Moonfall, #2
The Ballad of Falling Dragons
by Sarah A. Parker
Contents
Chapter 7
Overview
The narrator attempts to slip out of storm-lashed Arithia using blood-runed gates but is diverted by Bulder’s warning. In a rendezvous burrow, Thorns ambush, executing Rasha and immolating her Moltenmaw to seize Elluin’s diary. The narrator collapses part of the cave via Bulder, is wounded, and escapes using blinding moonlight.
This massacre hardens the stakes: Tyroth’s forces control Arithia, allies are slain, and the contested diary remains in play as the narrator flees deeper into the mountain.
Summary
Braving Arithia’s blizzard, the narrator threads through rune-lit streets toward the city wall, intent on leaving the cold, lifeless city. A Moltenmaw sentry watches as the narrator opens a blood-runed exit and nearly falls into the chasm before Bulder, God of Ground, hauls them back with stone. Resolute, the narrator heads along a treacherous mountain path toward a planned pickup by Rasha and her Moltenmaw to return to The Fade.
Bulder’s somber song interrupts, echoing the lullaby once sung to Slátra. Alarmed, the narrator runs to the rendezvous burrow and signals. After a tense wait, a reply comes, and the narrator enters using Kaan’s copper weald for light as the cave shudders ominously.
Inside, the narrator finds blood pooled and Rasha’s Moltenmaw, Furn, suspended and fatally impaled by obsidian shards, then set ablaze by Thorns commanded by a decorated, blue-eyed officer. Rasha, bound and gagged, is condemned as a traitor and executed. Grief and fury drive the narrator to call on Bulder, collapsing part of the ceiling and crushing several Thorns, but an iron arrow wounds the narrator’s ankle, disrupting Bulder’s song.
With Thorns closing in for Elluin’s diary strapped to the narrator’s abdomen, a narrow cleft opens in the wall. The narrator hurls a jar of moonlight to blind the attackers, grabs the still-burning weald, and staggers into the passage, escaping the ambush as Furn burns and Rasha lies dead.
Who Appears
- NarratorProtagonist navigating Arithia’s storm; opens blood-runed gate, discovers ambush, invokes Bulder, is wounded, and escapes with the diary.
- RashaCarter ally awaiting extraction; captured, condemned as traitor, and executed by a Thorn’s blade.
- FurnRasha’s yellow-orange Moltenmaw; impaled by obsidian shards and immolated by Thorns.
- Thorn commanderDecorated, blue-eyed officer directing the ambush; orders Furn’s burning and Rasha’s execution.
- ThornsTyroth’s armored soldiers who spring the trap, attempt to seize the diary, and pursue the narrator.
- BulderGod of Ground; warns the narrator, saves them from a fall, collapses the cave to hinder Thorns.
- Moltenmaw sentryBonded dragon roosting on Arithia’s wall, observing the narrator’s risky exit.