Dwarven Steel

by D. L. Harrison

  Bryce said, “Very well. I’ll need an open space to create the teleport spell, I can get myself back to my estate, and then update the king. Gerard, you should stay here and assist, guard Lynn when Katherine is off doing what she does, at the very least if you’re all successful you’ll be needed to guard the shipment.”

  I frowned, why was he helping? Oh, right, he’d have the king’s ear for days without the benefit of Lynn’s, Gerard’s, or my point of view. Right now, he was fairly powerless here, that wouldn’t be true back home. Something told me my eventual homecoming, even if successful, wouldn’t be praised. Even if the king didn’t listen to his poison, I was sure Bryce would find the ears of his cronies quite receptive.

  I could offer to teleport him straight to the castle, it had been what I’d thought of, but I was sure he’d spurn my offer, and didn’t bother. Plus, I was kind of curious what a mage teleport spell looked like.

  Holmarra said, “You can use the open area between the warehouses and western tunnels.”

  Brice stood, “Give me five minutes to pack, and I’m prepared to leave your kingdom immediately after.”

  Sanath nodded, but he looked suspicious.

  Brice left for the stairs, and Gerard got up to follow him. Lynn gave me a look that verified all my paranoid reasoning of a moment ago. I also realized though this would free me up to act, as Gerard could guard Lynn at times, I’d still have to guard her at night. One of us would have to guard her at all times, so I wasn’t getting my personal time with my husband back anytime soon.

  I shook my head, that was the least of my worries.

  We didn’t wait too long before they both came back down the stairs, and Sanath and Holmarra got up and escorted us to the west side of the city while I thought of all the things I had to get done, and tried not to think about what Bryce would get up to in our absence from Magehaven.

  When we arrived at an open area behind one of the warehouses, he pulled out a magical device and activated it. All the device did was create a perfect circle, with four symbols in the cardinal directions. Then Bryce picked up his bag, stepped into the circle, and set it down between his feet

  Holmarra asked, “Why did we need a big space for that little circle?”

  Bryce said, “You should back up a bit. This is safe enough but it causes… well you’ll see.”

  Then he started chanting a spell.

  Holmarra, Sanath, Gerard and I backed away to where Lynn was standing, we figured she knew what the spell was going to do. It was long, and complicated, but the alien tongue fell off his tongue effortlessly. When he finished, there was a loud pop and a rush of air, then a secondary pop right on top of it which caused an explosive wind to fly out and lift and blow dust all over the place. I shut my eyes when it was blown into my face.

  As near as I could figure, the mage version of teleport did a bad job at handling the air vacuum, and it caused an implosion of air. I wasn’t sure what the explosion of air after it was about, maybe the spell actually swapped air from the other side with his body mass? A vacuum immediately followed by an overpressure of air? Either way, it was still cool to see, even if mine was better.

  Lynn sighed, and then said, “Let’s go back to the tavern and plan.”

  Gerard and I nodded, and the dwarven siblings walked us back…

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lynn looked tired, and a little relieved.

  “Alright Katrina, what’s your plan?”

  I replied, “My lady, the dragon withdrew to go over her mother’s memories. I’m willing to go in her lair and try to make contact, but I think we should put that off as long as we can. Maybe two days?”

  Lynn asked, “Why?”

  I said, “The best thing that could happen is she goes over the memories and comes to us to talk. She needs to both decide I told the truth that the dwarves aren’t the same as the demons, and she has to decide what to do next. The second part, a discussion with us, would go better if the first part was finished. The longer we wait the bigger the chance she’ll have made that decision already.

  “The sooner we decide she’s taking too long for our timetable, the less likely she’ll be to listen to me. Especially if I invade her lair, or nest, or whatever Dragons have, before she’s accepted the truth I gave her.”

  Lynn smirked, “I think the legends call it an Eyrie. So, you think if we wait a day or two she’ll come out?”

  I sighed, “Probably not, I’m not that lucky. For all we know it will take her several years to go over all her mother’s memories, time we obviously don’t have. But that isn’t her problem. I would suggest we wait two days for the best case scenario to happen, her approaching us. After that we can’t put it off any longer, and you can send me in.”

  Lynn nodded, “And if I told you to go now?”

  I replied, “I would go.”

  So far, the only rule I’d broken was talking out of turn, I’d not actually disobeyed any valid commands, the rest of the time I was doing my job and protecting them. Well, I’d also blackmailed Bryce, but that didn’t count. I’d never gotten orders not to do it?

  Okay, I knew that was weak, but I didn’t have a choice.

  Lynn asked, “Gerard?”

  Gerard said, “I think she’s got a good plan, but even if she is successful in making contact in two days, who knows how long it will take to work out a treaty of sorts with the dwarves? We don’t want to rush and fail, but we need to get those weapons back to Magehaven as soon as possible, and sent north.”

  Lynn asked, “Is there any good news?”

  I smirked, “Yes, humans aren’t an involved party in the negotiations. I don’t think it will take long. The dwarves are straight forward to a fault, and I have the feeling a dragon isn’t much different. It will either happen fast, or fail fast, in my opinion, once contact is made.”

  Lynn asked, “What makes you think that. Water is far more flexible than stone and fire, won’t that inform her nature and complicate matters? Isn’t that what complicates matters for humans, always looking for a new angle.”

  I couldn’t help the smile, she’d sounded amused as we deprecated the human tendency to complicate matters because of lack of trust. It wasn’t a bad thing, it just was. I already had an answer though, I’d put all that tossing and turning to good use.

  “Because the dragon is telepathic. Trying to hide things, or gain an advantage through trickery just wouldn’t work. She may be more flexible than dwarves in nature because of water magic, like her shapeshifting, but not on the intellectual level of deals and negotiation. It’s part of why she accepted my word almost easily, it isn’t easy to lie to a telepath. She’s still young though, and inexperienced, so she needs to process it all.”

  Actually, outside of a shielded mage, it would be impossible to lie to a telepath. But the dragon hadn’t been taught that, nor did she have enough experience to have confidence in it.

  Lynn sighed, “Very well, we’ll wait until after breakfast the day after tomorrow. What’s the plan for then, if the dragon doesn’t come out I mean?”

  I replied, “I don’t have a good plan, but I have a plan. I’ll just go in the entrance, and if she doesn’t sense me and come out, I’ll start looking around the flooded mine. My powers should allow me to create a bubble of air to go underwater as well. Eventually I’ll find her, and I’ll explain what’s going on and why there’s a time constraint.”

  Gerard said, “If she’ll listen to you.”

  I nodded grudgingly, “Yes.”

  Lynn asked, “And if she attacks you?”

  “I’ll retreat to the entrance if necessary, and keep trying to reason with her. I will kill her in self-defense if she goes after the dwarves again, or even us out here in the city. But in her lair, I’ll be the invader, and to be honest, all by myself I’ll be lucky to hold her off.”

  Lynn nodded, “You’re crazy, you know that? Fine, it seems we have a plan. Don’t mess up.”

  “I’ll try not to, my lady.”
>
  I shook my head, easier said than done…

  The next two days went by slowly, and it was almost inevitable that the dragon wouldn’t come out of her lair in that time. I just wasn’t that lucky. With Bryce gone both Gerald and I took some time for ourselves, while the other guarded Lynn. We still couldn’t spend private time together, but it helped to be able to leave her with Gerard and go take a bath, or try and clear my head. I did manage a few discreet hugs and kisses though, and lived for those moments.

  It was a decent enough plan we had, but so many parts of it could fail, and I’d have to be ready to adapt. I’d considered popping out on one of my breaks to visit the temple, and possibly mom as well. I’d love to see the goddess, or pick up my education tablet, but until things were decided with the dragon I couldn’t leave, not even for a short while. What if she chose that moment to come out and speak with me, and I wasn’t here? That was just the kind of luck I did have.

  Still, I made plans to do both as soon as the dragon and dwarven thing was settled.

  We mostly stuck with the tavern, and although Lynn didn’t speak to us much and kept that aloofness of a noble, she was far more relaxed without Bryce here to see her conduct. She also wasn’t arrogant about it. It was simply how things were in our society.

  As for Bryce, I was sure he was up to something, but I didn’t borrow trouble and worry about it all that much. Whatever kind of reception he managed to arrange for me and perhaps the others, would be dealt with when it happened. I wasn’t worried about assassins from him, Sia would handle that if he tried, but political crap within the bounds of law was a real possibility.

  The morning two days later eventually came, and we were eating breakfast while we waited for Holmarra and Sanath to show up and escort us. I was rather nervous to be honest, invading the lair of the dragon in all the stories never ended well.

  Gerard was worried about me, I could tell, but as usual he was willing to allow me to be who and what I was. Which… was an arrogant eighteen-year-old woman who was about to invade the dragon’s den. I didn’t want to think about it anymore, so I changed the subject.

  “You told me winter was coming soon right, isn’t Jendas playing things a little too close?”

  Even if they did manage to cross, and take Ironcastle, their soldiers would be effectively cut off when the pass was snowed in, cutting off any possible retreat or reinforcement. They’d have to advance, hold, or die at that point, no retreat.

  Gerard nodded, “Yes, but it won’t freeze down south of the pass, so they’ll be able to run their campaign. The Jendas king won’t be thinking of failure. Most likely he’ll train a secondary force that winter to replace lost troops, and hope his soldiers have at least taken Lorbridge by then. The trick is for us to stop them at Ironcastle, if we do that his secondary buildup won’t break through either.”

  “What about Lorbridge, can’t we stop them there too if we don’t get the weapons in time?”

  Gerard shrugged, “Sure, but at that point they’ll be deep in Trelin, and if we beat them there many will desert, and we’ll be cleaning out bandits for years. They’ll have also at that point taken over and fortified Ironcastle, and be expecting relief troops in the spring. We could still win of course, but it would be much harder and longer of a fight.”

  I sighed, it would take at least three days to get the swords and shields to Magehaven, then another three days, possibly four, to get them up to Ironcastle. There was no way I could teleport them all, it was too much mass. I might be able to summon a few swords at a time, but it would exhaust me, and I’d never be able to teleport the siege engines.

  In short, once I got this all settled, if I did, it would take us at least a week to get to the front with it. The king estimated two weeks before Jendas would be ready to invade, and we’d already spent one of those weeks between getting here and working on the problem. I needed to make this work, and fast, if we’d have any chance of getting to Ironcastle before they lost the battle and the keep to the enemy’s foothold.

  As it was, the garrison there already would probably have to hold the enemy off for a day without the weapons and siege engines before we could arrive. And that was if we left now which wasn’t going to happen.

  Lynn said, “Don’t worry about that, and just focus on the mission here. We’ll get there when we get there. The soldiers should be able to hold for days, they’re in a fortified position, and the enemy will be at a disadvantage coming out of the pass.”

  I nodded in agreement, but it wasn’t that easy to shrug it off.

  Holmarra came in and walked over to the table, “You intend to go into the mine?”

  I nodded.

  Holmarra grunted, “Follow me, my brother won’t be joining us this morning.”

  I picked up my cup and finished off my juice, and then stood up. I had plans, and I went over them again as we approached the flooded mine, but I knew the key here would be flexibility and thinking on my feet. While I was in a flooded mine under tons of rock.

  Piece of cake.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Gerard gave me a good luck kiss, and I flew over the fence and landed gently before the tunnel entrance. I took a deep breath, my heart was beating fast. I didn’t really want to go in there. It was dark, damp, and hadn’t been checked for stability in years. I reminded myself I could teleport, and not to be a chicken, then I walked in.

  A few of the dwarven runes still worked, but the light was dim, and I couldn’t see more than a couple of feet in front of me. I did have my scans running, and knew the general immediate layout with my telekinesis scan, but I wanted to see it with my own eyes. I muttered a prayer under my breath, and my holy symbol lit up with a bright soft light.

  Better.

  I walked a little farther, about fifty feet in, and there was a split in the tunnel. I stopped for a minute, and sent out a mental call for the dragon, to let her know I was there. Though I wasn’t sure if she heard me, wherever she was it was farther than a quarter mile away. Then I waited for a good fifteen minutes, glancing up at the ceiling nervously every few minutes.

  I annoyed myself, and resisted the urge to do it again. The tunnel would not collapse, and if it did I could clear it or teleport out. The tunnel to the left went about two hundred feet, and then there was a mineshaft filled with water. The right tunnel went straight out for as far as I could reach with telekinesis, and kept going as far as I could tell.

  I chose the right tunnel. It was just a guess, and hopefully a good one. The floor sloped downward. The tunnel floor was wet but not flooded, and I could hear drips of water. I’d been less scared facing the damned lich in the shadow castle, which was ridiculous. But between my apparent fear of being underground, and not having Gerard with me, it made a huge difference.

  There were several smaller tunnels which were swamped with debris, they were also dead ends according to my telekinesis, mining tunnels that led to several veins of ore. I ignored them and kept going forward almost half a mile through twists and turns of the tunnel until I found another mine shaft full of water at a dead end.

  Crap.

  I also felt the dragon, she was ahead of me and to the right, and down about ten feet. I could feel the path through the water that would lead me down, over, and up. The problem was, the over part was against the current of the large underground river, and I immediately worried I’d be swept downstream. Which was ridiculous, because I could teleport. Damn this underground thing, it made me stupid and scared. My heart was hammering in my chest, I was more scared of the mine than the dragon, which again, was stupid.

  Since she was in range, I sent telepathically, “May I come speak to you? It’s important. I promise I mean you no harm or enmity.”

  She replied in a booming mind voice, “Come then,” although it was more like a challenge than an invitation.

  I sighed, and needled myself. This was what I wanted wasn’t it?

  I used telekinesis in three different ways which was rather a challe
nge. I used aqua-kinesis to push the water away from me, aero-kinesis to keep an air bubble around my body so I could breath, and then I used telekinesis to fly as I jumped off the edge and into the mineshaft. The water was fifteen feet down, and my air bubble caused a large splash.

  I moved slightly forward, and started to get pushed the wrong way by the current, but I flew against it harder and harder until I made some progress in the right direction. When I reached the other opening, I moved through it, and then up about five feet and into a small cavern which lit up with gentle light from my light spell.

  The dragon was close, only ten feet away. Which was way too close considering she was the size of a van, with claws long enough to reach out and strike. Worse, I was floating above the water, which meant I had to move forward another five feet, and land. I was in chomping distance of her very large jaws and teeth as my boots settled on the ground.

  The dragon’s closeness and wariness became apparent, as I finally noticed other things about the cavern. There was a couple of inches of water on the ground, and behind the dragon there were very large eggs. With a quick glance, I estimated fifteen or so unhatched dragon eggs. I also noticed one that was broken open, all the way in the back by the corner. I guess I must’ve looked far too curious about her unborn siblings, because she started to growl at me. I swallowed and looked back up at the swirling ochre eyes that were as big as my torso.

  “I’m sorry I had to disturb you, but the dwarves would like the problem between you and them resolved, and I am on a deadline of sorts myself. Have you considered what I told you?”

  She said in a gravelly voice, “Yes. I will no longer harm the dwarves. My ancient enemies are no longer in this place. I will leave the dwarves alone.”

  I nodded, “That’s a good start, are you willing to come to some official treaty with them? Is there anything you want?”

  The cavern seemed kind of dreary to me, and humid, but I supposed for a water dragon it would make a nice home.