?
Though Balalin did not know it, Gorm Gulthyn had long-since died. Balalin's twilight years had been more devoutly than ever spent in support of that dead god, forbidding him touch of merest pleasure, moment of smallest respite. At home they had written songs after the great Bronze Lord had died; sad, haunting little songs that lingered in your mind and rained on your day though you didn't give a thought to them. Through his rhythmic toil in the caverns, Balalin had created one of those same little songs and it waltzed, melancholy, in the back of his head.
Long did the fired-eyes watch the hame,
The Bronze Lord far stood the strongest wall,
We closed our eyes as the dark things came,
And shame it is, we heard the Great Two fall.
Don't you know where the Bright One went?
The tunnel was a little wider than he, and a little shorter. He groaned, his heavy sweat turning the dirt snow of the caverns to mud in his passage. It was here, in the deep under the world, Balalin searched for truth in some rumour - another tiring journey begun by conspiratorial words whispered in the hope of salvation. Tall fellow in a hood, hunched in a bar he felt too pretty for. Balalin had searched long for some weapon, or token, or thing of power, taking any old tale or fancy as clue. He was unbound by friend or love, now, his ties to family, friends - any and all he knew - had been severed. The dwarf travelled lightly in possession, too. The good metal of his armour had been reduced to individual ringlets by a ruster, and his helmet pierced useless by a fishhook claw. Ar-bedorn, the great steel sword, was still worn slung over his shoulder, but chipped and faded to a fraction of her former glory. His leather jerkin bore the symbols of religious devotion that his august breastplate once had, though they, like their owner, were faded by the long travel.
Balalin had once prided himself on steady footwork and pacing. It was ill-minded to run into danger, or from it. A steady rhythm was best. In the barrows under the mountain range, however, his footsteps had slowed - a full minute between them now, panting all the while. The cold mud his sweat brewed bit at his senses and drained his energy. He squinted in the low light of his glowing ring, the last of his few magical possessions, staring ahead.
"Don't you know where the Bright One went?"
He stiffened at the whisper. He was unsure if he had muttered the words himself, or if his grim, abstract thought had somehow manifested into lyric in the world around him. Maybe he imagined it. He stood there, ring held high, listening to the dust fall on the primordial rock.
...
And the dark thing at the end of the tunnel moved.
He reached to draw his sword. The motion had always been swift, tunnel-fighting was his; bend at the knees and hips, pushing your center back so the blade can fall forward. The grandfather blade had broken here and there in wars like this, earning its legacy, but had been reforged time and again to kill those old, evil things. He preferred his shortblade here, but it had gone in the water troll's gut on New Moon. Balalin went to the motion, but his arthritic joints clicked and stuck, and could not match his mind's direction. His arms pulled too swiftly, and the pommel of the great steel weapon drew straight; stuck in the crag roof.
His belly wide open, a triumphant screech came from the dark-thing, and its teeth dived close, bit and shredded the poor dwarf's skin, as much leather as his jerkin. Something lashed at his face, and cut him deep, and he screamed a bitter noise. It was quick and dirty, and he had no time to shout any resolute oratory or cutting litany. The struggle was simple seconds of focussed, pained rebuke, and he was sorely outmatched. Then came a singular thought - and if he had then looked upon himself from above, he almost would have judged his body as being too eager to jump to it.
Balalin wrapped his left arm around the squirming shadow-stuff, blind eyes blessed to not see the cruel form by his face. His right arm struggled with the greatsword, now pulling it free, and then hammering that solid pommel into the pale stone ceiling. With terrible speed, again and again he was savaged, and again and again he battered the rock, until with a low, slow shudder the stones woke and came down. The cracking of the mountain roots matched the victory squeal of the shadow-thing, as Balalin's final breath let out. His brains came with it, pouring out of his broken skull and over his cracked lips that were pressed in a perverse kiss to the terror's slime and razor-scale. The great boulders pressed downwards slowly, for the jagged surfaces that splintered and broke slowed them, and they came as if reluctant to finally claim their stone brother.
Squeal turned to screech as the dark form found itself trapped in the shrinking space. The ancient dwarf's flesh would quickly rot away, but his shattered skeleton would yet be bent in grip. It would be some time before the grasping tongues of shadow would pull themselves through the cracks of pale stone and bone. Alone, buried by rockfall, Balalin perished. The cairn of white, sharp stones above him marked the temple tomb that the old dwarf had desired since his arrival in the mists. No songs on the echoing walls, no knocks on the deep doors. Some part of him he had long denied, and only recently embraced, would have felt relief at this.
"I love ye, Bal." That's what she said, young and beautiful.
"As I love ye." That's what he said, young and beautiful.
They drew hot breath in the warm room, heads hotter yet.
"But I cannot be selfish." He also said that.
She opened her mouth. She was angry, rejected.
"And neither should ye." He also said that, and she closed her mouth before speaking.
She left.
A hundred and seventeen years later, so did he.
