Page 213 of Of Empires and Dust

“What?” Erani was feeling the grooves in the stone with her fingers.

“Leave the door.” Kira turned towards the long corridor, pulling the light of the lantern with her. The ray of blue-green carved through the near-complete darkness, illuminating a second door in the solid wall at the far end of the chamber.

Once more, Kira placed her bloody hand on the stone, and the door revealed itself with a rush of air.

“More theruvan crystals?” Erani stepped up beside Kira with a face that spoke more anger than awe. “Kira, these… In the name of Hafaesir and all the gods.”

As the door pulled back and receded into the wall, golden light spilled from the chamber, accompanied by a low hum.

The chamber was circular in shape and over a hundred feet across, the walls rising ten times Kira’s height. An enormous column of hewn stone occupied the room’s centre, stretching from floor to ceiling. Rows and rows of glass vials lined the column, each filled with a pearlescent black liquid veined with glowing gold. Plants with thick black leaves grew from the chamber’s walls, completely covering the rock. Glowing veins of gold ran through the leaves.

Two long desks stood on either side of the column stacked with various apparatus for grinding, mixing, and extracting the blood of the plants.

“With my own eyes.” Vikmar walked behind Kira as they entered the chamber. “I did not doubt you, my queen, but never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined this.”

Vikmar stared up towards the ceiling, turning to look around.

“This has been here all this time?” Erani stood by the door, her jaw slackened.

“Ever since the accords after the Great Wars. King Baldrik had it built in secret and then killed each and every dwarf who had laid eyes on its construction with his own hand. He knew it was folly to destroy our greatest weapon, a weapon the dwarven people might one day need. The elves and humans have their magic and their dragons. The Uraks feast on Efialtír’s strength. Hafaesir forged the blood of the bersekeers into our people so that we may have the strength to wield his hammer.” Kira walked towards the column and pulled a vial from its place, holding it up in the air. The pearlescent black liquid swished and swirled within, the veins of gold shimmering. “And in the eight hundred years since the accords were struck, every ruler of Durakdur has stayed faithful to Baldrik’s wishes. The Rockblood has been harvested but never wielded. Waiting patiently until a time when it is our people’s only hope, when the Kingdom of Durakdur is so threatened that Hafaesir will offer his hammer once more.”

Erani moved so she stood beside Kira. She reached for the vial, and Kira relinquished it.

“Once this is done, it cannot be taken back.” Erani held the vial in the air, examining the shimmering light.

“It is not the blade’s fault for the blood it spills, but the hands holding it.” Vikmar knelt, resting both hands on his knee. “The bersekeer blood runs in my veins, my queen. I volunteer to be the first.”

“You’ve heard the stories, Vikmar?” Erani raised an eyebrow, holding the vial out in front of her.

“I have.”

“And yet you are so quick to volunteer yourself? You must know that even among those with bersekeer blood, many who drink the Rockblood are dead within the hour. And from thehistories I’ve read, the death is not a quiet one. Bones twist and snap, organs turn to rock within their bodies, blood runs hot as molten steel.”

“Less than half.” Kira let out a long, laboured sigh. “Less than half survive, even with bersekeer blood. Without, it is lethal as Nightfire. None survive.”

“Half,” Vikmar repeated. “If we do not stop Hoffnar, how many of our people will die in his name as he launches a crusade on the continent? More than half, I reckon. Ours will be the first. He’ll send the axes of Durakdur in the van. Besides, we all die eventually.”

Kira grasped Vikmar’s forearm and pulled him to his feet. “With any luck, the Rockblood can remain dormant still. But if it is needed, you will not be the first. I will.”

Chapter 47

What Was Lost

18thDay of the Blood Moon

Ilnaen – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom

Footstepsand heavy breaths filled every passing moment as Calen and the knights descended into the tower’s depths. Each step seemed to grow steeper and steeper, moving ever downward. Calen walked with his right hand trailing the wall, his left out in front for balance. One misstep and he would go tumbling. He quickened his pace. Forward and only forward. Down and only down.

As he moved, his vision flickered to that of Kollna treading the same path, her head scraping the arched ceiling, her hands trailing the wall as Calen’s did, her steps slow and steady. Ahead of her, Alvira descended with purpose, her stride clean and unflinching, her hands at her sides.

He shook his head, trying to loose the images from his eyes. It was a disorienting thing, to have his mind drift betweencenturies, between the sight of the world in front of him and the sight of things that had long since passed. If he’d had even the slightest of control over the visions, it wouldn’t have disoriented him so much. But he was helpless, a feeling he knew too well, a feeling he despised.

By the time the white light of the baldír illuminated a smooth floor some thirty steps below, Calen had almost given in to the thought that the stairwell descended into the pits of the void itself.

The floor belonged to some sort of antechamber with more long-dead lanterns occupying nooks in the walls. Armoured skeletons lay strewn about, steel rent and bones snapped. The fighting had raged even there in the depths of the city.

It looked as though a massive door had once been built into the wall at the far side of the chamber. All that remained was a gaping hole in shattered rock that stared into an endless abyss.

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