Black Water, White Dragon (part 1)

The Water, chapter 1, part 4

Etin hurried down on her knees again to fill the other bucket, but with a wary eye still on Zanubegil and the surrounding peaks. They too were shivering. Giant rocks that had spent thousands of frosts and thaws to crack, finally saw their ending. The needle towering over Plains Ridge broke. Ravens' Hee tore apart. The standing stone above Isenhigh fell.

For a moment, Etin stopped to squint - was there someone up there? Maybe just an animal.

But then closer, much closer and much worse. The great, polished cliff just a stone's throw up the hill above the house, the cliff that had been there since aeons before Apple Hill farm was built, the cliff that had been safe and solid, protected them from the northwind - that cliff cracked and a rock the size of several men, tore away.

It thudded down on the ground below, crushing heather and turf.

Turned slowly and uncertainly once or twice, as if it was wondering about its new found freedom.

Hit the stream a few hundred yards above where Etin fetched water.

Speeded up where water and ice had scoured the path for hundreds of years.

Rolled, roared and thundered down towards where Etin was standing.

Pulled along dozens, hundreds, thousands of pebbles, stones, man-sized rocks. An impacable rockfall that thundered and sprang down towards Plainsvale and Apple Hill farm.

And to Etin.

She stood gaping for less than a moment, before finding her wits and legs. She grabbed the buckets and ran. She stumbled and got up. Stumbled again, slipped on the wet snow covering the heathered slope. Spilled the buckets. Wet all over her skirt, but she crawled up again - without the buckets. A stone the size of Papa's chest sailed towards her, but she threw herself aside.

Staggered, lurched to keep her footing.

Here a bare spot.

There a steady stone.

The tumbling rocks hit one bucket and crushed it. The other bucket rolled down to the sheepstall, like a bell-sheep with the flock of stones following behind it. The rockfall spread sideways, tore with it heather and moss and earth that the centuries had built up, but the sheepstall was halfway down the hill and held like a dam to the masses. They flowed like a thundering, billowing, deadly waterfall around the corner of the stalls, tore away a little of the walls and disappeared down the hill towards Plainsvale.

Etin breathed. No more rocks fell. Apple Hill was safe.

The buckets were gone, but that was hardly the worst that could have happened, and Etin trotted down to the yard again to fetch new ones.

But if the rockslide was over, the shivers weren't. They continued and grew stronger and stronger, larger and larger. Etin stopped to check if more fell from the cliff. They needed water, but lives were more important than doing dishes. She heard the glass panes tinkle. The pillars under the food loft creaked. Pine and birch and rowan lost their last snow.

And then came the last, the greatest quake.

It started as burst of flames around Zanubegil mountain. Black smoke cascaded skywards, billowed out the gate and down the valley, oozed out of every hidden crack and hollow and secret window up the mountain sides. The shakes revertebrated along all the ridges in all directions, and down the slopes right down to the valebottoms. Peaks fell and old snow and even older stone fell.

Zanubegil cracked open.

Long rifts tore open the ridges and mountain sides. Stinking smoke met the once fresh skies. Blazes of flame lit the depths momentarily. The cliff above Apple Hill opened - as if a gigantic divine knife clove through the rock like butter. The enormous, scoured cliff side cracked into hundreds of rocks - small and large. Some lay as a newly created scree in the opening, others still stood up above. Balanced, like a tossed coin occasionally lands on its edge.

Etin stood gaping - but closed her mouth fast and drew her shawl over nose and mouth when the awful, heavy smoke seeped down to her and scraped her nostrils.

"Help!" She was roused from her trance by a muffled and coughing voice from deep in the crack.

Something - someone! - moved in there, clambered over the new stone scree, waved their arms.

"Hello?" Etin crawled up the last bit of hill. It wasn't simple, with one hand on her shawl. She stumbled often - had she had any extra fingers, she would have crossed them to ward off sprains. The smoke was thick up here. Hot, acid, heavy and thick. She was sweating now, and coughed just like the person trapped.

The person shouted again, "here! Oh my, is there someone out there? Gods be praised! Help me!" A hand reached for hers, small, genteel, with large rings, but the nails were black and the fingers newly scraped. A face became visible through the smoke. That too, black from ashes, but his beard was trimmed, and Etin noticed a faint scent of rose water - even through the burning stench of smoke. Streaks of tears laid their tracks through the ashes. "Sweetest, kindest one," the dwarf sobbed. "Help us out of here!"