“That will be helpful,” said Ector. “I admit this place has my head bewildered. So many passages and citadels and galleries going in every direction. I’m a man of the plains of Caertigris, lord magister. I wasn’t made for walking beneath the mountains.”
“Neither was I,” said Ridmark, “but here we are. The Keeper and I will join you shortly.”
“Of course, my lord,” said Ector. He turned and rejoined his men-at-arms, many of whom were still gaping in wonder at the scale of the Stone Heart.
Ridmark caught Calliande’s eye, and she lifted her eyebrows. He glanced in Caius’s direction, and she nodded and joined him, though in her green gown she more glided than walked. He vaguely wondered how she did that, and then decided it wasn’t any of his business.
They walked towards Caius, and Ridmark felt a flicker of amusement. He and Calliande had just carried out an entire conversation without words. They did indeed know each other very well, and he was grateful for that, grateful for her presence in his life. She should have died centuries before he was born, but he was glad she was here now.
“What?” said Calliande.
“I didn’t say anything,” said Ridmark.
“You were thinking,” said Calliande. “I can always tell when you’re thinking.”
“You’re teasing me,” said Ridmark.
“I am most certainly not,” said Calliande.
“We’re in the Stone Heart in the center of the dwarven nation,” said Ridmark. “That is no place to tease anyone.”
She raised her chin a little. “I am the Keeper of Andomhaim. I do not tease.” She blinked, and then smiled. “And I realized how ridiculous that sounds. But you do have something in mind.”
“Aye,” said Ridmark, the moment of amusement fading. “I think it’s time to settle a mystery.”
They joined Caius at the edge of the molten stone. Caius was staring into a niche that contained a battered suit of dwarven armor. Ridmark knew firsthand the strength of dwarven steel, and whoever had worn that armor must have endured tremendous injuries. Caius looked up from the niche as they approached, and he managed a faint smile.
“Ridmark,” he said. “Calliande.”
“Caius,” said Calliande.
“Taalkhan Azaanbar,” said Ridmark.
Caius let out a long sigh. “That is my name, yes. Azaanbar, third son of King Naraxanar of Khald Tormen, and the second brother of King Axazamar of Khald Tormen. Though I confess, I have not thought of myself by that name for a long, long time.”
“Twenty years ago,” said Ridmark. “That was when you left Khald Tormen.”
“I brooded upon the matter long before that,” said Caius.
“I knew you were a dwarven noble,” said Ridmark, “but I had no idea that you were of the royal house. I ought to have realized it sooner.”
“I never mentioned it,” said Caius. “Though perhaps I had an unfair advantage. All men of Andomhaim knew the tale of Ridmark Arban and Mhalek.” He gestured towards Ridmark’s face. “But as you may have observed, we khaldari do not like to discuss our affairs with outsiders. I suppose that is why the faith of the Dominus Christus has caused such consternation among us.”
“It is not my business,” said Ridmark, “and I have no wish to pry, but…”
“Caius,” said Calliande. “There is so much at stake. The fate of Andomhaim, and the Anathgrimm, and even the dwarves. We need their help. If we do not get the help of the Three Kingdoms, the Anathgrimm and the manetaurs will be destroyed, and the Frostborn will prevail.” She took a deep breath. “So…if there is some personal animosity between you and your brothers that will lead the King to decide against joining the war …”
“No,” said Caius. “That is not it. My brothers think I am mad with grief. And perhaps they are not wrong.” He looked at them with solemn blue eyes. “But you have both known loss, haven’t you? You lost Aelia and then Morigna.” He looked at Calliande. “You lost your entire life, sacrificed everything to stop the Frostborn. Everyone you ever knew.”
Ridmark said nothing.
“Yes,” said Calliande. “We’ve all had losses. We’ve all had griefs. And…if you want to talk about yours, we will listen.”
They stood in silence for a while.
“I used to be a lot like Narzaxar,” said Caius, staring at the armor in the niche. “Actually, I used to make Narzaxar look relaxed.”
“You were stern, then,” said Calliande.
“Implacably so,” said Caius. “Among both humans and dwarves, sometimes the sons of kings are spoiled and indolent. This was not true for us. Even as a child, I took my duties and obligations seriously. I took everything seriously. About the time of the Frostborn war, I received a junior command in the army of Khald Tormen.” He laughed suddenly.
“What?” said Ridmark.
“It just occurred to me,” said Caius, looking at Calliande. “When you came to Khald Tormen for the first time, to convince my father to join the war against the Frostborn, I was in the field with our warriors, tracking down a tribe of kobold raiders. Had I not taken my duties so seriously, I would have been in Khald Tormen, I would have met you, and then I could have identified you on the day of the omen of blue fire. I would have saved us much trouble.”
Ridmark admitted that he had a point.
“But if you had,” said Calliande, “I would have gone straight to Khald Azalar. Tarrabus would have killed Jager and Mara, and without Mara, we wouldn’t have escaped Khald Azalar alive. So perhaps it was all for the best.”
“The Lord works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform,” said Caius, “and we have seen wonders, have we not?” He shook his head, his graying beard rasping against the collar of his robe. “But I wander from the topic. And it is an unpleasant topic. I do not wish to speak of it…but we have been through so much together, haven’t we? If I spoke of it to anyone, it would be you two.”
“Go on, then,” said Calliande, her voice soft. “We’re listening.”
“I spent centuries leading our warriors in battle,” said Caius. “I fought all the enemies of our kindred. The Sculptor and his minions. The dvargir and the kobolds, the deep orcs and the Mhorites. I lost some battles, but I won most of them, and even when I lost I managed to keep my men together without them falling into a rout. Because I spent so much time in the field, I married late. My wife was…well, she was a good dwarven woman of a noble house. I am under no illusions that we loved each other. But we fulfilled our duties, and we were at least fond of each other.”
Ridmark looked at the battered armor.
“You had a son,” he said.
“Aye,” said Caius. “Nerazar. My wife and I may only have been fond of each other…but we loved our son. We both did. With all our hearts. He was nothing like either of us, to be honest. He was bold and reckless and wild, generous to a fault, and he would not accept the proper stoicism and fatalism of a dwarven noble. He refused to adhere to it, and joked and laughed with his friends. It used to drive me mad, and we fought constantly.”
“Was it a scandal?” said Calliande.
“Perhaps,” said Caius. “Young dwarves are given a degree of latitude. It takes time to learn to embrace despair properly.” There was a dark twist to his voice, and he shook his head. “It would have been a scandal, but Nerazar excelled at everything he did. He quickly became the best young warrior of his generation, and no one could match him with sword or axe or mace. One would think that would earn him the enmity of his peers, but just the opposite. The other warriors loved him, the commoners and the nobles alike, and would have followed him anywhere. He ascended in rank and prestige, and he might have been Taalakdaz instead of my brother, so great was his ability.”
Might have been. Ridmark knew well the bitterness of those words.
“What happened?” he said.
“Shortly after the war of the five Pendragon princes ended,” said Caius, “the new High King sent an embassy to Khald Tormen. One of the claimants to the th
rone had been prone to stealing from our merchant caravans, and the new High King wished to make peace with King Axazamar and offer reparations. My brother was agreeable, and so the embassy was admitted, and terms struck. With the embassy came a friar.”
“And he started talking to Nerazar,” said Ridmark.
“At the time I thought nothing of it,” said Caius. “The church of Andomhaim has always sent out missionaries. Those sent to the orcs and the halflings had some success. Those sent to the Kothluuskan orcs were sacrificed upon Mhor’s altars, and those sent to the manetaurs were eaten. Missionaries had visited Khald Tormen before, and we always regarded them as a curious affectation of the humans. You heard what my brother thinks of the faith of the Dominus Christus, how it is a necessary crutch for the short-lived human mind as it speeds towards death. I did not expect anything to come of Nerazar’s talk with the friar. I certainly did not expect him to request baptism and enter the faith.”
“The story goes that you were the first dwarf to convert,” said Ridmark.
“I wasn’t,” said Caius. “No, my son was the first. My wife and I were appalled, and we tried to argue him out of it. A dwarf of the royal house adhering to a human religion? It was ridiculous. As well worship Mhor or Shalask or Qazalask or one of the other orcish blood gods.”
“At least the Dominus Christus does not require human sacrifice as Mhor and Qazalask do,” said Calliande.
“No,” said Caius. “It did cause a minor scandal at first, but eventually common opinion concluded that it was a harmless phase of youth. Nerazar did not falter in his duties. If anything, he went about his duties with new zeal and quoted me the verses from the scriptures about how all things should be done for the glory of God. We came to an uneasy peace on the subject, though I never stopped trying to talk him out of it.”
Ridmark looked at the damaged armor in the niche. It looked exceptionally well-crafted, and it had the gold inlays he had seen on the armor of the Taalmaks guarding the Armory of the Kings, though the gold had been damaged by many blows.
It was exactly the sort of armor a dwarven prince would have worn into battle.
“How did his armor end up here?” said Ridmark.
Caius let out a long, weary sigh, and for a moment he looked as old as his brother the King.
“The dvargir launched an attack on us,” said Caius. “We often war against the dvargir in Khaldurmar. Sometimes the fights are mere skirmishes, and sometimes they are more serious. Often news of these wars never even reaches Andomhaim and the other nations of the surface. This time, the dvargir launched a major invasion, trying to drive us from the outer tunnels and thainkuls around the Three Kingdoms. They had bred nearly a hundred thousand deep orcs and kobolds as slave soldiers, and we were in danger of being pushed back. Narzaxar commanded our defense, and I was given the command of a thainkul near the path of the invasion. Nerazar was with me.”
Ridmark waited, letting Caius work through the memories of the past.
“Nerazar and I quarreled,” said Caius in a soft voice. “Bitterly. I won’t bother with the details. I thought it prudent to launch an attack on the nearby dvargir camp. Some of my officers agreed with me. Others did not. Nerazar thought it was folly…and I am afraid I lost my temper with him and said some things that I should not have. We both had harsh words for each other. In the end, it did not matter. I had the command, and my word was law. We attacked the dvargir camp.”
“You were defeated?” said Calliande.
“Not at all,” said Caius. “I’m afraid that I was correct and Nerazar was wrong. We carried the day. It was a resounding victory. We broke the dvargir and sent them and their slave soldiers fleeing into the caverns of the Deeps. Only fifteen dwarves fell in the fighting. Nerazar was one of them.”
“I’m sorry,” said Calliande.
“It was a fluke,” said Caius. “Simple bad luck. A portion of the ceiling collapsed, cutting Nerazar and his men off from the rest of us. They put up a ferocious fight. We found nearly a hundred and fifty deep orcs piled around them, but it was too late.” He took a long breath. “As to the rest…we returned to Khald Tormen. My wife, when she heard the news, refused to eat, and soon died of illness. I tried to convince her to eat, but I failed at that, too, just as I had failed Nerazar. For a time, I took out my fury upon the dvargir, but the war ended, and I considered following my wife’s path and allowing the despair to claim me. I fear I handled the loss badly.”
“I am in no position,” said Ridmark, “to judge a man for how he handles grief.”
“No man can to do so,” said Caius. “Grief is the most common thing of all, and unique to each of us, is it not? In my lowest hour, I found Nerazar’s copy of the scriptures. The friar had left it with him. I started to read it, for I wanted to understand this strange thing that had driven him so, almost as if I could still argue with him about it. I read, I believed, and I found a priest and insisted upon baptism. I left Khald Tormen and became a friar, and I thought that was an act of atonement for my pride. I studied, and I traveled, and I preached, and I saw more of the world outside Khald Tormen and the Deeps in the last twenty years than in all my centuries before that. Eventually, I decided to spend the remainder of my days bringing the word of the Dominus Christus to the pagan tribes of Vhaluusk. Then the omen of blue fire filled the sky…and you both were there for the rest of it.”
“I am sorry,” said Ridmark.
“Thank you,” said Caius. “You both understand grief. You know what it can drive a man to do. Perhaps Narzaxar and Axazamar are right, and I am an old fool deluded by sorrow.”
“No, Brother Caius,” said Calliande. “I think, in fact, you are one of the wisest men I have ever met.”
She went to one knee and hugged him. Caius blinked a few times, a strange spasm of emotion going over his gray face, and then smiled and patted her on the shoulder.
“You are kinder to me than I deserve, Keeper of Andomhaim,” said Caius.
“I disagree,” said Calliande.
“Well, Gray Knight, what do you think?” said Caius. “That is my tale. The friar’s tale, as it were.”
“I think,” said Ridmark, “that the best way to honor the dead is by worthy deeds in the present.”
Caius laughed. “I suspected you were going to say that.”
“He’s not wrong, he is?” said Calliande with a smile.
“No.” Caius straightened up. “Then in the memory of Nerazar and my wife and Aelia and Morigna and all those the Keeper has lost, let us find a way to keep Khald Tormen and Andomhaim safe from the Frostborn.”
They went to rejoin the others.
Chapter 11: Shadows Old And New
Even before Ridmark Arban and Calliande had come to Aranaeus, Gavin had known a little about the dwarves.
Not much, but a little. From time to time dwarven merchants had passed through Aranaeus on their way to Andomhaim or the less warlike tribes of Vhaluusk. In hindsight, Gavin supposed Agrimnalazur had been cunning enough to allow the dwarves to come and go unharmed, lest the dwarves become suspicious and call for aid from their homeland. Gavin had spoken with them a few times, and they had always been polite, if taciturn and aloof. The dwarves he had seen in Khald Tormen so far seemed to share those attributes, albeit on a larger scale.
But for all their stoicism, he had to admit the dwarves knew how to host a splendid banquet.
The Hall of Relics was as vast and as ornate as the other chambers of Khald Tormen, a long pillared hall like the nave of a great church. Thick square pillars supported the vaulted roof high overhead, and reliefs of dwarven victories covered the faces of the pillars. Glowstones and glyphs filled the long hall with bright light, and hundreds of tattered banners hung from the ceiling, banners created with the skilled craftsmanship of the dvargir, the twisted beauty of the dark elves, or the rough work of the kobolds, and others that Gavin didn’t recognize. Countless trophies adorned the walls, swords and broken shields and battered pieces of damaged armor, along
with the skulls of trolls and wyverns and other, more dangerous creatures.
A long table of gleaming red granite ran the length of the Hall of Relics. Stone chairs sat facing the table. Each chair had to weigh hundreds of pounds, yet cunning mechanisms in the stone let the chairs slide in or out with a gentle push. A dais rose at the end of the Hall, supporting a high table for the King and his honored guests, and Gavin found himself there with Ridmark and Calliande and the chief nobles of Khald Tormen.
A small army of dwarven women in gowns of bronze and black served them, laying out stone plates and knives and forks of dwarven steel. In the lands outside the Three Kingdoms, dwarven steel was so precious that it seemed odd to use the metal for forks and drinking goblets. It was almost like eating off plates fashioned of diamond.
The serving women filled the goblets, and Axazamar rose from his seat at the center of the high table. A silence fell over the hall at once, and the King of Khald Tormen lifted his goblet.
“A libation!” he shouted, his voice echoing through the Hall. “To Khald Tormen and victory!”
“To Khald Tormen and victory!” roared over a thousand dwarves in response.
They drank the libation, and Gavin learned something new about the dwarves of the Three Kingdoms.
They brewed strong drinks. So strong, in fact, that it made the brandy of Durandis seem like watery wine in comparison.
“That’s good,” said Camorak, sniffing his cup.
Gavin sat down, coughing, and Antenora gave him a few worried slaps on the back.
“The brew of the dwarves is potent,” she observed.
“It is, Lady Antenora,” said Azakhun, who had been seated near them. “This particular whiskey is made from the grain grown on our farms in the valleys of Kothluusk, and then aged in wooden casks for fifty years. It is only consumed in libations on the eve of battle.”
“Is refilling the goblet part of the tradition?” said Camorak.
Frostborn: The Dwarven Prince (Frostborn #12) Page 15
