Murtagh

A violent tremor made him stagger. Throughout the cave, crystals cracked and shattered, crashing against the ground with bell-like notes: a cacophony of disjointed music.

Apprehension shaded into fear as Murtagh tried to imagine what could cause the mountains to shake. Bachel was dead, so…Was there some reality to the beliefs of the Draumar, something that went beyond the foul fumes that seeped from the rocks surrounding Nal Gorgoth?

He fixed his gaze on the hole. He had to know.

Ithring’s tip dragged against the stone as he started toward the gaping void. Every step cost him, and he felt increasing reluctance to look over the stony lip and see what lay below.

But still, he crept closer, his whole body taut with pain and dread.

The ground spasmed beneath him. He pushed Ithring away as he fell onto his side. Hot pain clamped about his limbs, and his vision went white and then black.

…

The mouth of grey-rock-mountain yawned before him. He hesitated. Inside lay pain and fear and cold-net-chains and close binding. But Rider-Murtagh was in danger, needed help.

He stepped forward, only to stop and whine. The fear was too great. His stomach felt sick-bad-food-burn.

“What do you wait for?” bellowed horned-two-leg.

He snarled and roared and then shook his head and spun away from the loathsome hole. Two bounding leaps, and he again took to the air and rose circling above the hard-gaping-mountainside.

And he hated himself for it.

…

Murtagh gasped. Where was he?

A fist-sized piece of crystal skittered across the ground near his head. He flinched. Using Ithring as a crutch, he pushed himself to his feet, holding his side. Thorn wasn’t coming. The thought was nearly as painful as his wound. He wished he could soothe the dragon’s distress, but there was a greater worry at hand. Still, the thought remained, a barbed needle in his mind.

He dragged himself forward, desperate, gasping.

A prismatic shimmer passed across Murtagh’s vision. For a moment, he felt he was elsewhere, elsewhen, on a withered plain scoured by endless wind—

He shook his head. No. With the last of his strength, he staggered across the final few yards to the hole and collapsed on his knees before it.

He peered over the rim, wary.

Blackness yawned below, soft as dragon wings and with an impression of immense depth. At first his eyes could find no purchase in the void, but then he discerned motion, barely visible, as of a great, shadowy river flowing past.

Smoke pillared up in a roaring column.

Despite his best effort, the hot cloud enveloped him, stinging his eyes and clogging his nose and throat.

He fell back and struck the stone, and again his surroundings deserted him.

…

Horned-two-leg was shouting at him and beating against his shoulder. He paid the two-leg no mind as he kept his gaze fixed on the mouth in the mountain. Rider-Murtagh was hurting, and that made him hurt.

The two-leg shouted louder, and this time, he heard the words: “What manner of beast are you? Are you dragon or crawling worm?! Turn back! Go!”

His scales bristled, and he roared as outrage fired his anger. Then he tucked his wings, dove, and landed on break-bone-ground at the foot of the mountain.

Before his nerve could fail him, he ran forward into black-moist-egg-smell-hole.

Grey-stone-walls surrounded. Air thick, choked. The space was too small, not move, not think, too close. Like prison in Urû’baen. Dragonkiller bending over him, showing little teeth, hard-iron-rings, sting of whips…

He could not continue. He lashed stump-tail and whimpered.