A Song of Askaldenfirsts and Dragons. Part six: The death
Chapter 7: Ishkmet

“What’s your name again?” Ishkmet approached the blond man with blue eyes.

“Dugbert,” the blond man replied.

“Tell me, Dugbert, in the name of Rumnarash, who put you in charge? Why did you lead us the wrong way when I’ve told you a hundred times we must go north, and north is over there,” Ishkmet pointed to the north. “You’re worse than my old friend Jamashar, who always argued with me and we always lost our way!”

“We veered a little to the west, so what?” Zwerkard asked suddenly.

“Why are you defending him, Zwerkard?” Arngalda interjected. “By the way, if it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t be here! In the name of Unhagbjor, why didn’t you warn us? You’ve had a ghost in you all this time! You could have run away, somehow tell us about it! So many ermirians have died because of you!”

“I didn’t mean to! He threatened to kill me, saying he would kill everyone anyway!” Zwerkard exclaimed.

“Pfft,” Ishkmet drawled.

They were walking through the Orange Dawn Forest straight toward Faltarkhogen. The eight travelers, who had avoided the greyskuggies and the ghost, were veering west and north of their destination.

“Stop arguing,” Dugbert said, “in fact, if it weren’t for Helgelka, we’d have frozen to death without food by now. She’s the only one of you who can shoot a bow properly.”

“I’m a good archer too,” Arngalda objected.

“And how many adeloirs have you shot?” Dugbert asked.

Arngalda rolled her eyes. Helgelka exchanged glances with Ilselda and they smiled.

“Honestly, you’re like children,” Helgelka said.

At the mention of children, Arngalda nervously touched the fur armor around her belly.

“That way,” Dugbert pointed west, “we need to go that way!”

“But north is there!” Ishkmet pointed to the north, then touched his ears and felt that it was time to put something on his head.

“What are you so nervous about?” Helgelka asked him. “We’re going to the northwest anyway, and it makes sense to take a little west now.”

And they moved on their way. Soon they emerged from the forest and found themselves at the ruins of Faltarkhogen.

“Fucking dragons!” Dugbert said, seeing the scorched, ruined city, partially covered with snow.

They walked on. Suddenly they noticed the bones and skulls lying on the snow.

“Dragons can incinerate so much that bones remain, but not ashes?” Ishkmet asked, picking up the skull.

“It is certainly not dragons, otherwise the bones and skulls would be at least charred, fire can’t burn the flesh and not touch the bones, dragon fire melts the sand and metal, well, at least partially, but there is no hint of fire on this skull,” Ilselda said.

“There was a battle here recently, look at the small snow here, and over there in the distance at the trees, they recently burned down there,” Helgelka said.

“Yes, indeed. Here, too, in this area, it looks like a fireball flew here,” Ishkmet agreed, examining the battlefield, slightly covered with snow.

They walked on past the charred houses. They saw a familiar figure in one of the ruined houses, the figure turned at the sound.

“Oh,” Dombard shouted, “my favorite vessel, and his fellow vessels!” Dombard sincerely expressed joy, but then he made a worried face, “Quiet, friends, we’re not alone.”

“Stay back!” Ishkmet said.

“Run, or he will possess us!” Helgelka shouted, and the group of ermirians rushed back to the forest.

“Quiet, you fools, stop!” Dombard said, moving as fast as possible in their direction, then he decided to shout, “Stop and I won’t kill you, if you run away, then you will all die!”

Ishkmet stopped for some reason and turned to the ghost with an axe, taking a fighting pose.

“Wallitarf, what... Tarragorad take you!” shouted Helgelka. Arngalda heard that, stopped and turned around too, and the two of them ran towards Ishkmet. Forkjorn also stopped and turned around, the others continued to run as fast as they could towards the forest without looking back.

“Hush, my friends, hush,” the ghost took a distinct form and approached them, “we have a problem here, I want a truce, more than that,” Dombard beamed, his face changing, “I want us to become allies!”

“You are a creature that has killed many ermirians!” Ishkmet said. “If I had the chance, I would cut off your head!”

“What bloodlust, why?! I didn’t fuck your beloved Nulara!” Dombard said.

The dwarf flared up.

“Oh, I guessed it!” Dombard said. “It turns out I can read minds without possessing a vessel.”

“If you didn’t call us here to tell us how to kill you, we have no reason to talk,” Arngalda said.

“There’s more important thing than–” Dombard began.

“Look, he’s burned, you see the melted part of his armor, and there’s clearly a burn there, all the spikes are melted,” Helgelka said calmly to Arngalda.

“Yes, that’s your friend, the one who turned out to be a dragon,” Dombard explained.

“What are you talking about?” Helgelka asked.

“I’m not talking about you, I’m talking about her friend,” he glanced at Arngalda.

“What?” Arngalda said in surprise.

“Yes, yes, your friend, the one with the green eyes, with the gray stubble, the nasty, arrogant snunorf.”

“Ingerbert?! What have you done to him?!” Arngalda was already standing in a fighting pose, and wanted to lunge at the ghost, but waited for an answer.

“He’s all right, I guess, unless he’s been eaten by those smokes.”

“What smokes?” Arngalda wondered.

“If you lowered your weapons, I’d tell you. You understand that I love to kill, I love to rape, I love vessels, and I love to play with them. But then a huge problem arose, a big problem…” Dombard smiled strangely. “Anyway, have you seen any bones or skulls?”

“Did you do that?” Forkjorn cut in abruptly.

“Why do you always think I’m guilty of every crime? All right, well, here’s the thing, it’s unclear where these creatures came from, but they take two forms, one like smoke and the other like an elf. When these creatures are in the form of smoke, they pass through living flesh, as if a knife cuts water, they kill living things, and then they eat them except for the bones, they eat everything, even the guts,” Dombard explained.

“What a wilfhayer shit!” Helgelka exclaimed.

“It’s not a shit, you dumb skarkeshuh,” Dombard got a little angry.

“Call her a skarkeshuh one more time and I’ll–” began Ishkmet.

“And you will… What? You will chop her tits off when I possess your short stupid body?” Dombard asked with a smirk.

“You don’t like dwarfs, because our cocks are bigger than yours and you just don’t feel good about it!” Ishkmet retorted.

“Always remember, wallitarf, that I can take your body if I have to,” Dombard said.

“So what are those smokes? Arngalda put in a question.

“They can kill you, but they can’t kill me. But while I’ve been walking around these ruins, thinking about the future, I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t want to be alone in all Ermir with these smokes. In the end, all the vessels will be eaten by these creatures!” Dombard replied.

“Too bad they can’t kill you,” Arngalda said.

“It was you who actually came with a proposal to unite,” Dombard said indignantly, “you and your ikhagatbers, and–!”

“Your creators! And do you think that because I’m a snunorf woman I will listen to these ikhagatbers?” Arngalda interrupted him.

“You know what,” Dombard got tired of trying to convince them, “go where you were going, return to the capital if you can, and I’ll replace your corpses later,” with these words he turned around, took a blurry shape and walked further through the ruins of the city, heading west.

“May Tarragorad replace you a terrible death!” Arngalda shouted after him.

Ishkmet looked around. He looked at Arngalda, Helgelka and Forkjorn.

“You are the stupidest northerners who have ever lived! You were right when you shouted for us to run, Helgelka, why did the three of you turn back?” asked Ishkmet.

“So you were the first to stop! You may be an annoying wallitarf, but you are a friend of the queen,” said Helgelka, “how would I report to her that you were killed and we ran away? Such a shame is worse than death!

“Annoying? Well, maybe a little,” Ishkmet softened. “And what now? Shall we follow the ghost or shall we go looking for our companions?”

“It’s very dangerous and stupid idea to follow the ghost,” Forkjorn said.

“Actually, it would make sense to go after the ghost, if we could watch him and maybe replace something–” Arngalda said.

“Did you even hear what he said?” Forkjorn wondered, interrupting Arngalda. “Everything you told us, Arngalda, seemed like the madness of a bad dream! The Firsts, the ikhagatbers who experimented with ghosts, and all this because of this mineral...But what the ghost told us... Doesn’t that give you the slightest feeling of fear?”

“Are you a snunorf or what? We’re all going to die someday,” Arngalda grumbled dismissively. “If the ghost kills us, so be it, but I think we need to follow the ghost.”

“I agree,” Ishkmet said.

“But what about the queen’s order?” Forkjorn asked.

“She’s ordered us to return to Carlfrig, who’s headed for Hoogmeerfall, as we know,” Ishkmet said. “Let us estimate how long it will take us to go all the way north without karkhashes in the current winter conditions? We might not survive this journey. So is it better to try to figure out the weaknesses of the ghost, his plans and die in battle with him or die on the way? I really want to go to Hoogmeerfall myself, and you all know why, but our mission may be very important!”

“Perhaps both Carlfrig and Jamashar are dead,” Arngalda put in.

“Quiet! I think the dragons are flying,” Helgelka said and looked up at the sky, and the four of them hid in a partially burned house nearby.

Almost directly above them flew four dragons: a turquoise dragon, and another similar to it, only lighter turquoise, another was pink and white, and the last was a purple dragon with white transverse stripes.

Suddenly the turquoise dragon began to fall. The winter silent snow shone brightly and blinded the ermirians, but Arngalda leaned over to her companions and said, “Look, there’s some kind of smoke.” The other dragons also began to fall, and two dark smokes rushed after them.

“These are the smokes that Dombard was talking about!” Ishkmet said with surprise.

The four ermirians, crouching, ran out of the building and ran to another, hiding behind a half-destroyed wall. The small clearing, where the dragons had fallen, was partially covered with snow. The dead bodies of the four dragons were shrinking right before their eyes. The smokes were like painters who didn’t like the painted objects, and they erased them from the canvas of their reality.

“How is it possible? Forkjorn asked too loudly.

“Be quiet,” Arngalda hissed.

“I told you so!” they heard a familiar voice behind them, and it was Dombard.

He instantly took possession of Arngalda, and, crouching down, quickly walked away from the ermirians.

“You, wait, stop there!” Ishkmet hesitated, holding the axe in his hands.

The three ermirians went after Arngalda, but at the next turn of another dilapidated house they lost her.

“Where did she go?” Forkjorn asked.

“Ulmarrush is not enough for all of you!” Ishkmet cursed. “And why did I go with you northerners at all? It was Jamashar’s fault! If not for his obsessive desire to study the prophecies–”

“We need to get out of here, now,” interrupted Helgelka, “these smokes will make a sieve out of us. Even though the ghost says they can’t kill him, he’s afraid of them, and he won’t go in the direction where they are. Look, there’s a lot of snow in the distance, let’s look for fresh tracks there, Arngalda couldn’t have run far.”

And the three companions carefully went in search of Arngalda’s tracks.