Dragonhammer: Volume II by Conner McCall

for a walk while we’re in enemy territory?”
    She shrugs.
    I shake my head and sit down.  She sits down on her bedroll.  Now, instead of firelight, a slit of moonlight illuminates a sliver of her face.
    Her eyes glance to the sleeping form of Ullrog.  “What are you thinking about?” she asks.
    I hesitate.  “Why?”
    “You seem lost,” she says.  “What are you thinking about?”
    I pause before answering her.  “There has been enough blood shed,” I say.  “Especially by these hands and this hammer.”  She and I both glance to the hammer lying next to my bedroll.  “Why shed more?”
    “Why did you start?” she asks.
    “Because they killed my father,” I respond.  “They brought me hatred.  Anger.  Grief.  They must die.  Feel what I feel.”
    “Revenge, then?”
    “I will kill them with a vengeance they have never seen.  No more will such atrocity plague the land as it has.”
    “What wrong has Titus done you?” she asks innocently.
    I think for a moment.  “He believes in the same things his father did.  He has brought himself to battle against me.”
    “Because you killed his father.  He fights for the same reasons you do.”
    She’s right.  I find myself mulling over her words, and realize that I myself had been thinking them before I had gone to sleep.  “His father deserved death,” I respond.  “He was the evil pawn of an evil ruler, doing horrible things.”
    “Are you saying that Titus deserves to die for his father’s actions?”
    “Of course not.  I cannot blame Titus for what he feels.  I feel the same thing.”
    “It seems like you’ve already given this some long thought.”
    “What’s your point?”
    “Haven’t you already found vengeance here, with Tygnar?”
    For a long moment I do not answer.  “I do not know,” I whisper.
    “Will you kill Titus?”
    “I would rather not.”
    She responds instantly, as if she had been expecting that response, “But will you kill him?”
    I think.  She’s about to ask again when I respond, “If I must.”
    She nods slightly and says nothing more.  She only lies back down.
    “If I must,” I whisper to myself.

 
     
     
     
     
    The Battle of Balgr’s Monument
     
     
     
    I wake a little before dawn.  My body knows the time and wakes me accordingly.  Without wasting time, I eat something and don my armor, given to me when I was advanced to captain.  I leave the cape off, as I find it bothersome.
    Percival, James, and Jericho each shake my hand with words of encouragement.  Nathaniel does likewise.  “Come back, okay?” he says.
    “Of course,” I reply.  “Our family will not lose another member this day.”
    He smiles and claps my left shoulder.  Aela only nods to me.  Ullrog is nowhere to be seen.
    “Fight well,” says Hralfar.  “I know you will.  Though I fear what the opposition will do when they are again leaderless.”
    “There is no need for fear,” I reply.  “Look forward with courage.  Let them come or flee as they will.  In either case, let us be standing, sword in hand.”
    The corner of Hralfar’s lip goes up and he gives me a nod.  A warhorn sounds from the monument: my cue.
    Feeling oddly reminiscent of the time I walked out to fight Lucius Swordbreaker’s champion, I stride towards the monument.  As I climb the hill I see that the area inside the circle of tall stones is paved with cobblestone.  In the middle, the obelisk stands.
    It’s only about three feet wide at the base, but it looms at least thirty feet above my head.  A bronze plaque sits on the obelisk at about the height of my hip.  It reads simply, “Herein lies Balgr the Great.”
    I have no recollection of a character named ‘Balgr’ in any of the legends or stories I know.  It matters little, however, so I shrug it off and wait for Titus to show himself.
    He already stands next to the monument.  “You came,” he says.  As he walks toward me, I notice he wears the restored armor of