“Are you so sure they are not dragons?”
“… No. Not now. You’re the third person to challenge my assumptions about the Undragons, and now I’m not so sure anymore. I know they are not like the dragon I encountered before. But my head wasn’t exactly screwed on straight during that instance, so I may have ignored key tells. They still strike me like the Gardenmaster. What I see of kir is so very little of what ke is. My mind can not process kir reality, just like I couldn’t process the Undragons when they first revealed themselves completely. All I know of dragons is what human myths say, and we both know how full of shit human myths are.”
Esse was examining the Black Axe closely while I rambled. He ran his thumb down the thirsty edge. “It won’t bite me. No matter how hard I press against it. You are correct in thinking the Black Axe is developing an awareness, but it does not have cognition. It is a tool, your tool, and completely dependent on you for direction. You currently would not assault me, and so, neither will the axe.”
“Currently?”
He looked up at me and smirked knowingly. “You have your moments when even your paranoia is afraid to show itself. You don’t rage as much, but once you’ve lost yourself, nothing is safe.”
“I’ve kept myself under lock and key, you bastard. I only let that part of me run loose when it is necessary. Or when someone uses the doll and pulls me into service.”
Esse turned his attention to the shaft of the axe and gave no indication he heard my baiting. “The shaft is a hardwood. Or was. I see why the axe head hungers.” He snapped floating lights to appear between us, and used them to show me the shaft. “The axe head is changing the shaft. Turning the wood into metal. Living metal, like the axe head itself.”
“I didn’t have enough metal to make a proper shaft with. I did treat the wood before making the shaft so it would bind to the axe head and make a single unit with it. If the entire shaft becomes metal, do I have to worry about the hand that wields it?” In Esse’s bright lights, I could see the wood grain darkening. Metallic mycelium could be seen extending from the axe head, working through the surface of the wood. The wood within the axe head and the little that crowned it was already black steel.
“That depends. When you take it in combat, are you wielding the axe or is the axe wielding you? Right now, the axe has no cognition. It hungers because it is transforming itself. But when you go berserk, does the axe master you? Does it lead you to continue striking?”
“No.” Esse raised an eyebrow at my answer. “I can say with certainty, the axe does not lead me when I am berserk. I have a target, a goal, and when I go berserk that goal is the only thing I can think of. Once the goal is accomplished, the berserk nature leaves me. You’re thinking of when I am raging. That’s different. When I am raging, there is no master, and you of all people know that and know the difference between the two. Anything that tries to rule me when I am raging gets destroyed. Anything that tries to rule me when I am berserk gets ignored. If it came down to a contest between the hunger of the Black Axe and my rage unleashed, well…” I shrugged. “I’ll have to bargain for more Tibetan steel.”
Esse chuckled. “You’re going to have to keep that axe fed until it has completed transforming the shaft. I have no concern about the axe taking over your cognition. It is yours and knows you as its master. And should you be in a position to bargain for more of that steel, consider tapping my resources in exchange for acquiring some for me.” He dismissed the extra lights and motioned for me to follow him.
I walked beside him instead of a step behind. I know it irritates him, this human I am daring to walk as his equal. “Eh, did I tell you what I had to do to get this steel? About the phurba and what I had to do to proof it?”
We arrived at a room filled with maps. He answered as he unrolled a map onto the table. “No. You haven’t. Not completely. Your conscious kept interfering and you skipped over certain details. No matter. That it was a phurba made of a steel that devours souls is enough for me to infer what your human morality keeps trying to forget.” The territory he is pointing at looks familiar. “We… are here. And here… is something to feed the Black Axe with. That is… if the Black Wolf is willing.”
Wolf. A reference to my berserker nature. When I am running under Esse’s banner, I am known as the Black Wolf. Running under his banner, however, means allowing him control over my nature. I am not gentle. I am not kind. He says he does not influence me when I yield to his control. I’m not sure if he’s bullshitting me to keep me at ease, or pointing out just how ruthless and cruel I really am. Or both.
“I’d rather not kill to feed the axe. Not when it’s first feeding was the destruction of one of your forged weapons. I know I don’t have to kill to feed it.”
“I’d rather you not kill the [bastard] that is being an irritation to me, either. I’d rather he lives so he can mourn what you will have destroyed.”
“Then… what is the target and why are you asking for the Black Wolf?”
“The target is the weapons and the anvil that the troll here is using. He acquired the anvil by… unauthorized methods… and is terrorizing the locals with the enchanted weapons he made on it. Those weapons are unbreakable, and in the troll’s hands, unbeatable. Normally, I would just take the anvil back and be done with it, but certain… agreements… have been broken. Punishment is due. Feed the Black Axe with his weapons and his anvil. Make sure he knows I have sent you. Leave him alive if you can. If not, kill him last so the axe will not be so eager for his soul.” He touched my face and I felt metal scales harden on my back. That quickly, he has me in his grip. “The Black Wolf is my wolf, my hand. And you will need the determination and fearlessness that comes with being the Black Wolf to get past the troll’s defenses. He has a covering of fear that breaks the knees of the unprepared.” By the time he has finished speaking my thoughts have aligned with Esse’s goals. I don’t remember why I was hesitant to become the Black Wolf before. All I know is I have a job to do.
“So.” My voice has deepened. I barely notice the change. “When do I depart?”
“When you will to.”
I saluted Esse and left his caves. I did not notice what lay between where I had departed and where I had arrived. The few human inhabitants that saw my shadow fled. I made a note to tease Esse about looking out for humankind later. The area around the troll’s cave were decorated with the broken bones of unfinished meals. I recognized human remains among the unclean mess. The troll was inside the cave, ignorant of my presence.
My loud howl silenced the forest behind me and dared the troll to come investigate.
“<What’s this! What’s this! A wolf dares to call!>” I heard the sound of something wet and squishy being thrown against something hard and hot. The sizzling was accentuated by the steps of something large. I howled again, declaring ownership of the cave and the area around it. “<I will have wolf for dinner this night! Nothing owns what is mine but me! Nothing!>” The troll came to the mouth of the cave armed with a crude sword and a headless shaft. He towered over me at least twice my height. He wore a ragged skin around his waist in a mockery of a loincloth. He was so hairy, however, that his shagged fur hid everything well. He looked at me, wrenched his face in confusion, and began looking around for a larger opponent. “<You’re no wolf. You’re a human, and a human’s bitch at that. Not even enough on you for eating.>”
My blackened face grinned at the troll’s dismissal. I did not answer in human speech, but with the gruffs and huffs of the lupus. A slight bow to mock the troll’s authority. A tall stance to proclaim my own. The troll snarled in answer and began beating the broke open and decaying bodies around him in answer. As he did, I looked carefully at him and his weapons. The crude bludgeons were enchanted, indeed. They would not be broken by normal methods. My Black Axe hummed in eagerness for the magic. I wondered how the troll’s covering of fear was presented.
When the troll charged me, I found out. The stench was horrific. The troll’s fur had soaked in everything the troll had wallowed in since birth (hatching?). No amount of soaking in rain nor river would ever wash that putrescence away. Death and decay alone could not smell this rancid. This was the scent of something that despised life. Unclean. Evil. It would be the conquering instinct of anything living to get away from the troll. Esse called it a covering of fear. Such gentle words for such brutal reality.
The troll laughed when my eyes squinted from the stench. He assumed I would run and he would give chase. When I moved the war shield to the ready position and gripped the Black Axe tighter, he stumbled as he brought his charge to a halt. Why wasn’t I running? Because I am the Black Wolf, scent is merely a conveyor of information. While I would rather dunk my head in a month-old latrine than smell him for another second, the stench did not trigger a fear reaction from me.
As he stumbled, he lost his grip on the bare shaft. The six feet of roughly hammered metal skidded to a stop just in front of me. Without taking my gaze off the troll, I brought down the Black Axe onto the troll’s club. Tibetan steel bit the club and sucked greedily on the enchantment. The magic quickly devoured, the axe sucked the soul of the very metal itself. The club flaked into blood red rust in seconds. Through my grip on the Black Axe, I felt its satisfaction at the meal and a desire for more.
The troll recovered his footing in the scant seconds it took the Black Axe to destroy the club. He looked at me with intensity. “<You’re no mere human. What are you that wears a human’s face? What reason you come here to break my things!>”
“I am [the Black Wolf], the hound of [Esse]. You have broken faith with him. I will break your things in return. Accept your due, and live.”
The troll roared in rage and swung at me with his crudely made sword. More like a club that has been flattened, it had no keen edge. It cut by smashing its way through flesh, bone, wood, and metal. The troll was fast, but I was faster. I allowed his strike to hit against my shield, but instead of hitting bluntly I took advantage of his momentum. The force of his movement was redirected upward and his arm flailed wildly as he tried to keep his footing. When he dropped his arm, I struck at the crude sword.
The metal shattered into dispersing flakes of rust. The sudden lack of weight undid his footing and he fell into the ground, face first. I didn’t wait for him to pummel his way back to an upright position. I leaped over him and ran into his cave. By the time he had caught up with me, I had destroyed all the weapons he had stockpiled. Only the stolen anvil remained, and the firepit that served as his forge.
“<Wolf is your name but you are still just another [human]! I will roast you for dinner and your weapon will be the first to make my own! Into the fire with you!>” He started to charge at me again but stopped when I jumped into the firepit. He looked at me with surprise then started laughing. His laughter faded when he realized I wasn’t burning.
Anvils are made to take heat and pressure. The little nicks I had undone the crude weapons with won’t be enough to open up the anvil to the Black Axe. It would take several strikes of the Black Axe to cut to the heart of the anvil. But if I had a great heat accompanying the strikes, it would take less. Like… say… the heat of a burning heart combined with the fire of a forge…
The Black Axe absorbed all the heat and fire offered to it. It took more heat to melt the Tibetan steel than what everything in the cave could produce. My own anvil was almost destroyed by the making of the phurba and the Black Axe. The stolen anvil’s destruction was assured.
The troll realized the error of allowing me to pass him. He tried to grab at the anvil to rescue it but I roared a belch of flames from the firepit. A great gust of fire forced the troll back as his toxic hide inflamed from the unnatural heat. As he fell back to extinguish the fires, I emerged from the firepit and struck the anvil with one great blow. It took only ten seconds for the Black Axe to pierce the soul of the anvil, draw out the enchantments and the metal, and reduce the stolen anvil to a pile of useless and inert rust.
“I have completed the task set for me. Your life is not forfeit. Yet. I am not to drive you from this cave or this region. I am not to harm you beyond what was necessary to complete my task. Stand aside, troll. I have no further play with you.”
He huddled to the side and patted where the fire had burned through to the skin. I saw a glint of fear on his face. I kept the shield poised and the axe gripped anyway. The moment he left my peripheral vision, he struck. His hand caused the shield to flap around. I knew he meant for the shield to hit me as it turned about my arm. Instead I followed the momentum and struck upward with the axe.
His arm was severed just above the elbow. The Black Axe added insult to injury and fed from the life in the severed appendage. Half decayed bones and very dry dirt fell to the ground. The troll would not be able to reattach the lost arm this day. He would have to regrow another over time.
The Black Axe was satiated. It did not want to feed off flesh nor the soul of anything bloodbearing. It preferred metal and wood. If I directed it to, it would take from whatever flesh was struck by it. But the hunger was gone.
“Stay. Good boy.” I mocked the troll as I turned my back to it. I did not expect him to accept defeat quietly. He did not disappoint. His stench announced his charge as his footsteps thundered in the cave. When he threw himself to fall on me, I hunkered down and allowed him to pass harmlessly over my head. When he fell and rolled over, I lept on top of him.
The sound of the Black Axe embedding deep in his sternum halted all other movement.
“Some trolls turn to stone when struck by daylight. Others turn to wood, or piles of forest debris. Some trolls explode when they die. Others melt into horrid seeping goo that taints the ground for decades. What kind of troll are you? Will you merely decay like your arm did? Or is there more to you than what I know?” He was trying to reach up to me with his intact arm. His hand was open and eager to grip my head. As the Black Axe did what it does best, his extremities trembled. I watched his panicking face closely. Anger gave way to fear. Fear gave way to pleading as his body started to harden. His gurgling whimpering sighed into whistles.
I was surprised. His detached arm decayed from contact with the Black Axe. But now the troll was turning into stone. When the troll’s stone body began to cool, I pulled the axe free from the body. Curiosity spurred me, and I started hacking at the chest to see what lay within. The bones had become basalt and the flesh was a mix of mica and granite. The organs had become various deposits of metals except for the heart. The troll’s heart was still flesh. Black and covered with a sticky tar-like substance, it emitted a concentrated stench. I realized the troll’s body was destroyed, but anything foolish enough to eat this mass would become the troll’s next host. I retreated back into the depths of the cave and threw the heart into the firepit. I doubted the fire was hot enough to completely destroy the heart, but it won’t be picked up by the unwary. I hope. I’m sure there are many fairytales and myths to prove me wrong.
My return to Esse was uneventful. He had basins of water brought to me so I could clean myself and my weapons. He examined the Black Axe while I scrubbed the unclean matter off my boots. “You took the troll after all.”
“He would not accept his punishment and sought to rebuild his cache starting with my gear. But I did save him for last, as you requested.”
“Your axe knows the difference between flesh and metal now. It will prefer metal, then stone, then wood, and flesh for last. What became of the troll’s heart?”
“I chucked it into the firepit it used as a forge in the back of the cave.”
“You didn’t leave the cave open, did you?”
I smiled in answer. Esse laughed. “I’m sure there will be those that will seek the stolen anvil. Let them go look. They will find only inert rust and the troll’s heart in a lake of fire. I’m sure that will be all the evidence they need to convince themselves not to break any further agreements with you. And if they do, well, I’ll just have to make a bigger spectacle of them. Yes?”
Now clean, Esse hands me a drinking horn filled with something sweetened with honey. “Drink.” It was not an offer.
I obeyed the commandment and emptied the horn quickly. As its magics felled me, he caught me. “Well done, Black Wolf. Now when you appear before the Undragons, you will not fear your weapon will cause harm.”
My awareness was pulled into a tight knot of darkness and the dream ended.