by TurtleMe
He lay awkwardly on the ground, his limbs twisted at odd angles as if he were a bug and a giant foot was crushing him into the earth. His wide eyes stared up at me in panic.
“In eight seconds, ten if you’re tougher than you look, you’ll pass out. Mica will release her Gravity Hammer spell and you will not die. When you wake—” I stopped speaking. The bouncer was unconscious. Releasing the spell, I stepped through the now unguarded doorway into a dim, smoke-filled barroom.
Embarrassing. The room was roughly circular in shape with a rounded ceiling. Even in the dim light and through the haze of brackish smoke, it was obvious how roughly hewn this room was. The bar and chairs looked as if they’d been grown by magic, as was normal for nearly all dwarven dwellings, but it was poorly done.
This place is a testament to the old adage: Even a dwarf can dig too deep and live too long in the dark.
Three dwarven men sat at a dark table near the far wall, their heads bent low over their beers, but their hushed conversation ended the moment they noticed me standing in the doorway.
The barman, an aged dwarf with a graying beard tucked into his belt and his hair pulled up into a topknot, glared. “Get gone, child,” he grumbled. “This is no place for the likes of you.”
Wordlessly, I moved up to the bar, sat on a stone stool that wobbled on three uneven legs, and waggled a finger toward the graybeard. When he didn’t immediately approach, I rolled my eyes and signaled more enthusiastically. Begrudgingly, the barman stepped forward, leaning slightly across the bar.
“If one more man tells Mica where she should be, she’ll crush this sad hovel and search for the remains of her prey within the rubble.” I shot the barman a cheery smile as his forehead suddenly plummeted, bouncing off the bar with enough force to crack the rough stone. “Now, unless you think your skull is harder than this stone—which, to be fair, it may be—then you will avoid insulting Mica again and instead do your very best to assist in the location of a handful of Alacryan mages who Mica believes are hiding somewhere around here.”
“Sh-shove off!” the barman growled as he wiped at the blood running down his face and into his beard. Before I could reply, my attention was drawn by the scraping of stone stools across the hard-earth floor.
I watched with amusement as the three sturdy men walked slowly toward me. They wore hard looks and made a show of rolling up their sleeves as they approached. I waited for them to make the first move.
The lead dwarf, a taller-than-average man with blue-black hair that hung in tangled sheets down to his belt, looked me in the eye and spit into the dirt at my feet. “You seem to have made a mistake. You must’ve thought this was the kind of establishment where a human-feet-licking pseudo-dwarf could stumble into with her fine clothes and superior attitude and do whatever the hell she wants. In the process, you seem to have hurt my friend. Now, I’ll ask you kindly to offer Ludo here an apology for your rudeness, and then you can be on your way.”
I looked at the dwarf in surprise. Even in Darv, where a third of the population hated me and everything I represented as a Lance, no one had dared speak to me like this. Pseudo-dwarf indeed!
When the late King and Queen Greysunders had betrayed the Council and attempted to side with the Alacryans, many dwarves supported them. There were Alacryan sympathizers all throughout Darv, and they viewed my allegiance to the Council as the betrayal.
“Mole got your tongue, girl?” the lead dwarf sneered, drawing me out of my thoughts. “That’s what I thought. You lot are all the same. Know a little bit of magic and you think it makes you special. What’s it let you do other than bully an old barkeep, though, eh? Ludo’s still waiting for that apology.”
I slid off my rickety stool, turned to the barman, and nodded. “Mica apologizes for the knock, graybeard. Clearly, Mica was smacking around the wrong man.”
Turning back to the black-haired dwarf, who glared angrily at me and was fingering the knife at his belt, I said, “Mica is certain a band of Alacryan survivors has been through here, and you seem more than stupid enough to be a supporter. Where are they hiding?”
Grunting in an “I tried to warn you” sort of way, the dwarf ripped a jagged knife from his belt and lunged forward, mana clinging tightly around him. The knife flashed across my throat, and then my attacker stepped back into a guard position, smirking confidently. Eager to see the realization dawn over his squashed face, I simply waited.
The victorious grin slid into confusion, and then finally slumped into a look of dismay. The dwarven man stared down at the knife in his hand, the edge of which had been ground flat against my protective layer of mana.
Before the dwarves could do anything else but stare, I conjured two massive hands of stone. They reached up through the floor, filling the small space with the sound of grinding and rending, and grasped the second and third dwarves, who had thus far been satisfied to snarl and grimace menacingly in the background while their leader did all the talking. The unfortunate men yelped in terror, blindly trying to wrench themselves free of the massive fists, but they were held fast.
Their leader, perhaps realizing he’d made a grave error, bolted for a door on the far side of the bar. With every step, though, he went slower and slower, until it appeared he could not even lift his feet from the floor.
He fell to his knees, then to his stomach as I increased the pressure of gravity weighing down upon him.
The barman, Ludo, grabbed something from under the stone bar and lifted it up: a crossbow, already loaded. The contraption clanked and a steel-tipped bolt flew through the air, but I redirected it with a thought. Instead of firing straight at me, the bolt curved downward dramatically, burrowing into the earth floor. A moment later, Ludo fell into the air, tumbling head over heels and crashing into the ceiling.
Smiling, I kneeled down and pulled the bolt from where it had stuck in the dirt. “Where are the Alacryans hiding?” I asked again. “Come on, Mica knows you can still speak. Tell her, and she’ll take the fight to them. Or you may keep your silence—forever.”
From where he was pressed into the ceiling, Ludo grunted, “Freedom—for the—dwarves. You’re nothing but—a dog—for the humans and elves.”
With a flick of my wrist, I tossed the bolt behind the bar. It was caught in the gravity manipulation and fell upwards, lodging itself point first in Ludo’s chest. Looking down, he met my eyes and attempted to spit, though the spittle only splashed across his own face and beard. A moment later, he was dead.
Blood pooled on the ceiling, running through the ridges and swells of the roughly-hewn stonework. When it ran to the edge of the reversed gravity, it began to drip from the roof down into the dirt. I let the spell fade, and his corpse fell with a thud back behind the bar.
“Please!” shouted one of the restrained dwarves. He was young, his mud-colored beard barely extending past his chest. His wide, wet eyes were dripping with fear. “Please, I can tell you. They’re not here, but—”
“Shut your hole, Oberle,” the leader hissed from his place on the floor. I pressed down with Gravity Hammer, crushing the air from his lungs and silencing him.
“Oberle, is it? Well, at least one of you has some sense. So, if the invaders aren’t here, Oberle, where are they?”
With a glance at his companion, who was clawing at the ground in desperation, Oberle began speaking in a rush. “Ludo’s bar’s one in a network of safe houses for the remaining Alacryans, where they can rest or hide—sometimes they meet with dwarven folk, those who are tired of the Triunion’s favoritism toward the elves and humans, those who haven’t forgotten the Greysunders or their assassination.
“I haven’t seen any soldiers in or out in a few days, but I know where some of them have kipped up. Torple”—his eyes darted to the flattened dwarf on the floor—“took me along for a delivery once. There’s an underground grotto a few days’ walk out from here—real isolated—maybe thirty soldiers there when I saw it.”
“Oh, most excellent, Oberle!” I cla
pped my hands happily, and the stone fist gripping Oberle released, then crumbled to dust at his feet. “Mica is so glad to have you as her guide. Please follow. This information must reach the rest of the team, and you’ll be staying with Mica until the Alacryan infestation has been exterminated.”
“What—what about Torple and Eroc?” Oberle moved stiffly, casting a look back at his companions. “You have to understand, they’re not bad people—just angry, and tired, and frightened.”
“The city watchmen will collect them. Perhaps when this war is over, there will be a place for them in Vildorial. That won’t be up to Mica to decide.”
It was a long walk back through the outer tunnels of Vildorial to the central caverns. I would have liked to have flown back but was doing my best to keep a low profile. Many of those who dwelled in the high caverns or deep tunnels didn’t recognize me by appearance alone, but why would they? The Lances had spent precious little time in Darv since being knighted, and I was no city watchman to be seen patrolling the dim tunnels.
Fire salt. The stink of it is everywhere down here. Mica hates the smell of fire salt.
Still, the war, the betrayal of the Greysunders, the removal of Rahdeas from the Council… I could see the toll it had taken on the dwarves. Though the nobility weathered these events with the stoicism of those who had already carved out a stable life for themselves, down in the deep tunnels—where the laborers, miners, and magicless lived and worked—I saw questions in every face.
These dwarves, through no fault of their own, were trapped in a civil war, torn between allegiance to Dicathen and the Triunion and their leaders’ alliance with the Alacryan forces.
Many of these folk would happily sit by and let the two sides rip one another apart if it meant they could go back to the daily business of survival in Darv, hard enough without the threat of becoming embroiled in a war they didn’t understand and didn’t want.
“Mica would like to hear more about you, Oberle. There is another hour’s walk to reach our destination, so it might as well pass in conversation.”
“Um…” Oberle ran his fingers through his beard nervously. “What—what do you want to know?”
“Dwarves are always so afraid to be introspective. Mica had forgotten what it’s like to have to talk to other dwarves. Except for Olfred and…” I trailed off at the thought of my friend, mentor, and rival. Olfred Warend, the other dwarven Lance, had been a part of Rahdeas’s coup and had attempted to murder both Generals Aya and Arthur, a battle that ended in his death.
“I—I suppose I can… I’m of clan Lastfire, but I doubt you’ve ever heard of us. Miners, mostly. Used to mine ore, working for whichever outfit was paying, but before my time my great uncle came into a vein of fire salt, so the whole clan has been working it for the last hundred years or so.”
I sniffed, realizing he stunk of fire salt. Gross. “Are all your clansmen traitors to Dicathen, or just you?” Oberle stopped walking and gave me a hard stare. “What is it? Do you, perhaps, disagree with Mica’s assessment of your life choices? Please explain then—and keep walking.”
Oberle did as I said, but a dark cloud seemed to have rolled over him. “I’m not a traitor, and neither are my clansmen. Maybe things look different from the lofty perch you live on, but outside of the great caverns things aren’t great. First, we hear whispers of war and then our king and queen uproot their entire court and move off to some castle in the sky while joining this Triunion and aligning the dwarves with elves and humans.
“Next thing we know, the Greysunders are dead and Counselor Rahdeas has become the sole voice for the dwarves on Dicathen, and he, it turns out, is also allied with the invaders. Our king, queen, and voice on the Council all turned out to be in league with Alacrya. What does that mean for dwarves in the tunnels? Are we allies of the Alacryans? Are we still represented on the Council? Can we expect Sapin and Elenoir to send their armies marching into our homes? Many were the questions, few the answers.”
I said nothing. This had been a common excuse for the current situation within Darv.
“My father told the clan to keep their noses out of it,” Oberle continued. “‘Not our business,’ he told us. ‘Not when there’s fire salt to be dug.’ So far’s I know, I’m the only one that didn’t listen, and even that wasn’t on purpose.”
“Oh? So you accidentally became complicit in the criminal act of harboring fugitives of war?” I ran a hand theatrically through my hair. “That sounds like quite a tale. Mica is dying to hear it!”
Oberle shook his head angrily, wringing his beard with his hands as he answered. “Eroc is an old family friend. We’ve been drinking at Ludo’s since well before the Council was formed and the war announced. I never meant to get involved, but Ludo, Torple, Eroc—all they talked about was building a better world for dwarves, reclaiming the honor of our ancestors, lifting our people out of the dirt… It was just talk, or so I thought. Then the Alacryans came, and I got scared. I’m no activist. I was just—just sort of there.”
“Did you ever meet the Greysunders? Or Councilor Rahdeas?” I asked seriously.
“No.”
“Mica was bound to them, stood guard over their beds while they slept, heard their most intimate moments, was trusted with their every secret—almost every secret. And do you know what Mica learned?”
Genuine curiosity writ on his face, Oberle replied, “No. What?”
“The king and queen were selfish dogs. Constantly they plotted, not for the betterment of Darv or reclamation of our rights as an equal nation, but for their own well being and the downfall of those that had personally crossed them. More than that, they were weak. Rahdeas, on the other hand, loved Darv too much, and sought to elevate the dwarves by climbing a mountain of the dead. Both failed to live up to expectations.”
Oberle looked away. His eyes fell upon a small girl dancing past us behind two dirty, tired-looking dwarves. The girl, noticing Oberle’s gaze, pulled something from a pocket in her discolored dress and threw it into the air. A plume of shimmering dust rose around her, sparkling blue, red, and silver. The girl giggled and Oberle smiled.
My declaration regarding the dwarven leaders was met with silence. Perhaps that has given the young dwarf something to think about. That is good. We dwarves need to spend more time thinking.
The Earthborn Institute, where my team and I were staying, was not far away at that point. With traffic growing thicker so close to the central caverns of Vildorial, I knew silence would be best around this many ears. Which of these dwarves are Alacryan sympathizers? Which would put an axe in this boy’s skull to keep him from giving up the Alacryan hideout?
“What do the Alacryans want?” Oberle asked suddenly.
“Only the enslavement of every human, elf, and dwarf on Dicathen—and all the resources under, on, and above Dicathen too—to further the continuation of a war older than our entire nation.”
Oberle only nodded.
223
Future’s First Step
A lot changed after Cecilia’s accident at school. Although the enforcers couldn’t just take Cecilia and lock her away, they were able to force Cecilia to attend sessions at a nearby government facility for “tests” under the guise of helping her “control her abilities.”
It didn’t help that Cecilia was an orphan like Nico and I were. Since she didn’t have a legal guardian—Headmaster Wilbeck having passed away—supposedly wealthy or powerful individuals kept extending their desire to adopt her. Still, we had some basic rights, and Cecilia was able to avoid being auctioned off to the highest bidder like some prized pet.
I’d like to say that I was there to help my friend as she endured the stresses and hardships that came with being under the spotlight, but that would be a lie.
Training with Lady Vera became even more intensive as I continued to exceed her expectations. She had the authority to allow me to skip most of my classes, her own training regimen being several times more intensive than the academy. If I wasn’t
training or sparring, I was learning etiquette and basic courtly knowledge required to pass the exam to even qualify for the city level King’s Crown tournament. As it turned out, you had to be more than a good fighter—you needed the intellect and charisma to appeal to your country’s citizens.
It was while under the tutelage of Lady Vera—and her team of tutors dedicated to making sure I had a fighting chance to become a king—that I learned the role was more akin to a glorified mascot than it was a leader.
Still, I needed the power and voice that came with the position. I hadn’t forgotten about the assassins who were responsible for Headmaster Wilbeck’s cruel death.
I also used that reason to justify my absence with Nico and Cecilia. Days, sometimes weeks, would go by without even being able to see their faces, and while I felt bad, I fooled myself into believing that becoming a king would solve everything.
I wasn’t as sensible or empathetic as Nico, nor were my feelings for Cecilia strong enough to overcome my desire to study and train. If anything, there was still a small part of me that blamed Cecilia for Headmaster Wilbeck’s death. After my capture and torture, I had learned that the headmaster, who had been like a mother to me, was killed for protecting Cecilia.
It wasn’t fair for me to blame her—I knew that. I had swallowed those unjustified resentments long ago, but it still left a small fissure in our relationship. Perhaps that’s why I could never reciprocate the feelings Cecilia once had for me. Whatever the reason was, it didn’t matter. That was all in the past.
We were almost eighteen, soon to be legally adults, when Nico brought up his plan with Cecilia during one of our irregular phone calls. I had long suspected that the relationship between Nico and Cecilia had grown beyond friendship, but I was still surprised by what Nico had to say.
