"Lament of a Soul: Tale of a Dragonslayer" by José Manuel López Vega

Denruhn hiked the forested mountain side, his sure and heavy footsteps didn’t betray the beginnings of doubt and fear that gripped his heart. He wore a burnished breastplate that reflected back every stray beam of light in tenfold, underneath it he carried a leather jerkin, and under that his normal clothing, over it all he carried a thick, hoodless forest cloak, leaving loose his muddy brown hair. He stopped for a moment to catch his breath and clean his forehead dry of the pearly beads of sweat, and most of the dirt that had stuck to it over the past few days. With renewed determination he put his left foot infront of his right.

This part of the forest teemed with life. Great statley oaks and ash rose majesticaly, trying to get as much of th sun’s life giving rays. Denruhn walked heedless of the beauty of the scenery, his eyes were fixed far into the horizon and the huge peak that jutted in front of him. It had been given the name of Kharum Peak, but to Denruhn it was nothing more than the lair of Umkaord the great golden dragon, reputedly the most ancient and most vile of his degenerate race of wyrms. Many an adventurer had felt himself drawn towards this peak, seeking a name for himself, or driven by some obscure sense of righteousness, either way none were ever heard from again.

Denruhn had also heard the call, and he was eager to answer it. He was known far and wide across the lands of Turail: In the Burain Forest were he had slain Kiethkurr, the shapeshifting dragon who had come to him under many guises some terrifying, others beguiling, and some even as insidious thoughts seeking to overthrow his mind, in the end Denruhn slew it in the form of a great snowy white stag with golden antlers and ruby eyes.

In the eatern wastelands of Rimthaia he fought a battle worthy of any epic poem of yore against Grakthurr, the bronze behemoth. For two days, with absoluteley no rest, he had battled the fierce beast with steel and valor, and it in turn with claw and ferocity, but in the end he overcame it and in it’s last agonic roar it spat out its heart that was the color of new snow and as he held it in his hand he could see his face reflected upon it but instead of a healthty tanned face,what stared back at him was a skull staring blankly back at him.

High upon the Quom Derok, in the frozen and abandoned halls of the ancient king Vaurd he had battled the dragon Faulkgroth who was reputedly the embodiment of winter itself. When he had first encountered the great wyrm he had believed it frozen dead, but after several hours it had opened it’s azure eyes “Begone, mortal” it had said but Denruhn would not flee. In the end he had coaxed the dragon into battle and when he had reached the beasts frozen heart with his sword, its shriek was that of a thousand winter storms and its body turned into the finest crystal, immortalizing the essence of winter. Ever since then Denruhn had never felt warmth again.

Deep in the dankest hole of the Cemurrian Mines he tracked Ierakdum, dragon lord of despair. For a whole month Denruhn kept the slightest grip on his sanity, dogging the dragon’s steps, all the time hearing only it’s rasping voice in his mind and his foreboding presence in every shadow and every weary exhalation of venomous gases from the earth, in the end when Denruhn entered a garden of diamonds he saw the beast’s burning eyes staring hungrily at him, with a rapid movement Denruhn had turned around and driven his sword deep into the dragon’s skull that instead of spurting blood, liberated a torrent of vapors that took the forms of tormented faces wailing their perpetual suffering. When he had finally made it back to the surface non believed he was the same, but instead a shade of the once valiant warrior.

In the wind swept steppes of Zan’ Ethur he confronted Yielkarn, the vampire dragon, she had come to him as a beautiful woman lost in the inmensity of the steppes, she had coyly asked him if he could help her get to the nearest nomad encampment; he had agreed. For a week they travelled together and then on the eight night she had shown herself to him in her true form, she hadn’t confronted him but had thanked him for his hospitality and his company. He had unsheathed his sword and waved it threateningly, but she didn’t flinch instead she had dissapeared into the night, leaving him alone with nothing but the shreaking wind that carried her last words from horizon to horizon: “The day shall come Denruhn, when thou shalt find no more joy in thy crusade, comfort on thy brand, or peace in thy mind if thou dost not desist from this purgatorial madness now”.

But Denruhn had never desisted from his self imposed crusade nor had he ever considered turning back. Ever since he swore an oath to himself the day the night sky was lit with the flames of his home village and the agonic screams of the townfolk doomed to burn to death, ever since he had seen the huge shadow outlined against the night sky, heard the ghostly swish of its huge wings and the high pitched scream cast into the uncaring night sky, he had swore an oath to himself never to stop, or give himself rest until he had slain the dragon responsible for the henious act.

For many years already he had tracked the beast down, he had slain many dragons and yet he found no peace on their cold corpses or their blank, staring eyes. Countless times his sword had extinguished the life in those heaving chests, and yet no matter how many times he heard their agonic shrieks of death, they were never enough to drown the crackling of burning houses and the screams of burning people that still resounded in his mind after so many years. And now he had come to seek out the last of the ancient dragons, Umkaord. Denruhn spat into the ground, hefted his light pack and continued his way up. The terrain soon became more rugged and trees became noticeably scarcer, and the temperature dropped alarmingly. All the natural sounds of the forest seemed to have been abruptly extinguished as a raw breeze became the only sound distinguishable besides the crunching gravel under Denruhn’s boots. Kharum Peak was directly infront of Denruhn when he decided to set up camp.

Brooding over the campfire he lay all night haunted by all sort of ghosts. Every sigh or sudden gush of wind was a chilling shriek or the powerful beating of wings, images of all sorts danced in the flames, every star hung upon the velvet sky was an accusing eye that watched ceaselessly over him. Denruhn woke the next day with the first ray of sunlight, immediately he was on his way. His doubts and fears had been replaced by a numbing determination that blocked out all other feeling or thought. All he knew now was that Umkaord’s cold body would be the only thing to bring him comfort.

Kharum Peak was now under his feet and he gazed around at the green land below, covered by thick mist, with the first tinges of dusk. In front of him was the huge, dark entrance of a cavern. Unthinkingly, he made his way forward, he was no longer sure of what had drawn him here, but he no longer cared. Just as he had taken his first step into that inpenetrable darkness, a huge gust of wind ran out of it followed by a thunderous roar. Denruhn nimbly stepped backward, unsheathing his sword and putting his shield in front of him in the same movemenet. A huge figure was outlined in the mouth of the cave.

Umkaord ponderously made his way forward, shifting his huge bulk from side to side. The great wyrm was not as large as Denruhn would have expected.Though still quite large, Umkaord was considerably smaller than some of the giant beasts Denruhn had fought, but there was some sort of foreboding presence of power about him that made the dragonslayer suddenly terribly afraid for the first time in his life. The golden dragon stared down upon him, with a compelety blank expression, though there was some something of pitying in it. His huge, liquid black eyes glared at Denruhn with unnerving intensity. And then Umkaord opened his huge jaws:

“And now, at long last thou hast arrived Denruhn. I have long been expecting you, son of Tarum.” He said in a deep echoing voice, that somehow seemed more thought than actual words said out loud. “Thou hast slain many of my brothers and sisters, mortal. Being the last I demand to know what led you to this bloody crusade of yours.”

Vengeance

Justice

The words left Denruhn’s mouth without his noticing. He had been so filled with self righteousness, he had repeated those words to himself so many times in darkness, doubt and regret, that the dragon’s question seemed to have triggered the immediate response.

“And yet thou hast not found thy answer on the mutilated bodies of my kin. Thou speaketh of vengeance, yet thine acts are genocide, Thou speaketh of justice yet  thou dost not judge thyself.”

Denruhn gripped his sword with feverish strength, trying to find comfort in it’s sure weight.

“And thou shalt not find comfort on thy brand”

The memory cut into him, taking him offguard. Those had been the very words of Yielkarn in Zan’ Ethur, nearly five years ago. He had tried to supress those memories that had sparked doubt  in his soul. The spark for the flame he had within him. The ghost of remorse he had within him that became stronger everytime he slew another dragon, and that he tried to calm by slaying more dragons and yet it never diminished in intensity. His sword had seized being a weapon of justice and had now becomed a deranged parasite to which Denruhn was bound forever by blood.

“Listen to me now, boy” the great dragon said “Thou hast come here to my home seeking to end thy mission, put thy sword and soul to rest. This shall not be as thou hast forseen, Denruhn son of Tarum. If thou dost slay me, thou shalt find thyself more riddled than ever by thy guilt and maddened by thy doubt. I can see into thy soul as I would into a pool of clear water, yet thines is as a puddle of mud and vileness. Dost thou not see that when thou didst set out to slay the monster, thou hast become the monster itself. Thou dost not feel warmth, for thou art in truth dead within. Thine eyes beheld thy ruin upon the pure heart of Grakthur, they beheld thy former purity in Kiethkurr’s lifeless body, and they beheld the extent of thy madness in the reflection Ierakdum cast of thy mind. We are the purest of all beings upon Turail. We are a reflection of the truth in all, we are the balance, the fulcrum of faith and doubt. Whenever you slew another of my kin, thou didst feel most keenly a dagger twisting in thy body. Thou hast slain that which would reveal thy path and thou hast thrust thy sword into thine own body, and whenever thoud didst seek to retrieve it, thou drove it deeper into thy rotting soul. And now thou payest the prize for thy folly. Denruhn thou knowest that thou shalt never find peace in thy quest, and yet thou hast pursued it to its inevitable end.Why?

Entranced Denruhn loosened his grip on his sword. He felt as if all the weight of the world had sudenly been laid upon his shoulders. He could see the truth and wisdom in the dragon’s words and his own foolishness and yet he found that he could not back down.

“Layest down thy sowrd, Denruhn ” came a voice, different to Umkaord’s. Yielkarn, the vampire dragon, lay in a nearby rock, watching Denruhn with the burning ruby eyes he had first seen in the steppe girl.

“The day has come in which thou art free of the beast thou hast become.”

“Thy soul shall be free.” Umkaord’s rolling voice came from the darkness of eventide.

There in the darkness of a moonless night, a man stranded sought to find the path he had so lost, tried to find reason for the past years of his existence and found naught to credit them. Alone he drifted amongst the wreckage of his life, and saw his folly time and again upon blood worthier than his. He beheld his damnation a day such as this in which he swore on his life that he would not rest till he had slain the beast that had shattered his former life. And in final madness this man raised his hand against those who would save him.

And so Denruhn was finally set free, when Umkaord’s whiplike tail sought out the life from his chest the second the man raised his sword to strike the dragon down. In a flurry of blood and darkness, Denruhn basked in the light of a final epipahny. He saw deep within himself a rotting soul, broken free from the chains of guilt and then was he free and never heard from again.