Whetstones of the Will

by R J Hanson

  As he approached, Silas moved to the side of the rough pathway and turned within himself to access a power, a new power, that merited further experimentation. Silas’s body, and all that he wore and held, slowly began to melt into shadow. That shadow flowed into the dark corners at the edge of the trail around him, adding only slightly to the shadows already there. His physical self was still present, yet virtually impossible to detect with the human eye.

  Next, he focused his mind on his body temperature. Silas knew that elves and dwarves, along with a few other creatures that haunted the dark places of the world, were able to see someone’s body heat as well. There were entire sects of drow that solely relied on infravision, abandoning normal sight altogether. He reached out with his nerves to sense the cold stone around him and drew that chill into his skin. It was a slow process, but he had no doubts that, after some time practicing, this maneuver would take place much quicker. After several long moments of concentration, he appeared no warmer than the rock on which he stood.

  The final component of this attempted act of stealth was to focus on his movements, making each step deliberately slow, deliberately silent. Silas had developed his ability to teleport from one memorized location to another; still, he imagined a number of scenarios in which infiltration would be required of him. The Blue Tower came to mind.

  Silas was no novice to the art of stealth, having practiced it for years in recording his observations of nature in the areas surrounding Moras. However, never before did he have access to a means of literally changing his form to something similar to shadow or completely masking his body heat. He was, however, very familiar with the patient approach, the slow pace, such a maneuver required.

  He approached the outer guard, two ogres, and watched them for several minutes, observing their habits and patterns of motion. Just as he was beginning to move, Silas caught another sight that caused him to freeze in place.

  There, on a ledge, just a few feet from the ogre guard, crouched a drow concealed in shadow with a heavy crossbow close at hand. He realized he had been a fool not to have scanned the area with his other ranges of perception before beginning this ‘exercise.’ Silas watched for several more heartbeats, but the drow did not move against the ogres, nor did he attempt to move deeper into the cavern beyond them.

  After Silas was satisfied the drow was not going to move any time soon, he elected to continue into the cavern. He had not committed himself to either side of the Rogash/Jandanero equilibrium and hoped he wouldn’t have to, not any time soon, at least. Thus, he decided his best course of action was to enter and try to subtly discern from Rogash how relations were with the drow coven.

  Silas moved silently, and virtually invisible to just about everything that walked or crawled on or in Stratvs. He negotiated several occupied hallways, dining rooms, and caverns serving as barracks. He admired Rogash’s cunning in arranging his clan in such seeming disorder. Giants and ogres were not exactly social creatures and, thus, were likely to cause trouble with one another if quarters were too… crowded. Rogash had organized his clan into several much smaller groups that seemed to operate independently from the others in their day to day activities but could be called to serve with others as need be.

  He had also arranged a system, not precisely of rank, but rather a notoriety among the rabble. Those that made a name for themselves on the battle, carefully chosen and recognized only by Rogash, found their exploits, regardless of how mundane, chanted, and worshiped. They found themselves the recipients of larger food rations, better treatment, and associated with Rogash much more frequently. These same ‘heroes of clan Jett Hammer’ found themselves happily enforcing the word and will of Warlord Rogash.

  Silas made his way through several more carved rooms and natural caverns before his winding path finally put him in front of the doors to Rogash’s private chambers. As Silas approached the imposing doors of iron and wood, he wondered at the fact that Rogash did not bar much less lock the portal to his chambers. These thoughts led him to wonder how he might have navigated that problem had Rogash employed some locking mechanism. Silas decided the design, and defeat, of locking mechanisms was another field of study he must pursue.

  Silas slipped inside the inner chamber and discovered Rogash, his back to the large doors, bent over his desk, with a piece of black chalk in his left hand while is right scratched his lush beard. Silas slid along the smooth stone wall, just at the edge of the torches reach, until he was within a sword’s thrust distance from the exposed neck of the mighty Warlord.

  Smiling to himself, Silas eased his star iron dagger, the gift from Rogash, from his bracer and crept forward. Silas gently placed the tip of the dagger to the top of Rogash’s spine, causing the warrior to halt all motion, including his breath.

  “Perhaps you should consider establishing a personal guard,” Silas quipped as he tapped Rogash’s thick green skin with the tip of the deadly blade.

  Just as he was finishing this statement, Silas felt gentle but steady pressure applied to the underside of his groin. Silas looked down to see the tip of a black blade, also star iron, protruding from between his legs. He noted that the edge of the blade was against the inside of his thigh and near his femoral artery.

  “Perhaps he has,” Hellmog said from behind Silas.

  Silas sheathed his dagger and began to chuckle, which was quickly overshadowed by Rogash’s full-bellied gale of laughter. Hellmog did not laugh, nor did he remove the short sword. Rogash rose, turned, and clapped Silas on the shoulder with one hand, waving Hellmog back with the other. The much smaller creature bowed dutifully, sheathing his own blade and stepped back in one fluid motion.

  “He did spot the drow at the entrance,” Hellmog said once Rogash and Silas’s laughter began to die down. “That is commendable.”

  “So, you’re aware there’s a drow watching the entrance to your caverns?” Silas asked, clearly perplexed.

  “You think Hellmog here would let them just rove around our caves without givin’ ‘em a good look-see first?” Rogash asked.

  “Is trouble brewing between the Hammer clan and coven?”

  “No, no, nothing like that,” Rogash answered, patting the air with his meaty hand. “There’s word that some drow from the old days is on the move, Maloch they called him. Seems the little dark queen doesn’t much care for ‘im and has cause to think he might be on the road to seek his revenge against her. Apparently, they had themselves a falling out a while back.”

  “He hasn’t been known to travel with vampires, has he?” Silas asked, wondering if this information could be tied to the news they’d received about Slythorne.

  “Vampires, no,” Rogash said. “Why?”

  Silas silently cursed himself. He would certainly need to sharpen his tongue and his wits if he were to treat with Lady Evalynne, for just in this relatively simple banter with Rogash, he’d let precious information slip. However, Rogash was not a mere warrior or common Warlord. He was much shrewder than he let on.

  “Say, how did you find and follow me?” Silas asked, turning to Hellmog and hoping to deflect Rogash’s line of thought.

  Hellmog, changing his expression not a bit, simply pointed at his nose, or rather, at the smudge of flesh that served him as a nose.

  “Ah, of course,” Silas exclaimed. “I didn’t mask my scent. How foolish of me!”

  “Often overlooked,” Rogash said, nodding thoughtfully. “Now, about this vampire.”

  Silas smiled his trademark smile, and Rogash returned the grin.

  “Hellmog, be about your business,” Rogash said at length. “My friend and I have many matters to discuss.”

  Silas turned to watch Hellmog go and was surprised that the small creature had already managed, without any form of magic as far as Silas could tell, to disappear.

  “He’s quite slippery, that one,” Silas said out of genuine appreciation.

  “He’s not the only one,” Rogash said.

  He turned his chair, a stump from a
colossal tree carved into a solid seat to accommodate his enormous frame, to face Silas and sat down. Now, being at eye level with Silas after sitting down, Rogash began again.

  “So, about this vampire,” Rogash said as he began to twirl the thick king finger of his right hand in a ‘go on’ motion.

  “Someone from my mistress’s past,” Silas began with some trepidation. “Reputably a dangerous foe. We have word that he may be coming to Moras.”

  Rogash looked every inch the unthinking brute the churches and lords believed him to be. His thick muscles, hard hands, and the massive weapons he preferred all spoke of a warlord that ruled through a system of despotism. However, Silas knew there was another Rogash beneath that camouflage. There was the Rogash that had repeatedly defeated Silas at Scepters and Swords, the age-old strategy game used by kings for millennia to gauge their generals and advisors. There was the Rogash that had designed, with no education whatsoever, a schedule to manipulate the hereditary structures of two races to combine them into one. There was the Rogash that had devised a means of smithing a material alien to Stratvs, the so-called ‘star iron,’ into weapons and pieces of armor of great might.

  “What are you not telling me?”

  Silas took a moment to reflect that he’d actually had an easier time in his conversations with Dunewell, the King’s Inquisitor, about Silas murdering their mother than this conversation with Rogash.

  “There are a number of factors in this situation that I don’t…”

  “What, are, you, not, telling, me?” Rogash repeated the question, emphasizing each word.

  “Understand that, if what I tell you in any way harms my mistress, I will kill you.”

  Rogash took a moment to look Silas over. He noted no quickening of the pulse, no dilation of the pupils, no dry gulping signaled by a bobbing of the knot in his throat; in short, no signs of fear and nothing to indicate a lack of confidence.

  “You have my word that nothing you tell me now, or ever, will cause your mistress harm in any way.”

  “Very well,” Silas said, completely comfortable with the concept of taking the half-ogre warlord at his word. “We parleyed with Lynneare, the Warlock of the Marshes. He warns against the arrival of some vampire of the name Slythorne.”

  Rogash’s green skin concealed much of the effect of the blood draining from his face. Yet, Silas was still able to note a slight ashen tone present in those deep green hues.

  “The Warlock of the Marshes? The OathBreaker?”

  “One and the same.”

  “Who… where… what did you discuss?” Rogash finally managed.

  Few knew it, but dwarves were remarkable historians. Rogash had read everything he could find penned in the dwarven language hoping to learn all he could about the art of smithing. Dwarves, however, didn’t group their writings into different subjects. Dwarven works were all based on individuals. Thus, if you wanted to learn about smithing, you had to read about the life of a great smith. That meant learning about what era he lived in, who was king at the time, what wars he fought in, and so on. Thus, Rogash had read much of the history of Stratvs without even trying.

  Furthermore, it was a little-known fact that ogres were possessed of lifespans that nearly rivaled the elves of the deep woods. The issue with an ogre’s remarkable length of years was a combination of the facts that they tended to get themselves killed in one foolish act or another, and their abilities to reason left them at the level of most seven-year-old humans. They had an incredible capacity for remembering details; they were just unskilled at using those details to extrapolate outcomes that others would have easily foreseen. Rogash knew two ogres that were well over a thousand years old; this based on the fact that they remembered the names of lords that hunted them that had been dead for centuries. Neither of those ogres appeared any older than any other he’d encountered.

  In fact, Rogash had devised the concept of combining the races as a form of everlasting legacy. Rogash had studied enough of history to know that kings rarely left any mark worth remembering unless it be some colossal failure. This new race of dwarves and ogres would be his legacy, his living mark upon Stratvs.

  Thus, Rogash had discovered some ogres in his clan to be invaluable sources of information. The fact that they could remember events accurately was helpful, but most importantly, they lacked the imagination to embellish on what they’d heard. They also lacked the imagination to draw erroneous conclusions. They simply repeated what they remembered.

  Having exploited this source of information, that so far remained undiscovered by others, Rogash had availed himself of much of the history of Stratvs, even if viewed through the eyes of dullards.

  Consequently, Rogash was well aware of the reputation of the Warlock of the Marshes, the Original Betrayer, OathBreaker, First Among the Cursed, and so on. This knowledge also, and very unfortunately Rogash thought, coincided with the news that Maloch, the Knight of Sorrows, rode once again. For Rogash knew Maloch’s reputation as well, which, of course, is why Hellmog was scouting the areas around the cavern entrance and why Rogash was so welcoming of the drow scouts. Rogash didn’t know, not for certain, but suspected Maloch’s roots were tied to the Warlock of the Marshes, somehow, as well.

  “He offered to help us,” Silas said, working to choose his words carefully in spite of his trust of the warlord. “He said a dark time was coming and that we would need our allies and should work toward that end.”

  “The First Among the Cursed said that ‘dark times’ are coming?”

  “It was not lost on me that he seemed concerned about what the future held,” Silas said, nodding as he pulled up his own chair to sit across from Rogash. “I have been given a few tasks. I must work out a means of supplying Warlord Verkial a skilled mining force for Wodock. I must also strike a bargain with Lady Evalynne for an exchange of information regarding a few unsavory sorts bound for Moras, and I must prepare for this Slythorne without any sort of understanding as to what he is capable of.”

  “Warlord Verkial?”

  “Yes, he’s split, or is going to split, from Ingshburn and a few others to establish his own lands in Wodock and western Tarborat.”

  “The mining workforce will be no trouble,” Rogash said confidently.

  “No slaves,” Silas said as his eyes moved from the map on Rogash’s wall to meet those of the leader of Clan Jett Hammer. “Warlord Verkial was very specific on that caveat.”

  “That does make for an unexpected obstacle,” Rogash said, stroking his thick red beard thoughtfully. “Thoughts as to why?”

  “Beyond the fact that he enjoys being obstinate, no. I assume the ogres and giants follow your command and would voluntarily travel to Wodock to establish holdings there,” Silas paused until Rogash responded with a nod. “Very well. The dwarves are the ones we must… convince.”

  “There is a fine line between slavery and wage work,” Rogash said as he rose to begin pacing the large chamber. “There is a fine line between convincing an individual and coercing one. Of course, Verkial would not question the labor force, but they must have the option of walking out on whatever project is to be undertaken…”

  With that, Rogash stopped, turned to Silas, and raised a single wiry eyebrow.

  “The construction of an underground fortress, the mining, and processing of another of Merc’s chariots, your star iron, and another more delicate project.”

  Rogash continued to stare at Silas, his expression unchanged.

  “There is a dragon, Isd’Kislota, trapped by a mountain top that may topple and crush him,” Silas said with a sigh. “He promises to serve us if we free him.”

  “Us?”

  “My mistress, of course. However, her gratitude toward Clan Jett Hammer would be expressed in terms you find agreeable.”

  “These mountains, who mines them now?”

  “No one,” Silas replied. “They are inhabited by ogres and the like only. No dwarves or drow. Pristine and unspoiled.”

  Rogash
nodded his head, smiled, and resumed his pacing. Silas was a bit taken aback that Rogash seemed nonplussed by the news Silas had hoped to withhold until a more proper, more advantageous time.

  “Dwarves it must be then,” Rogash said after several quiet laps around the large central bed of hides and hay. “Come.”

  Silas rose and followed the large warlord from his chambers and down a winding corridor to the caverns where the dwarves Rogash held worked and slept. It was a short walk and heavily guarded. Silas noted the only ogres and giants wearing armor and carrying weapons in all of Rogash’s complex were those who stood guard here. He now realized in the other chambers where the creatures lived, ate, and slept none carried a weapon or wore any armor, although both were kept close at hand. He made a mental note to ask Rogash if that was a result of their comfort among the clan, or a policy instituted by the deceptively wise warlord.

  After only a short walk, Rogash and Silas arrived at the large, iron-bound doors that secured the caverns where the dwarves were kept. Four giants stood guard, and Silas noted that it required the strength of all four to haul the great doors aside. Apparently, Rogash had found a simple means of securing the door without the need for lock and key.

  Silas could hear many sounds from within that reminded him of the smithing quarter of Moras. The sounds of hammers ringing on steel and the churning of large bellows filled the air along with the distinct smell of soot, burning coal, and dwarven sweat. As they entered, all work, all activity, came to an immediate halt.

  “I call for your anvilmen,” Rogash said, referring to the term for reliable workers, which the dwarves had also assigned the meaning of leaders that could be counted upon.

  The cavern was a large complex in and of itself, with forges and kilns to the left of the entrance, a large area rowed with tables and benches occupied the center, and individual homes and dwellings had been carved into the stone to the far right. Silas saw that it resembled more a small town rather than the slaves’ quarters he’d imagined.