On a Beautiful Day…

The sun had barely risen above the line of the mountains. Its first rays slid across the lake, passed through the chalet windows, and came to rest upon Gunnar’s face.

The old dwarf opened one eye, then the other. For a moment, he remained perfectly still, listening to his body. His right shoulder ached, his left knee creaked, and a familiar pain gnawed at his lower back.

He smiled.

His instructor at recruit school had always said:

“If, at five hundred years old, you wake up without hurting somewhere, whatever you do, don’t get up. It means you’re dead.”

Gunnar let out a hoarse laugh, sat on the edge of the bed, and placed his metal leg on the floorboards. The chalet creaked softly around him. Outside, the lake was so calm it seemed to be holding its breath.

In the bathroom, the mirror reflected the face of a dwarf whom time had not spared. His white beard fell in a thick mass over his chest; his equally white hair was tied back into a long ponytail. The wrinkles surrounding his eyes could have told, all by themselves, of several centuries of campaigns, victories, and funerals.

He picked up his scissors, trimmed his beard with a few precise snips, and examined the result.

“Good enough. I’m not going to a wedding.”

He finished dressing, adjusted his belt, and slipped his dagger into place. White Worm settled naturally against his hip. It was a broad, slightly curved Bowie-style blade, forged from dark-shimmering Damascus steel. Its guard depicted the body of a Tulsa worm, frozen in a substance resembling ivory.

The weapon was no jewel. It bore the scars of years and battle, but Gunnar would not have traded it for all the treasures of the Confederation.

He had nearly died for it long before it ever became a blade.

The barn was still shrouded in darkness when he pushed open the door. The strong smell of straw, leather, and animal filled his nostrils. At the far end of the enclosure, Couenne suddenly raised his head. The old boar snorted, clacked his tusks together, then began hopping about with an enthusiasm quite unbecoming of his age and weight.

“Easy, you barrel on legs.”

Couenne came charging over anyway and affectionately nudged Gunnar’s thigh with his snout.

To everyone else, he was merely a dark-coated war mount, covered in scars and fitted with a neural translator.

To Gunnar, he was far more than that: a companion, a confidant and, for so long that he had stopped counting the years, a friend.

Gunnar picked up the saddle, placed it on his back, and tightened the straps.

“Translator, activate.”

A faint crackle came from the metal collar around Couenne’s neck. A green light flickered on beside his ear.

“Groink! Finally! You always take too long. I’m hungry. I was hungry before you arrived. I’ll still be hungry when we leave.”

“Good morning to you too.”

“Good morning. I’m hungry.”

“We’re going out. I want to reach the eastern pastures, where the wild strawberries grow. Today is a special day.”

Gunnar rested a hand on the pommel of the saddle. His gaze settled on the back of his hand. The skin suddenly seemed thinner, more wrinkled than usual.

He slowly turned his fingers, as though they belonged to someone else.

That hand reminded him of his father’s, the last time he had seen him in hospital.

At eight hundred and ninety-nine years old, the old man had suffered a bad fall. Nothing spectacular: a few broken bones, pain, a great deal of fatigue. His spirits had remained good.

Two days after Gunnar’s visit, he had simply told the nurse that he wanted to sleep for a while.

He had never awakened.

He had joined his wife beside the Great Forger, quietly, as though leaving a room that had grown too cold.

Gunnar closed his fingers around the saddle.

Couenne’s collar gave a small click.

“Groink… I know! It’s your birthday. You’ve already told me. Wait, I’m thinking… eight hundred… eight hundred and sixty…”

The boar narrowed his eyes in comical concentration.

“Eight hundred and sixty-five! I’m good, aren’t I? Say I’m good.”

The memory faded. Gunnar raised an eyebrow.

“You’re mostly incapable of remembering where you hid the apples last night.”

“I didn’t hide them. I put them somewhere safe. In my stomach.”

Gunnar burst out laughing. He placed his metal leg in the stirrup, hauled himself into the saddle, and settled himself. Then he gently took the reins.

“Off we go, Guardian of the Apples.”

Couenne trotted out of the barn.

At first, the trail followed the lakeshore. The morning rays reflected from its clear surface, scattering flashes of gold among the reeds. Behind them, Gunnar’s chalet slowly dwindled into the distance, nestled against the forest as though it had always been there.

They entered beneath the fir trees.

The temperature dropped immediately. The air smelled of fresh resin, damp earth, and crushed pine needles. Shafts of light pierced the branches, carving pale columns through the morning mist.

Gunnar breathed deeply.

A beautiful day.

Perhaps even a perfect one.

“Gunnar… tell me the story of White Worm again.”

“Again?”

“You tell it well.”

“You know it by heart.”

“Yes. But you change bits. Last time, there were three explosions.”

“There were only two.”

“Three is better.”

Gunnar shook his head.

“Very well. But we’ll skip the ‘Once upon a time.’”

“Why?”

“Because nothing that begins on Tulsa deserves ‘Once upon a time.’”

Gunnar’s tone had changed. Couenne sensed it and slowed slightly.

“Tulsa contained minerals of vital importance. When the Taille-Pierre family’s probes reached the planet, every indicator lit up. We had struck the jackpot. Vast deposits, almost exposed at the surface. A colony of miners was sent there, along with engineers, their families, and everything needed to build a city.”

He paused as Couenne stepped over a root.

“For seven years, the colony prospered. Cargo ships left loaded with ore. The only problem was water: it was scarce and unsuitable for growing crops. Food and supplies therefore had to be continuously shipped in from neighbouring worlds.”

“And in the eighth year, it rained,” Couenne whispered.

“Yes. A planet-wide storm. Torrential rain, as though the sky itself wanted to drown Tulsa. The supply ship barely managed to land. When its crew opened the doors… the horror had already begun.”

The forest around them seemed quieter.

“The worms had been sleeping underground for eight years. The rain woke them. They surfaced by the thousands, burrowed into living creatures, and laid their larvae inside them. Then they returned underground while their offspring grew inside the bodies.”

Couenne shook his head violently.

“I don’t like this part.”

“No one does.”

Gunnar placed his hand on the hilt of White Worm.

“I was part of the squad sent in to evacuate the colonists. We lost sixty per cent of our men. Out of several thousand dwarves, we saved barely a dozen.”

He did not mention how many screams he still heard on certain nights.

Nor how many doors they had been forced to close on people they could no longer save.

“The scientists had captured a few specimens. This one bit me on the hand during the retreat. I tore it off and locked it inside a ration tin. By the time we returned, it was dead. Perhaps because of the journey, perhaps because those creatures could survive only a few weeks outside their cycle. Its body had hardened until it became something like ivory.”

“So you had White Worm forged.”

“In memory of those who never came back.”

Gunnar stroked the dagger’s guard with his thumb.

“It isn’t a trophy. It’s a reminder. We are almost nothing in this universe, Couenne. Everything can end in an instant, even for those who believe themselves invincible.”

The boar remained silent for several seconds, which, coming from him, already amounted to a form of meditation.

“But you’re the Great Chosen One. The hero of Tchaka-Laka. Without you, the War of a Thousand Bloods would have been lost. You’re afraid of nothing. You’re a great dwarf.”

Gunnar snorted.

“A great dwarf? Don’t you find that a little strange?”

Couenne thought about it.

“A little. But ‘average dwarf’ doesn’t sound as heroic.”

“Spare me that Chosen One title above all. It isn’t a reward. It’s a curse that keeps me awake at night.”

His smile faded.

“As for heroes, the real ones were left lying on the battlefields. I was merely one of the lucky ones who made it home.”

They travelled on for a while before Couenne spoke again.

“So… what is a dwarf?”

Gunnar raised his eyes towards the peaks.

“A small being who can live for nearly a thousand years and who, despite that, always finds a way to waste his time. A dwarf usually stays among his own, because if he grows attached to races that live shorter lives, he watches them grow old, disappear… while he remains.”

He thought of faces long since faded from memory.

“We hold grudges, we’re stubborn, sometimes courageous. Many love wealth and power so much that they become greedy. We have four deities. The Great Forger shapes us upon his anvil. His wife, the Mother of Life, raises us and guides us. Their son, Destiny, may caress you with one hand and knock you down with the other, simply because it amuses him.”

“And the fourth?”

“Death. She always comes for us in the end. They say she is so beautiful that when she calls you, you follow without resistance.”

“Do you believe that?”

Gunnar shrugged.

“I mostly believe that the living tell a great many stories about things they know nothing about.”

The forest suddenly opened onto a vast clearing. Tall grass rippled beneath a gentle breeze, forming green waves all the way to the opposite treeline.

Gunnar let his gaze drift through the movement.

For a second, it was no longer a meadow but the ocean of some distant planet, then the banners of a vanished army, then the hair of a woman he had not seen for far too long.

He pushed the images away.

“Don’t get nostalgic, you old goat,” he muttered. “It’s bad for the joints.”

He gently nudged Couenne onward.

“Come on! Show me you’re more than a stomach on four legs.”

“Groink! Insult!”

The boar broke into a gallop. Grass whipped against his flanks, the wind tugged at Gunnar’s beard and, for a few moments, the weight of his eight hundred and sixty-five years disappeared.

They were nearing the next forest when Couenne suddenly slowed.

His snout rose.

He sniffed the air once, then again. His ears flattened against his skull.

Gunnar immediately felt the tension running through the animal’s back.

“What is it?”

“Something’s wrong. It smells like fish… no, something rotten. I don’t like it. I’m scared.”

Gunnar’s smile vanished.

He straightened in the saddle and listened.

No birds were singing anymore.

He could hear only the wind in the treetops and Couenne’s nervous breathing.

Even the insects seemed to have fallen silent.

Something flashed to his left.

For a fraction of a second.

Gunnar threw himself sideways.

Not quickly enough.

A war disc sliced through the air and tore across his ribs.

Pain erupted like a tongue of fire.

His momentum carried him out of the saddle. He struck the ground, rolled through the grass, and lay there for a moment unable to breathe.

His hand went to his side.

When he pulled it away, his fingers were red.

“Not good,” he muttered.

He quickly felt the wound. He could almost feel bone beneath the torn flesh, but the blood was not spurting. No major artery had been hit.

A few metres away, the disc had buried itself in the earth.

Its serrated shape and the symbols engraved into the metal left no doubt.

A goblin weapon.

A weapon of war.

But there was no war here.

Not today.

Gunnar remained lying on his side and slowly drew White Worm from his belt. He folded his arm against his stomach, concealing the blade.

Footsteps approached through the grass.

Light.

Hesitant.

Two figures.

Very young.

“Gunnar, don’t move!” Couenne growled through the translator. “They’re coming. I’ll charge. I’ll crush them, gut them with my tusks. Friend not die. Not die.”

“Go, Couenne.”

“No.”

“You’ll end up in a stew. They only want me.”

“Friend not abandon. Die together, better.”

Gunnar clenched his teeth. The pain was spreading all the way into his shoulder.

“I can’t defend both of us. And these two charming goblins want to be able to tell everyone they killed the Chosen One. Not his boar. Get out of here. That’s an order.”

Couenne remained frozen.

“Go!”

The boar let out a heart-rending grunt, then bolted towards the treeline.

He disappeared among the trees, but did not go far.

Hidden in the shadows, he remained there watching his friend, his eyes wet and his tusks trembling with rage.

The two goblins advanced, keeping five metres between them, just as they had been taught.

The first, Zabat, carried a blade too heavy for his thin arms. The second, Snikrot, held a pistol in both hands and swept his gaze across the clearing.

They had waited for this day throughout their childhood.

The new king had turned the hunt for Gunnar into a rite of passage for the sons of the great bloodlines. Whoever returned with the head of the slayer of Grathor the Tyrant, who had fallen at the Battle of the Five Lakes, would earn glory, riches, and a place beside the throne.

Others had tried.

None had returned.

Zabat looked at the old dwarf lying in the grass, and a nervous smile revealed his pointed teeth.

“Is that him?”

“Yes,” Snikrot replied. “White beard. Metal leg. Ivory dagger.”

“He looks small.”

“He’s a dwarf.”

“I mean… even smaller than in the stories.”

Snikrot tightened his grip around his weapon.

“Don’t get too close too quickly. Maybe he fell on purpose.”

Zabat sneered, but kept his eyes fixed on Gunnar.

“You’ve always been a coward, Snikrot. When we return with his head, I’ll tell the king I struck the killing blow.”

“And I’ll tell him you were trembling.”

“I’m not trembling.”

“Then move.”

Zabat took a deep breath and raised his weapon.

Each step brought him closer to the legend that had haunted the stories of his people.

Gunnar did not move.

His eyes were half closed.

Blood soaked through his tunic.

The young goblin regained some of his confidence.

“Grathor will be avenged,” he whispered.

He stood over Gunnar and raised his blade in both hands.

The old dwarf opened his eyes.

His arm flashed out.

White Worm plunged between Zabat’s legs and severed the femoral artery.

The goblin let out a high-pitched squeal. His weapon remained suspended above his head as his expression shifted from pride to incomprehension.

Then his legs gave way.

He collapsed like a dead weight.

“Zabat!”

Snikrot fired.

The first bullet struck Gunnar in the stomach with the force of a hammer blow.

The second threw him onto his back.

White Worm slipped from his fingers.

The sky spun above him.

He tried to breathe, but searing pain tore through his guts. Warm blood spread beneath his tunic and seeped into the earth.

This time, he understood.

There would be no more birthdays.

After eight hundred and sixty-five years, wars, monsters, worlds in flames and countless enemies, Gunnar was going to die in a meadow, far from everything, shot by a goblin adolescent seeking revenge.

“Well, this certainly lacks grandeur,” he thought.

A rumble cracked across the clearing.

Thunder?

Gunnar stared at the sky.

Not a cloud.

“And now I’m going to die in the rain… Just my luck.”

Behind him, he heard the sound of a body collapsing into the tall grass.

He focused on his breathing, just as he had been taught centuries before.

Breathe in.

Hold.

Breathe out.

The pain did not disappear, but it stopped giving the orders.

He could no longer make out shapes clearly.

Someone was running.

Hands slipped beneath his shoulders and carefully lifted him.

Gunnar tried to protest, but no sound came out.

A woman’s face appeared above him.

She was smiling at him.

Through the haze of pain, Gunnar first thought he recognised Death.

So she truly was as beautiful as they said.

He relaxed.

Everything would be all right.

Soon he would find his fallen companions again, somewhere beside the Great Forge. They would complain that he had taken so long, hand him a tankard, and laugh at the ridiculous way he had finally died.

“Hold on, Gunnar!”

The woman’s voice trembled.

“Talk to me. Stay awake. Stay… just stay with me.”

Gunnar tried to see her face more clearly.

A strand of hair brushed against his cheek.

Then her perfume reached his memory—soft and ancient, more powerful than the pain.

He knew that perfume.

They said that, at the moment of death, an entire lifetime flashed before your eyes.

Gunnar felt the darkness closing around him and wondered where he should begin.

What would he tell her about?

The first war?

His father?

Tulsa?

The prophecy?

No.

Then the world disappeared.