The website of Allene R. Lowrey
Einarr could hear the breath in his throat as he stumbled again in the corridor. Ahead of him, Naudrek didn’t look much better off – and this was after Runa had returned to the Song of Stamina. They weren’t even running, just now, merely trying to keep putting one foot in front of the other.…
Burned hair. Singed sleeves. Blistering skin on arms and legs and – yes – even faces. Einarr and his band rotated their way down the flaming hell of the staircase, and with every blast of flame their fatigue grew. Even Runa, much to Einarr’s shame – did not escape burns. Long before they reached a…
Naudrek sniffed, and nodded, and was joined in agreement by Kaldr and Thjofgrir. “Why fish?” Einarr asked. Whatever it was, they were sure not to like the reason. “Maybe they want to bury us in mackerel?” Naudrek asked with a shrug and half a smile. Even Kaldr chuckled. “Unlikely. But whatever the smell is coming…
The tricky part was getting Runa across. Thjofgrir had taken a running leap across the space marked out by Vali and, since none of them had been able to spot the expected ‘keyhole,’ deliberately triggered and then destroyed the hinges at the top. That was not going to win them any love from the dvergr,…
A clicking sound, like a knife being stropped, sounded twice and abruptly the tunnel was plunged into darkness. Runa froze in her tracks, blinking, her eyes straining for any light. “Einarr?” She disliked how tremulous her voice sounded just there, but there was nothing she could do about it now. She cleared her throat and…
Where Einarr had expected to see a third switchback, they were instead presented with a fork in the road. There was, of course, no good way of telling which way was north down here, and so with a shrug they turned left. A little further on, the path split again. Again they went left. Then…
Einarr raised the chisel to the wall and gently tapped it with the hilt of his belt knife. As he drew the vertical line he focused on the defensive aspects of the rune. “We seek” tap “A dvergr friend” tap tap “Who is lost” tap. “We come,” he said, starting on the outward angle, “to…
The three of them stood in front of what was very plainly a magical gateway, wondering how they’d missed it until they were right on top of it. Each stone of the arch was carved with a single rune, which glowed faintly. Beside the door, written in Imperial script, was a small plaque, with a…
It was just past noon when Einarr and his companions arrived at the wall of ice that marked the glacier. If they had thought to find relief from the heat, they were disappointed. Waves of cold air sloughed off the side of the glacier and left their skin feeling clammy in the heat of the…
A dry wind swept across the barren plain under a gray sky when they awakened the next morning. Einarr, as the first up, sat up to survey the land around them. Not long after, Vali returned from his patrol. “Well? How bad is it?” The ghost offered a wan half-smile. “Miles and miles of… this,…