by R J Hanson
Dunewell could see Belyska over the bear’s shoulder. She was running toward them, an arrow clasped in her fist. Dunewell must do something before she was within reach of the great beast for a single swipe from it could…
He pushed his pain, misery, and weakness to the far corners of his mind. He reached deep into his will and called forth his warrior’s heart. Dunewell took four quick steps and jumped at the bear as it raised up to roar again. He threw his right arm over the bear’s neck and his left under its great right forepaw. The bear crushed him against its chest and clawed at his back.
The claws did not break the skin, but they did shatter the bones beneath. Dunewell’s left hand searched frantically for the broken end of his spear. After several agonizing moments, his fingers closed around the haft of the rider’s pike.
Dunewell jerked the blade free and stabbed the great beast viciously. However, Dunewell realized to his horror that the blade was not long enough to reach anything vital in the large bear’s torso. Furthermore, he couldn’t free his arm to get around to the bear’s neck or head.
Then fortune, or, more likely Silvor and Bolvii, smiled on him. He saw the broken shaft of an arrow sticking out of the bear’s ear close to his right hand. Another crushing, breaking, blow raked Dunewell’s back. His wind was violently pressed from him, and he felt his ribs give way and puncture his lung.
Dunewell did not realize it, but he was roaring. Not words, not prayers, but a primal, guttural belt of ancient rage. He ripped the arrow free from the hide around the bear’s ear and plunged it deep into the bloody hole that had been its eye. The flint tip pierced the bear’s brain, severing nerves and creating a large wound channel in the vital gray matter. The great beast, master of these woods, was no more.
Dunewell thrashed violently to escape the collapse of the large creature but was crushed again underneath its dead weight. Belyska was there in an instant, the muscles in her shoulders and legs moved like taut cables as she shoved and rolled the bear to one side. Tears streamed down her face, and blood ran from her mouth where she had bitten her lip clean in two.
She pulled Dunewell from beneath the bear and leaned over him to pray. She was weak, but she poured her strength, her will, into her words and her faith. Bones began to knit, and Dunewell’s internal bleeding slowed.
“He’ll make…” Dunewell began, but the rest was a feeble whisper.
Belyska lowered her head to his mouth.
“He’ll make some big boots,” Dunewell finally managed.
Belyska cried and laughed, laughed, and cried. She sat on the ground holding Dunewell for several long moments. Dunewell thought he could stand, but he let her hold him, wanted her to hold him. The whine of the wolf brought them both back to the world.
Dunewell nodded to her, and Belyska eased him back to the ground and stood. She rushed to where the wolf had landed when the bear threw him. Dunewell rolled over and pulled himself up to all fours. He crawled to Belyska and to the wolf that had saved his life.
“He gave his life for ours,” Belyska said through choking sobs. “The wilderness provides.”
Dunewell nodded and stroked the wolf’s smoke gray fur. Dunewell began to rise, and blackness swallowed him.
Dunewell opened his eyes to a large fire. It had only been two days but seemed like years since the last time he’d been warm. The water bag was close at hand, and he found that his thirst was overpowering. He drained the bag and then ate several bites of cooked meat that lay nearby. He was deciding what he should do first when sleep took him again to that far away land of dark images and deep waters.
“Three days,” Belyska said.
Dunewell blinked his eyes repeatedly, trying to clear the sleep from them. The warmth of a heavy blanket comforted him, and the smell of meat roasting aroused his stomach.
“That’s what you’re wondering,” she continued. “It’s been three days.”
Dunewell began to move from where he lay under the blanket, and a lightning bolt of pain shot through his right leg stealing his breath.
“Please, don’t try to move,” Belyska said. “Your leg is broken. I was able to heal your lungs and stop the bleeding, but you are still severely injured.”
Belyska sat the water bag down before him on the ground and handed him a large chunk of meat, bear meat. He noticed she wore rather well-made boots of bear hide and that his blanket was of the same hide.
Dunewell took a bite of the bear steak, chewed, and took another. After two more large mouthfuls of the revitalizing meal, his stomach was no more the raging monster it had been. He took a long drink from the bag and pulled the heavy hide close about his shoulders.
“You’ve a talented hand for leatherworking,” Dunewell said as he took a short break from his meal.
Belyska sat back down near him and resumed work on a second set of boots. She offered him a brief smile.
“I was raised by the church,” Belyska said. “My skills with sword and prayer were recognized early on, and my training was focused in those areas. However, we all had jobs to do. I worked in the tannery and the leather shop.”
Dunewell finished his steak and drained the bag of the rest of the water.
“What now?” he asked.
“By the end of the day, I’ll have your boots finished,” Belyska said without looking up from her work. “I have two waterskins finished. I should be able to finish two more by nightfall. By morning the rest of the meat should be thoroughly smoked. I’ll use your flint axe to cut and shape a crutch for you. We’ll fill the waterskins in the morning and begin our trek back to Ivantis.”
Dunewell gingerly eased himself to a sitting position, pulled the heavy blanket tighter around him, and scooted closer to the fire. His body had spent days being taxed from wounds, constant cold, severe weight loss, and small meals. He shivered despite the warmth of the fire and the weight of the blanket around him.
“You should probably drink from the river again in the morning as well,” Belyska continued.
“Agreed,” Dunewell said.
Dunewell noticed the lush hide of gray fur Belyska wore draped over her shoulders.
“The wolf?” he asked.
“Yes,” Belyska said. “The wilderness…”
“Provides,” Dunewell finished for her.
She looked up from her work, and they shared a brief smile.
“Yes,” she said. “Silvor and Bolvii have both watched over us.”
“Could you teach me to do that?” Dunewell asked, nodding to her work with the boots. “My remaining bracer is hanging on by bare thongs.”
“Of course,” Belyska said.
She scooted closer to him until she sat next to him. Dunewell opened the heavy hide blanket and wrapped them both in its warmth. She pulled the wolf pelt from her shoulders and laid it in her lap alongside another hide upon which lay several small tools made of bone and bear claws. She was strong, beautiful, and, Dunewell noted, quite industrious.
“The wolf saved you,” Belyska said. “It would only be right for your bracers to be of his pelt.”
They sat next to each other, Dunewell with his broken leg propped out straight, under the heavy hide of the bear. She worked on the boots and waterskins and offered instruction to Dunewell, who worked with the wolf hide to fashion his bracers.
“You have a talent for it,” Belyska said the next morning as Dunewell laced his wolf hide bracers onto his forearms.
“I had a good teacher,” Dunewell said with a smile.
He had drunk from the Whynne to refresh Whitburn, and in turn, himself. They had both finished a meal of fish and carried two waterskins each. Dunewell still wore his ragged pants but now also wore new boots and a heavy cloak, both of bear hide. He fitted his rider’s pike into his new bracer, carried his flint axe in his right hand, and managed a crutch with his left.
Belyska also wore a heavy cloak of bear hide and new boots of the same. She carried a wooden spear now, along with the bow and few arrows they’d made. She als
o carried several pounds of smoked bear meat.
Seven days later, they approached the guard posts at the bottom of the slope leading to Ivantis. They shared a chuckle at the cry of alarm from the watchmen. ‘Wildmen!’ rang out, and weapons rattled together.
“Hold!” Belyska called out to them. “I am Lady Belyska of Silvor! I escort this man, esquire to the Steward of House De’Char!”
Dunewell and Belyska dropped their weapons, such weapons that they were, and held their arms out wide.
“Bring a horse,” Dunewell called out to them. “I’ve walked about as far as I care to.”
Thus, they entered the gates of Ivantis. Dunewell sitting astride a plow horse and Lady Belyska of Silvor, in worn-out boots and travel-weary shirt and pants, leading the horse. They had not traveled a furlong into the sprawling city when they saw Jonas running toward them from ahead. Belyska brought the horse to a halt, and Dunewell slid from the dour mount.
“I thought you both dead,” Jonas said, his concern barely concealed by his tone. “What happened?”
“Adventure,” Dunewell managed to say with a smile.
“The witch hunters?” Belyska asked.
Jonas lowered his face for a moment and then looked off to the side. His head was pointed at a nearby stable, but his eyes looked as though he were staring off across distant mountain peaks.
“I buried them,” Jonas said. “The witch, however, will trouble no one ever again.”
“Foolish priest,” Belyska began in a burst of anger. “I told him… But we are back in their world now.” She looked over at Dunewell. “We are back in their world now, and here I must do as the church bids.”
Jonas did not miss the look exchanged between Dunewell and the paladin.
“These belong to someone who would understand and appreciate the wolf; the Year of the Wolf,” Dunewell said as he removed the bracers he had made of wolf hide; the rider’s pike still concealed within one of them.
Dunewell’s eyes darted briefly to Belyska’s lower belly. She looked at him for a long moment.
“I will see that she gets them,” Belyska said.
Her eyes lingered on his for a moment longer, and then she turned, leading the plow horse away. Jonas asked several questions over the next few moments, but Dunewell heard none of them. He watched her walk away, hoping for… hoping for anything. She led the horse away and around the corner of a tannery. She did not stop. She did not look back.
Dunewell’s life had been one of discipline. The hardships of the Silver Helm academy had only been mounded upon by the hardships of the Tarborat front. Those years of pain and barest survival had hardened him against much. The loss of his father, then his mother, had hardened him. The loss of his brother had hardened him, for Silas was truly lost to him. Nothing had prepared him for the loss he now suffered. A loss that threatened to undo him.
Chapter VII
The Severed Head Dilemma
“So, you changed your hand, or part of your hand, so that it looked like your head?” Rogash asked, for the third time.
“Yes,” Silas said, with a mouth full of food. He chewed for a few more moments and then swallowed so that his response wouldn’t be quite so barbaric. “I can alter my appearance and the shape of my limbs to accommodate my needs.”
“And you used your head shaped fingers to bait the grayscale?” Rogash asked again for the third time.
“It was a bit risky in that I’d only hypothesized regeneration and hadn’t actually accomplished it yet.”
Silas looked up from his plate of elven flesh and wiggled his two regrown fingers at Rogash across the table from him. Then he took up his napkin and dabbed blood from the corner of his mouth.
“I’d say it was a resounding success,” Silas continued. “I was sure I could alter part of my hand, but I was not at all sure how convincing the alteration would be. I have known spies, inquisitors, mages, assassins, and merchants, but I have met no one with as sharp an eye as A’Ilys. Well, my brother perhaps, but I think that’s more intuition than actual perception. Either way, I digress. The ruse fooled A’Ilys, only temporarily, of course, which is good enough for me.”
Silas had spent the last three months with Rogash and the Jet Hammer Clan. In that time, he had mastered the low speech of the ogres and was speaking a functional dwarven from what he’d picked up from the slaves. He had also learned that Rogash was an accomplished Scepters and Swords player. In fact, Silas, who had held near grandmaster status among the tea rooms and taverns that offered the strategy game, had not won a single game against the warlord. He might be half-ogre, but he was all tactician.
Rogash, as he had the previous two times they’d had this conversation, shook his head and took another long drink from his ale horn.
“I don’t know if I want you to go to Moras just now,” Rogash said after he set his horn back in the loop nailed to the table’s edge. “It is a dangerous road, and the mothers should be birthing soon.”
“Given our calculations of gestation, I’d say they have at least another four months before giving birth,” Silas said, referring to the experimental race he and Rogash hoped to create. “Furthermore, Lady Evalynne has called for me. This will be our first delivery of the dwarven made goods, and it would be smart for me to be around for that exchange as well.”
The dwarven made goods had been much more work than Silas anticipated. The goods couldn’t bear any mark other than that of House Morosse. The goods need to pass as crafted by the hands of men with some dwarven influence. The dwarven slaves, although treated much better by Rogash than most slaves, resisted and grumbled about making ‘flimsy’ pieces.
“Maybe I’ll just order you to stay here,” Rogash said.
Silas raised an eyebrow at Rogash and smiled his calm, irritating smile.
“It is not your decision to make,” Silas reminded him.
“You think I’m afraid of your mistress?” Rogash asked as he slammed a meaty fist to the table.
“If you’re not, then you’re dumber than you look,” Silas said. “And, to be dumber than you look, well, that’s a hard standard to meet.”
Rogash roared and, with a speed that surprised even Silas, produced a rapier that had been concealed at his side. Rogash slashed through the air at Silas’s throat with a remarkable power and agility.
Silas did not flinch. Not because he believed Rogash above such brutality. In fact, he’d seen Rogash kill a number of his ranking officers over mistakes or disrespectful remarks. No, Silas didn’t flinch because he knew he could harden his own skin so that its resilience would match that of Rogash’s anvil.
It took all of Silas’s considerable will to remain composed when the edge of the rapier sliced through a fish scale’s thickness of skin on his neck, just drawing a paper’s edge line of blood.
“That’s quite a blade you have there,” Silas said, working hard not to give away his distress with an untimely gulp. A gulp that might have deepened the wound, if only slightly.
“The kind of blade that might cut your Lady Dru’s pretty head from her neck,” Rogash said in a low tone.
“I feel compelled to tell you that I would see you dead first,” Silas said.
Rogash burst into laughter, which echoed throughout the caverns and tunnels of Clan Jet Hammer.
“Here, then,” Rogash said as he flipped the black steel rapier around and offered the hilt to Silas. “I made this for you.”
Silas slowly accepted the handle and took up the delicate blade. Silas presumed it to be of a mercshyeld alloy because its textures and colors matched Rogash’s hammer head. Yet, it cut right through his flesh, which meant it was either something else entirely or enchanted by some means that Silas was unable to see or detect. It was a rapier, in design anyway, but weighed almost as much as his grandfather’s shrou-sheld.
“Star-iron, I calls it,” Rogash said. “Comes from a big rock I found a dozen years or so ago. It must have been hurled by the gods into the mountains, maybe during the Bat
tles of Rending, because it made a big crater. There’s not much of it, but I have enough. It’s hard to work but keeps its edge like nothing else I’ve ever sharpened, and it’s heavy and strong.”
“Is this what your hammer head is made from?” Silas asked.
Rogash’s only answer was a grin and a nod.
“That must be incredibly heavy!” Silas said.
Rogash continued to smile and nod.
“Most think my hammer hits so hard because I swing it hard,” Rogash said. Then, shaking his head, “it’s mostly because of the weight.”
“This mineral, star-iron, you said it made a crater indicating that it fell to Stratvs from the sky?” Silas asked.
“Aye.”
“The Twin Chariots,” Silas said, more to himself than to Rogash.
Silas stroked his chin with the end of one finger, deep in thought feeding fuel to a Rogash’s growing curiosity.
“What are those?” Rogash asked when it appeared Silas wasn’t going to continue.
“Oh, sorry,” Silas said. “The Twin Chariots of Merc. In some historical accounts of the Battles of Rending, the god Merc had two chariots that he rode. It was said that he stood with one foot in each of them, and, during a great battle, he was knocked from the sky by a cavalry charge of dragons ridden by the Great Men of old. One of the chariots struck the ground near here, and the other landed far to the north and west; at the edge of the world.”
“Didn’t look like a chariot to me,” Rogash said.
“No, of course not,” Silas said. “Likely, it was some fool who saw a meteor fall and made up a tale to go along with it.”
“Meteor?”
“Yes, a stone or rock from…” Silas cut short. “You know what, it doesn’t matter. Why make a rapier of it?”
