The Heartbeat of the Abyss

(Part 23 of the Final Stand)
(Part 3 of the Battle for Fantasia Trilogy)

S'ilithac was exhausted as she entered her chambers. The combination of her brother's return and the ominous warnings he bore – tales depicting the end of the world and the mobilization of the largest drow force ever mustered by the city – seemed to drain her like the bite of a vampire, leaving her a husk of her former resolve and dedication.

Her fingers brushed against the stone of her bedroom door, the portal opening easily without any resistance from her arachnid guards. Inside she was met with the comfort of her earthen home in addition to the low but happy growl of the great crimson wolf that lay curled up just beyond the threshold.

"How did it go?" Brindle asked, clearly somewhat unnerved by the lack of Tyus's return. The priestess smiled, assuring the canine everything was alright.

"He actually did it." The hound mused, rising to stretch his form and follow S'ilithac across to her bed. She lay down and stretched out, a pair of hands working their way behind her head to prop her neck up against a pair of overstuffed pillows.

"We'll be departing in two days." The cleric confirmed, closing her eyelids to find comfort and rest in the darkness beyond. "All three of the major houses have offered soldiers in addition to a number of lesser families throughout the city. The influence of the twins is phenomenal – I never would have been able to manage to gain such a following, even as the fourth priestess of the first house."

"But it is very possible that your support, as a priestess and as a Brek'enwrath sibling, won them over in the first place." The wolf noted. "If you think about it you, S'ilithac, won the city over."

"You aren't so bad." The priestess said with blunt affection. She leaned over and rubbed her fingers across the darkhound's head, a slight rumble appearing in his chest as his tail swayed back and forth ever so slightly.

"If I am so influential," she persisted with an air of mock sovereignty "then there will certainly be assassins after me. Would you mind being a good guard dog and watch me while I sleep?"

"'Guard dog'?" Brindle demanded with an unenthusiastic growl. S'ilithac giggled at the outburst.

"How about my furry knight then?" she asked. "Is that a more fitting title?"

"It's better." He agreed, accepting an apology in the form of several scratches behind his ears.

There was a lapse of silence, several minutes ebbing away as the wolf vigilantly guarded his dark elven companion. Her form was alluring, a perfect conduit of all the beauty of S'ilithac's race. The sight of her form, motionless and vulnerable, stirred a feeling rarely felt by Brindle's kind, one that managed to elude the grasp of the near-immortal: hunger.

"Priestess…"

She turned towards his quiet call, her eyes cracking open ever so slightly, tugging back against the persistent tug of sleep. She smiled at her guard and gave him another pat on the head with the arm still draped across him.

"Yes?"

"As your guard," he mumbled with some level of awkwardness "I don't think it's safe for you here. It would take little to get past the enchantments and I feel the pull of sleep myself…"

"What would you suggest?" she asked in a voice edged with tired intrigue.

"I have a place you could sleep – a warm place. But to enter the sanctuary I require something from you: trust. Can you offer me that?"

Perhaps it was sleep that inspired the nod, tearing away at the reasoning of the priestess; though, in all likelihood, it was the fact that any Tyus would travel with deserved the cleric's trust as well.

"I trust you." She promised, scratching persistently behind the canine's ears. He rumbled affectionately before moving forward, reluctantly pushing the loving hand aside to wrap his jaws around the woman's upper body. There was a moment of surprise, a shock that dispelled her exhaustion as she realized what Brindle intended.

There was a slight fit of struggling as the mouth engulfed her, pulling her form – much too large to hold completely within the tooth rimmed cavern – deeper into the crimson hound's chest. Inside the tunnel of flesh S'ilithac cursed her trust, cursed her negligence in bringing a weapon to her bedside as most drow typically would.

Her journey ended in the bowels of the hound, surrounded by pulsing walls of living tissue and the dampness of Brindle's insides. There was a purr all around her as the wolf sighed in pleasure, his muzzle moving down to nuzzle against his belly. A slight pounding could be heard from the outside, the steady drum-like thump of the hound's tail against the hard stone.

"Thank you,"

The two words, so sincere and caring, seemed to swallow up the angry retort of the priestess. A spell on her lips she let the magic fade away, realizing that Brindle was as he claimed: a guardian, a protector of her wellbeing.

"If I disappear," she warned playfully "you'll never make it out of house Brek'enwrath."

"I'd like to see someone steal you out of my gut." Kaz's son returned with equal blissful play. "You're safe here. They'll have to go through me to get to you – literally."

* * * * *

The hallways of house Brek'enwrath were, as a whole, quiet and empty. It was as though the house remained untouched, its denizens having evacuated the innermost passages long ago.

But near the heart of the complex the silence was dispelled. It came steadily at first, a dull ringing echoing out from the center of the estate to tingle the ears of the weary listener. But then the sound began to grow as a traveler neared its source, evolving from the nearly unnoticed pounding to a deafening clang that shook both skin and bone, an unquestionably deliberate racket.

It was towards the source of the sound that Tyus traveled, his footsteps falling into sync with the rhythm as he approached what seemed to be the house's heartbeat itself. It was a new sound, something he was unaccustomed to in the old days of his stay in the citadel; it was something he dreaded as he knew, accompanying the noise, was change.

The doors that presented themselves before him at the end of the long, twisting hallway were ordained with various metallic runes and pictures. The center of the stone barrier carried a pair of crossed swords of silver over an adamant anvil, the symbol for a dark elven weapons master. Beneath the symbol of power was a perfectly vertical list of names, trailing down nearly to the base of the door. The runes depicted the names of those that held one of the highest male positions in the city: the Brek'enwrath weapons masters, the mentors of the children of the house and the most honorable of the family warriors.

Second from the bottom lay the name of Ler'van Do'yazza. The name was one that sung of the past, a momentum of a life Tyus had once known. Though he despised his time among the darkness of his home, one of the many dark conduits of his heritage, he remembered only a single hopeful light amongst the shadows: that of the kind swordsman that had taught him.

Knowing that Ler'van was dead, could Tyus have returned to the city?

The twin doors swung open under the influence of the drow elf's hand. The low light of the passage meshed with the somewhat brighter glow of the chamber beyond as the assassin strode forward, hands on his sword hilts as he inspected what had once been a familiar training ground.

The new weapons master, one named Kerugarn Scale (an intrigue in that it was not a dark elven title) had seemed to throw away all Ler'van had held dear.

The cavernous room had once been fashioned in the likeness of a great arena, a battlefield dotting the vast interior. At times the field would be littered with obstacles gathered from unknown regions: small stages, blocks to dart behind, and even at times hooks from the ceiling that would snag an unwary swordsman in flight or chase. Always the walls were lined with weapons, some practice only and fashioned of sturdy oak while others were very real, glinting with adamant and steel blades that would cut heartlessly to the core of a careless pupil or master.

The weapons along the walls were the only ghost of the past in the room. The floor had been cluttered with crates of additional weapons since Ler'van's fall, stacks of items crafted for new troops and for the pleasure of the new weapons master. The only bare areas appeared to be a ring around a battered and bruised practice dummy and a forge, a glowing red furnace and anvil that cast an eerie crimson glow across the chamber.

And working at the forge was a dragon.

Kerugarn was not a typical dragon of some forty-five feet, a titan amongst a sea of lesser drow. Yet, despite his mere seven foot frame there was no denying the fact: the Brek'enwrath weapons master was a dragon.

The weapons master slaved over the anvil as though he were the child of Vulcan himself, his blood-red scales making it appear as though his body were one with the flames of the forge. A great hammer created the beats of the estate's heart, pounding rhythmically down on his current project. Each time he would rear back Tyus received a clear glimpse of his face: a seasoned mask of crimson resolve tainted by a single scratch of black across his right eye, as though the scales themselves had grown scarred.

A pair of yellow-gold eyes turned towards the swordsman as he approached, weaving his way carefully through the crates of weapons. The hammer's beat stopped as the drow neared his destination, the axe the dragon had crafted left unattended as he rose to greet his guest.

"We haven't met." Kerugarn admitted, reaching out a hand. His gesture was cautious and he openly fingered a sword on his belt, clearly prepared for the worst from the stranger.

"Tyus Brek'enwrath," the elf introduced himself, returning the gesture.

The eyes of the reptile widened considerably as he gave a strong shake of his wrist. He drew back and observed the new arrival in an equally new light.

"Kerugarn Scale," he said with a grin.

The smile was not returned.

In the silence that followed the dragon took it upon himself to return to his anvil, dipping the new axe into a barrel of water. A hiss, like the breath of some great serpentine god, filled the cave as steam wafted up from the newly crafted weapon. Drawing his creation out Kerugarn gave it a pleased look, reveling in his art before placing it on a shelf of its brothers, a mixed family of spears, swords, hammers, maces, and even a scythe.

"How long have you been here?" the assassin asked as the dragon removed his smith's apron. The weapons master turned to the far wall and began donning a suit of ominous, spiked black armor as he considered his reply.

"Perhaps two decades?" he figured at length, strapping a shoulder piece into place. "I haven't been weapons master long – I shouldn't be now. I'm too young. But I was the only one, in your mother's eyes, that was capable of taking Ler'van's place."

"How did he…"

"Die?" Kerugarn asked bluntly, though the word made his reptilian muzzle crinkle in the semblance of sorrow and hidden, buried pain.

"No one knows." The dragon admitted after a lengthy moment of silent reflection. "Some say he forsook this world and tried to head for the surface; some say he attempted to assassinate one of the higher ranking priestesses of either the second or third house. There is no way to tell… all the commoners know is that his body returned to house Brek'enwrath on a stretcher of spider silk, a warrior's honor."

Tyus let the matter fall in the bowels of the following silence. Kerugarn took the opportunity to finish dubbing his armor, the wicked metal easily folding around his lean, muscular form as he flexed in what almost appeared to be a second skin along his red exterior.

As the dragon reached for a pair of weapons – a large bastard sword and an equally formidable scythe – a thought seemed to strike him. He turned with a sparkle in his eye, regarding the drow as though he were a hawk sizing up a meal.

"You trained with Ler'van for nearly a century." He noted. "I, too, spend ten decades with the weapons master. Perhaps… perhaps we could see who truly learned from him?"

The challenge did not remain unmatched as the black elf fingered both Flame Seeker and the unified Shadowsong, his eyes narrowing to thin, angry red slits as he noted the vigor in the dragon's voice, the determined, energetic ring that followed his words like a faithful dog.

"I would like nothing more." The assassin promised.

The drow's emotions began to burn like his fiery blade as he and Kerugarn set to work moving the crates of weapons, wiping clean the arena floor that had been left cluttered for years. Tyus was hurt by his mentor's taking on of a second pupil, his accepting of someone in his place; he planned to prove that, no matter what had happened in his years of absence, he was the chosen of Ler'van Do'yazza.