To check out all the great entries this week, check out the link above, curated by Bradley Ramsey & Leeron Heywood
Welcome to the Atlas, Friends.
We are back at the drafting table for Day 5 of Flash Fiction February. Today’s prompt asked for a fantasy story about dragons being hunted to extinction.
But I am taking the alternative route.
I’ve accepted the D’veen Challenge hosted by Bradley Ramsey. This means stepping into his universe, a world of Dwarven kings, ancient wars, and buried secrets.
History tells us that King Brocknar hunted the dragons until none remained. But history is often just a story written by the winner. Today, I wanted to explore the story written by the witness.
This is a tale told in the back alleys of Aluthia, spoken in the rhythm of a smith’s hammer. It explores a question that haunts every historian: Did the dragons die, or did they just go to sleep?
Pull up a crate. The performance is about to start.
Finton Merrybrook wandered through the streets of lower Aluthia. A scurrilous city with a reputation for theatre and thievery in equal measure. The alleys and town squares were a melting pot of performers.
Some were there to genuinely entertain, others were a distraction whilst people’s hands rummaged in your loose pockets and bags.
Finton was here for the more genuine variety. A young upstart who had been garnering a reputation for stories people had never heard before. Stories that seemed to imply knowledge that would be far beyond the young man's years.
Finally he had tracked him down to a dockyard where he was gathering a crowd around him.
Finton sat on an old fishing crate at the back of the audience and crossed his arms, curious to understand the mystique of this performer for himself.
The young man was scrawny and unkempt, but he carried himself with a haughty confidence that was compelling. In his hand was a stick. He started beating it against a sheet of metal.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
A steady beat. The audience had seen this performance before it seemed because some of them had come prepared with beaters of their own. In turn they started joining in, keeping a steady rhythm. A metallic sound that raised memories of forges and armouries.
"I am Shaelen, hear me now!"
He leapt up onto a crate, and taking a deep swig of liquor, he spat it into the air, producing a flame from his fist and causing the image of a crown to burn temporarily in the evening sky.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
There was a king of times gone past.
A hunger consumed him through.
His ambition left all aghast.
Yes his ambition was deep
It was hasty
It was fast
His ambition left the dead aghast
And a world to build anew.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
He hammered the beat with the crowd, striking a piece of metal slung from his belt. Finton so far, as a master storyteller himself, was duly impressed.
Thorgal Iron-Vein hammered away.
The heat of the forge was raw.
The king ordered weapons to slay.
Weapons to kill dragon kind.
Using their blood
Metal inlay
Weapons to batter and betray.
Until their kind was no more.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
Shaelen manipulated liquid smoke around him, conveying the darkness of the forge excellently. Finton found himself enjoying it rather a lot, much to his surprise.
Shaelen crouched low on the crate, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that somehow carried over the wind. He cupped the blue flame in his hands, suffocating it until it was just a thin, struggling ribbon of azure light, a secret thing trying to survive in the dark.
But in the dark where secrets creep,
He whispered a different lie.
A promise that he swore to keep,
To shadows beneath the floor.
Feeding them meat.
While they sleep.
Into the dark and hollow deep,
He would not let them all die.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
The crowd hammered back, but Shaelen held up a hand, silencing them instantly. He reached into his pouch and threw a pinch of powder into the dying flame. It didn't explode; instead, it turned the fire a deep, earthen green. He twisted his wrist, and the smoke curled around his arm like a serpent, affectionate and wise.
They were kind beasts of blood and bone,
And thinkers of thoughts so clear.
He turned his heart into a stone,
To lie to the mad king's face.
A scale of brass.
On the throne.
He kept them safe and all alone,
So the king would never hear.
Suddenly all the light went out and a mournful note hovered above the crowd. People who were less familiar with this performance looked about for the source. Finton watched Shaelen’s lips, they were still. Ventriloquism. A parlor trick to most, but here, in the dark, it felt like a summoning.
His voice continued the song, more slowly.
Many drakes were killed in his reign.
The king was soon to follow.
Beneath the ground his body lain.
Thorgals secret never voiced.
A deadly lie.
Not in vain.
Thorgal hid them in his domain.
Many saved in the hollow.
The steady Clang. Clang. Clang. Started up slowly again, and the crowd joined in at the slower tempo.
The daughter came and she was wise.
Her father's throne was hers.
Thorgal hoped she could empathise.
But his bravery came too late.
A mighty battle
Dwarves demise
The dwarven home would be capsized.
Dragons reveal to defer.
At this point Shaelen let the audience keep up the steady,
Clang. Clang. Clang.
And over the top of this he started constructing his own fast staccato rhythm that sounded surprisingly like gunshot. Finton’s eyes creased a little and he began to lean forward with questions swimming through his mind. This was too accurate…
Before his world was blown apart.
Ran back to the dragons. He
Said unto them all please take heart
They asked to remain hidden.
He closed the vents
No fresh start.
Safe underground they would outsmart.
Waiting for less agony.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
The staccato gunfire rhythm slowed, heavying into a funeral march. Shaelen dropped to his knees, his face smeared with soot, looking not like a performer, but like a man bearing the weight of a mountain. He struck the metal sheet not with the stick, but with his bare fist, a dull, thudding sound that vibrated in the ribcages of the watchers.
He climbed alive into the light,
Behind him closed the gate of stone.
To save them from the endless night,
Until the stars are kind again.
The world is cold.
Out of sight.
He keeps the future burning bright,
And walks the path alone.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
The crowd was silent now. The chaotic energy of the performance had distilled into a thick, heavy reverence. Shaelen slowly stood up. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of what looked like common dust. He held it up, letting it trickle through his fingers, catching the dying light of the day.
He looked up, past the crowd, past the curious onlookers, and locked eyes directly with Finton Merrybrook at the back of the dockyard.
And so they sleep beneath the floor.
Until the world deserves them.
Shaelen’s gaze did not waver. He offered a microscopic nod, a shared secret passing between two keepers of lore.
They wait behind the earthen door.
And time it just preserves them.
Finton felt a jolt of electricity that had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with the truth. He stood up, knocking the crate over, desperate to bridge the gap between them.
A single spark
Hear their roar
The hammer beats forevermore
For he who truly serves them.
BOOM.
Shaelen threw the remaining dust into the torch at his feet. It wasn't a simple flash; it was a wall of blinding, silver-white magnesium fire that roared upwards, mimicking the breath of the very beasts he sang of.
The crowd erupted. They roared their approval, a wall of sound that crashed against Finton, pinning him in place. They surged forward to throw coins, to touch the hem of the fire-breather’s cloak.
"Wait!" Finton shouted, shoving past a burly dockworker. "Let me through!"
He fought against the tide of bodies, his eyes stinging from the acrid smoke. It took him precious seconds to carve a path to the crate in the center.
The smoke cleared, drifting away on the sea breeze.
The metal sheet was there. The torch was there, still smoldering.
But the boy was gone.
Finton spun around, scanning the alleys, the rooftops, the shadows. There was nothing. Just the echo of a hammer in his mind, and a rhythm tapped out on the cobblestones by a ghost.
Long. Short-short. Long.
The beat of the smith. The heartbeat of the deep.
Finton looked down at the empty crate. Scratched into the wood, fresh and rough, was a single symbol.
A hammer.
Finton smiled, a slow, dangerous curling of the lips. He adjusted his lute on his back.
"Well played, Shaelen," he whispered to the empty air. "Well played.”
From the Cartographer’s Desk
Writing in another author's world is a unique kind of magic. It requires finding the empty spaces on their map and filling them with your own ink, without smudging the lines they’ve already drawn.
I wanted to capture the rhythm of manual labor, the clang, clang, clang of the forge, because that is where fantasy history lives. Not in the throne rooms, but in the sweat of the people who build them.
A Question for the Guild:
For the Lore Hunters: If Thorgal hid the dragons beneath the earth, what will wake them up? Is it a sound? A specific person? Or just the right time?
For the Writers: How do you approach writing "in-universe" lore? do you try to mimic the original tone perfectly, or do you try to subvert it?
I Accept The D'veen Challenge!
(Note to Bradley Ramsey & Sarah Rusch : I hope Shaelen's rhythm does Finton justice.)
If this ballad struck a chord with you, please Save this post. It helps keep the fire lit.
Until the next coordinate,
Graeme
Whst a joy to read about Finton. ❣️ My bestie gets around....