Kjell's Arc

Chapter 22 of 27

Kjell led his men past the dragon's shoulder and stopped. The road down lay open. But the beast still crouched behind them in the tunnel. Its six red eyes tracked their backs. Kjell did not know if it would follow, help, or turn on them once they moved into the dark. A freed thing owed no one anything. "It's loose now," Kjell said. "Loose things do as they please." Thorgar hefted both axes and faced the beast. "Then I watch it." He would not turn his back on it. His brother had died to a thing no one watched. He planted his feet like the dwarf he was and stared it down. Merlyn knelt with his stone-bound book across his knees. His branded hands moved over the carved pillars on the cover. "The mark is gone," he said. "No master pulls it now. It answers only itself." He lifted his blindfolded face. "Give it a reason to let us pass." Gunnar still held his fire. He looked at the flame, then at the beast. "It cleared the lichen," he said. "It hates the grey rot. So do we." He set his coals down at the tunnel's mouth and fed them until the flame stood tall. Then he stepped back, empty-handed, and waited. The center head lowered toward the fire. Its throat glowed low. Kjell tightened his grip on the axe. If it breathed, they burned. Thorgar did not move. Thorin drew his father's rune-carved axe and stood at Kjell's side, saying nothing. The dragon breathed. But it breathed down, not out. A thin line of flame ran past them into the deep road, and the walls hissed where grey lichen crawled. The rot curled and died. The beast had cleared the path ahead the way it had cleared the path behind. "It's opening the road," Kjell said. "Not blocking it." Merlyn closed his book. "It knows what waits below. It wants the rot gone before it goes down too." The three heads rose. The beast pushed off the wall and moved past them, slow, its scales scraping stone. It did not strike. It went ahead into the dark and burned the lichen from the walls as it went, leaving clean rock behind. The way down opened before Kjell's men, lit red by the beast's throat. Thorgar lowered his axes. "It leads," he said. "For now," Thorin said. Kjell watched the dragon's tail vanish around the bend below. It had chosen them, or chosen the same enemy. He could not tell which. But the road was clean, and the beast went first. He followed it down. The cold air came up from far below, and it carried a sound now, low and steady, like something vast drawing breath. Whatever the dragon feared, it lay at the bottom, and they were going to meet it.