, caught between the crimson boughs of the Lindequalme and the sands of Tel Moranfauglir. The ruined temple to Aurient the Star Mother that stood there, keeping the twin corruptions at bay.

He had to remind himself that Breaker was not his usual audience. He didn’t intend to cadge a night’s lodgings and three tankards of ale on the house. It would serve him little to embellish the tale with a florid tongue.

“I won’t say they took kindly to my arrival. But I have some contacts within Ettermire’s aristocracy, and had just about convinced them to listen to what I had to say. When that sodding dwarf-dam arrived.”

Another grimace, as eloquent as the thousand words that he had left unspoken.

“That bad?” Breaker asked.

“Imagine the worst parts of a little sister -” Throld had long grown used to the flicker of pain across his brow “- combined with the destructiveness of an anarchist and the morality of a psychopath. Once she has it in her head that she wants something, she’ll stop at nothing to get it. That’s about all I know of her. All I need to know. Not that the Blackcloaks believe me.”

“So that’s why they’re after you?”

The dwarf nodded, accepting Breaker’s offer of a hand to help him over a steep rock. Sloping hills gave way before them in patches of windswept scree and deep glacial clefts drenched in snow. The sun rose to their left, shedding light upon the few shrubs and windswept trees hardy enough to call this mountainside their home. The air, though crisp, carried upon it a faint taint... incense, and cooking smoke ingrained within sculpted granite, and the foreboding stench of decay.

“And you don’t want to get dragged into their web of influence, because who knows where you’ll end up or what they’ll put you through.” Throld had no need to respond; Breaker understood as well as anybody the treacherous pitfalls that intrigue in Ettermire entailed. Especially when it involved the Blackcloaks, the clandestine branch of the Alerian military rumoured to act as the monarchy’s bloody knife-arm. “Raiaera. What happened in the end?”

Throld coughed in embarrassment.

“I had to call in a couple of favours that I’d rather not have, to get back on track again. I caught up to the Blackcloaks as they were about to make their escape via airship, managed to ah, acquire what I was after. Didn’t stop that rocklicker from attacking again, followed by a squad of Skyknights who’d tracked the airship, but somehow we all managed to make it out alive. I got what I wanted, she didn’t, the Blackcloaks only want to talk to me rather than kill me on sight, and I managed to convince the Skyknights that I wasn’t an Aleraran myself, only an innocent bystander. All a happy ending.”

“What happened on the road yesterday morning was the result of a happy ending? I’d hate to see what happens when things don’t go well for you, Master Sartet.”

“Pah!” the dwarf spat, hiding his concerns behind mock outrage and a facade of humour. “Of course it wasn’t an ending! Since when does one’s tale end before one’s time, eh? Sod you, Breaker, allow me my moment of triumph as a storyteller!”

The smile played about his lips as he trudged, though his eyes kept scanning for shifting shadows in their wake. Before them, the mountain loomed ever closer.

Breaker chuckled at Throld's pretense of indignation and increased his pace, black boots crunching over frosted ground. As the mountain grew larger with each passing step, Breaker's thirst for revenge grew as well. In his mind's eye he could see Geoffrey Rythadine leaping to safety off that cliff where Kristina had died. His fists clenched and relaxed constantly as he moved, and his legs became a blur as he forgot the needs of his traveling companion.

"I say, Breaker!" Throld piped in a puff of steam, "unless you mean to leave me behind, you may want to slow down!"

Josh paused and waited for the dwarf to catch up, forgetting to school his features back to an impassive expression.

"Are you well?" Throld asked as he drew level with the demigod. "Your face could give a thundercloud frowning lessons."

Breaker clicked his tongue and resumed walking, letting the question hang in the frigid air for a moment.

"I lied about my reason for seeking the Tiered Mountain," he confessed as the wind nipped between them.

"Oh? I would never have guessed," Throld said with a cheeky grin. "Am I to understand that something deeper is driving you to Shiverfang's slopes?"

"When I was in the war," Josh said, detouring around a glacial crevasse, "I fought alongside a specialized unit designed to combat the troops of the Tiered Mountain. Kristina Rythadine led one of the patrols within that unit. Her brother Geoffrey fought on the opposite side, as first apprentice to the then-king of the Tiered Mountain. They attempted to assassinate the prince, but Kristina and I foiled the assault and chased them through the tunnels beneath Knife's Edge, all the way out to a mountaintop near the city.

"The King of the Tiered Mountain killed Kristina, and I killed him in return. But Geoffrey Rythadine escaped. If he's still alive... he'll be ruling Shiverfang in his master's stead, of that I feel certain." Breaker's voice was hard and flat as a slab of granite.

"So it was vengeance that drove the Breaker to journey to the Tiered Mountain," Throld said pensively, as if composing a story in his mind.

"Aye," Breaker said, "vengeance." The word seemed to shudder on the stiff breeze. They walked in silence for several hours. As the sun reached its zenith they approached the lower slopes of the Tiered Mountain, and Breaker's skin crawled with sensation. He could detect magic being used within the thick walls of the mountain stronghold. So the legends are true, he thought, a training ground for soldiers of the Ethereal Sway. At least that's what it was... Who knew what the years had done to such a place, especially under the command of Geoffrey Rythadine.

"I don't suppose any of your stories describe how to get inside the Tiered Mountain?" Josh asked his companion. His hazel gaze ran up the jagged ridges to the frosted peak. He would gain entry, even if he had to smash his way through solid rock with his fists.

Of course. The manling couldn’t see it, could he? Sometimes he allowed himself to forget how the younger races, even those as experienced and as competent as Breaker, could not read rock like the stonefolk could. Blinking away his befuddlement, dusting the frost from his hair, Throld shook his head as if to clear it of some obfuscating veil. One stubby finger stabbed through the solid wall of cold air.

“There’s doors there, ‘bout twice your height and I’d guess almost as thick, but they haven’t opened for a while.” Now he jabbed at the deposited ice at their feet attesting to the neglect, that wedged the entrance closed.

“That,” he continued, turning to his left and indicating an outcropping about halfway up the nearest of the jagged ridges, “is not natural. If I had to guess, it’s an observation nest to watch over this gate, abandoned because there’s no need to watch over a closed door... notice, there’s still the same snow on the spire, which means no heat, which in this weather and with manling guards, means unoccupied.”

He grinned, his teeth made even dirtier by the disturbed snow and the roiling sky.

“That means either a window or, more likely, an arrow slit. Either way, a weakness that we can exploit to get inside.” Eyeing the sun on the southern horizon, he judged the terrain before him and chose the route that he would trudge. “This way, Breaker. I’ll get you inside before the sun’s out. Then we can see about soothing your troubled heart.”

It took them another couple of hours to get into position, perched like precarious peregrines on a sheltered ledge above and to the left of the outcropping. Here they had shelter from the worst of the wind, protection from the forbidding heights, and a good view of the approach to the mountain. Though Throld’s weary eyes could make out little upon scanning the harsh glare of the sun upon the snow, still he chuckled when Breaker stiffened and stifled a warning.

“Aye, they’re on our trail. Told them they should get rid of those cloaks. Stand out like a songbird in heat.” Reaching into his pouch of accoutrements, he removed a single brass cartridge about the size of his clenched fist. By unscrewing its tapered top he revealed to the chill its contents: a granular black powder that gave off notes of acrid charcoal. Satisfying himself that it had not spoilt in its passage, he rescrewed the cap onto the cartridge and set it aside. “In the interests of coming clean, Breaker, I should make a confession as well.”

“You’re not running from the Blackcloaks. You’re leading them here.”

Throld cocked an eyebrow, impressed, even as he rummaged through his pack once more. “Quite so! However did you guess?”

“You’re too calm, Throld, even for one your age.” That elicited a bark of laughter, matched by a smile upon the man’s face. “And you strike me as far too canny to get caught out here without a purpose.”

“A purpose, I should say, or rather a secret, ensconced within these mountain halls.” With his free hand the dwarf tapped the side of his bulbous nose, reddened by the cold. His other fingers emerged in turn from their investigations, clutching a length of sturdy woven hemp rope. “One that I should be able to exchange for my freedom from their advances. Give me a hand here, will you?”

He stood still as Breaker tied the rope around his waist, before testing the knot and retrieving the brass cartridge of black powder. Another grunt of satisfaction escaped his chapped lips.

“I now leave my life in your hands,” he bowed, before digging his gnarled fingers into the rockface and commencing his descent.

It did not take Throld long; he had chosen his spot well. After five minutes of clinging to icy fingerholds in arm-numbing, wind-biting terror, he found the narrow slit that previous guards had used to keep an eye over the valley. It took him considerably less time to empty the powder into the slit, then rig a crude taper coated in slow-burning wax from Vera’s spares.

“Nar,” he whispered into the howling wind, lighting the wick in a flicker of runic power. Beneath his breath he began to count, slow and steady even as his arms worked the ascent. Twice his tired fingers slipped from the snow, but anchored to Breaker’s immense strength the sturdy rope held. Soon he found himself back in the sheltered safety of their perch.

“Eight-ninety,” he huffed, having divulged himself of the rope. “Let us hope that I’ve judged the rocks like the old miners taught me to.”

“Or?” Breaker asked, the faintest flicker of worry creasing his features.

“Or I hate to think in how many pieces those Blackcloaks will find us in,” Throld teased. Then he bellowed, loud enough to echo across the snowy drifts at the base of the mountain. “Fire below!”

Before the reverberations had subsided, a second and more powerful voice roared back. The rockface exploded in a gout of red flame. A wave of white heat trembled through the cavernous spaces below their feet. Shards of broken rock spewed outwards in geysers of black smoke, meteors staining the thunderous grey sky.

Then the mountain itself responded, as if jolted awake by the concussions upon its lower limbs. A low rumble overhead soon escalated into an avalanche of snow and stone, billowing down past Throld’s nonchalant expression. Their choice of outcropping proved prudent - threatened by neither cascading death nor threat of collapse - and the beaming joy on the dwarf’s coarse features spoke of a job well done. Almost before it had subsided, the dwarf peered out over the precipice.

“Magnificent,” he announced, offering his rope to Breaker. “The Tiered Mountain awaits!”

Breaker took the rope and lowered Throld hand over hand, down and into the opening the dwarf had blasted in the mountain's side. Once Throld arrived safely he dropped the rope and faced the wall, establishing two firm handholds before stepping off of the precipice. Breaker's enchanted boots clung to the cliff face like a squirrel's claws to coarse bark, and he navigated the treacherous climb with confidence. As he reached the gash in the mountain's side he had to make his way around a large rocky outcropping, and did so by simply releasing his handholds and walking down the wall. He swung into the opening and landed next to the dwarf.

"You wear some truly impressive boots, Master Breaker," Throld said, gazing down at the demigod's enchanted footwear.

"They were a gift from Geoffrey Rythadine's father," Josh said quietly, gazing down the darkened tunnel into the mountain's heart, "designed to help me stop him."

"Well, I certainly don't envy young Mister Rythadine," Throld said with an exaggerated shiver. The dwarf dipped into his well-packed haversack and assembled a torch from a spare bit of firewood he'd saved, some cloth, and a few drops of oil. The torch cast flickering shadows down the hallway as they ventured deeper into the mountain with Throld leading the way. The dwarf nattered on about how such mountain strongholds were typically designed, while Breaker listened past his rotund voice and the sounds of their footsteps. He heard a slight grating movement ahead, but not accompanying breaths or heartbeats.

They rounded a gentle bend in the tunnel and the torchlight illuminated a grinning skeleton. It bore sword and shield and ran at them with a silent scream, accompanied only by the clicking of its bony feet on the stone floor.

Breaker reached over Throld's head and caught the skeleton's face, his fingers jabbing into its eye sockets. He smashed the reanimated creature three times against the hard rock wall and then released it in a shower of broken bones. The smashed skull fell atop the dusty pile, still grinning in the torchlight. A few fingers of eldritch mist flowed out through its mouth and disappeared down the tunnel.

"It seems we are alone, and yet not alone," Throld said, peering down at the remains. The dwarf drew his dragon-belcher and advanced anew. He led the way into a large squarish chamber with no ceiling. A plethora of passageways exited the room on all sides, and a winding stone staircase climbed up the center, extending into the darkness above. A strong musty smell hung in the air, causing both adventurers to breathe through their mouths.

Josh felt drawn towards the spiraling staircase. It stood to reason that the throne room would be at the top of the mountain, and Rythadine would be... would he be there? Could he expect to find anything more than a crown-wearing skeleton seated on the Tiered Mountain's throne? Finding out Rythadine was dead would not be the same as killing him. Josh flexed his shoulders and cracked his knuckles. Perhaps the rest of the mountain deserved some exploration... perhaps he would find some more of these skeletons to slake his wrath upon.

"Well, Master Sartet," Breaker said, gesturing around at the bevy of corridors, "I defer to your better judgement. Which way shall we go?"

“Upwards,” Throld replied without hesitating. Bobbing his close-cropped pate with exquisite courtesy, he eyed the gaping maws of shadow that surrounded him. His features composed in intent concentration. Here, without the annoyances of howling wind and open sky, he could finally focus his senses.

“There is foulness all around us,” he spat in explanation. “I would rather make headway towards the enemy I know, than get lost among a morass of its underlings. But I wonder if they will allow us to abscond from their demesne without partaking of their hospitality.”

The halls spoke back with the remnants of his words, malevolent distorted whispers that slid across walls of smoothed stone. His ears picked apart the discordant waves as they returned, gauging the echoes and the silences, mapping in his mind’s eye the dead ends and the cavernous chambers. Many had once lived in cramped accommodations on this level. Many had once trained upon the rotting mats of woven grass that now dampened his perception. Now only the ghosts of their spirits occupied this silent grave, and the bones of their broken bodies.

He sniffed to clear his nostrils, gagged on the stale stench of lifeless decay. His sphere of light, a concession to Breaker’s eyes but also a comfort to his own, wavered beneath the voracious darkness. Only then did he notice his knees buckling in remembered fear.

“Ha,” he forced a strained chuckle, the blood draining from his features as memories came flooding forth. Passing the torch to Breaker, he climbed two steps on the great spiral staircase in search of a better vantage. His knuckles upon Vera drew taut and white. “I am reminded far too much of the last days of Hamdarim the Great.”

“Hamdarim?” the man asked.

“The greatest dwarf-hold in the south, now lost from our hands. No shit, Breaker, there I was...”

The dragon-belcher rose to his shoulder, aimed at the nearest archway. Flame barked from her stylised eagle’s beak. A red-hot ball of fiery lead streaked into the open mouth of shadow, exploding with concussive force that shook years of accumulated ash and dust from unswept mantles. Bones splintered against the carved rock walls. Weapons of brittle steel spilled into the dim half-light, accompanied by another skull locked in the rictus of a mad grin.

“... when it fell to the claws of our enemies.” Throld paused in his recollection. “With all due respect to your skeletal friends, Breaker, I do wish they might just leave us alone? I’d hate for them to spoil your reunion with Master Rythadine!”

Jacking his weapon, he cleared Vera’s breech of the spent brass cartridge. It spun past the grim countenance of his features, a marked contrast to the forced joviality of his words. How many nameless forgotten manling artisans had dedicated their lives to their crafts in these halls, though they might pale in comparison to the great mountain holds of his kin? Such devoted craftsmanship, even manling craftsmanship, deserved only the fullest of respect. Their memory did not deserve desecration.

The undead did not belong in these halls. He would see them cleansed.

Josh took the lead, holding the torch high as they climbed the stairs. Cobwebs trailed from the carved stone walls and spiders scampered beneath his black boots as they thudded up the solid steps. The air grew danker, dripping with the odors of rot and ruin. By Breaker's estimation they had climbed perhaps a third of the way up the mountain when finally a ceiling came into sight. He let the torch's light wash across the intricately designed roof and the partially rotted trapdoor. A few exploratory pushes on the iron handle confirmed that the hinges had rusted shut. Red ferrous flakes crumbled beneath Josh's fingers as he removed his hand and placed his palm flat on the middle of the ancient oak.

"Mind yourself," Josh said over his shoulder to Throld, "pieces may splinter off and fall." The dwarf nodded sagely and moved down a few steps, finding a safe angle.

Ice expanded from the point on the trapdoor where Breaker's palm touched the coarse wood. A thick sheet of cool blue covered the rotted door, and then Josh pushed upwards, driving with his hips and climbing the final steps. The screech of iron torn from stone rent the air, and Josh stepped onto the next tier of the mountain. He carried the icy door overhead on one palm while the torch guttered in his other hand. His eyes swept a large, empty space. He could not see the walls. The corona cast by his torch lit only a small sphere of the large room.

Skittering skeletal footsteps sounded all around. They ran in waves, their grinning faces gleaming in the light as they drew near.

Josh moved like a whirlwind. He threw the icy door at one group of skeletons and the torch at another as his feet carried him through a crescent. He spun and kicked out and lashed repeatedly with both hands, splitting skulls and spines. Subtle shifts in his balance and core position kept him safe from their steely blades, which stabbed and slashed within a needle's breath of his body. He caught one skeleton by the ankle and wielded it like a maul, smashing it into its allies until it was more dust than bone.

"Is it safe up there?" Throld's ever whimsical voice came through the square hole in the floor. "Or are you making more friends?"

"Just," Josh gasped, summoning a hundred frozen flachette darts to the air around him, "one," he raised his arms overhead and then splayed his fingers and thrust his palms outward, "MOMENT!" The spikes flew as if fired from crossbows, finding their marks in eye sockets, rib cages, necks and knee joints. Bones clattered to the ground all around, and then came the sound of one last set of skittering footsteps.

Throld pounced up the last few stairs, weapon already gripped in the firing position. His dragon-belcher roared and spewed a gout of flame, and the last skeleton exploded in a shower of bones and dust.

"Should show them to attack the likes of us," the dwarf snorted as he cleared Vera's breech.

The echoes of Vera’s retort died upon walls of solid stone, savaging the darkness beyond their circle of torchlight. One large chamber, Throld surmised, with many adjoining smaller rooms. Workshops, perhaps?

Ignoring the sulphurous fumes of his expended cartridge, he sniffed at the rusty odour of inferior iron tools left long dormant. Yellow flame glinted upon a shard of metal amongst the rubble at his feet. Conscious of the slow rattle of bone upon the stairs behind him, he fell to one knee for a closer look.

His calloused fingers settled upon a windlass for a crossbow, albeit too large and too bulky for any weapon wielded by hand. Crude and unrefined in comparison to the craftsmanship of his kin - no artisan worth his craft would bet the lives of fighting dwarves on a weapon that would fail one in two shots - he could see nonetheless how its simplicity might prove effective when produced in bulk. A small cough tickled the back of his mind; had he seen this particular design before? Where...

“What’s this?”

Breaker had moved to retrieve the torch, miraculously still lit, and now he raised it to better illuminate the bulky object in their path. The walls of the Tiered Mountain threw his words back, swallowing whole the meagre light in his hands. A contraption of iron and rotten oak, the size of a peasant’s hovel, loomed before them.

“That’s a siege arbalest,” Throld replied, his question answered before it had fully formed. “Looks like they took an orcish design from the War of the Tap and modified it for a higher firing angle.”

“How do you know that?”

“They had one such antique stored at Gunnbad. Parade it out for the beardlings to see, when they learn of the Mage Wars. Looks almost just like it.” The dwarf gave the engine a thoughtful eye. “More modifications. See the fittings here, and here? Looks like it’s designed to take a cartridge, like my Vera.”

“... multiple shots, one after another?”

“Aye,” Throld nodded. “Fired at great range and velocity. This is a weapon designed to outrange guns, and to defend skies.”

Breaker caught on to the meaning of the words he left unsaid. “Of course. A weapon against Alerar.”

“The dark elves have their muskets and their airships. The light elves have skyknights and bladesingers. Looks like the Church turned to history and a little innovation in an attempt to even the odds.”

“It’s not that groundbreaking, surely.” A ravine of doubt furrowed the man’s brow.

“Depends,” Throld told him. “Might not look like much at the moment, but with a little more tweaking and the element of surprise... I wonder if this might absolve me of whatever debt the Blackcloaks think I owe them.”

Padded footfalls took him around the far side of the contraption, his eye now arrested by the fact that the great laths - their bowstrings long since eaten into dust - showed signs of wear. His attention travelled to the far wall, and to the unremarkable pile of rubble accumulated at its base. Intrigued, he inched closer.

“Throld?” Breaker’s voice carried a note of warning, wary of the skeletal warriors still climbing the spiral stairs.

“One moment,” the dwarf answered. “I just need to take a look at...”

The barbed head of a ballista bolt, he saw, its shaft long since rotted into mouldy splinters at his feet. He sensed something strange about its construction, almost as if...

Reaching for it, he noticed two things at once. First, some hasty hand had disturbed and reshaped the stonework of the floor, the shoddy handiwork not a day old. Second, beneath the twin odours of lingering sulphur and heady rust, the pungent stink of ozone and peppermint. Magic.

Ronus’s shit.

“Breaker?” he called across the room. The man met his gaze from his pool of torchlight, took one step towards him.

The taleweaver shook his head.

“Keep going,” he said, giving his companion a wise nod and a sly wink. “Keep heading up. You’ll find what you seek. Remember, the hero must always move on.”

A puff of coalescing shadow swallowed him whole, tinged in the faint aura of arcane amethyst. When the dust cleared, only stale air remained where Throld had stood.

Josh blinked at the space where Throld had vanished, holding the torch higher to cast its flickering light further. Bone dust decorated Breaker's sifan clothing as he paced to the side of the room and found the place where the stairs started. These carved stone steps wound around the outside of the large room, rising ever higher along its tall walls. Josh turned as the skittering footsteps of skeletons drew nearer, and raised one hand. A blinding white light blossomed from his palm and shot through the chest cavities of the reanimated assailants, felling them instantly. Breaker brushed dust from his shoulders and resumed his climb, wondering where Throld had gotten to.

With each step thoughts of the dwarf faded, and by the time the torch's halo stopped touching the floor, Geoffrey Rythadine filled Breaker's mind. Had the King of the Tiered Mountain been one of the skeletons he'd so easily dispatched? His footsteps had a hollow voice as he neared the top of the echoing chamber. He didn't want an easy victory. He wanted to see pain and terror etched on Rythadine's face before the man died. He wanted to express the emotion he felt for Kristina in the form of suffering. For once he wanted to step down from his silver pedestal of virtue and drink the crimson cocktail of revenge.

Flickering torchlight washed over an empty doorway at the top of the stairs, and then illuminated the shadowy hallway beyond. It followed the curvature of the mountain as it rose on a slight slope. Breaker's boots and his breathing were the only sounds. He trailed a callused palm along the wall, feeling the intricate carvings that seemed to move in the dancing light. He found another empty doorway at the end of the hall, its rusted hinges yawning emptily.

The hall opened into a long, wide chamber where once again the torchlight proved insufficient. The hair on the back of Breaker's neck stood on end; he felt as though someone watched him from the darkness. He met with a long trough filled with liquid that lined the walls of the room. He dipped a finger into the viscous liquid and inhaled deeply through his nose. Oil. Without a second thought, Josh dipped his torch into the trough.

Flame leaped from the end of the torch onto the oil, and spread in both directions around the room with a grateful whisper. It illuminated a long table and chairs made from liviol, the enchanted wood that would never rot. It illuminated an empty stove piled with iron pots, its exhaust pipe rising up to the vaulted roof. It illuminated the far end of the chamber where a series of long steps led up to a carved stone throne, the arms of which looked like the heads of dire wolves.

Atop the throne sat a bald man of middling age. He had a thick beard streaked with grey and wore a simple brown robe. One hand gripped the ornate arm of his chair, the other clutched a crystal ball filled with dim mists. He wore a grey adamantine crown with five prongs, each rising from the circlet like a curved sword. The man put the crystal ball down on the dais next to his throne and stood up, stretching like a cat.

"Welcome to my mountain, Breaker," said Geoffrey Rythadine, "I've waited patiently on your arrival."

“Welcome to the mountain, Master Sartet.” The silky voice slipped through the amethyst-tinged shadows from behind its alabaster mask, a dagger unsheathed in the dark. “We’ve waited patiently on your arrival.”

Throld groaned. The sound shook the close granite walls of his new surroundings, battering him in repeated reminder of the wager he had just lost with his life at stake. Suffocating tendrils lifted from his vision and receded from his lungs; he breathed again of stale must and ancient history. Over him loomed three slight figures clad in black. The one on the right glowered at Throld with boorish bravado, bristling beneath the bruises of his brawl with Breaker. The other two regarded him with little more than mild amusement.

Pain wracked his head. He dared not acknowledge the triumph flickering through their eyes, the crescent of glowing silver tickling his throat. The rancid musk of his fear stained the aurochs-hide vest he wore, heedless of the chill in the air. Hard rock dug into the small of his back and the seat of his pants, clawing at his sweaty palms.

“Said the dark elf holding his moonblade to the captive dwarf’s neck,” he muttered, jabbing at them with a stubby, grimy digit. “Let me guess... you all met me in Raiaera last year. Four, Five, and Six, together again at last. Ronus’s beard, you didn’t have to tear a hole in time and space to get to me, you know.”

“You have proven remarkably adept at escaping our attempts at talking to you, Master Sartet,” their leader replied, removing his mask and confirming Throld’s suspicions. The hint of a wry smile played about his pale purple lips. “I hope you will not begrudge us our little game. After all, we did make the effort to convince you of its authenticity. The informants. The map. The illusion of pursuit.”

“Fool me once,” Throld swore, this time not bothering to keep his temper in check. The roots of the mountain reverberated in tune with his rage. Loose dirt and ash sprinkled upon his upturned, furrowed brow. “No shit, then, you tricked me. I fell for it, hook line and sinker, to my eternal shame. Now what?”

“Now, Master Sartet, you walk free.”

“I do what?”

Six - or was it Five? - shrugged. The movement gave the dwarf a whiff of dried grub rations beneath the delicate sweet scent of dark elf magic, a tantalising hint of the underground tunnels that he had once walked as home. “You walk free, Master Sartet. We let you go.”

Throld’s face, already folded into thunderous crags, hardened like black diamond. Snarling, he bared yellowed fangs at his captors. His voice stabbed at them through the dim motes of floating dust. “Why?”

The dark elf on the left sighed, shook his head behind its sculpted mask, and turned to stand guard over the empty tunnel behind him. The bruised one continued to glower through the gloom, dire disappointment beginning to seep through his hurt pride. Their leader smiled, white teeth gleaming, arcane amethyst seeping from his fingertips.

“We have proven that, despite your misgivings and your trickeries, we can track you down and corner you. We have proven that we know how to manipulate you, through your desire to collect the artefacts of your people. We have proven that you cannot escape us. That is all we need to do.”

“You sons of molehares.”

“Admit it, Master Sartet, we have impressed you. As a teller of stories you admit, however much you hate to, that this is an inspiring flourish. After all, like us you enjoy wreathing your words behind smoke and mirrors. Even when you wished us to learn of your ignorance regarding that accursed artificing anarchist, you tantalised us instead with what else you might know.”

The Blackcloak straightened from his crouch, allowing Throld his first good look at the chamber into which they had summoned him. Brittle bones, what little that remained of those fallen acolytes unfortunate enough to encounter the three dark elves, lay scattered past the entrance. Faded murals of ancient saints marked this room as one of great significance to those who had constructed it, beneath the intricate friezes depicting their battles against aberration and abomination. A shrine, perhaps? A reliquary? Painful shards of rock continued to dig into the palms of his hands.

“Don’t patronise me. You didn’t go to all this trouble to make a point.” The dwarf’s glare smouldered like the frosty embers of a dormant balefire. His fingers twitched upon the stock of his dragon-belcher, mindful of the moonblade still held at his neck. “What do you want?”

“For the moment?” Six’s smile revealed little. “Nothing.”

“You sons of molehares,” Throld repeated. He could think of only one reason why the aristocrats of Alerar would want to hold leverage over him: his wealth of contacts throughout Ettermire, Kachuck, and Gunnbad. “In Ronus’s name, you’re not turning me against my kinsfolk.”

“Perhaps.” The dark elf smiled again. A flick of his wrist withdrew his blade from Throld’s throat, leaving behind only the faintest of cold impressions in leathery skin. As the glowing steel receded into its scabbard, the shadows sped forth once more to swallow him whole.

"I didn't think much of your welcoming party," Breaker said, brushing bone dust from his shoulders. He paced the length of the table, glazed eyes seeing nothing but his old enemy. "The years have not been kind to you." Time seemed to have impacted Rythadine threefold; age lines creased his face and bald pate, and the grey in his beard dominated the red of his youth.

Rythadine circled in the same direction as Josh, keeping the liviol furniture between them. He dry washed his black gloved hands, the hems of his brown robe rippling with each deliberate step.

"You killed Kristina," Breaker accused, and his voice dripped venom. "She may have died at your master's hands, but you killed her the moment you took up arms against her."

"Do you not think I've mourned?" Rythadine spat, "do you not think I repented for my sins? Nina was never meant to die. She was supposed to join use here, in all our glory."

"What glory?" Breaker bit the question off viciously, "you're all alone here, Rythadine. You and your army of skeletons. What happened to your men? What did you do to them?"

A crazed look seized the mountain king's green eyes. "They plotted against me," he said, "all of them hungered for the power I wield. And before long... I found I hungered for them." He gave a toothy grin and gestured at the greasy pans sitting on the old stove.

The smell of cooked meat became suddenly overpowering, and Breaker paused in his pursuit, peering into the pans. Several charred fingers sat in a filmy layer of fat. Josh's stomach heaved but he stifled the feeling, refusing to retch.

"You disgust me," he said.

"I never claimed I could cook," Rythadine replied, and then giggled. The haunting, psychotic sound echoed around the throne room.

As he returned to the front of the chamber Josh leaped on the table and raced across it toward Rythadine. The crazed king cackled and fled into a tunnel concealed behind his throne. Josh followed, black boots pounding on the stone floor. The tunnel arced upward at a sharp angle, twisting in on itself to continue rising. A cold draft swirled from above, and as he rounded the final bend Josh faced an opening that led out onto Shiverfang's snow capped peak.

Rythadine waited on the slippery slopes, beckoning with a black glove. "Come along then, Breaker. I have been waiting for this since my crystal ball showed your arrival in Salvar."

"Only a madman sits and waits for death." Breaker hissed as he struck.

They battled across the wind whipped peak, exchanging blocked blows. Breaker's boots lent him extraordinary traction on the icy terrain, but Geoffrey's gloves gave him the ability to harness the wind. He floated upwards on a gust, evading Josh's latest salvo of strikes, laughing to the overcast skies as he settled on the high ground. The demigod bent his knees and leaped mightily, rising to the same level as Rythadine and assaulting him with another volley of clenched fists and hard elbows. Geoffrey fell back beneath the barrage, stumbling into a snowbank and upsetting its balance.

As the thick snow shifted, a body tumbled out of the drift. Frozen solid and blue as prevalida, the corpse slid slowly down the slope, gathering speed and drumming up the beginnings of an avalanche. Rythadine's eyes watched the body disappear hungrily.

"You won't need your food supply any longer," Breaker reminded him, and leaped upon his enemy. They fell to the frosty ground, entangled and grappling with all of their strength and skill. Breaker bulled his way to a dominant position. He clutched Geoffrey's arms one at a time and stripped the enchanted gauntlets off of them, throwing the black gloves to the wind. "Let's see how long you last without your father's gifts," the demigod growled.

Rythadine squirmed his way free and stood, suddenly unstable on his perilous perch.

Breaker rose in front of him, hard hazel eyes meeting Salvic green. He kicked out at the mountain king's right leg, and then his left. Geoffrey stumbled, his streaked beard swirling in the wind. Josh ducked beneath the other man and then stood, lifting his enemy across broad shoulders. He paced to the edge of a cliff and tilted his torso and heaved. He threw Geoffrey Rythadine into the open air, and for the second time in his life watched the man tumble off a cliff. On this occasion, Rythadine did not fly. He fell, with a wail that echoed amidst the walls of the Tiered Mountain.

A faint echo distorted the silence between Throld and the Blackcloak, the final vestiges of a horrid, drawn-out wail. Hackles rose on his nape. Clammy chills trickled down his spine. He swallowed deep of the rancid fear that clogged his throat, and willed his limbs into action.

An unsteady totter brought him to his feet. Dusting off his backside in a billowing cloud of ancient ash, he sneaked the opportunity to peer at the debris upon which he had lain. His jade gaze swept across the crushed remnants of stone tablets and other assorted artefacts, long since vandalised, defaced, and destroyed. The Blackcloaks had to have known of the treasures of the Tiered Mountain long before he did; how else could they have summoned him into what remained of the reliquary with such pinpoint accuracy?

“How long have you been sitting on this Haide-damned place?”

“Many cycles,” Six answered, his placid demeanour deflecting the dwarf’s barbed scrutiny. “We do admit that your quest, and that of the human Joshua Cronen, has finally presented us with the perfect occasion to explore these halls in person.”

Did mischievous mirth dart through the dark elf’s intense gaze? The Blackcloak betrayed little else, turning to join his comrades beneath the archway that exited the reliquary.

“In light of your contribution, we might even consider your debt to us paid. In part.”

“Said the lackey who could not even lace his boots without authorisation from above,” Throld spat back. But he did not inject his words with the rancour he might have otherwise felt. His shoulders slumped in an approximation of resigned acceptance. Six, after all, could no more influence his true masters than Throld could wish the events of the past hour into a figment of his hyperactive imagination. His stony glare continued to scan the vicinity, looking for something - anything - that might catch his eye. “I would also think that war machine is worth a favour or two in return, at the very least.”

The dark elf snorted, a dismissive sound most unbefitting of his refined features. “Really? Do you believe that the misguided zealots and bigots of this primitive nation could threaten the sanctity and prestige of our fatherland, with something as crude as a reworked relic of the Tap Wars?”

Having wandered the length and breadth of the room without finding any trace of what he sought, Throld’s attention returned to the leader of the Blackcloaks. “Or I could let Breaker know that you’ve known of this mountain for years and have been withholding said information? I wonder how he might react to the notion that the nobles of Alerar have been complicit in the treacheries of Geoffrey Rythadine?”

“That’s stretching the truth, Master Sartet,” Six scoffed after the briefest of pregnant pauses. “Even for a renowned spinner of tall tales and lies.”

Throld grinned.

“I would not underestimate the younger races, were I you or your puppetmaster.” A curt nod at the bruised and battered Five - or was it Four? - emphasised the broken teeth he bared. “Whether in ingenuity or in sheer brutality, they have a tendency to defy our false airs of superiority, to tear apart the delusions we cling to in our desperate and misguided need. Perhaps I have no need of the truth. Perhaps I only have need of a convenient story.”

“Perhaps,” the Blackcloak repeated, unconvinced. “I will at least relay your words for consideration by... by those who have the authority to dictate such matters. You never know, Master Sartet. You might even get lucky.”

“I was born lucky.” The dwarf’s lips twitched, a humourless obscenity directed at any who would think otherwise. “Lucky enough to stand tall and tell you now to scram.”

“You do not wish us to escort you from these wretched halls?” Despite the sarcasm that dripped like venom from his lips, Six seemed almost surprised by Throld’s bravado.

“A companion for the sky-roads is a companion nonetheless. By Ronus’s beard, I won’t abandon him.”

“Harglukkin.” Dwarves.The Blackcloak shook his head, strands of fine platinum hair flowing in time with the motion. “Very well, as you wish.”

A heartbeat later he disappeared, and his underlings with him. Faint traces of powdery arcane amethyst lingered amidst the shadow. The stench of peppermint magic reminded Throld that he had not dreamt the confrontation. He exhaled into the dank chill, too terrified even to pat himself down and convince himself that he yet remained whole.

“No shit,” he whispered to himself, aware once more of how the cavernous and domineering mountain halls loomed over his diminutive person. One last look he spared for the ransacked reliquary, to ensure that he had not missed any vital clue amongst the rubble, or even one of the Daughters themselves. The voice in his head remained quiet, as it had done all day. “But the odds were long, after all.”

Exiting the desecrated chamber, he sniffed once of the musty silence. Choosing his direction from the labyrinth of rotted oak and rough-hewn masonry, he trudged off in search for the stairs that would lead him upwards and outwards.

“As of this moment, Vera my beauty, we have more important concerns to see to.”

Breaker stood still on the precipice for a time, watching the space where Rythadine had vanished. The curvature of the cliff prevented him from seeing his old enemy strike the ground. I should confirm he's gone, Josh thought, but still his black boots remained rooted in place. The frigid northern wind whipped around his ankles and tugged at the collar of his shirt, pulling him back in time to a different Salvic mountaintop. One closer to Knife's Edge, where another Rythadine had perished.

Kristina's face rose in his mind's eye, skin white as snow framed by fiery locks. I got him for you, Nina.

Vindication eluded the demigod, as did regret. He felt only a sense of satisfaction at unfinished business finally complete. This story finally has an ending. Throld will be thrilled. Thinking of the yarn-weaving dwarf piqued Cronen's curiosity. Where did he get to? Josh had only caught a glimpse of the arcane mist that captured Sartet. It had looked complex, but not exceptionally powerful. He must still be somewhere in the mountain.

Breaker took a last moment to admire the view from Shiverfang's peak. Through the mist that swirled on the breeze he could see miles of rolling hills and mountains in every direction. The sun, hitting the frosted landscape at an angle, threw up shimmering reflections like a thousand shattered mirrors. Crouching, Josh gathered a few rough rocks and stacked them atop one another, a small token of Kristina's memory. Slipping and sliding, he descended toward the open doorway that had brought him to the tip of the Tiered Mountain.

The winding passage carried him down to the throne room, where he paused and then sat in the great carved stone chair. With his back straight, his eyes swept across the liviol table and chairs, across the stove with its gruesome meats, across the banks of blue flame lining the walls.

Joshua Breaker Cronen, he thought, Uncrowned King of the Tiered Mountain. For the stronghold had always been rule by might, and only he who slew the king could claim the crown. On a whim Josh picked up Rythadine's crystal ball and held it before him, focusing on finding Throld. The mists within the glass orb whorled into the shape of the dwarf making his way through a dim dungeon, with Vera held at the ready. He must be on the lower levels, Breaker reasoned.

Leaving behind both throne and crystal ball, Breaker swept down the stairs lining the walls to the middling tier where he'd fought the horde of skeletons. Bones and dust still littered the floor like the bottom of a mass grave. His boots made soft metallic noises as he paced to the spiral staircase at the middle of the large room and continued downward. Soon he stood on the level he and his companion had first entered, in the large chamber made porous by dozens of passageways.

It took some time to locate a staircase leading downward, and then Josh found himself descending into inky darkness. "Throld?" He called, and the stone walls rebounded his voice a thousand times over. He let his feet fall heavily on each step, creating a harsh clanking metronome. With any luck, the dwarf would be able to follow the sound.

“Behind you, lad.” Chapped lips laughed from beneath a bulbous soot-smudged nose. Throld stepped out around a shadow-wreathed bend in the labyrinthine halls, into Breaker’s sight. Deep craggy lines furrowed his weathered brow. The dull jade gleam of the hollows beneath his eyes underlined his exhausted gait. He took a deep breath of the mould and mildew, though the darkness seemed to swallow his words whole. “I would advise against heading deeper into this mountain. Undead acolytes and mad tyrants are villains enough for any tale, but darker and angrier things lurk here now. Malice, and hatred, drawn to the Shiverfang’s deepest niches and roaming its darkest corners. Best we forget that they exist, before they realise that we do. Best we leave this abyss behind.”

“Really? They won’t boil forth like some plague to ravage the surrounding lands?” Breaker did not seem too enamoured with the idea of retreat, although belated realisation flickered through his eyes. The Tiered Mountain had profited from its isolation for decades. No victim made a living for at least two days’ travel to all points of the compass. “And what’s to stop some unwary fool from venturing in to this... abyss?”

The dwarf winked, a weary attempt at winsome appeal. With a subtle groan that echoed through the maws of the mountain, he started up the stairs that Breaker had just descended, towards the distant light. “Oh, I think I can come up with a tall tale or two.”

The stone beneath his feet cast his voice back into his face. The humid stench of faecal fungus made it difficult for him to concentrate. Instead, he cast a critical eye over Breaker. The human continued to hesitate at the bottom-most step, his body language recalcitrant, his eyes simmering with bloody thirst.

Throld sighed.

“Trust me, Master Breaker, there’s little more we can do here. We stonefolk have learnt much of the perils that lurk in the depths of this world. Some menaces, even a deity such as yourself and a demi-god like myself are unable to combat.” A cheeky grin cracked his dusky broken features, though it lacked the vigour it had displayed in the morn. “Some menaces are best left undisturbed.”

He paused in his words, continuing to regard the man, his eyes sombre despite the flippancy of his features. “See, there’s a reason I tell my tales.”

“Other than free drinks, you mean?”

“Well, there’s that,” Throld admitted, allowing himself to salivate at the thought of a rich foamy ale. Oh, what he would do to bask in the warmth of a roaring fire and the waves of hearty conversation! Breaker caught his eye as if reading his thoughts, the ghost of an unwilling smile playing about his lips. “Rather, one might say that my indomitable thirst grants me a vested interest in the wellbeing of this world. It is my job, nay my duty in Ronus’s flinty gaze, to cajole, to inspire, to forewarn the next generation of great adventurers.

“Say, for illustration, that I return to Knife’s Edge and spread the word of a lonely mountain, haunted by the vengeant ghosts of long-dead kings and the daemons that lurk in the abyssal pits below. Those who know of these forsaken tiers are warned that other minds more cunning than theirs are aware of their plotting, that they had better not try again. Those who hear the tale of our failed expedition and don’t come anywhere near Shiverfang are intelligent. They deserve their quiet safe lives, growing crops and tending to families. Those who hear it and still decide to come here are foolhardy, and deserve whatever fate they find within these walls. But those who hear it, and still brave these halls, and somehow survive... those folk are heroes. They’re the ones who’ll stop the next Rythadine, and the next, from taking root.”

“Or become the next Rythadine themselves?”

“I’ll take my chances,” Throld grunted, acknowledging Breaker’s point. “If your fickle Thaynes give us a Breaker for every Rythadine, then the world’s a better place for all our troubles. There’s a famous inscription I like to quote at times like this, engraved upon a plaque at the Temple of Paragons in Gunnbad. ‘Let the innocent dead rest easy in their tombs, in the knowledge that their sacrifice has meaning.’”

Not once did he relinquish Breaker’s glare, braced against the flaring anger, the tides of sorrow and regret, the grim abyss of acceptance. Like an anvil to the hammer he weathered the tumultuous tempest of the man’s leashed emotions, until at last the fists twitched and unclenched, and the teeth loosened their grit rigour.

“That’s...” Gravel ground in the depths of Breaker’s throat, as he took a single step upwards to look Throld in the eye. He coughed, swallowed, and tried again. “That’s a very practical outlook on life.”

“A dwarven trait,” Throld explained, weather-beaten features creased in a wry and tired grin. “For what little it’s worth... I’m sorry for your loss.”

Breaker could only nod, composing himself in the shadow and the silence. A long pause ensued, only the whispered threats of the deep dark underfoot keeping them company, until at length man and dwarf turned as one. Together they began to ascend from the clutches of the Tiered Mountain.

“There’s just one last thing I don’t like about all this, Master Sartet.”

“Hm?”

“The way you’re telling the tale, it’s like we failed.”

Again the dwarf grunted, this time with effort as he climbed.

“Not everybody gets satisfaction in pursuit of vengeance, Breaker. I’ve had enough of seeing lives wasted in pursuit of age-old grudges.” For the briefest of heartbeats, the shadow of fallen Hamdarim clouded Throld’s vision. Then it fled before the faint light that trickled through the mountain above, his fears and his pain banished behind a flimsy facade of levity. “Besides, I don’t mind my heroes failing, as long as they try their damndest. It’s easy to be valiant when you always win, when everything goes your way. There’s nothing great in that. And that’s another important life lesson to teach those wet-nosed snotlings who’re going to pay for my next drink.”

Breaker snorted disbelief. But once again he could not quite disguise an amused smile.

The sound of metal on stone echoed throughout the tunnels of the Tiered Mountain as Breaker climbed back up the stairs. Together the demigod and the dwarf retraced their steps through the darkened confines until a breath of fresh air graced their lungs. The hole Throld had blown in the side of the mountain gaped greedily, and the dwarf uncoiled his long rope. Breaker set his feet in the carved hallway, boots adhering to the cold stone, and lowered his companion hand over hand to the permafrost below. He tossed the rope down and stepped out of the opening, pausing with the wind teasing his hair and tugging at his clothing.

Molten ice erupted from both of Breaker's palms, sealing the gash in the mountain's side like a cork stopping a barrel. He turned and raced down the side of the mountain like a two-legged spider, landing heavily next to Throld in a spray of snow and grit.

"You really must tell me the story behind those beautiful boots," the dwarf commented, wiping flecks of ice from his face and peering at the demigod's footwear.

"I'd be happy to," Breaker replied, "but there's one thing I still need to do." He took a few steps back, studying the mountain and trying to calculate the winding path his descent from the precipice had taken. Giving up, he stalked off in a wide circle around Shiverfang's lower slopes.

"Don't tell me you're about to mark your territory," Throld jested, following closely, "In that case, I should give you some privacy-- ahhh..." A long note of understanding rolled from the dwarf's lips as they rounded a craggy cliff and came upon a battered corpse half buried in the snow.

Breaker could barely recognize Rythadine's body, for the impact of the fall had distorted his features. The grey streaked beard remained the same though, and the bald pate, and the adamantine crown encircling it. The prongs of the unbreakable affectation had dug deeply into the fallen king's scalp, fixing it in place.

"Of course," Throld commented, "the confirmation of the kill! A tireless trope if ever one existed. For how else is the audience to know if a sequel lurks ahead?"

Breaker crouched down by his old enemy's body and clutched the adamantine circlet between his powerful palms. He pulled it free and stood, wiping flecks of blood and skin away from the simple crown. It felt surprisingly heavy in his hands, for Breaker had never held anything made from the indomitable metal. He could see a thin rendition of his reflection in the band, stony hazel eyes glaring back at him.

For once, Throld remained silent.

Josh rolled his powerful shoulders and threw the crown like a discus. It spun out over the frosted landscape and buried itself in a large bank of snow, nearly out of sight.

Vera bellowed, the echo ricocheting off the solid rock wall, and buckshot peppered Rythadine's body. Breaker turned, giving Throld a quizzical look.

"Just to be safe," Throld grinned as he expelled the spent cartridge. "Sometimes the baddest ones come back." The demigod arched an eyebrow. "Or maybe it's all this fresh mountain air making me lightheaded."

Breaker shook his head, a hearty chuckle welling up from his chest. "Well, he's definitely dead now. I hope you don't mind giving me credit for the kill when you tell the story."

"Naturally." Throld said with a wink and a nod. "Now about these boots of yours..."

"They were a gift from Rythadine's father, a powerful alchemist called Tinker Rythadine." The dwarf and the demigod strode away from the mountain side by side, headed back the way they had come. "The enchanter hoped I would use them to stop his son's misdeeds without harming young Geoffrey... and at the time, I succeeded. I chased him up the side of a mountain with a Church of the Ethereal Sway set on its slopes..."

Windswept snowscape, broken by jagged outcroppings and copses of evergreen, sped past in a comfortable blur of conversation, exaggeration, and swapped stories. They sheltered overnight again in Breaker’s icy shelter, supping on a stew of tubers and salted pork. Though Shiverfang touched their nightmares in slumber, this time the Blackcloaks did not disturb Throld’s picket of twine and bells.

By afternoon on the second day they had regained the trail, leaving the deep wilds behind. The setting sun cast long shadows into their path. A pale moon rose into the streaks of cloud on the eastern horizon. Approaching the village tavern in which they had first met, they at last found themselves out of tales to tell.

But still Throld milked his arrival for every possible ounce of theatre. Hailing by name even those he had met for only brief minutes over a pint and a joke, he attracted a rambunctious crowd on the short journey from village gate to tavern. His voice rolled among the thatched roofs and muddy paths. His heroic shadow grew to thrice his size in the twilight. Breaker seemed content to exchange small words with the ladies drawn to his presence like butterflies to nectar.

They entered the low-ceilinged building to whistled acclaim, breathing again of stale ale and smoky hearth, basking in the heady warmth. A trio of tankards already awaited their arrival, lined like trophies upon the counter at the far end of the room. Throld handed Breaker the first and downed the second in a single long draught. Then he sought a seat, clutching the third to his chest like a prized possession.

For a while he wet his lips, content to bask in camaraderie and to tease of the spectacle to come. A small crowd gathered as he spun them a short parable, featuring a pair of magic boots and the cheeky child who stole them to scale a haunted rockface. Only when he had almost finished tale and drink alike did he catch Breaker slipping from the tavern, as stealthy as a morning shadow.

Man and dwarf matched glances one last time, one sage soul to another, flinty jade locking with fathomless hazel. The dwarf nodded first, then the man, promising that when they greeted each other again they would do so as old friends. Until then the dwarf would continue searching for artefacts and tall tales. The man would continue travelling the world to right its wrongs. The world would continue to turn. Few would be any the wiser that Geoffrey Rythadine lay dead in a snowdrift beneath Shiverfang, or that the Blackcloaks of Alerar had vested interest in the activities of Gunnbad and the Elythian League.

With one last blast of frigid wind, the heavy log door swung shut behind Joshua ‘Breaker’ Cronen. Dancing light and flaring warmth rushed to fill the void he left behind, ushered forth by the tumult of happy conversation and the flow of watery beer. Throld stood from his seat, meandering over to the bar where the bosomy barmaid already had a hard stare and a cold drink waiting for him.

“Now now, gentlemen, gather around and allow me my say,” he did at last declare, perching his considerable bulk on the counter-top so that he sat at a height with his audience. “For I have a tale of great sorrow and woe to impart to you.”

He grinned, exposing yellowed teeth to the flickering light of the hearth.

“I bet you’ve all heard of the Tiered Mountain?”

Name of Thread: The Tiers of the Shiverfang
Judgement Type: Full Rubric

Plot – 21/30

Story: 7/10

Diadems, you gave a great opening with a tavern tale of the mountain itself, which then becomes the setting for the story, and serves as a focus of the title. The separate connections, also, that either character have to the Tiered Mountain are believable, and give some focus as to why they are in the place at that time. The development of the story from there, adding all the details of the Tiered Mountain, with the constant mentioning of it and the final confession of Breaker to Throld of why he wanted to go there, add all a slow build up leading to a fantastic climax. Separating the characters did allow for some further adventure, and it made sense for they did have each their own story to be told here. Added note: Adding in Throld’s stories to find a way in was genius.

Setting: 7/10

Main setting was introduced early, well, not so much in description but in the fact that it was talked about. The story itself, however, beginning in a pub is as typical as you can get for a story full of adventure, and it is described well with the noise and “burly” customers. Simple, particular descriptions such as the “bell-shaped flowers” in post 3 not only add to your setting, but make it alive and weave the plot well into it. The journey through the land seems a little lacking, and there could have been more development here, but you did make up for this in the final description of the Tiered Mountain. The fact that the interior of the Mountain is hollow, and has levels (tiers) adds to the adventure within this thread.

Pacing: 7/10

There was no long pauses when there should not have been, and the right amount of tension was present in most points. There is some rise during the smaller fight scenes (such as that against the skeleton, post 16) but else it was steady. There could have perhaps been more rise, the further up the Mountain they went. All in all it did rise with the coupled ill effects of Breaker’s foe and Throld’s enemies being in their own story endings, but certain points (such as Breaker looking into the cooking pots, then suddenly running to fight in post 22) were interrupting to the general flow. In future a good balance of action and pacing would be something to aim for.

Character - 23/30

Communication: 8/10
Action: 7/10
Persona: 8/10

Diadems:

Communication:

Throld speaks as one might expect a story-weaver to – with a great amount of words and with impressive vocabulary. Simple things such as repeating phrases (“Information, Breaker. I deal in information.” Post 7) add depth to the character. His eloquence is something to be admired, espiecally when simpler phrases might fair as well. There are times when speech was not so well concentrated on, and seemed a little out of place (post 9 “great shot”) but overall, it is well done.

Action:

Actions seem thought of well before writing, which is what a reader likes to see. The act of placing useful items, such as the chimes in post 9 around the camp, are suitable to the wisdom of your character and also clever. Though we do not see him fight much, and some things are left up to the imagination, there is a power in the actions described that make sense for the dwarf. There could perhaps be more scope here for developing habits or other, but overall a great job here.

Persona:

Persona was not used as much as perhaps it could have been, but what there was was very well done. In post 11, for example, you have Throld consider the connection Breaker has given to him with the Tiered Mountain, and the fact he does not believe him. This is built upon well, and creates a strong sense of the character of Throld. The comments about his sister Vera, also, and the attitude behind it, the continued mentioning of her also add to a great character.

Breaker:

Communication:

Overall Breaker keeps constant with his speech, and communicates as one might expect a knowing, ageless fighter might. Sometimes the word choice for his speech, such as “nip” in post 8 seems a little colloquial for him, however. Communication is regained in skill somewhat else, with the continuation of the liveliness of the character, and simple things, such as his connection to his name.

Action:

Breaker has a strong sense of the personality in his action, them being all thought of and purposeful. Actions such as fighting, and simple ones like taking a deep breath (post 10) add more to his character. You manage also to communicate a sense of heroism and nobility within Breaker, when he throws away the crown. In a way there could have been done more here, with communication and persona taking a more prominent seat, however this is something perhaps to develop on.

Persona:

Overall, one can be impressed by the way you write Breaker’s character. Some things are included in this thead, such as the origin of Breaker’s ‘nickname,’ which helps the reader to get to know the character a little better. Having Breaker not telling Throld his real interest in the Tiered Mountain (post 6) is something of a gamble for your character, but add a depth that cannot be written else. Other things that are littered through the thread, the decisions that are described, all have reason behind them and are done well. There is even a point of weakness for Breaker, when he realises he is the king of the mountain, and this adds a human element.

Writing – 24/30

Mechanics: 7/10

Mainly mechanics was without much flaw, there was not any noticeable spelling errors to be seen. A couple of times there was the odd punctuation missing that could have helped the flow of the writing to be better, and also Breaker tended to not add a capital letter to the opening of every speech mark. Paragraphing, also, could have been broken up at times to create shorter ones and help with clarity. However, overall, grammar was all there.

Clarity: 8/10

As above the only massive issue that affected clarity was the paragraphing that was sometimes large and bulky, but this in reality is only a minor point. Clarity was not something that caused any detriment to the story, and this thread itself. It required little to no reading back by the reader.

Technique: 9/10

With a character such as Throld, it is good to see that Diadem used his linguistic technique well. Parts of the speech were extremely poetic (start of post 11) and others had alliteration with post 1: “dwarf did declare.” There were also examples of similie by Breaker with “Dawn arrived slowly, as if made lazy by the cold,” post 12. Wherein some points there were moments that could have been improved with more technique, the use of imagery as an example, this is being extremely penickity, and overall the read was a pleasant one with a vocabulary that left nothing to be desired.

Wildcard – 8/10

Clever words cannot be doubted as the secret power within this thread. “It seems we are alone, and yet not alone,” there is poetry and beauty and I hope to read more of the adventures of these two in the future.
Also I LOVE how the story started where it began. So much awesome here.

Total: 76/100

Rewards:

Breaker receives:
3560 EXP
200 GP

Diadems of Promethion receives:
1565 EXP
215 GP

Notes:

Cost is 5 AP to be taken from Breaker's account.
Judges Choice nominated.

“I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

All rewards added, pending JC outcome.

This thread has received a judge's choice award!

Breaker and Diadems of Prometheus both receive an additional 500 EXP!