I entered the village as a troll. A mask of flesh and bone covered my face which I knew was painted a certain way. Pelts and hides of questionable origin draped over me the way Spanish moss drapes over branches. I looked like death and smelled twice as bad. Towering over men and horses, everyone fled from me. Which was okay with me. I wasn’t feeling sociable at the time anyway. A little kid ran towards me while everyone else was running away. He stopped in front of me. I stopped facing him.
“Hi.” ~grunt~
“My mommy said you’re going to eat me because she says I’m a bad boy and trolls eat bad kids. I really don’t taste good. I’m dirty and dirty food makes you sick.” I nodded while trying not to burst into laughter.
“Daddy said you’re going to eat the horses and they’re trying to chase the horses out of town so you don’t find them.” I shook my head.
I reached out and patted the brave and silly boy on the head. When he smiled, I pushed him into the snow bank behind him, with just enough roughness to make him understand I’m dangerous.
What the hell was I thinking? I should have kissed him instead.
The moment I turned my back to continue down the village’s main road, the boy ran and jumped on my back from behind. “Got ya!” He climbed up to my shoulder and poked me in the face. “You’re it!” I shrugged and threw him into another snow bank. He emerged giggling.
If I had the time and the leeway, we would be having an epic snow fight right about now. But I’m being pulled. A deep call has awakened and I find my reasoning bound to it. The boy is a distraction. Leave him.
When he started to wind up to take another running charge at me, I held my hand out as a warning. He stopped, understanding the gesture. I grunted and lowered my hand. “Stay.” He pouted and sat on the ground in dejection.
Troll’s form. Troll’s stink. Troll’s attention. The boy was a distraction alright, and not just from my mission. The men saw I was interacting with the boy and used him to sneak up on me from the other side. I turned around just in time to see a man silently charging me with a pike.
Troll’s speed. I grab the inert steel and snap it off the wooden shaft. It would have done no damage to me, but I was angered just the same. It was clear I was not harming the boy, but I was attacked anyway? What if I had grabbed the boy and spun him around in play? He would be mortally wounded. Crumpling the steel in my inhuman hands like so much aluminum foil, I threw it to the side and grunted in disgust.
The man and those with him were frozen in fear. I started to shove by them but the boy started to cry. “Daddy’s pike! Oh no! It’s broken!” I heard little footsteps catch up to me. The boy had picked up the ruined head and brought it back to me. “You have to fix it! Bend it back!”
“Son…” The pike wielder was trying to pull the boy away from me, but the boy slipped away and came back to confront me.
“You have to! It’s the only one we have!” The boy was starting to cry. I took a good look at the villagers and noticed the lack of metal among them. Hair adornments were wood or carved bone. Same with brooches and belt pins. I took a look at the destroyed pike head. Low quality iron, but probably worth a year’s entire harvest.
I felt a change in my mission. I was being granted time to fix what I had done.
“Okay.” It’s the first word I have spoken since arriving. My voice is several octaves too low, and as gravely as a washout. “Forge.” The boy’s face brightened. Without fear, the small child grabbed my hand and began pulling me down the road. The village’s menfolk were astounded by the sight and followed silently.
The smith was in disrepair. Ashes were in the cold forge. Some implements hung on the wall, some were rusted on the frozen ground. There was once a blacksmith here, but from the layers of cobwebs and mouse droppings it appears there hasn’t been one here for at least two years. No iron anvil, instead a large rock served. It had a flat side and a rounded side, a blunt end and a cone end. Those areas that would not be subjected to pounding were engraved with runes and sigils. I could smell the dwerg magic on it. A valuable item, I wondered why it was left behind when the smith was abandoned.
The stone was effectively useless, however, if I could not fire the forge. Silly me. I forgot who I was. All I needed was a drop, and a drop was all I gave. It would last only two days at the very most. All I needed was a few hours.
“Boy.” His face lit up to be addressed. “Boys like rocks. Boys throw rocks. You, boy, you know where many throwing rocks. Yes?” I had my full mental faculties about me. But I didn’t want the villagers to know that. A dumb monster is easier to deal with than a smart one.
“Yea!”
“You, boy. Boy and more boys bring me throwing rocks. Fill here.” I pointed where I had placed the fire seed. When the seed starts to grow, anything organic is not going to last more than a few minutes. The rocks will hold the heat. By asking for throwing rocks, they would get the right size. Small enough that I could slide the pike head in it. Large enough so not to choke the forge.
While the boy ran to get his fellow conspirators, I cleaned up the smith the best I could. Buried under a pile of slag I found more smithing tools. But the wood handles were rotten. In picking them up, the metal heads broke off and fell away. Anything organic I threw into the forge. The iron was placed to the side.
The boys had quickly filled the forge with palm-sized rocks. They even made a game of throwing the rocks into it while avoiding getting within arm’s reach of me. Only the little blond boy that originally confronted me was willing to get close. He tugged on my coverings to get my attention. “All done!” I only grunted in verbal response. I patted his head gently.
The forge was heating as the fire seed grew. I had an anvil and a forge. My hands would work as the hammer. I was missing some things… but what? Clearing away more debris, I found a stone trough. The hollow was several feet long, a foot deep and a foot wide. The stone itself was made of the same material as the anvil stone, and the exterior was covered in engravings protecting it from heat shock.
“Boy.” He ran to my side. I pointed at the hollow. “Snow. Much snow.” I made a punching down motion in the hollow. “Much, much snow.” He yelled for other boys to help him. Some of the braver boys brought snow into the smith to dump into the trough directly. The others threw snow in. They had good aim. After the third hit upside the head I turned and growled menacingly at them. All following strikes hit the trough where the blond boy packed the snow down as much as possible.
Forge. Anvil. Hammers. Quenching trough. I’m still missing something. The men did not enter the smith. My large bulk made it hard for them to move around, while the boys were small enough to duck around me. They watched, however. Watched me closely and kept their farming tools behind their backs. The looks on their faces told me they had figured out I wasn’t as dumb as I sounded. Okay, then.
I blew on the forge, encouraging the fire seed. Bellows. That’s what I’m missing. Looking to the side, I saw the tattered remnants of a bellows. The leather scraps had the integrity of wet craft paper and the wood handles were rotted. I gathered them up and threw them into the forge’s fire in frustration. The fire seed is blooming well, but without forced airflow it’s going to take longer to heat the pike in this cold winter.
I turned to look at the men. They clenched their weapons tighter. My chuckles sounded like low grunts. “You want a new pike? Find me a bellows or a bag that will work like a bellows. You farm. You have wood shafts. Bring me a new one.” A sudden instinct takes me, and I am unable to hold my tongue. “And five long hairs from a bleeding woman.” The last request catches everyone by surprise, including me. “No hair, no pike!” I am adamant, but I don’t understand why.
A bellows is brought from the main hall, over the protestations of the woman cooking at the time. It fits awkwardly, but it fits. I hear a few domestic arguments break out nearby. I chuckle more, because trolls are often blamed for disturbing domestic bliss. “What do you mean I’m acting like I’m bleeding? Are you saying I’m always angry?” So glad my mask is hiding my face. My mirth would be clearly visible.
“What do you want my hair for, Troll!” The woman was being held from entering the smith by the men guarding it. Her husband had a reddening spot on his face that matched her hand perfectly.
I held up the damaged pike head. “Broke. I fix.” I shoved the pike head into the forge and pointed at the new shaft brought to me. “Hair tie head to neck.”
“But why my hair! What does it matter that I’m bleeding!”
“Bitch.” I let my instinct answer and hope it makes sense.
“WHAT?”
“Bitch.” I nodded. “Can you be broken now? No. Bleeding woman break things. Your hair tie head to neck. Any try to break, get broken. Like man’s face.” I pointed at her husband’s swelling face and nodded. “Your hair good magic.”
She glowered for a moment, then switched to deep peals of laughter. “Okay. I consent. But I’ll remove the hairs myself.” She began undoing her braid right there at the entrance to the smith.
The little blond boy tugged on my coverings again. “What else can I do?” He was clearly excited by all the bother and completely without fear. He was also the perfect size to man the bellows. But the irregular fit meant he would be exposed to the leaking heat and occasional sparks. Once I start actually hammering the metal, he would be covered in them.
“You. Boy. Get empty pot, size of head. Get your father’s gloves. Get old leather saddle. Go. Get now!” He ran off at once while the menstruating woman gave me five very long hairs from her head. Passing the hairs over the heat of the forge, I transformed them into strands of angry gold. (See, Svartalf, I did learn a thing or two watching you.) One strand I wrapped around the end of the shaft, hardening it and preparing it for the pike head later. One strand I draped over the shaft for later. The remaining three strands I started to braid together.
The boy returned before I was done. The “saddle” was just an old thick hide. I folded it in half and ripped a hole in the center. I called the boy and as he looked up, I threw it over him. The leather covered him from neck to foot. He realized I was covering him up and put the gloves on himself. They reached up to his forearms. The empty pot covered his head, but he complained that he couldn’t see anything but the ground and what was directly under him.
“Good.” I led him to the bellows and told him to “tease fire with air, like tease women skirts”. He laughed and began working the bellows in earnest. A shower of sparks blew back from the forge, but the leathers protected him.
The boy was clearly having fun. The menfolk were fascinated by the recovery of the smith, but still regarded me as a dangerous monster. While he found his rhythm on the bellows, I finished braiding the three strands of hair.
Placing the braided strands on the shaft, I pull the damaged pike head from the forge. It’s glowing nearly white, deforming under the stress of mere gravity and twisting into a ribbon. I place that on the anvil stone and look it over. It’s very poor quality iron. I’m going to beat out a lot of impurities. The finished head is going to be noticeably smaller than it was before. Reaching over to the pile of iron tool heads, I pick a few and throw them into the forge. The boy saw more iron to be heated and began playing, er, working the bellows again.
In the mean time, I clenched my troll fist, and began punching the soft metal. Punch. Flip. Punch. Flip. Punch. Turn. Punch. Flip. Punch. Flip. Punch. Turn. I found my own rhythm as well. When the metal had cooled to a gentle orange, I lifted it and inspected it closely. What was remaining was better, and smaller.
I shoved it into the forge and picked up one of the now glowing tool heads. I heard a panting nearby. I lifted the pot helmet off the boy. He was sweating and tired. “You. Out. Find someone else. You work hard. Go sleep hard.” He protested, but I picked him up by the leather saddle and forcibly handed him off to one of the nearby men. To my surprise as fast as I turned my back, one of the men had stripped off the protective covering from the boy, donned it himself, and had taken his place at the bellows.
The tool head I picked up was covered in rust. No matter. What didn’t fall off in the forge will be demolished by me. What survives my pounding will make the finished pike head stronger. The Svartalf taught me how to use imperfections in the material to a magical advantage. The rejected cornerstone, indeed.
Over the next several hours, I beat the rusted tool heads into quality blanks. Then twisted the blanks with what was left of the original pike blank. Beating the twisted metal flattened it out into a blank again. When it was too cool to beat, it was placed back in the forge. When the man attending the bellows grew faint, he would withdraw from the smith and pass on the protective gear to another standing nearby. It was clear now, that I was working for the village.
As the quality of the steel improved, I found the limitations of my fists. I’m going to need a smithing hammer after all. I have one and I know how to get it here. But I’ll have to change form to my human self to do it. Well, time to give the village another show.
“Hey. You.” I addressed the man at the bellows. “It’s been a couple of hours. Have you eaten? Go get yourself something to eat and drink and take a break.” He stared at me trying to process the sudden shift in dialect.
“You… you’ve been able to understand us the entire time. What are you?”
I laughed a troll’s laugh. Harsh, guttural and menacing. At the height of the laughter, I reached up and pushed the mask off my face. My hand continued stroking my head, turning shredded furs into smooth feathers. I stretched out and shuddered in a great shake that concealed my shrinking form.
When I stood up, Weaver Ravenhead was smiling at the surprised men. Sleek black feathers in lieu of afro, I was dressed in simple traveling leathers. My cloak was visible, but it appeared as a shoulder wide necklace of bones and feathers.
“I’m a traveler. And you’re exhausted. I’m almost done making the new pike head, but you are done helping me. If there is no one fresh that can take your place, at least get some water and some fresh air.” Now I felt the heat in the forge. It wasn’t exhausting, but it was uncomfortable to me. While the man scrambled outside, I removed several layers of clothing, so that only a thin shift was all that protected my modesty.
Now I had access to my traveling satchel, and with it, anything I had on the shelves of my lair. Reaching in, I withdrew my smithing hammer than had been given to me when I first moved into the lair. Another man came to man the bellows, and was surprised to see me handling the glowing metal with my bare hands. I smiled, winked, and began hammering the form with a new rhythm while singing a forge song in a strong voice.
The forging of the pike head was completed. I put my smithing hammer back in the satchel, and retrieved the detailing bag. I placed an edge on the pike. Polished and engraved it with runework, but left other engravings incomplete. I spoke to the gold strand on the shaft, and to the braid that draped across the end. When I forced the pike head onto the shaft, the gold strands fused pike head and wood shaft together. I wrapped the free ends of the gold braid around the neck of the pike and shaft, speaking galdr as I did. When that fused into place, I took the last gold strand, and used it to fill the incomplete engravings in the head of the pike. A final wipe down with a clean cloth, and the pike was finished.
“Boy! Hey boy, where did you go!”
The blond boy, his face still reddened from exposure to the forge, ran forward to meet me. He was surprised to find there was a human under the troll’s mask.
“You asked me to fix the pike head. There wasn’t enough of it left to fix, so I made a new one. Tell me, will this make your father happy?” I handed him the completed pike. The head was twice as long as the original one, but the same weight as before. He looked at the engravings and traced his finger along the gold inlay. The visual ripples of the steel caught his fancy and he kept turning the pike to trace the flow across the head.
He nodded and handed the pike to his father. As he did, I redressed myself in my traveling leathers and spoke to the elder man. “Charging monsters that aren’t attacking isn’t always the wisest thing to do. The next one may not fix your weapon for you.” He blushed from embarrassment and nodded.
“Thank you [wizard]. I… um… about charging you…”
“You thought your son was in danger. Though that was very foolish of you! It was clear I was not harming him and you charged anyway! What if I had spun him around in play?”
“I… uh… ”
“Don’t let your fear cloud your sense.” The original mission suddenly reasserted itself. The deep pull stole the breath from my lungs and I dropped to one knee. Around me I heard a sudden storm of wings, accompanied by shouts of fear and concern. Without looking, I knew what had descended on the village.
“[Wizard]…”
I recovered my breath and stood. On every perchable surface was a raven. Thousands of them were in the trees and on the rooftops. They allowed me time to fix the pike, but now they demanded my attention.
“They won’t attack you if you don’t attack them. They are what sent me here in the first place. Tell me, when you bury your dead, do you bind the bodies so evil spirits don’t use them to trick the living?”
“Yes. Why…”
“To be short, your village’s attempts to prevent a tragedy is setting you up for a tragedy.” I followed the path the ravens made through and past the village. The ravens flew with me as silent escort. The burial grounds were not fenced in, but the borders were marked by a low wall of stones. Some of them were marked with runes and symbols. The low wall was broken at the official entrance to the grounds, but on either side of the entrance were sticks crossed against each other. Of these markings and stones, I felt no magic on them.
When I crossed into the burial grounds proper, however, I felt a great hum of magic. It set my teeth on edge and unsettled my bones. I found where the village’s cache of metal was. Buried with the dead, to bind the bodies to the earth and prevent the dead from rising. It worked. Somewhat.
I pulled my hand over my head in a gesture that summoned the troll mask and slid it over my face. Troll form is heavy on human bones, and until the transformation was complete, I was shuddering as the weight hunched me over. Staggering forward, I turned to see the villagers that were so desperate to follow me from the village were now on the outside of the burial ground boundaries. Good. I turn to start digging into the nearest burial mound when I feel a familiar tugging on my coverings.
“Can I help?” The little blond boy was back at my side. His father was sharply calling him away, but like before, he was insistent on hanging around me instead.
“No. Go back to your father. What I have to do here is much more dangerous to you than the smith.” My gravely voice was clearly heard by one and all.
“But I’m a boy! And boys are good at digging!” He attacked the mound next to us before I could answer.
“No!” I picked him up by his shirt and roughly dragged him away from the mound to the entrance of the grounds. “You helped me well in the smith, but you can not help me here. You will make things more dangerous.” I handed him off to his father who cuffed him about the ears and told him to go home at once.
I resumed digging in the mound, making sure the audience on the other side of the stone wall could see what I was doing. Halfway through the mound, I felt something wrong in the dirt. I stopped digging and stood back so the villagers could see. The dirt was moving, as something buried there was digging its way out.
“The charms and talismans you buried with the dead. Whoever showed you how to make them showed you the wrong thing.” A black stained hand burst through the ground. I heard a woman shout at the wall. “The only thing keeping the dead from rising is not the charms. It is the total weight of dirt and stones above them. The charms are keeping the spirits of the dead from leaving the bodies, and preventing the bodies from rotting completely. This is what I was sent here for.” As I was speaking, the undead managed to dig itself completely out of the grave. I turned to inspect it coolly and without fear.
I could feel the Hunger from it. And the Anger. The trapped spirit within was almost mad, and angry for being trapped in a body that couldn’t decay, but couldn’t live. The body wanted to live, and do those living things. Out of dumb instinct, it wanted to eat. The body was drawn to the living. The spirit was angry at the living. One zombie apocalypse, made to order.
I called the Boneyard’s fire and covered the undead with it. The fire wouldn’t destroy the undead, the bodies are far too wet for that. But once completely engulfed in the flame, it will be transported to the Boneyard where the spirit within can be released. The flame winked the corpse out in a sigh and the iron charm dropped to the ground.
I turned back to the villagers, those that remained, to see if they understood what was demonstrated. “[Wizard], was it just that one?” I shook my head. “There are many generations buried here! And they all have the same charm, adult and child alike! Are you going to have to…” I slowly nodded my head. “That will take you a long time, [Wizard].” I shook my head, smiled, and chuckled.
I took one last look around the burial ground. All the living villagers are safe on the other side of the stone wall. I shed the troll form again, and extended the feather cloak to its enveloping form. The ravens surrounded the grounds, perched in the trees. I knew how they wanted me to deal with the grounds, but I doubted I had the ability.
I’ve been doubting a lot of things about myself lately.
Fuck it. If I can, I will. If I can’t, I’ll find out for sure.
I went to the middle of the grounds. I could feel the multiple layers of buried dead around me, and the metal charms that bound them into undeath. Closing my eyes, I could feel the ravens surrounding the grounds. I could feel the cold winter air. I could feel the frozen ground beneath me.
I could feel my heart beating in my chest.
I could feel my heart melting into a tight knot of pressurized flame.
As too hot blood raced through my veins, I surrendered to my unquenchable heart. All other senses disappeared as I claimed Boneburner’s Dominion over the dead.
A shriek pierced through the working. I opened my eyes to find I had become a being of living flame, my cloak extended behind me as great wings of fire. Around me, the dead were being pulled out of the ground. They were bursting into flame underground, and the sudden heat was fracturing the burial mounds over them. But that was not the cause of the sudden cries.
The blond boy had snuck away from his father, into the burial grounds, and was standing in front of me with sudden fear and excitement. The exhumation and transportation of the dead was not instantaneous. It was taking time for the flame to engulf the bodies completely. So now the animate dead, the hungry dead, the angry dead, were now the burning dead. I expected them to come to me because I still registered as “living human” to their charmed senses. Contact with my flame body would only accelerate their departure from this realm. I was safe.
The boy was suddenly caught between a pillar of living flame, and a multitude of burning dead. He was crying, afraid, and in sudden realization he was in the type of trouble that no one could kiss away.
If I extinguish myself, the Boneburner’s Dominion will fade, the burning corpses will become firebrands, and the risk of setting fire to the forest is very real. But the boy is in danger of being set on fire just by getting too close to me. As the corpses focused on him, he was creeping closer and closer to me. I have to somehow protect the child from the released dead, from the fires, and from me. Well, fuck.
I pluck two rocks from the ground. Hoping my instinct is valid, I quickly marked one with one particular symbol, and the other with a certain symbol. I drop the particular rock on the ground, with the symbol facing up. I tossed him the certain rock. It was warm from my touch already, but not too hot to hold. “I’m going to rise up into the air. When I do, you have to step on this rock! When you do, hold that rock over your head with the symbol looking at your head! Understand?” He nodded.
I didn’t wait to see if he really understood it. I rose up into the air and looked down to see he was racing to the particular rock. He held up the certain rock but the symbol was facing up. It flared and almost blinded me. “NO! The other way! Hold it the other way!” He turned it around and I was able to see the ground around him had started to wisp from the heat. As soon as he set it right in his hands and he held it above him, the ground iced over. It worked. The boy is encased in a bubble of cold air.
I have to work fast, now. If he is in the bubble for too long, he will freeze. But him being directly beneath me is intentional. In mid-air above him, I start spinning in place. Fire calls to fire and the vortex begins to form. The spinning pillar reaches high into the air, pulling fresh air from outside the burial grounds. The fresh air feeds the fire burning the corpses, but because the vortex is pulling so much in, the boy is not suffocated by the fires.
I work fast, calling and claiming the dead bodies with Boneburner’s Dominion. To those outside of the burial ground, it appears as if the entire ground has turned into a lake of unending flame. The boy is obscured by the towering flames that appear to braid themselves together in a dance of destruction.
The flames cease.
I fall to earth, merely human once again.
A terrified ash covered boy drops the marked stone and clings tightly to me. I transfer his grip from chest to leg and pick up the two marked stones. Turning them so the marks face each other, I grind the two stones against each other. First to remove the marks, then to destroy the stones themselves. I didn’t want the marks being picked up by anyone else, and the stones would always carry the echoes of the marks in them.
“Hey. You can let go now. It’s over. All done.” He shook his head. “You scared to go home?” He nodded. “Scared of what your father is going to do?” He nodded. “Hey, if you can face up to a man-eating troll, and keep a level head while surrounded by a multitude of walking dead on fire, I think you can man up and deal with the consequences of running off.” He shook his head.
A strange look crossed his face and he looked up at me. “But you’re not a man-eating troll. Right?” I only chuckled a low, gravely chuckle and winked. He released me and ran out of charred remnants of the burial ground screaming for his father.
I picked myself up off the ground and noted that once again, I’m covered in dust and ashes. I made my way out of the grounds myself and sat down on clean dirt. One of the villagers gathered the courage to ask me about the metal left behind.
“It’s salvageable. All of it. The fires destroyed the charms in them, and purified them really. Get you a good smith and the forge will be singing once again. And you’ll have more than one good weapon to defend your village. There are no dead in there. None. Just lots of overturned dirt, lots of bone ash, and lots of metal to reclaim.”
I looked up to see almost all of the ravens had gone. Only one remained. It flew down, scaring the villager, and perched on my shoulder. It said nothing to me, but I knew my time here was done. I nodded, and surrendered to it. I closed my eyes.
I opened my eyes in my room. It is morning.
Make of that, what you may.